Craftivism, what is it? Where did it come from? Who thought that one up?

Well, whewww, someone put it together – activism + craft = craftivism.  That works for me! 

 

Because it is possible to go beyond banners, email petitions and chants as ways of fighting for a cause you believe in. You could have a knit-in, papier-mache puppets, teach a crafty class for kids- all ways of turning that energy into a more positive, more useful, force. Atrocities are happening in our front yards and on our televisions and we need to find ways to react against what is happening without either giving up or exploding.

This is less about mass action or more about realizing what you can do to makes things around you better.

Read more - link here   -  Craftivism.com, created by Betsy Greer, who advanced ‘craftivism’ as a Masters thesis.    Now she’s talking, no, excuse me, now she’s crafting --- with a message!   

Gives me that elusive concept that I have been struggling with for over a year now.  How can I go from 5 years of intense and passionate activism to end the Iraq war to dabbling in exploration of hobby crafts – how are those two things congruent at all?   Looks like maybe there is a common thread, after all.  

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Socially revolutionizing our Life on Willapa Bay

Lietta and I have allocated enormous amounts of our spare time to a serious examination and plan of our response to the implications of Peak Oil, gas guzzling transportation and what to do about potential shortages of commodities, services and medical expertise that stare us in the face as we move into our 60's.

All this business causes us to miss some of the prime entertainment and diversion available via the media and often the question arises, do we need to prepare and participate in social revolution or should we continue mindlessly on distracted by corporate bread and circuses? (Well, not all. We've recently discovered Eddie Izzard who is sufficiently entertaining to get me to turn the TV on at night and stay subscribed to Netflix.)

This excerpt from Lietta's post July 2, about U.S. Rep. Brian Baird's Town Hall meeting in South Bend:

Gas Prices; Astonishingly - well to us anyway - when the question of gas prices came up, as we knew it would, and someone asked about off shore oil drilling and leased land not being used for oil drilling, Brian Baird started to discuss it and then asked the audience for a show of hands as to who was in favor of off-shore oil drilling. And almost all the hands went up. Then Brian Baird asked who was not in favor, with my husband, mine and probably 3-4 other hands going up.

I was stunned. And in somewhat confused language pointed out peak oil and global warming and then gave up, saying never mind. I could not believe what I had just witnesssed. An expectation that enough information is out there now about the growing oil crisis, that I had thought more would be appreciative of our need to change our lifestyle to become less oil dependent and the urgency in finding alternative energy lifestyles

The majority of hand-raisers were approving of off-shore drilling. When asked by Baird whether or not this community - whose economy is heavily reliant on the ocean - is willing to risk oil spills and damage to marine life (economic or otherwise), the hands stayed up. In fact one of the attendee's who had "done her homework" justified her vote based on the preserved integrity of off-shore wells in Louisiana during and after Katrina.

So why not?
Peak Oil is here. Demand now outpaces supply and the number of global competitors for a diminishing supply is rising.

Regarding Peak Oil, all we need to understand is that an SUV getting less than 20-30 mpg needs to be jettisoned in favor of something smaller and now more expensive that reaches for 50 mpg. (BTW, I ran the trade-in value of a 2002 Ford Explorer Thursday. Where it normally hovered in double digit thousands, Kelly BB indicates $1850.)

My thoughts on Peak Oil

Peak Oil explanations have for the most part not told it all.

Surprising observation from Certified right-winger and advocate of the Corporate American Core Values, Charles Krauthammer:

"Forbidding drilling [in the Arctic refuge] does not prevent despoliation. It merely exports it. The crude oil we're not getting from the Arctic we import instead from places like the Niger Delta, where millions live and where the resulting pollution and oil spillages poison the lives of many of the world's most abysmally poor"

So should the amount of energy input required to get the oil include the 'cost' of basic human life?

Economic statisticians love to estimate the value of things and enterprises in terms of man-hours, labor units and whatnot. This from the point of view of valuing how much we First-Worlders must pay to get our oil from Third-Worlders who probably have very little say in whether or not we move in and take out there resources.

When a talking head expounds "knowledgeably" about the high costs of finding disappearing pockets of new oil, our wallets wiggle, self-focus increases and we begin to think of our 4-cylinder 1985 diesel pickup in the back yard with weeds peeking out from behind all the wheels.

But beyond our comprehension and more than likely not even considered by the authoritative Think Tank Energy Know-It-All is what reality is to our neighbors on other continents. Do they have a right to the stuff (as Carlin put it) in their own back yard?

You know, them folks who live in a society older than ours that already possesses a physical infrastructure older than ours. Theirs was built by how many millions of man-hours, labor-units, blood, sweat and tears?

I agree with the asker of the following question (all quotes in this article come from the reference link posted at the end of the article.)

" Do all the billions of hours of materialized human labor that have historically been destroyed by Westerners in the Middle East enter the equations telling us how many energy units are needed, under the current market conditions, to produce the equivalent of one BTU (British Thermal Unit) of energy? "

At the Baird Town Hall questions about immigration came up (see Lietta's article) and Baird gave excellent responses to an audience that included many who have some vague resentment of all foreign poor people that is driven by broadcast rhetoric regarding the status of aliens in our midst.

As we discuss our own and other nation's populations related problems - especially since we are an electorate which has approved by ballot an aggressive corporate imperialist rape of someone else's natural resource assets by the use of force, need we remember and understand that

"any proposed 'cost analysis' that excludes historically accumulated human social labor is not an a scientific explanation. Further, such a perspective is racist since the only human life worth its consideration, implicit in its tenets, is the ethnocentric, western self.

Just the amount spent on the destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan is in the trillions of dollars. How many tens of trillions of dollars worth of human creation has this war actually destroyed? Do these destructions enter American environmentalists' calculations?"

Now this ought to remind baby boomers about sixties-era notions such as that book and movie entitled The Ugly American.

Problem is not so much the absence of lots of citizens who remember the Great Depression with intense feeling. No, our problem is the generation missing at the time of the Oil Embargo in the 1970's; today's primary consuming generation for whom all this is mere intellectual or conscious "information" buttressed by little if any real understanding or intuition as to what it all means.

"Now, we know that even in the worst locations on earth (except war zones) those fires, shootings, school fights due to hanging nooses, teachers and priests having sex with students/believers, and all the millions of miles of footage on this or that celebrity seen locally (or anywhere) were obviously not the only things happening within the local universe in the 24-hour interval between last night and tonight.

Some selection has clearly taken place, which is of course what 'news' organizations do to prepare their programs. This carefully produced selection, when repeated daily and over the decades, keeps the public on edge on two levels: envious of the rich and the famous and, more so and more importantly, scared and insecure about their own lives.

And that, not information sharing, is the rhetorical agenda of 'news organizations': Danger creeps around every corner! Put your trust in the authorities! State violence is your only security!

Peak Oil serves exactly the same rhetorical purpose in a more nuanced way, with regard to the 'energy crisis': it keeps people revved up and on edge about the coming doom regarding oil and 'our way of life'. And who to trust to solve the problem?

Since Peak Oilers don't say, the actually existing answer is provided happily by, who else, the western corporations, the global 'free market' and the first world governments.

Now I'm curious in a kind of conspiracy-nut way as to the reality of how short we Americans are on native oil under our control. If as claimed, 60 percent of the current price of oil is caused by the futures traders in this commodity has nothing to do with supply shortages, is there in fact "too much supply for the actually existing capacity of refineries to refine the available oil fast enough?"

Chief Seattle could have uttered these words:

"Since Peak Oilers work with capitalist vocabulary, their solutions will never have anything to do with a fundamental reconceptualization of property rights, and no form of socialization of natural resources will enter their platforms."

As we read this, what comes to mind in terms of what we really need to be thinking about?

What is suggested is "nothing short of a social revolution."

That's what drives the small plans being implemented in our own household and on our little plot of land where we're investing in new personal infrastructure such as raised bed gardens, vegetables hanging from plastic buckets and turning one of our basement rooms into a root cellar.

It seems that a social-economic revolution in our personal and societal lives would be the "politico-logical thing to do."

Let me then speak to Rep. Baird's position vis-a-vis my son-in-law existing in harm's way for Baird's political justifications (and all those who insist that the broken pottery barn will go to hell in a hand-basket if we leave now. )

Any who believe that the United States of America is the global Roy Rogers wearing a white hat and spreading peace, prosperity, truth, justice and the American way to an ignorant, needy world are stuck knee-deep in their own personal intellectual quagmire.

We are not and have not been Roy Rogers. We are now and have been Oil Can Henry.

" ... the U.S. is a world imperialist power that historically has as often projected power through 'civil' means (corporations and financial institutions) as through state violence (coups, bilateral security agreements previously, and now open military interventions). For this type of imperialism, local or regional powers willing to and capable of acting independently and wielding power are not desirable, unless (as with Israel) such a local power is in a fundamental fashion (existentially?) dependent on Washington's patronage."

Other than quoting Lietta's post, all other quotes are from Peak Scam by Reza Fiyouzat, Online Journal Contributing Writer, Jun 30, 2008, 00:18

Hm .... looks like an Arab name. According to American jingoists, that probably means that Reza has written nothing truthful and that it only looks like Oil Can Henry riding Trigger.

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What we did, what we do now

Sweetie made this blog some time back, and it has been sitting idle as long. We intended to partner blog and were using this particular blog as a vehicle to chronicle some elements of living our life in this wonderful treasure of a hamlet called Bay Center (named so because it is a peninsula that juts out into the center of Willapa Bay). We didn't do what we intended with this blog. Some years have passed and elements of our life and activities together are reflected in bits and pieces spread out amongst our other blogs.

It would be a bit time consuming to capture the last five years of our life living here in this village on the bay into one blog entry, so I won't try. As we move on with posting to this blog about our lives now, likely some of our past activities will show themselves in our future posts together.

He is five years to retirement, and I 'retired' a little earlier - May 2003 - but since I only put in sixteen of the required twenty years, I'm not going to be receiving any kind of a retirement pension. Thus, I am not officially 'retired'. We are trying to figure out how (if)our income in retirement will meet our daily needs. We used the rules we grew up with as the basis for our retirement, but we can see those rules have become antiquated and outdated for these tumultuous economic times.

So in between our intense efforts and activities to speak out as military family with loved ones deployed in Iraq (see more on our activism at one of my blgs, Dying to Preserve the Lies), there have been some other things we do in our daily lives besides activism. Although it has taken me about the last year to clear my head a bit from the intensity of the previous five years of activism, enough to see that it became so all consuming for me, therefore for us, maybe we are finding some balance in our lives now. Looking out at the horizon, there are new challenges for all of us ahead in these difficult times with the looming oil/food/economic crisis. As we post to this blog, we will be addressing our efforts at how we are trying to be somewhat prepared for an uncertain future.

Recognizing that we don't have the survival skills of our ancestors, we are trying to learn a thing or two about a thing or two. Learning about food management is one of several of our current shared focus - growing our own food, harvesting, preserving what we grow - and that is a large enough chunk to bite off as the peripheral topics that accompany it become their own kind of challenges, ie, making a root cellar.

I think because it is something we CAN do, it helps us to feel like we are attempting to do something concrete in the face of knowing that the wolf is at the door. We have spent a goodly amount of the last five years being messengers, and it feels good and right to turn attention now to spending less time messengering, and more time doing. Amen.

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Nutricide - Criminalizing Natural Health, Vitamins, and Herbs

The video starts off looking like some lecture and I started to hit the stop button, but decided instead to hear it out for a bit, and then I was intrigued. Because she was talking about something as if I should already know what it is and I realized I hadn't even heard of it, let alone realize what it is, so I listened.

Do you know what Codex Alimentarius is? And if you do, then you're ahead of me on the knowledge scale. Do you know how it will be affecting our food supply - and somthing so vital as our food supply will be in another of what feels like 'corporate take-over' in every aspect of our daily living.

Maybe you're interested, maybe not, and the good Dr in this video does a fine job of explaining by building the foundation steps so that even if you think you don't care about Codex Alimentarius, you likely will after watching some of this video!

The Codex Alimentarius is a threat to the freedom of people to choose natural healing and alternative medicine and nutrition. Ratified by the World Health Organization, and going into Law in the United States in 2009, the threat to health freedom has never been greater.

This is the first part of a series of talks by Dr. Rima Laibow MD, available on DVD from the Natural Solutions Foundation, an non-profit organization dedicated to educating people about how to stop Codex Alimentarius from taking away our right to freely choose nutritional health.





posted by Lietta Ruger

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United States Food Supply in Danger?

I'm not altogether sure that I agree with the slant or bent of why this was posted - as it has a somewhat anti-illegal immigrant cast to it , which I don't share. But the information pointed out about contaminated and compromised food, food recalls is pertinent.

United States Food Supply in Danger?

The latest in the craze of America 's food supplies being contaminated. Mini Chip Ahoy Cookies from Nabisco, a Kraft Foods project. A toddler in Texas opened a bag of these cookies for a snack and was surprised by a rat leg, covered in a thin layer of cookie dough and cooked, sealed inside the bag of treats.

But this is just the latest in a rash of food source contamination harming, and even killing Americans this year alone. Since January, 2006 the following food recalls have been issued on a variety of food products. The numbers are startling, the variety of foods involved shocking, the fact that the majority are of the same type of contamination eye-opening.

February 2007:

* Peter Pan Peanut Butter (ConAgra Foods) - Salmonella
* Earth's Best Organic Baby Food - Botulism bacteria.
* Wellesley Farms Fresh Sliced Mushrooms - E-coli
* Cantaloupes - Salmonella
* Oscar Mayer/Louis Rich Chicken Breast Strips - Listeria (Meningitis) Contamination.
* Wild Kitty Cat Food - Salmonella Contamination

JANUARY 2007

* Chili Powder - Sudan 1 poisoning ( Sudan 1 is a red dye used in coloring solvents, oils, petrols, polishes and waxes)
* Worcestershire Sauce - Due to Chili Powder contamination.
* Garden Leaf Foods "Trader Joe's - Spicy Thai Style Pasta Salad" - Listeria Monocytogenes contamination (meningitis) . - CA
* Natural State Meat Co - Ground Beef Product Recall - E-Coli
* Gold Star Sausage/Franks - Listeria
* Pap's Louisiana Cuisine Head Cheese - Listeria

2006 Recalls:

* Cantaloupes - Salmonella - AZ
* Taco Bell Restaurants - E-Coli outbreak
* Frozen strawberry recall (used in Jamba juice, used in fruit smoothies). - Listeria Monocytogenes contamination - Cleugh's Frozen Foods Inc (SunOpta Inc.) - CA
* Cooked Ham and Turkey - Listeria monocyogenes - HoneyBaked Foods, Inc - OH
* Birds Eye Frozen Cooked Winter Squash - Ammonia contamination - MI
* Little Debbie Nutty Bars - May contain small particles of metal. McKee Foods - TN
* Everyday Value Kalamata Olive Tapenade - May contain glass fragments. - TX
* Spinach - E Coli - Natural Selection Foods - CA
* Almonds - Salmonella - Paramount Farms CA
* Green Leaf Lettuce - E-Coli - CA
* Davis Mountain Beef - E-Coli - Iowa
* Tuscan Sun Turkey Sandwiches - Listeria Monocytogenes - WA
* Bolthouse Farms Carrot Juice - botulism - CA
* Salads of the Sea, Hen House, Southern Home, Fisherman's Market - Krab Dip Supreme, Supreme Krab Dip, Cajun Smoked Salmon Spread, Krab Artichoke Spinach Dip, Krab Dip, Cajun Krab Dip, Jalapeno Krab Dip, Cajun Crawfish Salad, Smoked Salmon Flavored Spread. - Listeria Monocytogenes contamination - TX

* Classic Salads - Baby Spinach/Spring Mix Recall - Salmonella - CA
* Stouffer's Meatloaf - pieces of plastic - Nestle Prepared Foods - SC
* Spring Hill Cheeses - Listeria
* Cahill's Farm Porter Cheese - Listeria MO
* Thumann's Inc Boneless Prosciutto - straphylococcus aureus enterotoxin.
* Caribbean Dreams Cerasee Tea - Salmonella
* Moveable Feast Smoked Scottish/Smoked Norwegian Salmon - Salmonella - NJ
* H.E.B. Baby Food/Mom's Organic Choice - pieces of glass.
* Gentlease powdered infant formula - metal particles
* Lean Cuisine Asian Style Pot Stickers - plastic particles. - Nestle Prepared Foods - SC
* Herman Falter Smoked Pork Neck Bones/Jowls/ Frankfurters/ Italian Sausage - Liseria - OH
* Krisp-Pak Fresh Fruit - Listeria
* Reese's Shell Topping - Salmonella
* Omaha Beef Company - Beef Products - E-Coli
* Ballard's Farm Sausage - Macaroni Salad, Cole Slaw, Egg Salad - Listeria
* Portillo's Food Service - Roast beef - Listeria
* Jim's Market and Locker Ground Beef - E-Coli.
* Monterey Mushrooms - Listeria
* Dinner Bell Beef - E-Coli
* Fullei Fresh Alfalfa Sprouts - Salmonella
* Southeastern Meats Ground Beef - E-Coli
* Plains Meat Ground Beef - E-Coli
* Orientex Manila Style Hot Dogs - Listeria
* George G. Ruppersberger and Son's Inc Ground Beef - E-Coli.
* House of Thaller, Kroger Brand, Mrs. Gerry Dairy Fresh, The Fresh Market, Southern Gourmet, Southern Style, Ham salad, chicken salad, turkey salad, tuna salad, seafood salad, pea salad - Poisoning/bacteria.
* Ground beef recall to restaurants and institutions in Arkansas , Kansas , Oklahoma , Missouri - E-Coli
* Jimmy Dean and State Fair Cheeseburgers - Listeria
* Town and Country Foods, Ham salad - Listeria
* Griffin's Pork Barbeque - Listeria
* Whole Catch Lemon Pepper Garlic Hot Smoked Trout - Listeria
* JHC Brand Cooked Seasoning Anchovy - Salmonella
* Quaker Maid Meats Frozen Beef Patties - E-Coli
* Fortuna Sea Products Frozen Cooked Clam Meat - Salmonella
* Dole Lettuce Salad - E-Coli

This is more then coincidence. With American's dependency on pre-processed and pre-packaged food sources nearly complete, and along with it just as dependent upon the government to insure the consumption of this food is safe for
them and their family. This makes for a toxic cocktail to the safety of Americans. It is not surprising in some fashions to the finding of a rat leg in a bag of Chip Ahoys when one considers the all sources involved before this food is able to come to our stores, homes and consumption.

According to a report on _www.wehirealiens. com_ (http://www.wehirealiens.com/) , Kraft Foods is a known illegal alien employer in their South Carolina processing plant. They also are listed as having several processing plants in Mexico which package pre-packaged food products for human consumption. Mexico is not known for its strict food processing laws like found in the United States , another reason many food companies chose to outsource their processing, packaging and production plants there. Kraft itself has various plants in the following locations:

Kraft Food Plants - Ecatepec , Mexico
Nabisco Food Plants - Guatemala City , San Jose , Costa Rica

Other food processing companies who take advantage of Mexico 's cheap
labor and lenient food processing laws are:
* Ralston Purina
* Pilgrim's Pride
* CPC International
* Philip Morris (Kraft General Foods)
* Campbell Soup
* Pepsi Co
* Quaker Oats
* Universal Foods
* Coca Cola
* Bordon
* Kellogg
* Hershey Foods
* McCormick & Co
* Gerber Products
* Tyson Foods
* Sara Lee
* RJR Nobisco
* Cargiel/Excell
* J.R. Simplot
* Frito Lay (part of Pepsi)

(from Old Ways Living yahoo group)

posted by Lietta Ruger

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Bonus Army and Ghosts of Abu Ghraib on tv last night

I watched Bonus Army on PBS, and then Ghosts of Abu Ghraib on HBO. It remains on my mind today, and I will likely blog on it at my Dying to Preserve the Lies blog and at Washblog.
I mention it at this blog, because it is named Bundelz, an effort to have one place that is not a compartment of the many aspects of being me.

Sweetie came home from work yesterday raving about the granola. It's time for me to make some more and by now I've pretty much got the formula down and mix and match ingredients of my own choosing. I'm so pleased with our small lifestyle adjustments so far. Sweetie continues to do daily 2-3 power walks for 10 minutes each as part of his workday routine. He's feeling more energetic, I can tell, because he gets a kick out of doing a few dance steps for me to make me laugh. Oh, it's not rude, believe me - you'd have to see his idea of dance steps, and you'd laugh too.

Weather is confused here, between serious hail, sun breaks, rain, and some winds, it's that time of year again - at least for the weather around here. Tulips, daffodils, croascia peeking up in the yard - a reminder to me that spring is around the corner and I will be back in my yard and garden again soon. My plans this year include creating a red lava rock pathway in the frontyard leading up to front door. My problem is that the best of the best of the best 'edger' Sweetie bought me a few years ago broke last year. We searched in vain everywhere last season for a replacement - Nada. It's a very specific edger, with a moon shaped cutting edge that is sharp and easily breaks up the ground. It is about hip heighth for me, and has hand holder on each side of the shaft. It is like it was made for me, and works so well for me.

Sweetie, not appreciating the absolute uniqueness of this implement has tried to purchase two other edgers for me - and neither measures up. I made a declaration last season that only the broken edger is what I want and we must find someone to repair it. Sweetie thought he might be able to repair it, so he hasn't searched too hard for anyone else who could repair it. Spring coming up and I need that edger, so project ahead is to resolve the issue of the edger. Yes, a shovel does work, but does not create the straight, clean line that this particular edger creates.

posted by Lietta Ruger

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My turn to write in our journal

I'm glad Arthur started this blog journal. The idea was to capture a few thoughts at the end of the day to indicate what we did that day. Not because it is exceedingly interesting, or even interesting at all, but for us, as a couple, it is interesting - to us. Arthur has kept just such a hand-written journal in his historical past and I have encountered it and found it a fascinating endeavor - disciplined. Something I'm not when it comes to writing, correspondence, journaling.

I have journaled extensively before, but I have never developed the discipline to write daily in a journal or diary. Or even weekly in a journal. So Arthur started this blog for us and I do hope to enter some thoughts from time to time to reflect our lives together.

Right now we are transitioning to vegetarian lifestyle in our food. For a much long account of our first outing and how I carefully researched and arrived at how we would kick off this re-introduction to vegetarian, visit my blog entry
at my blog, 'Bundelz - Putting it all together'. Last weekend, this was our one and only trip out of the house, to purchase the pantry items I would need to convert us to vegetarian. Short of it is that I am introducing primarily Thai recipes for the spicy, flavorfulness rather than going with traditional flavorless vegetarian recipes.

Arthur is full board at work to make our online activities generate some income.

I'm not yet there, where he is, but have approached it several times, mentioned to him and if he waits till I get around to it, we'll be at same place next year. I think he realizes that and he has focused his energies on making us a livlihood online. I'm curious, interested and far from detached. Somehow, I think, what I am doing (online that is) feeds into what he is generating, but I'm not yet sure how it ties together.

I have been eager to reach a target date I set for myself to 'conclude' my activism work and turn my attention in other directions. That target date has been reached and while it is not the conclusion of our activism work, it is the conclusion of my full-time 24/7 committment to the activism to bring an end to Iraq occupation and get our troops home. Four years I've been doing this and I've rather exhausted myself. How can I tell? Because I find myself quick to anger, resentful and feeling mean-spirited about the whole peace/activism movement. It's time for me to get some balance back into my personal life. Turning attention to creative things, new challenges, ie, self-teaching myself to cook Thai, Mediterranean, Indian cuisines; returning to my oil painting - getting to the place of a painting a day; blogging on refashioning and repurposing used items - a way to recycle without being so serious; yard and vegetable garden; house projects, etc. I'm feeling the energy again and know it is right and good.

So, dear Arthur, I do hope you will return to our Day's End Journal from time to time and keep our journal updated. So will I, even if it's just a line or two about day's events.

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He's going back to Iraq, 2nd Deployment + Stop Loss

I had hoped to retire this blog, it served it's function at the time, yet, I have not lived easily knowing that the potential for another Bush administration was a possibility. While with every fiber of my soul and being, I worked against such an outcome, knowing it would mean more war in Iraq, more war in other countries, it looks like we have four more years with Bush at the controls. My kids, who already served in Iraq, will be sent again, I feared, and this blog has not yet seen it's end time.

I left it, rather unattended, to serve as a placemark and prayed never have to pick it up again and resume entries into this blog. It is a tragedy that I have to keep it going, as my loved ones are being sent back to Iraq for 2nd deployments.

My dear son-in-law, the mainstay and backbone of his family which are my daughter and their three children, my grandchildren....he's just received orders for redeployment to Iraq. On top of a second deployment, he also now is under Stop Loss orders. He was due to have his enlistment completed in 2005 and now with Stop Loss he would not be able to get out of military as scheduled. He has already served in Iraq 2003-2004 in a 15 month tour, 1st Armored, and was caught up as was all of the 1st Armored troops in a last-minute extension in April 04, at exactly the time he was scheduled to come home. NOT. Another three months in Iraq.

His cousin, my nephew, is awaiting orders now and is himself a husband, a father and they are expecting their second child. He also served 15 months in Iraq, 1st Armored, and was extended at same time as my son-in-law. He has served previously in Bosnia. He is awaitng his own orders for a 2nd tour in Iraq. Another tour in Iraq, and this is more war and combat than a young person should have to see or bear.

Both will do their mission, and I do not speak for them but I do speak up on their behalf and not necessarily with their permission yet they do know I have been doing all in my limited power as a military family, a mother, a civilian, to do what I can to halt the carnage and destruction that are the features of collateral damage, words used so impersonally to describe the stink and death of war.

What is appalling besides everything about how the troops needs are under-met, and how badly they are being exploited is that his choices now look like this:

Re-enlist in March. No, you don't want to re-enlist? Well you already have orders to redeploy to Iraq and you are already under Stop Loss orders so you won't be getting out any time soon anyway. If you don't re-enlist, you'll be serving anyway and in Iraq, while the rest of the guys get their bonus for re-enlisting, you won't be getting yours and will be serving beside them anyway.

What limited choices are these and does our public know that the all-volunteer military has fallen through trickery and deceit, misleading to even false information into an entrapment. They can't get out! That, friends, is a long way from "volunteer".

The troops cannot be recycled over and over again to Iraq without grotesque expense to themselves and their families which seemingly, if I am to judge by the civilian response in our country, is just fine so long as no one else in our country but the military families and troops have to bear the burden. That argument, "well they volunteered didn't they" doesn't carry water anymore. It may have started out that way, but so much has changed along the course, that this is a long, long way from anything resembling an "all volunteer military".

Not unlike the Iraqis themselves, our troops are trapped in a war-torn country in a war ordered and sustained by our own government and seemingly a majority of this country's citizens. Please, please tell me, WHAT is the reason now?

Having lived through almost 3 years of lies and deception spouted by the administration, I have endured listening to the citizens catch hold of propaganda and repeat it ad-nauseum with little thought to the words they are gleefully repeating . I have seen our mainstream news turn itself away from it's origins as news reporting to become more of the propaganda, lies, deception and treachery which keeps our kids (and our old men hauled back into active duty) in Iraq. But one by one the lies have come to light, yet our citizenry champions the newest and latest excuses for why we are there and why the troops must stay.

I had hoped to retire this blog when my son-in-law and nephew came home from Iraq. I built it only to give them a record to look at when they returned. Now they will be returning to Iraq in second deployments, in large part, thanks to the deliberate ignorance and willfulness of our own citizenry, my fellow countrymen, my neighbors. I do not thank you or excuse you for your part in casting the death warrant vote but I also know the singular accountability and responsibility lies at the hands of our own President and Commander-in-Chief, George W. Bush.

So picking up where this blog left off, I will be recording again the conditions in our country, in our politics, in our citizen mindset, as our two loved ones are marched back to Iraq. To those so willing for this war, and the wars yet coming, as promised by the President in his Inauguration speech, I say, send your own if you are so committed to this man you cheer as your President, and bring mine home.

written by Lietta Ruger

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It is over, the elections, and apparantly the Voice of America has spoken.

It is over, the elections, and apparantly the Voice of America has spoken. We are stunned, in shock and awe, in a most literal sense. We cannot believe what we have just seen happen in our country.We will likely never forget the image map of red states to blue in this election.

Well, I guess we belong in the blue state where we reside and guess there are very few blue states left in this great country. Blue lined up along the west coast and the northern states of the east coast and a few of the Great Lake states. We comprise the perimeter of the country, I guess, and no place else to go but the oceans.

It is now post-election and the ground truth is that there will be 4 more years of Bush and his administration ... unleashed, unchained. We look for and anticipate the literal blood bath that will ensue and while I have had 2 1/2 years now to protest the war while supporting the needs of the troops, there was a degree of comfort that much of our country felt the same. There was a degree of comfort that Bush was thrust upon us in a bad election debacle in 2000, and that could be "righted" with this election.

The Voice of America has said otherwise. I do not know how to "be" just now as an American citizen out of harmony with my own country. I do not know how to explain to our young when they ask me literally, as they have after this election, "what happened to America". I do not know how to respond to our young soldier who says to me after the election "Mom, you know what this means don't you...there will be a blood bath"... to which I can only say "yes, I know....."

I don't know how to reconcile the definitions now that define christian as it seems to have taken on a morality tone of anti-abortion and anti-gay as if that was the entire message of the christian faith. How did the voters who voted morality and faith overlook the first commandment, Thou shalt not kill....? How did the voters reconcile the aborted life of the young troops who have not yet tasted adult life How did christians not separate morality from ethics? Anyway, a discussion for another day...I have no heart for it now.

I'll get my strength back, I'm sure, but I don't know how to depersonalize this election among my country. I feel like voters just signed the death warrant for our kids and I have to find a way within myself to reconcile my feelings with regard to knowing about half of the country voted for Bush. I don't know how to interpret that as other than our country agreeing to the consignment of our children to war, and why? How utterly selfish to put their "fears" above the well-being of the young generation for which us elders have stewardship. But I know I must find a way to reconcile it within myself. It was never just politics for us...we really did feel we were fighting for our country, for our kids.

So, with the ground truth now being that Bush remains the CIC, I will continue in my work as part of the organization Military Families Speak Out (MFSO..http://www.mfso.org/) which has now a membership of close to 2000 military families. It is a non-partisan, non-political organization with one message..Support our Troops. The difference is that it is not a Hooah message as heard from many military families, but one that supports the dignity, honor, ideals, courage and valor of the troops on the ground.

A message that the American people need to do more for our troops and demand more for our troops than to just tell them thank you ... that is not enough. The troops need more, they need all of us now more than ever and they need us to work on the homefront on their behalf, wisely, thoughtfully, intelligently and demand of the administration (no matter who occupies the office) the needs of our troops cannot be explained away as oversights and mismanagement. The needs of our troops are real and deadly and being so poorly managed leaving the troops exposed to danger above and beyond their call to duty. Our CIC owes the troops more..we will demand it.

American Soldier...be well, keep you courage and wits about you in the days ahead.

A proud military family of Iraq veterans,
An old military brat,
A Vietnam era military wife,

Don't even think about challenging my patriotism, it is deeper than platitudes as is my love for the troops and what they represent, what they stand for, what they commit themselves to....as is my love for their families that stand in courage behind the troops. signing myself; Duty Calls..on the homefront.

Courage doesn't always shout. Sometimes courage is the quiet voiceat the end of the day that says, "I will try again tomorrow."

by Lietta Ruger

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Our interviews by Newshour piece, Military Families speaking out, to air this week.

Our interviews by Newshour piece, Military Families speaking out, to air this week.

As some of you may know, we were filmed and interviewed by Lee Hochberg, Seattle correspondent for Newshour with Jim Lehrer. This morning (Monday, Sept 27) Lee phoned me to give update on when this piece will be aired. He said he hopes to see it aired Thursday or Friday evening..this week. Again, as he explains, their morning meetings and news pertinent to the moment decides the basis for what gets aired that evening. Lee says he is aiming for Thursday, and with Presidential debates, he thinks it is more likely it will air Friday.

Newshour with Jim Lehrer is shown on PBS stations, please check the listings in your area. Here also is url for Newshour features http://www.pbs.org/newshour/home.html

The piece Lee has been working on is military families speaking out, as this is a first in history and a new phenomenom, that military families would come together in commonality to speak in support of the troops by speaking out against the war. citing a misguided administration and Commander-in-Chief. Military families have traditionally been taught to "suck it up", support the troops with public statements of committment for whatever combat theatres where their loved ones as soldiers are deployed, and hold their criticisms of administrative policy as private thoughts not shared in public venue.

Newshour decided to learn more about what compels military families with loved ones deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan to break with the traditions of military families and speak out against the war. Lee Hochberg is compiling the piece and I have no way of knowing what the completed piece will look like until we see it aired. Lee included various events and interviews of Military Families Speak Out.

Lee also included filming me at my church giving a sermon that addresses the wrongness of the war and the President's decision to take us into Iraq. He also filmed an interview with both Arthur and me at our home, my views as a military brat, young wife to Vietnam veteran, and mother and aunt to 2 new Iraq veterans; Arthur's views as a Vietnam era veteran speaking out.

We invite you to watch this piece. We hoped to be able to videotape it at home, but aren't set up to do so. If anyone else is able to do so and can videotape it, perhaps provide a copy for us, we would be appreciative. Thank you. I believe, also we can purchase a videotape of the show from Newshour.

Lietta (and Arthur) Ruger

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http://www.pbs.org/newshour/ww/jim_lehrer.html

JIM LEHRER
Executive Editor and Anchor

Jim Lehrer was born in Wichita, Kansas, in 1934. He is a graduate of Victoria College in Texas and the University of Missouri. After three years as an infantry officer in the Marine Corps, he worked for ten years in Dallas as a newspaperman and then as the host of a local experimental news program on public television.

He came to Washington with PBS in 1972, teaming with Robert MacNeil in 1973 to cover the Senate Watergate hearings. They began in 1975 what became The MacNeil/Lehrer Report, and, in 1983, The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, the first 60-minute evening news program on television. When MacNeil retired in 1995, the program was renamed The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

Lehrer has been honored with numerous awards for journalism, including a presidential National Humanities Medal in 1999. In the last four presidential elections, he moderated nine of the nationally televised candidate debates. For the 2004 election, Lehrer will moderate the first presidential debate on Sept. 30 in Miami.

"No Certain Rest" is Lehrer's 13th novel; his 14th, "Flying Crows," was published in May 2004. He also has written two memoirs and three plays. He and his novelist wife Kate have three daughters and six grandchildren.

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http://www.pbs.org/newshour/ww/hochberg.html

LEE HOCHBERG
Correspondent

Based in Seattle and Portland, Lee Hochberg has been a NewsHour correspondent since 1986, covering events in his region. He provided the NewsHour's ongoing coverage of controversies over the northern spotted owl, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the Exxon Valdez oil spill, and the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. His numerous awards including a Peabody Award for a NewsHour report on dangerous trucking practices. Lee is married, has three children, and lives on Mercer Island in Washington State.

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Death Toll American Soldiers over 1,000 today

So today, September 7, 2004 marks another milestone in the war in Iraq. We have as of today, now lost more than 1,000 American soldiers. Young people, who won't be returning home to this free democracy we call the United States of America.

I'm not going to make an editorial here, more post to mark the treachery of an unelected President who has set us on an unwarranted war with unjust cause in the name of his unjust god...it's certainly not a God I recognize.

Can we Bring Them Home Now?

Or is the new acceptable loss number moved up to 2,000. When will our own public outcry be cohesive enough, loud enough to be heard and these unreasonable and unrealistic losses of our young be called to an end?

Do you want to ask a soldier to be the last to die for a lie?

by Lietta Ruger

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we support the troops, and it's you, the President's patriotism we challenge and question

At home as we wait for the daily news releases telling us what is happening in Iraq today, this photo comes from that early time in the invasion of Iraq. We know our soldiers are there and waiting for and following their marching orders. We at home, are still anxious and wondering how quickly it will all be over. Aren't we the foolish optimists here back at home?

But remember this is events as they are developing, we do not yet have all the information that will follow and change the views from sentimentalism patriotism to a more mature questioning what it means to be patriotic.

We do not yet know the President is defining for us the only correct way to be patriotic will be to accept unchallenged, his decisions and actions. We do not yet know that to challenge or question will amount to being called unpatriotic and not supportive of the troops. Duh..it's our own loved ones over there, our family..of course, we support the troops, and it's you, the President's patriotism we challenge and question..

The soldiers deployed in our family are with the 1st Armored..they are both extended... we learn this after plans have been made for their homecoming...

we hear at the last possible minute, after children have been told their father's will be coming home...we hear it before my daughter knows it and spend the day on computer IM with her supporting her through the heartbreaking news...

she survives and carries on, she alone with her 3 children, she is a military wife after all and what else can she do but put one foot in front of the other and march through the days ahead. Her husband so close to coming home, snatched back into the active hotspots in the war in Iraq..Najaf and Fallujah.

by Lietta Ruger

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