What happened to us mothers? We allowed this holiday to get away from us. We allowed it to become commercialized, individualized, commodified, unpoliticized. We allowed it to be about superficial symbols of love—flowers and chocolates and store-bought cards. We allowed it be a time when we, as mothers, sit back and receive personal recognition, instead of a time when we, as mothers, stand up together to make collective demands.

Let’s be clear about what Mothers Day was supposed to be, before it fell out of our grip. It was the brainchild of a brilliant woman, Julia Ward Howe, who was horrified by the carnage and suffering during the Civil War and the economic devastation that followed. She was also heart-broken by the outbreak of war between France and Germany in 1870, with its ominous display of German military might and imperial designs. She used her poetic gift to pen a proclamation against war, a proclamation that birthed Mothers Day.

“Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause,” Julia wrote. “Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. ” Her solution? Women should gather together to “promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.”

So here we are, more than a century later, still in the throes of wars abroad and violence in our communities. But instead of coming together to say “Disarm, disarm,” we are content with trinkets and breakfast in bed. Isn’t it time to get out of bed, out of the kitchen, out of the house and into the streets? We should be demanding that our government stop pillaging our treasury by spending $2 billion a week on an unwinnable war in Afghanistan. We should be demanding good education and forgiveness of our children’s college loans, not more money for the bloated Pentagon. We should be demanding that the guns that kill over 30,000 of our sons and daughters every year here at home be banished from the store shelves. We should demand that our nation stop locking up our children for nonviolent crimes, just to feed a disgraceful private prison industry. We should demand that conflict resolution be mandatory in our schools to stop bullying and prejudice, and that diplomacy be mandatory in our foreign relations.

This is our day, moms. Let’s reclaim it and embrace its origins. Our day should not be solely about us, as individuals, but about us embodying the collective desires of mothers around the world—to stop our children from killing and being killed by others mother’s children. No one is going to bring that to us on a breakfast platter; it’s something that we women demand.

Happy Mothers Day.

There’s a good number of us who question holidays like Mother’s Day in which you spend more time feeding money into a system that exploits our love for our mothers than actually celebrating them.  It’s not unlike any other holiday in America in that its complete commercialization has stripped away so much of its genuine meaning, as well its history.  Mother’s Day is unique in its completely radical and totally feminist history, as much as it has been forgotten.

Mother’s Day began in America in 1870 when Julia Ward Howe wrote the Mother’s Day Proclamation. Written in response to the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War, her proclamation called on women to use their position as mothers to influence society in fighting for an end to all wars. She called for women to stand up against the unjust violence of war through their roles as wife and mother, to protest the futility of their sons killing other mothers’ sons.

Howe wrote:

Arise, then, women of this day!

Arise, all women who have hearts, Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly: “We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

[Read the remainder of Howe's quote here]

The holiday caught on years later when a West Virginia women’s group led by Anna Reeves Jarvis began promoting it as a way to reunite families after the Civil War.  After Jarvis’ death, her daughter began a campaign for the creation of an official Mother’s Day in honor of peace. Devoting much of her life to the cause, it wasn’t until 1914 when Woodrow Wilson signed it into national observance in 1914.

The holiday flourished, along with the flower industry.  The business journal, the Florists Review, actually admitted to its desire to exploit the holiday. Jarvis was strongly opposed to every aspect of the holiday’s commercialization, arrested for protesting the sale of flowers, and petitioning to stop the creation of a Mother’s Day postage stamp.

Today we are in multiple wars that continue to claim the lives of thousands of sons and daughters.  We are also experiencing a still-rising commercialization of nearly every aspect of life; the exploitation of every possible human event and emotion at the benefit of corporations.

Let’s take this Mother’s Day to excuse ourselves from the pressure to consume and remember its radical roots – that mothers, or rather all women, in fact, all people, have a stake in war and a responsibility as American citizens to protest the incredible violence that so many fellow citizens, here and abroad, must suffer through.

The thousands of civilian casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the devastating impact of post-traumatic stress disorder on our veterans are just the beginning of the terrible repercussion of war.  As we saw last week an announcement of an extension of the military occupation of Afghanistan, let this mother’s day be a day after Julia Ward Howe’s own heart as we stand up and say no to 12 more years of war.

Laura Kacere is a political activist and radical feminist who seeks to dismantle imperialist heterosexist cisgendered patriarchy and make repro rights available to all. She is currently living in DC.

“President Obama has instructed us to be more open with the American people about these efforts,” Brennan explained.

I had just co-organized a Drone Summit over the weekend, where Pakistani lawyer Shahzad Akbar told us heart-wrenching stories about the hundreds of innocent victims of our drone attacks. We saw horrific photos of people whose bodies were blown apart by Hellfire missiles, with only a hand or a slab of flesh remaining. We saw poor children on the receiving end of our attacks—maimed for life, with no legs, no eyes, no future. And for all these innocents, there was no apology, no compensation, not even an acknowledgement of their losses. Nothing.

The U.S. government refuses to disclose who has been killed, for what reason, and with what collateral consequences. It deems the entire world a war zone, where it can operate at will, beyond the confines of international law.

So there I was at the Wilson Center, listening to Brennan describe our policies as ethical, “wise,” and in compliance with international law. He spoke as if the only people we kill with our drone strikes are militants bent on killing Americans. “It is unfortunate that to save innocent lives we are sometimes obliged to take lives – the lives of terrorists who seek to murder our fellow citizens.” The only mention of taking innocent lives referred to Al Qaeda. “Al Qaeda’s killing of innocent civilians, mostly Muslim men, women and children, has badly tarnished its image and appeal in the eyes of Muslims around the world.” This is true, but the same must be said of U.S. policies that fuel anti-American sentiments in the eyes of Muslims around the world.

So I stood up and in a calm voice, spoke out (video).

“Excuse me, Mr. Brennan, will you speak out about the innocents killed by the United States in our drone strikes? What about the hundreds of innocent people we are killing with drone strikes in the Philippines, in Yemen, in Somalia? I speak out on behalf of those innocent victims. They deserve an apology from you, Mr. Brennan. How many people are you willing to sacrifice? Why are you lying to the American people and not saying how many innocents have been killed?”

My heart was racing as a female security guard and then a burly Federal Protection Service policeman started pulling me out, but I kept talking.

“I speak out on behalf of Tariq Aziz, a 16-year-old in Pakistan who was killed simply because he wanted to document the drone strikes. I speak out on behalf of Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki, a 16-year-old born in Denver, killed in Yemen just because his father was someone we don’t like. I speak out on behalf of the Constitution and the rule of law.” My parting words as they dragged me out the door were, “I love the rule of law and I love my country. You are making us less safe by killing so many innocent people. Shame on you, John Brennan.”

I was handcuffed and taken to the basement of the building, where I was questioned about my background and motives. To their credit, it seems the Wilson Center thought it would not be good to have someone arrested for exercising their right to free speech, so I was released.

Brennan’s speech came the day after another U.S. drone strike in Pakistan, one that  killed three alleged militants. After the strike, the Pakistani government voiced its strongest and most public condemnation yet, accusing the United States of violating Pakistani sovereignty, calling the campaign “a total contravention of international law and established norms of interstate relations.” Earlier in April the Pakistani Parliament unanimously condemned drone strikes and established a new set of guidelines for rebuilding the country’s frayed relationship with the United States, which included the immediate cessation of all drone strikes in Pakistani territory.

The attacks in Pakistan, carried out by the CIA, started in 2004. Since then, there have been over 300 strikes. The areas where the strikes take place have been sealed off by the Pakistani security forces, so it has been difficult to get accurate reports about deaths and damages. John Brennan has denied that innocents have even been killed. Speaking in June 2011 about the preceding year, he said “there hasn’t been a single collateral death because of the exceptional proficiency, precision of the capabilities we’ve been able to develop.” Mr. Brennan later adjusted his statement somewhat, saying, “Fortunately, for more than a year, due to our discretion and precision, the U.S. government has not found credible evidence of collateral deaths resulting from U.S. counterterrorism operations outside of Afghanistan or Iraq.”

This is just not true. The UK-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism is the group that keeps the best count of casualties from U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. According to its figures, since 2004, U.S. has killed between about 2,500-3,000 people in Pakistan. Of those, between 479 and 811 were civilians, 174 of them children.

Shahzad Akbar, a Pakistani lawyer who has been representing drone victims and who started the group Foundation for Fundamental Rights, disputes even these figures and claims that the vast majority of those killed are ordinary civilians. “I have a problem with this word ‘militant.’ Most of the victims who are labeled militants might be Taliban sympathizers but they are not involved in any criminal or terrorist acts, and certainly not against the United States,” he claimed. He said the Americans often assumes that if someone wears a turban, has a beard and carries a weapon, he is a combatant. “That is a description of all the men in that region of Pakistan. It is part of their culture.” Shahzad believes that only those people who the Americans label “high-value targets”, which would be less than 200, should be considered militants; all others should be considered civilian victims.

While President Obama is gearing up for an election campaign and using his drone-strike killing spree to as a sign of his tough stance on national security, people from across the United States and around the world are organizing to rein in the drones.

Gathering in Washington DC on April 28-29, they came up with a new campaign to educate the American public about civilian deaths in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere as a result of the use of drones for illegal killing and to pressure members of Congress, President Obama, federal agencies, and state and local governments to restrict the use of drones for illegal killing and surveillance. The tactics include court challenges, delegations to the affected regions, direct action at U.S. bases from where the drones are operated, student campaigns to divest from companies involved in the production of killer drones and outreach to faith-based communities.

If you would like to get involved, make sure to sign up here.

My husband works in information technology for a large corporation. After a little encouragement from me when I mentioned the upcoming General Strike on May Day, he decided to take a “comp day” and join the action with me on May Day. Here’s why in his own words:  “I’m striking because I refuse to be part of a chastened and fearful American workforce and I am fed up with injustice … and I knew it would make you happy.”

His statement, and the “why I strike” tumblr (http://whyistrike.tumblr.com), inspired me to write my own reasons for striking:

• Because war criminals go on book tours while their victims’ corpses rot, and the families grieve.
• Because women bear the brunt of economic injustice.
• Because 22-yr-olds leave college with heavy loads of debt and few job prospects.
• Because men and women (and yes, even children) roll themselves in blankets and sleep in doorways, night after night.
• Because my friend – a professor – got a police baton in the chest when she tried to protect UC students from violent cops at Occupy Cal.
• Because “there aren’t enough funds” for childcare or shelters, but there are always enough funds for the Pentagon and the increasingly militarized police forces.

• Because financial crooks hedge their funds and shield their income from taxes and play games with the global economy.
• Because poor people have to pay large fees to cash their small paychecks.
• Because women do so much emotional labor, mostly unpaid and unthanked.
• Because 22-yr-olds leave college with heavy loads of debt and few job prospects.
• Because my friend the professor got a police baton in the chest when she tried to protect UC students from violent cops.
• Because November 2’s General Strike in Oakland was one of the most free and joyous days of my life.
• Because December 12’s West Coast Port Shutdown was filled wtih solidarity and love. Because people are counting on me to show up and speak out with them.
• Because I know I’ll have a good time. Because I know we’ll make a difference. Because I want to.
• Because I am part of the 99%. Because I’m not waiting any longer for someone else to do something to “save” us. Because the 1% need to see us in action, and I am part of that.
• Because of Mary “Mother” Jones the widowed, childless, brilliant labor organizer. Because of Malallai Joya, the Afghan woman leader. Because of women everywhere who risk their lives to go on strike, to support their men on strike, to refuse sex to men in their own form of strikes that aren’t in history books (yet).
• Because of my son. Because of my young friends and colleagues. Because of children. Because of the grandchild I hope someday to hold in my arms.
• Because I’m sick of the way things are, and because I know we can make another way, many other ways forward.

Thousands of people are taking today off work, leaving early or at least posting a sign in their window or cubicle wall showing solidarity.  I was inspired to see a May Pole go up in Union Square today.

May Day started as a struggle for the 8-hour work day in Chicago in 1886. Many people have suffered and died over the past decade of economic injustice and wars. Let’s remember the words of labor organizer Mary “Mother” Jones, who lived in Chicago in 1886: “Pray for the dead, and work like hell for the living!”

Janet Weil is the national grassroots coordinator at CODEPINK Women for Peace (www.codepink.org), and is an activist with Occupy Oakland and Women Occupy (www.womenoccupy.org).  She lives in the Bay Area, CA and can be reached at info[at]codepink.org.

Although I plan to celebrate Mother’s Day with my own mother (hi, Mom!), I have to admit that my knowledge of the experience of motherhood is somewhat limited: I am not a mother. I have never been pregnant, and I have never participated in childrearing. While I like kids, I go back and forth about whether I will ever have children.

I also have some serious reservations about the ideology of gender essentialism: the assertion that all women are destined to be gentle, nurturing, and accommodating of others’ needs. There are many women who have participated, knowingly or unknowingly, in the oppression of other women—including mothers. Failure to acknowledge this reality amounts to ignoring many issues that are important to women, particularly women who have been marginalized by mainstream feminist movements.

Finally, I have to admit that I regard the Hallmark version of Mother’s Day with a great deal of contempt. As a feminist, I take issue with the incessant gender essentialism in mainstream depictions of mothers in commercials for jewelry, greeting cards, housewares, etc.

However, I respect the original intent of Mother’s Day: a feminist call to action for disarmament and an end to war. In her 1870 Mother’s Day Proclamation, Julia Ward Howe had the following message for American women:

Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.

These sentiments might not fit on a Hallmark card, but they certainly apply today. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen the plight of women, particularly mothers and their children, used to justify the inexcusable wars and occupations of Afghanistan, Iraq, and other countries. How telling that none of these warmongering justifications acknowledges that it is these same wars and occupations that have resulted in death and devastation for these mothers and children!

I may not agree with gender essentialism or generalizations of all women as peaceful, but I know that war hurts mothers in so many ways. Mothers have been killed in the US-led wars on Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere; so have their children. These wars have devastated mothers’ livelihoods and created enormous burdens for their children, and have led to a crisis in mothers’ access to food, clean water, health care, shelter, freedom from violence, and other basic human rights. Showing support on Mother’s Day (and every day) for mothers around the world by opposing war and militarism is an act of feminist solidarity.

I am not a mother, but I support the right of mothers, and all women, to be free from the devastation of war.

Refusing to pay taxes for war is as old as the first taxes levied for warfare.  Up until World War II, war tax resistance in the U.S. usually manifested itself among members of the historic peace churches — Quakers, Mennonites, and Brethren — and usually only during times of war. There have been cases of people refusing to pay taxes for war in almost every American war. In essence, war tax resistance is as American as apple pie.

The Military Industrial complex is bigger and more lethal than ever. The Federal budget for 2013 includes a breathtaking sum of current military (Dept. of Defense) expenditures totaling $673 billion! (This figure does not include Veterans benefits.)  Here are just a few of the deadly expenditures being made on your behalf by the US government:

• Billions to the corrupt Karzai Government in Afghanistan for the continuation of a war that fewer Americans support every day.
• Millions to unscrupulous companies like Blackwater, Halliburton, and Kellogg, Brown, and Root to occupy Iraq.
• Millions to funding of The School of the Americas where future militarists are taught torture and state of the art killing techniques.
• Millions to defense contractors like Lockheed Martin (who receives an average of $105 from each taxpayer) who make drones and other weapons of mass destruction.

It’s time for all good citizens to say NO to the misappropriation of our hard-earned dollars in order to slaughter innocent people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, just to name a few of the countries we are actively involved in militarily.  We are not helpless and we can take a stand.

Here are eleven suggestions for what you can do to create change by refusing to pay your taxes, donating or offsetting your taxes, or conducting local actions in your community.

1.  First, educate yourself on the statistics regarding military spending.  Then, start a letter writing campaign. Write a letter to your local paper urging others in your community to refuse to pay a part of your tax bill since it will be used for war.
2. Become a public signer to the War Tax Boycott by going to wartaxboycott.org
3. Visit the site for National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee and the War Resisters League to download free leaflets and distribute to people to raise awareness.
4. Go the local IRS office, post office, or federal building with a sign exercising your freedom of speech. Download and bring leaflets such as those available free on the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee site.  While at your action, have someone take your picture. Upload that photo to your Facebook page, blog, tweet or send to the local paper. Think VISUAL!
5. Donate money to local charities in the amount that you are withholding from the IRS. Target those organizations who are truly suffering from the cuts being made, such as a public school or library.
6. Don’t pay federal taxes at all!
7. Pay 50% only (the amount of our tax dollars that goes to war and the Pentagon or pay a small symbolic amount.)
8.  Pay an offset amount such as 10% of your annual federal tax bill to a peace organization.
9. Attend a rally such as the Global Day of Action Against Military Spending on April 17^th–the day taxes are due this year.
10. Occupy the IRS to support Cindy Sheehan, a Gold Star Mother and CODEPINK Member, and join her in “Oppose the U.S. Empire,” April 19, 10:30 am, U.S. Court, 501 I St.,  Sacramento, CA. Cindy Sheehan is a conscientious war tax resister and writes a fabulous blog on her adventures with the IRS and her stories about tax resistance.
11. If you’re feeling really bold, conduct an action at an IRS office. Make small cardboard coffins out of legal-sized storage cartons and paint the names of some of the 17 victims in the recent Afghanistan massacre onto the boxes. (The names are available on-line.) Paint a sign saying “Your Tax Dollars at Work” This type of action will be an extremely dramatic and a visual reminder to people that their tax dollars are paying for the brutal killing of innocent Afghan families, including children.

Be a part of a very important American tradition and refuse to pay taxes to kill people!