More troops means escalation and more war. And there is no good war. What can the peace movement do to stop this? Comment away!

Gayle sent along the text. Here’s a piece of it….

[...] CODEPINK has rescued the color pink from the Barbie aisle, from its stereotypical connotations of girlishness, and turned it into something fierce and alive. When we don our pink, we are reclaiming the color as a source of female power.

The language we use during our meetings and conference calls is also deeply informed by our experiences as women and mothers. When we begin a new project, we ask who wants to “mother” it along. We support and encourage one another the way all good mothers should, in a spirit of cooperation and creativity and mutual inspiration and respect. And we hope that our pink presence reminds lawmakers of the strength and influence of women, of mothers. “In the hindbrain of anyone who listens to us, we’re momma,” said Eileen Coles, 45 of New York, who came to DC to protest the fifth anniversary of the war. “Somewhere in their head they’re hearing their mother say, ‘You’re doing wrong. You’re being bad. Cut it out.’ We are creators of life, and we have that power.”

CODEPINK has reclaimed the original intention of Mother’s Day, envisioned by Julia Ward Howe in 1870 as a time for all the mothers who lost their sons in the Civil War to protest the senseless violence. Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamation begins:

Arise then…women of this day!

Arise, all women who have hearts!

And later goes on to say

As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil

At the summons of war,

Let women now leave all that may be left of home

For a great an earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.

Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means

Whereby the great human family can live in peace…

CODEPINK resurrects this proclamation every May, bringing mothers and children together for peace picnics and parades around the country, but we also believe every day is Mother’s Day; every day is an opportunity for women to rise up and gather and take counsel as we work together toward peace—and not always solemnly. CODEPINK believes that joy and humor and play are an important part of the process. If we want to create a more hopeful future, we need to model that hope and peace within ourselves and between one another. Just as mothers learn that it’s good to offer a Yes to our children after we tell them No, when we create Women Say NO to War actions, we also are sure to say Yes to peace, Yes to justice, Yes to a more sustainable future.

While we’re best known for our colorful disruptions, whether we’re confronting war mongers in the halls of Congress (sometimes even camping out in front of their houses), attempting to make citizens arrests (as one CODEPINKer did at a recent Karl Rove event) or staging “Make Out Not War” kiss-ins in front of military recruiting stations, much of CODEPINK’s most powerful work is of a more quiet nature.

We have brought women’s peace delegations to Iraq and Iran and Afghanistan to gather the stories of women from those countries, voices that are not often enough heard in dialogues about war. In 2006, we brought seven Iraqi women, mostly mothers, to the US and organized a speaking tour so they could share, first hand, their own stories of how the occupation in Iraq has affected their lives and devastated their families.

Our national campaign, Walk in Their Shoes, was inspired by the actions of CODEPINK New York, who set over one hundred pairs of children’s shoes, each standing for a particular Iraqi child killed during the current war, in front of Hillary Clinton’s Manhattan office. The powerful visual display—which of course represents only a tiny percentage of actual civilian deaths in Iraq—forced passers-by to confront the true human cost of war.

Since then, we have staged Walk in Their Shoes actions throughout the country. Passers-by are often moved to donate hundreds of pairs of shoes, to label each pair with the name and age of a woman or child killed in Iraq, to bear witness to the unspeakable pain this war has unleashed on the Iraqi people.

It is easy for politicians and media outlets to portray Iraqi casualties as numbers on a page, as faceless, nameless “collateral damage,” far removed from any real pain. But when you see a worn pair of shoes, you can’t help but think of the feet that once pulsed inside. The body connected to those feet. The heart and mind and voice connected to that body. The person’s whole rich and complicated life, now silenced. You wonder about the fear they must have felt when the bombs started to fall. You wonder if they tried to outrun the destruction. You wonder about the pain that ripped through them when their flesh was pierced by shrapnel, when the walls began to fall. You wonder about the unbearable grief the surviving family members grapple with still. You wonder how we ever could have started such a tragic and unnecessary war.

In our effort to stop the next war now, we have also asked CODEPINK members to download photos of Iranian children and wear them as pendants with the message “Don’t Bomb Iran.” We want these images to remind our friends and neighbors and lawmakers of the humanity of the Iranian people. When we see the beautiful faces of these children, how could we ever come to terms with them as potential collateral damage? How could we ever risk harming such precious young lives?

CODEPINK works hard to keep the human cost of war visible; we can’t give our elected officials the luxury of looking away, of pretending that we are waging a humane and compassionate war.

We are especially proud of the work we’ve done with Iraqi refugees, raising tens of thousands of dollars to help women and children who had been displaced by violence in their country. Medea Benjamin traveled to Jordan and Syria this year so she could witness firsthand the important and inspiring work being done by our partnering organization, the Collateral Repair Project [....]

CODEPINK is committed to continuing to work for peace and justice for women both in our own communities and around the world, from New Orleans to Pakistan, often partnering with other peace and justice groups to amplify all of our voices [...]

It is so inspiring to be part of this conference, to see how mothers around the world are working to combat war and wage peace. We are all pink under our skin. May we continue to reclaim that color, and use our voices and our visions together to create a more peaceful, joyful future for all of our children.

Wowowow.com, the daily salon site started by Whoopi Goldberg, Liz Smith, Lesley Stahl and more leading journalists and pundits, polled readers two weeks ago of the women changing the world most. And Medea, a CODEPINK cofounder, ranks in the top four with Oprah, Melinda Gates and Hillary Clinton! Holy frejoles!

Anyone who’s worked with her knows it’s true. (Not sure who she is? Watch this video of her and cofounder Jodie Evans disrupting Sarah Palin’s speech at the RNC in September here, check out this photo of her taking the stage to demand moratoriums on foreclosures at a mortgage bankers conference here, and read one her column on policy toward Afghanistan on Huffington Post here, to start.) Medea has moved mountains.

Imagine if Medea and Angelina joined together — they’d single-handedly solve the world’s crises. And adopt lots of babies.

Although much smaller in number, we were drawing a great deal of attention from passers-by and news media.  In bright pink and with signs in hand, several of us flashed peace signs at the traffic and at the group standing on the other side of the street.  Two of us, dressed as McCain and Bush – bride and groom, kissed as the crowd fell silent.   In tow was a little baby carriage with a baby Palin doll and a sign that read “Bush-McCain Love Child”.

After a few minutes of peaceful protest, an elderly man crossed over to the median.  Wearing a red white and blue shirt in the design of a Texas flag and carrying a small U.S. flag, he stepped in front of me, trying to cover up my message.  He turned and looked at me in my McCain bridal outfit.  Trying to keep things cordial, I said “Hi, how are you?”  He responded “I’m better than you.”  After the Palin fans left and the protest dwindled, that simple statement kept floating back into my head. 

“I’m better than you.”  I started thinking about the true impact of that single statement.    If I’m better than you, then my race is better than yours, my country is better than yours, my religion is better than yours.  If I’m better than you, then I deserve to live and maybe you don’t.  If I’m better than you, I can use up all of the resources and save nothing for future generations.  If I’m better than you, then global warming isn’t a problem – I’ll be dead before its impact is felt.  If I’m better than you, then it’s okay for my country to invade yours.  If I’m better than you, then I deserve all of the wealth and you deserve to remain in poverty.  If I’m better than you, then my child deserves to be educated, housed and fed, but yours does not.  If I’m better than you, then peace isn’t necessary as long as I remain unscathed. 

So our mission is clear — to remind each other that no one person is better than another. 

Some media made their way outside the presidential debate at Hofstra University in NY and couldn’t miss us in the crowd of demonstrators. Essence mag included us in its montage on the debate here,  Newsday mentioned us here , a blogger from Huffington Post only recognized our group by name out of all the other groups here (“It was especially fun to walk through the Code Pink crowd and the folks with the creatively grotesque and offensive t-shirts to buy a sandwich”). I enjoyed this story in the Cornell college newspaper here with a photo of us and an interview with Kelly Jacobs: “My 18-year old son just got his drivers’ license,” she said. “I told him that voting is like driving, D to go forward, R to go back.”

Some bailout action again in the press….this photo of Liz and others hassling Lehman Brothers CEO Fuld led a story in the Times Friday about further investigations of Lehman Brothers here. And a Nadar rally at Wall Street Thursday, Lynn Rooks of D.C. was interviewed on Al Jazeera here!

And the Jocelyne Voltaire story!! CNN did a great piece on it (thanks to Linda M. for uploading the clip to YouTube here)  and it made the CBS evening news. Democracy Now! really hit the nail on the head by highlighting CODEPINK’s work to help Jocelyne here.

And, finally, Medea disrupts a mortgage conference in San Francisco. The local ABC affiliate posted a photo and story on its site here. Woo!

WHAT: Pro-peace, pro-diplomacy, pro-America rally outside final presidential candidate debate
WHEN: 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., Weds. Oct. 15
WHERE: Corner of Hempstead Turnpike and Uniondale Ave, Hempstead, NY
*Interviews available before event

HEMPSTEAD, NY — Forget talking points, scripted questions and winks. At today’s presidential debate at Hofstra University, the best, grittiest action will be outside.
Veterans, teachers, labor workers and other Americans with demands for the candidates — on ending the war and investing in health care and education — will gather there with banners, signs and chants to send the message to both Sen. Barack Obama and John McCain that they want a peace president!  They must stand for diplomacy and avoid war with Afghanistan, Pakistan or Iran — after spending $560 billion and losing 4,000 American lives on an unjust war in Iraq, we cannot afford another, especially in the midst of a catastrophic financial crisis.
To get the rally started, CODEPINK Women for Peace, the prominent peace activist group, Iraq Veterans Against War, United for Peace and Justice and others will meet at 4:30 p.m. at Hempstead Turnpike and Uniondale Ave. and walk west toward the university. They will continue the rally until 6:30 p.m.
The women and other activists will also gather Thursday, Oct. 16, outside the Waldorf-Astoria at 51st. St. and Park Ave. where Obama and McCain will be speaking at the Al Smith Dinner, a fundraiser for the Catholic Charities.
For more information, please call Jean Stevens at 508-769-2138.

CODEPINK, founded in 2002, is a women-initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement working to end the war in Iraq, stop new wars, and redirect our resources into health care, education and other life-affirming activities. We reject the Bush administration’s fear-based politics that justify violence, and instead call for policies based on compassion, kindness and a commitment to international law. With an emphasis on joy and humor, CODEPINK women and men seek to activate, amplify and inspire a community of peacemakers through creative campaigns and a commitment to non-violence. Codepinkalert.org.