Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Will and Sally Go To Washington And Stop the War

By Will Chapple and Sally Newman

Hi dear everyone - today was our second day on the Hill hanging out with the senators. Will got here a couple nights ago and has been a great, and hardworking, and smart presence. As his new banner says, "Real Men Make Peace"!

We have a special place where you can catch Senators hustling by, and flag them down to talk to them. Senators are SO interesting. Did you know that that with a little training, you can identify them by posture and dress? And and...well, sex age and race, obviously. And did you know they have a hand-shaking reflex? Like a newborn baby will automatically grip a finger offered to them, in a life-preserving instinct, a senator will automatically shake your hand if you touch theirs. Neat.

Anyway, we don't want to give away all our special lobbying tips, but with some helpful guidance from Desiree, Will and Sally were able to catch and talk to a dozen plus senators. (at least Sununu, Burr, Hagel, Thune, Stabenon, Inhofe, Bond, Dorgin, DeMint, Nelson, Isakson and Lieberman). They were all varying degrees of rude, but we still got in some good eye contact and (very) brief conversations. Lieberman especially - on our first talk with him, he said he'd just gotten back from Iraq so we asked whether he ever left the Green Zone. We were met with sulky silence from the Senator and his five aides, and when we repeated the question one of them (not sure if it was an aide or Lieberman himself) laughed and snapped sarcastically, "Oh yeah! Waaaaay out of the Green Zone." Ouch. When the war supporters find leaving the Green Zone laughable, things ain't good.



Joe Lieberman: Disarmingly Cute. Alarmingly Militaristic.

When Lieberman came by a second time, Sally walked and talked with him for a few minutes. They spoke about the meaning of "success" in Iraq, which the Senator believes has to do with Iraqis governing themselves, and she spoke to him about how Iraqi legislators are so frustrated with overly aggressive and humiliating "security" enforcement by Americans that dozens of them walked out of Parliament last week. Then they talked about the effect of war on American veterans. (Sally: Six thousand Iraq veterans committed suicide in 2005. Lieberman: That's not true. Sally: CBS says it is). Anyway, when the aides started elbowing her and the Senator got tired - "OK, that's enough dialoguing!" she left him alone. Don't want to wear anyone out with facts. (sidenote: this was better than when Lieberman spoke at Sally's college a few years ago and she got bored and wandered off before he finished. Politicians are so much better one on one)

The rest of the day was senate hearings (sidenote: discussions in the Commerce committee on climate change are officially five or ten years outdated) and then evening discussions on tomorrow's Supreme Court habeas hearings and the administration's aggression against Iran (at Georgetown Law and George Washington University). Learning and lobbying, it's like the best Civics lesson EVAH.

Tomorrow - constituents breakfast with Baucus and Tester (Sally's from MT), more senate hearings, a Supreme Court vigil and fast, the Capitol Christmas Tree lighting, and then a potluck (and end-of-fast, for some of us at least).

19 comments:

caterliz said...

Excellent description of the experiences you took part in on the Hill Tuesday!

People all over the country/world are counting on our presence to make a difference and MAKE CERTAIN TO ONLY FUND OUR TROOPS HOME!

Funding War is Killing Our Troops and CREATING TREMENDOUS INSTABILITY EVERYDAY IN IRAQ!!

caterliz said...

Excellent description of the experiences you took part in on the Hill Tuesday!

People all over the country/world are counting on our presence to make a difference and MAKE CERTAIN TO ONLY FUND OUR TROOPS HOME!

Funding War is Killing Our Troops and CREATING TREMENDOUS INSTABILITY EVERYDAY IN IRAQ!!

caterliz said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Eileen Coles said...

Good for you getting in Lieberman's face! Rock on!

Anonymous said...

Lieberman beat you guys. Ned who?

Eileen Coles said...

Lieberman is owned. He's also a chickenhawk. Talks real tough from behind his desk when it's time to send real men and women to kill and die for his BS, but is afraid to meet for 5 minutes with one peaceful woman about his stance on Iran. He might actually have to look one of us in the eyes and it's not so easy to lie from up that close.

Hope he enjoyed having the rug pulled out from under him recently by the intelligence community. Guess his corporate masters put his mad dog of war back on the short choke chain.

Anonymous said...

Lieberman is a great man. He is standing up for what is right rather than what is popular. History will treat this man very kindly.

Anonymous said...

I wouldn't want to meet with you loons either!

Anonymous said...

You two are just being used! Half of the people in the D.C. house are banned from the hearings so they need new faces. You two are well intended idiots to affiliate with Code Pink. You could make a bigger difference volunteering your time for a hospital instead of wasting it on Code Pink.

Eileen Coles said...

Lieberman is a coward and a chickenhawk. Talks real tough in a suit and tie but never had the guts to put on the uniform and actually take any fire himself. History will remember him as a useless pile of lard who wished to contribute to the deaths of thousands of innocent people without having the balls to get directly involved himself.

Eileen Coles said...

Our two new CodePink sisters ARE volunteering time in a hospital. They're administering to a government that is sick beyond belief.

Anonymous said...

Oh, okay, that is the answer! I would have never thought of that. The difference is in a real hospital they could actually be helping someone. With Code Pink, they achieve zero except feeding their own egos by doing dumb stunts to get on CSPAN for 5 seconds.

Anonymous said...

SALLY WELCOME TO CODE PINK. PLEASE POST MORE PHOTOS OF YOURSELF UP CLOSE SO WE CAN SEE YOU

LaFajita said...

As to the Lieberbeast, well played, you two! It is a joy to follow the experiences of people who do the things that I have neither the wit, the talent, nor the courage to do myself. Salut!

Anonymous said...

I AGREE THEY SHOULD POST THEIR LESBIAN FANTASIES FOR US TO READ. I AM ANTIWAR ALSO AND I LIKE HEARING ABOUT THE LESBIAN FANTASIES

Anonymous said...

This article is from our brothers in NAMBLA who also oppose this war. Please support NAMBLA by visiting their website at www.nambla.com or send a letter to their San Francisco office.


In its March 2003 edition, the NAMBLA Bulletin published an editorial, which follows, criticizing America’s invasion of Iraq. Though circumstances have changed, our opinion about the wrongfulness of the war against Iraq has not.


It does not take extraordinary mental powers to predict that the current U.S. administration will engage in a war with Iraq regardless of world opinion or even logic and good sense. By the time this Bulletin finds its way into readers’ hands, the U.S. military may very well have already begun attacking. Miracles do happen, but aborting the administration’s hell-bent plans is about as likely as George W. Bush becoming a born again Buddhist. It is quite obvious that the administration’s arguments for attacking Iraq do not hang together. The illogical nature of the rationales presented has been expounded at great length in other media, and we will spare you the repetition.

The question certainly does not hang on whether Saddam Hussein is a good or bad guy. We will not insult readers’ intelligence by pointing out the many even worse dictators who have not been targeted or the ones current and past American administrations have hypocritically supported. The issue that troubles us is one of humanity. Experience tells us that not only will huge numbers of civilians be killed or maimed in an American invasion, but also that the after effects of war will be equally devastating.

Youngsters who were schooled during the height of the Cold War were taught the civics lesson that the end never justifies the means. This was to counter Communism’s stated hopes of building better societies regardless of the means employed. Yet this is exactly what the current administration is suggesting. Where in the Vietnam War troops were told that they had to destroy villages in order to save them, we are now hearing that we have to destroy a country in order to save it. Even if one were to accept the un-American notion that the ends do after all justify the means, the hubris exhibited by the proponents of war against Iraq is beyond comprehension. There is absolutely no indication that plans to restructure an extremely complex society such as Iraq will work and prevent the much greater misery that experience tells us will ensue.

NAMBLA has consistently spoken out against unwise use of the powers of the U.S. military, but the extent of our voice is limited. It is perhaps time that a child somewhere at the edge of some jingoistic parade yells out in a ringing voice, "The emperor has no heart."

Anonymous said...

Code Pink is killing our troops. The attended and endorsed the WTI pep rally for the enemy.

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