FOOT ON WAR PEDDLE

• I am sick at heart about what Israel (with full US backing) is doing to the people in Gaza.  It is more than cruel and shameful beyond imagination.  The souls of Israel and the USA are showing to be hollow.  There have been many determined protests across this nation in support of the Palestinians.  Corporate dominated media though covers all the bases and ensures that the whores in Washington remain submissive and supine.  None of us are doing enough to help.  

• Ukraine is another great travesty, so well scripted that Kiev and Tel Aviv march in lockstep.  NATO's Gladio must be working overtime on this one. The Kiev regime is collapsing and the US will take full control and turn it into an excuse to expand NATO operations there.

• Russia and China (and possibly BRICS) stand in the way of full western corporate control.  That is what this is all about - and of course the world's declining resources.  

• On Friday I was up early to drive (along with Maine activist Jason Rawn) the route of our next peace walk through Maine which will happen on October 11-20.  Maine Veterans for Peace is sponsoring the walk which will take us from Rangeley, in the west-central part of the state, to North Berwick in the southern leg of Maine near the New Hampshire border.  We will likely call it the Maine Walk for Peace and a Sustainable Future. The Nipponzan Myohoji Buddhist order has been invited to lead the walk.

• Rangeley is one candidate in the bidding war to host a ground-based "missile defense" interceptor site that would help the Pentagon take aim at Russia.  Lockheed Martin and its 'sub-contracting' partners in crime are working hard on the congressional $$$$$$ angle.  

• Located in Saco, Maine is General Dynamics Ordnance which last year got a $225 million contract to build 50-caliber gun barrel kits. In North Berwick is Pratt & Whitney (who during WWII made aircraft engines for the US and Hitler), with their $2 billion contract in hand, to build F-35 Joint Strike Fighter engines.  Maine's economy is increasingly becoming militarized.  We need to set in motion more public discussion about endless war spending verses a real future for the coming generations.  Now is the moment to act. 
• The peace walk route is about 165 miles and will also pass through Rangeley, Phillips, Farmington, Livermore Falls, Lewiston, Gray, Portland, Saco and North Berwick.  We will have lots of chances to engage the public on these key issues.  We either move away from the current endless cycle of resource wars or we will all be gone.  Walking gives us a simple and still relatively free way to reach our fellow citizens.  It also allows us deep connection with nature as we walk on the land and experience the daily cycles of life.  The drive on Friday to the mountains and lakes of Rangeley was inspiring.  The beauty is staggering and the human pace of life was calm.  By the time we got to Portland, and the summer beach mecca of Maine to the south, the traffic was intense as that region is swarmed with tourists who are escaping the heat of more southern locations.  In those moments I longed to be back up in Rangeley and reminded myself that some time off in a more peaceful setting is in order before the summer is gone.  I've yet to go swimming once this summer and I hope to change that in the coming days.

• Last night as MB, Karen and I walked through Bath we were talking about all the current madness.  I said, "Now we know how it felt to live in Nazi Germany" in the early days when being a "good German" meant keeping your mouth shut and your foot on the war preparation peddle.  Just as German peace forces found then, it is hard to move a public that is hell bent on fitting in and staying on the good side of those with power.