With colossal effort, there is still time for the American people to force our government to change, or to at least change its policies. But the American electorate is the only thing left in the world that has the power to stop the government of the United States of America from doing whatever it damn well pleases. It may be impossible, I don't know, but those of us who appear to see where Iraq is taking us have a moral responsibility to work to raise the consciousness of the American people about the pervasive changes that are beginning to occur in our society, and that are self-generated.

All of us who care about this need to start working very hard in our own communities to educate people, and get them to take political action. I am not a good organizer or initiater of collective action. But I, for one, will be standing up in church to speak about this issue, will engage my co-workers in discussion to get them more involved, will talk to my extended family, etc. These are simple things that we can all do. We can copy some of the well-reasoned discussions from people like Don Firth (see about any of the threads on national policy) and pass it out or mail it to other people. A print copy is more likely to be carefully read than an e-mail. And taking the time and expense to mail it conveys how important you hold it to be.

Hope I don't sound preachy. I'm justing getting fired up, and writing it out helps make the work begin to seem tangible and doable.

Janie