Is it true, as Wouk wrote, that "the most insignificant writer can serve peace . . .?"

[bigtree]

. . . where the most powerful tribunals can do nothing?"

Julien Benda, as quoted by Herman Wouk in 'The Winds of War', 1971:

"Peace, if it ever exists, will not be based on the fear of war, but on the love of peace. It will not be the abstaining from an act, but the coming of a state of mind. In this sense the most insignificant writer can serve peace, where the most powerful tribunals can do nothing."


hope so . . .

I'm primarily a DU writer with an outlet for my angst at OpEd News. I'll keep it up until I tire of it all. My main supports are my wife and the kind folks here. I've got a quick trigger and the ability to instantly get my essay to google up next to the story of the day. I use these abilities to advocate against Bush's militarism, in Iraq and elsewhere. I hope I'm serving something more than myself. It is, amazingly, a mostly vain pursuit for me. I almost never feel like I make a direct difference, but I'm still convincing myself that, if I get up every day and do what I do best in defense of what I believe, I'll be serving peace right up alongside those powerful tribunals. That's what I believe about all of us 'insignificant writers."


my article archives at OpEdNews.com: http://www.opednews.com/author/author176.html

107 Articles

Saturday, December 23, 2006
Bucking Up Our Soldiers for the Ideological Occupation
As Bush thanks the troops this weekend, at Walter Reed and in his radio address, for enduring his crusades, his inner ego is busy crafting a cover story to allow him to slip more troops into Iraq. He'll tell us all, in a little while, how he and his handpicked generals know better than the American people about what our nation's priorities should be in Iraq and in the Mideast.

Wednesday, December 20, 2006
More Soldiers For Bush's 'Ideological War'
Bush has committed our nation to his "long war" which he wants future presidents to adopt; his illegitimate war child from his bloody binge abroad. Now, he wants us to sponsor even more by increasing the size of the military.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006
New Pimp for the Bush Occupations
Out with the old Defense chief, in with the new, and, everything is as it was.

Friday, December 15, 2006
Democrats Determined to Take the Lead Managing Mideast Unrest
- It makes perfect sense that members of the new Democratic majority are striking out on their own in an effort to influence our nation's foreign policy

Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Sadr and his countryfolk have to live in Iraq, not Bush . . .
The arrogance of Bush using his influence to meddle in Iraq's politics while he continues his military occupation is stunning.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Bush Convinced He Knows Better Than Americans On Iraq
Bush wants us to know that he's listening to his defective "government", rather than listening to the Americans who've allowed him to serve.

Sunday, December 10, 2006
Iraqi Fledglings Still Refusing To Fly Solo
The Iraqi regime is still, in fact, an adolescent with an insatiable appetite for American lives to feed its manufactured existence.

Saturday, December 9, 2006
Bush Still Looking For A 'Way Forward' In The Face Of His Iraq Failure
- Bush may have received the ISG report with the politeness of a condemned man before his executioners, but he really has no intention at all in voluntarily changing course in Iraq.

Thursday, December 7, 2006
America is the Author of the Civil War in Iraq
The Iraq Study Group and others advocating for more time to arm and train more Iraqis will only succeed in giving Bush more rope to continue his occupation unabated.

Wednesday, December 6, 2006
Mr. Gates' War
- Robert Gates has come to inherit, not only Rumsfeld's position as the point man for the military contribution to Bush's "war on terror," he's also come to inherit Rumsfeld's occupation of Iraq.

Tuesday, December 5, 2006
Best Way Forward In Iraq
- I can't imagine why these administration-encouraged commissions have taken all these months just to come up with a different way for America to continue to travel the path Bush has taken us down in Iraq. We're on the wrong road.

Thursday, November 30, 2006
Hunkering Down In Iraq
-- After months of escalating the occupation of Baghdad and defending the center of Bush's junta as his last stand in Iraq, Bush is set to send even more soldiers there to reinforce the green-zone of defense around the crumbled Maliki regime.

Thursday, November 30, 2006
Bush Needs To Come On Home
-- If Iraqis are going to fight, they can do that very well without our troops in the middle. That's the message he should have delivered to Maliki. That's what Americans told him they wanted him to do. He's not listening to us. He needs to come on home.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Battling Ideologies In Iraq
- Bush rolled the same loaded dice Tuesday that he used to divert our soldiers from the pursuit in Afghanistan of the suspected orchestrators of the 9-11 attacks to fight and die in Iraq as part of the"ideological struggle" he imagines between his regime and "enemies" and "terrorists" everywhere.

Sunday, November 26, 2006
Outsiders In Iraq
-Bush is the ultimate outsider in Iraq, represented there amidst the violence and unrest by the resources and humanity of our nation's defenses while he skirts around the country and the world; safe from suffering the reprisals and recriminations waged against our troops by the very folks he claims to be liberating.

Saturday, November 25, 2006
With Us Or Against Us In Iraq
Maliki has almost nothing to gain by continuing to allow Bush to wage his 'terror war' in Iraq. He'll have to decide whether he's truly a leader of his country and countryfolk, or, if he's a mere tool of Bush's imperialism.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Bush's Duck And Cover Tour
- Instead of facing our new Democratic majority like an adult, Bush is ducking around the world looking for a friend.

Monday, November 20, 2006
Mindless Escalation In Iraq
It looks like the Bush administration is planning on gearing up to escalate our nation's involvement in Iraq

Sunday, November 19, 2006
Earworms, Decent Intervals, and Quagmires
- Bush's earworm, Kissinger, slithered out and effectively unraveled the presidential lame-duck loser's plans for a military victory in Iraq by declaring that we've lost.

Friday, November 17, 2006
Putting a Signing Statement on the Election Results
Bush wants to attach one of his lame-duck signing statements to the results of the election by insisting it was a mandate for him to draw up a plan to stay the course in Iraq.

Friday, November 10, 2006
Governing Without Parental Supervision
Daddy Bush and his concierge, James Baker, have taken Junior back under their wing and have apparently convinced the adult adolescent to stop playing with the nations resources and defenses, and to put the government back together again.

Thursday, November 9, 2006
New Brooms
- Voters intend for those legislators they just sent to Congress to act against Bush's abuses where the republican surrogates refused; and to act in an intensity which matches their own frustration and anger. If they wanted lip service and hand-holding they would have kept to the status quo.

Monday, November 6, 2006
The Power of Our Participation
- Our vote is the instrument of our collective conscience and our warrant to the realization of our freedom, our liberty, and our well-being. It is a beginning point for activism and action, not an end.


more at opednews.com: http://www.opednews.com/author/author176.html


http://journals.democraticunderground.com/bigtree

[WilliamPitt]

1. I sure hope so n/t

[bigtree]

2. . . . says one of our most significant writers

http://www.amazon.com/House-Ill-Repute-Reflections-Reputation/dp/0977825329/sr=8-5/qid=1166632041/ref=sr_1_5/105-2170876-5539665?ie=UTF8&s=books

[shadowknows69]

6. Me too Pitt

as a wannabe insignificant writer.

[KoKo]

3. Those who write and those who scribble are hoping that what Wouk said

was true. The very act of responding to what each other writes or scribbles has pushed the internet to the forefront in the movement for peace.

I think whatever we can do gets out there and given the state of the Corporate Controlled Mainstream Media we had to go to the "Undergound" and make it work for our ideas.

Unlike the old days of getting together in clandestine places and passing notes to one another ....this is what we have.

I pray that it works before we are "shut down" or "censored" out of existence. Until then...bloggers and writers like you and scribblers like me try to keep passing the TRUTH around hoping that whever it falls it falls like a seed and is carried by the wind or takes root and blooms.

Thanks for the links to your articles. Keep posting them here...so we can comment and pass along those seeds.

:-)'s and hopes for a better future for peace for us all.

koko

[BeFree]

4. The pen is mightier...

There is no doubt that words have effect. And when coupled with a real and honest peace behind those words, words can change the world.

Never give up.

[bigtree]

5. we are mighty warriors for peace

who long for a time when we can put away our pens