You may recall how right after Hurricane Katrina struck the gulf coast, I was in New York, spending thousands of dollars on shoes. Ferragamos to be precise. It’s true –people were drowning, people were suffering and losing their homes and I was out shopping. Remember after 9-11 when my boss told us to be patriotic and go shopping? Well, I truly believed that a little retail therapy in a time of stress was a good thing for the economy and for the soul.
But a funny thing happened to me on my way to Jimmy Choo’s. I stumbled upon a bunch of old shoes in front of Hillary Clinton’s office on Third Avenue. I wondered if it was some kind of tag sale. But as I looked closer, I saw that each pair of shoes instead of having a price tag was labeled with the name and age of an Iraqi child.
A woman dressed all in fuchsia, with a pink statue of liberty crown on her head, explained that each pair of shoes represented a child who had been killed in Iraq. It was a CODEPINK: Women for Peace demonstration. I was told, it was part of a campaign called “Walk in Their Shoes.”
In that moment I had what my boss might call a conversion experience.
Suddenly it hit me. Between my high-powered job, my shoe shopping and my piano playing, I had never stopped to think about all the dead children in Iraq. I went to my hotel room, gathered up my shoes and ran back to Hillary’s office to donate them to the campaign.
So I’m writing to you now, a new woman, asking you to join me. Vote for peace candidates. Sign the Give Peace a Vote pledge. Organize a Walk in Their Shoes action in your community. Donate money to the campaign.
Let’s kick the heels out of office and fill their shoes with leaders who will bring our soldiers home!
Yours in sole and soul,
Condi Rice
P.S. Alright, so Condi didn’t actually have a pink conversion or write this letter, but if you want to see the White House turning pink, please help. We have over 70,000 signers of the peace pledge! Won’t you help us get to 100,000 by November 7 by signing and getting 5 friends to sign on?
Give Peace A Vote is featured on The Peace Team Site adding thousands of new pledges this week. The Peace Team is a group of nearly 50 candidates, who have taken our Peace Pledge. Many have produced some very hard-hitting TV spots directly confronting the Bush administration on the lies they used to invade Iraq. These Lie/Die ads are running right now. To see some of them playing as flash streams or to learn more about the Peace Team go to http://www.peaceteam.net.
Thank you, Janet
CodePink
Along with the deaththreats I receive via CodePink email… today I just received this.
Letter to the Oregonian published Oct. 27:
My father was a native Oregonian and served in combat in World War II. I am a native Oregonian and a veteran of the Vietnam “conflict.” In fact, I was a U.S. Army combat sniper who, like my father, saw my share of death and injuries on both sides.
I now have two sons receiving recruitment fliers from different branches of the military. While I love my country as much as the next person, I would encourage my sons to do what I didn’t do in the 1960s: refuse to go and kill innocent people in other countries in a misguided war just because your leaders tell you to.
George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney — how many Bronze Stars do you have between you? I have four, and I have four children. You can have the medals back, Mr. Bush, but you can’t have my children.
RON ALLEN, Northwest Portland
War solves nothing. War is murder. War is rape.
But War is profitable.
war is “patriotic”… which says much.. or less.. for our society.
((((SuperSoling)))))))
It’s sad that the word ‘patriotic’ has been taken away from me by this administration–patriotic now seems to mean that you have to be goosestepping to what this administration defines as patriotism-their sick warmongering, fearmongering and cowing people(well most people including all our sheep in Congress)into being almost afraid to speak out against them ..for the fear of being labeled ‘unpatriotic’.
So to bush I’d say-get your damn dirty stinking hands off my ‘patriotism’ you smirking chimp…and he if wants to see real patriotism he doesn’t have too look any further than Code Pink and you Janet…..
Patriotism is the new fascism. Sad.
This is no way endorses Hillary…. because I think she’s nothing but a WarMonger in Dems Designer clothing.
Birddog Hillary Diary
follow up diary
Hilary is most definately a warmonger and seems insane on the subject of Israel(and Iran). I just read some little interview she gave a group of Jewish people…she was asked about Palestine and she actually said that we shouldn’t have let them have their ‘democratic elections’…because…..we should only support ‘free’ elections when we know the outcome is going to be favorable to the US and Israel…she’s really gone round the bend as far as I’m concened ..add that to her wanting Kerry to apologize so she could look ‘patriotic’ I guess and she only keeps proving how much she has become not just centrist but rightist. She also said she still didn’t regret her ‘war’ vote for Iraq..
Thanks Chocolate. Hillary is SO not the answer.
I wonder how we, the nation, got to calling them “leaders”… they aren’t supposed to be our leaders… but our
REPRESENTATIVES.
🙂
Not to nitpik because I am glad you brought this here sweetie but should it not be in block quotes as someone else wrote it? I rcvd in email this morning too.
Thanks so much Janet for all you do! You are a true role model. Love you!
Hello Leezy 🙂
Chalk it up to trying to get lunch out too 🙂
Actually I’m allowed to blog codepink action alerts 🙂
So it’s ooookay.
Whew. I thought I was going to have to re-think my whole image of you because I just couldn’t imagine you having the patience to try to walk in Jimmy Choo’s. I know I wouldn’t.
Someone organized this on the sidewalk in front of Bush stadium before the World Series and it was very effective. It wasn’t immediately clear what was going on — just shoes with tags on them lined along a curb. Most people thought that they were for sale and thought that was kind of weird because they were obviously used — so they walked over to look. Once they started reading the tags it dawned on people what they were seeing. I think it touched a lot of people and made them think.
They had a wannabe marine type stop and jump out of his car and scream at the woman doing Eyes Wide Open… the boots of our fallen soldiers… and he was screaming that he saw a picture of an “Aye-Rab” … when actually it was a photo of an American soldier lost. Someone with skin other than redneck white is suspect.
yes some of the stuff isn’t fully put out there with a whole lot of thought or “marketing skills”… some CodePinkers are very very new. But it’s always put out there with a full heart. 🙂
Kinda like some loner woman just daily putting up Bring them Home Now post cards at the Post office. New news, no marketing… but done with hope. 😀
PS to the Whew. 🙂 and to further explain the diary on it. This goes hand in hand with the Peace Pledge Campaign I’ve been involved in – so reason I diarized this particular CP Action Alert.
I haven’t seen you in a while to tell you that a member of code pink did a great job disrupting a speech that Bush gave here in St. Louis last month. link
You probably already knew about it, but when I heard on the news that she was with code pink I thought I should remember to tell you.
I thought I would post a link to the local group here that do something very similar with American troops in mind. I haven’t been involved with them for a while now because of my own stuff. They’re North Fork People of Conscience You can see pictures at their blog about the Faces of the Fallen display they do. I can tell you that it’s very powerful. I took my family to see it and listen to some speakers here last year. I was invited to speak but my knees got to knockin so I bailed. I’m a better listener :o) The kids stopped dead in their tracks when they saw all the hundreds of faces, with names, home towns. The war was never forefront in their minds until they saw the faces. I have pictures of them, especially my youngest, Allie, standing, looking down with a flower for a soldier. The look of saddness on her face….she was confronted with a disgusting reality of the world. I held it together until a soldier I didn’t see in the back of the room stood up and played Taps. There was a crushing grief, along with guilt. My kids pulled in close to me, worried and asked if I was alright. Little loves. I reassured them that I was, but this wasn’t alright, and it made me sad. We all understood each other a little better after that day.
Well now Super, there you go again, making me cry in my office. I sooooooooooooo want this election to change the direction the regime has taken us into. I know I am probably only dreaming and it will take a very long time to get back what we lost if ever. That is what makes me so sad(besides all the needless deaths).
I want the election to change things too Leezy. And I’ll do the right thing with my vote. But the truth is the war won’t end miraculously if the democrats get control. And that’s not their fault. It’s reality. More will die. More little girls will leave behind their shoes and stolen dreams. There’s a long road ahead. And longer road to go down to healing the damage we’ve done.
Peace
Exactly what I was so trying to say. I too have a very heavy heart this year when it comes to voting for dems. Busby feels the way I do on a lot of the issues, is antiwar and prochoice so that vote was easy. I am just sick to death of both sides never addressing our real concerns and only attacking each other. God, I hate it!1 No, the war won’t magically end. It will be years and years if ever we can make up for what the Bush regime has done over there. I just hope for our children and grandchildren we can hang on to the hope for a better day. They deserve so much better than what the Fascists in the White House are shoveling up. ((((Super)))).
ps I still hope we will meet one day in person!
We will meet one day.
So let it be written, so let it be done :o)
There’s talk of another meetup here early next year so start saving my friend!
I signed the Give Peace a Vote pledge. 🙂
One of the last boxes to fill:
“Peacemaker (the person who forwarded this page to you)”
I wonder if they will know who Damnit Janet is?
lol
Thank you for pledging! 🙂
some will know 🙂