Dear Sharra, Like many of you, I've been watching closely over the last couple of days as the United States and Iran have flirted with the possibility of war. I'm including here my blogs from yesterday and today, to fill you in on any details you might have missed. As of this writing, what is most obvious is the recklessness with which too many of our leaders treat the reality of war. Our emotional and psychological connection to the seriousness of the topic has been lost among too many, intelligent people speaking about the situation in which we find ourselves in almost sophomoric terms. I applaud Speaker Pelosi's efforts to limit the presidents power to take military action against Iran, as such power should have been deemed unconstitutional to begin with. The outsized authority given to presidents by the National Defense Authorization Act after 9/11 was a mistake, and it should end immediately. Hostilities between the United States and Iran are not currently focused on the military battlefield, but they are still there. And they are still dangerous. Let us pray for peace and act for peace. Please familiarize yourself with the basic concepts of my plan to establish a Department of Peace, and spread the word. Waging peace must become a principle on which we stand. Everything that is precious is at stake. Marianne 
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* * * * Blog Post * * * * Words From Marianne : The President's Speech
Date: January 8, 2020 The president just gave his speech to the nation, which unfortunately was not the statement of de-escalation that many of us had hoped for. Rather, he declared there will be increased sanctions on Iran. Those sanctions had already gotten tougher (his policy of "maximum pressure") since we withdrew from the Iran Nuclear Deal. And be very clear: sanctions are a form of economic violence. It is the people, not the government, that suffers most from them. Sanctions conceivably have a place in foreign policy at times, but they can be draconian (our sanctions on Venezuela were, as well). It means people cannot get the medicine they need, their basic needs met, their children provided for. The president's speech was threatening in other ways as well, seeming to take the toughest stance possible short of military action. The president did not go over the cliff, but neither did he step away from it.   
* * * * Blog Post * * * * Words From Marianne : On This Fateful Night
Date: January 7, 2020 After the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, President Trump warned Iran not to retaliate. He said that if Iran sought to retaliate for the killing—if they attacked any American target—then he would strike back "quickly and fully…and perhaps in a disproportionate manner." It should not come as a surprise to anyone that Iran ignored the president's threat. In fact, Soleimani's successor has said that his main goal now is to get Americans to leave the region. And, tonight they struck. News reports now say 12 Iranian cruise missiles have hit US military targets in Iraq, in what was referred to by Iran as "hard revenge" for Soleimani's assassination. The attacks came with their own warning, this time from Iran to the U.S., that we should not retaliate. Iran has in essence said the following to the U.S.: "Do you want to stop it right here? We can do that. But if you don't—if you dare to retaliate to what we just did—then we will hit Dubai, we will hit Israel, we will be battle ready." That's a really big "Whoah." As of this writing, we don't know what the United States will do. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and several military leaders were at the White House tonight. The president tweeted in the last several minutes that "All is well." Several commentators have noted it would be very difficult to experience a ballistic missile attack and say that all is well. There are as yet no public reports regarding American casualties from the Iranian attack; presumably the administration is waiting for that report before making any final conclusion regarding an American response. On a related note, the Iraqi Parliament had voted this week for all American troops to leave the country. The Defense Department had written a letter confirming our departure, but the State Department then called the letter "a mistake." If you get the feeling that things are not exactly in perfect order over there, you would be right. That's it for now. I will write more as the news unfolds. Let's pray for peace....
* * * * Blog Post * * * * Words From Marianne : Love versus Fear
Date: January 7, 2020 Events in the world are moving very quickly, with the most dramatically disturbing events becoming just another day's news. From gargantuan fires in Australia, to the United States and Iran taunting each other with menacing threats, our normal capacity for calm and reason are being put to the test. People aren't fighting or fleeing the stress, so much as almost frozen in fear. Nothing is quite as it was, yet we don't quite have the language for what it is now. We don't have the language for what's happening because what's happening is beyond the scope of what we've always thought possible. Huge swaths of the Amazon and Australia aren't supposed to be ablaze. Iran isn't supposed to be enriching uranium and directly threatening the lives of Americans. The American president isn't supposed to be sabre rattling the Middle East. We're going about our daily lives as though things are normal, but in our hearts, we know they're not. Democrats need to see the 2020 election in the light of all this. Humanity is standing at a fork in the road, and the decision to be made isn't going to be between Medicare or a public option, higher taxes or lower ones. The decision to be made is between the world as we have known it, or something entirely different. We can get more insight now from Carl Jung than from Karl Rove. Psychological understanding is more needed now than traditional political strategy. For President Trump doesn't deal on the level of the political, so much as he deals on the level of the elemental. The political effects of his actions are almost incidental. Where he's coming from, and what he elicits in others, is not on the level of the intellectual but on the level of the deeply emotional. He's angry at the world and he's going to show it. What makes this so dangerous is that millions of other people are angry too, and in his behavior, they find a perverse kind of comfort. The Democrats missed what was going on beneath the water line in 2016, oblivious to the rage that was broiling beneath the surface of the political landscape. And we will miss it again, if we think the way to override his anger is with anger of our own ("You're angry at the world, well guess what! We're angry at YOU!"), or override his unreasonableness with reason ("We refuse to enter into your madness; we're just going to be calm and intellectual, okay?") Neither of those are prescriptions for success, because by the election in 2020 people are not going to be in the mood for making nice, or for reason, or for calm. They're going to be terrified. Trump has governed with fear, and he's going to campaign with fear. It's time, right now, for Democrats to stop thinking only in policy terms and start recognizing what the race ahead will be about. It's won't just be Democrats versus Republicans. It's going to be Love versus Fear. Many Democrats pooh-pooh such prescription, indeed such language, but the truth is that that is exactly the prescription, and exactly the language, that paves the way to the greatest possibility of victory in 2020. Make Love versus Fear the choice before the American people, and love will win. Fear will be stirring people into a frenzy this year, and the only force powerful enough to override the fear will be a call to the love in our hearts. Some will laugh at that; obviously, they already do. The political establishment won't buy it, and will do everything to shush it. But the old world is over, and the old kind of politics will not usher in the new. Make the 2020 election about Love versus Fear, and the election will be ours. If you've saved your payment information with ActBlue Express, your donation will go through immediately. DONATE
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