I saw Granny D speak last year-- a truly inspirational talk. 
 ===-= never too old to raise some hell, 

Nick


-----Original Message-----
From: J <notlobmusic@...>
To: phil-ochs@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Mon, 7 Apr 2008 5:08 pm
Subject: [phil-ochs] Granny D Says Bush Guilty of Treason,




























Granny D Says Bush Guilty of Treason, Urges People to Scare Congress

into Ending Occupation

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/32480

<http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/32480>



Doris "Granny D" Haddock, 98, was just in Gettysburg and delivered the

remarks copied below.



Thank you.



It is a great honor to be here again. One should never bring a long

speech to Gettysburg, so I shall be only two or three times as long as

Mr. Lincoln.



I first met some of you eight years ago. We were all so worried about

losing our democracy that we were wiling to walk across the country and

go to jail. You meet the nicest people in the Washington jail, by the

way –that's where I met Lou and Patricia Hammann.



Eight years ago we could not have imagined what our country was headed

into.



We could not have imagined how many protests, how many marches, how many

letters, phone calls, emails, posters, banners, and campaigns we were in

for. We could not have imagined the amazing people who have come into

our vision, for good and for ill. We could never in our wildest

imaginings have come up with a story about how the US would attack

countries at will based on phony propaganda, how we would become a

country that tortures people, how we would become a country that spits

on the grave of every patriot who lived or died for our freedoms under

the Bill of Rights. Just those eight years ago, we could not have

imagined stolen elections, an eviscerated and cowardly Congress, or

eviscerated and cowardly national news organizations that refused to

see and report the obvious, or editorial pages that refused to call for

the obvious. It has been a remarkable time.



Before the Iraq invasion, you know many of us were on Capitol Hill

trying to talk sense into some people. The people who knew very well

that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq were the arms

inspectors. They were on Capitol Hill too, trying to talk sense into

those people. Senators did not want to talk to them because the

Senators knew very well what the truth was. They knew that, if we

wanted to keep looking for those weapons, we only needed to put our

inspectors back in. The inspectors were telling everyone that they then

had the freedom to go anywhere and look at anything in Iraq. They only

stopped looking because Mr. Bush called them home so he could have his

little war. Those inspectors wanted to go back and keep looking.



Here's something you may not know or may have forgotten: Saddam

Hussein, several weeks before our attack, invited our military to come

in and look at anything they wanted to look at. They were invited to

come in, fully armed, and look wherever they wanted. Our administration

said no thank you. The incredible Mr. Richard Perle, who used to live

next door to my late daughter in Washington and who didn't like my

support van parked on the street when I arrived after my long walk,

evidently, according to the New York Times of November 6, 2003, went to

London to meet on behalf of Mr. Bush with a representative of Iraq who

made this offer. No thanks, was the silent response. How is that not

treason against this nation and all who have died?



Men like John McCain knew all this. Men like John Kerry knew all this.

In fact, most the people in Kerry's home state knew all this. They

tried to get appointments with him to talk it over. He refused. Some,

desperate for his attention, went to sit in at his office in Boston and

were arrested. Bishops tried to get to him and offered to be arrested.

He would not listen, because he already knew the truth and knew he

would turn away from it in order to have a chance for the presidency.

Of course, he thereby killed his chance for the presidency. Millions of

Americans marched to stop that attack because WE ALL KNEW. We all knew.

We all did. The people who voted to go to war did so--sent young men

and women to die, sent our bombs to fall on innocent families

abroad--to better their chances to run for president. Was there ever a

more cynical and unpatriotic act than that? Do their hands not drip

with the blood of our children and the world's children? Indeed

they do. And do we believe them when they now say they were fooled by

Mr. Bush? That they had no idea that he would go to war with their

vote, when the name of the bill was in fact the Joint Resolution to

Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq? What does

it say about them if they were fooled when millions of us were in the

streets because we were not fooled?



I mention all this only to make the point that we have not exactly

turned our country around with all our efforts. The same lobbyists who

were swiveling in their chairs and blowing smoke rings around our

Declaration of Independence are swiveling yet, blowing smoke yet. The

same politicians who were selling out our poor and our middle class for

their rich friends are still on the prowl, still selling us out at

every opportunity. And now, when the great casino called Wall Street is

toppling, corruption will allow our tax dollars to prop it up. The same

harm that was being inflicted on our planet then is even more so today,

with very little time left to save the day and save the night and the

winter, spring, summer and fall.



And yet I see that these people who stood up and who marched and who

were willing to go to jail to move America back into the brighter path

have changed things. It is very hard to turn a great ship around when

it is going fast in the wrong direction. But the ship has turned. I

feel it. I see it in young faces.



Some of us have grown weary of trying to bring America around. Some have

given up for a time. Some no longer see the point of standing on street

corners with signs or making demands of their tone-deaf Congressmen. It

is tiring and discouraging. The arrival of the young people in this

election year are a great boost, but it is tiring work, nevertheless.



And the biggest fights are still ahead? Indeed, the revolution we

require is yet ahead – a revolution away from coal and oil, away

from corporate domination and corrupt governance, and toward a new way

of living—a way of living as neighbors, friends, people of the

earth who are not the enemies of the earth, of nature. We are on that

path now, though the road is hardly marked with yellow bricks.



Creative leadership is not the essential ingredient. We need leaders who

can inspire the American people and the people of the world to move in

new directions quickly. We need creative leaders who will so inspire

the common man and woman that corrupt Congresses will have no ability

to resist.



Creative leaders, honest election systems, an economy redesigned to make

communities self-sufficient and healthier, and an education system

designed to make all of us and our children the well-informed, bright,

creative, interested and interesting people needed to run a democracy:

these are the visions we must hold in the backs of our eyes now.



We have been running America for many decades with negative

visualizations. You see it even in the movies. Before 9-11, all the big

summer films were about aliens attacking the United States, and hero

presidents jumping in jets to save us. The movies didn't bring on

that history, but what we think and what we dream have an effect in the

world. We have to make room in the world for what we dream of by

actually dreaming it, by making space for it, by making it imaginable to

others through our own creative leadership in our own families and

neighborhoods.



Let's not be tired. Let's not be old. Let's make a new

beginning by getting together with our neighbors more often. How about

next week? Let's plant some more vegetable gardens. Let's make

some furniture or art. Let's fix up some bicycles. Let's get

the whole neighborhood to go down to visit the local office of our

elected people and get them on board or scare the hell out of them.



This is our democracy if we can keep it. This is a grand planet if we

can save it. It really is up to us. Each person is the hero of the

world, and, in saying that, I do not joke or exaggerate. Every one of

you has the power to do this, to start something big … and

necessary … and beautiful.



Thank you very much.



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