In defense of life

Have you noticed that you can identify what a Bush administration program does in practice simply by considering the opposite of the program title. The Clear Skies Initiative allows power plants to pollute more, the Healthy Forests Initiative is about clear cutting forests, No Child Left Behind, Operation Iraqi Freedom ... you get the drift.

So I was a bit alarmed to hear the new phrase from the Bush administration, the one about a culture of life. It hit hard, because so much of what comes out of the Bush White House and the right-wing ideologues seems to further death, or be reckless about its prevention.

Is this the death wish Freud wrote about?

Then I read a piece by New York Times columnist Frank Rich that focused on the obsession with death that is dominating right-wing culture. From the film, The Passion of the Christ to the Left Behind series--the best-selling novels set at the end of the world--death and fundamentalism (of the Christian, Muslim, and other varieties) seem to walk hand-in-hand.

Maybe it comes with being a mom, but I am fiercely passionate about life. When my kids were little, I remember knowing beyond doubt that if needed, I would throw myself in front of a truck to protect their lives. I find myself growing increasingly impatient with those who would trade other people's lives for power and wealth.

Robert S. McNamara former U.S. Secretary of Defense warns us about what is at stake in an article in the current issue of Foreign Policy magazine, entitled Apocalypse Soon. McNamara notes that we have 2000 nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert, and that the average US nuclear bomb is 20 times as powerful as the bomb we dropped on Hiroshima. McNamara quotes former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry, who told a meeting of the National Academy of Sciences last summer: "I have never been more fearful of a nuclear detonation than now . ... There is a greater than 50 percent probability of a nuclear strike on U.S. targets within a decade."

The danger is amplified by the Bush doctrine of unilateral warfare, which many believe is driving some countries to see a nuclear weapons as their only defense against the US superpower.

Far from making us safer, the reckless policies of this administration are endangering us and our children, and generations to come.

This is the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There will be events around the world to commemorate the event, many of which will call on the world to back away from the nuclear abyss. Among others, the Abolition Now campaign is bringing together U.S. mayors along with the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in a call for the banning of nuclear weapons.

One group of women whose fierceness for life is matched by their playful use of color is Code Pink for Peace. A Code Pink delegation recently traveled to Iran in anticipation of war. They sent several delegations to Iraq, raised money to help the civilian refugees from Fallujah, and are working on counter-recruitment at home.

And, they are helping to save libraries in California from being closed down for lack of funding.

Librarians -- now there is a group you don't want to mess with. Between moms and librarians, I think we could save the world.