I just think the world of Pelosi. She represents the Left as well as anybody ever has. And as a small digression, where *is* the anti-war movement? Where is Code Pink? Did the war end while nobody was looking? Why aren't *they* painiting Hitler moustaches on Obama? Hmm?
The right-wing, always so scornful of CODEPINK, has taken a page from our playbook and distorted it by disrupting congressional town hall meetings on health care. While we wholeheartedly support the practice of peaceful dissent, we can't stomach it when that dissent is based on ignorance or when the dissenters are actually thinly disguised lobbyists for the corporate health care industry.
We need to make sure that their angry, fear-mongering voices don't drown out the voices that can bring true reform to our nation's health care.
Call your representative at (202) 224-3121, to ask if she/he is holding a town hall meeting this month. Go to the meeting with your "Healthcare, Not Warfare" signs and make sure to ask your Congressperson hard questions about why we're channeling so much money for endless, unjust war that could be used to protect and care for the American people.
For inspiration, watch CODEPINK in action at a health care rally on July 30 here.
CODEPINK has long been a supporter of a single-payer healthcare system, also called Medicare for All. There will actually be a vote on this in the U.S. House of Representatives after the August recess and we need to lobby our representatives to commit to voting Yes.
Another way we can support single-payer healthcare is by supporting Congressman Dennis Kucinich's amendment that would let individual states create single-payer healthcare systems without the risk of having them blocked or tied up in the courts for years by insurance companies.
That's exactly how Canada evolved towards single-payer: one province at a time. Given the corporate-funded resistance to single-payer in Congress, the U.S. may have to follow the Canadian path.
Send a message directly to your Congresspersonto support the states' right to create single-payer, to support single-payer nationally, and if we don't get that, to support as strong a public option as possible. If they ask you where to find the money, tell them to cut the military budget and end illegal wars. That's the best way to pay for our nation's first line of defense-our health.
The U.S. has failed to prosecute anyone for abuses that have occurred in the highest offices of the United States of America. That is why CODEPINK is modeling justice by calling for the Citizen's Arrest of Bush Administration war criminals: Rove, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice and others. Click here to urge Attorney General Holder to assign a special prosecutor who starts with those who gave the green light for torture, including Dick Cheney. More...
Americans must do something about the fastest growing refugee crisis in the world. Read Medea's blogs, donate to alleviate the refugee crisis, and sign our letter to Congress. The beginning of the "withdrawal" from Iraq--what are we really leaving? Read Jodie Evans' piece on Common Dreams and our statement here. More
In her pink cap and shirt, silver-haired Anne Woodhead stands on the sidewalk in front of the federal courthouse on Broadway holding a No More War sign.
Its been a weekly ritual on Tuesdays between 11:45 a.m. and 12:45 p.m. for almost eight years.
Sometimes one or two join her. But even when they dont, she says she doesnt feel alone.
Although shes never traveled outside the U.S., Anne considers herself an international citizen. Those who know her best say she has a compassionate heart for the U.S. troops and their families, and the opposition including all the innocent victims of war.
I firmly believe God sees no borders, Anne says.
A native of Frankfort, Anne, 62, and her family were members of the downtown Church Of The Ascension when she was growing up. And Anne was a nun in an Episcopal convent for three-and-a-half years in the early 1970s.
She says religion has always been important to her even though shes no longer a member of any church.
As a peace activist, Anne is coordinator of Frankfort CODEPINK: Women For Peace.
CODEPINK is a women-initiated grassroots peace and social movement working to end wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, stop new wars, and redirect resources into healthcare, education, green jobs and other life-affirming activities, according to its Web site.
Anne says CODEPINK emerged out of a desire by a group of American women to stop the Bush administration from invading Iraq.
The name CODEPINK plays on the color-coded homeland security alerts yellow, orange, red that signal terrorist threats.
While Bushs color-coded alerts are based on fear and are used to justify violence, the CODEPINK alert is a feisty call for women and men to wage peace, the Web site says.
Anne also is a board member of the Frankfort United Nations Association.
When she first started her simple peace vigils in downtown Frankfort, Anne says, Id either get the finger or a wave from a lot of people. And Id have to look carefully to see which one it was.
She says she doesnt get the bird very often anymore.
But sometimes just her presence with her anti-war sign brings out the worst in others.
Right before the 2008 presidential election an SUV with a No! Bama bumper sticker passed by Anne on Broadway.
This young woman, maybe 18 to 20, her face full of hatred, put her head out the window and yelled at me, calling me every name in the book, Anne recalls.
Im not a strong political person, and Anne wasnt wearing an Obama campaign button. But anti-war and Obama all went together.
On the other hand, shes had pleasant experiences.
Recently a National Guard member in his camouflage wanted to take my picture with his little boys teddy bear that he was holding, she says.
He said he didnt like the war and what was going on, but it was a volunteer force and he joined up. He wanted a picture of me with my No More War sign and the teddy bear to give to his son.
She says she had some interesting conversations in front of the federal building, a few with military people. I get the feeling most of them respect me for what Im doing, but not all. A few dont understand.
Her signs change occasionally. The first one said War Is Not The Answer. When spring first arrives she displays Spring Into Peace.
A post World War II baby boomer, Anne Goin was born at the old Kings Daughters Hospital in South Frankfort.
She grew up a few blocks away, went to Frankfort High School and today lives near the school on Shelby Street with her husband, Jim Woodhead, a retired employee of the state Department of Employment Services.
They have two children and a brand new grandbaby in Lexington, Anne says.
In high school Anne says she was a B student and a snob.
She laughs, saying I considered myself sort of above everybody else intellectually. I was interested in classical music and that didnt jive with everybody else.
She says Melvin Dickinson, music director at the Episcopal Church in her teenage years, inspired her.
He and his wife had just returned from Germany, she says. They both had gone there on Fulbright Scholarships. Melvin is now the head of the Louisville Bach Society.
I became involved in the church through music, and through the music of Bach especially I experienced a spiritual awakening, an opening to the world. My family didnt quite understand it. I always felt like an oddball in my family.
Planning to major in music, she briefly attended University of Louisville and Peabody College in Nashville before entering the convent.
One of the things that got me interested in the religious life was reading Thomas Merton, an intellectual who left the mainstream world to become a Catholic monk, priest and author of numerous books at the Abbey of Gethsemani near Bardstown.
Her religious life in the convent was a very intense experience, she says. Learning to live in community with about 20 others was a big thing. The motherhouse was in New York and we had a house in Georgia.
It was a liberal community that had a big influence on me. I got the anti-war flavor there.
She recalls going with a busload of other Episcopal peace activists from New York to Washington, D.C., for an anti-war demonstration around the time of President Nixons second inauguration.
That was a biggie, she says. I didnt do a whole lot before then or after, until the early 2000s.
In a way, I think Im kind of making up now for what I didnt do earlier.
Shes glad she experienced life as a nun, but she doesnt regret leaving the religious community.
Church theology was turning around, becoming more world-oriented, she says. To take that further, I felt I needed to get myself more involved in the world.
I had gotten something special there, and I wanted to be able to bring it back with me. When you come back you feel like youve been on another planet.
After leaving the convent, Anne eventually earned an associate degree in nursing from Kentucky State University. She worked one year at the local hospital then worked about six years in the states Medicaid program.
Then I quit work to stay home with my children, she says.
She believes her weekly peace vigils are important.
I consider it consciousness raising if nothing else, Anne says. Somehow we have to change peoples minds. I really believe with the Quakers that war is not the answer.
And U.S. foreign policy is all wrong. I think we have to get off our high horse. Imperialism has got to be stopped. We have to realize we are one nation among many.
She doesnt know how long she will continue her weekly peace vigils downtown.
Ill do it as long as I can, she says. I would like to see us get our troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
She also would like to have company, as many as possible, each Tuesday on Broadway. I think more people need to speak up. I feel like Im standing there on behalf of a lot of people who would really like to speak out but are unable to.
Standing in front of the federal building at 5 feet tall in her pink attire, Anne doesnt appear to be a threat to anyone.
Ive never been too far from the earth, Anne says, laughing. But Ive always had my head in the clouds, and I have to keep remembering to get out of there.
I may be only a drop in the bucket, but Im a drop. I wish we had more drops.
President Barack Obama needs to call off the drones used in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The drones, played like computerized video games in the Nevada desert, are sent to kill real human beings in Asia.
David Kilcullen, a former top adviser to U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus, recently testified to the House Armed Services Committee that since 2006 the drone attacks in Pakistan have killed 14 al-Qaida leaders, but also have killed about 700 civilians.
The drone attacks are angering the Pakistani and Afghan populations, fueling al-Qaida and the Taliban, and causing further distrust of their own governments' actions. U.S. soldiers who fire these drones are suffering psychological harm. Instead of drones and military efforts, we need to be putting more into humanitarian and economic aid and diplomacy. Instead of war funding, we could be providing for the health care and education of our own citizens.
He promised to draw down on the troops in Iraq, which I believe he has already started. I do not recall him ever promising to pull out of Afghanistan. And true to form he has shifted the emphasis on Afghan.
The right-wing, always so scornful of CODEPINK, has taken a page from our playbook and distorted it by disrupting congressional town hall meetings on health care. While we wholeheartedly support the practice of peaceful dissent, we can't stomach it when that dissent is based on ignorance or when the dissenters are actually thinly disguised lobbyists for the corporate health care industry. 
Join delegations in 
