I posted about it here on Blog Sisters and I don’t feel like double posting.

Thanks to my healer-friend Ed Tick for his link to a site that is chronicling the true stories of veterans (and others caught up in the ravages of war) and their experiences with warring and its aftermath.
The site, “Eleventh-hour Stories” explains:
When we sent the first two letters out to the global community asking for these stories of the last 100 years, we were primarily concerned with stopping the war planned against Iraq and also possibly against North Korea. Now we are concerned with the ongoing activity of peacemaking. We have found that time does not heal the kind of traumas that people have been suffering but consciousness can heal. So we will gather and tell theses stories so that we develop a culture of awareness that has the capacity to ethically modify our behavior in the directions of compassion and empathy.
It is our hope to bring some healing to the unprecedented traumatic experience of the last decades and to insure that such torture not be inflicted further. When such wars and violence repeat themselves they inevitably create new armies of torturers and countries of the tormented. The telling and the receiving of these stories are activities that say: This must stop here and now.
These stories contain the essential information and understanding needed by everyone in the world in order to know how to move forward at this time. These stories when we listen to them will provide the wisdom of healing and will inform us to take proper action.
We are asking you to tell the stories, to gather the stories, to bear witness to the stories, to send them here and to send them out yourselves widely. We are asking that these stories be gathered and told at public gatherings and peace actions, be read from podiums as well as shared in small groups and councils. Through these activities the truth of this century can become the compassionate ground from which wisdom emerges and an informed global society begins to act on behalf of life, peace and heart.
Read the stories here. And share them.
If you have a story to share, send it in.

I’m annoying some of my dearest Blog Sisters by asserting that men are more violent than women and it’s the leadership of males that almost always is behind our marches into war and the destruction of cultures.
I really do believe that, until we confront the power that our hormonal chemistries have over our natures, we’re not going to be able to evolve much futher as human beings. That doesn’t mean we should be using other chemistries to neutralize that power; but it does mean that we have to become aware of our behavior patterns and work on some “personality” changes to diminish the insidious way that those chemistries effect our behaviors.
I posted the something close to the following in a comment in response to a comment, but I’m repeating it here for broader consumption:
Been there, done that. The “change” has taken all my hormones away, so I can’t fault them for my point of view.
Of course human beings are complex. But look at history as it documents the actions of males and the actions of females as they reflect manifestations of physical violence against others, aggression, extreme competitiveness. I think the males win in that category.
History, literature, mythology etc. also document problem tendencies in females (need to please others, emotional outbursts, over-protectedness, vanity, self-mutilation etc. etc.), but these are not actions that tend to initiate wars and mass murder. Extreme manifestations of our biological natures pose problems for all humans, but the male version is a killer.
Fifty years from now, look back and see if things are any better — if men are still in charge and charging at others aggressively, if women are still defering to what men seem to want them to be or emulating men’s aggression because they’ve allowed themselves to be convinced that that’s the way to succeed. (Notice: I didn’t say ALL men and ALL women.)
How much better the world — how much better relationships — would be if each gender worked at eliminating those extreme tendencies that we’ve carried along in our genes and hormones from our more primitive ancestors?
But, like the process of any evolutionary-therapeutic journey, first one must admit that there’s a problem. That’s the hardest part, and it’s even harder if what is our “problem” is also our source of power.

Burningbird says that she’s no longer identifying her blog as a peace blog.
Most of us who have opposed Bush’s destructive strategies to free Iraq recognize what the reality is now. Shelley offers an intelligent perspective in her post that deserves to be read as a whole.
And she links to an article in the Sydney Morning Herald that indicates there’s some disagreement in the Bush administration about who should control Iraq during its transition to a democracy.
Maybe that’s where our advocacy should focus now. The war happened despite all of our objections. The important issue now is, “now what?”

In a comment to my post below, Burningbird takes issue with my assertion that woman have always stood for peace. I am interested in finding links to information to support her assertion that “Women leaders have started wars as much as men have. And have been pretty nasty at times.” I don’t doubt that there have been women heads of countries who invaded other nations for reasons of power and wealth. But how many men compared to how many women? Can anyone point me to that kind of info?
Now, I’m a diehard Xena fan. I watch Alias. I love kickass women. I fully understand the dark side of the female psyche. I’ve taken that distrubing journey into mine. Why do you think my site is named after Kali?
I’ll have to find the time to research this, but it seems to me that in the course of human history, men have been the major aggressors in the major murderous wars for power. I’m thinking of the Crusades, for obvious one.
I’m suggesting that, perhaps, female heads of state in history have been able to rise to power because they opted to buy into the aggressive mode of the existing male-dominated power structure. So, it would stand to reason that they also would not hesitate to invade any less then men who have also risen to those positions (through the same methods and values). But just how many women are we talking about?
If one looks at the causes that women, in general, espouse throughout the world (in numbers greater than those of men) they are causes that advocate for taking care of living things in their various forms. (I don’t want to get into an argument about what’s a “living thing,” so don’t bother leaving a comment about that issue.)
More women than men are teachers, nurses, caregivers. I’m sure that there are statistics about that. It’s not that we are not capable of physically torturing and maiming, but that seems to be generally not our style. It is not that we are incapable of killing. It’s that when, push comes to shove, that’s an extreme more women than men, from what I see of history, go to great lengths to avoid.
There are men with “caregiving” rather than “aggressive” natures, and these are the ones who tend to become my friends. But, in my 63 years of meeting and interacting with men, I have found that these nurturers are far in the minority of men. On the other hand, I have always known plenty of women like that. Could my experiences as an active woman be all that off?

This is the commemorative

“Every day in combat training you had to yell out ‘Kill! Kill!’ and we would get into trouble if you didn’t shout it out, so often I would just mouth it so I didn’t get into trouble.” The recruits were also encouraged to hurt each other during hand-to- hand combat training. “I couldn’t do that so they would pair me up with someone who was very violent or aggressive.”
Mr Funk said many recruits were envious of those who were being sent to the Gulf. “They would say things like, ‘Kill a raghead for me – I’m so jealous.’
Stephen Eagle Funk, 20, a marine reserve who was due to be sent for combat duty, is currently on “unauthorised absence” from his unit. He faces a possible court martial and time in military prison for his action. , so begins the Guardians’s report on America’s first conscientious objector of this war.
Funk told the reporter:
“I would rather take my punishment now than live with what I would have to do [in Iraq] for the rest of my life. I woul be going in knowing that it was wrong and that would be hypocritical…. War is about destruction and violence and death. It is young men fighting old men’s wars. It is not the answer, it just ravages the land of the battleground. I know it’s wrong but other people in the military have been programmed to think it is OK.”
Telling the truth is courageous. Putting oneself in harm’s way for one’s beliefs is courageous. Putting the lives of others before one’s own is courageous. Standing alone against a tide of evil is courageous.
It is men like soon-to-be ex-marine Stephen Eagle Funk who are the true moral warriors — the real “good guys,” the heroes of this war who bravely take a stand against the evil that seems to be taking over the hearts of too many of my countrymen.

I don’t want to give aid and comfort to the enemy – I just want to be able to tell the truth.
Read the rest of his statement as published by his new employer.
Thanks to the ex-lion tamer for the link.

In between blogging bursts, I

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