Fasting for Fallujah

I'm just one powerless person. I can't stop what is happening in Iraq, the world, or our country at this time.

Last night I decided to fast for the people of Iraq. Even today I read that the US continues to deny aid to the citizens of Fallujah. Children are suffering and dying while here in this country preparations are beginning for Thanksgiving. It just blows my mind.

I can't do much. But I can fast. I'm not particularly spiritual in an officially religious way. I'm a lapsed Catholic who if I have a god(dess) believes in Mother Earth.

So, I am fasting for Fallujah. I am going to try to go without food for as many days as I can. I will not eat (must drink of course). I want to do this as there is nothing else that I can do at this point.

of thirst before you even get hungry. :(

of the cities of Iraq. Incidentally, this was what Michael Savage and other right-wing sadists recommended from the beginning. Level everything, kill most combat aged males, take over the oil, establish the permanent military presence their and rule the world.

The gory stains of the Iraq campaign will permanently and strategically stain the honor of the U.S. This illegal operation will be discussed in history books a thousand years from now. George W. Bush will join the unholy pantheon of such brutal despots as Caligula, Hitler and Stalin.

You make a difference

I really feel that I have to do this.

so I can still fit into my favorite slacks! What difference could your going hungry possibly make on global affairs?

Gandhi fasted. Many others have fasted for good causes as well.

It is just something I need to do. I need to feel some solidarity with the people who are suffering in Iraq at this time. I was against this war. I lobbied and wrote my congressmen like crazy in the run-up to this invasion. I had no effect on the outcome. I worked like crazy during the past few years to help the democrats with no effect.

I just have no joy in the upcoming holidays when so many are suffering because of US policy.

It is the least I can do. Perhaps nothing will change. But it is what I can do right now.

believed that fasting at your enemy's door was the severest form of vengeance because it destroys the honor of the enemy. It is an old tradition. IRA prisoners have conducted long hunger strikes in British prisons.

Mahatma Gandhi used fasting, among other actions, as a tool for freeing India from British colonial rule.

Some people who protested the Vietnam war also employed hunger strikes as a tactic. I may be wrong but I believe the Berrigan brothers were among them.

I think political fasting has to have two components: one is to make the commitment to pursue it and then do so; the other is to recruit helpers who will help you with water and other needs, and publicize the fast to the community.

you said it better than I.

I won't ask anyone to join me in this. It has to be up to the individual.

I do hope though that others might join in.

Each person could do just the amount they are able to do. Maybe just one meal a day or give up a snack if that is all that you can do.

scarletlib. I am in the same mood. I agree with above to read about the Irish hunger strikes, especially Bobby Sands. I will be also boycotting Xmas this year. I saw a display of tree ornaments with stars and stripes and they looked like little bombs to me, and I almost threw up. A national week of fasting for everyone would be more appropriate than one of gorging our fat faces. This culture becomes more bizarre and disgusting by the moment.

and invite all to join....there is no way I am going to behave like a fat, rich, greedy American on this day, which incidentally, celebrates another American genocide, that of the indigenous tribes of this continent. I am going to use the money I would have spent on this ridiculous exercise in gluttony and point it toward humanitarian relief in Fallujah, if, indeed, there is any of Fallujah left by Thanksgiving Day. Please join me in contemplation and prayer on Thanksgiving Day for the victims in Iraq and Afghanistan who have been trounced to death in the "March of Freedom."