LETTER #5 TO PRESIDENT OBAMA - WILL HE BE DIFFERENT REGARDING DARFUR?

Letter #5 to President Obama
regarding his inaction about Darfur and Sudan

Sent via http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

When are you going to take the lead and do something about the Darfur crisis? We are counting on your word to actually take seriously the crisis. Are we wrong to count on your word?

We have been waiting for you to put humanity before politics. The people of Darfur have a far greater crisis than the most recent flu news frenzied reporting here in the USA. Your inaction is not only defining you and proving your lack of seriousness about the Darfuri situation, but it is defining me as a citizen of the USA. Don’t choose a stagnant approach to Darfur and Sudan. Be the leader we believed you would be. We who have worked for years in the grassroots network to prevent and stop genocide are losing faith in your good will and your words about Darfur.

We were among your strongest supporters during the campaign. We didn’t join your band of supporters because we were swept up with the crowds, but because we believed you were a man of your word and would do what it takes to respond in a timely manner regarding inhumanity of such a dire story.

"A big lie."

That's what Sudan's ambassador to the United Nations calls a U.N. report that there are "over one million people at life-threatening risk" due to the government of Sudan's decision to expel aid groups.

With a million Darfuris without food and water since March 4, 2009 and many at the mercy of diseases spreading through the huge IDP populations, time is running out not only for the unarmed civilian Darfuri refugees, but time is running out for our respect of you on this important issue.

Genocide by starvation, diseases and other "passive" means have been done before. It was done on the North American continent to the indigenous people:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/weshallremain/

Now it is being done to the Darfuris.

When are you thinking it would be beneficial to actually act for those living without water and food for two months? When they are dead it will only matter in history texts because when you could have done something to save them, you were too busy to act. Surely, not too uncaring.

I have written four previous letters to you about Darfur. And in each letter, I have been less and less formal and more and more expressive about my anger at your failing to show us you are going to be different than President George W Bush about Darfur. In his first term, after reading the report on the Rwandan genocide, he wrote in the report’s margin “Not on my watch.” And indeed it did happen on his watch. Will it be different with you? Or more of the same? “We can’t say ‘Never again’ and then allow it to happen again…when you see a genocide…that’s a stain on all our us.” I believe that. And you, Mr. Obama, said that.

Genocide will never stop without us being stewards of humanity. In Sudan, extermination by starvation, dehydration and diseases - which come because of the weakened bodies due to lack of water and food- is happening right now in Sudan and since March 4, 2009.
We are all the keepers of justice. In Sudan, there is an emergency in which human beings are dying to have their stories heard. Silence kills in its complicity to killing by treachery. Our silence and indifference are just as necessary to genocide continuing as having genocidaire perpetrators and weapons.

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” Martin Luther King

We are watching you and your representatives be less than effective regarding our Darfuri brothers and sisters. We are the ones we have been waiting for and we are doing our part. You are the leader we thought would do the right things to help end this crisis of the human race – the most defining issue on three levels: 1) the perpetrators, 2) the ones who stand by and allow the perpetrators to carry on without accountability and 3) the human beings being victimized, rendered unimportant enough for others to act on behalf of justice and what are the right responses. Is this the human race you want to be a part of? Not me. I want to be a part of a human race that is on the side of truth and justice. And we are all a part of genocide until it doesn’t happen anymore. Matthew 25:34-45. (From verse 45: I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.)

From http://www.mandatedarfur.org/en/introduction.php
"Two imminent political events could undermine the unity of the country and worsen the crisis: national elections in 2009 and the referendum on self-determination of the South in 2011. If Sudan's situation further deteriorates, peace throughout the region (from the Horn of Africa as far as Nigeria to the west), will be at risk. The scale of humanitarian crisis will be beyond the capacity of the international community to manage. Any solution must begin with a resolution of the conflict in Darfur."

Don’t let the hope die around you regarding Sudan.
Thank you for not remaining silent and indifferent for the Darfuri people.

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You can write to President Obama

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

or at

http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

Call him at 202-456-1111
or
1-800-GENOCIDE

Send a post card to President Obama
AddYourVoice.org

He is not going to act for Darfur without you and without me pressuring him

In this way, he is no different than other politicians.

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MANDATE DARFUR Conference

9 am — 5 pm (EAT)
12 — 16 May 2009

From Mandate Darfur introduction page
http://www.mandatedarfur.org/en/introduction.php

If Sudan's situation further deteriorates, peace throughout the region (from the Horn of Africa as far as Nigeria to the west), will be at risk.

The scale of humanitarian crisis will be beyond the capacity of the international community to manage. Any solution must begin with a resolution of the conflict in Darfur.

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Check out Mia Farrow's Fast for Darfur

miafarrow.org
fastdarfur.org

LIVING MY LIFE

When you have lived you have experiences that you treasure.

Maui, Hawaii

I am so happy because I have lived my own life and not some one else’s idea of what I should have lived. I look back now and just glow. It’s been a fantastic life. So far. And I expect it to even be better, now. Because I really know myself like I have never before. And I have accepted all of me. It’s been so much fun. And well, pain has been a major part of it too, but it’s the fun that I now remember. How cool is that!

Murano, Italia

I tried to be perfect my whole life. I finally am at a place in my life that I am so excited everyday. My mother doesn’t approve of me. She never has. But here’s the relatively new thing: I don’t care any more. She doesn’t hold control over me and my happiness anymore.

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God Bless the Child

Sung by Blood, Sweat & Tears

There’s a play called “Whose Life Is It Anyway?” And that is a valid question for all adult children who grow up with a manipulative, over-reaching and controlling mother.

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Kaui, Hawaii

Friend, don’t be a perfectionist.

Perfectionism is a curse and a strain.

For you tremble lest you miss the bull’s-eye.

You are perfect if you let be.

Friend, don’t be afraid of mistakes.

Mistakes are not sins.

Mistakes are ways of doing something different,

Perhaps creatively new.

Friend, don’t be sorry for your mistakes.

Be proud of them.

Newport, Rhode Island

You had the courage to give something of yourself.

It takes years to be centered; it takes more years

to understand and to be now.

Newport, Rhode Island

Until then, beware of both extremes,

perfectionism as well as instant cure, instant joy, instant sensory awareness.

Until then, beware of any helpers.

Helpers are con-men who promise something for nothing.

They spoil you and keep you dependent and immature.

Frederick S. Perls

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Portsmouth, Rhode Island

For me being a female, my mother made it clear that I was to be subordinate to a man in my life.

Boston, Massachusetts below

In the course of my life, I didn’t follow my mother’s map for my life. I not only have no regrets that I followed my own unique path through life, I am thrilled that I didn’t follow my mother’s imposing life agenda. I have so much to say, I plan to tackle my introspection and perspective with a long-range writing project, so this is just a blog entry in the nature of my plans to come.

My mother has turned into some unrecognizable ugly person. She repeatedly broadcasts to her children as well as others that she wishes that she never had her children (3 of us) or got married. She behaves with lots of bitterness, lack of integrity, truth and hatred. It got worse over the last few years, but it was there

twenty years ago, which I didn’t see then. I believe women who don’t live their lives, but live someone else’s idea of how they should live out their lives can’t be any other way than what my mother has personified. I am sorry for her. I am sad for her. But I receive her behavior that is the manifestation of her self-hatred that she has fostered over the years. And that is no fun. It is in truth thoroughly confusing and feels bad. I don’t know why exactly I have been the one of her three children to dump most of her hatred on. But it is now undeniable that the fact is I am the recipient. She of course denies that she treats me differently. But it is so blatant that it is unavoidable for me to keep her up on some level where a mother would naturally belong. I accept her for who she is. Because she chooses to live in denial doesn’t mean I have to. And I don’t. Now.

I always wanted to be close to … well, people in my life. My mother, my dad, my sister, my brother. The man in my life. I tried. And I tried. It just never came to pass. In any way. And when my mother denied my access to my dad over the last few years, I was able to see her for who she really is. A very controlling and ugly human being. This was my mother. But I had to accept the truth even though it meant I had to see my mother in this way. If I denied the truth about my mother then my life could not be lived in truth. And I had decided that I would live my life fully in truth. So the choice was clear, truth or my mother. I had to choose truth. I let go of my hope to have my mother be my mom. She is of course the woman who is my mother. She gave me birth. She imposed a belief system on me to the point of emotional and spiritual suffocation. However, somehow I found my life anyway. She is 82 this September. Most of my life I thought my mother was the mom that she presented to me. Then the cracks in her armor began to become visible. The pretending started to break down in her behavior and ugly words to me. How could a mother who loved me be so hateful in her words to me, I wondered. She says she loves me. She acts like she hates me. I know in the end that she never loved herself. But that is not my fault. And there is only so much understanding that you can give to someone for their bad behavior before it demeans your soul and steals life from your spirit. I had to stop trying to make her be what she wanted me to believe she is. I had to see her for who she showed me she is.

This is a painful thing. But it is more painful to live out my life by virtually giving my life up for her narcissism. That is not love either way.

I can’t be her happiness no matter what she says. It took me so long to get this. It took my dad’s health problems for her to break her pretentious behaviors and in the end free me to own my life wholly. Unapologetically. I’m not the “black sheep” of the family that has been my designated role my whole adult life.

Firenze, Italia

I love who I am. I love who I have become more fully. I love my life. I love the life that I lived. I look back on my life and I am so happy that I did what I did. Loved who I loved. Worked so hard at understanding me. I love my own company. The loneliest I ever was – was in a relationship that wasn’t working. Although I am living without a man in my life, I have no lonely moments. None. I have lived my life. I never waited for someone else to be my happiness or waited to do something until I had a man in my life. I am fully alive and I am grateful for that to the brim of life.

When I was in my twenties, somehow the unconscious belief was that I needed a man to make me whole. That simply is not true. Subtle, but real messages are given to women that a man is a must. Even, now. Even, in the USA. It simply is not true. I have known many men in my life, many chances at relationships. And not one man that I have known, had his life together spiritually or emotionally or philosophically or … on and on. If I have to pretend to be less than I am to have a man in my life, then it simply isn’t worth the trade-off.

I adopted a son when he was eleven years old. I was old enough to be his grand mother. I have never raised a girl, but being a teacher I have had opportunities to make an impact on girls over time. And if there was one thing that I would want girls to know that are growing up and into womanhood, it would be, to trust your own sense of yourself and life. Don’t lean on others advice too much. Sure listen to others’ sides, but in the end develop trust in yourself.

At the house I was born in - Huntington, Indiana

When I was going through a huge, monumental break-up in my early twenties, a dear friend gave me a blank book. That saved me. I wrote my truth. It helped me clarify my feelings. It gave me a way to express myself even when no one could be there all the time that I needed them. I have written over twenty journals. They are precious to me. In 1973, I wrote the following in a journal, Partially Me, IV:

TRUST.

It all comes down to trust.

You got to trust what you’ve got inside –

That it will set you free.

That it will make you !live! and nothing less.

It’s scary

and many times, it’s lonely……

but if you allow yourself to get so far in becoming –

you have no choice,

but to go all the way with it.

Run with it…

And you find moments of unthought-of peace with yourself,

with all time.

You become part of infinity, of all time.

You become part of the true essence of love, giving and receiving.

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Newport, Rhode Island

ee cummings:

to be nobody-but-yourself

in a world

which is doing its best,

night

and

day,

to make you everybody else –

means to fight the hardest battle which

any human being

can fight,

and never stop fighting.

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STOP GENOCIDE

IT'S THE HUMANE THING TO DO

DARFUR FAMILIES DESERVE OUR ATTENTION AND ACTION, NOW

www.genocideintervention.net

www.ajws.org

www.aiusa.org

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I

PLAN TO VOTE FOR BARACK OBAMA

IT’S TAKEN A LONG TIME TO BE ME

THIS IS WHERE I AM – THIS IS WHERE I LIVE

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I love my life.

I am so alive.

I walk around my house, feeling so fulfilled and grin. I can’t keep from bursting outloud “I love my life”.

It has not been this way a lot of my life.

I’ve been “here” before. But this time, I’m so fully conscious of it and why.

There were people in my life that kept me from me.

Trying to please them took me away from being pleased with myself, my life.

My mother for one.

I had to find how to think about the mother that has openly judged me as a failure of a Christian, and a success of living a sinful life - my entire adult life. My mother is a bottomless unpleasable pit for me. She’s unhappy with me,

even though I am so thoroughly happy with myself and my life.

Even a mother can be a stumbling block.

And mine was.

Until August 8, 2006.

It is like I found myself born finally.

Finally able to know what I felt about her behavior toward my father. And toward me.

Finally able to face her and not let her twist my insides with her manipulating ways.

Finally able to separate what I believed about myself from what despicable person she said I am.

I found I couldn’t please her and me with the same life, the same me.

So I have gone with the woman that I want to be and am . . . and left her view of me - with her.

I have been happy ever since.

My last relationship with a man:

For fifteen years we lived together.

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We met in Bermuda just after I was leaving an abusive relationship. The kind that involves physical abuse cycled with profuse, seemingly heartfelt apologies and promises to stop.

Getting into relationships is easily mindless. It’s getting out of them that has always been difficult for me. Because making something work -even though it was implausible with open eyes - wasn’t something that I gave up on. And I never was able to think about my own well - being over the hurt that I saw the man in. But this last thing never seemed to bother the man in my last relationship. A hint of one of his tears would melt my heart and keep me from thinking clearly. But I could live in forced silence from him for a week or cry for hours and he would simply walk away. It is much more lonely to live in a relationship like this than to live with a beautiful relationship with myself I experience. I needed to learn the lesson that if something isn't working, it's okay to leave.

Even though, he appeared to not be confining. He certainly was. I was spiritually looking for his soul, but it was never available to me. I don’t think to him, either. I was emotionally starving. Starving to find any moment to feel a connection to him. I was dying inside.

When you are dying before your death is anywhere close, you are in trouble.

I was in trouble.

And now, I am not.

I am so vibrantly alive. I feel full, I feel excited.

When people in your life keep you from who you are – you can’t possibly be happy.

Others don’t bring happiness to your life. You do. But they can block you from your happiness.

I shed that baggage

and

have never felt so good. So completely full of emotion. So colorful.

This is a glorious place to be in my life.

I’m sad that these relationships are broken and missing,

but I give them their lives, as they choose them,

and I have not attached strings to them.

I have no control over them.

I can’t change our barren relationships.

I can’t rescue something that isn’t there - with people who are so fragmented

and living in emotional denial.

I don’t like living in denial. I never did.

I can’t stand pretentious people. Never did.

“The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit.

The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.”

Marcus Aurelius

“When someone shows you who they are – believe them.” Maya Angelou

“When someone takes you away from you – walk away.” Sandra Hammel

Life is a spiritual experience for me.

I love my spirit.

I love the Greater Spirit I am part of.

I love all spirits

who are free to love back . . .

. . . who throw their “joy of life” out for all to walk in the glow of . . .

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radiating out all that they are, have become.

This is where I live.

In the radiance of all the good in humankind and all things good,

true and willing to find the life of celebration.

This is where I am.

Life is Music to Me

………………………………………………………….

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Life is Dance to Me

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………………………………………………………….

Life is Drama to Me

Life is Color to Me

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Life loves truth

This is Where I AM . . .

. . . in this glory of Life

Celebrating Life as a Good Thing

and open to abundance.

You are welcome to come sing with me,

to come share the joy and dance with me

You can see the joy, delight and contentment in my eyes.

I invite you to live in what our eyes find in one another’s eyes.

I invite you to make love with our eyes, our hearts,

our unbridled exploratory touching…

…abandon time and caged up emotions

that have kept us prisoners way too long,

once upon a time.

No one can hold me anymore from being me with all the stops pulled full out.

This is where I live my life, now.

Free of my mother’s judgments, free of fear that she won’t approve of me or won’t like me.

This is where I am.

NOW.

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You could be here, too.

But I can’t take you here.

I can only be here.

No more denying who I was born to be.

I stand tall here

in the light

in my truth.

To my mother:

Walking into your presence

still gives my breath halting, choppy breathing,

but

I am strong enough now to keep all of me

in tact

and

leave your presence with a renewed energy and self-awareness

that I am still whole upon leaving you.

You’ve stolen my wholeness in my life, until now.

Today is different

and

I stand alone, but whole.

As sorry as I am that we have no connection,

no relating between us –

I can live “here” now

and be fully alive

with or without you.

To life, I say

Thanks!

And to all who can see me

and not attempt to kill bits of me – thank you!

All in us is open

and all is open to us.

Wow.

I love my life.

It’s true.

It’s genuine.

It’s joyful.

It’s my bliss.

It is Divine.

Life meeting LIFE and complementing the other.

This is living the way I am sure it was meant to be when we were created.

What fun to be alive.

I wish you all this and more.

Be true to your self.

Only you can do this for you.

That’s the beauty in it –

It’s all within your power.

And once you have it

NO one can take it way.

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Genocide Should Be Made History

Join the "Fidelity Out of Sudan" Campaign
www.FidelityOutOfSudan.com

www.sudandivestment.org
www.ajws.org

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