The peace movement has made significant progress in the United States since its low point of late 2008, and just about everything anyone in it has done has been a contribution. If everyone keeps doing what they're doing, and more of it, we might just end some wars, eventually. But I think some techniques are working better than others, and that pursuing the most strategic approaches would make victory likelier sooner and longer-lasting when it comes.

I think the peace movement bottomed out in late 2008 for two reasons above all others. One was the election of a Democratic president. I wasn't around for Wilson, FDR, or LBJ, but my impression is that electing Democratic presidents is often bad news for both peace and, paradoxically, for the peace movement. But both can eventually recover. The other reason was the unconstitutional and uncertain treaty that Bush and Maliki created, requiring the complete end of the Iraq occupation following three more years of it. The agreement actually made this delay a year and a half, rather than three years, by making the treaty breakable through a vote of the Iraqi people (the outcome of which could not be doubted). However, that was denied to them. While the US peace movement had always demanded an IMMEDIATE end to the war in Iraq, and might have been expected to go on doing so, the combination of a written deadline and the ascension of a Democrat to the throne proved deadly, even as the occupation of Iraq continued and that in Afghanistan escalated.

We now have a larger and more costly military, and larger and more costly wars -- costly in financial terms -- than when Bush was president. We have more troops in the field, more mercenaries in the field, bases in more nations, a heightened use of drone strikes into additional countries, new secret military forces in still other nations, and greater war powers assumed by the president, including the power to assassinate Americans, the more firmly established powers to imprison without charge, rendition, and torture, and heightened powers of secrecy.

With trembling hands, I opened the letter that came in the mail today from the Secretary of the Commonwealth.  The moment I've been waiting for has arrived.

The fight, of course, is not over and will not be over until every free citizen of Virginia has the right to vote.  In the meantime, now that I'm allowed to, I plan to become a notary public so I can help others complete the Application for Restoration of Rights.

I'm about to drive to the Fairfax County Board of Elections to register to vote, but first I'd like to thank some of the people who have been advocating on my behalf, and people who have been fighting for voting rights for all Virginians.  I don't have time to list everyone, so this list is by no means complete:

-Stephen Spitz, Andrea Miller, Ruth Fischer and all of PDA Virginia 
-State Senator Chap Petersen, who wrote a letter to Tim Kaine urging him to reverse his decision denying my restoration of rights. 
-Delegate Charniele Herring, who spoke out against McDonnell's proposed (and retracted) restrictions on the restoration process 
-Michael Paul Williams of the Richmond Times Dispatch and other reporters who brought attention to Virginia's voting rights problems 
-Patricia Hynes, who joined us in the streets and in the halls of Congress 
-Blue Virginia and Not Larry Sabato for raising awareness about voting rights issues 
-Editorial boards of the Washington Post and other newspapers who supported ending Virginia's unfair lifetime disenfranchisement laws 
-Kent Willis, ACLU Virginia 
-Adisa Muse, Virginia Legislative Black Caucus 
-Krysta Jones, Virginia Leadership Institute 
-Mike Signer, senior fellow at Progressive Policy Institute, Adjunct Professor at Virginia Tech 
-Erika Wood, Brennan Center for Justice 
Howard Highland, Esq., W&L Community Law Center at the Oliver Hill House 
-Fairfax County Democratic Committee leaders and members who called Governor Kaine and who approved a resolution in support of the Democracy Restoration Act 
- Lillie Branch-Kennedy, Executive Director, Resource  Information Help for the Disadvantaged/Disenfranchised 
-All other coalition members of Virginia Restore Our Vote

Herndon, VA -- The ACLU of Virginia today informed members of Herndon's Town Council that the organization is prepared to mount a court challenge if the town passes a proposed anti-solicitation ordinance.  

The ordinance prohibits pedestrians from standing on the sidewalks and distributing literature or offering goods and services to the occupants of motor vehicles. 

The ordinance also prevents pedestrians from soliciting money from drivers.  Exempt from the ordinance, however, are programs supported by the government, such as firefighters soliciting for charitable causes or public high school students holding car-wash fundraisers.

Earlier today ACLU of Virginia Legal Director Rebecca K. Glenberg emailed a letter to Herndon officials in which she writes that at least three federal judges have struck down similar ordinances because they infringe on free speech rights without being sufficiently related to the government's interest in traffic safety.   

Glenberg notes that the proposed ordinance would prohibit speech in many circumstances when traffic safety would not be at issue.  For example, it would ban handing a leaflet to the occupant of a lawfully parked car.  It would also prohibit pedestrians from inviting drivers to pull into a parking lot to receive information. 

The Justice Department has opened civil and criminal investigations into the events that led to the continuing BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday.

“The first and foremost goal of the entire government is stopping the leak, containing and cleaning up the oil, and helping the people in this region get back on their feet and return to their normal lives,” Holder told a news conference in New Orleans, according to a text of his prepared remarks. “But as we have said all along, we must also ensure that anyone found responsible for this spill is held accountable. That means enforcing the appropriate civil – and if warranted, criminal – authorities to the full extent of the law.”

Holder also suggested that a serious federal investigation was merited into the deaths of workers aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig when an explosion apparently fed by the blowout took place on April 22.

“There is one thing I will not let be forgotten in this incident: In addition to the extensive costs being borne by our environment and by communities along the Gulf Coast, the initial explosion and fire also took the lives of 11 rig workers. Eleven innocent lives lost,” Holder said. “We will prosecute to the full extent any violations of the law.”

Earlier Tuesday, President Barack Obama warned that the federal government would prosecute anyone found to have violated the law in connection with the spill.

“If our laws were broken, leading to this death and destruction, my solemn pledge is that we will bring those responsible to justice on behalf of the victims of this catastrophe and the people of the Gulf region,” Obama said in the Rose Garden after a meeting with the co-chairmen of a commission he named to look into the spill and the future of drilling off U.S. coasts.

“Where I was wrong,” said President Obama at his press conference on Thursday, “was in my belief that the oil companies had their act together when it came to worst-case scenarios.”

With all due respect to the president, who is a very smart man, how is it possible for anyone with any reasonable awareness of the nonstop carnage that has accompanied the entire history of giant corporations to believe that the oil companies, which are among the most rapacious players on the planet, somehow “had their act together” with regard to worst-case scenarios.

These are not Little Lord Fauntleroys who can be trusted to abide by some fanciful honor system. These are greedy merchant armies drilling blindly at depths a mile and more beneath the seas while at the same time doing all they can to stifle the government oversight that is necessary to protect human lives and preserve the integrity of the environment.

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