In this Issue:

A Sign of the Times – Commentary by Rev. Michael S. Piazza
Monday Night Mixer: February 12 at Metro Grill
H4PJ and Uptown Players Present Hair: March 4 at 7 p.m.
Join H4PJ Today and Receive a Free Copy of The Real antiChrist
Bush Library Threatens City’s Reputation and Safety: New H4PJ Campaign
Missing Molly Ivins

Commentary: A Sign of the Times
by Rev. Michael S. Piazza

Last week I was driving my daughter to rehearsal for Regional Middle School Choir. The rehearsal was held at Highland Park High School, so, naturally, we had to drive through that enclave, which is one of the whitest, wealthiest and most Republican cities in the nation. As we drove past million-dollar homes being torn down to build multi-million-dollar homes, I saw something that I desperately wanted to take a picture of. As we were stopped at a light, I looked over, and there, in the driveway of an impressive “McMansion,” was a man busily scraping his “George W. Bush for President” sticker off the window of his uber-SUV. I wanted to roll down my window and yell, “You’re too late,” but I probably embarrass my teenaged daughter enough as it is.

I couldn’t help but wonder if, at last, even those who benefited from lavish tax-cuts and whose children would never serve in Iraq were beginning to be embarrassed. While Mr. Bush only carried Dallas County by a very small margin, I’ve always felt like an endangered species living here. Now I’m not sure how to feel. I mean, I’ve grown accustomed to voting for losers and to being in the minority. With Mr. Bush’s popularity in single digits around the world and below 25 percent in some polls in this country, I almost get queasy at the thought that so many people now agree with me. I’m not sure I like being in the majority … I have almost always found them to be wrong.

With most progressives and liberals in this country, I have mourned the loss of Molly Ivins. Who will say, out loud, what I’ve been thinking? Or, more honestly, who will say out loud what I wish I had been witty enough to have been thinking? Molly wrote for the “New York Times” for many years before returning home to Texas, just about the time I arrived. When I first read her editorials I got the mistaken impression that the folks of Texas were much less conservative than their reputation. Obviously, I was wrong. Molly was the exception not the rule. She wouldn’t have wanted to be the rule, though. In fact, in his editorial about her in the “New York Times” Paul Krugman wrote, “Molly never lost sight of two eternal truths: rulers lie, and the times when people are most afraid to challenge authority are also the times when it’s most important to do just that.”

Molly was ahead of her time. Now it seems almost everyone agrees with her about the President’s leadership and his mismanaged war and administration. Where were we when Molly needed us? Where were we when our nation needed us? If we counted up all the people who will admit to voting for George W. Bush, he’d come in third place behind “Undecided.” Well, we are in the majority at the moment, but let’s not forget that the majority elected George Bush and Richard Nixon and that the majority crucified Jesus. Frankly, I don’t think we’ll be in the majority too long. Another terrorist attack, and peace will be out of vogue again. Then where will we be without Molly to speak for us?

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Monday Night Mixer Announced
Monday Night with Mike
Dallas Mixer February 12
5-7pm | Metro Grill

Our next “Monday Night with Mike” will be THIS Monday, February 12 at Metro Grill, located at 4425 N Central Expressway; Dallas, TX 75205; just south of Knox-Henderson streets. The event will begin at 5 p.m. and last until around 7 p.m. Michael Piazza will be there to discuss his book and upcoming H4PJ events. There will be a cash bar at happy hour pricing.

Monday Night with Mike is a free event, to which everyone is invited! This is a great way to meet other people who are passionate about peace and justice issues, and an excellent opportunity to introduce your friends to the work that we are doing. Rev. Michael Piazza, President of Hope for Peace & Justice, will speak about current issues and give an update about the tour promoting his new book, The Real antiChrist. We will have copies for sale and Rev. Piazza will be available to sign copies. Please mark your calendar for this special event. Invite your friends and family and then stay for dinner to brainstorm what you can do to work for peace and justice.

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H4PJ and Uptown Players Present Hair
Benefit Performance – March 4 at 7 p.m.

Uptown Players has joined once again with Hope for Peace & Justice to present a special one-night only benefit performance. “Hair,” the American tribal love-rock musical, will be performed on Sunday, March 4 at 7 p.m. to raise money for the campaigns, programs and workshops of Hope for Peace & Justice. Tickets for this special performance are only $40 and include a post-show dessert reception. Seating is limited.

Come celebrate the 40th anniversary of this groundbreaking musical and recall the “Age of Aquarius” with this “rockumentary/rock musical” revival. “Hair” captures the innocence and passion of the 1960s, concentrating on the values of peace, love and understanding. The storyline follows a group of politically active young people in New York’s East Village, who band together as “The Tribe” and try to change the world.

Featuring songs like “Aquarius,” “Good Morning, Starshine” and “Hair,” this musical celebrates the hippie days of the late 60s, which still hold relevance today.

“Hair” is intended for mature audiences and contains partial nudity.

Click here to buy your tickets today!

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The Real antiChrist: How America Sold Its Soul Join H4PJ and Receive a Free Copy! Bishop John Shelby Spong calls The Real antiChrist, “A searing indictment of popular Christianity by a passionate Christian.” When you sign up to support H4PJ on a monthly basis, we will send you a free copy of Rev. Piazza’s new book. Click here to sign up today! Since September 11, 2001, the Religious Right has used fear to manipulate America. It has used 19 terrorists to make us so afraid that we are willing to abandon our values and do things that are virulently anti-American and un-Christian. The sale of millions of books in the Left Behind series, which portrays the Religious Right’s apocalyptic vision, is just one example of how fear-based religion is foundational to what is going on in this country. That demon has to be named and called out if we are to be free of it.

Bush Library Threatens City’s Reputation and Safety
Stopthelibrary.com to ask city councils to take a stand

Last week, Hope for Peace & Justice (H4PJ), a faith-based social justice organization, launched a petition drive to stop the George W. Bush Presidential Library and political think-tank from being built at Southern Methodist University (SMU) due to concerns about the safety of local residents and the reputation of Dallas.

“The Bush Library will no doubt be a target for terrorists,” said Rev. Michael Piazza, President of Hope for Peace & Justice. “The library will be a symbolic target and local residents need to be aware of the consequences of building the Bush Library at SMU.”

Many have also raised questions on building the infrastructure to handle the hundreds of thousands of potential visitors which will need additional roads and lanes of traffic built along US 75 and Mockingbird Lane.

Rev. Piazza sent letters to the mayors and councilors for the three area cities of Dallas, Highland Park and University Park. The letter, available online, encourages city leaders to pass a resolution against the Bush Library, citing the above reasons.

At stopthelibrary.com, people can sign a petition that will be delivered to the mayors and city councils of Dallas, Highland Park and University Park. Petitions gathered on the website will also be delivered to Gerald Turner, President of SMU, and the Board of Trustees.

“Dallas has worked for decades to escape the reputation as the ‘City that killed Kennedy,’” said Rev. Michael Piazza, President of Hope for Peace & Justice. “We do not need to return to that right-wing reputation. Playing host to Mr. Bush’s well funded neo-conservative think-tank will taint our reputation indelibly. Residents need to guard their reputation and say, ‘No thank you Mr. President.’”

Stopthelibrary.com represents a non-partisan coalition of organizations, SMU faculty and residents seeking to bring awareness to the consequences of building the George W. Bush Presidential Library in Dallas.

People concerned about the consequences the Bush library might have on the region are encouraged to go to www.stopthelibrary.com for more information and to sign the petition.

Hope for Peace & Justice (www.h4pj.org), based in Dallas, Texas is equipping progressive people of faith to be champions for peace and justice. Through grassroots efforts, Hope for Peace & Justice seeks to give voice to principles such as the creation of a culture of peace rather than war, equal rights for all people not just the majority, and education as a means of societal transformation rather than economic separation.

Related Links

Stopthelibrary.com
Sign the Petition

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Missing Molly Ivins
By Paul Krugman
Originally Published by the New York Times

Molly Ivins, the Texas columnist, died of breast cancer on Wednesday. I first met her more than three years ago, when our book tours crossed. She was, as she wrote, “a card-carrying member of The Great Liberal Backlash of 2003, one of the half-dozen or so writers now schlepping around the country promoting books that do not speak kindly of Our Leader’s record.”

I can’t claim to have known her well. But I spent enough time with her, and paid enough attention to her work, to know that obituaries that mostly stressed her satirical gifts missed the main point. Yes, she liked to poke fun at the powerful, and was very good at it. But her satire was only the means to an end: holding the powerful accountable.

She explained her philosophy in a stinging 1995 article in Mother Jones magazine about Rush Limbaugh. “Satire … has historically been the weapon of powerless people aimed at the powerful,” she wrote. “When you use satire against powerless people … it is like kicking a cripple.”

Molly never lost sight of two eternal truths: rulers lie, and the times when people are most afraid to challenge authority are also the times when it’s most important to do just that. And the fact that she remembered these truths explains something I haven’t seen pointed out in any of the tributes: her extraordinary prescience on the central political issue of our time.

I’ve been going through Molly’s columns from 2002 and 2003, the period when most of the wise men of the press cheered as Our Leader took us to war on false pretenses, then dismissed as “Bush haters” anyone who complained about the absence of W.M.D. or warned that the victory celebrations were premature. Here are a few selections:

Nov. 19, 2002: “The greatest risk for us in invading Iraq is probably not war itself, so much as: What happens after we win? … There is a batty degree of triumphalism loose in this country right now.”

Jan. 16, 2003: “I assume we can defeat Hussein without great cost to our side (God forgive me if that is hubris). The problem is what happens after we win. The country is 20 percent Kurd, 20 percent Sunni and 60 percent Shiite. Can you say, ‘Horrible three-way civil war?’ ”

July 14, 2003: “I opposed the war in Iraq because I thought it would lead to the peace from hell, but I’d rather not see my prediction come true and I don’t think we have much time left to avert it. That the occupation is not going well is apparent to everyone but Donald Rumsfeld. … We don’t need people with credentials as right-wing ideologues and corporate privatizers — we need people who know how to fix water and power plants.”

Oct. 7, 2003: “Good thing we won the war, because the peace sure looks like a quagmire. …

“I’ve got an even-money bet out that says more Americans will be killed in the peace than in the war, and more Iraqis will be killed by Americans in the peace than in the war. Not the first time I’ve had a bet out that I hoped I’d lose.”

So Molly Ivins — who didn’t mingle with the great and famous, didn’t have sources high in the administration, and never claimed special expertise on national security or the Middle East — got almost everything right. Meanwhile, how did those who did have all those credentials do?

With very few exceptions, they got everything wrong. They bought the obviously cooked case for war — or found their own reasons to endorse the invasion. They didn’t see the folly of the venture, which was almost as obvious in prospect as it is with the benefit of hindsight. And they took years to realize that everything we were being told about progress in Iraq was a lie.

Was Molly smarter than all the experts? No, she was just braver. The administration’s exploitation of 9/11 created an environment in which it took a lot of courage to see and say the obvious.

Molly had that courage; not enough others can say the same.

And it’s not over. Many of those who failed the big test in 2002 and 2003 are now making excuses for the “surge.” Meanwhile, the same techniques of allegation and innuendo that were used to promote war with Iraq are being used to ratchet up tensions with Iran.

Now, more than ever, we need people who will stand up against the follies and lies of the powerful. And Molly Ivins, who devoted her life to questioning authority, will be sorely missed.

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