After some inner angst during yet another war glorification holiday I’ve decided to start a new one, International War Folly Day, August 8. Eight/eight is easy to remember, it is the number of new beginnings and it visually represents the folly of war.

Yes I’m on my sick bed (awaiting a lung transplant) and who knows, I may not live to see August 8 but what better thing to devote my energies toward?! If Columbus Day can get bumped for Indigenous Peoples Day, maybe there is room amidst Veterans Day, Memorial Day, Armed Forces Day, and the dozens of others for a day were we slow it all down and take a hard look at what is really going on.

So far I’ve started a Facebook page and registered it officially as a national and international holiday. Next I’ll figure out how to broadcast it far and wide and garnish international support. I need any and all help. This is NOT just another peace or pacifism day, this is a day when we insist on the truth for our soldiers by highlighting the farce and fiasco that is modern perpetual war; the real human cost, the unaccountable war spending (so little of which is truly for any sort of national defense), the delusion that these military actions result in a world with fewer bad guys or that have much if anything at all to do with preserving freedom, the insanity of bombing and building a country back up, exposing the financiers of war, the political hawks, the oligarchy and war games, the war industry and defense contracts – and so much more.

Especially after Afghanistan, can we all agree it is okay to ask of the powers that be: Is this present skirmish worth the life of my son or daughter? We do our soldiers no service when we go along with almost a hypnotic and blind (support) patriotism every time the war frenzy starts up again. Please share this far and wide.