Theologian and former Republican legislator Rev. Steve Hickey was alerted Sunday to prep for his long-awaited double-lung transplant, only to get a call six hours later saying, False alarm—bad lungs, no can do.
Yet he still has the breath and spirit (remember: respire and inspire share etymology) to advocate for a new holiday, War Folly Day:
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 [Steve Hickey, “Why an International War Folly Day 8/8?” Ways & Means, 2021.11.24].
Reverend Hickey proposes August 8—8/8—for this thoughtful holiday, given the symbolism he sees in the figure 8, the infinity sign, and the endless cycle of state violence begetting violence. However, given his note that we’ve bumped Columbus Day for Indigenous People’s Day, I would suggest it might be more fitting to repurpose one of our multiple celebrations of military might. Perhaps Veterans Day, chilly and gloomy November 11, as the world slides from autumnal decay to wintry darkness, would best befit a national contemplation of the folly and destruction we wreak on ourselves and our fellow humans.
Remember (and if you’re looking for a conversation starter at the turkey table today, after you implore your deity to send Steve Hickey some lungs, here you go): the best way to support the troops is not to send them off to war.
I thought Hickey believed in “healing prayer.”
August 8th is ESPN The Ocho Day.
July 30th, birthday of Smedley Butler of ‘War is a Racket’ fame.
Unfortunately 88 (even with a slash) has a meaning for the neo-nazis.
Well, we spend as much on our military as the next ten countries and continue to call it the Defense Department. Just what would it take to call it the War Department?
Wonder what the Race or ethnicity will be for his new set of lungs heh heh
Well, I guess that’s that for Mr. Reverend Hickey.
Bad news. We will all have to move along now.
Actually my wife’s friend had a lung transplant five years ago and she’s doing well grudz.
That’s great, Mr. Anderson. But as you say, she got one.
Mr. Hickey, they’ve yanked the rug out from under his washed feet.
He’s probably doomed.
But you’re right, you never know for sure.
Grudz, we’re all doomed. Every live day is gravy at a certain point.
Mr. Anderson, you are a young fella to me, so you are preaching to the satanic gravy choir on that one.
Former GOP South Dakota legislator, Steve Hickey has given voice to shuttering Ellsworth Air Force Base, executive clemency for Leonard Peltier America’s longest-held Prisoner of War and to the repeal of South Dakota’s destructive video lootery.
Not a bad idea, but it will never happen. At my age, I’m not putting my effort into what sounds more like an Abbie Hoffman publicity stunt than a real effort at making a difference. In the 1970s and 1980s peace activists targeted real weapons systems, like the anti-ballistic missile system, to defeat. I remember efforts to chase out the nuclear-tipped missiles from western South Dakota and other bases in the West. Many of you know Jay Davis. He and his young son went on several trips to map all the missile sites, an effort that focused attention on the issue in South Dakota. There were the nuclear winter campaigns and nuclear freeze efforts that ended up as ballot measures in several states, including South Dakota. I helped to petition that one, which lost, but these efforts were more than symbolic. Ten years later the missiles were on their way to being decommissioned.
After painting Barack Obama as the antichrist we’re watching evangelicals fawn over Trump as their Righter of Wrongs. It’s horrifying in its duplicity. The End Times fulfill a prophesy and welcome a supernatural extraterrestrial to create a one-world government. No higher being could be anything but predatory.
Now Realtors in Montana are capitalizing on racist paranoia amid Trump’s calls for the End Times. It’s dystopian fantasy run amok.
https://montanafreepress.org/2021/11/24/selling-the-american-redoubt-in-montana/
The Northern 1/3 of the world alone does that slide on 11/11.
You know Larry Kurtz, it would be fun to set up a fictitious site for Liberals in Montana, welcoming Hispanics, African Americans and Asians along with everyone. Call it Bidenout or something similar, near the community of Brandon.
The Montana Democratic Party leadership has seen Californication coming for decades and is well organized to campaign where it matters most. There is urgency in Helena, college towns and in Indian Country that Montana could indeed become the Last Best Foxhole.
May God bless and shepherd Reverend Hickey, during this, his time of need. – Amen
How about setting aside a day to recognize formally that South Dakota’s founders and the majority’s ancestors were genocidal imperialists.
Until that’s recognized and reparations are released the string of bad luck SD has been on for 200 years will continue to get worse.
Dirty Bad Karma, if you will.
We have a war at home and it needs attention…. https://www.abc27.com/news/this-week-in-pennsylvania/pennsylvania-politics/legislators-from-39-states-sign-letter-outlining-possible-reversal-of-corrupted-2020-election/
South Duhkota’s own Daffy Howard and Julie Frye Mueller are co-signees. Hang all traitors with rope made of cheap quality hemp. That’ll learn them.
8/8 is already known in some circles as Jeff Fisher Day. It’s in honor of Coach Fishers seemingly never ending w/l record of 8 and 8 year after year. Although some insist that 7/9 can also make a case for Jeff Fisher Day. The truly mediocre nfl coach