When something goes right
Oh, it's likely to lose me
It's apt to confuse me
It's such an unusual sight
—Paul Simon
Larry Summers has proven unacceptable to oversee the continued destruction of the U.S. economy. The U.S. public has successfully rejected proposed missile strikes on Syria. My Congressman was among the majority who listened. Today was beautiful. The Orioles won. The Cowboys lost. The University of Virginia avoided losing by not playing. My family is expecting a new baby. I've finished a new book, which Kathy Kelly has written a beautiful foreword for. I have a sense that if the universe were right now campaigning on "hope and change" I might seriously consider voting for it.

I'm also pretty sure that if everything in my personal life were going slightly to hell and Larry Summers were crowned king of Wall Street, and the Dallas Cowboys were to win (darn them!), my sense of this moment in the movement against U.S. militarism would remain essentially the same. A major victory has been won, and we need to claim it and celebrate it.

Many senators began this week still uncommitted on whether they’ll vote for attacking Syria. Among the fence-sitters are enough “progressives” to swing the Senate’s decision one way or the other.

That decision is coming soon -- maybe as early as Wednesday -- and the Obama White House is now pulling out all the stops to counter public opinion, which remains overwhelmingly against a war resolution. The administration hopes to win big in the Senate and carry momentum into the House, where the bomb-Syria agenda faces a steeper climb.

Some Democratic senators who’ve cultivated progressive reputations nationwide -- Barbara Boxer of California, Dick Durbin of Illinois and Al Franken of Minnesota -- haven’t hesitated to dive into Obama’s war tank. Boxer, Durbin and Franken quickly signed on as carnage bottom-feeders, pledging their adamant support for the U.S. government to attack yet another country.

Other Democrats, like Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Tom Udall of New Mexico, have made clear their intention to vote “no” when the war-on-Syria measure reaches the Senate floor.

The United States is not now bombing Syria.

Let’s savor that again: for the moment at least, the United States is not now bombing Syria.

That alone qualifies as an epic, unprecedented victory for the SuperPower of Peace, the global movement to end war, win social justice and somehow salvage our ecological survival.

Will it mark a permanent turning point?

That a treaty has been signed to rid the Assad regime of its chemical weapons is icing on the cake, however thin it proves to be. We don’t know if it will work. We don’t know if the restraint from bombing will hold.

But in a world that bristles with atomic weapons, where the rich get ever richer at the expense of the rest of us, and where stricken Japanese reactors along with 400 more worldwide threaten the survival of our global ecology, we must count any victory for peace---even if potentially fleeting---as a huge one. Let’s do some history.

As the crisis in Syria continues to evolve day by day according to the whims of foreign diplomats and leaders, President Obama’s foreign policy has been under special scrutiny. Concerning the Syrian dilemma, Barack Obama has relayed a message to the American people and the global community at large that is rife with confusion and contradiction. But, amidst that confusion rests one coherent signal: the President is insisting on having it both ways in Syria.

Despite the jeering and deriding that now accompanies any mention of the name George W. Bush, the fact remains that the former president had a sound, singular, stated foreign policy. Whether one agrees or disagrees with Mr. Bush, it is indisputable that his rhetoric of aggressive, preemptive action matched his operations as commander-in-chief. When President Bush delivered his remarks that portrayed the Saddam Hussein regime as one unable to coexist with the United States, Mr. Bush carried out those words with the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Like it or not, his words matched his actions.