Saturday, Nov. 5th, is the 400th anniversary of Guy Fawkes Day and his notorious "Gunpowder Plot."
Yet it's still news to most people that Fawkes was not the real culprit - he was set up to be caught from the start. The real "fox" was not Fawkes but the Lord Chancellor, who lured Guy and his gaggle of foolish "fowls" to try to blow up Parliament - and provoke the war on Spain which the power behind the throne wanted.
Nothing has changed since, with the lies about WMD that got the US and UK into Iraq. A new website, www.peaceweek.net, says we can no longer ignore this old lesson - it needs to become widely known now to prevent even more dangerous phony wars.
First step is a campaign is to name the week from Nov. 5th to Nov. 11th - Guy Fawkes Day to Veterans Day - as "National Peace Week," respectively "World Peace Week." The motto: " When we know more about war - We'll have no more wars."
At www.peaceweek.net, peace-lovers can personalize a Guy Fawkes Day or World Peace e-greeting card, sign a petition or post events to the calendar. The website also includes a media center for press releases or arranging availability for interviews.
To speak with any of the participating authors or activists, you may visit the website, e-mail to info@unitingforpeace.com, or call John Leonard, the promoter and publisher of ProgressivePress.com, on 760-366-3695.
It may seem hard to believe, but there is no widely recognized Day, Week or Month for Peace on the US, UK or world calendars - yet the number of martial feast days is still growing. The US now has six: Memorial Day, Flag Day, Independence Day, Patriot Day, Veterans' Day and Pearl Harbor Day.
There is no national peace observance at all in the USA, except occasionally the UN International Peace Day. It calls for a 24-hour ceasefire - and one minute of silence. You may well wonder: even supposing it's ever observed - how many people will get killed by wars during the other 525,599 minutes of the year?
The problem, as with nearly all initiatives for peace, is the UN Peace Day tries to do something about war without mentioning who or what is causing it.
Looking at the more warlike holidays for a clue, we see that at least as far back as Guy Fawkes Day, people have been asked to make and celebrate wars based on lies.
Neither the Taliban nor Saddam Hussein had anything to do with 9/11, yet the US Army is occupying Afghanistan and Iraq. Inspect the background of the other wars, and you meet the same disillusionment: they were cowardly bully greedy wars every one, that left little glorious or victorious to celebrate. Just for example, US elites financed Hitler's war machine themselves, as books published by Peace Week sponsor Progressive Press show...
The good, the bad, and the old news is that modern mass warfare is not spontaneous: the catastrophes are premeditated. This is why we need a World Peace Week from Nov. 5th to Nov. 11th, on our 400th anniversary of planned warfare, and every year hereafter until so many people know the facts about war that the culprits cannot continue to hoodwink us.
Visit PeaceWeek.net