"Your voice is not a miracle. Your voice can be heard. Divine Strake is dead."

[helderheid]

Guy: A lot of people gave their all to nuke Divine Strake
Barb Guy

Article Last Updated: 02/24/2007 09:15:18 AM MST

A one-line e-mail greeted me last Thursday after lunch. It said, "Your voice is not a miracle. Your voice can be heard. Divine Strake is dead."

It was from Pete Ashdown, an opponent of Divine Strake who lives in Salt Lake City. The message was to Pete's e-mail list, which he compiled during his campaign to oust U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch.

I smiled at Pete's fortune cookie brevity. To convince myself the news was real, I visited The Salt Lake Tribune's Web site. It had already posted Robert Gehrke's story, which ran on the front page of the Trib the next morning: "Feds pull plug on desert blast."

I was thrilled. Stunned. Thrilled. Stunned. Victories like these, where the little guy stares down the leviathan defense machinery of the United States of America and makes the government blink, are rare and impossibly sweet.

Who gets credit for winning the battle? You do, if you called your representatives, wrote a letter to the editor, shared your thoughts at a hearing, engaged in a courageous conversation, participated in a poll, or submitted your concerns to the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. If you did anything at all, you helped win it.

Two people who earned big kudos are Steve Erickson and Robert Hager. Last year Erickson, a life-long policy wonk, signed his name to an intense legal document. It opens with these sobering words: STEPHEN ERICKSON (among 12 others), plaintiffs, v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, DONALD RUMSFELD, (and two others), defendants.

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http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_5297793

[CrazyOrangeCat]

1. Thru the fog of bad news . . .

. . . comes a victory for the little guy.

K&R.

[VenusRising]

2. K&R

Oh, thank goodness. I wouldn't have known about any of it if it weren't for Randi Rhodes. I've been calling, writing, and signing petitions ever since. It's a good feeling when you bark loud enough to affect change.

[Tsiyu]

3. This news makes the week a good one

:kick:

Thanks for posting this. :hi:

[dogday]

4. Happy to send this to the greatest

I have been keeping an eye on this situation and am very glad for all of us who would of been affected by this blast....

[helderheid]

7. thank you :D

We need to hear about the victories!

[Vidar]

5. Thanks for the good news, helderheid.

[helderheid]

6. I love spreading good news - we need more voices on THIS now (link):

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x284632

[Melissa G]

8. Thanks for spreading the good news, helderheid! n/t

[helderheid]

9. thrilled to!