All people in the USA this month, as it's women's history month need
to honor great women in US history. A few readily come to mind. Here
goes. Susan B Anthony, Eleanor Roosevelt, Coretta Scott King, Jane
Fonda, Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Cindy Sheehan all have made
major contributions in this country; and this is in no way a
comprehensive list. But this isn't at all a bad start for honoring
great American women.

To start this off with a real spark for voices for an anti war effort
and ultimately an international peace movement, it would seem a good
idea to refer to those who stand out in
this regard. They would include such women as Cindy Sheehan, Eartha
Kitt, Cynthia McKinney, Correta Scott King, and Jane Fonda.

Women having a stronger feminine side with all the nurturing,
sensitivity, compassion for others, sense of justice, and
identification with standing in solidarity with those suffering
oppression have the wherewithal to provide a vanguard not only for
anti war effort, but a full fledged international peace movement.
Furthermore, it's very appropriate that US women should do this as it
still is, as it was, their "own government" which is "the greatest
purveyor of violence in the world today," as Martin Luther King Jr
said in 1967.

Eartha Kitt, a US activist, cultural symbol, and internationally
renowned singer who had protested the Vietnam War in the White House
in 1968 to the First Lady herself,
died on Christmas Day last year was an outstanding example of women
standing up to US militarism.

Coretta Scott King stood at the side of Martin Luther King Jr, one of
the greatest Americans in all US history, and she backed him in his
struggle for racial justice at home, in his opposition to the Vietnam
War. After he died she would continue his struggle including that
against US militarism and imperialism, for civil rights at home, for
other justice issues at home, and also very importantly she would
provide leadership in opposing W's foreign policy of endless war.

The others are still around.

Barbara Lee, who is now the leader of the Black Caucus in the US
Congress and was the only member of that body to vote against W's
resolution to seek military action after the 9/11 attacks has been,
and surely will continue to be a solid, courageous voice in any anti
war effort and could easily have a leading role in any real
international peace movement.

Cindy Sheehan became active in opposing Iraq War and W's "war of
terrorism," after her son's needless death in W's Iraq War based on
lies and fraud, has led this effort as well other efforts opposing the
insane domestic and foreign policies of W's administration, and she
continues to do so "to her everlasting credit," as the late Wayne
Morse would have said.

Media Benjamin of Code Pink has been in this struggle way back when W
sold his phony Iraq War to the country.

Cynthia McKinney as a presidential candidate of the Greens in 2008 and
since has shown she's willing and able to go all in the struggle as
part of anti war effort and likely help
lead in women moving to form a vanguard of an international peace
movement.

Jane Fonda would show her leadership in opposing the Vietnam War, in
supporting the women's movement, in supporting Tom Hayden, her one
time husband's fight for economic democracy, and not least for certain
she would, and does continue, to oppose the Iraq War.

These women can lead the way toward an all out international peace
movement so desperately needed today. Men and other women as well can
surely be part of such a movement. Those who lead for a time may
become followers later, and those who start out as followers may
become leaders later. Only those with an hierarchal orientation must
have have the same leaders all the time and have any
institutionalization of same.

Along with the women already cited, then let us honor and recognize
others below. These women provided outstanding examples for the
progressive movement on a variety
of issues.

Brought up as a Quaker, Susan B Anthony was an activist in many causes
mainly in the 19th Century, and these included, but aren't limited to
the anti slavery movement, the women's suffrage movement, the movement
to get better working conditions for employees in the labor force, and
the movement to get equal pay for women and other equality for women.
She was a brave woman who in one case during her activism for the anti
slavery movement even encountered, not just the threat of violence,
but violence literally breaking out. But she didn't back down. Nor did
she back down on other great causes which she lent her name to.

Oh, how about Eleanor Roosevelt for a great American woman? She was a
first lady, who, thankfully, never knew "her place" as a woman, as she
always must have been convinced that she had a right to speak out on
the great issues of the day. She was known to be quite outspoken on
racial injustice in the USA, when it was definitely not in vogue to
be. She spoke out on human rights abroad as well. Franklin D Roosevelt
had a great woman at his side in his fight for the mass of people
against the "economic royalists." She was also a supporter of the
United Nations as an organization. For liberals and progressives, she
often showed the leadership which others lacked the foresight or guts
to provide. She may have been, and probably was wrong now and then.
But who the hell isn't?

Rosa Parks, who had never had a prominent role in activism before
1955, would on a fateful day that year in Montgomery Alabama take a
stand by sitting and refusing to give up her seat at the front of a
local transit bus to a white man and by doing so start the ball
rolling big time for the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s.
The Brown vs Board Education decision by the US Supreme Court in 1954,
while certainly important didn't trigger the kind of activism in the
civil rights struggle, and especially with regard to legally
sanctioned segregation that Rosa ParKs stand by remaining seated did.

Fannie Lou Hamer, who would become famous for saying, "I'm sick and
tired of being sick and tired," would lead in the civil rights
movement in Mississippi, especially with regard to getting voting
rights for blacks. She
would also lead a challenge delegation to both the 1964 and 1968
Democratic National Conventions to more dramatically seek to get black
representation in the party which has too often, and especially since
the early 1990s, taken blacks, other people of color, and working
class whites for granted. She would later get involved with and in the
National Women's Caucus within the women's movement.