Thanksgiving is almost upon us, and we have to look pretty hard to find things for which to be thankful.

But they are there.

We can be thankful for the more than 16,000 people who went to Ft Benning, Georgia this past weekend to protest and draw attention to the training of military personnel from around the world- many of whom have gone home to kill, maim and abuse human rights. For more on this visit www.soaw.org

We can be thankful that Congress cut funding for the "Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator" to zero for 2005. No money for the high-yield nuclear bunker-buster! Congress also zero-ed out funding for the Department of Energy’s program devoted to mini-nukes and other new, high-tech nuclear weaponry at Livermore and Los Alamos Labs. Thanks to the dogged persistence of groups like TriValley Cares. (And, interestingly enough, it was a Republican from the battleground state of Ohio that led this effort in Congress- Rep. David Hobson (R-Ohio), Chairman of the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee. For more on this, visit www.armscontrol.org

We can be thankful that in the heart of one of the most intractable conflicts in the world, Israelis and Palestinians are harvesting olives together. Nadia Hajib, from the Jerusalem Fund for Education and Community, writes in the International Herald Tribune of Israelis by the busload traveling into the Occupied Territories to help Palestinians harvest olives. Gush Shalom, the Jewish peace organization, coordinated the solidarity effort. Hajib quotes a Palestinian pastor, Mitri Raheb, who wrote: "At times, when we feel as if the world must be coming to an end, our only hopeful vision is to go out and plant olive trees.... There will be oil to heal the wounds, and there will be olive branches to wave when peace arrives." Read her article online at www.commondreams.org

One book for these times is Rebecca Solnit's "HOPE IN THE DARK: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities." Studs Terkel says "In a jewel of a book that is poetic in substance as well as style, Rebecca reveals where we were, where we are and the step-by-step advances that have been made in human rights, as we stubbornly stumble out of the darkness." Published by Nation Books, www.nationbooks.org

And finally, lots of Americans joked about going to Canada after Bush won the election in November. Some were serious enough to research what it would take to emigrate. The better part of valor is to stay and fight for the future of our country, not leave it to the neo-cons. But for some American soldiers fleeing deployment to the killing fields of Iraq, Canada was more than a hope... it was a last resort. Frida Berrigan's article "THE NEW COs," on three of these soldiers, has just been published in The Progressive Magazine. Read it online at www.progressive.org

Happy Thanksgiving,

Bill Hartung
Frida Berrigan
Michelle Ciarrocca

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