Blessed Are The Peacemakers

Adios, Uribe!

2010-11-10T18:01:00.001-08:00

A bold and creative effort to oust Ex-Colombian President Alvaro Uribe from the faculty of Georgetown University.

http://uribe-georgetown.org/category/blog/

Justine Masika Bihamba

2010-09-24T12:28:00.001-07:00

http://hopeforjustine.blogspot.com/

THIS IS LEADERSHIP!

2010-08-19T21:23:00.001-07:00

Beijing Express Declaration

2010-07-29T12:21:00.001-07:00

Beijing Express Declaration

Created en-route to the UN 4th Global Conference on Women, in Beijing. Still highly relevant in 2010

In 1995 a multinational group of 200 women from the 29 former Soviet Union and satellite nations travelled 8000 kilometres aboard a half-kilometre-long train from Warsaw to Beijing for the UN 4th Global Conference On Women. Trainers came from many nations, including the USA, Canada, Israel, Japan and Turkey. Trainers and experts presented workshops on Human Rights, negotiating skills, conflict mediation and conflict resolution, how to change world trade agreements and create economic policies to suit the world’s women - even courses in English, computer skills and networking through e-mail.

The train was sponsored by the UNDP and became known as ‘The Beijing Express’.

The Beijing Express Working Group was created from the 200 delegates and chaired by the UK delegate Lesley Abdela lesley.abdela@shevolution.com

The UK’s Lesley Abdela was sponsored by the British Council to conduct Democracy skills workshops aboard the Beijing Express

The Delegates affirmed the following Declaration developed by the Working Group.
1) The New '-ism'

Neither Communism nor Capitalism has worked well for the majority of women in the world. We believe the new ‘ism’ will come from a new approach to world economics.
Many economic policies have been disastrous for women. It is often women who bear the brunt of economic restructuring policies made by organisations who too often overlook the way their polices could impact on millions of women.
Under both Communism and Capitalism the quality of people’s lives is all too often sacrificed for the goal of wealth creation. Human development should not be sacrificed in the name of economic growth but rather economic growth should be used as a tool to help people achieve a healthy and creative life.
2) White Scarves, Not Blue Helmets

(This heading is symbolic - in certain Islamic countries, when a woman throws down her white scarf no person must pass. This has been used on occasion to stop men fighting)
The present system of peace-making and negotiations dominated by senior men at governmental levels has patently failed and is now discredited. We want women’s full participation in conflict prevention, resolution and peace-keeping. Therefore we want women’s organisations and Non-Governmental Organisations from all sides in all future peace talks and working with governments on developing and expanding ‘Preventive Diplomacy’.
3) 'Hot Spot' Commission

We want the United Nations’ mandate to be expanded to include preventive diplomacy. As part of this we want a ‘Hot Spot’ Commission set up to try to prevent conflict where trouble is brewing. This Commission, consisting of women and men, would be set up to intervene in conflict prevention, resolution and settlement.
4) Economic and Political Sanctions

We want economic and political sanctions imposed on parties violating Human Rights - but humanitarian aid should be allowed.
5) Rape as a War Crime

We want men who commit rape as a war crime to be brought to justice and prosecuted as war criminals. We believe this will only happen if women are included equally with men on committees responsible for bringing these men to trial.
6) Property Rights As Human Rights

We want property rights recognised as Human Rights, and improved mechanisms for getting back property snatched away in conflicts.
7) Women's Equal Participation

We want systems of national political and public life reformed to include women’s equal participation with men in political, economic and international decision-making at all levels, from local to national to global. This means also providing training and encouragement for women to participate in politics and public life.
8) Favourable Government Policies Towards Women

We want government policies favourable to women. Many policies developed by governments either ignore women’s needs or actually harm women. We want governments in transition economies to show what impact their policies are having on women. This would be a way to get policy-makers to develop policies that are more women-friendly.
9) Gender Neutral Language

We want governments and other entities to use gender-neutral language.
10) Government Financial Support

We want governments to give financial support to women’s groups. These voices must be heard.
11) Recognition of Unpaid Work

We want women’s unpaid work measured and recognised in economic arrangements such as pensions. Nearly 50% of the US$23 Trillion global output is provided by women’s unpaid work. We need fairer sharing of the work and equality in the home. Sakiko Fukuda-Parr of the UNDP says, “When we get world leaders to recognise that 70% of the world’s GDP is unpaid work, they won’t say women working at home can’t qualify for pensions on an equal basis with men.”

Grace Lee Boggs, the Visionary

2010-07-23T13:25:00.000-07:00

Watch her interview with Bill Moyers

Human Rights Not Charity for Haiti

2010-07-23T12:25:00.001-07:00

From the RFK Center for Human Rights.

Howard Zinn IS the BOMB!

2010-07-23T12:19:00.000-07:00

Howard Zinn's The Bomb

By David Swanson

The late Howard Zinn's new book "The Bomb" is a brilliant little dissection of some of the central myths of our militarized society. Those who've read "A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA's Secret Cold War Experiments," by H.P. Albarelli Jr. know that this is a year for publishing the stories of horrible things that the United States has done to French towns. In that case, Albarelli, describes the CIA administering LSD to an entire town, with deadly results. In "The Bomb," Zinn describes the U.S. military making its first use of napalm by dropping it all over another French town, burning anyone and anything it touched. Zinn was in one of the planes, taking part in this horrendous crime.

In mid-April 1945, the war in Europe was essentially over. Everyone knew it was ending. There was no military reason (if that's not an oxymoron) to attack the Germans stationed near Royan, France, much less to burn the French men, women, and children in the town to death. The British had already destroyed the town in January, similarly bombing it because of its vicinity to German troops, in what was widely called a tragic mistake. This tragic mistake was rationalized as an inevitable part of war, just as were the horrific firebombings that successfully reached German targets, just as was the later bombing of Royan with napalm. Zinn blames the Supreme Allied Command for seeking to add a "victory" in the final weeks of a war already won. He blames the local military commanders' ambitions. He blames the American Air Force's desire to test a new weapon. And he blames everyone involved -- which must include himself -- for "the most powerful motive of all: the habit of obedience, the universal teaching of all cultures, not to get out of line, not even to think about that which one has not been assigned to think about, the negative motive of not having either a reason or a will to intercede."

When Zinn returned from the war in Europe, he expected to be sent to the war in the Pacific, until he saw and rejoiced at seeing the news of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, 65 years ago this August. Only years later did Zinn come to understand the inexcusable crime of the greatest proportions that was the dropping of nuclear bombs in Japan, actions similar in some ways to the final bombing of Royan. The war with Japan was already over, the Japanese seeking peace and willing to surrender. Japan asked only that it be permitted to keep its emperor, a request that was later granted. But, like napalm, the nuclear bombs were weapons that needed testing. The second bomb, dropped on Nagasaki, was a different sort of bomb that also needed testing. President Harry Truman wanted to demonstrate nuclear bombs to the world and especially to Russia. And he wanted to end the war with Japan before Russia became part of it. The horrific form of mass murder he employed was in no way justifiable.

Zinn also goes back to dismantle the mythical reasons the United States was in the war to begin with. The United States, England, and France were imperial powers supporting each other's international aggressions in places like the Philippines. They opposed the same from Germany and Japan, but not aggression itself. Most of America's tin and rubber came from the Southwest Pacific. The United States made clear for years its lack of concern for the Jews being attacked in Germany. It also demonstrated its lack of opposition to racism through its treatment of African Americans and Japanese Americans. Franklin D. Roosevelt described fascist bombing campaigns over civilian areas as "inhuman barbarity" but then did the same on a much larger scale to German cities, which was followed up by the destruction on an unprecedented scale of Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- actions that came after years of dehumanizing the Japanese. Zinn points out that "LIFE magazine showed a picture of a Japanese person burning to death and commented: 'This is the only way.'" Aware that the war would end without any more bombing, and aware that U.S. prisoners of war would be killed by the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, the U.S. military went ahead and dropped the bombs.

Americans allowed these things to be done in their name, just as the Germans and Japanese allowed horrible crimes to be committed in their names. Zinn points out, with his trademark clarity, how the use of the word "we" blends governments together with peoples and serves to equate our own people with our military, while we demonize the people of other lands because of actions by their governments. "The Bomb" suggest a better way to think about such matters and firmly establishes that
--what the U.S. military is doing now, today, parallels the crimes of the past and shares their dishonorable motivations;
--the bad wars have a lot in common with the so-called "good war," about which there was little if anything good;
--Howard Zinn did far more in his life for peace than for war, and more for peace than just about anybody else, certainly more than several Nobel Peace Prize winners.

Anti-torture Activists Meet Former Gitmo Detainees

2010-07-23T09:06:00.001-07:00

American Anti-Torture Activists Visit Former Guantánamo Prisoners in Bermuda

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Monday, July 19, 2010

Contact: Matt Daloisio, 201-264-4424, daloisio@earthlink.net
Luke Hansen, 605-407-2799, lukejhansen@yahoo.com

New York City — Three Christian activists from Witness Against Torture
traveled to Bermuda on Friday, July 16, 2010 to meet with four Uyghur
men who were detained in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba for more than seven years.
(The Uyghur ethnic group primarily resides in western China.) The Bush
administration conceded that the men are not “enemy combatants,” and in
October 2008 a federal judge ordered their release. Eight months later,
four Uyghurs were resettled in Bermuda. Other Uyghur detainees were
resettled elsewhere while five Uyghurs remain in Guantánamo.

The purpose of the delegation to Bermuda is to build relationships with
the Uyghurs, seek their counsel concerning further advocacy for both
current and former Guantánamo prisoners, and to bring a message of
atonement and reconciliation from the American people to the former
prisoners. “In the United States, public discourse on Guantánamo is
mainly informed by various perspectives from the military, politicians
and the U.S. public,” says John Bambrick, a Chicago youth minister. “We
have come to Bermuda to seek the perspectives of men who have
experienced Guantánamo firsthand.”

“The Uyghur men in Bermuda, like us, are people of faith,” says Jeremy
Kirk, a Ph.D. student in social ethics at Union Theological Seminary in
New York City. “We are practicing our Christian faith by seeking
connection with our Muslim brothers, in whose detention and abuse we
have participated as U.S. taxpayers and citizens.”

On Saturday, the three activists visited the Uyghurs’ apartment, shared
a meal and swam in the ocean with the former prisoners, and swapped
stories about family and religious faith. The Uyghur men shared some of
their experiences of being in Guantánamo and discussed their gratitude
for and challenges associated with resettlement. (They are very grateful
to the Bermudan Government’s support and hospitality.) On Sunday, the
activists will speak with the Uyghurs in further detail about their
experiences at Guantánamo and the conditions currently faced by the men
who remain in detention. Luke Hansen, who is studying to become a Jesuit
priest, states, “One of the many things that has impressed me in our
conversations with these men, whom the Bush administration repeatedly
labeled as the ‘worst of the worst,’ is their gentleness and compassion.
While these men fiercely criticize the rationalizations behind their
detention, they have expressed no resentment towards their captors, but
rather have focused solely on the imperative to release the remaining
Uyghur detainees at Guantánamo.”

The delegation to Bermuda included:

John Bambrick, 31, works as a Catholic youth minister in Chicago and is
a member of the White Rose Catholic Worker. He earned his B.A. at
Marquette University in 2001 and his M.A. in Pastoral Studies from
Loyola University Chicago in 2008.

Luke Hansen, S.J., 28, is part of the Wisconsin Province of the Society
of Jesus (Jesuits). In May, Luke earned an M.A. at Loyola University
Chicago. His thesis is titled, “Countering Terrorism with Justice: A
Catholic Response to Policies of Indefinite Detention in the Fight
Against Terrorism.”

Jeremy Kirk, 32, is a Ph.D. student in social ethics at Union
Theological Seminary in New York City, where he studies interfaith
response to crisis and liberation theology. He has worked as an
organizer with various environmental and human rights groups.

All three are members of Witness Against Torture, a grassroots
organization that formed in December 2005 when twenty-five activists
walked to Guantánamo to visit the prisoners and protest torture
policies. Since then, the group has engaged in public education,
lobbying, demonstrations, and nonviolent civil disobedience.

Nonviolence and Anarchism

2010-07-22T20:34:00.001-07:00

A great read. Click

Women Nobel Peace Prize Winners

2010-07-20T20:03:00.001-07:00

2004, The Nobel Peace Prize
Wangari Muta Maathai
2003, The Nobel Peace Prize
Shirin Ebadi
1997, The Nobel Peace Prize
Jody Williams
1992, The Nobel Peace Prize
Rigoberta Menchú Tum
1991, The Nobel Peace Prize
Aung San Suu Kyi
1982, The Nobel Peace Prize
Alva Myrdal
1979, The Nobel Peace Prize
Mother Teresa
1976, The Nobel Peace Prize
Betty Williams
1976, The Nobel Peace Prize
Mairead Corrigan
1946, The Nobel Peace Prize
Emily Greene Balch
1931, The Nobel Peace Prize
Jane Addams
1905, The Nobel Peace Prize
Baroness Bertha Sophie Felicita von Suttner, née Countess Kinsky von Chinic und Tettau

4th of July: Independence or Explosions?

2010-07-08T21:40:00.001-07:00

Is it About Independence, Or Explosions?

I sat on the stone wall that lines Druid Lake tonight and watched Baltimore destroyed by bombs. I watched tracers light up the sky, followed by the deep pulse of distant explosions.

I watched huge clouds of smoke rise from downtown, escaping from the flaming buildings. I saw explosions as far as Dundalk, Curtis Bay, and Morgan State. I saw light emerging from deep in the West Side, illuminating the trees that line the park.

I saw the Belvedere Hotel hit by a series of missiles, a huge flame bursting out the East wall. I remembered when the bartender there took me and a friend on the roof to see the best 360 degree view I’d ever seen of the city. I wondered if he would survive the attack.

Then a huge bomb fell into the apartment building at Howard and 28th, sending a large cloud of smoke into the air. I could only imagine the horrors inside as elderly residents tried to escape the flames. I watched cars crossing the 29th St. bridge fired on by helicopters that then continued on their way into Remington. I watched mortar fire land in the houses of Reservoir Hill that face the park, and heard the sounds of gunfire from the streets behind them.

It was a total nightmare, something I never wanted to experience. Thankfully, it was mostly in my head. It was the Fourth of July, and celebratory explosions were popping off all over the city.

But I wasn’t celebrating, I was mourning. The fireworks reminded me not of 1776 or 1812, but of 2003, when I watched an almost identical scene on the TV news. I thought not of British Redcoats, but of U.S. Soldiers and Marines. I was watching a re-run of Shock And Awe, the massive bombing campaign the U.S. unleashed on Baghdad on March 19th, 2003.

I texted a friend, a former National Guardsman who participated in the initial invasion of Iraq. I told him I was thinking of Baghdad, watching the city light up, and I asked how he was. He said he was “in hiding”, not interested in being taken back to that place again, at least, not this year.

I thought how many friends of mine, Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who have joined the ranks of the anti-war movement, were in hiding too, taking pills to calm their shattered nerves, reasoning with their shame and anger at the roles they played in occupying these countries.

I thought of my childhood friend Austin Koth, who deployed to Baghdad in 2006 with an Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit. I imagined which exploding firework might best match the sound of the Improvised Explosive Device (IED) that took his life two weeks before he would have come home. Then I heard it.

I thought about the millions of Iraqi and Afghan citizens whose lives have been turned upside down by the “Global War on Terror”. I felt so sad and sorry to the Iraqi people for the actions of my government, a government that wouldn’t budge no matter how unpopular the invasion was or how many people voiced opposition to it.

I wondered how I could explain that to those who lost limbs when our bombs came crashing into their neighborhoods because one of their neighbors may or may not have posed a threat to U.S. forces. I thought about the brave people who picked up weapons to defend their communities from the invasion of my government.

I thought “what if Baltimore was really being bombed right now?” I wondered what I would actually feel like, what it means to watch your home, the home of so many friends and family, crumble under the bombs of a foreign government. I wondered what I would do and what my friends would do. Would I go out into the chaos to look for survivors? Would I stay far away hoping to save my own life? Would I fight? Would I organize others to fight with me?

These thoughts paralyzed me for an hour as I sat and stared out into the city. I was among families having cookouts, all the while a simulation of a major bombing campaign lit up my city’s skyline.

All I could think of was Baghdad.

It is amazing that we celebrate our Independence Day in such a way. A total glorification of war. A sensory overload of violence. After all, our fireworks are meant to imitate the “bombs bursting in air” which helped win the Independence War against Britain.

I wonder how many take time on this day to consider the Independence movement that led to the creation of the United States. I wonder if they think about other Independence movements, from India to Algeria to Mozambique, that fought similar struggles against colonialism.

I wonder if any note the parallels between British policy in colonial America and U.S. policy in Iraq. After all, it was the British who set the stage for our presence when they invaded and occupied Iraq in 1921.

And the Iraqi resistance that arose after U.S. Administrator of Iraq Paul Bremer set drastic and far-reaching economic decrees in 2004 isn’t that different from events in our own history. American Patriots fought back after similar changes were initiated by the British in the 1760s and 70s. They rioted against the Stamp Act and dumped Tea in the Boston Harbor to protest British economic policies.

Then they picked up guns.

But political history aside, a deeper question remains; why the glorification of war? Is it to remind ourselves of the glory of victory, to remember those who suffered and died to free the United States from Britain? Is it to turn war into a celebration, to be enjoyed from afar, knowing we will probably never see it?

I tend to believe the latter, that the fireworks celebration is not about Independence, it’s about explosions. It’s about war. It’s a yearly mass-experience that reminds us that we live in a culture of violence and that we are safe enough from war that we can celebrate it from a detached position. But it’s not a conspiracy by some branch of government or some multinational fireworks company, it’s a cultural practice, an unwritten consensus.

If we took time to consider the real impacts that war and mass violence have across the world, I don’t think we would be able to stomach all the hot dogs. I think we would start to feel the weight of so many lives that were taken early by the crippling shards of shrapnel bursting out of bombs and missiles dropped by our military around the world.

And if we all considered what we would do if we were on the receiving end of such an assault, if we saw the bombing of Baltimore the way i did tonight, maybe we would feel the common humanity that binds us to those in Iraq, Afghanistan, and countless other countries that live the results of our government’s aggressive foreign policy.

Perhaps then we could start celebrating Independence Day in a way that honors, educates about, or supports those fighting similar battles today, even if they are against our own government’s policies.

- Ryan Harvey is a musician and organizer with Civilian Soldier Alliance. Check out his blog at http://voiceshakes.wordpress.com/.

Guilt, Necessity, and Solidarity

2010-07-07T09:05:00.001-07:00

Guilt, Necessity, and Solidarity

I was out with a friend last night talking about the usual oppression and societal injustice when she said that she liked how I wasn’t a guilty white man. This made me consider the difference between acting out of guilt, necessity, and solidarity. As far as I’m concerned, these are the three main motivators for any sort of social justice or humanitarian work. I do not think they overlap because they depend greatly on the activist’s position in society and view of that society.

Guilt, in my mind, is the weakest of the three motivators. Guilt is ultimately selfish. It does not serve the needs of the victim, but of the perpetrator. Let’s say my father used to be a Klansman, and I decided that once reaching adulthood and understanding the legacy I was inheriting that I would donate 15 percent of my salary to black charities. This would not be serving the true needs of the victims in this situation because I did not ask the victims what their needs were. I did not seek out the families that were directly harmed by my father, and I certainly didn’t engage in anti-racist work in my own family and larger community. I merely sent money to assuage my guilt.

Perhaps a more compelling example is progressive white supporters of President Obama. I can’t help but wonder if they really support his policies or if they are just too afraid, out of guilt, to criticize a black president. They might also be too afraid, out of insecurity, to criticize a man who is ultimately doing more for their community than he is for most blacks. But for the sake of argument, let’s just say that they do care about the larger black community in the United States. Is it not hypocrisy, perhaps even racism, to refuse to criticize a black man for pushing the same policies as his white, despised predecessor? Do they really think their reverence for a black man in the White House is going to make up for centuries of slavery, murder, rape, discrimination, imprisonment, and exploitation?

People who identity as oppressed — whether they be impoverished, of color, homosexual, or disabled — generally engage in so-called activism out of necessity. They are not in a position to simply don a business suit and join the ranks of the privileged. Many of these individuals did not have to learn about racism, classicism, sexism, or any other –ism in college; they experienced them firsthand. If they are to live healthy, safe, and equitable lives in the United States of America, they are obliged to organize or agitate in some way. They do not change causes the way people change clothes — as some white progressive-types do. They do not have this luxury.

Solidarity, I would argue, is the proper role for the privileged in relation to the oppressed or the underprivileged. This is not an easy concept to explain. It must be felt by the privileged person on a deeper level than guilt. The privileged person must understand that his personal suffering or forbearance means little to the underprivileged person’s liberation. He or she must understand that there is an oppressive system at work here that manipulates the oppressed and the oppressor alike and that the liberation of one is irrevocably tied to the liberation of the other. We, as the privileged, must not attempt to simply reach out and pull our underprivileged brothers and sisters up to our level. This is not enough, for we must also jump down from our pedestals. We must ultimately join them in the middle, for it is self-evident that the underprivileged becoming “white,” or privileged themselves, is not the answer. It is the privilege itself that separates us from each other and makes peace and justice impossible; it is not the color or even the centuries of exploitation.

The Peace Movement's Progress

2010-07-05T17:47:00.000-07:00

The Peace Movement's Progress

By David Swanson

The peace movement has made significant progress in the United States since its low point of late 2008, and just about everything anyone in it has done has been a contribution. If everyone keeps doing
what they're doing, and more of it, we might just end some wars,
eventually. But I think some techniques are working better than others,
and that pursuing the most strategic approaches would make victory
likelier sooner and longer-lasting when it comes.

I think the peace movement bottomed out in late 2008 for two reasons above all others. One was the election of a Democratic president. I wasn't around for Wilson, FDR, or LBJ, but my impression is that
electing Democratic presidents is often bad news for both peace and,
paradoxically, for the peace movement. But both can eventually recover.
The other reason was the unconstitutional and uncertain treaty that
Bush and Maliki created, requiring the complete end of the Iraq
occupation following three more years of it. The agreement actually
made this delay a year and a half, rather than three years, by making
the treaty breakable through a vote of the Iraqi people (the outcome of
which could not be doubted). However, that was denied to them. While
the US peace movement had always demanded an IMMEDIATE end to the war
in Iraq, and might have been expected to go on doing so, the
combination of a written deadline and the ascension of a Democrat to
the throne proved deadly, even as the occupation of Iraq continued and
that in Afghanistan escalated.

We now have a larger and more costly military, and larger and more costly wars -- costly in financial terms -- than when Bush was president. We have more troops in the field, more mercenaries in the
field, bases in more nations, a heightened use of drone strikes into
additional countries, new secret military forces in still other
nations, and greater war powers assumed by the president, including the
power to assassinate Americans, the more firmly established powers to
imprison without charge, rendition, and torture, and heightened powers
of secrecy.

So, why do I say we've made progress? Well, I said we've made progress from where we were in late 2008, at which point the downward trends I've just mentioned could be foreseen. We'd just elected a
president promising a larger military and an escalation in Afghanistan.
Since then, the U.S. public has turned dramatically from supporting to
opposing the war in Afghanistan and the President's handling of it. The
planned escalation in Kandahar has failed to get off the ground. Every
official governmental and non-governmental study has deemed the effort
in Afghanistan hopeless, pointless, catastrophic, or criminal. High
ranking whistleblowers have spoken out. The Pentagon has resorted to
wild claims of mineral wealth, as it flails about for new ways to
justify the war. And the blame game, surrounding the eventual
withdrawal, has begun; the general in charge has been dismissed. In
addition, the withdrawal dates that people associate with Iraq and
Afghanistan (out of Iraq by the end of 2011, beginning to get out of
Afghanistan by July 2011) are closer, meaning that outrage at their
violation is closer.

At the same time, counter-recruitment efforts in the United States have begun achieving real successes, forcing the closure of the Army Experience Center in Pennsylvania and denying recruiters students' test
data in Maryland. US troops have begun refusing illegal orders in
greater numbers, and a culture of troop resistance coffee houses near
US bases has been reborn. The economic slide in the United States,
while in no sense desirable, and hurting the ability of some of us to
be engaged in the movement, is opening people's eyes to the impact of
the war economy on the peace economy, and allowing coalitions to be
formed of groups that want to defund wars and the military plus groups
that want to fund everything else: healthcare, schools, jobs, green
energy, etc. Resolutions against war spending are being passed by
political parties, towns, cities, and labor councils. Cities are
putting cost of war counters on city hall. A coalition of peace and
social justice groups has been holding monthly vigils at congress
members' local offices, with significant local impact in dozens of
districts, even if less noticeable nationally than big annual marches.

During the past year and a half, numerous activist organizations and somewhat independent media outlets have shifted from supporting the war in Afghanistan to opposing it. By opposing it, they are not necessarily
lobbying to defund it or taking any other steps to resist it or educate
people about it, but they are officially opposed to it, meaning that
they are our untapped potential waiting to be put into action. And
numerous other groups, old and news, have to various degrees and in
various ways become active, opposing the wars, each in their own way,
and contributing to these kinds of results:

May-June 2009 - 51 Democrats vote against war funding when it's guaranteed to pass; 32 vote against it when it might fail.

Late June 2009 - 131 Democrats vote for the Pentagon to produce an exit strategy, any exit strategy, for Afghanistan.

March 2010 - 65 Democrats vote to end the war in Afghanistan by the end of 2010.

July 1, 2010 - Well over 40, at least 51, and possibly 90 or more (up from 32) Democrats refuse to vote for Afghan war escalation funding, even with pleasant unrelated legislation attached, forcing
House leadership to delay the bill for months and then maneuver it to
passage without a vote.

July 1, 2010 - 38 Democrats (up from 32, but similarly limited to the number Speaker Nancy Pelosi would allow -- see below) vote against the Rule that effectively allows the funding bill to go forward toward
becoming law.

July 1, 2010 - 25 congress members vote to cut off all funding for the war in Afghanistan. 100 vote to fund only withdrawal. And 162 (up from 131, and for a strengthened amendment) vote to require the
president to present Congress with a National Intelligence Estimate on
Afghanistan and a withdrawal plan and completion date, and to require
that Congress vote by July 2011 "if it wants to allow the obligation
and expenditure of funds for Afghanistan in a manner that is not
consistent with the president's announced policy of December 2009 to
begin to drawdown troops by July 2011."

Two separate events in 2009 were combined into one in 2010. First, the funding vote was held in 2009, and the peace movement pushed for No votes hard. The White House and the House leadership were forced to
bribe and threaten congress members for weeks to keep the Democratic No
votes down to 32. Had they reached 39 the bill would have (at least in
its current form) failed, due to all the Republicans voting No because
of an unrelated measure packaged into it. It was easy to see that we
could get to 39 by the next "emergency" supplemental bill if we wanted
to work at it. The second event in 2009 was the vote on Congressman Jim
McGovern's proposal for an exit timetable. The peace movement worked
hard for this and won 131 Yes votes. This generated two separate
stories, and the two agendas did not come into conflict with each other.

In 2010 it was a different story. Congressman McGovern made his proposal for an exit timetable an amendment to the funding bill. So, some peace groups promoted yes votes on that amendment, some pushed for
No votes on the funding, and others did both. And the pressure for No
votes on the funding was felt by congress members whose constituents
were organized and active. Rep. Chellie Pingree was pressured hard in
Maine, and began to speak out for stopping the funding. She told
General Petraeus in a hearing that he was making us all less safe (even
if she did thank him three times for that "service"). And Congressman
Alan Grayson, in a move I don't recall ever having seen before, set up
a website for people to use in lobbying his colleagues to vote No on
the funding.

If the amendments had been held back for a later date and a second event, then what happened on July 1, 2010, might have looked a little different. Progressive congress members might not have accepted a
byzantine procedural maneuver that allowed the war escalation funding
to be sent back to the Senate without the House actually voting on it.
Or if such a procedure was tried, more of them might have voted No on
the Rule allowing it. Instead, almost all the committed war opponents
voted for the Rule that moved the funding along, with the double excuse
that it was only a Rule vote, not a real true policy vote, and they
were voting for it in order to have a chance to vote for good
amendments.

And what would have happened next, if this procedure had been rejected? I can't be sure, because I don't know every crazy trick to be found in House parliamentary precedents, but one distinct possibility
is that the Democratic leadership would have been forced to pass the
war escalation funding on its own with mostly Republican votes, and to
pass useful peaceful spending on its own with mostly Democratic votes.
The war funding would then have sailed through the Senate and been
signed by the President. The non-destructive spending would then have
passed the Senate if its leadership had fought hard enough and been
willing if necessary to throw out the filibuster rule. McGovern's exit
strategy bill could then have garnered its 162 votes the next week or
next month instead of being buried in the news of late-night funding
passage.

Why would this result have been any better than what we got?

Well, for one thing, it would have informed people that there was a war and that the war was being funded. My local right-wing Democrat voted No on the Rule and Yes on McGovern's amendment, but he voted No
on the Rule because of all sorts of other nonsense added into it. The
local media reported on his objection to the budgetary procedures
involved and never reported in any way that there had been any vote in
Congress related to the war. As far as my neighbors know, the wars fund
themselves.

Secondly, it would have identified who was pro-war and who was anti-war by their votes. Local activists in my town spent months demanding that our representative take a position on the war. He has
yet to do so, and if he can avoid it he never will. We can't hold
people accountable unless we know what they've done. Right now some
congress members are claiming they opposed the war by voting against
the Rule while others are claiming they opposed the war by voting for
it.

Thirdly, forcing the Democratic leadership to line up with the Republican caucus and against most of the Democrats on war votes would be educational for people who are unaware that their chief opponent
when lobbying their local Democrat for peace and justice is the
leadership of his or her party.

Fourth, the demand to stop funding the war comes from people. It's a demand we take to Congress, not one we pick up from Congress and try to explain to others. We can form huge coalitions with economic justice
groups around the demand to shift our spending from wars to jobs and
housing. We can't organize two kids and a dog from outside the peace
movement to join a coalition for an unspecified non-binding exit
timetable or a new National Intelligence Estimate. That doesn't mean
these are counterproductive demands. I would certainly support them on
any day of the year other than the day Congress is voting to fund the
wars. The problem is when one useful campaign unnecessarily interferes
with another.

Fifth, if we think of Congress as sending messages to the president who will make all the decisions as "the decider," I would rather have two events and send two messages. And the strongest message I can
imagine is this: "A growing number of House members have committed to
voting against any more war funding, no matter how much lipstick is
applied to it, and this group includes the majority of your party's
caucus, and people are organizing to keep these members in office and
vote the others out". Other, weaker messages could still be sent, and
sent more strongly, on another day.

Sixth, if we think of Congress as potentially resembling the creature defined in Article I of the U.S. Constitution, as capable of actual action, not just rhetoric, then our goal becomes building toward
the day on which the House actually refuses any more funding for a war
it opposes. In order to think this way, we have to stop thinking
exclusively in terms of passing bills that then must pass the Senate
and the President. We have to also be able to think in terms of
blocking the passage of bills. For this we only need the House. We can
focus our attention on the House and stop petitioning the Senate and
the President. This gives us a lot more resources. Plus, we don't have
to antagonize president worshippers. Instead we can focus our demands
on House members. And we can insist on other forms of action from
Congress as well, such as oversight of wars involving subpoenas and
their enforcement and the threat of high level impeachments. The
strongest message a Congress can send to a president is, with all due
respect to many of my friends, not "We wish you would end the war some
day," but "We will expose any war crimes, and we hold the power of the
purse."

Seventh, while our ideal must be ending the current wars in whatever combination of approaches is most likely to succeed the fastest, we should also take an interest in ending wars in a manner that helps
prevent the next ones from beginning immediately. This means focusing
on the funding, and moving from the defunding of wars to the defunding
of the military and the empire of foreign bases, shrinking the machine
that creates the wars. And it means taking the power to initiate or
escalate or indefinitely continue wars away from presidents.

The peace movement in the US, organizationally, and much to its disadvantage, has its headquarters in Washington, D.C. We are, consequently, often instructed in the need to relate to congress
members on their terms, using their language, etc. One good friend of
mine is quite energized with the need to instruct us that the recent
vote on a Rule did not technically fund the war escalation, even while
readily admitting that the only way to stop that particular bill that
day (at least momentarily) was to vote No on the Rule. But there is
also a value to forcing congress members to speak our language. It is
not, after all, our job to represent them. Peace activists in Maine
made themselves so clear to Rep. Chellie Pingree that she was compelled
to vote against the Rule and understood immediately that its being
merely a Rule vote would constitute no excuse whatsoever. Peace
activists in some parts of Tennessee and Pennsylvania (who may have a
harder base to work with) did not do as well, as illustrated by this
passage from the Hill describing the July 1, 2010, vote on the Rule:

"Party leaders were forced to hold open the vote for several minutes, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) could be seen huddling with Reps. Steve Cohen (Tenn.) and Paul Kanjorski (Penn.), the last
Democratic holdouts. Both cast 'yes' votes to push the motion over the
top. When it was clear the measure had passed, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords
(D-Ariz.) switched her vote from 'yes' to 'no.' The final total was
215-210, with 8 lawmakers not voting. Cohen told The Hill earlier in
the week that he was disinclined to support a war funding bill after
bowing to pressure from party leaders who needed him to switch his vote
from 'no' to 'yes' a year ago."

Almost no one in Maine, including the leading activists had any idea what a self-executing Rule is. But Congresswoman Pingree had a good idea what was expected of her. We have to take our message to Congress,
not the reverse. Our message, the one that comes from our people, the
one that builds coalitions with our allies in the broader justice
movement is: Stop the funding!

Ken O'Keefe and the Defense of the Mavi Marmara

2010-07-03T18:13:00.001-07:00

P U L S E

"Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one."
Ken O’Keefe: ‘We, the defenders of the Mavi Marmara, are the modern example of Gandhi’s essence’

Ken O’Keefe, former US Marine, Gulf War veteran, and now survivor of the Mavi Marmara massacre, has issued a remarkable and searing statement from Istanbul. “While in Israeli custody I, along with everyone else, was subjected to endless abuse and flagrant acts of disrespect. Women and elderly were physically and mentally assaulted. Access to food and water and toilets was denied. Dogs were used against us, we ourselves were treated like dogs. We were exposed to direct sun in stress positions while hand cuffed to the point of losing circulation of blood in our hands. We were lied to incessantly, in fact I am awed at the routineness and comfort in their ability to lie, it is remarkable really. We were abused in just about every way imaginable and I myself was beaten and choked to the point of blacking out… and I was beaten again while in my cell.

In all this what I saw more than anything else were cowards… and yet I also see my brothers. Because no matter how vile and wrong the Israeli agents and government are, they are still my brothers and sisters and for now I only have pity for them. Because they are relinquishing the most precious thing a human being has, their humanity.“

O’Keefe was a human shield in Iraq who formally renounced his US citizenship in protest in 2001; he now has Irish as well as Palestinian citizenship. On the morning of the attack, as he describes it, he was “directly involved in the disarming of two Israeli Commandos. This was a forcible, non-negotiable, separation of weapons from commandos who had already murdered two brothers that I had seen that day.” Subsequently brutalised by the Israeli military, he is defiant: “I challenge any critic of merit, publicly, to debate me on a large stage over our actions that day. I would especially love to debate with any Israeli leader who accuses us of wrongdoing, it would be my tremendous pleasure to face off with you. All I saw in Israel was cowards with guns, so I am ripe to see you in a new context“.

In another context — one that does not involve Israel — O’Keefe’s valor would likely be recognized and rewarded by the country whose military he served and whose citizenship he has relinquished. Yet he will be a hero to millions around the world.

Read O’Keefe’s statement in full below.

I have for many years understood that we, people of conscience, are the true holders of power in this world. Frustratingly however we have largely relinquished that power and failed to reach our full potential. Our potential to create a better world, a just world. Nonetheless I have conspired with others of like mind to reveal and exercise our true power. In 2002 I initiated the TJP Human Shield Action to Iraq because I knew that the invasion of Iraq had been planned well in advance, that it was part of a ‘Global Spectrum Dominance’ agenda as laid out by the Project For A New American Century.

I knew that protests had no chance of stopping the invasion, and that largely these protests were just a way of making us feel better about the coming mass murder; by being able to say I protested against it. With that understanding I argued that the only viable way to stop the invasion was to conduct a mass migration to Iraq. A migration in which people from around the world, especially western citizens, would position themselves at sites in Iraq that are supposed to be protected by international law, but which are routinely bombed when it is only Iraqi, Palestinian, generally non-white, western lives who will be killed. I felt 10,000 such people could stop the invasion, or at the very least, expose the invasion for what it was from the start, an act of international aggression, a war crime and a crime against humanity.

When our two double-decker buses travelled from London to Baghdad through Turkey, it was ever clear that the people of Turkey also could sense the power of this act, and they were the biggest participants in it. In the end we did not get the numbers required to stop the war, with at least one million Iraqi’s dead as a result, but I remain convinced that it was within our power to prevent the invasion. A massive opportunity lost as far as I am concerned.

In 2007 I joined the Free Gaza Movement with its plan to challenge the blockade of Gaza by travelling to Gaza by sea. From the moment I heard of the plan I knew it could succeed and ultimately I served as a captain on the first attempt. The Israeli government said throughout our preparation that we were no better than pirates and they would treat us as such. They made clear we would not reach Gaza. And still I knew we could succeed. And we did. Two boats with 46 passengers from various countries managed to sail into Gaza on August 23, 2010; this was the first time this had been done in 41 years. The truth is the blockade of Gaza is far more than three years old, and yet we, a small group of conscientious people defied the Israeli machine and celebrated with tens of thousands of Gazans when we arrived that day. We proved that it could be done. We proved that an intelligent plan, with skilled manipulation of the media, could render the full might of the Israeli Navy useless. And I knew then that this was only the tip of the iceberg.

So participating in the Freedom Flotilla is like a family reunion to me. It is my long lost family whose conscience is their guide, who have shed the fear, who act with humanity. But I was especially proud to join IHH and the Turkish elements of the flotilla. I deeply admire the strength and character of the Turkish people, despite your history having stains of injustice, like every nation, you are today from citizen to Prime Minister among the leaders in the cause of humanity and justice.

I remember being asked during the TJP Human Shield Action to Iraq if I was a pacifist, I responded with a quote from Gandhi by saying I am not a passive anything. To the contrary I believe in action, and I also believe in self-defence, 100%, without reservation. I would be incapable of standing by while a tyrant murders my family, and the attack on the Mavi Marmara was like an attack on my Palestinian family. I am proud to have stood shoulder to shoulder with those who refused to let a rogue Israeli military exert their will without a fight. And yes, we fought.

When I was asked, in the event of an Israeli attack on the Mavi Mamara, would I use the camera, or would I defend the ship? I enthusiastically committed to defence of the ship. Although I am also a huge supporter of non-violence, in fact I believe non-violence must always be the first option. Nonetheless I joined the defence of the Mavi Mamara understanding that violence could be used against us and that we may very well be compelled to use violence in self-defence.

I said this straight to Israeli agents, probably of Mossad or Shin Bet, and I say it again now, on the morning of the attack I was directly involved in the disarming of two Israeli Commandos. This was a forcible, non-negotiable, separation of weapons from commandos who had already murdered two brothers that I had seen that day. One brother with a bullet entering dead center in his forehead, in what appeared to be an execution. I knew the commandos were murdering when I removed a 9mm pistol from one of them. I had that gun in my hands and as an ex-US Marine with training in the use of guns it was completely within my power to use that gun on the commando who may have been the murderer of one of my brothers. But that is not what I, nor any other defender of the ship did. I took that weapon away, removed the bullets, proper lead bullets, separated them from the weapon and hid the gun. I did this in the hopes that we would repel the attack and submit this weapon as evidence in a criminal trial against Israeli authorities for mass murder.

I also helped to physically separate one commando from his assault rifle, which another brother apparently threw into the sea. I and hundreds of others know the truth that makes a mockery of the brave and moral Israeli military. We had in our full possession, three completely disarmed and helpless commandos. These boys were at our mercy, they were out of reach of their fellow murderers, inside the ship and surrounded by 100 or more men. I looked into the eyes of all three of these boys and I can tell you they had the fear of God in them. They looked at us as if we were them, and I have no doubt they did not believe there was any way they would survive that day. They looked like frightened children in the face of an abusive father.

But they did not face an enemy as ruthless as they. Instead the woman provided basic first aid, and ultimately they were released, battered and bruised for sure, but alive. Able to live another day. Able to feel the sun over head and the embrace of loved ones. Unlike those they murdered. Despite mourning the loss of our brothers, feeling rage towards these boys, we let them go. The Israeli prostitutes of propaganda can spew all of their disgusting bile all they wish, the commandos are the murderers, we are the defenders, and yet we fought. We fought not just for our lives, not just for our cargo, not just for the people of Palestine, we fought in the name of justice and humanity. We were right to do so, in every way.

While in Israeli custody I, along with everyone else was subjected to endless abuse and flagrant acts of disrespect. Women and elderly were physically and mentally assaulted. Access to food and water and toilets was denied. Dogs were used against us, we ourselves were treated like dogs. We were exposed to direct sun in stress positions while hand cuffed to the point of losing circulation of blood in our hands. We were lied to incessantly, in fact I am awed at the routineness and comfort in their ability to lie, it is remarkable really. We were abused in just about every way imaginable and I myself was beaten and choked to the point of blacking out… and I was beaten again while in my cell.

In all this what I saw more than anything else were cowards… and yet I also see my brothers. Because no matter how vile and wrong the Israeli agents and government are, they are still my brothers and sisters and for now I only have pity for them. Because they are relinquishing the most precious thing a human being has, their humanity.

In conclusion; I would like to challenge every endorser of Gandhi, every person who thinks they understand him, who acknowledges him as one of the great souls of our time (which is just about every western leader), I challenge you in the form of a question. Please explain how we, the defenders of the Mavi Marmara, are not the modern example of Gandhi’s essence? But first read the words of Gandhi himself.

I do believe that, where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence…. I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honour than that she should, in a cowardly manner, become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonour. – Gandhi

And lastly I have one more challenge. I challenge any critic of merit, publicly, to debate me on a large stage over our actions that day. I would especially love to debate with any Israeli leader who accuses us of wrongdoing, it would be my tremendous pleasure to face off with you. All I saw in Israel was cowards with guns, so I am ripe to see you in a new context. I want to debate with you on the largest stage possible. Take that as an open challenge and let us see just how brave Israeli leaders are.

ANC Scores Own Goal?

2010-06-15T12:37:00.001-07:00

“The ANC Scores Own Goal”: A Statement on the World Cup from the Socialist Party of Azania (SOPA)

25th April 2010

June 2010 – the year we witness the glorious bursting forth from the chrysalis of “democratic state” the ravenous beast of the security-centric state. A one kilometre Ring of Steel to be erected around each and every stadium where FIFA fixtures are to be played, meaning that any “unpatriotic citizens” who hope to use the hundreds of international media networks to highlight their conditions of poverty will be dealt with in the same manner that exactly 34 years ago the apartheid regime dealt with Black people on June 1976.

Far more than the first proposed R28 billion has been spent in the past two years to upgrade stadiums and airports. An estimated R20 billion was also spent on the revamping and widening of highways. R35 billion has so far been spent on the Gautrain (a single train service for the rich whose destination is the international airport and the country’s capital, Pretoria, the initial budget was R13 billion, which in itself was enough to resolve all the transport problems of the country). There is also, of course, the undisclosed R100’s of millions to the Local Organising Committee, certainly with such hefty expenditure to entertain the world at the expense of the poor, the ANC cannot take any chances that the “chattering masses” will behave themselves. All their detailed planning and event co-ordination strategies of an event of this magnitude, no doubt, gives them sleepless nights, for to visualise every contingent plan requisite under almost any perceived scenario takes both insight, which they clearly do not have and billions of Rand which have yet to be paid for in blood on the backs of the Black working class over the next generation.
So, exactly why should there be discontent on the eve of a “world-class extravaganza”?

Well to start with, the empty campaign promises of 1994, 1999, 2004 and again 2009 of “Ša better life for allŠ”, in the face of the reality of rising unemployment, reduced wages, growing squatter camps, lowered education outcomes and failing health systems. Given a 15 year tenure of the ANC as a ‘democratically elected government’, given their near-perfect track record of non-delivery, given the extent of expenditure running literally into hundreds of billions of Rand in preparation for the World Cup with almost none of it qualitatively changing the lives of the millions of citizens, given the potential for rebellion and social dissent amongst those “unpatriotic” citizens can very easily spell disaster for the best-laid plans of mice and men.

What contingency plan could the ANC possibly put in place to mitigate the righteous indignation and protestations of a people denied of the historical “land, bread and peace”. Well, that’s easy – thousands of police and soldiers and of course the “old” Act No: 74 of the Internal Security Act of 1982 been substituted with the “new improved” Protection of Constitutional Democracy Against Terrorist and Related Activities Bill of 2003 that will simply ban all public gatherings, and that includes the potential banning of all June 16 Commemoration Services. June 16th 1976 being the cornerstone and milestone of the liberation struggle in South Africa/Azania.

The ANC faces an intractable dilemma having squandered vast sums of money in order to beautify infrastructure “suitable” for a handful of transient tourists so as to proudly proclaim our civility and ability to savour the finer things in life, thus revealing their oafish nature and their shrink-wrapped ability to match the consumptive patterns of western culture so evident and readily exportable from the Imperialist countries to the deliberately underdeveloped countries of Africa and elsewhere. Now they have to bluster and bully the populace into believing that what they did was for the common good.

A devastatingly risky gamble, taken on the assumption that their “historical popularity” or the ‘Mandela Magic’ as it is commonly called, will carry them through yet again, the same dwindling popularity that has consistently returned them to power over and over again in the past 15 years, yet unwittingly squandering the last vestiges of credibility it had in its “goodwill coffers” in the hope that such a gamble could pull off an amazing “smoke and mirrors” event, both at the level of, bamboozling citizens with non-delivery while alleging lack of resources, yet pulling off a successful World Cup, at a huge expense to adulating bourgeois audiences to whom South Africa will be further be indebted post 2010.

The staggeringly disproportionate expenditure used to create “world-class facilities”, when compared against the allocated budgets for social delivery programmes boggles ones’ mind. Will the hard-pressed working class of this country realise how they have been short-changed by the ruling party, and if they do realise it, what is the most likely courses of action that they would engage in order to express their displeasure. Clearly something of this magnitude cannot go unnoticed and surely millions of people will not merely shrug their shoulders and declare that as ‘life’ and then wander on in their expected state of complacency in the face of brute oppression.

How does one reconcile the fact that every second Municipal water treatment plant has ground to a halt as a result of poor maintenance and inadequate upgrades, triggering cholera outbreaks across the country? How does one reconcile the fact that the numerous public hospitals across the country are desperately short of adequately trained staff and desperately short of sufficient medical supplies and equipment? How does one reconcile the fact that millions of children engage in an educational system that is largely dysfunctional?

How does one reconcile the fact that millions of children attend school on a daily basis hungry and tired, also the fact that there are still children learning to read and write under trees or an open sky? How does one reconcile the fact that some 22 million of our people live in the worst kind of squatter conditions imaginable? How does one reconcile the fact that some 22 million of our people do not have access to clean and potable water? How does one reconcile the fact that some 14 million of people are still unemployed when we are fed the lie that our economy is stable and will weather the storms of the now evident global depression? What about the fact that 42.9% of our people live at less than U$2 a day, below the poverty datum line?

We consistently hear the ANC using the term “Šour young democracy”, purely in reference to voting and elections, as if the notion of democracy has absolutely nothing to do with the resolution of hunger, resolution of all homelessness, resolution of faulty education, resolution of landlessness, resolution of unemployment, etc. It appears that the ANC through its rapacious expropriation of the wealth of this country from the workers in order to benefit the few elites has by their own actions set in motion a series of events that do not bode well for the outcome of the 2010 World Cup. The ANC does not need clever “first world” risk analysis strategies and complex disaster management scenario to be painted for them in order for them to understand or forestall the inevitable consequences of an empty stomach. Unfortunately, for its card carrying membership, there is no “battle for the soul of the ANC” its soul is already owned lock stock and barrel by the IMF, World Bank overlords and they do not have the requisite authority to deliver on their “promises” in order to negate those very likely consequences and outcomes of popular dissent and the rising tide of rebellion.

We expect to hear the standard defence line normally advanced by the ANC government and its sycophants in the face of such spontaneous uprisings, “Šthat they are the work of a third force, who are intent on destroying our fragile democracy”. We may even see the phrase “third force” been replaced with the word “terrorist”, yet surely, the answer must be less “conspiratorial” and lie somewhere in the area of the “accepted responsibility” of a democratically elected government to ensure the adequate delivery of basic housing in order to negate the potential damage and destruction to their precious “world-class” infrastructure put in place for 2010. In order to mitigate against theft from and robbery of tourists, you do not need to deploy 41,000 more police and 20,000 soldiers, just create more jobs for the ordinary citizen.

It is no credit to the government as it finds itself in a situation where it has to quell angry dissent of its own citizens, (using revised laws originally created by the apartheid apparatchik) citizens who simply demand what is due to them in the context of their understanding of democracy. In a nutshell the ANC is an event management team put together for the sole purpose of expediting the will of Global Capitalism, yet, foolishly have come to believe that their authority and function transcends the rather narrow boundaries prescribed by the dictates of both the World Bank and the IMF and the specific requirements of their global economic strategies, and much like the former regime, it could well be the defining month wherein the dissent you seek to suppress, will swamp the embankments of your sophistry.

Given the above “scenarios”, what we should be focusing on is as the Socialist Party of Azania is, how best to ride out the gathering storm. But then again, the workers and the Black majority should in all fairness be assisted to become the arbiters of their own destiny. The past sixteen years have clearly confirmed what we have known and believed about the crisis of humanity being that of leadership, the need for revolutionary leadership.

Dr. Flowers: Health Care Hero

2010-05-12T13:47:00.001-07:00

After the Reform: Aiming High for Health Justice

By Margaret Flowers, M.D.
Tikkun Magazine, May/June 2010

As we sit here on the other side of the recent health reform process, we have an opportunity for reflection. There were many times during the past year and a half when passage of a health bill seemed unlikely. However, in the end, the White House and Democratic leadership joined forces and converted the last holdouts with scare tactics of electoral turnovers and even a trip on Air Force One in order to muscle a bill over the final hurdles. The mere fact that any bill was passed at all was hailed as the great accomplishment, because no honest proponent of health reform could call the final product a solution to our nation's serious health care crisis.

This entire health reform process occurred under the shadow of the previous attempt to pass significant health legislation. President Obama made this his signature issue, and so for his administration failure was not an option. He surrounded himself with many of those who were traumatized by their participation in the last go-round. Thus, the resulting strategy was based more on fear of the opposition than on sound health policy. An opportunity for an honest debate about the needs of our people was squandered for backroom deals with industry giants and the photo ops so reminiscent of the previous administration. And for the most part, the resulting legislation benefits the very industries that profit most from our current situation more than it benefits the people of America.

Pros and Cons of the Legislation

There are some provisions within the bill that are positive steps: comparative effectiveness research; funding for demonstration projects to improve care; a new emphasis on prevention, wellness, and public health; increased funding for community health centers; and incentives for primary care providers. These are all necessary provisions, but they do not offset the harm done by other provisions in the bill, such as the individual mandate to purchase private insurance with penalties for noncompliance and the $447 billion in public dollars being used to subsidize such purchases. The bill will omit at least 23 million people from having any coverage. And the requirement to accept people with pre-existing conditions will most certainly increase premiums such that they become unaffordable, or people will purchase policies with skimpier coverage. This will likely result in a larger population of underinsured people—those who risk bankruptcy from medical debt should they develop health problems.

And none of the positive steps turn us in the direction of creating a national health system such as there is in every other advanced nation. Rather, on the whole, this legislation, which was written with heavy input from private health insurance and pharmaceutical lobbyists, further privatizes the financing of our health care and further enriches and empowers the very industries that are the problem. We know from experience both in the United States and abroad that market-based financing of health care is both the most expensive model and the most unjust, providing only as much health care as the patient can afford.

The Public Option Was Ruled Out at the Start

From the beginning of this process, it was clear that the administration and leadership had developed a strategy based on an outcome they believed they could achieve. The path was predetermined. All of the steps along the way, from the house parties that started during the winter of 2008 to the hearings, to the media spin, were planned so that the resulting "debate" was a drawn out performance of political theater. In order to disarm the corporate interests, the health industries that had opposed previous reforms were included on the inside. In order to disarm the Right, bipartisanship was at the forefront. In order to disarm the supporters of a single-payer plan, who are the majority, a campaign was developed around a promised "compromise," the public option, and given tens of millions of dollars for organizing and advertising. The public option succeeded in splitting the single payer movement and confusing and distracting it with endless discussion about what type of public option would be effective.

Despite all of the attention, the public option was never meant to be part of the final legislation. As early as March 2009, Senator Baucus admitted that the public option existed as a bargaining chip to convince private insurers to accept increased regulation. And a year later, Glenn Greenwald and others confirmed that the public option had been privately negotiated away, although members of Congress continued the charade and "fought" for it.

Toward the final vote, supporters of the public option were hearing the same excuses that single-payer advocates have heard for decades. We are always told that single-payer is not politically feasible. However, we know that political feasibility can change. We are told to be pragmatic, yet we know that the reform being passed was not practical, in that it failed to guarantee health care to everyone and to be financially sustainable. We are told we are asking for too much and should accept incremental change. However, we know that the smallest effective step we can take in health reform is the creation of a publicly funded health system. Beyond that, there is much more to do in order to create a health system that raises us into the top ten in the world.

Profit-Driven Insurers Cannot Prioritize Care

While politicians claim that we have finally achieved comprehensive health reform and that now all Americans will have guaranteed affordable health care, we in the single-payer movement experience a sense of déjà vu. We have seen the same scenario occur at the state level from Oregon to Maine to Tennessee, and most recently in Massachusetts. Every state that has passed a health reform package has made these claims, only to find that within a few years they were unable to cover the number of people they had hoped to cover and that their health care costs exceeded their budget. The reason for this is that every state, and now our federal government, ignored the data showing that we cannot achieve universal and affordable health care as long as we retain private insurers as an integral part of health care financing. This truth has been documented both in practice and in numerous economic studies.

We cannot control health care costs, without severe rationing, as long as we retain multiple private insurers, because this model wastes at least a third of our health care dollars on areas that have nothing to do with direct health care: marketing, high CEO salaries, profits, and administration. We cannot guarantee that patients will be able to afford needed care using private insurers because the private insurance model is profit driven. These corporations profit by avoiding the sick and denying and restricting payment for care. Their bottom line is profit, not improved health. And no amount of industry regulation to date has been successful in changing that bottom line. Likewise, the new federal legislation is full of loopholes that will allow private insurers to continue to skirt the regulations.

The White House and Congress claimed throughout the process that we must retain private insurance because Americans desire choice, and this has been framed as choice of insurance. However, this is a false concept. No person can anticipate what their health care needs will be or which insurance will be best. Health care needs change the day a patient has a serious accident or is diagnosed with a serious illness. We all need the same health insurance: one that covers all medically necessary care when and where we need it. Those of us who travel and listen find that people in America desire choice of health care provider and choice of treatment: the two choices that private health insurers restrict.

So what are the White House and Congress really saying when they claim that we must retain a private insurance model? That they are unwilling to take on these powerful industries, and so we, the people, must be willing to compromise and work within their framework. Mohandas Gandhi said:

All compromise is based on give and take, but there can be no give and take on fundamentals. Any compromise on mere fundamentals is a surrender. For it is all give and no take.

When it comes to health reform, compromise on the fundamentals is unacceptable because the human costs are continued preventable deaths, continued suffering as patients fight for needed care, and continued bankruptcy from medical debt as families struggle to pay for deductibles and uncovered services. In a study published in Health Affairs in January 2008 that looked at the top nineteen industrialized nations, the United States ranked the worst—we have the highest number of preventable deaths (101,000 each year) because we lack a health system. All of the other industrialized nations have health systems based on the principles of health care as a human right: universality, equity, and accountability.

Why We Failed

Why have the American people been denied this same right? As I look back at the health reform process, I see three serious errors: a willingness to compromise, a lack of clarity about what we require, and a fear that failure to pass reform will have electoral consequences. These are the areas we must address as a people if we want to see real change in this nation, not just in health care but also in many areas that affect our ability to survive on this planet.

The willingness to compromise has occurred repeatedly at the state level. As a result, fewer people have access to care, and health care costs continue to rise; the fundamental problems are not corrected. This willingness to compromise is based on a real sense of desperation. We see real suffering. We want to do something. We are told that this reform, whatever it is, is the best we can get this time. We accept that and tell ourselves that it is something, it is a step.

As the congressional fellow of Physicians for a National Health Program, I saw this desperate attempt to pass something, anything, rise to the surface in the final weeks of the reform process. Patients and their families were brought into Congress to tell their stories of abuse at the hands of private insurers. Well-meaning legislators looked them in the eye and told them that this reform would change that. When I challenged the truth of that response, I was told, often in heated tones, that they (the legislators) had to do something and that at least this reform would help some people. I could only think of those who would not be helped. What about them?

The lack of clarity was grounded in the belief that if we simply advocated based on principles such as access and affordability, then the legislation would meet those principles. Legislators and pro-reform groups were content to speak based on principles as long as they were not challenged about whether those principles were being met. We must go beneath the surface of simple principles, educate ourselves, and define what is acceptable and what isn't. If we don't know exactly what we are asking for, we won't get it. And we mustn't be afraid to ask for what we require. As a people, we have become willing to accept crumbs when we require so much more than crumbs.

The final mistake was to pin the results of the upcoming elections to the success or failure of passing reform. Those who were reluctant to support the legislation were forced to support it in the end or risk being blamed for possible electoral consequences. As has often happened in past campaigns, people were forced to vote for the lesser of two evils instead of for what they truly wanted.

We Can Still Create a National Health Program!

So what do we do now that a health bill has been signed? Now that the clamor has quieted, it is time for a civilized discussion of what our health needs are and how best to meet them. This discussion is unlikely to occur in a mainstream media dominated by advertising dollars from health insurance and pharmaceutical corporations. We will need to have this discussion at a more personal level and through independent sources of media. We must educate ourselves and those around us about what is possible to achieve in this nation.

It is possible to create a national health program in which every person living in this country is able to receive the same high standard of medical care whenever and wherever they need it, without fear of financial consequences. We call this health security. Other advanced nations have achieved this goal. The United States has not, and is currently ranked thirty-seventh in the world for health outcomes. We spend more per capita on health care than every advanced nation, yet leave a third of our population either completely on the outside or vulnerable to financial ruin should they have a serious health problem.

Physicians for a National Health Program, founded in 1987, educates and advocates for a health system that will improve our health outcomes and provide health security based on the evidence of what has worked in our nation and what is effective in other advanced nations. We envision a lifelong universal health system—much like traditional Medicare—that is nationwide. We envision a system that allows patients to choose where they receive their care, permits caregivers and patients to determine the best course of treatment with assistance from evidence-based data, controls costs in a rational way through simplified administration and negotiation of fair prices, and is progressively financed. Its publicly funded nature would make it transparent and accountable. Because it would be privately delivered, it would allow caregivers to compete based on quality of care provided. Private health insurers would be relegated to a position of offering supplemental plans and possibly providing administrative support.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. taught us that to witness an injustice and not work to correct it is in itself an act of violence. As a physician and an advocate for nonviolence, I cannot ignore the injustice of the great health inequality that exists in our nation or ignore those in need who cannot afford medical treatment. We have delayed this struggle for too long. Alice Walker said, "We are the ones we have been waiting for." So, let's do it. We have the resources. Now we must create the political will. Together, we can create a health justice movement, educate ourselves, speak with clarity, and organize independently of any political party. Please join us. You can learn more at www.pnhp.org or join the grassroots movement at www.healthcare-now.org.

Dr.Margaret Flowers is a pediatrician who serves as the congressional fellow for Physicians for a National Health Program and is on the board of Healthcare-NOW! She is one of the "Baucus 8."

http://www.tikkun.org/article.php?story=may2010flowers

Forward in this Generation...Triumphantly?

2010-05-12T10:02:00.001-07:00

Click here, it's excellent

Mick Foley - More Than a Wrestler

2010-05-06T19:50:00.001-07:00

Help Wanted: More Men Needed in Fight Against Sexual Violence

33 Billion Dishonest Excuses for War

2010-05-05T19:41:00.001-07:00

33 Billion Dishonest Excuses for War

By David Swanson

If you were to call your congress member's office at 202-224-3121 and ask them to vote against spending $33 billion to escalate the war in Afghanistan, they would give you one of several common excuses.

If they refuse to tell you what they plan to do, you can let them know that they work for you and that you are going to vote against them in November unless they commit to opposing the funding of this escalation now. Sure, their opponent could be worse, but not much, and decent representation will only be possible if representatives fear the public more than they fear the funders, media, and parties. Ultimately, this is the only thing you can tell them that they might care about. Still, it helps for them to know that you understand the issue and will not be easily swayed. So . . .

If they tell you (as Rep. Delahunt told me) that they like the attention that comes from remaining undecided, ask them how they think that sounds to the loved ones of those killed. Let them know they could get even more attention by tattooing "Loser" on their forehead.

If they tell you they want to vote for aid to Haiti or some other lipstick included in the bill, or they want to wait and see what sweet-smelling things are packaged into the bill, tell them those things can pass separately and constitute no excuse. You want a commitment now to vote No no matter what. This is life and death. They need to be trying to block the bill, not just considering the possibility of individually voting No if it looks like no one will mind.

If they tell you this is the very last off-the-books war supplemental, tell them you didn't believe that BS last June and won't believe it now, and that it never constituted any excuse for funding war or escalation.

If they tell you they want to obey the president, ask them to read the U.S. Constitution and see what's in Article I. Ask them why they think the framers put the war power in the Congress.

If they tell you they want to "support duh troops," tell them that a No vote merely avoids or undoes an escalation, thus preventing troops from being sent to risk their lives under illegal orders.

If they tell you they're voting for a toothless non-binding request for an exit time-table, tell them a growing causus opposing the funding sends a stronger message and builds toward the ability to actually end the war. Tell them the exit strategy approach, last summer, was rightly delayed until after the funding vote, and then garnered 138 votes, to which the president merely gave a one-finger salute. Let them know that ineffective rhetoric is no substitute for action, and that you see through the use of this "timetable" vote as cover for funding an escalation. If they point to peace organizations that will accept that excuse and only want their support for the "timetable" make clear that those organizations do not speak for you.

If they tell you they're waiting to see who else will vote No before they decide to vote No, point them to the list at defundwar.org and point out that the Chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee is on it, but also ask them whether they represent their constituents or their colleagues.

If they tell you that they're afraid Fox News and the rest of the "media" would attack them, let them know that Glenn Beck has been opposing war funding, that this is escalation funding, and that if they say they want the money for jobs at home nobody can touch them. On top of which, we'll have their back with independent media and media activism. They can encourage media outlets to ask President Karzai, when he's in town next week, whether he supports an escalation -- if they're not afraid of the answer.

If they make clear that they're afraid of losing funding, directly from the war profiteers or laundered through a political party, point them to the fundraising that members like Grayson and Kucinich are able to do on their own. Ask them if they will be able to live with having funded death for the sake of blood money.

Now, it's just conceivable that they will also try a more substantive excuse on you, so be prepared.

If they tell you they're concerned for the safety of the country, point out that terrorism has been increased by the global war on terrorism and that there is no way escalating a war in Afghanistan doesn't make us less safe. We escalated it last year and saw violence increase, with nothing else accomplished. Last week, the Pentagon issued a new report finding that one in four Afghans in important areas support Karzai's government, violence is up 87% in the past year, European allies are bailing out, corruption runs rampant, insurgents still control Marjah, the Taliban is growing, and the Afghan government is getting weaker. Our military experts say we would need hundreds of thousands of troops and millions of civilians to accomplish anything. An inadequate escalation is an end in itself, quite literally for those it will kill.

If they tell you the U.S. public supports the war, ask them about polling in your district. And tell them this: Back in December, U.S. pollsters asked Americans if they supported funding an escalation, and in several polls a majority said No. So a lot of congress members voted for more war funding but promised to oppose the escalation funding in the spring. Then the White House began the escalation, and the pollsters (apparently assuming that our servile congress would fund anything the president had already begun, even if the people opposed it) stopped polling on the escalation. Polling just on the war, pollsters find the US public evenly split or leaning slightly in support. But they ask whether people support the president, not how much longer they want the war to last or whether that's their top choice for where to spend a trillion dollars. Many Americans think they are required to say they support the president, and others choose to support a political party, but both big parties support the war (which, by the way, will cause a lot of Democrats to stay home in November). When Democrats.com funded polling on Iraq that no one else would do, we found a majority in favor of Congress cutting off the funding. I'm confident we could find that on Afghanistan at least following the coming rise in deaths. And this supplemental is not to keep the war going but to escalate it, which the American people opposed when asked. Also, nobody has polled on the popularity of a congress member saying they want to fund jobs instead of wars. And what about the people who are best informed? A recent survey of Kandahar, the area where the escalation is planned, found that 94% of the people there prefer peace negotiations to U.S. attacks, and 85% see the Taliban as "our Afghan brothers." The survey was funded by that radical pacifist organization, the United States Army.

If they tell you they have to keep weapons jobs funded to benefit the economy, tell them we could have 20 green energy jobs paying $50,000 per year for every soldier sent to Afghanistan: a job for that former soldier and 19 more, and reduced demand for the oil and gas and pipelines and bases. We're spending as much as $400 per gallon to bring gas into Afghanistan where the US military used 27 million gallons of the stuff last month. We're spending hundreds of millions to bribe nations to be part of what we pretend is a coalition effort. We're spending at least that much to bribe Afghans to join the right side, an effort that has recruited 646 of the Taliban's 36,000 soldiers, but then lost many of them who took the money and ran back to the other side. We've spent $268 billion on making war on Afghanistan, and using Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz' analysis of Iraq we need to multiply that by four or five to get a realistic cost including debt, veterans care, energy prices, and lost opportunities. Public investment in most other industries or in tax cuts produces more jobs than investment in military. In fact, military spending is economically, as well as morally, the worst thing Congress can do. And this is economically the worst time in many decades to be doing the worst thing you can do.

Call Your Congress Member at (202) 224-3121 and tell them that you will vote against them if they vote to fund an escalation in Afghanistan. Tell them you will stand for no excuses.

Peace on Mother's Day

2010-05-02T08:25:00.001-07:00

Teach Peace Moment: Mother's Day for Peace

Mother’s Day is celebrated on the second Sunday in May.

Different countries celebrate Mother's Day for different reasons and on different days of the year. In the United States, Mother’s Day was created to be a day for peace. The first Mother’s Days were celebrated by peace groups often consisting of mothers whose sons had fought or died in the Civil War.

The Mother’s Day concept was influenced by Anna Jarvis who in 1858 created Mothers’ Work Days to improve sanitary conditions for both sides during the Civil War. In 1861 Julia Ward Howe wrote The Battle Hymn of the Republic to inspire Union soldiers to end slavery. She was famous in 1870 when she built on Jarvis’s work and created Mother’s Day for Peace with a Mother's Day Proclamation calling for peace and disarmament. The original Mother’s Day for Peace was for women to rise up and oppose war in all its forms.

In 1907 Anna Jarvis' daughter, also named Anna Jarvis, continued the effort for a peaceful and noncommercial Mother’s Day. In 1912, Anna Jarvis trademarked the phrases "second Sunday in May" and "Mother's Day", and created the Mother's Day International Association. Anna Jarvis broadened the peace focus to honor individual mothers for their contributions. She specifically wanted each family to celebrate their mother and this is why the apostrophe is a singular possessive and not a plural possessive to commemorate all mothers in the world.

In 1912 states declared the second Sunday in May a holiday and on May 9, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson declared Mother’s Day a national holiday. Unfortunately, he also changed Mother’s Day from opposing wars to a day to encourage support for wars. President Wilson changed the purpose by declaring Mother’s Day as a day for citizens to show the flag in honor of those mothers whose sons had died in war.

Today, the peace purpose of Mother’s Day is often unknown. For most people, Mother’s Day is simply a day to say thank you to mothers with a pampering gift. The commercial dimension of Mother’s Day has made it the most popular day of the year for the restaurant industry and a top day for the jewelry, flower, and greeting card purchases. Had President Wilson reinforced the original purpose of Mother’s Day to be a peace education day, instead of receiving flowers, many mothers would have had the greater gift of a son not killed in war.

When Mother’s Day lost its focus as a day to oppose wars and teach peace, Anna Jarvis became a major opponent of the holiday. For the rest of her life she used her inheritance to reclaim the peaceful purpose of Mother’s Day and fight the abuse of the celebration.

We can reclaim Mother’s Day for Peace by educating family and friends about its intended purpose and support work to teach peace. For a donation of $25, the Teach Peace Foundation will send a "Happy Mother's Day for Peace" email or letter to your mother (click here for a sample email) and click on the picture on the left to donate).

Dave Dionisi, Teach Peace Foundation

Notes:

Carnations have come to represent Mother's Day, since they were delivered at one of its first celebrations by its founder. In part due to the shortage of white carnations, and in part due to the efforts to expand the sales of more types of flowers in Mother's Day, the florists promoted wearing a red carnation if your mother was living, and a white one if she were not.

In May 2008, the US House of Representatives voted twice on a resolution commemorating Mother's Day, the first one being unanimous so that all congressmen would be on record showing support for Mother's Day.

According to the National Restaurant Association, Mother's Day is the most popular day of the year to dine out in the United States.

According to IBISWorld, a publisher of business research, Americans will spend approximately $2.6 billion on flowers and another $68 million on greeting cards.

Mother's Day will generate about 7.8% of the U.S. jewelry industry's annual revenue in 2008, with custom gifts like Mother's rings.

To access more Teach Peace Moments, click here.

More on Bolivia and Climate Change

2010-04-25T17:26:00.003-07:00

The Bolivian Government: ¨Mother Earth or barbarism¨

April 21, 2010, Cochabamba, Bolivia

by Ted Glick

(To see blog posts from April 19 and 20 go to http://www.chesapeakeclimate.org/blog.)

I missed President Evo Morales´ speech on Tuesday at the official opening of the World People´s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth. Asking several friends who were there how it was, they all were surprised by its relative mildness, for Morales. The main things he called upon people to do, my friends said, were to use clay dishes, stop drinking coca-cola and stop eating industrial agriculture-raised chickens.

Perhaps President Morales was holding his powder to allow his Vice President, Alvaro Garcia Linera, to give the rousing speech. This is what he did that afternoon at a major plenary session on the Univalle Campus in Tiquipaya. It was a comprehensive overview of what is happening because of climate change (dried up rivers, melting glaciers, desertification, forest destruction and more) and the cause of it (the economic system of capitalism which turns people and nature into commodities for private gain no matter who and what gets hurt). ¨Capitalism is ready to destroy nature,¨ he said.

Linara made clear his government´s belief that we are at the beginning of a certain worldwide catastrophe if humanity does not get serious right now. He used the figures of 260 million people who have been affected already by climate change and 200 million who have emigrated because of it.

Linara went on to put forward a very different solution than many in the United States, including many environmentalists, believe is the solution. For Linara, it´s not new technology that is going to save the world. What will save it, he said, is when ¨we take the Bolivian Indigenous, the Bolivian peasant model and make it universal. We need a new civilization that´s not about consumerism but about meeting basic needs. Humans must recognize that Mother Earth has rights and we have obligations to respect them. Our new model must be consensus-based, dialogical and rooted in personal relationships with nature. We need new forms of production, and we need new ethics.¨

He referenced Rosa Luxemburg, a socialist leader from over 100 years ago, when he called, not for ¨socialism or barbarism,¨ her call, but for ¨Mother Earth or barbarism,¨ and he put forward five things that we must do:

1) resistance actions by students, workers, peasants where they are, mobilization, personal and community lifestyle changes
2) a Climate Justice Tribunal to bring to account those most responsible for the climate emergency in which we find ourselves
3) new forms of consumption that are consistent with a connection to Mother Earth
4) alternative technologies for energy (and other) development
5) organizing to win political power, to take over government so that it can be used to ¨defend life and nature.¨

We must make a revolution not just in the structures, he said, but in our own lives. And we must make this a universal project, we must be interconnected globally.

With these beliefs, beliefs clearly felt, it is possible to understand the risks that the Bolivian government has been willing to take in response to the bitter results at Copenhagen.

You don´t need to be a socialist, and you don´t have to believe that the Bolivian government is perfect, which it isn´t, to appreciate and salute the initiative they have taken, and the success they have accomplished, over the last few days, with one more to go.

Analysis of James Gilligan's Theory of Violence (by David Swanson)

2010-04-24T13:23:00.000-07:00

Our National Epidemic of Violence

So we've identified the problem. What about the solution?

My answer is nonviolence, of course. Seek solutions to violence that don't humiliate or add unnecessary suffering to the perpetrator. Adopt a more community-centered, restorative approach that focuses on the value of each and every human being, regardless of the offense.

A great book to read on the subject: The Psychology of Peace

Bolivia Taking the Lead on Climate Change

2010-04-24T11:58:00.000-07:00

Bolivian Government Outlines Strategy for International Climate Negotiations

(Click above)

Evo Morales is easily one of the most inspiring world leaders in recent memory (at least, if you're a progressive or a leftist). I like his peaceful, non-confrontation approach to other nations as well as his openness and resilience at home. He's already survived at least one coup attempt and seems to represent the hopes of the oppressed throughout Latin America and beyond.

Watch the film Cocalero online for free!

Don't Exclude Men in Afghan Women Empowerment Projects

2010-04-24T11:49:00.000-07:00

This provides a very interesting perspective (perhaps, a logical middle ground) on the all-important gender divide in Afghanistan.

click here

Uprising in Kyrgyzstan

2010-04-11T13:22:00.001-07:00

Lee Sustar looks at the background to the rebellion that swept out a Central
Asian autocrat with close ties to the U.S. government.

April 9, 2010

THE MASS revolt that toppled the autocratic president of Kyrgyzstan had its
roots in the impoverishment of the mass of the population and growing
discontent over repression and human rights violations.

Predictably, many commentators in the U.S. press focused on the implications
for the U.S. airbase in the town of Manas, a critical part of the supply
chain for the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

Some pundits have pointed the finger at Russia, which was upset over the
pro-U.S. tilt of the ousted Kyrgyzstan President Kurmanbek Bakiyev. But
Russian President Dimitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin couldn't
have been pleased by the sight of demonstrators who defied the police, seized
their weapons, and stormed the parliament and the presidential palace.

Anxieties will be greater still in the presidential palaces of the
neighboring Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and
Turkmenistan, where despots fear a similar mass rebellion.

Thus, a popular revolt in a country of just 5 million people has sent shock
waves through the region. As Russian author and activist Boris Kagarlitsky
said in an interview from Moscow:

>This was more of a social uprising then a revolution. There is a lot of
>unrest. But while people are rebelling against the current regime, they have
>no trust in the opposition, either. It is a social uprising with very little
>political perspective. Sooner or later, one or another group of elites will
>take over, because there is no other political force capable of doing so.
>
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

THE UPRISING comes almost exactly five years after Kyrgyzstan's 2005 Tulip
Revolution ousted Askar Akayev, who had ruled the country since its
declaration of independence amid the breakup of the former USSR in 1991.

The Tulip Revolution followed a split in the ruling class. Where previous
"color" revolutions in the ex-USSR states of Ukraine and Georgia had been
largely peaceful--and heavily influenced by non-governmental organizations
with ties to the U.S.--the Tulip Revolution involved more violent social
clashes.

Bakiyev, a former stalwart of the Akayev regime turned oppositionist, took
office promising a new era of democracy and social justice.

Once in power, however, Bakiyev soon followed the pattern of other Central
Asian strongmen. He ousted opponents within the elite--including the head of
the new provisional government, Roza Otunbayeva--and used his political
connections to amass personal wealth. Bakiyev's reelection in 2009 was widely
denounced as fraudulent, and anger mounted over his effort to groom his son
to succeed him in office.

The uprising forced Bakiyev to flee the capital city of Bishkek by airplane.
While he hasn't officially conceded power--he's reportedly holed up somewhere
in the country, plotting a comeback--he has been effectively ousted by a
rebellion with much deeper social roots than the Tulip Revolution.

Eyewitness accounts of the uprising make that clear. Kyrgyz journalist Kumar
Bekbolotov described how the rebellion unfolded [1]:

>A crowd began to gather around an old bus stop in an industrial area near
>downtown Bishkek. Several speakers stepped up, rousing the group of 500 with
>impromptu remarks about the events unfolding in Talas, a northern region of
>Kyrgyzstan, where protesters had stormed a local government building and
>declared popular rule.
>
>As the crowd grew excited, the riot police circled the buses--wielding
>batons, shields and, in some cases, angry dogs. Without warning, they moved
>on the crowd in a neat rectangular-shaped formation, rounding them up and
>pushing them toward the buses.
>
>It seemed like a routine police operation. But this was no ordinary day.
>Suddenly, a large group of young protesters, screaming and shouting, tore
>through the police ranks, raced across the street, grabbed rocks and
>attacked. Several policemen lost their batons and helmets in the ensuing
>melee. By day's end, the fracas had drawn crowds of 10,000 to 15,000,
>claimed the lives of scores of protesters, toppled a president--and altered
>a country's destiny.
>
Braving police gunfire that killed at least 75 people and wounded hundreds
more, the crowds stormed the presidential palace and parliament on April 7.
Shops were targeted, too, as poor and hungry people seized the food and goods
they couldn't afford.

Luke Harding, a reporter for Britain's /Guardian/ newspaper, wrote that while
the opposition claimed to be in charge of a provisional government, the real
power was with the people [2]:

>Out on the streets...there were few signs that the new regime was in control
>of anything. The police and security forces appeared to be hiding. Large
>crowds milled around the Soviet-era, fir-tree-lined boulevards, forming and
>reforming revolutionary huddles. Dozens of shops had been looted. Burned out
>cars littered the pavements.
>
>The main government building was on fire, with thick, black smoke pouring
>out of its upper floors. Hundreds of looters gathered near the White House
>presidential building. The shells of trucks and a tractor lay next to
>destroyed railings. Youths perched on an armored personnel carrier, seized
>yesterday from government troops.
>
>By late afternoon, the general prosecutor's office was gutted, with gangs
>roaming around inside, smashing windows with broken-off table legs. Sheets
>of paper--followed by a fig plant--fell from a balcony. At the parliament
>building, opposition workers were tossing posters of Bakiyev into the
>street...
>
>Much of the frustration directed at the ousted government has stemmed from
>Bakiyev's appointment of many of his family members to key government
>positions. In particular, his younger son, Maxim, was widely detested.
>
>Inside Maxim Bakiyev's wrecked and burned mansion, a stream of looters and
>the merely curious trampled over beds of broken glass. On the wall, someone
>had written: "Fuck you." Nearby, they had added: "Death to Maxim!" A couple
>of fir trees were still left in the beds. But the others had all gone,
>transplanted--like the rest of Kyrgyzstan--to a new and uncertain future.
>
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

ONE SPARK for the revolt was a big increase in electricity and water prices
that would hammer a population already reeling from the economic crisis. The
Kyrgyzstan economy contracted by 1 percent last year, forcing an increasing
number to emigrate to Russia in the hope of finding jobs that pay just $300
per month. Remittances from emigrants account for 20 percent of Kyrgyzstan's
Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The other mainstays of the economy are exports of gold and agricultural
products, principally tobacco. Child labor is widespread, especially on
farms.

But the miserable economy is only part of the story. Political life in
Kyrgyzstan had grown intolerable, not just for the elite opposition, but also
for journalists, pro-democracy activists and anyone who happened to cross the
Bakiyev clan and its hangers-on. The summary of the U.S. State Department's
report on Kyrgyzstan [3] in its annual survey of human rights makes that
clear:

>The following human rights problems were reported: restrictions on citizens'
>right to change their government; arbitrary killing, torture and abuse by
>law enforcement officials; impunity; poor prison conditions; arbitrary
>arrest and detention; lack of judicial independence; pressure on
>nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and opposition leaders, including
>government harassment; pressure on independent media; government detention
>of assembly organizers; authorities' failure to protect refugees adequately;
>pervasive corruption; discrimination against women, persons with
>disabilities, ethnic and religious minorities, and other persons based on
>sexual orientation or gender identity; child abuse; trafficking in persons;
>and child labor.
>
But the actions of the U.S. government speak louder than its words.

In early 2009, when Bakiyev lined up $2.8 billion in loans and aid from
Russia and announced the closure of the U.S. airbase in Manas, Washington
responded with more money and political support. Bakiyev not only extended
the U.S. lease on the airbase, but recently agreed to allow the U.S. military
to establish an "anti-terrorism" training center in southern Kyrgyzstan.

Less than three weeks before Bakiyev's overthrow, the head of U.S. Central
Command, David Petraeus, was in Kyrgyzstan to show U.S. support for the
government. Having already tripled its annual rent for the Manas airbase to
$60 million per year--a big sum for a small, poor country--Petraeus was now
prepared to pay $5.5 million to the government for the training center, which
would formally belong to the Kyrgyzstan military.

Having played off the U.S. against Russia, Bakiyev was confident that it was
time to tighten his grip on power.

Less than two weeks before he was overthrown, he stated at a national
political gathering [4], "The world is actively discussing the shortcomings
of a model of democracy based on elections and human rights. There is no
certainty that such a model is suitable for all countries and peoples."

Bakiyev's tilt back toward the U.S. didn't save him, of course. And Vladimir
Putin's rush to telephone interim government leader Roza Otunbayeva might
suggest that the opposition running Kyrgyzstan's new government is aligned
with Moscow in the "Great Game" of imperial rivalry in Central Asia.

The reality, however, is more complicated. Certainly Russia--which has an
airbase of its own in Kyrgyzstan, about 20 miles away from Manas--will be
keen to influence the new government. But while Otunbayeva was educated in
Moscow and was a diplomat for the old USSR, she also has longstanding ties to
the U.S., having been Kyrgyzstan's ambassador in Washington.

Thus, one of her first statements as head of the new government was to assure
the U.S. that the Manas base would function as usual. Otunbayeva and her
faction of the elite are likely to continue to try and balance between Russia
and the U.S.

Boris Kagarlitsky said that the U.S. and Russia would both have to take a
wait-and-see approach in Kyrgyzstan, since neither has much leverage. "Both
Moscow and Washington are really interested in Kyrgyzstan, but lack any tools
of control at the moment," he said. "All they can do is just flirt with
specific groups of elites."

The question now is whether the mass of people who participated in the
uprising--and who suffered a terrible loss of life in the process--will be
satisfied with the new government. Otunbayeva has pledged to convene a
constituent assembly to draft a new constitution and hold elections in six
months. But the people are also in desperate need of jobs and economic
security.

And what's more, they've showed their power. As Kagarlitsky pointed out, the
uprising in Kyrgyzstan will reverberate across Central Asia. "This is
definitely the beginning of the destabilization of the region," he said. "It
will have a domino effect in the long term. In the short term, the Central
Asian leaders will tighten the screws, which will lead to more control and
more authoritarianism. The question is how far these regimes will go."

Pakistan's /Daily Times/ made a similar point [5]:

>The masses, fed up with the denial of their rights, across-the-board
>corruption and profiteering, tailored alterations of the constitution to
>suit whosoever usurps power, a lack of basic amenities and skyrocketing
>inflation, hold the power to exhibit an extreme degree of pent-up animosity.
>The Pakistani public, too, has been alerted, not just to its rights but also
>of the blatant denial of them.
>
>As can be seen in these latest developments in Kyrgyzstan, it is the people
>who bring about a change once the limit of their patience has been reached.
>
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Material on this Web site is licensed by SocialistWorker.org, under a
Creative Commons (by-nc-nd 3.0) [6] license, except for articles that are
republished with permission. Readers are welcome to share and use material
belonging to this site for non-commercial purposes, as long as they are
attributed to the author and SocialistWorker.org.

[1] http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-04-08/how-the-uprising-happened/
[2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/08/kyrgyzstan-revolt-over-kurmanbek-bakiyev
[3] http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2009/sca/136089.htm
[4] http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2010/03/24/kyrgyz_revolution_leaves_legacy_of_oppression/
[5] http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010%5C04%5C09%5Cstory_9-4-2010_pg3_1
[6] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0

Terrific and Terrifying Article by Charles Bowden

2010-04-05T09:51:00.001-07:00

The War Next Door: Adam Smith's invisible hand meets magical realism on the border

Pilger on British/American Imperialism

2010-04-04T17:27:00.001-07:00

Published on Sunday, March 28, 2010 by CommonDreams.org
Have a Nice World War, Folks

by John Pilger

Here is news of the Third World War. The United States has invaded Africa. US troops have entered Somalia, extending their war front from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Yemen and now the Horn of Africa. In preparation for an attack on Iran, American missiles have been placed in four Persian Gulf states, and "bunker-buster" bombs are said to be arriving at the US base on the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

In Gaza, the sick and abandoned population, mostly children, is being entombed behind underground American-supplied walls in order to reinforce a criminal siege. In Latin America, the Obama administration has secured seven bases in Colombia, from which to wage a war of attrition against the popular democracies in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Paraguay. Meanwhile, the secretary of "defence" Robert Gates complains that "the general [European] public and the political class" are so opposed to war they are an "impediment" to peace. Remember this is the month of the March Hare.

According to an American general, the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan is not so much a real war as a "war of perception". Thus, the recent "liberation of the city of Marja" from the Taliban's "command and control structure" was pure Hollywood. Marja is not a city; there was no Taliban command and control. The heroic liberators killed the usual civilians, poorest of the poor. Otherwise, it was fake. A war of perception is meant to provide fake news for the folks back home, to make a failed colonial adventure seem worthwhile and patriotic, as if The Hurt Locker were real and parades of flag-wrapped coffins through the Wiltshire town of Wooten Basset were not a cynical propaganda exercise.

"War is fun", the helmets in Vietnam used to say with bleakest irony, meaning that if a war is revealed as having no purpose other than to justify voracious power in the cause of lucrative fanaticisms such as the weapons industry, the danger of truth beckons. This danger can be illustrated by the liberal perception of Tony Blair in 1997 as one "who wants to create a world [where] ideology has surrendered entirely to values" (Hugo Young, the Guardian) compared with today's public reckoning of a liar and war criminal.

Western war-states such as the US and Britain are not threatened by the Taliban or any other introverted tribesmen in faraway places, but by the antiwar instincts of their own citizens. Consider the draconian sentences handed down in London to scores of young people who protested Israel's assault on Gaza in January last year. Following demonstrations in which paramilitary police "kettled" (corralled) thousands, first-offenders have received two and a half years in prison for minor offences that would not normally carry custodial sentences. On both sides of the Atlantic, serious dissent exposing illegal war has become a serious crime.

Silence in other high places allows this moral travesty. Across the arts, literature, journalism and the law, liberal elites, having hurried away from the debris of Blair and now Obama, continue to fudge their indifference to the barbarism and aims of western state crimes by promoting retrospectively the evils of their convenient demons, like Saddam Hussein. With Harold Pinter gone, try compiling a list of famous writers, artists and advocates whose principles are not consumed by the "market" or neutered by their celebrity. Who among them have spoken out about the holocaust in Iraq during almost 20 years of lethal blockade and assault? And all of it has been deliberate. On 22 January 1991, the US Defence Intelligence Agency predicted in impressive detail how a blockade would systematically destroy Iraq's clean water system and lead to "increased incidences, if not epidemics of disease". So the US set about eliminating clean water for the Iraqi population: one of the causes, noted Unicef, of the deaths of half a million Iraqi infants under the age of five. But this extremism apparently has no name.

Norman Mailer once said he believed the United States, in its endless pursuit of war and domination, had entered a "pre-fascist era". Mailer seemed tentative, as if trying to warn about something even he could not quite define. "Fascism" is not right, for it invokes lazy historical precedents, conjuring yet again the iconography of German and Italian repression. On the other hand, American authoritarianism, as the cultural critic Henry Giroux pointed out recently, is "more nuance, less theatrical, more cunning, less concerned with repressive modes of control than with manipulative modes of consent."

This is Americanism, the only predatory ideology to deny that it is an ideology. The rise of tentacular corporations that are dictatorships in their own right and of a military that is now a state with the state, set behind the façade of the best democracy 35,000 Washington lobbyists can buy, and a popular culture programmed to divert and stultify, is without precedent. More nuanced perhaps, but the results are both unambiguous and familiar. Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck, the senior United Nations officials in Iraq during the American and British-led blockade, are in no doubt they witnessed genocide. They saw no gas chambers. Insidious, undeclared, even presented wittily as enlightenment on the march, the Third World War and its genocide proceeded, human being by human being.

In the coming election campaign in Britain, the candidates will refer to this war only to laud "our boys". The candidates are almost identical political mummies shrouded in the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes. As Blair demonstrated a mite too eagerly, the British elite loves America because America allows it to barrack and bomb the natives and call itself a "partner". We should interrupt their fun.

John Pilger was born and educated in Sydney, Australia. He has been a war correspondent, film-maker and playwright. Based in London, he has written from many countries and has twice won British journalism's highest award, that of "Journalist of the Year," for his work in Vietnam and Cambodia.

Please watch this, if you can

2010-03-30T13:50:00.001-07:00

Tavis Smiley's "Beyond Vietnam" (Martin Luther King) Special

10 Courageous Things You Can Do To Build Community

2010-03-28T22:26:00.001-07:00

From YES! Magazine

White Professor Condemns Racism

2010-03-27T22:06:00.000-07:00

- Andrew M. Manis is associate professor of history at Macon State
College in Georgia and wrote this for an editorial in the Macon Telegraph.

Andrew M. Manis: When Are WE Going to Get Over It?

For much of the last forty years, ever since America "fixed" its race problem in the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, we white people have been impatient with African Americans who continued to blame race for their difficulties. Often we have heard whites ask, "When are African Americans finally going to get over it?

Now I want to ask: "When are we White Americans going to get over our ridiculous obsession with skin color?

Recent reports that "Election Spurs Hundreds' of Race Threats, Crimes" should frighten and infuriate every one of us. Having grown up in "Bombingham," Alabama in the 1960s, I remember overhearing an avalanche of comments about what many white classmates and their parents wanted to do to John and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Eventually, as you may recall, in all three cases, someone decided to do more than "talk the talk."

Since our recent presidential election, to our eternal shame we are once again hearing the same reprehensible talk I remember from my boyhood.

We white people have controlled political life in the disunited colonies and United States for some 400 years on this continent. Conservative whites have been in power 28 of the last 40 years. Even during the eight Clinton years, conservatives in Congress blocked most of his agenda and pulled him to the right. Yet never in that period
did I read any headlines suggesting that anyone was calling for the assassinations of presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, or either of the Bushes. Criticize them, yes. Call for their impeachment, perhaps. But there were no bounties on their heads. And even when someone did try to kill Ronald Reagan, the perpetrator was non-political mental case who wanted merely to impress Jody Foster.

But elect a liberal who happens to be Black and we're back in the sixties again. At this point in our history, we should be proud that we've proven what conservatives are always saying -- that in America anything is possible, EVEN electing a black man as president. But instead we now hear that school children from Maine to California are talking about wanting to "assassinate Obama."

Fighting the urge to throw up, I can only ask, "How long?" How long before we white people realize we can't make our nation, much less the whole world, look like us?

How long until we white people can - once and for all - get over this hell-conceived preoccupation with skin color?

How long until we white people get over the demonic conviction that white skin makes us superior?

How long before we white people get over our bitter resentments about being demoted to the status of equality with non-whites?

How long before we get over our expectations that we should be at the head of the line merely because of our white skin?

How long until we white people end our silence and call out our peers when they share the latest racist jokes in the privacy of our white-only conversations?

I believe in free speech, but how long until we white people start making racist loudmouths as socially uncomfortable as we do flag burners?

How long until we white people will stop insisting that blacks exercise personal responsibility, build strong families, educate themselves enough to edit the Harvard Law Review, and work hard enough to become President of the United States, only to threaten to assassinate them when they do?

How long before we start "living out the true meaning" of our creeds, both civil and religious, that all men and women are created equal and that "red and yellow, black and white" all are precious in God's sight?

Until this past November 4, I didn't believe this country would ever elect an African American to the presidency. I still don't believe I'll live long enough to see us white people get over our racism problem.

But here's my three-point plan:

First, everyday that Barack Obama lives in the White House that Black Slaves Built, I'm going to pray that God (and the Secret Service) will protect him and his family from us white people.

Second, I'm going to report to the FBI any white person I overhear saying, in seriousness or in jest, anything of a threatening nature about President Obama.

Third, I'm going to pray to live long enough to see America surprise the world once again, when white people can "in spirit and in truth" sing of our damnable color prejudice, "We HAVE overcome."

Simon (published originally by Azibo Press)

2010-03-27T12:41:00.000-07:00

http://www.azibopress.org/?p=375

I saw his face and was not surprised. His left eye was half-closed, his right eye was bruised, and his left cheek looked like it had been scraped repeatedly by a cheese grater. Instead of shock I felt a very deep sadness within me, but this was not the first time I had been affected by the appearance — not to mention the actions — of this 19-year-old juvenile detainee.

Why was he here? I had asked this question several times to myself and to coworkers who had worked with him before, successfully teaching him to read, as he had gone through the entire program a year or so prior to my start date. After searching for some answers, it became apparent to me that he wasn’t sent to us again because of another crime he had allegedly committed, but because he had absconded from his community placement (likely a group home), and they had nowhere else to send him.

I was told that he was practically tortured by the other youths in his previous stint. He was relatively old even then, but from what I know of him now, he likely had the maturity and personality of a neglected 12-year-old — not to mention his small ears and high-pitched, wavering voice. A youth detention center is no place for the weak of spirit. The other youths, hardly more mature and confident themselves, devoured him like vultures on a carcass. He had no adequate means of defense.

Now he resorts to silly, simple-minded insults — even against me at times — when he feels threatened. His unit-mates know, along with almost everyone else, that those insults don’t lead to threats because he is incapable of backing them up. Recently, Simon was playfully ambushed by another youth at the end of art class. This happened after I had tried unsuccessfully to convince him that writing that his art teacher was a “bitch” on his drawing paper was not a wise decision.

Unfortunately for Simon, the youth’s heavy body almost brought him to the floor. From my (close) vantage point, it did not look like Simon was hurt physically, but his pride had been dashed, and he was already upset for some reason before it happened. Again I was sad, but not surprised, when Simon ran after the heavyset youth in an almost comical fashion but with serious intent to get some manner of satisfaction. One of the corrections officers and I attempted to block Simon’s path, but he kept weaving around us, jumping over tables, and managing to chase his attacker out into the hall. This went on for several minutes, with the antagonist laughing the entire time.

The laughter and general cruelty of the situation upset me the most. I yelled at the larger youth to stop laughing, which only strengthened Simon’s resolve. The corrections officer, ironically called “Tiny” despite his massive build, seemed relatively relaxed at first. I quickly realized that he wasn’t too concerned about Simon catching the other youth because Simon “can’t fight.” Tiny seemed to be hoping he might connect with one of his feeble swings and bring on some much-needed self-pride and satisfaction without physically hurting the target. I didn’t see that happening.

Eventually, once the other youth managed to lock himself in the bathroom with me guarding the door, Tiny moved past me, went into the bathroom, and shouted at him in a voice I didn’t know he had. The part that sticks with me is when he hollered, referring to Simon, “You know something ain’t right with him!”

Soon after, Simon got moved to the awaiting placement unit. Although I passed him in the halls and watched him toss snowballs fruitlessly out in the courtyard, I didn’t have a chance to talk to him until the end of the week, while he was taking his social studies test with the enthusiasm of a kid in a toy store. He later won a game of bingo with my help and seemed to thank me with a half-embrace from behind that caught me unprepared. He showed me a brochure for a therapeutic group home in Pennsylvania he said he might be going to soon. It looked great to me, but he didn’t seem too excited.

I asked around about his face and heard he got jumped by eight guys. Tiny told me they had tried to put him in the hospital. What surprised me is that they didn’t succeed.

The Amistad Resurrected

2010-03-18T17:20:00.000-07:00

A symbol of the slave trade joins US and Cuba

By JIM KUHNHENN

The Associated Press

7:26 a.m. Thursday, March 18, 2010

WASHINGTON — Days from now, a stately black schooner will sail through a narrow channel into Havana's protected harbor, its two masts bearing the rarest of sights — the U.S. Stars and Stripes, with the Cuban flag fluttering nearby.

The ship is the Amistad, a U.S.-flagged vessel headed for largely forbidden Cuban waters as a symbol of both a dark 19th century past and modern public diplomacy.

The Amistad is the 10-year-old official tall ship of the state of Connecticut and a replica of the Cuban coastal trader that sailed from Havana in 1839 with a cargo of African captives, only to become an emblem of the abolitionist movement.

Its 10-day, two-city tour of Cuba provides a counterpoint to new and lingering tensions between Washington and Havana and stands out as a high-profile exception to the 47-year-old U.S. embargo of the Caribbean island.

For the Amistad, it also represents a final link as it retraces the old Atlantic slave trade triangle, making port calls that are not only reminders of the stain of slavery but also celebrations of the shared cultural legacies of an otherwise sorry past.

When it drops anchor in Havana's harbor on March 25, the Amistad will not only observe its 10th anniversary, it will commemorate the day in 1807 when the British Parliament first outlawed the slave trade.

The powerful image of a vessel displaying home and host flags docking in Cuba is not lost on Gregory Belanger, the CEO and president of Amistad America Inc., the nonprofit organization that owns and operates the ship.

"We're completely aware of all of the issues currently surrounding the U.S. and Cuba," he said. "But we approach this from the point of view that we have this unique history that both societies are connected by. It gives us an opportunity to transcend contemporary issues."

It's not lost on Rep. William Delahunt, either. The Massachusetts Democrat has long worked to ease U.S.-Cuba relations and he reached out to the State Department to make officials aware of the Amistad's proposal.

U.S.-flagged ships have docked in Havana before, but none as prominently as the Amistad. The Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control has periodically approved Cuba stops for semester-at-sea educational programs for American students, and the Commerce Department has authorized U.S. shiploads of exports under agriculture and medical exemptions provided in the Trade Sanctions Reform Act of 2000.

"Obviously we have serious differences, disagreements," Delahunt said. "But in this particular case the two governments, while not working together, clearly were aware of the profound significance of this particular commemoration."

The original Amistad's story, the subject of a 1997 Steven Spielberg movie, began after it set sail from Havana in 1839. Its African captives rebelled, taking over the ship and sending it on a zigzag course up the U.S. coast until it was finally seized off the coast of Long Island. The captured Africans became an international cause for abolitionists; their fate was finally decided in 1841 when John Quincy Adams argued their case before the Supreme Court, which granted them their freedom.

Miguel Barnet, a leading Cuban ethnographer and writer who has studied the African diaspora, said it is only appropriate that the new Amistad would call on the place of the original ship's birth. Indeed, he said in an interview from Cuba on Wednesday, it is the horror of the slave trade that left behind a rich common bond —not just between the United States and Cuba, but with the rest of the Caribbean — that is rooted in Africa.

"That's why this is an homage to these men and women who left something precious for our culture," he said.

The new Amistad has crossed the Atlantic and wended its way through the Caribbean since 2007. It has worked with the United Nations and UNESCO's Slave Route Project. Using high technology hidden in its wooden frame and rigging, the ship's crew of sailors and students has simulcasted to schools and even to the U.N. General Assembly.

It will do so again — with Cuban students — from Havana.

Kucinich Speech After 9/11

2010-02-28T20:00:00.001-08:00

Kucinich's Prophetic "Prayer for America" Speech
8 Years Ago Today

Many have called Dennis Kucinich's "Prayer for America" speech one of the most eloquent and significant summaries of post 9/11 America. He delivered it eight years ago today.

The Kucinich campaign staff urges you to read and to distribute this prophetic message which even after eight years maintains a fresh sense of urgency.

Thank you
The Re-Elect Congressman Kucinich Committee

A Prayer for America

I offer these brief remarks today as a prayer for our country, as a celebration of our country. With love of democracy. With love of our country. With hope for our country. With a belief that the light of freedom cannot be extinguished as long as it is inside of us. With a belief that freedom rings resoundingly in a democracy each time we speak freely. With the understanding that freedom stirs the human heart and fear stills it. With the belief that a free people cannot walk in fear and faith at the same time. With the understanding that there is a deeper truth in the unity of the United States. That implicit in the union of our country is the union of all people, everywhere. That all people are essentially one. That the world is interconnected not only on the material level of economics, trade, communication, and transportation; but interconnected through human consciousness, through the human heart, through the heart of the world, through the simply expressed impulse to be and to breathe free.

I offer this prayer for America.

Let us pray that our nation will remember that the unfolding of the promise of democracy in our nation paralleled the striving and accomplishment of civil rights. That is why we must challenge the rationale of the Patriot Act. We must ask why should America put aside guarantees of constitutional justice?

How can we justify in effect canceling the First Amendment and the right of free speech, and the right to peacefully assemble?

How can we justify, in effect, the canceling the Fourth Amendment, probable cause, the prohibitions against unreasonable search and seizure?

How can we justify, in effect, canceling the Fifth Amendment, nullifying due process, allowing for indefinite incarceration without a trial?

How can we justify, in effect, canceling the Sixth Amendment, the right to prompt and public trial?

How can we justify, in effect, canceling the Eighth Amendment which protects against cruel and unusual punishment?

We cannot justify widespread wiretaps and internet surveillance without judicial supervision, let alone with it.

We cannot justify secret searches without a warrant.

We cannot justify giving the Attorney General the ability to designate domestic terror groups.

We cannot justify giving the FBI total access to any type of data which may exist in any system anywhere, including medical and financial records.

We cannot justify giving the CIA the ability to target people in this country for domestic intelligence and intelligence surveillance.

We cannot justify a government which takes from the people our right to privacy and then assumes for its own operations a right to total secrecy.

The Attorney General recently covered up a statue of Lady Justice showing her bosom as if to underscore there is no danger of justice exposing herself in this administration.

Let us pray, oremus, that our nation's leaders will not be overcome by fear. Because today there is great fear in the Capitol. And this must be understood before we can ask about the shortcomings of Congress in this current environment.

The great fear began when we had to evacuate the Capitol on September 11. It continued when we had to leave the Capitol again when a bomb scare occurred as members were pressing the CIA during a secret briefing. It continued when we abandoned Washington during the anthrax scare, when anthrax, possibly from a government lab, arrived in the mail. It continued when the Attorney General declared a nationwide terror alert and then brought the destructive Patriot Bill to the floor of the House of Representatives. It continued in the release of the Bin Laden tapes at the very same time the President was announcing our country would withdraw from the ABM treaty.

It remains present in the cordoning off of the Capitol. It is present in the camouflaged armed national guardsmen who greet members of Congress each day we enter the Capitol campus. It is present in the labyrinth of concrete barriers through which we must pass each time we go to vote.

The trappings of a state of siege trap us in a state of fear, ill-equipped to deal with the Patriot Games, the Mind Games, the War Games of an unelected President and his undisclosed Vice President.

Let us pray. Let us pray that our country will stop this war. "To provide for the common defense" is one of the formational principles of America. Our Congress gave the President the ability to respond to the tragedy of September 11. We licensed a response to those who helped create the terror of September 11th. But we the people and our elected representatives must reserve the right to measure the response, to proportion the response, to challenge the response, and to correct the response.

Because we did not authorize the invasion of Iraq.

We did not authorize the invasion of Iran.

We did not authorize the invasion of North Korea.

We did not authorize the bombing of civilians in Afghanistan.

We did not authorize permanent detainees in Guantanamo Bay.

We did not authorize the withdrawal from the Geneva Convention.

We did not authorize military tribunals suspending due process and habeas corpus.

We did not authorize assassination squads.

We did not authorize the resurrection of COINTELPRO.

We did not authorize the repeal of the Bill of Rights.

We did not authorize the revocation of the Constitution.

We did not authorize national identity cards.

We did not authorize the eye of Big Brother to peer from cameras throughout our cities.

We did not authorize an eye for an eye.

Nor did we ask that the blood of innocent people, who perished on September 11, be avenged with the blood of innocent villagers in Afghanistan.

We did not authorize this administration to wage war anytime, anywhere, anyhow it pleases.

We did not authorize war without end.

We did not authorize a permanent war economy.

Yet we are upon the threshold of a permanent war economy. The President has requested a $45.6 billion increase in military spending. All defense-related programs will cost close to $400 billion.

Consider that the Department of Defense has never passed an independent audit.

Consider that the Inspector General notified Congress, recently, that the Pentagon cannot properly account for $1.2 trillion - that's trillion - in expenditures. Correct, that it cannot account for $1.2 trillion in transactions. Consider that in recent years the Department of Defense could not match $22 billion worth of expenditures to the items it purchased. Consider that it has written off as lost billions of dollars worth of in-transit inventory and stored nearly $30 billion worth of spare parts it did not need.

Yet the Pentagon's budget grows with more money for weapons systems to fight a cold war which ended, weapon systems in search of new enemies to create new wars. This has nothing to do with fighting terror. This has everything to do with fueling a military industrial machine with the treasure of our nation, risking the future of our nation, risking democracy itself with the militarization of thought which follows the militarization of the budget.

Let us pray for our children. Our children deserve a world without end. Not a war without end. Our children deserve a world free of the terror of hunger, free of the terror of poor health care, free of the terror of homelessness, free of the terror of ignorance, free of the terror of hopelessness, free of the terror of policies which are committed to a world view which is not appropriate for the survival of democratic values, not appropriate for the survival of a free people, not appropriate for the survival of a nation, not appropriate for the survival of the world.

Let us pray that we have the courage and the will as a people, and as a nation, to shore ourselves up, to reclaim from the ruins of September 11th our democratic traditions.

Let us declare. Let us declare our love of democracy. And declare our intent for peace.

Let us work to make nonviolence an organizing principle in our own society.

Let us recommit ourselves to the slow and painstaking work of statecraft, which sees peace, not war, as being inevitable.

Let us work for a world where someday war becomes archaic.

Let us work for a world where nuclear disarmament is an imperative. This is the vision which the proposal to create a Department of Peace envisions. Forty-three members of Congress are now cosponsoring the legislation.

Let us work for a world where America can lead the way in banning all nuclear weapons not only from our land and sea and sky but from outer space itself. This is the vision of HR 3616: A universe free of fear. Where we can look up at God's creation in the stars and imagine infinite wisdom, infinite peace, infinite possibilities. Not infinite war, because we are taught that the kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven.

Let us pray. Pray that we have the courage to replace the images of death which haunt us, the layers of images of September 11th, faded into images of patriotism, spliced into images of military mobilization, jump-cut into images of our secular celebrations of the World Series, New Year's Eve, the Super Bowl, the Olympics, the strobic flashes which touch our deepest fears, let us replace those images with the images of people working to rebuild their democratic institutions. With images of the work of human relations. Of the work of reaching out to people, helping our citizens here at home. Of lifting the plight of people everywhere.

That is the America which has the ability to rally the support of the world.

That is the America which stands not in pursuit of an axis of evil, but which is itself the axis of hope and faith and peace and freedom.

America, America. God shed grace on thee. And crown thy good with brotherhood and sisterhood.

America, America. Long may Thy land be bright with Freedom's holy light

America, America. Let us pray for our country. Let us love our country. Let us defend our country not only from the threats without but from the threats within.

America, America. Crown thy good. Not with weapons of mass destruction. Not with invocations of an axis of evil. Not through breaking international treaties. Not through establishing America as king of a uni-polar world. But through looking at America as a nation among nations and viewing the world as an interconnected whole.

Crown thy good, America. Crown thy good with sisterhood and brotherhood. And crown thy good with compassion and restraint and forbearance and a commitment to peace and democracy here at home and in the world. And a commitment to economic democracy here at home and throughout the world.

Crown thy good, America. Crown thy good America. Crown thy good.

Thank you.

Paranoia Still Runs Rampant...

2010-02-23T14:06:00.000-08:00

The Paranoid Style in American Politics

By Richard Hofstadter†
Harper’s Magazine, November 1964, pp. 77-86.

It had been around a long time before the Radical Right discovered it—and its targets have ranged from “the international bankers” to Masons, Jesuits, and munitions makers.

American politics has often been an arena for angry minds. In recent years we have seen angry minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers, who have now demonstrated in the Goldwater movement how much political leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of a small minority. But behind this I believe there is a style of mind that is far from new and that is not necessarily right-wind. I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind. In using the expression “paranoid style” I am not speaking in a clinical sense, but borrowing a clinical term for other purposes. I have neither the competence nor the desire to classify any figures of the past or present as certifiable lunatics., In fact, the idea of the paranoid style as a force in politics would have little contemporary relevance or historical value if it were applied only to men with profoundly disturbed minds. It is the use of paranoid modes of expression by more or less normal people that makes the phenomenon significant.
Of course this term is pejorative, and it is meant to be; the paranoid style has a greater affinity for bad causes than good. But nothing really prevents a sound program or demand from being advocated in the paranoid style. Style has more to do with the way in which ideas are believed than with the truth or falsity of their content. I am interested here in getting at our political psychology through our political rhetoric. The paranoid style is an old and recurrent phenomenon in our public life which has been frequently linked with movements of suspicious discontent.

Here is Senator McCarthy, speaking in June 1951 about the parlous situation of the United States:

How can we account for our present situation unless we believe that men high in this government are concerting to deliver us to disaster? This must be the product of a great conspiracy on a scale so immense as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man. A conspiracy of infamy so black that, which it is finally exposed, its principals shall be forever deserving of the maledictions of all honest men.…What can be made of this unbroken series of decisions and acts contributing to the strategy of defeat? They cannot be attributed to incompetence.…The laws of probability would dictate that part of…[the] decisions would serve the country’s interest.

Now turn back fifty years to a manifesto signed in 1895 by a number of leaders of the Populist party:

As early as 1865-66 a conspiracy was entered into between the gold gamblers of Europe and America.…For nearly thirty years these conspirators have kept the people quarreling over less important matters while they have pursued with unrelenting zeal their one central purpose.…Every device of treachery, every resource of statecraft, and every artifice known to the secret cabals of the international gold ring are being used to deal a blow to the prosperity of the people and the financial and commercial independence of the country.

Next, a Texas newspaper article of 1855:

…It is a notorious fact that the Monarchs of Europe and the Pope of Rome are at this very moment plotting our destruction and threatening the extinction of our political, civil, and religious institutions. We have the best reasons for believing that corruption has found its way into our Executive Chamber, and that our Executive head is tainted with the infectious venom of Catholicism.…The Pope has recently sent his ambassador of state to this country on a secret commission, the effect of which is an extraordinary boldness of the Catholic church throughout the United States.…These minions of the Pope are boldly insulting our Senators; reprimanding our Statesmen; propagating the adulterous union of Church and State; abusing with foul calumny all governments but Catholic, and spewing out the bitterest execrations on all Protestantism. The Catholics in the United States receive from abroad more than $200,000 annually for the propagation of their creed. Add to this the vast revenues collected here.…

These quotations give the keynote of the style. In the history of the United States one find it, for example, in the anti-Masonic movement, the nativist and anti-Catholic movement, in certain spokesmen of abolitionism who regarded the United States as being in the grip of a slaveholders’ conspiracy, in many alarmists about the Mormons, in some Greenback and Populist writers who constructed a great conspiracy of international bankers, in the exposure of a munitions makers’ conspiracy of World War I, in the popular left-wing press, in the contemporary American right wing, and on both sides of the race controversy today, among White Citizens’ Councils and Black Muslims. I do not propose to try to trace the variations of the paranoid style that can be found in all these movements, but will confine myself to a few leading episodes in our past history in which the style emerged in full and archetypal splendor.
Illuminism and Masonry

I begin with a particularly revealing episode—the panic that broke out in some quarters at the end of the eighteenth century over the allegedly subversive activities of the Bavarian Illuminati. This panic was a part of the general reaction to the French Revolution. In the United States it was heightened by the response of certain men, mostly in New England and among the established clergy, to the rise of Jeffersonian democracy. Illuminism had been started in 1776 by Adam Weishaupt, a professor of law at the University of Ingolstadt. Its teachings today seem to be no more than another version of Enlightenment rationalism, spiced with the anticlerical atmosphere of eighteenth-century Bavaria. It was a somewhat naïve and utopian movement which aspired ultimately to bring the human race under the rules of reason. Its humanitarian rationalism appears to have acquired a fairly wide influence in Masonic lodges.
Americans first learned of Illumism in 1797, from a volume published in Edinburgh (later reprinted in New York) under the title, Proofs of a Conspiracy Against All the Religions and Governments of Europe, Carried on in the Secret Meetings of Free Masons, Illuminati, and Reading Societies. Its author was a well-known Scottish scientist, John Robison, who had himself been a somewhat casual adherent of Masonry in Britain, but whose imagination had been inflamed by what he considered to be the far less innocent Masonic movement on the Continent. Robison seems to have made his work as factual as he could, but when he came to estimating the moral character and the political influence of Illuminism, he made the characteristic paranoid leap into fantasy. The association, he thought, was formed “for the express purpose of rooting out all religious establishments, and overturning all the existing governments of europe.” It had become “one great and wicked project fermenting and working all over Europe.” And to it he attributed a central role in bringing about the French Revolution. He saw it as a libertine, anti-Christian movement, given to the corruption of women, the cultivation of sensual pleasures, and the violation of property rights. Its members had plans for making a tea that caused abortion—a secret substance that “blinds or kills when spurted in the face,” and a device that sounds like a stench bomb—a “method for filling a bedchamber with pestilential vapours.”
These notions were quick to make themselves felt in America. In May 1798, a minister of the Massachusetts Congregational establishment in Boston, Jedidiah Morse, delivered a timely sermon to the young country, which was then sharply divided between Jeffersonians and Federalists, Francophiles and Anglomen. Having read Robison, Morse was convinced of a Jacobinical plot touched off by Illuminism, and that the country should be rallied to defend itself. His warnings were heeded throughout New England wherever Federalists brooded about the rising tide of religious infidelity or Jeffersonian democracy. Timothy Dwight, the president of Yale, followed Morse’s sermon with a Fourth-of-July discourse on The Duty of Americans in the Present Crisis, in which he held forth against the Antichrist in his own glowing rhetoric. Soon the pulpits of New England were ringing with denunciations of the Illuminati, as though the country were swarming with them.
The anti-Masonic movement of the late 1820s and the 1830s took up and extended the obsession with conspiracy. At first, this movement may seem to be no more than an extension or repetition of the anti-Masonic theme sounded in the outcry against the Bavarian Illuminati. But whereas the panic of the 1790s was confined mainly to New England and linked to an ultraconservative point of view, the later anti-Masonic movement affected many parts of the northern United States, and was intimately linked with popular democracy and rural egalitarianism. Although anti-Masonry happened to be anti-Jacksonian (Jackson was a Mason), it manifested the same animus against the closure of opportunity for the common man and against aristocratic institutions that one finds in the Jacksonian crusade against the Bank of the United States.
The anti-Masonic movement was a product not merely of natural enthusiasm but also of the vicissitudes of party politics. It was joined and used by a great many men who did not fully share its original anti-Masonic feelings. It attracted the support of several reputable statement who had only mild sympathy with its fundamental bias, but who as politicians could not afford to ignore it. Still, it was a folk movement of considerable power, and the rural enthusiasts who provided its real impetus believed in it wholeheartedly.
As a secret society, Masonry was considered to be a standing conspiracy against republican government. It was held to be particularly liable to treason—for example, Aaron Burr’s famous conspiracy was alleged to have been conducted by Masons. Masonry was accused of constituting a separate system of loyalty, a separate imperium within the framework of federal and state governments, which was inconsistent with loyalty to them. Quite plausibly it was argued that the Masons had set up a jurisdiction of their own, with their own obligations and punishments, liable to enforcement even by the penalty of death. So basic was the conflict felt to be between secrecy and democracy that other, more innocent societies such as Phi Beta Kappa came under attack.
Since Masons were pledged to come to each other’s aid under circumstances of distress, and to extend fraternal indulgence at all times, is was held that the order nullified the enforcement of regular law. Masonic constables, sheriffs, juries, and judges must all be in league with Masonic criminals and fugitives. The press was believed to have been so “muzzled” by Masonic editors and proprietors that news of Masonic malfeasance could be suppressed. At a moment when almost every alleged citadel of privilege in America was under democratic assault, Masonry was attacked as a fraternity of the privileged, closing business opportunities and nearly monopolizing political offices.
Certain elements of truth and reality there may have been in these views of Masonry. What must be emphasized here, however, is the apocalyptic and absolutistic framework in which this hostility was commonly expressed. Anti-Masons were not content simply to say that secret societies were rather a bad idea. The author of the standard exposition of anti-Masonry declared that Freemasonry was “not only the most abominable but also the most dangerous institution that ever was imposed on man.…It may truly be said to be hell’s master piece.”
The Jesuit Threat

Fear of a Masonic plot had hardly been quieted when the rumors arose of a Catholic plot against American values. One meets here again the same frame of mind, but a different villain. The anti-Catholic movement converged with a growing nativism, and while they were not identical, together they cut such a wide swath in American life that they were bound to embrace many moderates to whom the paranoid style, in its full glory, did not appeal. Moreover, we need not dismiss out of hand as totally parochial or mean-spirited the desire of Yankee Americans to maintain an ethnically and religiously homogeneous society nor the particular Protestant commitments to individualism and freedom that were brought into play. But the movement had a large paranoid infusion, and the most influential anti-Catholic militants certainly had a strong affinity for the paranoid style.
Two books which appeared in 1835 described the new danger to the ?American way of life and may be taken as expressions of the anti-Catholic mentality. One, Foreign Conspiracies against the Liberties of the United States, was from the hand of the celebrated painter and inventor of the telegraph, S.F.B. Morse. “A conspiracy exists,” Morse proclaimed , and “its plans are already in operation…we are attacked in a vulnerable quarter which cannot be defended by our ships, our forts, or our armies.” The main source of the conspiracy Morse found in Metternich’s government: “Austria is now acting in this country. She has devised a grand scheme. She has organized a great plan for doing something here.…She has her Jesuit missionaries traveling through the land; she has supplied them with money, and has furnished a fountain for a regular supply.” Were the plot successful, Morse said, some scion of the House of Hapsburg would soon be installed as Emperor of the United States.

“It is an ascertained fact,” wrote another Protestant militant,

that Jesuits are prowling about all parts of the United States in every possible disguise, expressly to ascertain the advantageous situations and modes to disseminate Popery. A minister of the Gospel from Ohio has informed us that he discovered one carrying on his devices in his congregation; and he says that the western country swarms with them under the name of puppet show men, dancing masters, music teachers, peddlers of images and ornaments, barrel organ players, and similar practitioners.

Lyman Beecher, the elder of a famous family and the father of Harriet Beecher Stowe, wrote in the same year his Plea for the West, in which he considered the possibility that the Christian millennium might come in the American states. Everything depended, in his judgment, upon what influences dominated the great West, where the future of the country lay. There Protestantism was engaged in a life-or-death struggle with Catholicism. “Whatever we do, it must be done quickly.…” A great tide of immigration, hostile to free institutions, was sweeping in upon the country, subsidized and sent by “the potentates of Europe,” multiplying tumult and violence, filling jails, crowding poorhouses, quadrupling taxation, and sending increasing thousands of voters to “lay their inexperienced hand upon the helm of our power.”

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The Paranoid Style in Action

The John Birch Society is attempting to suppress a television series about the United Nations by means of a mass letter-writing campaign to the sponsor,…The Xerox Corporation. The corporation, however, intends to go ahead with the programs.…

The July issue of the John Birch Society Bulletin…said an “avalanche of mail ought to convince them of the unwisdom of their proposed action—just as United Air Lines was persuaded to back down and take the U.N. insignia off their planes.” (A United Air Lines spokesman confirmed that the U.N. emblem was removed from its planes, following “considerable public reaction against it.”)

Birch official John Rousselot said, ”We hate to see a corporation of this country promote the U.N. when we know that it is an instrument of the Soviet Communist conspiracy.”

—San Francisco Chronicle, July 31, 1964

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Anti-Catholicism has always been the pornography of the Puritan. Whereas the anti-Masons had envisaged drinking bouts and had entertained themselves with sado-masochistic fantasies about the actual enforcement of grisly Masonic oaths,* the anti-Catholics invented an immense lore about libertine priests, the confessional as an opportunity for seduction, licentious convents and monasteries. Probably the most widely read contemporary book in the United States before Uncle Tom’s Cabin was a work supposedly written by one Maria Monk, entitled Awful Disclosures, which appeared in 1836. The author, who purported to have escaped from the Hotel Dieu nunnery in Montreal after five years there as novice and nun, reported her convent life in elaborate and circumstantial detail. She reported having been told by the Mother Superior that she must “obey the priests in all things”; to her “utter astonishment and horror,” she soon found what the nature of such obedience was. Infants born of convent liaisons were baptized and then killed, she said, so that they might ascend at once to heaven. Her book, hotly attacked and defended , continued to be read and believed even after her mother gave testimony that Maria had been somewhat addled ever since childhood after she had rammed a pencil into her head. Maria died in prison in 1849, after having been arrested in a brothel as a pickpocket.
Anti-Catholicism, like anti-Masonry, mixed its fortunes with American party politics, and it became an enduring factor in American politics. The American Protective Association of the 1890s revived it with ideological variations more suitable to the times—the depression of 1893, for example, was alleged to be an international creation of the Catholics who began it by starting a run on the banks. Some spokesmen of the movement circulated a bogus encyclical attributed to Leo XIII instructing American Catholics on a certain date in 1893 to exterminate all heretics, and a great many anti-Catholics daily expected a nationwide uprising. The myth of an impending Catholic war of mutilation and extermination of heretics persisted into the twentieth century.
Why They Feel Dispossessed

If, after our historically discontinuous examples of the paranoid style, we now take the long jump to the contemporary right wing, we find some rather important differences from the nineteenth-century movements. The spokesmen of those earlier movements felt that they stood for causes and personal types that were still in possession of their country—that they were fending off threats to a still established way of life. But the modern right wing, as Daniel Bell has put it, feels dispossessed: America has been largely taken away from them and their kind, though they are determined to try to repossess it and to prevent the final destructive act of subversion. The old American virtues have already been eaten away by cosmopolitans and intellectuals; the old competitive capitalism has been gradually undermined by socialistic and communistic schemers; the old national security and independence have been destroyed by treasonous plots, having as their most powerful agents not merely outsiders and foreigners as of old but major statesmen who are at the very centers of American power. Their predecessors had discovered conspiracies; the modern radical right finds conspiracy to be betrayal from on high.
Important changes may also be traced to the effects of the mass media. The villains of the modern right are much more vivid than those of their paranoid predecessors, much better known to the public; the literature of the paranoid style is by the same token richer and more circumstantial in personal description and personal invective. For the vaguely delineated villains of the anti-Masons, for the obscure and disguised Jesuit agents, the little-known papal delegates of the anti-Catholics, for the shadowy international bankers of the monetary conspiracies, we may now substitute eminent public figures like Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower., secretaries of State like Marshall, Acheson, and Dulles, Justices of the Supreme Court like Frankfurter and Warren, and the whole battery of lesser but still famous and vivid alleged conspirators headed by Alger Hiss.
Events since 1939 have given the contemporary right-wing paranoid a vast theatre for his imagination, full of rich and proliferating detail, replete with realistic cues and undeniable proofs of the validity of his suspicions. The theatre of action is now the entire world, and he can draw not only on the events of World War II, but also on those of the Korean War and the Cold War. Any historian of warfare knows it is in good part a comedy of errors and a museum of incompetence; but if for every error and every act of incompetence one can substitute an act of treason, many points of fascinating interpretation are open to the paranoid imagination. In the end, the real mystery, for one who reads the primary works of paranoid scholarship, is not how the United States has been brought to its present dangerous position but how it has managed to survive at all.
The basic elements of contemporary right-wing thought can be reduced to three: First, there has been the now-familiar sustained conspiracy, running over more than a generation, and reaching its climax in Roosevelt’s New Deal, to undermine free capitalism, to bring the economy under the direction of the federal government, and to pave the way for socialism or communism. A great many right-wingers would agree with Frank Chodorov, the author of The Income Tax: The Root of All Evil, that this campaign began with the passage of the income-tax amendment to the Constitution in 1913.
The second contention is that top government officialdom has been so infiltrated by Communists that American policy, at least since the days leading up to Pearl Harbor, has been dominated by men who were shrewdly and consistently selling out American national interests.
Finally, the country is infused with a network of Communist agents, just as in the old days it was infiltrated by Jesuit agents, so that the whole apparatus of education, religion, the press, and the mass media is engaged in a common effort to paralyze the resistance of loyal Americans.
Perhaps the most representative document of the McCarthyist phase was a long indictment of Secretary of State George C. Marshall, delivered in 1951 in the Senate by senator McCarthy, and later published in a somewhat different form. McCarthy pictured Marshall was the focal figure in a betrayal of American interests stretching in time from the strategic plans for World War II to the formulation of the Marshall Plan. Marshal was associated with practically every American failure or defeat, McCarthy insisted, and none of this was either accident or incompetence. There was a “baffling pattern” of Marshall’s interventions in the war, which always conduced to the well-being of the Kremlin. The sharp decline in America’s relative strength from 1945 to 1951 did not “just happen”; it was “brought about, step by step, by will and intention,” the consequence not of mistakes but of a treasonous conspiracy, “a conspiracy on a scale so immense as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man.”
Today, the mantle of McCarthy has fallen on a retired candy manufacturer, Robert H. Welch, Jr., who is less strategically placed and has a much smaller but better organized following than the Senator. A few years ago Welch proclaimed that “Communist influences are now in almost complete control of our government”—note the care and scrupulousness of that “almost.” He has offered a full scale interpretation of our recent history n which Communists figure at every turn: They started a run on American banks in 1933 that forced their closure; they contrived the recognition of the Soviet Union by the United States in the same year, just in time to save the Soviets from economic collapse; they have stirred up the fuss over segregation in the South; they have taken over the Supreme Court and made it “one of the most important agencies of Communism.”
Close attention to history wins for Mr. Welch an insight into affairs that is given to few of us. “For many reasons and after a lot of study,” he wrote some years ago, “I personally believe [John Foster] Dulles to be a Communist agent.” The job of Professor Arthur F. Burns as head of Eisenhower’s Council of Economic Advisors was “merely a cover-up for Burns’s liaison work between Eisenhower and some of his Communist bosses.” Eisenhower’s brother Milton was “actually [his] superior and boss within the Communist party.” As for Eisenhower himself, Welch characterized him, in words that have made the candy manufacturer famous, as “a dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy”—a conclusion, he added, “based on an accumulation of detailed evidence so extensive and so palpable that it seems to put this conviction beyond any reasonable doubt.”
Emulating the Enemy

The paranoid spokesman sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms—he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values. He is always manning the barricades of civilization. He constantly lives at a turning point. Like religious millenialists he expresses the anxiety of those who are living through the last days and he is sometimes disposed to set a date fort the apocalypse. (“Time is running out,” said Welch in 1951. “Evidence is piling up on many sides and from many sources that October 1952 is the fatal month when Stalin will attack.”)
As a member of the avant-garde who is capable of perceiving the conspiracy before it is fully obvious to an as yet unaroused public, the paranoid is a militant leader. He does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised, in the manner of the working politician. Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish. Since the enemy is thought of as being totally evil and totally unappeasable, he must be totally eliminated—if not from the world, at least from the theatre of operations to which the paranoid directs his attention. This demand for total triumph leads to the formulation of hopelessly unrealistic goals, and since these goals are not even remotely attainable, failure constantly heightens the paranoid’s sense of frustration. Even partial success leaves him with the same feeling of powerlessness with which he began, and this in turn only strengthens his awareness of the vast and terrifying quality of the enemy he opposes.
The enemy is clearly delineated: he is a perfect model of malice, a kind of amoral superman—sinister, ubiquitous, powerful, cruel, sensual, luxury-loving. Unlike the rest of us, the enemy is not caught in the toils of the vast mechanism of history, himself a victim of his past, his desires, his limitations. He wills, indeed he manufactures, the mechanism of history, or tries to deflect the normal course of history in an evil way. He makes crises, starts runs on banks, causes depressions, manufactures disasters, and then enjoys and profits from the misery he has produced. The paranoid’s interpretation of history is distinctly personal: decisive events are not taken as part of the stream of history, but as the consequences of someone’s will. Very often the enemy is held to possess some especially effective source of power: he controls the press; he has unlimited funds; he has a new secret for influencing the mind (brainwashing); he has a special technique for seduction (the Catholic confessional).
It is hard to resist the conclusion that this enemy is on many counts the projection of the self; both the ideal and the unacceptable aspects of the self are attributed to him. The enemy may be the cosmopolitan intellectual, but the paranoid will outdo him in the apparatus of scholarship, even of pedantry. Secret organizations set up to combat secret organizations give the same flattery. The Ku Klux Klan imitated Catholicism to the point of donning priestly vestments, developing an elaborate ritual and an equally elaborate hierarchy. The John Birch Society emulates Communist cells and quasi-secret operation through “front” groups, and preaches a ruthless prosecution of the ideological war along lines very similar to those it finds in the Communist enemy.* Spokesmen of the various fundamentalist anti-Communist “crusades” openly express their admiration for the dedication and discipline the Communist cause calls forth.
On the other hand, the sexual freedom often attributed to the enemy, his lack of moral inhibition, his possession of especially effective techniques for fulfilling his desires, give exponents of the paranoid style an opportunity to project and express unacknowledgeable aspects of their own psychological concerns. Catholics and Mormons—later, Negroes and Jews—have lent themselves to a preoccupation with illicit sex. Very often the fantasies of true believers reveal strong sadomasochistic outlets, vividly expressed, for example, in the delight of anti-Masons with the cruelty of Masonic punishments.
Renegades and Pedants

A special significance attaches to the figure of the renegade from the enemy cause. The anti-Masonic movement seemed at times to be the creation of ex-Masons; certainly the highest significance was attributed to their revelations, and every word they said was believed. Anti-Catholicism used the runaway nun and the apostate priest; the place of ex-Communists in the avant-garde anti-Communist movements of our time is well known. In some part, the special authority accorded the renegade derives from the obsession with secrecy so characteristics of such movements: the renegade is the man or woman who has been in the Arcanum, and brings forth with him or her the final verification of suspicions which might otherwise have been doubted by a skeptical world. But I think there is a deeper eschatological significance that attaches to the person of the renegade: in the spiritual wrestling match between good and evil which is the paranoid’s archetypal model of the world, the renegade is living proof that all the conversions are not made by the wrong side. He brings with him the promise of redemption and victory.
A final characteristic of the paranoid style is related to the quality of its pedantry. One of the impressive things about paranoid literature is the contrast between its fantasied conclusions and the almost touching concern with factuality it invariably shows. It produces heroic strivings for evidence to prove that the unbelievable is the only thing that can be believed. Of course, there are highbrow, lowbrow, and middlebrow paranoids, as there are likely to be in any political tendency. But respectable paranoid literature not only starts from certain moral commitments that can indeed be justified but also carefully and all but obsessively accumulates :evidence.” The difference between this “evidence” and that commonly employed by others is that it seems less a means of entering into normal political controversy than a means of warding off the profane intrusion of the secular political world. The paranoid seems to have little expectation of actually convincing a hostile world, but he can accumulate evidence in order to protect his cherished convictions from it.
Paranoid writing begins with certain broad defensible judgments. There was something to be said for the anti-Masons. After all, a secret society composed of influential men bound by special obligations could conceivable pose some kind of threat to the civil order in which they were suspended. There was also something to be said for the Protestant principles of individuality and freedom, as well as for the nativist desire to develop in North America a homogeneous civilization. Again, in our time an actual laxity in security allowed some Communists to find a place in governmental circles, and innumerable decisions of World War II and the Cold War could be faulted.
The higher paranoid scholarship is nothing if not coherent—in fact the paranoid mind is far more coherent than the real world. It is nothing if not scholarly in technique. McCarthy’s 96-page pamphlet, McCarthyism, contains no less than 313 footnote references, and Mr. Welch’s incredible assault on Eisenhower, The Politician, has one hundred pages of bibliography and notes. The entire right-wing movement of our time is a parade of experts, study groups, monographs, footnotes, and bibliographies. Sometimes the right-wing striving for scholarly depth and an inclusive world view has startling consequences: Mr. Welch, for example, has charged that the popularity of Arnold Toynbee’s historical work is the consequence of a plot on the part of Fabians, “Labour party bosses in England,” and various members of the Anglo-American “liberal establishment” to overshadow the much more truthful and illuminating work of Oswald Spengler.
The Double Sufferer

The paranoid style is not confined to our own country and time; it is an international phenomenon. Studying the millennial sects of Europe from the eleventh to the sixteenth century, Norman Cohn believed he found a persistent psychic complex that corresponds broadly with what I have been considering—a style made up of certain preoccupations and fantasies: “the megalomaniac view of oneself as the Elect, wholly good, abominably persecuted, yet assured of ultimate triumph; the attribution of gigantic and demonic powers to the adversary; the refusal to accept the ineluctable limitations and imperfections of human existence, such as transience, dissention, conflict, fallibility whether intellectual or moral; the obsession with inerrable prophecies…systematized misinterpretations, always gross and often grotesque.”
This glimpse across a long span of time emboldens me to make the conjecture—it is no more than that—that a mentality disposed to see the world in this way may be a persistent psychic phenomenon, more or less constantly affecting a modest minority of the population. But certain religious traditions, certain social structures and national inheritances, certain historical catastrophes or frustrations may be conducive to the release of such psychic energies, and to situations in which they can more readily be built into mass movements or political parties. In American experience ethnic and religious conflict have plainly been a major focus for militant and suspicious minds of this sort, but class conflicts also can mobilize such energies. Perhaps the central situation conducive to the diffusion of the paranoid tendency is a confrontation of opposed interests which are (or are felt to be) totally irreconcilable, and thus by nature not susceptible to the normal political processes of bargain and compromise. The situation becomes worse when the representatives of a particular social interest—perhaps because of the very unrealistic and unrealizable nature of its demands—are shut out of the political process. Having no access to political bargaining or the making of decisions, they find their original conception that the world of power is sinister and malicious fully confirmed. They see only the consequences of power—and this through distorting lenses—and have no chance to observe its actual machinery. A distinguished historian has said that one of the most valuable things about history is that it teaches us how things do not happen. It is precisely this kind of awareness that the paranoid fails to develop. He has a special resistance of his own, of course, to developing such awareness, but circumstances often deprive him of exposure to events that might enlighten him—and in any case he resists enlightenment.
We are all sufferers from history, but the paranoid is a double sufferer, since he is afflicted not only by the real world, with the rest of us, but by his fantasies as well.

† Richard Hofstadter is DeWitt Clinton Professor of American History at Columbia University. His latest book, “Anti-intellectualism in American Life,” was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction earlier this year. This essay is adapted from the Herbert Spencer Lecture delivered at Oxford University in November 1963.

* Many anti-Masons had been fascinated by the penalties involved if Masons failed to live up to their obligations. My own favorite is the oath attributed to a royal archmason who invited “having my skull smote off and my brains exposed to the scorching rays of the sun.”

* In his recent book, How to Win an Election, Stephen C. Shadegg cites a statement attributed to Mao Tse-tung: “Give me just two or three men in a village and I will take the village.” Shadegg comments: “ In the Goldwater campaigns of 1952 and 1958 and in all other campaigns where I have served as consultant I have followed the advice of Mao Tse-tung.” “I would suggest,” writes senator Goldwater in Why Not Victory? “that we analyze and copy the strategy of the enemy; theirs has worked and ours has not.

Back to The Paranoid Mentality

Why I am a socialist (Einstein)

2010-02-11T15:09:00.001-08:00

Author:
Albert Einstein

"The oligarchy of private capital cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organised political society. The members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties financed or influenced by private capitalists. Moreover, private capitalists control the main sources of information (press, radio, education)." - Albert Einstein

Is it advisable for one who is not an expert on economic and social issues to express views on the subject of socialism? I believe for a number of reasons that it is.

Let us first consider the question from the point of view of scientific knowledge. It might appear that there are no essential methodological differences between astronomy and economics: scientists in both fields attempt to discover laws of general acceptability for a circumscribed group of phenomena in order to make the interconnection of these phenomena as clearly understandable as possible. But in reality such methodological differences do exist.

The discovery of general laws in the field of economics is made difficult by the circumstances that observed economic phenomena are often affected by many factors which are very hard to evaluate separately. In addition, the experience which has accumulated since the beginning of the so-called civilised period of human history has—as it well known— been largely influenced and limited by causes which are by no means exclusively economic in nature. For example, most of the major states of history owed their existence to conquest. The conquering peoples estab]ished themselves, legally and economically, as the privileged class of the conquered country. They seized for themselves a monopoly of the land ownership and appointed a priesthood from among their own ranks.

The priests, in control of education, made the class division of society into a permanent institution and created a system of values by which the people were thenceforth, to a large extent unconsciously, guided in their social behaviour.

But historic tradition is, so to speak, of yesterday; nowhere have we really overcome what Thorstein Veblen called "the predatory phase" of human development. The observable economic facts belong to that phase and even such laws as we can derive from them are not applicable to other phases. Since the real purpose of socialism is precisely to overcome and advance beyond the predatory phase of human development, economic science in its present state can throw little light on the socialisf society of the future.

Second, socialism is directed towards a social-ethical end. Science, however, cannot create ends and, even less, instill them in human beings; science, at most, can supply the means by which to attain certain ends. But the ends themselves are conceived by personalities with lofty ethical ideals and —if these ends are not stillborn, but vital and vigorous—are adopted and carried forward by those many human beings who, half unconsciously, determine the slow evolution of society.

For these reasons, we should be on our guard not to overestimate science and scientific methods when it is a question of human problems; and we should not assume that experts are the only ones who have a right to express themselves on questions affecting the organisation of society.

Innumerable voices have been asserting for some time now that human society is passing through a crisis, that its stability has been gravely shattered. It is characteristic of such a situation that individuals feel indifferent or even hostile toward the group, small or large, to which they belong. In order to illustrate my meaning, let me record here a personal experience. I recently discussed with an intelligent and well-disposed man the threat of another war, which in my opinion would seriously endanger the existence of mankind, and I remarked that only a supra-national organisation would offer protection from that danger. Thereupon my visitor, very calmly and coolly, said to me: "Why are you so deeply opposed to the disappearance of the human race?"

I am sure that as little as a century ago no one would have so lightly made a statement of this kind. It is the statement of a man who has striven in vain to attain an equilibrium within himself and has more or less lost hope of succeeding. It is the expression of a painful solitude and isolation from which so many people are suffering in these days. What is the cause? Is there a way out?

It is easy to raise such questions, but difficult to answer them with any degree of assurance. I must try, however, as best I can, although I am very conscious of the fact that our feelings and strivings are often contradictory and obscure and that they cannot be expressed in easy and simple formulas.

Man is, at one and the same time, a solitary being and a social being. As a solitary being, he attempts to protect his own existence and that of those who are closest to him, to satisfy his personal desires, and to develop his innate abilities. As a social being, he seeks to gain the recognition and affection of his fellow human beings, to share in their pleasures, to comfort them in their sorrows, and to improve their conditions of life. Only the existence of these varied, frequently conflicting, strivings accounts for the special character of a man, and their specific combination determines the extent to which an individual can achieve an inner equilibrium and can contribute to the well-being of society. It is quite possible that the relative strength of these two drives is, in the main, fixed by inheritance. But the personality that finally emerges is largely formed by the environment in which a man happens to find himself during his development, by the structure of the society in which he grows up, by the tradition of that society, and by its appraisal of particular types of behaylour.

The abstract concept "society" means to the individual being the sum total of his direct and indirect relations to his contemporaries and to all the people of earlier generations. The individual is able to think, feel, strive, and work by himself; but he depends so much upon society— in his physical, intellectual, and emotional existence—that it is impossible to think of him, or to understand him, outside the framework of society. It is "society" which provides man with food, clothing, a home, the tools of work, language, the forms of thought, and most of the content of thought; his life is made possible through the labour and the accomplishments of the many millions past and present who are all hidden behind the small word "society".

It is evident, therefore, that the dependence of the individual upon society is a fact of nature which cannot be abolished—just as in the case of ants and bees. However, while the whole life process of ants and bees is fixed down to the smallest detail by rigid, hereditary instincts, the social pattern and interrelationships of human beings are very variable and susceptible to change. Memory, the capacity to make new combinations, the gift of oral communication have made possible developments among human beings which are not dictated by biological necessities. Such developments manifest themselves in traditions, institutions, and organisations; in literature; in scientific and engineering accomplishments; in works of art. This explains how it happens that, in a certain sense, man can influence his life-through his own conduct, and that in this process conscious thinking and wanting can play a part.

Man acquires at birth, through heredity, a biological constitution which we must consider fixed and unalterable, including the natural urges which are characteristic of the human species. In addition, during his lifetime, he acquires a cultural constitution which he adopts from society through communication and through many other types of influences. It is this cultural constitution which, with the passage of time, is subject to change and which determines to a very large extent the relationship between the individual and society. Modern anthropology has taught us, through comparative investigation of so-called primitive cultures, that the social behaviour of human beings may differ greatly, depending upon prevailing cultural patterns and the types of organisation which predominate in society. It is on this that those who are striving to improve the lot of man may ground their hopes: human beings are not condemned, because of their biological constitution, to annihilate each other or to be at the mercy of a cruel, self-inflicted fate.

If we ask ourselves how the structure of society and the cultural attitude of man should be changed in order to make human life as satisfying as possible, we should constantly be conscious of the fact that there are certain conditions which we are unable to modify. As mentioned before, the biological nature of man is, for all practical purposes, not subject to change. Furthermore, technological and demographic developments of the last few centuries have created conditions which are here to stay. In relatively densely settled populations with the goods which are indispensable to their continued existence, an extreme division of labour and a highly-centralised productive apparatus are absolutely necessary. The time — which, looking back, seems so idyllic—is gone forever when individuals or relatively small groups could be completely selfsufficient. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that mankind constitutes even now a planetary community of production and consumption.

I have now reached the point where I may indicate briefly what to me constitutes the essence of the crisis of our time. It concerns the relationship of the individual to society. The individual has become more conscious than ever of his dependence upon society. But he does not experience this dependence as a positive asset, as an organic tie, as a protective force, but rather as a threat to his natural rights, or even to his economic existence. Moreover, his position in society is such that the egotistical drives of his make-up are constantly being accentuated, while his social drives, which are by nature weaker, progressively deteriorate. A11 human beings, whatever their position in society, are suffering from this period of deterioration. Unknowingly prisoners of their own egotism, they feel insecure, lonely and deprived of the naive, simple, and unsophisticated enjoyment of life. Man can find meaning in life, short and perilous as it is, only through devoting himself to society.

The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labour—not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules. In this respect, it is important to realise that the means of production—that is to say, the entire productive capacity that is needed for producing consumer goods as well as additional capital goods—may legally be, and for the most part are, the private property of individuals.

For the sake of simplicity, in the discussion that follows I shall call "workers" all those who do not share in the ownership of the means of production—although this does- not quite correspond to the customary use of the term. The owner of the means of production is in a position to purchase the labour power of the worker. By using the means of production, the worker produces new goods which become the property of the capitalist. The essentiai point about this process is the relation between what the worker produces and what he is paid, both measured in terms of real value. Insofar as the labour contract is "free", what the worker receives is determined not by the value of the goods he produces, but by his rninimum needs and by the capitalists' requirements for labour power in relation to the number of workers competing for jobs. It is important to understand that even in theory the payment of the worker is not determined by the value of his product.

Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labour encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of the smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organised political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the Iegislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.

The situation prevailing in an economy based on the private ownership of capital is thus characterised by two main principles: first, mean of production (capital) are privately owned and the owners dispose of them as they see fit; second, the labour contract is free. Of course, there is no such thing as a pure capitalist society in this sense. In particular, it should be noted that the workers, through long and bitter political struggles, have succeeded in securing a somewhat improved forrn of the "free labour contract" for certain categories of workers. But taken as a whole, the present day economy does not differ much from "pure" capitalism.

Production is carried on for profit, not for use. There is no provision that all those able and willing to work will always be in a position to find employment; an "army of unemployed" almost always exists. The worker is constantly in fear of losing his job. Since unemployed and poorly paid workers do not provide a profitable market, the production of consumers' goods is restricted, and great hardship is the consequence. Technological progress frequently results in more unemployment rather than in an easing of the burden of work for all. The profit motive, in conjunction with competition among capitalists, is responsible for an instability in the accumulation and utilisation of capital which leads to a huge waste of labour, and to that crippling of the social consciousness of individuals which I mentioned before.

This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whok educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career.

I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilised in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society.

Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet socialism. A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complde enslavement of the individual. The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult sociopolitical problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralisation of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming alll-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of the bureaucracy be assured?

Clarity about the aims and problems of socialism is of greatest significance in our age of transition. Since, under present circumstar.ces, free and unhindered discussion of these problems has come lmder a powerful taboo, I consider the foundation of this magazine to be an important public servlce.

It CAN Happen!

2010-02-11T12:15:00.000-08:00

Millionaire gives away fortune which made him miserable
Austrian millionaire Karl Rabeder is giving away every penny of his £3 million fortune after realising his riches were making him unhappy.

By Henry Samuel in Paris

Karl Rabeder
Austrian millionaire Karl Rabeder is giving away his fortune
House in Tirol belonging to Austrian millionaire Karl Rabeder
He is in the process of selling his luxury 3,455 sq ft villa with lake, sauna and spectacular mountain views over the Alps, valued at £1.4 million.
Karl Rabeder house
He will move out of his luxury Alpine retreat into a small wooden hut in the mountains or a simple bedsit in Innsbruck

Mr Rabeder, 47, a businessman from Telfs is in the process of selling his luxury 3,455 sq ft villa with lake, sauna and spectacular mountain views over the Alps, valued at £1.4 million.

Also for sale is his beautiful old stone farmhouse in Provence with its 17 hectares overlooking the arrière-pays, on the market for £613,000. Already gone is his collection of six gliders valued at £350,000, and a luxury Audi A8, worth around £44,000.

Mr Rabeder has also sold the interior furnishings and accessories business – from vases to artificial flowers – that made his fortune.

"My idea is to have nothing left. Absolutely nothing," he told The Daily Telegraph. "Money is counterproductive – it prevents happiness to come."

Instead, he will move out of his luxury Alpine retreat into a small wooden hut in the mountains or a simple bedsit in Innsbruck.

His entire proceeds are going to charities he set up in Central and Latin America, but he will not even take a salary from these.

"For a long time I believed that more wealth and luxury automatically meant more happiness," he said. "I come from a very poor family where the rules were to work more to achieve more material things, and I applied this for many years," said Mr Rabeder.

But over time, he had another, conflicting feeling.

"More and more I heard the words: 'Stop what you are doing now – all this luxury and consumerism – and start your real life'," he said. "I had the feeling I was working as a slave for things that I did not wish for or need.

I have the feeling that there are lot of people doing the same thing."

However, for many years he said he was simply not "brave" enough to give up all the trappings of his comfortable existence.

The tipping point came while he was on a three-week holiday with his wife to islands of Hawaii.

"It was the biggest shock in my life, when I realised how horrible, soulless and without feeling the five star lifestyle is," he said. "In those three weeks, we spent all the money you could possibly spend. But in all that time, we had the feeling we hadn't met a single real person – that we were all just actors. The staff played the role of being friendly and the guests played the role of being important and nobody was real."

He had similar feelings of guilt while on gliding trips in South America and Africa. "I increasingly got the sensation that there is a connection between our wealth and their poverty," he said.

Suddenly, he realised that "if I don't do it now I won't do it for the rest of my life".

Mr Rabeder decided to raffle his Alpine home, selling 21,999 lottery tickets priced at just £87 each. The Provence house in the village of Cruis is on sale at the local estate agent.

All the money will go into his microcredit charity, which offers small loans to Latin America and builds development aid strategies to self-employed people in El Salvador, Honduras, Bolivia, Peru, Argentina and Chile.

Since selling his belongings, Mr Rabeder said he felt "free, the opposite of heavy".

But he said he did not judge those who chose to keep their wealth. "I do not have the right to give any other person advice. I was just listening to the voice of my heart and soul."

The Anti-War Peace Movement Needs a Re-Start

2010-02-10T12:24:00.001-08:00

January 25 2010

America Needs a Patriotic, Broad-Based and Politically Independent Opposition to War

By Kevin Zeese

In his first year President Obama broke several war-making records of President George W. Bush. He passed the largest military budget in U.S. history, the largest one-year war supplementals and fired the most drone attacks on the most countries. He began 2010 asking for another $30 billion war supplemental and with the White House indicating that the next military budget will be $708 billion, breaking Obama’s previous record.

While some commentators on MSNBC hailed Obama as the peace candidate, he has done more for war in a shorter time than many other commanders-in-chief. U.S. attacks on other countries are not challenged in any serious way even if they result in consistent loss of innocent civilian life. It is not healthy for American democracy to allow unquestioned militarism and put war budgets on a path of automatic growth despite the U.S. spending as much as the rest of the world combined on weapons and war.

Anti-war opposition has failed and needs to begin anew. The peace movement which atrophied during the election year now must re-make itself.

What would successful anti-war peace advocacy look like?

The vast majority of Americans widely opposes war and wants the U.S. to focus its resources at home. Their initial reaction to wars and escalations, before the corporate media spin propagandizes them in a different direction, is to oppose war. But, these views are not reflected in the body politic and certainly not in the DC discourse on war. Rather than anti-war opposition being broad-based, it has been a narrow. It is a leftish movement that does not include Middle America or conservatives who also see the tremendous waste of the bloated military budget and the militarism of U.S. foreign policy.

Being opposed to war is not considered mainsteam in American politics. Opposition to war and support for peace needs to become a perspective that is included in political debate on the media and in the Congress. It is currently excluded. Successful anti-war advocacy needs to be credible and well organized so it cannot be ignored. This begins by recognizing the broad, legitimate opposition to war and the long-term anti-war views of Americans across the political spectrum.

There is a long history of opposition to war among traditional conservatives. Their philosophy goes back to President Washington’s Farewell Address where he urged America to avoid “foreign entanglements.” It has showed itself throughout American history. The Anti-Imperialist League opposed the colonialism of the Philippines in the 1890s. The largest anti-war movement in history, the America First Committee, opposed World War II and had a strong middle America conservative foundation in its make-up. The strongest speech of an American president against militarism was President Eisenhower’s 1961 final speech from the White House warning America against the growing military-industrial complex.

In recent years the militarist neo-conservative movement has become dominate of conservatism in the United States. Perhaps none decry this more than traditional conservatives who oppose massive military budgets, militarism and the American empire. Anti-war conservatives continue to exist, speak out and organize. Much of their thinking can be seen in the American Conservative magazine which has been steadfastly anti-war since its founding in 2002 where their first cover story was entitled “Iraq Folly.”

Of course, the left also has a long history of opposition to war from the Civil War to early imperialism in the Philippines, World Wars I and II through Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. It includes socialists, Quakers, social justice Catholics and progressives. Indeed, the opposition to entry into World War I was led by the left including socialists, trade unionists, pacifists including people like union leader and presidential candidate Eugene Debs, Nobel Peace Prize winner Jane Addams and author and political activist Helen Keller. This movement was so strong that Woodrow Wilson ran a campaign to keep the U.S. out of the Great War (but ended up getting the U.S. into the war despite his campaign promises). Opposition to Vietnam brought together peace advocates with the civil rights movement, highlighted by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s outspoken opposition to the war.

Uniting anti-war opposition is an urgent initial step to developing strong anti-war, peace advocacy. The cost of U.S. militarism in lives and dollars has become so great that Americans who oppose U.S. militarism need to join together to create an effective opposition to the military industrial complex that profits from war. Yes, there will be disagreements on other issues but when it comes to war and American empire there is broad agreement that needs to be built on.

A successful anti-war peace movement cannot give up the flag of patriotism. It needs to grab hold of America’s patriotic impulses and show the United States can be the nation many imagine us to be – leading by positive example, helping in crisis, being a force for good, rather than propagating military dominance and hegemony. A successful anti-war movement needs to be a place where veterans, from grunts to generals, can openly participate, share their stories and explain the lessons they learned from American militarism. While the left has been able to include the lower level grunts and officers, it has not been a safe haven for generals and admirals who have become opposed to extreme militarism. A safe place, a patriotic, broad-based anti-war movement, will allow more former military to speak out in a cohesive and effective manner.

And, a patriotic anti-war peace movement will also be able to attract the support of business leaders who recognize that war undermines the American economy as well as hurting national security, undermining national and international law and weakening the U.S. economy. When the United States is spending one million dollars per soldier in Afghanistan it is evident to anyone focused on the bottom line that a teetering U.S. economy cannot afford the cost of war.

Indeed, a well organized anti-war movement will have committees not only reaching out to military and business, but to academics, students, clergy, labor, nurses, doctors, teachers and a host of others. Outreach and organization needs to be an ongoing priority. And, organization must be designed around congressional districts so it can have a political impact. This demonstrates one reason for the need for a right left coalition; the anti-war movement cannot allow “red” states or districts to go unorganized.

Successful anti-war advocacy will also need new tactics. The government and media have adjusted to 1960s tactics. Mass marches and disruption of Congress reached all time highs during the build up and fighting of the Iraq war but with little effect. The government has learned how to handle these tactics and avoid media attention. There certainly will continue to be roles for these tactics but they cannot be central and more is needed.

Anti-war advocates need to use voter initiatives and referenda to raise issues that legislators will not confront. This strategy is a way to break though the power of the military industrial complex and bring issues to the people. It forces a public debate and pushes voters to confront how extreme militarism affects their lives. The U.S. has already spent a trillion dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan when care for the wounded and lost productivity is included the cost is more than doubled. In a decades long “Long War” military expenditures will cripple the U.S. economy. Effective opposition to war will show how the cost of war affects every American’s life.

Around the world other tactics have been successfully deployed on issues that U.S. advocates are not well organized enough to deploy. These include general strikes where people take off work for hours or days to send a message that the people are organized in opposition to government policy. Similarly slow downs in the nation’s capitol that bring the business of government to a halt demonstrate that the people will not let the business as usual go on without interruption. We can see the beginnings of such efforts in the U.S. peace movement in Cindy Sheehan’s “Peace of the Action” that recently protested drones at the CIA and seeks to block the business of Empire in the nation’s capitol in 2010.

Finally, and of critical importance, is for the anti-war peace movement to be truly non-partisan and politically independent. Recently peace activists have been drawn into silence when John “Anybody but Bush” Kerry ran a campaign where he called for escalation of the Iraq War and expansion of the military. And, when candidate Obama promised to escalate the Afghanistan war, attack Pakistan, only partially withdraw from Iraq and expand the U.S. military – many in the peace movement remained silent or criticized his policies but promised to support him anyway. The peace movement needs to protest candidates from any party who call for more militarism, larger military budgets and more U.S. troops and demand real anti-war positions for their votes.

Movements cannot stop and start for elections, nor allow party loyalty to divide them. They must continue to build through the election. Indeed, elections can be prime opportunities to build the movement and push candidates toward the anti-war peace perspective. Peace voters must be clear in their demands: end to the current wars, no more wars of aggression and dramatic reductions in the military budget so that it is really a defense budget not a war budget. This does not mean leaving the U.S. weak and unable to defend itself, but it should not be a budget that allows aggressive misuse of the U.S. military as the primary tool of foreign policy.

Developing an effective anti-war peace movement is a big task that will take years. U.S. Empire can be traced back to the late 1800s and President Eisenhower warned America of the military industrial complex fifty years ago. The U.S. is currently engaged in a “Long War” supported by neocons, neo-liberals and corporatist politicians. The pro-militarist establishment has deep roots in both major parties and undoing the military machine will take many years of work. Advocacy against war and militarism needs to be persistent; constantly educating the American public that war undermines national security, weakens the rule of law and contributes to the collapsing economy. We need to show how investment in militarism rather than civil society undermines livability of American communities, weakens the economy and puts basic necessities like education and health care financially out of reach.

The facts are on the side of the anti-war peace advocates, now we must build organizations that represent the patriotic, anti-militarist impulses of the American people.

Kevin Zeese is executive director of Voters for Peace (www.VoterForPeace.US).

Media to Empower for Peace

2010-02-09T17:07:00.001-08:00

Congolese lady revolutionizes journalism to promote women's rights

Written by Alison Walkley Monday, 30 November 2009 15:59

Thirty-one-year-old Chouchou Namegabe is revolutionizing journalism in her native country of the Democratic Republic of Congo, in the face of a patriarchal countrywide mindset, a small amount of funding, and even death threats to herself and her team. Namegabe has been brought to the United States by the Vital Voices Global Partnership to spread her story and raise awareness about rape and her fellow women in the DRC. Vital Voices is “the preeminent non-governmental organization that identifies, trains and empowers emerging women leaders and social entrepreneurs around the globe, enabling them to create a better world for us all,” as vitalvoices.org attests. To date, they have trained over 7,000 women in leadership who have gone home to train another 200,000 women themselves.

Namegabe is one of those women. She hails from the South Kivu province of the DRC, where she has personally witnessed the systematic rape and violence against her Congolese sisters as a war strategy. Instead of merely massacring villages, droves of AIDS-infected soldiers have been sent into communities to systematically rape all of the women within.

Namegabe became interested in radio and journalism as a result of these atrocities occurring all around her. For her, the radio became the best method to spread the word about these problems, especially considering the illiteracy of the majority in the Congo.

Through self-taught journalism, she used the radio as a soapbox on which to “shield all the vulnerable as she spoke on their behalf in condemnation of pervasive, devastating and unimaginable sexual violence.”

Namegabe told MediaGlobal, “I started in 1997 working in a radio station. The DRC’s first war broke out in 1996, the second in 1998, the third in 2004 and it continues today.” When reports of sexual violence started coming in, Namegabe felt, “as a journalist, I couldn’t stay without doing anything.”

Due to the taboo surrounding sex and sexual activities in Africa, Namegabe was unsure how to go about discussing rape, especially on the air. When she began broadcasting the first testimonies of rape victims, reactions were strong.

“It was a shock,” she said. “We needed to desensitize the community…Quoting testimonies was the only way to denounce this crime on women.”

Namegabe went on to explain that the DRC rapes have nothing to do with sexual needs, which is what she and many others thought at first. “It’s a tactic to destroy communities,” she said. “Women are being raped in front of their families, in front of their children, in public… Our duty is to use a microphone to denounce it.”

And that is just what this activist has done, raising awareness internationally, from The Hague to the United States and beyond. In 2003, she founded the South Kivu Association des Femmes des Medias (South Kivu Women’s Media Association, or AFEM-SK) as a response to the tragedies in the war-torn DRC. In addition to the five million deaths in Eastern Congo, over one million rapes have been reported since 1998.

According to their website, afemsk.blogspot.com, AFEM-SK “specializes in the production of rural as well as urban radio shows with a major focus on women either from radio clubs or in the position of local social activist. This group also produces news reports from the field and sends news back to local radio stations.”

To date, Namegabe has enabled over 400 rape victim testimonies to be recorded and broadcast over the airwaves of ten DRC radio stations with which she has partnered.

“We want rape to end, to stop,” she said. “We’re not looking for a miraculous solution, just the political will to end it.”

When questioned about who is benefiting from Namegabe’s efforts, she responded, “To break the silence helps first the victims; it’s the first step to heal their internal wounds… It helps those still hiding. They come to us, thinking that they were the only ones… It helps the community. We touch everybody.”

In March 2009, Namegabe received the Vital Voices Global Partnership Fern Holland award. Such awards “honor courageous women leaders who have overcome poverty, human trafficking, violence against women, and other forms of discrimination to promote positive change in their communities.”

In her acceptance speech, Namegabe said, “Breaking the silence is just the beginning…. We need to teach women to stand up and use their voice.”

If you are interested in donating to AFEM-SK, or learning more about Chouchou Namegabe’s association, visit afemsk.blogspot.com or vitalvoices.org; or email afemsk@sudkivu.org This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

"Defense" Budget?

2010-02-08T22:38:00.000-08:00

Don't Call It a "Defense" Budget

Tuesday 02 February 2010

by: Norman Solomon, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

This isn't "defense."

The new budget from the White House will push US military spending well above $2 billion a day.

Foreclosing the future of our country should not be confused with defending it.

"Unless miraculous growth, or miraculous political compromises, creates some unforeseen change over the next decade, there is virtually no room for new domestic initiatives for Mr. Obama or his successors," The New York Times reported February 2.

It isn't defense to preclude new domestic initiatives for a country that desperately needs them: for health care, jobs, green technologies, carbon reduction, housing, education, nutrition, mass transit ...

"When a nation becomes obsessed with the guns of war, social programs must inevitably suffer," Martin Luther King Jr. pointed out. "We can talk about guns and butter all we want to, but when the guns are there with all of its emphasis you don't even get good oleo. These are facts of life."

At least Lyndon Johnson had a "war on poverty." For a while anyway, till his war on Vietnam destroyed it.

Since then, waving the white flag at widespread poverty - usually by leaving it unmentioned - has been a political fact of life in Washington.

Oratory can be nice, but budget numbers tell us where an administration is headed. In 2010, this one is marching up a steep military escalator, under the banner of "defense."

Legitimate defense would cost a mere fraction of this budget.

By autumn, the Pentagon is scheduled to have a total of 100,000 uniformed US troops - and a comparable number of private contract employees - in Afghanistan, where the main beneficiaries are the recruiters for Afghan insurgent forces and the profiteers growing even richer under the wing of Karzai-government corruption.

After three decades of frequent carnage and extreme poverty in Afghanistan, a new influx of lethal violence is arriving via the Defense Department. That's the cosmetically named agency in charge of sending US soldiers to endure and inflict unspeakable horrors.

New waves of veterans will return home to struggle with grievous physical and emotional injuries. Without a fundamental change in the nation's direction, they'll be trying to resume their lives in a society ravaged by budget priorities that treat huge military spending as sacrosanct.

"At $744 billion, the military budget - including military programs outside the Pentagon, such as the Department of Energy's nuclear weapons management - is a budget of add-ons rather than choices," said Miriam Pemberton at the Institute for Policy Studies. "And it makes the imbalance between spending on military vs. non-military security tools worse."

Of course, the corporate profits for military contractors are humongous.

The Executive Director of the National Priorities Project, Jo Comerford, offered this context: "The Obama administration has handed us the largest Pentagon budget since World War II, not including the $160 billion in war funding for Iraq and Afghanistan."

The word "defense" is inherently self-justifying. But it begs the question: Just what is being defended?

For the United States, an epitaph on the horizon says: "We had to destroy our country in order to defend it."

As new sequences of political horrors unfold, maybe it's a bit too easy for writers and readers of the progressive blogosphere to remain within the politics of online denunciation. Cogent analysis and articulated outrage are necessary but insufficient. The unmet challenge is to organize widely, consistently and effectively - against the warfare state - on behalf of humanistic priorities.

In the process, let's be clear. This is not a defense budget. This is a death budget.

Josh Stiebler and the Contagious Love Experiment

2010-01-31T16:16:00.000-08:00

Very interesting Iraq War Veteran who marched across the country.

His blog

Video interview

Reports from World March for Peace and Nonviolence

2010-01-31T16:12:00.000-08:00

Click here

Powerful Howard Zinn Quote

2010-01-31T14:00:00.000-08:00

"To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places - and there are so many - where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory."

A Few Yes! Magazine Articles on Happiness

2010-01-30T17:40:00.000-08:00

Gross Domestic Happiness?

Costa Rica vs. the United States

10 Ways to Be Happy

A Just Cause, Not a Just War

2010-01-30T14:29:00.000-08:00

Published on Thursday, January 28, 2010 by The Progressive
A Just Cause, Not a Just War

by Howard Zinn

[1]Editor's note: The following essay appeared in the December issue of The Progressive [2] in 2001, and was reposted here at CommonDreams.org [3] shortly after, just three months following the events of September 11th. As Rudyard Kipling long ago and famously observed, you can recognize wisdom amidst crisis by locating those who 'keep their heads when all about are losing theirs.' Zinn's work is too vast and too incalculable to paraphrase or compile, but when you read his Violence Doesn't Work [4] or Changing Obama's Mindset [5] you easily recognize the wisdom and integrity of a man who saw beyond the hysteria of a moment. Howard Zinn, as Daniel Ellsberg has said [6], "was the best human being I've ever known. The best example of what a human can be, and can do with their life." We could not agree more.

A Just Cause, Not a Just War (December, 2001)

I believe two moral judgments can be made about the present "war": The September 11 attack constitutes a crime against humanity and cannot be justified, and the bombing of Afghanistan is also a crime, which cannot be justified.

And yet, voices across the political spectrum, including many on the left, have described this as a "just war." One longtime advocate of peace, Richard Falk, wrote in The Nation that this is "the first truly just war since World War II." Robert Kuttner, another consistent supporter of social justice, declared in The American Prospect that only people on the extreme left could believe this is not a just war.

I have puzzled over this. How can a war be truly just when it involves the daily killing of civilians, when it causes hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children to leave their homes to escape the bombs, when it may not find those who planned the September 11 attacks, and when it will multiply the ranks of people who are angry enough at this country to become terrorists themselves?

This war amounts to a gross violation of human rights, and it will produce the exact opposite of what is wanted: It will not end terrorism; it will proliferate terrorism.

I believe that the progressive supporters of the war have confused a "just cause" with a "just war." There are unjust causes, such as the attempt of the United States to establish its power in Vietnam, or to dominate Panama or Grenada, or to subvert the government of Nicaragua. And a cause may be just--getting North Korea to withdraw from South Korea, getting Saddam Hussein to withdraw from Kuwait, or ending terrorism--but it does not follow that going to war on behalf of that cause, with the inevitable mayhem that follows, is just.

The stories of the effects of our bombing are beginning to come through, in bits and pieces. Just eighteen days into the bombing, The New York Times reported: "American forces have mistakenly hit a residential area in Kabul." Twice, U.S. planes bombed Red Cross warehouses, and a Red Cross spokesman said: "Now we've got 55,000 people without that food or blankets, with nothing at all."

An Afghan elementary school-teacher told a Washington Post reporter at the Pakistan border: "When the bombs fell near my house and my babies started crying, I had no choice but to run away."

A New York Times report: "The Pentagon acknowledged that a Navy F/A-18 dropped a 1,000-pound bomb on Sunday near what officials called a center for the elderly. . . . The United Nations said the building was a military hospital. . . . Several hours later, a Navy F-14 dropped two 500-pound bombs on a residential area northwest of Kabul." A U.N. official told a New York Times reporter that an American bombing raid on the city of Herat had used cluster bombs, which spread deadly "bomblets" over an area of twenty football fields. This, the Times reporter wrote,"was the latest of a growing number of accounts of American bombs going astray and causing civilian casualties."

An A.P. reporter was brought to Karam, a small mountain village hit by American bombs, and saw houses reduced to rubble. "In the hospital in Jalalabad, twenty-five miles to the east, doctors treated what they said were twenty-three victims of bombing at Karam, one a child barely two months old, swathed in bloody bandages," according to the account. "Another child, neighbors said, was in the hospital because the bombing raid had killed her entire family. At least eighteen fresh graves were scattered around the village."

The city of Kandahar, attacked for seventeen straight days, was reported to be a ghost town, with more than half of its 500,000 people fleeing the bombs. The city's electrical grid had been knocked out. The city was deprived of water, since the electrical pumps could not operate. A sixty-year-old farmer told the A.P. reporter, "We left in fear of our lives. Every day and every night, we hear the roaring and roaring of planes, we see the smoke, the fire. . . . I curse them both--the Taliban and America."

A New York Times report from Pakistan two weeks into the bombing campaign told of wounded civilians coming across the border. "Every half-hour or so throughout the day, someone was brought across on a stretcher. . . . Most were bomb victims, missing limbs or punctured by shrapnel. . . . A young boy, his head and one leg wrapped in bloodied bandages, clung to his father's back as the old man trudged back to Afghanistan."

That was only a few weeks into the bombing, and the result had already been to frighten hundreds of thousands of Afghans into abandoning their homes and taking to the dangerous, mine-strewn roads. The "war against terrorism" has become a war against innocent men, women, and children, who are in no way responsible for the terrorist attack on New York.

And yet there are those who say this is a "just war."

Terrorism and war have something in common. They both involve the killing of innocent people to achieve what the killers believe is a good end. I can see an immediate objection to this equation: They (the terrorists) deliberately kill innocent people; we (the war makers) aim at "military targets," and civilians are killed by accident, as "collateral damage."

Is it really an accident when civilians die under our bombs? Even if you grant that the intention is not to kill civilians, if they nevertheless become victims, again and again and again, can that be called an accident? If the deaths of civilians are inevitable in bombing, it may not be deliberate, but it is not an accident, and the bombers cannot be considered innocent. They are committing murder as surely as are the terrorists.

The absurdity of claiming innocence in such cases becomes apparent when the death tolls from "collateral damage" reach figures far greater than the lists of the dead from even the most awful act of terrorism. Thus, the "collateral damage" in the Gulf War caused more people to die--hundreds of thousands, if you include the victims of our sanctions policy--than the very deliberate terrorist attack of September 11. The total of those who have died in Israel from Palestinian terrorist bombs is somewhere under 1,000. The number of dead from "collateral damage" in the bombing of Beirut during Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982 was roughly 6,000.

We must not match the death lists--it is an ugly exercise--as if one atrocity is worse than another. No killing of innocents, whether deliberate or "accidental," can be justified. My argument is that when children die at the hands of terrorists, or--whether intended or not--as a result of bombs dropped from airplanes, terrorism and war become equally unpardonable.

Let's talk about "military targets." The phrase is so loose that President Truman, after the nuclear bomb obliterated the population of Hiroshima, could say: "The world will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians."

What we are hearing now from our political leaders is, "We are targeting military objectives. We are trying to avoid killing civilians. But that will happen, and we regret it." Shall the American people take moral comfort from the thought that we are bombing only "military targets"?

The reality is that the term "military" covers all sorts of targets that include civilian populations. When our bombers deliberately destroy, as they did in the war against Iraq, the electrical infrastructure, thus making water purification and sewage treatment plants inoperable and leading to epidemic waterborne diseases, the deaths of children and other civilians cannot be called accidental.

Recall that in the midst of the Gulf War, the U.S. military bombed an air raid shelter, killing 400 to 500 men, women, and children who were huddled to escape bombs. The claim was that it was a military target, housing a communications center, but reporters going through the ruins immediately afterward said there was no sign of anything like that.

I suggest that the history of bombing--and no one has bombed more than this nation--is a history of endless atrocities, all calmly explained by deceptive and deadly language like "accident," "military targets," and "collateral damage."

Indeed, in both World War II and in Vietnam, the historical record shows that there was a deliberate decision to target civilians in order to destroy the morale of the enemy--hence the firebombing of Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo, the B-52s over Hanoi, the jet bombers over peaceful villages in the Vietnam countryside. When some argue that we can engage in "limited military action" without "an excessive use of force," they are ignoring the history of bombing. The momentum of war rides roughshod over limits.

The moral equation in Afghanistan is clear. Civilian casualties are certain. The outcome is uncertain. No one knows what this bombing will accomplish--whether it will lead to the capture of Osama Bin Laden (perhaps), or the end of the Taliban (possibly), or a democratic Afghanistan (very unlikely), or an end to terrorism (almost certainly not).

And meanwhile, we are terrorizing the population (not the terrorists, they are not easily terrorized). Hundreds of thousands are packing their belongings and their children onto carts and leaving their homes to make dangerous journeys to places they think might be more safe.

Not one human life should be expended in this reckless violence called a "war against terrorism."

We might examine the idea of pacifism in the light of what is going on right now. I have never used the word "pacifist" to describe myself, because it suggests something absolute, and I am suspicious of absolutes. I want to leave openings for unpredictable possibilities. There might be situations (and even such strong pacifists as Gandhi and Martin Luther King believed this) when a small, focused act of violence against a monstrous, immediate evil would be justified.

In war, however, the proportion of means to ends is very, very different. War, by its nature, is unfocused, indiscriminate, and especially in our time when the technology is so murderous, inevitably involves the deaths of large numbers of people and the suffering of even more. Even in the "small wars" (Iran vs. Iraq, the Nigerian war, the Afghan war), a million people die. Even in a "tiny" war like the one we waged in Panama, a thousand or more die.

Scott Simon of NPR wrote a commentary in The Wall Street Journal on October 11 entitled, "Even Pacifists Must Support This War." He tried to use the pacifist acceptance of self-defense, which approves a focused resistance to an immediate attacker, to justify this war, which he claims is "self-defense." But the term "self-defense" does not apply when you drop bombs all over a country and kill lots of people other than your attacker. And it doesn't apply when there is no likelihood that it will achieve its desired end.

Pacifism, which I define as a rejection of war, rests on a very powerful logic. In war, the means--indiscriminate killing--are immediate and certain; the ends, however desirable, are distant and uncertain.

Pacifism does not mean "appeasement." That word is often hurled at those who condemn the present war on Afghanistan, and it is accompanied by references to Churchill, Chamberlain, Munich. World War II analogies are conveniently summoned forth when there is a need to justify a war, however irrelevant to a particular situation. At the suggestion that we withdraw from Vietnam, or not make war on Iraq, the word "appeasement" was bandied about. The glow of the "good war" has repeatedly been used to obscure the nature of all the bad wars we have fought since 1945.

Let's examine that analogy. Czechoslovakia was handed to the voracious Hitler to "appease" him. Germany was an aggressive nation expanding its power, and to help it in its expansion was not wise. But today we do not face an expansionist power that demands to be appeased. We ourselves are the expansionist power--troops in Saudi Arabia, bombings of Iraq, military bases all over the world, naval vessels on every sea--and that, along with Israel's expansion into the West Bank and Gaza Strip, has aroused anger.

It was wrong to give up Czechoslovakia to appease Hitler. It is not wrong to withdraw our military from the Middle East, or for Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories, because there is no right to be there. That is not appeasement. That is justice.

Opposing the bombing of Afghanistan does not constitute "giving in to terrorism" or "appeasement." It asks that other means be found than war to solve the problems that confront us. King and Gandhi both believed in action--nonviolent direct action, which is more powerful and certainly more morally defensible than war.

To reject war is not to "turn the other cheek," as pacifism has been caricatured. It is, in the present instance, to act in ways that do not imitate the terrorists.

The United States could have treated the September 11 attack as a horrific criminal act that calls for apprehending the culprits, using every device of intelligence and investigation possible. It could have gone to the United Nations to enlist the aid of other countries in the pursuit and apprehension of the terrorists.

There was also the avenue of negotiations. (And let's not hear: "What? Negotiate with those monsters?" The United States negotiated with--indeed, brought into power and kept in power--some of the most monstrous governments in the world.) Before Bush ordered in the bombers, the Taliban offered to put bin Laden on trial. This was ignored. After ten days of air attacks, when the Taliban called for a halt to the bombing and said they would be willing to talk about handing bin Laden to a third country for trial, the headline the next day in The New York Times read: "President Rejects Offer by Taliban for Negotiations," and Bush was quoted as saying: "When I said no negotiations, I meant no negotiations."

That is the behavior of someone hellbent on war. There were similar rejections of negotiating possibilities at the start of the Korean War, the war in Vietnam, the Gulf War, and the bombing of Yugoslavia. The result was an immense loss of life and incalculable human suffering.

International police work and negotiations were--still are--alternatives to war. But let's not deceive ourselves; even if we succeeded in apprehending bin Laden or, as is unlikely, destroying the entire Al Qaeda network, that would not end the threat of terrorism, which has potential recruits far beyond Al Qaeda.

To get at the roots of terrorism is complicated. Dropping bombs is simple. It is an old response to what everyone acknowledges is a very new situation. At the core of unspeakable and unjustifiable acts of terrorism are justified grievances felt by millions of people who would not themselves engage in terrorism but from whose ranks terrorists spring.

Those grievances are of two kinds: the existence of profound misery-- hunger, illness--in much of the world, contrasted to the wealth and luxury of the West, especially the United States; and the presence of American military power everywhere in the world, propping up oppressive regimes and repeatedly intervening with force to maintain U.S. hegemony.

This suggests actions that not only deal with the long-term problem of terrorism but are in themselves just.

Instead of using two planes a day to drop food on Afghanistan and 100 planes to drop bombs (which have been making it difficult for the trucks of the international agencies to bring in food), use 102 planes to bring food.

Take the money allocated for our huge military machine and use it to combat starvation and disease around the world. One-third of our military budget would annually provide clean water and sanitation facilities for the billion people in the world who have none.

Withdraw troops from Saudi Arabia, because their presence near the holy shrines of Mecca and Medina angers not just bin Laden (we need not care about angering him) but huge numbers of Arabs who are not terrorists.

Stop the cruel sanctions on Iraq, which are killing more than a thousand children every week without doing anything to weaken Saddam Hussein's tyrannical hold over the country.

Insist that Israel withdraw from the occupied territories, something that many Israelis also think is right, and which will make Israel more secure than it is now.

In short, let us pull back from being a military superpower, and become a humanitarian superpower.

Let us be a more modest nation. We will then be more secure. The modest nations of the world don't face the threat of terrorism.

Such a fundamental change in foreign policy is hardly to be expected. It would threaten too many interests: the power of political leaders, the ambitions of the military, the corporations that profit from the nation's enormous military commitments.

Change will come, as at other times in our history, only when American citizens-- becoming better informed, having second thoughts after the first instinctive support for official policy--demand it. That change in citizen opinion, especially if it coincides with a pragmatic decision by the government that its violence isn't working, could bring about a retreat from the military solution.

It might also be a first step in the rethinking of our nation's role in the world. Such a rethinking contains the promise, for Americans, of genuine security, and for people elsewhere, the beginning of hope.

Eve Tetaz, long-time D.C. activist, profiled in Post

2010-01-30T11:34:00.000-08:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/25/AR2010012502341_pf.html

At 78 years, lifelong protester racks up convictions, marches on

By Keith L. Alexander

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, January 25, 2010; 3:03 PM

It's a familiar scene for Eve Tetaz. She sits in the cold, damp holding cell, crammed together with other women. Some, like her, were arrested for protesting. Others are locked up for drugs, assault or prostitution.

The other women in the D.C. jail affectionately call her grandma. Her cellmates, or as she calls them, her "sisters in chains," let her sleep on the bottom bunk so the 78-year-old doesn't have to climb to the top. Instead of letting her stand in line to get her jail-issued bologna or cheese sandwiches, many of the women bring them to her.

"These are women I probably even wouldn't see passing on the street.

They are very gracious to me," Tetaz says.

With her white hair and black glasses, Tetaz is a familiar figure to the Capitol police and at the courthouse. Since 2005, court records show, she has been arrested 20 times and convicted 14 times of various offenses, including unlawful assembly, disorderly conduct, contempt and crossing a police line. As she and other demonstrators march around various parts of the District, from the White House to the Supreme Court to the Capitol, her protests center around the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Most District judges who have heard her cases either dismissed them with a citation or fine or sentenced her to time served, usually one or two days in jail, and sent her home. But her repeated arrests have left prosecutors and some D.C. Superior Court judges exasperated.

Last Thursday, just days before a D.C. Superior Court judge was scheduled to sentence her in another case, Tetaz picked up her 21st arrest when she and about 40 other protesters were charged in a war demonstration on the Capitol grounds. A hearing was scheduled for March.

On Monday, an obviously frustrated Judge Lynn Leibovitz sentenced Tetaz to 25 days in jail and placed her on probation for a year after a jury found her guilty of disorderly conduct in October. Prosecutors say Tetaz and at least three other demonstrators attended a Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee hearing May 21, stood up as Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) began to speak and yelled out: "No more blood money. Stop the war." Police said Tetaz and the other protesters then threw dollar bills into the aisle of the Senate chamber. The money had been covered in Tetaz's blood as well as the blood of the other demonstrators, drawn from each by a physician friend.

Standing next to Jack Baringer, her court-appointed attorney, and wearing a T-shirt that read, "I'm not disturbing the peace, I'm disturbing the war," Tetaz often smiled as Leibovitz criticized her decision to disrupt a Senate speech and pass out blood-tainted dollars. The move, Leibovitz said, "demeaned the action of protest" and bordered on assault. "Ms. Tetaz has repeatedly over time ignored court orders and our laws," the judge added. She sentenced Tetaz to

75 days in jail, but suspended 50 days -- unless Tetaz is arrested again while on probation over the next 18 months.

Tetaz, whose supporters in the audience risked being kicked out of the courtroom for cheering her on, read from a statement, vowing to continue to "give voice" to nonviolent protest. "I believe that nonviolent protest against government policies will continue to be the only authentic form of individual political action," she said.

Just eight months from turning 79, Tetaz is one of the oldest demonstrators of the District- and New York-based group Witness Against Torture. Matthew Daloisio, one of the organizing volunteers, said police, noticing her frailty, often offer Tetaz the option of receiving a citation and release from jail, but she declines, choosing to remain locked up with other demonstrators. "Eve lines up her life with how she thinks the world should be," Daloisio said. "She has a spirit that transcends her age and her physical limitations."

And it is her physical limitations that concern her attorney and family members. She carries bags of medications for glaucoma and heart trouble. She also has leukemia, which doctors said they can treat with medication. Judges must speak loudly or she has to wear headphones to be able to hear the proceedings.

Widowed since 1995 and with no children, Tetaz says she's the perfect demonstrator. She has no responsibilities. She is retired after spending 30 years teaching English in D.C. public schools such as Eastern and Dunbar, as well as a brief time in 1948 when she taught school in Harlem, N.Y.

Protesting isn't new to Tetaz. During the Vietnam War, she and other demonstrators were arrested on the steps of the Capitol. She spent three days in jail.

"It's often the poor, uneducated, inner-city kid who has no other recourse than the streets or the Army. I'm fighting for him," she said, days before Monday's sentencing. "This is a terrible waste."

Tetaz, like many of her fellow demonstrators, is very spiritual. She often speaks of wanting to "follow Jesus" and lives a simple life in an Adams Morgan apartment with her two cats and pet bird. "In everything I do," she said, flashing her large smile, "I want to be a reflection of my faith."

Roberto Zamora, Costa Rican Hero

2010-01-30T08:48:00.000-08:00

Roberto Zamora on Disarmament for Peace
Submitted by Lisa on Thu, 12/11/2009 - 14:27

Mexico’s Historic Center was the venue for this year’s UN DPI/NGO Conference. For the second time in history, the conference took place out of New York (last year it took place in Paris), and on this occasion, extensively covered the issue of disarmament as a way to achieve peace and development. As a matter of fact, more than a way to peace, disarmament is a requirement in order to achieve it.

Nevertheless, I believe the conference made a stalwart choice to focus on an issue currently so important. Since the end of WWII, military expansionism unveiled itself as obsolete and unsuitable for the new world stage. Meanwhile, military growth skyrocketed with the upcoming of the “cold war” and the struggle for supreme and sovereign power, raising military expenditure to absurd figures: 1.3 trillion dollars for 2007. About twentyfold the amount needed to achieve the millennium development goals for 2006. Disarmament is indeed an important contribution to peace and development.

In my home country of Costa Rica, 1948 saw a domestic revolution. Following this an Assembly was called upon to create a new constitution. This modern constitution established in article 12 the abolishment of the army as a permanent institution in the country. The funds usually wasted in military expenditures were reallocated and reinvested in education and health care. As a result, the Human Development Index (HDI) in Costa Rica skyrocketed, and not because the country got wealthier, but because the money was invested in the human needs that are essential for development – those which lead to peace. The country is now well known around the world for its maintained healthy environment and peaceful way of life, as it continuously scores high ranking countries for HDI indexes, among rich and better organized societies.

Having said this, I believe it was an accurate choice to have a Costa Rican deliver the keynote speech at the closing ceremony of the conference. What was surprising was the decision of the committee to invite me as speaker, being the youngest of all guest speakers at the conference.

Not that I’m not aware of my accomplishments, just because I see nothing extraordinary about them. I was at the University of Costa Rica in my second year of Law when war broke out in Iraq. When Costa Rica announced their support for the “coalition of the willing” for the Iraq invasion, I sued. When I won, the support for the war was withdrawn. When President and Nobel Peace Laureate Arias allowed the manufacturing of nuclear fuel and reactors for war purposes, I sued again. When I won this case it spurred the Supreme Court into action, widening the prohibitions related to weapons derived from our national peace commitments and international obligations. I do see peace in a very special way, but I don’t think of that way as unique… any Costa Rican with a knowledge of history, love for their country and understanding of the privileges of our condition is capable of reaching the same conclusions given the time and conditions to reflect on the issue.

Reflecting on the conference, I must say that while it unveiled the evils of weapons, military and so on, it failed to adequately link military and armaments with the current environmental issue. In my particular case, I have to be honest and say that I’ve gone through a transformation process. Not being an environmentalist or ecologist myself, I came into peace affairs and the more I learned and understood about peace; the greater my attraction to nature; its importance in relation to keeping the peace and the need for peace for its protection.

There’s nothing as destructive to nature as armed conflict.

Costa Rica’s Supreme Court was aware of this, and when delivering on the nuclear reactors case, it ruled that weapons and substances with uncontrolled areas of damage are illegal in the country due to the possibility of environmental harm: a great achievement indeed.

The Conference gathered people from more than 60 countries and hundreds of NGOs. Its general outcome was positive and the events were filled with important facts and information. I had the honor of closing the event, for some reason people felt astonishment in hearing the “truth withheld among the words”, but I don’t see in them anything newsworthy. I do not intend to impose my opinions onto anybody, but to make evident the truth that weapons and militarism have no room in a developed world. I closed the conference with the following words:

“This year’s conference focused on world disarmament as a way to achieve peace and development. Coming from Costa Rica, I’m a witness that disarmament is one of the paths to peace and development.

We live in a time when resources are enough but distribution is deficient, wealth is wasted in weapons valued as much as some small countries debts, while human priorities, worthy of worldwide efforts, remain pending solution.

The world armament reality alarmingly highlights to us two sides of the situation. On one side, the situation of underdevelopment creates social and living conditions where peace is an unreachable dream due to situations of dreadful misery and want. On the other hand, world powers are aiming to secure a bigger share of the world’s wealth in order to secure the expense resulting from military protection of their power … ironically, in a world that has proven unable to keep up militaristic policies as cornerstones of international relations.

All the aforementioned is clearly a reflex of both our incapacity and reticence to deliver an end to a couple of old rusty problems. Specifically I am referring to the ‘rule of law’ and the proliferation of small weapons, and to the reduction of military expenditures through the production and commercialization of weapons in and from developing states. The role of neutral states must be highlighted however since those who have acquired a condition of neutrality cannot produce weapons for foreign country use.

Concerning the rule of law

The creation of the UN and the establishment of its Charter as a form of supreme international rule appeared to mark the definite start of a new era in international relations and international law, aimed at realizing, through peaceful means for dispute settlement, the so long desired international peace and stability.

The idea was to materialize all the achievements in International Law into reality with a framework that would allow the purposes of the Charter. Nevertheless, the ultimate goal would be truncated due to many reasons, two in particular. First, the immoral, unjust and arbitrary Veto Power belonging to the Permanent Members of the Security Council. As long as the Stalinist veto exists, the rule of law will never find ruling or create lawful conduct and international democracy will never be achieved. Second, State breaches of International Law. We have seen time and again, how States go their own way, openly disobeying International Resolutions and avoiding Jurisdiction of International Courts. Treaties and Resolutions are violated without any existing mechanism of enforcement that will revert the lack of will to honor acquired binds. Maybe it’s time to make use of articles 5 and 6 of the UN charter. It is compulsory to suspend or expel from the UN all those States who disrespect the Charters. It is inexorable to take the UN out of the US.

Initiatives towards stricter and stronger regimes concerning weapons control are worthy of support, yet, it has to be said that the effort would be fruitless if we keep holding our struggle without the creation of mechanisms to enforce the legal framework, both at a domestic and international levels.

Domestically, it’s important to support the initiative to establish peace enforcing constitutions as a way to prevent armed conflicts. For that to occur, there must be a judicial system that will grant respect for constitutional principles, just as happened in the case of Costa Rica where the Peace Constitution and the UN Charter were used before the Supreme Court to invalidate the support given by the Costa Rican government to the Coalition that invaded Iraq. Since 1948, Costa Rica abolished the army and bid on human development investment, raising into one of the poor countries with better HDI. Indeed, Costa Ricans are witness to disarmament’s contribution to peace and development.

At the international level, the Rule of Law must be re-established as a guiding principle of international obligations, forcing States to found through the UN, all the necessary mechanisms to give effectiveness to International obligations freely acquired. Those concerning weapons would require special obligation, aiding reforms to be designed in the pursuit of a real right to peace. This is longing to become a convention.

I don’t know how many treaties we need to simply disarm. The worst part of it is that we err by specifying… we go against biological, against chemical, against nuclear, against cluster… can’t we just go against weapons?! ALL weapons must be eliminated. Saying this, and without setting aside the human rights violations that President Arias commits to within Costa Rica, I believe it important to support initiatives favoring social investment over military expenditure, just as the model for the “Costa Rica Consensus” promotes. This initiative must be analyzed, completed and supported.

At this point, it is important to stress the absurdity of small armies. What do small countries, like Central Americans, gain by having armies? Who are they going to fight, if their offensive potential is ridiculous? Military coups are what small armies are for. The elected Honduras’ president is still in exile due to small armies

About small arms and the civil arms race

The second problem pending solution is that referred to the constant rise in civil arming. Some 1134 companies in 98 countries produce the weapons that kill our civilians, both in developed as well as in developing countries, both in conflict zones as in “peaceful” areas. Civilians own at least 380 million guns… legally. Worse that that, 80% of the weapons produced by these companies are bought every year by civilians – a situation that exposes a broad market that will keep growing unless we change. Unless we change, today’s kids, our children, will become tomorrow’s murderers.

WE must call upon our Governments to improve domestic civilian security, preventing people accessing weapons to “protect” themselves. Maybe, just maybe, if the States invested some of the money wasted on military and domestic security, people could use those resources for properly prioritized needs, in some places, essentials as basic as food and water.

Domestic civilian security is a DUTY of all governments towards their citizens. An effective state security policy would make possible the call to civilians to get rid of weapons. It is evident that to solve the problem the root causes must be addressed and here is where we can see the real dimension and effects of governments deficiencies in the fulfillment of their natural obligations in terms of health, education, wealth distribution, housing, water, environmental protection, and so on.

Finally it is necessary to strengthen and augment the requirements and controls for the possession of guns and ammunition. It’s completely unacceptable that in the dawn of the 21st century, it was possible in countries like Uganda, to trade AK-47 machine guns for the price of a whole chicken. Recalling our point concerning mechanisms for law enforcement, it is important to call upon the states to join the Arms Trade Treaty process, but at the same time, call upon the governments to impose production quotas, raise costs and taxes, and make guns difficult to access for civilians. It also has to be called upon the UN to enforce weapons embargoes, since its breach feeds illicit trafficking, weapons always ending up in the wrong hands.

The problem is not the amount of weapons nor the money wasted on them. The problem is guns themselves.

The problem is not what the law says; the problem is what is done with the law. The five permanent members of the Security Council are the biggest weapons producers…. How can it be that Permanent Members are the countries that produce the guns that destroy international peace and security? What authority do they have to decide on peace and international stability if they ground their international policy on the constant threat of the use of force by the establishment of military bases all over the world and by possessing Weapons of Mass Destruction? Ecuador, Venezuela and Colombia are at the edge of a war due to the US bases in Colombia. What do the US need military bases on the continent for?

Maybe we should look back at the Security Council and revise it’s written role as well as its practical role.

About gun production in developing countries (BTW, aren’t all the countries… developing?)

Finally and to bring my words to an end, I believe it superbly important to call attention to a new threat that might scramble our efforts for military reduction and weapons eradication.

The weapons industry is a highly lucrative activity. Like many other industries, the guns industry is facing the challenge of an economical crisis, thus, they are looking for a mechanism to produce their product cheaper.

Growing and constant bellicose clashes that we see year after year, which are denounced and exposed by NGOs and their work, have the atrocity of world in which we live in exposed to the global society. This has created consciousness for the urgent need to abolish war and weapons now.

Civil society actions have forced governments to look back at resource allocation, calling of the ridiculously minute sums granted to human rights when compared to the exorbitant abundance placed in military and violence.

Evidently, before reducing the amount of force bought every year, states and governments will be looking forward to buying the same amount of weapons for cheaper. The same force for less money. This is the dangerous situation that we must stop before it begins.

Just as many companies moved their plants to developing countries, in order to produce cheaper weaponry by paying unjust wages. The weapons industry is already looking for places to produce high tech weapons at reduced costs. Alarming but true is the case for Costa Rica. Costa Rica was the only Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) signing country that included in its lists weapons and war machinery. If chipset giant INTEL and other high tech companies have moved their operations to this country, due to its peace and human resource… why wouldn’t these war industries also move to Costa Rica? Raytheon Company has already bought five hectares in the country. Unluckily for them, President Arias’ authorization to these companies was declared unconstitutional. I’m sure he’ll try again.

We must prevent small countries under heavy economic pressure and wants from falling victim to this vicious cycle and becoming producers and suppliers of weapons for those countries with economic power. We must avoid and prevent the establishment and creation of military sweat-shops. For this it is fundamental to start a process for the creation of international instruments that will prohibit states in the production of weapons or machinery that they cannot have for their own military. We must avoid armament to become a development model for developing countries.

As fundamental as it is to attack current problems it is equally important to prevent future situations that will threaten or destroy peace.

I would like bring this speech to close by congratulating and thanking both organizers and all the participant for making a conference on the truth behind the issues possible. The importance of this could not be emphasized enough. Debates, ideas and contacts made here are essential for the creation of actions and proposals that will bring us closer to the peaceful world that we imagine. Thank you very much.”

Of course, the Conference covered a broader array of topics that were not mentioned in the speech, like toys, television, victim relief, amnesties, and so on. All of the issues touched at this conference are fundamental and urgent.

We need to start thinking.

We need to realize the truths and act upon them, since one of those truths is, as things are and seem to be, our own extinction. I don’t’ think we can have a closer connection between offensive power and nature. Unfortunately they relate in a reversely proportionate relationship.

The bigger the offensive power we have, the bigger the threat to the environment. The bigger the power we use, the bigger the harm we do to nature and in it, ourselves.

Howard Zinn 1922-2010

2010-01-29T20:27:00.000-08:00

Please read the following obituary, read all of his books, and watch all of his movies. This man was one of a kind, and the nation is in poor shape without him.

Toward a New American Peace Movement

2010-01-29T19:46:00.001-08:00

The MIC Still Strong

2010-01-23T17:29:00.000-08:00

From the Peace and Development Collaborative Network on possible war on Yemen

The Case for Slow (Peaceful) Communication

2010-01-18T17:57:00.000-08:00

Not So Fast

By JOHN FREEMAN

The boundlessness of the Internet always runs into the hard fact of our animal nature, our physical limits, the dimensions of our cognitive present, the overheated capacity of our minds. "My friend has just had his PC wired for broadband," writes the poet Don Paterson. "I meet him in the café; he looks terrible—his face puffy and pale, his eyes bloodshot. . . . He tells me he is now detained, night and day, in downloading every album he ever owned, lost, desired, or was casually intrigued by; he has now stopped even listening to them, and spends his time sleeplessly monitoring a progress bar. . . . He says it's like all my birthdays have come at once, by which I can see he means, precisely, that he feels he is going to die."

We will die, that much is certain; and everyone we have ever loved and cared about will die, too, sometimes—heartbreakingly—before us. Being someone else, traveling the world, making new friends gives us a temporary reprieve from this knowledge, which is spared most of the animal kingdom. Busyness—or the simulated busyness of email addiction—numbs the pain of this awareness, but it can never totally submerge it. Given that our days are limited, our hours precious, we have to decide what we want to do, what we want to say, what and who we care about, and how we want to allocate our time to these things within the limits that do not and cannot change. In short, we need to slow down.

Our society does not often tell us this. Progress, since the dawn of the Industrial Age, is supposed to be a linear upward progression; graphs with upward slopes are a good sign. Processing speeds are always getting faster; broadband now makes dial-up seem like traveling by horse and buggy. Growth is eternal. But only two things grow indefinitely or have indefinite growth firmly ensconced at the heart of their being: cancer and the corporation. For everything else, especially in nature, the consuming fires eventually come and force a starting over.

The ultimate form of progress, however, is learning to decide what is working and what is not; and working at this pace, emailing at this frantic rate, is pleasing very few of us. It is encroaching on parts of our lives that should be separate or sacred, altering our minds and our ability to know our world, encouraging a further distancing from our bodies and our natures and our communities. We can change this; we have to change it. Of course email is good for many things; that has never been in dispute. But we need to learn to use it far more sparingly, with far less dependency, if we are to gain control of our lives.

In the past two decades, we have witnessed one of the greatest breakdowns of the barrier between our work and personal lives since the notion of leisure time emerged in Victorian Britain as a result of the Industrial Age. It has put us under great physical and mental strain, altering our brain chemistry and daily needs. It has isolated us from the people with whom we live, siphoning us away from real-world places where we gather. It has encouraged flotillas of unnecessary jabbering, making it difficult to tell signal from noise. It has made it more difficult to read slowly and enjoy it, hastening the already declining rates of literacy. It has made it harder to listen and mean it, to be idle and not fidget.

This is not a sustainable way to live. This lifestyle of being constantly on causes emotional and physical burnout, workplace meltdowns, and unhappiness. How many of our most joyful memories have been created in front of a screen?

If we are to step off this hurtling machine, we must reassert principles that have been lost in the blur. It is time to launch a manifesto for a slow communication movement, a push back against the machines and the forces that encourage us to remain connected to them. Many of the values of the Internet are social improvements—it can be a great platform for solidarity, it rewards curiosity, it enables convenience. This is not the manifesto of a Luddite, this is a human manifesto. If the technology is to be used for the betterment of human life, we must reassert that the Internet and its virtual information space is not a world unto itself but a supplement to our existing world, where the following three statements are self-evident.

1. Speed matters.

We have numerous technologies that can work with extreme rapidity. But we don't use these capabilities because they are either dangerous (even the Autobahn has begun applying speed limits, due to severe accidents) or uncomfortable (imagine turbulence at 1,200 miles per hour) or would ruin the point of having the technology at all (played back faster than it was recorded, Led Zeppelin's syrupy metal sound turns to tinsel).

The speed at which we do something—anything—changes our experience of it. Words and communication are not immune to this fundamental truth. The faster we talk and chat and type over tools such as email and text messages, the more our communication will resemble traveling at great speed. Bumped and jostled, queasy from the constant ocular and muscular adjustments our body must make to keep up, we will live in a constant state of digital jet lag.

This is a disastrous development on many levels. Brain science may suggest that some decisions can be made in the blink of an eye, but not all judgments benefit from a short frame of reference. We need to protect the finite well of our attention if we care about our relationships. We need time in order to properly consider the effect of what we say upon others. We need time in order to grasp the political and professional ramifications of our typed correspondence. We need time to shape and design and filter our words so that we say exactly what we mean. Communicating at great haste hones our utterances down to instincts and impulses that until now have been held back or channeled more carefully.

Continuing in this strobe-lit techno-rave communication environment as it stands will be destructive for businesses. Employees communicating at breakneck speed make mistakes. They forget, cross boundaries that exist for a reason, make sloppy errors, offend clients, spread rumors and gossip that would never travel through offline channels, work well past the point where their contributions are helpful, burn out and break down and then have trouble shutting down and recuperating. The churn produced by this communication lifestyle cannot be sustained. "To perfect things, speed is a unifying force," the race-car driver Michael Schumacher has said. "To imperfect things, speed is a destructive force." No company is perfect, nor is any individual.

It is hard not to blame us for believing otherwise, because the Internet and the global markets it facilitates have bought into a fundamental warping of the actual meaning of speed. Speed used to convey urgency; now we somehow think it means efficiency. One can even see this in the etymology of the word. The earliest recorded use of it as a verb—"to go fast"— dates back to 1300, when horses were the primary mode of moving in haste. By 1569, as the printing press was beginning to remake society, speed was being used to mean "to send forth with quickness." By 1856, in the thick of the Industrial Revolution, when machines and mechanized production and train travel were remaking society yet again, "speed" took on another meaning. It was being used to "increase the work rate of," as in speed up.

There is a paradox here, though. The Internet has provided us with an almost unlimited amount of information, but the speed at which it works—and we work through it—has deprived us of its benefits. We might work at a higher rate, but this is not working. We can store a limited amount of information in our brains and have it at our disposal at any one time. Making decisions in this communication brownout, though without complete information, we go to war hastily, go to meetings unprepared, and build relationships on the slippery gravel of false impressions. Attention is one of the most valuable modern resources. If we waste it on frivolous communication, we will have nothing left when we really need it.

Everything we say needn't travel at the fastest rate possible. The difference between typing an email and writing a letter or memo out by hand is akin to walking on concrete versus strolling on grass. You forget how natural it feels until you do it again. Our time on this earth is limited, the world is vast, and the people we care about or need for our business life to operate will not always live and work nearby; we will always have to communicate over distance. We might as well enjoy it and preserve the space and time to do it in a way that matches the rhythms of our bodies. Continuing to work and type and write at speed, however, will make our communication environment resemble our cities. There will be concrete as far as the eye can see.

2. The Physical World matters.

A large part of electronic communication leads us away from the physical world. Our cafes, post offices, parks, cinemas, town centers, main streets and community meeting halls have suffered as a result of this development. They are beginning to resemble the tidy and lonely bedroom commuter towns created by the expansion of the American interstate system. Sitting in the modern coffee shop, you don't hear the murmur or rise and fall of conversation but the continuous, insect-like patter of typing. The disuse of real-world commons drives people back into the virtual world, causing a feedback cycle that leads to an ever-deepening isolation and neglect of the tangible commons.

This is a terrible loss. We may rely heavily on the Internet, but we cannot touch it, taste it or experience the indescribable feeling of togetherness that one gleans from face-to-face interaction, from the reassuring sensation of being among a crowd of one's neighbors. Seeing one another in these situations reinforces the importance of sharing resources, of working together, of balancing our own needs with those of others. Online, these values become notions that are much more easily suspended to further our own self-interest. Not surprisingly, political movements that begin online must have a real-world component; otherwise they evaporate and dissolve into the blur of other activities.

It is almost impossible to navigate the Web without having to stutter-step around ads and blinking messages from sponsors. In using this tool so heavily, consumers aren't just frying their attention spans, they're forfeiting one of the large sources of information that comes from face-to-face interaction and business. A butcher can tell you which cuts of meat are the freshest; an online grocer may not. That same butcher, if he is good, might not just remember your preferences—which an online retailer can do frighteningly well—but ask you how your mother has been doing, whether you caught the latest football game. These interactions remind us that we are more than consumers; they remind us that we are part of the world in a way no amount of online shopping ever will.

If we spend our evening online trading short messages over Facebook with friends thousands of miles away rather than going to our local pub or park with a friend, we are effectively withdrawing from the people we could turn to for solace, humor and friendship, not to mention the places we could go to do this. We trade the complicated reality of friendship for its vacuum-packed idea.

3. Context matters

We need context in order to live, and if the environment of electronic communication has stopped providing it, we shouldn't search online for a solution but turn back to the real world and slow down. To do this, we need to uncouple our idea of progress from speed, separate the idea of speed from efficiency, pause and step back enough to realize that efficiency may be good for business and governments but does not always lead to mindfulness and sustainable, rewarding relationships. We are here for a short time on this planet, and reacting to demands on our time by simply speeding up has canceled out many of the benefits of the Internet, which is one of the most fabulous technological inventions ever conceived. We are connected, yes, but we were before, only by gossamer threads that worked more slowly. Slow communication will preserve these threads and our ability to sensibly choose to use faster modes when necessary. It will also preserve our sanity, our families, our relationships and our ability to find happiness in a world where, in spite of the Internet, saying what we mean is as hard as it ever was. It starts with a simple instruction: Don't send.

—John Freeman is the acting editor of Granta magazine. This essay was adapted from his book "The Tyranny of E-Mail," forthcoming from Scribner.

R.I.P Martin Luther King

2010-01-18T17:30:00.000-08:00

If only anyone living today had your courage...

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/18/dr_martin_luther_king_jr_1929

Let us not forget the three evils of racism, militarism, and materialism are with us and as strong as ever. Barack Obama's ascension has not changed this country in any fundamental way. If anything, it has only strengthened the resolve of those who would bring us back to the days of Jim Crow. We must struggle harder than ever to fulfill the dream. It will take the combined efforts of all of us regardless of color, creed, gender, age, sexual orientation, or ability.

Another world is possible.

Dennis Brutus, 1924-2009

2010-01-10T19:45:00.000-08:00

Dave Zirin's Huffington Post piece

Democracy Now! special

I consider him a dear friend, even though I only saw him twice in my life. The first time we discussed geopolitics and Africa. He ended up giving me one of his books for free (and signing it) because I didn't bring enough money to buy both. He confirmed a lot of my suspicions regarding U.S. interests in Africa and the unlikelihood that it could serve as an honest broker of peace on the continent.

He was humble, wise, poetic, and revolutionary. The world needs more men like him.

One of Many Press Releases

2009-12-24T16:54:00.000-08:00

Immediate Release

Sana Javed

sanajaved7@gmail.com

www.gazafreedommarch.org

UMD Students to Participate in International Delegation

Gaza Freedom March, December 31

1,000 Delegates from 42 Countries

Over one hundred students from around the world will be traveling to Gaza this winter to participate in the Gaza Freedom March, among them Sana Javed a senior Government and Politics and Spanish major at UMD and Matt Johnson who graduated from UMD in May 2008. On December 31, over 1,000 international delegates will join Palestinians in a non-violent march from Northern Gaza to the Israeli border calling for an end to the siege. The march is an historic initiative to break the ongoing US-backed Israeli blockade against Gaza.

Javed and Johnson will be part of a group of over 100 students that plans to meet with their peers at Gazan universities who will have a chance to share their experiences as youth in the war-torn territory. Earlier this year, Javed helped organize the first annual Palestinian Solidarity Week, during which thirteen different social and cultural groups on campus aimed to raise awareness about the suffering of the Palestinian people, especially after the War on Gaza in January 2009. Javed was also one of the founding members for the new campus organization, UMD Students for Justice in Palestine, which recently organized a show featuring local spoken word and hip-hop artists called, "We Will Not Be Silent: Voices for Justice".

Javed hopes that with this trip, she will be able to bring back a firsthand account of life under the Israeli occupation, "While there are many things about this conflict that can be debated, the one thing that cannot be is the overwhelming suffering of the Palestinian people. It is hard for us Americans, and as students, to imagine what life under occupation must be like so I hope to bring back the stories and photos we rarely hear or see. One of the biggest obstacles in this conflict is the demonization of Arabs and Muslims and I hope that this trip will bring back the human element that is missing from our dialogue and discussion on campus". Johnson, who currently works as an assistant teacher in a juvenile detention center, says marching in solidarity with the Palestinians is the "least I can do to oppose the U.S. government's funding of the illegal occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem with my tax dollars and the collusion of the United States and Israel in violating international law and the basic human rights of Arabs in the Middle East."

For more information see www.gazafreedommarch.org

Sana Javed sanajaved7@gmail.com
Matt Johnson mattjohnsonlove@gmail.com

Free Gaza for Christmas!

2009-12-24T16:35:00.001-08:00

Dear Friends:

I hope this holiday season is bringing you plenty of love and good cheer. I have found myself totally unable to relax...and not because of holiday shopping...but because I'm leaving tomorrow for Egypt and then Gaza.

You may have already heard that the Egyptian government has stated it will prevent the march from occurring. We're hoping that it will change it's mind. See below for how you can help.

Peace and love,

Matt

-------------------------------------------------

Egypt bans march into Gaza Strip

CAIRO - Cairo on Monday rejected a request by international activists to organise a march to the Gaza Strip via Egypt to mark one year since an Israeli attack on the enclave.

"Some international organisations have requested permission for a solidarity march -- the Gaza Freedom March -- into the Gaza Strip," the Egyptian foreign ministry said in a statement.

"Egypt finds it difficult to cooperate with this march considering the sensitive situation in the Gaza Strip," which faces a stringent Israeli blockade, the statement said.

It warned that "any attempts to violate the law or public order by any group whether local or foreign on Egyptian soil will be dealt with in conformity with the law."

Over 1,000 international delegates from 42 countries have signed up to join the Gaza Freedom March which was due to enter Gaza via Egypt during the last week of December.

In the morning of December 31, participants were due to join Palestinians "in a non-violent march from Northern Gaza to the Erez/Israeli border," organisers said on their website.

http://business.maktoob.com/20090000410006/Egypt_bans_march_into_Gaza_Strip/Article.htm

THE MARCH WILL GO ON

Gaza Freedom March
UPDATE
December 21, 2009

We are determined to break the siege We all will continue to do whatever we can to make it happen

Using the pretext of escalating tensions on the Gaza-Egypt border, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry informed us yesterday that the Rafah border will be closed over the coming weeks, into January. We responded that there is always tension at the border because of the siege, that we do not feel threatened, and that if there are any risks, they are risks we are willing to take. We also said that it was too late for over 1,300 delegates coming from over 42 countries to change their plans now. We both agreed to continue our exchanges.

Although we consider this as a setback, it is something we've encountered-and overcome--before. No delegation, large or small, that entered Gaza over the past 12 months has ever received a final OK before arriving at the Rafah border. Most delegations were discouraged from even heading out of Cairo to Rafah. Some had their buses stopped on the way. Some have been told outright that they could not go into Gaza. But after public and political pressure, the Egyptian government changed its position and let them pass.

Our efforts and plans will not be altered at this point. We have set out to break the siege of Gaza and march on December 31 against the Israeli blockade. We are continuing in the same direction.

Egyptian embassies and missions all over the world must hear from us and our supporters (by phone, fax and email)** over the coming crucial days, with a clear message: Let the international delegation enter Gaza and let the Gaza Freedom March proceed.

Contact your local consulate here:
http://www.mfa.gov.eg/MFA_Portal/en-GB/mfa_websits/

Contact the Palestine Division in Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Cairo
Ahmed Azzam, tel +202-25749682 Email: ahmed.azzam@mfa.gov.eg

In the U.S., contact the Egyptian Embassy, 202-895-5400 and ask for Omar Youssef or email omaryoussef@hotmail.com

The GFM Steering Committee

Sample text:

I am writing/calling to express my full support for the December 31, 2009 Gaza Freedom March. I urge the Egyptian government to allow the 1,300 international delegates to enter the Gaza Strip through Egypt.

The aim of the march is to call on Israel to lift the siege. The delegates will also take in badly needed medical aid, as well as school supplies and winter jackets for the children of Gaza.

Please, let this historic March proceed.

Thank you.

John Judge's Planned Introduction for Cynthia McKinney (Dec. 12 Anti-War Demonstration)

2009-12-23T16:50:00.000-08:00

A BIGGER LIE

WE SHOULD REMEMBER THAT THE PEOPLE OF D.C. HAVE BEEN OPPOSING THE WAR ON AFGHANISTAN SINCE IT WAS FIRST SUGGESTED, AND BEFORE IT BEGAN. ON SEPTEMBER 30, 2001 THE WASHINGTON PEACE CENTER ORGANIZED A RALLY AND MARCH OF 5,000 PEOPLE FROM MALCOLM X PARK TO THE CAPITOL TO SAY NO TO THIS WAR, AND WE HAVE RESISTED IT SINCE. AS WE PUT IT THEN, OUR GRIEF WAS NOT A CRY FOR WAR. ON THE NIGHT OF OBAMA’S ELECTION ADAM KOKESH, FROM IRAQ VETERANS AGAINST THE WAR SAID, “WE JUST ELECTED A PRO-WAR PRESIDENT AND WE CAN’T HAVE AN ANTI-WAR DEMONSTRATION AT HIS INAUGURATION”. NOW WE CAN AND WE MUST.

THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN, WHICH HAS GONE ON NOW FOR EIGHT LONG YEARS WITH NO END IN SIGHT, IS BASED ON A BIGGER LIE THAN THE WAR ON IRAQ WAS. THE U.S. MILITARY INVASION INTO AFGHANISTAN WAS NOT A RESPONSE TO THE ATTACKS ON 9/11, IT WAS ALREADY PLANNED AND IN PROGRESS BY THAT POINT. ALL THE SURROUNDING COUNTRIES HAD BEEN WARNED IN THE SUMMER OF 2001 BY SECRETARY OF STATE COLIN POWELL THAT THE U.S. AND BRITAIN PLANNED TO INTERVENE MILITARILY IN MID-OCTOBER TO REMOVE THE TALIBAN LEADERSHIP IN AFGHANISTAN.

WHY? IN THE TESTIMONY TO THE HOUSE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE IN 1999 A REPRESENTATIVE OF UNOCAL, A HUGE CALIFORNIA OIL CORPORATION, IT WAS REVEALED THAT THEIR PLAN WAS TO RUN AN OIL PIPELINE FROM THE LARGEST OIL DEPOSIT IN THE WORLD AT THE TIME, THE CASPIAN SEA BASIN INSIDE RUSSIA, SOUTH THROUGH AFGHANISTAN TO THE GULF, TO LOAD TANKERS AVAILABLE TO THE HIGHEST BIDDING PORTS. THE NORTHERN ALLIANCE HAD ALREADY AGREED, BUT THE TALIBAN BALKED AT THE PRICE THEY WERE OFFERED, SO UNOCAL ASKED CONGRESS TO REMOVE THEM. BY THE SUMMER OF 2001 THE U.S. AND BRITISH CARRIERS AND TROOPS WERE ALREADY DEPLOYED TO THE GULF IN PREPARATION FOR THIS ILLEGAL AND PRE-EMPTIVE WAR. 9/11 WAS JUST A CONVENIENT EXCUSE.

OF COURSE THE TALIBAN WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN IN POWER AT ALL HAD THE UNITED STATES NOT ARMED AND TRAINED AN ILLEGAL INSURGENCY AT THE END OF THE CARTER ADMINISTRATION AND THROUGH THE REAGAN/BUSH YEARS AT THE COST OF $6 BILLION, SHARED WITH SAUDI ARABIA, TO DESTABLIZE A DEMOCRATIC AND SECULAR GOVERNMENT THERE THAT WAS PART OF THE SOVIET UNION AND THAT RESPECTED THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN AS WELL. WILLIAM CASEY’S CIA RAN FUNDS THROUGH PAKISTANI MILITARY INTELL.IGENCE, ISI, WHICH IS CURRENTLY BEING BLAMED FOR WORKING WITH THE SAME ELEMENTS WE DID. THE MONEY AT BOTH ENDS CAME FROM THE SALE OF THE MAIN EXPORT PRODUCT OF AFGHANISTAN FOR THE LAST THREE DECADES, OPIUM, WHICH IS WORTH MORE THAN OIL OR GOLD. THE CIA MONEY WENT DIRECTLY TO MR. HEKMYATAR, THE LARGEST OPIUM DEALER AT THE TIME, AND TO HIS PROTÉGÉ, OSAMA BIN LADEN TO TRAIN AND CARRY OUT THAT DESTABLIZATION, WHICH LED TO THE RISE OF THE TALIBAN AFTER THE SOVIET UNION PULLED OUT.

MORE RECENTLY, WE HAVE INSTALLED A GOVERNMENT IN AFGHANISTAN, RUN BY THE BROTHER OF A LEADING OPIUM RUNNER AND CIA ASSET. THE OPIUM PRODUCTION HAS RISEN EVEN MORE, ACCOUNTING NOW FOR 95% OF THE WORLD MARKET. THE ADDICTIONS FROM HEROIN JUST MADE RUSSIA THE AIDS CAPITAL OF THE WORLD FROM DIRTY NEEDLES, AND IT HAS FLOODED THE STANS AND EUROPE. GENERAL JAMES JONES, OBAMA’S NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR, STATED, WHEN HE WAS IN CHARGE OF THE AFGHANISTAN OPERATIONS UNDER PRESIDENT BUSH, THAT HE DID NOT WANT TO INTERFERE WITH OPIUM PRODUCTION THERE SINCE IT MIGHT RUIN THEIR ECONOMY - NOT TO MENTION OURS FOR COVERT OPERATIONS.

IF OSAMA BIN LADEN WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE 9/11 ATTACKS, AND THERE IS LITTLE TO PROVE HE WAS, THEN WE HAVE DONE LITTLE TO CAPTURE HIM SINCE. WE SAID HE WAS HIDING IN CAVES TO AVOID US, BUT THE PENTAGON AND THE CIA PAID OSAMA BIN LADEN AND HIS UNCLE’S CONSTRUCTION COMPANY TO DIG OUT AND ARM THOSE CAVES FOR THE MUJAHEDDIN WAR. AFTER 9/11 THE TALIBAN OFFERED THREE TIMES TO TURN BIN LADEN OVER TO U.S. AUTHORITIES TO BE TRIED IN AN INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL FOR A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY, BUT THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION SAID THEY WOULD NOT NEGOTIATE WITH “TERRORISTS” AND APPLIED ILLEGAL MILITARY FORCE INSTEAD OF INTERNATIONAL LAW. A CHANCE TO SURROUND AND CAPTURE BIN LADEN AND HIS ASSOCIATES AT TORA BORA WAS UNDERMINED, AND SHORTLY AFTER THAT VP DICK CHENEY AND PRESIDENT BUSH SAID THAT CAPTURING HIM WAS NOT THEIR MAIN OBJECTIVE. AT LEAST THEY WERE HONEST ONCE. RECENTLY U.S. AUTHORITIES STATED THEY HAVE NOT HAD ANY GOOD INTELLIGENCE ON BIN LADEN’S WHERABOUTS. FOR ALL WE KNOW HE IS DEAD, BUT WORTH MORE TO US ALIVE AS A THREAT.

WE DO NOT KNOW TO THIS DAY WHO ACTUALLY CARRIED OUT THE ATTACKS AND HIJACKINGS ON 9/11, NOR WHO SPONSORED THEM. THE SUSPECTS NAMED BY THE FBI ALMOST IMMEDIATELY, WERE MOSTLY SAUDI ARABIAN AND EGYPTIAN, NOT AFGHANIS. EIGHT PEOPLE CAME FORWARD FROM THOSE COUNTRIES TO SAY THAT THE NAMES AND PICTURES PRINTED IN THE PRESS WERE THEIR OWN, BUT THEY HAD NOT BEEN PART OF ANY PLOT, ON A PLANE OR IN AMERICA. FIVE OF THOSE WHOSE IDENTITIES WERE STOLEN WORKED FOR SAUDI AIRLINES, WHICH BENEFITTED FROM THE OPENING OF AIR TRADE WITH AFGHANISTAN AFTER THE U.S. INVADED.

AND FINALLY, THE ONLY, AND I MEAN ONLY EVIDENCE LINKING THOSE 19 SUSPECTS TO OSAMA BIN LADEN IS THE TESTIMONY OF THREE PEOPLE. KHALID SHEIKH MOHAMMED, RAMSI YUSEF AND RAMSI BIN AL SHIBH. THREE PEOPLE WHO WERE BEING HELD IN INDEFINITE DETENTION IN UNDISCLOSED LOCATIONS AND BEING WATERBOARDED MULTIPLE TIMES AND TORTURED. THE 9/11 COMMISSION GOT THEIR STATEMENTS IN ENGLISH AND ASKED TO SPEAK TO THEM, TO THEIR JAILERS, TO THEIR INTERROGATORS OR EVEN THE TRANSLATORS WHO WORKED FROM THE ORIGINAL TAPES OR TEXT, AND THEY WERE DENIED. NO AMERICAN COURT WOULD ALLOW SUCH EVIDENCE INTO THE RECORD, UNLESS IT WAS A MILITARY TRIBUNAL OR A FISA COURT HELD IN SECRET. THE DIRECTOR OF THE 9/11 COMMISSION, PHILIP ZELIKOW WROTE A MEMO CONDEMNING THE TORTURE OF PRISONERS BY U.S. FORCES OR AGENCIES AS ILLEGAL. BUT THEN HE SUBMITTED MORE QUESTIONS TO THESE SAME INTERROGATORS FOR THESE THREE PRISONERS, SUBORNING THEIR FURTHER TORTURE IN MY VIEW.

THIS IS THE PACK OF CARDS ON WHICH THE WAR ON AFGHANISTAN RESTS, ALONG WITH THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE REASONS THE PUBLIC HAS BEEN FED AND BOUGHT INTO, SUCH AS “WE HAVE TO FIGHT THEM OVER THERE OR WE WILL HAVE TO FIGHT THEM HERE”, AND “WE HAVE TO GO IN THERE AND GET THE JOB DONE”. WE HAVE BEEN SOLD A LARGER MILITARY AND INTELLIGENCE BUDGET BY BOTH BUSH AND OBAMA THAN WE HAVE EVER HAD BEFORE, IN ORDER TO FIGHT SOME UNIDENTIFIED TERRORISTS ABROAD, LARGER THAN WE NEEDED TO DEFEND OURSELVES AGAINST A NUCLEAR-ARMED CONTINENT DURING THE COLD WAR. WE HAVE BEEN ASKED TO SUSPEND OUR CONSTITUTION ALONG WITH OUR COMMON SENSE. WE WERE TOLD WE WOULD BE GOING INTO A WAR THAT WOULD NOT END IN OUR LIFETIME AFTER 9/11, A WAR INTO AS MANY AS 60 COUNTRIES, AND IF WE LEAVE IT UP TO THE PENTAGON AND THE CIA, DOUBTLESS THAT IS WHAT WILL HAPPEN, AS LONG AS WE ARE WILLING TO USE ALL OUR RESOURCES FOR WAR INSTEAD OF HEALTH CARE, EDUCATION, FOOD AND THE SURVIVAL OF THE PLANET.

OBAMA’S WAR

MANY PEOPLE ARE NOW EXPRESSING SURPRISE THAT PRESIDENT OBAMA WOULD CALL FOR AN ESCALATION OF 30,000 TROOPS INTO AFGHANISTAN, BUT IT SHOULD COME AS NO SURPRISE AT ALL. HE HIMSELF STATED THAT HIS OPPOSITION TO THE WAR IN IRAQ WAS BASED ON THE WASTE OF MILITARY RESOURCES THAT WERE BETTER USED AGAINST AFGHANISTAN, AND APPARENTLY PAKISTAN AS WELL. HE CONDEMNED THE USE OF PRE-EMPTIVE WAR BY BUSH AND CONTINUED IT WITH DRONES INSIDE PAKISTAN AND NOW THIS ESCALATION. THESE WARS ARE PLANNED AT THE PENTAGON WELL IN ADVANCE, AND THE PRESIDENTS INHERIT THEM AND THEY COME AND GO. NO SOONER HAD OBAMA ANNOUNCED HIS QUICK SURGE AND WITHDRAWAL BY 2011 THAN SECRETARY OF DEFENSE ROBERT GATES SPOKE UP TO SAY THAT WAS THE BEGINNING NOT THE END OF THE WITHDRAWAL AND GENERAL MCCHRYSTAL, IN CHARGE OF THE AFGHANISTAN WAR SAID IT WOULD BE A MATTER OF YEARS, NOT MONTHS. THE TIMETABLE DISCUSSED AT THE PENTAGON HAS ALWAYS BEEN 2017, NOT 2011. OBAMA WILL BE OUT OF OFFICE BEFORE THIS WAR ENDS, IF IT DOES. THE U.S. WILL NOT LEAVE THE WHOLE REGION UNTIL PERMANENT BASES ARE ESTABLISHED AND CONTROL OF KEY RESOURCES, OIL, NATURAL GAS AND OPIUM IS ASSURED.

REMEMBER “HOPE” AND “CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN”? REMEMBER “WE WILL HAVE TO HOLD HIS FEET TO THE FIRE”? THE PROBLEM IS WE HAVE HAD NO FIRE AND WE DON’T HAVE HOLD OF HIS FEET. PRESIDENT OBAMA HAS NOT CHANGED ONE MAJOR ASPECT OF THE BUSH AGENDA. ALMOST EVERY GROUND FOR IMPEACHMENT BROUGHT TO THE FLOOR OF CONGRESS BY REPRESENTATIVES MCKINNEY AND KUCINICH STILL APPLIES TO THE NEW PRESIDENT’S ADMINISTRATION. HE HAS NOT ENDED SURVEILLANCE, SIGNING STATEMENTS, INDEFINITE DETENTION, RENDITIONS, STATE SECRECY, MILITARY TRIBUNALS, ILLEGAL WARS AND WEAPONS, PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKES, ASSASSINATIONS, VIOLATIONS OF INTERNATIONAL TREATIES, THE UN CHARTER AND THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS, AND VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS INCLUDING HARSH INTERROGATION AND ABUSE INSIDE U.S. MILITARY PRISONS IN IRAQ. JUST THIS WEEK OBAMA FOLLOWED BUSH’S LEAD IN REFUSING TO SIGN ON TO TREATIES BANNING CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS THAT OVER 130 COUNTRIES HAVE AGREED TO.

A WAY OUT

WE HAVE BEEN IN SERIOUS TROUBLE IN AMERICA FOR A LONG TIME. NO PRESIDENT CAN CHANGE THE PATH THIS SYSTEM IS ON. TOTAL AND GLOBAL MONOPOLIZATION OF CAPITAL AND RESOURCES, THE MERGER OF CORPORATIONS AND THE STATE, THE RISE OF THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL-INTELLIGENCE COMPLEX, PERMANENT WAR, A RUINED ECONOMY IN WHICH PEOPLE ARE EXPENDABLE. THIS IS GLOBAL FASCISM AND GENOCIDE RISING ALONG WITH WHAT CAN ONLY BE CALLED GLOBICIDE, DESTRUCTION OF LIFE ON THE PLANET.

WE AND THE WORLD HAVE BEEN INTENTIONALLY SOLD HOPE AND CHANGE THAT HAS NO BASIS IN REALITY NOR EVEN IN OBAMA’S INTENTIONS. OBAMA IS A MARKETED SYMBOL AND IMAGE THAT LEADS TO THE CONFUSION THAT HE COULD GET INTO THAT POSITION OF POWER AND REALLY EFFECT THE CHANGE WE NEED IN THIS COUNTRY. FOR PEOPLE ABROAD HIS PRESIDENCY WAS MEANT TO CHANGE THE IMAGE OF THE UNITED STATES, GIVE THE FALSE HOPE THAT OUR FOREIGN POLICY WOULD REVERSE ITSELF, OUR WARS ABROAD WOULD END AND THE MASS MOVEMENTS RISING AGAINST THE NEOLIBERAL AGENDA OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CONTROL FOR GLOBAL CORPORATIONS AND PROFIT WERE NO LONGER NEEDED.

AT HOME THE NOVELTY OF A PRESIDENT OF AFRICAN ORIGIN SOMEHOW MADE US FORGET THE LEGACY OF COLIN POWELL, CONDOLEEZA RICE, CLARENCE THOMAS AND OTHERS WHO HAVE CREATED THE ILLUSION THAT ANYONE CAN HOLD THE REINS OF POWER OR REVERSE THE DIRECTION OF THIS COUNTRY AND SYSTEM MERELY BY THEIR LEVEL OF APPOINTMENT IN IT. WE FORGET WHO PUTS THEM THERE, AND WHOSE AGENDA THEY MUST AGREE TO IN ADVANCE AND MUST FOLLOW TO REMAIN IN THAT POSITION. OBAMA WAS CHOSEN BY THOSE IN THE POSITIONS OF PRIVILEGE AND CONTROL IN THIS COUNTRY, FUNDED AND PROMOTED BY THEM, AND FAVORED BY THE MEDIA THEY MANIPULATE US WITH. HIS MAJOR FUNDERS WERE THE VERY BANKS AND INSURANCE COMPANIES WHO HAVE BEEN BAILED OUT IN THE RECENT CRISIS BY GOVERNMENT FUNDS, AND THEIR REPRESENTATIVES HAVE BEEN CONSISTENTLY APPOINTED BY OBAMA TO SOLVE THE DILEMMA THEY CREATED.

THERE IS A WAY OUT OF HERE, BUT IT MUST COME FROM THE BOTTOM, NOT FROM THE TOP. THE WAY OUT IS THE ONE WE HAVE ALWAYS HAD, THE ONE FREDERICK DOUGLASS TALKED ABOUT WHEN HE SAID, “POWER CONCEDES NOTHING WITHOUT DEMAND, IT NEVER DID AND IT NEVER WILL.” WE MUST RESTORE THE SENSE OF HUMAN COMMUNITY THIS SYSTEM HAS TRIED TO DESTROY, THROUGH DECENTRALISM, LOCAL ECONOMIES AND ALTERNATE ENERGY, ARABLE LANDS AND FOOD. THE PEOPLE MUST RISE AND RESTORE THE COMMONWEALTH OF OUR HISTORY, OUR MEDIA, OUR SCHOOLS AND OUR RESOURCES, LAND AND EVEN WATER. THOMAS JEFFERSON SAID WE WOULD HAVE TO ENVISION OUR LIBERATION ANEW AND MAKE REVOLUTION EVERY TWENTY YEARS, AND IT IS OVERDUE.

WE ARE AT THE CROSSROADS NOW, AND WE MUST ACT TO SAVE NOT ONLY OURSELVES, BUT OTHER SPECIES AND OUR PLANET. WE MUST CREATE REAL, PARTICIPATORY AND DIRECT DEMOCRACY SO THAT THE EXPRESSION OF POPULAR WILL IS NOT REDUCED TO STANDING IN THE COLD AND COMPLAINING OUTSIDE THE MACHINERY OF POWER CONTROLLED BY THE FEW. INSTEAD OF A MILITARIZED DEMOCRACY AT WAR WITH THE WORLD, WE NEED A DEMOCRATIC MILITARY THAT ACTS IN OUR NAME ONLY WITH OUR SANCTION, PERMISSION AND WILLING PARTICIPATION, IF IT ACTS AT ALL. THIS IS OUR COUNTRY, OUR MILITARY, OUR LIVES AND OUR DECISION, NOT THE PREROGATIVE OF A FEW BEHIND CLOSED DOORS WHO CLAIM TO REPRESENT US. TO REPRESENT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE’S WILL, THIS SYSTEM WOULD HAVE ENDED THESE WARS LONG AGO, BEFORE BANKRUPTING OUR WHOLE ECONOMY IN THE SERVICE OF THOSE WHO PROFIT FROM THEM AND THEIR OUTCOMES.

INTRODUCTION

IN RECENT YEARS I HAVE HAD THE PRIVILEGE TO WORK WITH AND TO CALL A FRIEND OUR NEXT SPEAKER. SHE IS AN EXTRAORDINARY PERSON, AN AFRICAN-AMERICAN WOMAN WHO BROKE THE BARRIERS, BECOMING THE FIRST ONE SEATED IN THE GEORGIA LEGISLATURE, THE FIRST TO SERVE SIX TERMS IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES FROM GEORGIA, A NATIONALLY KNOWN FIGURE AT TIMES, AND ALMOST INVISIBLE AT OTHERS. BUT UNLIKE MANY WHO ACHIEVE GREATNESS AND GET NOTICED, SHE CONSTANTLY USED HER POSITION TO WORK ON BEHALF OF HER CONSTITUENTS, TO ADDRESS THE REAL ISSUES AT HAND, TO BRING A COURAGEOUS, PROGRESSIVE AND AGGRESSIVE VOICE TO THE FLOOR OF CONGRESS, TO EXPOSE WRONGDOING AND TO SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER. BECAUSE SHE SAID ALOUD THAT THE EMPEROR HAD NO CLOTHES, THE EMPEROR TOOK NOTICE AND TRIED TO CRUSH HER.

THOUGH THEY TOOK AWAY HER SEAT IN CONGRESS AND THE POWERS THEY GRANTED HER, SHE IS FAR FROM POWERLESS. SHE BROKE ANOTHER BARRIER AS THE FIRST AFRICAN-AMERICAN WOMAN TO RUN FOR PRESIDENT WITH ANOTHER WOMAN OF COLOR AS VICE PRESIDENT, TO SET UP A THIRD PARTY IN THE UNITED STATES. BUT IF YOU ONLY WATCH TV AND READ THE MAINSTREAM PRESS YOU WOULD HARDLY KNOW IT. SOME CAUGHT UP IN THE SWEEP OF OBAMAMANIA ARE WAKING UP FROM THE DREAM NOW WITH BUYER’S REMORSE.

SINCE ELECTION NIGHT IN 2008, WHEN WE REALIZED THEY HAD PUT A “CLEAN, BLACK” FACE ON FASCISM IN THIS COUNTRY, SHE HAS NOT STOPPED WORKING FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE IN THIS WORLD. SHE HAS TRAVELLED AROUND THE COUNTRY AND THE WORLD SPREADING THIS MESSAGE. IN MANY PLACES, NOT HIGH PLACES OF POWER AND PRIVILEGE, BUT AMONG THOSE PEOPLE WHO SUFFER INJUSTICE, RACISM, POVERTY AND WAR, SHE IS KNOWN, RESPECTED AND LOVED. AMONG YOUNG PEOPLE OF THE HIP HOP GENERATION AND OLDER PEOPLE FROM THE 60S STRUGGLES, AND PEOPLE IN PALESTINE, IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN AND EVEN MALAYSIA AND SOUTH AFTRICA, SHE IS A SYMBOL OF WHAT LEADERSHIP IN THIS COUNTRY SHOULD BE.

MORE RECENTLY, SHE TRIED TO BRING HUMANITARIAN AID TO THE BESIEGED PEOPLE OF GAZA BY BOAT. BOTH TIMES THE ISRAELI NAVY STOPPED HER, ILLEGALY IN INTERNATIONAL WATERS, THE FIRST TIME RAMMING THE BOAT AND LEAVING IT TO SINK, THE NEXT TIME BOARDING AND SIEZING THE BOAT AND PUTTING HER IN AN ISRAELI JAIL, THEN BANNING AND DEPORTING HER. DID OBAMA OR HILLARY CLINTON CONDEMN THIS ACTION OR ADMONISH THE ISRAELI GOVERNMENT? NO, SILENCE WHEN AN AMERICAN CONGRESSWOMAN IS HELD HOSTAGE ILLEGALLY BY A FOREIGN COUNTRY. THAT MUST BE ANOTHER FIRST. DESPITE ALL THIS OUR SISTER GOT FREE TO CONTINUE TO SPEAK OUT AND WORK FOR EVERYTHING THAT MATTERS TODAY.

I HAVE HAD THE PRIVILEGE TO WORK AS HER SPECIAL PROJECTS ASSISTANT IN HER LAST TERM IN THE HOUSE ON ALL THE ISSUES I CARE ABOUT, AND I GOT TO BE HER PRESS SECRETARY IN HER RUN FOR HER PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN, AND TO CALL HER MY FRIEND, AND SHE IS A FRIEND TO US ALL. IF YOU DO NOT LIKE HER IT IS BECAUSE YOU DO NOT KNOW HER. I GIVE YOU, CYNTHIA MCKINNEY.

A little late but CRUCIAL

2009-11-29T07:54:00.000-08:00

HAVE A WONDERFUL VETERANS' DAY!

Gulf War Vet turned DC Sniper Executed by Lethal Injection
The man known as the DC sniper has been executed for the October 2002 killings of ten people in DC, Virginia and Maryland. John Allen Muhammad was killed by lethal injection Tuesday after Virginia Governor Timothy Kaine denied a last-minute appeal for clemency... Defense attorneys had argued for sparing Muhammad’s life on grounds he suffered mental illness worsened by the Gulf War syndrome he developed while serving in the first US invasion of Iraq.

Army Psychiatrist who massacred 13 at Fort Hood out of Coma
President Obama visited Fort Hood, Texas on Tuesday to pay tribute to the thirteen soldiers and civilians killed in a shooting rampage last week. The suspect, Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Malik Hasan, remains hospitalized after emerging from a coma.

Anti-Arab Marine Reservist Assaults Greek Priest
In Florida, a Marine reservist has been arrested after allegedly attacking a Greek Orthodox priest he mistook to be of Arabic descent.
Parents of deceased Iraq Veteran Receive VA letter asking son to show up for PSTD treatment
The parents of US Army Reserve Specialist Chancellor Keesling, an Iraq war veteran, received a letter yesterday from the VA asking that their son complete his “Post Deployment Adjustment.” The only problem is, Chance Keesling had killed himself in Iraq nearly five months ago.

US Blackwater Mercenaries who killed 17 Civilians in Nisoor Massacre prepared bribes
Former executives at the private military firm Blackwater have revealed the company authorized around $1 million to bribe Iraqi officials in the aftermath of the September 2007 killings of seventeen Iraqi civilians in Baghdad’s Nisoor Square.

US Citizen Sues FBI for Kidnapping, Mistreatment in Africa
The American Civil Liberties Union has filed suit on behalf of a US citizen over the FBI’s alleged role in his imprisonment and mistreatment abroad. Amir Mohamed Meshal was detained in Kenya, transferred to Somalia, and then sent to Ethiopia, where he wasjailed for three months without charge. Meshal says US interrogators held him in inhumane conditions and threatened him with torture, forced disappearance and execution unless he confessed to belonging to a militant Islamic group.

Obama to send 30,000 Additional Troops in Afghanistan
Reports continue to surface that the Obama administration has decided on a major troop increase in Afghanistan.

Sexual Assaults, Inadequate Healthcare Among Spate of Issues Facing Women Servicemembers
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/11/11/sexual_assaults_inadequate_healthcare_among_spate

The rate of sexual assaults within the US military also exceeds that of the general population. A Pentagon report earlier this year found one in three female servicemembers are sexually assaulted at least once during their enlistment. Sixty-three percent of nearly 3,000 cases reported last year were rapes or aggravated assaults. Despite what some have called an epidemic of military sexual trauma, the delivery of healthcare to women veterans remains grossly inadequate.

Unfortunately, health insurance is just one of many serious problems vets face. Veterans account for up to a quarter of all homeless in the country. Up to one-in-five veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and male vets face suicide rates double the national average.

Meanwhile, the rate of sexual assaults within the US military also exceeds that of the general population. A Pentagon report earlier this year found one in three female service members are sexually assaulted at least once during their enlistment. Sixty-three percent of nearly 3,000 cases reported last year were rapes or aggravated assaults. Despite what some have called an epidemic of military sexual trauma, the delivery of health care to women veterans remains grossly inadequate.
Veterans Day or Rulers Day?

Wednesday 11 November 2009

by: Bob Richards, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

How is it that Veterans Day gets turned around into US Military Hegemony Day? The airwaves were buried under an avalanche of lip service about veterans, but the moving lips were all about the myth that the warfare decisions this country's rulers make have something to do with anyone's freedom. Just as soldiers and sailors are doing around the world today, I did in my time. I was there as a teenager, ignorant of the forces moving me, believing whatever line I was being fed.

I grew up on the hundreds of war/propaganda movies that came out of WWI, WWII and Korea. Today we are deluged with more nationalistic propaganda than ever before in my lifetime. It can't be avoided. The TV spews the images nearly nonstop. Recruiters are in our schools, along with the pop machines. The words Army, Navy and National Guard are on race cars at the drags and the ovals. "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" has been replaced with "America the Beautiful" with cordons placed at Yankee Stadium to keep fans from going to the bathroom while the dose of nationalism is served up.

Once a year the veterans are rolled out, but without a real veterans' voice. The physical support for veterans comes nowhere near what is needed. Suicides of veterans always wind up taking more lives than the wars that set them up.

It is important to some vets to keep believing the myth they fought for, that going into that foreign country had a bearing on anyone's freedom here. These are the vets who get a voice, as this is the only voice acceptable to the ruling powers. The Revolutionary War and the Civil War may have had some bearing on someone's freedoms, but even then, not everyone's. The former held only for white male property holders, and the latter for humans who were property themselves. In both of these cases, those native to these lands could not be included, as they were busy at the time being relieved of their homelands and freedom.

If you want to thank anyone for your rights and freedoms, thank an activist. No soldier ended segregation in the 1960's. No sailor got women the vote. No National Guardsman got you the 40-hour week or took children off the shop floors or out of the mines. No, they were called out by the states to kill the very people who were fighting for the rights they eventually won for you.

Mostly what the vets have done is to be tricked into serving the forces that have used them, and in many cases, used them up. The vets deserve your support mostly because they believed, and gave what was asked, and were promised something in exchange. When promise-keeping time comes up, they find they have to get in a line and wait and then they must fight to receive what was promised. In many cases, what they get is enough for a little cheap wine and a bed at a shelter. These aren't the vets that get dragged out before the game or race, or at half-time. Nope, those vets are the believers. The "presentable" ones.

So, here we are at war to get Unocal's dream pipeline route across Afghanistan secured and prop up that ex-Unocal employee's stolen election. Then there's still that war we don't talk about so much anymore. The one that the lie to get us in there changed nearly every day, when the truth may have been as simple as the Decider told us himself, that Saddam tried to kill his daddy, and that he would use that war for his own ends.

These two wars send home more corpses and vets every day. These vets are more often acute cases needing the highest levels of attention, overloading the system and triaging the old farts back down the waiting lines. The government will front load the wars with the drones, missiles, guns, mines, ships, planes and trained bodies as its priority. It will use up more than it gets from its taxpayers and hand the debts to the future, and vets will fight for crumbs. This is the record from every war the country has ever done. Still, its propaganda works, and it won't have any trouble finding believers to march in the parades. It can parlay that percentage into a rock-solid myth and keep the guns-and-butter gravy train rolling along.Ha

Family Warmth on Thanksgiving

2009-11-27T14:48:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving used to be one of my favorite holidays, but after becoming a vegetarian two and a half years ago and learning the true history of the tradition, I became disillusioned.

But none of that stopped me from having a wonderful time with family this year. I was relieved to get a couple of days off work, and I've used them for the most part to relax, enjoy, and catch up. I am thankful for this and MANY other things including

1) Love

2) Warmth

3) Food (mostly of the plant variety)

4) Appreciation

5) Energy

6) Health (crucial considering the backward health care legislation)

7) Purpose (the most essential ingredient for life)

8) Music

9) Information

10) Opportunity

11) Relationships

12) Inner peace

13) Consciousness

14) Adulthood

15) Compassion

Justice on Thanksgiving

2009-11-26T09:34:00.000-08:00

This Thanksgiving, let's give a thought to the people who process turkeys

By David L. Ostendor
The Progressive
November 22, 2009
http://www.progressive.org/mposten112209.html

We should know where our turkeys come from, and who
processes them for us.

The turkeys piled into supermarket freezers carry their
own stories. Raised primarily in massive confinement
buildings by low-paid growers under contract to
corporate food giants, they are genetically designed
for plentiful breast meat to grace our Thanksgiving
platters. They are then trucked to a processing plant,
where they meet their demise.

Reflecting the racial structure of the nation's entire
food system, turkey processing relies largely on the
hard labor of low-wage workers of color. On plant
floors across the country, a predominantly black,
Latino and Asian work force kills, guts, cleans,
processes and packages the Thanksgiving centerpiece
along fast-moving production lines.

Injuries are commonplace. Thousands of individual
repetitive motions every shift raise the probability of
chronic pain for line workers.

Federal safety inspectors are spread thin, and when
they do arrive it is not unusual for supervisors to
silence workers. At a recent meeting of Somali
immigrants with an Occupational Safety and Health
Administration representative, workers were shocked to
learn that they had the right to speak when an
inspector came to their workplace.

Every day of the year, and especially on Thanksgiving,
no one in this country eats without the labor of
immigrants, refugees and other workers of color. This
is not a new reality.

When President Theodore Roosevelt pushed his "cheap
food" policy in order to feed a growing and politically
volatile urban population a century ago, the cost was
imposed on both family farmers and food sector workers.
A cheap food system is fundamentally based on low
commodity prices and low-wage workers, and little has
changed since Roosevelt's policy came into play.

This Thanksgiving, we should give thanks to the low-
wage workers, many of them immigrant and refugee, who
enable us to have our feast.

Thanksgiving turkey comes laden with human stories of
struggle and hope and dangerous, hard work. With
stories of immigrants and refugees still seeking an
American dream. With stories from many countries
blending to become one nation. With stories in many
languages seeking to become one voice.

So let's give thanks. Eat well. Celebrate. And seek
justice for the workers who feed us.

David L. Ostendorf is executive director of the
Chicago-based Center for New Community, a national
organization dedicated to building community, justice,
and equality nationwide (www.newcomm.org). He is a
minister in the United Church of Christ. He can be
reached at pmproj@progressive.org.

Protect Our Food Producers!

2009-11-26T09:23:00.000-08:00

New York Daily News

This must be New York's final harvest of shame:

Let us finally protect exploited farmworkers

By Kerry Kennedy

Thursday, November 26th 2009

There's near-slavery in New York, and it'll be served up across the state today in turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pie and corn bread.

Thanksgiving is a time to join family and friends, reflect on the past year and express gratitude for all the blessings in our lives. We are fueled in this ritual self-examination by traditional holiday fare: Turkey smothered in gravy, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, winter squash, creamed onions, peas, carrots, corn and more. But while these foods comfort me, I am horrified by the haunting stories of the women and men whose seemingly endless toil provides us such a wonderful and colorful bounty.

Farmworkers in New York State - who deliver to us so many of the foods we eat - labor every day without the basic rights that are afforded all other workers. They are denied the right to a day of rest per week and to overtime pay for extra work hours. They are excluded from disability and unemployment insurance coverage. And they can be legally fired for organizing a union.

The history of denying farmworkers basic rights stretches back to the Jim Crow era, when Dixiecrats in Congress refused to include the primarily African-American farm labor force in the New Deal labor regime - but the the tragic results of historical racism and political expediency are alive and kicking today.

New York farmworkers live in overcrowded barracks, work incredibly long hours (many work 12- to 14-hour days, seven days a week) for poverty wages, and suffer frequent repetitive-stress and other serious injuries. When their bodies inevitably break under the stress of the work, they are shown the door - kicked out of employer-provided housing.

Farmworkers' daily lives are subject to the whims of their employers - a power dynamic that often results in extreme abuse and exploitation. On a recent visit with farmworkers in, of all places, Liberty, N.Y., every female farmworker I spoke with told me she had been sexually assaulted by her boss.

We must put a stop to this.

Fortunately, there is reason for hope. Under the leadership of Rural & Migrant Ministry, many thousands in upstate churches and synagogues have marched side by side with the state's farmworkers, seeking to honor the dignity and equal worth of all people. They have been joined in this long journey by allies in the labor movement and youth organizations. This year, I am proud to report that the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights joined the campaign in a big way, and we are on the verge of major progress.

In June, the Assembly passed the Farmworkers Fair Labor Practices Act, which would finally offer a measure of justice to farmworkers by extending them basic rights and protections. Gov. Paterson has repeatedly pledged to sign the bill. All that is left to do is for Senate Democratic Conference Leader John Sampson to allow the bill to the Senate floor for a vote, where it will surely pass.

Tomorrow marks the 49th anniversary of Edward R. Murrow's shocking documentary, "Harvest of Shame," which depicted the horrible living and working conditions, conditions that legally persist today.

Forty-nine Thanksgiving meals, and still farmworkers are denied a seat at the table. Forty-nine years of pumpkin pie, and still farmworkers are denied a piece. Sen. Sampson, let the 50th anniversary never come. Before the year is out, bring the Farmworkers Fair Labor Practices Act to a vote. For that we will be eternally thankful.

This is embarrassing...What good is a government that can't even feed its people?

2009-11-25T16:18:00.000-08:00

The White House, Washington

Tomorrow, many of us will gather around the table with family and friends to give thanks over a feast of turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy -- and let’s not forget pumpkin pie!

But for some in this country, the feast will not be as bountiful. In fact, it won’t be much of a feast at all. Hunger is on the rise in America -- hitting its highest levels in nearly 15 years. A recent report released by the USDA reveals that in 2008 an estimated 1.1 million children were living in households that experienced hunger multiple times over the past year.

To combat hunger this winter, we’re launching, in coordination with the Corporation for National and Community Service and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the United We Serve: Feed a Neighbor initiative -- a program that empowers you with all the resources you need to mobilize against the hunger crisis in your community. Learn how you can get started today:

Get Started

Barack and I are committed to doing all we can to end hunger by making food programs more accessible to eligible families. But government can only do so much -- it will take all of us working together to put an end to hunger in America.

That’s why we’ve made it easy for you to get involved at Serve.gov. Find local volunteer opportunities like delivering meals to homebound seniors, offering your professional skills at a food pantry, or planting a community garden and sharing produce with your neighbors. You can also create your own volunteer opportunity using our anti-hunger toolkit.

This holiday season let’s recommit to serving our communities and working together to feed American families. Get started giving back today.

Thank you,

Michelle

First Lady Michelle Obama
The White House

Visit WhiteHouse.gov

Support the Soldiers at Ft. Hood

2009-11-10T17:38:00.001-08:00

Dear Supporter,

Update on the situation at Ft. Hood

In the wake of the killings at Ft. Hood, Iraq Veterans Against the War has confirmed that all of our chapter members there are safe. None were injured, but some of them knew some of the shooting victims. As you can imagine, many on the base are quite shaken by the shootings, especially after serving in combat situations themselves. Base Commanders at Ft. Hood must do more to step up mental health outreach and care for all GIs, especially after this horrific incident. "There is still a strong stigma against seeking help," said Chance Mills, an IVAW member stationed at Ft. Hood. "It is considered a weakness, like if your health care appointments are scheduled during the workday, people look at it as you're scamming out of duty."

Mike Kern, IVAW Ft. Hood chapter president spoke yesterday along with independent journalist Dahr Jamail on Democracy Now. Check out the clip here.

IVAW will be sending a mental health professional down to Ft. Hood this week to provide support to our members there. In addition, the Field Organizing Team Leader, Aaron Hughes, will arrive at Ft. Hood today. Working with the Warrior Writers Project, we will provide an opportunity to use the arts for healing and strengthening the active duty and veteran community in and around Ft. Hood this week through writing workshops at Under The Hood, the local GI coffeehouse. On Veterans Day, IVAW will host a memorial and candlelight vigil outside the gates of Ft. Hood.

What you can do to help:

1) Life on a military base can be pretty isolating. GIs at Ft. Hood would appreciate hearing from civilian supporters so they know they are not alone. Send letters of solidarity and moral support to the GIs and Veterans of IVAW Fort Hood via postal mail to:

IVAW Ft. Hood c/o Fort Hood Support Network
P.O. Box 16174
Austin, TX 78761-6174

2) Help cover the costs of flying our mental health therapist down to Ft. Hood. She has extensive experience working with veterans suffering from PTSD and is volunteering her services. Make a donation here to cover her airfare.

During the rest of November, we will be highlighting the issues of veteran and GI health. Stay tuned for podcasts and blog posts highlighting the human costs of war from our members' experiences.

We appreciate your support.

Iraq Veterans Against the War

A Disturbing Trend that Must Change

2009-11-08T17:03:00.000-08:00

Women in Peril: PTC Report Finds Increase in Violence Against Females on Television

Health Care Betrayal

2009-11-08T12:31:00.000-08:00

Congressman Kucinich addresses vote on H.R. 3962
While the political process in Washington suffers through its grotesque pantomime on health care, let us prepare our neighborhoods, our communities, our states for the eventual triumph of single payer health care.

(November 7, 2009)

Congressman Dennis Kucinich after voting against H.R. 3962 addresses why he voted NO, stating:

"We have been led to believe that we must make our health care choices only within the current structure of a predatory, for-profit insurance system which makes money not providing health care. We cannot fault the insurance companies for being what they are. But we can fault legislation in which the government incentivizes the perpetuation, indeed the strengthening, of the for-profit health insurance industry, the very source of the problem. When health insurance companies deny care or raise premiums, co-pays and deductibles they are simply trying to make a profit. That is our system."

"Clearly, the insurance companies are the problem, not the solution. They are driving up the cost of health care. Because their massive bureaucracy avoids paying bills so effectively, they force hospitals and doctors to hire their own bureaucracy to fight the insurance companies to avoid getting stuck with an unfair share of the bills. The result is that since 1970, the number of physicians has increased by less than 200% while the number of administrators has increased by 3000%. It is no wonder that 31 cents of every health care dollar goes to administrative costs, not toward providing care. Even those with insurance are at risk. The single biggest cause of bankruptcies in the U.S. is health insurance policies that do not cover you when you get sick."

"But instead of working toward the elimination of for-profit insurance, H.R. 3962 would put the government in the role of accelerating the privatization of health care. In H.R. 3962, the government is requiring at least 21 million Americans to buy private health insurance from the very industry that causes costs to be so high, which will result in at least $70 billion in new annual revenue, much of which is coming from taxpayers. This inevitably will lead to even more costs, more subsidies, and higher profits for insurance companies - a bailout under a blue cross."

"By incurring only a new requirement to cover pre-existing conditions, a weakened public option, and a few other important but limited concessions, the health insurance companies are getting quite a deal. The Center for American Progress' blog, Think Progress, states, 'since the President signaled that he is backing away from the public option, health insurance stocks have been on the rise.' Similarly, healthcare stocks rallied when Senator Max Baucus introduced a bill without a public option. Bloomberg reports that Curtis Lane, a prominent health industry investor, predicted a few weeks ago that 'money will start flowing in again' to health insurance stocks after passage of the legislation. Investors.com last month reported that pharmacy benefit managers share prices are hitting all-time highs, with the only industry worry that the Administration would reverse its decision not to negotiate Medicare Part D drug prices, leaving in place a Bush Administration policy."

"During the debate, when the interests of insurance companies would have been effectively challenged, that challenge was turned back. The 'robust public option' which would have offered a modicum of competition to a monopolistic industry was whittled down from an initial potential enrollment of 129 million Americans to 6 million. An amendment which would have protected the rights of states to pursue single-payer health care was stripped from the bill at the request of the Administration. Looking ahead, we cringe at the prospect of even greater favors for insurance companies."

"Recent rises in unemployment indicate a widening separation between the finance economy and the real economy. The finance economy considers the health of Wall Street, rising corporate profits, and banks' hoarding of cash, much of it from taxpayers, as sign of an economic recovery. However in the real economy - in which most Americans live - the recession is not over. Rising unemployment, business failures, bankruptcies and foreclosures are still hammering Main Street."

"This health care bill continues the redistribution of wealth to Wall Street at the expense of America's manufacturing and service economies which suffer from costs other countries do not have to bear, especially the cost of health care. America continues to stand out among all industrialized nations for its privatized health care system. As a result, we are less competitive in steel, automotive, aerospace and shipping while other countries subsidize their exports in these areas through socializing the cost of health care."

"Notwithstanding the fate of H.R. 3962, America will someday come to recognize the broad social and economic benefits of a not-for-profit, single-payer health care system, which is good for the American people and good for America's businesses, with of course the notable exceptions being insurance and pharmaceuticals."

Please know the struggle for real health care reform will continue. Contribute, we can make a difference.

Thank you.
The Re-Elect Congressman Kucinich Committee

Kucinich vs. Congress

2009-11-06T20:36:00.000-08:00

Dennis Kucinich - www.Kucinich.us

Kucinich Addresses UN Goldstone Gaza Resolution

November 3, 2009, Congressman Dennis Kucinich addresses H.RES. 867 on the House Floor. H.RES. 867 condemns the UN Goldstone Gaza Fact Finding Mission Report.

Congressman Kucinich stated:

"Today we journey from Operation Cast Lead to Operation Cast Doubt. Almost as serious as committing war crimes is covering up war crimes, pretending that war crimes were never committed and did not exist."

"Because behind every such deception is the nullification of humanity, the destruction of human dignity, the annihilation of the human spirit, the triumph of Orwellian thinking, the eternal prison of the dark heart of the totalitarian."

"Because behind every such deception is the nullification of humanity, the destruction of human dignity, the annihilation of the human spirit, the triumph of Orwellian thinking, the eternal prison of the dark heart of the totalitarian."

"The resolution before us today, which would reject all attempts of the Goldstone Report to fix responsibility of all parties to war crimes, including both Hamas and Israel, may as well be called the "Down is Up, Night is Day, Wrong is Right: resolution."

"Because if this Congress votes to condemn a report it has not read, concerning events it has totally ignored, about violations of law of which it is unaware, it will have brought shame to this great institution."

"How can we ever expect there to be peace in the Middle East if we tacitly approve of violations of international law and international human rights, if we look the other way, or if we close our eyes to the heartbreak of people on both sides by white-washing a legitimate investigation?"

"How can we protect the people of Israel from existential threats if we hold no concern for the protection of the Palestinians, for their physical security, their right to land, their right to their own homes, their right to water, their right to sustenance, their right to freedom of movement, their right to human security of jobs, education and health care?".

"We will have peace only when the plight of both Palestinians and Israelis is brought before this House and given equal consideration in recognition of that principle that all people on this planet have a right to survive and thrive, and it is our responsibility, our duty to see that no individual, no group, no people are barred from this humble human claim."

Please, join with Dennis in the fight for Human Rights. Contribute, you can make a difference.

Thank You
The Re-Elect Congressman Kucinich Committee

Diversity and Equity Under Fire at University of Maryland

2009-11-05T22:43:00.000-08:00

For background:

Students furious over diversity official’s ousting
Protest march planned for today at noon

By Adele Hampton for the Diaomondback School Newspaper

Published: Thursday, November 5, 2009

The Nyumburu Cultural Center’s multipurpose room pulsed with anger last night as hundreds of students and faculty members vented their frustrations about the removal of Assistant Provost of Equity and Diversity Cordell Black from his longtime position.

“If someone has given to this university their blood, sweat and tears as he has, they should be able to walk out the door on their own terms and not because of back-door dealings that some folks did in terms of plotting and removing him from his position,” Student Involvement and Public Relations Director for the Nyumburu Cultural Center Solomon Comissiong said. “We need to mobilize and organize around one single thing and that is reinstating Dr. Black ... by any means necessary.”

Last Thursday, Black was called into a meeting with Provost Nariman Farvardin, where he was informed that as a result of budget cuts he would be replaced at the end of this fiscal year — June 30, 2010. The Office of the Associate Provost for Equity and Diversity, which Black oversees, houses the Nyumburu Cultural Center, the Office of LBGT Equity and the Office of Multi-ethnic Student Education. Farvardin said these departments will not be cut or altered in any way.

“I have three units that report to me and [Farvardin] says, ‘Nyumburu, I can’t touch that because that’s student fees and not state money, and LGBT Office of Equity, that’s much too political for me to touch, and OMSE because that’s crucial to our drive to [increase] the retainment of black and Latino males,’” Black said of his conversation with the provost last week.

But for many, these concessions are not enough. The announcement, coming a week after a diversity town hall where officials asserted their commitment to diversity, came as a shock.
Student activists are planning a march from Nyumburu to the Main Administration Building at noon today to show their contempt with the administration for its decision and to push for Black’s reinstatement.
“I honestly think the university is going on a drastic, drastic decline,” senior communication major Justin Dailey said. “I definitely think this needs to be addressed beyond College Park because this is an issue that a lot of people are invested in.”

Farvardin, who did not attend last night’s rally, said Black would be replaced by a part-time faculty member who will oversee the various diversity departments, while Black maintains a teaching role at the university. The provost said the position will be reinstated as a full-time job when the university’s budget stabilizes.
Though Black will no long serve in an administrative position — a job he has held for 18 years — he is a tenured faculty member, and therefore cannot be fired. Farvardin said Black has the option to remain a professor of 17th century French literature, if he so chooses.

Despite accusations from students who claimed the administration was using a tightening budget as an excuse to cut from diversity programs, the provost insisted the decision to remove Black’s position was strictly budgetary.

“We have to deal with our $40 million budget drop,” Farvadin said. “Unfortunately, I’ve had a lot of decisions like that to make. It’s very painful. ...But when you’re in these positions you have to make difficult decisions.”
Others, including Black, said the move was personal.

“It’s fundamentally disingenuous because it appears that his aim was to move me out of the office and to bring somebody else in because at no time did he say, ‘I’d like to bring you back in when things improve,’” Black said. “I would’ve appreciated honesty and not the duplicity of the whole situation.”
Last night, more than 300 people packed the cultural center, filling the multipurpose room to capacity and flooding the adjacent lobby. After two hours, during which attendees drafted a document many called “our diversity plan,” they left, ready to fight.

No matter the outcome of today’s protest, Black said he’s not sure if he has a reason to stay.
“I’m not one to bite my tongue and if I think something’s wrong I will say so as forcefully and as coherently as I can, irrespective of who’s in the room,” Black said. “And so, that’s what I’ve done for 18 years and I have no regrets.”

My response to the firing as a University of Maryland 2008 alumnus and friend of Dr. Black:

Dr. Cordell Black is not only one of the most important and effective administrators at the University of Maryland (in this 2008 alumnus's humble opinion), he is a great mentor, advocate, and friend. As a former student radical, if someone had told me five years ago that I would be taking time out of my busy schedule as a now-young professional radical to defend a top administrator at my university, I would have laughed it off. This is but one indicator of Dr. Black's exceptional attributes. And I'm far from the only alumnus who is speaking out.

I met Dr. Black in the midst of a campaign to challenge the university's investments in Sudan in 2005. At the time I did not expect much from Dr. Black or the administration as a whole. I could never have imagined then how much the two of us would have in common politically: We both believed strongly in social justice and dedicated much of our energy and resources to progressive causes. The only difference between us, I quickly learned, was rank and experience.

I saw Dr. Black several times after that. Progressive causes and events kept bringing us together. I set up appointments with his office in order to request funding for programs such as Alternative Spring Break and Tunnel of Oppression. I will never forget how his generous contribution in the spring of 2006 allowed a dozen students including myself to travel to New Orleans for post-Katrina reconstruction for free or at a reduced cost.

Dr. Black also served as a personal mentor for at least one passionate, dedicated (but young and confused) college student - yours truly. He was always encouraging and helpful, giving me second thoughts about my sophomoric structural analysis in the early days that was often limited to "students good, administrators evil." Soon enough, whenever my fellow student activists would condemn the entire administration, I would take exception.

Whether he's advocating, funding programs, introducing enlightening speakers at the Provost Conversations on Diversity (which I attended religiously), or just being his warm and pleasant self, Dr. Black has proven time and time again his genuine commitment to the University of Maryland community - black, red, brown, white, and yellow. I can't think of a better man for the position, and I can't think of a better position for the man. He has earned his keep and deserves to retire when he wants and how he wants.

Support the Peace Community in Colombia!

2009-11-01T11:54:00.001-08:00

Dear Friend,

“We know that has great respect for the community and has walked with us throughout these past years... It cannot be doubted that their physical presence has helped to stop killing, stop torture and stop displacement. This has not only been achieved as a product of a presence in the field, which is vital, but comes from the effort made together by many people of FOR working arduously from afar. There is a deep feeling of solidarity because FOR understands our struggle for life. And that is why it is so effective, because they are not only there but also share our dreams for peace and for a better world lived here on earth.”

- San Jose de Apartadó Peace Community Internal Council

As you know, I have been involved in the Fellowship of Reconciliation’s Colombia Program over the last ___X__ years, including [member of Colombia committee/serving on team/participating in delegation/working as an intern] in [dates]. During this time, I have witnessed the impact of the program…(fill in here what you would like to say!) And its effect on me…(here too!) For these reasons, I am taking a moment to reach out to all my friends and family and ask for your support as the FOR Colombia Peace Presence works to become an independent entity.

As you may know, the Colombia Peace Presence is a program of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the oldest peace and social justice organization in the US, and began working in Colombia in 2002 when the peace community of San José de Apartadó requested FOR's ongoing presence as a way to protect them from violence. FOR responded to their request and established a team of two volunteers to carry out nonviolent protective accompaniment, has maintained a year-round physical presence ever since, as well as carried out political work to ensure the community's safety. Since 2002, the project has grown to a team of five volunteers that also accompanies the Red Juvenil (Medellín Youth Network), a dynamic organization that works to protect the rights of Colombian conscientious objectors and carries out arts-based organizing with youth. In 2005, a Bogota team was established to coordinate our work with political authorities, host delegations, and work with the Red Juvenil and other groups. FOR has also carried out grassroots organizing and lobbying in the US to end US military aid to Colombia. The project produces a monthly newsletter, takes two delegations a year, organizes speaking tours and participates in national coalitions that work to change US policy towards Colombia. Just this year, through a process of mutual discernment with FOR-USA, we’ve decided to make the Colombia accompaniment project an independent organization. We will remain a close member of the FOR family (our name will continue to be associated with FOR) in philosophy and shared vision for a world of justice, peace and freedom.

The newly independent organization’s mission is to support nonviolent resistance to the militarization of land and life in Colombia. We will accompany the peace community and campesino organizations as they resist the militarization of their land and youth organizers as they resist the militarization of their lives. We stand beside them, physically and politically, within Colombia and around the globe, our accompaniment providing safety and space that allows them to continue their work and live their vision for a different world. We hope to expand our work in the coming years to support other communities and organizations doing work to resist the militarization of their territories.

This is extremely important work that can only continue with your help! There are three different ways you can lend your support to this project:

1. Become a monthly sustainer: with a monthly donation of $10 your bank account won't be too squeezed, while at the same time you can help us establish long-term sustainability. Go to www.forcolombia.org and click on the "donate" button.

2. Become an angel: with an annual donation of $500-$1000 over the next two years, your gift will help launch the newly independent organization to success! Go to www.forcolombia.org and click on the "donate" button.

3. Join our Facebook cause at: www.causes.com/collectivateforcolombia and make a donation to help us reach our $10,000 goal by July 1st, 2010!

Honduras Settled?

2009-10-30T15:45:00.000-07:00

Agreement to Restore Zelaya, if Honored, Will Be a Victory for Democracy in the Hemisphere, CEPR Co-Director Says

For Immediate Release: October 30, 2009

Washington, D.C. - News of a deal that would effectively end the coup d'etat in Honduras and restore democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya to office would be a "victory for democracy in the hemisphere" resulting from the continued resistance of the Honduran people and pressure from Latin American governments, Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) Co-Director Mark Weisbrot said today. The deal reportedly includes a plan for a "unity government," a "verification commission" to be made up of two respected international figures and two respected national figures to enforce the terms of the agreement, recognition of the planned November 29 elections, and a truth commission to investigate the coup d'etat and subsequent events. According to negotiations agreed by both sides, the Honduran congress must approve Zelaya's reinstatement.

The coup regime - and regime head Roberto Micheletti in particular - has been erratic and unpredictable in its approach to the negotiations, having edged close to an agreement before, only to reverse course at the last minute.

"If the coup government sticks to the agreement and Zelaya returns to office, then it will be a victory for democracy in the Western Hemisphere," Weisbrot said. "This shows that international pressure really matters. Despite the fact that the U.S. blocked stronger action by the Organization of American States, it ultimately had to go along with the rest of the hemisphere."

Last week, Marco Aurelio Garcia, the top foreign affairs advisor to Brazilian president Lula da Silva said, "I believe the United States could put more pressure on the putschists."

"This shows that Latin America is not going back to the days when U.S.-trained and funded military forces could overturn the will of the electorate," Weisbrot said.

Weisbrot also noted the importance of the Honduran resistance movement in achieving an apparent resolution to the crisis that favored democracy over dictatorship: "The Honduran people never gave up, defying repression every day to demonstrate in favor of democracy. The National Resistance Front was disciplined and organized." This also helped make it clear that any elections held under the dictatorship would never be seen as legitimate.

Weisbrot noted that there were important political divisions within the Honduran elite: "[Conservative, National Party candidate] Porfirio Lobo wants the elections to be considered legitimate, since he's projected to win."

The Obama administration did not initially condemn the coup, and in the nearly four months since the coup occurred never made a legal determination as to whether a military coup had actually transpired. Such a determination would require, under the U.S. Foreign Appropriations Act, a cut off of all forms of non-humanitarian aid.

The administration wavered back and forth in its support for Zelaya's return. While it did enact some pressure on the coup regime through the freezing of visas and limited cuts in aid; on September 28, the U.S. blocked the OAS from passing a resolution that would have committed the OAS member countries from recognizing the November 29 elections without the prior restoration of Zelaya to office. U.S. State Department officials also condemned Zelaya's efforts to return to Honduras. When Zelaya first attempted to return in July, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton commented that his actions were "reckless". On August 4, the State Department sent a letter to Senator Richard Lugar that seemed to blame Zelaya for the coup. Just a few weeks ago, U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of American States, Lewis W. Anselem said "The return of Zelaya absent an agreement is irresponsible and foolish."

But Zelaya's return to Honduras was clearly a catalyst to this negotiated settlement.

Update: Single-Payer Sit-ins a Success!

2009-10-29T19:12:00.000-07:00

Dear Matt,
Yesterday, the next wave of the Mobilization for Health Care for All began with great success. See below for a list of media coverage of the actions.

In 11 cities across the country, hundreds of everyday Americans who want Medicare for All confronted the insurance companies and demanded that they redirect the money they're spending to control our democracy to pay for the care they deny to their members. Almost every company refused to even talk to us, and 37 people were arrested including doctor Matt Hendrickson at a Cigna office in Glendale, California. Dozens more - like the 30 people who blockaded the Blue Cross office in San Francisco for hours - sat in but weren't arrested. In Rhode Island, however, the protestors who joined cancer patient Robert Darling in occupying the UnitedHealthcare office won the first concessions of our campaign - a company representative agreed to give an answer to Robert about paying for his previous bone marrow transplant within 24 hours and to arrange a meeting for the group with the UnitedHealthcare CEO within a week! After 115 arrests in 18 cities, these companies are starting to feel the heat of our movement. And with more than 900 people now signed up to sit-in, this battle is just beginning.

Today, the Mobilization continued in Louisville, Kentucky and Baltimore, Maryland. The brave folks in Louisville are in the 9th hour of their sit-in inside the Humana headquarters as we send out this email. Humana is trying to wait them out, but may are prepared to stay overnight if they have to.

In Baltimore, four people were arrested at a CareFirst (Blue Cross) office including two doctors. One of those doctors, Margaret Flowers of the "Baucus 8," has withheld her name and is planning to stay in jail until the CEO of CareFirst, Chet Burrell, agrees to a public meeting with her.

Please call Mr. Burrell immediately and regularly at 410-528-2222 to demand that he agree to meet publicly with Margaret.
You can also email CareFirst by going to http://www.carefirst.com/email/html/ContactMediaRelations.html. Send the following message in your email:

I am writing to urge CEO Chet Burrell to agree to a public meeting with Dr. Margaret Flowers who was arrested at the CareFirst office in Baltimore while demanding to meet with Mr. Burrell about CareFirst business practices. She is going to stay in jail until Mr. Burrell agrees to a public meeting with her. CareFirst must publicly account for the serious concerns that citizens have about your company's practices.

Also, please donate generously today so we can be prepared to pay any bail that is set for Margaret's release. She decided to risk arrest and stay in jail despite a possible 6 month jail sentence for violating probation from her previous arrest in the fight for real health care reform - let's show her that we've got her back. Please donate today to support Margaret and post messages of support for her at our Facebook page (we'll read all messages to her over the phone when she calls from jail).

The Mobilization continues in Philadelphia tomorrow, and in more cities across the country next week. Click here for updated lists of all the upcoming actions and info about how you can plug in and participate. The insurance companies, the politicians in their pockets, and even some of the corporate media apparently want our movement to go away. But it's just getting started and spreading across America. Let's show them we're not going anywhere and we won't stop until health care is a right for everyone in America.

Thanks for everything you do.

- Katie, Kevin, Kai, Julia, Lacy, and the Mobilization team

Press Coverage from 10/28:
San Francisco Chronicle:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/chronrx/detail?&entry_id=50532

South Florida Sun-Sentinel
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/sunrise/sfl-insurance-sit-in-bn102809,1,4196723.story

NJ.com (Star-Ledger / Trenton Times / Jersey Journal blog)
http://blog.nj.com/njv_bob_braun/2009/10/7_prosters_arrested_after_bloc.html

projo.com
(Providence Journal blog):
http://newsblog.projo.com/2009/10/protesters-occupy-lobby-at-uni.html

Glendale News-Press:
http://www.glendalenewspress.com/articles/2009/10/28/news/gnp-sitin102909.art.txt

National Public Radio, Topics
http://topics.npr.org/photo/0fbsfkh3Qq8CV

Democracy Now:
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/10/28/headlines

Free Speech Radio News:
http://www.fsrn.org/audio/activists-push-keep-public-option-health-care-reform/5664

Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/28/nine-arrested-at-wellpoin_n_337326.html

Institute for Public Accuracy:
http://www.accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=2105

Atlas Press Photo:
http://www.atlaspressphoto.com/_ATLASPRESS_/ga_multi_list.asp?ga_id=confirm&adSearch=&ga_category=0&ga_category2=0&cType=1&ga_country=&within=0&fDate=1900-01-01&tDate=2009-10-29&orient=0&color=0&photographer=&imageNo=&ds=off&orderDir=desc&ssSearchType=2&searchtype=2&searchText=Health+Care+protests+lead+to+arrests+in+downtown+NYC

La Jornada (Mexico)
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2009/10/28/index.php?section=economia&article=044n1eco

OpEdNews (featured story about doctors, by Kevin Gosztola):
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Doctors-Risking-Arrest-for-by-Kevin-Gosztola-091028-46.html

OpEdNews (about Philadelphia rally):
http://www.opednews.com/populum/diarypage.php?did=14748

Bay Area Indymedia (quality article, good for reference):
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/10/28/18627006.php
Press Coverage from 10/29:
Southern Maryland Online
http://somd.com/news/headlines/2009/10714.shtml
Wave3.com
http://www.wave3.com/Global/story.asp?S=11410405
WFPL News
http://www.wfpl.org/2009/10/29/demonstrators-sit-in-at-humana/

Adore the Baltimore Four!

2009-10-29T18:34:00.000-07:00

Video: “Baltimore Four” Arrested--Health Care for All

On Oct. 29, 2009, four activists, who support a Medicare for All solution to our healthcare crisis, were arrested in Baltimore, MD, for trespassing. They were engaged in a “patients before profits sit-in” at a 17-story tower, which houses an office of the insurance giant, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield. It’s located in the Canton area of the city. The demonstration was part of an ongoing national campaign by the “Mobilization for Health Care for All” group. The protest included the staging of a 15 ft. vampire, “Count Bleed Ya Dry,” that represented the Insurance Industry. For more more details on the Single Payer issue, the arrests and the exact charges placed against each defendant, check out: http://mobilizeforhealthcare.org/ One of the protesters arrested was Dr. Margaret Flowers. She is a member of the “Baucus Eight,” and an unrepentant advocate of a Single Payer System. Another physician, Dr. Eric Naumburg, was also arrested, along with an 81 year-old retiree, Mr. Charles Laubert, and a school teacher, Ms. Patty Courtney.

Don't Feel Sorry, Feel Solidarity

2009-10-27T19:45:00.001-07:00

I have been struggling with an issue as of late: feeling sorry for my family and friends who are struggling through life's hardships.

This is alarming to me because I have counseled people who have been through the most unimaginable hell and have managed not to feel sorry for them. I never want to feel sorry for anyone. I think it is condescending at best. Besides, I think it's fair to say that no one wants someone to feel sorry for him or her. A person wants (and needs) love, understanding, and support. But not pity.

Maybe my recent feelings are a mask for my own fragile situation. I hope I, too, am not on the verge of breakdown, a delicate position so many of my brothers and sisters find themselves in. It would be easy for me to project my weaknesses on others.

The last month and a half has not been easy. I have lost my grandmother, which connects me tightly to others' losses - including the recent death of one of my other's former students of swine flu - and my life is rapidly restructuring around a full-time job and a return to solitude after my girlfriend's month-long visit. Have I had the adequate time and space to mourn and to accept?

I know that if I am to turn the corner sharply, it will be thanks to the warm feeling of solidarity that links me to the pain and struggles of others. I must acknowledge my own pain first, and then connect it to that of others. My understanding must be deep; I must be willing to share both smiles and tears. Only the foolish suffer alone.

I already feel better now that I am aware of this option.

Update on Honduras

2009-10-24T15:05:00.000-07:00

Smashing the Silence: Indy reporting from Joseph Shansky

Oct. 16

Since the few days of renewed excitement around the “secret” return to Honduras of democratically-elected President Manuel “Mel” Zelaya, there has been a disturbing omission of the Honduran political crisis in the international news. It would be reasonable to think that with each passing day an exiled president was camped in a foreign embassy (as Zelaya has been in the Brazilian embassy since September 21st), tensions would rise and all eyes of the world would be on that lone building. Instead the opposite has occurred and it appears as though the international press had lost interest without action to follow. The subsequent collapse and renewal (and collapse again, etc.) of ongoing “negotiations” with Roberto Micheletti’s coup government did little to breathe life into this story.

Here in Tegucigalpa, life continues under subtle siege for ordinary citizens. The city gets dark faster at night now and the people seem more frightened in general. The curfew remains. Small groups huddle together and glance around anxiously, couples hug closer, young girls grasp hands tighter and walk faster. Militia is everywhere of course, made up of young, mostly uneducated kids who twirl their guns with abandon, dig their batons into the dirt and wait for a notice for action. It can come at a whistle’s call here, and sometimes it feels as though the entire country is poised, frozen in battle.

The most recent momentous note in this political standoff occurred when Micheletti declared an impromptu State of Emergency following the massive street rallies on the day Zelaya returned. He then imposed a “decree” which stripped Hondurans of almost all basic civil liberties, including the right to assemble freely and access to media outlets which did not strictly toe the coup government line. He also imposed a continuous and rather vague curfew, allowing open interpretation for street police to constantly monitor and harass citizens. After a brief but immediate international outcry, Micheletti apologized and promised to withdraw the decree, but has done no such thing. Instead, he’s used this legal loophole to clean house by first attacking the primary ingredient of a democracy: the free press.

The studios of Radio Globo and Channel 36 were assaulted in the middle of the night and their transmitters were sabotaged and taken, thus leaving the majority of the country without access to the few independent news sources they had depended on for so long. He then forcibly evicted 55 local farm workers who had occupied the headquarters of the National Agrarian Institute for months since the June coup. According to Honduras Resists, a leading online source for Resistance support, the Institute “houses the land titles that had been attained by small rural farmers and communities through years of struggle, many of which were finally granted under the Zelaya administration, angering the powerful landholders who are responsible for the coup and now want to halt and reverse the process of land reform in Honduras.”[1]

One major effect of this curfew and the violations that it brings is that Micheletti has unwittingly drawn people to the resistance movement against the coup government who may not have otherwise been involved. The demonstrations have continued daily for four months now, sometimes taking on different forms.

An example of the varied support for Zelaya’s restoration (and against the coup in general) has been factions of the religious community. A few days ago, a group of Evangelical Christians gathered together in front of the abandoned Channel 36 television station. They planted themselves there to sing and pray for the station, for the resistance, and for Honduras. Several speeches were also made by organizers and religious figures, including priests.

When they had completed the blessing of this censored independent media outlet, they continued making the rounds, next going to Radio Globo to perform the same songs, the same prayers. It was a striking image, the Bible lying on the table next to the microphones in the studio. It conjured up big notions of God and Information and Truth and good people who believe that these ideas are not mutually exclusive.

Under the decree, the military domination has also expanded into lesser populated areas. The police have stormed neighborhoods ranging from inside the city center all the way to Greater Tegucigalpa and its outskirts. The same has happened around the country. In turn, these remote and generally much poorer neighborhoods have begun organizing independently, as they now feel the effects of constant police raids on houses and communities. These barrios, usually ignored and left to their own devices, have begun to take action.

I recently traveled one night with several other foreign journalists to a neighborhood on the outskirts of the city. Arriving amid mountains of trash, I immediately heard a cacophony of homemade percussive sounds, people drumming on whatever was freely available. We came upon hundreds of people of all ages marching in the dark together – families shouting, singing, chanting, blowing whistles, banging on nearby doors to rouse their neighbors. Along the sidelines, others watched from windows and front steps, staring fearfully and somewhat enviously at their neighbors’ courage in defying the curfew. This was just one of many similar nightly neighborhood rallies since the decree banning such gatherings.

The crowd surged up a hill and turned into an alley where a car was parked with a film projector sitting atop. After a few minutes, the organizers were able to project the image onto the side of a nearby house. The video was a compilation of homemade footage documenting many of the recent abuses their peers had suffered at the hands of the police. In one scene, the camera followed a single police officer from behind as he ran with his gun drawn directly at group of demonstrators nearby, shooting wildly and recklessly. Others showed the police randomly isolating and dragging non-violent protesters out of the street and into unmarked cars.

The images were designed to enrage the crowd, and it worked. Cries of “¡Asesinos!” (Murderers!) rang out in the night, the excitement and anger grew to a palpable climax, and for a moment I was sure that we’d soon be experiencing our own live replay of the scenes in front of us as soon as the local police took notice. These people were loud.

But aside from provocation, the video was also used as a tool to educate people who live in outlying areas to the realities of what much of the city was going through on a daily basis. It was a form of the news which had been missing from the public since Radio Globo and Channel 36 were taken off air.

This kind of sudden unity is not a novelty limited to one area of the city. The day after the decree, twenty four separate neighborhoods were listed as openly defying the curfew to protest the coup d’état. The resistance which has held steadfast for almost four months now has grown in true grassroots style. Like a domino effect, as the coup’s fear tactics increase, the opposition grows tremendously.

Regardless of what happens from the top-down politically, it would be wise to take note of the remarkable manner in which these communities have come together at ground level. On a very fundamental level, this is innovative democracy in action. Using any means possible, these citizens are courageously breaking through the information blockade that has paralyzed so much of the country and isolated much of the world from the events taking place in Honduras.