Fallacies of PATRIOT Act 'Compromises'

commondreams.org/newswire/2015/05/29/fallacies-patriot-act-compromises

For Immediate Release

Friday, May 29, 2015 - 10:30am

Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA)

Fallacies of PATRIOT Act 'Compromises'

WASHINGTON - The Washington Times reported earlier this week: “

Obama scolds Senate: Skip recess, get back to work on Patriot Act reform

Politico is reporting: “To meet the midnight Sunday deadline, McConnell will either have to cut a deal with Paul, who’s making demands that other lawmakers object to — or hope that senators, when confronted by a deadline that’s hours instead of days away, relent and agree to a temporary extension.”

 MARCY WHEELER, emptywheel at gmail.com, @emptywheel
Wheeler writes widely about the legal aspects of the “war on terror” and its effects on civil liberties. She is the “Right to Know” investigative journalist for ExposeFacts and blogs at emptywheel.net.

Wheeler will be taking part in Stand Up for Truth events next week, a series of events to support whistleblowing. She will be speaking with NSA whistleblower Bill Binney in Chicago. NSA whistleblower Wiebe, quoted below, will participate in a webcast. Pentagon Papers whistleblower Dan Ellsberg will be with a group of whistleblowers speaking in London, Oslo, Stockholm and Berlin. IPA is a co-organizer of these events. For a full schedule, see: standupfortruth.org/events.

J. KIRK WIEBE, jkwiebe at comcast.net, @KirkWiebe

Wiebe is a retired National Security Agency whistleblower who worked at the agency for 36 years. He said today: “The tragedy surrounding the current discussion of the USA Freedom Act lies in the fact that the government — including the legislative and executive branches of government, aided and abetted by an unchallenged FISA Court, is working in collusion to mislead the American public about the ability of the legislation to truly do what most Americans want — a constitutional process that a) actually catches bad guys, and b) respects and enforces privacy rights under the Fourth Amendment. Both are ‘do-able’ from a technology perspective and there is no balance — we can have both.   

“The truth is that USA Freedom does not cover all NSA authorities to collect information. As long as NSA enjoys collection authorities to do bulk collection under Executive Order 12333, together with no constraints on Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, the USA Freedom Act results in few net changes in the government’s ability to invade privacy as it deems necessary, bulk or otherwise. In short, the USA Freedom Act alone does fundamentally very little in terms of significantly constraining the ability of the National Security Agency to perform bulk collection of data about anyone, U.S. citizen or otherwise. We need comprehensive surveillance reform.

“There is one more important aspect of the discussion — USA Freedom does absolutely nothing to enhance legislative or judicial oversight over the executive branch’s use of NSA’s vast intelligence production apparatus. Lots of ‘trust,’ but no ‘verify,’ which is what created the current constitutional crisis beginning with the events of Sept. 11, 2001.”

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A nationwide consortium, the Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA) represents an unprecedented effort to bring other voices to the mass-media table often dominated by a few major think tanks. IPA works to broaden public discourse in mainstream media, while building communication with alternative media outlets and grassroots activists.

Organization Links

Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA)

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs

March to save a school/Magna Carta Messed Up the World, Here's How to Fix It

   The effort to save Baltimore’s Langston Hughes Elementary School continues on Sat., May 30 with a rally on the school parking lot, 5011 Arbutus Ave. (south of Belvedere Ave.) at 4 PM.  Then there will be an one-mile march to Pimlico Elementary/Middle School, where the children are expected to walk to next fall. Save this gem of a community public school. Call George Mitchell at 443-416-1443. Read a story of last week's march at http://www.peoplesworld.org/baltimore-a-new-generation-of-protestors-comes-into-being/.

 http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/30437-magna-carta-messed-up-the-world-heres-how-to-fix-it.

 Chomsky writes: "In a few months, we will be commemorating the 800th anniversary of the sealing of Magna Carta - commemorating, but not celebrating; rather, mourning the blows it has suffered."

Noam Chomsky. (photo: byline)

Magna Carta Messed Up the World, Here's How to Fix It

By Noam Chomsky, The Noam Chomsky Website

29 May 15

In a few months, we will be commemorating the 800th anniversary of the sealing of Magna Carta—commemorating, but not celebrating; rather, mourning the blows it has suffered.

The first authoritative scholarly edition of Magna Carta was published by the eminent jurist William Blackstone in 1759. It was no easy task. As he wrote, “the body of the charter has been unfortunately gnawn by rats”—a comment that carries grim symbolism today, as we take up the task the rats left unfinished.

Blackstone’s edition actually includes two charters: the Great Charter and the Charter of the Forest. The former is generally regarded as the foundation of Anglo-American law—in Winston Churchill’s words, referring to its reaffirmation by Parliament in 1628, “the charter of every self-respecting man at any time in any land.” The Great Charter held that “No freeman shall be arrested or imprisoned,” or otherwise harmed, “except by the lawful judgment of his equals and according to the law of the land,” the essential sense of the doctrine of “presumption of innocence.”

To be sure, the reach of the charter was limited. Nevertheless, as Eric Kasper observes in a scholarly review, “What began as a relatively small check on the arbitrary power of King John eventually led to succeeding generations finding ever more rights in Magna Carta and Article 39. In this sense, Magna Carta is a key point in a long development of the protection of rights against arbitrary executive power.”

Crossing the Atlantic, the Great Charter was enshrined in the US Constitution as the promise that “no person shall…be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” and that “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury.”

The wording seems expansive, but that is misleading. Excluded were “unpeople” (to borrow Orwell’s useful concept), among them Native Americans, slaves and women, who under the British common law adopted by the founders were the property of their fathers, handed over to husbands. Indeed, it wasn’t until 1975 that women gained the right to serve on juries in all fifty states.

The Fourteenth Amendment applied the “due process” provisions to states. The intent was to include freed slaves in the category of persons, but the effect was different. Within a few years, slaves who had technically been freed were delivered to a regime of criminalization of black life that amounted to “slavery by another name,” to quote the title of Douglas Blackmon’s evocative account of this crime, which is being re-enacted today. Instead, almost all of the actual court cases invoking the Fourteenth Amendment had to do with the rights of corporations. Today, these legal fictions—created and sustained by state power—have rights well beyond those of flesh-and-blood persons, not only by virtue of their wealth, immortality and limited liability, but also thanks to the mislabeled “free-trade” agreements, which grant them unprecedented rights unavailable to humans.

The constitutional lawyer in the White House has introduced further modifications. His Justice Department explained that “due process of law”—at least where “terrorism offenses” are concerned—is satisfied by internal deliberations within the executive branch. King John would have nodded in approval. The term “guilty” has also been given a refined interpretation: it now means “targeted for assassination by the White House.” Furthermore, the burden of proof has been shifted to those already assassinated by executive whim. As The New York Times reported, “Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties [that] in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants…unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.” The guiding principles are clear: force reigns supreme; “law” and “justice” and other frivolities can be left to sentimentalists.

Problems do arise, however, when a candidate for genuine personhood is targeted. The issue arose after the murder of Anwar al-Awlaki, who was accused of inciting jihad in speech and writing as well as unspecified actions. A New York Times headline captured the general elite reaction when he was assassinated: As the West Celebrates a Cleric’s Death, the Mideast Shrugs. Some eyebrows were raised because Awlaki was an American citizen. But even these doubts were quickly stilled.

Let us now put the sad relics of the Great Charter aside and turn to the Magna Carta’s companion, the Charter of the Forest, which was issued in 1217. Its significance is perhaps even more pertinent today. As explained by Peter Linebaugh in his richly documented and stimulating history of Magna Carta, the Charter of the Forest called for protection of the commons from external power. The commons were the source of sustenance for the general population: food, fuel, construction materials, a form of welfare, whatever was essential for life.

In thirteenth-century England, the forest was no primitive wilderness. It had been carefully nurtured by its users over generations, its riches available to all. The great British social historian R. H. Tawney wrote that the commons were used by country people who lacked arable land. The maintenance of this “open field system of agriculture…reposed upon a common custom and tradition, not upon documentary records capable of precise construction. Its boundaries were often rather a question of the degree of conviction with which ancient inhabitants could be induced to affirm them, than visible to the mere eye of sense”—features of traditional societies worldwide to the present day.

By the eighteenth century, the charter had fallen victim to the rise of the commodity economy and capitalist practice and moral culture. As Linebaugh puts it, “The Forest Charter was forgotten or consigned to the gothic past.” With the commons no longer protected for cooperative nurturing and use, the rights of the common people were restricted to what could not be privatized—a category that continues to shrink, to virtual invisibility.

Capitalist development brought with it a radical revision not only of how the commons are treated, but also of how they are conceived. The prevailing view today is captured by Garrett Hardin’s influential argument that “Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.” This is the famous “tragedy of the commons”: that what is not owned will be destroyed by individual avarice. A more technical formulation is given in economist Mancur Olson’s conclusion that “unless the number of individuals is quite small, or unless there is coercion or some other special device to make individuals act in their common interest, rational, self-interested individuals will not act to achieve their common or group interests.” Accordingly, unless the commons are handed over to private ownership, brutal state power must be invoked to save them from destruction. This conclusion is plausible—if we understand “rationality” to entail a fanatic dedication to the individual maximization of short-term material gain.

These forecasts have received some challenge. The late Elinor Ostrom won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2009 for her work showing the superiority of user-managed fish stocks, pastures, woods, lakes and groundwater basins. The historical review in her study, Governing the Commons, ignores the Charter of the Forest and the practice over centuries of nurturing the commons, but Ostrom did conclude that the success stories she’d investigated might at least “shatter the convictions of many policy analysts that the only way to solve [common-pool resource] problems is for external authorities to impose full private property rights or centralized regulation.”

As we now understand all too well, it is what is privately owned, not what is held in common, that faces destruction by avarice, bringing the rest of us down with it. Hardly a day passes without more confirmation of this fact. As hundreds of thousands of people marched in the streets of Manhattan on September 21 to warn of the dire threat of the ongoing ecological destruction of the commons, The New York Times reported that “global emissions of greenhouse gases jumped 2.3 percent in 2013 to record levels,” while in the United States, emissions rose 2.9 percent, reversing a recent decline. August 2014 was reported to be the hottest on record, and JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association predicted that the number of 90-degree-plus days in New York could triple in three decades, with much more severe effects in warmer climates.

It is well understood that most of the world’s fossil-fuel reserves must remain in the ground if an environmental disaster for humankind is to be averted, but under the logic of state-supported capitalist institutions, the private owners of those reserves are racing to exploit them to the fullest. Chevron abandoned a small renewable-energy program because its profits are far greater from fossil fuels. And as Bloomberg Businessweek reports, ExxonMobil announced “that its laserlike focus on fossil fuels is a sound strategy, regardless of climate change.” This is all in accord with the capitalist doctrine of “rationality.”

A small part of the remaining commons is federal land. Despite the complaints of the energy lobbies, the amount of crude oil produced from onshore federal lands in 2013 was the highest in over a decade, according to the Interior Department, and it has expanded steadily under the Obama administration. The business pages of newspapers like The New York Times and The Washington Post are exultant about “the boom in American energy production,” which shows “no signs of slowing down, keeping the market flush with crude and gasoline prices low.” Predictions are that the United States will “add a million more barrels of oil in daily production over the next year,” while also “expanding its exports of refined products like gasoline and diesel.” One dark cloud is perceived, however: maximizing production “might have a catastrophic effect” in “the creation of a major glut.” And with climate-change denier James Inhofe now chairing the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and others like him in positions of power, we can expect even more wonderful news for our grandchildren.

Despite these long odds, the participants in the People’s Climate March are not alone. There is no slight irony in the fact that their major allies throughout the world are the surviving indigenous communities that have upheld their own versions of the Charter of the Forest. In Canada, the Gitxaala First Nation is filing a lawsuit opposing a tar-sands pipeline passing through its territory, relying on recent high-court rulings on indigenous rights. In Ecuador, the large indigenous community played an essential part in the government’s offer to keep some of its oil in the ground, where it should be, if the rich countries would compensate Ecuador for a fraction of the lost profits. (The offer was refused.) The one country governed by an indigenous majority, Bolivia, held a World People’s Conference in 2010, with 35,000 participants from 140 countries. It produced a People’s Agreement calling for sharp reductions in emissions, as well as a Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth. These are key demands of indigenous communities all over the world.

So, as we commemorate the two charters after 800 years, all of this gives us ample reason for serious reflection—and for determined action.

© 2015 Reader Supported News

 Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs

 

Baltimore Activist Alert - May 29 - June 1, 2015

Baltimore Activist Alert May 29 – June 1, 2015

"I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours." - Martin Luther King Jr.

Friends, this list and other email documents which I send out are done under the auspices of the Baltimore Nonviolence Center.  Go to www.baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com.  If you appreciate this information and would like to make a donation, send contributions to BNC, 325 East 25th Street, Baltimore, MD 21218.  Max Obuszewski can be reached at 410-366-1637 or mobuszewski [at] verizon.net.

1] Books, buttons & stickers

2] Web site for info on federal legislation
3] Join Nonviolent Resistance lists
4] Buy coffee through HoCoFoLa
5] Two friends are looking to buy a house in Baltimore

6] Cyprus Friendship Program

7] Get your animal friend in the Maryland SPCA 2016 calendar – through June 15

8] Steny Hoyer, no to TPP – May 29

9] Peace Vigil at the White House – May 29

10] See the documentary ANNE BRADEN: SOUTHERN PATRIOT – May 29

11] Assemble for JFK – May 29

12] All Lives Matter vigil – May 29

13] L’Arche celebration -- May 29-30

14] Service Day with Youth – May 29

15] Film VILLA TOUMA – May 29

16] Film “Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution” – May 29

17] Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz speaks – May 29

18] Ballroom Dancing – May 29

19] Organizer Training 101 workshop – May 30-31

20] West Chester, PA demo – May 30

21] Protest drone command center – May 30

22] Hear Fortissima – May 30

23] Hear the Labor Chorus – May 30

24] “Hunger, Meat, and the Banality of Evil” – May 31

25] March for the Animals – May 31

26] Film ENEMY OF THE REICH – May 31

27] Stop the Alberta Clipper – May 31

28] Solidarity Center discussion – May 30

29] Pentagon Vigil – June 1

30] Marc Steiner on WEAA – June 1 – June 5

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1] – Buttons, bumperstickers and books are available.  “God Bless the Whole World, No Exceptions” stickers are in stock. Donate your books to Max. Call him at 410-366-1637.

 

2] – To obtain information how your federal legislators voted on particular bills, go to http://thomas.loc.gov/.  Congressional toll-free numbers are 888-818-6641, 888-355-3588 or 800-426-8073. The White House Comment Email is accessible at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/.

 

3] – THE ORGANIZING LIST will be the primary decision-making mechanism of the National Campaign of Nonviolent Resistance [NCNR].  It will be augmented by conference calls and possibly in-person meetings as needed.  It will consist of 1 or 2 representatives from each local, regional, or national organization (not coalitions) that wishes to actively work to carry out the NCNR campaign of facilitating and organizing nonviolent resistance to the war in Iraq.  To join the ORGANIZING List, please send your name, group affiliation, city and email address to mobuszewski at Verizon dot net.  Different local chapters of a national organization are encouraged to subscribe.  

 

THE NOTICES LIST will include only notices of NCNR actions and related information and is open to any interested person to subscribe.  It will be moderated to maintain focus & will include periodic notices about getting involved in NCNR national organizing.  To join the NOTICES List, send an email message to mobuszewski at Verizon dot net.

 

4] – You can help safeguard human rights and fragile ecosystems through your purchase of HOCOFOLA Café Quetzal. Bags of ground coffee or whole beans can be ordered by mailing in an order form. Also note organic cocoa and sugar are for sale.  For more details and to download the order form, go to http://friendsoflatinamerica.typepad.com/hocofola/2010/02/hocofola-cafe-quetzal-order-form-2010.html. The coffee comes in one-pound bags.

 

Fill out the form and mail it with a check made out to HOCOFOLA on or before the second week of the month.  Be sure you indicate ground or beans for each type of coffee ordered.  Send it to Francine Sheppard at 5639B, Harpers Farm Rd., Columbia 21044. The coffee will arrive some time the following week and you will be notified where to pick it up. Contact Francine at 410-992-7679 or FrancineMSW@aol.com.

 

5] – Two friends are looking to buy a house in Baltimore.  Let Max know if you have any leads—410-366-1637 or mobuszewski@verizon.net.

 

6] – Since a civil war in 1974 the island of Cyprus has been divided in two with a United Nations patrolled border. Turkish/Muslim Cypriots are in the north. Greek/ Christian Cypriots are in the south. Animosities and prejudices run deep. Experts believe that Cyprus is at a crossroads between renewed conflict or becoming as example in the Middle East of how two such cultures can live in peace.

 

The Cyprus Friendship Program, based on the successful model that helped build peace in Northern Ireland, brings over a Muslim and Christian teen to stay with an U.S. host family for the month of July (or ½ month if paired with another host family). This bonding experience in a neutral environment almost always results in a strong friendship. Programming here and after their return to Cyprus turns them into peace builders who are trained in how to influence their peers.  The teens are chosen for their maturity, leadership potential, and English speaking ability. You choose the gender and age (from 15 to 17). To learn more contact Tom McCarthy at 301-774-7069 or Thomas.McCarthy@RaymondJames.com.

 

7] – It's time to look through all your pet photos and to enter your favorites in the Maryland SPCA 2016 Pet Calendar Contest. The 2016 Pet Calendar will be a full-color, wall calendar, released in the fall of 2015. Thirteen of the best photos will be selected for the cover and pet-of-the-month pages. All entered photos will appear in the calendar. Only 400 photos will be accepted through June 15, so enter today! One free calendar is provided for each photo entered; each entry is $50 to the Maryland SPCA.  Call 410-235-8826 or email give@mdspca.org.

 

Photographs must be of animals, no people. High-resolution photos are preferred. Small photos, especially those taken by phones, are difficult to enlarge (photos filtered through Instagram and other social sharing apps are often low-resolution and will appear grainy in print). There is a $10 discount for each online photo entry. Be sure to use discount code SAVE10 at checkout! Go to https://www.kintera.org/AutoGen/Register/ECReg.asp?ievent=1135915&en=4dIxHFPfE3LGKPMiF2JDLLNsFeLBIKNoHhIJKMPvHeKCJQOrEfIRKRNlE6IFLWPEE.

 

8] – Come to 6500 Cherrywood Lane, Greenbelt, MD on Fri., May 29 at 11 AM to challenge Rep. Steny Hoyer to disavow any support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Free trade Agreement.  It is one of today's greatest threats to middle class jobs and a living wage. It would lead to more offshoring of jobs in a global race to the bottom. Right now, GOP leaders are working with President Obama to pass Fast Track, a Nixon-era scheme that bulldozes our constitutional checks and balances system to make it easier to ram through damaging trade pacts through congress. Hoyer still has not committed to vote against fast track for the TPP. Join the Memorial Day Recess Picnic to demand #NoFastTrack. Sandwiches provided! If you are planning to attend, email mgoines@aflcio.org or call 202-251-9879.

 

9] – On Fri., May 29 from noon to 1 PM, join the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker in a vigil urging the powers that be to abolish war and torture, to disarm all weapons, to end indefinite detention, to close Guantanamo, to establish justice for all and help create the Beloved Community! The vigil takes place at the White House on Pennsylvania Ave. NW.  Contact Art @ artlaffin@hotmail.com or at 202-360-6416.

 

10] -- Go to the AFL-CIO, 815 16th St. NW, WDC on Fri., May 29 from noon to 1 PM to see the documentary ANNE BRADEN: SOUTHERN PATRIOT (as part of the DC LaborFest).  Discover the extraordinary life and legacy of American civil rights leader Anne Braden. Braden was hailed by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his 1963 Letter from Birmingham Jail as a white southerner whose rejection of her segregationist upbringing was “eloquent and prophetic.” Ostracized as a “red” by segregationists and even many in the civil rights movement, she fought for an inclusive movement community and demonstrated that protecting civil liberties was essential to gaining civil rights. Visithttps://www.facebook.com/events/1435754116726303/.

 

11] –On Fri., May 29 from noon to 3 PM, peaceably assemble on the north/public terrace (facing Watergate) of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, 2700 F St. NW, WDC 20566. Since November 22, 2013, a precedent has been established - and even well received by The Kennedy Center's staff and local media - that the north/public terrace of this building (facing Watergate) is a most appropriate place for gathering in memory of John F. Kennedy every November 22nd (and May 29th, JFK's birthday), peaceably assembling and petitioning merely by one's presence for: 1) Immediate, un-redacted release of all still withheld assassination-related records; 2) Abolishing, or reining in the CIA to its original, intelligence-only mandate; 3) Ending the intimidation of official secrecy and the violence it perpetuates, necessary to achieve real transparency in governments worldwide.

 

While assembled, a "soap box" format will enable any and all present to speak (for perhaps two minutes each, as time and attendance permit) honoring JFK in petition for the above and related redress of grievances. As one year ago, it is anticipated that an MP3 audio of the Commencement Address (addressing issues of war and peace) given by JFK at American University, June 10, 1963 (see video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fkKnfk4k40), will be played in full, as both reminder and encouragement towards peaceful reconciliation between East and West (a message as timely and relevant today as it was in 1963). 

 

This year musician Richard Ochs is planning to share his musical plea for truth and justice regarding JFK's assassination, "Magic Bullet is a Lie" (as performed at Nat'l Press Club in Washington DC on May 31, 2014 at the Celebration of the Life of John Patrick Judge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOacom5Yjds&feature=youtu.be). Go to https://www.eventbrite.com/e/jfk-vigil-52915-peaceably-assemble-honoring-john-f-kennedy-on-his-birthday-tickets-14456330273.  Contact Karl Golovin at (karlgolovin@gmail.com) or 305-531-8381.

 

12] – There is usually a silent peace vigil on Fridays, from 5 to 6 PM, sponsored by Homewood Friends and Stony Run Meetings, outside the Homewood Friends Meetinghouse, 3107 N. Charles St.  The next vigil is on May 29.  On that Friday it will remind us that Black Lives Matter as well as All Lives Matter. 

 

13] – On Fri., May 29 from 2 to 4 PM participate Sharing Our Gifts: A Public Celebration at American University Friedheim Quad, 4400 Massachusetts Ave. NW, WDC.  Come and celebrate the gift of relationship between people with and without intellectual disabilities. Join members of L’Arche from across the United States, local friends and supporters, peer organizations and members of the general public for this event. Enjoy a program of music, a mime, games on the lawn, and a photo booth to record the experience with old and new friends. Contact: Liz Yoder at 202.232.4539.

 

L'Arche is doing its 50 Year Celebration -- Public Forum & Interfaith Prayer Service featuring Krista Tippett (NPR radio host) and Tim Shriver (Special Olympics) – on Sat., May 30 from 2 to 3:30 PM at the National Presbyterian Church, 4101 Nebraska Ave. NW, WDC 20016.  RSVP to http://www.larche-gwdc.org/latest-news/larche-usa-to-gather-in-d-c-may-28-29/.

 

14] – Capital Area Interfaith Friends will do a DC Metro Area Service Day with Youth Groups of all Faiths! On Sun., May 31 from 1:30 to 4:30 PM, be at the Julia Bindeman Suburban Center, 11810 Falls Road, Potomac MD 20854.  Call 301-500-4410. RSVP at http://www.capitalareainterfaithfriends.org/.

 

15] – On Fri., May 29 from 6:30 to 8 PM,  the Jerusalem Fund, 2425 Virginia Ave. NW, WDC 20037, invites you to a screening of “Villa Touma.” Leaving the Catholic orphanage in Jerusalem where she was raised, 18-year-old Badia arrives at the home of her spinster aunts in Ramallah. Crossing the threshold, she finds a house, and three lives, frozen in time. The sisters are the last remnants of the bourgeois Christian minority that stayed on in the city after the 1967 war. In their fifties and nearly destitute, they are ruled by the eldest's strict domestic routines and their perception of themselves as classically educated, socially proper ladies of the upper crust. Now saddled with the orphaned daughter of their late brother, the sisters decide to marry Badia off to a man from a good family. But Badia’s spirited temperament rattles the tightly wound sisters, and soon secrets and historical grudges cascade through the film [87 mins. 2014]. This film series is co-sponsored by the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University. Go to http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/ht/d/sp/i/36627/pid/36627. Call 202-338-1958 or email info@thejerusalemfund.org.

 

16] – See the film “Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution (Nos enfants nous accuseront)” as part of Forging the Future at the Alliance Française, 2142 Wyoming Ave. NW, WDC on Fri., May 29 at 7 PM.  Tickets are $7/$4. Call (202) 234-7911 or email alliance@francedc.org or go to http://www.goethe.de/ins/us/was/ver/en14148166v.htm.

 

17] – Come to 1940 Calvert St. NW, WDC on Fri., May 29 at 7:30 PM and join the Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press for a lively presentation and discussion. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz grew up in rural Oklahoma, the daughter of a tenant farmer and part-Indian mother. She has been active in the international Indigenous movement for more than four decades and is known for her lifelong commitment to national and international social justice issues. After receiving her PhD in history at the University of California at Los Angeles, she taught in the newly established Native American Studies Program at California State University, Hayward, and helped found the departments of Ethnic Studies and Women's Studies. Her 1977 book “The Great Sioux Nation” was the fundamental document at the first international conference on Indigenous peoples of the Americas, held at the United Nations' headquarters in Geneva. Dunbar-Ortiz is the author and editor of seven other books, including Roots of Resistance: A History of Land Tenure in New Mexico. She lives in San Francisco. Spanning more than four hundred years, this classic bottom-up peoples' history radically reframes US history and explodes the silences that have haunted our national narrative. Visit https://www.facebook.com/events/877748722287435/.

 

18] – There is an opportunity to participate in ballroom dancing, usually every Friday of the month, in the JHU ROTC Bldg. at  8 PM.  Turn south on San Martin Dr. from the intersection of Univ. Parkway and 39th St.  Drive on campus by taking the third left turn. The next dance will be May 29. Call Dave Greene at 410-599-3725.

 

19] –   The DC Industrial Workers of the World invite you to attend an Organizer Training 101 workshop, a two day course on building power in your workplace from the bottom up using direct action. It focuses on techniques for building a committee of workers who are confident and capable of addressing issues in the workplace, as well as overcoming obstacles like worker apathy, anxiety, and your boss’s counter-organizing efforts.  This workshop is open to all workers.  The skills built in this workshop are useful to anyone interested in building power on their job, whether it is in the context of an IWW campaign, another union, or any other type of worker organization. See https://www.facebook.com/DCIWW.

 

The training will be held on Sat., May 30 and Sun., May 31. The Saturday portion will run from 9 AM to 5 PM at Edgewood Commons' Crawford Hall, 635 Edgewood St. NE, and the Sunday workshop will go from 10 AM to 4 PM at the SOA Watch office, 5525 Illinois Ave. NW, WDC.  Breakfast, lunch, interpretation and childcare will be provided. Registration is required; register at http://tinyurl.com/2015ot101.

 

20] –  Each Saturday, 11 AM – 1 PM, Chester County Peace Movement holds a peace vigil in West Chester in front of the Chester County Courthouse, High & Market Sts. Go to www.ccpeace.org. Email ccpeacemovement@aol.com. 

 

21] – On Sat,, May 30 from noon to 2 PM SAY NO! TO DRONE WAR COMMAND CENTER.  The last Saturday of the month Demonstration to Protest the establishment of the Drone War Command Center at Horsham Air Guard Station, Route 611/Easton Road and County Line Road, Horsham, PA, where the global drone operations in Ramstein, Germany comes down to a computer drone operator firing a Hellfire missile at someone thousands of miles away.  Dear Drone Operators: Just Walk Away…Stop the killing. Peace, Your Neighbors. Contact Brandywine Peace Community at 610-544-1818 or www.brandywinepeace.com/events.

 

22] – Go to First Trinity Lutheran Church, 309 E St. NW, WDC on Sat., May 30 at 7 PM to hear, in their 36th year, Fortissima.  DC's Feminist Singers is delighted to bring you a collection of a Capella and accompanied music celebrating generations of love and learning. Their songs center women's lives and experiences, while crossing many musical genres. Through music, they advocate for the equality and liberation of all people, while keeping a sense of humor. The suggested donation is $20 but no one is ever turned away. They are also collecting nonperishable goods for the food pantry. See https://www.facebook.com/events/1589562027988491/.

 

23] –  "SONGS IN THE KEY OF JUSTICE,” the Charm City Labor Chorus’ 6th annual concert, will be presented at 7:30 PM on Sat., May 30 in the auditorium of The Baltimore Museum of Art, 10 Art Museum Dr., Baltimore 21218. The Chorus is committed to performing music of the labor, social justice, and civil rights movements.  This year, the concert program includes history, humor (Tom Lehrer’s “Pollution”) and songs from many traditions, including a Yiddish Anarchist chant. Now, more than ever, let us be in solidarity as we hear (and sing together) songs of the Struggle and of our victories! 

 

Special guest soloists Lea Gilmore, the internationally acclaimed blues, gospel and jazz singer, and Ruth Pelham, renowned folk singer, will also perform.  The Charm City Labor Chorus is directed by Darryl! L.C. Moch and accompanied by pianist Chester Burke, Jr.  Tickets are $15 ($12 for BMA members; $5 for students) and are available at www.CharmCityLaborChorus.org and at the door.  Email CharmCityLaborChorus@gmail.com. You can get a half-price parking voucher ($4) for the underground JHU South lot just off Wyman Park Drive at www.CharmCityLaborChorus.org.

 

24] – Usually, the Baltimore Ethical Society, 306 W. Franklin St., Suite 102, Baltimore 21201-4661, meets on Sundays, and generally there is a speaker and discussion from 10:30 AM to noon. On May 31, the platform address is “Hunger, Meat, and the Banality of Evil” by Dawn Moncrief, founder and executive director of A Well-Fed World. She will discuss some of the ways in which the use of animals for food increases global food insecurity by wasting and redistributing crops, fueling climate disruptions, and normalizing atrocities that bolster other forms of systemic violence and injustice.

 

Moncrief has been a social justice advocate for more than 20 years. She has two master’s degrees from The George Washington University: one in International Relations, the other in Women’s Studies, both focusing on economic development. Her work highlights the ways in which high levels of meat consumption in the U.S. and globally exacerbate global hunger, especially for women and children. She also draws attention to the negative consequences of animal agriculture on climate change and the deceptiveness of “humane” marketing. Learn more at http://awfw.org or @AWellFedWorld. Call 410-581-2322 or email ask@bmorethical.org.

 

25] – Get over to the Maryland SPCA the 20th annual March for the Animals on Sun., May 31 at Druid Hill Park from 9 AM to noon. Register at http://marchfortheanimals.kintera.org/faf/home/default.asp?ievent=1129030. Call 410-235-8826.

 

26] – There is one more Jewish-Islamic Dialogue Society (JIDS) dialogue planned before the summer, which will be held on Sun., May 31 from 2:30 to 5 PM at the Islamic Society of the Washington Area (ISWA), 2701 Briggs Chaney Rd., Silver Spring 20905.  See an inspiring movie ENEMY OF THE REICH about Noor Inayat Khan, a Muslim woman who valiantly fought the Nazis during World War II.  That will be followed by small-group discussions involving the movie. Go to http://www.jids.org/new/.

 

27] – Come to 1 St Matthews Ct. NW, WDC on Sun., May 31 at 3 PM for a 350 DC potluck and art party to talk about what can be done in the fight against the Alberta Clipper. In the coming weeks, 350 DC will be stepping into another tar sands fight. This time, it is the Alberta Clipper pipeline, a project that is every bit as bad for our environment as Keystone XL and other such fossil fuel monstrosities. Communities in Canada and across the Midwest have been hard at work organizing against Clipper and on June 6, there will be an anti-tar sands action in Saint Paul, MN. Visit http://us8.campaign-archive2.com/?u=3e3c5f171e5c031d0057a1f44&id=d82ee4c9f2&e=83ec7a4ef2.

 

28] – Get over to the Baltimore Solidarity Center, 2011 N. Charles St. on Sun., May 31 from 4:45 to 7 PM for a discussion hosted by Workers World Party & FIST.  The discussion will be led by Kira-Lynae Pinter, an activist with the Peoples Power Assembly and one of the organizers of the Baltimore International Women's Day March 2015. Call 443-221-3775 or visit http://www.washingtonpeacecenter.net/node/15013.

 

29] -- There is a weekly Pentagon Peace Vigil from 7 to 8 AM on Mondays, since 1987, outside the Pentagon Metro stop.  The next vigil is Mon., June 1, and it is sponsored by the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker.  Email artlaffin@hotmail.com or call 202-882-9649.  The vigil will be outside the Pentagon's south Metro entrance and in the designated "protest zone" behind bicycle fences across from the entrance to the Metro.  By Metro, take Yellow Line and get out at the "Pentagon" stop. Do not go to the Pentagon City stop! Go up south escalators and turn left and walk across to protest area. By car from D.C. area, take 395 South and get off at Exit 8A-Pentagon South Parking. Take slight right onto S. Rotary Rd. at end of ramp and right on S. Fern St. Then take left onto Army Navy Dr. You can "pay to park" on Army Navy Dr.,  and there is meter parking one block on right on Eads St. Payment for both of these spots begin at 8 AM.  No cameras are allowed on Pentagon grounds. Restrooms are located inside Marriott Residence Inn on corner of S. Fern and Army Navy Dr. 

 

30] – The Marc Steiner Show airs Monday through Friday from 10 AM to noon on WEAA 88.9 FM, The Voice of the Community, or online at www.weaa.org.   The call-in number is 410-319-8888, and comments can also be sent by email to steinershow@gmail.com. All shows are also available as podcasts at www.steinershow.org.  

 

To be continued.

 

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/.

 

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs