http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/25319-overcoming-continuing-nuclear-dangers-and-prime-minister-abes-unconstitutional-coup
Overcoming Continuing Nuclear Dangers and Japan Prime Minister Abe's Unconstitutional Coup
Monday, 04 August 2014 09:32By Dr Joseph Gerson, Truthout | Op-Ed
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan speaks at a high-level meeting of the United Nations General Assembly on Nuclear Disarmament, at the United Nations, Sept. 26, 2013. (Photo: Ozier Muhammad / The New York Times)
Slightly edited address by Dr. Joseph Gerson to International Conference, Hiroshima, August 3, 2014.
Much has happened since we gathered here last year for the World Conference against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs. In addition to the ongoing death and suffering in Ukraine, we have been starkly reminded that the dangers of great power nuclear war didn't end with the collapse of the Soviet Union. In May a "massive US nuclear arms drill" was followed by a similar drill by Russia - each designed to send "a message" of nuclear intimidation. Daniel Ellsberg, a senior nuclear war planner for three US presidents is certain that US and Russian nuclear forces were on high alert during the Ukraine crisis (1), which is still far from over.
The Ukraine crisis has deepened the reliance of both superpowers on their nuclear arsenals. NATO's Secretary General Rasmussen has been clear that Russia's occupation of Crimea "will also have an impact on . . . nuclear policies." (2) Moscow has announced that "disarmament in the 'classical' sense is in many ways becoming a thing of the past," and SIPRI [Stockholm International Peace Research Institute] has reported that, like the United States, Russia "is in the middle of a broad upgrade of its strategic nuclear forces." (3)
The situation is no better here in East Asia, especially with Japan and China playing chicken over the Senkaku/Dioayu Islands. Former Governor Ishihara and Japan's right-wing bear primary responsibility for initiating the crisis. And after Japan altered the status quo, Beijing upped the military ante by sending its naval and air forces to challenge Japanese military operations in the disputed area and by declaring its overlapping air defense identification zone. The Obama Administration compounded the situation by stating that if it comes to a military conflict over these uninhabited rocks, the US-Japan military alliance requires that the United States intervene on Japan's behalf.
Japan has suffered a political coup. Abe has boasted that what he did was comparable to the Meiji revolution.
At a recent seminar at Harvard, we were shown a photograph of Japanese and Chinese warships and Taiwanese fishing vessels in such close proximity that it was impossible to distinguish which was which. Much the same is true for Japanese and Chinese war planes. In these circumstances, an incident is waiting to happen, and Ezra Vogel, formerly the State Department's head of intelligence, warns that in the case of an incident, we can have no confidence that military escalation can be capped.
As we meet on this 100th anniversary of the outbreak of World War I, although there are significant differences, there are also disturbing parallels to the situation that prevailed in Europe in the spring of 1914. We are again in a period of rising and declining great powers, arms races with new technologies, resurgent nationalism, territorial disputes, resource competition, complex alliance arrangements, economic integration and competition, and wild card actors - especially the Abe and Kim Jung Un governments
Abe's Political Coup: Black is White
I have been asked to say a few words about the [Japan Prime Minister Shinzo] Abe government's reinterpretation of the constitution. To put it bluntly, Japan has suffered a political coup. Abe has boasted that what he did was comparable to the Meiji revolution. Even Asahi Shimbun editorialized that black is now officially white. A constitution that clearly and forever renounced war and preparations for war is now said to mean that the Japanese military can join Washington in its wars for oil and natural gas in the Middle East or in the South China Sea under the guise of protecting Japan's essential energy supplies. Japanese military operations need not be limited to collaborations - termed collective security - with the US. Japanese military operations can also now be launched with nations with which Japan is deemed to close relations, for example the Philippines, Vietnam or India - independent of the United States. And the Cabinet decision also indicates that the way for first-strike Japanese attacks against China or North Korea has been opened. Further, we now read that Abe plans to seek the right to dispatch Japanese military forces anywhere in the world without consulting the Diet.
Friends, it is painful to say that Japan appears no longer to be a constitutional democracy. The "reinterpretation" reflects total disregard not only for the Constitution, but for democracy itself. The Constitution was functionally amended by fiat, rather than by the democratic process required by Article 96 - and it is being imposed despite the opposition of the majority of Japanese people. In addition to its further opening the way for Japanese militarism, this autocratic reinterpretation means that in the future the constitutional commitments to human rights could be equally vulnerable. We need to take the mainstream Japanese press seriously when it writes that Abe is "imitating" the early Showa Era, when the military intelligence protection act left "the public feeling unable to speak freely." (4) Abe's disrespect for the law is not limited to the Constitution. He is apparently also acting illegally as he presses construction of the massive new US Marine Air Base at Henoko.
Despite Abe's nationalist credentials, the reinterpretation needs also to be understood in the context of Japan's client state role. In the last Armitage-Nye report, issued as Abe returned to power, we saw the US stepping up the pressure for Japan's leaders to revise the Constitution. Why? Because as it works to compensate for the relative decline of the United States, Washington is demanding more of its allies. This helps to explain why, immediately after the reinterpretation, it was announced that a Maritime Self Defense officer was being dispatched to serve at the Pentagon with the US Chief of Naval Operations to "enhanc[e] the operational integration of the US Navy and the MSDF [Japan's Maritime Self Defense Force] . . . " (5)
US Nuclear Weapons Policies & the Global Situation
There is little need to rehash here our disappointments with Obama. His speeches can be wonderful, inspiring hope, but his commitment to achieving a nuclear weapons-free world lost any credibility years ago.
You already know the basics. He is reinforcing nuclear apartheid by pressing necessary nonproliferation initiatives while implementing what Secretary of Defense/War Hagel termed "ambitious plans to upgrade [US] nuclear weapons systems by modernizing weapons and building new submarines, missiles and bombers to deliver them." (6)
Despite the soaring rhetoric of his Prague pledge to work for a nuclear weapons-free world, the Obama Administration has shown no credible commitment to multilateral disarmament diplomacy. President Obama refused to fulfill the United States' 2010 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review commitment to co-convene the Middle East Nuclear Weapons and WMD Free-Zone conference, further jeopardizing the NPT. The US boycotted the UN Open Ended Working Group and the Oslo and Nayarit Human Consequences conferences. And at the UN High Level Meeting it was painful to hear US, British and French diplomats argue that these international forums are a "distraction." During the High Level Meeting, many of us were sickened by the arrogance of the nuclear powers and by the US spokesperson, who reported that the P-5 are fulfilling their 2010 NPT Review Final Declaration obligations, boasting that they were nearing completion of a glossary of terms. A glossary of terms! That's progress?
It is estimated that in the coming decade, the US will spend between $619.56 billion and $661.09 billion on nuclear weapons programs. This includes between $10 and $15 billion to modernize the B-61, which will have yields ranging from 10 to more than 300 kilotons (20 times more powerful than the Hiroshima A-bomb). (7) Not only the weapons, but their delivery systems are being modernized. One element of this is the F-35 fighter-bomber, which "will be certified to carry nuclear weapons." (8) Not incidentally, the Japanese military has signaled its desire to purchase even more of these vastly dangerous and monumentally expensive warplanes.
Given that these weapons could eliminate the human race and what this money could do if devoted to addressing climate change, hunger and other human suffering, these nuclear war preparations are both evil and insane.
What was most moving and impressive during the UN High Level Meeting on Disarmament last September was the isolation of the US and other nuclear powers.
But there is more. A recent Center for Strategic and International Studies study reported that "The trend lines in the relationships between the United States and its near-peer competitors, China and Russia, are worsening - cooperation and competition have been largely replaced with competition . . . We believe that a 2021 affordable military that is focused on the growing conflict with China and Russia is the 'least bad' option for this punishing fiscal context of fewer and weaker defense dollars." They recommended:
"Keeping the nuclear triad of bombers, missiles and submarines at the same level of Russia and ahead of China . .
. Full-spectrum intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance . . . ability to project power in a so-called "anti-access area-denial . . . environment," i.e. China, special operations forces for "Global counterterrorism capabilities . . . Theater and national defense systems, . . . and maintaining America’s military-technological edge." (9)
Growing Pressure for Nuclear Weapons Abolition
But let me tell you what was most moving and impressive during the UN High Level Meeting on Disarmament last September was the isolation of the US and other nuclear powers: One foreign minister or ambassador after another rose to associate their countries with the Iranian statement on behalf of the Nonaligned Movement, to condemn the failure to convene the conference on a Middle East Nuclear and WMD-Free Zone, and to condemn the nuclear powers' failure to implement their NPT Article VI: Commitment to engage in good faith negotiations for the complete elimination of their nuclear arsenals. It was no surprise that, following the High Level Meeting, one of the first acts of the General Assembly was to mandate the commencement of negotiations on a nuclear weapons abolition convention this year. We saw this anger, isolation and commitment when the representatives of 140 governments - but not the P-5 - gathered in Nayarit, Mexico. There is growing belief that the US and other nuclear powers are not committed to their Article VI NPT commitments.
Like many others at the NPT PremCom, I was awed to witness Tony deBrume, the Marshall Islands' foreign minister, announce his government's challenge to the nuclear powers in the International Court of Justice and a number of national courts for breach of contract. At considerable risk, the Marshall Islands has spoken for the world's more hesitant nations. We need to emulate their courage and to support this initiative as fully as we can.
I look forward to learning from Austrian Ambassador Kmentt about his expectations for the Human Consequences conference in Vienna this December. The previous conferences have been important in educating a new generation of diplomats and abolition activists and have pressed to create a new diplomatic avenue - termed a "ban" - to achieve the abolition of nuclear weapons, even in the absence of the nuclear powers. Frankly, I am doubtful that a meaningful ban can be negotiated without the full engagement of the nuclear powers. Some ban advocates point to the 15-year-old Land Mines Treaty as their model, and they have faith that moral suasion and international pressure will eventually get the nuclear weapons states to finally negotiate a nuclear weapons abolition treaty.
Unfortunately, the major powers and a number of other nations have yet to sign onto the Land Mines Treaty.
Angela Kane, the UN High Commissioner for Disarmament, put it well in Nayarit when she reminded us that, difficult as it is, the road to nuclear weapons abolition necessarily passes through the NPT. It was also encouraging to hear Ambassador Kmentt say that "Austria wants to strengthen the NPT, of which the humanitarian dimension is an integral and essential part." (10) All of this underlines the importance of our turning out in great numbers when the NPT Review convenes at the UN in New York next April.
I'll close with a few words about the international planning for abolition movement activities during the NPT review. During last year's World Conference, Judith LeBlanc, Sofia Wolman and I were profoundly moved as one Gensuikyo grassroots delegation after another took the stage and reported that they planned to bring even more activists to New York in 2015 than they had in 2010. With nearly 2,000 Hibakusha and Japanese activists having come to New York in 2010, we know that your expectations and those of our other international partners are enormous, and that we and our movements have to rise to the challenge. That's what we've been doing.
During the Abolition 2000 annual meeting this past May, several of us were charged with creating an international planning committee, whose membership is now nearly complete.
As in 2010, we were mandated to organize an inclusive international Nuclear Weapons Abolition conference on the eve of the review and a mass rally and march to demand complete nuclear weapons abolition, peace and justice - including reducing military spending, and to engage climate change. We've been charged to facilitate the delivery of millions of abolition petition signatures and the organizing by the rising generation of young abolitionists.
We will be exploring additional nonviolent actions and arranging visits by Hibakusha and international peace activists to communities in the United States to encourage nuclear weapons abolition organizing.
Friends, we won't be able to achieve these goals without the deep and active engagements of Gensuikyo, its constituent organizations and our international partners. We are looking forward to the energy, imagination, creativity and dedication that you will be bringing to New York.
In the past I've spoken about the essential and leading roles of Gensuikyo in the struggle for nuclear weapons abolition. This leads me to close by reflecting back some of your wisdom: Our priority must be "Pressing the UN and the NPT Review Conference to decide on a ban on nuclear weapons and urging the start of negotiations . . . The key to achieving this goal is . . . activating and mobilizing public support for a total ban at the grassroots level worldwide, but particularly in the nuclear weapons states and its allies."
On to New York and to a Nuclear Weapons Free World!
For more information on the effects nuclear weapons have had, see the American Friends Service Committee Fact Sheet on the legacy of the 1945 atomic bombings.
Notes:
1. Daniel Ellsberg, talk in Cambridge, Massachusetts, May 13, 2014
2. Rachel Oswald. "NATO Chief Says Ukraine Events May Effect European Tactical Nuclear Reductions," Global Security Newswire, March 20, 2014.
3. "US and Russia Determined to Keep Nuclear Weapons Arsenal, SIPRI Says," Reuters, The Moscow Times, June 16, 2014,
4. "Abe trying to cross Rubicon: expert," Jiji in The Japan Times, June 23, 2014
5. "MSDF officer to take key post at Pentagon," Kyodo, The Japan Times, July 9, 2014.
6. David Alexander, "U.S. needs modern nuclear deterrent despite high price tag -Hagel," Reuters, January 9, 2014.
7. Walter Pincus, "Extending the life of B-61 nuclear weapons could cost $4 billion," The Washington Post, July 20, 2010; Hans M. Kristensen, “Germany and B61 Nuclear Bomb Mondernization. Nov. 13, 2012, ; Briefing by David Culp, Friends Committee on National Legislation, July 28, 2014.
8. "Air Force, Lockheed Look Forward 10 Years, Toward F-35 Nuclear Clearance," Insidedefense.dom, May 7, 2014.
9. Ben Watson. "Pentagon Urged to Focus on 'Great Power Conflict' to Save Budget," DefenseOne.Com, July 2, 2014
10. ICAN NEWSLETTER, May, 2014
Copyright, Truthout..
Joseph Gerson is director of the American Friends Service Committee's Peace and Economic Security Program and convener of the Working Group for Peace and Demilitarization in Asia and the Pacific. His most recent book is Empire and the Bomb: How the US Uses Nuclear Weapons to Dominate the World.
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
Monday, August 4, 2014
Sunday, August 3, 2014
Baltimore Activist Alert August 3 – 4, 2014
Baltimore Activist Alert August 3 – 4, 2014
"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.
Tune into the Maryland Progressive Blog at http://mdprogblog.org.
1] Books, buttons & stickers
2] Web site for info on federal legislation
3] Join Nonviolent Resistance lists
4] Buy coffee through HoCoFoLa
5] GUTSY: Taking the Fear Factor Out of Feminism – through Aug. 8
6] Human, Soul & Machine: The Coming Singularity – through Aug. 31
7] Special Education – Aug. 3
8] Peace and Pancakes – Aug. 3
9] Feed the Hood – Aug. 3
10] Pentagon Vigil – Aug. 4
11] NATIONAL CALL IN DAY FOR RAFIL DHAFIR – Aug. 4
12] Empowered Africa - Dialogue on Sustainability, Peace and Democracy – Aug. 4
13] Support workers before the NLRB – Aug. 4
14] Marc Steiner on WEAA – Aug. 4 – Aug. 8
15] Vigil in Support of Central American Children Fleeing Violence – Aug. 4
16] Pledge of Resistance/Fund Our Communities meeting – Aug. 4
-----
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] – GUTSY: Taking the Fear Factor Out of Feminism is a group exhibit of female artists whose work deals with feminist issues, themes, and aesthetics, and it runs through Fri., Aug. 8 at Gallery CA, 440 East Oliver St. Twenty percent of the sales go to Power Inside, an organization that serves women and girls who are survivors of gender-based violence and oppression. Call 410-528-9239 or http://galleryca.org.
6] – See the exhibit Human, Soul & Machine: The Coming Singularity, which delves into the various ways technology affects lives through the perspective of inventors, futurists and 40 plus visionary artists. The intent is to bring new thoughts on artificial intelligence, robotics, genetics, nanotechnology, 3D printing, and big data, and you can see it through August 31 at the American Visionary Art Museum, 800 Key Hwy. Call 410-244-1900. Go to http://avam.org. A ticket costs $20.
7] - 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 Sun., Aug. 3, hear about “What Does the Term ‘Special Education’ Mean?” by Jayme Smith. She will include an overview of special education including a definition of Individual Education Plans (IEPs) (see http://goo.gl/4dvEFQ), services, and how students can be served outside public education. One example of a non-public school is the High Road School of Perryville, and the talk will provide an overview of this school. Call 410-581-2322 or email ask@bmorethical.org.
8] - Join the Kadampa Meditation Center for Peace and Pancakes on Sundays at 10:30 AM at KMC Maryland, 2937 North Charles St. All are invited to participate in guided meditation and chant praying for world peace. There will be a talk based on Buddhist thought followed by brunch. Call 410- 243-3837. Brunch is $5.
9] – Gather at the intersection of MLK Ave. SE and Malcolm X Ave. SE on Sun., Aug. 3 at 2 PM for the National Black United Front (#NBUF) Feed the Hood Project. See http://www.eventbrite.com/e/nbuf-feed-the-hood-project-washington-dc-tickets-10660394527?aff=eac2.
10] -- 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., July 28, 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.
11] – There is a NATIONAL CALL IN DAY FOR a PRISONER OF CONSCIENCE RAFIL DHAFIR on Mon., Aug. 4. On June 18th Dr. Rafil Dhafir was removed to a special housing (isolation) unit. The purpose of the national call in day is to get the warden to return Dr. Dhafir to the general population. He is a United States citizen, oncologist, humanitarian and spiritual leader, and has served 12 years of a 22-year sentence for breaking the horrifically cruel U.S. and U.K. sponsored U.N. sanctions on Iraq which caused the death of 500,000 children under the age of 5 and 1,000,000 others. Dr. Dhafir gave aid through a charity he established to help children and adults in Iraq who were starving or sick from depleted uranium munitions and the lack of fresh water.
Call Brian Cincotta, (pronounced "sin-COT-tuh) case manager FMC Devens at 978-796-1000 Dial O, or stay on the line. Give Rafil Dhafir's inmate locator number - 11921-052 - and ask to speak with Mr. Cincotta. Ask to leave a message in his voice mail if he can’t be reached. You can also ask for the Public Information Officer or a member of the warden’s staff.
You can write Warden Jeffrey Grondowski, at FMC Devens, PO Box 880, Ayer, MA 01432 or by fax (978) 796-1118 or by email DEV/ExecAssistant@bop.gov. Some points that could be raised in letters and phone calls: Why was he put into the special housing unit? When is he getting out? He has been in for 40 days. Work on his 2255 legal motion, the deadline for which is November, is being interrupted by keeping him away from his legal papers. His right to religious expression was violated during Ramadan because he was denied an alarm clock. The right for Muslims to pray five times daily in a group was upheld in a case involving the Communications Management Unit in Terre Haute Indiana by U.S. District Court Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson. See: http://indianalawblog.com/documents/lindh%207-19-13.pdf.
Does Rafil have stamps, paper, envelopes, address book, Quran, eyeglasses and legal papers? Phone time should be increased to an hour a week minimum. The Chaplain should make arrangements for an Imam from a nearby mosque to visit him. Write to Rafil Dhafir 11921-052, FMC Devens, FEDERAL MEDICAL CENTER, PO BOX 879, AYER, MA 01432. Email poetapoetus@taconic.net or call 518-766-2992.
12] – On Mon., Aug. 4 from 8 AM to 5:30 PM, check out Empowered Africa - A Progressive Dialogue on Sustainability, Peace and Democracy at Howard University, Washington D.C. Register at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/empowered-africa-dialogue-registration-12080078841. Join the US-Africa network, Howard University’s Department of African Studies, and other partners in a conversation with African civil society leaders. The Empowered Africa Dialogue takes place on the eve of President Obama’s African Leaders Summit. It provides a space for African and United States citizen-activists, scholars, progressive NGOs and community organizers to critique significant issues related to US-Africa policy and generate ideas for moving these conversations forward.
13] – On Mon., Aug. 4 at 9 AM, workers from Tito Contractors will finally get a hearing in front of the NLRB, 1099 14th St. NW, to expose sweeping retaliation for trying to organize to improve working conditions at their company. For years immigrant workers were exploited- under abusive supervisors and with overtime stolen out of their paychecks. Last year workers decided to organize to improve conditions and to form a union with the Painters District Council 51. Then, Tito's started to retaliate, taking away necessary work equipment and even firing workers who tried to stand up for their rights. Supervisors threatened to call immigration to silence workers, and the owner himself blamed the situation on the workers because they are immigrants.
Workers at Tito's have been courageous in their determination to hold their boss accountable despite being left vulnerable to retaliation from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Join workers as they testify about exploitation and retaliation at Tito Contractors, and demand workers' rights protection in enforcement reform. Contact Natalie Patrick-Knox, Jobs with Justice, at 503-915-5701 or Natalie@jwj.org.
14] – The Marc Steiner Show airs Monday through Friday from 10 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.
15] – On Mon., Aug. 4 at 6:30 PM, be at a Vigil in Support of Central American Children Fleeing Violence at 16th and H Sts. NW. This is organized by a group which is part of the DC-MD-VA Coalition in Support of Children Fleeing Violence and represents youth organizations who believe protecting children and youth is a priority. Visit https://www.facebook.com/events/313020295539450/.
16] – The Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore usually meets on Mondays at 7:30 PM, and the meetings take place at Max’s residence. The next meeting will be on Mon., Aug. 4. The proposed agenda will include the appeal of the conviction of the CIA Five, anti-drone activities, including the arraignment of the NSA Three, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Ukraine, bigotry on the border, Gaza, Norman Finkelstein and the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Commemoration. Call 410-366-1637 or email mobuszewski at verizon.net for directions.
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
"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.
Tune into the Maryland Progressive Blog at http://mdprogblog.org.
1] Books, buttons & stickers
2] Web site for info on federal legislation
3] Join Nonviolent Resistance lists
4] Buy coffee through HoCoFoLa
5] GUTSY: Taking the Fear Factor Out of Feminism – through Aug. 8
6] Human, Soul & Machine: The Coming Singularity – through Aug. 31
7] Special Education – Aug. 3
8] Peace and Pancakes – Aug. 3
9] Feed the Hood – Aug. 3
10] Pentagon Vigil – Aug. 4
11] NATIONAL CALL IN DAY FOR RAFIL DHAFIR – Aug. 4
12] Empowered Africa - Dialogue on Sustainability, Peace and Democracy – Aug. 4
13] Support workers before the NLRB – Aug. 4
14] Marc Steiner on WEAA – Aug. 4 – Aug. 8
15] Vigil in Support of Central American Children Fleeing Violence – Aug. 4
16] Pledge of Resistance/Fund Our Communities meeting – Aug. 4
-----
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] – GUTSY: Taking the Fear Factor Out of Feminism is a group exhibit of female artists whose work deals with feminist issues, themes, and aesthetics, and it runs through Fri., Aug. 8 at Gallery CA, 440 East Oliver St. Twenty percent of the sales go to Power Inside, an organization that serves women and girls who are survivors of gender-based violence and oppression. Call 410-528-9239 or http://galleryca.org.
6] – See the exhibit Human, Soul & Machine: The Coming Singularity, which delves into the various ways technology affects lives through the perspective of inventors, futurists and 40 plus visionary artists. The intent is to bring new thoughts on artificial intelligence, robotics, genetics, nanotechnology, 3D printing, and big data, and you can see it through August 31 at the American Visionary Art Museum, 800 Key Hwy. Call 410-244-1900. Go to http://avam.org. A ticket costs $20.
7] - 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 Sun., Aug. 3, hear about “What Does the Term ‘Special Education’ Mean?” by Jayme Smith. She will include an overview of special education including a definition of Individual Education Plans (IEPs) (see http://goo.gl/4dvEFQ), services, and how students can be served outside public education. One example of a non-public school is the High Road School of Perryville, and the talk will provide an overview of this school. Call 410-581-2322 or email ask@bmorethical.org.
8] - Join the Kadampa Meditation Center for Peace and Pancakes on Sundays at 10:30 AM at KMC Maryland, 2937 North Charles St. All are invited to participate in guided meditation and chant praying for world peace. There will be a talk based on Buddhist thought followed by brunch. Call 410- 243-3837. Brunch is $5.
9] – Gather at the intersection of MLK Ave. SE and Malcolm X Ave. SE on Sun., Aug. 3 at 2 PM for the National Black United Front (#NBUF) Feed the Hood Project. See http://www.eventbrite.com/e/nbuf-feed-the-hood-project-washington-dc-tickets-10660394527?aff=eac2.
10] -- 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., July 28, 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.
11] – There is a NATIONAL CALL IN DAY FOR a PRISONER OF CONSCIENCE RAFIL DHAFIR on Mon., Aug. 4. On June 18th Dr. Rafil Dhafir was removed to a special housing (isolation) unit. The purpose of the national call in day is to get the warden to return Dr. Dhafir to the general population. He is a United States citizen, oncologist, humanitarian and spiritual leader, and has served 12 years of a 22-year sentence for breaking the horrifically cruel U.S. and U.K. sponsored U.N. sanctions on Iraq which caused the death of 500,000 children under the age of 5 and 1,000,000 others. Dr. Dhafir gave aid through a charity he established to help children and adults in Iraq who were starving or sick from depleted uranium munitions and the lack of fresh water.
Call Brian Cincotta, (pronounced "sin-COT-tuh) case manager FMC Devens at 978-796-1000 Dial O, or stay on the line. Give Rafil Dhafir's inmate locator number - 11921-052 - and ask to speak with Mr. Cincotta. Ask to leave a message in his voice mail if he can’t be reached. You can also ask for the Public Information Officer or a member of the warden’s staff.
You can write Warden Jeffrey Grondowski, at FMC Devens, PO Box 880, Ayer, MA 01432 or by fax (978) 796-1118 or by email DEV/ExecAssistant@bop.gov. Some points that could be raised in letters and phone calls: Why was he put into the special housing unit? When is he getting out? He has been in for 40 days. Work on his 2255 legal motion, the deadline for which is November, is being interrupted by keeping him away from his legal papers. His right to religious expression was violated during Ramadan because he was denied an alarm clock. The right for Muslims to pray five times daily in a group was upheld in a case involving the Communications Management Unit in Terre Haute Indiana by U.S. District Court Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson. See: http://indianalawblog.com/documents/lindh%207-19-13.pdf.
Does Rafil have stamps, paper, envelopes, address book, Quran, eyeglasses and legal papers? Phone time should be increased to an hour a week minimum. The Chaplain should make arrangements for an Imam from a nearby mosque to visit him. Write to Rafil Dhafir 11921-052, FMC Devens, FEDERAL MEDICAL CENTER, PO BOX 879, AYER, MA 01432. Email poetapoetus@taconic.net or call 518-766-2992.
12] – On Mon., Aug. 4 from 8 AM to 5:30 PM, check out Empowered Africa - A Progressive Dialogue on Sustainability, Peace and Democracy at Howard University, Washington D.C. Register at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/empowered-africa-dialogue-registration-12080078841. Join the US-Africa network, Howard University’s Department of African Studies, and other partners in a conversation with African civil society leaders. The Empowered Africa Dialogue takes place on the eve of President Obama’s African Leaders Summit. It provides a space for African and United States citizen-activists, scholars, progressive NGOs and community organizers to critique significant issues related to US-Africa policy and generate ideas for moving these conversations forward.
13] – On Mon., Aug. 4 at 9 AM, workers from Tito Contractors will finally get a hearing in front of the NLRB, 1099 14th St. NW, to expose sweeping retaliation for trying to organize to improve working conditions at their company. For years immigrant workers were exploited- under abusive supervisors and with overtime stolen out of their paychecks. Last year workers decided to organize to improve conditions and to form a union with the Painters District Council 51. Then, Tito's started to retaliate, taking away necessary work equipment and even firing workers who tried to stand up for their rights. Supervisors threatened to call immigration to silence workers, and the owner himself blamed the situation on the workers because they are immigrants.
Workers at Tito's have been courageous in their determination to hold their boss accountable despite being left vulnerable to retaliation from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Join workers as they testify about exploitation and retaliation at Tito Contractors, and demand workers' rights protection in enforcement reform. Contact Natalie Patrick-Knox, Jobs with Justice, at 503-915-5701 or Natalie@jwj.org.
14] – The Marc Steiner Show airs Monday through Friday from 10 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.
15] – On Mon., Aug. 4 at 6:30 PM, be at a Vigil in Support of Central American Children Fleeing Violence at 16th and H Sts. NW. This is organized by a group which is part of the DC-MD-VA Coalition in Support of Children Fleeing Violence and represents youth organizations who believe protecting children and youth is a priority. Visit https://www.facebook.com/events/313020295539450/.
16] – The Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore usually meets on Mondays at 7:30 PM, and the meetings take place at Max’s residence. The next meeting will be on Mon., Aug. 4. The proposed agenda will include the appeal of the conviction of the CIA Five, anti-drone activities, including the arraignment of the NSA Three, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Ukraine, bigotry on the border, Gaza, Norman Finkelstein and the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Commemoration. Call 410-366-1637 or email mobuszewski at verizon.net for directions.
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
6 Horrible Things We Have to Face Because of Climate Change
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
AlterNet [1] / By Larry Schwartz [2]
6 Horrible Things We Have to Face Because of Climate Change
August 2, 2014 |
Global warming is here, it’s happening now, and, frankly, nothing we can do can change the fact that we are already screwed. Nero fiddles while Rome burns. At this point, we can only mitigate the damage, not prevent it. A United Nations report in 2013 [3] noted that greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere were at a level not seen in 800,000 years. Each of the last three decades has been warmer than any decade since 1850. In the northern hemisphere, the last three decades have been warmer than it has been in the last 14 centuries. CO2 levels are 40% higher than when the Industrial Revolution began back in the 18th century. Methane levels are 150% higher. Not only are we spewing tons and tons of carbon into the air via cars, coal-generated power plants, and airplanes, but we are also wiping out rainforests, which would normally be removing the CO2 from the atmosphere. To add fat to the fire, we are replacing the rainforests with cattle farms stocked with cows farting methane (an even more potent greenhouse gas than CO2) into the air. Earth’s average temperature will rise between 2 and 11 degrees Fahrenheit. Remember, that’s an average. Imagine a cold New England winter and it is so hot elsewhere that the average world temperature still goes up! Greenhouse gases do not break down quickly. Even if we stopped pouring them into the air this very second, the damage we have done already will persist for hundreds of years. If we don’t figure it out, if we keep following the path we are on, places like Southern California will have temperatures in the 100s on a daily basis. We are not talking about some distant future. These things will happen in your child’s lifetime unless we act. Here are six real-life horrible scenarios global warming will bring:
1. Jesus, it's hot!
Temperatures worldwide could rise 10 degrees Fahrenheit or more. If you enjoy a nice walk in Death Valley, then this super-heated world’s for you. To get a clearer picture, Climate Central, a non-profit organization in New Jersey has been compiling information in a report, “1,001 Blistering Future Summers,”and it has some eye-opening numbers. An average 78 degree Boston summer day today will be a Miami-like 89 degrees by the year 2100. Miami, in turn, will have risen to an average 94 degrees, similar to an average Harlingen, Texas summer day today. Harlingen, meanwhile, will have risen to an average of over 100 degrees. And so it goes. You can check how hot your city will be [4] here.
2. It's "The Grapes of Wrath" all over again.
As the Earth heats up, and weather patterns change, drought conditions plaguing the country for the past several years will become more and more commonplace. In the early 20th century, when ill-advised farming practices led to the removal of natural wind-breaks and grassland, wind erosion caused massive dust storms in the American southwest. The Dust Bowl as memorably written about by John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath, and photographed by numerous photographers [5]. Droughts today, caused by global warming, are creating similar conditions in the Great Plains. "If the drought holds on for two or three more years, as droughts have in the past, we will have Dust Bowl conditions in the farming belt," Craig Cox, an agriculture and natural resources expert with the Environmental Working Group, told Scientific American [6]. "It could be in a sense an invisible Dust Bowl—not like the big storms before, but withered crops, dry streams and other disasters that accompanied the Dust Bowl. Wind erosion is tremendously damaging and hard to control. A lot of practices that control wind erosion require growing things, and if those weren't in place when the drought hit, it's almost impossible to put them in place now."
3. Shall we take a swim down Broadway?
Ice normally helps reflect sunlight back into space, but as the Earth warms due to increased carbon in the air, ice melts, exposing the dark groundcover underneath, the darker color absorbing sunlight instead of reflecting it, causing the Earth to heat more quickly, causing more ice to melt, in a grand feedback loop. You know how when you plop a few ice cubes into a glass of water, the level of the water in the glass rises? Well, that’s what is happening right now. As the Earth’s temperature rises, the ice in the arctic and Antarctic regions is melting. Fast. And huge chunks of ice are crashing into the oceans, glaciers are melting, and the ocean levels of the planet are, like the level in that glass of water, rising. The sea level will rise by up to one foot by 2050, and by four to six feet by 2100. Right now flooding in the largest coastal cities in the world costs us around six billion dollars a year. According to a science journal, Nature Climate Change [7], that cost will rise to one trillion dollars by 2050. Cities at risk of partial or total submersion read like a who’s who of the world’s great metropolises: New York, Boston, Alexandria, Bangkok, Venice, New Orleans, Tokyo, Amsterdam, Calcutta, Miami, Shanghai. We could reduce that trillion dollar amount to a more manageable 63 billion dollars a year, but only if we invest in preventative measures now—things like levees, pumps, and barriers, which would, of course, require Nero to stop fiddling….
4. Remember frogs? Wonder what happened to them.
The Earth has gone through five periods of mass species extinction in our distant past. Many scientists feel that we are now entering our sixth mass extinction. Species extinction today rivals that of the die-off of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Dozens of species are disappearing every day, and we are losing species up to 10,000 times the normal rate of extinction in the past. As temperatures change, and as we burn down forests to make way for cattle farms and developments, which further contribute to the rising temperatures, species are unable to adapt quickly enough to their loss of habitat or the change in temperature . This in turn causes slight but significant changes in food supply, migrating habits, habitat viability, etc., leading to species demise). Frogs and other amphibians are most sensitive to the changes occurring in the climate, and are disappearing at up to 45,000 times the normal historical rate. Overall, up to a third of the known species of amphibians are at risk of simply disappearing. Because amphibians are so sensitive, they are sort of the other species' canary-in-the-coal-mine, acting as a gauge of the overall health of the ecosystem, and their loss is alarming. Birds, fish, mammals, insects, plants, you name it, they are all at risk. What does that mean for you and me? Simply put, the Earth is a vast machine, and everything on Earth plays a part in keeping the machine running smoothly. Under normal circumstances, loss of a species here and there would not affect the health of the machine, as there would be time to adapt to the loss. However, due to human-caused mass extinction at unprecedented rates, there is scant time for the Earth-machine to adapt, and a breakdown is, if not inevitable, certainly more likely. The results we might see include food shortages, water shortages, new diseases, shortages of resources (and the resulting wars). So, it's really not just the loss of a few cute frogs.
5. Remember that quaint little storm, Hurricane Sandy?
In basic terms, hurricanes are caused by water vapor forming over the oceans, combined with certain wind and atmospheric conditions. And as the Earth warms, the ocean surfaces warm, more water vapor results in more and/or stronger hurricanes. Many people think that global climate change has already started to affect the strength and number of hurricanes. While that is a debatable point, it is a near certainty that, given our current path, human-caused warming will result in hurricanes much stronger than Hurricane Sandy. Sandy was a category 3 storm. Scientists are predicting category 4 and 5 storms to be normal. A storm at that level may very well have wiped out New Orleans. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, hurricane strength will likely increase by up to 11%, on average, by 2100. Rainfall from the storms will increase by up to 20%. Damage and loss on this order of magnitude may very well make us look fondly back at Sandy, and make us wonder at our naiveté.
6. Eat your dinner! There are people starving . . . everywhere!
In case you haven’t noticed, fruits and vegetables cost a lot more this year. Why is that, you may ask? The short answer is that California has been suffering through a major drought (possibly but not certainly caused by global warming), and since we get so many of our fruits and veggies from California, and since crop losses have risen due to the drought, food costs have gone up. This same scenario has played out all over the country, as drought has hit many of our major farm states. Now, picture a world, not so far away, in which droughts are commonplace. That is the world coming to you, courtesy of human-caused global warming. Combined with the unmanageable population growth, such conditions will affect many countries that can ill-afford to suffer more catastrophes. Sub-Saharan Africa, for instance.
The most vulnerable countries, in Africa and Asia, hard-hit by drought, economically shaky, will likely be overwhelmed by crop failures, water shortages, and resulting food shortages. Of course, weather knows no borders. Eventually, even rich nations will have to deal with scarcer food, and even more scarce water (the supply of which will be taxed as decreased rainfall and snowfall and increased need to irrigate crops result in depleted reservoirs and aquifers). Expect wars to be fought over food and water resources, widespread famine, and the diseases caused by those conditions.
Many of the above atrocious scenarios can be mitigated, but only if we as a country, and nations worldwide, agree that they are not acceptable. Back in the 1970s, the Earth’s protective ozone layer was deteriorating due to manmade causes (chlorofluorocarbons in spray products). It seemed impossible that something so innocuous as spray deodorant could cause anything so catastrophic. But scientists showed us what was happening and we came together and banned CFCs, allowing the ozone layer to recover. Science is once again showing us that we are creating an incredibly dangerous situation. How will we respond?
[8]
Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/environment/6-horrible-things-we-have-face-because-climate-change
Links:
[1] http://alternet.org
[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/larry-schwartz
[3] http://http://mic.com/articles/86555/the-un-has-released-a-global-warming-report-and-things-are-getting-even-worse
[4] http://insideclimatenews.org/carbon-copy/20140710/global-warming-interactive-how-hot-will-your-city-get
[5] http://www.neh.gov/divisions/public/featured-project/the-dust-bowl-neh-and-national-museum-american-history-national
[6] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-change-threatens-second-dust-bowl/
[7] http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v3/n9/full/nclimate1979.html
[8] mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on 6 Horrible Things We Have to Face Because of Climate Change
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
AlterNet [1] / By Larry Schwartz [2]
6 Horrible Things We Have to Face Because of Climate Change
August 2, 2014 |
Global warming is here, it’s happening now, and, frankly, nothing we can do can change the fact that we are already screwed. Nero fiddles while Rome burns. At this point, we can only mitigate the damage, not prevent it. A United Nations report in 2013 [3] noted that greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere were at a level not seen in 800,000 years. Each of the last three decades has been warmer than any decade since 1850. In the northern hemisphere, the last three decades have been warmer than it has been in the last 14 centuries. CO2 levels are 40% higher than when the Industrial Revolution began back in the 18th century. Methane levels are 150% higher. Not only are we spewing tons and tons of carbon into the air via cars, coal-generated power plants, and airplanes, but we are also wiping out rainforests, which would normally be removing the CO2 from the atmosphere. To add fat to the fire, we are replacing the rainforests with cattle farms stocked with cows farting methane (an even more potent greenhouse gas than CO2) into the air. Earth’s average temperature will rise between 2 and 11 degrees Fahrenheit. Remember, that’s an average. Imagine a cold New England winter and it is so hot elsewhere that the average world temperature still goes up! Greenhouse gases do not break down quickly. Even if we stopped pouring them into the air this very second, the damage we have done already will persist for hundreds of years. If we don’t figure it out, if we keep following the path we are on, places like Southern California will have temperatures in the 100s on a daily basis. We are not talking about some distant future. These things will happen in your child’s lifetime unless we act. Here are six real-life horrible scenarios global warming will bring:
1. Jesus, it's hot!
Temperatures worldwide could rise 10 degrees Fahrenheit or more. If you enjoy a nice walk in Death Valley, then this super-heated world’s for you. To get a clearer picture, Climate Central, a non-profit organization in New Jersey has been compiling information in a report, “1,001 Blistering Future Summers,”and it has some eye-opening numbers. An average 78 degree Boston summer day today will be a Miami-like 89 degrees by the year 2100. Miami, in turn, will have risen to an average 94 degrees, similar to an average Harlingen, Texas summer day today. Harlingen, meanwhile, will have risen to an average of over 100 degrees. And so it goes. You can check how hot your city will be [4] here.
2. It's "The Grapes of Wrath" all over again.
As the Earth heats up, and weather patterns change, drought conditions plaguing the country for the past several years will become more and more commonplace. In the early 20th century, when ill-advised farming practices led to the removal of natural wind-breaks and grassland, wind erosion caused massive dust storms in the American southwest. The Dust Bowl as memorably written about by John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath, and photographed by numerous photographers [5]. Droughts today, caused by global warming, are creating similar conditions in the Great Plains. "If the drought holds on for two or three more years, as droughts have in the past, we will have Dust Bowl conditions in the farming belt," Craig Cox, an agriculture and natural resources expert with the Environmental Working Group, told Scientific American [6]. "It could be in a sense an invisible Dust Bowl—not like the big storms before, but withered crops, dry streams and other disasters that accompanied the Dust Bowl. Wind erosion is tremendously damaging and hard to control. A lot of practices that control wind erosion require growing things, and if those weren't in place when the drought hit, it's almost impossible to put them in place now."
3. Shall we take a swim down Broadway?
Ice normally helps reflect sunlight back into space, but as the Earth warms due to increased carbon in the air, ice melts, exposing the dark groundcover underneath, the darker color absorbing sunlight instead of reflecting it, causing the Earth to heat more quickly, causing more ice to melt, in a grand feedback loop. You know how when you plop a few ice cubes into a glass of water, the level of the water in the glass rises? Well, that’s what is happening right now. As the Earth’s temperature rises, the ice in the arctic and Antarctic regions is melting. Fast. And huge chunks of ice are crashing into the oceans, glaciers are melting, and the ocean levels of the planet are, like the level in that glass of water, rising. The sea level will rise by up to one foot by 2050, and by four to six feet by 2100. Right now flooding in the largest coastal cities in the world costs us around six billion dollars a year. According to a science journal, Nature Climate Change [7], that cost will rise to one trillion dollars by 2050. Cities at risk of partial or total submersion read like a who’s who of the world’s great metropolises: New York, Boston, Alexandria, Bangkok, Venice, New Orleans, Tokyo, Amsterdam, Calcutta, Miami, Shanghai. We could reduce that trillion dollar amount to a more manageable 63 billion dollars a year, but only if we invest in preventative measures now—things like levees, pumps, and barriers, which would, of course, require Nero to stop fiddling….
4. Remember frogs? Wonder what happened to them.
The Earth has gone through five periods of mass species extinction in our distant past. Many scientists feel that we are now entering our sixth mass extinction. Species extinction today rivals that of the die-off of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Dozens of species are disappearing every day, and we are losing species up to 10,000 times the normal rate of extinction in the past. As temperatures change, and as we burn down forests to make way for cattle farms and developments, which further contribute to the rising temperatures, species are unable to adapt quickly enough to their loss of habitat or the change in temperature . This in turn causes slight but significant changes in food supply, migrating habits, habitat viability, etc., leading to species demise). Frogs and other amphibians are most sensitive to the changes occurring in the climate, and are disappearing at up to 45,000 times the normal historical rate. Overall, up to a third of the known species of amphibians are at risk of simply disappearing. Because amphibians are so sensitive, they are sort of the other species' canary-in-the-coal-mine, acting as a gauge of the overall health of the ecosystem, and their loss is alarming. Birds, fish, mammals, insects, plants, you name it, they are all at risk. What does that mean for you and me? Simply put, the Earth is a vast machine, and everything on Earth plays a part in keeping the machine running smoothly. Under normal circumstances, loss of a species here and there would not affect the health of the machine, as there would be time to adapt to the loss. However, due to human-caused mass extinction at unprecedented rates, there is scant time for the Earth-machine to adapt, and a breakdown is, if not inevitable, certainly more likely. The results we might see include food shortages, water shortages, new diseases, shortages of resources (and the resulting wars). So, it's really not just the loss of a few cute frogs.
5. Remember that quaint little storm, Hurricane Sandy?
In basic terms, hurricanes are caused by water vapor forming over the oceans, combined with certain wind and atmospheric conditions. And as the Earth warms, the ocean surfaces warm, more water vapor results in more and/or stronger hurricanes. Many people think that global climate change has already started to affect the strength and number of hurricanes. While that is a debatable point, it is a near certainty that, given our current path, human-caused warming will result in hurricanes much stronger than Hurricane Sandy. Sandy was a category 3 storm. Scientists are predicting category 4 and 5 storms to be normal. A storm at that level may very well have wiped out New Orleans. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, hurricane strength will likely increase by up to 11%, on average, by 2100. Rainfall from the storms will increase by up to 20%. Damage and loss on this order of magnitude may very well make us look fondly back at Sandy, and make us wonder at our naiveté.
6. Eat your dinner! There are people starving . . . everywhere!
In case you haven’t noticed, fruits and vegetables cost a lot more this year. Why is that, you may ask? The short answer is that California has been suffering through a major drought (possibly but not certainly caused by global warming), and since we get so many of our fruits and veggies from California, and since crop losses have risen due to the drought, food costs have gone up. This same scenario has played out all over the country, as drought has hit many of our major farm states. Now, picture a world, not so far away, in which droughts are commonplace. That is the world coming to you, courtesy of human-caused global warming. Combined with the unmanageable population growth, such conditions will affect many countries that can ill-afford to suffer more catastrophes. Sub-Saharan Africa, for instance.
The most vulnerable countries, in Africa and Asia, hard-hit by drought, economically shaky, will likely be overwhelmed by crop failures, water shortages, and resulting food shortages. Of course, weather knows no borders. Eventually, even rich nations will have to deal with scarcer food, and even more scarce water (the supply of which will be taxed as decreased rainfall and snowfall and increased need to irrigate crops result in depleted reservoirs and aquifers). Expect wars to be fought over food and water resources, widespread famine, and the diseases caused by those conditions.
Many of the above atrocious scenarios can be mitigated, but only if we as a country, and nations worldwide, agree that they are not acceptable. Back in the 1970s, the Earth’s protective ozone layer was deteriorating due to manmade causes (chlorofluorocarbons in spray products). It seemed impossible that something so innocuous as spray deodorant could cause anything so catastrophic. But scientists showed us what was happening and we came together and banned CFCs, allowing the ozone layer to recover. Science is once again showing us that we are creating an incredibly dangerous situation. How will we respond?
[8]
Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/environment/6-horrible-things-we-have-face-because-climate-change
Links:
[1] http://alternet.org
[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/larry-schwartz
[3] http://http://mic.com/articles/86555/the-un-has-released-a-global-warming-report-and-things-are-getting-even-worse
[4] http://insideclimatenews.org/carbon-copy/20140710/global-warming-interactive-how-hot-will-your-city-get
[5] http://www.neh.gov/divisions/public/featured-project/the-dust-bowl-neh-and-national-museum-american-history-national
[6] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-change-threatens-second-dust-bowl/
[7] http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v3/n9/full/nclimate1979.html
[8] mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on 6 Horrible Things We Have to Face Because of Climate Change
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
Why Are Humans Violent? The Psychological Reason We Hurt Each Other
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
AlterNet [1] / By Kirk Schneider [2]
Why Are Humans Violent? The Psychological Reason We Hurt Each Other
July 30, 2014 |
From the crises in the Middle East to mass shootings in U.S. schools to the reckless striving for wealth and world domination, there is one overarching theme that almost never gets media coverage—the sense of insignificance that drives destructive acts. As a depth psychologist with many years of experience, I can say emphatically that the sense of being crushed, humiliated and existentially unimportant are the main factors behind so much that we call psychopathology.
Why would it not follow that the same factors are at play in social and cultural upheavals? The emerging science of “terror management theory” shows convincingly that when people feel unimportant they equate those feelings with dying—and they will do everything they can, including becoming extreme and destructive themselves to avoid that feeling.
The sense of insignificance and death anxiety have been shown to play a key role in everything from terrorism to mass shootings to extremist religious and political ideologies to obsessions with materialism and wealth. Just about all that is violent and corrupt in our world seems connected to it.
So before we rush to judgment about the basis of violence in our world, we would do well to heed the terror management theorists and consider missing pieces of the puzzle. Economic, ideological and biological explanations take us only so far in unpacking the bewildering phenomenon of slaughtering people in cold blood, or playing recklessly with their health, safety or livelihoods. Granted, some violence is defensive and perhaps necessary to protect the lives of sovereign individuals and states. But too often violence is provocative, and when it becomes so betrays a common thread of psychological destitution—the sense of insignificance, the sense of not counting, of helplessness, and of emotional devaluation. We have stories daily about both lone gunmen and soldiers who seek vengeance and “prestige” to cover over their cultural and emotional wounds. Correspondingly, such stories parallel the kind of psychopathy of some in the corporate sector who speculate, pollute and militarize at will.
How do we prevent such terrorizing cycles from continuing to arise? How do we transform people who feel so utterly estranged and stripped of value that they are willing to do virtually anything to redress perceived injustices? That transformation is not likely to occur through political or military coercion (as is now being contemplated in Iraq), nor through the ingestion of pills nor anger management programs (as was the case with several mass shooters), nor through the usual hand-wringing about stricter gun laws and increased diplomacy, which are imperative, but don’t go far enough.
What is needed is no less than a “moral equivalent of war,” to echo the philosopher William James, but at a fraction of the cost. The rampant sense of insignificance needs to be addressed at its root, and not with simplistic bromides. This means that alongside providing affordable short-term public mental health services, we also need to provide affordable long-term, in-depth mental health services. Such services would emphasize the transformative power of deeply supportive, subtly attuned relationships over short-term palliatives and would likely be life-changing (as well as life-saving) in their impact.
We could (and should) also provide cadres of group facilitators to optimize encounters between people in power. These encounters could include heads of state, members of diplomatic corps and legislators. Such facilitators could be schooled in well-established approaches to mediation, such as nonviolent communications, and would likely be pivotal in the settlement of intractable disputes. While the most hardened extremists may be unreachable, there are many others who might surprise us and engage the opportunity.
There is no theoretical reason why such practices would not work with the appropriate adaptations; we see these practices work every day in our clinics and consulting rooms, and often with the most challenging personalities.
The range of violent upheaval in the world is alarming. The quick fix, militarist solutions to this problem are faltering. In many cases, they are making situations worse (as we have seen with recent military operations).
The time for a change in societal consciousness is at hand. By focusing our resources on the root of the problem, the many people who feel they don’t count, we not only bolster individual and collective lives, we provide a model that others will find difficult to ignore.
[3]
Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/visions/why-are-humans-violent-psychological-reason-we-hurt-each-other
Links:
[1] http://alternet.org
[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/kirk-schneider
[3] mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on Why Are Humans Violent? The Psychological Reason We Hurt Each Other
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
AlterNet [1] / By Kirk Schneider [2]
Why Are Humans Violent? The Psychological Reason We Hurt Each Other
July 30, 2014 |
From the crises in the Middle East to mass shootings in U.S. schools to the reckless striving for wealth and world domination, there is one overarching theme that almost never gets media coverage—the sense of insignificance that drives destructive acts. As a depth psychologist with many years of experience, I can say emphatically that the sense of being crushed, humiliated and existentially unimportant are the main factors behind so much that we call psychopathology.
Why would it not follow that the same factors are at play in social and cultural upheavals? The emerging science of “terror management theory” shows convincingly that when people feel unimportant they equate those feelings with dying—and they will do everything they can, including becoming extreme and destructive themselves to avoid that feeling.
The sense of insignificance and death anxiety have been shown to play a key role in everything from terrorism to mass shootings to extremist religious and political ideologies to obsessions with materialism and wealth. Just about all that is violent and corrupt in our world seems connected to it.
So before we rush to judgment about the basis of violence in our world, we would do well to heed the terror management theorists and consider missing pieces of the puzzle. Economic, ideological and biological explanations take us only so far in unpacking the bewildering phenomenon of slaughtering people in cold blood, or playing recklessly with their health, safety or livelihoods. Granted, some violence is defensive and perhaps necessary to protect the lives of sovereign individuals and states. But too often violence is provocative, and when it becomes so betrays a common thread of psychological destitution—the sense of insignificance, the sense of not counting, of helplessness, and of emotional devaluation. We have stories daily about both lone gunmen and soldiers who seek vengeance and “prestige” to cover over their cultural and emotional wounds. Correspondingly, such stories parallel the kind of psychopathy of some in the corporate sector who speculate, pollute and militarize at will.
How do we prevent such terrorizing cycles from continuing to arise? How do we transform people who feel so utterly estranged and stripped of value that they are willing to do virtually anything to redress perceived injustices? That transformation is not likely to occur through political or military coercion (as is now being contemplated in Iraq), nor through the ingestion of pills nor anger management programs (as was the case with several mass shooters), nor through the usual hand-wringing about stricter gun laws and increased diplomacy, which are imperative, but don’t go far enough.
What is needed is no less than a “moral equivalent of war,” to echo the philosopher William James, but at a fraction of the cost. The rampant sense of insignificance needs to be addressed at its root, and not with simplistic bromides. This means that alongside providing affordable short-term public mental health services, we also need to provide affordable long-term, in-depth mental health services. Such services would emphasize the transformative power of deeply supportive, subtly attuned relationships over short-term palliatives and would likely be life-changing (as well as life-saving) in their impact.
We could (and should) also provide cadres of group facilitators to optimize encounters between people in power. These encounters could include heads of state, members of diplomatic corps and legislators. Such facilitators could be schooled in well-established approaches to mediation, such as nonviolent communications, and would likely be pivotal in the settlement of intractable disputes. While the most hardened extremists may be unreachable, there are many others who might surprise us and engage the opportunity.
There is no theoretical reason why such practices would not work with the appropriate adaptations; we see these practices work every day in our clinics and consulting rooms, and often with the most challenging personalities.
The range of violent upheaval in the world is alarming. The quick fix, militarist solutions to this problem are faltering. In many cases, they are making situations worse (as we have seen with recent military operations).
The time for a change in societal consciousness is at hand. By focusing our resources on the root of the problem, the many people who feel they don’t count, we not only bolster individual and collective lives, we provide a model that others will find difficult to ignore.
[3]
Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/visions/why-are-humans-violent-psychological-reason-we-hurt-each-other
Links:
[1] http://alternet.org
[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/kirk-schneider
[3] mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on Why Are Humans Violent? The Psychological Reason We Hurt Each Other
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
A Canton pastor talks about the environment over the years
Canton Pastor Preaches Environmentalism in Church, Capital
A Canton pastor talks about the environment over the years. Posted by Adam Bednar (Editor), July 6, 2013 at 04:00 pm
http://northbaltimore.patch.com/groups/editors-picks/p/canton-pastor-preaches-environmentalism-in-church-capital_53a20c96?ncid=newsltuspatc00000001&evar4=picks-2-post
Most Sundays, just blocks from the Baltimoreans who are walking dogs and boarding water taxis, the Rev. Lee Hudson is at the pulpit preaching about the environment.
"I do a fair amount of reminding people that the goodness we care about is given as a goodness of creation," he said.
Hudson talks about the environment in his Messiah Lutheran Church in Canton. He talks about the environment before committees in Annapolis. He talks about the environment during Canton park cleanups. He has talked so much about the environment that two of his sons are dedicated to the movement, too.
He calls it "care for creation" and sees it as part of his mission as a pastor.
From the front of the 123-year-old granite church, Hudson can look down the hill and see the Canton waterfront—which 10 years ago was flooded by Tropical Storm Isabel.
And severe weather hit even closer to home: The church sustained $25,000 worth of damage in the snowstorms of 2010—a sum that nearly put the church out of business.
Though Messiah had insurance coverage with Church Mutual—an organization that specifically insures religious institutions—the cost of repairing the church, after the insurance money, was still $15,000.
"At that point in our existence, that was a real stretch," Hudson said.
Sitting in a wood-paneled office and surrounded by theological books, Hudson, 65, said the roof crisis made the issues of climate change real to many of his congregation.
"People didn’t say, 'Oh, climate change is affecting the existence of the institution,'" Hudson said. "But as a practical matter it kind of did."
People in the church’s neighborhood know Hudson’s commitment to the community. Steve Vas, the manager of John’s Carry Out, next door to the church, said that Hudson is often organizing events around town.
"He’s always cleaning up in the park and around the area," Vas said.
Born and raised in Virginia, Hudson lives near Patterson Park with his wife, Gail, and his family. When he moved to Baltimore in 1983 with a graduate degree from New York’s Union Theological Seminary, he was immediately greeted with a winter welcome: one of the largest snowstorms Charm City had ever seen.
The much larger 2010 storm, which wreaked havoc throughout the Mid-Atlantic, caused significant damage to Messiah, as heavy snow tore off the building’s snow rail and guttering.
Hudson knew he was not alone in his insurance woes. He had heard that many insurers were telling people along the bay for years after Tropical Storm Isabel struck that they would not be covered.
And he was able to advocate for these people and for protecting the Earth as a state environmental representative for the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.
Hudson’s denomination has always had strong environmental views, with a history of strong public positions called social statements.
In 1993, when much public focus on the environment dealt with pollution, the denomination issued a statement that tied greenhouse gases, climate change and sea-level rise in with pollutants.
Church representatives in Washington and at the United Nations made the denomination’s position clear there.
But the church decided to expand its efforts to state legislatures. And for 12 years, Hudson doubled as an O’Donnell Street pastor and director of the Lutheran Office of Public Policy on State Circle in Annapolis.
House of Delegates documents give a look into Hudson’s work on public policy.
In a letter written on Feb. 12, 2008, to support the use of renewable resources in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Hudson wrote, “Our faith community is committed to care for created goodness through good stewardship of its blessings and benefits. Sufficiency, not exploitation, remains a standard we advocate for both production and consumption.”
He has passed the concept of “care for creation” onto his three sons and daughter.
Drew Hudson, 33, is now the director of Environmental Action, an environmental activism group in Boston. He said his father’s emphasis on stewardship and care of creation has colored his dealing on the environment.
"Even if I’m not using those terms, that’s my upbringing and that’s where I came from," Drew Hudson said. "I use that as part of telling people who I am."
Even Michael Hudson, the pastor’s 17-year-old youngest son, has taken to studying bird species decline while at City College. He’s also starting a letter-writing campaign to state and federal lawmakers on protecting the American subspecies of the migratory red knot—while he’s not busy serving as secretary of the Church Council.
"Part of the commitment is that it’s what I’m passionate about, but another part is care of creation," Michael Hudson said. "What we have isn’t just there. We have to care for it."
The elder Hudson said the church has lost members as the congregation has aged and the surrounding area has become a “cool” neighborhood for younger people.
The church stays afloat by staying lean in all aspects, including its purchase of electricity, which comes from Groundswell, a non-profit community energy supplier that emphasizes “a more just and clean economy,” according to its website—yet another way Messiah and Hudson are helping their community and the Earth.
Copyright ©2013 Patch. All rights reserved.
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
A Canton pastor talks about the environment over the years. Posted by Adam Bednar (Editor), July 6, 2013 at 04:00 pm
http://northbaltimore.patch.com/groups/editors-picks/p/canton-pastor-preaches-environmentalism-in-church-capital_53a20c96?ncid=newsltuspatc00000001&evar4=picks-2-post
Most Sundays, just blocks from the Baltimoreans who are walking dogs and boarding water taxis, the Rev. Lee Hudson is at the pulpit preaching about the environment.
"I do a fair amount of reminding people that the goodness we care about is given as a goodness of creation," he said.
Hudson talks about the environment in his Messiah Lutheran Church in Canton. He talks about the environment before committees in Annapolis. He talks about the environment during Canton park cleanups. He has talked so much about the environment that two of his sons are dedicated to the movement, too.
He calls it "care for creation" and sees it as part of his mission as a pastor.
From the front of the 123-year-old granite church, Hudson can look down the hill and see the Canton waterfront—which 10 years ago was flooded by Tropical Storm Isabel.
And severe weather hit even closer to home: The church sustained $25,000 worth of damage in the snowstorms of 2010—a sum that nearly put the church out of business.
Though Messiah had insurance coverage with Church Mutual—an organization that specifically insures religious institutions—the cost of repairing the church, after the insurance money, was still $15,000.
"At that point in our existence, that was a real stretch," Hudson said.
Sitting in a wood-paneled office and surrounded by theological books, Hudson, 65, said the roof crisis made the issues of climate change real to many of his congregation.
"People didn’t say, 'Oh, climate change is affecting the existence of the institution,'" Hudson said. "But as a practical matter it kind of did."
People in the church’s neighborhood know Hudson’s commitment to the community. Steve Vas, the manager of John’s Carry Out, next door to the church, said that Hudson is often organizing events around town.
"He’s always cleaning up in the park and around the area," Vas said.
Born and raised in Virginia, Hudson lives near Patterson Park with his wife, Gail, and his family. When he moved to Baltimore in 1983 with a graduate degree from New York’s Union Theological Seminary, he was immediately greeted with a winter welcome: one of the largest snowstorms Charm City had ever seen.
The much larger 2010 storm, which wreaked havoc throughout the Mid-Atlantic, caused significant damage to Messiah, as heavy snow tore off the building’s snow rail and guttering.
Hudson knew he was not alone in his insurance woes. He had heard that many insurers were telling people along the bay for years after Tropical Storm Isabel struck that they would not be covered.
And he was able to advocate for these people and for protecting the Earth as a state environmental representative for the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.
Hudson’s denomination has always had strong environmental views, with a history of strong public positions called social statements.
In 1993, when much public focus on the environment dealt with pollution, the denomination issued a statement that tied greenhouse gases, climate change and sea-level rise in with pollutants.
Church representatives in Washington and at the United Nations made the denomination’s position clear there.
But the church decided to expand its efforts to state legislatures. And for 12 years, Hudson doubled as an O’Donnell Street pastor and director of the Lutheran Office of Public Policy on State Circle in Annapolis.
House of Delegates documents give a look into Hudson’s work on public policy.
In a letter written on Feb. 12, 2008, to support the use of renewable resources in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Hudson wrote, “Our faith community is committed to care for created goodness through good stewardship of its blessings and benefits. Sufficiency, not exploitation, remains a standard we advocate for both production and consumption.”
He has passed the concept of “care for creation” onto his three sons and daughter.
Drew Hudson, 33, is now the director of Environmental Action, an environmental activism group in Boston. He said his father’s emphasis on stewardship and care of creation has colored his dealing on the environment.
"Even if I’m not using those terms, that’s my upbringing and that’s where I came from," Drew Hudson said. "I use that as part of telling people who I am."
Even Michael Hudson, the pastor’s 17-year-old youngest son, has taken to studying bird species decline while at City College. He’s also starting a letter-writing campaign to state and federal lawmakers on protecting the American subspecies of the migratory red knot—while he’s not busy serving as secretary of the Church Council.
"Part of the commitment is that it’s what I’m passionate about, but another part is care of creation," Michael Hudson said. "What we have isn’t just there. We have to care for it."
The elder Hudson said the church has lost members as the congregation has aged and the surrounding area has become a “cool” neighborhood for younger people.
The church stays afloat by staying lean in all aspects, including its purchase of electricity, which comes from Groundswell, a non-profit community energy supplier that emphasizes “a more just and clean economy,” according to its website—yet another way Messiah and Hudson are helping their community and the Earth.
Copyright ©2013 Patch. All rights reserved.
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
Cranking Up the Washington Lie Machine
Cranking Up the Washington Lie Machine
By Dave Lindorff
Just for the sake of argument, let's suspend our disbelief for a moment and pretend (I know it's a stretch) that the Obama administration and the apologists for the nation's spy apparatus in Congress, Democratic and Republican, are telling us the gods' honest truth.
They have, as the Wall Street Journal puts it, "amped up" their defense of the NSA's massive spying program, claiming that not two, but 50 terrorist plots have been foiled thanks to their metadata mining and their intrusive monitoring of our phone and email conversations and website browsing activity.
Think what that means: for years now, the Jihadists have known that the US spy apparatus is ubiquitous, and that it is able to track all their communications. Of course they knew this, because they would have seen all these plots being foiled (the real ones, not the many ones that were created by FBI or CIA provocateurs and plants), and, not being stupid, they would have put it together and realized that the plots that depended upon a lot of phone calls and internet communications were getting busted up, while ones that were handled either solo, or that were developed by careful word-of-mouth communication and courier were managing to succeed.
But we poor schmucks, the American people, have been left in ignorance, imagining that our carefully crafted and painstakingly memorized six or eight-digit passwords, including at least one letter and one number (or if we're really good, some symbol or other), were doing the job of keeping our online lives private and that our unlisted numbers, or our decision not to list an address with the phone company, were keeping our telephonic communications secure.
Ho ho! Were we fooled!
But really (stepping back into the real world again now), are we going to believe this nonsense about 50 NSA-foiled plots?
The reason the NSA's success rate at defeating terror plots leapt overnight from an initial unimpressive two to an impressive 50 is that it turns out that the American people were really not very happy or grateful about learning that they had surrendered all privacy to Big Brother in return for the alleged disrupting of one wacko who had a dream, though poorly conceived, of bombing the New York subway, and the belated capture of another guy who had already allegedly done all the target-scouting work for the successful massacre in the hotel and train station of Mumbai, in India. That's clearly not a great record to stand on, so now we're being told by the NSA that actually it wasn't just two plots that were foiled by their Orwellian spying, it was two score and 10. Much better, right?
Except... we don't get to learn what those alleged busted plots were. If they were as hairbrained as the underwear bomber's plan, which succeeded only in scorching his own privates, or as poorly conceived as the Times Square bomber's plot, which succeeded only in burning some of the upholstery in his SUV, we don't really have much to show for the freedom we've had stolen from us.
And we're not going to learn what most of these alleged foiled plots were because...they're secret.
We do know that Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO), who as members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, were briefed on at least some of the plots, including the first two that were offered up to us as demonstrations of the NSA's prowess, have concluded that the NSA was exaggerating. They report that those first two plots were actually foiled by tips from British police, who had broken up plots in that country through good police work and then passed along evidence about plotters they were linked to here in the US. There is really no reason to believe that's not the case with the other alleged NSA "triumphs." It's highly likely that they were all busted by solid police work and that the NSA was an also-ran in the process, playing a cameo role, and at best providing post-facto evidence to use in any prosecution, if that (as was the case in it's "success" after the Mumbai massacre).
In reality, the biggest threat to America today is not terrorism, which is really a much less serious problem in terms of death and mayhem than drunk driving (and one which would subside if the US stopped trying to be a global empire). Rather, the biggest threat is a federal government that has become increasingly unhinged, secretive, unmoored from the people and the Constitution, and thoroughly unprincipled -- ready to lie without hesitation and acting in the interests of the rich and the powerful, instead of in the broad interests of the majority of the population.
We have reached a point where trust in the government is so low that the default assumption of most ciizens is that the government is lying -- and they are correct.
Our government lies about the extent to which it spies on us, it lies about the integrity of the IRS, it lies about wanting to rein in the banks, it lies about "winning" the war in Afghanistan, it lies about the Social Security program going bankrupt, it lies about the US not torturing captives, it lies about chemical weapons use in Syria, it lies about a nuclear weapons program in Iran, it lies about not deliberately killing innocent civilians, including women and children, with its drones in Pakistan, Yemen and Afghanistan,it lies about nuclear power being safe (and about there being no radioactive fallout in the US from the Fukushima disaster), and it even lies about the safety of our food. That's just a partial list. You can add your own to it, I'm sure, with little difficulty.
As President Obama said in one of his rare moments of accidental candor: "If people can't trust, not only the executive branch, but also don't trust Congress, and don't trust federal judges to make sure we're abiding by the Constitution, due process and the rule of law, then we're gonna have some problems here."
Exactly. And that's one reason we do have problems. Based upon a towering stack of evidence, the people of the United States, left, right and center, now profoundly do not trust the government.
But the real reason we have a problem is that the government -- the executive branch, the Congress and the federal courts, especially the Supreme Court -- don't trust the people. Hence the spying, the amped up police departments with all their swat gear, tanks, and soon drones, and the laws making virtually any expression of protest a crime. Look at the way the federal government orchestrated the brutal crushing of the Occupy Movement. Police in paramilitary and SWAT garb, armed with flash-bang stun grenades, rubber bullets, truncheons, saps, gallons of mace and even sonic weapons, using night-time assaults, mass arrests, and keeping the media at bay, cleared out Occupy actions across the country, city by city, under the direct guidance and encouragement of the Department of Homeland Security. What was that but fear of the people? Look at the way the full force of the US government's spying, diplomatic and legal apparatus has been brought down on whistleblowers like Julian Assange, Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden for simply telling the truth. What is that but fear of the people knowing the truth?
Today I drove past a couple of people in the neighboring village of Flourtown, PA, who had set up some signs on a sidewalk along the main street calling for the impeachment of "Big Brother Obama." People driving past in their cars in this town, which had voted for Obama both in 2008 and 2012, were waving and honking their horns. I thought, "Hey, this is great. Obama's starting to be seen the way G.W. Bush was seen, as a Constitutional criminal." Then I noticed that the protesters were from the Lyndon LaRouche cult, the National Caucus of Labor Committees.
Amazing! To think that the US has sunk so far into fascist-style police statism, that the LaRouchies, who used to just seem like paranoid kooks, are now looking sane and prescient.
This article was published at NationofChange at: http://www.nationofchange.org/cranking-washington-lie-machine-1371911045. All rights are reserved.
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
War and Peace: The Youth of Gaza
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/25118-war-and-peace-the-youth-of-gaza
A movement among the youth in Gaza is saying no to Israel and Hamas. (photo: adjusters)
War and Peace: The Youth of Gaza
By Nour Omar Shaban, Fair Observer
02 August 14
Palestinians and Israelis cannot keep fighting for the rest of their lives; they must make peace.
I have lived and grown up in the Gaza Strip, one of the most dangerous places in the world. Despite only being 16 years old, I have seen death and destruction, and lived through tough experiences that are full of painful memories. I wanted to write this so I can show the world a different view of people in Gaza, especially the youth.
The struggle between Palestinians and Israelis has been going on for over 60 years. However, I believe that nothing is permanent — one day, there will be peace. Actually, I think it’s possible to make peace at any point, if the will is there.
I have left Gaza only once in my life to visit Europe via Israel and Jordan. On route, I went to have lunch in an Israeli restaurant. When I paid the bill, the cashier, who was Israeli, couldn’t believe I came from Gaza. The look on his face made me feel like I was an alien or something, but I shook his hand and we shared some laughs. It made me feel so relaxed because, at the end of the day, we are both human and have the same simple desires of life: We want to grow up, have a job and live a peaceful life full of joy. This encounter made me feel hopeful that one day peace will be achieved.
But the problem is the Israeli blockade of Gaza as it doesn’t allow Palestinians to go outside the territory, especially the youth. What the entire world sees in Gaza in terms of resistance and extremists is a consequence of the siege — and occupation — because the situation in the Strip is extremely difficult.
Gaza has a population of almost 2 million people who are crammed into a tiny stretch of land. In the coming years, Gaza will be the most densely populated area in the world. Some 43% of the population are 14 or below and 21% are between 15-24 years old. In addition, we have one of the highest unemployment rates worldwide.
When these young people reach working age and the economy doesn’t provide opportunities and emigration is blocked, the consequences will be dire: social tension, violence and extremism as possible outlets, due to a lack of meaningful prospects and brain drain. The youth will become radicals and they won’t care about their future or anyone else’s, because they have not seen any other place than Gaza.
This means that Palestinians and Israelis will continue to live in fear and insecurity. Israel must end the siege of Gaza and make everyday people interact with one another. Without a culture of peaceful coexistence between Palestinians and Israelis, peace is not possible.
The siege is causing Palestinians in Gaza to suffer as a result of political decisions. In my opinion, the resistance is just a temporary phenomenon to achieve particular goals: to end the blockade and allow Palestinians to live in freedom and dignity in a state of their own.
But we cannot keep fighting for the rest of our lives. As a Palestinian teenager, I want to make peace. I want to live a normal life like millions of people around the world in places such as London, New York and Tokyo.
At the end of the day, Israel controls its future and ours. If Israel wants to make peace, then it should end the siege and make Israelis and Palestinians interact with one another. I am not saying it is going to be easy because both sides are full of hatred, but we cannot let our past control our future. Forgiveness starts today.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
© 2014 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
A movement among the youth in Gaza is saying no to Israel and Hamas. (photo: adjusters)
War and Peace: The Youth of Gaza
By Nour Omar Shaban, Fair Observer
02 August 14
Palestinians and Israelis cannot keep fighting for the rest of their lives; they must make peace.
I have lived and grown up in the Gaza Strip, one of the most dangerous places in the world. Despite only being 16 years old, I have seen death and destruction, and lived through tough experiences that are full of painful memories. I wanted to write this so I can show the world a different view of people in Gaza, especially the youth.
The struggle between Palestinians and Israelis has been going on for over 60 years. However, I believe that nothing is permanent — one day, there will be peace. Actually, I think it’s possible to make peace at any point, if the will is there.
I have left Gaza only once in my life to visit Europe via Israel and Jordan. On route, I went to have lunch in an Israeli restaurant. When I paid the bill, the cashier, who was Israeli, couldn’t believe I came from Gaza. The look on his face made me feel like I was an alien or something, but I shook his hand and we shared some laughs. It made me feel so relaxed because, at the end of the day, we are both human and have the same simple desires of life: We want to grow up, have a job and live a peaceful life full of joy. This encounter made me feel hopeful that one day peace will be achieved.
But the problem is the Israeli blockade of Gaza as it doesn’t allow Palestinians to go outside the territory, especially the youth. What the entire world sees in Gaza in terms of resistance and extremists is a consequence of the siege — and occupation — because the situation in the Strip is extremely difficult.
Gaza has a population of almost 2 million people who are crammed into a tiny stretch of land. In the coming years, Gaza will be the most densely populated area in the world. Some 43% of the population are 14 or below and 21% are between 15-24 years old. In addition, we have one of the highest unemployment rates worldwide.
When these young people reach working age and the economy doesn’t provide opportunities and emigration is blocked, the consequences will be dire: social tension, violence and extremism as possible outlets, due to a lack of meaningful prospects and brain drain. The youth will become radicals and they won’t care about their future or anyone else’s, because they have not seen any other place than Gaza.
This means that Palestinians and Israelis will continue to live in fear and insecurity. Israel must end the siege of Gaza and make everyday people interact with one another. Without a culture of peaceful coexistence between Palestinians and Israelis, peace is not possible.
The siege is causing Palestinians in Gaza to suffer as a result of political decisions. In my opinion, the resistance is just a temporary phenomenon to achieve particular goals: to end the blockade and allow Palestinians to live in freedom and dignity in a state of their own.
But we cannot keep fighting for the rest of our lives. As a Palestinian teenager, I want to make peace. I want to live a normal life like millions of people around the world in places such as London, New York and Tokyo.
At the end of the day, Israel controls its future and ours. If Israel wants to make peace, then it should end the siege and make Israelis and Palestinians interact with one another. I am not saying it is going to be easy because both sides are full of hatred, but we cannot let our past control our future. Forgiveness starts today.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
© 2014 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
Saturday, August 2, 2014
It's About the Lying
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/25101-its-about-the-lying
(photo: unknown)
It's About the Lying
By Dan Froomkin, The Intercept
01 August 14
I don’t want to understate how seriously wrong it is that the CIA searched Senate computers. Our constitutional order is seriously out of whack when the executive branch acts with that kind of impunity — to its overseers, no less.
But given everything else that’s been going on lately, the single biggest — and arguably most constructive — thing to focus on is how outrageously CIA Director John Brennan lied to everyone about it.
“As far as the allegations of the CIA hacking into Senate computers, nothing could be further from the truth,” Brennan told NBC’s Andrea Mitchell in March. “We wouldn’t do that. I mean, that’s just beyond the, you know, the scope of reason in terms of what we do.”
Earlier, he had castigated “some members of the Senate” for making “spurious allegations about CIA actions that are wholly unsupported by the facts.” He called for an end to “outbursts that do a disservice to the important relationship that needs to be maintained between intelligence officials and Congressional overseers.”
And what compelled Senate intelligence committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein to make a dramatic floor speech in the first place, bringing everything out in the open, was that Brennan had responded to her initial concerns not by acknowledging the CIA’s misconduct — but by firing back with an allegation of criminal activity by her own staff.
Not coincidentally, the document the CIA was hunting for, that Senate staffers were accused of purloining, and that Brennan was now lying about, was a big deal precisely because it exposed more lies.
Known as the Panetta Review (evidently prepared for Leon Panetta, who served as CIA director from 2009 to 2011), it became relevant last year, when the CIA started pushing back against many of the scathing conclusions in the several-thousand page “Torture Report” the Senate staffers had finished up in December 2012.
Even as the CIA was officially rebutting key parts of the committee’s report, the staffers realized they had an internal CIA review that corroborated them. In other words, it was proof that the CIA was now lying.
So what’s in the Torture Report? Well, I can’t quote from it, because the intelligence community and the White House have done such a good job of delaying its public release (although a redacted version is widely rumored to be coming soon).
But by all accounts, the report not only discloses abuse that was more brutal, systematic and widespread than generally recognized, but also chronicles how the people most intimately involved in the torture regime lied to others inside the CIA, lied to Justice Department lawyers, and lied to the public; how they lied about what they were doing, they lied to make it sound like it accomplished something, and afterwards, they lied some more.
Brennan reportedly told Feinstein and intelligence committee vice chairman Saxby Chambliss on Tuesday that he was sorry. But it’s hardly the first time he’s been caught in the act. There was, for instance, that time in June 2011, when he was President Obama’s counter-terrorism advisor, that he asserted that over the previous year there had not been a single collateral death from drone strikes. (He later amended that to say there was no “credible evidence” of such deaths.)
But there was indeed ample and credible evidence. (Just as one example, a March 2011 CIA drone attack in Pakistan killed some 50 people, including tribal elders who were gathered for a tribal conclave.)
Brennan’s erstwhile boss, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, famously lied when he assured the Senate intelligence committee that the government wasn’t collecting data on Americans in bulk when, as it turns out, it was.
Lying, of course, has always been a problem in Washington. But especially after the 9/11 terror attacks, the Bush-Cheney regime took lying to new post-Nixon heights. Maybe even pre-Nixon.
When I sat down to write my last “White House Watch” column for the Washington Post, what struck me most about the Bush years were the lies. The most consequential, of course, were the lies about the war.
The most telling were the lies to cover up the lies about the war. And the most grotesque were the lies about torture.
The other thing is that there were no consequences. No one got in trouble for lying. The only semi-casualty was Scooter Libby, briefly convicted of lying while obstructing the investigation into vice president Cheney’s lies.
Figuring out how to right the constitutional imbalance between the branches of government, as exposed by this CIA assault on Congress, is very complicated.
But doing something about lying isn’t. You need to hold people accountable for it.
History will assuredly record that President Obama lied about a number of things, particularly as he carried water for the intelligence community and the military. But he’s no Cheney.
So if you’re the president, you fire everyone who lies. Starting with John Brennan.
© 2014 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
(photo: unknown)
It's About the Lying
By Dan Froomkin, The Intercept
01 August 14
I don’t want to understate how seriously wrong it is that the CIA searched Senate computers. Our constitutional order is seriously out of whack when the executive branch acts with that kind of impunity — to its overseers, no less.
But given everything else that’s been going on lately, the single biggest — and arguably most constructive — thing to focus on is how outrageously CIA Director John Brennan lied to everyone about it.
“As far as the allegations of the CIA hacking into Senate computers, nothing could be further from the truth,” Brennan told NBC’s Andrea Mitchell in March. “We wouldn’t do that. I mean, that’s just beyond the, you know, the scope of reason in terms of what we do.”
Earlier, he had castigated “some members of the Senate” for making “spurious allegations about CIA actions that are wholly unsupported by the facts.” He called for an end to “outbursts that do a disservice to the important relationship that needs to be maintained between intelligence officials and Congressional overseers.”
And what compelled Senate intelligence committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein to make a dramatic floor speech in the first place, bringing everything out in the open, was that Brennan had responded to her initial concerns not by acknowledging the CIA’s misconduct — but by firing back with an allegation of criminal activity by her own staff.
Not coincidentally, the document the CIA was hunting for, that Senate staffers were accused of purloining, and that Brennan was now lying about, was a big deal precisely because it exposed more lies.
Known as the Panetta Review (evidently prepared for Leon Panetta, who served as CIA director from 2009 to 2011), it became relevant last year, when the CIA started pushing back against many of the scathing conclusions in the several-thousand page “Torture Report” the Senate staffers had finished up in December 2012.
Even as the CIA was officially rebutting key parts of the committee’s report, the staffers realized they had an internal CIA review that corroborated them. In other words, it was proof that the CIA was now lying.
So what’s in the Torture Report? Well, I can’t quote from it, because the intelligence community and the White House have done such a good job of delaying its public release (although a redacted version is widely rumored to be coming soon).
But by all accounts, the report not only discloses abuse that was more brutal, systematic and widespread than generally recognized, but also chronicles how the people most intimately involved in the torture regime lied to others inside the CIA, lied to Justice Department lawyers, and lied to the public; how they lied about what they were doing, they lied to make it sound like it accomplished something, and afterwards, they lied some more.
Brennan reportedly told Feinstein and intelligence committee vice chairman Saxby Chambliss on Tuesday that he was sorry. But it’s hardly the first time he’s been caught in the act. There was, for instance, that time in June 2011, when he was President Obama’s counter-terrorism advisor, that he asserted that over the previous year there had not been a single collateral death from drone strikes. (He later amended that to say there was no “credible evidence” of such deaths.)
But there was indeed ample and credible evidence. (Just as one example, a March 2011 CIA drone attack in Pakistan killed some 50 people, including tribal elders who were gathered for a tribal conclave.)
Brennan’s erstwhile boss, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, famously lied when he assured the Senate intelligence committee that the government wasn’t collecting data on Americans in bulk when, as it turns out, it was.
Lying, of course, has always been a problem in Washington. But especially after the 9/11 terror attacks, the Bush-Cheney regime took lying to new post-Nixon heights. Maybe even pre-Nixon.
When I sat down to write my last “White House Watch” column for the Washington Post, what struck me most about the Bush years were the lies. The most consequential, of course, were the lies about the war.
The most telling were the lies to cover up the lies about the war. And the most grotesque were the lies about torture.
The other thing is that there were no consequences. No one got in trouble for lying. The only semi-casualty was Scooter Libby, briefly convicted of lying while obstructing the investigation into vice president Cheney’s lies.
Figuring out how to right the constitutional imbalance between the branches of government, as exposed by this CIA assault on Congress, is very complicated.
But doing something about lying isn’t. You need to hold people accountable for it.
History will assuredly record that President Obama lied about a number of things, particularly as he carried water for the intelligence community and the military. But he’s no Cheney.
So if you’re the president, you fire everyone who lies. Starting with John Brennan.
© 2014 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
The Experts’ Verdict: Every Israeli Missile Strike is a War Crime
commondreams.org/views/2014/08/01/experts-verdict-every-israeli-missile-strike-war-crime
Published Friday, August 01, 2014
The Experts’ Verdict: Every Israeli Missile Strike is a War Crime
Jonathan Cook
'Even if we assume total good faith on Israel’s part that it is trying to hit only Hamas and other military sites,' writes Cook, 'it is clear it cannot do so even with the advanced weaponry it has.' (Photo: Reuters)
Yesterday’s Guardian includes an article that appears to be excusing Israel of responsibility for the massive death toll it has inflicted on Palestinian civilians.
But, more significantly, it includes a lot of useful – and damning – information about just how “indiscriminate” Israel’s weapons really are.
This interests me a great deal because I have been warning about problems with the interpretation of international law used by leading human rights groups on this very point since the 2006 Lebanon War.
At that time I got into a dispute with Human Rights Watch’s Middle East policy director, Sarah Leah Whitson. Her organisation argued that Hizbullah was committing war crimes by definition whenever it fired rockets at Israel, even if it hit military targets, because those rockets were primitive and inherently inaccurate.
By contrast, HRW claimed, Israel’s missiles were precise and therefore their use was not inherently inadmissible. Its view was that Israel did not commit war crimes by firing its missiles; the obligation was on observers to show that they had not been used within the rules of war – which is a much harder standard of proof. For more on this debate, see my articles here and here.
In practice, HRW’s argument was nonsense, as was clear even in 2006. During that war, Israel dropped millions of cluster munitions – little bomblets that serve effectively as land mines – all over southern Lebanon, endangering the whole civilian population of the area.
But Norman Finkelstein recently pointed out the more general problem with HRW’s argument:
“By this standard, only rich countries, or countries rich enough to purchase high-tech weapons, have a right to defend themselves against high-tech aerial assaults. It is a curious law that would negate the raison d’être of law: the substitution of might by right.”
It may not be entirely surprising that HRW and others interpret international law in a way that serves rich and powerful western states, however many civilians they kill, and criminalises developing states, however few civilians they kill.
The current fighting in Gaza illustrates this point in dramatic fashion. Some 95% of the 64 Israelis who have been killed during the current fighting are soldiers; some 75% of the nearly 1,500 Palestinians who have been killed are civilian.
But comments from experts in the Guardian article add another layer of insight into HRW’s dubious distinctions.
One should ignore the irritating framing used in the article, which seems to suggest that the high Palestinian death toll may be down to human or systems errors. Experts discount this theory in the article and also point out that Israel is often not checking whether its shooting is accurate. In other words, it gives every indication of not taking any precautions to ensure it is hitting only military targets (or rather targets it claims are military in nature). That recklessness makes it fully culpable.
But we also have experts cited here who make the point that much of Israel’s precise weaponry is not accurate at all.
Andrew Exum, a former US army officer and defence department special adviser on the Middle East, who has studied Israel’s military operations, says this:
“There are good strategic reasons to avoid using air power and artillery in these conflicts: they tend to be pretty indiscriminate in their effects and make it difficult for the population under fire to figure out what they’re supposed to do to be safe.”
“Pretty indiscriminate”! So doesn’t that mean Israel was committing war crimes by definition every time it made one of those thousands of air strikes that marked the start of Operation Protective Edge, and that continue to this day?
But it is not just strikes from the air that are the problem. There is more:
“However, military analysts and human rights observers say the IDF is still using unguided, indirect fire with high-explosive shells, which they argue is inappropriate for a densely populated area like Gaza …
“[Israel's 155m howitzer] shells have a lethal radius of 50 to 150 metres and causes injury up to 300 metres from its point of impact. Furthermore, such indirect-fire artillery (meaning it is fired out of direct sight of the target) has a margin of error of 200 to 300 metres.”
Read that again: a margin of error of up to 300 metres, plus a lethal radius of up to 150 metres and an injury radius of 300 metres. So that’s a killing and injury zone of close to half a kilometre from the intended “precise” site of impact – in a territory that is only a few kilometres wide and long. In short, one of the main shells Israel is using in Gaza is completely imprecise.
Set aside what Israel is trying to do in Gaza. Let us assume it is actually trying to hit military targets rather than being either reckless about hitting civilian targets or deliberately trying to hit civilians, as much of the evidence might suggest.
Even if we assume total good faith on Israel’s part that it is trying to hit only Hamas and other military sites, it is clear it cannot do so even with the advanced weaponry it has. The inherent imprecision of its arsenal is compounded many fold by the fact that it is using these weapons in densely built-up areas.
So when are we going to hear HRW or the United Nation’s Navi Pillay stop talking about proportionality or Israel’s potential war crimes, and admit Israel is committing war crimes by definition – right now, as you read this.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
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
Published Friday, August 01, 2014
The Experts’ Verdict: Every Israeli Missile Strike is a War Crime
Jonathan Cook
'Even if we assume total good faith on Israel’s part that it is trying to hit only Hamas and other military sites,' writes Cook, 'it is clear it cannot do so even with the advanced weaponry it has.' (Photo: Reuters)
Yesterday’s Guardian includes an article that appears to be excusing Israel of responsibility for the massive death toll it has inflicted on Palestinian civilians.
But, more significantly, it includes a lot of useful – and damning – information about just how “indiscriminate” Israel’s weapons really are.
This interests me a great deal because I have been warning about problems with the interpretation of international law used by leading human rights groups on this very point since the 2006 Lebanon War.
At that time I got into a dispute with Human Rights Watch’s Middle East policy director, Sarah Leah Whitson. Her organisation argued that Hizbullah was committing war crimes by definition whenever it fired rockets at Israel, even if it hit military targets, because those rockets were primitive and inherently inaccurate.
By contrast, HRW claimed, Israel’s missiles were precise and therefore their use was not inherently inadmissible. Its view was that Israel did not commit war crimes by firing its missiles; the obligation was on observers to show that they had not been used within the rules of war – which is a much harder standard of proof. For more on this debate, see my articles here and here.
In practice, HRW’s argument was nonsense, as was clear even in 2006. During that war, Israel dropped millions of cluster munitions – little bomblets that serve effectively as land mines – all over southern Lebanon, endangering the whole civilian population of the area.
But Norman Finkelstein recently pointed out the more general problem with HRW’s argument:
“By this standard, only rich countries, or countries rich enough to purchase high-tech weapons, have a right to defend themselves against high-tech aerial assaults. It is a curious law that would negate the raison d’être of law: the substitution of might by right.”
It may not be entirely surprising that HRW and others interpret international law in a way that serves rich and powerful western states, however many civilians they kill, and criminalises developing states, however few civilians they kill.
The current fighting in Gaza illustrates this point in dramatic fashion. Some 95% of the 64 Israelis who have been killed during the current fighting are soldiers; some 75% of the nearly 1,500 Palestinians who have been killed are civilian.
But comments from experts in the Guardian article add another layer of insight into HRW’s dubious distinctions.
One should ignore the irritating framing used in the article, which seems to suggest that the high Palestinian death toll may be down to human or systems errors. Experts discount this theory in the article and also point out that Israel is often not checking whether its shooting is accurate. In other words, it gives every indication of not taking any precautions to ensure it is hitting only military targets (or rather targets it claims are military in nature). That recklessness makes it fully culpable.
But we also have experts cited here who make the point that much of Israel’s precise weaponry is not accurate at all.
Andrew Exum, a former US army officer and defence department special adviser on the Middle East, who has studied Israel’s military operations, says this:
“There are good strategic reasons to avoid using air power and artillery in these conflicts: they tend to be pretty indiscriminate in their effects and make it difficult for the population under fire to figure out what they’re supposed to do to be safe.”
“Pretty indiscriminate”! So doesn’t that mean Israel was committing war crimes by definition every time it made one of those thousands of air strikes that marked the start of Operation Protective Edge, and that continue to this day?
But it is not just strikes from the air that are the problem. There is more:
“However, military analysts and human rights observers say the IDF is still using unguided, indirect fire with high-explosive shells, which they argue is inappropriate for a densely populated area like Gaza …
“[Israel's 155m howitzer] shells have a lethal radius of 50 to 150 metres and causes injury up to 300 metres from its point of impact. Furthermore, such indirect-fire artillery (meaning it is fired out of direct sight of the target) has a margin of error of 200 to 300 metres.”
Read that again: a margin of error of up to 300 metres, plus a lethal radius of up to 150 metres and an injury radius of 300 metres. So that’s a killing and injury zone of close to half a kilometre from the intended “precise” site of impact – in a territory that is only a few kilometres wide and long. In short, one of the main shells Israel is using in Gaza is completely imprecise.
Set aside what Israel is trying to do in Gaza. Let us assume it is actually trying to hit military targets rather than being either reckless about hitting civilian targets or deliberately trying to hit civilians, as much of the evidence might suggest.
Even if we assume total good faith on Israel’s part that it is trying to hit only Hamas and other military sites, it is clear it cannot do so even with the advanced weaponry it has. The inherent imprecision of its arsenal is compounded many fold by the fact that it is using these weapons in densely built-up areas.
So when are we going to hear HRW or the United Nation’s Navi Pillay stop talking about proportionality or Israel’s potential war crimes, and admit Israel is committing war crimes by definition – right now, as you read this.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
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
Friday, August 1, 2014
Stop the Wars, Stop the Warming!
Stop the Wars, Stop the Warming!
http://peoplesclimate.org/peace/appeal
We are at a crossroads, faced with a climate crisis that threatens to end our world as we know it.
The signs of climate change are all around us. They include—increasingly severe weather everywhere (floods, heat waves, droughts, cyclones and wildfires), as well as melting polar ice and glaciers, rising acidic oceans, and thawing of Siberian permafrost, which threatens release of huge, devastating, methane gas emissions.
If we pursue business as usual we face a world of food shortages caused by drought, increasing disease and deaths, and displacement from vast areas of flooded and uninhabitable terrain. We must do all in our power to stop greenhouse gas emissions, counteract the effects, and prevent the increase of global warming.
But the developing climate emergency does not exist in isolation. And we must understand and confront the social and economic context that produced and accompanies it: war and unlimited military expenditures, corporate globalization, vast social inequality and racism.
• The US military is the single greatest institutional producer of greenhouse gases in the world.
• Wars by their very nature destroy the environment and burn and release massive amounts of greenhouse gases. Recent military mobilizations are pouring huge amounts of new carbon emissions into the atmosphere.
• The vast expenditures now consumed by military machines are the very resources needed for a crash program to rapidly create a renewable energy infrastructure and put millions of people to work in green jobs.
• Wars and military buildup are in large part dedicated to controlling the fossil fuel energy sources on which our present model of global economic development and endless growth depend. Resort to armed conflict is increasing as fossil fuels become more expensive and difficult to extract, transport and produce.
• Nuclear weapons, like climate change, threaten to destroy the world. There are nine nuclear-armed nations and 17,000 nuclear weapons in the world. With ten wars and 34 limited conflicts now occurring, the chance of any one of them escalating to nuclear war and its unthinkable human and environmental impact is an ever-present specter. The nuclear powers are bound, under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to disarm all nuclear weapons everywhere, but after 44 years, they have not begun comprehensive negotiations. In the words of President Kennedy, we must “end these weapons of mass destruction, before they end us.”
• Corporate dominance and extreme social inequality are intrinsic to our expansionist global economic model.
• The UN Millennium Development Goals in conjunction with other forces have helped lift the poorest billion of humanity out of extreme poverty. The damage now coming as a result of climate change threatens to erase that progress.
• The people most affected by climate change are those with the fewest resources to deal with it. With increasing environmental destruction, droughts, floods, and famine, there will be massive displacement of impoverished and desperate people leading to forced migration and regional hostilities. Within the U.S., the people most affected include those in prison or nursing homes and others who lack resources to leave their homes or institutions in storms like Katrina and Sandy.
• Two examples of long-term-drought-induced Climate Wars are the tragedies in Somalia and Syria. In the latter case, a five-year drought was one of the contributors to an ongoing civil war. Somalia has been at war for twenty years, and that conflict has also embroiled neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia.
• Rather than taking emergency measures to address climate change and the needs of those impacted now, our military is preparing to control these displacements to protect “US interests”.
We who have opposed the toxic, polluting, life- and earth-destroying wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the existential threat of nuclear weapons are in total support of the People’s Climate March and its vision of a world without fossil fuels and the fires of war. We will march, we will demand divestment and fight denial, we will battle the pollution of Big Money, and we will join in demanding that the Obama administration step forward to achieve a 2015 global treaty to phase out greenhouse gas emissions.
We call on all who want to preserve our planet to form a Stop the Wars, Stop the Warming Contingent on September 21. We organize under the following principles:
• We can’t effectively address climate change without ending war and militarism;
• We can’t end war without ending the fossil fuel energy system;
• We can’t address social injustice unless we stop using war to safeguard an economic infrastructure (based on fossil fuels) that produces and requires vast social inequality.
• We can’t end war unless we address the systemic inequality and corporate domination that requires it.
• We must insist that the transition to a sustainable economy and green jobs not be accomplished at the expense of those now employed in the fossil fuel and military sectors and the communities in which they work and live. Energy and armament corporations should bear the lion’s share of the social cost to make that transition a just one.
We call on our government
• To undertake an emergency program to make all our cities energy efficient and to create a new energy grid based on renewable energy sources.
• To end federal subsidies for the fossil fuel industries—coal, gas, oil and industrial biomass
• To end the 2005 “Cheney exemption” to the Clean Water Act for gas hydraulic fracking, which threatens clean water supplies to our people in some 23 states. Strictly enforce the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts of 1970, in all energy production.
• To stop building new fossil fuel infrastructure, including the Keystone pipeline project, and to rapidly end fracking projects and the awarding of any new offshore drilling contracts.
• To build a carbon-free, nuclear-free energy future and end subsidies for nuclear power. Nuclear power is not a green alternative energy, results in large amounts of radioactive nuclear waste, and contributes to the global proliferation of nuclear weapons.
• To implement a financial transaction tax to fund the new solar, wind, hydro, and efficiency programs we need globally and to help clean up the toxic mess of fossil and nuclear destruction.
• To join with all nuclear powers to abide by their treaty commitments and to move quickly toward mutual abolition of all nuclear weapons as required by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
• To re-direct military spending to the creation of millions of green jobs and to research and develop a rapid but just transition from fossil fuels to non-polluting energy sources.
• To stop the military protection of fossil fuel interests in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world.
• To bring all our troops home now from Afghanistan and Iraq, reject military attacks in Iraq, Syria and Iran, and use the billions saved to invest in energy efficient mass transit, schools, affordable housing and sustainable union-standard jobs.
• To redefine the mission of U.S. military forces as defense of the United States instead of achieving “Full Spectrum Dominance” in the service of global corporations, the fossil fuel industry, and the military industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned against, thereby also allowing closure of most of our 1,000 or more foreign military bases.
• To stop blocking the proposals for effective international action on climate change being put forward by the Group of 77 and other developing countries, starting at the UN on September 23, 2014. All countries must do something, but the countries which are most responsible for carbon emissions have the larger responsibility to commit resources, resulting in an 85% cut in greenhouse gases by 2050. The wealthier developed countries should provide $100 billion to an international fund for green industrial development in less developed countries.
We can’t afford the greenhouse gas emissions arising from the way we live and from war and preparation for war. And we can’t afford the climate of mistrust and non-cooperation that military threats and intervention foster.
To successfully avert worst-case climate disaster we will need international agreements and cooperation on a scale not seen in the past; we need new approaches in order to demilitarize US foreign policy and humanize domestic policy.
We believe that most Americans will welcome these positive changes. Working together, peace, climate and social justice activists can help make this happen.
We see September 21st as the coming together of the peace, climate and social justice movements and the beginning of a groundswell of public involvement in the creation of a more peaceful, sustainable and just world.
Ed Aguilar, Coalition for Peace Action
Rosalie Anders, Massachusetts Peace Action & 350 Massachusetts
Jim Barton, North Carolina Peace Action
Phyllis Bennis, Institute for Policy Studies
Leslie Cagan, People’s Climate March
Michael Eisenscher, U.S. Labor Against the War
Julie Enslow, Wisconsin Peace Action
Joseph Gerson, American Friends Service Committee
Cole Harrison, Massachusetts Peace Action
Tom Hayden, Peace and Justice Resource Center
Patricia Hynes, Traprock Center for Peace & Justice
Rosemary Kean, Dorchester People for Peace
Judith LeBlanc, Peace Action
Duncan McFarland, United for Justice with Peace (Greater Boston)
Siri Margerin, UnIted for Peace and Justice & Civilian Soldier Alliance
Marty Nathan, Climate Action NOW!
Paul Shannon, American Friends Service Committee
Alice Slater, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
David Swanson, World Beyond War
Susan Theberge, Climate Action NOW!
(organizations for identification only)
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
http://peoplesclimate.org/peace/appeal
We are at a crossroads, faced with a climate crisis that threatens to end our world as we know it.
The signs of climate change are all around us. They include—increasingly severe weather everywhere (floods, heat waves, droughts, cyclones and wildfires), as well as melting polar ice and glaciers, rising acidic oceans, and thawing of Siberian permafrost, which threatens release of huge, devastating, methane gas emissions.
If we pursue business as usual we face a world of food shortages caused by drought, increasing disease and deaths, and displacement from vast areas of flooded and uninhabitable terrain. We must do all in our power to stop greenhouse gas emissions, counteract the effects, and prevent the increase of global warming.
But the developing climate emergency does not exist in isolation. And we must understand and confront the social and economic context that produced and accompanies it: war and unlimited military expenditures, corporate globalization, vast social inequality and racism.
• The US military is the single greatest institutional producer of greenhouse gases in the world.
• Wars by their very nature destroy the environment and burn and release massive amounts of greenhouse gases. Recent military mobilizations are pouring huge amounts of new carbon emissions into the atmosphere.
• The vast expenditures now consumed by military machines are the very resources needed for a crash program to rapidly create a renewable energy infrastructure and put millions of people to work in green jobs.
• Wars and military buildup are in large part dedicated to controlling the fossil fuel energy sources on which our present model of global economic development and endless growth depend. Resort to armed conflict is increasing as fossil fuels become more expensive and difficult to extract, transport and produce.
• Nuclear weapons, like climate change, threaten to destroy the world. There are nine nuclear-armed nations and 17,000 nuclear weapons in the world. With ten wars and 34 limited conflicts now occurring, the chance of any one of them escalating to nuclear war and its unthinkable human and environmental impact is an ever-present specter. The nuclear powers are bound, under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to disarm all nuclear weapons everywhere, but after 44 years, they have not begun comprehensive negotiations. In the words of President Kennedy, we must “end these weapons of mass destruction, before they end us.”
• Corporate dominance and extreme social inequality are intrinsic to our expansionist global economic model.
• The UN Millennium Development Goals in conjunction with other forces have helped lift the poorest billion of humanity out of extreme poverty. The damage now coming as a result of climate change threatens to erase that progress.
• The people most affected by climate change are those with the fewest resources to deal with it. With increasing environmental destruction, droughts, floods, and famine, there will be massive displacement of impoverished and desperate people leading to forced migration and regional hostilities. Within the U.S., the people most affected include those in prison or nursing homes and others who lack resources to leave their homes or institutions in storms like Katrina and Sandy.
• Two examples of long-term-drought-induced Climate Wars are the tragedies in Somalia and Syria. In the latter case, a five-year drought was one of the contributors to an ongoing civil war. Somalia has been at war for twenty years, and that conflict has also embroiled neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia.
• Rather than taking emergency measures to address climate change and the needs of those impacted now, our military is preparing to control these displacements to protect “US interests”.
We who have opposed the toxic, polluting, life- and earth-destroying wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the existential threat of nuclear weapons are in total support of the People’s Climate March and its vision of a world without fossil fuels and the fires of war. We will march, we will demand divestment and fight denial, we will battle the pollution of Big Money, and we will join in demanding that the Obama administration step forward to achieve a 2015 global treaty to phase out greenhouse gas emissions.
We call on all who want to preserve our planet to form a Stop the Wars, Stop the Warming Contingent on September 21. We organize under the following principles:
• We can’t effectively address climate change without ending war and militarism;
• We can’t end war without ending the fossil fuel energy system;
• We can’t address social injustice unless we stop using war to safeguard an economic infrastructure (based on fossil fuels) that produces and requires vast social inequality.
• We can’t end war unless we address the systemic inequality and corporate domination that requires it.
• We must insist that the transition to a sustainable economy and green jobs not be accomplished at the expense of those now employed in the fossil fuel and military sectors and the communities in which they work and live. Energy and armament corporations should bear the lion’s share of the social cost to make that transition a just one.
We call on our government
• To undertake an emergency program to make all our cities energy efficient and to create a new energy grid based on renewable energy sources.
• To end federal subsidies for the fossil fuel industries—coal, gas, oil and industrial biomass
• To end the 2005 “Cheney exemption” to the Clean Water Act for gas hydraulic fracking, which threatens clean water supplies to our people in some 23 states. Strictly enforce the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts of 1970, in all energy production.
• To stop building new fossil fuel infrastructure, including the Keystone pipeline project, and to rapidly end fracking projects and the awarding of any new offshore drilling contracts.
• To build a carbon-free, nuclear-free energy future and end subsidies for nuclear power. Nuclear power is not a green alternative energy, results in large amounts of radioactive nuclear waste, and contributes to the global proliferation of nuclear weapons.
• To implement a financial transaction tax to fund the new solar, wind, hydro, and efficiency programs we need globally and to help clean up the toxic mess of fossil and nuclear destruction.
• To join with all nuclear powers to abide by their treaty commitments and to move quickly toward mutual abolition of all nuclear weapons as required by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
• To re-direct military spending to the creation of millions of green jobs and to research and develop a rapid but just transition from fossil fuels to non-polluting energy sources.
• To stop the military protection of fossil fuel interests in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world.
• To bring all our troops home now from Afghanistan and Iraq, reject military attacks in Iraq, Syria and Iran, and use the billions saved to invest in energy efficient mass transit, schools, affordable housing and sustainable union-standard jobs.
• To redefine the mission of U.S. military forces as defense of the United States instead of achieving “Full Spectrum Dominance” in the service of global corporations, the fossil fuel industry, and the military industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned against, thereby also allowing closure of most of our 1,000 or more foreign military bases.
• To stop blocking the proposals for effective international action on climate change being put forward by the Group of 77 and other developing countries, starting at the UN on September 23, 2014. All countries must do something, but the countries which are most responsible for carbon emissions have the larger responsibility to commit resources, resulting in an 85% cut in greenhouse gases by 2050. The wealthier developed countries should provide $100 billion to an international fund for green industrial development in less developed countries.
We can’t afford the greenhouse gas emissions arising from the way we live and from war and preparation for war. And we can’t afford the climate of mistrust and non-cooperation that military threats and intervention foster.
To successfully avert worst-case climate disaster we will need international agreements and cooperation on a scale not seen in the past; we need new approaches in order to demilitarize US foreign policy and humanize domestic policy.
We believe that most Americans will welcome these positive changes. Working together, peace, climate and social justice activists can help make this happen.
We see September 21st as the coming together of the peace, climate and social justice movements and the beginning of a groundswell of public involvement in the creation of a more peaceful, sustainable and just world.
Ed Aguilar, Coalition for Peace Action
Rosalie Anders, Massachusetts Peace Action & 350 Massachusetts
Jim Barton, North Carolina Peace Action
Phyllis Bennis, Institute for Policy Studies
Leslie Cagan, People’s Climate March
Michael Eisenscher, U.S. Labor Against the War
Julie Enslow, Wisconsin Peace Action
Joseph Gerson, American Friends Service Committee
Cole Harrison, Massachusetts Peace Action
Tom Hayden, Peace and Justice Resource Center
Patricia Hynes, Traprock Center for Peace & Justice
Rosemary Kean, Dorchester People for Peace
Judith LeBlanc, Peace Action
Duncan McFarland, United for Justice with Peace (Greater Boston)
Siri Margerin, UnIted for Peace and Justice & Civilian Soldier Alliance
Marty Nathan, Climate Action NOW!
Paul Shannon, American Friends Service Committee
Alice Slater, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
David Swanson, World Beyond War
Susan Theberge, Climate Action NOW!
(organizations for identification only)
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
Gaza and Soweto
Saher Abu Namus, 3 years old, killed on Friday, 11 July 2014, B'Tselem,
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/25087-gaza-and-soweto
ALSO SEE: Israeli MP Cites US Invasion of Iraq in Defense of Gaza Bombings
Gaza and Soweto
By Juan Cole, Informed Comment
31 July 14
In June 16, 1976, some 20,000 students rose up to protest in the slum of Soweto on the outskirts of Johannesburg.
Here is a summary of the June 18 NYT article on the repression of the protests:
“Rioting continues for 3d day in Soweto, black township outside Johannesburg, with rioters, mostly young, directing fury at govt bldgs and vehicles. Death toll continues to mount as more than 1,000 armed policemen move into township sts. Official casualty toll put at 58 dead and 788 injured. Only 2 of dead and 5 of injured are white. Rioting is most serious in nation since Sharpeville massacre in ’60. There is widespread feeling that repercussions could be even greater. Gen W H Kotze, police comdr, sees no end to violence. Battle between police and rioters described.”
The students were protesting (white people said “rioting”) because the minority white government had decided that they suddenly would have to study not in English but in Afrikaans, a form of Dutch. Most of them did not know that language and did not want to know it, then seeing it as the tongue of hated colonialists who had deprived them of citizenship in a state and left them stateless.
The summary for the lead article by John F. Burns on Saturday June 19 reports, “Prime Min Vorster says there is ‘no reason for panic,’ TV and radio speech. Declares Govt will not be intimidated. Says instructions have been given to maintain law and order at all costs.” Already 60 had been killed and more than 800 wounded according to the government, but officials admitted that the toll on day 3 was likely far higher. It ends, “Fact that almost all of black leaders who might have influence with radical elements among rioters have been imprisoned under special detention laws is problem for Govt.”
By late August, the South African Apartheid government was still shooting down protesters with live ammunition.
It also connived at encouraging tensions between the inhabitants of Soweto and members of the Zulu tribe, hoping to divide and rule. Prime Min Vorster insisted “that white S Africans ‘have no reason to have guilty conscience about anything’.”
As activists were repressed or saw friends killed, some took up arms and became insurgents. They were sought and sometimes captured and prosecuted under the Sabotage and Terrorism Acts of June 1962 and June 1967.
An account of the guerrilla wing of the African National Congress notes of the impact of Soweto:
“The 1976 uprising, and subsequent massacres and other atrocities by the security forces, gave new impetus to the struggle. Thousands of new recruits flooded into MK, bringing with them a fresh will to fight the enemy, born of their own bitter experience in fighting a brutal enemy only with stones. New vistas opened to intensify the struggle and to hit back in defence of the people . . .
Between 1976 and 1979 there was a marked escalation of armed actions: about 37 armed actions took place between June 1976 and the end of 1978. Railway lines were sabotaged, police stations attacked, and Bantu Administration offices were bombed. The battle was slowly but surely being taken to the enemy, and MK had moved from concentrating purely on sabotage operations to the first stages of guerilla war.”
The total death toll for the Soweto protests is probably 700 with many times that number wounded. Participants later remembered that the white police and troops were “trigger happy– being racists, you know.”
SABC: ” June 16, 1976 uprising, students relives that day ”
The repressive and trigger happy white minority regime had many resemblances to the current Likud government in Israel. and the same governments that actively supported Apartheid South Frica are supporting the Likud.
One tactic of the Apartheid South African regime was to consign black Africans to Bantustans, territories that were subordinate to Pretoria. In this way their citizenship could be revoked but they did not gain an actual new state. Gaza is very much like a Bantustan of Israel, surrounded by it and kept weak and disrupted. But in this way the nearly 2 million Palestinians displaced there from their original homes in what is now southern Israel can be denied citizenship in Israel while also being kept stateless with regard to their “Palestine” Bantustan.
ExpressoSABC “Soweto Uprising (16 June 2014)”
As in Apartheid South Africa, resistance to the Apartheid policies of Israel is met with extreme violence. In Israel “law and order” is maintained “at all costs” just as in Apartheid South Africa. If it is necessary to shoot down 700 students and youth for refusing to go along with the dictates of old white men, then so be it. The minority government “has nothing to apologize for.” Just as the sabotage and bombings of Umkhonte v Sizwe were termed mere terrorism and the ANC was demonized as a stalking horse for Stalinist dictatorship, so resistance organizations welling up from the slummy conditions imposed on Gaza are demonized and their very resistance to being denied the rights of human beings is used to justify further repression.
No wonder that today’s South Africa is calling on Israel to cease its ground offensive into Gaza.
Bishop Desmond Tutu defended John Kerry’s use of the term “Apartheid” for Israeli policy toward the Palestinians. He said that he saw a situation in Israel/Palestine that exactly mirrored the forms of discrimination, the pass system, etc., that characterized South Africa.
This is the reason that those who think restoration of the status quo ante is sufficient to end the fighting are fooling themselves. There is only one thing that could bring lasting peace is an end to Apartheid.
© 2014 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
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/25087-gaza-and-soweto
ALSO SEE: Israeli MP Cites US Invasion of Iraq in Defense of Gaza Bombings
Gaza and Soweto
By Juan Cole, Informed Comment
31 July 14
In June 16, 1976, some 20,000 students rose up to protest in the slum of Soweto on the outskirts of Johannesburg.
Here is a summary of the June 18 NYT article on the repression of the protests:
“Rioting continues for 3d day in Soweto, black township outside Johannesburg, with rioters, mostly young, directing fury at govt bldgs and vehicles. Death toll continues to mount as more than 1,000 armed policemen move into township sts. Official casualty toll put at 58 dead and 788 injured. Only 2 of dead and 5 of injured are white. Rioting is most serious in nation since Sharpeville massacre in ’60. There is widespread feeling that repercussions could be even greater. Gen W H Kotze, police comdr, sees no end to violence. Battle between police and rioters described.”
The students were protesting (white people said “rioting”) because the minority white government had decided that they suddenly would have to study not in English but in Afrikaans, a form of Dutch. Most of them did not know that language and did not want to know it, then seeing it as the tongue of hated colonialists who had deprived them of citizenship in a state and left them stateless.
The summary for the lead article by John F. Burns on Saturday June 19 reports, “Prime Min Vorster says there is ‘no reason for panic,’ TV and radio speech. Declares Govt will not be intimidated. Says instructions have been given to maintain law and order at all costs.” Already 60 had been killed and more than 800 wounded according to the government, but officials admitted that the toll on day 3 was likely far higher. It ends, “Fact that almost all of black leaders who might have influence with radical elements among rioters have been imprisoned under special detention laws is problem for Govt.”
By late August, the South African Apartheid government was still shooting down protesters with live ammunition.
It also connived at encouraging tensions between the inhabitants of Soweto and members of the Zulu tribe, hoping to divide and rule. Prime Min Vorster insisted “that white S Africans ‘have no reason to have guilty conscience about anything’.”
As activists were repressed or saw friends killed, some took up arms and became insurgents. They were sought and sometimes captured and prosecuted under the Sabotage and Terrorism Acts of June 1962 and June 1967.
An account of the guerrilla wing of the African National Congress notes of the impact of Soweto:
“The 1976 uprising, and subsequent massacres and other atrocities by the security forces, gave new impetus to the struggle. Thousands of new recruits flooded into MK, bringing with them a fresh will to fight the enemy, born of their own bitter experience in fighting a brutal enemy only with stones. New vistas opened to intensify the struggle and to hit back in defence of the people . . .
Between 1976 and 1979 there was a marked escalation of armed actions: about 37 armed actions took place between June 1976 and the end of 1978. Railway lines were sabotaged, police stations attacked, and Bantu Administration offices were bombed. The battle was slowly but surely being taken to the enemy, and MK had moved from concentrating purely on sabotage operations to the first stages of guerilla war.”
The total death toll for the Soweto protests is probably 700 with many times that number wounded. Participants later remembered that the white police and troops were “trigger happy– being racists, you know.”
SABC: ” June 16, 1976 uprising, students relives that day ”
The repressive and trigger happy white minority regime had many resemblances to the current Likud government in Israel. and the same governments that actively supported Apartheid South Frica are supporting the Likud.
One tactic of the Apartheid South African regime was to consign black Africans to Bantustans, territories that were subordinate to Pretoria. In this way their citizenship could be revoked but they did not gain an actual new state. Gaza is very much like a Bantustan of Israel, surrounded by it and kept weak and disrupted. But in this way the nearly 2 million Palestinians displaced there from their original homes in what is now southern Israel can be denied citizenship in Israel while also being kept stateless with regard to their “Palestine” Bantustan.
ExpressoSABC “Soweto Uprising (16 June 2014)”
As in Apartheid South Africa, resistance to the Apartheid policies of Israel is met with extreme violence. In Israel “law and order” is maintained “at all costs” just as in Apartheid South Africa. If it is necessary to shoot down 700 students and youth for refusing to go along with the dictates of old white men, then so be it. The minority government “has nothing to apologize for.” Just as the sabotage and bombings of Umkhonte v Sizwe were termed mere terrorism and the ANC was demonized as a stalking horse for Stalinist dictatorship, so resistance organizations welling up from the slummy conditions imposed on Gaza are demonized and their very resistance to being denied the rights of human beings is used to justify further repression.
No wonder that today’s South Africa is calling on Israel to cease its ground offensive into Gaza.
Bishop Desmond Tutu defended John Kerry’s use of the term “Apartheid” for Israeli policy toward the Palestinians. He said that he saw a situation in Israel/Palestine that exactly mirrored the forms of discrimination, the pass system, etc., that characterized South Africa.
This is the reason that those who think restoration of the status quo ante is sufficient to end the fighting are fooling themselves. There is only one thing that could bring lasting peace is an end to Apartheid.
© 2014 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
AQUITTED! Vietnam Vet Drone Resister/Bail dropped for two others
For Immediate Release
31 July 2014
Contacts:
Russell Brown 716-570-5201 Vietnam Veteran/Upstate Drone Action
Ed Kinane 315-478-4571 Upstate Drone Action
Ellen Grady 607-279-8303 Ithaca Catholic Worker
upstatedroneaction.org; twitter @droneresister
AQUITTED! Vietnam Vet Drone Resister
Syracuse July 31, 2014 After two hours of deliberation, Vietnam Veteran and Buffalonian Russell Brown was acquitted tonight by a six person jury in DeWitt Town Court, East Syracuse. Acting as his own lawyer, he was facing charges of Obstruction of Governmental Administration (OGA), a misdemeanor carrying up to a year incarceration and up to $1000 fine, as well as Disorderly Conduct charge, a violation. Mr. Brown was arrested during a nonviolent protest at Hancock Air National Guard Base on April 28, 2013. In a roadway across from the Airbase, he lay down to symbolize the death of drone victims.
There are biweekly demonstrations at Hancock Airbase. Several times a year there are larger demonstrations and nationally coordinated events. On six occasions there have been arrests, leading to six trials since 2011. Mr. Brown's trial is the second acquittal. There are twenty activists are facing prosecution, working with Upstate Drone Action.
During testimony, Russell told what he did leading up to the "Global April Days of Action" gathering in Syracuse. This included his writing a poem that links the drone attacks conducted at Hancock with the missions he conducted in Vietnam. A marine from 1965 - 1967, he told of the war he experienced. His participation in senseless killing and brutality in Vietnam informed his understanding of the Drone War Program at the 174th Attack Wing. Russell now finds allegiance with the victims of the drone attacks.
Laying on the street with "blood" spattered clothes lifted a weight of guilt from Russell. Transforming guilt to regret makes possible a voice: poet, marcher in a 'legal' protest, drone victim laying in the street were deemed protected speech. The message was closely attended by the jury. Brian Hynes said, "They saw the human power of the message and the public value of the method used to deliver it. Drones kill senselessly and illegally and traumatize our airmen."
Russell said that the wars of the last decade brought back his experiences in Vietnam. “Lying in that road was the most peaceful moment I've experienced since I left Vietnam,” he said. "I was silent then in the face of those atrocities and I can't be silent anymore."
The jury was smiling as they returned to give the verdict. Later one juror asked a supporter to "Thank Russell for us! My brother was in the Vietnam War and lost his leg. We know what the vets went through." The juror also acknowledged the PTSD drone pilots experience. Another juror said, "We did what was needed to be done. It was fair and just".
###
Hancock Air National Guard Base, home of the 174th Attack Wing, is a domestic hub for drone assassinations, support and operation, particularly in Afghanistan. The Niagara Falls Air Base is also embarking on a mission to operate weaponized drones.
The Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars, supported by local organizations such as the WNY Peace Center, works nonviolently to stop the scourge of assassination and community terror perpetrated by weaponized drones. The Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones is in coalition with the global movement to end the drone assassinations and to stop US imperialism and militarization.
In other news of drone resistance, 2 upstate drone resisters had their bail drastically reduced after being arrested one week ago from another action against killer drones on July 23, 2014 at Hancock. Clare Grady of the Ithaca Catholic Worker and Martha Hennessy from New York Catholic Worker were arrested and charged with violating an Order of Protection. Judge Jokl of the Town of Dewitt had originally set their bail at $10,000 each. During a bail reduction hearing Ms. Hennessy’s bail was reduced to $100 on Monday. Today, Ms. Grady’s bail was also reduced to $100. Both women have been released.
Three others, Joan Pleune, 75 years old, former Freedom Rider from the Civil Rights Movement, and NYC Catholic Workers Erica Brock and Felton Davis remain in jail and are still being held of $2,500 bail each. Ms. Pleune has a bail reduction hearing tomorrow morning in Syracuse.
--
Mary Anne Grady Flores
Ithaca, NY 14850 1-607-280-8797
Ithaca Catholic Workers / Los Obreros Catolicos de Ithaca
"If you think one person can't be effective, you've never been in bed with a mosquito" -War Resister's League
"Si usted piensa que una persona no puede ser eficaz, nunca he estado en la cama con un mosquito" Liga de Opositores de Guerra
"Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it" Howard Zinn (1922-2010)
"La protesta más allá de la ley no se aparta de la democracia, es absolutamente esencial para que" Howard Zinn (1922-2010)
“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." -- Howard Zinn
www.democracynow.org
www.upstatedroneaction.org
www.cpt.org
www.catholicworker.org
Aljazeer a- look it up on line
The Guardian
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
31 July 2014
Contacts:
Russell Brown 716-570-5201 Vietnam Veteran/Upstate Drone Action
Ed Kinane 315-478-4571 Upstate Drone Action
Ellen Grady 607-279-8303 Ithaca Catholic Worker
upstatedroneaction.org; twitter @droneresister
AQUITTED! Vietnam Vet Drone Resister
Syracuse July 31, 2014 After two hours of deliberation, Vietnam Veteran and Buffalonian Russell Brown was acquitted tonight by a six person jury in DeWitt Town Court, East Syracuse. Acting as his own lawyer, he was facing charges of Obstruction of Governmental Administration (OGA), a misdemeanor carrying up to a year incarceration and up to $1000 fine, as well as Disorderly Conduct charge, a violation. Mr. Brown was arrested during a nonviolent protest at Hancock Air National Guard Base on April 28, 2013. In a roadway across from the Airbase, he lay down to symbolize the death of drone victims.
There are biweekly demonstrations at Hancock Airbase. Several times a year there are larger demonstrations and nationally coordinated events. On six occasions there have been arrests, leading to six trials since 2011. Mr. Brown's trial is the second acquittal. There are twenty activists are facing prosecution, working with Upstate Drone Action.
During testimony, Russell told what he did leading up to the "Global April Days of Action" gathering in Syracuse. This included his writing a poem that links the drone attacks conducted at Hancock with the missions he conducted in Vietnam. A marine from 1965 - 1967, he told of the war he experienced. His participation in senseless killing and brutality in Vietnam informed his understanding of the Drone War Program at the 174th Attack Wing. Russell now finds allegiance with the victims of the drone attacks.
Laying on the street with "blood" spattered clothes lifted a weight of guilt from Russell. Transforming guilt to regret makes possible a voice: poet, marcher in a 'legal' protest, drone victim laying in the street were deemed protected speech. The message was closely attended by the jury. Brian Hynes said, "They saw the human power of the message and the public value of the method used to deliver it. Drones kill senselessly and illegally and traumatize our airmen."
Russell said that the wars of the last decade brought back his experiences in Vietnam. “Lying in that road was the most peaceful moment I've experienced since I left Vietnam,” he said. "I was silent then in the face of those atrocities and I can't be silent anymore."
The jury was smiling as they returned to give the verdict. Later one juror asked a supporter to "Thank Russell for us! My brother was in the Vietnam War and lost his leg. We know what the vets went through." The juror also acknowledged the PTSD drone pilots experience. Another juror said, "We did what was needed to be done. It was fair and just".
###
Hancock Air National Guard Base, home of the 174th Attack Wing, is a domestic hub for drone assassinations, support and operation, particularly in Afghanistan. The Niagara Falls Air Base is also embarking on a mission to operate weaponized drones.
The Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars, supported by local organizations such as the WNY Peace Center, works nonviolently to stop the scourge of assassination and community terror perpetrated by weaponized drones. The Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones is in coalition with the global movement to end the drone assassinations and to stop US imperialism and militarization.
In other news of drone resistance, 2 upstate drone resisters had their bail drastically reduced after being arrested one week ago from another action against killer drones on July 23, 2014 at Hancock. Clare Grady of the Ithaca Catholic Worker and Martha Hennessy from New York Catholic Worker were arrested and charged with violating an Order of Protection. Judge Jokl of the Town of Dewitt had originally set their bail at $10,000 each. During a bail reduction hearing Ms. Hennessy’s bail was reduced to $100 on Monday. Today, Ms. Grady’s bail was also reduced to $100. Both women have been released.
Three others, Joan Pleune, 75 years old, former Freedom Rider from the Civil Rights Movement, and NYC Catholic Workers Erica Brock and Felton Davis remain in jail and are still being held of $2,500 bail each. Ms. Pleune has a bail reduction hearing tomorrow morning in Syracuse.
--
Mary Anne Grady Flores
Ithaca, NY 14850 1-607-280-8797
Ithaca Catholic Workers / Los Obreros Catolicos de Ithaca
"If you think one person can't be effective, you've never been in bed with a mosquito" -War Resister's League
"Si usted piensa que una persona no puede ser eficaz, nunca he estado en la cama con un mosquito" Liga de Opositores de Guerra
"Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it" Howard Zinn (1922-2010)
"La protesta más allá de la ley no se aparta de la democracia, es absolutamente esencial para que" Howard Zinn (1922-2010)
“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." -- Howard Zinn
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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
Yes, Admits CIA Chief, We Spied on Senate Panel Investigating Torture
Yes, Admits CIA Chief, We Spied on Senate Panel Investigating Torture
commondreams.org/news/2014/07/31/yes-admits-cia-chief-we-spied-senate-panel-investigating-torture
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Sen. Ron Wyden says behavior of intelligence agency is 'absolutely unacceptable in a democracy'
Jon Queally, staff writer
Head of the CIA John Brennan has admitted to his agency spying on the work of the Senate Intelligence Committee panel investigating Bush-era torture tactics. (Photo: AP)
The findings of an internal investigation at the Central Intelligence Agency made available to the public on Thursday show that CIA agents did, in fact, spy on the Senate Intelligence Committee panel set up to investigate post-9/11 government torture under the Bush administration.
Lawmakers were briefed on the report by the CIA Inspector General's Office earlier this week and the head of the agency, John Brennan, issued an in-person apology to lawmakers on Tuesday over the agency's behavior during a meeting with Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif), who chairs the Intelligence Committee, and Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ala.), the committee's vice chair.
In a statement obtained by McClatchy news, which first reported the story, CIA spokesman Dean Boyd confirmed to lawmakers “that some CIA employees acted in a manner inconsistent with the common understanding reached between SSCI (Senate Select Committee on Intelligence) and the CIA in 2009.”
According to McClatchy:
The tone of the [CIA] announcement sharply contrasts with the unprecedented battle that erupted over the issue between the spy agency and its congressional overseers and appears to represent an attempt to ease what have been seriously icy relations.
In a contentious Senate floor speech in March, Feinstein asserted that the CIA may have violated the law and the Constitution by monitoring her staff’s computers and blocking access to documents.
During the public imbroglio that followed between Feinstein and Brennan, as the Washington Post points out, the CIA chief said lawmakers would regret accusing the agency of misconduct.
“When the facts come out on this, I think a lot of people who are claiming that there has been this tremendous sort of spying and monitoring and hacking will be proved wrong,” Brennan said at the time.
To the contrary, it seems now that those concerned about the CIA's attempt to infiltrate the panel's investigation have been quite vindicated for holding those concerns. Among them, intelligence committee members themselves.
“The CIA Inspector General has confirmed what Senators have been saying all along: The CIA conducted an unauthorized search of Senate files, and attempted to have Senate staff prosecuted for doing their jobs,” said Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said. “Director Brennan’s claims to the contrary were simply not true."
“What’s needed now," Wyden continued, " is a public apology from Director Brennan to staff and the committee, a full accounting of how this occurred and a commitment there will be no further attempts to undermine Congressional oversight of CIA activities.”
Separately, Wyden tweeted:
.@CIA broke into Senate computer files. Then tried to have Senate staff prosecuted. Absolutely unacceptable in a democracy.
— Ron Wyden (@RonWyden) July 31, 2014
.@CIA must apologize & never again undermine
Congressional oversight of their activities & democratic institutions. http://t.co/0kPXt2Dulh
— Ron Wyden (@RonWyden) July 31, 2014
And Senator Mark Udall (D-Colo.) took the opportunity to blast Brennan for his continued role in undermining public confidence in the agency.
"During CIA Director John Brennan's confirmation hearings, he promised to fundamentally change the culture at the CIA and to respect vigorous and independent congressional oversight. His actions and those of CIA officials whom he oversees have proven otherwise," said Udall, who serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee. "From the unprecedented hacking of congressional staff computers and continued leaks undermining the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation of the CIA's detention and interrogation program to his abject failure to acknowledge any wrongdoing by the agency, I have lost confidence in John Brennan."
Offering additional context and commentary, FireDogLake's Kevin Gosztola remarked:
It is, perhaps, remarkable that a spokesperson is even speaking to reporters and sharing details of an apology. One probably did not expect Brennan to apologize. Such a development indicates how corrupt this act by the CIA must have been.
The effort was part of policy at the CIA to conceal evidence related to torture, rendition and detention, to publicly mislead or even lie about the efficacy of torture, rendition and detention in fighting terrorism and to ensure no former or current CIA officials were ever prosecuted for what they did.
The Justice Department decriminalized the CIA’s role in torture and decided not to prosecute anyone. The investigation into the destruction of CIA torture tapes ended with no charges. In fact, sleep deprivation and sensory deprivation through drugs that do not cause “permanent derangement” can still be used against detainees.
Yet, Brennan does not have to worry at all about being prosecuted or fired from his job as CIA director. It is entirely up to him whether he should step down or not. Obama will not be asking for his resignation over this misconduct.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
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
commondreams.org/news/2014/07/31/yes-admits-cia-chief-we-spied-senate-panel-investigating-torture
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Sen. Ron Wyden says behavior of intelligence agency is 'absolutely unacceptable in a democracy'
Jon Queally, staff writer
Head of the CIA John Brennan has admitted to his agency spying on the work of the Senate Intelligence Committee panel investigating Bush-era torture tactics. (Photo: AP)
The findings of an internal investigation at the Central Intelligence Agency made available to the public on Thursday show that CIA agents did, in fact, spy on the Senate Intelligence Committee panel set up to investigate post-9/11 government torture under the Bush administration.
Lawmakers were briefed on the report by the CIA Inspector General's Office earlier this week and the head of the agency, John Brennan, issued an in-person apology to lawmakers on Tuesday over the agency's behavior during a meeting with Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif), who chairs the Intelligence Committee, and Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ala.), the committee's vice chair.
In a statement obtained by McClatchy news, which first reported the story, CIA spokesman Dean Boyd confirmed to lawmakers “that some CIA employees acted in a manner inconsistent with the common understanding reached between SSCI (Senate Select Committee on Intelligence) and the CIA in 2009.”
According to McClatchy:
The tone of the [CIA] announcement sharply contrasts with the unprecedented battle that erupted over the issue between the spy agency and its congressional overseers and appears to represent an attempt to ease what have been seriously icy relations.
In a contentious Senate floor speech in March, Feinstein asserted that the CIA may have violated the law and the Constitution by monitoring her staff’s computers and blocking access to documents.
During the public imbroglio that followed between Feinstein and Brennan, as the Washington Post points out, the CIA chief said lawmakers would regret accusing the agency of misconduct.
“When the facts come out on this, I think a lot of people who are claiming that there has been this tremendous sort of spying and monitoring and hacking will be proved wrong,” Brennan said at the time.
To the contrary, it seems now that those concerned about the CIA's attempt to infiltrate the panel's investigation have been quite vindicated for holding those concerns. Among them, intelligence committee members themselves.
“The CIA Inspector General has confirmed what Senators have been saying all along: The CIA conducted an unauthorized search of Senate files, and attempted to have Senate staff prosecuted for doing their jobs,” said Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said. “Director Brennan’s claims to the contrary were simply not true."
“What’s needed now," Wyden continued, " is a public apology from Director Brennan to staff and the committee, a full accounting of how this occurred and a commitment there will be no further attempts to undermine Congressional oversight of CIA activities.”
Separately, Wyden tweeted:
.@CIA broke into Senate computer files. Then tried to have Senate staff prosecuted. Absolutely unacceptable in a democracy.
— Ron Wyden (@RonWyden) July 31, 2014
.@CIA must apologize & never again undermine
Congressional oversight of their activities & democratic institutions. http://t.co/0kPXt2Dulh
— Ron Wyden (@RonWyden) July 31, 2014
And Senator Mark Udall (D-Colo.) took the opportunity to blast Brennan for his continued role in undermining public confidence in the agency.
"During CIA Director John Brennan's confirmation hearings, he promised to fundamentally change the culture at the CIA and to respect vigorous and independent congressional oversight. His actions and those of CIA officials whom he oversees have proven otherwise," said Udall, who serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee. "From the unprecedented hacking of congressional staff computers and continued leaks undermining the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation of the CIA's detention and interrogation program to his abject failure to acknowledge any wrongdoing by the agency, I have lost confidence in John Brennan."
Offering additional context and commentary, FireDogLake's Kevin Gosztola remarked:
It is, perhaps, remarkable that a spokesperson is even speaking to reporters and sharing details of an apology. One probably did not expect Brennan to apologize. Such a development indicates how corrupt this act by the CIA must have been.
The effort was part of policy at the CIA to conceal evidence related to torture, rendition and detention, to publicly mislead or even lie about the efficacy of torture, rendition and detention in fighting terrorism and to ensure no former or current CIA officials were ever prosecuted for what they did.
The Justice Department decriminalized the CIA’s role in torture and decided not to prosecute anyone. The investigation into the destruction of CIA torture tapes ended with no charges. In fact, sleep deprivation and sensory deprivation through drugs that do not cause “permanent derangement” can still be used against detainees.
Yet, Brennan does not have to worry at all about being prosecuted or fired from his job as CIA director. It is entirely up to him whether he should step down or not. Obama will not be asking for his resignation over this misconduct.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
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
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