Friends,
Would your group be willing to sign on to the letter written by the Montgomery County Civil Rights Coalition? There is legislation which would prevent Maryland officials from assisting the federal government to enforce the NDAA's indefinite detention provisions. Unlike the anti- NDAA bills introduced in some states which protect only citizens from indefinite detention, this one protects all persons in Maryland. Delegate Peter A. Hammen hasn't shown much inclination to bring the bill to a vote in the committee, so we need to pressure him.
We are looking for groups to sign on. If your group is able to sign on to the letter, contact Sue Udry as indicated below. Also let me know if you want to place your signature on the letter. Thanks.
Kagiso,
Max
Dear Friends,
We are excited to let you know that a bill, HR558, has been introduced in the MD general assembly to prohibit Maryland officials from cooperating with the indefinite detention provisions of the NDAA. This is an important bill, but it has an uncertain future. We are asking for your help in getting it over the first hurdle, favorably voting it out of the House Health and Government Operations Committee.
Please add your organization's name to the sign-on letter below by emailing me at sue.udry@defendingdissent.org by March 8. (Please contact me if you need more time) If the bill passes the committee, we'll revise this letter and send it to all members of the House asking them to vote in favor of the bill, then hopefully another revision to send it to members of the Senate. We'll include your organization's name on all versions of the letter.
Please forward this to other groups who might be interested in signing on.
Please call (301-325-1201) or email me if you have any questions about the bill or the NDAA.
In Solidarity,
Sue Udry, on behalf of the Montgomery County Civil Rights Coalition
P.S. Some of you wear many different hats, we welcome any organization with a presence in Maryland to sign this letter.
Delegate Peter A. Hammen
241 House Office Building
6 Bladen Street
Annapolis, MD 21401
Dear Delegate Hammen,
The undersigned organizations from urge you to schedule a vote in the Health and Government Operations Committee on HB558, the Maryland Liberty Preservation Act of 2013. In addition, we urge you to vote in support of the bill.
We are deeply concerned by the indefinite detention provisions of the NDAA, which allow the military to arrest, indefinitely detain, and deny a trial or day in court to anyone—even US citizens—accused of a “belligerent act,” or any terror-related offense. The NDAA subjects these individuals to arbitrary detention without trial, denying the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process and Sixth Amendment rights to challenge evidence and confront one’s accusers. The NDAA also endangers First and Fourth Amendment protections, because the PATRIOT Act expanded the definition of “material support for terrorism” to include crimes of speech and association even by defendants who neither committed nor ever intended to support violence.
Resolutions opposing the NDAA have been passed by city councils from Fairfax, California to Takoma Park, Maryland, and state legislatures from Montana to Virginia.
Maryland state and county law enforcement and National Guard personnel should not be a party to unconstitutional violations of due process, and by passing the Maryland Liberty Preservation Act, the state of Maryland makes clear that they will not.
Sincerely,
------------
Sue Udry
Executive Director
Defending Dissent Foundation
6930 Carroll Ave. Suite 419
Takoma Park, MD 20912
office: 202-529-4225
cell: 301-325-1201
Visit Us! Like Us! Follow Us! Share Us!
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facebook: DefendingDissent
twitter: @defenddissent
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From: Max Obuszewski [mailto:mobuszewski@verizon.net]
Sent: Saturday, March 02, 2013 11:43 PM
To: 'becrn@lists.democracyinaction.org'
Subject: 2013 Progressive Summit & Lobby Night
Friends, The Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore/Fund Our Communities will be attending the Progressive Summit in Annapolis on Monday, March 4. So instead of our usual Monday meeting at my residence, we will be in Annapolis, supporting the repeal of the death penalty, the ban on francking, the wind farm and other progressive legislation. Please consider joining us in Annapolis, and let me know if you need a ride. Kagiso, Max
Progressive Maryland Invites you to the
2013 Progressive Summit & Lobby Night
Monday March 4th, 4:30 to 7 pm in Annapolis*
RSVP to meet at the House of Delegates Ways & Means Hearing Room
Room 131, House Office Building, 6 Bladen St., Annapolis, Maryland
Join Progressive Maryland, lawmakers, and leading progressive organizations to network,
discuss issues, and organize to advance legislative priorities, some of which include:
Economic Justice
Raise the Minimum Wage * Establish a Paid Sick Days Standard
Require Combined Tax Reporting for Corporations * Protect Labor Rights / Prevailing Wages
Require Workplace Accommodations for Pregnancy * Increase Progressivity in Revenues
Ask Maryland Legislators to Support Conversion of Weapons Spending to Civilian Spending
Fair Elections And Democracy
Establish a System of Public Campaign Finance * Provide for Same-Day Voter Registration
Oppose "Corporate Personhood" Doctrines and Support Efforts to Overturn Citizens United
Justice For All / Civil Rights
Repeal the Death Penalty in Maryland * End Discrimination Against Transgender Persons
+++++++++
* Please RSVP so we can help facilitate appointments with lawmakers
from your district. You need not arrive by 4:30 pm to participate!
Email me if you've questions.
See you there!
Kate Planco Waybright
for all the Progressive Maryland team
PS. Easiest parking is at the Naval Academy lot on Rowe Blvd. ($3-4),
then take the shuttle (every 15 mins. for 75 cents). Map and details.
________________________________________
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Email Us
301-494-4998
Privacy
www.ProgressiveMaryland.org
State Headquarters: 33 University Blvd. E., Silver Spring, MD 20901
Baltimore Office: 9 W. Mulberry St., 4th Floor, Baltimore, MD 21201
Mailing Address: P.O. Box 2181 Silver Spring, MD 20915
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
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Masked Cops Raid Home of Terminally Ill Medical Marijuana Patient
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Huffington Post [1] / By Steph Sherer [2]
Masked Cops Raid Home of Terminally Ill Medical Marijuana Patient
March 1, 2013
Earlier this week, while more than 200 citizen lobbyists were meeting face-to-face with their Congressional legislators in Washington, D.C. to change federal policy on medical cannabis, a series of events occurred in Florida, making that state the next political battleground on this issue.
On Monday, a Miami Herald article [3] cited a recent poll indicating 81 percent of Florida voters said approve of doctors recommending cannabis to patients, with only 14 percent opposed. As many as 70 percent of voters said they supported a state constitutional amendment legalizing medical cannabis, a full 10 points higher than what Florida requires to pass such amendments.
Then, tragically, later that afternoon, the home of Americans for Safe Access member and Sarasota resident Cathy Jordan and her 64-year-old husband Robert was raided [4] by the Manatee County Sheriff's Department. With black ski masks and guns drawn in an intimidating fashion that has become all-too familiar for medical cannabis patients across the country, sheriff's deputies came into their home and seized all 23 of Cathy's plants, which she uses to treat Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS, also known as "Lou Gehrig's disease"), a terminal illness.
Cathy was diagnosed in 1986 with ALS [5], a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, leading to loss of limb control, breathing, swallowing, and speech. However, after trying cannabis in 1989, she was able to better manage her symptoms and significantly improve her quality of life. Now, more than 20 years later, Cathy has outlived five of her support groups and four of her neurologists.
As you can see from her medical history and the positive impact that cannabis has had on her life, Cathy is a shining example of why public policy must be changed, not only in Florida but at the federal level as well. Therefore, it was no surprise (except maybe to the Manatee County Sheriff's Department) that she was chosen as the lead spokesperson for SB1250, the "Cathy Jordan Medical Cannabis Act [6]," a Florida bill introduced the very next day [7] by State Senator Jeff Clemens (D-Lake worth).
And, if SB1250 fails to get the necessary votes for passage, there is another effort afoot by People United for Medical Marijuana to put an initiative [3] on the 2014 ballot in Florida that would amend the state constitution in order to protect patients from exactly the type of raid that Cathy and her husband had to endure.
This type of aggressive enforcement effort is not unique to Cathy or to other patients in Florida. It happens virtually every day across America, even in states that have adopted medical cannabis laws. One of the main reasons for this is an outdated policy at the federal level. For decades now, the federal government has refused to recognize the medical efficacy of cannabis, maintaining the position that it is a dangerous drug with no medical value. In July 2011, the Obama Administration denied a 9-year-old petition [8] filed by ASA and other groups aimed at reclassifying cannabis for medical use, in an effort to overturn the federal government's draconian policy. This bittersweet denial, however, gave ASA the opportunity to bring the issue of medical cannabis into the federal courts by appealing the denial to the D.C. Circuit. Cathy Jordan was one of the lead plaintiffs in this appeal, ASA v. DEA [9]. Unfortunately, last month, the D.C. Circuit sided with the government's position, denying our appeal [10] and refusing to usher in a new compassionate policy toward patients.
However, advocates are not giving up and the medical cannabis patient community is now more ardent than ever. ASA will soon be filing for En Banc review of the appeal with the full D.C. Circuit, but advocates are not putting all of their eggs in the federal court basket. With last week's introduction [11] of two Congressional bills, HR689, the "States' Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act," and HR710, the "Truth in Trials Act," advocates are hard at work convincing their members of Congress that federal policy must be changed. Indeed, it was the support for these bills that brought more than 250 people to Washington, D.C. this past weekend for the ASA-hosted, first-ever national medical cannabis conference [12] in Washington, D.C. More than half of the conference participants took to Capitol Hill Monday to show that they're a force to be reckoned with.
Given the historical and widespread support for medical cannabis in the U.S., consistently polling at up to 80 percent [13], Congress has been woefully out of step with their constituents on this issue. Yet, that's about to change. It has to change, unless we want to be known as a society that favors attacking our most vulnerable citizens for using a medication that improves -- and, in many cases, extends -- their lives. I know we're better than that. We just have to show Congress that there will be consequences for ignoring the will of the people and the plight of patients.
Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/masked-cops-raid-home-terminally-ill-medical-marijuana-patient
Links:
[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/steph-sherer
[3] http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/02/25/v-fullstory/3253273/poll-7-in-10-back-fl-medical-marijuana.html
[4] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/26/raid-of-the-day-florida-c_n_2765920.html
[5] http://safeaccessnow.org/blog/blog/2012/04/28/medical-cannabis-helps-als-patient-outlive-support-groups-and-neurologists/
[6] http://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2013/1250/BillText/Filed/PDF
[7] http://www.bradenton.com/2013/02/26/4409613/poll-7-in-10-back-florida-medical.html
[8] http://www.safeaccessnow.org/article.php?id=6760
[9] http://americansforsafeaccess.org/downloads/CRC_Appeal.pdf
[10] http://americansforsafeaccess.org/dc-circuit-denies-medical-marijuana-reclassification-challenge-advocates-vow-to-appeal
[11] http://americansforsafeaccess.org/federal-medical-marijuana-bills-introduced-today-in-anticipation-of-patient-led-congressional-lobbying-effort-1
[12] http://americansforsafeaccess.org/hundreds-of-medical-marijuana-advocates-to-gather-in-washington-dc-for-national-conference-to-change-federal-policy
[13] http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/10/28/timep.politics.pot.tm/index.html
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
Huffington Post [1] / By Steph Sherer [2]
Masked Cops Raid Home of Terminally Ill Medical Marijuana Patient
March 1, 2013
Earlier this week, while more than 200 citizen lobbyists were meeting face-to-face with their Congressional legislators in Washington, D.C. to change federal policy on medical cannabis, a series of events occurred in Florida, making that state the next political battleground on this issue.
On Monday, a Miami Herald article [3] cited a recent poll indicating 81 percent of Florida voters said approve of doctors recommending cannabis to patients, with only 14 percent opposed. As many as 70 percent of voters said they supported a state constitutional amendment legalizing medical cannabis, a full 10 points higher than what Florida requires to pass such amendments.
Then, tragically, later that afternoon, the home of Americans for Safe Access member and Sarasota resident Cathy Jordan and her 64-year-old husband Robert was raided [4] by the Manatee County Sheriff's Department. With black ski masks and guns drawn in an intimidating fashion that has become all-too familiar for medical cannabis patients across the country, sheriff's deputies came into their home and seized all 23 of Cathy's plants, which she uses to treat Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS, also known as "Lou Gehrig's disease"), a terminal illness.
Cathy was diagnosed in 1986 with ALS [5], a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, leading to loss of limb control, breathing, swallowing, and speech. However, after trying cannabis in 1989, she was able to better manage her symptoms and significantly improve her quality of life. Now, more than 20 years later, Cathy has outlived five of her support groups and four of her neurologists.
As you can see from her medical history and the positive impact that cannabis has had on her life, Cathy is a shining example of why public policy must be changed, not only in Florida but at the federal level as well. Therefore, it was no surprise (except maybe to the Manatee County Sheriff's Department) that she was chosen as the lead spokesperson for SB1250, the "Cathy Jordan Medical Cannabis Act [6]," a Florida bill introduced the very next day [7] by State Senator Jeff Clemens (D-Lake worth).
And, if SB1250 fails to get the necessary votes for passage, there is another effort afoot by People United for Medical Marijuana to put an initiative [3] on the 2014 ballot in Florida that would amend the state constitution in order to protect patients from exactly the type of raid that Cathy and her husband had to endure.
This type of aggressive enforcement effort is not unique to Cathy or to other patients in Florida. It happens virtually every day across America, even in states that have adopted medical cannabis laws. One of the main reasons for this is an outdated policy at the federal level. For decades now, the federal government has refused to recognize the medical efficacy of cannabis, maintaining the position that it is a dangerous drug with no medical value. In July 2011, the Obama Administration denied a 9-year-old petition [8] filed by ASA and other groups aimed at reclassifying cannabis for medical use, in an effort to overturn the federal government's draconian policy. This bittersweet denial, however, gave ASA the opportunity to bring the issue of medical cannabis into the federal courts by appealing the denial to the D.C. Circuit. Cathy Jordan was one of the lead plaintiffs in this appeal, ASA v. DEA [9]. Unfortunately, last month, the D.C. Circuit sided with the government's position, denying our appeal [10] and refusing to usher in a new compassionate policy toward patients.
However, advocates are not giving up and the medical cannabis patient community is now more ardent than ever. ASA will soon be filing for En Banc review of the appeal with the full D.C. Circuit, but advocates are not putting all of their eggs in the federal court basket. With last week's introduction [11] of two Congressional bills, HR689, the "States' Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act," and HR710, the "Truth in Trials Act," advocates are hard at work convincing their members of Congress that federal policy must be changed. Indeed, it was the support for these bills that brought more than 250 people to Washington, D.C. this past weekend for the ASA-hosted, first-ever national medical cannabis conference [12] in Washington, D.C. More than half of the conference participants took to Capitol Hill Monday to show that they're a force to be reckoned with.
Given the historical and widespread support for medical cannabis in the U.S., consistently polling at up to 80 percent [13], Congress has been woefully out of step with their constituents on this issue. Yet, that's about to change. It has to change, unless we want to be known as a society that favors attacking our most vulnerable citizens for using a medication that improves -- and, in many cases, extends -- their lives. I know we're better than that. We just have to show Congress that there will be consequences for ignoring the will of the people and the plight of patients.
Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/masked-cops-raid-home-terminally-ill-medical-marijuana-patient
Links:
[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/steph-sherer
[3] http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/02/25/v-fullstory/3253273/poll-7-in-10-back-fl-medical-marijuana.html
[4] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/26/raid-of-the-day-florida-c_n_2765920.html
[5] http://safeaccessnow.org/blog/blog/2012/04/28/medical-cannabis-helps-als-patient-outlive-support-groups-and-neurologists/
[6] http://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2013/1250/BillText/Filed/PDF
[7] http://www.bradenton.com/2013/02/26/4409613/poll-7-in-10-back-florida-medical.html
[8] http://www.safeaccessnow.org/article.php?id=6760
[9] http://americansforsafeaccess.org/downloads/CRC_Appeal.pdf
[10] http://americansforsafeaccess.org/dc-circuit-denies-medical-marijuana-reclassification-challenge-advocates-vow-to-appeal
[11] http://americansforsafeaccess.org/federal-medical-marijuana-bills-introduced-today-in-anticipation-of-patient-led-congressional-lobbying-effort-1
[12] http://americansforsafeaccess.org/hundreds-of-medical-marijuana-advocates-to-gather-in-washington-dc-for-national-conference-to-change-federal-policy
[13] http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/10/28/timep.politics.pot.tm/index.html
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
Can you get on the Prosperity Not Austerity Bus?
Friends, I am hoping you can join us on the Prosperity Not Austerity Bus Tour which starts in Baltimore on Saturday, March 23 at AM. See the flyer below.
Let me know if you can get on the bus, attend any or all stops, and/or suggest a speaker or a performer. Our only hope for the future is to severely cut military spending and to bring those tax dollars back to rebuild cities and states. We need you to join us on March 23.
Kagiso,
Max
In 1967, it was the Magical Mystery Tour…
On March 23, join us for the
Prosperity Not Austerity Tour!
58% of the U.S. government’s discretionary budget goes to wasteful Pentagon spending, while our people desperately need jobs and our communities are suffering. Let’s tell Congress that we demand a change.
What: A bus/auto caravan from Baltimore to Capitol Hill, with stops showcasing community needs, contrasted with the wealth of war profiteers.
Schedule:
9 a.m. Dallas F. Nicholas Senior Elementary School, 201 E. 21st St, Baltimore
10:20 a.m. Amazing Grace Lutheran Church, 2424 McElderry St., Baltimore
12:20 p.m. Prince Georges Social Services Office, 6505 Belcrest Rd., Hyattsville
2 p.m.: Silver Spring Library, 8902 Colesville Rd.
3:10 p.m. Hughes Neighborhood Housing, 10720 Georgia Ave., Wheaton
5 p.m. Rally and call to action! U.S. Capitol, DC
When: Saturday, March 23, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Participate during any part of the tour—or for all of it.
Who: Maryland Coalition to Fund Our Communities, Not the Pentagon
How to get involved: Come to one of the rally stops! Drive along with the bus in your own car! Spread the news to your network! To receive updates, now and in the future, register at ourfunds.org!
National Security Begins at Home!
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
Let me know if you can get on the bus, attend any or all stops, and/or suggest a speaker or a performer. Our only hope for the future is to severely cut military spending and to bring those tax dollars back to rebuild cities and states. We need you to join us on March 23.
Kagiso,
Max
In 1967, it was the Magical Mystery Tour…
On March 23, join us for the
Prosperity Not Austerity Tour!
58% of the U.S. government’s discretionary budget goes to wasteful Pentagon spending, while our people desperately need jobs and our communities are suffering. Let’s tell Congress that we demand a change.
What: A bus/auto caravan from Baltimore to Capitol Hill, with stops showcasing community needs, contrasted with the wealth of war profiteers.
Schedule:
9 a.m. Dallas F. Nicholas Senior Elementary School, 201 E. 21st St, Baltimore
10:20 a.m. Amazing Grace Lutheran Church, 2424 McElderry St., Baltimore
12:20 p.m. Prince Georges Social Services Office, 6505 Belcrest Rd., Hyattsville
2 p.m.: Silver Spring Library, 8902 Colesville Rd.
3:10 p.m. Hughes Neighborhood Housing, 10720 Georgia Ave., Wheaton
5 p.m. Rally and call to action! U.S. Capitol, DC
When: Saturday, March 23, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Participate during any part of the tour—or for all of it.
Who: Maryland Coalition to Fund Our Communities, Not the Pentagon
How to get involved: Come to one of the rally stops! Drive along with the bus in your own car! Spread the news to your network! To receive updates, now and in the future, register at ourfunds.org!
National Security Begins at Home!
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
From Elephants’ Mouths, an Illicit Trail to China
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/02/world/asia/an-illicit-trail-of-african-ivory-to-china.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130302
March 1, 2013
From Elephants’ Mouths, an Illicit Trail to China
By DAN LEVIN
PUZHAI, China — Chinese investors have anointed it “white gold.” Carvers and collectors prefer the term “organic gemstone.” Smugglers, however, use a gruesomely straightforward name for the recently harvested African elephant tusks that find their way to this remote trading outpost on the Vietnamese border.
“We call them bloody teeth,” said Xing, a furniture maker and ivory trafficker who is part of a shadowy trade that has revived calls for a total international ban on ivory sales.
To the outrage of conservation groups trying to stop the slaughter of African elephants and the embarrassment of Chinese law enforcement agencies, Xing’s thriving ivory business is just one drop in a trail of blood that stretches from Africa, by air, sea and highway, to Chinese showrooms and private collections.
“The Chinese hold the key to the elephants’ future,” said Iain Douglas-Hamilton, founder of Save the Elephants. “If things continue the way they are, many countries could lose their elephants altogether.”
Critics say the Chinese government is not doing enough to stem the illicit ivory trade, which has exploded in the five years since conservationists and governments agreed to a program of limited ivory sales intended to stifle poaching and revive a centuries-old handicraft. Since the beginning of 2012, more than 32,000 elephants have been illegally killed, according to the Born Free Foundation, a wildlife organization, and conservationists say the majority of ivory sold in China, which sells for more than $1,300 a pound on the black market, is of questionable origin.
Legalized ivory sales have been a boon to carvers and brokers, who have helped fuel the demand for ever greater supplies. But those who investigate the trade in China say the skyrocketing sales — and the incentive for poaching — can be tied to a combination of incompetence by law enforcement and official corruption, especially by the military.
The only way to save the African elephant, conservationists say, is to outlaw the sale of ivory entirely.
Though the clandestine nature of ivory smuggling makes it difficult to fully map out, experts say Africa’s elephants are being slaughtered at the highest rate in two decades, largely to satisfy soaring demand among China’s growing middle class. “China is clearly driving the illegal ivory trade more than any other nation on earth,” said Tom Milliken, an elephant expert with the wildlife trade-monitoring network Traffic.
Things were meant to turn out differently. In 1989, the United Nations-backed Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or Cites, banned the sale of ivory in an effort to stop what conservationists say was an elephant “holocaust.”
But as herds recovered, Cites officials in 2008 agreed to a contentious one-time auction of stockpiled African ivory to Japan and China, with the money going toward wildlife conservation. As part of the arrangement, the Chinese government introduced a complex documentation system to track every trinket and carving produced from the 68 tons of auctioned ivory it won. Supporters hoped a flood of cheap, regulated ivory would undercut the illegal trade, saving more elephants.
The sale, however, has proved to be a colossal failure. Like the forest canopy that protects poachers from detection, the regulated ivory trade has provided unscrupulous Chinese carvers and collectors with the ideal legal camouflage to buy and sell contraband tusks.
Things went wrong from the start, and wildlife groups say the Chinese government is partly responsible.
After obtaining the auctioned ivory at artificially low prices, state enterprises in China began selling limited amounts to carving factories for up to eight times the winning bid. Instead of smothering the sale of illicit ivory, the spike in prices made poaching even more attractive.
In 2011, for example, auctioned ivory fetched about $94 million, double the previous year’s total, according to the China Association of Auctioneers. “Buyers wouldn’t even take home the carvings they bought before putting them up for bid again,” said an employee with a major Beijing auction house who asked for anonymity because of the sensitivities involved.
Even though the Chinese government in 2011 barred auction houses from selling ivory, sales continue — as does the bloodshed.
The Chinese Market
First opened in 1898, the Old Phoenix Auspicious Jade and Ivory Carving Company in Shanghai is a tradition-bound shrine to China’s newfound prosperity. Its shelves bulge with cabbage-shaped jade carvings and coral broaches, though customers mostly come for the blindingly white array of ivory bookmarks, chopsticks and idols. In one corner, spotlights illuminate a large tusk carved into a 360-degree-panorama of pagodas, palm trees and robed scholars. The price: about $205,000.
Upstairs, more than a dozen carvers in blue uniforms hunch silently over desks as they whittle away at pieces of polished tusk. Most were hired fresh out of art school after the stockpile sale in 2008. The scene deeply satisfies Zhou Bai, 58, a master carver who first learned to carve ivory at 17.
“When the ban was passed in ’89, I was sad this art would die with me,” said Mr. Zhou, who was busy turning a three-foot-long tusk into a fanciful temple surrounded by clouds. “But now we have the opportunity to keep it alive.”
Each carving comes with a government issued-certificate that includes a serial number; items over 50 grams must have a photo ID. But conservationists say the system has been widely corrupted.
Take, for example, the white ivory shavings that piled up below Mr. Zhou’s carved tusk. Asked about what became of the highly prized powder, Mr. Zhou said it was regularly collected by local forestry department employees, who sell it for use as a traditional Chinese elixir believed to fight cancer. The State Forestry Administration, however, denied that its employees have anything to do with the powder.
Yan Zhong, the company’s general manager, pointed to a gold plaque on the wall as proof that all his ivory comes from the state. The license, he said, also gives his customers peace of mind. “All our ivory fell off elephants after they died, so it’s ethical,” he said. “If the tusks were just left to rot, it would be such a waste.”
Yet registration certificates have themselves become valuable commodities in the ivory-laundering business, according to a 2011 investigation by the International Fund for Animal Welfare. Vendors have been found reusing identification certificates or selling them to unlicensed dealers. The owner of one formerly illegal carving factory told investigators he paid about $321,000 for a license, which is officially free of charge.
The State Forestry Administration, which oversees the legal ivory trade, says it expels about three vendors each year for breaking the rules. Since the ivory ban was rescinded, the number of licensed businesses has risen to 37 carving factories and 145 shops.
So, too, have prices. At the auction in 2008, the state-owned enterprises paid $71 a pound, then immediately flipped their first quota from their ivory purchases to factories for up to $530 a pound. Today, raw ivory costs more than $1,300 a pound. Just how much illegal ivory has crept into the country is a matter of dispute, but wildlife organizations say there is not nearly enough legal supply to match the amount officially sold across China. “If you look at the volume on the market, it’s nonsense,” said Mary Rice, executive director of the independent Environmental Investigation Agency, which estimates that up to 90 percent of the ivory in China is illegal.
Conservation group investigators say licensed factories often supplement official purchases with smuggled ivory, sometimes by adding illegal pieces to legitimate carvings. One factory owner privately acknowledged that the 330 pounds of legal ivory he acquires annually lasts just one month. The rest, he said, is bought on the black market.
To conservationists, the open sale of contraband ivory is just as vexing. At the Chengtian antiques market in Beijing, eight stalls sold unregistered ivory carvings. Fingering a cream-colored Buddha pendant he was selling for about $800, the vendor explained how to hide it from the authorities. “Just wear it around your neck,” he said. “No need for a certificate.”
When asked if they were afraid of being arrested, the vendors confided that, much like sellers of pirated DVDs and books, they receive ample warning before the rare police crackdown. “As long as we dare to sell, it’s safe for you to buy,” one woman said.
A Cultural Tradition
Ivory is etched deeply into the Chinese identity. Popular lore tells of emperors who believed ivory chopsticks would change color upon contact with poisoned food. In Chinese medicine, ivory powder is said to purge toxins from the body and give a luminous complexion. As part of its public relations effort to legitimize the trade, the government in 2006 added ivory carving to its official Intangible Cultural Heritage register, along with traditional opera, kung fu and acupuncture.
“Love for ivory is in our blood,” said Wu Shaohua, president of the Shanghai Collectors Association. In a society where Rolexes and Louis Vuitton bags are sometimes bought by the dozen, many Chinese believe that giving a trinket carved from elephant tusk confers the highest honor. “It says this relationship is as precious as ivory,” he said.
Mr. Wu said he thinks the prestige and artistry of ivory may outweigh, for enthusiasts, any potential concerns over its provenance.
International conservation groups and the Chinese government have tried to raise awareness. In Africa, home to at least a million Chinese nationals, Chinese embassies send text messages warning against buying ivory, according to a government report. In Beijing and other cities, public service campaigns, including one that features the basketball star Yao Ming, link poaching to smuggled ivory. The Chinese news media frequently reports the arrests of Chinese smugglers.
But the government’s anti-ivory message is muddled. In 2011, Beijing began allowing Chinese travelers from Zimbabwe to carry up to 22 pounds of carved ivory products as “souvenirs” in their luggage, a policy that confuses potential collectors, say conservation groups.
Then there is the emphasis on ivory carving as a hallowed tradition. A Chinese television documentary about the Beijing Ivory Carving Factory’s efforts to revive the ancient craft never broached the subject of poaching or explained that “elephant teeth,” as ivory is called in Mandarin, do not just fall out.
One shopper, a government worker who had seen the documentary, seemed unconcerned with the fate of Africa’s herds as she browsed the Beijing Ivory Carving Factory showroom in January. “As long as the quality of the ivory is good, who cares what happened to the elephant,” she said.
The Chinese government says it is doing all it can to stop ivory smuggling. Officials say that about 900 seizures are made annually within China, some 90 percent of them involving Chinese travelers concealing ivory in their suitcases.
Some cannot resist turning their hobby into income. In 2012, a woman was given an eight-year prison sentence for selling 19 pounds of ivory online. Government officials said 32 smugglers have been given life sentences.
Legal vs. Illegal
But critics say the government’s efforts have largely failed to tackle the syndicates responsible for moving vast quantities of smuggled ivory into China. After the authorities began targeting shipments from certain African countries, the smuggling rings started sending the ivory through intermediate ports so that it appears to come from elsewhere. Officials say they are able to check less than 1 percent of containers arriving on Chinese shores each year.
When they do find a big haul, it is big news. In January, customs officials in Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China, confiscated nearly 3,000 pounds of ivory, worth $1.4 million, hidden under rocks in a shipping container that came from Kenya through Malaysia — their third large ivory seizure in three months.
In 2010, the authorities in Macau found 2,200 pounds of ivory, including some six-and-a-half-foot tusks, floating in nylon sacks along the shoreline near a golf course.
Here in Puzhai, residents still talk about the raid of April 2011, when a routine inspection yielded one of China’s largest seizures ever: 707 tusks, 32 ivory bracelets and a rhino horn, all hidden inside boxes in the back of a truck.
To conservationists, such huge confiscations are proof that the legal ivory experiment is a failure. “Seizures are not an indication of success,” said Grace Ge Gabriel, Asia director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare. “This is just the tip of the iceberg.”
Xing, the trafficker, sees the confiscations as the result of poor planning.
“Never use your own car,” he said, as his workers blithely posed for photographs with two enormous tusks he had just pulled from a cabinet. Xing confided that he often pays people to carry tusks over the lush mountains that span the notoriously porous Vietnamese border. When that fails, his connections with border guards on the night shift prove indispensable.
Once the tusks cross into China, Xing uses what he calls his “special channel”: vehicles belonging to the People’s Liberation Army, a tactic that ensures no one comes nosing around. A conspirator in Shanghai who operates a factory takes care of the carving. Shipping for a pair of tusks, he said, costs about $800, and takes just five days to reach Beijing.
Chinese officials deny that corruption plays any role in the illegal ivory trade. Rather, they say, their country’s huge size and enormous population make it impossible to wipe out the trafficking. “There are always fish that slip through the net,” said Meng Xianlin, executive director general of China’s endangered species trade authority.
The Chinese government has not responded well to criticism. At a Cites meeting two years ago, China forced all nongovernmental organizations to leave the room when word spread that two groups were planning to issue reports highlighting Beijing’s failings.
A Foreign Ministry spokesman said last month that Chinese law enforcement had “effectively curbed” ivory smuggling.
On Sunday, the Cites delegations will gather in Bangkok for what is set to be a particularly contentious conference. While both China and Thailand are to be named as the biggest illegal ivory markets, only Thailand, which has no legal ivory trade system in place, is under pressure to crack down on ivory sales.
In fact, the Chinese government is lobbying to ease restrictions on ivory trade. Despite the continuing decimation of the African elephant, Mr. Meng, the wildlife trade official, has insisted that herds could endure a robust international ivory trade. He wrote last year to the Cites Secretariat, saying that China should be allowed to buy confiscated tusks from poached elephants in addition to those legally obtained. Asian demand, he wrote, required about 220 tons of raw ivory — equaling the lives of roughly 20,000 elephants — every year.
Shi Da and Mia Li contributed research.
© 2012 The New York Times Company
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
March 1, 2013
From Elephants’ Mouths, an Illicit Trail to China
By DAN LEVIN
PUZHAI, China — Chinese investors have anointed it “white gold.” Carvers and collectors prefer the term “organic gemstone.” Smugglers, however, use a gruesomely straightforward name for the recently harvested African elephant tusks that find their way to this remote trading outpost on the Vietnamese border.
“We call them bloody teeth,” said Xing, a furniture maker and ivory trafficker who is part of a shadowy trade that has revived calls for a total international ban on ivory sales.
To the outrage of conservation groups trying to stop the slaughter of African elephants and the embarrassment of Chinese law enforcement agencies, Xing’s thriving ivory business is just one drop in a trail of blood that stretches from Africa, by air, sea and highway, to Chinese showrooms and private collections.
“The Chinese hold the key to the elephants’ future,” said Iain Douglas-Hamilton, founder of Save the Elephants. “If things continue the way they are, many countries could lose their elephants altogether.”
Critics say the Chinese government is not doing enough to stem the illicit ivory trade, which has exploded in the five years since conservationists and governments agreed to a program of limited ivory sales intended to stifle poaching and revive a centuries-old handicraft. Since the beginning of 2012, more than 32,000 elephants have been illegally killed, according to the Born Free Foundation, a wildlife organization, and conservationists say the majority of ivory sold in China, which sells for more than $1,300 a pound on the black market, is of questionable origin.
Legalized ivory sales have been a boon to carvers and brokers, who have helped fuel the demand for ever greater supplies. But those who investigate the trade in China say the skyrocketing sales — and the incentive for poaching — can be tied to a combination of incompetence by law enforcement and official corruption, especially by the military.
The only way to save the African elephant, conservationists say, is to outlaw the sale of ivory entirely.
Though the clandestine nature of ivory smuggling makes it difficult to fully map out, experts say Africa’s elephants are being slaughtered at the highest rate in two decades, largely to satisfy soaring demand among China’s growing middle class. “China is clearly driving the illegal ivory trade more than any other nation on earth,” said Tom Milliken, an elephant expert with the wildlife trade-monitoring network Traffic.
Things were meant to turn out differently. In 1989, the United Nations-backed Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or Cites, banned the sale of ivory in an effort to stop what conservationists say was an elephant “holocaust.”
But as herds recovered, Cites officials in 2008 agreed to a contentious one-time auction of stockpiled African ivory to Japan and China, with the money going toward wildlife conservation. As part of the arrangement, the Chinese government introduced a complex documentation system to track every trinket and carving produced from the 68 tons of auctioned ivory it won. Supporters hoped a flood of cheap, regulated ivory would undercut the illegal trade, saving more elephants.
The sale, however, has proved to be a colossal failure. Like the forest canopy that protects poachers from detection, the regulated ivory trade has provided unscrupulous Chinese carvers and collectors with the ideal legal camouflage to buy and sell contraband tusks.
Things went wrong from the start, and wildlife groups say the Chinese government is partly responsible.
After obtaining the auctioned ivory at artificially low prices, state enterprises in China began selling limited amounts to carving factories for up to eight times the winning bid. Instead of smothering the sale of illicit ivory, the spike in prices made poaching even more attractive.
In 2011, for example, auctioned ivory fetched about $94 million, double the previous year’s total, according to the China Association of Auctioneers. “Buyers wouldn’t even take home the carvings they bought before putting them up for bid again,” said an employee with a major Beijing auction house who asked for anonymity because of the sensitivities involved.
Even though the Chinese government in 2011 barred auction houses from selling ivory, sales continue — as does the bloodshed.
The Chinese Market
First opened in 1898, the Old Phoenix Auspicious Jade and Ivory Carving Company in Shanghai is a tradition-bound shrine to China’s newfound prosperity. Its shelves bulge with cabbage-shaped jade carvings and coral broaches, though customers mostly come for the blindingly white array of ivory bookmarks, chopsticks and idols. In one corner, spotlights illuminate a large tusk carved into a 360-degree-panorama of pagodas, palm trees and robed scholars. The price: about $205,000.
Upstairs, more than a dozen carvers in blue uniforms hunch silently over desks as they whittle away at pieces of polished tusk. Most were hired fresh out of art school after the stockpile sale in 2008. The scene deeply satisfies Zhou Bai, 58, a master carver who first learned to carve ivory at 17.
“When the ban was passed in ’89, I was sad this art would die with me,” said Mr. Zhou, who was busy turning a three-foot-long tusk into a fanciful temple surrounded by clouds. “But now we have the opportunity to keep it alive.”
Each carving comes with a government issued-certificate that includes a serial number; items over 50 grams must have a photo ID. But conservationists say the system has been widely corrupted.
Take, for example, the white ivory shavings that piled up below Mr. Zhou’s carved tusk. Asked about what became of the highly prized powder, Mr. Zhou said it was regularly collected by local forestry department employees, who sell it for use as a traditional Chinese elixir believed to fight cancer. The State Forestry Administration, however, denied that its employees have anything to do with the powder.
Yan Zhong, the company’s general manager, pointed to a gold plaque on the wall as proof that all his ivory comes from the state. The license, he said, also gives his customers peace of mind. “All our ivory fell off elephants after they died, so it’s ethical,” he said. “If the tusks were just left to rot, it would be such a waste.”
Yet registration certificates have themselves become valuable commodities in the ivory-laundering business, according to a 2011 investigation by the International Fund for Animal Welfare. Vendors have been found reusing identification certificates or selling them to unlicensed dealers. The owner of one formerly illegal carving factory told investigators he paid about $321,000 for a license, which is officially free of charge.
The State Forestry Administration, which oversees the legal ivory trade, says it expels about three vendors each year for breaking the rules. Since the ivory ban was rescinded, the number of licensed businesses has risen to 37 carving factories and 145 shops.
So, too, have prices. At the auction in 2008, the state-owned enterprises paid $71 a pound, then immediately flipped their first quota from their ivory purchases to factories for up to $530 a pound. Today, raw ivory costs more than $1,300 a pound. Just how much illegal ivory has crept into the country is a matter of dispute, but wildlife organizations say there is not nearly enough legal supply to match the amount officially sold across China. “If you look at the volume on the market, it’s nonsense,” said Mary Rice, executive director of the independent Environmental Investigation Agency, which estimates that up to 90 percent of the ivory in China is illegal.
Conservation group investigators say licensed factories often supplement official purchases with smuggled ivory, sometimes by adding illegal pieces to legitimate carvings. One factory owner privately acknowledged that the 330 pounds of legal ivory he acquires annually lasts just one month. The rest, he said, is bought on the black market.
To conservationists, the open sale of contraband ivory is just as vexing. At the Chengtian antiques market in Beijing, eight stalls sold unregistered ivory carvings. Fingering a cream-colored Buddha pendant he was selling for about $800, the vendor explained how to hide it from the authorities. “Just wear it around your neck,” he said. “No need for a certificate.”
When asked if they were afraid of being arrested, the vendors confided that, much like sellers of pirated DVDs and books, they receive ample warning before the rare police crackdown. “As long as we dare to sell, it’s safe for you to buy,” one woman said.
A Cultural Tradition
Ivory is etched deeply into the Chinese identity. Popular lore tells of emperors who believed ivory chopsticks would change color upon contact with poisoned food. In Chinese medicine, ivory powder is said to purge toxins from the body and give a luminous complexion. As part of its public relations effort to legitimize the trade, the government in 2006 added ivory carving to its official Intangible Cultural Heritage register, along with traditional opera, kung fu and acupuncture.
“Love for ivory is in our blood,” said Wu Shaohua, president of the Shanghai Collectors Association. In a society where Rolexes and Louis Vuitton bags are sometimes bought by the dozen, many Chinese believe that giving a trinket carved from elephant tusk confers the highest honor. “It says this relationship is as precious as ivory,” he said.
Mr. Wu said he thinks the prestige and artistry of ivory may outweigh, for enthusiasts, any potential concerns over its provenance.
International conservation groups and the Chinese government have tried to raise awareness. In Africa, home to at least a million Chinese nationals, Chinese embassies send text messages warning against buying ivory, according to a government report. In Beijing and other cities, public service campaigns, including one that features the basketball star Yao Ming, link poaching to smuggled ivory. The Chinese news media frequently reports the arrests of Chinese smugglers.
But the government’s anti-ivory message is muddled. In 2011, Beijing began allowing Chinese travelers from Zimbabwe to carry up to 22 pounds of carved ivory products as “souvenirs” in their luggage, a policy that confuses potential collectors, say conservation groups.
Then there is the emphasis on ivory carving as a hallowed tradition. A Chinese television documentary about the Beijing Ivory Carving Factory’s efforts to revive the ancient craft never broached the subject of poaching or explained that “elephant teeth,” as ivory is called in Mandarin, do not just fall out.
One shopper, a government worker who had seen the documentary, seemed unconcerned with the fate of Africa’s herds as she browsed the Beijing Ivory Carving Factory showroom in January. “As long as the quality of the ivory is good, who cares what happened to the elephant,” she said.
The Chinese government says it is doing all it can to stop ivory smuggling. Officials say that about 900 seizures are made annually within China, some 90 percent of them involving Chinese travelers concealing ivory in their suitcases.
Some cannot resist turning their hobby into income. In 2012, a woman was given an eight-year prison sentence for selling 19 pounds of ivory online. Government officials said 32 smugglers have been given life sentences.
Legal vs. Illegal
But critics say the government’s efforts have largely failed to tackle the syndicates responsible for moving vast quantities of smuggled ivory into China. After the authorities began targeting shipments from certain African countries, the smuggling rings started sending the ivory through intermediate ports so that it appears to come from elsewhere. Officials say they are able to check less than 1 percent of containers arriving on Chinese shores each year.
When they do find a big haul, it is big news. In January, customs officials in Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China, confiscated nearly 3,000 pounds of ivory, worth $1.4 million, hidden under rocks in a shipping container that came from Kenya through Malaysia — their third large ivory seizure in three months.
In 2010, the authorities in Macau found 2,200 pounds of ivory, including some six-and-a-half-foot tusks, floating in nylon sacks along the shoreline near a golf course.
Here in Puzhai, residents still talk about the raid of April 2011, when a routine inspection yielded one of China’s largest seizures ever: 707 tusks, 32 ivory bracelets and a rhino horn, all hidden inside boxes in the back of a truck.
To conservationists, such huge confiscations are proof that the legal ivory experiment is a failure. “Seizures are not an indication of success,” said Grace Ge Gabriel, Asia director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare. “This is just the tip of the iceberg.”
Xing, the trafficker, sees the confiscations as the result of poor planning.
“Never use your own car,” he said, as his workers blithely posed for photographs with two enormous tusks he had just pulled from a cabinet. Xing confided that he often pays people to carry tusks over the lush mountains that span the notoriously porous Vietnamese border. When that fails, his connections with border guards on the night shift prove indispensable.
Once the tusks cross into China, Xing uses what he calls his “special channel”: vehicles belonging to the People’s Liberation Army, a tactic that ensures no one comes nosing around. A conspirator in Shanghai who operates a factory takes care of the carving. Shipping for a pair of tusks, he said, costs about $800, and takes just five days to reach Beijing.
Chinese officials deny that corruption plays any role in the illegal ivory trade. Rather, they say, their country’s huge size and enormous population make it impossible to wipe out the trafficking. “There are always fish that slip through the net,” said Meng Xianlin, executive director general of China’s endangered species trade authority.
The Chinese government has not responded well to criticism. At a Cites meeting two years ago, China forced all nongovernmental organizations to leave the room when word spread that two groups were planning to issue reports highlighting Beijing’s failings.
A Foreign Ministry spokesman said last month that Chinese law enforcement had “effectively curbed” ivory smuggling.
On Sunday, the Cites delegations will gather in Bangkok for what is set to be a particularly contentious conference. While both China and Thailand are to be named as the biggest illegal ivory markets, only Thailand, which has no legal ivory trade system in place, is under pressure to crack down on ivory sales.
In fact, the Chinese government is lobbying to ease restrictions on ivory trade. Despite the continuing decimation of the African elephant, Mr. Meng, the wildlife trade official, has insisted that herds could endure a robust international ivory trade. He wrote last year to the Cites Secretariat, saying that China should be allowed to buy confiscated tusks from poached elephants in addition to those legally obtained. Asian demand, he wrote, required about 220 tons of raw ivory — equaling the lives of roughly 20,000 elephants — every year.
Shi Da and Mia Li contributed research.
© 2012 The New York Times Company
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, March 2, 2013
2013 Progressive Summit & Lobby Night
Friends, The Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore/Fund Our Communities will be attending the Progressive Summit in Annapolis on Monday, March 4. So instead of our usual Monday meeting at my residence, we will be in Annapolis, supporting the repeal of the death penalty, the ban on francking, the wind farm and other progressive legislation. Please consider joining us in Annapolis, and let me know if you need a ride. Kagiso, Max
Progressive Maryland Invites you to the
2013 Progressive Summit & Lobby Night
Monday March 4th, 4:30 to 7 pm in Annapolis*
RSVP to meet at the House of Delegates Ways & Means Hearing Room
Room 131, House Office Building, 6 Bladen St., Annapolis, Maryland
Join Progressive Maryland, lawmakers, and leading progressive organizations to network,
discuss issues, and organize to advance legislative priorities, some of which include:
Economic Justice
Raise the Minimum Wage * Establish a Paid Sick Days Standard
Require Combined Tax Reporting for Corporations * Protect Labor Rights / Prevailing Wages
Require Workplace Accommodations for Pregnancy * Increase Progressivity in Revenues
Ask Maryland Legislators to Support Conversion of Weapons Spending to Civilian Spending
Fair Elections And Democracy
Establish a System of Public Campaign Finance * Provide for Same-Day Voter Registration
Oppose "Corporate Personhood" Doctrines and Support Efforts to Overturn Citizens United
Justice For All / Civil Rights
Repeal the Death Penalty in Maryland * End Discrimination Against Transgender Persons
+++++++++
* Please RSVP so we can help facilitate appointments with lawmakers
from your district. You need not arrive by 4:30 pm to participate!
Email me if you've questions.
See you there!
Kate Planco Waybright
for all the Progressive Maryland team
PS. Easiest parking is at the Naval Academy lot on Rowe Blvd. ($3-4),
then take the shuttle (every 15 mins. for 75 cents). Map and details.
________________________________________
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Email Us
301-494-4998
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State Headquarters: 33 University Blvd. E., Silver Spring, MD 20901
Baltimore Office: 9 W. Mulberry St., 4th Floor, Baltimore, MD 21201
Mailing Address: P.O. Box 2181 Silver Spring, MD 20915
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
Progressive Maryland Invites you to the
2013 Progressive Summit & Lobby Night
Monday March 4th, 4:30 to 7 pm in Annapolis*
RSVP to meet at the House of Delegates Ways & Means Hearing Room
Room 131, House Office Building, 6 Bladen St., Annapolis, Maryland
Join Progressive Maryland, lawmakers, and leading progressive organizations to network,
discuss issues, and organize to advance legislative priorities, some of which include:
Economic Justice
Raise the Minimum Wage * Establish a Paid Sick Days Standard
Require Combined Tax Reporting for Corporations * Protect Labor Rights / Prevailing Wages
Require Workplace Accommodations for Pregnancy * Increase Progressivity in Revenues
Ask Maryland Legislators to Support Conversion of Weapons Spending to Civilian Spending
Fair Elections And Democracy
Establish a System of Public Campaign Finance * Provide for Same-Day Voter Registration
Oppose "Corporate Personhood" Doctrines and Support Efforts to Overturn Citizens United
Justice For All / Civil Rights
Repeal the Death Penalty in Maryland * End Discrimination Against Transgender Persons
+++++++++
* Please RSVP so we can help facilitate appointments with lawmakers
from your district. You need not arrive by 4:30 pm to participate!
Email me if you've questions.
See you there!
Kate Planco Waybright
for all the Progressive Maryland team
PS. Easiest parking is at the Naval Academy lot on Rowe Blvd. ($3-4),
then take the shuttle (every 15 mins. for 75 cents). Map and details.
________________________________________
Join or Donate Suggest friends Tell a friend Subscribe Unsubscribe
Email Us
301-494-4998
Privacy
www.ProgressiveMaryland.org
State Headquarters: 33 University Blvd. E., Silver Spring, MD 20901
Baltimore Office: 9 W. Mulberry St., 4th Floor, Baltimore, MD 21201
Mailing Address: P.O. Box 2181 Silver Spring, MD 20915
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
Manning: Before Wikileaks, Leaked Docs Offered to NYT, WaPo
Published on Thursday, February 28, 2013 by Common Dreams
Manning: Before Wikileaks, Leaked Docs Offered to NYT, WaPo
Whistleblower reads prepared statement: Wanted documents to reveal "true costs of war"
- Common Dreams staff
In what The Guardian's correspondent Ed Pilkington describes as a "bombshell" revelation, Bradley Manning on Thursday revealed that prior to reaching out to Wikileaks with a trove of government and military documents, the whistleblower first contacted more established media outlets, including the New York Times and Washington Post, but was brushed off by editors.
As Pilkington, present in the courtroom for the reading of Manning's statement, reports:
While he was on leave from Iraq and staying in the Washington area in January 2010 he contacted the Washington Post and asked would it be interested in receiving information that he said would be "enormously important to the American people". He spoke to a woman who said she was a reporter but "she didn't seem to take me seriously".
The woman said, according to Manning's account, that the paper would only be interested subject to vetting by senior editors.
Despairing of that route, Manning turned to the New York Times. He called the public editor of the paper but only got voicemail.
He then tried other numbers on the paper but also got put through to voicemail, and though he left a message with his Skype contact details, nobody called him back. Manning added he had also contemplated going to the website Politico, but harsh weather prevented him.
Such testimony belies the US government's ongoing insinuation that Wikileaks—which specifically describes itself as a "not-for-profit media organization"—somehow played a role in compelling Manning to leak the documents. It further provides evidence that Manning was acting in the capacity of a true government or military whistleblower by proactively seeking out the media in hopes of bringing to light what he considered information vital to the public interest.
"I believed if the public, particularly the American public, could see this it could spark a debate on the military and our foreign policy in general as it applied to Iraq and Afghanistan. It might cause society to reconsider the need to engage in counter terrorism while ignoring the human situation of the people we engaged with every day." –Bradley Manning
Manning also explained his deeper motivations, which included hopes that the leaks documents would expose the "true costs of war". According to Pilkington's account, Manning stated:
"I felt we were risking so much for people who seemed to be unwilling to cooperate with us leading to frustration and hostility on both sides. I began to get depressed about he situation we were mired in year after year.
"We were obsessed with capturing and killing human targets on lists and ignoring goals and missions. I believed if the public, particularly the American public, could see this it could spark a debate on the military and our foreign policy in general as it applied to Iraq and Afghanistan. It might cause society to reconsider the need to engage in counter terrorism while ignoring the human situation of the people we engaged with every day."
Thursday's courtroom proceedings were covered best on Twitter:
Thursday's revelations came as Manning read a prepared statement—reportedly handwritten over 35 pages—before a packed military courtroom. The statement is Manning's first complete account of what government and military information he leaked to Wikileaks, and an explanation of why he chose to do so.
Manning pled guilty to a series of charges, including providing Wikileaks with confidential military information, but denied the most serious charge against him, that of "aiding the enemy."
According to FireDogLake's Kevin Gosztola, reporting live from the courtroom, Manning's plea makes possible two rulings by the presiding judge: "guilty to lesser-included offenses pursuant to the plea" or "guilty of the greater offenses in the original charges." The court cannot find him “not guilty” based on his plea.
Pilkington also reported that Manning "confirmed he wants to be tried by military judge [Colonel Denise Lind] alone," with no military equivalent of a jury.
In addition to revealing his attempts to contact other outlets first, Manning also told the courtroom that once he'd established communication with Wikileaks, "No one associated with [the outlet] pressured me into sending more information."
In regards to his leak of the collateral murder video, Manning said, "I was disturbed by the response to injured children" and that the soldiers captured in the video "seemed to not value human life by referring to [their targets] as 'dead bastards.'"
He also said that he released the intelligence because he wanted to "spark a domestic public debate about our foreign policy and the war in general," and added: "At the time I believed, and I still believe, these are ... [among] ... the most significant documents of our time."
Pilkington continues:
Through his lawyer, David Coombs, the soldier pleaded guilty to 10 lesser charges that included possessing and willfully communicating to an unauthorised person all the main elements of the WikiLeaks disclosure. That covered the so-called "collateral murder" video of an Apache helicopter attack in Iraq; some US diplomatic cables including one of the early WikiLeaks publications the Reykjavik cable; portions of the Iraq and Afghanistan warlogs, some of the files on detainees in Guantanamo; and two intelligence memos.
These lesser charges each carry a two-year maximum sentence, committing Manning to a possible upper limit of 20 years in prison.
Manning also pleaded not guilty to 12 counts, including to the largest charge of "aiding the enemy," which would have supposed that he knowingly gave help to al-Qaida either by leaking secret intelligence directly or via its publication on the internet. He also denied that at the time he gave the information to Wikileaks, he had "reason to believe such information could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation".
According to Gosztola, Manning pled guilty to "all that was anticipated except he did not plead guilty to releasing the Granai air strike video."
______________________________
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
Source URL: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/02/28-4
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
Manning: Before Wikileaks, Leaked Docs Offered to NYT, WaPo
Whistleblower reads prepared statement: Wanted documents to reveal "true costs of war"
- Common Dreams staff
In what The Guardian's correspondent Ed Pilkington describes as a "bombshell" revelation, Bradley Manning on Thursday revealed that prior to reaching out to Wikileaks with a trove of government and military documents, the whistleblower first contacted more established media outlets, including the New York Times and Washington Post, but was brushed off by editors.
As Pilkington, present in the courtroom for the reading of Manning's statement, reports:
While he was on leave from Iraq and staying in the Washington area in January 2010 he contacted the Washington Post and asked would it be interested in receiving information that he said would be "enormously important to the American people". He spoke to a woman who said she was a reporter but "she didn't seem to take me seriously".
The woman said, according to Manning's account, that the paper would only be interested subject to vetting by senior editors.
Despairing of that route, Manning turned to the New York Times. He called the public editor of the paper but only got voicemail.
He then tried other numbers on the paper but also got put through to voicemail, and though he left a message with his Skype contact details, nobody called him back. Manning added he had also contemplated going to the website Politico, but harsh weather prevented him.
Such testimony belies the US government's ongoing insinuation that Wikileaks—which specifically describes itself as a "not-for-profit media organization"—somehow played a role in compelling Manning to leak the documents. It further provides evidence that Manning was acting in the capacity of a true government or military whistleblower by proactively seeking out the media in hopes of bringing to light what he considered information vital to the public interest.
"I believed if the public, particularly the American public, could see this it could spark a debate on the military and our foreign policy in general as it applied to Iraq and Afghanistan. It might cause society to reconsider the need to engage in counter terrorism while ignoring the human situation of the people we engaged with every day." –Bradley Manning
Manning also explained his deeper motivations, which included hopes that the leaks documents would expose the "true costs of war". According to Pilkington's account, Manning stated:
"I felt we were risking so much for people who seemed to be unwilling to cooperate with us leading to frustration and hostility on both sides. I began to get depressed about he situation we were mired in year after year.
"We were obsessed with capturing and killing human targets on lists and ignoring goals and missions. I believed if the public, particularly the American public, could see this it could spark a debate on the military and our foreign policy in general as it applied to Iraq and Afghanistan. It might cause society to reconsider the need to engage in counter terrorism while ignoring the human situation of the people we engaged with every day."
Thursday's courtroom proceedings were covered best on Twitter:
Thursday's revelations came as Manning read a prepared statement—reportedly handwritten over 35 pages—before a packed military courtroom. The statement is Manning's first complete account of what government and military information he leaked to Wikileaks, and an explanation of why he chose to do so.
Manning pled guilty to a series of charges, including providing Wikileaks with confidential military information, but denied the most serious charge against him, that of "aiding the enemy."
According to FireDogLake's Kevin Gosztola, reporting live from the courtroom, Manning's plea makes possible two rulings by the presiding judge: "guilty to lesser-included offenses pursuant to the plea" or "guilty of the greater offenses in the original charges." The court cannot find him “not guilty” based on his plea.
Pilkington also reported that Manning "confirmed he wants to be tried by military judge [Colonel Denise Lind] alone," with no military equivalent of a jury.
In addition to revealing his attempts to contact other outlets first, Manning also told the courtroom that once he'd established communication with Wikileaks, "No one associated with [the outlet] pressured me into sending more information."
In regards to his leak of the collateral murder video, Manning said, "I was disturbed by the response to injured children" and that the soldiers captured in the video "seemed to not value human life by referring to [their targets] as 'dead bastards.'"
He also said that he released the intelligence because he wanted to "spark a domestic public debate about our foreign policy and the war in general," and added: "At the time I believed, and I still believe, these are ... [among] ... the most significant documents of our time."
Pilkington continues:
Through his lawyer, David Coombs, the soldier pleaded guilty to 10 lesser charges that included possessing and willfully communicating to an unauthorised person all the main elements of the WikiLeaks disclosure. That covered the so-called "collateral murder" video of an Apache helicopter attack in Iraq; some US diplomatic cables including one of the early WikiLeaks publications the Reykjavik cable; portions of the Iraq and Afghanistan warlogs, some of the files on detainees in Guantanamo; and two intelligence memos.
These lesser charges each carry a two-year maximum sentence, committing Manning to a possible upper limit of 20 years in prison.
Manning also pleaded not guilty to 12 counts, including to the largest charge of "aiding the enemy," which would have supposed that he knowingly gave help to al-Qaida either by leaking secret intelligence directly or via its publication on the internet. He also denied that at the time he gave the information to Wikileaks, he had "reason to believe such information could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation".
According to Gosztola, Manning pled guilty to "all that was anticipated except he did not plead guilty to releasing the Granai air strike video."
______________________________
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
Source URL: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/02/28-4
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 Uncommon Courage of Bradley Manning
Published on Friday, March 1, 2013 by Common Dreams
The Uncommon Courage of Bradley Manning
by Marjorie Cohn
Bradley Manning has pleaded guilty to 10 charges including possessing and willfully communicating to an unauthorized person all the main elements of the WikiLeaks disclosure. The charges carry a total of 20 years in prison. For the first time, Bradley spoke publicly about what he did and why. His actions, now confirmed by his own words, reveal Bradley to be a very brave young man.
When he was 22 years old, Pfc. Bradley Manning gave classified documents to WikiLeaks. They included the “Collateral Murder” video, which depicts U.S. forces in an Apache helicopter killing 12 unarmed civilians, including two Reuters journalists, and wounding two children.
“I believed if the public, particularly the American public, could see this it could spark a debate on the military and our foreign policy in general as it applied to Iraq and Afghanistan,” Bradley told the military tribunal during his guilty plea proceeding. “It might cause society to reconsider the need to engage in counter terrorism while ignoring the human situation of the people we engaged with every day.”
Bradley said he was frustrated by his inability to convince his chain of command to investigate the Collateral Murder video and other “war porn” documented in the files he provided to WikiLeaks. “I was disturbed by the response to injured children.” Bradley was bothered by the soldiers depicted in the video who “seemed to not value human life by referring to [their targets] as ‘dead bastards.’”
People trying to rescue the wounded were also fired upon and killed. The actions of American soldiers shown in that video amount to war crimes under the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit targeting civilians, preventing the rescue of the wounded, and defacing dead bodies.
No one at WikiLeaks asked or encouraged Bradley to give them the documents, Bradley said. “No one associated with the WLO [WikiLeaks Organization] pressured me to give them more information. The decision to give documents to WikiLeaks [was] mine alone.”
Before contacting WikiLeaks, Bradley tried to interest the Washington Post in publishing the documents but the newspaper was unresponsive. He tried unsuccessfully to contact the New York Times.
During his first nine months in custody, Bradley was kept in solitary confinement, which is considered torture as it can lead to hallucinations, catatonia and suicide.
Bradley maintained his not guilty pleas to 12 additional charges, including aiding the enemy and espionage, for which he could get life imprisonment.
Bradley’s actions are not unlike those of Daniel Ellsberg, whose release of the Pentagon Papers helped to expose the government’s lies and end the Vietnam War.
Marjorie Cohn, a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and past President of the National Lawyers Guild, is the deputy secretary general for external communications of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, and the U.S. representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists. She is the author of Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law and co-author of Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent (with Kathleen Gilberd). Her anthology, The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration and Abuse, is now available. Her articles are archived at www.marjoriecohn.com
Source URL: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/03/01
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 Uncommon Courage of Bradley Manning
by Marjorie Cohn
Bradley Manning has pleaded guilty to 10 charges including possessing and willfully communicating to an unauthorized person all the main elements of the WikiLeaks disclosure. The charges carry a total of 20 years in prison. For the first time, Bradley spoke publicly about what he did and why. His actions, now confirmed by his own words, reveal Bradley to be a very brave young man.
When he was 22 years old, Pfc. Bradley Manning gave classified documents to WikiLeaks. They included the “Collateral Murder” video, which depicts U.S. forces in an Apache helicopter killing 12 unarmed civilians, including two Reuters journalists, and wounding two children.
“I believed if the public, particularly the American public, could see this it could spark a debate on the military and our foreign policy in general as it applied to Iraq and Afghanistan,” Bradley told the military tribunal during his guilty plea proceeding. “It might cause society to reconsider the need to engage in counter terrorism while ignoring the human situation of the people we engaged with every day.”
Bradley said he was frustrated by his inability to convince his chain of command to investigate the Collateral Murder video and other “war porn” documented in the files he provided to WikiLeaks. “I was disturbed by the response to injured children.” Bradley was bothered by the soldiers depicted in the video who “seemed to not value human life by referring to [their targets] as ‘dead bastards.’”
People trying to rescue the wounded were also fired upon and killed. The actions of American soldiers shown in that video amount to war crimes under the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit targeting civilians, preventing the rescue of the wounded, and defacing dead bodies.
No one at WikiLeaks asked or encouraged Bradley to give them the documents, Bradley said. “No one associated with the WLO [WikiLeaks Organization] pressured me to give them more information. The decision to give documents to WikiLeaks [was] mine alone.”
Before contacting WikiLeaks, Bradley tried to interest the Washington Post in publishing the documents but the newspaper was unresponsive. He tried unsuccessfully to contact the New York Times.
During his first nine months in custody, Bradley was kept in solitary confinement, which is considered torture as it can lead to hallucinations, catatonia and suicide.
Bradley maintained his not guilty pleas to 12 additional charges, including aiding the enemy and espionage, for which he could get life imprisonment.
Bradley’s actions are not unlike those of Daniel Ellsberg, whose release of the Pentagon Papers helped to expose the government’s lies and end the Vietnam War.
Marjorie Cohn, a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and past President of the National Lawyers Guild, is the deputy secretary general for external communications of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, and the U.S. representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists. She is the author of Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law and co-author of Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent (with Kathleen Gilberd). Her anthology, The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration and Abuse, is now available. Her articles are archived at www.marjoriecohn.com
Source URL: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/03/01
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
Argentina’s About-Face on Terror
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/02/opinion/why-is-argentinas-president-cozying-up-to-iran.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130302&_r=0
March 1, 2013
Argentina’s About-Face on Terror
By FABIÁN BOSOER and FEDERICO FINCHELSTEIN
ON July 18, 1994, a van filled with explosives blew up outside the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, killing 85 people and injuring hundreds. It was the worst terrorist attack ever in Argentina, which has Latin America’s largest Jewish population, and one of the deadliest anti-Semitic attacks since the Holocaust.
In 2007, after more than a decade of investigations, Argentine prosecutors obtained Interpol arrest warrants for six suspects and formally blamed Hezbollah for staging the attack and Iran for financing it.
But bizarrely, Argentina’s president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, abruptly switched course last month and reached an agreement with the Iranian government that would set up a “truth commission” of international legal experts to analyze evidence from the bombings. The agreement, which the Congress approved early Thursday, would allow Argentine officials to travel to Tehran and interview Iranians suspected of involvement in the attack.
The problem is that any recommendations by the commission would be nonbinding; moreover, some of the suspects in the attack are now high-ranking Iranian officials — including the sitting defense minister, Gen. Ahmad Vahidi — and therefore untouchable. Indeed, Iran has repeatedly refused to cooperate with Argentine investigators and ignored international warrants for the arrest of senior Iranian officials believed to have taken part in planning the bombing.
Mrs. Kirchner’s decision to abandon Argentina’s longstanding grievances against Iran is particularly galling because it comes just weeks after Bulgaria, another country victimized by Iranian-sponsored terrorism, accused Hezbollah of staging a suicide attack on Israeli tourists in the Bulgarian town of Burgas last year. That attack, like the 1994 bombing in Buenos Aires, was part of a shadow war against Jewish civilians across the world. Bulgaria’s government, unlike Argentina’s current administration, decided to stand up to Hezbollah and forthrightly accuse it of the crime.
Argentina’s president is undermining her own country’s prosecutors, who have for several years tried to pursue the suspected perpetrators. Many observers have denounced Mrs. Kirchner for giving Iran a free pass. As Laura Ginsberg, whose husband was killed in the 1994 attack, has put it, the Argentine government has terminated the possibility of justice.
Mrs. Kirchner’s decision could open the gates to a major foreign policy realignment in the near future. Her populist government is moving toward the pro-Iranian positions of Venezuela’s ailing president, Hugo Chávez, and further away from those of Brazil, the United States and Europe. According to the Argentine newspaper La Nación, Argentina has started to collaborate on arms deals, including the development of missile technology, with Venezuela and indirectly with Iran.
Mrs. Kirchner’s move is also at odds with Argentina’s own history of holding human rights violators accountable. Argentina was plagued by political violence in the 1970s. It was one of the first countries in the world to create a truth commission to investigate the crimes of the military dictatorship that ruled between 1976 and 1983, including the killings and “disappearances” of more than 10,000 citizens deemed to be enemies of the state. That commission was formed after democracy was re-established in 1983 and eventually led to trial and punishment of the generals who led the junta, as well as other human rights violators.
To now create a so-called truth commission to investigate Iran’s and Hezbollah’s role in the 1994 attack and review the well-established findings of Argentina’s own courts is an insult to the memory of those murdered in 1994 and to all of those killed by Argentina’s dictatorship.
Argentina has made grave foreign policy errors before. It is still coping with the fallout from its short 1982 war with Britain over the islands that Britain calls the Falklands and that Argentines call Las Malvinas. That conflict was an ill-advised move by a nationalist dictatorship. In contrast, the current treaty with Iran is being backed by a democratically elected president.
While the 1982 war initially had widespread support, the agreement with Iran, which passed with a narrow congressional majority, has been rejected by all of Argentina’s opposition parties, which vehemently denounced it in congressional debates this week. Moreover, all major Argentine Jewish organizations have opposed the treaty, and there is no indication that Mrs. Kirchner’s conciliatory gesture to Iran is supported by a majority of citizens.
Mrs. Kirchner has vigorously defended the treaty. It is possible that she believes taking a controversial step toward resolving a longstanding dispute will raise Argentina’s international profile. She may also think that the treaty will increase her party’s popularity in an election year.
But it will do neither. Like the 1982 war with Britain, Mrs. Kirchner’s misguided rapprochement with Iran will only compromise Argentina’s long-term national interests while doing nothing to satisfy the survivors’ yearning for justice.
Fabián Bosoer is an opinion editor at the newspaper Clarín. Federico Finchelstein, an associate professor of history at the New School, worked as a researcher at the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires before the 1994 bombing.
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
March 1, 2013
Argentina’s About-Face on Terror
By FABIÁN BOSOER and FEDERICO FINCHELSTEIN
ON July 18, 1994, a van filled with explosives blew up outside the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, killing 85 people and injuring hundreds. It was the worst terrorist attack ever in Argentina, which has Latin America’s largest Jewish population, and one of the deadliest anti-Semitic attacks since the Holocaust.
In 2007, after more than a decade of investigations, Argentine prosecutors obtained Interpol arrest warrants for six suspects and formally blamed Hezbollah for staging the attack and Iran for financing it.
But bizarrely, Argentina’s president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, abruptly switched course last month and reached an agreement with the Iranian government that would set up a “truth commission” of international legal experts to analyze evidence from the bombings. The agreement, which the Congress approved early Thursday, would allow Argentine officials to travel to Tehran and interview Iranians suspected of involvement in the attack.
The problem is that any recommendations by the commission would be nonbinding; moreover, some of the suspects in the attack are now high-ranking Iranian officials — including the sitting defense minister, Gen. Ahmad Vahidi — and therefore untouchable. Indeed, Iran has repeatedly refused to cooperate with Argentine investigators and ignored international warrants for the arrest of senior Iranian officials believed to have taken part in planning the bombing.
Mrs. Kirchner’s decision to abandon Argentina’s longstanding grievances against Iran is particularly galling because it comes just weeks after Bulgaria, another country victimized by Iranian-sponsored terrorism, accused Hezbollah of staging a suicide attack on Israeli tourists in the Bulgarian town of Burgas last year. That attack, like the 1994 bombing in Buenos Aires, was part of a shadow war against Jewish civilians across the world. Bulgaria’s government, unlike Argentina’s current administration, decided to stand up to Hezbollah and forthrightly accuse it of the crime.
Argentina’s president is undermining her own country’s prosecutors, who have for several years tried to pursue the suspected perpetrators. Many observers have denounced Mrs. Kirchner for giving Iran a free pass. As Laura Ginsberg, whose husband was killed in the 1994 attack, has put it, the Argentine government has terminated the possibility of justice.
Mrs. Kirchner’s decision could open the gates to a major foreign policy realignment in the near future. Her populist government is moving toward the pro-Iranian positions of Venezuela’s ailing president, Hugo Chávez, and further away from those of Brazil, the United States and Europe. According to the Argentine newspaper La Nación, Argentina has started to collaborate on arms deals, including the development of missile technology, with Venezuela and indirectly with Iran.
Mrs. Kirchner’s move is also at odds with Argentina’s own history of holding human rights violators accountable. Argentina was plagued by political violence in the 1970s. It was one of the first countries in the world to create a truth commission to investigate the crimes of the military dictatorship that ruled between 1976 and 1983, including the killings and “disappearances” of more than 10,000 citizens deemed to be enemies of the state. That commission was formed after democracy was re-established in 1983 and eventually led to trial and punishment of the generals who led the junta, as well as other human rights violators.
To now create a so-called truth commission to investigate Iran’s and Hezbollah’s role in the 1994 attack and review the well-established findings of Argentina’s own courts is an insult to the memory of those murdered in 1994 and to all of those killed by Argentina’s dictatorship.
Argentina has made grave foreign policy errors before. It is still coping with the fallout from its short 1982 war with Britain over the islands that Britain calls the Falklands and that Argentines call Las Malvinas. That conflict was an ill-advised move by a nationalist dictatorship. In contrast, the current treaty with Iran is being backed by a democratically elected president.
While the 1982 war initially had widespread support, the agreement with Iran, which passed with a narrow congressional majority, has been rejected by all of Argentina’s opposition parties, which vehemently denounced it in congressional debates this week. Moreover, all major Argentine Jewish organizations have opposed the treaty, and there is no indication that Mrs. Kirchner’s conciliatory gesture to Iran is supported by a majority of citizens.
Mrs. Kirchner has vigorously defended the treaty. It is possible that she believes taking a controversial step toward resolving a longstanding dispute will raise Argentina’s international profile. She may also think that the treaty will increase her party’s popularity in an election year.
But it will do neither. Like the 1982 war with Britain, Mrs. Kirchner’s misguided rapprochement with Iran will only compromise Argentina’s long-term national interests while doing nothing to satisfy the survivors’ yearning for justice.
Fabián Bosoer is an opinion editor at the newspaper Clarín. Federico Finchelstein, an associate professor of history at the New School, worked as a researcher at the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires before the 1994 bombing.
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 Scalia’s ‘Racial Entitlement’ Nonsense Is More Dangerous Than You Think
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Think Progress / By Ian Millhiser [1]
Why Scalia’s ‘Racial Entitlement’ Nonsense Is More Dangerous Than You Think
March 1, 2013
Justice Antonin Scalia quite deservedly came under fire yesterday for his claim that a key provision of the Voting Rights Act is a “perpetuation of racial entitlement [2].” If the justice were looking to confirm every suspicion that conservative opposition to the law that broke the back of Jim Crow voter exclusions is rooted in white racial resentment, he could hardly have picked a better way to do so.
Viewed in context, however, Scalia’s quote is actually even more disturbing than the initial headlines suggested. Beyond whatever resentments Justice Scalia may hold, his “racial entitlements” statement was also part of a broader theory about the proper role of judges in society. And if that theory were taken seriously by a majority of the justices, it would potentially undermine Medicare, Social Security and countless other programs. According to Scalia:
Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes. I don’t think there is anything to be gained by any Senator to vote against continuation of this act. And I am fairly confident it will be reenacted in perpetuity unless — unless a court can say it does not comport with the Constitution. You have to show, when you are treating different States differently, that there’s a good reason for it.
That’s the — that’s the concern that those of us who — who have some questions about this statute have. It’s — it’s a concern that this is not the kind of a question you can leave to Congress. There are certain districts in the House that are black districts by law just about now. And even the Virginia Senators, they have no interest in voting against this. The State government is not their government, and they are going to lose — they are going to lose votes if they do not reenact the Voting Rights Act.
As Scott Lemieux points out, this theory resembles some of the reasoning behind an 1883 decision which struck down an early precursor to the 1964 Civil Rights Act [3]that banned many forms of segregation by private business. But the roots of Scalia’s legal theory are probably several decades more recent than the late Nineteenth Century.
A major reason why U.S. constitutional law is difficult and American judges are powerful is that the Constitution is not a particularly precise document. The Ninth Amendment [4]provides that “[t]he enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people,” but it provides absolutely no guidance whatsoever on what those other rights could be. The Fourteenth Amendment prohibits states from abridging the “privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States” and it prevents the loss of life, liberty or property “without due process of law.” What are the “privileges or immunities” protected by the Constitution? The Constitution doesn’t say! And the Supreme Court’s answer to this question is rather ridiculous [5].
Because the Constitution is so imprecisely drafted, judges have at times wielded it as a tool to impose their own policy preferences on the law. After all, nothing in the Constitution doesn’t say that the word “liberty” means the liberty to work in a grueling job that literally tears your lungs apart from the inside without the benefit of workplace safety laws or other basic labor protections. Indeed, that was more or less the holding of the Supreme Court’s 1905 opinion in Lochner v. New York [6].
Beginning in the 1930s, the Supreme Court more or less came to terms with the fact that judges were fabricating imaginary constitutional restrictions, and that this was a bad thing. Indeed, probably the most important question addressed by Twentieth Century constitutional law and scholarship was how to reconcile the legitimate need for judges to police the boundaries of liberty with the fact that the Constitution provides them with little guidance on how to do so. An unelected Supreme Court had recently engaged in overreach that harmed the most vulnerable Americans and struck down laws enacted by elected representatives in the process, and this situation was untenable. But a Court that simply gave Congress free reign to engage in racism or sexism or to toss people in jail for no reason would be equally intolerable.
One of the best, and most influential answers to this dilemma came in a 1938 case called United States v. Carolene Products [7]. Carolene Products suggested that judges should step into the breach when a law “restricts those political processes which can ordinarily be expected to bring about repeal of undesirable legislation.” Thus, when lawmakers enact “restrictions upon the right to vote,” limit the ready availability of information to voters, or restrict political organizing, judges must remedy the situation. Carolene Products also provides that judges must enforce the Bill of Rights and other explicit constitutional protections, and that it must prevent discrimination against certain minority groups, but in most circumstances we are governed by democratically elected representatives and judges should defer to officials who can actually be voted out of office.
When Scalia uses the term “racial entitlement” he appears to be referring to the kind of law that entrenches itself because lawmakers are too afraid to vote against it for fear of being accused of racially improper motives. As Scalia puts it, “[w]henever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes.” In other words, Scalia believes that the Voting Rights Act somehow “restricts those political processes which can ordinarily be expected to bring about repeal of undesirable legislation,” and thus it is his job as a judge to strike it down.
This is a disturbing idea for many reasons, but one of the biggest ones is that its logic could extend well beyond the Voting Rights Act. There is a common belief among conservatives that welfare programs by their very nature lead to the kind of so-called breakdown of democracy that Scalia finds objectionable in the Voting Rights Act case. Indeed, the most famous articulation of this view was Mitt Romney’s 47 percent remark: “those that are dependent on government and those that think government’s job is to redistribute — I’m not going to get them [8].” In essence, Romney warned that as the government creates welfare programs, this transforms welfare recipients into a constituency for those programs. And eventually that constituency becomes so large that it is impossible for a lawmaker to repeal those programs, or for people who oppose those programs to get elected.
To be sure, Scalia has never explicitly endorsed Romney’s view of welfare — although I’d be willing to make a $10,000 bet [9] that he agrees with Romney. But it’s not hard to predict how a judge who agrees with both Romney’s view of welfare and Scalia’s view of when judges must destroy democracy in order to save it would react to the modern welfare state. With his racial entitlement comment, Scalia offered a constitutional theory that would allow movement conservatives to strike down the entire American safety net.
The irony in all this is that Scalia used to be one of the most articulate spokespeople for why judges should not strike down laws unless the Constitution’s text explicitly instructs them to do so. Just last year he denounced Roe v. Wade specifically because he does not believe that supporters of Roe “stick to the text” of the Constitution [10]. Whatever the virtues of Roe, Scalia appears perfectly willing to abandon his rigid textualism when it comes time to strike down a law he personally disapproves of. I’ve read the Constitution many times, but I’ve never found a ban on what Scalia calls “racial entitlements.”
Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/why-scalias-racial-entitlement-nonsense-more-dangerous-you-think
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/ian-millhiser
[2] http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/02/27/1646891/scalia-voting-rights-act-is-perpetuation-of-racial-entitlement/
[3] http://prospect.org/article/scalias-weird-vra-spat
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
[5] http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0083_0036_ZO.html
[6] http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0198_0045_ZS.html
[7] http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1808251577400430843&hl=en&as_sdt=2&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr
[8] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/17/mitt-romney-video_n_1829455.html
[9] http://thinkprogress.org/special/2011/12/12/387594/10000-mitt-romney-6-median-american/
[10] http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/09/18/864351/30-seconds-after-denying-court-is-politicized-scalia-says-democrats-do-not-stick-to-the-text-of-the-constitution/
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
Think Progress / By Ian Millhiser [1]
Why Scalia’s ‘Racial Entitlement’ Nonsense Is More Dangerous Than You Think
March 1, 2013
Justice Antonin Scalia quite deservedly came under fire yesterday for his claim that a key provision of the Voting Rights Act is a “perpetuation of racial entitlement [2].” If the justice were looking to confirm every suspicion that conservative opposition to the law that broke the back of Jim Crow voter exclusions is rooted in white racial resentment, he could hardly have picked a better way to do so.
Viewed in context, however, Scalia’s quote is actually even more disturbing than the initial headlines suggested. Beyond whatever resentments Justice Scalia may hold, his “racial entitlements” statement was also part of a broader theory about the proper role of judges in society. And if that theory were taken seriously by a majority of the justices, it would potentially undermine Medicare, Social Security and countless other programs. According to Scalia:
Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes. I don’t think there is anything to be gained by any Senator to vote against continuation of this act. And I am fairly confident it will be reenacted in perpetuity unless — unless a court can say it does not comport with the Constitution. You have to show, when you are treating different States differently, that there’s a good reason for it.
That’s the — that’s the concern that those of us who — who have some questions about this statute have. It’s — it’s a concern that this is not the kind of a question you can leave to Congress. There are certain districts in the House that are black districts by law just about now. And even the Virginia Senators, they have no interest in voting against this. The State government is not their government, and they are going to lose — they are going to lose votes if they do not reenact the Voting Rights Act.
As Scott Lemieux points out, this theory resembles some of the reasoning behind an 1883 decision which struck down an early precursor to the 1964 Civil Rights Act [3]that banned many forms of segregation by private business. But the roots of Scalia’s legal theory are probably several decades more recent than the late Nineteenth Century.
A major reason why U.S. constitutional law is difficult and American judges are powerful is that the Constitution is not a particularly precise document. The Ninth Amendment [4]provides that “[t]he enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people,” but it provides absolutely no guidance whatsoever on what those other rights could be. The Fourteenth Amendment prohibits states from abridging the “privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States” and it prevents the loss of life, liberty or property “without due process of law.” What are the “privileges or immunities” protected by the Constitution? The Constitution doesn’t say! And the Supreme Court’s answer to this question is rather ridiculous [5].
Because the Constitution is so imprecisely drafted, judges have at times wielded it as a tool to impose their own policy preferences on the law. After all, nothing in the Constitution doesn’t say that the word “liberty” means the liberty to work in a grueling job that literally tears your lungs apart from the inside without the benefit of workplace safety laws or other basic labor protections. Indeed, that was more or less the holding of the Supreme Court’s 1905 opinion in Lochner v. New York [6].
Beginning in the 1930s, the Supreme Court more or less came to terms with the fact that judges were fabricating imaginary constitutional restrictions, and that this was a bad thing. Indeed, probably the most important question addressed by Twentieth Century constitutional law and scholarship was how to reconcile the legitimate need for judges to police the boundaries of liberty with the fact that the Constitution provides them with little guidance on how to do so. An unelected Supreme Court had recently engaged in overreach that harmed the most vulnerable Americans and struck down laws enacted by elected representatives in the process, and this situation was untenable. But a Court that simply gave Congress free reign to engage in racism or sexism or to toss people in jail for no reason would be equally intolerable.
One of the best, and most influential answers to this dilemma came in a 1938 case called United States v. Carolene Products [7]. Carolene Products suggested that judges should step into the breach when a law “restricts those political processes which can ordinarily be expected to bring about repeal of undesirable legislation.” Thus, when lawmakers enact “restrictions upon the right to vote,” limit the ready availability of information to voters, or restrict political organizing, judges must remedy the situation. Carolene Products also provides that judges must enforce the Bill of Rights and other explicit constitutional protections, and that it must prevent discrimination against certain minority groups, but in most circumstances we are governed by democratically elected representatives and judges should defer to officials who can actually be voted out of office.
When Scalia uses the term “racial entitlement” he appears to be referring to the kind of law that entrenches itself because lawmakers are too afraid to vote against it for fear of being accused of racially improper motives. As Scalia puts it, “[w]henever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes.” In other words, Scalia believes that the Voting Rights Act somehow “restricts those political processes which can ordinarily be expected to bring about repeal of undesirable legislation,” and thus it is his job as a judge to strike it down.
This is a disturbing idea for many reasons, but one of the biggest ones is that its logic could extend well beyond the Voting Rights Act. There is a common belief among conservatives that welfare programs by their very nature lead to the kind of so-called breakdown of democracy that Scalia finds objectionable in the Voting Rights Act case. Indeed, the most famous articulation of this view was Mitt Romney’s 47 percent remark: “those that are dependent on government and those that think government’s job is to redistribute — I’m not going to get them [8].” In essence, Romney warned that as the government creates welfare programs, this transforms welfare recipients into a constituency for those programs. And eventually that constituency becomes so large that it is impossible for a lawmaker to repeal those programs, or for people who oppose those programs to get elected.
To be sure, Scalia has never explicitly endorsed Romney’s view of welfare — although I’d be willing to make a $10,000 bet [9] that he agrees with Romney. But it’s not hard to predict how a judge who agrees with both Romney’s view of welfare and Scalia’s view of when judges must destroy democracy in order to save it would react to the modern welfare state. With his racial entitlement comment, Scalia offered a constitutional theory that would allow movement conservatives to strike down the entire American safety net.
The irony in all this is that Scalia used to be one of the most articulate spokespeople for why judges should not strike down laws unless the Constitution’s text explicitly instructs them to do so. Just last year he denounced Roe v. Wade specifically because he does not believe that supporters of Roe “stick to the text” of the Constitution [10]. Whatever the virtues of Roe, Scalia appears perfectly willing to abandon his rigid textualism when it comes time to strike down a law he personally disapproves of. I’ve read the Constitution many times, but I’ve never found a ban on what Scalia calls “racial entitlements.”
Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/why-scalias-racial-entitlement-nonsense-more-dangerous-you-think
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/ian-millhiser
[2] http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/02/27/1646891/scalia-voting-rights-act-is-perpetuation-of-racial-entitlement/
[3] http://prospect.org/article/scalias-weird-vra-spat
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
[5] http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0083_0036_ZO.html
[6] http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0198_0045_ZS.html
[7] http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1808251577400430843&hl=en&as_sdt=2&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr
[8] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/17/mitt-romney-video_n_1829455.html
[9] http://thinkprogress.org/special/2011/12/12/387594/10000-mitt-romney-6-median-american/
[10] http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/09/18/864351/30-seconds-after-denying-court-is-politicized-scalia-says-democrats-do-not-stick-to-the-text-of-the-constitution/
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, March 1, 2013
Milagro Beanfield War/State Dept. Releases Keystone XL Environmental Impact Statement
The Hiroshima-Nagasaki Commemoration Committee, Baltimore Quaker Peace and Justice Committee of Homewood and Stony Run Meetings and Chesapeake Physicians for Social Responsibility are continuing the FILM & SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS DVD SERIES. The DVDs will be shown at Homewood Friends Meetinghouse, 3107 N. Charles St., Baltimore 21218, on the First Friday. After the peace vigil, there will be a potluck dinner. At 7 PM, from January through June, a DVD will be shown with a discussion to follow. There is no charge, and refreshments will be available. Contact Max at 410-366-1637 or mobuszewski at verizon.net.
The series theme is WHY CAN’T WE GET ALONG? On Fri., Mar. 1, see THE MILAGRO BEANFIELD WAR [USA, 1988], which is based on the John Nichols novel of the same name. The author wrote the screenplay with David S. Ward. Directed by Robert Redford, the film has an ensemble cast including Ruben Blades, Sônia Braga, Melanie Griffith, John Heard, Daniel Stern and Christopher Walken. Filmed on location in Truchas, New Mexico, the film is set in the fictional rural town of Milagro, with a population of 426, a predominantly Hispanic and Catholic town, with a largely interrelated population. The film tells of one man's quixotic struggle as he defends his small bean field and his community against much larger business and state political interests.
######
Published on Friday, March 1, 2013 by Common Dreams
State Dept. Releases Keystone XL Environmental Impact Statement
Green groups expresses "outrage" and "disappointment" over "deeply flawed analysis" that ignores "greatest threat to our children’s future: climate disruption"
- Jon Queally, staff writer
The US State Department on Friday afternoon released a newly updated draft of its Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which, if approved, would dramatically increase the extraction and transfer of Canadian tar sands oil to the Gulf coast.
And as Sierra Club's Michael Brune said in a late afternoon press call, ""You know the news is bad when it comes out at 4pm on Friday."
The draft itself can be accessed here.
In response to the SEIS' release, Brune released the following statement:
"The Sierra Club is outraged by the State Department’s deeply flawed analysis today and what can only be interpreted as lip service to one of the greatest threats to our children’s future: climate disruption.
"We’re mystified as to how the State Department can acknowledge the negative effects of the Earth’s dirtiest oil on our climate, but at the same time claim that the proposed pipeline will ‘not likely result in significant adverse environmental effects.’ Whether this failure was willful or accidental, this report is nothing short of malpractice.
"President Obama said that he’s committed to fighting the climate crisis. If that is true, he should throw the State Department’s report away and reject the dirty and dangerous Keystone XL pipeline."
Jane Kleeb of the group Bold Nebraska joined other environmental leaders in rejecting the report's conclusion that tar sands development would not be impacted by rejection of the pipeline.
"Tarsands does not expand unless Keystone XL is built," Kleeb said. "The State Department's assumption that tarsands development does not change with or without this pipeline is wrong and laughable. Why would TransCanada spend billions on building the pipeline and millions on lobbying unless this piece of infrastructure is the--not a--but the lynchpin for the expansion of tarsands. Without this pipeline Canada stays at 2 million barrels a day, with it they get 3 million barrels a day. The President has the ability to keep a million barrels of tarsands in the ground a day. With a stroke of a pen he can protect property rights, water and make a dent in climate change."
"This report is laughable using the wrong assumption and therefore the wrong science," she said.
350.org co-founder Bill McKibben agreed, saying that "everyone in Canada knows they cannot expand the Alberta tar sands the way they'd like to without the Keystone XL being built."
McKibben added: "This is not the State Department's finest hour."
Acknowledging worries that the SEIS signals that the State Dept. would recommend and that Obama would ultimately approve the project, environmentalists said they would be ramping up their efforts in the coming days, weeks, and months.
"We're going to help them [reject the pipeline] by mounting as much public protest as we can in the weeks ahead," said McKibben.
Some quick key takeaways from the "Cumulative Impact" section include:
THREAT TO WATER SOURCES: GROUNDWATER:
Potential impacts due to releases of crude oil. Releases could potentially impact groundwater where the overlying soils are permeable and the depth to groundwater is shallow. Analyses in Section 4.13 suggest that large crude oil releases that do reach groundwater systems (including the Ogallala Aquifer) could result in oil spreading on the water table as far as 1,214 feet, and dissolved components of the oil, such as benzene, could spread as much as an additional 1,050 feet.
JOBS CREATED:
35 to 50 permanent jobs and negligible earnings and other revenues.
POTENTIAL SPILLS:
Spills associated with the proposed Project that enter the environment are expected to be rare and relatively small. Industry standards and practices (including the 57 Project-specific Special Conditions developed by PHMSA) provide a level of protection above that of other pipeline systems in existence. Modeling shows that, exclusive of topography and groundwater flow, large spills (20,000 barrels) could spread up to 1,214 feet on the ground surface or on the water table, and up to 1,050 feet dissolved in groundwater. Spills reaching surface water could be transported greater distances.
Response was swift on twitter:
According to the introductory letter accompanying the draft (emphasis added):
Once the Draft SEIS is noticed in the Federal Register, a 45-day comment period will begin. As part of the Department's process, members of the public, public agencies, and other interested parties are encouraged to submit comments, questions, and concerns about the project via e-mail to keystonecomments@state.gov, at http://www.keystonepipeline-xl.state.gov, or mailed to:
U.S. Department of State
Attn: Genevieve Walker, NEPA Coordinator
2201 C Street NW, Room 2726
Washington, D.C. 20520
After the end of the public comment period, the Department will prepare a Final SEIS.
Ultimately, a determination will be made on whether this project serves the national interest. The national interest determination will involve consideration of many factors, including: energy security; environmental, cultural, and economic impacts; foreign policy; and compliance with relevant federal regulations. As directed by Executive Order 13337, before making such a decision, the Department will also request the views of several agencies and officials, including: the Departments of Defense, Justice, Interior, Commerce, Transportation, Energy, Homeland Security, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Though the EIS does not necessarily dictate whether or not President Obama will approve the project, its content will be a vital piece of information in signaling the direction the administration is heading. If favorable to the pipeline, fossil fuel industry lobbyists will call mark it as a victory.
But, in anticipation of the release, the environmental group 350.org, which just two weeks ago led tens of thousands of people in a march against the pipeline in Washington, tweeted:
As details of the report's content become clear, the DeSmogBlog will be liveblogging the release here.
The timing of the draft assessment's release, however, speaks volumes. As DeSmog's Kevin Grandia notes:
[Releasing the EIS] late on a Friday - very typical when someone wants to put out bad news. This White House has used the tactic a lot. Another thing to note is that this isn't just any Friday afternoon, it is also the day final day to reach a sequester deal in Congress. All eyes in the media are focused on that!
Ahead of the release, the Canadian Press, citing a source at 350.org, reported that the EIS "acknowledges that Alberta's oilsands are carbon-intensive" it also "apparently makes clear that all modes of transportation are risky and the pipeline itself isn't any more of a threat to the environment."
If true, such an "analysis would mean that Calgary-based TransCanada has cleared a significant hurdle in its marathon bid to win approval for Keystone XL from the Obama administration."
Earlier today, Connie Hedegaard, the European Union's climate commissioner made headlines by urging President Obama to take a leadership role in the fight against climate change by rejecting the pipeline project.
“If you had a U.S. administration that would avoid doing something that they could do, with the argument that in the time we are living in and with climate change we are faced with, we should not do everything we can do, then it would be a very, very interesting global signal,” Hedegaard told reporters.
"We can bail out banks, we can bail out member states, but you cannot bail out climate," she said. "If we just say we must extract all the fossil fuels that we can find in the world, then it's clear that it will not be possible to stay below the 2 degrees."
"Nobody is doing enough," she added. "Europe is not doing enough, the U.S. is not doing enough, China is not doing enough—all of us will have to do more."
_________________________________________
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
Source URL: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/03/01-7
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 series theme is WHY CAN’T WE GET ALONG? On Fri., Mar. 1, see THE MILAGRO BEANFIELD WAR [USA, 1988], which is based on the John Nichols novel of the same name. The author wrote the screenplay with David S. Ward. Directed by Robert Redford, the film has an ensemble cast including Ruben Blades, Sônia Braga, Melanie Griffith, John Heard, Daniel Stern and Christopher Walken. Filmed on location in Truchas, New Mexico, the film is set in the fictional rural town of Milagro, with a population of 426, a predominantly Hispanic and Catholic town, with a largely interrelated population. The film tells of one man's quixotic struggle as he defends his small bean field and his community against much larger business and state political interests.
######
Published on Friday, March 1, 2013 by Common Dreams
State Dept. Releases Keystone XL Environmental Impact Statement
Green groups expresses "outrage" and "disappointment" over "deeply flawed analysis" that ignores "greatest threat to our children’s future: climate disruption"
- Jon Queally, staff writer
The US State Department on Friday afternoon released a newly updated draft of its Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which, if approved, would dramatically increase the extraction and transfer of Canadian tar sands oil to the Gulf coast.
And as Sierra Club's Michael Brune said in a late afternoon press call, ""You know the news is bad when it comes out at 4pm on Friday."
The draft itself can be accessed here.
In response to the SEIS' release, Brune released the following statement:
"The Sierra Club is outraged by the State Department’s deeply flawed analysis today and what can only be interpreted as lip service to one of the greatest threats to our children’s future: climate disruption.
"We’re mystified as to how the State Department can acknowledge the negative effects of the Earth’s dirtiest oil on our climate, but at the same time claim that the proposed pipeline will ‘not likely result in significant adverse environmental effects.’ Whether this failure was willful or accidental, this report is nothing short of malpractice.
"President Obama said that he’s committed to fighting the climate crisis. If that is true, he should throw the State Department’s report away and reject the dirty and dangerous Keystone XL pipeline."
Jane Kleeb of the group Bold Nebraska joined other environmental leaders in rejecting the report's conclusion that tar sands development would not be impacted by rejection of the pipeline.
"Tarsands does not expand unless Keystone XL is built," Kleeb said. "The State Department's assumption that tarsands development does not change with or without this pipeline is wrong and laughable. Why would TransCanada spend billions on building the pipeline and millions on lobbying unless this piece of infrastructure is the--not a--but the lynchpin for the expansion of tarsands. Without this pipeline Canada stays at 2 million barrels a day, with it they get 3 million barrels a day. The President has the ability to keep a million barrels of tarsands in the ground a day. With a stroke of a pen he can protect property rights, water and make a dent in climate change."
"This report is laughable using the wrong assumption and therefore the wrong science," she said.
350.org co-founder Bill McKibben agreed, saying that "everyone in Canada knows they cannot expand the Alberta tar sands the way they'd like to without the Keystone XL being built."
McKibben added: "This is not the State Department's finest hour."
Acknowledging worries that the SEIS signals that the State Dept. would recommend and that Obama would ultimately approve the project, environmentalists said they would be ramping up their efforts in the coming days, weeks, and months.
"We're going to help them [reject the pipeline] by mounting as much public protest as we can in the weeks ahead," said McKibben.
Some quick key takeaways from the "Cumulative Impact" section include:
THREAT TO WATER SOURCES: GROUNDWATER:
Potential impacts due to releases of crude oil. Releases could potentially impact groundwater where the overlying soils are permeable and the depth to groundwater is shallow. Analyses in Section 4.13 suggest that large crude oil releases that do reach groundwater systems (including the Ogallala Aquifer) could result in oil spreading on the water table as far as 1,214 feet, and dissolved components of the oil, such as benzene, could spread as much as an additional 1,050 feet.
JOBS CREATED:
35 to 50 permanent jobs and negligible earnings and other revenues.
POTENTIAL SPILLS:
Spills associated with the proposed Project that enter the environment are expected to be rare and relatively small. Industry standards and practices (including the 57 Project-specific Special Conditions developed by PHMSA) provide a level of protection above that of other pipeline systems in existence. Modeling shows that, exclusive of topography and groundwater flow, large spills (20,000 barrels) could spread up to 1,214 feet on the ground surface or on the water table, and up to 1,050 feet dissolved in groundwater. Spills reaching surface water could be transported greater distances.
Response was swift on twitter:
According to the introductory letter accompanying the draft (emphasis added):
Once the Draft SEIS is noticed in the Federal Register, a 45-day comment period will begin. As part of the Department's process, members of the public, public agencies, and other interested parties are encouraged to submit comments, questions, and concerns about the project via e-mail to keystonecomments@state.gov, at http://www.keystonepipeline-xl.state.gov, or mailed to:
U.S. Department of State
Attn: Genevieve Walker, NEPA Coordinator
2201 C Street NW, Room 2726
Washington, D.C. 20520
After the end of the public comment period, the Department will prepare a Final SEIS.
Ultimately, a determination will be made on whether this project serves the national interest. The national interest determination will involve consideration of many factors, including: energy security; environmental, cultural, and economic impacts; foreign policy; and compliance with relevant federal regulations. As directed by Executive Order 13337, before making such a decision, the Department will also request the views of several agencies and officials, including: the Departments of Defense, Justice, Interior, Commerce, Transportation, Energy, Homeland Security, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Though the EIS does not necessarily dictate whether or not President Obama will approve the project, its content will be a vital piece of information in signaling the direction the administration is heading. If favorable to the pipeline, fossil fuel industry lobbyists will call mark it as a victory.
But, in anticipation of the release, the environmental group 350.org, which just two weeks ago led tens of thousands of people in a march against the pipeline in Washington, tweeted:
As details of the report's content become clear, the DeSmogBlog will be liveblogging the release here.
The timing of the draft assessment's release, however, speaks volumes. As DeSmog's Kevin Grandia notes:
[Releasing the EIS] late on a Friday - very typical when someone wants to put out bad news. This White House has used the tactic a lot. Another thing to note is that this isn't just any Friday afternoon, it is also the day final day to reach a sequester deal in Congress. All eyes in the media are focused on that!
Ahead of the release, the Canadian Press, citing a source at 350.org, reported that the EIS "acknowledges that Alberta's oilsands are carbon-intensive" it also "apparently makes clear that all modes of transportation are risky and the pipeline itself isn't any more of a threat to the environment."
If true, such an "analysis would mean that Calgary-based TransCanada has cleared a significant hurdle in its marathon bid to win approval for Keystone XL from the Obama administration."
Earlier today, Connie Hedegaard, the European Union's climate commissioner made headlines by urging President Obama to take a leadership role in the fight against climate change by rejecting the pipeline project.
“If you had a U.S. administration that would avoid doing something that they could do, with the argument that in the time we are living in and with climate change we are faced with, we should not do everything we can do, then it would be a very, very interesting global signal,” Hedegaard told reporters.
"We can bail out banks, we can bail out member states, but you cannot bail out climate," she said. "If we just say we must extract all the fossil fuels that we can find in the world, then it's clear that it will not be possible to stay below the 2 degrees."
"Nobody is doing enough," she added. "Europe is not doing enough, the U.S. is not doing enough, China is not doing enough—all of us will have to do more."
_________________________________________
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
Source URL: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/03/01-7
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
Time for Outrage!
Time for Outrage!
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers
“Ninety-three years old. The last leg of my journey. The end is in sight. I am lucky to be able to seize the time I have left to reflect on my lifelong commitment to politics: the Resistance and the program designed sixty-six years ago by the National Council of the Resistance.”
These are the opening lines from “A Time for Outrage!”(“Indignez-vous!”) a 35 page book written by Stephane Hessel in 2010 which sold 3 million copies in 30 languages and inspired protests like “Occupy” in the United States and The Indignados in Spain. Hassel died this week at the age of 95.
Each week we see reasons for outrage and, thankfully, more and more people are joining the culture of resistance.
Tuesday, the judge in the Bradley Manning case turned more than 1,000 days in prison, one-third of it in tortuous conditions in Kuwait and Quantico, into 90 days. The judge allowed excuses for the delays based on the complexity of the case and the secret documents involved so that it fell just under the 120 statutory limit for a speedy trial. Judge Denise Lind does not publish her opinions, (also outrageous) but read for two hours in court, making it almost impossible to analyze the basis of her making 1,000 = 90.
People are outraged at the treatment of Manning and in more than 70 cities, people protested.
The Keystone Pipeline (KXL) continues to be built as the Earth approaches the tipping point on climate change. Experts have said that tapping into the Alberta Tar Sands could be “game over” for the climate.(Next week we publish an article in TruthOut about how fracking may be an even bigger problem for climate change than the tar sands.)
People are outraged and doing the direct action necessary to stop the KXL. We hope this movie about the Tar Sands Blockade inspires you to join them.
One year ago, teenager Trayvon Martin was murdered after buying skittles in a convenience store. He was tracked by vigilante George Zimmerman and killed. The police did not charge Zimmerman until there was mass protest.
People are outraged and held vigils to mark the anniversary.
Students at Florida Atlantic University occupied the office of the president of their university after it was announced their football stadium would be named after a private prison corporation. President Mary Jo Saunders hid in her office for an hour, then came out and met the students. Following an hour long consensus process, she agreed to a town hall meeting on the issue this Friday.
Students were outraged at the glorification of prison privatization and were heard.
Occupy Austin settled a criminal prosecution that exposed undercover operatives who not only spied on occupy but alsoinstigated felony actions by occupiers. The occupiers got time served and the Austin police were exposed – three undercover police were named; the lawyer says there were more.
Occupiers were outraged, they fought back and won.
Jeremy Hammond is being held in prison for leaking 5 million StratFor intelligence documents to Wikileaks. He was entrapped by a government informant, and at 28 years of age, he faces life in prison. Hammond is outraged at the treatment of Aaron Swartz who committed suicide andwrote an open letter about Swartz while Hammond sat in solitary confinement.
People are outraged at the treatment of Hammond and Aaron Swartz.
Frankly, there are too many outrages to go through. Here’s a quick list of additional recent actions against outrages. These are a handful among many.
• One Hundred Million Strike Against Austerity and High Prices in India;
• Protest at DOJ Against Drones and Secret Memo Justifying Them;
• Zapatistas Struggle for Survival on Planet Earth;
• Tar Sands Blockade and Appalachia Resist Shut Down a Frack Waste Facility in Ohio;
• Bulgarian Government Resigns As Austerity Leads Nationwide Protests;
• US Supreme Court Refuses to Lift Stay on NDAA Injunction;
• Greece Hit by General Strike Against Austerity
We end where we began, with the wisdom of Stephane Hessel:
“It’s time to take over! It’s time to get angry! . . . Let us not be defeated by the tyranny of the world financial markets that threaten peace and democracy everywhere. I wish all of you to find your reason for indignation. This is a precious thing.”
Share this article and make courage in the face of outrage contagious!
This article is based on the weekly free newsletter of Occupy Washington, DC/October2011. You can sign up to receive the newsletter here.
Kevin Zeese, JD and Margaret Flowers, MD co-host Clearing the FOG on We Act Radio 1480 AM Washington, DC and on Economic Democracy Media, co-direct It’s Our Economy and are organizers of the Occupation of Washington, DC. Their twitters are @KBZeese and @MFlowers8.
This article was published at NationofChange at: http://www.nationofchange.org/time-outrage-1362150816. 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
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers
“Ninety-three years old. The last leg of my journey. The end is in sight. I am lucky to be able to seize the time I have left to reflect on my lifelong commitment to politics: the Resistance and the program designed sixty-six years ago by the National Council of the Resistance.”
These are the opening lines from “A Time for Outrage!”(“Indignez-vous!”) a 35 page book written by Stephane Hessel in 2010 which sold 3 million copies in 30 languages and inspired protests like “Occupy” in the United States and The Indignados in Spain. Hassel died this week at the age of 95.
Each week we see reasons for outrage and, thankfully, more and more people are joining the culture of resistance.
Tuesday, the judge in the Bradley Manning case turned more than 1,000 days in prison, one-third of it in tortuous conditions in Kuwait and Quantico, into 90 days. The judge allowed excuses for the delays based on the complexity of the case and the secret documents involved so that it fell just under the 120 statutory limit for a speedy trial. Judge Denise Lind does not publish her opinions, (also outrageous) but read for two hours in court, making it almost impossible to analyze the basis of her making 1,000 = 90.
People are outraged at the treatment of Manning and in more than 70 cities, people protested.
The Keystone Pipeline (KXL) continues to be built as the Earth approaches the tipping point on climate change. Experts have said that tapping into the Alberta Tar Sands could be “game over” for the climate.(Next week we publish an article in TruthOut about how fracking may be an even bigger problem for climate change than the tar sands.)
People are outraged and doing the direct action necessary to stop the KXL. We hope this movie about the Tar Sands Blockade inspires you to join them.
One year ago, teenager Trayvon Martin was murdered after buying skittles in a convenience store. He was tracked by vigilante George Zimmerman and killed. The police did not charge Zimmerman until there was mass protest.
People are outraged and held vigils to mark the anniversary.
Students at Florida Atlantic University occupied the office of the president of their university after it was announced their football stadium would be named after a private prison corporation. President Mary Jo Saunders hid in her office for an hour, then came out and met the students. Following an hour long consensus process, she agreed to a town hall meeting on the issue this Friday.
Students were outraged at the glorification of prison privatization and were heard.
Occupy Austin settled a criminal prosecution that exposed undercover operatives who not only spied on occupy but alsoinstigated felony actions by occupiers. The occupiers got time served and the Austin police were exposed – three undercover police were named; the lawyer says there were more.
Occupiers were outraged, they fought back and won.
Jeremy Hammond is being held in prison for leaking 5 million StratFor intelligence documents to Wikileaks. He was entrapped by a government informant, and at 28 years of age, he faces life in prison. Hammond is outraged at the treatment of Aaron Swartz who committed suicide andwrote an open letter about Swartz while Hammond sat in solitary confinement.
People are outraged at the treatment of Hammond and Aaron Swartz.
Frankly, there are too many outrages to go through. Here’s a quick list of additional recent actions against outrages. These are a handful among many.
• One Hundred Million Strike Against Austerity and High Prices in India;
• Protest at DOJ Against Drones and Secret Memo Justifying Them;
• Zapatistas Struggle for Survival on Planet Earth;
• Tar Sands Blockade and Appalachia Resist Shut Down a Frack Waste Facility in Ohio;
• Bulgarian Government Resigns As Austerity Leads Nationwide Protests;
• US Supreme Court Refuses to Lift Stay on NDAA Injunction;
• Greece Hit by General Strike Against Austerity
We end where we began, with the wisdom of Stephane Hessel:
“It’s time to take over! It’s time to get angry! . . . Let us not be defeated by the tyranny of the world financial markets that threaten peace and democracy everywhere. I wish all of you to find your reason for indignation. This is a precious thing.”
Share this article and make courage in the face of outrage contagious!
This article is based on the weekly free newsletter of Occupy Washington, DC/October2011. You can sign up to receive the newsletter here.
Kevin Zeese, JD and Margaret Flowers, MD co-host Clearing the FOG on We Act Radio 1480 AM Washington, DC and on Economic Democracy Media, co-direct It’s Our Economy and are organizers of the Occupation of Washington, DC. Their twitters are @KBZeese and @MFlowers8.
This article was published at NationofChange at: http://www.nationofchange.org/time-outrage-1362150816. 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
Baltimore Activist Alert Mar. 1 – Mar. 7, 2013
Baltimore Activist Alert Mar. 1 – Mar. 7, 2013
"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] For All the World to see exhibit – through Mar. 10
6] Thousand Little Brothers exhibit – through Mar. 23
7] Support Gun Laws – Mar. 1
8] Toss the SOA Off the Fiscal Cliff – Mar. 1
9] White House vigil – Mar. 1
10] WIB Roland Park vigil – Mar. 1
11] Justice for Palestine/Israel vigil – Mar. 1
12] Silent peace vigil – Mar. 1
13] Film MILAGRO BEANFIELD WAR – Mar. 1
14] Film THE MISSION – Mar. 1
15] War Tax Resistance – Mar. 1
16] Ballroom dancing – Mar. 1
17] Tom Paxton performs – Mar. 1
18] Catholic Convocation – Mar. 2
19] Resist AIPAC – Mar. 2 - 5
20] Free Green Workshops – Mar. 2
21] Olney peace vigil – Mar. 2
22] West Chester, PA demo – Mar. 2
23] Silent vigil at Capitol – Mar. 2
24] Silent Death Walk – Mar. 2
25] New Perspectives on Peace with Justice – Mar. 2
26] L'Arche Greater Washington DC's Solidarity Night – Mar. 2
27] “Fulfilling the Promise of Humanism” – Mar. 3
28] Peace and Pancakes – Mar. 3
29] Pentagon Vigil – Mar. 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 donmuller@msn.com. 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 ncnrnotices-subscribe@lists.riseup.net. You will get a confirmation message once subscribed. If you have problems, please write to the list manager at ncnrnotices-admin@lists.riseup.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 Adela Hirsch, 5358 Eliots Oak Rd., Columbia, MD 21044. Be sure you indicate ground (G) or bean (B) for each type of coffee ordered. The coffee will arrive some time the following week and you will be notified where to pick it up. Contact Adela at 410-997-5662 or via e-mail at adela4peace@verizon.net.
5] – For All the World to See: Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights explores the historic role played by visual images in shaping, influencing, and transforming the fight for civil rights in the United States. The exhibit includes photographs, television and film, magazines, newspapers, posters, books, and pamphlets. The exhibition will continue through Mar. 10. You can see it Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10 AM to 5 PM in the UMBC Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture, 1000 Hilltop Circle.
6] – Thousand Little Brothers is a multimedia exhibition by Hasan Elahi, a former subject of a post 9/11 FBI investigation. Comprised of over 50,000 images, including some of his financial data, communication records, and transportation logs, Elahi's exhibit comments on current investigatory techniques. The opening reception is on Thurs., Jan. 24 from 6 to 8 PM. The exhibit will continue through March 23, Tuesdays through Saturdays, 11 AM to 5 PM at the Maryland Art Place, 8 Market Place, suite 100. Call 410- 962-8565 or visit http://www.MDartplace.org.
7] – On Fri., Mar. 1 at 10:30 AM, rally to support the governor’s common-sense proposals to reduce gun violence. Help represent what the vast majority of Marylanders want--sensible gun violence prevention measures. The rally will be held in Lawyers Mall, 100 State Circle, Annapolis 21401 (in front of the State Capitol), and buses are available from Baltimore. Go to http://marylanderstopreventgunviolence.org/march-1st-rally-to-prevent-gun-violence/.
8] – Toss the SOA Off the Fiscal Cliff on Fri., Mar. 1 from 11 AM to 11 PM at the White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. The short-term compromise that Congress passed last Tuesday night to avoid the immediate impacts of the so-called fiscal cliff sets up much bigger battles in the coming months as Washington will once again square off over automatic cuts in military and non-entitlement discretionary spending, the budget resolution and an extension of the nation’s ability to continue borrowing.
Join SOA Watch to make our voices heard and insert ourselves into the debate. Show Congress and the White House that public opinion wants education, health, environmental safety, and care for our elderly over military spending. Tell them to cut the Pentagon budget and to close the SOA: http://SOAW.org/takeaction. Visit https://www.facebook.com/events/227608984040735/
9] – A peace vigil takes place every Friday from noon to 1 PM at Lafayette Park facing the White House. Join the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker and friends. Contact Art Laffin: artlaffin@hotmail.com.
10] – There is also a noon Women in Black vigil on Mar. 1 at Roland Park Place, 830 W. 40th St. Call 410-467-9114.
11] – A vigil for Justice in Palestine/Israel takes place every Friday from noon to 1 PM at 19th & JFK Blvd., Philadelphia (across from Israeli Consulate. It is sponsored by Bubbies & Zaydes (Grandparents) for Peace in the Middle East. Email cswartz@pil.net. Go to http://phillyjewishpeace.org/.
12] – There is a silent peace vigil on Fri., Mar. 1 from 5 to 6 PM outside Homewood Friends Meetinghouse, 3107 N. Charles St. Placards say: "War Is Not the Answer." The silent vigil is sponsored by Homewood Friends and Stony Run Meetings. On the first Friday of the month, there will be a potluck dinner at 6:30 PM, followed by the showing of a DVD.
13] – The Hiroshima-Nagasaki Commemoration Committee, Baltimore Quaker Peace and Justice Committee of Homewood and Stony Run Meetings and Chesapeake Physicians for Social Responsibility are continuing the FILM & SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS DVD SERIES. The DVDs will be shown at Homewood Friends Meetinghouse, 3107 N. Charles St., Baltimore 21218, on the First Friday. After the peace vigil, there will be a potluck dinner. At 7 PM, from January through June, a DVD will be shown with a discussion to follow. There is no charge, and refreshments will be available. Contact Max at 410-366-1637 or mobuszewski at verizon.net.
The series theme is WHY CAN’T WE GET ALONG? On Fri., Mar. 1, see THE MILAGRO BEANFIELD WAR [USA, 1988], which is based on the John Nichols novel of the same name. The author wrote the screenplay with David S. Ward. Directed by Robert Redford, the film has an ensemble cast including Ruben Blades, Sônia Braga, Melanie Griffith, John Heard, Daniel Stern and Christopher Walken. Filmed on location in Truchas, New Mexico, the film is set in the fictional rural town of Milagro, with a population of 426, a predominantly Hispanic and Catholic town, with a largely interrelated population. The film tells of one man's quixotic struggle as he defends his small bean field and his community against much larger business and state political interests.
14] – On Fri., Mar. 1 at 7 PM, see THE MISSION [1986] as part of the Peace Center of Delaware County First-Friday Large Screen Free Film Series, 1001 Old Sproul Road, Springfield, PA 19064. The doors open at 6:30 PM for light refreshments. Call 610-544-1818 or go to www.delcopeacecenter.org.
THE MISSION, with Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons, is directed by Roland Joffe. The screenplay and original story is by Robert Bolt with an original score by Ennio Morricone. Garnering a "Best Picture" Oscar nominee, this film is a sweeping epic tale of guilt, forgiveness, justice, and faith. Some 18th century missionaries in South America try to save an Indian tribe from the Portuguese slave trade.
15] – On Fri., Mar. 1 at 7:30 PM, join with the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker, 503 Rock Creek Church Road NW, WDC 20010, for its monthly clarification of thought process. This month the topic is TAXES FOR PEACE NOT WAR! The guest speaker is Jack Payden-Travers. April 15th, Tax Day, is never an easy day for those of us concerned about issues of peace and justice for we are daily confronted by the image of a tax chart where the majority of the pie goes to the military and the poor and hungry are left with the proverbial crumbs. How to respond, how to live with ourselves when we know that our nation spends more on militarism than we do on education and social services? What do you do for a living? Does one have to live under the taxable level? What options are available? Can we really pray for peace while paying for war? These are the questions Jack will address.
Since 1972, he has been involved with resisting war taxes and trying to respond responsibly and creatively to the militarized society of which we are a part. Wages have been garnished, property levied, refunds appropriated and yet, as Jack says, "life gets better each year for my wife and me." Jack presently directs the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund. In February 2013 he was one of the delegates who attended the 14th International Conference on War Tax Resis¬tance and Peace Tax Campaigns in Bogota, Columbia. Each of us has the ability to be a symbol of sanity and resistance to the military madness of this society. Contact Dorothy Day Catholic Worker at 202-882-9649 or artlaffin@hotmail.com. Jack Payden-Travers can be reached at paydentravers@gmail.com. The event will be held at Dorothy Day Catholic Worker, 503 Rock Creek Church Rd. NW, WDC 20010. Visit www.DCcatholicworker.wordpress.com.
16] – There is an opportunity to participate in ballroom dancing, usually every Friday of the month, in the JHU ROTC Bldg. at 8 PM. Turn south on San Martin Dr. from the intersection of Univ. Parkway and 39th St. Drive on campus by taking the third left turn. The next dance will be Mar. 1. Call Dave Greene at 410-599-3725.
17] – Tom Paxton, the folk singer-songwriter, performs. On Fri., Mar. 1 at 8 PM at Brown Memorial Woodbrook Presbyterian Church, 6200 N. Charles St. Call 410-377-7232 or go to http://commongroundonthehill.org. Ticket prices are $19. Seniors and students get in fir $17.
18] – On Sat., Mar. 2 from 8:15 AM to 4:30 PM, the 34th Annual Diocese of Baltimore Social Ministry Convocation is taking place at Seton Keough High School, 1201 Caton Ave., Baltimore. The theme is "The Church In The Modern World: 50 Years After Vatican II," and the keynote speaker is Mark K. Shriver, senior vice president of SAVE THE CHILDREN. There will be a series of workshops, including Who's Stealing Wages, the Death Penalty Is Dead Wrong, and Caring for God's Climate Refugees. Enjoy a box lunch at noon, an award ceremony and a closing prayer service. Many groups will have literature tables, including Pax Christi – Baltimore. Contact Carol Palmer at 410.261.6780 or cpalmer@cc-md.org.
19] – "Shaping Tomorrow Together" is the theme for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) annual conference. For decades, the "tomorrow" AIPAC has been shaping has been one of war, occupation and apartheid at the expense of human rights, justice, and international law. Their tomorrow is a continued push for war with Iran. Their tomorrow means greater U.S. support for Israeli oppression of Palestinians. And their tomorrow means sending even more U.S. weapons abroad while cutting funding for healthcare and education here at home.
Join FOR, Interfaith Peace-Builders, the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, CODEPINK and others to build a different tomorrow. Expose AIPAC Mobilization starting Sat., Mar. 2 at 8:30 AM for grassroots advocacy training at Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church, 900 Massachusetts Ave. NW, WDC. The training has a registration fee of $40 to $125 (sliding scale, $30 for students). All other Expose AIPAC events on other days are free.
On Sun., Mar. 3 at 11 AM, be at the mobilization and street demonstrations outside the AIPAC conference, 9th St. NW & Massachusetts Ave. NW. CODEPINK will be hosting dubka, a flash mob, and greeting AIPAC-goers as they leave the convention center at the end of the day. Come show that the U.S. people demand "Diplomacy, Not War" and an end to U.S. military aid to Israel at a creative protest outside the AIPAC conference. There is a need for 150 people for an amazing visual/action from 3 to 4 PM.
On Mon., Mar. 4 and Tues., Mar. 5 join the constituent lobby days all day at the offices of your members of Congress. On Mon., Mar. 4 at 7 PM, protest the AIPAC gala outside the AIPAC conference, 9th St. NW & Massachusetts Ave. NW. Email for@forusa.org or go to www.forusa.org.
20] – From 10 AM to noon on Sat, March 2, participate in Free Green Workshops at Blue Water Baltimore, 3545 Belair Road, Baltimore 21213. This event is organized by The Abeona Group, Inc., Belair Edison Community Association and Baltimore Energy Challenge. Attend these workshops and learn ways to lower and save money on your BG&E and water bills. Call 1-888-788-9943 or email at contactus@abeonagroup.com. Go to http://www.cphabaltimore.org/?p=9687.
21] – Friends House, 17715 Meeting House Rd., Sandy Spring, MD 20860, hosts a peace vigil every Saturday, 10:30 to 11:30 AM, on the corner of Rt. 108 and Georgia Ave. [Route 97] in Olney, MD. The next vigil is Mar. 2. Call Chuck Harker at 301-570-7167.
22] – Each Saturday, 11 AM – 1 PM, Chester County Peace Movement holds a peace vigil in West Chester in front of the Chester County Courthouse, High & Market Sts. Go to www.ccpeace.org. Email ccpeacemovement@aol.com.
23] – There will be a peace vigil on the West Lawn of the Capitol at noon on Sat., Mar. 2. Look for the blue banner with the message, "Seek Peace and Pursue It.--Psalms 34:14." The vigil lasts one hour and is silent except when one responds to the occasional questions. Go to http://www.quaker.org/langleyhill/seekpeace.htm or email seekpeacevigil@yahoo.com.
24] – On Sat., Mar. 2 from noon until 1 PM, there is a monthly anti-drone/anti-war protest (1st Saturday of the month)--Philadelphia Silent Death Walk. Gather at the Phila. Flower Show/Phila. Convention Center, 12th & Market Sts., Phila., PA 19107. Wear BLACK, and signs and white masks are provided. RSVP Marge Van Cleef at 267-763-1644.
25] – New Perspectives on Peace with Justice: An Evening with Interfaith Peace-Builders is happening on Sat., Mar. 2 from 6:30 to 9 PM at The Goethe Institute, 812 7th St. NW, WDC 20001. Join the US Campaign, CODEPINK, Interfaith Peace-Builders and Fellowship of Reconciliation. While AIPAC will be "Celebrating 65 Years of Friendship" between the United States and Israel, for the people in the Middle East, this relationship is nothing to be celebrated as AIPAC-backed sanctions take their toll on Iranians. And Palestinians continue to suffer under Israeli occupation and apartheid funded by U.S. tax dollars. The requested donation is from $30 to $100. Food and beverages will be provided.
The featured speakers are Rev. Carolyn Boyd, adjunct pastor at Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ and former national co-chair of Black Voices for Peace, and Hanan Idilbi, board member of Interfaith Peace-Builders and member of the US Palestine Community Network. Feras Qumseya will play modern oud compositions rooted in the deep cultural traditions of Palestine. Go to http://www.ifpb.org/education/grassroots/2013/presenters.html.
26] – On Sat., Mar. 2nd at 7 PM, you are invited to join in at L'Arche Greater Washington DC's Solidarity Night celebration at Marymount University, Reinsch Library Auditorium, 2807 N. Glebe Rd., Arlington, VA 22207. This is a 30th anniversary Solidarity Night which is the yearly fundraiser for their sister communities in Haiti and Mexico. See http://www.larche-gwdc.org/event/solidarity-night-2/. Enjoy a family-friendly variety show and silent auction. The suggested donation is $10.
L’Arche Greater Washington, D.C. is an interdenominational Christian community of people with and without intellectual disabilities who share life together. Community life is centered on four homes (two in Arlington; two in Adams Morgan) and 16 adults who have disabilities, who are known as “core people.” Most assistants live in the homes, creating a family-like environment where relationships are priority.
27] – 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 to 11:30 AM. On Sun., Mar. 3, hear James Croft, the Research and Education Fellow at the Humanist Community at Harvard, where he works primarily on the Humanist Community Project – an initiative to aid the growth and development of local Humanist communities around the world. He is a fifth-year doctoral candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he studies the philosophy of education. His address will be “Building the Temple of the Future: Fulfilling the Promise of Humanism.” Humanists have high moral principles and lofty goals: a true Humanist vision would lead to nothing less than the transformation of the world. And yet, in the decades since Humanism became a well-defined creed, it has not had a significant political and cultural impact. Go to http://www.bmorethical.org. Call 410-581-2322 or email ask@bmorethical.org.
28] – 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.
29] – There is a weekly Pentagon Peace Vigil from 7 to 8 AM on Mondays, since 1987, outside the Pentagon Metro stop. The next vigil is Mon., Mar. 4, and it is sponsored by the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker. Keep Space for Peace signs will be held at this vigil. Email artlaffin@hotmail.com or call 202-882-9649.
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] For All the World to see exhibit – through Mar. 10
6] Thousand Little Brothers exhibit – through Mar. 23
7] Support Gun Laws – Mar. 1
8] Toss the SOA Off the Fiscal Cliff – Mar. 1
9] White House vigil – Mar. 1
10] WIB Roland Park vigil – Mar. 1
11] Justice for Palestine/Israel vigil – Mar. 1
12] Silent peace vigil – Mar. 1
13] Film MILAGRO BEANFIELD WAR – Mar. 1
14] Film THE MISSION – Mar. 1
15] War Tax Resistance – Mar. 1
16] Ballroom dancing – Mar. 1
17] Tom Paxton performs – Mar. 1
18] Catholic Convocation – Mar. 2
19] Resist AIPAC – Mar. 2 - 5
20] Free Green Workshops – Mar. 2
21] Olney peace vigil – Mar. 2
22] West Chester, PA demo – Mar. 2
23] Silent vigil at Capitol – Mar. 2
24] Silent Death Walk – Mar. 2
25] New Perspectives on Peace with Justice – Mar. 2
26] L'Arche Greater Washington DC's Solidarity Night – Mar. 2
27] “Fulfilling the Promise of Humanism” – Mar. 3
28] Peace and Pancakes – Mar. 3
29] Pentagon Vigil – Mar. 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 donmuller@msn.com. 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 ncnrnotices-subscribe@lists.riseup.net. You will get a confirmation message once subscribed. If you have problems, please write to the list manager at ncnrnotices-admin@lists.riseup.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 Adela Hirsch, 5358 Eliots Oak Rd., Columbia, MD 21044. Be sure you indicate ground (G) or bean (B) for each type of coffee ordered. The coffee will arrive some time the following week and you will be notified where to pick it up. Contact Adela at 410-997-5662 or via e-mail at adela4peace@verizon.net.
5] – For All the World to See: Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights explores the historic role played by visual images in shaping, influencing, and transforming the fight for civil rights in the United States. The exhibit includes photographs, television and film, magazines, newspapers, posters, books, and pamphlets. The exhibition will continue through Mar. 10. You can see it Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10 AM to 5 PM in the UMBC Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture, 1000 Hilltop Circle.
6] – Thousand Little Brothers is a multimedia exhibition by Hasan Elahi, a former subject of a post 9/11 FBI investigation. Comprised of over 50,000 images, including some of his financial data, communication records, and transportation logs, Elahi's exhibit comments on current investigatory techniques. The opening reception is on Thurs., Jan. 24 from 6 to 8 PM. The exhibit will continue through March 23, Tuesdays through Saturdays, 11 AM to 5 PM at the Maryland Art Place, 8 Market Place, suite 100. Call 410- 962-8565 or visit http://www.MDartplace.org.
7] – On Fri., Mar. 1 at 10:30 AM, rally to support the governor’s common-sense proposals to reduce gun violence. Help represent what the vast majority of Marylanders want--sensible gun violence prevention measures. The rally will be held in Lawyers Mall, 100 State Circle, Annapolis 21401 (in front of the State Capitol), and buses are available from Baltimore. Go to http://marylanderstopreventgunviolence.org/march-1st-rally-to-prevent-gun-violence/.
8] – Toss the SOA Off the Fiscal Cliff on Fri., Mar. 1 from 11 AM to 11 PM at the White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. The short-term compromise that Congress passed last Tuesday night to avoid the immediate impacts of the so-called fiscal cliff sets up much bigger battles in the coming months as Washington will once again square off over automatic cuts in military and non-entitlement discretionary spending, the budget resolution and an extension of the nation’s ability to continue borrowing.
Join SOA Watch to make our voices heard and insert ourselves into the debate. Show Congress and the White House that public opinion wants education, health, environmental safety, and care for our elderly over military spending. Tell them to cut the Pentagon budget and to close the SOA: http://SOAW.org/takeaction. Visit https://www.facebook.com/events/227608984040735/
9] – A peace vigil takes place every Friday from noon to 1 PM at Lafayette Park facing the White House. Join the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker and friends. Contact Art Laffin: artlaffin@hotmail.com.
10] – There is also a noon Women in Black vigil on Mar. 1 at Roland Park Place, 830 W. 40th St. Call 410-467-9114.
11] – A vigil for Justice in Palestine/Israel takes place every Friday from noon to 1 PM at 19th & JFK Blvd., Philadelphia (across from Israeli Consulate. It is sponsored by Bubbies & Zaydes (Grandparents) for Peace in the Middle East. Email cswartz@pil.net. Go to http://phillyjewishpeace.org/.
12] – There is a silent peace vigil on Fri., Mar. 1 from 5 to 6 PM outside Homewood Friends Meetinghouse, 3107 N. Charles St. Placards say: "War Is Not the Answer." The silent vigil is sponsored by Homewood Friends and Stony Run Meetings. On the first Friday of the month, there will be a potluck dinner at 6:30 PM, followed by the showing of a DVD.
13] – The Hiroshima-Nagasaki Commemoration Committee, Baltimore Quaker Peace and Justice Committee of Homewood and Stony Run Meetings and Chesapeake Physicians for Social Responsibility are continuing the FILM & SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS DVD SERIES. The DVDs will be shown at Homewood Friends Meetinghouse, 3107 N. Charles St., Baltimore 21218, on the First Friday. After the peace vigil, there will be a potluck dinner. At 7 PM, from January through June, a DVD will be shown with a discussion to follow. There is no charge, and refreshments will be available. Contact Max at 410-366-1637 or mobuszewski at verizon.net.
The series theme is WHY CAN’T WE GET ALONG? On Fri., Mar. 1, see THE MILAGRO BEANFIELD WAR [USA, 1988], which is based on the John Nichols novel of the same name. The author wrote the screenplay with David S. Ward. Directed by Robert Redford, the film has an ensemble cast including Ruben Blades, Sônia Braga, Melanie Griffith, John Heard, Daniel Stern and Christopher Walken. Filmed on location in Truchas, New Mexico, the film is set in the fictional rural town of Milagro, with a population of 426, a predominantly Hispanic and Catholic town, with a largely interrelated population. The film tells of one man's quixotic struggle as he defends his small bean field and his community against much larger business and state political interests.
14] – On Fri., Mar. 1 at 7 PM, see THE MISSION [1986] as part of the Peace Center of Delaware County First-Friday Large Screen Free Film Series, 1001 Old Sproul Road, Springfield, PA 19064. The doors open at 6:30 PM for light refreshments. Call 610-544-1818 or go to www.delcopeacecenter.org.
THE MISSION, with Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons, is directed by Roland Joffe. The screenplay and original story is by Robert Bolt with an original score by Ennio Morricone. Garnering a "Best Picture" Oscar nominee, this film is a sweeping epic tale of guilt, forgiveness, justice, and faith. Some 18th century missionaries in South America try to save an Indian tribe from the Portuguese slave trade.
15] – On Fri., Mar. 1 at 7:30 PM, join with the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker, 503 Rock Creek Church Road NW, WDC 20010, for its monthly clarification of thought process. This month the topic is TAXES FOR PEACE NOT WAR! The guest speaker is Jack Payden-Travers. April 15th, Tax Day, is never an easy day for those of us concerned about issues of peace and justice for we are daily confronted by the image of a tax chart where the majority of the pie goes to the military and the poor and hungry are left with the proverbial crumbs. How to respond, how to live with ourselves when we know that our nation spends more on militarism than we do on education and social services? What do you do for a living? Does one have to live under the taxable level? What options are available? Can we really pray for peace while paying for war? These are the questions Jack will address.
Since 1972, he has been involved with resisting war taxes and trying to respond responsibly and creatively to the militarized society of which we are a part. Wages have been garnished, property levied, refunds appropriated and yet, as Jack says, "life gets better each year for my wife and me." Jack presently directs the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund. In February 2013 he was one of the delegates who attended the 14th International Conference on War Tax Resis¬tance and Peace Tax Campaigns in Bogota, Columbia. Each of us has the ability to be a symbol of sanity and resistance to the military madness of this society. Contact Dorothy Day Catholic Worker at 202-882-9649 or artlaffin@hotmail.com. Jack Payden-Travers can be reached at paydentravers@gmail.com. The event will be held at Dorothy Day Catholic Worker, 503 Rock Creek Church Rd. NW, WDC 20010. Visit www.DCcatholicworker.wordpress.com.
16] – There is an opportunity to participate in ballroom dancing, usually every Friday of the month, in the JHU ROTC Bldg. at 8 PM. Turn south on San Martin Dr. from the intersection of Univ. Parkway and 39th St. Drive on campus by taking the third left turn. The next dance will be Mar. 1. Call Dave Greene at 410-599-3725.
17] – Tom Paxton, the folk singer-songwriter, performs. On Fri., Mar. 1 at 8 PM at Brown Memorial Woodbrook Presbyterian Church, 6200 N. Charles St. Call 410-377-7232 or go to http://commongroundonthehill.org. Ticket prices are $19. Seniors and students get in fir $17.
18] – On Sat., Mar. 2 from 8:15 AM to 4:30 PM, the 34th Annual Diocese of Baltimore Social Ministry Convocation is taking place at Seton Keough High School, 1201 Caton Ave., Baltimore. The theme is "The Church In The Modern World: 50 Years After Vatican II," and the keynote speaker is Mark K. Shriver, senior vice president of SAVE THE CHILDREN. There will be a series of workshops, including Who's Stealing Wages, the Death Penalty Is Dead Wrong, and Caring for God's Climate Refugees. Enjoy a box lunch at noon, an award ceremony and a closing prayer service. Many groups will have literature tables, including Pax Christi – Baltimore. Contact Carol Palmer at 410.261.6780 or cpalmer@cc-md.org.
19] – "Shaping Tomorrow Together" is the theme for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) annual conference. For decades, the "tomorrow" AIPAC has been shaping has been one of war, occupation and apartheid at the expense of human rights, justice, and international law. Their tomorrow is a continued push for war with Iran. Their tomorrow means greater U.S. support for Israeli oppression of Palestinians. And their tomorrow means sending even more U.S. weapons abroad while cutting funding for healthcare and education here at home.
Join FOR, Interfaith Peace-Builders, the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, CODEPINK and others to build a different tomorrow. Expose AIPAC Mobilization starting Sat., Mar. 2 at 8:30 AM for grassroots advocacy training at Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church, 900 Massachusetts Ave. NW, WDC. The training has a registration fee of $40 to $125 (sliding scale, $30 for students). All other Expose AIPAC events on other days are free.
On Sun., Mar. 3 at 11 AM, be at the mobilization and street demonstrations outside the AIPAC conference, 9th St. NW & Massachusetts Ave. NW. CODEPINK will be hosting dubka, a flash mob, and greeting AIPAC-goers as they leave the convention center at the end of the day. Come show that the U.S. people demand "Diplomacy, Not War" and an end to U.S. military aid to Israel at a creative protest outside the AIPAC conference. There is a need for 150 people for an amazing visual/action from 3 to 4 PM.
On Mon., Mar. 4 and Tues., Mar. 5 join the constituent lobby days all day at the offices of your members of Congress. On Mon., Mar. 4 at 7 PM, protest the AIPAC gala outside the AIPAC conference, 9th St. NW & Massachusetts Ave. NW. Email for@forusa.org or go to www.forusa.org.
20] – From 10 AM to noon on Sat, March 2, participate in Free Green Workshops at Blue Water Baltimore, 3545 Belair Road, Baltimore 21213. This event is organized by The Abeona Group, Inc., Belair Edison Community Association and Baltimore Energy Challenge. Attend these workshops and learn ways to lower and save money on your BG&E and water bills. Call 1-888-788-9943 or email at contactus@abeonagroup.com. Go to http://www.cphabaltimore.org/?p=9687.
21] – Friends House, 17715 Meeting House Rd., Sandy Spring, MD 20860, hosts a peace vigil every Saturday, 10:30 to 11:30 AM, on the corner of Rt. 108 and Georgia Ave. [Route 97] in Olney, MD. The next vigil is Mar. 2. Call Chuck Harker at 301-570-7167.
22] – Each Saturday, 11 AM – 1 PM, Chester County Peace Movement holds a peace vigil in West Chester in front of the Chester County Courthouse, High & Market Sts. Go to www.ccpeace.org. Email ccpeacemovement@aol.com.
23] – There will be a peace vigil on the West Lawn of the Capitol at noon on Sat., Mar. 2. Look for the blue banner with the message, "Seek Peace and Pursue It.--Psalms 34:14." The vigil lasts one hour and is silent except when one responds to the occasional questions. Go to http://www.quaker.org/langleyhill/seekpeace.htm or email seekpeacevigil@yahoo.com.
24] – On Sat., Mar. 2 from noon until 1 PM, there is a monthly anti-drone/anti-war protest (1st Saturday of the month)--Philadelphia Silent Death Walk. Gather at the Phila. Flower Show/Phila. Convention Center, 12th & Market Sts., Phila., PA 19107. Wear BLACK, and signs and white masks are provided. RSVP Marge Van Cleef at 267-763-1644.
25] – New Perspectives on Peace with Justice: An Evening with Interfaith Peace-Builders is happening on Sat., Mar. 2 from 6:30 to 9 PM at The Goethe Institute, 812 7th St. NW, WDC 20001. Join the US Campaign, CODEPINK, Interfaith Peace-Builders and Fellowship of Reconciliation. While AIPAC will be "Celebrating 65 Years of Friendship" between the United States and Israel, for the people in the Middle East, this relationship is nothing to be celebrated as AIPAC-backed sanctions take their toll on Iranians. And Palestinians continue to suffer under Israeli occupation and apartheid funded by U.S. tax dollars. The requested donation is from $30 to $100. Food and beverages will be provided.
The featured speakers are Rev. Carolyn Boyd, adjunct pastor at Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ and former national co-chair of Black Voices for Peace, and Hanan Idilbi, board member of Interfaith Peace-Builders and member of the US Palestine Community Network. Feras Qumseya will play modern oud compositions rooted in the deep cultural traditions of Palestine. Go to http://www.ifpb.org/education/grassroots/2013/presenters.html.
26] – On Sat., Mar. 2nd at 7 PM, you are invited to join in at L'Arche Greater Washington DC's Solidarity Night celebration at Marymount University, Reinsch Library Auditorium, 2807 N. Glebe Rd., Arlington, VA 22207. This is a 30th anniversary Solidarity Night which is the yearly fundraiser for their sister communities in Haiti and Mexico. See http://www.larche-gwdc.org/event/solidarity-night-2/. Enjoy a family-friendly variety show and silent auction. The suggested donation is $10.
L’Arche Greater Washington, D.C. is an interdenominational Christian community of people with and without intellectual disabilities who share life together. Community life is centered on four homes (two in Arlington; two in Adams Morgan) and 16 adults who have disabilities, who are known as “core people.” Most assistants live in the homes, creating a family-like environment where relationships are priority.
27] – 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 to 11:30 AM. On Sun., Mar. 3, hear James Croft, the Research and Education Fellow at the Humanist Community at Harvard, where he works primarily on the Humanist Community Project – an initiative to aid the growth and development of local Humanist communities around the world. He is a fifth-year doctoral candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he studies the philosophy of education. His address will be “Building the Temple of the Future: Fulfilling the Promise of Humanism.” Humanists have high moral principles and lofty goals: a true Humanist vision would lead to nothing less than the transformation of the world. And yet, in the decades since Humanism became a well-defined creed, it has not had a significant political and cultural impact. Go to http://www.bmorethical.org. Call 410-581-2322 or email ask@bmorethical.org.
28] – 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.
29] – There is a weekly Pentagon Peace Vigil from 7 to 8 AM on Mondays, since 1987, outside the Pentagon Metro stop. The next vigil is Mon., Mar. 4, and it is sponsored by the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker. Keep Space for Peace signs will be held at this vigil. Email artlaffin@hotmail.com or call 202-882-9649.
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
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