Baltimore Activist Alert - February 5, 2016

45] Peace vigil at White House – Feb. 5

46] WIB peace vigil – Feb. 5

47] Fire Graziano – Feb. 5

48] Paid family leave -- Feb. 5

49] Black Lives Matter – Feb. 5

50] Film BEYOND HATRED – Feb. 5

51] Film CITIZENFOUR – Feb. 5

52] Film VALENTINO’S GHOST – Feb. 5

53] Benefit for St. Stephen’s – Feb. 5

54] Blacktivism: The New Generation – Feb. 5

55] Ballroom Dancing – Feb. 5

56] Sign up with Washington Peace Center

57] Donate books, videos, DVDs and records

58] Do you need any book shelves?

59] Join the Global Zero campaign

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45] – On Fri., Feb. 5 from noon to 1 PM, join the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker in a vigil urging the powers that be to abolish war and torture, to disarm all weapons, to end indefinite detention, to close Guantanamo, to establish justice for all and help create the Beloved Community! This vigil will take place at the White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. Contract Art @ artlaffin@hotmail.com or at 202-360-6416. 

46] – On Fri., Feb. 5 from noon to 1 PM, join Women in Black peace vigil. This vigil will take place at the corner of Light and Pratt Sts.  Stay for as long as you can. Wear black. Dress for who knows what kind of weather. Bring your own poster or help with the "NO WAR IN MY NAME" banner.  When there are others to stand with, you don't need to carry the burden alone. Do this to be in solidarity with others....when everything around us says, Be afraid of the stranger.

47] – It is suspected that Baltimore housing commissioner Paul Graziano knew that his employees were forcing women to have sex in exchange for crucial home repairs for years--yet he still has a job. It's shocking that Graziano hasn't been fired yet, but momentum is growing to get him out of office. Last week, over 3,000 UltraViolet members called the mayor's office and billboard trucks highlighting the controversy blanketed Baltimore and garnered headlines. Now, the organization will deliver over 35,000 signatures to Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. Can you join them? On Fri., Feb.5 from 12:30 to 1 PM, come to City Hall, 100 Holliday St, Baltimore.  Look for the people holding purple signs! RSVP http://act.weareultraviolet.org/survey/baltimore_delivery/?t=1&akid=2701.609822.sXOA2k

48] – Visit The Potter's House, 1658 Columbia Rd. NW, WDC, on Fri., Feb. 5 from 5 to 6 PM and find out more and learn how you can get involved in the PAID FAMILY LEAVE campaign which believes that everyone living and working in the District deserves the financial stability and dignity of paid time off to care for their families and ourselves when life happens. Currently, District residents are forced to make impossible choices between caring for the people we love and earning the money they need when, for example, a new baby arrives or a partner is diagnosed with cancer. You can change this by advocating for a paid family and medical leave insurance program in DC. Go to https://www.facebook.com/events/1717768911775167/.

49] –There is usually a silent peace vigil on Fridays, from 5 to 6 PM, sponsored by Homewood Friends and Stony Run Meetings, outside the Homewood Friends Meetinghouse, 3107 N. Charles St.  The next scheduled vigil is on Feb. 5. Black Lives Matter.  Since this is a First Friday, there will be a potluck dinner afterwards, followed by a DVD showing.

50] – 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, usually on the First Friday. At 7:15 PM, from January through June, a DVD will be shown with a discussion to follow.  There is no charge, and refreshments will be available. The series theme is CHANGE IS INEVITABLE.

On Fri., Feb. 5 see BEYOND HATRED [France, 2007]. In September 2002, three skinheads were roaming a park in Rheims, France, looking to "do an Arab," when they settled for a gay man instead. Twenty-nine-year-old François Chenu fought back fiercely, but he was beaten unconscious and thrown into a river, where he drowned. The acclaimed French vérité documentary is the story of the crime's aftermath; above all, of the Chenu family's brave and heartrending struggle to seek justice while trying to make sense of such pointless violence and unbearable loss. With remarkable dignity, they fight to transcend hatred and the inevitable desire for revenge. Call 410-323-1607 or email mobuszewski [at] verizon.net.

51] –  Go to the Peace Center of Delaware County, 1001 Old Sproul Road, Springfield, PA 19064 for the First-Friday Free Large Screen Film Series on Fri., Feb. 5 at 7 PM to see  CITIZENFOUR. Doors open at 6:30 PM for light refreshments.  Call (610) 544-1818 or visit www.delcopeacecenter.org.  The screening is co-sponsored by the Brandywine Peace Community.

Have your heard?  Oliver Stone's next film, due out in May, is a dramatization of the Edward Snowden story. Get the story by seeing CITIZENFOUR [a 2014 documentary by Laura Poitras at 1 hr., 54 min.]. ‘My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them.’ —Edward Snowden, NSA whistleblower.

The film is last year's Oscar winner for “Best Documentary” about National Security Agency whistleblower and exile (code-name: "citizenfour"), the global reach and extent of U.S. government spying, and the cost of revealing it. The documentary is the gripping and first-hand account of the meaning and price of the biggest national security intelligence coup of our time. Go to https://ad.atdmt.com/c/go;p=11042209007763;a=11042209015489;ev.a=1;idfa=;idfa_lat=;aaid=;aaid_lat=;cache=.

52] –    On Fri., Feb. 5 from 6:45 to 7:45 PM, join the Palestine Center at the Jerusalem Fund Jerusalem Fund, 2425 Virginia Ave. NW, WDC 20037,  for VALENTINO’S GHOST [2012], narrated by Mike Farrell.  The film exposes the way the US foreign policy agenda in the Middle East influences Hollywood and mainstream media portrayals of Arabs and Muslims. It tracks the transition from the Arab as "Romantic Hero" to the Arab today as the embodiment of evil. It highlights the question of why do supremely talented artists and intellectuals in the United States consider it perfectly "realistic" to depict Arabs and Muslims in a fashion that would be described as bigoted, if applied to blacks, Jews, gays, Native Americans, et al.? 

This 95-minute film features fresh, riveting and often stunning perspectives from the legendary late American writer Gore Vidal; John Mearsheimer, author of The Israel Lobby; celebrated British war correspondent Robert Fisk; Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Anthony Shadid; Harvard and Oxford historian Niall Ferguson; historian Melani McAlister; TV star Tony Shalhoub; media expert Jack Shaheen; and Hollywood writer Alan Sharp. 

The 2015 re-release of VALENTINO’S GHOSTt condenses the film's earlier version by 15 minutes and adds 20 minutes of new material, including segments regarding the Israeli bombing of Gaza, the Charlie Hebdo murders, the Hollywood film AMERICAN SNIPER, the San Bernardino mass shooting, and Donald Trump's anti-Muslim crusade, while redirecting the 2012 version's attention to the Arab Uprisings, toward the current phenomenon of ISIS. Go to http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/ht/d/RegisterForEvent/i/57155.

53] – There is a Positive Force DC Benefit Concert for St. Stephen's, 1525 Newton St. NW, WDC, on Fri., Feb. 5 from 7 to 11 PM.  This is part of a new monthly benefit concert series hoping to curate a space to highlight new and upcoming artists while supporting causes you care about!  RSVP at https://www.facebook.com/events/229305210734109/.

54] – On Fri., Feb. 5 from 7 to 9 PM at 805 21st St. NW, GWU School of Media & Public Affairs, 2nd Floor Reception Area, WDC, come and enjoy an art & multimedia exhibit about the experiences of black lives, shown through the mediums of photography, painting, sculpting, written pieces and a musical performance by the One Common Unity Performance Troupe! Blacktivism: The New Generation will capture and visualize their progression. The photos will represent freedom and hope. Each photo will have a quote by it from someone in the new generation of black leaders, who ties in with what the photo represents.  See https://www.eventbrite.com/e/blacktivism-the-new-generation-w-one-common-unity-tickets-20980386902.

55] – 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 Feb. 5. Call Dave Greene at 410-599-3725.

56] -- The Washington Peace Center has a progressive calendar & activist alert! Consider signing up to receive its weekly email: info@washingtonpeacecenter.org.

57] -- If you would like to get rid of books, videos, DVDs or records, contact Max at 410-366-1637 or mobuszewski at verizon.net.

58] -- Can you use any book shelves? Contact Max at 410-366-1637 or mobuszewski at verizon.net.

59] -- Join an extraordinary global campaign for the elimination of nuclear weapons: http://www.globalzero.org/sign-declaration. A growing group of leaders around the world is calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons and a majority of the global public agrees.  This is an historic window of opportunity.  With momentum already building in favor of Zero, a major show of support from people around the world could tip the balance. When it comes to nuclear weapons, one is one too many.

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/.

“One is called to live nonviolently, even if the change one works for seems impossible. It may or may not be possible to turn the US around through nonviolent revolution. But one thing favors such an attempt: the total inability of violence to change anything for the better" - Daniel Berrigan

The militarization of Hopkins

https://nlonthedl.wordpress.com/2015/12/03/the-militarization-of-hopkins/

The militarization of Hopkins

By The News-Letter on December 3, 20151 Comment

BY MATTHEW PETTI

VICE Magazine recently conducted an investigation on campus militarization, publishing the results in an article called “There Are the 100 Most Militarized Universities in America.” The Johns Hopkins University ranked number seven. The authors claimed to use a variety of variables to determine “the closest relationships with the national security state, and profit the most from American war-waging.” Whether you agree with the authors’ methodology or not, this description of the University’s role in contemporary American society would definitely disappoint its founder, Johns Hopkins, who grew up in a Quaker home and was raised with pacifist beliefs. In addition, the closed nature of military research performed on campus hurts the University’s mission “to foster independent and original research, and to bring the benefits of discovery to the world.”

We’ve probably all heard at some point that Hopkins is “America’s first research university.” However, we’re rarely taught about the University’s namesake, other than the fact that he had an extra “S.” Johns Hopkins, born in 1795, was raised a Quaker and continued to adhere to Quaker philosophy throughout his life. Much of his famous philanthropy was due to the ideology of the Society of Friends. For those of you who don’t know much about Quakers (or “the Society of Friends,” as they call themselves), they’re not manufacturers of oatmeal. Quakerism is a religious movement that emphasizes a personal religious experience and equality between people. As a result, Quakers have been famous for their refusal to participate in war and slavery — which makes it all the more perverse that a university named for a Quaker is now an integral part of the machinery of warfare.

A casual observer may not guess that Johns Hopkins of all places ranks alongside such schools as American Military University in terms of “militarization.” After all, we’re a school known more for twitchy-eyed pre-meds. However, our institutional and informal connections with the military are very strong. The University receives more than half a billion dollars — $649,571,000 to be exact — from the Department of Defense to conduct military research. Most of this money goes to the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL). While APL conducts some outer space research, its main purpose is “defense” research, which really means developing weapons, from nuclear submarines to NSA data collection algorithms.

Beyond APL, the Johns Hopkins undergraduate and graduate programs funnel a lot of talent into the military-industrial complex. It’s not just ROTC, which isn’t out of the ordinary for a large university or particularly large for an ROTC program; Hopkins ranked as ninth in the country for “national security employment,” which is determined by the number of graduates who end up in a job that requires a Top Secret clearance or higher. Johns Hopkins University is a leader in recruiting young minds and bodies for the military and intelligence apparatus — which is not a title it should be proud of, especially when there is much more pressing and socially useful work for young engineers, doctors and statesmen. As anti-war activists often say, “You can’t eat a bomb.”

It could be argued that Mr. Hopkins would not be opposed to all involvement in the military on principle since he gave material support to the Union during the Civil War. But Hopkins’s support for the Union Army bears little relevance to any debate over the state of his namesake today.

The Civil War was both an existential threat to America, and more importantly, an opportunity to do away with slavery in North America once and for all; As Mike Field wrote for The Gazette in May 1995, Hopkins was raised an “abolitionist before the word was even invented.” The interventions of the modern U.S. military are nothing like the war Hopkins supported.

The present dangers faced by the American people are not of the kind that APL’s research can fix. Nor is there the kind of moral urgency that justified Hopkins’ assistance during the Civil War; The U.S. government often finds itself fighting for a faction one day and fighting against it the next. Niall Ferguson wrote for Foreign Affairs in 2005 that America’s wars are “more like the colonial warfare the British waged 100 years ago.” Even if you believe that the American military keeps the world stable, it would be quite a stretch to say that a Quaker abolitionist would be enthusiastic about creating peace by force of arms. As many members of the Society of Friends argue, inequality and racism are much greater threats to peace than terrorism, and the billions of dollars spent on military research are billions of dollars diverted from defending against ignorance and poverty.

And even if it necessary to develop weapons and recruit intelligence agents ­— why is this being done at a civilian research university?

Alan Dershowitz’s speech at the Milton S. Eisenhower Symposium has brought the debate on academic freedom to Hopkins. While much of the “free speech debate” is focused on student activists, the real elephant in the room is the presence of federal government funding. While funding given by an impartial body like the National Institute of Health might not have a major effect on education, something like the Applied Physics Laboratory gives an unelected arm of government massive amounts of influence over the University. Much of the research done at APL is classified, which goes against the University’s mission of the free and open exchange of ideas. In fact, foreigners — including, until recently, our own President Daniels — are not allowed in certain buildings because of the nature of the research performed there. If it’s necessary to restrict access to military research, why is being performed at a private research university where 9.3 percent of the undergraduate body is foreign?

While we don’t have to become an explicitly Quaker institution just because Johns Hopkins originated as one, we should at least seek to improve the world in the ways Johns Hopkins would have envisioned. It might be necessary for someone to train officers and research means of making war, it’s not necessary for us as a university. There are plenty of institutions that already exist for this purpose. Beyond that, we have to decide what kind of values we promote as a university. Do we value regimentation and service for the State, or do we value “independent and original research”? Do we want to sequester “dangerous” information away, or do we want “to bring the benefits of discovery to the world”? If our answer to both is the former, then we might as well do away with the Hopkins name along with the Hopkins values.

If anyone is interested in continuing this discussion or participating in peace activism on campus, please contact me at mpetti2@jhu.edu.

Matthew Petti is an undecided freshman from Englewood Cliffs, N.J.

The militarization of Hopkins added by The News-Letter on December 3, 2015

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-323-1607; 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

What Can Be Learned from Hillary Clinton's Slurs Against Reconstruction

Published on Portside (https://portside.org)

What Can Be Learned from Hillary Clinton's Slurs Against Reconstruction

http://theweek.com/articles/601417/what-learned-from-hillary-clintons-slurs-against-reconstruction

Ryan Cooper

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

The Week

On Easter Sunday in 1873, in Colfax, Louisiana, white terrorists murdered about 150 black Americans in cold blood.

The reason: simple political control. Democrats - then the party of white supremacist ex-Confederates - wanted control of the Colfax courthouse, which was the center of government for Grant Parish. Local politics in those days had largely decayed to a running guerrilla war between black Republicans and federal troops on one side, and white supremacist militias backing the Democrats on the other. So white Democrats overpowered the Republican garrison, forced them to surrender, then brutally murdered the black captives.

This was the single most violent episode of Reconstruction, according to historian Eric Foner [1]. Yet when describing why Abraham Lincoln was her favorite president at a candidate forum Monday night, Hillary Clinton butchered Reconstruction's history. It's a good opportunity to correct the record, and glean why Lincoln really was America's greatest president.

Here's Clinton:

[Lincoln] was willing to reconcile and forgive. And I don't know what our country might have been like had he not been murdered, but I bet that it might have been a little less rancorous, a little more forgiving and tolerant, that might possibly have brought people back together more quickly. But instead, you know, we had Reconstruction, we had the re-instigation of segregation and Jim Crow. We had people in the South feeling totally discouraged and defiant. So, I really do believe he could have very well put us on a different path. [CNN]

There are two problems here. Most glaring is the tacit endorsement of the racist Dunning School view of Reconstruction [2] as some bungled and unjustified imposition from the north, when in reality it was a briefly successful attempt [3] to build a true democracy in the South. Clinton implies that it was Southern anger at unjust Reconstruction policy that led them to institute Jim Crow, but in reality the entire point of the terrorist violence that overthrew Reconstruction was to re-institute white supremacy by crushing black political power. Jim Crow was the goal from the very end of the war [3].

The second problem flows from the first. Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson, actually was extremely forgiving and tolerant towards the defeated Confederates [4]. The result was to inflame violence. White Southerners were economically devastated and demoralized by losing the Civil War, and in early 1865 were largely resigned to whatever the North was going to impose. Later Reconstruction would get quite aggressive, but Johnson delayed things for many crucial months by vetoing everything Congress passed and pardoning tens of thousands of ex-Confederates. This gave the forces of white supremacy some crucial time to regroup and reorganize.

In other words, the problem with Reconstruction was not that it was too mean to the defeated slave-owning traitors of the Confederacy. The problem was that it was not mean enough - universal racial democracy should have been immediately and forcibly imposed, complete with a prolonged federal occupation of the South.

All this makes Clinton's explanation for why Lincoln was so great so much sentimental porridge. His entire presidency was consumed by the most violent war in the history of the Western Hemisphere - a war sparked by his election on a platform of halting the expansion of slavery. His true greatness lies in how he grew and changed during that war, deploying his peerless political mastery toward the preservation of the Union and the gradual extension of black rights.

At the beginning of his presidency, he still flirted with deporting black Americans to Africa; by the end he was a fervent defender of the rights of black soldiers. In response to pressure in 1864 to end the war by compromising on slavery, he leaned on the valor of black soldiers, 100,000 of whom were currently fighting in Union armies [5]: "Why should they give their lives for us, with full notice of our purpose to betray them?. I should be damned in time & in eternity for so doing. The world shall know that I will keep my faith to friends & enemies, come what will." It was a speech in favor of voting rights for black veterans that inspired yet another Confederate terrorist [6] to murder him.

In his book The Fiery Trial, Foner speculated [7] about how Lincoln might have headed Jim Crow off at the pass. It's easy to imagine him gradually evolving towards where the Radical Republicans ended up by 1867 [8]: in favor of a true multi-racial democracy, imposed by federal troops where necessary. Instead of Johnson's vile racism making the government work at cross-purposes, Lincoln would have shepherded the project with his trademark skill from the start.

At any rate, such is naught but speculation. But what is certain is that Lincoln would have had to use government force to protect black freedmen, and that he was no stranger to such action. The lesson for Clinton, as she and Bernie Sanders compete for the black vote, is that sustained government force - imposed over the howling objections of many white elites - has historically been the only thing that advanced black rights in this country.

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.

Source URL: https://portside.org/2016-01-29/what-can-be-learned-hillary-clintons-slurs-against-reconstruction

Links:

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Reconstruction-Updated-Unfinished-Revolution-1863-1877/dp/0062354515/?tag=thwe0f5-20
[2] http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/01/hillary-clinton-reconstruction/427095/
[3] http://theweek.com/articles/442582/how-souths-ugly-racial-history-haunting-obamacare
[4] http://theweek.com/articles/443168/what-learn-from-abraham-lincolns-greatest-mistake
[5] http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2007/03/29/what-did-he-really-think-about-race/
[6] https://books.google.com/books?id=a3nX48n4oeIC&pg=PA852&lpg=PA852&dq=%22that+means+nigger+citizenship%22&source=bl&ots=LzGFaKssf2&sig=T6BPmYKeWYmvjJvlc5cnABP1i00&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjJv7XZm8jKAhXM1CYKHZY4CJQQ6AEILzAD#v=onepage&q=%22that%20means%20nigger%20citizenship%22&f=false
[7] https://books.google.com/books?id=4b8m7cv3wTIC&pg=PA335&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false
[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstruction_Acts

- See more at: https://portside.org/print/node/10736#sthash.3mgs7w7P.dpuf

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-323-1607; 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

Noam Chomsky: Why the Republican Party Is a Threat to Human Survival

Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)

Noam Chomsky: Why the Republican Party Is a Threat to Human Survival

By Sarah Lazare [1] / AlterNet [2]

January 26, 2016

  Renowned scholar and activist Noam Chomsky declared this week that the GOP and its far-right front-runners are "literally a serious danger to decent human survival.”

    Speaking [3] with The Huffington Post on Monday, Chomsky cited the Republican Party’s refusal to tackle—or even acknowledge—the “looming environmental catastrophe” of climate change, thereby “dooming our grandchildren.”

    He went to rebuke the Republican party for its “abject service to private wealth and power” and dispossession of the poor.

    But Chomsky made it clear that his conviction that “the Republican Party has drifted off the rails” and must be stopped by no means amounts to an endorsement of Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton—who he has previously criticized [4] as hawkish and opportunistic.

    In fact, he told The Huffington Post that the United States has what amounts to a one-party system—with both Democrats and Republicans united by business interests. Yet, within those parameters, he argued, small differences do matter, given the immense power of the American political system.

  And Senator Bernie Sanders, Chomsky recently told [5] Mehdi Hasan of Al Jazeera’s UpFront show, “would--of the current candidates--be the one who would have, from my point of view, the best policies.”

  "I agree with him in a lot of things, not in other things," Chomsky said, calling him “basically a new dealer.”

   "I frankly think that in our system of mainly bought elections, he doesn't have much of a chance,” he continued. However, recent polling [6] in early primary states bodes well for Sanders, and one survey [7] found him more electable than Clinton when matched against Trump, Cruz, or Rubio.

   Whatever happens, Chomsky told Hasan, he plans to strategically vote against the GOP, which he says wants to “destroy the world.”

 Sarah Lazare is a staff writer for AlterNet. A former staff writer for Common Dreams, Sarah co-edited the book About Face: Military Resisters Turn Against War. Follow her on Twitter at @sarahlazare [8].

Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@alternet.org'. [9]

        [10]

Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/noam-chomsky-why-republican-party-threat-human-survival

Links:

[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/sarah-lazare-0
[2] http://alternet.org
[3] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/noam-chomsky-gop_us_56a66febe4b0d8cc109aec78
[4] http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/noam-chomsky-criticize-hillary-clinton-like-obama-118870
[5] http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/01/noam-chomsky-bernie-sanders-policies-election-160125180058899.html
[6] http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/why-there-media-blackout-bernie-beating-trump-polls
[7] http://maristpoll.marist.edu/110-cruz-and-trump-vie-in-ia-trump-nh-favorite-clinton-and-sanders-competitive/
[8] https://twitter.com/sarahlazare
[9] mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on Noam Chomsky: Why the Republican Party Is a Threat to Human Survival
[10] http://www.alternet.org/
[11] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-323-1607; 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

How the Post-9/11 Antiwar Movement Was Erased From History

 www.commondreams.org/views/2016/02/03/how-post-911-antiwar-movement-was-erased-history

Wednesday, February 03, 2016

TomDispatch

How the Post-9/11 Antiwar Movement Was Erased From History

Tom Engelhardt

An anti-war demonstrator wearing an 'Out of Iraq Now!' bumpersticker which Common Dreams distributed by the tens of thousands following the illegal invasion in 2003. (Photo: Portland Press Herald/archive)

     Who even remembers the moment in mid-February 2003, almost 13 years ago, when millions of people across this country and the planet turned out in an antiwar moment unique in history? It was aimed at stopping a conflict that had yet to begin. Those demonstrators, myself included, were trying to put pressure on the administration of George W. Bush not to do what its top officials so visibly, desperately wanted to do: invade Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, garrison it for decades to come, and turn that country into an American gas station. None of us were seers. We didn’t fully grasp what that invasion would set off, nor did we imagine a future terror caliphate in Iraq and Syria, but we did know that, if it was launched, some set of disasters was guaranteed; we knew beyond a doubt that this would not end well.

    We had an analysis of the disaster to come and you could glimpse it on the handmade signs we carried to those vast demonstrations (some of which I recorded at the time): “Remember when presidents were smart and bombs were dumb?”; “Contain Saddam -- and Bush”; “Use our might to persuade, not invade”; “How did USA's oil get under Iraq's sand?”; “Pre-emptive war is terrorism"; “We don’t buy it, liberate Florida”; and so on. We felt in our bones that it was no business of Washington’s to decide what Iraq should be by force of arms and that American imperial desires in the Greater Middle East were suspect indeed. And we turned out to make that point so impressively that, on the front page of the New York Times, journalist Patrick Tyler referred to us as the planet’s second superpower. (“The fracturing of the Western alliance over Iraq and the huge antiwar demonstrations around the world this weekend are reminders that there may still be two superpowers on the planet: the United States and world public opinion.”)

    "At a time when Americans should have been in the streets saying hell no, we better not go, the Bush administration and then the Obama administration were repeating the same militarized mistakes endlessly, while turning the Greater Middle East into a charnel house of failure. "

     Of course, this vast upsurge of global opposition would prove to be right on the mark, while all the brilliant policymakers and pundits in Washington who beat the drums loudly for war were desperately wrong. And yet the invasion did happen and, in its disastrous wake, we, not they, were wiped out of history. None of us would be consulted when the retrospectives began. No one would want to hear from those who had been right about the invasion (only officials and “experts” who had been dismally wrong). In the process that pre-war movement of ours would essentially be erased from history.

    Mind you, we knew that, whatever we did, George W. Bush was bound and determined to invade Iraq. As Iput it that February, “I'm not a total fool. I know -- as I've long been writing in these dispatches -- that this administration is hell-bent for a war. The build-up in the Gulf during these days of demonstrations has been unceasing. I still expect that war to come, and soon. Nonetheless, I find myself amazed by the variegated mass of humanity that turned out yesterday... The world has actually spoken and largely in words of its own. It has issued a warning to our leaders, which, given the history of ‘the people’ and the countless demonstrations of the people's many (sometimes frightening) powers from 1776 on, is to be ignored at the administration's peril.”

    On that, unfortunately, I was wrong. We were indeed ignored and it didn’t prove to be “at the administration’s peril” (not in the normal sense anyway). The large-scale antiwar movement barely made it into the war years. There were a couple of massive demonstrations still to come, but as time went on, as things got worse, as the situation in Iraq devolved and those millions of demonstrators were proven to have been unbearably on the right side of history, the antiwar movement itself essentially disappeared, except for scattered veterans' groups and heroic protesters like the members of Code Pink.

     At a time when Americans should have been in the streets saying hell no, we better not go, the Bush administration and then the Obama administration were repeating the same militarized mistakes endlessly, while turning the Greater Middle East into a charnel house of failure. Today, as Pentagon officials prepare for their next set of forays, interventions, drone assassination campaigns, and special ops raids in, among other places, Libya -- and what could possibly go wrong there? -- next to no one is pressuring or opposing them, next to nothing is in their way. As a result, Ira Chernus’s new piece, “America’s New Vietnam in the Middle East,” on what’s missing from the missing antiwar movement in America couldn’t be more timely.

© 2016 TomDispatch.com

Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute'sTomDispatch.com. His latest book is, Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World (with an introduction by Glenn Greenwald). Previous books include Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050 (co-authored with Nick Turse), The United States of Fear, The American Way of War: How Bush's Wars Became Obama's, The End of Victory Culture: a History of the Cold War and Beyond, as well as of a novel, The Last Days of Publishing.  To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com here.

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Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-323-1607; 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

Most CITIZEN ACTIVISTS ARRESTED ON U.S. CAPITOL STEPS January 12 URGING PRESIDENT OBAMA TO DELIVER A REAL STATE OF THE UNION ARE TO BE ARRAIGNED/Ratcheting Tensions, Obama Orders Huge Weapons Increase Along EU-Russia Border

Most CITIZEN ACTIVISTS ARRESTED ON U.S. CAPITOL STEPS January 12 URGING PRESIDENT OBAMA TO DELIVER A REAL STATE OF THE UNION ARE TO BE ARRAIGNED

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 2, 2016

Contacts: Joy First 608 239-4327 or joyfirst5 at gmail.com, Malachy Kilbride 301-283-7627or malachykilbride at yahoo.com,  or Max Obuszewski 727-543-3227 or mobuszewski at verizon.net

WHAT:  On January 12 around 3 PM. a group of Citizen Activists, as part of the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance, marched to the U.S. Capitol, and a delegation asked a Capitol Police representative if the petition calling on President Obama to deliver a Real State of the Union and a list of alleged U.S. war crimes could be delivered to the office of the vice-president.  The representative denied the request, but indicated he would grant a permit to demonstrate in an area away from the Capitol steps.  He was informed that the demonstration was completed, and now the group wanted the petition to be delivered.  Because the citizen activists were being denied their First Amendment rights, they gathered on the lower steps holding a banner which read STOP THE WAR MACHING EXPORT PEACE and sang the traditional “WE SHALL NOT BE MOVED.” Thirteen of them were then arrested and charged with “incommoding and obstructing.”

    Carol Gay, from New Jersey, Martin Gugino, from Buffalo, Joy First and Phil Runkel, from Wisconsin, Malachy Kilbride, a Maryland Quaker, Linda LeTendre, from Saratoga Springs, New York, Joan Nicholson, a Pennsylvania Quaker, Max Obuszewski, Baltimore, Janice Sevre-Duszynska, from Kentucky, Trudy Silver & Alice Sutter, from New York City, Brian Terrell, Iowa, and the venerable Eve Tetaz in a walker, Washington, D.C.  They were to be arraigned in D.C. Superior Court at 11 AM on February 3.  However, the government has dismissed the charge against Gugino, Runkel, Sevre-Duszynska and Silver.  There seems to be no rhyme nor reason why four members of the group had the charge dismissed.  Possibly the prosecuting attorney felt 13 was an unlucky number.  Nevertheless, the Capitol Steps Nine look forward to their day in court.  Two of the defendants, Kilbride and Obuszewski, will attend the arraignment, and attorney Mark Goldstone will stand in for the others.

   

   At the arraignment, a request will be made for a motions hearing. The activists hope to file several pre-trial motions—Motion to Consolidate, Preservation of Evidence, Motion for Extended Discovery & Defendant’s Pre-Trial Notice of Defenses & Legal Brief/Motion of Limine. The idea is to have these matters settled before trial. At the arraignment, it is expected that a trial date will be set.   The nine defendants will argue that their First Amendment right to petition the government with a redress of grievances was denied on January 12.  In their arguments, the defendants will remind the court that the Capitol belongs to the people.

 www.commondreams.org/news/2016/02/02/ratcheting-tensions-obama-orders-huge-weapons-increase-along-eu-russia-border

Tuesday, February 02, 2016

Ratcheting Tensions, Obama Orders Huge Weapons Increase Along EU-Russia Border

Just last week, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov referred to NATO's build-up near Russia's borders as "counterproductive and dangerous."

Deirdre Fulton, staff writer

During a 2015 NATO exercise. (Photo: Gonzalo Alonso/flickr/cc)

   Less than a week after Russia's foreign minister warned that NATO's military build-up near Russia's borders is "counterproductive and dangerous," the United States is ramping up the deployment of heavy weapons and armored vehicles to NATO member countries in Central and Eastern Europe, the New York Times reported Tuesday.

   Administration officials told the Times "the additional NATO forces were calculated to send a signal to President Vladimir V. Putin that the West remained deeply suspicious of his motives in the region," referring to Russia's ongoing presence in eastern Ukraine.

   According to the paper, "the administration plans to pay for the additional weapons and equipment with a budget request of more than $3.4 billion for military spending in Europe in 2017, several officials said Monday, more than quadrupling the current budget of $789 million. The weapons and equipment will be used by American and NATO forces, ensuring that the alliance can maintain a full armored combat brigade in the region at all times."

   The equipment could be deployed in Hungary, Romania, and the Baltic countries, Pentagon officials said.

  The Times reports:

The official said the Pentagon wanted a “heel to toe” rotational troop presence in Eastern Europe, meaning that there would always be the equivalent of a brigade in the region. Under a 1997 agreement known as the NATO-Russia Founding Act, both sides pledged not to station large numbers of troops along their respective borders.

Administration officials said they were confident that the new deployments would not be seen as breaching that agreement. In any event, Poland and the Baltic States argue that Russia’s incursion in Ukraine was a clear violation of the act, and that NATO should no longer abide by it.

Nikolay Patrushev, head of the Russian Security Council, highlighted this disconnect in an interview with the Associated Press. "What sort of trust can we talk about?" he asked. "You can see it yourself that NATO is making promises, but it never keeps any of the promises made to our country, it does not take our interests into consideration."

   It is is merely the most recent example of saber-rattling on the part of the U.S. and NATO against Russia.

     Last week, NATO General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance would step up its military exercises in 2016, "noting that Russian operations near the alliance’s borders have increased dramatically," the Wall Street Journal reported at the time.

   "We see a more assertive Russia to the east…that has shown a will to change borders in Europe," Stoltenberg said.

   Meanwhile, Romania over the weekend announced its desire to station a permanent alliance fleet—including ships from Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Germany, Italy, and the U.S.—in the Black Sea to counter what they see as Russia's rising involvement in the region.

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Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-323-1607; 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