[Peace-discuss] [Peace] Sunday's AWARE meeting

Thu Jun 14 00:07:31 UTC 2018

Here’s the sort of thing we’re distributing at demonstrations now:

AMERICANS ARE AGAINST U.S. WAR-MAKING
DEMAND AN END TO U.S. KILLING IN OUR NAME

Obama and Trump were both elected as anti-war candidates
In office, both sent more U.S. troops to Afghanistan to increase the killing
~
The U.S. military is today killing people in seven Mideast and African countries - Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan. Thousands of U.S. troops are fighting in these countries, although most Americans don’t know that.  In addition, the 70,000-member U.S. ‘Special Operations Command’ is active in three-quarters of the countries of the world. Their activities include kidnapping (‘rendition’), torture, and murder.

President Obama was elected as an anti-war candidate, but in office he expanded the wars he inherited and vastly increased the war provocations against Russia and China; his drone assassinations were rightly called “the most extreme terrorist campaign of modern times.”

President Trump, who promised caution and non-interventionism in foreign policy - and described Hillary Clinton as a “trigger happy warmonger” - has now done the same things himself.

What both men knew is that, in spite of intense media propaganda, most Americans don’t want U.S. troops engaged in foreign wars and don’t see the killing as justified; they had to agree, in order to get elected.

But the ‘one percent’ - the U.S. economic elite - do want the wars.

U.S. presidents have killed more than 20 million people in wars around the world since World War II. That war left the U.S. elite in an unprecedented position of world economic dominance. U.S. wars since then - in Korea, Vietnam, Latin America, and the Mideast - have had the purpose of “maintaining the disparity,” as U.S. diplomat George Kennan wrote in 1948.

Ordinary Americans have paid for these vicious wars, but they haven’t profited from them. Most Americans are not aware of how much of the world is appalled at what the U.S. government has done in our lifetimes. It is a triumph of the American system of propaganda and intellectual control - the most effective in history - that Americans are able to ignore it.

For many years the U.S. has attempted to exercise military control over the Mideast and its energy resources. The U.S. doesn’t need oil from the Mideast, but Mideast gas and oil are needed by America’s economic competitors in Europe and Asia, and so control over them gives the U.S. a major advantage over China, Germany, and other countries - a chokehold which benefits only the American one percent. In 2003 the U.S. illegally invaded Iraq - and killed perhaps a million people - and now has thousands of troops and mercenaries throughout the Mideast.

The U.S. government says that we’re fighting terrorism, but we are in fact creating terrorists in response to our invasions, bombing campaigns, and drone assassinations, which have killed more than 5,000 people, including U.S. citizens and hundreds of children. 

AWARE, the ‘Anti-War Anti-Racism Effort’ of Champaign-Urbana, joins other anti-war groups in the United States and around the world to call upon President Trump to

~ (1) establish a foreign policy based on diplomacy, international law, and human rights;
~ (2) end U.S. wars in the Mideast and war provocations against Russia (in Eastern Europe) and China (in the South China Sea), and stop the drone assassinations;
~ (3) cut military spending by at least 50% and close the more than 800 U.S. military bases on foreign soil (Russia has twelve; China has one); bring all U.S. troops (and weapons) - in 3/4 of the world’s countries - home;
~ (4) stop U.S. support for human rights abusers, notably Israel and Saudi Arabia; and
~ (5) lead on global nuclear disarmament.

ANTI-WAR ANTI-RACISM EFFORT - on Facebook at <AWARE of Champaign Urbana Illinois>
~ U.S. troops & weapons out of the Mideast ~ Medicare for all ~ Universal basic income 

> On Jun 13, 2018, at 7:04 PM, C G Estabrook via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
> 
> Hi, Lois.
> 
> Susan and her colleagues were of course vital to the formation of AWARE, all those years ago.
> 
> We would be delighted to have them back at the demonstrations she started - informing the local community of the present US war crimes.  
> 
> Regards, CGE
> 
> 
>> On Jun 13, 2018, at 5:43 PM, Lois Steinberg via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>> 
>> Historical correction _ The regular demonstrations started shortly after 9/11 when Susan Parenti came up with LAW, Ladies Against War (men were welcome). We dressed up and protested at noon (I forgot which day) in front of the Urbana Free Library. 
>> 
>> On Thu, Jun 14, 2018 at 3:27 AM, bjornsona--- via Peace <peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>> Hi Carl. Will AWARE be meeting this Sunday on Father's Day?
>> 
>> Sent from my LG Phoenix 2, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone
>> 
>> ------ Original message------
>> From: Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss
>> Date: Wed, Jun 13, 2018 3:14 PM
>> To: Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss;
>> Cc: peace;
>> Subject:[Peace-discuss] Minutes from Sunday's AWARE meeting
>> 
>> AWARE Meeting, 5-6pm, Sunday, June 10, 2018
>> ==============================
>> =====
>> Hammerhead Coffee, University & Wright, Champaign
>> 
>> A sparsely-attended regular meeting of the 'Anti-War, Anti-Racism Effort of Champaign-Urbana' considered the various outlets for the publication of anti-war concerns in C-U this summer:
>> 
>> PRESS
>> ~ ‘The Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette’ - under new editors - runs letters (250 words), occasional guest columns (700 words), and ‘Sunday Extras’ (500 words) on war topics. Despite its frequently objectionable editorials, the N-G maintains a letters column where differing political opinions are juxtaposed.
>> ~ ’Smile Politely’ runs articles, blog posts, and often comments of interest to the anti-war movement. A ’News from Neptune’ column - from the UPTV show - appears occasionally.
>> ~ ‘The Daily Illini’ publishes letters from AWAREists with a UIUC connection.
>> 
>> INTERNET
>> ~ There is a Facebook page ‘AWARE of Champaign Urbana Illinois’ at 
>> .
>> ~ AWARE also has two email lists, 'peace-discuss' 
>> and ' and 'peace' 
>> .
>> ~ ‘CounterPunch’ is a leading political website, publishing a number of articles each day, and a magazine, published six times per year. The editor-in-chief is a FOA (Friend of AWARE) and publishes material from AWAREists - including Doctor Know (J. B. Nicholson), research director for 'AWARE on the Air.'
>> 
>> DEMONSTRATIONS
>> ~ AWARE’s regular demonstrations, 2-4pm on the first Saturday of the month, go back 15 years - a tradition once called ‘The Main Event’ (from its location at Main & Neil Streets in downtown Champaign).
>> ~ The Urbana Farmers’ Market hosts an AWARE table with anti-war flyers, books, buttons and bumper stickers on various Saturdays through the summer. 
>> ~ AWARE has participated in demonstrations sponsored by other groups, notably the Fourth of July parade, for which AWARE in the past has prepared notable floats (when we were younger...)    
>> 
>> TELEVISION 
>> ~ ‘AWARE on the Air’ is a weekly hour of anti-war discussion, recorded at noon on Tuesdays at the studios of Urbana Public Television. It’s cable-cast on UPTV, but it seems to find most of its viewers on YouTube.
>> 
>> RADIO
>> ~ The audio of ‘AWARE on the Air’ is carried by WRFU-LP (104.5 FM, ‘Radio Free Urbana’), which also features other programs of interest to AWAREists and their audience, notably ‘The History Hour,’ ’The Illinois World Labor Hour,’ and ‘News from Neptune.’
>> 
>> OTHER LOCAL POLITICAL GROUPS
>> ~ AWARE joins other anti-war/anti-racism groups in C-U for particular demonstrations. Upcoming is an ‘ICE Out of CU!’ rally at Drury Inn Hotel in Champaign, on Saturday 23 June at 11 am.                  
>> 
>> ###
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