[Peace-discuss] [Peace] 3pm today: "EMERGENCY: Is the US going to war with Russia over Ukraine?" Code Pink webinar

[karen aram]

Robert 


I wasn’t going to continue conversing on the Peace List, but your vilification of Medea Benjamin warrants a response: 

Your final paragraph vilifying Medea Benjamin as

"undercutting Yemeni-American leadership on ending unconstitutional U.S. participation in the Saudi war-blockade-famine-genocide in Yemen? Ego? Ignorance? Is she jealous of Danaka, does she feel threatened by Danaka’s leadership? Is it some Green Party thing? I don’t know.” 

is disingenuous to say the least. 

Medea is not managed by any Party affiliation. Least of all the Green Party, who in spite of her activities and affiliation with the Party, has a very open/loose structure in respect to it’s organization, allowing all manner of political thought, often not representational.

Medea has worked closely with other groups focused on "Anti-war," over the years. She is one of the sponsors of the "anti-Nato," protests in Washington DC today. The encroachment of Nato on Russia, is a very serious issue rivaling that of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which maybe why she scheduled the webinar related to Nato, as quickly as she did.

Some, myself included, have had disagreement related to Medea on issues, trivial when viewing the big picture of her activities. She does not deserve your vilification of her, anymore than your vilification of me as "stupid and evil." 

Medea’s record and actions speaks for itself. See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medea_Benjamin <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medea_Benjamin>.

I won’t be responding to any further communications.




> On Jan 26, 2022, at 9:01 AM, Robert Naiman <naiman.uiuc at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> I apologize to Karen Aram and Stuart Levy. 
> 
> We have a problem on Yemen at CODEPINK. The problem is Susan “Medea” Benjamin. “Medea” is undercutting Yemeni-American leadership on ending unconstitutional U.S. participation in the Saudi war-blockade-famine-genocide in Yemen. 
> 
> There were 70 people last night on the “emergency” CODEPINK event on Yemen organized by Danaka Katovich, who is the is the Middle East and Peace Collective coordinator for CODEPINK. The marquee presenter at Danaka’s event was Dr. Aisha Jumaan, the most prominent Yemeni-American expert speaking out and organizing against unconstitutional U.S. participation in the Saudi war-blockade-famine-genocide in Yemen. 
> 
> There were 500 people yesterday afternoon on the “emergency” CODEPINK event on Ukraine organized by Medea. Which was scheduled by Medea the same day as Daneka’s CODEPINK Yemen event, after Danaka had already scheduled the “emergency” CODEPINK Yemen event. 
> 
> The marquee presenter at Medea’s event, which she scheduled against Danaka’s event, was Col. Larry Wilkerson. During Medea’s Ukraine event, Larry Wilkerson said “Yemen War Powers,” because that’s who Larry Wilkerson is. But Medea never said “Yemen War Powers,” because that’s who Medea is. 
> 
> Why is Medea doing this? Why is Medea undercutting Yemeni-American leadership on ending unconstitutional U.S. participation in the Saudi war-blockade-famine-genocide in Yemen? Ego? Ignorance? Is she jealous of Danaka, does she feel threatened by Danaka’s leadership? Is it some Green Party thing? I don’t know.
> 
> On Tue, Jan 25, 2022 at 10:53 PM Stuart Levy <stuartnlevy at gmail.com <mailto:stuartnlevy at gmail.com>> wrote:
> I wish I could also have been on tonight's call about Yemen.   That seems like a fight that could be won in the near term.   
> 
> I don't know whether we can affect the frantic rhetoric over Russia.    Maybe a little.   Of course it isn't new, just more extreme.   When Oliver Stone came to speak at Ebertfest in I think 2014, he was pointing out then, that politicians with support of media had returned to Cold War language.    Even if it never turns into a hot war, marinating ourselves in aggrieved blood soaked rhetoric is bad for our already unhealthy national mind.
> 
> I don't want to see advocates of addressing either cause dismissing people who want to address the other.    It's pointlessly ugly.   
> 
> And as was pointed out on the Code Pink Ukraine call today, the latter influences the former: it will now be harder to get Congress to close the Saudi/UAE war spigot because of the warmongering over Russia.
> 
> I've taken (some) actions in support of Yemen and against our provision of weapons for the Saudis/UAE in the past.    I'd be happy to take them in the future.   I hadn't heard until this morning about tonight's Code Pink mobilization for action on Yemen.
> 
> Robert, I hope you will continue letting the peace list know of events like that.   It does us a good service, and may bring in some supporters.
> 
>      Stuart
> 
> 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20220127/8a0c8f6b/attachment.htm>