<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class="userContent _3576 _3ds9 _5pbx" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="js_22"><p class="">[Flyer for the AWARE anti-war demonstration in downtown Champaign (Main & Neil Sts.), 2-4pm on Saturday, September 1, 2018]</p><p class=""> SEPTEMBER 1, 2018 ~ THE U.S. GOVERNMENT<br class=""> IS MAKING WAR AROUND THE WORLD</p><p class=""> ...the clever hopes expire<br class=""> Of a low dishonest decade:<br class=""> Waves of anger and fear<br class=""> Circulate over the bright <br class=""> And darkened lands of the earth,<br class=""> Obsessing our private lives;<br class=""> The unmentionable odor of death<br class=""> Offends the September night.</p><p class=""> ...I and the public know<br class=""> What all schoolchildren learn,<br class=""> Those to whom evil is done<br class=""> Do evil in return. </p><p class=""> ...The enlightenment driven away,<br class=""> The habit-forming pain,<br class=""> Mismanagement and grief:<br class=""> We must suffer them all again.</p><p class=""> Into this neutral air<br class=""> Where blind skyscrapers use<br class=""> Their full height to proclaim<br class=""> The strength of Collective Man,<br class=""> Each language pours its vain<br class=""> Competitive excuse:<br class=""> But who can live for long<br class=""> In an euphoric dream;<br class=""> Out of the mirror they stare,<br class=""> Imperialism’s face<br class=""> And the international wrong.</p><p class=""> ...All the conventions conspire <br class=""> To make this fort assume<br class=""> The furniture of home;<br class=""> Lest we should see where we are,<br class=""> Lost in a haunted wood,<br class=""> Children afraid of the night<br class=""> Who have never been happy or good...</p><p class="">
--from ‘September 1, 1939’ by W. H. Auden (1907-73). Announcing, “We
are finally shooting back,” Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939,
and World War II in Europe began. <br class=""> ~<br class="">
Imperialism’s face and the international wrong today are the wars the
U.S. is waging around the world, and its war provocations against Russia
and China that risk a wider - even nuclear - war. <br class=""> ~ Although most
Americans are not aware of it, the U.S. government is today waging war -
and killing people - in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia,
Syria, and Yemen - principally to control the flow of oil out of the
Mideast and North Africa, which the US uses as a weapon against its
economic rivals from Germany to China.<br class=""> ~ The ongoing drone
assassination program - called by Noam Chomsky “the most extreme
terrorist campaign of modern times' - has killed thousands (most not the
presumed targets), including American citizens and hundreds of
children.<br class=""> ~ More than a quarter of a million US troops are
stationed in a thousand US bases on foreign soil, most of them
surrounding Russia and China.<br class=""> ~ The 70,000-members of the U.S.
‘Special Operations Command’ are active in 75% of the countries of the
world. Their activities include kidnapping (‘rendition’), torture, and
murder. </p><p class=""> The rest of the world recognizes that the U.S. today is
what Martin Luther King called it long ago, the “greatest purveyor of
violence in the world today.” </p><p class=""> With other peace groups around the
world, we call upon President Trump and the U.S. government to close
all foreign military bases, bring all U.S. troops (and weapons) home,
and provide social supports - including free medical care, education,
and a universal basic income - for Americans, who have been immiserated
by generations of U.S. government wars.</p><p class=""> AWARE, the ANTI-WAR ANTI-RACISM EFFORT - on Facebook at <AWARE of Champaign-Urbana Illinois></p><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">###</div></div></body></html>