From stuartnlevy at gmail.com Thu Dec 1 05:31:02 2016 From: stuartnlevy at gmail.com (stuartnlevy) Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2016 23:31:02 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Iraq tribunal / petition to the ICC to examine US war crimes -- Fwd: Our Chance to Hold War Makers Accountable Message-ID: -------- Original message --------From: "World Beyond War via WorldBeyondWar.org" Date: 11/29/16 09:27 (GMT-06:00) To: stuartnlevy at gmail.com Subject: Our Chance to Hold War Makers Accountable As the International Criminal Court loses any remaining credibility as a truly international and neutral body, it has finally claimed to be considering investigating certain war crimes of the world's greatest wager of war. If the ICC hears from people all over the world, including from the United States, that we want U.S. war makers held accountable the same as any others, the ICC just might save itself and the idea of international justice along with it. To: Fatou Bensouda, Prosecutor for the International Criminal Court We encourage you to also prosecute war crimes by non-Africans including by U.S. war criminals. SIGN HERE. Why is this important? The ICC is degrading rather than enhancing the idea of international justice by giving a free pass to Western war makers. The United States has itself given a free pass to its war makers, kidnappers, torturers, and assassins. The U.S. president-elect and his advisors openly plan to violate laws against war, torture, and the targeting of civilians. The people of the United States and the world need the ICC to fulfill its mission and step in where domestic justice has failed. Background: > Preliminary ICC report on consideration of investigating U.S. crimes in Afghanistan and at secret sites in other countries. > New York Times report. > Congressman Ted Lieu on U.S. and Saudi war crimes in Yemen. > John LaForge article. ADD YOUR NAME. ***** Watch the Iraq Tribunal Live Stream This Thursday World Beyond War director David Swanson and many of our friends and allies will be testifying. Learn more about it now, and watch it live on both December 1st and December 2nd from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET (GMT-5) at http://IraqTribunal.org ***** On Giving Tuesday support the world-wide campaign to abolish all war! World Beyond War is now interviewing some outstanding candidates for the job of fulltime organizer. And we're about to launch a global campaign to divest public money from weapons dealers. We can only do this work with your generous support, needed now more than ever! DONATE HERE. ***** Sign the Declaration of Peace. Find events all over the world that you can take part in. Join us on Facebook and Twitter. Support World Beyond War's work by clicking here. Find out why we support World Beyond War: Sent via ActionNetwork.org. To update your email address or to stop receiving emails from World Beyond War, please click here. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From carl at newsfromneptune.com Thu Dec 1 05:44:11 2016 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2016 23:44:11 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] News of the next eight weeks In-Reply-To: References: <33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413d0707cabd5.20161128011813@mail252.suw12.mcsv.net> <041A5F62-49DE-4B54-A7E6-78B285B44998@newsfromneptune.com> Message-ID: <9C04AC54-7D32-4A30-A5DD-337331D43E43@newsfromneptune.com> 1.) The Green/Dem recounts/challenges draw down the Electoral College vote so that neither Trump nor Clinton reaches a majority. 2.) The selection of a president is thus thrown into the House of Representatives, where each state has one vote, regardless of population. 3.) Clinton receives 26 votes from state delegations (which are not required to follow their state's election results) and is declared president. 4.) Protests and riots break out, mainly in the Midwest and South, but elsewhere as well; the Obama administration puts them down vigorously, using the militarized police and the National Guard. 5.) On January 20, 2017, President Hillary Clinton is inaugurated in a Washington DC patrolled by the military. 6.) President Clinton declares (on the legal authority of the 2001 AUMF) a no-fly/safe zone over Aleppo and other rebel areas in Syria. 7.) Confrontations between Russian and American planes result in shoot-downs and widening conflict in Syria and elsewhere in MENA; Iran and Israel are drawn in; each side threatens the use of tactical nuclear weapons. 8.) The president - vowing to "Bring Us Together!" - (re)declares a National Emergency, owing to the spreading war in the Mideast, and orders the suppression of all political demonstrations (and unofficial commentary) for the duration of hostilities (e.g., the sites on the WaPo PropOrNot list are shut down). ### From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Thu Dec 1 19:34:21 2016 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2016 13:34:21 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] FW: WORLD LABOR HOUR SAT. DEC. 3rd Message-ID: <00ea01d24c09$ed9e5900$c8db0b00$@comcast.net> WORLD LABOR HOUR SATURDAY DEC. 3rd 11 AM - 1 PM U.S. Central Time 104.5 FM and live world-wide at www.wrfu.net TWO AUTHORS OF IMPORTANT BOOKS - ROGER SILVERMAN - Will call in from London U.K. to talk about his book " DEFIANCE ; GREECE AND EUROPE " - The current class struggle in Greece against austerity and oligarchic power. And DAWN PALEY - Will call in from Mexico City to talk about her book " DRUG WAR CAPITALISM " - How the drug war is being used as a smoke screen to force neo-liberal economic austerity policies in Latin America. Also - Part 2 of Gus Wood's synopsis of Fidel Castro and the Cuban revolution. Stay tuned after the World Labor Hour for THE UNION EDGE , with Host Charles Showalter. Broadcast from Pittsburg Pa. WRFU - Radio Free Urbana - corporate free community radio for the people. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Thu Dec 1 21:15:27 2016 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2016 15:15:27 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] FW: CORRECTION ! - WORLD LABOR HOUR SAT. DEC. 3rd In-Reply-To: <016101d24c17$e7e159f0$b7a40dd0$@comcast.net> References: <016101d24c17$e7e159f0$b7a40dd0$@comcast.net> Message-ID: <017101d24c18$1091c380$31b54a80$@comcast.net> WORLD LABOR HOUR SATURDAY DEC. 3rd 11 AM - 1 PM U.S. Central Time 104.5 FM and live world-wide at www.wrfu.net TWO AUTHORS OF IMPORTANT BOOKS - ROGER SILVERMAN - Will call in from London U.K. to talk about his book " DEFIANCE ; GREECE AND EUROPE " - The current class struggle in Greece against austerity and oligarchic power. And MARCUS REDIKER - will call to talk about his classic book ' THE MANY HEADED HYDRA " - Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Revolutionary Atlantic - multi ethnic resistance to capitalism and slavery. Also - Part 2 of Gus Wood's synopsis of Fidel Castro and the Cuban revolution. Stay tuned after the World Labor Hour for THE UNION EDGE , with Host Charles Showalter. Broadcast from Pittsburg Pa. WRFU - Radio Free Urbana - corporate free community radio for the people. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fboyle at illinois.edu Thu Dec 1 22:24:28 2016 From: fboyle at illinois.edu (Boyle, Francis A) Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2016 22:24:28 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] FW: NYT: Ohio State Attacker Message-ID: Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign, IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) From: Boyle, Francis A Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2016 4:24 PM To: SECTNS.aals at lists.aals.org Subject: NYT: Ohio State Attacker "{His} post called Mr. Awlaki, an American citizen killed by a United States drone strike in Yemen, a hero." Way to go Killer Koh, Murdering Marty Lederman, Davey Barron, Obama, Clinton et al. Your bigotry and racism and bloodlust against Muslims of Color created a "hero" and "martyr"! No surprise there coming from these Harvard/Yale Law products. Fab Carl Schmitt College of Law: "Mein Fuhrer, I can walk!" Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign, IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brussel at illinois.edu Fri Dec 2 01:54:25 2016 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2016 01:54:25 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?q?Other_views_to_consider=E2=80=A6?= Message-ID: A couple of worthwhile opinions: https://williamblum.org/aer/read/147 and http://davidswanson.org/node/5367 …even without agreeing to everything stated. It is more than educational to read these authors. —mkb -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From galliher at illinois.edu Fri Dec 2 03:19:47 2016 From: galliher at illinois.edu (Carl G. Estabrook) Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2016 21:19:47 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?q?Other_views_to_consider=E2=80=A6?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <52907A7E-8FB0-4891-9399-1278F52CDDF7@illinois.edu> For more (if you can stand it) of the horrible story Swanson tells, see "Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization” (2008), by Nicholson Baker. And Swanson’s right about Gore Vidal. I’ve advised students who want to know something about modern US history to read not only Chomsky, Alperovitz, et al., but Vidal’s "'Narratives of Empire" as well: "a heptalogy [ = seven novels in a series; cf. works of J. K. Rowling] of historical novels ... published between 1967 and 2000, which chronicle the dawn-to-decadence history of the American Empire; the narratives interweave the personal stories of two families with the personages and events of U.S. history” >. —CGE > On Dec 1, 2016, at 7:54 PM, Brussel, Morton K via Peace-discuss wrote: > > A couple of worthwhile opinions: > > https://williamblum.org/aer/read/147 > > and > > http://davidswanson.org/node/5367 > > …even without agreeing to everything stated. It is more than educational to read these authors. > > —mkb > > > > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stuartnlevy at gmail.com Sat Dec 3 00:15:40 2016 From: stuartnlevy at gmail.com (Stuart Levy) Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2016 18:15:40 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] AWARE anti-war demonstration tomorrow, Sat 12/3, 2-4pm Message-ID: <516a6b56-1261-5060-20aa-ab2d8fea992a@gmail.com> The wars are still on, and we can still stand up to oppose them. Neither of the major party Presidential candidates was any sort of peace candidate. Let's remind the people of Champaign-Urbana that it's still worth speaking out against war even while we live a system that thrives on promoting it. Join us if you like at the usual place and time - 2-4PM, first Saturday of the month (tomorrow 12/3), at the corner of Main and Neil in downtown Champaign. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From carl at newsfromneptune.com Sat Dec 3 01:27:39 2016 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2016 19:27:39 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] AWARE demonstration Saturday/Dec. 3rd. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3CC63773-314C-4E38-9609-80D8DC7EE732@newsfromneptune.com> Good comments from both Karens. See you there. > On Dec 2, 2016, at 6:18 PM, kmedina67 via Peace wrote: > > You could go shopping, but what the world really needs is peace. > > Please dress warm, with gloves and hats. It is a cold world on the streets. > > Downtown Champaign, IL > > -------- Original message -------- > From: Karen Aram via Peace > Date: 12/2/16 18:06 (GMT-06:00) > To: peace > Subject: [Peace] AWARE demonstration Saturday/Dec. 3rd. > > AWARE The anti-war, anti-racism effort of Champaign, Urbana will be holding their 1st. Saturday of the month demonstration against war, Saturday the 3rd., at 2:00-4:00pm., at the corners of Church and Neil St. > > We have plenty of signs available, and plenty to complain about given the wars and killing continue. > > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace From carl at newsfromneptune.com Sun Dec 4 01:58:31 2016 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Sat, 3 Dec 2016 19:58:31 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Sinai Temple: Help Reconcile C-U's Traumatized Communities In-Reply-To: <3753890113.1942471849@org.orgDB.reply.salsalabs.com> References: <3753890113.1942471849@org.orgDB.reply.salsalabs.com> Message-ID: <3B26B27D-769E-44D8-927C-938DED64C2FE@newsfromneptune.com> MoveOn and some members of the Stein campaign (but not the Green party) are attempting to use recounts and appeals to make the neoliberal and neoconservative candidate, Hillary Clinton, president. All major party presidential candidates for 40 years have been both neoliberal (which means more inequality) and neoconservative (which means more war). For proof, look what the US government has done since the 1970s - in all administrations - in regard to jobs and war: our jobs - and our military - are sent overseas, for the profits of the American economic elite, the 1%. Trump is the first major party presidential candidate in that time who isn’t either a neoliberal or a neoconservative. Therefore the US political class - the 1% and their minions in the "permanent government/deep state" - are trying to deny him the presidency, by way of the Electoral College - because he might not continue the Bush-Obama-Clinton policies of war and austerity. They might succeed. (BTW, it's NOT the Greens: the Green party said no to flacking for Clinton, as did Green VP nominee Ajamu Baraka; Jill Stein, her campaign manager David Cobb, and Democratic party front group ‘MoveOn' are the ones attempting to deny Trump a majority in the Electoral College.) —CGE > On Dec 3, 2016, at 6:57 PM, Just Foreign Policy wrote: > > > Dear Supporter, > > Urge Sinai Temple's Alan Cook to lead to help reconcile C-U communities. > > Take Action > > Many communities in Champaign-Urbana were unexpectedly traumatized by the election of Donald Trump. Now, we need enlightened and responsible leadership in all corners to help our traumatized communities reconcile. > > Hillel said: > > "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? > If I am only for myself, what am I? > If not now, when?" > > "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn." > > The children of Abraham - fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer - need to be reconciled. > > Urge Alan Cook to use his leadership position at Sinai Temple to help chase away darkness and reconcile the children of Abraham in Champaign-Urbana by signing our petition at MoveOn. > > Thanks for all you do to help make the house we live in more just, > > Robert Naiman > Just Foreign Policy > > Help support our work! > If you think our work is important, support us with a $15 donation. > MailScanner has detected a possible fraud attempt from "org.salsalabs.com" claiming to be http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/donate > > > > From a-fields at illinois.edu Sun Dec 4 16:17:30 2016 From: a-fields at illinois.edu (Fields, A Belden) Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2016 16:17:30 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [sf-core] Re: Sinai Temple: Help Reconcile C-U's Traumatized Communities In-Reply-To: <3B26B27D-769E-44D8-927C-938DED64C2FE@newsfromneptune.com> References: <3753890113.1942471849@org.orgDB.reply.salsalabs.com>, <3B26B27D-769E-44D8-927C-938DED64C2FE@newsfromneptune.com> Message-ID: <9E78FD6C-D1B0-4491-B936-CFD8F4C2F48E@illinois.edu> Carl, Is this an endorsement of Trump? Belden Sent from my iPhone > On Dec 3, 2016, at 7:58 PM, 'C. G. Estabrook' carl at newsfromneptune.com [sf-core] wrote: > > MoveOn and some members of the Stein campaign (but not the Green party) are attempting to use recounts and appeals to make the neoliberal and neoconservative candidate, Hillary Clinton, president. > > All major party presidential candidates for 40 years have been both neoliberal (which means more inequality) and neoconservative (which means more war). > > For proof, look what the US government has done since the 1970s - in all administrations - in regard to jobs and war: our jobs - and our military - are sent overseas, for the profits of the American economic elite, the 1%. > > Trump is the first major party presidential candidate in that time who isn’t either a neoliberal or a neoconservative. Therefore the US political class - the 1% and their minions in the "permanent government/deep state" - are trying to deny him the presidency, by way of the Electoral College - because he might not continue the Bush-Obama-Clinton policies of war and austerity. > > They might succeed. > > (BTW, it's NOT the Greens: the Green party said no to flacking for Clinton, as did Green VP nominee Ajamu Baraka; Jill Stein, her campaign manager David Cobb, and Democratic party front group ‘MoveOn' are the ones attempting to deny Trump a majority in the Electoral College.) > > —CGE > > >> On Dec 3, 2016, at 6:57 PM, Just Foreign Policy wrote: >> >> >> Dear Supporter, >> >> Urge Sinai Temple's Alan Cook to lead to help reconcile C-U communities. >> >> Take Action >> >> Many communities in Champaign-Urbana were unexpectedly traumatized by the election of Donald Trump. Now, we need enlightened and responsible leadership in all corners to help our traumatized communities reconcile. >> >> Hillel said: >> >> "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? >> If I am only for myself, what am I? >> If not now, when?" >> >> "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn." >> >> The children of Abraham - fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer - need to be reconciled. >> >> Urge Alan Cook to use his leadership position at Sinai Temple to help chase away darkness and reconcile the children of Abraham in Champaign-Urbana by signing our petition at MoveOn. >> >> Thanks for all you do to help make the house we live in more just, >> >> Robert Naiman >> Just Foreign Policy >> >> Help support our work! >> If you think our work is important, support us with a $15 donation. >> MailScanner has detected a possible fraud attempt from "org.salsalabs.com" claiming to be http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/donate >> >> >> >> > > > > ------------------------------------ > Posted by: "C. G. Estabrook" > ------------------------------------ > > > ------------------------------------ > > Yahoo Groups Links > > <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sf-core/ > > <*> Your email settings: > Individual Email | Traditional > > <*> To change settings online go to: > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sf-core/join > (Yahoo! ID required) > > <*> To change settings via email: > sf-core-digest at yahoogroups.com > sf-core-fullfeatured at yahoogroups.com > > <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: > sf-core-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com > > <*> Your use of Yahoo Groups is subject to: > https://info.yahoo.com/legal/us/yahoo/utos/terms/ > From davegreen84 at yahoo.com Sun Dec 4 16:19:05 2016 From: davegreen84 at yahoo.com (David Green) Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2016 16:19:05 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace-discuss] Double standards in campus surveys References: <229374767.7511329.1480868345088.ref@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <229374767.7511329.1480868345088@mail.yahoo.com> This comment was posted in response to Sundiata's column in today's News-Gazette: http://www.news-gazette.com/opinion/columns/2016-12-04/sundiata-cha-juareal-talk-racial-double-standards-remain-prevalent.html http://www.news-gazette.com/opinion/letters-editor/2016-12-01/study-defense-israeli-policies.html I explained in this recent letter why charges of anti-Semitism should not be taken seriously. But yes, there is a double standard. If there were a single standard, and that standard were the credibility of such surveys, than the micro-aggressions survey would be taken seriously, and the anti-Semitism survey would be dismissed as propaganda, which it is. That said, I support increased sensitivity while opposing the administrative micro-management of student behavior. DG -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From deb.pdamerica at gmail.com Sun Dec 4 17:15:23 2016 From: deb.pdamerica at gmail.com (Debra Schrishuhn) Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2016 11:15:23 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] [sf-core] Re: Sinai Temple: Help Reconcile C-U's Traumatized Communities In-Reply-To: <9E78FD6C-D1B0-4491-B936-CFD8F4C2F48E@illinois.edu> References: <3753890113.1942471849@org.orgDB.reply.salsalabs.com> <3B26B27D-769E-44D8-927C-938DED64C2FE@newsfromneptune.com> <9E78FD6C-D1B0-4491-B936-CFD8F4C2F48E@illinois.edu> Message-ID: If it walks like a duck.... Sent from my iPhone > On Dec 4, 2016, at 10:17 AM, "Fields, A Belden via Peace" wrote: > > Carl, > > Is this an endorsement of Trump? > Belden > > Sent from my iPhone > >> On Dec 3, 2016, at 7:58 PM, 'C. G. Estabrook' carl at newsfromneptune.com [sf-core] wrote: >> >> MoveOn and some members of the Stein campaign (but not the Green party) are attempting to use recounts and appeals to make the neoliberal and neoconservative candidate, Hillary Clinton, president. >> >> All major party presidential candidates for 40 years have been both neoliberal (which means more inequality) and neoconservative (which means more war). >> >> For proof, look what the US government has done since the 1970s - in all administrations - in regard to jobs and war: our jobs - and our military - are sent overseas, for the profits of the American economic elite, the 1%. >> >> Trump is the first major party presidential candidate in that time who isn’t either a neoliberal or a neoconservative. Therefore the US political class - the 1% and their minions in the "permanent government/deep state" - are trying to deny him the presidency, by way of the Electoral College - because he might not continue the Bush-Obama-Clinton policies of war and austerity. >> >> They might succeed. >> >> (BTW, it's NOT the Greens: the Green party said no to flacking for Clinton, as did Green VP nominee Ajamu Baraka; Jill Stein, her campaign manager David Cobb, and Democratic party front group ‘MoveOn' are the ones attempting to deny Trump a majority in the Electoral College.) >> >> —CGE >> >> >>> On Dec 3, 2016, at 6:57 PM, Just Foreign Policy wrote: >>> >>> >>> Dear Supporter, >>> >>> Urge Sinai Temple's Alan Cook to lead to help reconcile C-U communities. >>> >>> Take Action >>> >>> Many communities in Champaign-Urbana were unexpectedly traumatized by the election of Donald Trump. Now, we need enlightened and responsible leadership in all corners to help our traumatized communities reconcile. >>> >>> Hillel said: >>> >>> "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? >>> If I am only for myself, what am I? >>> If not now, when?" >>> >>> "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn." >>> >>> The children of Abraham - fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer - need to be reconciled. >>> >>> Urge Alan Cook to use his leadership position at Sinai Temple to help chase away darkness and reconcile the children of Abraham in Champaign-Urbana by signing our petition at MoveOn. >>> >>> Thanks for all you do to help make the house we live in more just, >>> >>> Robert Naiman >>> Just Foreign Policy >>> >>> Help support our work! >>> If you think our work is important, support us with a $15 donation. >>> MailScanner has detected a possible fraud attempt from "org.salsalabs.com" claiming to be http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/donate >> >> >> >> ------------------------------------ >> Posted by: "C. G. Estabrook" >> ------------------------------------ >> >> >> ------------------------------------ >> >> Yahoo Groups Links >> >> <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: >> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sf-core/ >> >> <*> Your email settings: >> Individual Email | Traditional >> >> <*> To change settings online go to: >> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sf-core/join >> (Yahoo! ID required) >> >> <*> To change settings via email: >> sf-core-digest at yahoogroups.com >> sf-core-fullfeatured at yahoogroups.com >> >> <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: >> sf-core-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com >> >> <*> Your use of Yahoo Groups is subject to: >> https://info.yahoo.com/legal/us/yahoo/utos/terms/ > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace From carl at newsfromneptune.com Sun Dec 4 17:32:20 2016 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2016 11:32:20 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] [sf-core] Re: Sinai Temple: Help Reconcile C-U's Traumatized Communities In-Reply-To: <9E78FD6C-D1B0-4491-B936-CFD8F4C2F48E@illinois.edu> References: <3753890113.1942471849@org.orgDB.reply.salsalabs.com> <3B26B27D-769E-44D8-927C-938DED64C2FE@newsfromneptune.com> <9E78FD6C-D1B0-4491-B936-CFD8F4C2F48E@illinois.edu> Message-ID: <829AB477-3E1B-4264-92C3-ECDB12DB99C4@newsfromneptune.com> It’s a statement of preference for Trump over Clinton, like William Blum’s > - and for similar reasons. I voted for Stein but deplore her recently-revealed subservience to the Democrats in attempting to influence the Electoral College to make Clinton president. It’s a very long shot, but then (as Nate Silver argued) so was Trump’s nomination. Did you endorse Clinton? Regards, Carl > On Dec 4, 2016, at 10:17 AM, Fields, A Belden via Peace wrote: > > Carl, > > Is this an endorsement of Trump? > Belden > > Sent from my iPhone > >> On Dec 3, 2016, at 7:58 PM, 'C. G. Estabrook' carl at newsfromneptune.com [sf-core] wrote: >> >> MoveOn and some members of the Stein campaign (but not the Green party) are attempting to use recounts and appeals to make the neoliberal and neoconservative candidate, Hillary Clinton, president. >> >> All major party presidential candidates for 40 years have been both neoliberal (which means more inequality) and neoconservative (which means more war). >> >> For proof, look what the US government has done since the 1970s - in all administrations - in regard to jobs and war: our jobs - and our military - are sent overseas, for the profits of the American economic elite, the 1%. >> >> Trump is the first major party presidential candidate in that time who isn’t either a neoliberal or a neoconservative. Therefore the US political class - the 1% and their minions in the "permanent government/deep state" - are trying to deny him the presidency, by way of the Electoral College - because he might not continue the Bush-Obama-Clinton policies of war and austerity. >> >> They might succeed. >> >> (BTW, it's NOT the Greens: the Green party said no to flacking for Clinton, as did Green VP nominee Ajamu Baraka; Jill Stein, her campaign manager David Cobb, and Democratic party front group ‘MoveOn' are the ones attempting to deny Trump a majority in the Electoral College.) >> >> —CGE >> >> >>> On Dec 3, 2016, at 6:57 PM, Just Foreign Policy wrote: >>> >>> >>> Dear Supporter, >>> >>> Urge Sinai Temple's Alan Cook to lead to help reconcile C-U communities. >>> >>> Take Action >>> >>> Many communities in Champaign-Urbana were unexpectedly traumatized by the election of Donald Trump. Now, we need enlightened and responsible leadership in all corners to help our traumatized communities reconcile. >>> >>> Hillel said: >>> >>> "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? >>> If I am only for myself, what am I? >>> If not now, when?" >>> >>> "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn." >>> >>> The children of Abraham - fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer - need to be reconciled. >>> >>> Urge Alan Cook to use his leadership position at Sinai Temple to help chase away darkness and reconcile the children of Abraham in Champaign-Urbana by signing our petition at MoveOn. >>> >>> Thanks for all you do to help make the house we live in more just, >>> >>> Robert Naiman >>> Just Foreign Policy >>> >>> Help support our work! >>> If you think our work is important, support us with a $15 donation. >>> MailScanner has detected a possible fraud attempt from "org.salsalabs.com" claiming to be http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/donate >>> >>> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From carl at newsfromneptune.com Sun Dec 4 17:41:26 2016 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2016 11:41:26 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] [sf-core] Re: Sinai Temple: Help Reconcile C-U's Traumatized Communities In-Reply-To: References: <3753890113.1942471849@org.orgDB.reply.salsalabs.com> <3B26B27D-769E-44D8-927C-938DED64C2FE@newsfromneptune.com> <9E78FD6C-D1B0-4491-B936-CFD8F4C2F48E@illinois.edu> Message-ID: John Pilger wrote before the election, ""The CIA has demanded Trump is not elected. Pentagon generals have demanded he is not elected. The pro-war New York Times — taking a breather from its relentless low-rent Putin smears — demands that he is not elected. Something is up. These tribunes of 'perpetual war' are terrified that the multi-billion-dollar business of war by which the United States maintains its dominance will be undermined if Trump does a deal with Putin, then with China’s Xi Jinping. Their panic at the possibility of the world’s great power talking peace – however unlikely – would be the blackest farce were the issues not so dire.” https://newmatilda.com/2016/03/23/john-pilger-why-hillary-clinton-is-more-dangerous-than-donald-trump/ —CGE > On Dec 4, 2016, at 11:15 AM, Debra Schrishuhn via Peace wrote: > > If it walks like a duck.... > > Sent from my iPhone > >> On Dec 4, 2016, at 10:17 AM, "Fields, A Belden via Peace" wrote: >> >> Carl, >> >> Is this an endorsement of Trump? >> Belden >> >> Sent from my iPhone >> >>> On Dec 3, 2016, at 7:58 PM, 'C. G. Estabrook' carl at newsfromneptune.com [sf-core] wrote: >>> >>> MoveOn and some members of the Stein campaign (but not the Green party) are attempting to use recounts and appeals to make the neoliberal and neoconservative candidate, Hillary Clinton, president. >>> >>> All major party presidential candidates for 40 years have been both neoliberal (which means more inequality) and neoconservative (which means more war). >>> >>> For proof, look what the US government has done since the 1970s - in all administrations - in regard to jobs and war: our jobs - and our military - are sent overseas, for the profits of the American economic elite, the 1%. >>> >>> Trump is the first major party presidential candidate in that time who isn’t either a neoliberal or a neoconservative. Therefore the US political class - the 1% and their minions in the "permanent government/deep state" - are trying to deny him the presidency, by way of the Electoral College - because he might not continue the Bush-Obama-Clinton policies of war and austerity. >>> >>> They might succeed. >>> >>> (BTW, it's NOT the Greens: the Green party said no to flacking for Clinton, as did Green VP nominee Ajamu Baraka; Jill Stein, her campaign manager David Cobb, and Democratic party front group ‘MoveOn' are the ones attempting to deny Trump a majority in the Electoral College.) >>> >>> —CGE >>> >>> >>>> On Dec 3, 2016, at 6:57 PM, Just Foreign Policy wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>> Dear Supporter, >>>> >>>> Urge Sinai Temple's Alan Cook to lead to help reconcile C-U communities. >>>> >>>> Take Action >>>> >>>> Many communities in Champaign-Urbana were unexpectedly traumatized by the election of Donald Trump. Now, we need enlightened and responsible leadership in all corners to help our traumatized communities reconcile. >>>> >>>> Hillel said: >>>> >>>> "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? >>>> If I am only for myself, what am I? >>>> If not now, when?" >>>> >>>> "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn." >>>> >>>> The children of Abraham - fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer - need to be reconciled. >>>> >>>> Urge Alan Cook to use his leadership position at Sinai Temple to help chase away darkness and reconcile the children of Abraham in Champaign-Urbana by signing our petition at MoveOn. >>>> >>>> Thanks for all you do to help make the house we live in more just, >>>> >>>> Robert Naiman >>>> Just Foreign Policy >>>> >>>> Help support our work! >>>> If you think our work is important, support us with a $15 donation. >>>> MailScanner has detected a possible fraud attempt from "org.salsalabs.com" claiming to be http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/donate >>> >>> >>> >>> ------------------------------------ >>> Posted by: "C. G. Estabrook" >>> ------------------------------------ >>> >>> >>> ------------------------------------ >>> >>> Yahoo Groups Links >>> >>> <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: >>> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sf-core/ >>> >>> <*> Your email settings: >>> Individual Email | Traditional >>> >>> <*> To change settings online go to: >>> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sf-core/join >>> (Yahoo! ID required) >>> >>> <*> To change settings via email: >>> sf-core-digest at yahoogroups.com >>> sf-core-fullfeatured at yahoogroups.com >>> >>> <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: >>> sf-core-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com >>> >>> <*> Your use of Yahoo Groups is subject to: >>> https://info.yahoo.com/legal/us/yahoo/utos/terms/ >> _______________________________________________ >> Peace mailing list >> Peace at lists.chambana.net >> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Sun Dec 4 19:46:14 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2016 19:46:14 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] [sf-core] Re: Sinai Temple: Help Reconcile C-U's Traumatized Communities In-Reply-To: References: <3753890113.1942471849@org.orgDB.reply.salsalabs.com> <3B26B27D-769E-44D8-927C-938DED64C2FE@newsfromneptune.com> <9E78FD6C-D1B0-4491-B936-CFD8F4C2F48E@illinois.edu> Message-ID: I have to get my two cents worth in here now. I agree with everything Pilger and Blum have to say. I do not agree with Carl’s assessment of Jill Stein when he says: "I voted for Stein but deplore her recently-revealed subservience to the Democrats in attempting to influence the Electoral College to make Clinton president.” While I initially did not support her taking on the recount, I’m not really sure now where I stand on that issue, either way, her intentions were not to "ingratiate herself", or show “subservience" to the Democrat Party or Hillary. A major concern has been election fraud in relation to “electronic” voting, and the Electoral College, which is an antiquated system that needs to be done away with. It wont be easy. The very fact that the states involved have refused to cooperate and even refused to do a hand count, is evidence that something is very wrong, change is very necessary, and Jill has taken that task in hand. John Pilger wrote before the election, ""The CIA has demanded Trump is not elected. Pentagon generals have demanded he is not elected. The pro-war New York Times — taking a breather from its relentless low-rent Putin smears — demands that he is not elected. Something is up. These tribunes of 'perpetual war' are terrified that the multi-billion-dollar business of war by which the United States maintains its dominance will be undermined if Trump does a deal with Putin, then with China’s Xi Jinping. Their panic at the possibility of the world’s great power talking peace – however unlikely – would be the blackest farce were the issues not so dire.” https://newmatilda.com/2016/03/23/john-pilger-why-hillary-clinton-is-more-dangerous-than-donald-trump/ —CGE On Dec 4, 2016, at 11:15 AM, Debra Schrishuhn via Peace > wrote: If it walks like a duck.... Sent from my iPhone On Dec 4, 2016, at 10:17 AM, "Fields, A Belden via Peace" > wrote: Carl, Is this an endorsement of Trump? Belden Sent from my iPhone On Dec 3, 2016, at 7:58 PM, 'C. G. Estabrook' carl at newsfromneptune.com [sf-core] > wrote: MoveOn and some members of the Stein campaign (but not the Green party) are attempting to use recounts and appeals to make the neoliberal and neoconservative candidate, Hillary Clinton, president. All major party presidential candidates for 40 years have been both neoliberal (which means more inequality) and neoconservative (which means more war). For proof, look what the US government has done since the 1970s - in all administrations - in regard to jobs and war: our jobs - and our military - are sent overseas, for the profits of the American economic elite, the 1%. Trump is the first major party presidential candidate in that time who isn’t either a neoliberal or a neoconservative. Therefore the US political class - the 1% and their minions in the "permanent government/deep state" - are trying to deny him the presidency, by way of the Electoral College - because he might not continue the Bush-Obama-Clinton policies of war and austerity. They might succeed. (BTW, it's NOT the Greens: the Green party said no to flacking for Clinton, as did Green VP nominee Ajamu Baraka; Jill Stein, her campaign manager David Cobb, and Democratic party front group ‘MoveOn' are the ones attempting to deny Trump a majority in the Electoral College.) —CGE On Dec 3, 2016, at 6:57 PM, Just Foreign Policy > wrote: Dear Supporter, Urge Sinai Temple's Alan Cook to lead to help reconcile C-U communities. Take Action Many communities in Champaign-Urbana were unexpectedly traumatized by the election of Donald Trump. Now, we need enlightened and responsible leadership in all corners to help our traumatized communities reconcile. Hillel said: "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?" "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn." The children of Abraham - fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer - need to be reconciled. Urge Alan Cook to use his leadership position at Sinai Temple to help chase away darkness and reconcile the children of Abraham in Champaign-Urbana by signing our petition at MoveOn. Thanks for all you do to help make the house we live in more just, Robert Naiman Just Foreign Policy Help support our work! If you think our work is important, support us with a $15 donation. MailScanner has detected a possible fraud attempt from "org.salsalabs.com" claiming to be http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/donate ------------------------------------ Posted by: "C. G. Estabrook" > ------------------------------------ ------------------------------------ Yahoo Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sf-core/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sf-core/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: sf-core-digest at yahoogroups.com sf-core-fullfeatured at yahoogroups.com <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: sf-core-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo Groups is subject to: https://info.yahoo.com/legal/us/yahoo/utos/terms/ _______________________________________________ Peace mailing list Peace at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace _______________________________________________ Peace mailing list Peace at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace _______________________________________________ Peace mailing list Peace at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From a-fields at illinois.edu Sun Dec 4 19:46:12 2016 From: a-fields at illinois.edu (Fields, A Belden) Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2016 19:46:12 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] [sf-core] Re: Sinai Temple: Help Reconcile C-U's Traumatized Communities In-Reply-To: <829AB477-3E1B-4264-92C3-ECDB12DB99C4@newsfromneptune.com> References: <3753890113.1942471849@org.orgDB.reply.salsalabs.com> <3B26B27D-769E-44D8-927C-938DED64C2FE@newsfromneptune.com> <9E78FD6C-D1B0-4491-B936-CFD8F4C2F48E@illinois.edu>, <829AB477-3E1B-4264-92C3-ECDB12DB99C4@newsfromneptune.com> Message-ID: Yes, after Bernie was out. BF Sent from my iPhone On Dec 4, 2016, at 11:32 AM, C. G. Estabrook > wrote: It’s a statement of preference for Trump over Clinton, like William Blum’s > - and for similar reasons. I voted for Stein but deplore her recently-revealed subservience to the Democrats in attempting to influence the Electoral College to make Clinton president. It’s a very long shot, but then (as Nate Silver argued) so was Trump’s nomination. Did you endorse Clinton? Regards, Carl On Dec 4, 2016, at 10:17 AM, Fields, A Belden via Peace > wrote: Carl, Is this an endorsement of Trump? Belden Sent from my iPhone On Dec 3, 2016, at 7:58 PM, 'C. G. Estabrook' carl at newsfromneptune.com [sf-core] > wrote: MoveOn and some members of the Stein campaign (but not the Green party) are attempting to use recounts and appeals to make the neoliberal and neoconservative candidate, Hillary Clinton, president. All major party presidential candidates for 40 years have been both neoliberal (which means more inequality) and neoconservative (which means more war). For proof, look what the US government has done since the 1970s - in all administrations - in regard to jobs and war: our jobs - and our military - are sent overseas, for the profits of the American economic elite, the 1%. Trump is the first major party presidential candidate in that time who isn’t either a neoliberal or a neoconservative. Therefore the US political class - the 1% and their minions in the "permanent government/deep state" - are trying to deny him the presidency, by way of the Electoral College - because he might not continue the Bush-Obama-Clinton policies of war and austerity. They might succeed. (BTW, it's NOT the Greens: the Green party said no to flacking for Clinton, as did Green VP nominee Ajamu Baraka; Jill Stein, her campaign manager David Cobb, and Democratic party front group ‘MoveOn' are the ones attempting to deny Trump a majority in the Electoral College.) —CGE On Dec 3, 2016, at 6:57 PM, Just Foreign Policy > wrote: Dear Supporter, Urge Sinai Temple's Alan Cook to lead to help reconcile C-U communities. Take Action Many communities in Champaign-Urbana were unexpectedly traumatized by the election of Donald Trump. Now, we need enlightened and responsible leadership in all corners to help our traumatized communities reconcile. Hillel said: "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?" "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn." The children of Abraham - fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer - need to be reconciled. Urge Alan Cook to use his leadership position at Sinai Temple to help chase away darkness and reconcile the children of Abraham in Champaign-Urbana by signing our petition at MoveOn. Thanks for all you do to help make the house we live in more just, Robert Naiman Just Foreign Policy Help support our work! If you think our work is important, support us with a $15 donation. MailScanner has detected a possible fraud attempt from "org.salsalabs.com" claiming to be http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/donate -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stuartnlevy at gmail.com Sun Dec 4 20:33:27 2016 From: stuartnlevy at gmail.com (Stuart Levy) Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2016 14:33:27 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] [sf-core] Re: Sinai Temple: Help Reconcile C-U's Traumatized Communities In-Reply-To: References: <3753890113.1942471849@org.orgDB.reply.salsalabs.com> <3B26B27D-769E-44D8-927C-938DED64C2FE@newsfromneptune.com> <9E78FD6C-D1B0-4491-B936-CFD8F4C2F48E@illinois.edu> Message-ID: <9b2f56b5-dda0-89e4-42e7-d4864374f3f4@gmail.com> We should note that stock prices of arms manufacturers leaped up after the election. That shows the capitalist reading of what a Trump admin plus a unified Republican congress means for the military. So yes it is important that Trump recognized the value of speaking out against military adventures abroad as part of his campaign - he saw that it was something that could move people. Though as we were discussing at last week's AWARE meeting, other candidates in past elections have sold themselves as opponents of war and turned out to be no such thing - "I have a plan" Nixon, GW Bush, "Nobel Peace Prize" Obama came to mind. How Trump and the people around him will act on their power we'll have to see. I believe Blum's argument that Trump is unlikely to start a hot war with Russia, and was very worried that Clinton was hurtling along a course to do just that. But will the Trump administration push for war with Iran? It seems all too likely. Will it keep up the trillion-dollar US nuclear weapons upgrade (as Clinton would have), and the anti-ballistic missile sites in eastern Europe? This is why I've kept saying that neither major party's Presidential offering is any sort of convincing peace candidate. As for the Jill Stein-supported recounts, it seems a very smart course to me from the Green Party's point of view - not because it would be liable to change the outcome of the presidential race, but because it might well turn up real sloppiness, or inconsistencies of tabulation that could suggest (probably insider) tampering, or expose the numbers of people who were given provisional ballots because of voter-rolls purges or other vote access restrictions. When neither major party is standing up for election integrity, the Green Party can say that theirs was the party that fought for it. That has to be valuable for their reputation in the next election cycles. On 12/4/16 11:41 AM, C. G. Estabrook via Peace wrote: > John Pilger wrote before the election, ""The CIA has demanded Trump is > not elected. Pentagon generals have demanded he is not elected. The > pro-war New York Times — taking a breather from its relentless > low-rent Putin smears — demands that he is not elected. Something is > up. These tribunes of 'perpetual war' are terrified that the > multi-billion-dollar business of war by which the United States > maintains its dominance will be undermined if Trump does a deal with > Putin, then with China’s Xi Jinping. Their panic at the possibility of > the world’s great power talking peace – however unlikely – would be > the blackest farce were the issues not so dire.” > > https://newmatilda.com/2016/03/23/john-pilger-why-hillary-clinton-is-more-dangerous-than-donald-trump/ > > —CGE > > >> On Dec 4, 2016, at 11:15 AM, Debra Schrishuhn via Peace >> > wrote: >> >> If it walks like a duck.... >> >> Sent from my iPhone >> >>> On Dec 4, 2016, at 10:17 AM, "Fields, A Belden via Peace" >>> > wrote: >>> >>> Carl, >>> >>> Is this an endorsement of Trump? >>> Belden >>> >>> Sent from my iPhone >>> >>>> On Dec 3, 2016, at 7:58 PM, 'C. G. Estabrook' >>>> carl at newsfromneptune.com >>>> [sf-core] >>> > wrote: >>>> >>>> MoveOn and some members of the Stein campaign (but not the Green >>>> party) are attempting to use recounts and appeals to make the >>>> neoliberal and neoconservative candidate, Hillary Clinton, president. >>>> >>>> All major party presidential candidates for 40 years have been both >>>> neoliberal (which means more inequality) and neoconservative (which >>>> means more war). >>>> >>>> For proof, look what the US government has done since the 1970s - >>>> in all administrations - in regard to jobs and war: our jobs - and >>>> our military - are sent overseas, for the profits of the American >>>> economic elite, the 1%. >>>> >>>> Trump is the first major party presidential candidate in that time >>>> who isn’t either a neoliberal or a neoconservative. Therefore the >>>> US political class - the 1% and their minions in the "permanent >>>> government/deep state" - are trying to deny him the presidency, by >>>> way of the Electoral College - because he might not continue the >>>> Bush-Obama-Clinton policies of war and austerity. >>>> >>>> They might succeed. >>>> >>>> (BTW, it's NOT the Greens: the Green party said no to flacking for >>>> Clinton, as did Green VP nominee Ajamu Baraka; Jill Stein, her >>>> campaign manager David Cobb, and Democratic party front group >>>> ‘MoveOn' are the ones attempting to deny Trump a majority in the >>>> Electoral College.) >>>> >>>> —CGE >>>> >>>> >>>>> On Dec 3, 2016, at 6:57 PM, Just Foreign Policy >>>>> >>>> > wrote: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Dear Supporter, >>>>> >>>>> Urge Sinai Temple's Alan Cook to lead to help reconcile C-U >>>>> communities. >>>>> >>>>> Take Action >>>>> >>>>> Many communities in Champaign-Urbana were unexpectedly traumatized >>>>> by the election of Donald Trump. Now, we need enlightened and >>>>> responsible leadership in all corners to help our traumatized >>>>> communities reconcile. >>>>> >>>>> Hillel said: >>>>> >>>>> "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? >>>>> If I am only for myself, what am I? >>>>> If not now, when?" >>>>> >>>>> "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is >>>>> the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn." >>>>> >>>>> The children of Abraham - fed with the same food, hurt with the >>>>> same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same >>>>> means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer - need to >>>>> be reconciled. >>>>> >>>>> Urge Alan Cook to use his leadership position at Sinai Temple to >>>>> help chase away darkness and reconcile the children of Abraham in >>>>> Champaign-Urbana by signing our petition at MoveOn. >>>>> >>>>> Thanks for all you do to help make the house we live in more just, >>>>> >>>>> Robert Naiman >>>>> Just Foreign Policy >>>>> >>>>> Help support our work! >>>>> If you think our work is important, support us with a $15 donation. >>>>> MailScanner has detected a possible fraud attempt from >>>>> "org.salsalabs.com " claiming to be >>>>> http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/donate >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> ------------------------------------ >>>> Posted by: "C. G. Estabrook" >>> > >>>> ------------------------------------ >>>> >>>> >>>> ------------------------------------ >>>> >>>> Yahoo Groups Links >>>> >>>> <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: >>>> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sf-core/ >>>> >>>> <*> Your email settings: >>>> Individual Email | Traditional >>>> >>>> <*> To change settings online go to: >>>> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sf-core/join >>>> (Yahoo! ID required) >>>> >>>> <*> To change settings via email: >>>> sf-core-digest at yahoogroups.com >>>> sf-core-fullfeatured at yahoogroups.com >>>> >>>> >>>> <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: >>>> sf-core-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com >>>> >>>> >>>> <*> Your use of Yahoo Groups is subject to: >>>> https://info.yahoo.com/legal/us/yahoo/utos/terms/ >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Peace mailing list >>> Peace at lists.chambana.net >>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace >> _______________________________________________ >> Peace mailing list >> Peace at lists.chambana.net >> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace > > > > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From deb.pdamerica at gmail.com Sun Dec 4 21:06:39 2016 From: deb.pdamerica at gmail.com (Debra Schrishuhn) Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2016 15:06:39 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] [sf-core] Re: Sinai Temple: Help Reconcile C-U's Traumatized Communities In-Reply-To: <9b2f56b5-dda0-89e4-42e7-d4864374f3f4@gmail.com> References: <3753890113.1942471849@org.orgDB.reply.salsalabs.com> <3B26B27D-769E-44D8-927C-938DED64C2FE@newsfromneptune.com> <9E78FD6C-D1B0-4491-B936-CFD8F4C2F48E@illinois.edu> <9b2f56b5-dda0-89e4-42e7-d4864374f3f4@gmail.com> Message-ID: <173AAF96-BC1C-46BC-A083-B287462665F8@gmail.com> Besides, Trump is a pathological liar with no moral compass, tending to echo views if the most recent person who talked to him. Sent from my iPhone > On Dec 4, 2016, at 2:33 PM, Stuart Levy wrote: > > We should note that stock prices of arms manufacturers leaped up after the election. That shows the capitalist reading of what a Trump admin plus a unified Republican congress means for the military. > > So yes it is important that Trump recognized the value of speaking out against military adventures abroad as part of his campaign - he saw that it was something that could move people. Though as we were discussing at last week's AWARE meeting, other candidates in past elections have sold themselves as opponents of war and turned out to be no such thing - "I have a plan" Nixon, GW Bush, "Nobel Peace Prize" Obama came to mind. > > How Trump and the people around him will act on their power we'll have to see. I believe Blum's argument that Trump is unlikely to start a hot war with Russia, and was very worried that Clinton was hurtling along a course to do just that. But will the Trump administration push for war with Iran? It seems all too likely. Will it keep up the trillion-dollar US nuclear weapons upgrade (as Clinton would have), and the anti-ballistic missile sites in eastern Europe? > > This is why I've kept saying that neither major party's Presidential offering is any sort of convincing peace candidate. > > > As for the Jill Stein-supported recounts, it seems a very smart course to me from the Green Party's point of view - not because it would be liable to change the outcome of the presidential race, but because it might well turn up real sloppiness, or inconsistencies of tabulation that could suggest (probably insider) tampering, or expose the numbers of people who were given provisional ballots because of voter-rolls purges or other vote access restrictions. When neither major party is standing up for election integrity, the Green Party can say that theirs was the party that fought for it. That has to be valuable for their reputation in the next election cycles. > > > >> On 12/4/16 11:41 AM, C. G. Estabrook via Peace wrote: >> John Pilger wrote before the election, ""The CIA has demanded Trump is not elected. Pentagon generals have demanded he is not elected. The pro-war New York Times — taking a breather from its relentless low-rent Putin smears — demands that he is not elected. Something is up. These tribunes of 'perpetual war' are terrified that the multi-billion-dollar business of war by which the United States maintains its dominance will be undermined if Trump does a deal with Putin, then with China’s Xi Jinping. Their panic at the possibility of the world’s great power talking peace – however unlikely – would be the blackest farce were the issues not so dire.” >> >> https://newmatilda.com/2016/03/23/john-pilger-why-hillary-clinton-is-more-dangerous-than-donald-trump/ >> >> —CGE >> >> >>> On Dec 4, 2016, at 11:15 AM, Debra Schrishuhn via Peace wrote: >>> >>> If it walks like a duck.... >>> >>> Sent from my iPhone >>> >>>> On Dec 4, 2016, at 10:17 AM, "Fields, A Belden via Peace" wrote: >>>> >>>> Carl, >>>> >>>> Is this an endorsement of Trump? >>>> Belden >>>> >>>> Sent from my iPhone >>>> >>>>> On Dec 3, 2016, at 7:58 PM, 'C. G. Estabrook' carl at newsfromneptune.com [sf-core] wrote: >>>>> >>>>> MoveOn and some members of the Stein campaign (but not the Green party) are attempting to use recounts and appeals to make the neoliberal and neoconservative candidate, Hillary Clinton, president. >>>>> >>>>> All major party presidential candidates for 40 years have been both neoliberal (which means more inequality) and neoconservative (which means more war). >>>>> >>>>> For proof, look what the US government has done since the 1970s - in all administrations - in regard to jobs and war: our jobs - and our military - are sent overseas, for the profits of the American economic elite, the 1%. >>>>> >>>>> Trump is the first major party presidential candidate in that time who isn’t either a neoliberal or a neoconservative. Therefore the US political class - the 1% and their minions in the "permanent government/deep state" - are trying to deny him the presidency, by way of the Electoral College - because he might not continue the Bush-Obama-Clinton policies of war and austerity. >>>>> >>>>> They might succeed. >>>>> >>>>> (BTW, it's NOT the Greens: the Green party said no to flacking for Clinton, as did Green VP nominee Ajamu Baraka; Jill Stein, her campaign manager David Cobb, and Democratic party front group ‘MoveOn' are the ones attempting to deny Trump a majority in the Electoral College.) >>>>> >>>>> —CGE >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> On Dec 3, 2016, at 6:57 PM, Just Foreign Policy wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Dear Supporter, >>>>>> >>>>>> Urge Sinai Temple's Alan Cook to lead to help reconcile C-U communities. >>>>>> >>>>>> Take Action >>>>>> >>>>>> Many communities in Champaign-Urbana were unexpectedly traumatized by the election of Donald Trump. Now, we need enlightened and responsible leadership in all corners to help our traumatized communities reconcile. >>>>>> >>>>>> Hillel said: >>>>>> >>>>>> "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? >>>>>> If I am only for myself, what am I? >>>>>> If not now, when?" >>>>>> >>>>>> "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn." >>>>>> >>>>>> The children of Abraham - fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer - need to be reconciled. >>>>>> >>>>>> Urge Alan Cook to use his leadership position at Sinai Temple to help chase away darkness and reconcile the children of Abraham in Champaign-Urbana by signing our petition at MoveOn. >>>>>> >>>>>> Thanks for all you do to help make the house we live in more just, >>>>>> >>>>>> Robert Naiman >>>>>> Just Foreign Policy >>>>>> >>>>>> Help support our work! >>>>>> If you think our work is important, support us with a $15 donation. >>>>>> MailScanner has detected a possible fraud attempt from "org.salsalabs.com" claiming to be http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/donate >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> ------------------------------------ >>>>> Posted by: "C. G. Estabrook" >>>>> ------------------------------------ >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> ------------------------------------ >>>>> >>>>> Yahoo Groups Links >>>>> >>>>> <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: >>>>> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sf-core/ >>>>> >>>>> <*> Your email settings: >>>>> Individual Email | Traditional >>>>> >>>>> <*> To change settings online go to: >>>>> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sf-core/join >>>>> (Yahoo! ID required) >>>>> >>>>> <*> To change settings via email: >>>>> sf-core-digest at yahoogroups.com >>>>> sf-core-fullfeatured at yahoogroups.com >>>>> >>>>> <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: >>>>> sf-core-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com >>>>> >>>>> <*> Your use of Yahoo Groups is subject to: >>>>> https://info.yahoo.com/legal/us/yahoo/utos/terms/ >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Peace mailing list >>>> Peace at lists.chambana.net >>>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Peace mailing list >>> Peace at lists.chambana.net >>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Peace mailing list >> Peace at lists.chambana.net >> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From carl at newsfromneptune.com Sun Dec 4 22:39:00 2016 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2016 16:39:00 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] [sf-core] Re: Sinai Temple: Help Reconcile C-U's Traumatized Communities In-Reply-To: <9b2f56b5-dda0-89e4-42e7-d4864374f3f4@gmail.com> References: <3753890113.1942471849@org.orgDB.reply.salsalabs.com> <3B26B27D-769E-44D8-927C-938DED64C2FE@newsfromneptune.com> <9E78FD6C-D1B0-4491-B936-CFD8F4C2F48E@illinois.edu> <9b2f56b5-dda0-89e4-42e7-d4864374f3f4@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4C9EA63F-10A1-4476-AF3B-8EAE28B44F21@newsfromneptune.com> The ‘defense’ industries are looking for more spending from a president who says he wants to make the US military so strong that no one will attack it. But that’s not the same (in part it’s more honest) as a president who gets elected by pretending to be against George Bush’s wars and then expands them, attacking eight countries. (Bush only attacked six.) Obama is the first US president - ever - to be at war throughout two presidential terms. I’d prefer an administration that buys weapons - “arming to parley,” as a noted war-criminal said - to one that uses them and transfers them to notable human rights violators, like the KSA, Israel, and Al Qaeda. (See Andrew Cockburn, "A Special Relationship: The United States is teaming up with Al Qaeda, again,” Harper’s, January 2016). Obama produced a lot of dead Syrians (and others). It’s clear that Clinton would continue and intensify Bush/Obama war-making; she’s said as much (and more). As for the recounts supported by Jill Stein (and not, it’s important to note, by the Green party) - cui bono? Follow the money: the Democratic party, the front group MoveOn, and the Soros interests are not suddenly putting up many times the total budget of the Green party presidential campaign just to increase the marginal fairness of US elections (a consummation devoutly to be wished). For what they are doing, take a look at what Stein campaign manager David Cobb, 2004 Green presidential candidate, did in Ohio after that election. He wasn’t even on the ballot in Ohio, but he filed for a recount in that state - the crucial swing state in the Bush/Kerry election, where Bush won by 2.1%. After Cobb’s call for a recount, the Democratic party filed a Congressional objection to the certification of Ohio's Electoral College votes due to alleged irregularities including disqualification of provisional ballots, alleged misallocation of voting machines, and disproportionally long waits in poor and predominantly African-American communities. The Senate voted the objection down 1–74; the House voted the objection down 31–267. It was only the second Congressional objection to an entire State's electoral delegation in U.S. history; the first instance was in 1877, where a presidential election was 'adjusted' by the famous ‘Compromise’ of that year; what can the Democrats be thinking of this year? Cobb's minuscule national vote total in 2004 resulted from a ‘safe state’ strategy that aided the Democrats. (Many people left the Greens in those years when it was typical for Green party officials to say, “We just want to be a regular political party, like the Republicans and Democrats.”) See now "The Stein Campaign and the Fight for Green Party Independence" by Brandy Baker, CounterPunch 28 Nov. 2016.) Stein’s recounts are in aid of the Clinton campaign’s desperate attempt to draw down Trump’s Electoral College vote below 270, forcing the House of Representatives to choose the next president. (Representatives need not vote in accord with their state’s popular vote.) The hysterical media attention to Trumps’ deficient character might give an excuse for the House not to vote for an “unsuitable president” - who happens not to be a neoliberal or a neoconservative. Jill Stein’s cave-in to the neolib and neocon Clinton campaign is as bad as Bernie Sanders’ and Elizabeth Warren’s. It’s the year of liberal tergiversation. —CGE > On Dec 4, 2016, at 2:33 PM, Stuart Levy wrote: > > We should note that stock prices of arms manufacturers leaped up after the election. That shows the capitalist reading of what a Trump admin plus a unified Republican congress means for the military. > > So yes it is important that Trump recognized the value of speaking out against military adventures abroad as part of his campaign - he saw that it was something that could move people. Though as we were discussing at last week's AWARE meeting, other candidates in past elections have sold themselves as opponents of war and turned out to be no such thing - "I have a plan" Nixon, GW Bush, "Nobel Peace Prize" Obama came to mind. > > How Trump and the people around him will act on their power we'll have to see. I believe Blum's argument that Trump is unlikely to start a hot war with Russia, and was very worried that Clinton was hurtling along a course to do just that. But will the Trump administration push for war with Iran? It seems all too likely. Will it keep up the trillion-dollar US nuclear weapons upgrade (as Clinton would have), and the anti-ballistic missile sites in eastern Europe? > > This is why I've kept saying that neither major party's Presidential offering is any sort of convincing peace candidate. > > As for the Jill Stein-supported recounts, it seems a very smart course to me from the Green Party's point of view - not because it would be liable to change the outcome of the presidential race, but because it might well turn up real sloppiness, or inconsistencies of tabulation that could suggest (probably insider) tampering, or expose the numbers of people who were given provisional ballots because of voter-rolls purges or other vote access restrictions. When neither major party is standing up for election integrity, the Green Party can say that theirs was the party that fought for it. That has to be valuable for their reputation in the next election cycles. > > > > On 12/4/16 11:41 AM, C. G. Estabrook via Peace wrote: >> John Pilger wrote before the election, ""The CIA has demanded Trump is not elected. Pentagon generals have demanded he is not elected. The pro-war New York Times — taking a breather from its relentless low-rent Putin smears — demands that he is not elected. Something is up. These tribunes of 'perpetual war' are terrified that the multi-billion-dollar business of war by which the United States maintains its dominance will be undermined if Trump does a deal with Putin, then with China’s Xi Jinping. Their panic at the possibility of the world’s great power talking peace – however unlikely – would be the blackest farce were the issues not so dire.” >> >> https://newmatilda.com/2016/03/23/john-pilger-why-hillary-clinton-is-more-dangerous-than-donald-trump/ >> >> —CGE >> >> >>> On Dec 4, 2016, at 11:15 AM, Debra Schrishuhn via Peace > wrote: >>> >>> If it walks like a duck.... >>> >>> Sent from my iPhone >>> >>>> On Dec 4, 2016, at 10:17 AM, "Fields, A Belden via Peace" > wrote: >>>> >>>> Carl, >>>> >>>> Is this an endorsement of Trump? >>>> Belden >>>> >>>> Sent from my iPhone >>>> >>>>> On Dec 3, 2016, at 7:58 PM, 'C. G. Estabrook' carl at newsfromneptune.com [sf-core] > wrote: >>>>> >>>>> MoveOn and some members of the Stein campaign (but not the Green party) are attempting to use recounts and appeals to make the neoliberal and neoconservative candidate, Hillary Clinton, president. >>>>> >>>>> All major party presidential candidates for 40 years have been both neoliberal (which means more inequality) and neoconservative (which means more war). >>>>> >>>>> For proof, look what the US government has done since the 1970s - in all administrations - in regard to jobs and war: our jobs - and our military - are sent overseas, for the profits of the American economic elite, the 1%. >>>>> >>>>> Trump is the first major party presidential candidate in that time who isn’t either a neoliberal or a neoconservative. Therefore the US political class - the 1% and their minions in the "permanent government/deep state" - are trying to deny him the presidency, by way of the Electoral College - because he might not continue the Bush-Obama-Clinton policies of war and austerity. >>>>> >>>>> They might succeed. >>>>> >>>>> (BTW, it's NOT the Greens: the Green party said no to flacking for Clinton, as did Green VP nominee Ajamu Baraka; Jill Stein, her campaign manager David Cobb, and Democratic party front group ‘MoveOn' are the ones attempting to deny Trump a majority in the Electoral College.) >>>>> >>>>> —CGE >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> On Dec 3, 2016, at 6:57 PM, Just Foreign Policy wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Dear Supporter, >>>>>> >>>>>> Urge Sinai Temple's Alan Cook to lead to help reconcile C-U communities. >>>>>> >>>>>> Take Action >>>>>> >>>>>> Many communities in Champaign-Urbana were unexpectedly traumatized by the election of Donald Trump. Now, we need enlightened and responsible leadership in all corners to help our traumatized communities reconcile. >>>>>> >>>>>> Hillel said: >>>>>> >>>>>> "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? >>>>>> If I am only for myself, what am I? >>>>>> If not now, when?" >>>>>> >>>>>> "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn." >>>>>> >>>>>> The children of Abraham - fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer - need to be reconciled. >>>>>> >>>>>> Urge Alan Cook to use his leadership position at Sinai Temple to help chase away darkness and reconcile the children of Abraham in Champaign-Urbana by signing our petition at MoveOn. >>>>>> >>>>>> Thanks for all you do to help make the house we live in more just, >>>>>> >>>>>> Robert Naiman >>>>>> Just Foreign Policy >>>>>> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Sun Dec 4 22:56:00 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2016 22:56:00 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: Breaking News References: <2068078269.88379.1480890093700.JavaMail.nobody@prd-10-60-174-213.nodes.56m.dmtio.net> Message-ID: Political activism works!!! The Army Corps of Engineers says it will not approve an easement to allow the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline to cross under Lake Oahe in North Dakota, a victory for the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and its supporters. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Mon Dec 5 00:11:48 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2016 00:11:48 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Behind the scenes Message-ID: Kissinger whom I detest for his “wars and destruction of Chile, Cambodia, Laos just to name a couple, at least takes a “sit down and talk with the all powerful", like China and Russia. Kissinger was just in Beijing speaking with, and attempting to cement relations, with Xi Jinping, as a Representative of Trump.” Kissinger did this in 1969 with Zhou Enlai, and it was effective in reducing tensions as a result of CIA incursions and subversion, when Zhou let him know that China knew exactly what the USG was doing. That lasted a few years, as the CIA then turned their attention to Thailand, surrounding SE Asian nations and Latin America, beginning with Chile. Zbigniew Brzezinski is now, hopefully, out of the picture as an influence. He has been advising Obama, as he once did Reagan, and Carter. ZB is responsible for Carter arming the Taliban and creating Al Qaeda, Nato on the border of Russia, and our nuclear armed battleships in the S.China Sea. The choice of Gen. Michael Flynn as NSA advisor by Trump is a progressive step in relation to “China and Russia”. Will we have peace in the “mena, or mideast, north africa” region? I doubt it, I think the US policy of plunder, and destroy, will continue unabated, given that has been the plan since the late 40’s if not the 1890’s.. So perhaps WW3 has been averted, for now, but I have no doubt the game plan will continue. Until Nato is removed from the borders of Russia, until US battleships are removed from the S. China Sea, and most of our 400 military bases removed surrounding China, I won't breathe a sign of relief. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Mon Dec 5 00:55:41 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2016 00:55:41 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Urbana City Council Meeting Monday night Message-ID: Professor Francis Boyle will be arguing in favor of Urbana remaining a Sanctuary City, just as he did in the 1980’s. At that time, he did so against opposition from KKK members and Nazi Party supporters, as well as a death threat. I certainly hope we won’t have any of that tomorrow evening, but one never knows. So, all are invited to attend in solidarity, with this effort to revise the current resolution, making it an ordinance as a first step in the process of protecting our undocumented neighbors. There is history here as well in relation to US Foreign Policy, Nafta, etc. As long as we continue to kill and destroy nations, we continue to create refugees, both political and economic. Refugee’s become undocumented immigrants or workers, teachers, students, neighbors, friends and loved ones. From a-fields at illinois.edu Mon Dec 5 01:56:57 2016 From: a-fields at illinois.edu (Fields, A Belden) Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2016 01:56:57 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Urbana City Council Meeting Monday night In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8EE8AE7F-CFD3-41B5-95F0-8923F8F9A4E9@illinois.edu> We were a sanctuary city for Salvadorans and Guatemalans in the 1980s. So we must still be one. Belden Sent from my iPhone > On Dec 4, 2016, at 6:56 PM, Karen Aram via Peace wrote: > > Professor Francis Boyle will be arguing in favor of Urbana remaining a Sanctuary City, just as he did in the 1980’s. At that time, he did so against opposition from KKK members and Nazi Party supporters, as well as a death threat. I certainly hope we won’t have any of that tomorrow evening, but one never knows. > > So, all are invited to attend in solidarity, with this effort to revise the current resolution, making it an ordinance as a first step in the process of protecting our undocumented neighbors. > > There is history here as well in relation to US Foreign Policy, Nafta, etc. As long as we continue to kill and destroy nations, we continue to create refugees, both political and economic. > > Refugee’s become undocumented immigrants or workers, teachers, students, neighbors, friends and loved ones. > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace From fboyle at illinois.edu Mon Dec 5 02:09:48 2016 From: fboyle at illinois.edu (Boyle, Francis A) Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2016 02:09:48 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Urbana City Council Meeting Monday night In-Reply-To: <8EE8AE7F-CFD3-41B5-95F0-8923F8F9A4E9@illinois.edu> References: <8EE8AE7F-CFD3-41B5-95F0-8923F8F9A4E9@illinois.edu> Message-ID: Dear Belden: yes we are. But we need to update it to deal with Trump's threat to deport 2-3 Million. So I will be there tomorrow night at 7pm for that purpose. Fab. Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) -----Original Message----- From: Peace [mailto:peace-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of Fields, A Belden via Peace Sent: Sunday, December 04, 2016 7:57 PM To: Karen Aram Cc: Peace Discuss ; peace Subject: Re: [Peace] Urbana City Council Meeting Monday night We were a sanctuary city for Salvadorans and Guatemalans in the 1980s. So we must still be one. Belden Sent from my iPhone > On Dec 4, 2016, at 6:56 PM, Karen Aram via Peace wrote: > > Professor Francis Boyle will be arguing in favor of Urbana remaining a Sanctuary City, just as he did in the 1980’s. At that time, he did so against opposition from KKK members and Nazi Party supporters, as well as a death threat. I certainly hope we won’t have any of that tomorrow evening, but one never knows. > > So, all are invited to attend in solidarity, with this effort to revise the current resolution, making it an ordinance as a first step in the process of protecting our undocumented neighbors. > > There is history here as well in relation to US Foreign Policy, Nafta, etc. As long as we continue to kill and destroy nations, we continue to create refugees, both political and economic. > > Refugee’s become undocumented immigrants or workers, teachers, students, neighbors, friends and loved ones. > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace _______________________________________________ Peace mailing list Peace at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace From deb.pdamerica at gmail.com Mon Dec 5 10:56:59 2016 From: deb.pdamerica at gmail.com (Debra Schrishuhn) Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2016 04:56:59 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Fwd: Breaking News In-Reply-To: References: <2068078269.88379.1480890093700.JavaMail.nobody@prd-10-60-174-213.nodes.56m.dmtio.net> Message-ID: <385D235A-CBE6-4928-822D-81B62399BAF3@gmail.com> Now the real work begins. The pro-DAPL forces will be scurrying overtime to find an alternate route with fewer eyes on them. We have won a slight reprieve, and we must not squander this time to exercise vigilance and continue to organize. Nebraskans are bracing for a return of pressure to allow the pipeline. The pipeline itself represents a threat to the planet, not just its route. Deb Sent from my iPhone > On Dec 4, 2016, at 4:56 PM, Karen Aram via Peace wrote: > > Political activism works!!! >> >> The Army Corps of Engineers says it will not approve an easement to allow the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline to cross under Lake Oahe in North Dakota, a victory for the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and its supporters. >> > > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Mon Dec 5 16:29:26 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2016 16:29:26 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: Sanctuary Campus Petition References: Message-ID: if you haven’t signed the petition yet, supporting sanctuary on campus, please do now as a vote is taking place this afternoon. Dear PNers, If you haven't gotten to sign the sanctuary campus petition yet, here's another chance. The link is here. If you have not signed, please consider doing so. If you have signed, please consider reaching out to someone who has not and asking them to do so. If we act as multipliers we can build wonderful momentum and a strong show of solidarity as the movement builds momentum! Below are a few points worth considering. 1. The sanctuary movement is becoming part of a national movement among educators. University of Pennsylvania, recently announced itself as a Sanctuary Campus: http://www.phillyvoice.com/campus-wide-email-penn-assures-its-sanctuary-its-undocumented-student/?utm_campaign=pv-site&utm_medium=rss&utm_source=news FROM NPR: “This week, hundreds of university presidents and chancellors from across the country wrote an open letter calling for preservation of the protections for the roughly 750,000 young people approved for DACA nationwide. Some administrators from Illinois are signed on to that letter, including the chancellors of the University of Illinois’ Chicago and Urbana campuses.” http://nprillinois.org/post/illinois-issues-deferred-decision 2. Sanctuary is not a political impossibility in Illinois. Community groups have been active in thinking about how to actively protect undocumented students, including the Illinois is Safe Platform (http://www.icirr.org/news-events/news/details/1063/take-action-call-governor-rauner-and-tell-him-to-support-illinois-is-safe-platfo) Our own Dick Durbin has been a leader on these issues at the national level: http://www.durbin.senate.gov/ 3. Students are asking us to show strong public support right now!Many of us have heard from students how important it is for us to publically show that “we have their back.” A declaration of support is an important way to send a strong message to students that we are here to make this as productive, engaged and community-based learning environment as we can. 4. Sanctuary at Illinois is part of a broader coalitional effort on campus.Many people on campus including students, faculty and administrators are putting their heads together to come up with workable and ethical solutions to the concerns many of our students now face. Wide public support through this petition brings moral authority and energy to the cause and is a key piece of a broader coalitional movement to create institutional responses that necessarily move at a slower pace. Best, Efad -- Brian Dolinar, Ph.D. briandolinar.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From allanaxelrodufl at gmail.com Mon Dec 5 12:35:08 2016 From: allanaxelrodufl at gmail.com (Allan Axelrod) Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2016 06:35:08 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Fwd: Breaking News In-Reply-To: <385D235A-CBE6-4928-822D-81B62399BAF3@gmail.com> References: <2068078269.88379.1480890093700.JavaMail.nobody@prd-10-60-174-213.nodes.56m.dmtio.net> <385D235A-CBE6-4928-822D-81B62399BAF3@gmail.com> Message-ID: I'm sorry to say that it is highly likely DAPL will dig through anyway and pay a fine . What I think we can do is write to our state representatives, the Champaign county and IL chapters of the ACLU, Sierra Club, etc. about using the legal agency of 415 ILCS 55 Illinois Groundwater Protection Act to *close down the section of DAPL that runs through Illinois*. If we can succeed here, then it would be fruitless for DAPL to dig under the Missouri river. Does anyone know of any other measures we could use? On Mon, Dec 5, 2016 at 4:56 AM, Debra Schrishuhn via Peace < peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote: > Now the real work begins. The pro-DAPL forces will be scurrying overtime > to find an alternate route with fewer eyes on them. We have won a slight > reprieve, and we must not squander this time to exercise vigilance and > continue to organize. > > Nebraskans are bracing for a return of pressure to allow the pipeline. The > pipeline itself represents a threat to the planet, not just its route. > Deb > > Sent from my iPhone > > On Dec 4, 2016, at 4:56 PM, Karen Aram via Peace > wrote: > > Political activism works!!! > > > The Army Corps of Engineers says it will not approve an easement to allow > the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline > > to cross under Lake Oahe in North Dakota, a victory for the Standing Rock > Sioux tribe and its supporters. > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace > > > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mickalideh at gmail.com Mon Dec 5 17:27:23 2016 From: mickalideh at gmail.com (Harry Mickalide) Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2016 11:27:23 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Fwd: Sanctuary Campus Petition In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Signed it! On Mon, Dec 5, 2016 at 10:29 AM, Karen Aram via Peace < peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote: > if you haven’t signed the petition yet, supporting sanctuary on campus, > please do now as a vote is taking place this afternoon. > > > Dear PNers, > > > If you haven't gotten to sign the sanctuary campus petition yet, here's > another chance. The link is here > > . > > > *If you have not signed, please consider doing so.* If you have signed*, > please consider reaching out to someone who has not and asking them to do > so*. If we act as *multipliers *we can build wonderful momentum and a > strong show of solidarity as the movement builds momentum! > > > Below are a few points worth considering. > > > 1. *The sanctuary movement is becoming part of a national movement > among educators*. University of Pennsylvania, recently announced itself > as a Sanctuary Campus: http://www.phillyvoice.com/campus-wide-email-penn- > assures-its-sanctuary-its-undocumented-student/?utm_ > campaign=pv-site&utm_medium=rss&utm_source=news > > > *FROM NPR: “This week, hundreds of university presidents and chancellors > from across the country wrote **an open letter * > *calling > for preservation of the protections for the roughly 750,000 young people > approved for DACA nationwide. Some administrators from Illinois are signed > on to that letter, including the chancellors of the University of Illinois’ > Chicago and Urbana campuses**.” * > *http://nprillinois.org/post/illinois-issues-deferred-decision* > > > > 2. *Sanctuary is not a political impossibility in Illinois*. > Community groups have been active in thinking about how to actively protect > undocumented students, including the Illinois is Safe Platform ( > http://www.icirr.org/news-events/news/details/106 > 3/take-action-call-governor-rauner-and-tell-him-to- > support-illinois-is-safe-platfo > > ) > > *Our own Dick Durbin has been a leader o*n these issues at the national > level: http://www.durbin.senate.gov/ > > > > 3. *Students are asking us to show strong public support right now!*Many > of us have heard from students how important it is for us to publically > show that “we have their back.” A declaration of support is an important > way to send a strong message to students that we are here to make this as > productive, engaged and community-based learning environment as we can. > > > 4. *Sanctuary at Illinois is part of a broader coalitional effort > on campus.*Many people on campus including students, faculty and > administrators are putting their heads together to come up with workable > and ethical solutions to the concerns many of our students now face. *Wide > public support through this petition brings moral authority and energy to > the cause and is a key piece of a broader coalitional movement to create > institutional responses that necessarily move at a slower pace.* > > Best, > Efad > > > > -- > Brian Dolinar, Ph.D. > briandolinar.com > > > > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Mon Dec 5 18:43:36 2016 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2016 12:43:36 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Fwd: Sanctuary Campus Petition In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00e801d24f27$7d7a1f80$786e5e80$@comcast.net> I signed as U of I U-C Alumni class of 1988 From: Peace [mailto:peace-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of Harry Mickalide via Peace Sent: Monday, December 05, 2016 11:27 AM To: Karen Aram Cc: peace; Peace Discuss Subject: Re: [Peace] Fwd: Sanctuary Campus Petition Signed it! On Mon, Dec 5, 2016 at 10:29 AM, Karen Aram via Peace wrote: if you haven’t signed the petition yet, supporting sanctuary on campus, please do now as a vote is taking place this afternoon. Dear PNers, If you haven't gotten to sign the sanctuary campus petition yet, here's another chance. The link is here . If you have not signed, please consider doing so. If you have signed, please consider reaching out to someone who has not and asking them to do so. If we act as multipliers we can build wonderful momentum and a strong show of solidarity as the movement builds momentum! Below are a few points worth considering. 1. The sanctuary movement is becoming part of a national movement among educators. University of Pennsylvania, recently announced itself as a Sanctuary Campus: http://www.phillyvoice.com/campus-wide-email-penn-assures-its-sanctuary-its-undocumented-student/?utm_campaign=pv-site&utm_medium=rss&utm_source=news FROM NPR: “This week, hundreds of university presidents and chancellors from across the country wrote an open letter calling for preservation of the protections for the roughly 750,000 young people approved for DACA nationwide. Some administrators from Illinois are signed on to that letter, including the chancellors of the University of Illinois’ Chicago and Urbana campuses.” http://nprillinois.org/post/illinois-issues-deferred-decision 2. Sanctuary is not a political impossibility in Illinois. Community groups have been active in thinking about how to actively protect undocumented students, including the Illinois is Safe Platform ( http://www.icirr.org/news-events/news/details/1063/take-action-call-governor-rauner-and-tell-him-to-support-illinois-is-safe-platfo) Our own Dick Durbin has been a leader on these issues at the national level: http://www.durbin.senate.gov/ 3. Students are asking us to show strong public support right now!Many of us have heard from students how important it is for us to publically show that “we have their back.” A declaration of support is an important way to send a strong message to students that we are here to make this as productive, engaged and community-based learning environment as we can. 4. Sanctuary at Illinois is part of a broader coalitional effort on campus.Many people on campus including students, faculty and administrators are putting their heads together to come up with workable and ethical solutions to the concerns many of our students now face. Wide public support through this petition brings moral authority and energy to the cause and is a key piece of a broader coalitional movement to create institutional responses that necessarily move at a slower pace. Best, Efad -- Brian Dolinar, Ph.D. briandolinar.com _______________________________________________ Peace mailing list Peace at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From a-fields at illinois.edu Mon Dec 5 20:04:54 2016 From: a-fields at illinois.edu (Fields, A Belden) Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2016 20:04:54 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Urbana City Council Meeting Monday night In-Reply-To: <158cf7b5922-31b0-7d6b@webprd-a108.mail.aol.com> References: <8EE8AE7F-CFD3-41B5-95F0-8923F8F9A4E9@illinois.edu>, <158cf7b5922-31b0-7d6b@webprd-a108.mail.aol.com> Message-ID: <4BEF5039AB283245B9B22D29042452EB4E1A9765@CITESMBX4.ad.uillinois.edu> I must correct an error after talking with Jim Holliman. His recollection, which seems very clear, is that while the Urbana City Council did unanimously pass the city of sanctuary resolution back in the 1980s re: Central American refugees, Mayor Markland refused to sign it. So, legally the city was not a sanctuary city like Berkeley. Sorry for any confusion this might have caused. Belden ________________________________ From: Mildred O'brien [moboct1 at aim.com] Sent: Monday, December 05, 2016 8:55 AM To: Fields, A Belden Subject: Re: [Peace] Urbana City Council Meeting Monday night Still a "Sanctuary City"--but inclusive of other than Central American refugees? When is discussion scheduled--before or after business meeting? Midge -----Original Message----- From: Fields, A Belden via Peace To: Karen Aram Cc: Peace Discuss ; peace Sent: Sun, Dec 4, 2016 7:57 pm Subject: Re: [Peace] Urbana City Council Meeting Monday night We were a sanctuary city for Salvadorans and Guatemalans in the 1980s. So we must still be one. Belden Sent from my iPhone > On Dec 4, 2016, at 6:56 PM, Karen Aram via Peace > wrote: > > Professor Francis Boyle will be arguing in favor of Urbana remaining a Sanctuary City, just as he did in the 1980’s. At that time, he did so against opposition from KKK members and Nazi Party supporters, as well as a death threat. I certainly hope we won’t have any of that tomorrow evening, but one never knows. > > So, all are invited to attend in solidarity, with this effort to revise the current resolution, making it an ordinance as a first step in the process of protecting our undocumented neighbors. > > There is history here as well in relation to US Foreign Policy, Nafta, etc. As long as we continue to kill and destroy nations, we continue to create refugees, both political and economic. > > Refugee’s become undocumented immigrants or workers, teachers, students, neighbors, friends and loved ones. > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace _______________________________________________ Peace mailing list Peace at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fboyle at illinois.edu Mon Dec 5 20:09:15 2016 From: fboyle at illinois.edu (Boyle, Francis A) Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2016 20:09:15 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Urbana City Council Meeting Monday night In-Reply-To: <4BEF5039AB283245B9B22D29042452EB4E1A9765@CITESMBX4.ad.uillinois.edu> References: <8EE8AE7F-CFD3-41B5-95F0-8923F8F9A4E9@illinois.edu>, <158cf7b5922-31b0-7d6b@webprd-a108.mail.aol.com> <4BEF5039AB283245B9B22D29042452EB4E1A9765@CITESMBX4.ad.uillinois.edu> Message-ID: He did not sign it. But it is certified as passed in the official records of Urbana. Fab. Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign, IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) From: Peace [mailto:peace-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of Fields, A Belden via Peace Sent: Monday, December 05, 2016 2:05 PM To: Mildred O'brien Cc: peace ; Peace-discuss List Subject: Re: [Peace] Urbana City Council Meeting Monday night I must correct an error after talking with Jim Holliman. His recollection, which seems very clear, is that while the Urbana City Council did unanimously pass the city of sanctuary resolution back in the 1980s re: Central American refugees, Mayor Markland refused to sign it. So, legally the city was not a sanctuary city like Berkeley. Sorry for any confusion this might have caused. Belden ________________________________ From: Mildred O'brien [moboct1 at aim.com] Sent: Monday, December 05, 2016 8:55 AM To: Fields, A Belden Subject: Re: [Peace] Urbana City Council Meeting Monday night Still a "Sanctuary City"--but inclusive of other than Central American refugees? When is discussion scheduled--before or after business meeting? Midge -----Original Message----- From: Fields, A Belden via Peace > To: Karen Aram > Cc: Peace Discuss >; peace > Sent: Sun, Dec 4, 2016 7:57 pm Subject: Re: [Peace] Urbana City Council Meeting Monday night We were a sanctuary city for Salvadorans and Guatemalans in the 1980s. So we must still be one. Belden Sent from my iPhone > On Dec 4, 2016, at 6:56 PM, Karen Aram via Peace > wrote: > > Professor Francis Boyle will be arguing in favor of Urbana remaining a Sanctuary City, just as he did in the 1980's. At that time, he did so against opposition from KKK members and Nazi Party supporters, as well as a death threat. I certainly hope we won't have any of that tomorrow evening, but one never knows. > > So, all are invited to attend in solidarity, with this effort to revise the current resolution, making it an ordinance as a first step in the process of protecting our undocumented neighbors. > > There is history here as well in relation to US Foreign Policy, Nafta, etc. As long as we continue to kill and destroy nations, we continue to create refugees, both political and economic. > > Refugee's become undocumented immigrants or workers, teachers, students, neighbors, friends and loved ones. > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace _______________________________________________ Peace mailing list Peace at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From carl at newsfromneptune.com Mon Dec 5 20:51:02 2016 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2016 14:51:02 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] [sf-core] Re: Sinai Temple: Help Reconcile C-U's Traumatized Communities In-Reply-To: References: <3753890113.1942471849@org.orgDB.reply.salsalabs.com> <3B26B27D-769E-44D8-927C-938DED64C2FE@newsfromneptune.com> <9E78FD6C-D1B0-4491-B936-CFD8F4C2F48E@illinois.edu> <829AB477-3E1B-4264-92C3-ECDB12DB99C4@newsfromneptune.com> Message-ID: <4036B5E8-A4E1-4C38-8B36-D7A6FAB6CAE8@newsfromneptune.com> Bill Blum explains why that may have been a mistake: >. —CGE > On Dec 4, 2016, at 1:46 PM, Fields, A Belden wrote: > > Yes, after Bernie was out. > BF > > Sent from my iPhone > > On Dec 4, 2016, at 11:32 AM, C. G. Estabrook > wrote: > >> It’s a statement of preference for Trump over Clinton, like William Blum’s > - and for similar reasons. >> >> I voted for Stein but deplore her recently-revealed subservience to the Democrats in attempting to influence the Electoral College to make Clinton president. >> >> It’s a very long shot, but then (as Nate Silver argued) so was Trump’s nomination. >> >> Did you endorse Clinton? >> >> Regards, Carl >> >> >>> On Dec 4, 2016, at 10:17 AM, Fields, A Belden via Peace > wrote: >>> >>> Carl, >>> >>> Is this an endorsement of Trump? >>> Belden >>> >>> Sent from my iPhone >>> >>>> On Dec 3, 2016, at 7:58 PM, 'C. G. Estabrook' carl at newsfromneptune.com [sf-core] > wrote: >>>> >>>> MoveOn and some members of the Stein campaign (but not the Green party) are attempting to use recounts and appeals to make the neoliberal and neoconservative candidate, Hillary Clinton, president. >>>> >>>> All major party presidential candidates for 40 years have been both neoliberal (which means more inequality) and neoconservative (which means more war). >>>> >>>> For proof, look what the US government has done since the 1970s - in all administrations - in regard to jobs and war: our jobs - and our military - are sent overseas, for the profits of the American economic elite, the 1%. >>>> >>>> Trump is the first major party presidential candidate in that time who isn’t either a neoliberal or a neoconservative. Therefore the US political class - the 1% and their minions in the "permanent government/deep state" - are trying to deny him the presidency, by way of the Electoral College - because he might not continue the Bush-Obama-Clinton policies of war and austerity. >>>> >>>> They might succeed. >>>> >>>> (BTW, it's NOT the Greens: the Green party said no to flacking for Clinton, as did Green VP nominee Ajamu Baraka; Jill Stein, her campaign manager David Cobb, and Democratic party front group ‘MoveOn' are the ones attempting to deny Trump a majority in the Electoral College.) >>>> >>>> —CGE >>>> >>>> >>>>> On Dec 3, 2016, at 6:57 PM, Just Foreign Policy > wrote: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Dear Supporter, >>>>> >>>>> Urge Sinai Temple's Alan Cook to lead to help reconcile C-U communities. >>>>> >>>>> Take Action >>>>> >>>>> Many communities in Champaign-Urbana were unexpectedly traumatized by the election of Donald Trump. Now, we need enlightened and responsible leadership in all corners to help our traumatized communities reconcile. >>>>> >>>>> Hillel said: >>>>> >>>>> "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? >>>>> If I am only for myself, what am I? >>>>> If not now, when?" >>>>> >>>>> "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn." >>>>> >>>>> The children of Abraham - fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer - need to be reconciled. >>>>> >>>>> Urge Alan Cook to use his leadership position at Sinai Temple to help chase away darkness and reconcile the children of Abraham in Champaign-Urbana by signing our petition at MoveOn. >>>>> >>>>> Thanks for all you do to help make the house we live in more just, >>>>> >>>>> Robert Naiman >>>>> Just Foreign Policy >>>>> >>>>> Help support our work! >>>>> If you think our work is important, support us with a $15 donation. >>>>> MailScanner has detected a possible fraud attempt from "org.salsalabs.com " claiming to be http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/donate >>>>> >>>>> >> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fboyle at illinois.edu Tue Dec 6 11:31:56 2016 From: fboyle at illinois.edu (Boyle, Francis A) Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2016 11:31:56 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] FW: Torture Can Be Useful, Nearly Half of Americans in Poll Say - NYTimes.com References: Message-ID: Fired and Disgraced Dean Hurricane Heidi Hurd and her Consort Michael CIA/KGB/Mossad Moore should go stink up some other area of the campus. Fab. Ed Norton Professor of Law Carl Schmitt College of Law: "Mein Fuhrer, I can walk!" Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) -----Original Message----- From: Boyle, Francis A Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2016 5:04 AM SECTNS.aals at lists.aals.org Subject: RE: Torture Can Be Useful, Nearly Half of Americans in Poll Say - NYTimes.com Yeah, I lectured upon this to my International Law Students yesterday. Told them that every law professor who advocates torture is a disgrace to my profession and mentioned several by name, including those on this "faculty." Fab. Carl Schmitt College of Law: "Mein Fuhrer, I can walk!" Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) -----Original Message----- Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2016 4:59 AM To: SECTNS.aals at lists.aals.org Subject: [SECTNS.aals] - Torture Can Be Useful, Nearly Half of Americans in Poll Say - NYTimes.com Way to go apologists. http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/12/05/world/americas/torture-can-be-useful-nearly-half-of-americans-in-poll-say.html?mwrsm=Facebook&referer=http://m.facebook.com Sent from my iPhone ________________________________ View post online: https://connect.aals.org/p/fo/st/post=38805&anc=p38805#p38805 View mailing list online: https://connect.aals.org/p/fo/si/topic=355 Start new thread via email: mailto:SECTNS.aals at lists.aals.org Unsubscribe from this mailing list: https://connect.aals.org/o/fo/topic=355 Manage your subscription: https://connect.aals.org/p/us/to/ This email has been sent to: fboyle at illinois.edu This list is a forum for the exchange of points of view. Opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of the group associated with the list and do not necessarily represent the position of the Association of American Law Schools. Use of this email content is governed by the terms of service at: https://connect.aals.org/p/cm/ld/fid=280 ________________________________ From fboyle at illinois.edu Tue Dec 6 11:44:14 2016 From: fboyle at illinois.edu (Boyle, Francis A) Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2016 11:44:14 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Torture Can Be Useful, Nearly Half of Americans in Poll Say - NYTimes.com References: Message-ID: And the rest of this Nazi "Law" Faculty have no problems with Obama/Clinton/KillerKoh drone murdering to death thousands of Muslims of Color all over the world--A Nuremberg Crime against Humanity Verging on Genocide. The Nazis had their Law Professors and their Law Schools too. 75 years after Pearl Harbor, the Nazis have won! Fab. Ed Norton Professor of Law Carl Schmitt College of Law: "Mein Fuhrer, I can walk!" Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) -----Original Message----- From: Boyle, Francis A Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2016 5:32 AM To: 'C. G. Estabrook' ; 'peace-discuss at anti-war.net' ; 'futureup2us at gmail.com' ; 'a-fields at uiuc.edu' ; Hoffman, Valerie J ; Miller, Joseph Thomas ; Szoke, Ron ; 'davetrippel at ameritech.net' ; 'a23h23 at yahoo.com' ; 'davidcnswanson at gmail.com' ; 'peace-discuss-request at lists.chambana.net' ; 'sherwoodross10 at gmail.com' ; 'abass10 at gmail.com' ; 'mickalideh at gmail.com' ; 'lina at worldcantwait.net' ; 'chicago at worldcantwait.net' ; Karen Aram Subject: FW: Torture Can Be Useful, Nearly Half of Americans in Poll Say - NYTimes.com Fired and Disgraced Dean Hurricane Heidi Hurd and her Consort Michael CIA/KGB/Mossad Moore should go stink up some other area of the campus. Fab. Ed Norton Professor of Law Carl Schmitt College of Law: "Mein Fuhrer, I can walk!" Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) -----Original Message----- From: Boyle, Francis A Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2016 5:04 AM SECTNS.aals at lists.aals.org Subject: RE: Torture Can Be Useful, Nearly Half of Americans in Poll Say - NYTimes.com Yeah, I lectured upon this to my International Law Students yesterday. Told them that every law professor who advocates torture is a disgrace to my profession and mentioned several by name, including those on this "faculty." Fab. Carl Schmitt College of Law: "Mein Fuhrer, I can walk!" Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) -----Original Message----- Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2016 4:59 AM To: SECTNS.aals at lists.aals.org Subject: [SECTNS.aals] - Torture Can Be Useful, Nearly Half of Americans in Poll Say - NYTimes.com Way to go apologists. http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/12/05/world/americas/torture-can-be-useful-nearly-half-of-americans-in-poll-say.html?mwrsm=Facebook&referer=http://m.facebook.com Sent from my iPhone ________________________________ View post online: https://connect.aals.org/p/fo/st/post=38805&anc=p38805#p38805 View mailing list online: https://connect.aals.org/p/fo/si/topic=355 Start new thread via email: mailto:SECTNS.aals at lists.aals.org Unsubscribe from this mailing list: https://connect.aals.org/o/fo/topic=355 Manage your subscription: https://connect.aals.org/p/us/to/ This email has been sent to: fboyle at illinois.edu This list is a forum for the exchange of points of view. Opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of the group associated with the list and do not necessarily represent the position of the Association of American Law Schools. Use of this email content is governed by the terms of service at: https://connect.aals.org/p/cm/ld/fid=280 ________________________________ From karenaram at hotmail.com Tue Dec 6 23:19:22 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2016 23:19:22 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] THE FUTURE, AND IT ISN'T PRETTY Message-ID: The Iran-Russia-China Strategic Triangle 21.11.2016 Author: F. William Engdahl [324131231]The developing economic, political and military links binding Iran, China and Russia in what I see as an emerging Golden Triangle in Eurasia, are continuing to deepen insignificant areas. This, while it seems to be US geopolitical strategy in a prospective Trump Administration to distance Washington from both Iran and from China, while dangling the carrot of lessened confrontation between Washington and Moscow–classic Halford Mackinder or Kissinger geopolitics of avoiding a two-front war that was colossally backfiring on Washington by trying to shift the power balance. At present, the dynamic of the past several years of closer cooperation by the three pivotal states of the Eurasian Heartland is gaining strategic momentum. The latest is the visit of China’s Minister of Defense and of Russian senior officials to Teheran. On November 14-15 in Teheran, during a high-level visit of the Chinese Defense Minister, General Chang Wanquan, with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan, the two major Eurasian nations signed a deal to enhance military cooperation. The agreement calls for intensification of bilateral military training and closer cooperation on what the Iran sees as regional security issues, with terrorism and Syria at the top of the list. Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Major General Mohammad Hossein Baqeri, said Iran is ready to share with China its experiences in fighting against the terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria. Dehghan added that the agreement represents an “upgrade in long-term military and defense cooperation with China.” In recent weeks China has directly become engaged, joining Russia and Iran, at the behest of the government of Syrian President Bashar al Assad, in the war against ISIS and other terrorist groups including Al Qaeda-Al Nusra Front and its numerous spinoffs. The formal agreement with Teheran, which has considerable on the ground experience with the fight in Syria, clearly represents a deepening of bilateral China-Iran relations. At the same time as China and Iran were meeting in Teheran, Viktor Ozerov, head of the Defense and Security Committee of the Russian Federation Council, the upper house of the Parliament, was also in Teheran. There, he told RAI Novosti that Russia and Iran are in talks over an arms deal worth around $10 billion. It calls for Russia to deliver T-90 tanks, artillery systems, planes and helicopters to Iran. In brief, we have a deepening of military defense links between the three points of the emerging Eurasian Triangle. This will have huge consequences, not merely for stabilization of Syria and Iraq in the Middle East. It will also give a major boost to the emerging economic links between the three great powers of the Eurasian Heartland. Halford J. Mackinder, the father of British geopolitics variously called Russia the Heartland Power, and towards the end of his life, in a 1943 guest article in Foreign Affairs, journal of the New York Council on Foreign Relations, suggested China might equally play the geographic and political role of Russia as the Eurasian Heartland Power. Today, given the enormous growth since 1943 of the geopolitical importance of the Persian Gulf oil and gas-producing nations for the world economy, the bonding together of Iran to China and to Russia forms a new Heartland Power, to stay with the designation of Mackinder. The added element since 2013 is the initiative of China President Xi Jinping to criss-cross all Eurasia and even South Asia with what he calls China’s One Belt, One Road infrastructure. Both China and Russia have formally agreed to coordinate with China in this multi-trillion dollar vast infrastructure project to link entire new emerging markets of Central Asia, Iran–and potentially Turkey– to a coherent high-speed rail and maritime port network that within the end of this decade will already begin to transform the economic worth of the entire Eurasia. China-Iran Trade Already despite onerous US and EU economic sanctions on Iran, Sino-Iranian trade had grown even before the 2015 nuclear agreement loosened some sanctions. Bilateral trade grew from $400 million in 1989 to almost $52 billion in 2014. Today the Iran-China Chamber of Commerce and Industries (I.C.C.C.I.), has grown from 65 members in 2001 to 6,000, an indication of the intensity of economic cooperation. On the lifting of sanctions this January, 2016 China President Xi Jinping went to Teheran where the two countries signed major economic agreements. After their January 23 talks, Iranian president Rouhani announced that, “Iran and China have agreed to increase trade to $600 billion in the next 10 years,” adding that both countries, “have agreed on forming strategic relations, reflected in a 25-year comprehensive document.” Moreover, Iran agreed to nuclear energy cooperation and formally participating in China’s One Belt, One Road which Russia and the Eurasian Economic Union countries had formally agreed to join in 2015. Iran – Key Link China’s One Belt, One Bridge, sometimes referred to as her New Economic Silk Road, is a brilliant geopolitical, economic, military and cultural project. It will enable the member nations to be far more shielded from USA Naval power to interdict vital goods trade by sea from Europe or the Middle East that must pass through the US-patrolled Strait of Malacca. As well, while Washington and Brussels impose economic sanctions on Russian trade with Europe, the Ukrainian crisis forced a far more serious Russian “pivot to the East,” notably to China. What has emerged since the crisis created for Russia with the USA February 2014 Ukraine coup d’etat, is a strategic cooperation between the three major powers–Iran, China and Russia, what Zbigniew Brzezinski described in his 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard, as the largest geopolitical challenge facing continued Sole Superpower supremacy of the United States following Washington’s destruction of the Soviet Union in 1989-91. Brzezinski declared then, accurately, “…how America ‘manages’ Eurasia is critical. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world’s three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail Africa’s subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania (Australia) geopolitically peripheral to the world’s central continent. About 75 per cent of the world’s people live in Eurasia, and most of the world’s physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for about three-fourths of the world’s known energy resources.” For the Eurasian cohesion under the China OBOR infrastructure developments, Iran is strategic. Not only is China a major buyer of Iranian oil, Iran’s largest export customer. But Iran is also vital to China’s vision to create entirely new manufacturing and logistics centers or hubs in Central Asia and Europe. And, as Indian strategic consultant, Debalina Ghoshal points out, China, “has a keen interest in Iran’s geostrategic location, bordering both the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf. The location enables China to carry out the One Belt One Road agenda.” Iran is already partly linked to a recently-completed section of China’s OBOR rail-port infrastructure great project. In early 2015 rail freight began to move across the new Zhanaozen—Gyzylgaya—Bereket—Kyzyl Atrek—Gorgan railway, completed in December, 2014 in the impressive time of five years from start. That rail line links Iran to China via the rail line through Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, a founding member of the OBOR idea since Xi Jinping first unveiled it in a visit to Kazakhstan in 2013. The new rail link, known as the North-South Transnational Rail Corridor connects Iran to Kazakhstan via Turkmenistan and on to the China border. The new rail line runs 908 kilometers, beginning at Uzen in Kazakhstan (120 km), then through Gyzylgaya-Bereket-Etrek in Turkmenistan (700 km) and ending at Gorgan in Iran (88 km). As a result of the new rail link, freight traffic is shifting from truck to rail as the line connects all key ports and terminals of the entire Caspian region. The recently completed Uzen to Gorgan rail line as part of the OBOR is transforming the economic importance of an entire part of Central Asia The new Iran-Turkmenistan-Kazakhstan to China rail line will transform the entire economic significance of the vast Central Asian region. Bereket in Turkmenistan — which is at the crossroads of the existing Trans-Caspian rail line linking Turkmenbashi on the Caspian Sea with Uzbekistan, Eastern Kazakhstan and China — is now to be site of a large locomotive repair depot together with a modern state-of-the-art freight terminal, making it a major freight hub. Further, the Turkmen government is building a huge port at Turkmenbashi that would enable further trade links potentially to the Russian Federation by sea. The rail link to Gorgan in Iran already is linked to Iran’s national railway grid and will thereby enable rail transport between China, Central Asia and the Persian Gulf. The connection will shorten the route by 400 km, and reduce freight transport time more or less in half, from 45-60 days at present to 25-30 days. This is a huge economic gain. Since April this year as well, Moscow and Teheran have been engaged in discussions of building a ship canal from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf through Iran. Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran also agreed to speed up the talks on a North-South transport corridor that partly would go along the western coast of the Caspian Sea from Russia to Iran through Azerbaijan. The North-South corridor, when completed will reduce the time of cargo transport from India to Central Asia and Russia from at present about 40 days from Mumbai, India to Moscow to 14 days and bypass the congested and expensive Suez Canal. Everywhere we go today across Eurasia, from the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea to Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and on to China, there is a process underway for the first time since the original Silk Road era of more than two thousand years ago, of building up an entire new economic space, the Eurasian Heartland. Were the Turkish government to join the OBOR project wholeheartedly, the potentials for a Eurasian transformation would become enormous. It remains to be seen what a USA with a Trump presidency will do or not do to try to destroy this beautiful Eurasian build up. If he is as wise as his sound bites make him sound, he will recognize that this kind of development is the only true future for his United States other than bankruptcy, economic depression and wars of destruction. If not, more and more much of the rest of the world seems determined to go it without the “Sole Superpower.” F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.” -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cgestabrook at gmail.com Wed Dec 7 01:45:37 2016 From: cgestabrook at gmail.com (C G Estabrook) Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2016 19:45:37 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] THE FUTURE, AND IT ISN'T PRETTY In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: http://www.unz.com/tsaker/is-donald-trump-really-only-a-showman-who-will-prepare-the-usa-for-war/ “...I propose ... to consider the … possibility, that in spite of all the evidence presented by Engdahl, Trump might not be a fraud ... this conclusion is not necessarily more optimistic than Engdahl’s … I see clear signs of a real struggle taking place inside the US elites and if, indeed, such a struggle is taking place, then I conclude that Trump’s ... election is a nightmare for these elites... "This being said, please don’t conclude that I am any more optimistic than Engdahl. I am not. It’s just that my fear is different from his. He thinks that Trump is a fraud while I think that the Trump is unlikely to have the right combination of intelligence, willpower, courage, abnegation and patriotism to purge the USA from the Neocon rot ... Furthermore, I think that the choice of Pence as VP is indicative a deeply misguided hope by Trump that he can appease the Neocons.” —CGE > On Dec 6, 2016, at 5:19 PM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss wrote: > > The Iran-Russia-China Strategic Triangle > 21.11.2016 Author: F. William Engdahl > The developing economic, political and military links binding Iran, China and Russia in what I see as an emerging Golden Triangle in Eurasia, are continuing to deepen insignificant areas. This, while it seems to be US geopolitical strategy in a prospective Trump Administration to distance Washington from both Iran and from China, while dangling the carrot of lessened confrontation between Washington and Moscow–classic Halford Mackinder or Kissinger geopolitics of avoiding a two-front war that was colossally backfiring on Washington by trying to shift the power balance. At present, the dynamic of the past several years of closer cooperation by the three pivotal states of the Eurasian Heartland is gaining strategic momentum. The latest is the visit of China’s Minister of Defense and of Russian senior officials to Teheran. > > On November 14-15 in Teheran, during a high-level visit of the Chinese Defense Minister, General Chang Wanquan, with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan, the two major Eurasian nations signed a deal to enhance military cooperation. The agreement calls for intensification of bilateral military training and closer cooperation on what the Iran sees as regional security issues, with terrorism and Syria at the top of the list. Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Major General Mohammad Hossein Baqeri, said Iran is ready to share with China its experiences in fighting against the terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria. Dehghan added that the agreement represents an “upgrade in long-term military and defense cooperation with China.” > > In recent weeks China has directly become engaged, joining Russia and Iran, at the behest of the government of Syrian President Bashar al Assad, in the war against ISIS and other terrorist groups including Al Qaeda-Al Nusra Front and its numerous spinoffs. The formal agreement with Teheran, which has considerable on the ground experience with the fight in Syria, clearly represents a deepening of bilateral China-Iran relations. > > At the same time as China and Iran were meeting in Teheran, Viktor Ozerov, head of the Defense and Security Committee of the Russian Federation Council, the upper house of the Parliament, was also in Teheran. There, he told RAI Novosti that Russia and Iran are in talks over an arms deal worth around $10 billion. It calls for Russia to deliver T-90 tanks, artillery systems, planes and helicopters to Iran. > > In brief, we have a deepening of military defense links between the three points of the emerging Eurasian Triangle. This will have huge consequences, not merely for stabilization of Syria and Iraq in the Middle East. It will also give a major boost to the emerging economic links between the three great powers of the Eurasian Heartland. > > Halford J. Mackinder, the father of British geopolitics variously called Russia the Heartland Power, and towards the end of his life, in a 1943 guest article in Foreign Affairs, journal of the New York Council on Foreign Relations, suggested China might equally play the geographic and political role of Russia as the Eurasian Heartland Power. > > Today, given the enormous growth since 1943 of the geopolitical importance of the Persian Gulf oil and gas-producing nations for the world economy, the bonding together of Iran to China and to Russia forms a new Heartland Power, to stay with the designation of Mackinder. > > The added element since 2013 is the initiative of China President Xi Jinping to criss-cross all Eurasia and even South Asia with what he calls China’s One Belt, One Road infrastructure. Both China and Russia have formally agreed to coordinate with China in this multi-trillion dollar vast infrastructure project to link entire new emerging markets of Central Asia, Iran–and potentially Turkey– to a coherent high-speed rail and maritime port network that within the end of this decade will already begin to transform the economic worth of the entire Eurasia. > > China-Iran Trade > > Already despite onerous US and EU economic sanctions on Iran, Sino-Iranian trade had grown even before the 2015 nuclear agreement loosened some sanctions. Bilateral trade grew from $400 million in 1989 to almost $52 billion in 2014. Today the Iran-China Chamber of Commerce and Industries (I.C.C.C.I.), has grown from 65 members in 2001 to 6,000, an indication of the intensity of economic cooperation. > > On the lifting of sanctions this January, 2016 China President Xi Jinping went to Teheran where the two countries signed major economic agreements. After their January 23 talks, Iranian president Rouhani announced that, “Iran and China have agreed to increase trade to $600 billion in the next 10 years,” adding that both countries, “have agreed on forming strategic relations, reflected in a 25-year comprehensive document.” Moreover, Iran agreed to nuclear energy cooperation and formally participating in China’s One Belt, One Road which Russia and the Eurasian Economic Union countries had formally agreed to join in 2015. > > Iran – Key Link > > China’s One Belt, One Bridge, sometimes referred to as her New Economic Silk Road, is a brilliant geopolitical, economic, military and cultural project. It will enable the member nations to be far more shielded from USA Naval power to interdict vital goods trade by sea from Europe or the Middle East that must pass through the US-patrolled Strait of Malacca. As well, while Washington and Brussels impose economic sanctions on Russian trade with Europe, the Ukrainian crisis forced a far more serious Russian “pivot to the East,” notably to China. > > What has emerged since the crisis created for Russia with the USA February 2014 Ukraine coup d’etat, is a strategic cooperation between the three major powers–Iran, China and Russia, what Zbigniew Brzezinski described in his 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard, as the largest geopolitical challenge facing continued Sole Superpower supremacy of the United States following Washington’s destruction of the Soviet Union in 1989-91. > > Brzezinski declared then, accurately, “…how America ‘manages’ Eurasia is critical. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world’s three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail Africa’s subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania (Australia) geopolitically peripheral to the world’s central continent. About 75 per cent of the world’s people live in Eurasia, and most of the world’s physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for about three-fourths of the world’s known energy resources.” > > For the Eurasian cohesion under the China OBOR infrastructure developments, Iran is strategic. Not only is China a major buyer of Iranian oil, Iran’s largest export customer. But Iran is also vital to China’s vision to create entirely new manufacturing and logistics centers or hubs in Central Asia and Europe. And, as Indian strategic consultant, Debalina Ghoshal points out, China, “has a keen interest in Iran’s geostrategic location, bordering both the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf. The location enables China to carry out the One Belt One Road agenda.” > > Iran is already partly linked to a recently-completed section of China’s OBOR rail-port infrastructure great project. In early 2015 rail freight began to move across the new Zhanaozen—Gyzylgaya—Bereket—Kyzyl Atrek—Gorgan railway, completed in December, 2014 in the impressive time of five years from start. > > That rail line links Iran to China via the rail line through Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, a founding member of the OBOR idea since Xi Jinping first unveiled it in a visit to Kazakhstan in 2013. The new rail link, known as the North-South Transnational Rail Corridor connects Iran to Kazakhstan via Turkmenistan and on to the China border. The new rail line runs 908 kilometers, beginning at Uzen in Kazakhstan (120 km), then through Gyzylgaya-Bereket-Etrek in Turkmenistan (700 km) and ending at Gorgan in Iran (88 km). As a result of the new rail link, freight traffic is shifting from truck to rail as the line connects all key ports and terminals of the entire Caspian region. > > The recently completed Uzen to Gorgan rail line as part of the OBOR is transforming the economic importance of an entire part of Central Asia > > The new Iran-Turkmenistan-Kazakhstan to China rail line will transform the entire economic significance of the vast Central Asian region. Bereket in Turkmenistan — which is at the crossroads of the existing Trans-Caspian rail line linking Turkmenbashi on the Caspian Sea with Uzbekistan, Eastern Kazakhstan and China — is now to be site of a large locomotive repair depot together with a modern state-of-the-art freight terminal, making it a major freight hub. > > Further, the Turkmen government is building a huge port at Turkmenbashi that would enable further trade links potentially to the Russian Federation by sea. The rail link to Gorgan in Iran already is linked to Iran’s national railway grid and will thereby enable rail transport between China, Central Asia and the Persian Gulf. The connection will shorten the route by 400 km, and reduce freight transport time more or less in half, from 45-60 days at present to 25-30 days. This is a huge economic gain. > > Since April this year as well, Moscow and Teheran have been engaged in discussions of building a ship canal from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf through Iran. Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran also agreed to speed up the talks on a North-South transport corridor that partly would go along the western coast of the Caspian Sea from Russia to Iran through Azerbaijan. The North-South corridor, when completed will reduce the time of cargo transport from India to Central Asia and Russia from at present about 40 days from Mumbai, India to Moscow to 14 days and bypass the congested and expensive Suez Canal. > > Everywhere we go today across Eurasia, from the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea to Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and on to China, there is a process underway for the first time since the original Silk Road era of more than two thousand years ago, of building up an entire new economic space, the Eurasian Heartland. Were the Turkish government to join the OBOR project wholeheartedly, the potentials for a Eurasian transformation would become enormous. It remains to be seen what a USA with a Trump presidency will do or not do to try to destroy this beautiful Eurasian build up. If he is as wise as his sound bites make him sound, he will recognize that this kind of development is the only true future for his United States other than bankruptcy, economic depression and wars of destruction. If not, more and more much of the rest of the world seems determined to go it without the “Sole Superpower.” > > F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.” > > > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss From davegreen84 at yahoo.com Wed Dec 7 03:16:18 2016 From: davegreen84 at yahoo.com (David Green) Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2016 03:16:18 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace-discuss] From a local Iranian academic References: <686151216.1475481.1481080578606.ref@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <686151216.1475481.1481080578606@mail.yahoo.com> http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/06/warmongering-99-common-sense-0-the-senates-unanimous-renewable-of-iran-sanctions-act/ The Senate just renewed the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996 for another ten years. President Obama has indicated that he will not veto the bill, as the margin of 99-0 makes the resolution veto proof.  The extension of the H. R. 6297 comes at the heels of Trump’s election; he has already declared in no uncertain terms that he will repeal the Iran Nuclear Deal. Since the Iranian revolution of 1979, successive U.S. administrations, Democrat and Republican, have imposed different forms of sanctions against the Iranian government. While sanctions remain constant, their justifications have changed over the years. The official rationale of this policy is the promotion of democracy, containment of Iran’s nuclear program and their regional ambitions, and checking their support for terrorist organizations in the region and around the globe. I do not want to engage whether these allegations are true or not. Rather, I want to argue here that these justifications are merely smokescreens for promotion of war and instability in the Middle East. I do not believe that successive governments in the United States intended to foster peace and stability, but implemented “misguided” policies that resulted in war and carnage in the Middle East.  The steady rise of the significance of military-industrial complex since early 1980s and the privatization of the war machine have reconstituted American economy and redirected it toward a war-dependent regime of production.  This form of “disaster capitalism,” as Naomi Klein puts it, is invested in perpetual war and reconstruction after the war.  This became quite evident when Senator Rand Paul raised moral objections to arming the Saudis and financing their slaughter of civilians in Yemen.  The conversation in the House quickly turned to the question of jobs in the U.S. Even the CNN news anchor Wolf Blitzer asked the senator to weigh his moral considerations against jobs in the U. S.  “So for you this is a moral issue,” he told the Kentucky Republican’s appearance on CNN. “Because you know, there’s a lot of jobs at stake. Certainly if a lot of these defense contractors stop selling war planes, other sophisticated equipment to Saudi Arabia, there’s going to be a significant loss of jobs, of revenue here in the United States. That’s secondary from your standpoint?” In relation to Iran, the U.S. government has repeatedly followed policies that embolden and strengthen the factions in the Iranian government that thrive on open hostility toward American and its European allies. A majority of experts of Iranian affairs have warned year after year that the imposition of a regime of sanctions against the Iranian government would result in the further suppression of civil liberties in Iran, the deepening of economic hardship on the populace, and the creation of a informal crony economy controlled by those the sanctions intend to target. Although there is convincing evidence that the sanctions indeed work against their stated objectives, the U.S. continues to pursue the same policies. Are the Americans slow learners, or the pursuit of peace and stability is not in reality the aim of these policies? This is not the first time that the warmongers in the U.S. have tried to torpedo a multilateral agreement on the Iranian nuclear technology.  In August 2003, Iran reached an agreement with the EU3, France-Germany-Great Britain, in Paris to sign an Additional Protocol with the IAEA.  The Paris agreement required Iran to suspend voluntarily its enrichment activities and accept an intrusive regime of “snap inspections.”  Furthermore, Iran agreed to the IAEA demand to install recording cameras in all its nuclear facilities.  In return the EU3 guaranteed to recognize Iran’s inalienable right to nuclear technology under the NPT and work on technological assistance and economic incentives to assure the peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear ambitions. After three years of inspections, even of military facilities that were not included in the original agreement, the IAEA found no evidence of a military component in the Iranian nuclear program.  Indeed in January 31, 2006, the IAEA Updated Brief stated: “Iran has continued to facilitate access under its Safeguards Agreement as requested by the Agency, and has acted as if the Additional Protocol is in force, including by providing in a timely manner the requisite declarations and access locations.”  Four days later, on February 4, the IAEA board approved the referral of Iran to the UN Security Council.  The board argued that Iran has failed to show the peaceful nature of its nuclear program.  Under pressure of the US government, the IAEA board changed the main objective of the Additional Protocol from finding evidence of “any diversion of nuclear material to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices,” which it had found none, to “finding proof of its exclusive civilian use.” These actions have devastating effects on Iranian domestic politics. When the original agreement was signed 2003 by the reformist Iranian president, Mohammad Khatami, the Americans knew that the reformists’ credibility was contingent upon a successful ratification of Iran-EU3 treaty. Despite the Iranian compliance, the U.S. undermined the Khatami administration and paved the road for the electoral victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This time, the Iranian president, Hasan Rouhani, heads an executive branch that promotes a policy of rapprochement. His government has invested its entire political capital in reaching a nuclear agreement with the EU, Russia, and the United States, hoping to end the cycle of regimes of sanctions in Iran.  This has been achieved despite massive opposition of those who benefitted from the sanctions, both politically as well as economically.  There are those in Iran who celebrated Trump’s election as a divine intervention in rescinding the nuclear agreement. They believe without the nuclear agreement the reformists almost certainly would lose the next presidential election in June 2017. Does the U.S. strategic interest in the Middle East rest in having a reformist-stabilizing or a hostile-erratic government in Iran? I think it is the latter. I am no longer baffled by policies that clearly work against their stated justification.  The American Empire needs war. It needs a perpetual cycle of war and reconstruction to turn the wheel of its economy.  The warmongers of the world are celebrating. Their allies won 99-0 on U.S. soil. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From carl at newsfromneptune.com Wed Dec 7 14:58:48 2016 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2016 08:58:48 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Pearl Harbor and vicious US war mythology In-Reply-To: <9957F4C3-20F8-4DBD-A034-A458B8CDE50C@illinois.edu> References: <9957F4C3-20F8-4DBD-A034-A458B8CDE50C@illinois.edu> Message-ID: On this 75th anniversary of Japan's attack on (parts of) the US Navy fleet in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the internets cough up this movie review I wrote in the year of the 60th anniversary: http://www.counterpunch.org/2001/06/05/pearl-harbor-revisited/ See now David Swanson's excellent and daunting "75 Years of Pearl Harbor Lies" . —CGE -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Wed Dec 7 23:14:38 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2016 23:14:38 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] War Criminals receiving "peace prizes"....... Message-ID: Groups Demand Arrest of 'War Mastermind' Kissinger at Nobel Peace Prize Forum Nobel Peace Prize committee honors Kissinger a second time with speaking engagement at new forum on world peace by Nika Knight, staff writer * * * * * * * 15 Comments [Henry Kissinger] Former secretary of state Henry Kissinger was infamously awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 for his role in the Vietnam War—a decision that comedian Tom Lehrer said "made political satire obsolete." (Photo: Reuters) The Nobel Peace Prize committee last month stunned many observers by choosingHenry Kissinger—the former secretary of state behind the secret American bombing of Cambodia and who supported Argentina's "dirty wars," among other things—to speak at a forum on "The United States and World Peace after the Presidential Election." In response, on Tuesday the progressive groups RootsAction and Nobel Peace Prize Watch issued a petition demanding that Norwegian officials arrest Kissinger. "The Nobel Committee has arranged for well-known war mastermind Henry Kissinger to speak as an honored guest at a forum that is part of the Nobel Peace Prize events," the petition states. "Several of Kissinger's crimes come under treaties that make it mandatory for Norway to prosecute. Kissinger is complicit or a main actor in many violations of the Genocide Convention and of the Geneva Conventions." Nobel Peace Prize Watch lays out Kissinger's actions (pdf) in great detail, making the case that Norway is obligated under international law to arrest the former secretary of state. Kissinger was infamously awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 for his role in the Vietnam war—a decision that comedian Tom Lehrer said "made political satire obsolete." Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Advisor under Jimmy Carter, is also scheduled to speak at the Oslo forum, which will take place on December 11. Jan Oberg of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research condemnedthe Nobel committee's decision to honor the two former U.S. officials: These two experts on warfare and interventionism will—Orwellian style—speak about "The United States and World Peace after the Presidential Election." This is the country that, since 1980, has intervened violently in Iran, Libya, Lebanon, Kuwait, Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Sudan, Kosova/Serbia, Yemen, Pakistan, Syria, i.e. 14 Muslim countries. It has some 630 base facilities in 130+ countries. It has its U.S. Special Forces (SOF) in 133 countries. It has used nuclear weapons without apology and owns the second largest arsenal of nuclear weapons. The U.S. stands for about 40 percent of the world's military expenditures, is the world's leading arms exporter and has killed more people than anybody else since 1945. It's the master of (imprecise) drone strikes. It presently supports Saudi Arabia's bestial war on Yemen and conducts a military build-up in Asia and the Pacific planning, as it seems, for what looks like a future confrontation with China. And not with terribly positive results in its Middle East policies since 1945. So with all these credentials, please tell us about world peace! And Nobel Peace Prize Watch further argues: "Millions of people, victims and survivors, will question or be seriously offended if Norway goes through with praise and honors to a person in the top ranks of the history of callous international state criminality. The suffering ordered or managed by Kissinger has led to increasing insecurity and violence for which all citizens of the world pay a high price." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brussel at illinois.edu Thu Dec 8 04:33:37 2016 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2016 04:33:37 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Giraldi article Message-ID: <4A05F76A-CE6C-45BC-89B9-CC807608F0E5@illinois.edu> Pretty much on the mark: http://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/fake-news-versus-no-news/ -mkb -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Thu Dec 8 20:12:30 2016 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2016 14:12:30 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] FW: WORLD LABOR HOUR SAT. DEC. 10th Message-ID: <009d01d2518f$6edff570$4c9fe050$@comcast.net> WORLD LABOR HOUR SATURDAY DECEMBER 10th 11 am - 1 pm U.S. Central Time WRFU 104.5 FM and LIVE worldwide at www.wrfu.net DAWN PALEY - Author of the book " DRUG WAR CAPITALISM "- How the Drug War is being used as a smoke screen to violently impose neo-liberal austerity in Mexico and Latin America. AND RANDALL JAMROK - National General Secretary Treasurer of the I.W.W. ( Industrial Workers of the World ) - Will talk about the accomplishments of the I.W.W. in 2016 as well as organizing objectives in 2017. Stay tuned after the WORLD LABOR HOUR for the UNION EDGE with Host Charles Showalter, broadcast from Pittsburgh Pa. WRFU - Radio free Urbana- corporate free community radio for the people. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From r-szoke at illinois.edu Thu Dec 8 20:29:21 2016 From: r-szoke at illinois.edu (Szoke, Ron) Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2016 20:29:21 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Reassurance from the Giant Vampire Squid Message-ID: <567E5673-3C6B-4708-9E9D-AD61C9292E00@illinois.edu> Trump won’t be a ‘dangerous’ president, says Goldman’s CEO Fears about a Donald Trump presidency may be misplaced, according to Goldman Sachs Group CEO Lloyd Blankfein in an interview published in the German newspaper Handelsblatt. Blankfein, head of the world’s most prominent investment bank, said Trump would be a level-headed leader despite his controversial anti-immigration rhetoric and his protectionist stance on trade policies. Trump has proposed building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and has discussed banning Muslims from entering the U.S. Read: Goldman Sachs is the big Dow winner of the Trump rally [cid:0277FADF-0998-41B8-B8A9-A0CD0AD390DC] –– ADVERTISEMENT –– [cid:FC8FCD29-D0C8-4009-903D-64EC3D3A5984] Still, he gets a thumbs up from Goldman’s head. “He’s a very smart guy, a businessman…I am not pessimistic at all because he won,” Blankfein told the paper. “Mr. Trump may turn out to be a much better president than anyone else might have been in that place,’’ he said. “He’s just less of a known quantity as a politician.” Trump’s surprising Election Day victory sent initial shock waves throughout global markets, but since then equities have stormed higher, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.33% on track to notch its 12th closing record since the election, and the S&P 500 SPX, +0.16% Nasdaq Composite, small-cap focused Russell 2000 index RUT, +1.24% and Dow Jones Transportation Average DJT, +0.37% considered a gauge of U.S. economic health, blazing a path to fresh all-time highs. Read: Stock records signal that fighting the Trump rally is a losing battle For Goldman’s part, the giant investment bank has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the recent surge in markets. Since the presidential election, Goldman’s shares GS, +2.27% have surged 33% to their highest levels since before the 2008, posting the biggest gains among the Dow’s components. Check out: MarketWatch’s stock-market column Moreover, Trump has handpicked a number of Goldman alum to be a part of his administration, including Steven Mnuchin, who was tapped to serve as President-elect Trump’s Treasury secretary. 0:00 / 0:00 [X] Who is Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s Treasury pick? (1:43) President-elect Donald Trump turned to former Goldman Sachs banker and movie financier Steven Mnuchin to be the next Treasury secretary. WSJ’s Rick Carew takes a look at his background. Photo: Getty Trump has proposed policies, including tax cuts and infrastructure spending, that are being viewed as pro-business by Wall Street investors and Mnuchin has expressed an interest in rolling back the Dodd-Frank Act, which was enacted in the wake of the financial crisis. Proponents of repealing parts of the rules argue that it has hobbled bank lending. Talk of looser regulations is likely a boon for the finance sector and Goldman in particular. — WSJ MarketWatch online 120816 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: in-art-countdown-icon-128x128x3s.gif Type: image/gif Size: 20114 bytes Desc: in-art-countdown-icon-128x128x3s.gif URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: in-art-soundanimation-icon-41x48.gif Type: image/gif Size: 4933 bytes Desc: in-art-soundanimation-icon-41x48.gif URL: From fboyle at illinois.edu Fri Dec 9 12:45:39 2016 From: fboyle at illinois.edu (Boyle, Francis A) Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2016 12:45:39 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] FW: US 'Fake News' Controversy Fuels New Era of McCarthyism Message-ID: Ditto for the pro-US Imperial/Corporate Brainwashing conducted by the Faculty of the University of Illinois College of "Law"--Mein Fuhrer, I can walk! Fab Ed Norton Professor of Law Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) -----Original Message----- From: Boyle, Francis A Sent: Friday, December 09, 2016 6:40 AM To: SECTNS.aals at lists.aals.org Subject: US 'Fake News' Controversy Fuels New Era of McCarthyism Clearly we are seeing a resurgence of McCarthyism here in the United States," University of Illinois Professor of International Law Francis Boyle said. The accusations are "designed by the US Imperial Corporate Establishment to repress alternative viewpoints that call into question their criminal, lawless, unjust and inequitable behavior across the board," Boyle stated. "The real 'fake news' can be found in the Mainstream news media here in the United States - not much better than pro-Corporate/Government propaganda," Boyle said. Read more: https://sputniknews.com/us/201612091048346047-us-fake-news-controversy-mccarthyism/ https://sputniknews.com/us/201612091048346047-us-fake-news-controversy-mccarthyism/ From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Fri Dec 9 15:38:07 2016 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2016 09:38:07 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?q?Site_Behind_Washington_Post=E2=80=99s_M?= =?utf-8?q?cCarthyite_Blacklist_Appears_To_Be_Linked_to_Ukrainian_F?= =?utf-8?q?ascists_and_CIA_Sp?= Message-ID: <007601d25232$3fb86fe0$bf294fa0$@comcast.net> “This is the world the Washington Post is bringing back to its front pages. And the timing is incredible—as if Bezos’ rag has taken upon itself to soften up the American media before Trump moves in for the kill. And it’s all being done in the name of fighting “fake news” …and fascism.” Lengthy article but well worth the read. Site Behind Washington Post’s McCarthyite Blacklist Appears To Be Linked to Ukrainian Fascists and CIA Spies Posted on December 9, 2016 by Jerri-Lynn Scofield By Mark Ames, who is the Co-host of the Radio War Nerd podcast. Read more of his work at eXiledonline.com. He is the author of Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion: From Reagan’s Workplaces to Clinton’s Columbine and Beyond. Cross-posted from AlterNet. Last month, the Washington Post gave a glowing front-page boost to an anonymous online blacklist of hundreds of American websites, from marginal conspiracy sites to flagship libertarian and progressive publications. As Max Blumenthal reported for AlterNet, the anonymous website argued that all of them should be investigated by the federal government and potentially prosecuted under the Espionage Act as Russian spies, for wittingly or unwittingly spreading Russian propaganda. My own satirical newspaper was raided and closed down by the Kremlin in 2008, on charges of “extremism”—akin to terrorism—which I took seriously enough to leave for home for good. What the Washington Post did in boosting an anonymous blacklist of American journalists accused of criminal treason is one of the sleaziest, and most disturbing (in a very familiar Kremlin way) things I’ve seen in this country since I fled for home. The WaPo is essentially an arm of the American deep state; its owner, Jeff Bezos, is one of the three richest Americans, worth $67 billion, and his cash cow, Amazon, is a major contractor with the Central Intelligence Agency. In other words, this is as close to an official US government blacklist of journalists as we’ve seen—a dark ominous warning before they take the next steps. It’s now been a few days, and the shock and disgust is turning to questions about how to fight back—and who we should be fighting against. Who were the Washington Post’s sources for their journalism blacklist? Smearing a progressive journalism icon The WaPo smear was authored by tech reporter Craig Timberg, a former national security editor who displayed embarrassing deference to the head of the world’s largest private surveillance operation, billionaire Eric Schmidt—in contrast to his treatment of his journalism colleagues. There’s little in Timberg’s history to suggest he’d lead one of the ugliest public smears of his colleagues in decades. Timberg’s father, a successful mainstream journalist who recently died, wrote hagiographies on his Naval Academy comrades including John McCain, the Senate’s leading Russophobic hawk, and three Iran-Contra conspirators—Oliver North, John Poindexter, and Robert McFarlane, whose crimes Timberg blames on their love of country and sacrifices in Vietnam. WaPo’s key source was an anonymous online group calling itself PropOrNot (i.e., “Propaganda Or Not”). It was here that the blacklist of American journalists allegedly working with the Kremlin was posted. The Washington Post cited PropOrNot as a credible source, and granted them the right to anonymously accuse major American news outlets of treason, recommending that the government investigate and prosecute them under the Espionage Act for spreading Russian propaganda. Featured alongside those anonymously accused of treason by PropOrNot, among a long list of marginal conspiracy sites and major news hubs, is Truthdig. This news and opinion site was co-founded by Zuade Kaufman and the veteran journalist Robert Scheer, who is a professor of USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and former columnist for the LA Times. It would not be the first time Scheer has come under attack from dark forces. In the mid-late 1960s, Scheer made his fame as editor and reporter for Ramparts, the fearless investigative magazine that changed American journalism. One of the biggest bombshell stories that Scheer’s magazine exposed was the CIA’s covert funding of the National Student Association, then America’s largest college student organization, which had chapters on 400 campuses and a major presence internationally. The CIA was not pleased with Scheer’s magazine’s work, and shortly afterwards launched a top-secret and illegal domestic spying campaign against Scheer and Ramparts, believing that they must be a Russian Communist front. A secret team of CIA operatives—kept secret even from the rest of Langley, the operation was so blatantly illegal—spied on Scheer and his Ramparts colleagues, dug through Ramparts’ funders lives and harassed some of them into ditching the magazine, but in all of that they couldn’t find a single piece of evidence linking Scheer’s magazine to Kremlin agents. This secret illegal CIA investigation into Scheer’s magazine expanded its domestic spying project, code-named MH-CHAOS, that grew into a monster targeting hundreds of thousands of Americans, only to be exposed by Seymour Hersh in late 1974, leading to the creation of the Church Committee hearings and calls by Congress for the abolition of the Central Intelligence Agency. It’s one of the dark ugly ironies that 50 years later, Scheer has been anonymously accused of working for Russian spies, only this time the accusers have the full cooperation of the Washington Post’s front page. PropOrNot’s Ukrainian fascist salute Still the question lingers: Who is behind PropOrNot? Who are they? We may have to await the defamation lawsuits that are almost certainly coming from those smeared by the Post and by PropOrNot. Their description sounds like the “About” tab on any number of Washington front groups that journalists and researchers are used to coming across: “PropOrNot is an independent team of concerned American citizens with a wide range of backgrounds and expertise, including professional experience in computer science, statistics, public policy, and national security affairs.” The only specific clues given were an admission that at least one of its members with access to its Twitter handle is “Ukrainian-American”. They had given this away in a handful of early Ukrainian-language tweets, parroting Ukrainian ultranationalist slogans, before the group was known. One PropOrNot tweet, dated November 17, invokes a 1940s Ukrainian fascist salute “ Heroism Slava!!” to cheer a news item on Ukrainian hackers fighting Russians. The phrase means “Glory to the heroes” and it was formally introduced by the fascist Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) at their March-April 1941 congress in Nazi occupied Cracow, as they prepared to serve as Nazi auxiliaries in Operation Barbarossa. As historian Grzgorz Rossoliński-Liebe, author of the definitive biography on Ukraine’s wartime fascist leader and Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera, explained: “the OUN-B introduced another Ukrainian fascist salute at the Second Great Congress of the Ukrainian Nationalists in Cracow in March and April 1941. This was the most popular Ukrainian fascist salute and had to be performed according to the instructions of the OUN-B leadership by raising the right arm ‘slightly to the right, slightly above the peak of the head’ while calling ‘Glory to Ukraine!’ (Slava Ukraїni!) and responding ‘Glory to the Heroes!’ (Heroiam Slava!).” Two months after formalizing this salute, Nazi forces allowed Bandera’s Ukrainian fascists to briefly take control of Lvov, at the time a predominantly Jewish and Polish city—whereupon the Ukrainian “patriots” murdered, tortured and raped thousand of Jews, in one of the most barbaric and bloodiest pogroms ever. Since the 2014 Maidan Revolution brought Ukrainian neo-fascists back into the highest rungs of power, Ukraine’s Nazi collaborators and wartime fascists have been rehabilitated as heroes, with major highways and roads named after them, and public commemorations. The speaker of Ukraine’s parliament, Andriy Parubiy, founded Ukraine’s neo-Nazi “Social-National Party of Ukraine” and published a white supremacist manifesto, “View from the Right” featuring the parliament speaker in full neo-Nazi uniform in front of fascist flags with the Nazi Wolfsangel symbol. Ukraine’s powerful Interior Minister, Arsen Avakov, sponsors several ultranationalist and neo-Nazi militia groups like the Azov Battalion, and last month he helped appoint another neo-Nazi, Vadym Troyan, as head of Ukraine’s National Police. (Earlier this year, when Troyan was still police chief of the capital Kiev, he was widely accused of having ordered an illegal surveillance operation on investigative journalist Pavel Sheremet just before his assassination by car bomb.) A Ukrainian intelligence service blacklist as PropOrNot’s model Since coming to power in the 2014 Maidan Revolution, Ukraine’s US-backed regime has waged an increasingly surreal war on journalists who don’t toe the Ukrainian ultranationalist line, and against treacherous Kremlin propagandists, real and imagined. Two years ago, Ukraine established a “Ministry of Truth”. This year the war has gone from surreal paranoia to an increasingly deadly kind of “terror.” One of the more frightening policies enacted by the current oligarch-nationalist regime in Kiev is an on-line blacklist of journalists accused of collaborating with pro-Russian “terrorists.” The website, “Myrotvorets” or “Peacemaker”—was set up by Ukrainian hackers working with state intelligence and police, all of which tend to share the same ultranationalist ideologies as Parubiy and the newly-appointed neo-Nazi chief of the National Police. Condemned by the Committee to Protect Journalists and numerous news organizations in the West and in Ukraine, the online blacklist includes the names and personal private information on some 4500 journalists, including several western journalists and Ukrainians working for western media. The website is designed to frighten and muzzle journalists from reporting anything but the pro-nationalist party line, and it has the backing of government officials, spies and police—including the SBU (Ukraine’s successor to the KGB), the powerful Interior Minister Avakov and his notorious far-right deputy, Anton Geraschenko. Ukraine’s journalist blacklist website—operated by Ukrainian hackers working with state intelligence—led to a rash of death threats against the doxxed journalists, whose email addresses, phone numbers and other private information was posted anonymously to the website. Many of these threats came with the wartime Ukrainian fascist salute: “Slava Ukraini!” [Glory to Ukraine!] So when PropOrNot’s anonymous “researchers” reveal only their Ukrainian(s) identity, it’s hard not to think about the spy-linked hackers who posted the deadly “Myrotvorets” blacklist of “treasonous” journalists. The DNC’s Ukrainian ultra-nationalist researcher cries treason Because the PropOrNot blacklist of American journalist “traitors” is anonymous, and the Washington Post front-page article protects their anonymity, we can only speculate on their identity with what little information they’ve given us. And that little bit of information reveals only a Ukrainian ultranationalist thread—the salute, the same obsessively violent paranoia towards Russia, and towards journalists, who in the eyes of Ukrainian nationalists have always been dupes and stooges, if not outright collaborators, of Russian evil. One of the key media sources who blamed the DNC hacks on Russia, ramping up fears of crypto-Putinist infiltration, is a Ukrainian-American lobbyist working for the DNC. She is Alexandra Chalupa—described as the head of the Democratic National Committee’s opposition research on Russia and on Trump, and founder and president of the Ukrainian lobby group “US United With Ukraine Coalition”, which lobbied hard to pass a 2014 bill increasing loans and military aid to Ukraine, imposing sanctions on Russians, and tightly aligning US and Ukraine geostrategic interests. In October of this year, Yahoo News named Chalupa one of “16 People Who Shaped the 2016 Election” for her role in pinning the DNC leaks on Russian hackers, and for making the case that the Trump campaign was under Kremlin control. “As a Democratic Party consultant and proud Ukrainian-American, Alexandra Chalupa was outraged last spring when Donald Trump named Paul Manafort as his campaign manager,” the Yahoo profile began. “As she saw it, Manafort was a key figure in advancing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s agenda inside her ancestral homeland — and she was determined to expose it.” Chalupa worked with veteran reporter Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News to publicize her opposition research on Trump, Russia and Paul Manafort, as well as her many Ukrainian sources. In one leaked DNC email earlier this year, Chalupa boasts to DNC Communications Director Luis Miranda that she brought Isikoff to a US-government sponsored Washington event featuring 68 Ukrainian journalists, where Chalupa was invited “to speak specifically about Paul Manafort.” In turn, Isikoff named her as the key inside source “proving” that the Russians were behind the hacks, and that Trump’s campaign was under the spell of Kremlin spies and sorcerers. (In 2008, when I broke the story about the Manafort-Kremlin ties in The Nation with Ari Berman, I did not go on to to accuse him or John McCain, whose campaign was being run by Manafort’s partner, of being Manchurian Candidates under the spell of Vladimir Putin. Because they weren’t; instead, they were sleazy, corrupt, hypocritical politicians who followed money and power rather than principle. A media hack feeding frenzy turned Manafort from what he was—a sleazy scumbag—into a fantastical Kremlin mole, forcing Manafort to resign from the Trump campaign, thanks in part to kompromat material leaked by the Ukrainian SBU, successor to the KGB.) Meanwhile, Chalupa’s Twitter feed went wild accusing Trump of treason—a crime that carries the death penalty. Along with well over 100 tweets hashtagged #TreasonousTrump Chalupa repeatedly asked powerful government officials and bodies like the Department of Justice to investigate Trump for the capital crime of treason. In the weeks since the election, Chalupa has repeatedly accused both the Trump campaign and Russia of rigging the elections, demanding further investigations. According to The Guardian, Chalupa recently sent a report to Congress proving Russian hacked into the vote count, hoping to initiate a Congressional investigation. In an interview with Gothamist, Chalupa described alleged Russian interference in the election result as “an act of war.” To be clear, I am not arguing that Chalupa is behind PropOrNot. But it is important to provide context to the boasts by PropOrNot about its Ukrainian nationalist links—within the larger context of the Clinton campaign’s anti-Kremlin hysteria, which crossed the line into Cold War xenophobia time and time again, an anti-Russian xenophobia shared by Clinton’s Ukrainian nationalist allies. To me, it looks like a classic case of blowback: A hyper-nationalist group whose extremism happens to be useful to American geopolitical ambitions, and is therefore nurtured to create problems for our competitor. Indeed, the US has cultivated extreme Ukrainian nationalists as proxies for decades, since the Cold War began. As investigative journalist Russ Bellant documented in his classic exposé, “Old Nazis, New Right,” Ukrainian Nazi collaborators were brought into the United States and weaponized for use against Russia during the Cold War, despite whatever role they may have played in the Holocaust and in the mass slaughter of Ukraine’s ethnic Poles. After spending so many years encouraging extreme Ukrainian nationalism, it’s no surprise that the whole policy is beginning to blow back. WaPo’s other source: A loony, far-right eugenicist think tank Besides PropOrNot, the Washington Post’s Craig Timberg relied on only one other source to demonstrate the influence of Russian propaganda: the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), whose “fellow” Clint Watts is cited by name, along with a report he co-authored, “Trolling for Trump: How Russia is Trying to Destroy Our Democracy.” Somehow, in the pushback and outrage over the WaPo blacklist story, the FPRI has managed to fly under the radar. So much so that when Fortune’s Matthew Ingram correctly described the FPRI as “proponents of the Cold War” he was compelled to issue a clarification, changing the description to “a conservative think tank known for its hawkish stance on relations between the US and Russia.” In fact, historically the Foreign Policy Research Institute has been one of the looniest (and spookiest) extreme-right think tanks since the early Cold War days, promoting “winnable” nuclear war, maximum confrontation with Russia, and attacking anti-colonialism as dangerously unworkable. One of the key brains behind the FPRI’s extreme-right Cold War views also happened to be a former Austrian fascist official who, upon emigrating to America, became one of this country’s leading proponents of racial eugenics and white supremacy. The Foreign Policy Research Institute was founded by Robert Strausz-Hupé and set up on the University of Pennsylvania campus, with backing from the Vick’s chemical company, funder of numerous reactionary rightwing causes since the New Deal began. And, as the New York Times reported, the FPRI also was covertly funded by the CIA, a revelation that would lead to student protests and the FPRI removing itself from Penn’s campus in 1970. The FPRI’s founder, Strausz-Hupe, emigrated to the US from Austria in the 1920s. In the early Cold War years, he became known as an advocate of aggressive confrontation with the Soviet Union, openly advocating total nuclear war rather than anything like surrender or cohabitation. In a 1961 treatise “A Forward Strategy for America” that Strausz-Hupe co-authored with his frequent FPRI collaborator, the former Austrian fascist official and racial eugenics advocate Stefan Possony, they wrote: “Even at a moment when the United States faces defeat because, for example, Europe, Asia and Africa have fallen to communist domination, a sudden nuclear attack against the Soviet Union could at least avenge the disaster and deprive the opponent of the ultimate triumph. While such a reversal at the last moment almost certainly would result in severe American casualties, it might still nullify all previous Soviet conquests.” But it was Russian propaganda that most concerned Strausz-Hupe and his FPRI. In 1959, for example, he published a three-page spread in the New York Times, headlined “Why Russia Is Ahead in Propaganda,” that has odd echoes of last month’s paranoid Washington Post article alleging a vast conspiracy of American journalists secretly poisoning the public’s mind with Russian propaganda. The article argued, as many do today, that America and the West were dangerously behind the Russians in the propaganda arms race—and dangerously disadvantaged by our open and free society, where propaganda is allegedly sniffed out by our ever-vigilant and fearless media. The only way for America to protect itself from Russian propaganda, he wrote, was to massively increase its propaganda warfare budgets, and close the alleged “propaganda gap”—echoing again the same solutions being peddled today in Washington and London: “[W]ithin the limitations of our society, we can take steps to expand and improve our existing programs. “These programs have been far from generous. It has been estimated, for example, that the Communists in one single propaganda offensive—the germ-warfare campaign during the Korean conflict—spent nearly as much as the entire annual allocation to the United States Information Agency. We should increase the austere budget of the U.S.I.A. We should give our information specialists a greater voice in policy-making councils. We should attempt to coordinate more fully and effectively the propaganda programs of the Western alliance.” A few years later, the FPRI’s Strausz-Hupe published a deranged attack in the New York Times against Stanley Kubrick’s film Dr. Strangelove, calling it “the most vicious attack to date launched by way of our mass media against the American military profession”. The FPRI’s founding director went further, accusing Kubrick of being, if not a conscious Russian agent of propaganda, then a Soviet dupe undermining American democracy and stability—the same sort of paranoid accusations that FPRI is leveling again today. As Strausz-Hupe wrote: “Anyone who cares to scan the Soviet press and the Communist press in other lands will note that it is one of the principal Communist objectives to drive a wedge between the American people and their military leaders. Mr. Kubrick’s creation certainly serves this purpose.” Reading that then, knowing how the Soviet Union eventually collapsed on itself without firing a shot—and seeing the same paranoid, sleazy lies being peddled again today, one is dumbstruck by just how stagnant our intellectual culture is. We’ve never thawed ourselves out from our Cold War pathologies; we’re still trapped in the same structures that nurture these pathologies. Too many careers and salaries depend on it… But Strausz-Hupe was the voice of reason compared to his chief collaborator and co-author at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, Stefan Possony. He too was an Austrian emigre, although Possony didn’t leave his homeland until 1938. Before then he served in the Austrofascist governments of both Dollfuss and Schuschnigg, but left after the Nazi Anschluss deposed the native fascists and installed Hitler’s puppets in their place. Possony was a director and fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and according to historian Robert Vitalis’ recent book “White World Power” [Cornell University Press], Possony co-authored nearly all of the FPRI’s policy research material until he moved to Stanford’s Hoover Institute in 1961, where he helped align the two institutions. Possony continued publishing in the FPRI’s journal Orbis throughout the 1960s and beyond. He was also throughout this time one of the most prolific contributors to Mankind Quarterly, the leading race eugenics journal in the days before The Bell Curve—and co-author race eugenics books with white supremacist Nathaniel Weyl. So even as he was publishing aggressive Cold War propaganda for the Foreign Policy Research Institute, Possony wrote elsewhere that the “average African Negro functions as does the European after a leucotomy [prefrontal lobotomy] operation” In other articles, Possony described the people of “the Middle East, Latin America and Southeast Asia” as “genetically unpromising“ because they “lack the innate brain power required for mastery and operation of the tools of modern civilization[.] . . .” For this reason he and Strausz-Hupe opposed the early Cold War policy of de-colonization: “The accretion of lethal power in the hands of nation states dominated by populations incapable of rational thought could be a harbinger of total disaster.” Instead, they argued that white colonialism benefited the natives and raised them up; western critics of colonialism, they argued, were merely “fashionable” dupes who would be responsible for a “genocide” of local whites. As late as a 1974 article in Mankind Quarterly, Possony was defending race eugenics loon William Shockley’s theories on the inferiority of dark skinned races, which he argued could prove that spending money on welfare was in fact a “waste” since there was no way to improve genetically inferior races. Around the same time, Possony emerged as the earliest and most effective advocate of the “Star Wars” anti-ballistic missile system adopted by President Reagan. The way Possony saw it, the Star Wars weapon was entirely offensive, and would give the United States sufficient first strike capability to win a nuclear war with Russia. It was this history, and a 1967 New York Times exposé on how the Foreign Policy Research Institute had been covertly funded by the CIA, that led US Senator Fulbright in 1969 to reject Nixon’s nomination of Strausz-Hupe as ambassador to Morocco. Fulbright denounced Strausz-Hupe as a Cold War extremist and a threat to world peace: ”the very epitome of a hard-line, no compromise.” However, he gave in a couple of years later when Nixon named him to the post of ambassador in Sri Lanka. Today, the Foreign Policy Research Institute proudly honors its founder Strausz-Hupe, and honors his legacy with blacklists of allegedly treasonous journalists and allegedly all-powerful Russian propaganda threatening our freedoms. This is the world the Washington Post is bringing back to its front pages. And the timing is incredible—as if Bezos’ rag has taken upon itself to soften up the American media before Trump moves in for the kill. And it’s all being done in the name of fighting “fake news” …and fascism. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Sat Dec 10 04:48:19 2016 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2016 22:48:19 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?q?Site_Behind_Washington_Post=E2=80=99s_M?= =?utf-8?q?cCarthyite_Blacklist_Appears_To_Be_Linked_to_Ukrainian_F?= =?utf-8?q?ascists_and_CIA_Sp?= In-Reply-To: References: <007601d25232$3fb86fe0$bf294fa0$@comcast.net> Message-ID: <3e6701d252a0$a1712ec0$e4538c40$@comcast.net> Fake news is a problem for certain Roger, and most of the fake news is generated by the corporate media. David Johnson From: Roger Helbig [mailto:rwhelbig at gmail.com] Sent: Friday, December 09, 2016 7:29 PM To: David Johnson Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Site Behind Washington Post’s McCarthyite Blacklist Appears To Be Linked to Ukrainian Fascists and CIA Sp and you know that these sources are valid - Fake News is a huge problem on both far-right and left and it may very well have elected Donald Trump - I really doubt that this "article" that you have reposted is anything more than Fake News - sadly, I expected you to research much more deeply before reposting - I remember dueling with World Net Daily "reporter" back in the last days of the Clinton Administration over a totally fake story that they refused to back down from - it claimed that President Clinton was going to sail in to Haiphong Harbor aboard a US Navy destroyer and that the destroyer would essentially kow tow to Vietnam - I need to dig really deep into my Outlook files for the full story, but I still have them - another great source is Global Research in Montreal which is often cited by the far left because it is run by a professor - it has Neo Nazi connections and its farthest out story was that Israel frog men planted a nuclear weapon on the undersea fault that triggered the great Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami - Roger On Fri, Dec 9, 2016 at 7:38 AM, David Johnson via Peace-discuss wrote: “This is the world the Washington Post is bringing back to its front pages. And the timing is incredible—as if Bezos’ rag has taken upon itself to soften up the American media before Trump moves in for the kill. And it’s all being done in the name of fighting “fake news” …and fascism.” Lengthy article but well worth the read. Site Behind Washington Post’s McCarthyite Blacklist Appears To Be Linked to Ukrainian Fascists and CIA Spies Posted on December 9, 2016 by Jerri-Lynn Scofield By Mark Ames, who is the Co-host of the Radio War Nerd podcast . Read more of his work at eXiledonline.com. He is the author of Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion: From Reagan’s Workplaces to Clinton’s Columbine and Beyond . Cross-posted from AlterNet . Last month, the Washington Post gave a glowing front-page boost to an anonymous online blacklist of hundreds of American websites, from marginal conspiracy sites to flagship libertarian and progressive publications. As Max Blumenthal reported for AlterNet, the anonymous website argued that all of them should be investigated by the federal government and potentially prosecuted under the Espionage Act as Russian spies, for wittingly or unwittingly spreading Russian propaganda. My own satirical newspaper was raided and closed down by the Kremlin in 2008, on charges of “extremism”—akin to terrorism—which I took seriously enough to leave for home for good. What the Washington Post did in boosting an anonymous blacklist of American journalists accused of criminal treason is one of the sleaziest, and most disturbing (in a very familiar Kremlin way) things I’ve seen in this country since I fled for home. The WaPo is essentially an arm of the American deep state ; its owner, Jeff Bezos, is one of the three richest Americans , worth $67 billion, and his cash cow, Amazon, is a major contractor with the Central Intelligence Agency . In other words, this is as close to an official US government blacklist of journalists as we’ve seen—a dark ominous warning before they take the next steps. It’s now been a few days, and the shock and disgust is turning to questions about how to fight back—and who we should be fighting against. Who were the Washington Post’s sources for their journalism blacklist? Smearing a progressive journalism icon The WaPo smear was authored by tech reporter Craig Timberg, a former national security editor who displayed embarrassing deference to the head of the world’s largest private surveillance operation, billionaire Eric Schmidt—in contrast to his treatment of his journalism colleagues. There’s little in Timberg’s history to suggest he’d lead one of the ugliest public smears of his colleagues in decades. Timberg’s father, a successful mainstream journalist who recently died , wrote hagiographies on his Naval Academy comrades including John McCain , the Senate’s leading Russophobic hawk, and three Iran-Contra conspirators—Oliver North, John Poindexter, and Robert McFarlane, whose crimes Timberg blames on their love of country and sacrifices in Vietnam. WaPo’s key source was an anonymous online group calling itself PropOrNot (i.e., “Propaganda Or Not”). It was here that the blacklist of American journalists allegedly working with the Kremlin was posted. The Washington Post cited PropOrNot as a credible source, and granted them the right to anonymously accuse major American news outlets of treason, recommending that the government investigate and prosecute them under the Espionage Act for spreading Russian propaganda. Featured alongside those anonymously accused of treason by PropOrNot, among a long list of marginal conspiracy sites and major news hubs, is Truthdig. This news and opinion site was co-founded by Zuade Kaufman and the veteran journalist Robert Scheer, who is a professor of USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and former columnist for the LA Times. It would not be the first time Scheer has come under attack from dark forces. In the mid-late 1960s, Scheer made his fame as editor and reporter for Ramparts, the fearless investigative magazine that changed American journalism. One of the biggest bombshell stories that Scheer’s magazine exposed was the CIA’s covert funding of the National Student Association , then America’s largest college student organization, which had chapters on 400 campuses and a major presence internationally. The CIA was not pleased with Scheer’s magazine’s work, and shortly afterwards launched a top-secret and illegal domestic spying campaign against Scheer and Ramparts, believing that they must be a Russian Communist front. A secret team of CIA operatives—kept secret even from the rest of Langley, the operation was so blatantly illegal—spied on Scheer and his Ramparts colleagues, dug through Ramparts’ funders lives and harassed some of them into ditching the magazine, but in all of that they couldn’t find a single piece of evidence linking Scheer’s magazine to Kremlin agents. This secret illegal CIA investigation into Scheer’s magazine expanded its domestic spying project, code-named MH-CHAOS, that grew into a monster targeting hundreds of thousands of Americans, only to be exposed by Seymour Hersh in late 1974, leading to the creation of the Church Committee hearings and calls by Congress for the abolition of the Central Intelligence Agency. It’s one of the dark ugly ironies that 50 years later, Scheer has been anonymously accused of working for Russian spies, only this time the accusers have the full cooperation of the Washington Post’s front page. PropOrNot’s Ukrainian fascist salute Still the question lingers: Who is behind PropOrNot? Who are they? We may have to await the defamation lawsuits that are almost certainly coming from those smeared by the Post and by PropOrNot. Their description sounds like the “About” tab on any number of Washington front groups that journalists and researchers are used to coming across: “PropOrNot is an independent team of concerned American citizens with a wide range of backgrounds and expertise, including professional experience in computer science, statistics, public policy, and national security affairs.” The only specific clues given were an admission that at least one of its members with access to its Twitter handle is “Ukrainian-American”. They had given this away in a handful of early Ukrainian-language tweets, parroting Ukrainian ultranationalist slogans, before the group was known. One PropOrNot tweet, dated November 17, invokes a 1940s Ukrainian fascist salute “Heroism Slava!! ” to cheer a news item on Ukrainian hackers fighting Russians. The phrase means “Glory to the heroes” and it was formally introduced by the fascist Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) at their March-April 1941 congress in Nazi occupied Cracow, as they prepared to serve as Nazi auxiliaries in Operation Barbarossa. As historian Grzgorz Rossoliński-Liebe, author of the definitive biography on Ukraine’s wartime fascist leader and Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera, explained : “the OUN-B introduced another Ukrainian fascist salute at the Second Great Congress of the Ukrainian Nationalists in Cracow in March and April 1941. This was the most popular Ukrainian fascist salute and had to be performed according to the instructions of the OUN-B leadership by raising the right arm ‘slightly to the right, slightly above the peak of the head’ while calling ‘Glory to Ukraine!’ (Slava Ukraїni!) and responding ‘Glory to the Heroes!’ (Heroiam Slava!).” Two months after formalizing this salute, Nazi forces allowed Bandera’s Ukrainian fascists to briefly take control of Lvov , at the time a predominantly Jewish and Polish city—whereupon the Ukrainian “patriots” murdered, tortured and raped thousand of Jews , in one of the most barbaric and bloodiest pogroms ever. Since the 2014 Maidan Revolution brought Ukrainian neo-fascists back into the highest rungs of power , Ukraine’s Nazi collaborators and wartime fascists have been rehabilitated as heroes , with major highways and roads named after them , and public commemorations. The speaker of Ukraine’s parliament, Andriy Parubiy , founded Ukraine’s neo-Nazi “Social-National Party of Ukraine” and published a white supremacist manifesto, “View from the Right” featuring the parliament speaker in full neo-Nazi uniform in front of fascist flags with the Nazi Wolfsangel symbol. Ukraine’s powerful Interior Minister, Arsen Avakov, sponsors several ultranationalist and neo-Nazi militia groups like the Azov Battalion , and last month he helped appoint another neo-Nazi , Vadym Troyan , as head of Ukraine’s National Police . (Earlier this year, when Troyan was still police chief of the capital Kiev, he was widely accused of having ordered an illegal surveillance operation on investigative journalist Pavel Sheremet just before his assassination by car bomb .) A Ukrainian intelligence service blacklist as PropOrNot’s model Since coming to power in the 2014 Maidan Revolution, Ukraine’s US-backed regime has waged an increasingly surreal war on journalists who don’t toe the Ukrainian ultranationalist line, and against treacherous Kremlin propagandists, real and imagined. Two years ago, Ukraine established a “Ministry of Truth” . This year the war has gone from surreal paranoia to an increasingly deadly kind of “terror.” One of the more frightening policies enacted by the current oligarch-nationalist regime in Kiev is an on-line blacklist of journalists accused of collaborating with pro-Russian “terrorists.” The website, “Myrotvorets” or “Peacemaker”—was set up by Ukrainian hackers working with state intelligence and police, all of which tend to share the same ultranationalist ideologies as Parubiy and the newly-appointed neo-Nazi chief of the National Police. Condemned by the Committee to Protect Journalists and numerous news organizations in the West and in Ukraine, the online blacklist includes the names and personal private information on some 4500 journalists , including several western journalists and Ukrainians working for western media. The website is designed to frighten and muzzle journalists from reporting anything but the pro-nationalist party line, and it has the backing of government officials, spies and police—including the SBU (Ukraine’s successor to the KGB), the powerful Interior Minister Avakov and his notorious far-right deputy, Anton Geraschenko. Ukraine’s journalist blacklist website—operated by Ukrainian hackers working with state intelligence—led to a rash of death threats against the doxxed journalists, whose email addresses, phone numbers and other private information was posted anonymously to the website. Many of these threats came with the wartime Ukrainian fascist salute: “Slava Ukraini!” [Glory to Ukraine!] So when PropOrNot’s anonymous “researchers” reveal only their Ukrainian(s) identity, it’s hard not to think about the spy-linked hackers who posted the deadly “Myrotvorets” blacklist of “treasonous” journalists. The DNC’s Ukrainian ultra-nationalist researcher cries treason Because the PropOrNot blacklist of American journalist “traitors” is anonymous, and the Washington Post front-page article protects their anonymity, we can only speculate on their identity with what little information they’ve given us. And that little bit of information reveals only a Ukrainian ultranationalist thread—the salute, the same obsessively violent paranoia towards Russia, and towards journalists, who in the eyes of Ukrainian nationalists have always been dupes and stooges, if not outright collaborators, of Russian evil. One of the key media sources who blamed the DNC hacks on Russia, ramping up fears of crypto-Putinist infiltration, is a Ukrainian-American lobbyist working for the DNC. She is Alexandra Chalupa—described as the head of the Democratic National Committee’s opposition research on Russia and on Trump, and founder and president of the Ukrainian lobby group “US United With Ukraine Coalition” , which lobbied hard to pass a 2014 bill increasing loans and military aid to Ukraine, imposing sanctions on Russians, and tightly aligning US and Ukraine geostrategic interests. In October of this year, Yahoo News named Chalupa one of “16 People Who Shaped the 2016 Election” for her role in pinning the DNC leaks on Russian hackers, and for making the case that the Trump campaign was under Kremlin control. “As a Democratic Party consultant and proud Ukrainian-American, Alexandra Chalupa was outraged last spring when Donald Trump named Paul Manafort as his campaign manager,” the Yahoo profile began. “As she saw it, Manafort was a key figure in advancing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s agenda inside her ancestral homeland — and she was determined to expose it.” Chalupa worked with veteran reporter Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News to publicize her opposition research on Trump, Russia and Paul Manafort, as well as her many Ukrainian sources. In one leaked DNC email earlier this year, Chalupa boasts to DNC Communications Director Luis Miranda that she brought Isikoff to a US-government sponsored Washington event featuring 68 Ukrainian journalists, where Chalupa was invited “to speak specifically about Paul Manafort.” In turn, Isikoff named her as the key inside source “proving” that the Russians were behind the hacks, and that Trump’s campaign was under the spell of Kremlin spies and sorcerers. (In 2008, when I broke the story about the Manafort-Kremlin ties in The Nation with Ari Berman, I did not go on to to accuse him or John McCain, whose campaign was being run by Manafort’s partner, of being Manchurian Candidates under the spell of Vladimir Putin. Because they weren’t; instead, they were sleazy, corrupt, hypocritical politicians who followed money and power rather than principle. A media hack feeding frenzy turned Manafort from what he was—a sleazy scumbag—into a fantastical Kremlin mole , forcing Manafort to resign from the Trump campaign, thanks in part to kompromat material leaked by the Ukrainian SBU , successor to the KGB.) Meanwhile, Chalupa’s Twitter feed went wild accusing Trump of treason—a crime that carries the death penalty. Along with well over 100 tweets hashtagged #TreasonousTrump Chalupa repeatedly asked powerful government officials and bodies like the Department of Justice to investigate Trump for the capital crime of treason. In the weeks since the election, Chalupa has repeatedly accused both the Trump campaign and Russia of rigging the elections, demanding further investigations. According to The Guardian , Chalupa recently sent a report to Congress proving Russian hacked into the vote count, hoping to initiate a Congressional investigation. In an interview with Gothamist , Chalupa described alleged Russian interference in the election result as “an act of war.” To be clear, I am not arguing that Chalupa is behind PropOrNot. But it is important to provide context to the boasts by PropOrNot about its Ukrainian nationalist links—within the larger context of the Clinton campaign’s anti-Kremlin hysteria, which crossed the line into Cold War xenophobia time and time again, an anti-Russian xenophobia shared by Clinton’s Ukrainian nationalist allies. To me, it looks like a classic case of blowback: A hyper-nationalist group whose extremism happens to be useful to American geopolitical ambitions, and is therefore nurtured to create problems for our competitor. Indeed, the US has cultivated extreme Ukrainian nationalists as proxies for decades, since the Cold War began. As investigative journalist Russ Bellant documented in his classic exposé, “Old Nazis, New Right,” Ukrainian Nazi collaborators were brought into the United States and weaponized for use against Russia during the Cold War, despite whatever role they may have played in the Holocaust and in the mass slaughter of Ukraine’s ethnic Poles. After spending so many years encouraging extreme Ukrainian nationalism, it’s no surprise that the whole policy is beginning to blow back. WaPo’s other source: A loony, far-right eugenicist think tank Besides PropOrNot, the Washington Post’s Craig Timberg relied on only one other source to demonstrate the influence of Russian propaganda: the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), whose “fellow” Clint Watts is cited by name, along with a report he co-authored, “Trolling for Trump: How Russia is Trying to Destroy Our Democracy.” Somehow, in the pushback and outrage over the WaPo blacklist story, the FPRI has managed to fly under the radar. So much so that when Fortune’s Matthew Ingram correctly described the FPRI as “proponents of the Cold War” he was compelled to issue a clarification, changing the description to “a conservative think tank known for its hawkish stance on relations between the US and Russia.” In fact, historically the Foreign Policy Research Institute has been one of the looniest (and spookiest) extreme-right think tanks since the early Cold War days, promoting “winnable” nuclear war, maximum confrontation with Russia, and attacking anti-colonialism as dangerously unworkable. One of the key brains behind the FPRI’s extreme-right Cold War views also happened to be a former Austrian fascist official who, upon emigrating to America, became one of this country’s leading proponents of racial eugenics and white supremacy. The Foreign Policy Research Institute was founded by Robert Strausz-Hupé and set up on the University of Pennsylvania campus, with backing from the Vick’s chemical company, funder of numerous reactionary rightwing causes since the New Deal began. And, as the New York Times reported , the FPRI also was covertly funded by the CIA, a revelation that would lead to student protests and the FPRI removing itself from Penn’s campus in 1970. The FPRI’s founder, Strausz-Hupe, emigrated to the US from Austria in the 1920s. In the early Cold War years, he became known as an advocate of aggressive confrontation with the Soviet Union, openly advocating total nuclear war rather than anything like surrender or cohabitation. In a 1961 treatise “A Forward Strategy for America” that Strausz-Hupe co-authored with his frequent FPRI collaborator, the former Austrian fascist official and racial eugenics advocate Stefan Possony, they wrote : “Even at a moment when the United States faces defeat because, for example, Europe, Asia and Africa have fallen to communist domination, a sudden nuclear attack against the Soviet Union could at least avenge the disaster and deprive the opponent of the ultimate triumph. While such a reversal at the last moment almost certainly would result in severe American casualties, it might still nullify all previous Soviet conquests.” But it was Russian propaganda that most concerned Strausz-Hupe and his FPRI. In 1959, for example, he published a three-page spread in the New York Times, headlined “Why Russia Is Ahead in Propaganda,” that has odd echoes of last month’s paranoid Washington Post article alleging a vast conspiracy of American journalists secretly poisoning the public’s mind with Russian propaganda. The article argued, as many do today , that America and the West were dangerously behind the Russians in the propaganda arms race—and dangerously disadvantaged by our open and free society, where propaganda is allegedly sniffed out by our ever-vigilant and fearless media. The only way for America to protect itself from Russian propaganda, he wrote, was to massively increase its propaganda warfare budgets, and close the alleged “propaganda gap”—echoing again the same solutions being peddled today in Washington and London: “[W]ithin the limitations of our society, we can take steps to expand and improve our existing programs. “These programs have been far from generous. It has been estimated, for example, that the Communists in one single propaganda offensive—the germ-warfare campaign during the Korean conflict—spent nearly as much as the entire annual allocation to the United States Information Agency. We should increase the austere budget of the U.S.I.A. We should give our information specialists a greater voice in policy-making councils. We should attempt to coordinate more fully and effectively the propaganda programs of the Western alliance.” A few years later, the FPRI’s Strausz-Hupe published a deranged attack in the New York Times against Stanley Kubrick’s film Dr. Strangelove, calling it “the most vicious attack to date launched by way of our mass media against the American military profession”. The FPRI’s founding director went further, accusing Kubrick of being, if not a conscious Russian agent of propaganda, then a Soviet dupe undermining American democracy and stability—the same sort of paranoid accusations that FPRI is leveling again today. As Strausz-Hupe wrote: “Anyone who cares to scan the Soviet press and the Communist press in other lands will note that it is one of the principal Communist objectives to drive a wedge between the American people and their military leaders. Mr. Kubrick’s creation certainly serves this purpose.” Reading that then, knowing how the Soviet Union eventually collapsed on itself without firing a shot—and seeing the same paranoid, sleazy lies being peddled again today, one is dumbstruck by just how stagnant our intellectual culture is. We’ve never thawed ourselves out from our Cold War pathologies; we’re still trapped in the same structures that nurture these pathologies. Too many careers and salaries depend on it… But Strausz-Hupe was the voice of reason compared to his chief collaborator and co-author at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, Stefan Possony. He too was an Austrian emigre, although Possony didn’t leave his homeland until 1938. Before then he served in the Austrofascist governments of both Dollfuss and Schuschnigg, but left after the Nazi Anschluss deposed the native fascists and installed Hitler’s puppets in their place. Possony was a director and fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and according to historian Robert Vitalis’ recent book “White World Power” [Cornell University Press], Possony co-authored nearly all of the FPRI’s policy research material until he moved to Stanford’s Hoover Institute in 1961, where he helped align the two institutions. Possony continued publishing in the FPRI’s journal Orbis throughout the 1960s and beyond. He was also throughout this time one of the most prolific contributors to Mankind Quarterly, the leading race eugenics journal in the days before The Bell Curve—and co-author race eugenics books with white supremacist Nathaniel Weyl . So even as he was publishing aggressive Cold War propaganda for the Foreign Policy Research Institute, Possony wrote elsewhere that the “average African Negro functions as does the European after a leucotomy [prefrontal lobotomy] operation” In other articles, Possony described the people of “the Middle East, Latin America and Southeast Asia” as “genetically unpromising“ because they “lack the innate brain power required for mastery and operation of the tools of modern civilization[.] . . .” For this reason he and Strausz-Hupe opposed the early Cold War policy of de-colonization: “The accretion of lethal power in the hands of nation states dominated by populations incapable of rational thought could be a harbinger of total disaster.” Instead, they argued that white colonialism benefited the natives and raised them up; western critics of colonialism, they argued , were merely “fashionable” dupes who would be responsible for a “genocide” of local whites. As late as a 1974 article in Mankind Quarterly , Possony was defending race eugenics loon William Shockley’s theories on the inferiority of dark skinned races, which he argued could prove that spending money on welfare was in fact a “waste” since there was no way to improve genetically inferior races. Around the same time, Possony emerged as the earliest and most effective advocate of the “Star Wars” anti-ballistic missile system adopted by President Reagan. The way Possony saw it, the Star Wars weapon was entirely offensive, and would give the United States sufficient first strike capability to win a nuclear war with Russia. It was this history, and a 1967 New York Times exposé on how the Foreign Policy Research Institute had been covertly funded by the CIA, that led US Senator Fulbright in 1969 to reject Nixon’s nomination of Strausz-Hupe as ambassador to Morocco. Fulbright denounced Strausz-Hupe as a Cold War extremist and a threat to world peace: ”the very epitome of a hard-line, no compromise.” However, he gave in a couple of years later when Nixon named him to the post of ambassador in Sri Lanka. Today, the Foreign Policy Research Institute proudly honors its founder Strausz-Hupe, and honors his legacy with blacklists of allegedly treasonous journalists and allegedly all-powerful Russian propaganda threatening our freedoms. This is the world the Washington Post is bringing back to its front pages. And the timing is incredible—as if Bezos’ rag has taken upon itself to soften up the American media before Trump moves in for the kill. And it’s all being done in the name of fighting “fake news” …and fascism. _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cgestabrook at gmail.com Sat Dec 10 12:12:16 2016 From: cgestabrook at gmail.com (C. G. ESTABROOK) Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2016 06:12:16 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] News from Neptune, 9 December Message-ID: News from Neptune, a Realignment edition, news commentary from Urbana (IL) Public TV, 9 December 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sS0PF5aH648&feature=em-subs_digest-vrecs -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Sat Dec 10 14:43:26 2016 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2016 08:43:26 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?q?Site_Behind_Washington_Post=E2=80=99s_M?= =?utf-8?q?cCarthyite_Blacklist_Appears_To_Be_Linked_to_Ukrainian_F?= =?utf-8?q?ascists_and_CIA_Sp?= In-Reply-To: References: <007601d25232$3fb86fe0$bf294fa0$@comcast.net> <3e6701d252a0$a1712ec0$e4538c40$@comcast.net> Message-ID: <005401d252f3$c477c5c0$4d675140$@comcast.net> “ Editors and Reporters do not report fake news “ Really Roger ? What about that Yellow cake uranium and those weapons of mass destruction ? What about that recent Washington post article siting the “ prop or not “ website as it’s primary source ? How far do you want to go back –“ Remember the Maine “, the Gulf of Tonkin attack, etc., etc., etc., You are a perfect example of a totally programed corporate media stooge. According to you, if the corporate media says it, it must be true. Never mind the agenda of the corporate owners and advertisers like Ruppert Murdoch, G.E. etc. David J. From: Roger Helbig [mailto:rwhelbig at gmail.com] Sent: Saturday, December 10, 2016 7:35 AM To: David Johnson Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Site Behind Washington Post’s McCarthyite Blacklist Appears To Be Linked to Ukrainian Fascists and CIA Sp Fake news masquerading as a documentary won the Academy Award a couple of years ago, but in today's world, if you shout a lie from the internet often enough to the most receptive crowd, it becomes truth despite their being absolutely no evidence to support it or way for people to actually verify it. I verify what I send on. I do not send on fake news whether or not I agree with the cause it claims to support. On Sat, Dec 10, 2016 at 5:31 AM, Roger Helbig wrote: WRONG - Editors and reporters do not report fake news -. I presume you have never corresponded regularly with real reporters. I have. On Fri, Dec 9, 2016 at 8:48 PM, David Johnson wrote: Fake news is a problem for certain Roger, and most of the fake news is generated by the corporate media. David Johnson From: Roger Helbig [mailto:rwhelbig at gmail.com] Sent: Friday, December 09, 2016 7:29 PM To: David Johnson Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Site Behind Washington Post’s McCarthyite Blacklist Appears To Be Linked to Ukrainian Fascists and CIA Sp and you know that these sources are valid - Fake News is a huge problem on both far-right and left and it may very well have elected Donald Trump - I really doubt that this "article" that you have reposted is anything more than Fake News - sadly, I expected you to research much more deeply before reposting - I remember dueling with World Net Daily "reporter" back in the last days of the Clinton Administration over a totally fake story that they refused to back down from - it claimed that President Clinton was going to sail in to Haiphong Harbor aboard a US Navy destroyer and that the destroyer would essentially kow tow to Vietnam - I need to dig really deep into my Outlook files for the full story, but I still have them - another great source is Global Research in Montreal which is often cited by the far left because it is run by a professor - it has Neo Nazi connections and its farthest out story was that Israel frog men planted a nuclear weapon on the undersea fault that triggered the great Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami - Roger On Fri, Dec 9, 2016 at 7:38 AM, David Johnson via Peace-discuss wrote: “This is the world the Washington Post is bringing back to its front pages. And the timing is incredible—as if Bezos’ rag has taken upon itself to soften up the American media before Trump moves in for the kill. And it’s all being done in the name of fighting “fake news” …and fascism.” Lengthy article but well worth the read. Site Behind Washington Post’s McCarthyite Blacklist Appears To Be Linked to Ukrainian Fascists and CIA Spies Posted on December 9, 2016 by Jerri-Lynn Scofield By Mark Ames, who is the Co-host of the Radio War Nerd podcast . Read more of his work at eXiledonline.com. He is the author of Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion: From Reagan’s Workplaces to Clinton’s Columbine and Beyond . Cross-posted from AlterNet . Last month, the Washington Post gave a glowing front-page boost to an anonymous online blacklist of hundreds of American websites, from marginal conspiracy sites to flagship libertarian and progressive publications. As Max Blumenthal reported for AlterNet, the anonymous website argued that all of them should be investigated by the federal government and potentially prosecuted under the Espionage Act as Russian spies, for wittingly or unwittingly spreading Russian propaganda. My own satirical newspaper was raided and closed down by the Kremlin in 2008, on charges of “extremism”—akin to terrorism—which I took seriously enough to leave for home for good. What the Washington Post did in boosting an anonymous blacklist of American journalists accused of criminal treason is one of the sleaziest, and most disturbing (in a very familiar Kremlin way) things I’ve seen in this country since I fled for home. The WaPo is essentially an arm of the American deep state ; its owner, Jeff Bezos, is one of the three richest Americans , worth $67 billion, and his cash cow, Amazon, is a major contractor with the Central Intelligence Agency . In other words, this is as close to an official US government blacklist of journalists as we’ve seen—a dark ominous warning before they take the next steps. It’s now been a few days, and the shock and disgust is turning to questions about how to fight back—and who we should be fighting against. Who were the Washington Post’s sources for their journalism blacklist? Smearing a progressive journalism icon The WaPo smear was authored by tech reporter Craig Timberg, a former national security editor who displayed embarrassing deference to the head of the world’s largest private surveillance operation, billionaire Eric Schmidt—in contrast to his treatment of his journalism colleagues. There’s little in Timberg’s history to suggest he’d lead one of the ugliest public smears of his colleagues in decades. Timberg’s father, a successful mainstream journalist who recently died , wrote hagiographies on his Naval Academy comrades including John McCain , the Senate’s leading Russophobic hawk, and three Iran-Contra conspirators—Oliver North, John Poindexter, and Robert McFarlane, whose crimes Timberg blames on their love of country and sacrifices in Vietnam. WaPo’s key source was an anonymous online group calling itself PropOrNot (i.e., “Propaganda Or Not”). It was here that the blacklist of American journalists allegedly working with the Kremlin was posted. The Washington Post cited PropOrNot as a credible source, and granted them the right to anonymously accuse major American news outlets of treason, recommending that the government investigate and prosecute them under the Espionage Act for spreading Russian propaganda. Featured alongside those anonymously accused of treason by PropOrNot, among a long list of marginal conspiracy sites and major news hubs, is Truthdig. This news and opinion site was co-founded by Zuade Kaufman and the veteran journalist Robert Scheer, who is a professor of USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and former columnist for the LA Times. It would not be the first time Scheer has come under attack from dark forces. In the mid-late 1960s, Scheer made his fame as editor and reporter for Ramparts, the fearless investigative magazine that changed American journalism. One of the biggest bombshell stories that Scheer’s magazine exposed was the CIA’s covert funding of the National Student Association , then America’s largest college student organization, which had chapters on 400 campuses and a major presence internationally. The CIA was not pleased with Scheer’s magazine’s work, and shortly afterwards launched a top-secret and illegal domestic spying campaign against Scheer and Ramparts, believing that they must be a Russian Communist front. A secret team of CIA operatives—kept secret even from the rest of Langley, the operation was so blatantly illegal—spied on Scheer and his Ramparts colleagues, dug through Ramparts’ funders lives and harassed some of them into ditching the magazine, but in all of that they couldn’t find a single piece of evidence linking Scheer’s magazine to Kremlin agents. This secret illegal CIA investigation into Scheer’s magazine expanded its domestic spying project, code-named MH-CHAOS, that grew into a monster targeting hundreds of thousands of Americans, only to be exposed by Seymour Hersh in late 1974, leading to the creation of the Church Committee hearings and calls by Congress for the abolition of the Central Intelligence Agency. It’s one of the dark ugly ironies that 50 years later, Scheer has been anonymously accused of working for Russian spies, only this time the accusers have the full cooperation of the Washington Post’s front page. PropOrNot’s Ukrainian fascist salute Still the question lingers: Who is behind PropOrNot? Who are they? We may have to await the defamation lawsuits that are almost certainly coming from those smeared by the Post and by PropOrNot. Their description sounds like the “About” tab on any number of Washington front groups that journalists and researchers are used to coming across: “PropOrNot is an independent team of concerned American citizens with a wide range of backgrounds and expertise, including professional experience in computer science, statistics, public policy, and national security affairs.” The only specific clues given were an admission that at least one of its members with access to its Twitter handle is “Ukrainian-American”. They had given this away in a handful of early Ukrainian-language tweets, parroting Ukrainian ultranationalist slogans, before the group was known. One PropOrNot tweet, dated November 17, invokes a 1940s Ukrainian fascist salute “Heroism Slava!! ” to cheer a news item on Ukrainian hackers fighting Russians. The phrase means “Glory to the heroes” and it was formally introduced by the fascist Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) at their March-April 1941 congress in Nazi occupied Cracow, as they prepared to serve as Nazi auxiliaries in Operation Barbarossa. As historian Grzgorz Rossoliński-Liebe, author of the definitive biography on Ukraine’s wartime fascist leader and Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera, explained : “the OUN-B introduced another Ukrainian fascist salute at the Second Great Congress of the Ukrainian Nationalists in Cracow in March and April 1941. This was the most popular Ukrainian fascist salute and had to be performed according to the instructions of the OUN-B leadership by raising the right arm ‘slightly to the right, slightly above the peak of the head’ while calling ‘Glory to Ukraine!’ (Slava Ukraїni!) and responding ‘Glory to the Heroes!’ (Heroiam Slava!).” Two months after formalizing this salute, Nazi forces allowed Bandera’s Ukrainian fascists to briefly take control of Lvov , at the time a predominantly Jewish and Polish city—whereupon the Ukrainian “patriots” murdered, tortured and raped thousand of Jews , in one of the most barbaric and bloodiest pogroms ever. Since the 2014 Maidan Revolution brought Ukrainian neo-fascists back into the highest rungs of power , Ukraine’s Nazi collaborators and wartime fascists have been rehabilitated as heroes , with major highways and roads named after them , and public commemorations. The speaker of Ukraine’s parliament, Andriy Parubiy , founded Ukraine’s neo-Nazi “Social-National Party of Ukraine” and published a white supremacist manifesto, “View from the Right” featuring the parliament speaker in full neo-Nazi uniform in front of fascist flags with the Nazi Wolfsangel symbol. Ukraine’s powerful Interior Minister, Arsen Avakov, sponsors several ultranationalist and neo-Nazi militia groups like the Azov Battalion , and last month he helped appoint another neo-Nazi , Vadym Troyan , as head of Ukraine’s National Police . (Earlier this year, when Troyan was still police chief of the capital Kiev, he was widely accused of having ordered an illegal surveillance operation on investigative journalist Pavel Sheremet just before his assassination by car bomb .) A Ukrainian intelligence service blacklist as PropOrNot’s model Since coming to power in the 2014 Maidan Revolution, Ukraine’s US-backed regime has waged an increasingly surreal war on journalists who don’t toe the Ukrainian ultranationalist line, and against treacherous Kremlin propagandists, real and imagined. Two years ago, Ukraine established a “Ministry of Truth” . This year the war has gone from surreal paranoia to an increasingly deadly kind of “terror.” One of the more frightening policies enacted by the current oligarch-nationalist regime in Kiev is an on-line blacklist of journalists accused of collaborating with pro-Russian “terrorists.” The website, “Myrotvorets” or “Peacemaker”—was set up by Ukrainian hackers working with state intelligence and police, all of which tend to share the same ultranationalist ideologies as Parubiy and the newly-appointed neo-Nazi chief of the National Police. Condemned by the Committee to Protect Journalists and numerous news organizations in the West and in Ukraine, the online blacklist includes the names and personal private information on some 4500 journalists , including several western journalists and Ukrainians working for western media. The website is designed to frighten and muzzle journalists from reporting anything but the pro-nationalist party line, and it has the backing of government officials, spies and police—including the SBU (Ukraine’s successor to the KGB), the powerful Interior Minister Avakov and his notorious far-right deputy, Anton Geraschenko. Ukraine’s journalist blacklist website—operated by Ukrainian hackers working with state intelligence—led to a rash of death threats against the doxxed journalists, whose email addresses, phone numbers and other private information was posted anonymously to the website. Many of these threats came with the wartime Ukrainian fascist salute: “Slava Ukraini!” [Glory to Ukraine!] So when PropOrNot’s anonymous “researchers” reveal only their Ukrainian(s) identity, it’s hard not to think about the spy-linked hackers who posted the deadly “Myrotvorets” blacklist of “treasonous” journalists. The DNC’s Ukrainian ultra-nationalist researcher cries treason Because the PropOrNot blacklist of American journalist “traitors” is anonymous, and the Washington Post front-page article protects their anonymity, we can only speculate on their identity with what little information they’ve given us. And that little bit of information reveals only a Ukrainian ultranationalist thread—the salute, the same obsessively violent paranoia towards Russia, and towards journalists, who in the eyes of Ukrainian nationalists have always been dupes and stooges, if not outright collaborators, of Russian evil. One of the key media sources who blamed the DNC hacks on Russia, ramping up fears of crypto-Putinist infiltration, is a Ukrainian-American lobbyist working for the DNC. She is Alexandra Chalupa—described as the head of the Democratic National Committee’s opposition research on Russia and on Trump, and founder and president of the Ukrainian lobby group “US United With Ukraine Coalition” , which lobbied hard to pass a 2014 bill increasing loans and military aid to Ukraine, imposing sanctions on Russians, and tightly aligning US and Ukraine geostrategic interests. In October of this year, Yahoo News named Chalupa one of “16 People Who Shaped the 2016 Election” for her role in pinning the DNC leaks on Russian hackers, and for making the case that the Trump campaign was under Kremlin control. “As a Democratic Party consultant and proud Ukrainian-American, Alexandra Chalupa was outraged last spring when Donald Trump named Paul Manafort as his campaign manager,” the Yahoo profile began. “As she saw it, Manafort was a key figure in advancing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s agenda inside her ancestral homeland — and she was determined to expose it.” Chalupa worked with veteran reporter Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News to publicize her opposition research on Trump, Russia and Paul Manafort, as well as her many Ukrainian sources. In one leaked DNC email earlier this year, Chalupa boasts to DNC Communications Director Luis Miranda that she brought Isikoff to a US-government sponsored Washington event featuring 68 Ukrainian journalists, where Chalupa was invited “to speak specifically about Paul Manafort.” In turn, Isikoff named her as the key inside source “proving” that the Russians were behind the hacks, and that Trump’s campaign was under the spell of Kremlin spies and sorcerers. (In 2008, when I broke the story about the Manafort-Kremlin ties in The Nation with Ari Berman, I did not go on to to accuse him or John McCain, whose campaign was being run by Manafort’s partner, of being Manchurian Candidates under the spell of Vladimir Putin. Because they weren’t; instead, they were sleazy, corrupt, hypocritical politicians who followed money and power rather than principle. A media hack feeding frenzy turned Manafort from what he was—a sleazy scumbag—into a fantastical Kremlin mole , forcing Manafort to resign from the Trump campaign, thanks in part to kompromat material leaked by the Ukrainian SBU , successor to the KGB.) Meanwhile, Chalupa’s Twitter feed went wild accusing Trump of treason—a crime that carries the death penalty. Along with well over 100 tweets hashtagged #TreasonousTrump Chalupa repeatedly asked powerful government officials and bodies like the Department of Justice to investigate Trump for the capital crime of treason. In the weeks since the election, Chalupa has repeatedly accused both the Trump campaign and Russia of rigging the elections, demanding further investigations. According to The Guardian , Chalupa recently sent a report to Congress proving Russian hacked into the vote count, hoping to initiate a Congressional investigation. In an interview with Gothamist , Chalupa described alleged Russian interference in the election result as “an act of war.” To be clear, I am not arguing that Chalupa is behind PropOrNot. But it is important to provide context to the boasts by PropOrNot about its Ukrainian nationalist links—within the larger context of the Clinton campaign’s anti-Kremlin hysteria, which crossed the line into Cold War xenophobia time and time again, an anti-Russian xenophobia shared by Clinton’s Ukrainian nationalist allies. To me, it looks like a classic case of blowback: A hyper-nationalist group whose extremism happens to be useful to American geopolitical ambitions, and is therefore nurtured to create problems for our competitor. Indeed, the US has cultivated extreme Ukrainian nationalists as proxies for decades, since the Cold War began. As investigative journalist Russ Bellant documented in his classic exposé, “Old Nazis, New Right,” Ukrainian Nazi collaborators were brought into the United States and weaponized for use against Russia during the Cold War, despite whatever role they may have played in the Holocaust and in the mass slaughter of Ukraine’s ethnic Poles. After spending so many years encouraging extreme Ukrainian nationalism, it’s no surprise that the whole policy is beginning to blow back. WaPo’s other source: A loony, far-right eugenicist think tank Besides PropOrNot, the Washington Post’s Craig Timberg relied on only one other source to demonstrate the influence of Russian propaganda: the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), whose “fellow” Clint Watts is cited by name, along with a report he co-authored, “Trolling for Trump: How Russia is Trying to Destroy Our Democracy.” Somehow, in the pushback and outrage over the WaPo blacklist story, the FPRI has managed to fly under the radar. So much so that when Fortune’s Matthew Ingram correctly described the FPRI as “proponents of the Cold War” he was compelled to issue a clarification, changing the description to “a conservative think tank known for its hawkish stance on relations between the US and Russia.” In fact, historically the Foreign Policy Research Institute has been one of the looniest (and spookiest) extreme-right think tanks since the early Cold War days, promoting “winnable” nuclear war, maximum confrontation with Russia, and attacking anti-colonialism as dangerously unworkable. One of the key brains behind the FPRI’s extreme-right Cold War views also happened to be a former Austrian fascist official who, upon emigrating to America, became one of this country’s leading proponents of racial eugenics and white supremacy. The Foreign Policy Research Institute was founded by Robert Strausz-Hupé and set up on the University of Pennsylvania campus, with backing from the Vick’s chemical company, funder of numerous reactionary rightwing causes since the New Deal began. And, as the New York Times reported , the FPRI also was covertly funded by the CIA, a revelation that would lead to student protests and the FPRI removing itself from Penn’s campus in 1970. The FPRI’s founder, Strausz-Hupe, emigrated to the US from Austria in the 1920s. In the early Cold War years, he became known as an advocate of aggressive confrontation with the Soviet Union, openly advocating total nuclear war rather than anything like surrender or cohabitation. In a 1961 treatise “A Forward Strategy for America” that Strausz-Hupe co-authored with his frequent FPRI collaborator, the former Austrian fascist official and racial eugenics advocate Stefan Possony, they wrote : “Even at a moment when the United States faces defeat because, for example, Europe, Asia and Africa have fallen to communist domination, a sudden nuclear attack against the Soviet Union could at least avenge the disaster and deprive the opponent of the ultimate triumph. While such a reversal at the last moment almost certainly would result in severe American casualties, it might still nullify all previous Soviet conquests.” But it was Russian propaganda that most concerned Strausz-Hupe and his FPRI. In 1959, for example, he published a three-page spread in the New York Times, headlined “Why Russia Is Ahead in Propaganda,” that has odd echoes of last month’s paranoid Washington Post article alleging a vast conspiracy of American journalists secretly poisoning the public’s mind with Russian propaganda. The article argued, as many do today , that America and the West were dangerously behind the Russians in the propaganda arms race—and dangerously disadvantaged by our open and free society, where propaganda is allegedly sniffed out by our ever-vigilant and fearless media. The only way for America to protect itself from Russian propaganda, he wrote, was to massively increase its propaganda warfare budgets, and close the alleged “propaganda gap”—echoing again the same solutions being peddled today in Washington and London: “[W]ithin the limitations of our society, we can take steps to expand and improve our existing programs. “These programs have been far from generous. It has been estimated, for example, that the Communists in one single propaganda offensive—the germ-warfare campaign during the Korean conflict—spent nearly as much as the entire annual allocation to the United States Information Agency. We should increase the austere budget of the U.S.I.A. We should give our information specialists a greater voice in policy-making councils. We should attempt to coordinate more fully and effectively the propaganda programs of the Western alliance.” A few years later, the FPRI’s Strausz-Hupe published a deranged attack in the New York Times against Stanley Kubrick’s film Dr. Strangelove, calling it “the most vicious attack to date launched by way of our mass media against the American military profession”. The FPRI’s founding director went further, accusing Kubrick of being, if not a conscious Russian agent of propaganda, then a Soviet dupe undermining American democracy and stability—the same sort of paranoid accusations that FPRI is leveling again today. As Strausz-Hupe wrote: “Anyone who cares to scan the Soviet press and the Communist press in other lands will note that it is one of the principal Communist objectives to drive a wedge between the American people and their military leaders. Mr. Kubrick’s creation certainly serves this purpose.” Reading that then, knowing how the Soviet Union eventually collapsed on itself without firing a shot—and seeing the same paranoid, sleazy lies being peddled again today, one is dumbstruck by just how stagnant our intellectual culture is. We’ve never thawed ourselves out from our Cold War pathologies; we’re still trapped in the same structures that nurture these pathologies. Too many careers and salaries depend on it… But Strausz-Hupe was the voice of reason compared to his chief collaborator and co-author at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, Stefan Possony. He too was an Austrian emigre, although Possony didn’t leave his homeland until 1938. Before then he served in the Austrofascist governments of both Dollfuss and Schuschnigg, but left after the Nazi Anschluss deposed the native fascists and installed Hitler’s puppets in their place. Possony was a director and fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and according to historian Robert Vitalis’ recent book “White World Power” [Cornell University Press], Possony co-authored nearly all of the FPRI’s policy research material until he moved to Stanford’s Hoover Institute in 1961, where he helped align the two institutions. Possony continued publishing in the FPRI’s journal Orbis throughout the 1960s and beyond. He was also throughout this time one of the most prolific contributors to Mankind Quarterly, the leading race eugenics journal in the days before The Bell Curve—and co-author race eugenics books with white supremacist Nathaniel Weyl . So even as he was publishing aggressive Cold War propaganda for the Foreign Policy Research Institute, Possony wrote elsewhere that the “average African Negro functions as does the European after a leucotomy [prefrontal lobotomy] operation” In other articles, Possony described the people of “the Middle East, Latin America and Southeast Asia” as “genetically unpromising“ because they “lack the innate brain power required for mastery and operation of the tools of modern civilization[.] . . .” For this reason he and Strausz-Hupe opposed the early Cold War policy of de-colonization: “The accretion of lethal power in the hands of nation states dominated by populations incapable of rational thought could be a harbinger of total disaster.” Instead, they argued that white colonialism benefited the natives and raised them up; western critics of colonialism, they argued , were merely “fashionable” dupes who would be responsible for a “genocide” of local whites. As late as a 1974 article in Mankind Quarterly , Possony was defending race eugenics loon William Shockley’s theories on the inferiority of dark skinned races, which he argued could prove that spending money on welfare was in fact a “waste” since there was no way to improve genetically inferior races. Around the same time, Possony emerged as the earliest and most effective advocate of the “Star Wars” anti-ballistic missile system adopted by President Reagan. The way Possony saw it, the Star Wars weapon was entirely offensive, and would give the United States sufficient first strike capability to win a nuclear war with Russia. It was this history, and a 1967 New York Times exposé on how the Foreign Policy Research Institute had been covertly funded by the CIA, that led US Senator Fulbright in 1969 to reject Nixon’s nomination of Strausz-Hupe as ambassador to Morocco. Fulbright denounced Strausz-Hupe as a Cold War extremist and a threat to world peace: ”the very epitome of a hard-line, no compromise.” However, he gave in a couple of years later when Nixon named him to the post of ambassador in Sri Lanka. Today, the Foreign Policy Research Institute proudly honors its founder Strausz-Hupe, and honors his legacy with blacklists of allegedly treasonous journalists and allegedly all-powerful Russian propaganda threatening our freedoms. This is the world the Washington Post is bringing back to its front pages. And the timing is incredible—as if Bezos’ rag has taken upon itself to soften up the American media before Trump moves in for the kill. And it’s all being done in the name of fighting “fake news” …and fascism. _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Sat Dec 10 14:51:58 2016 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2016 08:51:58 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Washington Post Disgracefully Promotes a McCarthyite Blacklist From a New, Hidden, and Very Shady Group Message-ID: <006d01d252f4$f552fc40$dff8f4c0$@comcast.net> Glenn _Greenwald Washington Post Disgracefully Promotes a McCarthyite Blacklist From a New, Hidden, and Very Shady Group Ben Norton, Glenn Greenwald November 26 2016, 12:17 p.m. Photo: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty The Washington Post on Thursday night promoted the claims of a new, shadowy organization that smears dozens of U.S. news sites that are critical of U.S. foreign policy as being “routine peddlers of Russian propaganda.” The article by reporter Craig Timberg — headlined “Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say” — cites a report by an anonymous website calling itself PropOrNot, which claims that millions of Americans have been deceived this year in a massive Russian “misinformation campaign.” The group’s list of Russian disinformation outlets includes WikiLeaks and the Drudge Report, as well as Clinton-critical left-wing websites such as Truthout, Black Agenda Report, Truthdig, and Naked Capitalism, as well as libertarian venues such as Antiwar.com and the Ron Paul Institute. This Post report was one of the most widely circulated political news articles on social media over the last 48 hours, with dozens, perhaps hundreds, of U.S. journalists and pundits with large platforms hailing it as an earth-shattering exposé. It was the most-read piece on the entire Post website on Friday after it was published. Yet the article is rife with obviously reckless and unproven allegations, and fundamentally shaped by shoddy, slothful journalistic tactics. It was not surprising to learn that, as BuzzFeed’s Sheera Frenkel noted, “a lot of reporters passed on this story.” Its huge flaws are self-evident. But the Post gleefully ran with it and then promoted it aggressively, led by its Executive Editor Marty Baron: In casting the group behind this website as “experts,” the Post described PropOrNot simply as “a nonpartisan collection of researchers with foreign policy, military and technology backgrounds.” Not one individual at the organization is named. The executive director is quoted, but only on the condition of anonymity, which the Post said it was providing the group “to avoid being targeted by Russia’s legions of skilled hackers.” In other words, the individuals behind this newly created group are publicly branding journalists and news outlets as tools of Russian propaganda — even calling on the FBI to investigate them for espionage — while cowardly hiding their own identities. The group promoted by the Post thus embodies the toxic essence of Joseph McCarthy, but without the courage to attach individual names to the blacklist. Echoing the Wisconsin senator, the group refers to its lengthy collection of sites spouting Russian propaganda as “The List.” Description: https://prod01-cdn07.cdn.firstlook.org/wp-uploads/sites/1/2016/11/propornot- 540x350.png The credentials of this supposed group of experts are impossible to verify, as none is provided either by the Post or by the group itself. The Intercept contacted PropOrNot and asked numerous questions about its team, but received only this reply: “We’re getting a lot of requests for comment and can get back to you today =) [smiley face emoticon].” The group added: “We’re over 30 people, organized into teams, and we cannot confirm or deny anyone’s involvement.” Thus far, they have provided no additional information beyond that. As Fortune’s Matthew Ingram wrote in criticizing the Post article, PropOrNot’s Twitter account “ has only existed since August of this year. And an article announcing the launch of the group on its website is dated last month.” WHOIS information for the domain name is not available, as the website uses private registration. More troubling still, PropOrNot listed numerous organizations on its website as “allied” with it, yet many of these claimed “allies” told The Intercept, and complained on social media, they have nothing to do with the group and had never even heard of it before the Post published its story. At some point last night, after multiple groups listed as “allies” objected, the group quietly changed the title of its “allied” list to “Related Projects.” When The Intercept asked PropOrNot about this clear inconsistency via email, the group responded concisely: “We have no institutional affiliations with any organization.” In his article, the Post’s Timberg did not include a link to PropOrNot’s website. If readers had the opportunity to visit the site, it would have become instantly apparent that this group of ostensible experts far more resembles amateur peddlers of primitive, shallow propagandistic clichés than serious, substantive analysis and expertise; that it has a blatant, demonstrable bias in promoting NATO’s narrative about the world; and that it is engaging in extremely dubious McCarthyite tactics about a wide range of critics and dissenters. To see how frivolous and even childish this group of anonymous cowards is — which the Post venerated into serious experts in order to peddle their story — just sample a couple of the recent tweets from this group: Awww, wook at all the angwy Putinists, trying to change the subject – they're so vewwy angwy!! It's cute ???? We don't censor; just highlight. — PropOrNot ID Service (@propornot) November 26, 2016 Fascists. Straight up muthafuckin' fascists. That's what we're up against. Unwittingly or not, they work for Russia. https://t.co/LBp2y19PTv — PropOrNot ID Service (@propornot) November 22, 2016 As for their refusal to identify themselves even as they smear hundreds of American journalists as loyal to the Kremlin or “useful idiots” for it, this is their mature response: We'll consider revealing our names when Russia reveals the names of those running its propaganda operations in the West ???? — PropOrNot ID Service (@propornot) November 25, 2016 The Washington Post should be very proud: It staked a major part of its news story on the unverified, untestable assertions of this laughable organization. One of the core functions of PropOrNot appears to be its compilation of a lengthy blacklist of news and political websites that it smears as peddlers of “Russian propaganda.” Included on this blacklist of supposed propaganda outlets are prominent independent left-wing news sites such as Truthout, Naked Capitalism, Black Agenda Report, Consortium News, and Truthdig. Also included are popular libertarian hubs such as Zero Hedge, Antiwar.com, and the Ron Paul Institute, along with the hugely influential right-wing website the Drudge Report and the publishing site WikiLeaks. Far-right, virulently anti-Muslim blogs such as Bare Naked Islam are likewise dubbed Kremlin mouthpieces. Basically, everyone who isn’t comfortably within the centrist Hillary Clinton/Jeb Bush spectrum is guilty. On its Twitter account, the group announced a new “plugin” that automatically alerts the user that a visited website has been designated by the group to be a Russian propaganda outlet. To hype its story, the Post article uncritically highlights PropOrNot’s flamboyant claim that stories planted or promoted by Russia’s “disinformation campaign” were viewed more than 213 million times. Yet no methodology is provided for any of this: how a website is determined to merit blacklist designation or how this reach was calculated. As Ingram wrote: “How is that audience measured? We don’t know. Stories promoted by this network were shared 213 million times, it says. How do we know this? That’s unclear.” Presumably, this massive number was created by including on its lists highly popular sites such as WikiLeaks, as well the Drudge Report, the third-most popular political news website on the internet. Yet this frightening, Cold War-esque “213 million” number for Russian “planted” news story views was uncritically echoed by numerous high-profile media figures, such as New York Times deputy Washington editor Jonathan Weisman and professor Jared Yates Sexton — although the number is misleading at best. Some of the websites on PropOrNot’s blacklist do indeed publish Russian propaganda — namely Sputnik News and Russia Today, which are funded by the Russian government. But many of the aforementioned blacklisted sites are independent, completely legitimate news sources that often receive funding through donations or foundations and have been reporting and analyzing news for many years. Description: https://prod01-cdn07.cdn.firstlook.org/wp-uploads/sites/1/2016/11/timenaked- 440x440.png The group commits outright defamation by slandering obviously legitimate news sites as propaganda tools of the Kremlin. One of the most egregious examples is the group’s inclusion of Naked Capitalism, the widely respected left-wing site run by Wall Street critic Yves Smith. That site was named by Time magazine as one of the best 25 Best Financial Blogs in 2011 and by Wired magazine as a crucial site to follow for finance, and Smith has been featured as a guest on programs such as PBS’s Bill Moyers Show. Yet this cowardly group of anonymous smear artists, promoted by the Washington Post, has now placed them on a blacklist of Russian disinformation. The group eschews alternative media outlets like these and instead recommends that readers rely solely on establishment-friendly publications like NPR, the BBC, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, BuzzFeed, and VICE. That is because a big part of the group’s definition for “Russian propaganda outlet” is criticizing U.S. foreign policy. PropOrNot does not articulate its criteria in detail, merely describing its metrics as “behavioral” and “motivation-agnostic.” That is to say, even if a news source is not technically a Russian propaganda outlet and is not even trying to help the Kremlin, it is still guilty of being a “useful idiot” if it publishes material that might in some way be convenient or helpful for the Russian government. In other words, the website conflates criticism of Western governments and their actions and policies with Russian propaganda. News sites that do not uncritically echo a pro-NATO perspective are accused of being mouthpieces for the Kremlin, even if only unwitting ones. While blacklisting left-wing and libertarian journalists, PropOrNot also denies being McCarthyite. Yet it simultaneously calls for the U.S. government to use the FBI and DOJ to carry out “formal investigations” of these accused websites, “because the kind of folks who make propaganda for brutal authoritarian oligarchies are often involved in a wide range of bad business.” The shadowy group even goes so far as to claim that people involved in the blacklisted websites may “have violated the Espionage Act, the Foreign Agent Registration Act, and other related laws.” In sum: They’re not McCarthyite; perish the thought. They just want multiple U.S. media outlets investigated by the FBI for espionage on behalf of Russia. Who exactly is behind PropOrNot, where it gets its funding, and whether or not it is tied to any governments is a complete mystery. The Intercept also sent inquiries to the Post’s Craig Timberg asking these questions, and asking whether he thinks it is fair to label left-wing news sites like Truthout “Russian propaganda outlets.” Timberg replied: “I’m sorry, I can’t comment about stories I’ve written for the Post.” As is so often the case, journalists — who constantly demand transparency from everyone else — refuse to provide even the most basic levels for themselves. When subjected to scrutiny, they reflexively adopt the language of the most secrecy-happy national security agencies: We do not comment on what we do. Timberg’s piece on the supposed ubiquity of Russian propaganda is misleading in several other ways. The other primary “expert” upon which the article relies is Clint Watts, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a pro-Western think tank whose board of advisers includes neoconservative figures like infamous orientalist scholar Bernard Lewis and pro-imperialist Robert D. Kaplan, the latter of whom served on the U.S. government’s Defense Policy Board. What the Post does not mention in its report is that Watts, one of the specialists it relies on for its claims, previously worked as an FBI special agent on a Joint Terrorism Task Force and as the executive officer of the U.S. Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center. As Fortune’s Ingram wrote of the group, it is “a conservative think tank funded and staffed by proponents of the Cold War between the U.S. and Russia.” PropOrNot is by no means a neutral observer. It actively calls on Congress and the White House to work “with our European allies to disconnect Russia from the SWIFT financial transaction system, effective immediately and lasting for at least one year, as an appropriate response to Russian manipulation of the election.” In other words, this blacklisting group of anonymous cowards — putative experts in the pages of the Washington Post — is actively pushing for Western governments to take punitive measures against the Russian government and is speaking and smearing from an extreme ideological framework that the Post concealed from its readers. Even more disturbing than the Post’s shoddy journalism in this instance is the broader trend in which any wild conspiracy theory or McCarthyite attack is now permitted in U.S. discourse as long as it involves Russia and Putin — just as was true in the 1950s when stories of how the Russians were poisoning the U.S. water supply or infiltrating American institutions were commonplace. Any anti-Russia story was — and is — instantly vested with credibility, while anyone questioning its veracity or evidentiary basis is subject to attacks on their loyalties or, at best, vilified as “useful idiots.” Two of the most discredited reports from the election season illustrate the point: a Slate article claiming that a private server had been located linking the Trump Organization and a Russian bank ( which, like the current Post story, had been shopped around and rejected by multiple media outlets) and a completely deranged rant by Newsweek’s Kurt Eichenwald claiming that Putin had ordered emails in the WikiLeaks release to be doctored — both of which were uncritically shared and tweeted by hundreds of journalists to tens of thousands of people, if not more. The Post itself — now posing as a warrior against “fake news” — published an article in September that treated with great seriousness the claim that Hillary Clinton collapsed on 9/11 Day because she was poisoned by Putin. And that’s to say nothing of the paper’s disgraceful history of convincing Americans that Saddam was building non-existent nuclear weapons and had cultivated a vibrant alliance with al Qaeda. As is so often the case, those who mostly loudly warn of “fake news” from others are themselves the most aggressive disseminators of it. Indeed, what happened here is the essence of fake news. The Post story served the agendas of many factions: those who want to believe Putin stole the election from Hillary Clinton; those who want to believe that the internet and social media are a grave menace that needs to be controlled, in contrast to the objective truth that reliable old media outlets once issued; those who want a resurrection of the Cold War. So those who saw tweets and Facebook posts promoting this Post story instantly clicked and shared and promoted the story without an iota of critical thought or examination of whether the claims were true, because they wanted the claims to be true. That behavior included countless journalists. So the story spread in a flash, like wildfire. Tens of thousands of people, perhaps hundreds of thousands or even millions, consumed it, believing that it was true because of how many journalists and experts told them it was. Virtually none of the people who told them this spent a minute of time or ounce of energy determining if it was true. It pleased them to believe it was, knowing it advanced their interests, and so they endorsed it. That is the essence of how fake news functions, and it is the ultimate irony that this Post story ended up illustrating and spreading far more fake news than it exposed. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 112428 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.png Type: image/png Size: 194587 bytes Desc: not available URL: From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Sat Dec 10 14:55:09 2016 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2016 08:55:09 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] What's Wrong with the News? Message-ID: <008201d252f5$67335c10$359a1430$@comcast.net> FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation. Description: http://fair.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/TopSubAd.jpg Home > What's FAIR? > What's Wrong with the News? What's Wrong with the News? Independent, aggressive and critical media are essential to an informed democracy. But mainstream media are increasingly cozy with the economic and political powers they should be watchdogging. Mergers in the news industry have accelerated, further limiting the spectrum of viewpoints that have access to mass media. With U.S. media outlets overwhelmingly owned by for-profit conglomerates and supported by corporate advertisers, independent journalism is compromised. Ultimately, FAIR believes that structural reform is needed to break up the dominant media conglomerates, establish independent public broadcasting, and promote strong, non-profit alternative sources of information. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 59008 bytes Desc: not available URL: From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Sat Dec 10 20:15:12 2016 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2016 14:15:12 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] unsubstantiated rumors of Russian attempts to influence the U.S. election Message-ID: <00d001d25322$1d622350$582669f0$@comcast.net> CIA Election Report Leaks After Obama Calls for Investigation * Description: The lobby of the CIA Headquarters Building in McLean, Virginia, August 14, 2008. The lobby of the CIA Headquarters Building in McLean, Virginia, August 14, 2008. | Published 10 December 2016 Hours after Obama called for a "full investigation" into rumors, source says CIA concluded Russia hacked the U.S. election to get Trump elected. Within hours of an announcement that the Obama administration would convene a full, but secret, investigation into rumors about Russian attempts to influence the U.S. Presidential election, an anonymous source told the Washington Post on Friday that the CIA has already concluded the Russian government intervened in the U.S. election to get Donald Trump elected. INTERVIEW: US Election Secrets: John Pilger Interviews Julian Assange The anonymous source told the Washington Post, "It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia's goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected. That's the consensus view." The leak is the latest in a string of unsubstantiated rumors of Russian attempts to influence the U.S. election since Wikileaks released a cache of embarrassing emails from the Democratic National Committee as well as Hillary Clinton's campaign chair John Podesta. The source offered no proof but claimed that CIA had shared "a growing body of evidence from multiple sources" with a group of U.S. Senators in a secret meeting last week. The Post claims that the CIA has "identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided Wikileaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman." Rumours of Russian attempts to influence the outcome of the U.S. election started immediately after Wikileaks released a series of emails damaging to then Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton. The emails offered extensive proof of DNC attempts to sabotage Senator Bernie Sander's campaign to win the Democratic primary, as well as excerpts of speeches Clinton gave to her Wall Street backers which she and her campaign had refused to release. Despite Wikileaks founder Julian Assange's denials that the emails came from the Russian government, Clinton campaign surrogates continued to push the rumor, without any evidence, that Russia was behind the release. RELATED: WikiLeaks Did Not Receive Clinton Emails from Russia: Assange On Friday afternoon, Lisa Monaco, an adviser for homeland security and counterterrorism, said that the Obama administration had ordered a "full review" of the rumors of Russian interference to be completed before Obama leaves office on Jan. 20, 2017. Monaco said that the review would be a "deep dive" by all intelligence agencies into the rumors, but suggested that the results might be kept secret. Within hours of her public announcement, the Washington Post published their story about CIA "conclusions." In response to the story, President-elect Trump's transition team issued a statement on the CIA report saying, "These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It's now time to move on and 'Make America Great Again.'" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 75372 bytes Desc: not available URL: From carl at newsfromneptune.com Sat Dec 10 20:20:58 2016 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. ESTABROOK) Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2016 14:20:58 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [sf-core] unsubstantiated rumors of Russian attempts to influence the U.S. election In-Reply-To: <00d001d25322$1d622350$582669f0$@comcast.net> References: <00d001d25322$1d622350$582669f0$@comcast.net> Message-ID: http://www.juancole.com/2016/12/america-russia-yourself.html > On Dec 10, 2016, at 2:15 PM, 'David Johnson' davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net [sf-core] wrote: > > > CIA Election Report Leaks After Obama Calls for Investigation > > • > The lobby of the CIA Headquarters Building in McLean, Virginia, August 14, 2008. | > > Published 10 December 2016 > > Hours after Obama called for a “full investigation” into rumors, source says CIA concluded Russia hacked the U.S. election to get Trump elected. > > Within hours of an announcement that the Obama administration would convene a full, but secret, investigation into rumors about Russian attempts to influence the U.S. Presidential election, an anonymous source told the Washington Post on Friday that the CIA has already concluded the Russian government intervened in the U.S. election to get Donald Trump elected. > > INTERVIEW: > US Election Secrets: John Pilger Interviews Julian Assange > > The anonymous source told the Washington Post, “It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected. That's the consensus view." > > The leak is the latest in a string of unsubstantiated rumors of Russian attempts to influence the U.S. election since Wikileaks released a cache of embarrassing emails from the Democratic National Committee as well as Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair John Podesta. > > The source offered no proof but claimed that CIA had shared “a growing body of evidence from multiple sources” with a group of U.S. Senators in a secret meeting last week. The Post claims that the CIA has “identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided Wikileaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman.” > > > > Rumours of Russian attempts to influence the outcome of the U.S. election started immediately after Wikileaks released a series of emails damaging to then Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton. The emails offered extensive proof of DNC attempts to sabotage Senator Bernie Sander’s campaign to win the Democratic primary, as well as excerpts of speeches Clinton gave to her Wall Street backers which she and her campaign had refused to release. > > Despite Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s denials that the emails came from the Russian government, Clinton campaign surrogates continued to push the rumor, without any evidence, that Russia was behind the release. > > RELATED: > WikiLeaks Did Not Receive Clinton Emails from Russia: Assange > > On Friday afternoon, Lisa Monaco, an adviser for homeland security and counterterrorism, said that the Obama administration had ordered a “full review” of the rumors of Russian interference to be completed before Obama leaves office on Jan. 20, 2017. Monaco said that the review would be a “deep dive” by all intelligence agencies into the rumors, but suggested that the results might be kept secret. Within hours of her public announcement, the Washington Post published their story about CIA “conclusions.” > > In response to the story, President-elect Trump’s transition team issued a statement on the CIA report saying, “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It’s now time to move on and ‘Make America Great Again.’” > > > > > __._,_.___ > Posted by: "David Johnson" > Reply via web post • Reply to sender • Reply to group • Start a New Topic • Messages in this topic (1) > > Have you tried the highest rated email app? > With 4.5 stars in iTunes, the Yahoo Mail app is the highest rated email app on the market. What are you waiting for? Now you can access all your inboxes (Gmail, Outlook, AOL and more) in one place. Never delete an email again with 1000GB of free cloud storage. > VISIT YOUR GROUP > • Privacy • Unsubscribe • Terms of Use > > . > > > __,_._,___ From galliher at illinois.edu Sat Dec 10 21:24:42 2016 From: galliher at illinois.edu (Carl G. Estabrook) Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2016 15:24:42 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?q?Join_The_People=E2=80=99s_Agenda_Sunday?= =?utf-8?q?=2C_December_11th_from_3-6pm?= In-Reply-To: <00e501d25322$b3303480$19909d80$@comcast.net> References: <00e501d25322$b3303480$19909d80$@comcast.net> Message-ID: “The People’s Agenda: Building Community Power…” - for the Democrats? No, thanks. ~ Nationally the Democrats promote a continuation of Obama's wars. ~ In Illinois the Democrats refused to solve the 'budget crisis' - which they had the votes to do - because they were unwilling to to offend our local Wall St., LaSalle St. Those opposed to neoconservatism (more war) and neoliberalism (more inequality) need to develop alternatives to that disingenuous party, locally and nationally, and vote out its representatives. An independent Green party (not the collaborationist Stein campaign) is a possibility. --CGE > On Dec 10, 2016, at 2:19 PM, David Johnson wrote: > > Now more than ever, we need to build resilient, organized local communities that defend human rights, meet human needs, and reflect the world we want to create together. > > Join The People’s Agenda Sunday, December 11th from 3-6pm at the Independent Media Center / downtown Urbana Post office building 202 S. Broadway, as we build a coalition to defend our community against the next four years of devastating federal policy, and build our collective power to make change in upcoming elections. > > → Learn from local organizers the anticipated impacts of a federal policy on immigration, health care, the environment, and civil rights. > → Be part of strategy discussions on how we can make a difference locally. > → Join our “Get Plugged In” fair and learn how you can volunteer with local organizations. > > The People’s Agenda develops strategy, education, and people power to build political power for the inclusion of and advocacy for those who have been systematically disempowered. For more information about The People’s Agenda, check out our website: thepeoplesagenda.com and find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Sun Dec 11 10:08:41 2016 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2016 04:08:41 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] The Mainstream Media is Asking for a Government Bailout Via Censorship Message-ID: <000c01d25396$8d8a3310$a89e9930$@comcast.net> The Mainstream Media is Asking for a Government Bailout Via Censorship Michael Krieger | Posted Friday Dec 9, 2016 at 11:43 am Description: screen-shot-2016-12-09-at-10-35-32-am The current controversy is different. Many people in Washington are irate over Wikileaks - not because the email were untrue but because they proved what many had long suspected . . . that Washington is a highly corrupt place full of truly despicable people. For people who make their living on controlling media and information, it was akin to the barbarians breaching the walls of Rome. So the answer is to call for government regulation to combat what will be declared "fake" news or propaganda. It is only the latest effort to convince people to surrender their rights and actually embrace censorship. - From Jonathan Turley's: Washington Post Issues Correction To "Fake News" Story Watching Hillary Clinton attack "fake news" and calling for legislative action against free speech she doesn't like got me thinking. Why is she doing this? Yes, it's obviously related to her notorious personality trait of never taking responsibility for anything and attaching herself to an invented controversy in order to deflect blame for her monumentally embarrassing loss to Donald Trump. But there's more going on here. A lot more. To set the stage, we need to examine the types of people who are most jumping on the "fake news" meme. What you'll find is that it's a who's who of the most contemptible and corrupt people in America. As Glenn Greenwald so accurately noted in his piece published earlier today: Those who most loudly denounce Fake News are typically those most aggressively disseminating it. But the problem here goes way beyond mere hypocrisy. Complaints about Fake News are typically accompanied by calls for "solutions" that involve censorship and suppression, either by the government or tech giants such as Facebook. But until there is a clear definition of "Fake News," and until it's recognized that Fake News is being aggressively spread by the very people most loudly complaining about it, the dangers posed by these solutions will be at least as great as the problem itself. Just in case you think the above is an exaggeration, is there an individual in America more distrusted and more widely viewed as a compulsive liar than Hillary Clinton? The list of her outright lies is nearly endless (see: Video of the Day - Watch Hillary Clinton Lie for 13 Minutes Straight). Not only that, but Hillary Clinton was more than happy to promote obvious fake news stories one week before the election. Here's the most egregious example: This was fake news, but somehow I doubt Hillary will be looking for Congress to take her to task for legitimizing and spreading it. Then there's the downright comical example of Brian Williams. You know, the NBC anchor who literally lost his job for promoting fake news about himself (see: NBC's Brian Williams is Forced to Admit His Tale of Being on a Downed Helicopter in Iraq Was Pure Fantasy). Now he is one of the "esteemed pundits" railing against the terror of fake news. You can't make this stuff up. The Hill reports: MSNBC anchor Brian Williams, who lost his job with NBC's nightly news for exaggerating details of his time reporting in Iraq, slammed President-elect Donald Trump and members of his transition team for spreading fake news throughout the election. Pure comedy, but let's get serious. At this point, I want to direct your attention to what is perhaps the most astute commentary on the fabricated "fake news" push to date. The following was the concluding paragraph to Jonathan Turley's, Washington Post Issues Correction To "Fake News" Story: The current controversy is different. Many people in Washington are irate over Wikileaks - not because the email were untrue but because they proved what many had long suspected . . . that Washington is a highly corrupt place full of truly despicable people. For people who make their living on controlling media and information, it was akin to the barbarians breaching the walls of Rome. So the answer is to call for government regulation to combat what will be declared "fake" news or propaganda. It is only the latest effort to convince people to surrender their rights and actually embrace censorship. This perfectly describes what is going on at the most macro level, and reminded me exactly of what Wall Street did in the aftermath of its destruction of the U.S. economy during the financial crisis. Faced with a potential loss of their fortunes, jobs and reputations, Wall Street invented a meme that the industry needed to be bailed out without consequences in order to "save Main Street." This was one of the most brazen, yet successful examples of propaganda I have witnessed in my entire life. Wall Street got exactly what it wanted and then some. It proceeded to pay out record bonuses the very next year (2010) and not a single executive was held accountable or went to jail. Free market capitalism was completely suspended in order to save some of the wealthiest and most privileged people in America. They used the levers of the state to save themselves and preserve this key segment of status quo power. Fast forward eight years, and we witness yet another spectacular status quo failure. Due to its clownish and completely inaccurate coverage of the 2016 election, the mainstream media and the pundit class generally completely torched its reputation. As a result, alternative, independent media is eating their lunch. Rather than accept the consequences of this historic failure, legacy media has decided to take a page from the Wall Street playbook. They are asking for a government bailout. However, this bailout is far more dangerous than the one which preceded it. While the Wall Street bailout consisted of showering financial criminals with infinite sums of money until they were once again masters of the universe, the media is asking for a bailout via censorship. Yes, that's right. Hillary Clinton and other status quo fake news peddlers are actively asking for Congressional action in order to silence their competition. This isn't just about protecting the status quo narrative for the sake of maintaining a transparently false manufactured reality. It's equally about preserving the status, wealth, reputation and careers of individuals whose failures should have landed them on the street, unemployed for their almost incomprehensible and well documented incompetence. Just like we continue to suffer from incompetent criminal elites on Wall Street, the media now wants to build a similar government-sponsored wall around itself. Such an outcome would be an unmitigated disaster for this nation. Instead, what we actually need in this country (and what I expect to happen) was perfectly articulated in a recent article by Nathan J. Robinson in his must read article in Current Affairs titled, The Necessity of Credibility. He writes: Yet it is telling that after the election, the people who were most wrong during the campaign are still producing voluminous commentary. No outlet that wanted to regain trust and build audiences would be keeping such people on its staff. But "pundit tenure" is powerful. Thus is also likely that the quest for credible media will necessitate the creation of new media. CNN and The Washington Post have never shown a particularly encouraging capacity for introspection and self-improvement, and it's unlikely that they're contemplating major internal overhauls in their mission and accountability practices. Their institutional imperatives consist, after all, largely of seeking views and clicks. For them, the 2016 election was a success rather than a failure. A lot of people, after all, tuned in. Why should they do things any differently? Thus it would be useful to have fresh, truly independent outlets, ones that disclose their biases, are transparent in their methods, and are constantly trying to improve themselves rather than simply pursuing the same useless sensationalism and empty horse-race punditry. The last thing this country needs is another bailout of establishment crooks. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 15782 bytes Desc: not available URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Sun Dec 11 17:38:55 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2016 17:38:55 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: John Pilger talks to Sputnik News. Watch 'The Coming War on China' online References: <81e01f026144a7a39810a239b.6beeae6966.20161211104452.988a0179ff.6ee699a7@mail147.suw18.rsgsv.net> Message-ID: Begin forwarded message: From: John Pilger > Subject: John Pilger talks to Sputnik News. Watch 'The Coming War on China' online Date: December 11, 2016 at 02:45:24 PST To: > Reply-To: John Pilger > View this email in your browser [https://gallery.mailchimp.com/81e01f026144a7a39810a239b/images/4dd4ad2b-f03c-4bc6-a2e8-397f39a0f3fe.png] Following vehement anti-China rhetoric from President-elect Donald Trump and President Obama’s Asian-pivot policies, some feel that US relations with Beijing could escalate into war. Radio Sputnik’s Loud & Clear speaks with filmmaker John Pilger about increasing tensions and how they relate to his latest movie, "The Coming War on China." READ MORE [https://gallery.mailchimp.com/81e01f026144a7a39810a239b/images/a06768b3-6238-4bc5-9a7b-c03ea4d4ce08.png] John Pilger interviewed on RT's The Big Picture. WATCH The Coming War on China is now available to watch online. **** 4 stars "A gripping film ... a strong corrective to our bland and complacent indifference" The Guardian **** 4 stars "Essential viewing" Radio Times **** 4 stars "A film that will change hearts and minds" The Upcoming "Shocking, terrifying, disturbing" Entertainment Focus "The kind of stark warning we need" Cinevue WATCH The Coming War on China on ITV (UK only) WATCH The Coming War on China on RT (Worldwide) [https://cdn-images.mailchimp.com/icons/social-block-v2/dark-twitter-48.png] Twitter [https://cdn-images.mailchimp.com/icons/social-block-v2/dark-facebook-48.png] Facebook [https://cdn-images.mailchimp.com/icons/social-block-v2/dark-link-48.png] Website update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From baldwinricky at yahoo.com Sun Dec 11 19:11:14 2016 From: baldwinricky at yahoo.com (Ricky Baldwin) Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2016 19:11:14 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?q?Join_The_People=E2=80=99s_Agenda_Sunday?= =?utf-8?q?=2C_December_11th_from_3-6pm?= In-Reply-To: References: <00e501d25322$b3303480$19909d80$@comcast.net> Message-ID: <1251807705.800869.1481483474099@mail.yahoo.com> As I understand this effort, it is not about promoting a particular party - parties after all being vehicles only - but about how a community can promote a people-over-profits agenda.  Nothing could be more timely. Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android On Sat, Dec 10, 2016 at 3:24 PM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss wrote: “The People’s Agenda: Building Community Power…” - for the Democrats? No, thanks. ~ Nationally the Democrats promote a continuation of Obama's wars. ~ In Illinois the Democrats refused to solve the 'budget crisis' - which they had the votes to do - because they were unwilling to to offend our local Wall St., LaSalle St. Those opposed to neoconservatism (more war) and neoliberalism (more inequality) need to develop alternatives to that disingenuous party, locally and nationally, and vote out its representatives. An independent Green party (not the collaborationist Stein campaign) is a possibility. --CGE > On Dec 10, 2016, at 2:19 PM, David Johnson wrote: > > Now more than ever, we need to build resilient, organized local communities that defend human rights, meet human needs, and reflect the world we want to create together. > > Join The People’s Agenda Sunday, December 11th from 3-6pm at the Independent Media Center / downtown Urbana Post office building 202 S. Broadway, as we build a coalition to defend our community against the next four years of devastating federal policy, and build our collective power to make change in upcoming elections. > > → Learn from local organizers the anticipated impacts of a federal policy on immigration, health care, the environment, and civil rights. > → Be part of strategy discussions on how we can make a difference locally. > → Join our “Get Plugged In” fair and learn how you can volunteer with local organizations. > > The People’s Agenda develops strategy, education, and people power to build political power for the inclusion of and advocacy for those who have been systematically disempowered. For more information about The People’s Agenda, check out our website: thepeoplesagenda.com and find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From baldwinricky at yahoo.com Sun Dec 11 19:11:14 2016 From: baldwinricky at yahoo.com (Ricky Baldwin) Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2016 19:11:14 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?q?Join_The_People=E2=80=99s_Agenda_Sunday?= =?utf-8?q?=2C_December_11th_from_3-6pm?= In-Reply-To: References: <00e501d25322$b3303480$19909d80$@comcast.net> Message-ID: <1251807705.800869.1481483474099@mail.yahoo.com> As I understand this effort, it is not about promoting a particular party - parties after all being vehicles only - but about how a community can promote a people-over-profits agenda.  Nothing could be more timely. Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android On Sat, Dec 10, 2016 at 3:24 PM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss wrote: “The People’s Agenda: Building Community Power…” - for the Democrats? No, thanks. ~ Nationally the Democrats promote a continuation of Obama's wars. ~ In Illinois the Democrats refused to solve the 'budget crisis' - which they had the votes to do - because they were unwilling to to offend our local Wall St., LaSalle St. Those opposed to neoconservatism (more war) and neoliberalism (more inequality) need to develop alternatives to that disingenuous party, locally and nationally, and vote out its representatives. An independent Green party (not the collaborationist Stein campaign) is a possibility. --CGE > On Dec 10, 2016, at 2:19 PM, David Johnson wrote: > > Now more than ever, we need to build resilient, organized local communities that defend human rights, meet human needs, and reflect the world we want to create together. > > Join The People’s Agenda Sunday, December 11th from 3-6pm at the Independent Media Center / downtown Urbana Post office building 202 S. Broadway, as we build a coalition to defend our community against the next four years of devastating federal policy, and build our collective power to make change in upcoming elections. > > → Learn from local organizers the anticipated impacts of a federal policy on immigration, health care, the environment, and civil rights. > → Be part of strategy discussions on how we can make a difference locally. > → Join our “Get Plugged In” fair and learn how you can volunteer with local organizations. > > The People’s Agenda develops strategy, education, and people power to build political power for the inclusion of and advocacy for those who have been systematically disempowered. For more information about The People’s Agenda, check out our website: thepeoplesagenda.com and find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davegreen84 at yahoo.com Sun Dec 11 19:49:21 2016 From: davegreen84 at yahoo.com (David Green) Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2016 19:49:21 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?q?Join_The_People=E2=80=99s_Agenda_Sunday?= =?utf-8?q?=2C_December_11th_from_3-6pm?= In-Reply-To: <1251807705.800869.1481483474099@mail.yahoo.com> References: <00e501d25322$b3303480$19909d80$@comcast.net> <1251807705.800869.1481483474099@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1155274654.1117835.1481485761999@mail.yahoo.com> I will not be attending, but I will be anxious to find out what The People recommend to representatives Ammons and Bennett regarding their challenging the leadership of the state Democratic Party, to the end of opposing fiscal austerity, such as is promoted by two neoliberal economists in this morning's N-G. That would provide a substantive indication that this meeting is something other than a "progressive Democrat" concoction of those loyal to Carol Ammons and unwilling to challenge state and national DP leadership. It's interesting to me that such meetings did not occur in 2008, regarding Obama's continuation of Bush, while this meeting is occurring now, in the face of Trump's continuation of Obama (although perhaps not in terms of provocations toward more war). It couldn't be because Obama didn't pose a threat to immigrants and public education, etc. DG On Sunday, December 11, 2016 1:15 PM, Ricky Baldwin via Peace-discuss wrote: As I understand this effort, it is not about promoting a particular party - parties after all being vehicles only - but about how a community can promote a people-over-profits agenda.  Nothing could be more timely. Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android On Sat, Dec 10, 2016 at 3:24 PM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss wrote: “The People’s Agenda: Building Community Power…” - for the Democrats? No, thanks. ~ Nationally the Democrats promote a continuation of Obama's wars. ~ In Illinois the Democrats refused to solve the 'budget crisis' - which they had the votes to do - because they were unwilling to to offend our local Wall St., LaSalle St. Those opposed to neoconservatism (more war) and neoliberalism (more inequality) need to develop alternatives to that disingenuous party, locally and nationally, and vote out its representatives. An independent Green party (not the collaborationist Stein campaign) is a possibility. --CGE > On Dec 10, 2016, at 2:19 PM, David Johnson wrote: > > Now more than ever, we need to build resilient, organized local communities that defend human rights, meet human needs, and reflect the world we want to create together. > > Join The People’s Agenda Sunday, December 11th from 3-6pm at the Independent Media Center / downtown Urbana Post office building 202 S. Broadway, as we build a coalition to defend our community against the next four years of devastating federal policy, and build our collective power to make change in upcoming elections. > > → Learn from local organizers the anticipated impacts of a federal policy on immigration, health care, the environment, and civil rights. > → Be part of strategy discussions on how we can make a difference locally. > → Join our “Get Plugged In” fair and learn how you can volunteer with local organizations. > > The People’s Agenda develops strategy, education, and people power to build political power for the inclusion of and advocacy for those who have been systematically disempowered. For more information about The People’s Agenda, check out our website: thepeoplesagenda.com and find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cgestabrook at gmail.com Sun Dec 11 20:11:56 2016 From: cgestabrook at gmail.com (Carl G. Estabrook) Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2016 14:11:56 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?q?Join_The_People=E2=80=99s_Agenda_Sunday?= =?utf-8?q?=2C_December_11th_from_3-6pm?= In-Reply-To: <1155274654.1117835.1481485761999@mail.yahoo.com> References: <00e501d25322$b3303480$19909d80$@comcast.net> <1251807705.800869.1481483474099@mail.yahoo.com> <1155274654.1117835.1481485761999@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <45CEA62F-AFF2-4851-85A9-6FDDDD208B9B@illinois.edu> It seems clear that this group will not attack the (state and national) Democratic party’s neoliberal and neoconservative policies - but instead lend ‘critical support’ to them. Will the local Republicans attack those policies? Probably not: both major parties continue to support inequality and war, with the Democrats having at best a patina of identity politics. Perhaps the local Greens (despite the Stein campaign’s collapse) can add an anti-neolib/anti-neocon voice to local major-party monotonics. And we can begin by describing accurately what the local ‘People’s Agenda’ is doing - primarily seeking votes for Democrats. —CGE > On Dec 11, 2016, at 1:49 PM, David Green > wrote: > > I will not be attending, but I will be anxious to find out what The People recommend to representatives Ammons and Bennett regarding their challenging the leadership of the state Democratic Party, to the end of opposing fiscal austerity, such as is promoted by two neoliberal economists in this morning's N-G. That would provide a substantive indication that this meeting is something other than a "progressive Democrat" concoction of those loyal to Carol Ammons and unwilling to challenge state and national DP leadership. > > It's interesting to me that such meetings did not occur in 2008, regarding Obama's continuation of Bush, while this meeting is occurring now, in the face of Trump's continuation of Obama (although perhaps not in terms of provocations toward more war). It couldn't be because Obama didn't pose a threat to immigrants and public education, etc. > > DG > > > On Sunday, December 11, 2016 1:15 PM, Ricky Baldwin via Peace-discuss > wrote: > > > As I understand this effort, it is not about promoting a particular party - parties after all being vehicles only - but about how a community can promote a people-over-profits agenda. Nothing could be more timely. > > Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android > On Sat, Dec 10, 2016 at 3:24 PM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss > > wrote: > “The People’s Agenda: Building Community Power…” - for the Democrats? No, thanks. > > ~ Nationally the Democrats promote a continuation of Obama's wars. > > ~ In Illinois the Democrats refused to solve the 'budget crisis' - which they had the votes to do - because they were unwilling to to offend our local Wall St., LaSalle St. > > Those opposed to neoconservatism (more war) and neoliberalism (more inequality) need to develop alternatives to that disingenuous party, locally and nationally, and vote out its representatives. > > An independent Green party (not the collaborationist Stein campaign) is a possibility. > > --CGE > > > > On Dec 10, 2016, at 2:19 PM, David Johnson > wrote: > > > > Now more than ever, we need to build resilient, organized local communities that defend human rights, meet human needs, and reflect the world we want to create together. > > > > Join The People’s Agenda Sunday, December 11th from 3-6pm at the Independent Media Center / downtown Urbana Post office building 202 S. Broadway, as we build a coalition to defend our community against the next four years of devastating federal policy, and build our collective power to make change in upcoming elections. > > > > → Learn from local organizers the anticipated impacts of a federal policy on immigration, health care, the environment, and civil rights. > > → Be part of strategy discussions on how we can make a difference locally. > > → Join our “Get Plugged In” fair and learn how you can volunteer with local organizations. > > > > The People’s Agenda develops strategy, education, and people power to build political power for the inclusion of and advocacy for those who have been systematically disempowered. For more information about The People’s Agenda, check out our website: thepeoplesagenda.com and find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. > > > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss > > > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From galliher at illinois.edu Mon Dec 12 23:21:20 2016 From: galliher at illinois.edu (Carl G. Estabrook) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 17:21:20 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Reorganizing the Prairie Greens Message-ID: <0FA74A2F-9476-4D34-A524-15F512BCFF83@illinois.edu> The debacle of the Stein campaign - its willingness to become a well-paid tool of the Clinton campaign, regardless of the disapproval of the Steering Committee of the GPUS - suggests that it's time for Greens in central Illinois to become a "membership-based, dues paying entity" - clearly separate from other political parties, local or national. I'll propose that formally at the next Prairie Greens meeting - and suggest we begin a drive for dues-paying members. The dues should not be high, but they should distinguish members from non-members. We should have card-carrying Prairie Greens, who will decide on the activities of the party. "...a problem at play here is the lack of accountability to the rank-and-file or Green Party leadership that this [Stein] campaign, and really all campaigns have. This recount scheme was the first and only time that the campaign made any contact with the Steering Committee when the campaign all along should have been working in partnership with the SC. To be fair, none of the GPUS campaigns have so far, but the culture needs to change. No one is looking out for the Green party here, except for the steering Committee majority who voted NO and we owe them a debt of thanks. "Part of the proposal of making locals membership-based, dues paying entities is that Greens will be able to hold their leaders and their candidates accountable…” —CGE From cge at shout.net Tue Dec 13 01:47:16 2016 From: cge at shout.net (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 19:47:16 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Reorganizing the Prairie Greens Message-ID: <3400670d48a89889003d59b496121999@shout.net> The debacle of the Stein campaign - its willingness to become a well-paid tool of the Clinton campaign, regardless of the disapproval of the Steering Committee of the GPUS - suggests that it's time for Greens in central Illinois to become a "membership-based, dues paying entity" - clearly separate from other political parties, local or national. I'll propose that formally at the next Prairie Greens meeting - and suggest we begin a drive for dues-paying members. The dues should not be high, but they should distinguish members from non-members. We should have card-carrying Prairie Greens, who will decide on the activities of the party. "...a problem at play here is the lack of accountability to the rank-and-file or Green Party leadership that this [Stein] campaign, and really all campaigns have. This recount scheme was the first and only time that the campaign made any contact with the Steering Committee when the campaign all along should have been working in partnership with the SC. To be fair, none of the GPUS campaigns have so far, but the culture needs to change. No one is looking out for the Green party here, except for the steering Committee majority who voted NO and we owe them a debt of thanks. Part of the proposal of making locals membership-based, dues paying entities is that Greens will be able to hold their leaders and their candidates accountable…” . --CGE From karenaram at hotmail.com Tue Dec 13 18:32:59 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2016 18:32:59 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: 21WIRE's Daily Dose of #Truth Top Stories and more... References: <8e2046b867880f405f4203dc4.8a1ecf423b.20161213170235.18637c8477.53099775@mail77.wdc01.mcdlv.net> Message-ID: The Press Conference related to Aleppo, next to last, on this website, is the most informative in relation to Syria, and US actions in the Middle East. [ALEPPO: LIVE UPDATES] [Facebook] [Twitter] [https://gallery.mailchimp.com/8e2046b867880f405f4203dc4/images/704576da-c0d0-4b42-b9bf-a9bfa2e921dd.png] [Shout] [YouTube] [SoundCloud] [RSS] Daily updates for 21stCenturyWire.com subscribers View this email in your browser [21st Century Wire] Your Daily Dose of Truth. Curated by 21st Century Wire Top Stories Top US Spy Agency Refuses to Endorse CIA’s ‘Russian Hacking’ Assessment Due to “Lack Of Evidence” Tyler Durden | This latest debacle shows just just how partisan and broken the country's intelligence apparatus has become. Read on » ESOTERIC HOLLYWOOD: Catherine Austin Fitts-Systemic Corruption & Narco Dollars Jay Dyer | From the black budget to Enron to BCCI and the bailout, Fitts deconstructs how exactly we got into the mess we’re in, including the tie-ins of black markets. Read on » ‘Common Cause’? Barbra Streisand lobbying Obama to bypass US Senate and appoint Supreme Court Justice unilaterally 21WIRE + E.T. Williams | Hollywood is lobbying for a hostile takeover of the US Supreme Court. Read on » Aleppo Truth: Incredible Press Conference at the United Nations 21WIRE | Please share with friends, family and colleagues... Read on » Featured Archives ALEPPO UPDATES and more... [Obama's Legacy] [‘Mainstream Meltdown’ with guests Peter Lavelle, Vanessa Beeley] [2016 Election Files] ['Fake News' Files] [Syria Files] [Facebook] [Twitter] [https://gallery.mailchimp.com/8e2046b867880f405f4203dc4/images/704576da-c0d0-4b42-b9bf-a9bfa2e921dd.png] [Shout] [YouTube] [SoundCloud] [RSS] We Need Your Support in 2016! [21st Century Wire Investigative Fund] 21st Century Wire Investigative Fund This fund supports our investigative news coverage, research and studio time for the Sunday Wire radio show. Thank you! The Sunday Wire with Patrick Henningsen – On-Demand Episode #164: ‘Libération Aleppo’ with guests Fares Shehabi MP, Vanessa Beeley Sunday Wire Archives [The Sunday Wire LIVE with Patrick Henningsen] [Alternate Current Radio]LIVE Replays Monday – Friday 4AM/12PM/5PM EST on Alternate Current Radio [Available on iTunes] Thank you for subscribing to our website updates at http://21stcenturywire.com. We value our community of readers and hope you are enjoying these updates. Our mailing address is: 21Wire Media P.O. Box 410654 Kansas City, MO 64141 Add us to your address book unsubscribe from this list update subscription preferences [21st Century Wire] COPYRIGHT © 2009-2016 · 21WIRE MEDIA · ALL RIGHTS RESERVED WORLDWIDE -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cge at shout.net Wed Dec 14 04:15:11 2016 From: cge at shout.net (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2016 22:15:11 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Urge Champaign County Dems to back Ellison In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <06ba8a8848108796ab12f38b8305eeea@shout.net> On 2016-11-20 16:22, Robert Naiman wrote: > Dear C. G. Estabrook, > > Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Rep. KEITH ELLISON is > running to lead the Democratic National Committee. He has been > endorsed by BERNIE SANDERS, ELIZABETH WARREN, RAUL GRIJALVA, CWA, > NATIONAL NURSES UNITED, MOVEON, the WORKING FAMILIES PARTY, and PDA. > > > Rep. Ellison has been a champion for working people and the > environment. HE OPPOSED THE TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP and HELPED LEAD > THE FIGHT to get the Democratic Party Platform to take an explicit > stand against the TPP. If chosen to lead the DNC, REP. ELLISON WILL > RETURN THE FOCUS OF THE PARTY TO BUILDING POLITICAL POWER FOR WORKING > PEOPLE. The next meeting of the Champaign County Democratic Central > Committee is NOVEMBER 30. Champaign County Democrats voted for Bernie > in the primary by a margin of two to one. > Rep. Keith Ellison: Useless to the Cause of Peace Earlier this year, the Obama administration reneged on its agreement with Russia to draw up a list of the jihadist groups Washington supports, and to make sure they don’t fight alongside al-Qaida. [Rep. Tulsi] Gabbard’s law would require that the Director of National Intelligence draw up a list of the jihadi groups that are cooperating with al-Qaida and ISIS, and update that list every six month, to make sure none of them get U.S. assistance. Gabbard models her bill on 1980s Boland Amendment that halted U.S. aid to the U.S. Contra terrorists, in Nicaragua. She was joined by two Republican and two Democratic co-sponsors, including Black California congresswoman Barbara Lee. The bill is endorsed by the Progressive Democrats of America and the U.S. Peace Council. But don’t expect it to get effective support from the Progressive Caucus in the U.S. Congress. Minnesota Black congressman Keith Ellison is Caucus co-chair – and absolutely worthless to the cause of peace. He supported the war against Libya and the proxy war in Syria, which is why he stands a good chance of becoming head of the Democratic National Committee, where it’s all war, and anti-Russia, all the time. -- > URGE CHAMPAIGN COUNTY DEMOCRATS TO SUPPORT THE CANDIDACY OF KEITH > ELLISON TO LEAD THE DNC BY SIGNING OUR PETITION AT MOVEON [1]. > > IF YOU ARE A PRECINCT COMMITTEEPERSON, PLEASE NOTE THAT IN A COMMENT, > INCLUDING YOUR PRECINCT. Feel free to note any other affiliation you > think relevant, such as current or former Democratic elected official, > union official or union member, or other organizational affiliation. > > PLEASE SIGN AND SHARE [1] OUR PETITION NOW. > > Thanks for all you do to help make America more just, > > Robert Naiman > > ------------------------- > > This message was sent to C. G. Estabrook by Robert Naiman through > MoveOn's public petition website. MoveOn Political Action licensed and > paid for this service, but does not endorse contents of this message. > To unsubscribe or report this email as inappropriate, click here: > http://petitions.moveon.org/unsub.html?i=36043-2656067-xTiSti > > WANT TO MAKE A DONATION TO HELP SUPPORT PETITIONS ON MOVEON.ORG? > Hundreds of thousands of people chip in each year to support > MoveOn—which is how we're able to keep our petition website > free and support campaigns like this one. You can become a monthly > donor by clicking here [2], or chip in a one-time gift here [3]. > > Links: > ------ > [1] > http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/champaigncodems-back?mailing_id=36043&source=s.icn.em.cr&r_by=2656067 > [2] > https://act.moveon.org/donate/support_moveon_petitions?donation_type=recurring > [3] https://act.moveon.org/donate/support_moveon_petitions From karenaram at hotmail.com Wed Dec 14 13:23:02 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2016 13:23:02 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Green Party challenge Message-ID: Only one opinion, but a worthwhile opinion because it isn’t about vilifying individuals. It’s about presenting data, and facts. My opinion is "Jill Stein deserves credit for bringing this information to light," Green Party ends bid for presidential election recount in Michigan and Pennsylvania By Niles Niemuth 14 December 2016 The Green Party ended its bid Tuesday for a recount of the presidential election results in Michigan and Pennsylvania, two of the states that ensured Trump’s victory in the Electoral College. Jill Stein, the Green Party’s presidential candidate, announced the end of the recount campaign at a press conference on Tuesday. “We do not have a voting system we can trust, and the recount was essentially stopped in its tracks,” Stein told reporters. The only successful recount effort pursued by the Greens occurred in Wisconsin, ending after 10 days on Monday with an official certification of Republican Donald Trump’s victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton, adding 131 net votes to his total. The end of the Greens’ recount efforts came after a ruling by a federal judge in Pennsylvania on Monday blocked both a recount and a request for an examination of the state’s voting machines for possible hacking. Federal District Judge Paul Diamond ruled that it would be impossible for a recount to be completed given that Tuesday was the deadline for certifying the state’s electoral votes. Diamond also rejected the contention that the election may have been hacked, saying that such a notion would “border on the irrational.” On Friday, a recount of the vote in Michigan was blocked from going forward by the state Supreme Court after only three days of counting. The court ruled in a 3-2 decision that upheld a Michigan Court of Appeals decision that Stein had no standing as an aggrieved party. Earlier, Federal District Judge Mark Goldsmith had ruled in support of the ruling by the state appeals court that Stein had no standing to request a recount since she had no chance of benefiting, having won little more than 1 percent of the vote and trailed Trump by more than 2 million votes in the state. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who did have standing as an “aggrieved party,” having lost the state of Michigan to Trump by only 10,704 votes, could have joined the case and ensured a complete recount of the vote but decided against intervening. While the three days of ballot counting in Michigan did not result in any change in the official vote tally, the limited canvassing that occurred exposed a dysfunctional and archaic state electoral system that produced numerous irregularities. The ballots in 322 precincts across the state were unable to be recounted because of a mismatch between the number of ballots recorded and the number of voters logged in poll books. State law only allows for ballots to be recounted if the number of votes cast matches the number of voters recorded in the poll book. In one instance, a review of voting precinct 152 in the city of Detroit found only 52 ballots in the ballot container while 307 voters had been logged in the official poll book. As a result of the findings of widespread abnormalities, the Michigan Bureau of Elections has announced an audit of 20 precincts in the city of Detroit that could not be recounted to determine the source of the widespread errors. “We don’t have any suspicion of fraud. We generally approach this as human error,” Michigan Elections Director Chris Thomas told the Detroit Free Press. “We’re going to take a look at them to make sure there’s not a need for further explanations. And we’ll be talking with Detroit staff as well going forward.” The recount efforts and available voting data indicate that Trump won the election not because of hacking or voter fraud, let alone a surge in support from “white workers,” but because of a collapse in support from broad sections of the working class for Clinton. In the once heavily industrialized Rust Belt states of Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, Clinton lost 1.17 million voters who earned less than $50,000 a year compared to Obama’s results in 2012. Trump only picked up 334,000 voters in these states in the same income bracket. Clinton lost nearly 1 million votes from whites in these five states, while Trump picked up fewer than 500,000. WSWS.ORG -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From galliher at illinois.edu Wed Dec 14 14:11:44 2016 From: galliher at illinois.edu (Carl G. Estabrook) Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2016 08:11:44 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Green Party challenge In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <73060A43-1A2F-441E-A85A-EA16EC7C947D@illinois.edu> Brother Szoke reminded us frequently that we can’t know the ‘real motives’ of political actors. ("Do not judge, so that you may not be judged,” he almost quoted.) But we can analyze their actions by the standard of ‘cui bono?’ If you had told me a year ago that US liberals would exhume Joe McCarthy In order to keep neocon/neolib control of the presidency, I would not have believed you. The following, from a leading 'liberal' pundit, is just astonishing: . The Greens should reaffirm their commitment not to cooperate with such people. We should indeed "present data, and facts.” My opinion is, “The neocon/neolib establishment will stop at little to continue to control the presidency.” We shouldn’t allow it. —CGE > On Dec 14, 2016, at 7:23 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss wrote: > > Only one opinion, but a worthwhile opinion because it isn’t about vilifying individuals. It’s about presenting data, and facts. My opinion is "Jill Stein deserves credit for bringing this information to light," > > > Green Party ends bid for presidential election recount in Michigan and Pennsylvania > By Niles Niemuth > 14 December 2016 > The Green Party ended its bid Tuesday for a recount of the presidential election results in Michigan and Pennsylvania, two of the states that ensured Trump’s victory in the Electoral College. > Jill Stein, the Green Party’s presidential candidate, announced the end of the recount campaign at a press conference on Tuesday. “We do not have a voting system we can trust, and the recount was essentially stopped in its tracks,” Stein told reporters. > The only successful recount effort pursued by the Greens occurred in Wisconsin, ending after 10 days on Monday with an official certification of Republican Donald Trump’s victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton, adding 131 net votes to his total. > The end of the Greens’ recount efforts came after a ruling by a federal judge in Pennsylvania on Monday blocked both a recount and a request for an examination of the state’s voting machines for possible hacking. > Federal District Judge Paul Diamond ruled that it would be impossible for a recount to be completed given that Tuesday was the deadline for certifying the state’s electoral votes. Diamond also rejected the contention that the election may have been hacked, saying that such a notion would “border on the irrational.” > On Friday, a recount of the vote in Michigan was blocked from going forward by the state Supreme Court after only three days of counting. The court ruled in a 3-2 decision that upheld a Michigan Court of Appeals decision that Stein had no standing as an aggrieved party. > Earlier, Federal District Judge Mark Goldsmith had ruled in support of the ruling by the state appeals court that Stein had no standing to request a recount since she had no chance of benefiting, having won little more than 1 percent of the vote and trailed Trump by more than 2 million votes in the state. > Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who did have standing as an “aggrieved party,” having lost the state of Michigan to Trump by only 10,704 votes, could have joined the case and ensured a complete recount of the vote but decided against intervening. > While the three days of ballot counting in Michigan did not result in any change in the official vote tally, the limited canvassing that occurred exposed a dysfunctional and archaic state electoral system that produced numerous irregularities. > The ballots in 322 precincts across the state were unable to be recounted because of a mismatch between the number of ballots recorded and the number of voters logged in poll books. State law only allows for ballots to be recounted if the number of votes cast matches the number of voters recorded in the poll book. In one instance, a review of voting precinct 152 in the city of Detroit found only 52 ballots in the ballot container while 307 voters had been logged in the official poll book. > As a result of the findings of widespread abnormalities, the Michigan Bureau of Elections has announced an audit of 20 precincts in the city of Detroit that could not be recounted to determine the source of the widespread errors. > “We don’t have any suspicion of fraud. We generally approach this as human error,” Michigan Elections Director Chris Thomas told the Detroit Free Press. “We’re going to take a look at them to make sure there’s not a need for further explanations. And we’ll be talking with Detroit staff as well going forward.” > The recount efforts and available voting data indicate that Trump won the election not because of hacking or voter fraud, let alone a surge in support from “white workers,” but because of a collapse in support from broad sections of the working class for Clinton. > In the once heavily industrialized Rust Belt states of Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, Clinton lost 1.17 million voters who earned less than $50,000 a year compared to Obama’s results in 2012. Trump only picked up 334,000 voters in these states in the same income bracket. Clinton lost nearly 1 million votes from whites in these five states, while Trump picked up fewer than 500,000. > > WSWS.ORG > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss From karenaram at hotmail.com Wed Dec 14 16:41:24 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2016 16:41:24 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Green Party challenge In-Reply-To: <73060A43-1A2F-441E-A85A-EA16EC7C947D@illinois.edu> References: <73060A43-1A2F-441E-A85A-EA16EC7C947D@illinois.edu> Message-ID: Since when do we, “Greens", care what the liberal pundits have to say? Yes, we go by actions/behavior, and "cui bono” does apply. There was hope that a recount would provide more than 1% for the Green’s, but the fact that Hillary chose not to challenge, is very telling. Only "squeaky, clean" Jill Stein had the courage to request recounts. Two states refusing to comply is also very telling, and where is Russia in all of this, those that are blaming Russia for influencing our elections, shouldn’t they want recounts? Your fears of the neocons controlling our system are legitimate, because they already do. Any suggestion that Trump doesn’t represent the neocons is ludicrous. Just as every administration has been for sometime, the application of neoliberal policies is a strategy, that is unlikely to be utilized by the Republican Administration. The best that Trump can represent is those corporates who wish to profit from business with Russia, or China rather than destroying them, at least for now. Hillary, would have continued the Obama/Bush war policies without notice, but there are many besides neolibs fearing Trump, and given his Cabinet appointments and threats of deportations, they are not unreasonable fears. There are many people who will suffer the consequences of not just this “election”, but the continuing policies of war, austerity, and disenfranchisement of the working class, that went unchallenged under Obama because it was insidious, with Trump it’s transparent. One can only hope that people now recognize we need to examine the flaws in our "system of corporate capitalism,” to find solutions. > On Dec 14, 2016, at 06:11, Carl G. Estabrook wrote: > > Brother Szoke reminded us frequently that we can’t know the ‘real motives’ of political actors. ("Do not judge, so that you may not be judged,” he almost quoted.) > > But we can analyze their actions by the standard of ‘cui bono?’ > > If you had told me a year ago that US liberals would exhume Joe McCarthy In order to keep neocon/neolib control of the presidency, I would not have believed you. > > The following, from a leading 'liberal' pundit, is just astonishing: . > > The Greens should reaffirm their commitment not to cooperate with such people. We should indeed "present data, and facts.” > > My opinion is, “The neocon/neolib establishment will stop at little to continue to control the presidency.” We shouldn’t allow it. > > —CGE > >> On Dec 14, 2016, at 7:23 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss wrote: >> >> Only one opinion, but a worthwhile opinion because it isn’t about vilifying individuals. It’s about presenting data, and facts. My opinion is "Jill Stein deserves credit for bringing this information to light," >> >> >> Green Party ends bid for presidential election recount in Michigan and Pennsylvania >> By Niles Niemuth >> 14 December 2016 >> The Green Party ended its bid Tuesday for a recount of the presidential election results in Michigan and Pennsylvania, two of the states that ensured Trump’s victory in the Electoral College. >> Jill Stein, the Green Party’s presidential candidate, announced the end of the recount campaign at a press conference on Tuesday. “We do not have a voting system we can trust, and the recount was essentially stopped in its tracks,” Stein told reporters. >> The only successful recount effort pursued by the Greens occurred in Wisconsin, ending after 10 days on Monday with an official certification of Republican Donald Trump’s victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton, adding 131 net votes to his total. >> The end of the Greens’ recount efforts came after a ruling by a federal judge in Pennsylvania on Monday blocked both a recount and a request for an examination of the state’s voting machines for possible hacking. >> Federal District Judge Paul Diamond ruled that it would be impossible for a recount to be completed given that Tuesday was the deadline for certifying the state’s electoral votes. Diamond also rejected the contention that the election may have been hacked, saying that such a notion would “border on the irrational.” >> On Friday, a recount of the vote in Michigan was blocked from going forward by the state Supreme Court after only three days of counting. The court ruled in a 3-2 decision that upheld a Michigan Court of Appeals decision that Stein had no standing as an aggrieved party. >> Earlier, Federal District Judge Mark Goldsmith had ruled in support of the ruling by the state appeals court that Stein had no standing to request a recount since she had no chance of benefiting, having won little more than 1 percent of the vote and trailed Trump by more than 2 million votes in the state. >> Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who did have standing as an “aggrieved party,” having lost the state of Michigan to Trump by only 10,704 votes, could have joined the case and ensured a complete recount of the vote but decided against intervening. >> While the three days of ballot counting in Michigan did not result in any change in the official vote tally, the limited canvassing that occurred exposed a dysfunctional and archaic state electoral system that produced numerous irregularities. >> The ballots in 322 precincts across the state were unable to be recounted because of a mismatch between the number of ballots recorded and the number of voters logged in poll books. State law only allows for ballots to be recounted if the number of votes cast matches the number of voters recorded in the poll book. In one instance, a review of voting precinct 152 in the city of Detroit found only 52 ballots in the ballot container while 307 voters had been logged in the official poll book. >> As a result of the findings of widespread abnormalities, the Michigan Bureau of Elections has announced an audit of 20 precincts in the city of Detroit that could not be recounted to determine the source of the widespread errors. >> “We don’t have any suspicion of fraud. We generally approach this as human error,” Michigan Elections Director Chris Thomas told the Detroit Free Press. “We’re going to take a look at them to make sure there’s not a need for further explanations. And we’ll be talking with Detroit staff as well going forward.” >> The recount efforts and available voting data indicate that Trump won the election not because of hacking or voter fraud, let alone a surge in support from “white workers,” but because of a collapse in support from broad sections of the working class for Clinton. >> In the once heavily industrialized Rust Belt states of Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, Clinton lost 1.17 million voters who earned less than $50,000 a year compared to Obama’s results in 2012. Trump only picked up 334,000 voters in these states in the same income bracket. Clinton lost nearly 1 million votes from whites in these five states, while Trump picked up fewer than 500,000. >> >> WSWS.ORG >> _______________________________________________ >> Peace-discuss mailing list >> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net >> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss > From galliher at illinois.edu Wed Dec 14 17:31:24 2016 From: galliher at illinois.edu (Carl G. Estabrook) Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2016 11:31:24 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Green Party challenge In-Reply-To: References: <73060A43-1A2F-441E-A85A-EA16EC7C947D@illinois.edu> Message-ID: <58C5062D-7D04-4C19-A820-A5EB2DF596DC@illinois.edu> I don’t know how squeaky clean Stein is when she’s carrying water for HRC (whom Jeffrey St. Clair calls the LNW - lying, neoliberal warmonger), against the disapproval of the GPUS Steering Committee. But that probably won’t be an issue (except perhaps inside the Green party) after Monday. We really should get back to organizing against the USG’s military and economic policies - e.g., a U.S. OUT OF THE MIDEAST campaign. —CGE > On Dec 14, 2016, at 10:41 AM, Karen Aram wrote: > > > Since when do we, “Greens", care what the liberal pundits have to say? > > Yes, we go by actions/behavior, and "cui bono” does apply. There was hope that a recount would provide more than 1% for the Green’s, but the fact that Hillary chose not to challenge, is very telling. Only "squeaky, clean" Jill Stein had the courage to request recounts. > Two states refusing to comply is also very telling, and where is Russia in all of this, those that are blaming Russia for influencing our elections, shouldn’t they want recounts? > > Your fears of the neocons controlling our system are legitimate, because they already do. Any suggestion that Trump doesn’t represent the neocons is ludicrous. Just as every administration has been for sometime, the application of neoliberal policies is a strategy, that is unlikely to be utilized by the Republican Administration. > > The best that Trump can represent is those corporates who wish to profit from business with Russia, or China rather than destroying them, at least for now. > > Hillary, would have continued the Obama/Bush war policies without notice, but there are many besides neolibs fearing Trump, and given his Cabinet appointments and threats of deportations, they are not unreasonable fears. There are many people who will suffer the consequences of not just this “election”, but the continuing policies of war, austerity, and disenfranchisement of the working class, that went unchallenged under Obama because it was insidious, with Trump it’s transparent. > > One can only hope that people now recognize we need to examine the flaws in our "system of corporate capitalism,” to find solutions. > > >> On Dec 14, 2016, at 06:11, Carl G. Estabrook wrote: >> >> Brother Szoke reminded us frequently that we can’t know the ‘real motives’ of political actors. ("Do not judge, so that you may not be judged,” he almost quoted.) >> >> But we can analyze their actions by the standard of ‘cui bono?’ >> >> If you had told me a year ago that US liberals would exhume Joe McCarthy In order to keep neocon/neolib control of the presidency, I would not have believed you. >> >> The following, from a leading 'liberal' pundit, is just astonishing: . >> >> The Greens should reaffirm their commitment not to cooperate with such people. We should indeed "present data, and facts.” >> >> My opinion is, “The neocon/neolib establishment will stop at little to continue to control the presidency.” We shouldn’t allow it. >> >> —CGE >> >>> On Dec 14, 2016, at 7:23 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss wrote: >>> >>> Only one opinion, but a worthwhile opinion because it isn’t about vilifying individuals. It’s about presenting data, and facts. My opinion is "Jill Stein deserves credit for bringing this information to light," >>> >>> >>> Green Party ends bid for presidential election recount in Michigan and Pennsylvania >>> By Niles Niemuth >>> 14 December 2016 >>> The Green Party ended its bid Tuesday for a recount of the presidential election results in Michigan and Pennsylvania, two of the states that ensured Trump’s victory in the Electoral College. >>> Jill Stein, the Green Party’s presidential candidate, announced the end of the recount campaign at a press conference on Tuesday. “We do not have a voting system we can trust, and the recount was essentially stopped in its tracks,” Stein told reporters. >>> The only successful recount effort pursued by the Greens occurred in Wisconsin, ending after 10 days on Monday with an official certification of Republican Donald Trump’s victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton, adding 131 net votes to his total. >>> The end of the Greens’ recount efforts came after a ruling by a federal judge in Pennsylvania on Monday blocked both a recount and a request for an examination of the state’s voting machines for possible hacking. >>> Federal District Judge Paul Diamond ruled that it would be impossible for a recount to be completed given that Tuesday was the deadline for certifying the state’s electoral votes. Diamond also rejected the contention that the election may have been hacked, saying that such a notion would “border on the irrational.” >>> On Friday, a recount of the vote in Michigan was blocked from going forward by the state Supreme Court after only three days of counting. The court ruled in a 3-2 decision that upheld a Michigan Court of Appeals decision that Stein had no standing as an aggrieved party. >>> Earlier, Federal District Judge Mark Goldsmith had ruled in support of the ruling by the state appeals court that Stein had no standing to request a recount since she had no chance of benefiting, having won little more than 1 percent of the vote and trailed Trump by more than 2 million votes in the state. >>> Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who did have standing as an “aggrieved party,” having lost the state of Michigan to Trump by only 10,704 votes, could have joined the case and ensured a complete recount of the vote but decided against intervening. >>> While the three days of ballot counting in Michigan did not result in any change in the official vote tally, the limited canvassing that occurred exposed a dysfunctional and archaic state electoral system that produced numerous irregularities. >>> The ballots in 322 precincts across the state were unable to be recounted because of a mismatch between the number of ballots recorded and the number of voters logged in poll books. State law only allows for ballots to be recounted if the number of votes cast matches the number of voters recorded in the poll book. In one instance, a review of voting precinct 152 in the city of Detroit found only 52 ballots in the ballot container while 307 voters had been logged in the official poll book. >>> As a result of the findings of widespread abnormalities, the Michigan Bureau of Elections has announced an audit of 20 precincts in the city of Detroit that could not be recounted to determine the source of the widespread errors. >>> “We don’t have any suspicion of fraud. We generally approach this as human error,” Michigan Elections Director Chris Thomas told the Detroit Free Press. “We’re going to take a look at them to make sure there’s not a need for further explanations. And we’ll be talking with Detroit staff as well going forward.” >>> The recount efforts and available voting data indicate that Trump won the election not because of hacking or voter fraud, let alone a surge in support from “white workers,” but because of a collapse in support from broad sections of the working class for Clinton. >>> In the once heavily industrialized Rust Belt states of Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, Clinton lost 1.17 million voters who earned less than $50,000 a year compared to Obama’s results in 2012. Trump only picked up 334,000 voters in these states in the same income bracket. Clinton lost nearly 1 million votes from whites in these five states, while Trump picked up fewer than 500,000. >>> >>> WSWS.ORG >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Peace-discuss mailing list >>> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net >>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss >> > From karenaram at hotmail.com Wed Dec 14 17:33:52 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2016 17:33:52 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Green Party challenge In-Reply-To: <58C5062D-7D04-4C19-A820-A5EB2DF596DC@illinois.edu> References: <73060A43-1A2F-441E-A85A-EA16EC7C947D@illinois.edu> <58C5062D-7D04-4C19-A820-A5EB2DF596DC@illinois.edu> Message-ID: Yes Carl, we should, and maybe Jeffrey St. Clair and other Libertarians should do the same. The name calling does nothing for anyone's credibility. > On Dec 14, 2016, at 09:31, Carl G. Estabrook wrote: > > I don’t know how squeaky clean Stein is when she’s carrying water for HRC (whom Jeffrey St. Clair calls the LNW - lying, neoliberal warmonger), against the disapproval of the GPUS Steering Committee. But that probably won’t be an issue (except perhaps inside the Green party) after Monday. > > We really should get back to organizing against the USG’s military and economic policies - e.g., a U.S. OUT OF THE MIDEAST campaign. > > —CGE > > >> On Dec 14, 2016, at 10:41 AM, Karen Aram wrote: >> >> >> Since when do we, “Greens", care what the liberal pundits have to say? >> >> Yes, we go by actions/behavior, and "cui bono” does apply. There was hope that a recount would provide more than 1% for the Green’s, but the fact that Hillary chose not to challenge, is very telling. Only "squeaky, clean" Jill Stein had the courage to request recounts. >> Two states refusing to comply is also very telling, and where is Russia in all of this, those that are blaming Russia for influencing our elections, shouldn’t they want recounts? >> >> Your fears of the neocons controlling our system are legitimate, because they already do. Any suggestion that Trump doesn’t represent the neocons is ludicrous. Just as every administration has been for sometime, the application of neoliberal policies is a strategy, that is unlikely to be utilized by the Republican Administration. >> >> The best that Trump can represent is those corporates who wish to profit from business with Russia, or China rather than destroying them, at least for now. >> >> Hillary, would have continued the Obama/Bush war policies without notice, but there are many besides neolibs fearing Trump, and given his Cabinet appointments and threats of deportations, they are not unreasonable fears. There are many people who will suffer the consequences of not just this “election”, but the continuing policies of war, austerity, and disenfranchisement of the working class, that went unchallenged under Obama because it was insidious, with Trump it’s transparent. >> >> One can only hope that people now recognize we need to examine the flaws in our "system of corporate capitalism,” to find solutions. >> >> >>> On Dec 14, 2016, at 06:11, Carl G. Estabrook wrote: >>> >>> Brother Szoke reminded us frequently that we can’t know the ‘real motives’ of political actors. ("Do not judge, so that you may not be judged,” he almost quoted.) >>> >>> But we can analyze their actions by the standard of ‘cui bono?’ >>> >>> If you had told me a year ago that US liberals would exhume Joe McCarthy In order to keep neocon/neolib control of the presidency, I would not have believed you. >>> >>> The following, from a leading 'liberal' pundit, is just astonishing: . >>> >>> The Greens should reaffirm their commitment not to cooperate with such people. We should indeed "present data, and facts.” >>> >>> My opinion is, “The neocon/neolib establishment will stop at little to continue to control the presidency.” We shouldn’t allow it. >>> >>> —CGE >>> >>>> On Dec 14, 2016, at 7:23 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss wrote: >>>> >>>> Only one opinion, but a worthwhile opinion because it isn’t about vilifying individuals. It’s about presenting data, and facts. My opinion is "Jill Stein deserves credit for bringing this information to light," >>>> >>>> >>>> Green Party ends bid for presidential election recount in Michigan and Pennsylvania >>>> By Niles Niemuth >>>> 14 December 2016 >>>> The Green Party ended its bid Tuesday for a recount of the presidential election results in Michigan and Pennsylvania, two of the states that ensured Trump’s victory in the Electoral College. >>>> Jill Stein, the Green Party’s presidential candidate, announced the end of the recount campaign at a press conference on Tuesday. “We do not have a voting system we can trust, and the recount was essentially stopped in its tracks,” Stein told reporters. >>>> The only successful recount effort pursued by the Greens occurred in Wisconsin, ending after 10 days on Monday with an official certification of Republican Donald Trump’s victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton, adding 131 net votes to his total. >>>> The end of the Greens’ recount efforts came after a ruling by a federal judge in Pennsylvania on Monday blocked both a recount and a request for an examination of the state’s voting machines for possible hacking. >>>> Federal District Judge Paul Diamond ruled that it would be impossible for a recount to be completed given that Tuesday was the deadline for certifying the state’s electoral votes. Diamond also rejected the contention that the election may have been hacked, saying that such a notion would “border on the irrational.” >>>> On Friday, a recount of the vote in Michigan was blocked from going forward by the state Supreme Court after only three days of counting. The court ruled in a 3-2 decision that upheld a Michigan Court of Appeals decision that Stein had no standing as an aggrieved party. >>>> Earlier, Federal District Judge Mark Goldsmith had ruled in support of the ruling by the state appeals court that Stein had no standing to request a recount since she had no chance of benefiting, having won little more than 1 percent of the vote and trailed Trump by more than 2 million votes in the state. >>>> Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who did have standing as an “aggrieved party,” having lost the state of Michigan to Trump by only 10,704 votes, could have joined the case and ensured a complete recount of the vote but decided against intervening. >>>> While the three days of ballot counting in Michigan did not result in any change in the official vote tally, the limited canvassing that occurred exposed a dysfunctional and archaic state electoral system that produced numerous irregularities. >>>> The ballots in 322 precincts across the state were unable to be recounted because of a mismatch between the number of ballots recorded and the number of voters logged in poll books. State law only allows for ballots to be recounted if the number of votes cast matches the number of voters recorded in the poll book. In one instance, a review of voting precinct 152 in the city of Detroit found only 52 ballots in the ballot container while 307 voters had been logged in the official poll book. >>>> As a result of the findings of widespread abnormalities, the Michigan Bureau of Elections has announced an audit of 20 precincts in the city of Detroit that could not be recounted to determine the source of the widespread errors. >>>> “We don’t have any suspicion of fraud. We generally approach this as human error,” Michigan Elections Director Chris Thomas told the Detroit Free Press. “We’re going to take a look at them to make sure there’s not a need for further explanations. And we’ll be talking with Detroit staff as well going forward.” >>>> The recount efforts and available voting data indicate that Trump won the election not because of hacking or voter fraud, let alone a surge in support from “white workers,” but because of a collapse in support from broad sections of the working class for Clinton. >>>> In the once heavily industrialized Rust Belt states of Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, Clinton lost 1.17 million voters who earned less than $50,000 a year compared to Obama’s results in 2012. Trump only picked up 334,000 voters in these states in the same income bracket. Clinton lost nearly 1 million votes from whites in these five states, while Trump picked up fewer than 500,000. >>>> >>>> WSWS.ORG >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Peace-discuss mailing list >>>> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net >>>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss >>> >> > From galliher at illinois.edu Wed Dec 14 17:52:14 2016 From: galliher at illinois.edu (Carl G. Estabrook) Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2016 11:52:14 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Green Party challenge In-Reply-To: References: <73060A43-1A2F-441E-A85A-EA16EC7C947D@illinois.edu> <58C5062D-7D04-4C19-A820-A5EB2DF596DC@illinois.edu> Message-ID: <4A1AFA7A-B6C9-4364-B7D4-921E8B5D87DF@illinois.edu> I don’t think St. Clair (editor of CounterPunch) or his journal could be called Libertarian, altho’ some of his authors might. The LNW description for HRC was not St. Clair’s (altho’ he would agree with it); it came from an article on CP that recommended a vote *for* Clinton (in spite of her being an LNW…)! I think perhaps the beginning of wisdom is calling things by their right names. (I was just reading about Obama’s “overseas contingency operations.”) —CGE > On Dec 14, 2016, at 11:33 AM, Karen Aram wrote: > > Yes Carl, we should, and maybe Jeffrey St. Clair and other Libertarians should do the same. The name calling does nothing for anyone's credibility. > > >> On Dec 14, 2016, at 09:31, Carl G. Estabrook wrote: >> >> I don’t know how squeaky clean Stein is when she’s carrying water for HRC (whom Jeffrey St. Clair calls the LNW - lying, neoliberal warmonger), against the disapproval of the GPUS Steering Committee. But that probably won’t be an issue (except perhaps inside the Green party) after Monday. >> >> We really should get back to organizing against the USG’s military and economic policies - e.g., a U.S. OUT OF THE MIDEAST campaign. >> >> —CGE >> >> >>> On Dec 14, 2016, at 10:41 AM, Karen Aram wrote: >>> >>> >>> Since when do we, “Greens", care what the liberal pundits have to say? >>> >>> Yes, we go by actions/behavior, and "cui bono” does apply. There was hope that a recount would provide more than 1% for the Green’s, but the fact that Hillary chose not to challenge, is very telling. Only "squeaky, clean" Jill Stein had the courage to request recounts. >>> Two states refusing to comply is also very telling, and where is Russia in all of this, those that are blaming Russia for influencing our elections, shouldn’t they want recounts? >>> >>> Your fears of the neocons controlling our system are legitimate, because they already do. Any suggestion that Trump doesn’t represent the neocons is ludicrous. Just as every administration has been for sometime, the application of neoliberal policies is a strategy, that is unlikely to be utilized by the Republican Administration. >>> >>> The best that Trump can represent is those corporates who wish to profit from business with Russia, or China rather than destroying them, at least for now. >>> >>> Hillary, would have continued the Obama/Bush war policies without notice, but there are many besides neolibs fearing Trump, and given his Cabinet appointments and threats of deportations, they are not unreasonable fears. There are many people who will suffer the consequences of not just this “election”, but the continuing policies of war, austerity, and disenfranchisement of the working class, that went unchallenged under Obama because it was insidious, with Trump it’s transparent. >>> >>> One can only hope that people now recognize we need to examine the flaws in our "system of corporate capitalism,” to find solutions. >>> >>> >>>> On Dec 14, 2016, at 06:11, Carl G. Estabrook wrote: >>>> >>>> Brother Szoke reminded us frequently that we can’t know the ‘real motives’ of political actors. ("Do not judge, so that you may not be judged,” he almost quoted.) >>>> >>>> But we can analyze their actions by the standard of ‘cui bono?’ >>>> >>>> If you had told me a year ago that US liberals would exhume Joe McCarthy In order to keep neocon/neolib control of the presidency, I would not have believed you. >>>> >>>> The following, from a leading 'liberal' pundit, is just astonishing: . >>>> >>>> The Greens should reaffirm their commitment not to cooperate with such people. We should indeed "present data, and facts.” >>>> >>>> My opinion is, “The neocon/neolib establishment will stop at little to continue to control the presidency.” We shouldn’t allow it. >>>> >>>> —CGE >>>> >>>>> On Dec 14, 2016, at 7:23 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Only one opinion, but a worthwhile opinion because it isn’t about vilifying individuals. It’s about presenting data, and facts. My opinion is "Jill Stein deserves credit for bringing this information to light," >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Green Party ends bid for presidential election recount in Michigan and Pennsylvania >>>>> By Niles Niemuth >>>>> 14 December 2016 >>>>> The Green Party ended its bid Tuesday for a recount of the presidential election results in Michigan and Pennsylvania, two of the states that ensured Trump’s victory in the Electoral College. >>>>> Jill Stein, the Green Party’s presidential candidate, announced the end of the recount campaign at a press conference on Tuesday. “We do not have a voting system we can trust, and the recount was essentially stopped in its tracks,” Stein told reporters. >>>>> The only successful recount effort pursued by the Greens occurred in Wisconsin, ending after 10 days on Monday with an official certification of Republican Donald Trump’s victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton, adding 131 net votes to his total. >>>>> The end of the Greens’ recount efforts came after a ruling by a federal judge in Pennsylvania on Monday blocked both a recount and a request for an examination of the state’s voting machines for possible hacking. >>>>> Federal District Judge Paul Diamond ruled that it would be impossible for a recount to be completed given that Tuesday was the deadline for certifying the state’s electoral votes. Diamond also rejected the contention that the election may have been hacked, saying that such a notion would “border on the irrational.” >>>>> On Friday, a recount of the vote in Michigan was blocked from going forward by the state Supreme Court after only three days of counting. The court ruled in a 3-2 decision that upheld a Michigan Court of Appeals decision that Stein had no standing as an aggrieved party. >>>>> Earlier, Federal District Judge Mark Goldsmith had ruled in support of the ruling by the state appeals court that Stein had no standing to request a recount since she had no chance of benefiting, having won little more than 1 percent of the vote and trailed Trump by more than 2 million votes in the state. >>>>> Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who did have standing as an “aggrieved party,” having lost the state of Michigan to Trump by only 10,704 votes, could have joined the case and ensured a complete recount of the vote but decided against intervening. >>>>> While the three days of ballot counting in Michigan did not result in any change in the official vote tally, the limited canvassing that occurred exposed a dysfunctional and archaic state electoral system that produced numerous irregularities. >>>>> The ballots in 322 precincts across the state were unable to be recounted because of a mismatch between the number of ballots recorded and the number of voters logged in poll books. State law only allows for ballots to be recounted if the number of votes cast matches the number of voters recorded in the poll book. In one instance, a review of voting precinct 152 in the city of Detroit found only 52 ballots in the ballot container while 307 voters had been logged in the official poll book. >>>>> As a result of the findings of widespread abnormalities, the Michigan Bureau of Elections has announced an audit of 20 precincts in the city of Detroit that could not be recounted to determine the source of the widespread errors. >>>>> “We don’t have any suspicion of fraud. We generally approach this as human error,” Michigan Elections Director Chris Thomas told the Detroit Free Press. “We’re going to take a look at them to make sure there’s not a need for further explanations. And we’ll be talking with Detroit staff as well going forward.” >>>>> The recount efforts and available voting data indicate that Trump won the election not because of hacking or voter fraud, let alone a surge in support from “white workers,” but because of a collapse in support from broad sections of the working class for Clinton. >>>>> In the once heavily industrialized Rust Belt states of Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, Clinton lost 1.17 million voters who earned less than $50,000 a year compared to Obama’s results in 2012. Trump only picked up 334,000 voters in these states in the same income bracket. Clinton lost nearly 1 million votes from whites in these five states, while Trump picked up fewer than 500,000. >>>>> >>>>> WSWS.ORG >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> Peace-discuss mailing list >>>>> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net >>>>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss >>>> >>> >> > From karenaram at hotmail.com Wed Dec 14 18:21:48 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2016 18:21:48 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Green Party challenge In-Reply-To: <4A1AFA7A-B6C9-4364-B7D4-921E8B5D87DF@illinois.edu> References: <73060A43-1A2F-441E-A85A-EA16EC7C947D@illinois.edu> <58C5062D-7D04-4C19-A820-A5EB2DF596DC@illinois.edu> <4A1AFA7A-B6C9-4364-B7D4-921E8B5D87DF@illinois.edu> Message-ID: "Overseas Contingency Operations", meaning war, intervention and supporting ISIS in an effort to acquire regime change? > On Dec 14, 2016, at 09:52, Carl G. Estabrook wrote: > > I don’t think St. Clair (editor of CounterPunch) or his journal could be called Libertarian, altho’ some of his authors might. > > The LNW description for HRC was not St. Clair’s (altho’ he would agree with it); it came from an article on CP that recommended a vote *for* Clinton (in spite of her being an LNW…)! > > I think perhaps the beginning of wisdom is calling things by their right names. (I was just reading about Obama’s “overseas contingency operations.”) > > —CGE > > >> On Dec 14, 2016, at 11:33 AM, Karen Aram wrote: >> >> Yes Carl, we should, and maybe Jeffrey St. Clair and other Libertarians should do the same. The name calling does nothing for anyone's credibility. >> >> >>> On Dec 14, 2016, at 09:31, Carl G. Estabrook wrote: >>> >>> I don’t know how squeaky clean Stein is when she’s carrying water for HRC (whom Jeffrey St. Clair calls the LNW - lying, neoliberal warmonger), against the disapproval of the GPUS Steering Committee. But that probably won’t be an issue (except perhaps inside the Green party) after Monday. >>> >>> We really should get back to organizing against the USG’s military and economic policies - e.g., a U.S. OUT OF THE MIDEAST campaign. >>> >>> —CGE >>> >>> >>>> On Dec 14, 2016, at 10:41 AM, Karen Aram wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>> Since when do we, “Greens", care what the liberal pundits have to say? >>>> >>>> Yes, we go by actions/behavior, and "cui bono” does apply. There was hope that a recount would provide more than 1% for the Green’s, but the fact that Hillary chose not to challenge, is very telling. Only "squeaky, clean" Jill Stein had the courage to request recounts. >>>> Two states refusing to comply is also very telling, and where is Russia in all of this, those that are blaming Russia for influencing our elections, shouldn’t they want recounts? >>>> >>>> Your fears of the neocons controlling our system are legitimate, because they already do. Any suggestion that Trump doesn’t represent the neocons is ludicrous. Just as every administration has been for sometime, the application of neoliberal policies is a strategy, that is unlikely to be utilized by the Republican Administration. >>>> >>>> The best that Trump can represent is those corporates who wish to profit from business with Russia, or China rather than destroying them, at least for now. >>>> >>>> Hillary, would have continued the Obama/Bush war policies without notice, but there are many besides neolibs fearing Trump, and given his Cabinet appointments and threats of deportations, they are not unreasonable fears. There are many people who will suffer the consequences of not just this “election”, but the continuing policies of war, austerity, and disenfranchisement of the working class, that went unchallenged under Obama because it was insidious, with Trump it’s transparent. >>>> >>>> One can only hope that people now recognize we need to examine the flaws in our "system of corporate capitalism,” to find solutions. >>>> >>>> >>>>> On Dec 14, 2016, at 06:11, Carl G. Estabrook wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Brother Szoke reminded us frequently that we can’t know the ‘real motives’ of political actors. ("Do not judge, so that you may not be judged,” he almost quoted.) >>>>> >>>>> But we can analyze their actions by the standard of ‘cui bono?’ >>>>> >>>>> If you had told me a year ago that US liberals would exhume Joe McCarthy In order to keep neocon/neolib control of the presidency, I would not have believed you. >>>>> >>>>> The following, from a leading 'liberal' pundit, is just astonishing: . >>>>> >>>>> The Greens should reaffirm their commitment not to cooperate with such people. We should indeed "present data, and facts.” >>>>> >>>>> My opinion is, “The neocon/neolib establishment will stop at little to continue to control the presidency.” We shouldn’t allow it. >>>>> >>>>> —CGE >>>>> >>>>>> On Dec 14, 2016, at 7:23 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> Only one opinion, but a worthwhile opinion because it isn’t about vilifying individuals. It’s about presenting data, and facts. My opinion is "Jill Stein deserves credit for bringing this information to light," >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Green Party ends bid for presidential election recount in Michigan and Pennsylvania >>>>>> By Niles Niemuth >>>>>> 14 December 2016 >>>>>> The Green Party ended its bid Tuesday for a recount of the presidential election results in Michigan and Pennsylvania, two of the states that ensured Trump’s victory in the Electoral College. >>>>>> Jill Stein, the Green Party’s presidential candidate, announced the end of the recount campaign at a press conference on Tuesday. “We do not have a voting system we can trust, and the recount was essentially stopped in its tracks,” Stein told reporters. >>>>>> The only successful recount effort pursued by the Greens occurred in Wisconsin, ending after 10 days on Monday with an official certification of Republican Donald Trump’s victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton, adding 131 net votes to his total. >>>>>> The end of the Greens’ recount efforts came after a ruling by a federal judge in Pennsylvania on Monday blocked both a recount and a request for an examination of the state’s voting machines for possible hacking. >>>>>> Federal District Judge Paul Diamond ruled that it would be impossible for a recount to be completed given that Tuesday was the deadline for certifying the state’s electoral votes. Diamond also rejected the contention that the election may have been hacked, saying that such a notion would “border on the irrational.” >>>>>> On Friday, a recount of the vote in Michigan was blocked from going forward by the state Supreme Court after only three days of counting. The court ruled in a 3-2 decision that upheld a Michigan Court of Appeals decision that Stein had no standing as an aggrieved party. >>>>>> Earlier, Federal District Judge Mark Goldsmith had ruled in support of the ruling by the state appeals court that Stein had no standing to request a recount since she had no chance of benefiting, having won little more than 1 percent of the vote and trailed Trump by more than 2 million votes in the state. >>>>>> Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who did have standing as an “aggrieved party,” having lost the state of Michigan to Trump by only 10,704 votes, could have joined the case and ensured a complete recount of the vote but decided against intervening. >>>>>> While the three days of ballot counting in Michigan did not result in any change in the official vote tally, the limited canvassing that occurred exposed a dysfunctional and archaic state electoral system that produced numerous irregularities. >>>>>> The ballots in 322 precincts across the state were unable to be recounted because of a mismatch between the number of ballots recorded and the number of voters logged in poll books. State law only allows for ballots to be recounted if the number of votes cast matches the number of voters recorded in the poll book. In one instance, a review of voting precinct 152 in the city of Detroit found only 52 ballots in the ballot container while 307 voters had been logged in the official poll book. >>>>>> As a result of the findings of widespread abnormalities, the Michigan Bureau of Elections has announced an audit of 20 precincts in the city of Detroit that could not be recounted to determine the source of the widespread errors. >>>>>> “We don’t have any suspicion of fraud. We generally approach this as human error,” Michigan Elections Director Chris Thomas told the Detroit Free Press. “We’re going to take a look at them to make sure there’s not a need for further explanations. And we’ll be talking with Detroit staff as well going forward.” >>>>>> The recount efforts and available voting data indicate that Trump won the election not because of hacking or voter fraud, let alone a surge in support from “white workers,” but because of a collapse in support from broad sections of the working class for Clinton. >>>>>> In the once heavily industrialized Rust Belt states of Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, Clinton lost 1.17 million voters who earned less than $50,000 a year compared to Obama’s results in 2012. Trump only picked up 334,000 voters in these states in the same income bracket. Clinton lost nearly 1 million votes from whites in these five states, while Trump picked up fewer than 500,000. >>>>>> >>>>>> WSWS.ORG >>>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>>> Peace-discuss mailing list >>>>>> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net >>>>>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss >>>>> >>>> >>> >> > From davegreen84 at yahoo.com Wed Dec 14 20:18:12 2016 From: davegreen84 at yahoo.com (David Green) Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2016 20:18:12 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace-discuss] Green Party challenge In-Reply-To: References: <73060A43-1A2F-441E-A85A-EA16EC7C947D@illinois.edu> <58C5062D-7D04-4C19-A820-A5EB2DF596DC@illinois.edu> <4A1AFA7A-B6C9-4364-B7D4-921E8B5D87DF@illinois.edu> Message-ID: <892375659.4463185.1481746692633@mail.yahoo.com> I would add that the oil exec pick for Sec of State brings us back to Bush I, in terms of "realism," for whatever that is worth, and will be of concern to the Israel Lobby, a la Hagel, who didn't really make any difference even after all the hubbub, I don't think. On Wednesday, December 14, 2016 12:22 PM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss wrote: "Overseas Contingency Operations", meaning war, intervention and supporting ISIS in an effort to acquire regime change? > On Dec 14, 2016, at 09:52, Carl G. Estabrook wrote: > > I don’t think St. Clair (editor of CounterPunch) or his journal could be called Libertarian, altho’ some of his authors might. > > The LNW description for HRC was not St. Clair’s (altho’ he would agree with it); it came from an article on CP that recommended a vote *for* Clinton (in spite of her being an LNW…)!  > > I think perhaps the beginning of wisdom is calling things by their right names. (I was just reading about Obama’s “overseas contingency operations.”) > > —CGE > > >> On Dec 14, 2016, at 11:33 AM, Karen Aram wrote: >> >> Yes Carl, we should, and maybe Jeffrey St. Clair and other Libertarians should do the same. The name calling does nothing for anyone's credibility. >> >> >>> On Dec 14, 2016, at 09:31, Carl G. Estabrook wrote: >>> >>> I don’t know how squeaky clean Stein is when she’s carrying water for HRC (whom Jeffrey St. Clair calls the LNW - lying, neoliberal warmonger), against the disapproval of the GPUS Steering Committee. But that probably won’t be an issue (except perhaps inside the Green party) after Monday. >>> >>> We really should get back to organizing against the USG’s military and economic policies - e.g., a U.S. OUT OF THE MIDEAST campaign. >>> >>> —CGE >>> >>> >>>> On Dec 14, 2016, at 10:41 AM, Karen Aram wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>> Since when do we, “Greens", care what the liberal pundits have to say? >>>> >>>> Yes, we go by actions/behavior, and "cui bono” does apply. There was hope that a recount would provide more than 1% for the Green’s, but the fact that Hillary chose not to challenge, is very telling. Only "squeaky, clean" Jill Stein had the courage to request recounts. >>>> Two states refusing to comply is also very telling, and where is Russia in all of this, those that are blaming Russia for influencing our elections, shouldn’t they want recounts? >>>> >>>> Your fears of the neocons controlling our system are legitimate, because they already do. Any suggestion that Trump doesn’t represent the neocons is ludicrous. Just as every administration has been for sometime, the application of neoliberal policies is a strategy, that is unlikely to be utilized by the Republican Administration. >>>> >>>> The best that Trump can represent is those corporates who wish to profit from business with Russia, or China rather than destroying them, at least for now. >>>> >>>> Hillary, would have continued the Obama/Bush war policies without notice, but there are many besides neolibs fearing Trump, and given his Cabinet appointments and threats of deportations, they are not unreasonable fears.  There are many people who will suffer the consequences of not just this “election”, but the continuing policies of war, austerity, and disenfranchisement of the working class, that went unchallenged under Obama because it was insidious, with Trump it’s transparent. >>>> >>>> One can only hope that people now recognize we need to examine the flaws in our "system of corporate capitalism,” to find solutions. >>>> >>>> >>>>> On Dec 14, 2016, at 06:11, Carl G. Estabrook wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Brother Szoke reminded us frequently that we can’t know the ‘real motives’ of political actors. ("Do not judge, so that you may not be judged,” he almost quoted.) >>>>> >>>>> But we can analyze their actions by the standard of ‘cui bono?’ >>>>> >>>>> If you had told me a year ago that US liberals would exhume Joe McCarthy In order to keep neocon/neolib control of the presidency, I would not have believed you. >>>>> >>>>> The following, from a leading 'liberal' pundit, is just astonishing: . >>>>> >>>>> The Greens should reaffirm their commitment not to cooperate with such people. We should indeed "present data, and facts.” >>>>> >>>>> My opinion is, “The neocon/neolib establishment will stop at little to continue to control the presidency.” We shouldn’t allow it. >>>>> >>>>> —CGE >>>>> >>>>>> On Dec 14, 2016, at 7:23 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> Only one opinion, but a worthwhile opinion because it isn’t about vilifying individuals. It’s about presenting data, and facts. My opinion is "Jill Stein deserves credit for bringing this information to light," >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Green Party ends bid for presidential election recount in Michigan and Pennsylvania >>>>>> By Niles Niemuth >>>>>> 14 December 2016 >>>>>> The Green Party ended its bid Tuesday for a recount of the presidential election results in Michigan and Pennsylvania, two of the states that ensured Trump’s victory in the Electoral College. >>>>>> Jill Stein, the Green Party’s presidential candidate, announced the end of the recount campaign at a press conference on Tuesday. “We do not have a voting system we can trust, and the recount was essentially stopped in its tracks,” Stein told reporters. >>>>>> The only successful recount effort pursued by the Greens occurred in Wisconsin, ending after 10 days on Monday with an official certification of Republican Donald Trump’s victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton, adding 131 net votes to his total. >>>>>> The end of the Greens’ recount efforts came after a ruling by a federal judge in Pennsylvania on Monday blocked both a recount and a request for an examination of the state’s voting machines for possible hacking. >>>>>> Federal District Judge Paul Diamond ruled that it would be impossible for a recount to be completed given that Tuesday was the deadline for certifying the state’s electoral votes. Diamond also rejected the contention that the election may have been hacked, saying that such a notion would “border on the irrational.” >>>>>> On Friday, a recount of the vote in Michigan was blocked from going forward by the state Supreme Court after only three days of counting. The court ruled in a 3-2 decision that upheld a Michigan Court of Appeals decision that Stein had no standing as an aggrieved party. >>>>>> Earlier, Federal District Judge Mark Goldsmith had ruled in support of the ruling by the state appeals court that Stein had no standing to request a recount since she had no chance of benefiting, having won little more than 1 percent of the vote and trailed Trump by more than 2 million votes in the state. >>>>>> Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who did have standing as an “aggrieved party,” having lost the state of Michigan to Trump by only 10,704 votes, could have joined the case and ensured a complete recount of the vote but decided against intervening. >>>>>> While the three days of ballot counting in Michigan did not result in any change in the official vote tally, the limited canvassing that occurred exposed a dysfunctional and archaic state electoral system that produced numerous irregularities. >>>>>> The ballots in 322 precincts across the state were unable to be recounted because of a mismatch between the number of ballots recorded and the number of voters logged in poll books. State law only allows for ballots to be recounted if the number of votes cast matches the number of voters recorded in the poll book. In one instance, a review of voting precinct 152 in the city of Detroit found only 52 ballots in the ballot container while 307 voters had been logged in the official poll book. >>>>>> As a result of the findings of widespread abnormalities, the Michigan Bureau of Elections has announced an audit of 20 precincts in the city of Detroit that could not be recounted to determine the source of the widespread errors. >>>>>> “We don’t have any suspicion of fraud. We generally approach this as human error,” Michigan Elections Director Chris Thomas told the Detroit Free Press. “We’re going to take a look at them to make sure there’s not a need for further explanations. And we’ll be talking with Detroit staff as well going forward.” >>>>>> The recount efforts and available voting data indicate that Trump won the election not because of hacking or voter fraud, let alone a surge in support from “white workers,” but because of a collapse in support from broad sections of the working class for Clinton. >>>>>> In the once heavily industrialized Rust Belt states of Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, Clinton lost 1.17 million voters who earned less than $50,000 a year compared to Obama’s results in 2012. Trump only picked up 334,000 voters in these states in the same income bracket. Clinton lost nearly 1 million votes from whites in these five states, while Trump picked up fewer than 500,000. >>>>>> >>>>>> WSWS.ORG >>>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>>> Peace-discuss mailing list >>>>>> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net >>>>>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss >>>>> >>>> >>> >> > _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From moboct1 at aim.com Wed Dec 14 21:25:20 2016 From: moboct1 at aim.com (Mildred O'brien) Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2016 16:25:20 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Green Party challenge In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <158ff39ad4f-a72-2424@webprd-a74.mail.aol.com> I (mis?) quote Gore Vidal, who is never more relevant than now: "There is but one party with two wings" Midge -----Original Message----- From: Karen Aram via Peace-discuss To: Carl G. Estabrook Cc: Peace Discuss Sent: Wed, Dec 14, 2016 10:41 am Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Green Party challenge Since when do we, “Greens", care what the liberal pundits have to say? Yes, we go by actions/behavior, and "cui bono” does apply. There was hope that a recount would provide more than 1% for the Green’s, but the fact that Hillary chose not to challenge, is very telling. Only "squeaky, clean" Jill Stein had the courage to request recounts. Two states refusing to comply is also very telling, and where is Russia in all of this, those that are blaming Russia for influencing our elections, shouldn’t they want recounts? Your fears of the neocons controlling our system are legitimate, because they already do. Any suggestion that Trump doesn’t represent the neocons is ludicrous. Just as every administration has been for sometime, the application of neoliberal policies is a strategy, that is unlikely to be utilized by the Republican Administration. The best that Trump can represent is those corporates who wish to profit from business with Russia, or China rather than destroying them, at least for now. Hillary, would have continued the Obama/Bush war policies without notice, but there are many besides neolibs fearing Trump, and given his Cabinet appointments and threats of deportations, they are not unreasonable fears. There are many people who will suffer the consequences of not just this “election”, but the continuing policies of war, austerity, and disenfranchisement of the working class, that went unchallenged under Obama because it was insidious, with Trump it’s transparent. One can only hope that people now recognize we need to examine the flaws in our "system of corporate capitalism,” to find solutions. > On Dec 14, 2016, at 06:11, Carl G. Estabrook wrote: > > Brother Szoke reminded us frequently that we can’t know the ‘real motives’ of political actors. ("Do not judge, so that you may not be judged,” he almost quoted.) > > But we can analyze their actions by the standard of ‘cui bono?’ > > If you had told me a year ago that US liberals would exhume Joe McCarthy In order to keep neocon/neolib control of the presidency, I would not have believed you. > > The following, from a leading 'liberal' pundit, is just astonishing: . > > The Greens should reaffirm their commitment not to cooperate with such people. We should indeed "present data, and facts.” > > My opinion is, “The neocon/neolib establishment will stop at little to continue to control the presidency.” We shouldn’t allow it. > > —CGE > >> On Dec 14, 2016, at 7:23 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss wrote: >> >> Only one opinion, but a worthwhile opinion because it isn’t about vilifying individuals. It’s about presenting data, and facts. My opinion is "Jill Stein deserves credit for bringing this information to light," >> >> >> Green Party ends bid for presidential election recount in Michigan and Pennsylvania >> By Niles Niemuth >> 14 December 2016 >> The Green Party ended its bid Tuesday for a recount of the presidential election results in Michigan and Pennsylvania, two of the states that ensured Trump’s victory in the Electoral College. >> Jill Stein, the Green Party’s presidential candidate, announced the end of the recount campaign at a press conference on Tuesday. “We do not have a voting system we can trust, and the recount was essentially stopped in its tracks,” Stein told reporters. >> The only successful recount effort pursued by the Greens occurred in Wisconsin, ending after 10 days on Monday with an official certification of Republican Donald Trump’s victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton, adding 131 net votes to his total. >> The end of the Greens’ recount efforts came after a ruling by a federal judge in Pennsylvania on Monday blocked both a recount and a request for an examination of the state’s voting machines for possible hacking. >> Federal District Judge Paul Diamond ruled that it would be impossible for a recount to be completed given that Tuesday was the deadline for certifying the state’s electoral votes. Diamond also rejected the contention that the election may have been hacked, saying that such a notion would “border on the irrational.” >> On Friday, a recount of the vote in Michigan was blocked from going forward by the state Supreme Court after only three days of counting. The court ruled in a 3-2 decision that upheld a Michigan Court of Appeals decision that Stein had no standing as an aggrieved party. >> Earlier, Federal District Judge Mark Goldsmith had ruled in support of the ruling by the state appeals court that Stein had no standing to request a recount since she had no chance of benefiting, having won little more than 1 percent of the vote and trailed Trump by more than 2 million votes in the state. >> Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who did have standing as an “aggrieved party,” having lost the state of Michigan to Trump by only 10,704 votes, could have joined the case and ensured a complete recount of the vote but decided against intervening. >> While the three days of ballot counting in Michigan did not result in any change in the official vote tally, the limited canvassing that occurred exposed a dysfunctional and archaic state electoral system that produced numerous irregularities. >> The ballots in 322 precincts across the state were unable to be recounted because of a mismatch between the number of ballots recorded and the number of voters logged in poll books. State law only allows for ballots to be recounted if the number of votes cast matches the number of voters recorded in the poll book. In one instance, a review of voting precinct 152 in the city of Detroit found only 52 ballots in the ballot container while 307 voters had been logged in the official poll book. >> As a result of the findings of widespread abnormalities, the Michigan Bureau of Elections has announced an audit of 20 precincts in the city of Detroit that could not be recounted to determine the source of the widespread errors. >> “We don’t have any suspicion of fraud. We generally approach this as human error,” Michigan Elections Director Chris Thomas told the Detroit Free Press. “We’re going to take a look at them to make sure there’s not a need for further explanations. And we’ll be talking with Detroit staff as well going forward.” >> The recount efforts and available voting data indicate that Trump won the election not because of hacking or voter fraud, let alone a surge in support from “white workers,” but because of a collapse in support from broad sections of the working class for Clinton. >> In the once heavily industrialized Rust Belt states of Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, Clinton lost 1.17 million voters who earned less than $50,000 a year compared to Obama’s results in 2012. Trump only picked up 334,000 voters in these states in the same income bracket. Clinton lost nearly 1 million votes from whites in these five states, while Trump picked up fewer than 500,000. >> >> WSWS.ORG >> _______________________________________________ >> Peace-discuss mailing list >> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net >> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss > _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Thu Dec 15 18:34:37 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2016 18:34:37 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] War and propaganda Message-ID: Anyone who isn't a skeptic of the US media and US government, after the lies of the Vietnam War, the interventions in Latin America, Iraq, and "weapons of mass destruction", Afghanistan and our arming the Taliban turned Al Quada, now all combined as ISIS with maybe a few former sincere Syrian rebels now probably dead, at the hands of ISIS., with our support for arming the so called “moderate terrorists,” and Libya. Really needs to look at our history if only the past fifteen years. Look at what we did to Libya. The US military has approximately 1,000 military bases around the world, with 400 of those surrounding China, while China has how many military bases surrounding the US? That's right, none. NATO which is funded primarily by the US, with even Europe fed up with them because they aren’t serving European needs, only US hegemony by surrounding Russia, and other nations throughout Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Oh and yes, Victoria Nuland our Asst. Sec. of State in Kiev during the "uprising" which brought about regime change and many deaths, being overheard saying 'F.... the EU" because they weren't proceeding fast enough in support of the US orchastrated coup against the Ukranian govt. Evidence of US involvement which couldn't be denied, so CNN had to mention it, many times, emphasizing a diplomat using the F word. Never focusing on the substance of the statement, rather like Hillary’s emails, distract in order to divert attention from the substance/proof. Our support for arming the so called “moderate terrorists”, and the destruction of Libya is so obvious, one must take anything our media says with a grain of salt. In respect to Syria, Russian intervention is legal unlike the US intervention with weapons, funding, and our “ advisors", I personally don't support the Russian invasion, going back to the Spanish Civil War, if a rebel at that time I wouldn't have liked the German intervention and bombings on those of us who were rebels either Spanish or other. It is a "moral" delema. However I am not Syrian, I am not Russian, I am "American" responsible for what "my" government is doing. If I had been German during the Spanish Civil War, I would have been demonstrating against the German government intervention. Just as I would have been against anything the German government did, not that which Poland or Russia was doing. If Russia has saved lives in Syria I am pleased to note that, if the US saved lives that would be nice but hey, they keep supplying weapons, support and “ military advisors" to those we are supposed to be fighting, that is ISIS. Leftists telling me that I need to support "international socialism" and protest against Russia, by supporting the Obama and Bush administrations with their propaganda, provocations, and war policies against Russia is absurd. Having lived out of the country for at least 28 years I'm also aware that the "International Socialist" movement has a long way to go before they are able to do anything let alone "think about war or war policies", which is the same situation here in the US. Our working class and working classes the world over currently need to be working, they needs jobs, pensions and decent wages, They need shelter and health care, not political discussions regarding geopolitics that open them up to being pawns of the elites they are supposed to be opposing. Most of all they need unions to provide the power and opportunity to unite. Unions that haven’t been bought off by management. RT.com does have a bias, does anyone not? However, it provides the most accurate assessment of geopolitical events by, Russians? No, on occasion, but most of it is coming from Americans, and Europeans, who are either seasoned journalists who have had boots on the ground, or former US and British Intelligence Officers, of various different depts. of their respective governments. They are concerned over what they see and know is so dangerous and disturbing that they are willing to be ostracized by their own for telling the truth. These journalists and commentators reports comply with books written by: Noam Chomsky, Tim Weiner’s “Legacy of Ashes/Inside the CIA, Nick Turse with his “Changing Face of Empire”, Lawrence Shoup&Wm. Minter’s “Imperial Brain Trust” and "Wall Street’s Think Tank”, then read Zbigniew’s 1997 “The Grand Chess Board” which is quite clear as to US goals of imperialism, not his most recent which requires between the lines analysis. There are so many books available which support what we are hearing and seeing now in Syria. I haven’t even mentioned the fact that we have approximately 1,000 military bases around the world, and Africom dominating Africa, a nation we are intent on controlling with continued bloodshed. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Thu Dec 15 19:37:08 2016 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2016 13:37:08 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] FW: WORLD LABOR HOUR SAT. DEC. 17th Message-ID: <00c801d2570a$a3526060$e9f72120$@comcast.net> WORLD LABOR HOUR SATURDAY DEC. 17th 11 AM - 1 PM U.S. Central Time 104.5 FM and webcast LIVE worldwide at www.wrfu.net MARK DUDZIC - National Organizer for the Labor Campaign for Single Payer will call in to the program to discuss their upcoming conference in New York City and the prospects for an all-out counter offensive to expand Medicare coverage in face of attempts by the new President and Congress to dismantle Social Security and Medicare. Also TWO DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES ON THE SYRIAN CRISIS - With JOHN REIMANN calling in from Oakland California and KAREN ARAM, a member of the Champaign-Urbana anti-war organization AWARE ( Anti-War and Racism Effort ). Stay tuned after the World labor Hour for THE UNION EDGE with Host Charles Showalter broadcasting from Pittsburgh Pa. WRFU - Radio Free Urbana - corporate free community radio for the people. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From r-szoke at illinois.edu Thu Dec 15 21:19:35 2016 From: r-szoke at illinois.edu (Szoke, Ron) Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2016 21:19:35 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Confirmation bias Message-ID: Confirmation bias (also called confirmatory bias or myside bias) is a tendency of people to favor information that confirms their beliefs or hypotheses.[Note 1][1] People display this bias when they gather or remember information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way. The effect is stronger for emotionally charged issues and for deeply entrenched beliefs. They also tend to interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing position. Biased search, interpretation and memory have been invoked to explain attitude polarization (when a disagreement becomes more extreme even though the different parties are exposed to the same evidence), belief perseverance (when beliefs persist after the evidence for them is shown to be false), the irrational primacy effect (a greater reliance on information encountered early in a series) and illusory correlation (when people falsely perceive an association between two events or situations). A series of experiments in the 1960s suggested that people are biased toward confirming their existing beliefs. Later work re-interpreted these results as a tendency to test ideas in a one-sided way, focusing on one possibility and ignoring alternatives.In certain situations, this tendency can bias people's conclusions. Explanations for the observed biases include wishful thinking and the limited human capacity to process information. Another explanation is that people show confirmation bias because they are weighing up the costs of being wrong, rather than investigating in a neutral, scientific way. Confirmation biases contribute to overconfidence in personal beliefs and can maintain or strengthen beliefs in the face of contrary evidence. Poor decisions due to these biases have been found in political and organizational contexts. — Wikipedia -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From galliher at illinois.edu Thu Dec 15 22:28:23 2016 From: galliher at illinois.edu (Carl G. Estabrook) Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2016 16:28:23 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Confirmation bias In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3102961F-DC6E-48BE-9290-F780BD6D63B6@illinois.edu> This shifts attention from the truth of a proposition to someone’s motive for believing it. E.g., “Obama is a war criminal.” { = define ‘war criminal’ and examine whether Obama fits the definition} "You’re a racist.” { = your prejudice leads you to believe the worst about Obama} > On Dec 15, 2016, at 3:19 PM, Szoke, Ron via Peace-discuss wrote: > > Confirmation bias (also called confirmatory bias or myside bias) is a tendency of people to favor information that confirms their beliefs or hypotheses .[Note 1] [1] People display this bias when they gather or remember information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way . The effect is stronger for emotionally charged issues and for deeply entrenched beliefs. They also tend to interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing position. Biased search, interpretation and memory have been invoked to explain attitude polarization (when a disagreement becomes more extreme even though the different parties are exposed to the same evidence), belief perseverance (when beliefs persist after the evidence for them is shown to be false), the irrational primacy effect (a greater reliance on information encountered early in a series) and illusory correlation (when people falsely perceive an association between two events or situations). > A series of experiments in the 1960s suggested that people are biased toward confirming their existing beliefs. Later work re-interpreted these results as a tendency to test ideas in a one-sided way, focusing on one possibility and ignoring alternatives.In certain situations, this tendency can bias people's conclusions. Explanations for the observed biases include wishful thinking and the limited human capacity to process information. Another explanation is that people show confirmation bias because they are weighing up the costs of being wrong, rather than investigating in a neutral, scientific way. > Confirmation biases contribute to overconfidence in personal beliefs and can maintain or strengthen beliefs in the face of contrary evidence. Poor decisions due to these biases have been found in political and organizational contexts. > — Wikipedia > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cge at shout.net Sat Dec 17 07:31:32 2016 From: cge at shout.net (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2016 01:31:32 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] A general strike for Trump? Message-ID: <0ae0607ce5be30db1792b5dcd2287434@shout.net> If Donald Trump is denied the presidency by the Electoral College, the Congress, or the courts (all technically possible if unlikely), a sizable portion of the population - perhaps the one in four adults who voted for him - will feel substantially aggrieved. How will their grievance be expressed? Civil rights and anti-war demonstrations - and even the more recent anti-police manifestations - seem remote. (Perhaps Standing Rock is a better current example.) But the potential outrage - and the segment of the population outraged - suggest something more serious. Obviously the Obama administration - Homeland Security, the military, police ‘fusion centers,’ etc. - have contingency plans in place. But one is reminded of Brendan Behan’s remark (he had some experience of popular uprisings and their repression in Ireland), “I have never seen a situation so dismal that a policeman couldn't make it worse." It’s hard to imagine that government attempts to repress the outrage won’t have deleterious effects - and prolong the problems. As I cast around for historical examples of an ill-defined class-based insurrection of the sort Trump voters might present, I thought of the British General Strike of 1926: the parallel is not close, but no American examples seem quite to fit, either. “The 1926 British general strike lasted 9 days. It was called by the General Council of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in an unsuccessful attempt to force the British government to prevent wage reduction and worsening conditions for 1.2 million locked-out coal miners. Some 1.7 million workers went out, especially in transport and heavy industry. The government was prepared and enlisted middle class volunteers to maintain services. There was little violence and the TUC gave up in defeat. In the long run, there was little impact on trade union activity or industrial relations” [wikipedia]. As with many large-scale political events, the best portrayals seem to be literary. I recall particularly the account of the strike in Evelyn Waugh’s “Brideshead Revisited” (1945). The protagonist, a young English art student in Paris, returns to London to “fight for his class”; that consists of driving delivery trucks in place of striking teamsters. But like the Events of May ’68 in France, the working-class uprising comes to an end with an across-the-board wage-increase. Would that work for those outraged by the pending inauguration of Hillary Clinton? (Other outcomes of course are possible.) I doubt it, even if it could be engineered (like the 1932 Bonus) in a neoliberal Congress. The possibilities are disturbing and may lead the American political class (in Weber’s term) to say of Trump what Kent says of Lear: “O, let him pass!” But maybe not. “The weight of this sad time we must obey; Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. The oldest hath borne most: we that are young Shall never see so much, nor live so long.” --CGE From davegreen84 at yahoo.com Sat Dec 17 20:44:56 2016 From: davegreen84 at yahoo.com (David Green) Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2016 20:44:56 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace-discuss] Angry Arab on David Friedman References: <1076360636.7205004.1482007496980.ref@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1076360636.7205004.1482007496980@mail.yahoo.com> "I don't understand the commotion.  David Friedman is a fanatic Zionist and someone who has expressed racist views to Muslims and Arabs.  That is clear. But I don't in any way think that Dennis Ross or Aaron David Miller or David (sic) Shapiro are any better or less fanatical in their Zionism.  In fact, over the decades, Dennis Ross and Aaron David Miller and Martin Indyk did so much damage in foreign policy that David Friedman would be hard press to match.  Get a hold of yourselves and stop pretending that US foreign policy was "even-handed" and "sensible" until David Friedman came along." (He means Daniel Shapiro) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From r-szoke at illinois.edu Sun Dec 18 19:12:19 2016 From: r-szoke at illinois.edu (Szoke, Ron) Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2016 19:12:19 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] What history teaches us References: Message-ID: From: "Szoke, Ron" > Subject: The Lie Factory Date: December 18, 2016 at 1:03:41 PM CST To: "Szoke, Ron" > The Lie Factory http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/09/24/the-lie-factory -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Mon Dec 19 16:17:29 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2016 16:17:29 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] It's not over yet References: <43784767-0230-4325-88CE-7EF5B56A58BA@gmail.com> Message-ID: The Sanctuary Ordinance for Urbana, is to be voted on tonight at the City Council Meeting @ 7:00pm. Please be there to show your support. Begin forwarded message: http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2016-12-18/urbana-sanctuary-city-vote-set-monday.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Tue Dec 20 03:21:19 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2016 03:21:19 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Urbana Sanctuary City Ordinance passed. Message-ID: It passed, with only one in dissent. The House was packed again, with over 200 people in attendance. Thank you to Professor Frances Boyle, Brian Dolinar, Geovanny Vega and all those who made it happen. From brussel at illinois.edu Tue Dec 20 17:17:30 2016 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2016 17:17:30 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Urbana Sanctuary City Ordinance passed. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The humanitarian impulse seems admirable, but the reasoning seems nonexistent, flawed. If one advocates open borders, then there wouldn’t be an immigration problem. But if one wants to control immigration, i.e., laws to enforce it, then those laws will be enforced, and one will have people subject to deportation if they violate the laws. I see no way to get around that. As for those already here, illegally, you can invoke amnesty, or courts to consider each case—a virtual unfeasibility— but then you have the future to contend with. —mkb > On Dec 19, 2016, at 9:21 PM, Karen Aram via Peace wrote: > > It passed, with only one in dissent. The House was packed again, with over 200 people in attendance. > > Thank you to Professor Frances Boyle, Brian Dolinar, Geovanny Vega and all those who made it happen. > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace From galliher at illinois.edu Tue Dec 20 17:43:10 2016 From: galliher at illinois.edu (Carl G. Estabrook) Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2016 11:43:10 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Urbana Sanctuary City Ordinance passed. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <75D71693-83DA-45E6-AC20-F0252CA62476@illinois.edu> I think Mort is quite right - “the humanitarian impulse seems admirable, but the reasoning seems nonexistent, flawed." You don’t have to be too cynical to see it as another identity-politics twisting of liberal concern into a support for neoliberal capitalism, of the sort that the Democrats have been peddling. 'Because who’s for illegal immigration? … as far as I know the only people who are openly for illegal immigration are neoliberal economists. 'First of all, neoliberal economists are completely for open borders, in so far as that’s possible. Friedman said years ago that, “You can’t have a welfare state and open borders,” but of course the point of that was “open the borders, because that’ll kill the welfare state.” There’s a good paper you can get off the web by Gordon Hanson, commissioned by whoever runs Foreign Affairs, and the argument is that illegal immigration is better than legal immigration, because illegal immigration is extremely responsive to market conditions. 'So it’s quite striking that you have all this protesting against illegal immigration, and especially at a time when it’s down. So why are people so upset about it? They are upset about it not because it has gotten worse, it hasn’t, but because they somehow recognize that one of the primary sort of marks of the triumph of neoliberalism in the US is a very high tolerance of illegal immigration, and that illegal immigration is the kind of ne plus ultra of the labor mobility that neoliberalism requires. I mean that’s why for years — even though it’s a kind of contradiction in terms — as a policy it’s worked well. The Bush administration did everything it could to talk against illegal immigration but leave it alone and I’m sure the Obama administration would do the same thing…’ [Walter Benn Michaels, Jacobin, January 2011] Why don’t we turn our energies to getting our Congressional representatives to (1) pass a reasonable amnesty plan; and (2) revoke neoliberal trade pacts like NAFTA that promote illegal immigration from countries ravaged by the Democrats’ neoliberalism. —CGE > On Dec 20, 2016, at 11:17 AM, Brussel, Morton K via Peace-discuss wrote: > > The humanitarian impulse seems admirable, but the reasoning seems nonexistent, flawed. If one advocates open borders, then there wouldn’t be an immigration problem. But if one wants to control immigration, i.e., laws to enforce it, then those laws will be enforced, and one will have people subject to deportation if they violate the laws. I see no way to get around that. > As for those already here, illegally, you can invoke amnesty, or courts to consider each case—a virtual unfeasibility— but then you have the future to contend with. > > —mkb > >> On Dec 19, 2016, at 9:21 PM, Karen Aram via Peace wrote: >> >> It passed, with only one in dissent. The House was packed again, with over 200 people in attendance. >> >> Thank you to Professor Frances Boyle, Brian Dolinar, Geovanny Vega and all those who made it happen. >> _______________________________________________ >> Peace mailing list >> Peace at lists.chambana.net >> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace > > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss From davegreen84 at yahoo.com Tue Dec 20 17:53:43 2016 From: davegreen84 at yahoo.com (David Green) Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2016 17:53:43 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Urbana Sanctuary City Ordinance passed. In-Reply-To: <75D71693-83DA-45E6-AC20-F0252CA62476@illinois.edu> References: <75D71693-83DA-45E6-AC20-F0252CA62476@illinois.edu> Message-ID: <1140773257.703469.1482256423223@mail.yahoo.com> At the very least, it's important to understand that sanctuary proclamations avoid any serious analysis--economic or legal--of either neoliberalism or its Trumpian response; I fear that that is by design. DG On Tuesday, December 20, 2016 11:43 AM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss wrote: I think Mort is quite right - “the humanitarian impulse seems admirable, but the reasoning seems nonexistent, flawed." You don’t have to be too cynical to see it as another identity-politics twisting of liberal concern into a support for neoliberal capitalism, of the sort that the Democrats have been peddling. 'Because who’s for illegal immigration? … as far as I know the only people who are openly for illegal immigration are neoliberal economists. 'First of all, neoliberal economists are completely for open borders, in so far as that’s possible. Friedman said years ago that, “You can’t have a welfare state and open borders,” but of course the point of that was “open the borders, because that’ll kill the welfare state.” There’s a good paper you can get off the web by Gordon Hanson, commissioned by whoever runs Foreign Affairs, and the argument is that illegal immigration is better than legal immigration, because illegal immigration is extremely responsive to market conditions. 'So it’s quite striking that you have all this protesting against illegal immigration, and especially at a time when it’s down. So why are people so upset about it? They are upset about it not because it has gotten worse, it hasn’t, but because they somehow recognize that one of the primary sort of marks of the triumph of neoliberalism in the US is a very high tolerance of illegal immigration, and that illegal immigration is the kind of ne plus ultra of the labor mobility that neoliberalism requires. I mean that’s why for years — even though it’s a kind of contradiction in terms — as a policy it’s worked well. The Bush administration did everything it could to talk against illegal immigration but leave it alone and I’m sure the Obama administration would do the same thing…’ [Walter Benn Michaels, Jacobin, January 2011]  Why don’t we turn our energies to getting our Congressional representatives to (1) pass a reasonable amnesty plan; and (2) revoke neoliberal trade pacts like NAFTA that promote illegal immigration from countries ravaged by the Democrats’ neoliberalism. —CGE > On Dec 20, 2016, at 11:17 AM, Brussel, Morton K via Peace-discuss wrote: > > The humanitarian impulse seems admirable, but the reasoning seems nonexistent, flawed. If one advocates open borders, then there wouldn’t be an immigration problem. But if one wants to control immigration, i.e., laws to enforce it, then those laws will be enforced, and one will have people subject to deportation if they violate the laws. I see no way to get around that. > As for those already here, illegally, you can invoke amnesty, or courts to consider each case—a virtual unfeasibility— but then you have the future to contend with. > > —mkb > >> On Dec 19, 2016, at 9:21 PM, Karen Aram via Peace wrote: >> >> It passed, with only one in dissent. The House was packed again, with over 200 people in attendance. >> >> Thank you to Professor Frances Boyle, Brian Dolinar, Geovanny Vega and all those who made it happen. >> _______________________________________________ >> Peace mailing list >> Peace at lists.chambana.net >> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace > > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kmedina67 at gmail.com Tue Dec 20 18:01:09 2016 From: kmedina67 at gmail.com (Karen Medina) Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2016 12:01:09 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Urbana Sanctuary City Ordinance passed. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Dear Mort, You bring up some very good points. * It would be best to have federal laws that are compassionate and enforceable. The problem is that there are not federal laws that make any sense -- these laws often contradict the need for laborers for certain industries. So creating laws that make more sense falls to the states and to the cities. For instance, Illinois needs a lot of migrant farmworkers -- just ask the agricultural industry. The agricultural industry needs workers for a few weeks to detassel corn in Illinois, harvest onions in Texas, and then a few weeks of work harvesting almonds on the west coast. The farms depend on laborers to be migratory -- to get up and move from Illinois to Texas to Oregon. In the state of Illinois, until recently, migrant farmworkers were not allowed to get drivers licenses. They needed to drive for their work, yet they were not allowed to get a license. A farm worker would be stopped for driving without a license (stopped because he looked like a Latino who just might be driving without a license) and then the police would hold him for ICE to check him. There are between 1 and 2.5 million hired farmworkers in the US.1 About a half million of those are under the age of 18. Seventy-eight percent are male, and 22 percent are female. On average, hired farmworkers are young and predominantly Latino, have limited formal education, are foreign-born, and speak limited to no English. About half have authorization to work in the United States. (according to Kandel W. Profile of Hired Farmworkers, A 2008 Update. Economic Research Report No. 60. 2008. Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture.) In the State of Illinois, a person must show proof of written signature, date of birth, residency, and a social security number to obtain a driver’s license. In the case of a Temporary Visitor Driver’s License (TVDL), proof of legal presence is required in lieu of a social security number. But many undocumented immigrants do not ha ve social security numbers and cannot attain one, so they drive without a license. Undocumented immigrants are especially likely to be working and looking for jobs with irregular or flexible work schedules. Many Illinois immigrants also live in areas without reliable public transportation and/or work schedules that make using public transportation difficult or dangerous. This makes them especially dependent on driving to get to and from work (Chatham and Klein, 2011; Donato, Durrand and Masey, 1992; Gomberg- Muñoz, 2011; Mehta, Theodore, Mora, and Wade, 2002; Piore, 1979). On Tue, Dec 20, 2016 at 11:17 AM, Brussel, Morton K via Peace-discuss wrote: > The humanitarian impulse seems admirable, but the reasoning seems nonexistent, flawed. If one advocates open borders, then there wouldn’t be an immigration problem. But if one wants to control immigration, i.e., laws to enforce it, then those laws will be enforced, and one will have people subject to deportation if they violate the laws. I see no way to get around that. > As for those already here, illegally, you can invoke amnesty, or courts to consider each case—a virtual unfeasibility— but then you have the future to contend with. > > —mkb > >> On Dec 19, 2016, at 9:21 PM, Karen Aram via Peace wrote: >> >> It passed, with only one in dissent. The House was packed again, with over 200 people in attendance. >> >> Thank you to Professor Frances Boyle, Brian Dolinar, Geovanny Vega and all those who made it happen. >> _______________________________________________ >> Peace mailing list >> Peace at lists.chambana.net >> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace > > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -- -- karen medina "The really great make you feel that you, too, can become great." - Mark Twain From kmedina67 at gmail.com Tue Dec 20 18:08:27 2016 From: kmedina67 at gmail.com (Karen Medina) Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2016 12:08:27 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Urbana Sanctuary City Ordinance passed. In-Reply-To: <75D71693-83DA-45E6-AC20-F0252CA62476@illinois.edu> References: <75D71693-83DA-45E6-AC20-F0252CA62476@illinois.edu> Message-ID: I find it ironic when white males complain about identity politics. How long have their interests been the center of all political discussions? -karen medina From galliher at illinois.edu Tue Dec 20 19:49:13 2016 From: galliher at illinois.edu (Carl G. Estabrook) Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2016 13:49:13 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Urbana Sanctuary City Ordinance passed. In-Reply-To: <1140773257.703469.1482256423223@mail.yahoo.com> References: <75D71693-83DA-45E6-AC20-F0252CA62476@illinois.edu> <1140773257.703469.1482256423223@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <19936868-7DA3-437E-98ED-66584047894D@illinois.edu> I think that’s right. People want to do something helpful in the face of social evils, and making a statement of support of people who might be deported - especially while Obama is president, who has deported more people than any other recent president - may be helpful. More helpful would be a serious left politics, of which the local Democrats, say, produce just a parody - and not, I think an innocent one. “The defensible heart of identity politics is its commitment to opposing forms of discrimination like racism, sexism, and homophobia. I share that commitment. But opposing discrimination today has no more to do with a left politics than do equally powerful ethical commitments against, say, violence or dishonesty. Why? Because the core of a left politics is its critique of and resistance to capitalism—its commitment to decommodifying education, health care, and housing, and creating a more economically equal society. Neither hostility to discrimination nor the accompanying enthusiasm for diversity makes the slightest contribution to accomplishing any of those goals. Just the opposite, in fact. They function instead to provide inequality with a meritocratic justification: If everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed, there’s no injustice when some people fail…” [Walter Benn Michaels: full article at >] —CGE > On Dec 20, 2016, at 11:53 AM, David Green wrote: > > At the very least, it's important to understand that sanctuary proclamations avoid any serious analysis--economic or legal--of either neoliberalism or its Trumpian response; I fear that that is by design. > > DG > > > On Tuesday, December 20, 2016 11:43 AM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss wrote: > > > I think Mort is quite right - “the humanitarian impulse seems admirable, but the reasoning seems nonexistent, flawed." > > You don’t have to be too cynical to see it as another identity-politics twisting of liberal concern into a support for neoliberal capitalism, of the sort that the Democrats have been peddling. > > 'Because who’s for illegal immigration? … as far as I know the only people who are openly for illegal immigration are neoliberal economists. > > 'First of all, neoliberal economists are completely for open borders, in so far as that’s possible. Friedman said years ago that, “You can’t have a welfare state and open borders,” but of course the point of that was “open the borders, because that’ll kill the welfare state.” There’s a good paper you can get off the web by Gordon Hanson, commissioned by whoever runs Foreign Affairs, and the argument is that illegal immigration is better than legal immigration, because illegal immigration is extremely responsive to market conditions. > > 'So it’s quite striking that you have all this protesting against illegal immigration, and especially at a time when it’s down. So why are people so upset about it? They are upset about it not because it has gotten worse, it hasn’t, but because they somehow recognize that one of the primary sort of marks of the triumph of neoliberalism in the US is a very high tolerance of illegal immigration, and that illegal immigration is the kind of ne plus ultra of the labor mobility that neoliberalism requires. I mean that’s why for years — even though it’s a kind of contradiction in terms — as a policy it’s worked well. The Bush administration did everything it could to talk against illegal immigration but leave it alone and I’m sure the Obama administration would do the same thing…’ [Walter Benn Michaels, Jacobin, January 2011] > > Why don’t we turn our energies to getting our Congressional representatives to > > (1) pass a reasonable amnesty plan; and > > (2) revoke neoliberal trade pacts like NAFTA that promote illegal immigration from countries ravaged by the Democrats’ neoliberalism. > > —CGE > > > On Dec 20, 2016, at 11:17 AM, Brussel, Morton K via Peace-discuss > wrote: > > > > The humanitarian impulse seems admirable, but the reasoning seems nonexistent, flawed. If one advocates open borders, then there wouldn’t be an immigration problem. But if one wants to control immigration, i.e., laws to enforce it, then those laws will be enforced, and one will have people subject to deportation if they violate the laws. I see no way to get around that. > > As for those already here, illegally, you can invoke amnesty, or courts to consider each case—a virtual unfeasibility— but then you have the future to contend with. > > > > —mkb > > > >> On Dec 19, 2016, at 9:21 PM, Karen Aram via Peace > wrote: > >> > >> It passed, with only one in dissent. The House was packed again, with over 200 people in attendance. > >> > >> Thank you to Professor Frances Boyle, Brian Dolinar, Geovanny Vega and all those who made it happen. > >> _______________________________________________ > >> Peace mailing list > >> Peace at lists.chambana.net > >> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Peace-discuss mailing list > > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss > > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From galliher at illinois.edu Tue Dec 20 20:06:01 2016 From: galliher at illinois.edu (Carl G. Estabrook) Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2016 14:06:01 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Urbana Sanctuary City Ordinance passed. In-Reply-To: References: <75D71693-83DA-45E6-AC20-F0252CA62476@illinois.edu> Message-ID: <4A9BF419-0F25-495F-AC27-747D44CBB72F@illinois.edu> There aren’t too may observations, the truth of which depends on who’s making the observation. Statements like, "I am speaking," obviously do, but statements like “Identity politics are a snare and a delusion," do not: their truth-value doesn’t depend on the speaker. —CGE > On Dec 20, 2016, at 12:08 PM, Karen Medina via Peace-discuss wrote: > > I find it ironic when white males complain about identity politics. > How long have their interests been the center of all political discussions? > > -karen medina > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss From kmedina67 at gmail.com Tue Dec 20 20:11:48 2016 From: kmedina67 at gmail.com (kmedina67) Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2016 14:11:48 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Urbana Sanctuary City Ordinance passed. Message-ID: Two points.1. RE: why locally? Starting locally is the only way to eventually affect change at the federal level. 2. RE: Immigration under Obama. The local Immigration Forum has been working very hard while Obama was president, fighting federal policies locally.  And they have been extremely successful. Some of those issues finally made it to the federal level.-karen medina -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Tue Dec 20 20:31:05 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2016 20:31:05 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Urbana Sanctuary City Ordinance passed. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Good points Karen, thank you. The Sanctuary City revision, as it has been a sanctuary city since 1986, is only the first step in a process for some of us, newly involved. The local Immigration Forum people have been working these issues for quite sometime. No one is telling the undocumented that they are completely safe and all is well, but we are taking a stand in support of them, and though it maybe “merely symbolic” as suggested, it is a show of solidarity. Those originally involved, as I understand it, in the 1986 sanctuary resolution was as a revolt against US war and intervention policies in Latin America, by anti-war activists at the time. To diminish their efforts as merely “identity politics” is disingenuous at best. Those of us who are anti-war could be accused of “Identity Politics” when we only focus on “war or foreign policy”, when what we should be doing is plotting the overthrow of the capitalist system. > On Dec 20, 2016, at 12:11, kmedina67 via Peace-discuss wrote: > > > Two points. > 1. RE: why locally? Starting locally is the only way to eventually affect change at the federal level. > 2. RE: Immigration under Obama. The local Immigration Forum has been working very hard while Obama was president, fighting federal policies locally. And they have been extremely successful. Some of those issues finally made it to the federal level. > -karen medina > > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss From galliher at illinois.edu Tue Dec 20 21:43:50 2016 From: galliher at illinois.edu (Carl G. Estabrook) Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2016 15:43:50 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Urbana Sanctuary City Ordinance passed. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <276BF4FC-1440-4F6B-BD72-5FF052592B09@illinois.edu> I’ve been in C-U since the mid-1980s, when sanctuary activities were part of the local anti-war movement (focussed then on stopping US crimes in LA). Identity politics - as the modern substitute for even New Deal-style class politics (cf. the earlier B. Sanders) - is a matter of denominating aggrieved groups and trying to improve some of their members’ opportunities, without challenging the state capitalist order that makes for their grievance. Identity politics holds that "a society in which 1% of the population controlled 90% of the resources could be just, provided that roughly 12% of the 1% were black, 12% were Latino, 50% were women, and whatever the appropriate proportions were LGBT people” (Adolph Reed). I and many don’t agree. And I don’t see how anyone who supports Obama (or Clinton) can claim to be anti-war. —CGE > On Dec 20, 2016, at 2:31 PM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss wrote: > > Good points Karen, thank you. > > The Sanctuary City revision, as it has been a sanctuary city since 1986, is only the first step in a process for some of us, newly involved. The local Immigration Forum people have been working these issues for quite sometime. No one is telling the undocumented that they are completely safe and all is well, but we are taking a stand in support of them, and though it maybe “merely symbolic” as suggested, it is a show of solidarity. > > Those originally involved, as I understand it, in the 1986 sanctuary resolution was as a revolt against US war and intervention policies in Latin America, by anti-war activists at the time. To diminish their efforts as merely “identity politics” is disingenuous at best. > > Those of us who are anti-war could be accused of “Identity Politics” when we only focus on “war or foreign policy”, when what we should be doing is plotting the overthrow of the capitalist system. > > > >> On Dec 20, 2016, at 12:11, kmedina67 via Peace-discuss wrote: >> >> >> Two points. >> 1. RE: why locally? Starting locally is the only way to eventually affect change at the federal level. >> 2. RE: Immigration under Obama. The local Immigration Forum has been working very hard while Obama was president, fighting federal policies locally. And they have been extremely successful. Some of those issues finally made it to the federal level. >> -karen medina >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Peace-discuss mailing list >> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net >> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss > > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss From kmedina67 at gmail.com Wed Dec 21 02:30:55 2016 From: kmedina67 at gmail.com (kmedina67) Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2016 20:30:55 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Urbana Sanctuary City Ordinance passed. Message-ID: Point number 3: Every president needs a protest movement.  -------- Original message --------From: "Carl G. Estabrook" Date: 12/20/16 15:43 , Peace-discuss List Identity politics - as the modern substitute for even New Deal-style class politics (cf. the earlier B. Sanders) - is a matter of denominating aggrieved groups and trying to improve some of their members’ opportunities, without challenging the state capitalist order that makes for their grievance. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davegreen84 at yahoo.com Wed Dec 21 13:44:48 2016 From: davegreen84 at yahoo.com (David Green) Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2016 13:44:48 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Glenn Greenwald: The Smear Campaign Against Keith Ellison Is Repugnant but Reveals Much About Washington In-Reply-To: <3781C35A-DC79-4DB5-A66A-15739B840FBA@gmail.com> References: <8350E635-B557-4933-AC8F-7269DF1FA400@illinois.edu> <3781C35A-DC79-4DB5-A66A-15739B840FBA@gmail.com> Message-ID: <1125686659.337030.1482327888702@mail.yahoo.com> Deb, I would intervene simply to point out that the major parties in this country have no members. They are essentially corporations run from the top down by office holders, apparatchiks, and their financial backers. Nevertheless, when in power at whatever level, these parties purport to represent the will of the people, especially those who voted for them. In turn, "the people", that is, any citizen, certainly has the right to comment on the implications of the upper-level workings of the Democratic (sic) party. Admittedly, such views have absolutely no effect on these workings, but at least can expose their cynical nature. David Green On Wednesday, December 21, 2016 3:28 AM, Debra Schrishuhn via Peace wrote: Carl, You are not and have never been a Democrat (this is not a judgmental statement, merely a statement of fact), so your opinion on this internal Party issue is quite frankly irrelevant. Curious that someone involved in an organization with "Anti-Racism" in its name is neither offended by nor speaking out against the racist nature of the attacks on Keith Ellison. Deb Sent from my iPhone > On Dec 20, 2016, at 3:09 PM, "Carl G. Estabrook via Peace" wrote: > > Rep. Keith Ellison: Useless to the Cause of Peace > > Earlier this year, the Obama administration reneged on its agreement with Russia to draw up a list of the jihadist groups Washington supports, and to make sure they don’t fight alongside al-Qaida. Gabbard’s law would require that the Director of National Intelligence draw up a list of the jihadi groups that are cooperating with al-Qaida and ISIS, and update that list every six month, to make sure none of them get U.S. assistance. > > Gabbard models her bill on 1980s Boland Amendment that halted U.S. aid to the U.S. Contra terrorists, in Nicaragua. She was joined by two Republican and two Democratic co-sponsors, including Black California congresswoman Barbara Lee. The bill is endorsed by the Progressive Democrats of America and the U.S. Peace Council. But don’t expect it to get effective support from the Progressive Caucus in the U.S. Congress. Minnesota Black congressman Keith Ellison is Caucus co-chair – and absolutely worthless to the cause of peace. He supported the war against Libya and the proxy war in Syria, which is why he stands a good chance of becoming head of the Democratic National Committee, where it’s all war, and anti-Russia, all the time. > > For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com. > > See also . > > —CGE > > >> On Dec 5, 2016, at 2:59 PM, Robert Naiman via Peace wrote: >> >> https://theintercept.com/2016/12/04/the-smear-campaign-against-keith-ellison-is-repugnant-but-reveals-much-about-washington/ >> >> The Smear Campaign Against Keith Ellison Is Repugnant but Reveals Much About Washington >> Glenn Greenwald >> The Intercept >> December 4 2016, 7:48 a.m. >> >> EVER SINCE HE announced his candidacy to lead the Democratic National Committee, Keith Ellison, the first American Muslim elected to the U.S. Congress, has been the target of a defamation campaign that is deceitful, repugnant, and yet quite predictable. At first expressed in whispers, but now being yelled from the rooftops by some of the party’s most influential figures, Ellison is being smeared as both an anti-Semite and enemy of Israel — the same smears virtually any critic of the Israeli government reflexively encounters, rendered far worse if the critic is a prominent American Muslim. >> >> Three days ago, the now ironically named Anti-Defamation League pronounced Ellison’s 2010 comments about Israel “deeply disturbing and disqualifying.” Other Israel advocates have now joined in. What are Ellison’s terrible sins? He said in a 2010 speech that while he “wanted the U.S. to be friends with Israel,” the U.S. “can’t allow another country to treat us like we’re their ATM.” >> >> As the full speech makes clear, he was referring to the indisputable fact that while Israel continues to take billions of dollars every year from the U.S. — far more than any other country receives in aid — it continually disregards and violates U.S. requests to stop ongoing expansion of illegal Israeli settlements, often in ways seemingly designed to impose the greatest humiliation on its benefactor: >> >> >> Stop, you know why are we sending a mill — $2.8 billion dollars a year over there when they won’t even honor our request to stop building in East Jerusalem? Where is the future Palestinian state going to be if it’s colonized before it even gets up off the ground? … >> >> … Now you got Clinton, Biden, and the president who’s told them — stop. Now this has happened before. They beat back a president before. Bush 41 said — stop, and they said — we don’t want to stop, and by the way we want our money and we want it now. [Ellison laughs.] Right? You know, I mean we can’t allow, we’re Americans, right? We can’t allow another country to treat us like we’re their ATM. Right? And so we ought to stand up as Americans. >> >> Equally sinful in the eyes of the ADL was this statement on U.S. foreign policy: >> >> The United States foreign policy in the Middle East is governed by what is good or bad through a country of 7 million people. A region of 350 million all turns on a country of 7 million. Does that make sense? [A male says “no.”] Is that logic? Right? When the people who, when the Americans who trace their roots back to those 350 million get involved, everything changes. >> >> As J.J. Goldberg of The Forward noted, Ellison wasn’t lamenting the insidious influence of U.S. Jews — as the ADL shamefully claimed — but rather was “plainly describing how American Muslims could have greater influence on American policy if they learned to organize.” >> >> And agree or disagree with those positions, it is an indisputable fact that Israel receives far more in U.S. aid than any other country yet continually does exactly that which numerous U.S. presidents have insisted it not do, often to the detriment of U.S. interests. And many prominent foreign policy experts — including David Petraeus — have warned that excessive U.S. support for the worst actions of the Israeli government endangers U.S. national security by alienating Arabs in the region and fueling support for anti-American terrorism. The idea that a member of Congress is not permitted to debate these policies without being branded an anti-Semite is sheer insanity: malicious insanity at that. >> >> But that insanity is par for the course in Washington, where anyone who even questions U.S. policy toward Israel is smeared in this way — from James Baker to Howard Dean to Bernie Sanders and even Donald Trump. So pernicious is this framework that the U.S. Senate just passed legislation expressly equating what it regards as unfair criticism of the Israeli government with “anti-Semitism.” And when one is an American Muslim, ugly stereotypes and pervasive Islamophobia are added to this toxic brew to make the smears worse by many magnitudes. >> >> THIS SMEAR CAMPAIGN against Ellison received a major boost Friday night when the single largest funder of both the Democratic Party and the Hillary Clinton campaign, the Israeli-American billionaire Haim Saban, said at the Brookings Institution, a part of which he funds: “If you go back to his positions, his papers, his speeches, the way he has voted, he is clearly an anti-Semite and anti-Israel individual.” Saban added: “Keith Ellison would be a disaster for the relationship between the Jewish community and the Democratic Party.” >> >> That Saban plays such a vital role in Democratic Party politics says a great deal. To the New York Times, this is how he described himself: “I’m a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel.” In late 2015, Ali Gharib wrote in The Forward: “Saban’s top priority isn’t a liberal vision of American life. It’s Israel.” When Hillary Clinton in 2015 condemned the boycott movementaimed at ending Israeli settlements, she did it in the form of a letter addressed personally to Saban. >> >> The Democratic Party’s central reliance on billionaire funders like Saban is a key reason that debates over Israel policy are not permitted within the party. It’s why any attempt to raise such issues will prompt systematic campaigns of reputation destruction like the one we’re witnessing with Ellison. >> >> To get a sense for just how prohibited the most benign and basic debates are when it comes to Israel, consider the quotes from Ellison’s college days dug up by CNN as supposedly incriminating. In 1990, while a law student at the University of Minnesota, Ellison blasted the university president for condemning a speaking event featuring the anti-Zionist civil rights icon Kwame Ture (also known as Stokely Carmichael); Ellison’s argument was that all ideas, including Zionism, should be regarded as debatable in a college environment: >> >> The University’s position appears to be this: Political Zionism is off-limits no matter what dubious circumstances Israel was founded under; no matter what the Zionists do to the Palestinians; and no matter what wicked regimes Israel allies itself with — like South Africa. This position is untenable. >> >> In other words, Ellison — 26 years ago, while a student — simply argued that college campuses should not be deemed “safe spaces” in which debates over Israel are barred: an utterly mainstream view when the topic to be debated is something other than Israel. >> >> Leave aside the bizarre attempt to use someone’s college-aged political activism against them three decades later. As my colleague Zaid Jilani very ably documented several days ago, even the most inflammatory of Ellison’s campus statements — including his long-ago-renounced praise for the Nation of Islam — were grounded in righteous opposition to “white supremacy and the policies of the state of Israel” and “show him expressing sympathy for the plight of underprivileged whites and making clear that he was not antagonistic toward Jewish people.” Writing about the smear campaign circulating on the internet against Ellison, The Forward’s Goldberg said he found “the evidence to be either frivolous, distorted or simply false.” >> >> As CNN itself acknowledged when digging up these old Ellison quotes: “None of the records reviewed found examples of Ellison making any anti-Semitic comments himself.” How is that, by itself, not the end of the controversy? >> >> >> THE REASON WHY it isn’t is a glaring irony. With the advent of Donald Trump and policies such as banning all Muslims from the country, Democrats this year incorporated anti-Islamophobia rhetoric into their repertoire. Yet what is being done to Ellison by the ADL, Saban, and others is Islamophobia in its purest and most classic form. >> >> Faiz Shakir is a senior adviser to Harry Reid who previously worked for Nancy Pelosi and the ThinkProgress blog at the Center for American Progress. He explains, from personal experience, that the vile treatment to which Ellison is now being subjected is common for American Muslims in political life: >> >> Follow >> Faiz @fshakir >> Keith Ellison is being smeared like so many before him. If you're Muslim in public life or even sympathetic to Muslim concerns, watch out! >> 12:31 PM - 3 Dec 2016 >> >>    •  192192 Retweets >> >>    •  357357 likes >> >> >> 3 Dec >> Faiz @fshakir >> Keith Ellison is being smeared like so many before him. If you're Muslim in public life or even sympathetic to Muslim concerns, watch out! >> Follow >> Faiz @fshakir >> I was literally called a terrorist by a right-wing publication when I joined @NanyPelosi's office. http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/133189/nancy-pelosi-hires-former-terrorist-fundraiser-daniel-greenfield … >> 12:32 PM - 3 Dec 2016 >> Nancy Pelosi Hires Former Terrorist Fundraiser >> What Faiz Shakir's powerful new post says about Democratic Party anti-Semitism. >> frontpagemag.com >> >>    •  5151 Retweets >> >>    •  6363 likes >> >> >> 3 Dec >> Faiz @fshakir >> I was literally called a terrorist by a right-wing publication when I joined @NanyPelosi's office. http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/133189/nancy-pelosi-hires-former-terrorist-fundraiser-daniel-greenfield … >> Follow >> Faiz @fshakir >> At @thinkprogress, we were absurdly labeled anti-Semitic because we supported Obama admin stances. That cheapens "anti-semitic" charge >> 12:33 PM - 3 Dec 2016 >> >>    •  1717 Retweets >> >>    •  3333 likes >> >> >> 3 Dec >> Faiz @fshakir >> At @thinkprogress, we were absurdly labeled anti-Semitic because we supported Obama admin stances. That cheapens "anti-semitic" charge >> Follow >> Faiz @fshakir >> Just Google what Frank Gaffney was saying about Suhail Khan and Faisal Gill in the Bush White House. >> 12:33 PM - 3 Dec 2016 >> >>    •  1313 Retweets >> >>    •  1616 likes >> >> >> 3 Dec >> Faiz @fshakir >> Just Google what Frank Gaffney was saying about Suhail Khan and Faisal Gill in the Bush White House. >> Follow >> Faiz @fshakir >> See how even @GroverNorquist has been unfairly treated by right-wing smear agents because of who he's married to. >> 12:34 PM - 3 Dec 2016 >> >>    •  1212 Retweets >> >>    •  1717 likes >> >> >> 3 Dec >> Faiz @fshakir >> See how even @GroverNorquist has been unfairly treated by right-wing smear agents because of who he's married to. >> Follow >> Faiz @fshakir >> Now it's Ellison's turn. At some point, this has to stop. So glad @SenSchumer, @rweingarten, others are not backing down to pressure. >> 12:34 PM - 3 Dec 2016 >> >>    •  2727 Retweets >> >>    •  5151 likes >> >> >> In that last tweet, Shakir is referring to the fact that, to their credit, other Democratic voices — such as American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, J Street, and, most important, Chuck Schumer — continue to defend Ellison. J Street’s statement made the critical point: “It is time to retire the playbook that aims to silence any American official seeking high office who has dared to criticize certain Israeli government policies.” >> >> But even these commendable defenses of Ellison illustrate how constricted the permissible range of views on Israel is within the Democratic Party. J Street vouched for Ellison by saying that he “is and has long been a friend of Israel” and is “a champion of pro-Israel, pro-peace policies.” Schumer went further, saying that while he disagrees with Ellison on numerous issues, “I saw him orchestrate one of the most pro-Israel platforms in decades.” Notably, demonstrating steadfast support for the polices of the Israeli government is literally a job requirement to lead the Democratic National Committee — and for every other significant position in Washington. >> >> But Ellison has actually fulfilled that requirement. Even his opponents admit: “Ellison unambiguously self-identifies as pro-Israel, supports a two-state solution without reservation, has repeatedly said that Israel has a right to defend itself and expressed the importance of protecting and maintaining Israel’s security, and there is no evidence that he has ever supported or advocated for BDS.” It’s true that, as Jay Michaelson wrote in an excellent Daily Beast column, Ellison “has been critical of Israeli settlements, of right-wing Israeli governments, and of America’s unconditional support for Israel.” But even his Israel advocacy is rather banal, as Goldberg wrote: >> >> It must be acknowledged that Ellison’s first loyalty in the Middle East is not to Israel. He is a Muslim, and he makes no secret of his sympathy for the Palestinians. That said, he is a Muslim peacenik. Since entering politics, he has consistently spoken out in favor of the two-state solution, by which he means Israel and a Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security. He’s been active on that front, frequently partnering with J Street and other liberal Zionist groups on efforts to promote peace and security. >> >> In other words, Ellison is a mainstream liberal Democrat, albeit situated on the left wing of the party as it is currently constituted in Congress (which is not very far to the left given that Nancy Pelosi resides in a nearby ideological precinct). >> >> What makes him such an easy and vulnerable target for smear campaigns such as the one Saban and the ADL are pursuing is that he is Muslim — a black Muslim to boot. Just look at the obvious codes in this paragraph from Michael J. Koplow, the policy director of the Israel Policy Forum, writing in Haaretz under the headline “Keith Ellison Has a Real Israel Problem”: >> >> Ellison is not a figure whom anyone would normally expect to be a supporter of Israel. He is an African-American Muslim who did not grow up in a particularly Jewish area of the country, came of age after 1967, when Israel’s image as a David began shifting to that of a Goliath, did not have any prominent Jewish mentors, and has a background in radical politics. As a student, he was harshly critical of Zionism and its legitimacy. >> >> While Koplow cites these facts not to endorse the stereotypes but to affirm Ellison’s bona fides as someone one would not expect to be an Israel supporter, those are the demographic attributes giving the fuel to this revolting campaign. As Michaelson, who previously worked with the ADL, acknowledged: “There’s plenty of Islamophobia within my Jewish community as well,” and “the ADL is a perfect example,” citing the group’s shameful opposition to the construction of a mosque in lower Manhattan. >> >> If you’re a Democrat, it’s easy to embrace the language of anti-Islamophobia when it comes to condemning Donald Trump and other Republicans. It’s more difficult, but more important, to do so when that poison is coming from within the Democratic Party itself. >> >> One of the few silver linings of the ugly Trump rhetoric on Muslims can and should be (and has been) a unified rejection of this sort of toxicity, regardless of where it comes from. Democrats who are sincere about wanting to oppose anti-Muslim bigotry can do so by defending Keith Ellison from these incredibly ugly, baseless, and defamatory attacks. >> >> === >> >> Robert Naiman >> Policy Director >> Just Foreign Policy >> www.justforeignpolicy.org >> naiman at justforeignpolicy.org >> (202) 448-2898 x1 >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Peace mailing list >> Peace at lists.chambana.net >> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace > > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace _______________________________________________ Peace mailing list Peace at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fboyle at illinois.edu Wed Dec 21 15:15:23 2016 From: fboyle at illinois.edu (Boyle, Francis A) Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2016 15:15:23 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] FW: Sanctuary City Measure Passes Urbana Council On 5-1 Vote | News Local/State | Illinois Public Media In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign, IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) -----Original Message----- From: Boyle, Francis A Sent: Tuesday, December 20, 2016 5:48 AM To: SECTNS.aals at lists.aals.org Subject: Sanctuary City Measure Passes Urbana Council On 5-1 Vote | News Local/State | Illinois Public Media http://will.illinois.edu/news/story/sanctuary-city-measure-passes-urbana-council-on-5-1-vote University of Illinois law professor Francis Boyle, who designed the original 1986 measure to assist Central American refugees, says this resolution makes Urbana the only sanctuary city in downstate Illinois. From moboct1 at aim.com Wed Dec 21 22:42:25 2016 From: moboct1 at aim.com (Mildred O'brien) Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2016 17:42:25 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] A little history on the Urbana Sanctuary City Declaration Message-ID: <159238cc6c8-41bf-14f1f@webprd-m74.mail.aol.com> At the height of Reagan's Contra wars against the Nicaraguan Sandinistas and other Central Americans, many civilians targeted by the dictators who the U.S. supported escaped to the United States seeking a safe haven (ie sanctuary) from the ravages of war.  When the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) raided the borders and safehouses to return undocumented refugees to their war-torn environs, citizen Sanctuary groups formed to protect them.  Here in C-U some concerned local citizen formed Sanctuary Committees to provide protection for refugees who had made their way to our community by offering secure living space that was staffed 24/7 after a number of safe houses throughout the country were reported broken into (including Champaign) and in some cases refugees were seized by INS and disappeared without any knowledge of their destiny. In 1986 a group of local concerned citizens petitioned the City of Urbana to produce a statement offering some relief from the anxiety of local refugee residents in a resolution providing directives to authorities not to initiate legal action against undocumented refugees. Such  was passed by the Urbana City Council (but not Champaign) although not signed by Mayor Markland, thus remaining a Resolution. After the anti-immigration rhetoric of this year's presidential campaign and election, although the 1986 Sanctuary City Resolution was extant, some concerned citizens again petitioned the Urbana City Council to pass Sanctuary City legislation broadening the language to include war refugees from other parts of the world and to offer them legal advice and representation if they were pursued by ICE, although to interfere with federal authorities.  On December 19, 2016 the Urbana City Council voted, with one dissenting vote, to declare Urbana a Sanctuary City and with Mayor Prussing's signature declared the Sanctuary City Ordinance. Law Professor, Francis Boyle and Prof. Belden Fields presented testimony, and I with many others were among the original petitioners for Urbana Sanctuary City in 1986, and again in 2016. Midge O'Brien       -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Wed Dec 21 23:37:54 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2016 23:37:54 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Black Agenda Report on the Green Party's Jill Stein, recount Message-ID: by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon Before judges and state officials aborted it, the attempted recount initiated by Green Party candidate Jill Stein revealed and confirmed specific patterns of widespread interstate electoral tampering in the presidential election just past that zero in on black and brown communities. The craven need of Hillary and the Dems to blame the Russians for their loss proves that they own the current broken and rigged US electoral system just as much Republicans. Grand Theft Electoral: Aborted Recount Effort Shows US Elections Are Broken, Recount-Proof and Audit-Proof by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon It’s one thing to abstractly claim that US elections are a farcial exercise to legitimize the rule of a bipartisan imperial oligarchy. It’s quite another to publicly lay bare some of the stinky moving parts of that farce. The attempted recount initiated by 2016 Green Party candidate Jill Stein did exactly that, starkly illuminating 3 facts 1. that US elections are intentionally and fundamentally broken and rigged, recount-proof and audit-proof; 2. that both the capitalist parties like it that way (for differing reasons of course), and; 3. that state and federal courts are willing to issue patently absurd rulings from the bench to keep it that way. The 2016 presidential election was certainly stolen both on and before, and after election day. It’s absolutely certain that voters were disappeared by the millions in the months leading up to the election. It wasn’t the Russians that did this. For some time now, Republicans have found themselves in a demographic dilemma. They are unable to get substantial numbers of Latino or black voters, and the numbers of their base constituencies are declining. So for a generation standard Republican strategies have included making Democratic voters and votes disappear by the thousands and hundreds of thousands at state level, and by the millions on the national scale. In the months leading up to the 2016 election millions of likely Democratic voters were prevented from registering by voter ID laws and uncooperative local registrars. Spurious police raids and criminal prosecutions hindered voter registration drives, and Republican sponsored private initiatives like CrossCheck, a database designed to provide the excuse for state election authorities to challenge legitimately registered voters with names similar to voters or alleged felons in other states. All these measures combined to remove a seven figure number of voters from the rolls across the country. It’s likely that hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions more votes were made to disappear on election day. Russians didn’t do this either. The tactic of sending all the old and broken down voting machines to ghetto precincts and the newer ones less likely to break down to whiter Republican ones is a standard move practiced by election authorities in large and diverse counties and cities from coast to coast. In the case of Detroit, the state has long since relieved residents of even the pretense of self-government. Detroit and Flint have their own mayors, city councils, election authorities and the rest, but their budgets are all subject to approval by officials appointed by the state’s Republican governor. The same crop of state appointees who decided Flint residents should drink from their poisoned river, denied Detroit’s request to spend some of its own money on new voting machines. In Detroit and much of Wisconsin too, voters mark their choices on paper ballots which are fed through optical scanners that count the vote. Or not.The aborted recount effort revealed that an astounding 59% of all Detroit’s voting machines failed election day, and more than 75,000 ballots went uncounted. Similar patters appeared in Flint, and in Dearborn Michigan, the largest concentration of Arab American voters in the US. Trump only carried Michigan by 10,000 votes. It’s clear that state and federal courts intervened to abort any recount before detailed and damning evidence could be developed in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Some things don’t change much. The specious “reasoning” behind legal rulings which aborted meaningful recounts in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan is roughly on a par with the quiz questions Dixiecrat registrars once used to fend off black registrants. They’d ask prospective black voters how many bubbles were in a bar of soap. It was good enough then, and it’s good enough now. Michigan’s attorney general made the astounding ruling, seconded by state court judges, that Detroit’s paper ballots must not be examined by humans, who might easily determine the intent of those 75,000 voters. Wisconsin officials didn’t allow their recount to go as far as Michigan’s. They left it to each county whether the supposed “recount” would be accomplished by human observers tallying the paper ballots, or feeding the paper ballots into the same broken machines, or simply reading the totals the broken machines had coughed up on election day. The proposed recount in Pennsylvania was kind of a joke from the beginning, since the majority of that state’s voters are forced to use audit-proof DRE or Direct Record Entry machines which record voter choices directly to electronic media with no recountable permanent paper record. A federal district court judge in Michigan summed it all up when he declared that “...a recount as an audit of the election has never been endorsed by any court...” Current law then holds that so-called “recounts” are utterly meaningless, and it’s perfectly OK for elections to be unaccountable and not subject to any audit whatsoever. You wouldn’t run a taco truck business without an audit. But an election? Wisconsin eventually halted the recount with Milwaukee, the state’s largest concentration of black voters NOT recounted by hand, declaring that since Stein was not within striking distance of a win in that state, she had no standing to ask for a recount in the first place. Think about that. First, if being in contention is a requirement for asking a recount, then NOBODY on earth could get a recount except Hillary Clinton herself, as if the election results were her personal property rather than the expression of the will of the people. Second, why didn’t Hillary Clinton’s campaign sieze upon the persuasive indications of widespread fraud to mount challenges in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and for that matter Alabama, Georgia, Arizona, Indiana, Florida, Texas and other places where tens or hundreds of thousands of presumably Democratic votes vanished or went uncounted? Why didn’t Hillary Clinton expose the massive interstate tampering with ballots in largely black constituencies? Hillary’s campaign was forced to send token observers to the recount effort. Hillary partisans operating without the campaign’s permission did the original research and drew up a Wisconsin petition alleging foreign intervention as the reason a recount was needed – a petition which Stein carelessly endorsed, to the embarrassment of most Greens. Some 150,000 small Democratic donors funded the Stein recount effort. Team Trump had suits in court and boots on the ground everywhere in the three states recounts were attempted. Hillary’s campaign had the money to e orchestrate challenges a dozen states, and to launch a sustained campaign to expose the national pattern of electoral apartheid centering upon black and Latino communities. But they didn’t. Evidently the one percenters who call the ultimate shots for the Democratic party just don’t much respect the millions of black and Latin voters in places like Detroit and Philly and Jacksonville who provide that party with what Donna Brazile and others call its “base vote.” It’s a lot easier, and far more in line with the capitalist one percenter self-interest and world view to blame the Russians. The attempted recount showed the need for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote. Democrats in the 70s, 80s and early 90s failed to consolidate the victory won by the Voting Rights Act of 1967. While they held the moral and political high ground for a generation, Democrats, including black ones failed to nail their victory permanently into the nation’s fundamental law by amending the US Constitution to include a specific right to vote. So little by little racist authorities encroached upon voting rights by refusal to comply with motor voter laws, by prosecuting clerical errors by voter registration and absentee ballot drives as felonies, gerrymandering, voter ID laws and administrative machinations. Democrats John Kerry and Barack Obama, both serving on the Senate Judiciary Committee resisted the pleas of voting rights activists to filibuster the appointments of Justices Roberts and Alito, neither of whom made a secret of their extreme right wing views. So a few years later with Obama in the White House the Supreme Court was able to gut the Voting Rights Act. Given the current briar patch of voter ID laws, gerrymandering, CrossCheck databases, felony disenfranchisement restrictions on who can vote and when, black box voting, and machinations of state and local officials, along with courts declaring voters have no right to an auditable election the only way to clear the obstacles to voting rights, to make every vote count and ensure every vote is counted is by amending the US Constitution. Other nations have constitutions that spell out a right to vote, along with the right to a clean environment, a quality public education and more. Why not here? Did the attempted recount damage the Green Party? Certainly not. Stein asked the Green steering committee to be a fiscal sponsor of the thing, and they wisely declined. If the Greens had done this, they’d have enabled large donors to drop tens of thousands of bucks at a time into the effort to fund the recall, a move that goes entirely against the declared intention and tradition of the Green party. The dispute among Greens over aspects and ramifications of the recount and the aftermath of the 2016 has sparked a lively national discussion among Greens on how to make the Green Party more small-d democratic,and sustainable. That can only be a good thing. The Green party’s refusal to sponsor the recount meant it had to be funded by small donors. That was another good thing. According to the Stein campaign about 150,000 individual donors kicked in an average of less than $50 apiece to pay for the recount effort. Those small donors who habitually give to Democrats, but once on the list of the national and state Green Parties, whom the Stein campaign is pledged to share its database with, they can be directly addressed, messaged and contacted by state and local Greens. In the near term, a significant number will be converted. After all, Democrats would NOT stand up for their own voters or their own alleged principles. The Stein campaign has pledged to donate leftover funds to voter integrity efforts around the country. It would be good if some of those efforts specifically target the communities which were disenfranchised, and it seems essential that some or most of these efforts be run by Greens and not Democrats. Some wide awake Greens need to step up here. Was it necessary? Did the whole thing really have to be done? Only if you imagine taking part in elections is meaningful in the first place. In 2017 local Green parties will be working with candidates for municipal and local offices, for school boards and alderman and mayors and county commissioners. If the Green Party knows widespread vote tampering is taking place in 2016 and does nothing about it, how can we look local activists in the eye and tell them they ought to run for mayor and school board in 2017? That would make us hypocrites – almost Democrats. The recount reminded millions of people, in a tangible way that the Green Party exists as an alternative to the two capitalist parties. The corporate media work long and hard to keep any left alternatives beyond the pale and out of the political discussion. The attempted recount put us in that discussion in a way that would not otherwise have been possible. And for those paying attention, it delegitimized both Republicans and Democrats, and makes the case for something completely different. The attempted recount was a good thing. It demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt not only that this was a stolen election, but that the laws, the courts, corporate media are complicit in an bipartisan electoral crime wave of national proportions targeting communities of color. Our job now is to tell that story again and again so it becomes common knowledge, and the foundation for whatever transitional demands, like amending the US Constitution, that we can organize around for the near future. Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report and a co-chair of the GA Green Party. He lives and works near Marietta GA and can be reached via email at bruce.dixon at blackagendareport.com. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From galliher at illinois.edu Thu Dec 22 03:09:38 2016 From: galliher at illinois.edu (Carl G. Estabrook) Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2016 21:09:38 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Against hysteria Message-ID: <9266CF74-0DF6-4247-8518-094C3328BDA7@illinois.edu> "This is what Trump represents, not radicalism but conservatism in its truest sense, a return to calm after a storm. His policies are amongst the most moderate in recent history. He is anti-interventionist, opposed to the apparatuses that should have been forgotten after the Cold War and his fiscal policies could easily be confused with those of a pre-Goldwater East Coast Republican.” http://theduran.com/putin-trump-new-normalcy/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brussel at illinois.edu Thu Dec 22 04:04:08 2016 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2016 04:04:08 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Against hysteria In-Reply-To: <9266CF74-0DF6-4247-8518-094C3328BDA7@illinois.edu> References: <9266CF74-0DF6-4247-8518-094C3328BDA7@illinois.edu> Message-ID: <9F5E5B82-AE31-440B-8B52-869B9895B872@illinois.edu> I must say that it remains to be seen what Trump will do/represent. Aside from his asserted intention to talk to the Russians and emphasize domestic over foreign affairs, his statements relative to China and Cuba and…, with respect to climate change, his coziness with Generals and his expressed intention to increase military spending perhaps by a factor of two, his favoring of “order” (police?) over civil rights, does not lead me to believe the confident remarks of the author who wrote the sentence cited below.This, even leaving aside the various contradictory and ignorant statements he is prone to make.. But yes, he will be a traditionally conservative Republican in favoring the corporate world which he probably knows best and in diverse retrograde social issues. I highly recommend a recent YouTube presentation by economist Richard Wolf on the subject of Trumpenomics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dut6sPW52Q —mkb On Dec 21, 2016, at 9:09 PM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss > wrote: "This is what Trump represents, not radicalism but conservatism in its truest sense, a return to calm after a storm. His policies are amongst the most moderate in recent history. He is anti-interventionist, opposed to the apparatuses that should have been forgotten after the Cold War and his fiscal policies could easily be confused with those of a pre-Goldwater East Coast Republican.” http://theduran.com/putin-trump-new-normalcy/ _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From galliher at illinois.edu Thu Dec 22 04:32:55 2016 From: galliher at illinois.edu (Carl G. Estabrook) Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2016 22:32:55 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Against hysteria In-Reply-To: <9F5E5B82-AE31-440B-8B52-869B9895B872@illinois.edu> References: <9266CF74-0DF6-4247-8518-094C3328BDA7@illinois.edu> <9F5E5B82-AE31-440B-8B52-869B9895B872@illinois.edu> Message-ID: I have great respect for Richard Wolff, but I wish he’d button his shirt and give us a transcript. I’ve gotten too old to listen to lectures. —CGE > On Dec 21, 2016, at 10:04 PM, Brussel, Morton K wrote: > > I must say that it remains to be seen what Trump will do/represent. > > Aside from his asserted intention to talk to the Russians and emphasize domestic over foreign affairs, his statements relative to China and Cuba and…, with respect to climate change, his coziness with Generals and his expressed intention to increase military spending perhaps by a factor of two, his favoring of “order” (police?) over civil rights, does not lead me to believe the confident remarks of the author who wrote the sentence cited below.This, even leaving aside the various contradictory and ignorant statements he is prone to make.. But yes, he will be a traditionally conservative Republican in favoring the corporate world which he probably knows best and in diverse retrograde social issues. > > I highly recommend a recent YouTube presentation by economist Richard Wolf on the subject of Trumpenomics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dut6sPW52Q > > —mkb > > > > >> On Dec 21, 2016, at 9:09 PM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss > wrote: >> >> "This is what Trump represents, not radicalism but conservatism in its truest sense, a return to calm after a storm. His policies are amongst the most moderate in recent history. He is anti-interventionist, opposed to the apparatuses that should have been forgotten after the Cold War and his fiscal policies could easily be confused with those of a pre-Goldwater East Coast Republican.” >> >> http://theduran.com/putin-trump-new-normalcy/ >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Peace-discuss mailing list >> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net >> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From deb.pdamerica at gmail.com Thu Dec 22 12:27:28 2016 From: deb.pdamerica at gmail.com (Debra Schrishuhn) Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2016 06:27:28 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Against hysteria In-Reply-To: References: <9266CF74-0DF6-4247-8518-094C3328BDA7@illinois.edu> <9F5E5B82-AE31-440B-8B52-869B9895B872@illinois.edu> Message-ID: Apparently, Trump's racism, xenophobia, and misogyny are true conservative values that you support? His intention to build a wall to keep brown people out of the US and his embrace of torture and extra-judicial killings don't bother you, Carl? His willingness to ignite trade wars and possibly hot wars with that military he plans to build up are OK? His lack of respect for fellow humans, his pathological tendency to lie or say whatever he thinks will advance him, get him attention -- these character traits are acceptable to you? Not to mention his graft, his bullying, his cruelty, his vindictiveness--these trait are acceptable in a US President or in any human being? That you embrace these odious qualities in another says a great deal about you. Debra Sent from my iPhone > On Dec 21, 2016, at 10:32 PM, "Carl G. Estabrook via Peace" wrote: > > I have great respect for Richard Wolff, but I wish he’d button his shirt and give us a transcript. > > I’ve gotten too old to listen to lectures. —CGE > > > >> On Dec 21, 2016, at 10:04 PM, Brussel, Morton K wrote: >> >> I must say that it remains to be seen what Trump will do/represent. >> >> Aside from his asserted intention to talk to the Russians and emphasize domestic over foreign affairs, his statements relative to China and Cuba and…, with respect to climate change, his coziness with Generals and his expressed intention to increase military spending perhaps by a factor of two, his favoring of “order” (police?) over civil rights, does not lead me to believe the confident remarks of the author who wrote the sentence cited below.This, even leaving aside the various contradictory and ignorant statements he is prone to make.. But yes, he will be a traditionally conservative Republican in favoring the corporate world which he probably knows best and in diverse retrograde social issues. >> >> I highly recommend a recent YouTube presentation by economist Richard Wolf on the subject of Trumpenomics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dut6sPW52Q >> >> —mkb >> >> >> >> >>> On Dec 21, 2016, at 9:09 PM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss wrote: >>> >>> "This is what Trump represents, not radicalism but conservatism in its truest sense, a return to calm after a storm. His policies are amongst the most moderate in recent history. He is anti-interventionist, opposed to the apparatuses that should have been forgotten after the Cold War and his fiscal policies could easily be confused with those of a pre-Goldwater East Coast Republican.” >>> >>> http://theduran.com/putin-trump-new-normalcy/ >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Peace-discuss mailing list >>> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net >>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss > > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fboyle at illinois.edu Thu Dec 22 12:43:19 2016 From: fboyle at illinois.edu (Boyle, Francis A) Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2016 12:43:19 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Against hysteria In-Reply-To: References: <9266CF74-0DF6-4247-8518-094C3328BDA7@illinois.edu> <9F5E5B82-AE31-440B-8B52-869B9895B872@illinois.edu> Message-ID: We just got Urbana re-affirmed and reactivated as a Sanctuary City for the Undocumented—the only such Sanctuary south of Chicago. Fab. SECTNS.aals at lists.aals.org Subject: Sanctuary City Measure Passes Urbana Council On 5-1 Vote | News Local/State | Illinois Public Media http://will.illinois.edu/news/story/sanctuary-city-measure-passes-urbana-council-on-5-1-vote University of Illinois law professor Francis Boyle, who designed the original 1986 measure to assist Central American refugees, says this resolution makes Urbana the only sanctuary city in downstate Illinois. Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) From: Peace [mailto:peace-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of Debra Schrishuhn via Peace Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2016 6:27 AM To: Estabrook, Carl G Cc: Peace Discuss ; sf-core ; Brussel, Morton K ; peace ; prairiegreens at lists.chambana.net; Occupy CU Subject: Re: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Against hysteria Apparently, Trump's racism, xenophobia, and misogyny are true conservative values that you support? His intention to build a wall to keep brown people out of the US and his embrace of torture and extra-judicial killings don't bother you, Carl? His willingness to ignite trade wars and possibly hot wars with that military he plans to build up are OK? His lack of respect for fellow humans, his pathological tendency to lie or say whatever he thinks will advance him, get him attention -- these character traits are acceptable to you? Not to mention his graft, his bullying, his cruelty, his vindictiveness--these trait are acceptable in a US President or in any human being? That you embrace these odious qualities in another says a great deal about you. Debra Sent from my iPhone On Dec 21, 2016, at 10:32 PM, "Carl G. Estabrook via Peace" > wrote: I have great respect for Richard Wolff, but I wish he’d button his shirt and give us a transcript. I’ve gotten too old to listen to lectures. —CGE On Dec 21, 2016, at 10:04 PM, Brussel, Morton K > wrote: I must say that it remains to be seen what Trump will do/represent. Aside from his asserted intention to talk to the Russians and emphasize domestic over foreign affairs, his statements relative to China and Cuba and…, with respect to climate change, his coziness with Generals and his expressed intention to increase military spending perhaps by a factor of two, his favoring of “order” (police?) over civil rights, does not lead me to believe the confident remarks of the author who wrote the sentence cited below.This, even leaving aside the various contradictory and ignorant statements he is prone to make.. But yes, he will be a traditionally conservative Republican in favoring the corporate world which he probably knows best and in diverse retrograde social issues. I highly recommend a recent YouTube presentation by economist Richard Wolf on the subject of Trumpenomics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dut6sPW52Q —mkb On Dec 21, 2016, at 9:09 PM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss > wrote: "This is what Trump represents, not radicalism but conservatism in its truest sense, a return to calm after a storm. His policies are amongst the most moderate in recent history. He is anti-interventionist, opposed to the apparatuses that should have been forgotten after the Cold War and his fiscal policies could easily be confused with those of a pre-Goldwater East Coast Republican.” http://theduran.com/putin-trump-new-normalcy/ _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss _______________________________________________ Peace mailing list Peace at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From galliher at illinois.edu Thu Dec 22 12:48:31 2016 From: galliher at illinois.edu (Carl G. Estabrook) Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2016 06:48:31 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Against hysteria In-Reply-To: References: <9266CF74-0DF6-4247-8518-094C3328BDA7@illinois.edu> <9F5E5B82-AE31-440B-8B52-869B9895B872@illinois.edu> Message-ID: <39BDD7C6-2B6A-4C12-8CC2-1738048B3F83@illinois.edu> Shouldn’t we pay attention to the policies the Trump administration will follow, more than to his obvious deficiencies of character? The Obama administration is. They’re so afraid Trump will reverse Obama's warmongering policies, they’re rushing to try to lock the new administration into their lethal practices. Example: Obama has waved a restriction on providing shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles to the 'rebels’ in Syria (including al-Qaeda) - an obvious threat to the Russian air force (who, unlike the USAF, are in Syria legally). HRC wanted a no-fly zone, which she was told would lead to war with Russia; Obama is trying to use jihadists for that. The anti-war movement, of which AWARE is a part, should try to give an accurate account of the US government’s war-making, under this administration and the next. —CGE > On Dec 22, 2016, at 6:27 AM, Debra Schrishuhn wrote: > > Apparently, Trump's racism, xenophobia, and misogyny are true conservative values that you support? His intention to build a wall to keep brown people out of the US and his embrace of torture and extra-judicial killings don't bother you, Carl? His willingness to ignite trade wars and possibly hot wars with that military he plans to build up are OK? His lack of respect for fellow humans, his pathological tendency to lie or say whatever he thinks will advance him, get him attention -- these character traits are acceptable to you? Not to mention his graft, his bullying, his cruelty, his vindictiveness--these trait are acceptable in a US President or in any human being? > > That you embrace these odious qualities in another says a great deal about you. > > Debra > > Sent from my iPhone > > On Dec 21, 2016, at 10:32 PM, "Carl G. Estabrook via Peace" > wrote: > >> I have great respect for Richard Wolff, but I wish he’d button his shirt and give us a transcript. >> >> I’ve gotten too old to listen to lectures. —CGE >> >> >> >>> On Dec 21, 2016, at 10:04 PM, Brussel, Morton K > wrote: >>> >>> I must say that it remains to be seen what Trump will do/represent. >>> >>> Aside from his asserted intention to talk to the Russians and emphasize domestic over foreign affairs, his statements relative to China and Cuba and…, with respect to climate change, his coziness with Generals and his expressed intention to increase military spending perhaps by a factor of two, his favoring of “order” (police?) over civil rights, does not lead me to believe the confident remarks of the author who wrote the sentence cited below.This, even leaving aside the various contradictory and ignorant statements he is prone to make.. But yes, he will be a traditionally conservative Republican in favoring the corporate world which he probably knows best and in diverse retrograde social issues. >>> >>> I highly recommend a recent YouTube presentation by economist Richard Wolf on the subject of Trumpenomics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dut6sPW52Q >>> >>> —mkb >>> >>> >>> >>> >>>> On Dec 21, 2016, at 9:09 PM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss > wrote: >>>> >>>> "This is what Trump represents, not radicalism but conservatism in its truest sense, a return to calm after a storm. His policies are amongst the most moderate in recent history. He is anti-interventionist, opposed to the apparatuses that should have been forgotten after the Cold War and his fiscal policies could easily be confused with those of a pre-Goldwater East Coast Republican.” >>>> >>>> http://theduran.com/putin-trump-new-normalcy/ >>>> >>>> >>>> ____ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From deb.pdamerica at gmail.com Thu Dec 22 13:13:08 2016 From: deb.pdamerica at gmail.com (Debra Schrishuhn) Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2016 07:13:08 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Against hysteria In-Reply-To: <39BDD7C6-2B6A-4C12-8CC2-1738048B3F83@illinois.edu> References: <9266CF74-0DF6-4247-8518-094C3328BDA7@illinois.edu> <9F5E5B82-AE31-440B-8B52-869B9895B872@illinois.edu> <39BDD7C6-2B6A-4C12-8CC2-1738048B3F83@illinois.edu> Message-ID: <284A8CA5-87EE-4D46-9917-406FF7127E0F@gmail.com> As Mort writes, we do not know what policies the Trump regime will pursue. From his past words and actions and his Cabinet and staff nominations--including many white supremacists and individuals connected to racism and a disregard for civil rights, science deniers, skeptics of public education, and the potential for graft and corruption--we have ample reason to be concerned about both his character and his policies. To ignore this man's despicable character, as evidenced by his racism and xenophobia and fascist tendencies and his choices in staffing the next administration (regime), is to condone it. Debra Sent from my iPhone > On Dec 22, 2016, at 6:48 AM, "Carl G. Estabrook" wrote: > > Shouldn’t we pay attention to the policies the Trump administration will follow, more than to his obvious deficiencies of character? > > The Obama administration is. They’re so afraid Trump will reverse Obama's warmongering policies, they’re rushing to try to lock the new administration into their lethal practices. > > Example: Obama has waved a restriction on providing shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles to the 'rebels’ in Syria (including al-Qaeda) - an obvious threat to the Russian air force (who, unlike the USAF, are in Syria legally). HRC wanted a no-fly zone, which she was told would lead to war with Russia; Obama is trying to use jihadists for that. > > The anti-war movement, of which AWARE is a part, should try to give an accurate account of the US government’s war-making, under this administration and the next. > > —CGE > > >> On Dec 22, 2016, at 6:27 AM, Debra Schrishuhn wrote: >> >> Apparently, Trump's racism, xenophobia, and misogyny are true conservative values that you support? His intention to build a wall to keep brown people out of the US and his embrace of torture and extra-judicial killings don't bother you, Carl? His willingness to ignite trade wars and possibly hot wars with that military he plans to build up are OK? His lack of respect for fellow humans, his pathological tendency to lie or say whatever he thinks will advance him, get him attention -- these character traits are acceptable to you? Not to mention his graft, his bullying, his cruelty, his vindictiveness--these trait are acceptable in a US President or in any human being? >> >> That you embrace these odious qualities in another says a great deal about you. >> >> Debra >> >> Sent from my iPhone >> >>> On Dec 21, 2016, at 10:32 PM, "Carl G. Estabrook via Peace" wrote: >>> >>> I have great respect for Richard Wolff, but I wish he’d button his shirt and give us a transcript. >>> >>> I’ve gotten too old to listen to lectures. —CGE >>> >>> >>> >>>> On Dec 21, 2016, at 10:04 PM, Brussel, Morton K wrote: >>>> >>>> I must say that it remains to be seen what Trump will do/represent. >>>> >>>> Aside from his asserted intention to talk to the Russians and emphasize domestic over foreign affairs, his statements relative to China and Cuba and…, with respect to climate change, his coziness with Generals and his expressed intention to increase military spending perhaps by a factor of two, his favoring of “order” (police?) over civil rights, does not lead me to believe the confident remarks of the author who wrote the sentence cited below.This, even leaving aside the various contradictory and ignorant statements he is prone to make.. But yes, he will be a traditionally conservative Republican in favoring the corporate world which he probably knows best and in diverse retrograde social issues. >>>> >>>> I highly recommend a recent YouTube presentation by economist Richard Wolf on the subject of Trumpenomics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dut6sPW52Q >>>> >>>> —mkb >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>>> On Dec 21, 2016, at 9:09 PM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss wrote: >>>>> >>>>> "This is what Trump represents, not radicalism but conservatism in its truest sense, a return to calm after a storm. His policies are amongst the most moderate in recent history. He is anti-interventionist, opposed to the apparatuses that should have been forgotten after the Cold War and his fiscal policies could easily be confused with those of a pre-Goldwater East Coast Republican.” >>>>> >>>>> http://theduran.com/putin-trump-new-normalcy/ >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> ____ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davegreen84 at yahoo.com Thu Dec 22 18:54:49 2016 From: davegreen84 at yahoo.com (David Green) Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2016 18:54:49 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Against hysteria In-Reply-To: <4BEF5039AB283245B9B22D29042452EB4E1B811C@CITESMBX4.ad.uillinois.edu> References: <9266CF74-0DF6-4247-8518-094C3328BDA7@illinois.edu> <9F5E5B82-AE31-440B-8B52-869B9895B872@illinois.edu> <39BDD7C6-2B6A-4C12-8CC2-1738048B3F83@illinois.edu> <284A8CA5-87EE-4D46-9917-406FF7127E0F@gmail.com> <4BEF5039AB283245B9B22D29042452EB4E1B811C@CITESMBX4.ad.uillinois.edu> Message-ID: <1141453996.793663.1482432889059@mail.yahoo.com> Belden, Deb, Mort, et al., I am in agreement with Carl's and Cockburn's criticism of the SPLC, and have been for some time. To me it is similar and related to the manner in which the Anti-Defamation League became a hate group according to its own criteria, hat tip Steven Salaita. The manner in which the Zionism/anti-Semitism issue is treated in both contexts has for some time been a huge red flag regarding the compromised, distractive, liberal, hypocritical political agenda of these groups; albeit less obvious and blatant for the SPLC then ADL. And those with a truly radical race/class agenda (Black Agenda Report) have no time whatsoever for beating up on the KKK, etc. And of course not a world from the SPLC/ADL, to my knowledge, about our wars; I guess that's above their pay grade. Anyway, you can kill lots of people without even hating on them. The juxtaposition of Carl's letter with that of Inge Karliner was just perfect; Inge is about as simple-minded a liberal anti-hater as one can find, and she has on more than one occasion publicly accused me of being an anti-Semite, just because I suggest that Jews should discuss Israel, Zionism, etc. in a more straightforward manner. But of course, such a discussion would be "singling out" Israel. So let's single out the KKK instead. And Cockburn well-proved that the SPLC sits on mountains of cash that is not used to even "fight hate." He did similar fact-based journalism on the illegal spying activities of the ADL. I have no doubt that there are some benefits to "teaching tolerance," the SPLC's signature program. But I'm too much of a materialist to think that racist attitudes explain the foundations of our situation, or lead to constructive solutions. I volunteer in a beautiful rainbow 3rd grade classroom; they quite naturally know not to hate, but they don't have a clue (yet) who is out to make their lives hell, and likely will, sadly, whether it had been Trump or HRC to lead the charge. I find a lot of liberal, pro-Clinton rhetoric right now to be rather hateful in its own right, especially regarding the "white working class." We need to get back to a class analysis that places the "blame" where it rightfully belongs: capitalists behaving like capitalists, especially neoliberal capitalists. Out of that will come an appropriate critique of what Trump is about to do, at least domestically, and attract those WWC voters who would rather have voted for Sanders; not that the Democrats will ever allow a truly enlightened response to neoliberal capitalism. Which leaves us with the same old same old: "socialism or barbarism." DG On Thursday, December 22, 2016 12:05 PM, "Fields, A Belden via Peace" wrote: #yiv0663026083 P {margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;}Carl, Your quoting from another source (the duran) contending that Trump is a moderate and your extensive quote in today's News-Gazette from Alexander Cockburn (whom you characterize as the "best political reporter in the US in his generation--a dubious contention at best) slamming the Southern Poverty Law Center as money-grabbing, are evasions in which  you accept no responsibility because you are just quoting other sources.  This  is a cowardly way to write. I find your "letter" in the the N-G particularly offensive because it appeals to the generally conservative readers of the N-G to view the Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the major stalwarts against bigotry in this country, to be a rotten organization.  We need the Center now more than ever. You present yourself as critically progressive, but have a knack of serving the right.  Your attack on the Southern Poverty Law Center is particularly low and gratuitous, even for you.  It is beneath contemptible.  Belden From: Peace [peace-bounces at lists.chambana.net] on behalf of Debra Schrishuhn via Peace [peace at lists.chambana.net] Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2016 7:13 AM To: Estabrook, Carl G Cc: Peace Discuss; sf-core; Brussel, Morton K; peace; prairiegreens at lists.chambana.net; Occupy CU Subject: Re: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Against hysteria As Mort writes, we do not know what policies the Trump regime will pursue. >From his past words and actions and his Cabinet and staff nominations--including many white supremacists and individuals connected to racism and a disregard for civil rights, science deniers, skeptics of public education, and the potential for graft and corruption--we have ample reason to be concerned about both his character and his policies. To ignore this man's despicable character, as evidenced by his racism and xenophobia and fascist tendencies and his choices in staffing the next administration (regime), is to condone it.  Debra Sent from my iPhone On Dec 22, 2016, at 6:48 AM, "Carl G. Estabrook" wrote: Shouldn’t we pay attention to the policies the Trump administration will follow, more than to his obvious deficiencies of character? The Obama administration is. They’re so afraid Trump will reverse Obama's warmongering policies, they’re rushing to try to lock the new administration into their lethal practices. Example: Obama has waved a restriction on providing shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles to the 'rebels’ in Syria (including al-Qaeda) - an obvious threat to the Russian air force (who, unlike the USAF, are in Syria legally). HRC wanted a no-fly zone, which she was told would lead to war with Russia; Obama is trying to use jihadists for that. The anti-war movement, of which AWARE is a part, should try to give an accurate account of the US government’s war-making, under this administration and the next.  —CGE On Dec 22, 2016, at 6:27 AM, Debra Schrishuhn wrote: Apparently, Trump's racism, xenophobia, and misogyny are true conservative values that you support? His intention to build a wall to keep brown people out of the US and his embrace of torture and extra-judicial killings don't bother you, Carl? His willingness to ignite trade wars and possibly hot wars with that military he plans to build up are OK? His lack of respect for fellow humans, his pathological tendency to lie or say whatever he thinks will advance him, get him attention -- these character traits are acceptable to you? Not to mention his graft, his bullying, his cruelty, his vindictiveness--these trait are acceptable in a US President or in any human being? That you embrace these odious qualities in another says a great deal about you.  Debra Sent from my iPhone On Dec 21, 2016, at 10:32 PM, "Carl G. Estabrook via Peace" wrote: I have great respect for Richard Wolff, but I wish he’d button his shirt and give us a transcript. I’ve gotten too old to listen to lectures.  —CGE On Dec 21, 2016, at 10:04 PM, Brussel, Morton K wrote: I must say that it remains to be seen what Trump will do/represent.  Aside from his asserted intention to talk to the Russians and  emphasize domestic over foreign affairs, his statements relative to China and Cuba and…,  with respect to climate change, his coziness with Generals and his expressed intention to increase military spending perhaps by a factor of two, his favoring of “order” (police?) over civil rights, does not lead me to believe the confident remarks of the author who wrote the sentence cited below.This, even leaving aside  the various contradictory and ignorant statements he is prone to make.. But yes, he will be a traditionally conservative Republican in favoring the corporate world which he probably knows best and in diverse retrograde social issues.  I highly recommend a recent YouTube presentation by economist Richard Wolf on the subject of Trumpenomics:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dut6sPW52Q —mkb On Dec 21, 2016, at 9:09 PM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss wrote: "This is what Trump represents, not radicalism but conservatism in its truest sense, a return to calm after a storm. His policies are amongst the most moderate in recent history. He is anti-interventionist, opposed to the apparatuses that should have been forgotten after the Cold War and his fiscal policies could easily be confused with those of a pre-Goldwater East Coast Republican.” http://theduran.com/putin-trump-new-normalcy/ ____ _______________________________________________ Peace mailing list Peace at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From r-szoke at illinois.edu Thu Dec 22 19:27:08 2016 From: r-szoke at illinois.edu (Szoke, Ron) Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2016 19:27:08 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] DJT on nukes References: <736BD600-8E4F-4201-AFDA-C9B2E1A321B7@illinois.edu> Message-ID: <10DC971B-D2DF-4481-A699-704F888E9FF4@illinois.edu> Begin forwarded message: From: "Szoke, Ron" > Subject: Shared from BBC News Date: December 22, 2016 at 1:14:05 PM CST To: "Szoke, Ron" > http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38410027 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From r-szoke at illinois.edu Thu Dec 22 20:21:37 2016 From: r-szoke at illinois.edu (Szoke, Ron) Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2016 20:21:37 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Confirmation bias References: Message-ID: From: "Szoke, Ron" > Subject: From newyorker.com: A Cartoon from The New Yorker Date: December 22, 2016 at 2:09:29 PM CST To: "Szoke, Ron" > A Cartoon from The New Yorker http://www.newyorker.com/cartoons/daily-cartoon-120916-confirmation-bias -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Thu Dec 22 20:57:04 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2016 20:57:04 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] How to kill an uprising against fascist governments Message-ID: Nit pick everything to death!!!! I posted two lines of congratulations to those who brought about the Urbana Sanctuary City Resolution, and what do we get? Reams of emails “trivializing and criticizing the work and motives of those involved”. Trivializing the efforts of those from previous years attempting to save people who were undocumented, as a result of US war and interventions. Have those who criticized the Sanctuary Movement, read the document, do they know the facts and details related to the law, have they heard the arguments presented by Prof. Boyle, or the issues in relation to what the Immigration Forum has been confronting? We know that currently most immigrants are economic refugees, and the corporations are responsible for bringing them here as cheap, slave labor. However, as one socialist/labor activist told me, “I’m going to support your efforts, because I don’t blame the “victims”. Maybe it only helps a few hundred people as compared to the millions we can save in the anti-war movement, but we here in Champaign/Urbana Il, are only a few grains of sand on the beach. It’s going to take tons of sand to accomplish our goals. We should be organizing to resist war and poverty, but instead we alienate those who may now have awakened to that which is occurring. Yes, the Obama administration has been doing many of these things insidiously, while Trump announced in advance, like a “baseball bat in the face” his intentions. All one has to do is look at his Cabinet appointments and others in his administration, Prof. Peter Navarro a China hater for one, to recognize where we’re headed. Yes, Trump may back away from Russia, for now. The “powers that be” recognize they must proceed more rapidly with China, as time is on China’s side, and attempting to take on two major world powers at the same time, is not strategically viable. This isn’t brain surgery, but it evaded the Obama administration who blindly just followed the advice of their warmongering Advisors, a misreading perhaps of Zbigniew? At least war criminal Kissinger has more sense than to foment wars that can’t be won, he sticks to the vulnerable nations, who have been suffering terribly and will likely continue to do so. So, we have a few more weeks to watch what the Obama administration does in respect to Russia and Syria, which maybe a lot. Given power is coming from “the system” the duck is lame, he isn’t yet dead. We need to prepare for the Trump administration on all fronts, and stop this nitpicking disguised as “intellectual discourse”. Those of us in the anti-war movement need to stop feeling superior because we’re concerned with the “big picture” we need to stop vilifying others for taking up Identity Issues, such as race, gender, etc., they are legitimate issues of concern. Criticize Prof. Dyson for making “race” the cause of all, with his articles in the NYT’s, thats fine. However, when our neighbors make an effort to change things for the better, for some, maybe we need to take a break. If we are to accomplish anything we need to unite and change our system of capitalism which is responsible for all, and we’re not going to do it if we alienate others because “we are right, and they are wrong”. From galliher at illinois.edu Thu Dec 22 21:49:32 2016 From: galliher at illinois.edu (Carl G. Estabrook) Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2016 15:49:32 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] How to kill an uprising against fascist governments In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: "The defensible heart of identity politics is its commitment to opposing forms of discrimination like racism, sexism, and homophobia [and xenophobia]. I share that commitment. But opposing discrimination today has no more to do with a left politics than do equally powerful ethical commitments against, say, violence or dishonesty. Why? Because the core of a left politics is its critique of and resistance to capitalism—its commitment to decommodifying education, health care, and housing, and creating a more economically equal society. Neither hostility to discrimination nor the accompanying enthusiasm for diversity makes the slightest contribution to accomplishing any of those goals. Just the opposite, in fact. They function instead to provide inequality with a meritocratic justification: If everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed, there’s no injustice when some people fail.” [W. B. Michaels, emphasis added] Our rulers recognize how hostility to discrimination and enthusiasm for diversity (both good things) can be used as a distraction from a critique of the economic base of society. HRC knew quite well what she was doing when she attacked Sanders’ New Deal economics by asking a crowd, “If we broke up the big banks tomorrow, would that end racism? Would that end sexism?” Glen Ford made the point early on: "Hillary Wants a Crusade to Defeat Trump’s 'Bigotry' – and Leave Her Bankers Alone." And now when I argue that Trump seems superior to Obama (and Clinton) on war and the economy, I get the answer (even from ‘progressive’ [sic] Democrats) that that doesn’t matter - because Trump is a racist! He may be, but that’s not the point: the point is that Obama has killed 6,000 people with drones, and Hillary would have started a war with Russia in Syria. IP is a conscious distraction from opposition to neoliberalism (more inequality) and neoconservatism (more war). —CGE > On Dec 22, 2016, at 2:57 PM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss wrote: > > Nit pick everything to death!!!! > > I posted two lines of congratulations to those who brought about the Urbana Sanctuary City Resolution, and what do we get? Reams of emails “trivializing and criticizing the work and motives of those involved”. Trivializing the efforts of those from previous years attempting to save people who were undocumented, as a result of US war and interventions. > > Have those who criticized the Sanctuary Movement, read the document, do they know the facts and details related to the law, have they heard the arguments presented by Prof. Boyle, or the issues in relation to what the Immigration Forum has been confronting? > > We know that currently most immigrants are economic refugees, and the corporations are responsible for bringing them here as cheap, slave labor. However, as one socialist/labor activist told me, “I’m going to support your efforts, because I don’t blame the “victims”. Maybe it only helps a few hundred people as compared to the millions we can save in the anti-war movement, but we here in Champaign/Urbana Il, are only a few grains of sand on the beach. It’s going to take tons of sand to accomplish our goals. > > We should be organizing to resist war and poverty, but instead we alienate those who may now have awakened to that which is occurring. Yes, the Obama administration has been doing many of these things insidiously, while Trump announced in advance, like a “baseball bat in the face” his intentions. All one has to do is look at his Cabinet appointments and others in his administration, Prof. Peter Navarro a China hater for one, to recognize where we’re headed. > > Yes, Trump may back away from Russia, for now. The “powers that be” recognize they must proceed more rapidly with China, as time is on China’s side, and attempting to take on two major world powers at the same time, is not strategically viable. This isn’t brain surgery, but it evaded the Obama administration who blindly just followed the advice of their warmongering Advisors, a misreading perhaps of Zbigniew? At least war criminal Kissinger has more sense than to foment wars that can’t be won, he sticks to the vulnerable nations, who have been suffering terribly and will likely continue to do so. > > So, we have a few more weeks to watch what the Obama administration does in respect to Russia and Syria, which maybe a lot. Given power is coming from “the system” the duck is lame, he isn’t yet dead. > > We need to prepare for the Trump administration on all fronts, and stop this nitpicking disguised as “intellectual discourse”. Those of us in the anti-war movement need to stop feeling superior because we’re concerned with the “big picture” we need to stop vilifying others for taking up Identity Issues, such as race, gender, etc., they are legitimate issues of concern. Criticize Prof. Dyson for making “race” the cause of all, with his articles in the NYT’s, thats fine. However, when our neighbors make an effort to change things for the better, for some, maybe we need to take a break. If we are to accomplish anything we need to unite and change our system of capitalism which is responsible for all, and we’re not going to do it if we alienate others because “we are right, and they are wrong”. > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Fri Dec 23 00:21:19 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2016 00:21:19 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Trump on China Message-ID: Published on Thursday, December 22, 2016 by Sacramento Bee (California) Even Before Taking Office, Trump Has Made a Mess President-elect's policy toward China already a disaster by Mark Weisbrot * * * * * * * 2 Comments [http://www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_large/public/views-article/trump-china.jpeg?itok=fFdMeb9b] A Chinese magazine featuring U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on the cover is seen at a newsstand in Shanghai on December 14. China warned Taiwan that declaring independence would be a 'dead end,' state media said December 14, after the island's democratically elected president called Donald Trump in a precedent-breaking move. (Photo: Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty) President-elect Donald Trump's phone call earlier this month with President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan sent shock waves throughout China and much of the world. For nearly four decades, it has been Washington's official policy to diplomatically recognize only China and not Taiwan, an island the mainland considers a breakaway province. Trump has indicated that by abandoning this policy and, in effect, threatening China, he'll be able to bargain for concessions from the Asian power. In reality, though, the call will be remembered as one of the worst diplomatic miscalculations of all time. Trump's team also deserves blame, as apparently the long-distance chat wasn't just another foot-in-mouth Trump moment but was in fact a deliberate strategy shaped with lobbyist influence. And while the Chinese government responded with stern messaging, its actions have been relatively subdued. But don't be fooled: Chinese leaders are giving Trump a chance to chart a different course before he takes office Jan. 20. Bullying may have helped Trump in his real estate career but it is not going to move China. The Chinese economy is now bigger than ours on a purchasing power parity basis, which is what matters when we are talking about such things as military expenditures. The cost of a Chinese-made plane or a Chinese pilot is considerably less than its U.S. dollar equivalent at current exchange rates in America. When we had an arms race with the Soviet Union, its economy was a fraction the size of ours. If we have an arms race with China, we can forget about things like Medicare, which the Republicans already want to privatize. Trump's ostensible reason for the hard line against China is that he wants to negotiate a better deal for U.S. manufacturing, including for workers stateside. The big complaint here is that China has manipulated its currency, keeping it undervalued against the U.S. dollar. This would make U.S. imports from China artificially cheap and our exports more expensive. But there is an easy way to deal with this. As any economist knows, our Treasury Department and Federal Reserve can control the value of the dollar against foreign currencies, like any other country's central financial institutions can. In fact, it is even easier for us than for other countries, since the world accepts the U.S. dollar as the major international reserve currency. Blaming China for the value of the dollar against its currency is therefore mistaken. The reason that our government doesn't intervene to push down the value of the dollar is that powerful U.S. transnational corporations like Wal-Mart prefer a strong dollar because it makes imports and overseas labor cheaper for them. The financial sector also prefers it because it lowers inflation. These people don't care about manufacturing jobs in America. When our government has negotiated with China over economic issues, it has fought for things that profit U.S. corporations, like more patent and copyright protection and greater access for our financial corporations. Ironically, China has actually been intervening to keep its own currency from falling and has burned through about a quarter of its international reserves since June 2015 in the process. At this point, the Chinese would likely welcome our intervention in the same direction, at least to keep the dollar from rising further. So we will soon see if our new presidential administration actually wants to do anything to preserve American manufacturing jobs. In the meantime, picking a fight with China over Taiwan is about the worst way a new presidency could start out, short of actual warfare. © 2016 Sacramento Bee [http://www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_bio_small/public/mark_weisbrot.jpg?itok=kQ9_Rc89] Mark Weisbrot is Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research(CEPR), in Washington, DC. He is also president of Just Foreign Policy. He is co-author, with Dean Baker, of Social Security: The Phony Crisis. E-mail Mark: weisbrot at cepr.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Fri Dec 23 00:26:24 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2016 00:26:24 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] From Tom Engelhardt of Tom Dispatch Message-ID: Published on Thursday, December 22, 2016 by TomDispatch Dystopian Donald: Will Trump Make 1984 Look Like a Nursery Tale? by Tom Engelhardt * * * * * * * 12 Comments [http://www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_large/public/views-article/trump_big_brother_1984.jpg?itok=2M0791Ah] It might just be impossible to overstate how much damage this administration can do. (Photo detail: Jim Bourg/Reuters, Paneikon) Can you doubt that we’re in a dystopian age, even if we’re still four weeks from Donald Trump entering the Oval Office? Never in our lifetimes have we experienced such vivid previews of what unfettered capitalism is likely to mean in an ever more unequal country, now that its version of 1% politics has elevated to the pinnacle of power a bizarre billionaire and his “basket of deplorables.” I’m referring, of course, not to his followers but to his picks for the highest posts in the land. These include a series of generals ready to lead us into a new set of crusadesand a crew of billionaires and multimillionaires prepared to make America theirs again. It’s already a stunningly depressing moment -- and it hasn’t even begun. At the very least, it calls upon the rest of us to rise to the occasion. That means mustering a dystopian imagination that matches the era to come. I have no doubt that you’re as capable as I am of creating bleak scenarios for the future of this country (not to speak of the planet). But just to get the ball rolling on the eve of the holidays, let me offer you a couple of my own dystopian fantasies, focused on the potential actions of President Donald Trump. There is already an enormous literature -- practically a library -- of writings on our unique president-elect’s potential conflicts of interests. He does, after all, own, or lease his name to, various towers, elite golf courses, clubs, hotels, condos, residences, and who knows what else in at least 18 to 20 countries. That name of his, invariably in impressive gold lettering, soars to striking heights in foreign skies across the planet. These days, in fact, the Trump brand and its conflicts are hard to escape, from Bali, the Philippines, and Dubai to Scotland, India, and the very heart of Manhattan Island. There, in my own hometown, at a cost to local taxpayers like me of more than a million bucks a day, the police are protecting him big time, while the Secret Service and the military add their heft to the growing armed camp in mid-Manhattan. They are, of course, defending the Trump Tower -- the very one in which, in June 2015, to Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World,” he rode that escalator directly into the presidential campaign, promising to build a "great wall," lock out all Mexican "rapists," and "make America great again." That tower on busy Fifth Avenue is now fronted by dump trucks filled with sand (“to help protect the Republican presidential nominee from potentially explosive attacks”) and, with the safety of the president and his family in mind, the Secret Service is reportedly considering renting out a couple of floors of the building at a cost to the American taxpayer of $3 million annually, which would, of course, go directly into the coffers of a Trump company. (Hey, no conflict of interest there and don’t even mention the word “kleptocracy”!) All of this will undoubtedly ensure that New York’s most Trump-worthy building, aka the White House North, will be kept reasonably safe from intruders, attackers, suicide bombers, and the like. But much of the imperial Trump brand around the world may not be quite so lucky. Elsewhere, guards will generally be private hires, not government employees, and the money available for any security plans will, as a result, be far more modest. With rare exceptions, the attention of the media has focused on only one aspect of Donald Trump’s conflict-of-interest issues (and they are rampant), not to speak of his urge to duck what he might do about them, or dodge and weave to avoid a promised news conference to discuss them and the role ofhis children in his presidency and his businesses. The emphasis has generally been on the kinds of problems that would arise from a businessman with a branded name coming to power and profiting from, or making decisions based on the money to be made off of, his presidency. Media reports have generally zeroed in, for instance, on how foreign leaders and others might affect national policy by essentially promising to enrich Trump or his children. They report on diplomats who feel obliged to stay at his new hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue just down the street from the White House; or foreign heads of state reaching out to him via his business partners in their lands; or Trump brand deals that are now going through in various countries thanks to his election victory. The focus is almost invariably on how to cope with a president who, for at least the next four years, could stand to profit in mind-boggling ways from his various acts in office (or simply from the position he holds, even if he does nothing). And make no mistake, that issue might indeed edge Trump’s presidency into the truly dodgy, not to say paradigm breaking, when it comes to the history of the White House. But don’t call that dystopian. What few people (the Secret Service aside) are thinking about is the ways in which conflicts of interest could consume the new president by threatening not to enrich, but impoverish him (and his children). Head down that path and believe me you’re instantly in dystopian territory. Here’s a scenario for you: It’s April 1, 2017. Donald J. Trump has been in office for less than two and a half months when a nattily dressed “businessman” manages to enter Trump Towers Istanbul, which soars into the skyline of the Turkish capital with the name of the new American president impressively done up in gold letters atop one of its towers. Once in the lobby, that man, a messenger from the Islamic State who made it through the complex's private security screening with a suicide vest strapped to his body, blows himself up, killing a doorman, a security screener, and a number of residents, while wounding a dozen others. Of course, I’ve never been to Trump Towers Istanbul, so I don’t really know what security measures are in place there in the heart of that already explosive capital, but given the Trump projects scattered around the world, feel free to pick your own branded building, resort, or hotel. And that initial explosion would just be a start. Don’t forget that it only cost Osama bin Laden a reported $400,000 to stage the 9/11 attacks and lure the Bush administration into a set of trillion-dollar failed wars that would help spread terror movements across the Greater Middle East and Africa. So don’t for a second imagine that the leadership of ISIS (or similar groups) won’t see the advantages of sending such messengers on the cheap to get under the oh-so-thin-skin of the new American president and embroil him in god knows what. Imagine this as well: it’s 2018. China and the U.S. are at loggerheads across the Taiwan strait, pressures and emotions are rising again in northern Africa, where continuing American military assaults in Libya and Somalia have only increased the pre-Trumpian chaos, as well as in the heartlands of the Middle East where, despite massive American bombing campaigns, ISIS, once again a guerilla group without territory, is causing chaos. In addition, in Afghanistan, 17 years after America's second Afghan War began, the U.S.-backed government in Kabul is tottering in the face of new Taliban, ISIS, and al-Qaeda offensives. Massive waves of immigrants from all these unsettled lands continue to endanger an angry Europe, and everywhere anti-Americanism is on the rise, not in a generalized sense, but focused in fury on the American president and his much-beloved brand. Imagine as well for a moment growing demonstrations, protests, and the like, all aimed at various towers, clubs, resorts, and condominiums in the Trump stable. And consider just what a combination of threatened terror attacks and roiling demonstrations, as well as increasing anger over the Trump name across the Islamic world and elsewhere, might mean to the profitability of the president's brand. Now, think about the Trump towers in Pune, India, or the 75-story tower in Mumbai, or the “six-star” luxury resort in Bali, or the tower going up in Manila’s Century City (each a high-end Trump-labeled project expected to come online in the near future and all, except Pune, at past sites of devastating terror bombings). What will their owners do if prospective buyers, fearing for their comfort, health, or even lives, begin to flee? What happens when the hotels can’t keep their rooms filled, the condominiums lose their bidders, and the Trump brand suddenly begins to empty out? There is, of course, no guarantee that such a thing will happen, but if you stop to consider the possibility, it’s not hard to imagine. Next, take into account what you already know about Donald Trump, a man inordinately proud of his brand and hypersensitive beyond belief. Now, try to imagine -- and in Trumpian terms we’re talking about a truly dystopian world here -- what American foreign policy might look like if, amid the fears of resort-goers, golfers, business types, and the like, that brand began to tank internationally, if raising those giant gold letters over any city immediately ensured either mind-boggling problems or staggering security costs (and, at a minimum, a life of TSA-style lines for consumers). Don’t for a second doubt that, under such circumstances, American foreign and military policy would end up being focused on saving the Trump brand, which, in turn, would be a nightmare to behold. Speaking of past controversies over presidential appointments -- okay, I know we weren’t, but humor me here -- in 1953, President Dwight Eisenhower had his own Rex Tillerson-style moment and picked Charles Wilson, the CEO of industrial giant General Motors, to be his secretary of defense. At his confirmation hearings, Wilson infamously offered this formula for success, “I thought what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa.” If the State Department and the military were indeed tasked with digging out the Trump brand, you would need to turn that comment upside down and inside out: “I thought what was bad for the Trump brand was bad for America, and vice versa.” Indeed, if the Trump brand starts to go belly up, knowing what we do about the president-elect, we would be almost certain to see a foreign policy increasingly devoted to saving his brand and under those circumstances -- in the words of former State Department official Peter Van Buren -- what could possibly go wrong? Now, that is dystopian territory. Assassin-in-Chief Let me add another dystopian fantasy to what obviously could be an endless string of them. For a moment, let’s think about the topic of presidential assassinations. By that I don’t mean assassinated presidents like Lincoln, McKinley, or Kennedy. What I have in mind is the modern presidential urge to assassinate others. Since at least Dwight Eisenhower, American presidents have been in the camp of the assassins. With Eisenhower, it was the CIA’s plot against Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba; with John Kennedy (and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy), it was Cuba’s Fidel Castro; with Richard Nixon (and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger), it was the killing of Chilean President Salvador Allendein a U.S.-backed military coup, which was also the first 9/11 attack (September 11, 1973). In 1976, in the wake of Watergate, President Gerald Ford would outlaw political assassination by executive order, a ban reaffirmed by subsequent presidents (although Ronald Reagan did direct U.S. Air Force planes to bomb Libyan autocrat Muammar Gaddafi’s home). As this new century began, however, the sexiest high-tech killer around, the appropriately named Predator drone, would be armed with Hellfire missiles and sent into action in the war on terror, creating the possibility of presidential assassinations on a scale never before imagined. Its subsequent missions threatened to create a Terminator version of our world. At the behest of two presidents, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, a fleet of such robotic assassins would enter historically unique terrain as global hunter-killers outside official American war zones. They and their successors, Reaper drones (as in the Grim Reaper), would be dispatched on mass assassination sprees that have yet to end and that were largely organized in the White House itself based on a regularly updated, presidentially approved “kill list.” In this way, the president, his aides, and his advisers became judge, jury, and executioner for “terror suspects” (though often enough any man, woman, or child who happened to be in the vicinity) halfway around the world. As I wrote back in 2012, in the process, the commander-in-chief became a permanent assassin-in-chief. Now, presidents were tasked with overseeing the elimination of hundreds of people in other lands with a sense of “legality” granted them in secret memos by the lawyers of their own Justice Department. Talk about dystopian! George Orwell would have been awed. So when it comes to assassinations, we were already on dark terrain before Donald Trump ever thought about running for president. But give the man his due. Little noticed by anyone, he may already be developing the potential for a new style of presidential assassination -- not in distant lands but right here at home. Start with his remarkable tweeting skills and the staggering 17.2 million followers of whatever he tweets, including numerous members of what’s politely referred to as the alt-right. And believe me, that’s one hell of an audience to stir up, something The Donald has shown that he can do with alacrity. In a sense, you could already think of him as a kind of Twitter hit man. Certainly, his power to lash out in 140 characters is no small thing. Recently, for instance, he suddenly tweeted a criticism of arms-maker Lockheed-Martin for producing the most expensive weapons system in history, the F-35 fighter jet. (“The F-35 program and cost is out of control. Billions of dollars can and will be saved on military [and other] purchases after January 20th.”) The company’s stock value promptly took a $4 billion hit -- which, I must admit, I found amusing, not dystopian. He also seems to have been irritated by a Chicago Tribune column that focused on Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg’s criticisms of his comments on international trade and China, where that company does significant business. Muilenburg suggested, mildly enough, that he “back off from the 2016 anti-trade rhetoric and perceived threats to punish other countries with higher tariffs or fees.” In response, The Donald promptly took out after the company, calling for the cancellation of a Boeing contract for a new high-tech version of Air Force One, the president’s plane. (“Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!”) That company’s stock similarly took a hit. But giant military-industrial corporations can, of course, defend themselves. So no pity there. When it comes to regular citizens, however, it’s another matter. Take Chuck Jones, president of an Indiana United Steelworkers local. He disputed Trump on how many jobs the president-elect had recently saved at Carrier Corporation. Significantly less, he insisted (quite accurately), than Trump claimed. That clearly bruised the president-elect’s giant but remarkably fragile ego. Before he knew what hit him, Jones found himself the object of a typical Trumpian twitter barrage. (“Chuck Jones, who is President of United Steelworkers 1999, has done a terrible job representing workers. No wonder companies flee country!”) The next thing he knew, abusive and threatening calls were pouring in -- things like “we’re coming for you” or, as Jones explained it, “Nothing that says they’re gonna kill me, but, you know, you better keep your eye on your kids. We know what car you drive. Things along those lines.” A year ago, an 18-year-old college student had a similar experience after getting up at a campaign event and telling Trump that he was no “friend to women.” The candidate promptly went on the Twitter attack, labelling her “arrogant,” and the next thing she knew, as the Washington Post described it, “her phone began ringing with callers leaving threatening messages that were often sexual in nature. Her Facebook and email inboxes filled with similar messages. As her addresses circulated on social media and her photo flashed on the news, she fled home to hide.” On this basis, it’s not hard to make a prediction. One of these days in Trump’s presidency, he will strike out by tweet at a private citizen (“Sad!”) who got under his skin. In response, some unhinged member of what might be thought of as his future alt-drone force will pick up a gun (of which so many more will be so much closer at hand in the NRA-ascendant age of Trump). Then, in the fashion of the fellow who decided to “self-investigate” the pizza shop in Washington that -- thank you, “fake news” -- was supposed to be the center of a Hillary Clinton child-sex-slave ring, he will go self-investigate in person and armed. In “Pizzagate,” the fellow, now under arrest, fired his assault rifle harmlessly in that restaurant, whose owner had already received more than his share of abusive phone messages and death threats. It’s easy enough to imagine, however, quite another result of such an event. In that case, Donald Trump will have given assassination by drone a new meaning. And should that happen, what will be the consequences of the first presidential Twitter “hit” job in our history? Don’t forget, of course, that, thanks to George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Trump will also have all those CIA drones to use as he wishes to knock off whomever he chooses in distant lands. But as a potential Twitter assassin, rousing his alt-drones to the attack, he would achieve quite another kind of American first. A Message for Planet Earth And that’s just to edge my way into the future universe of Donald Trump, which is, of course, about to become all our universes. I suspect that his will turn out to be the screw-you presidency of all time. And believe me, that will prove to be dystopian beyond compare -- or do I mean beyond despair? Take the most dystopian issue of all: climate change. In recent weeks, Trump has mumbled sweet nothings to the assembled New York Times staff, swearing that he’s keeping an “open mind” when it comes to the link between humanity and a warming planet. He's also sweet-talked Al Gore right in the heart of Trump Tower. (“I had a lengthy and very productive session with the president-elect,” said Gore afterward. “It was a sincere search for areas of common ground... I found it an extremely interesting conversation, and to be continued.”) Whatever else Donald Trump may be, he is, first and foremost, a salesman, which means he knows how to sell anything and charm just about anyone, when needed, and reality be damned. If, however, you want to gauge his actual feelings on the subject, those outer borough sentiments of his youthful years when he evidently grew up feeling one-down to New York’s elite, then pay no attention to what he’s saying and take a look at what he’s doing. On climate change, it’s screw-you devastating all the way and visible payback to the many greens, liberals, and those simply worried about the fate of the Earth for their grandchildren who didn’t vote for or support him. The Guardian recently did a rundown on his choices for both his transition team and key posts in his administration having anything to do with energy or the warming of the planet. It found climate deniers and so-called skeptics everywhere. In fact, “at least nine senior members” of his transition team, reported Oliver Milman of that paper, “deny basic scientific understanding that the planet is warming due to the burning of carbon and other human activity.” Combine this with the president-elect’s urge to release American fossil fuels in a way no one previously has and you have a message that couldn’t be clearer or more devastating for the future of a livable planet. Think of it as so dystopian, so potentially post-apocalyptic, that it makes 1984 look like a nursery tale. The message couldn’t be clearer. If I had to put it in just five words, they would be: Trump to Earth: Drop Dead. And oh yes, happy holidays! © 2016 TomDispatch.com [http://www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_bio_small/public/tom_engelhardt.jpg?itok=uzkkCwva] [shadowgovengelhardt.jpg]Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.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. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From galliher at illinois.edu Fri Dec 23 01:18:55 2016 From: galliher at illinois.edu (Carl G. Estabrook) Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2016 19:18:55 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Trump on China In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <49CF1085-B602-4277-97E7-F00DA6739519@illinois.edu> [The article doesn’t quite say what the headline does. (Mark doesn’t rite the headline.)] "...Chinese government ... actions have been relatively subdued ... Chinese leaders are giving Trump a chance to chart a different course before he takes office Jan. 20. "The reason that our government doesn't intervene to push down the value of the dollar is that powerful U.S. transnational corporations like Wal-Mart prefer a strong dollar because it makes imports and overseas labor cheaper for them. "The financial sector also prefers it because it lowers inflation. These people don't care about manufacturing jobs in America. "When our government has negotiated with China over economic issues, it has fought for things that profit U.S. corporations, like more patent and copyright protection and greater access for our financial corporations. "Ironically, China has actually been intervening to keep its own currency from falling and has burned through about a quarter of its international reserves since June 2015 in the process. "At this point, the Chinese would likely welcome our intervention in the same direction, at least to keep the dollar from rising further. "So we will soon see if our new presidential administration actually wants to do anything to preserve American manufacturing jobs." —CGE > On Dec 22, 2016, at 6:21 PM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss wrote: > > Published on > Thursday, December 22, 2016 > by Sacramento Bee (California) > Even Before Taking Office, Trump Has Made a Mess > President-elect's policy toward China already a disaster > by Mark Weisbrot > > A Chinese magazine featuring U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on the cover is seen at a newsstand in Shanghai on December 14. China warned Taiwan that declaring independence would be a 'dead end,' state media said December 14, after the island's democratically elected president called Donald Trump in a precedent-breaking move. (Photo: Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty) > President-elect Donald Trump's phone call earlier this month with President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan sent shock waves throughout China and much of the world. > > For nearly four decades, it has been Washington's official policy to diplomatically recognize only China and not Taiwan, an island the mainland considers a breakaway province. > > Trump has indicated that by abandoning this policy and, in effect, threatening China, he'll be able to bargain for concessions from the Asian power. > > In reality, though, the call will be remembered as one of the worst diplomatic miscalculations of all time. Trump's team also deserves blame, as apparently the long-distance chat wasn't just another foot-in-mouth Trump moment but was in fact a deliberate strategy shaped with lobbyist influence. > > And while the Chinese government responded with stern messaging, its actions have been relatively subdued. But don't be fooled: Chinese leaders are giving Trump a chance to chart a different course before he takes office Jan. 20. > > Bullying may have helped Trump in his real estate career but it is not going to move China. > > The Chinese economy is now bigger than ours on a purchasing power parity basis, which is what matters when we are talking about such things as military expenditures. > > The cost of a Chinese-made plane or a Chinese pilot is considerably less than its U.S. dollar equivalent at current exchange rates in America. > > When we had an arms race with the Soviet Union, its economy was a fraction the size of ours. If we have an arms race with China, we can forget about things like Medicare, which the Republicans already want to privatize. > > Trump's ostensible reason for the hard line against China is that he wants to negotiate a better deal for U.S. manufacturing, including for workers stateside. > > The big complaint here is that China has manipulated its currency, keeping it undervalued against the U.S. dollar. This would make U.S. imports from China artificially cheap and our exports more expensive. > > But there is an easy way to deal with this. As any economist knows, our Treasury Department and Federal Reserve can control the value of the dollar against foreign currencies, like any other country's central financial institutions can. > > In fact, it is even easier for us than for other countries, since the world accepts the U.S. dollar as the major international reserve currency. > > Blaming China for the value of the dollar against its currency is therefore mistaken. > > The reason that our government doesn't intervene to push down the value of the dollar is that powerful U.S. transnational corporations like Wal-Mart prefer a strong dollar because it makes imports and overseas labor cheaper for them. > > The financial sector also prefers it because it lowers inflation. These people don't care about manufacturing jobs in America. > > When our government has negotiated with China over economic issues, it has fought for things that profit U.S. corporations, like more patent and copyright protection and greater access for our financial corporations. > > Ironically, China has actually been intervening to keep its own currency from falling and has burned through about a quarter of its international reserves since June 2015 in the process. > > At this point, the Chinese would likely welcome our intervention in the same direction, at least to keep the dollar from rising further. > > So we will soon see if our new presidential administration actually wants to do anything to preserve American manufacturing jobs. > > In the meantime, picking a fight with China over Taiwan is about the worst way a new presidency could start out, short of actual warfare. > > © 2016 Sacramento Bee > > > Mark Weisbrot is Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research(CEPR), in Washington, DC. He is also president of Just Foreign Policy. He is co-author, with Dean Baker, of Social Security: The Phony Crisis. E-mail Mark: weisbrot at cepr.net > > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss From karenaram at hotmail.com Fri Dec 23 12:20:46 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2016 12:20:46 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Trump on China In-Reply-To: <49CF1085-B602-4277-97E7-F00DA6739519@illinois.edu> References: <49CF1085-B602-4277-97E7-F00DA6739519@illinois.edu> Message-ID: Carl You’ve taken statements out of context to make your point, that of supporting Trump, but you are changing the whole point the author has made. Now, I’ll take some of his statements out of context to make my point: “Trump has indicated that by abandoning this policy and, in effect, threatening China, he'll be able to bargain for concessions from the Asian power." "In reality, though, the call will be remembered as one of the worst diplomatic miscalculations of all time. Trump's team also deserves blame, as apparently the long-distance chat wasn't just another foot-in-mouth Trump moment but was in fact a deliberate strategy shaped with lobbyist influence."And while the Chinese government responded with stern messaging, its actions have been relatively subdued. But don't be fooled: Chinese leaders are giving Trump a chance to chart a different course before he takes office Jan. 20.” “Bullying may have helped Trump in his real estate career but it is not going to move China." “The Chinese economy is now bigger than ours on a purchasing power parity basis, which is what matters when we are talking about such things as military expenditures." “The cost of a Chinese-made plane or a Chinese pilot is considerably less than its U.S. dollar equivalent at current exchange rates in America." "When we had an arms race with the Soviet Union, its economy was a fraction the size of ours. If we have an arms race with China, we can forget about things like Medicare, which the Republicans already want to privatize.” On Dec 22, 2016, at 17:18, Carl G. Estabrook > wrote: [The article doesn’t quite say what the headline does. (Mark doesn’t rite the headline.)] "...Chinese government ... actions have been relatively subdued ... Chinese leaders are giving Trump a chance to chart a different course before he takes office Jan. 20. "The reason that our government doesn't intervene to push down the value of the dollar is that powerful U.S. transnational corporations like Wal-Mart prefer a strong dollar because it makes imports and overseas labor cheaper for them. "The financial sector also prefers it because it lowers inflation. These people don't care about manufacturing jobs in America. "When our government has negotiated with China over economic issues, it has fought for things that profit U.S. corporations, like more patent and copyright protection and greater access for our financial corporations. "Ironically, China has actually been intervening to keep its own currency from falling and has burned through about a quarter of its international reserves since June 2015 in the process. "At this point, the Chinese would likely welcome our intervention in the same direction, at least to keep the dollar from rising further. "So we will soon see if our new presidential administration actually wants to do anything to preserve American manufacturing jobs." —CGE On Dec 22, 2016, at 6:21 PM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss > wrote: Published on Thursday, December 22, 2016 by Sacramento Bee (California) Even Before Taking Office, Trump Has Made a Mess President-elect's policy toward China already a disaster by Mark Weisbrot A Chinese magazine featuring U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on the cover is seen at a newsstand in Shanghai on December 14. China warned Taiwan that declaring independence would be a 'dead end,' state media said December 14, after the island's democratically elected president called Donald Trump in a precedent-breaking move. (Photo: Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty) President-elect Donald Trump's phone call earlier this month with President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan sent shock waves throughout China and much of the world. For nearly four decades, it has been Washington's official policy to diplomatically recognize only China and not Taiwan, an island the mainland considers a breakaway province. Trump has indicated that by abandoning this policy and, in effect, threatening China, he'll be able to bargain for concessions from the Asian power. In reality, though, the call will be remembered as one of the worst diplomatic miscalculations of all time. Trump's team also deserves blame, as apparently the long-distance chat wasn't just another foot-in-mouth Trump moment but was in fact a deliberate strategy shaped with lobbyist influence. And while the Chinese government responded with stern messaging, its actions have been relatively subdued. But don't be fooled: Chinese leaders are giving Trump a chance to chart a different course before he takes office Jan. 20. Bullying may have helped Trump in his real estate career but it is not going to move China. The Chinese economy is now bigger than ours on a purchasing power parity basis, which is what matters when we are talking about such things as military expenditures. The cost of a Chinese-made plane or a Chinese pilot is considerably less than its U.S. dollar equivalent at current exchange rates in America. When we had an arms race with the Soviet Union, its economy was a fraction the size of ours. If we have an arms race with China, we can forget about things like Medicare, which the Republicans already want to privatize. Trump's ostensible reason for the hard line against China is that he wants to negotiate a better deal for U.S. manufacturing, including for workers stateside. The big complaint here is that China has manipulated its currency, keeping it undervalued against the U.S. dollar. This would make U.S. imports from China artificially cheap and our exports more expensive. But there is an easy way to deal with this. As any economist knows, our Treasury Department and Federal Reserve can control the value of the dollar against foreign currencies, like any other country's central financial institutions can. In fact, it is even easier for us than for other countries, since the world accepts the U.S. dollar as the major international reserve currency. Blaming China for the value of the dollar against its currency is therefore mistaken. The reason that our government doesn't intervene to push down the value of the dollar is that powerful U.S. transnational corporations like Wal-Mart prefer a strong dollar because it makes imports and overseas labor cheaper for them. The financial sector also prefers it because it lowers inflation. These people don't care about manufacturing jobs in America. When our government has negotiated with China over economic issues, it has fought for things that profit U.S. corporations, like more patent and copyright protection and greater access for our financial corporations. Ironically, China has actually been intervening to keep its own currency from falling and has burned through about a quarter of its international reserves since June 2015 in the process. At this point, the Chinese would likely welcome our intervention in the same direction, at least to keep the dollar from rising further. So we will soon see if our new presidential administration actually wants to do anything to preserve American manufacturing jobs. In the meantime, picking a fight with China over Taiwan is about the worst way a new presidency could start out, short of actual warfare. © 2016 Sacramento Bee Mark Weisbrot is Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research(CEPR), in Washington, DC. He is also president of Just Foreign Policy. He is co-author, with Dean Baker, of Social Security: The Phony Crisis. E-mail Mark: weisbrot at cepr.net _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Fri Dec 23 12:40:42 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2016 12:40:42 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] How to kill an uprising against fascist governments In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: We are no longer talking about Hillary. In a few weeks we will no longer be talking about Obama, and yes there are concerns for what he may do over the coming weeks, but we are looking at a Trump Administration, which based upon choices he has made couldn’t be worse. None of them are interested in peace. Peace only with Russia as a tactic and strategy for now. While that looks good, there are too many other concerns to be addressed. It’s not just about Trump being a racist, people are concerned about the choices he has made in respect to almost every Institution. In spite of his choices you continue to support him, while continuing to bash Obama. You have spent weeks bashing Jill Stein, yet continuing to support Trump on every level On Dec 22, 2016, at 13:49, Carl G. Estabrook > wrote: "The defensible heart of identity politics is its commitment to opposing forms of discrimination like racism, sexism, and homophobia [and xenophobia]. I share that commitment. But opposing discrimination today has no more to do with a left politics than do equally powerful ethical commitments against, say, violence or dishonesty. Why? Because the core of a left politics is its critique of and resistance to capitalism—its commitment to decommodifying education, health care, and housing, and creating a more economically equal society. Neither hostility to discrimination nor the accompanying enthusiasm for diversity makes the slightest contribution to accomplishing any of those goals. Just the opposite, in fact. They function instead to provide inequality with a meritocratic justification: If everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed, there’s no injustice when some people fail.” [W. B. Michaels, emphasis added] Our rulers recognize how hostility to discrimination and enthusiasm for diversity (both good things) can be used as a distraction from a critique of the economic base of society. HRC knew quite well what she was doing when she attacked Sanders’ New Deal economics by asking a crowd, “If we broke up the big banks tomorrow, would that end racism? Would that end sexism?” Glen Ford made the point early on: "Hillary Wants a Crusade to Defeat Trump’s 'Bigotry' – and Leave Her Bankers Alone." And now when I argue that Trump seems superior to Obama (and Clinton) on war and the economy, I get the answer (even from ‘progressive’ [sic] Democrats) that that doesn’t matter - because Trump is a racist! He may be, but that’s not the point: the point is that Obama has killed 6,000 people with drones, and Hillary would have started a war with Russia in Syria. IP is a conscious distraction from opposition to neoliberalism (more inequality) and neoconservatism (more war). —CGE On Dec 22, 2016, at 2:57 PM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss > wrote: Nit pick everything to death!!!! I posted two lines of congratulations to those who brought about the Urbana Sanctuary City Resolution, and what do we get? Reams of emails “trivializing and criticizing the work and motives of those involved”. Trivializing the efforts of those from previous years attempting to save people who were undocumented, as a result of US war and interventions. Have those who criticized the Sanctuary Movement, read the document, do they know the facts and details related to the law, have they heard the arguments presented by Prof. Boyle, or the issues in relation to what the Immigration Forum has been confronting? We know that currently most immigrants are economic refugees, and the corporations are responsible for bringing them here as cheap, slave labor. However, as one socialist/labor activist told me, “I’m going to support your efforts, because I don’t blame the “victims”. Maybe it only helps a few hundred people as compared to the millions we can save in the anti-war movement, but we here in Champaign/Urbana Il, are only a few grains of sand on the beach. It’s going to take tons of sand to accomplish our goals. We should be organizing to resist war and poverty, but instead we alienate those who may now have awakened to that which is occurring. Yes, the Obama administration has been doing many of these things insidiously, while Trump announced in advance, like a “baseball bat in the face” his intentions. All one has to do is look at his Cabinet appointments and others in his administration, Prof. Peter Navarro a China hater for one, to recognize where we’re headed. Yes, Trump may back away from Russia, for now. The “powers that be” recognize they must proceed more rapidly with China, as time is on China’s side, and attempting to take on two major world powers at the same time, is not strategically viable. This isn’t brain surgery, but it evaded the Obama administration who blindly just followed the advice of their warmongering Advisors, a misreading perhaps of Zbigniew? At least war criminal Kissinger has more sense than to foment wars that can’t be won, he sticks to the vulnerable nations, who have been suffering terribly and will likely continue to do so. So, we have a few more weeks to watch what the Obama administration does in respect to Russia and Syria, which maybe a lot. Given power is coming from “the system” the duck is lame, he isn’t yet dead. We need to prepare for the Trump administration on all fronts, and stop this nitpicking disguised as “intellectual discourse”. Those of us in the anti-war movement need to stop feeling superior because we’re concerned with the “big picture” we need to stop vilifying others for taking up Identity Issues, such as race, gender, etc., they are legitimate issues of concern. Criticize Prof. Dyson for making “race” the cause of all, with his articles in the NYT’s, thats fine. However, when our neighbors make an effort to change things for the better, for some, maybe we need to take a break. If we are to accomplish anything we need to unite and change our system of capitalism which is responsible for all, and we’re not going to do it if we alienate others because “we are right, and they are wrong”. _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From galliher at illinois.edu Fri Dec 23 12:48:12 2016 From: galliher at illinois.edu (Carl G. Estabrook) Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2016 06:48:12 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Trump on China In-Reply-To: References: <49CF1085-B602-4277-97E7-F00DA6739519@illinois.edu> Message-ID: Karen— I’m not interested in supporting Trump but rather in understanding the current US political situation, which includes a thoroughly ideologized press that doesn’t hesitate to misrepresent Trump. Mark Weisbrot (known to many of us in C-U) is far better than most: all the more interesting that his article is so ambiguous - even self-contradictory - on US China policy. (An editor’s hand - like the headline - as well as Mark’s?) Let’s hope that in re China as elsewhere, "what's past is prologue; what to come, / In yours and my discharge.” Media misinformation is designed to prevent that. —CGE > On Dec 23, 2016, at 6:20 AM, Karen Aram wrote: > > > Carl > > You’ve taken statements out of context to make your point, that of supporting Trump, but you are changing the whole point the author has made. Now, I’ll take some of his statements out of context to make my point: > > >>> “Trump has indicated that by abandoning this policy and, in effect, threatening China, he'll be able to bargain for concessions from the Asian power." >>> >>> "In reality, though, the call will be remembered as one of the worst diplomatic miscalculations of all time. Trump's team also deserves blame, as apparently the long-distance chat wasn't just another foot-in-mouth Trump moment but was in fact a deliberate strategy shaped with lobbyist influence."And while the Chinese government responded with stern messaging, its actions have been relatively subdued. But don't be fooled: Chinese leaders are giving Trump a chance to chart a different course before he takes office Jan. 20.” >>> >>> “Bullying may have helped Trump in his real estate career but it is not going to move China." >>> >>> “The Chinese economy is now bigger than ours on a purchasing power parity basis, which is what matters when we are talking about such things as military expenditures." >>> >>> “The cost of a Chinese-made plane or a Chinese pilot is considerably less than its U.S. dollar equivalent at current exchange rates in America." >>> >>> "When we had an arms race with the Soviet Union, its economy was a fraction the size of ours. If we have an arms race with China, we can forget about things like Medicare, which the Republicans already want to privatize.” > >> On Dec 22, 2016, at 17:18, Carl G. Estabrook > wrote: >> >> [The article doesn’t quite say what the headline does. (Mark doesn’t write the headline.)] >> >> "...Chinese government ... actions have been relatively subdued ... Chinese leaders are giving Trump a chance to chart a different course before he takes office Jan. 20. >> >> "The reason that our government doesn't intervene to push down the value of the dollar is that powerful U.S. transnational corporations like Wal-Mart prefer a strong dollar because it makes imports and overseas labor cheaper for them. >> >> "The financial sector also prefers it because it lowers inflation. These people don't care about manufacturing jobs in America. >> >> "When our government has negotiated with China over economic issues, it has fought for things that profit U.S. corporations, like more patent and copyright protection and greater access for our financial corporations. >> >> "Ironically, China has actually been intervening to keep its own currency from falling and has burned through about a quarter of its international reserves since June 2015 in the process. >> >> "At this point, the Chinese would likely welcome our intervention in the same direction, at least to keep the dollar from rising further. >> >> "So we will soon see if our new presidential administration actually wants to do anything to preserve American manufacturing jobs." >> >> —CGE >> >>> On Dec 22, 2016, at 6:21 PM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss > wrote: >>> >>> Published on >>> Thursday, December 22, 2016 >>> by Sacramento Bee (California) >>> Even Before Taking Office, Trump Has Made a Mess >>> President-elect's policy toward China already a disaster >>> by Mark Weisbrot >>> >>> A Chinese magazine featuring U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on the cover is seen at a newsstand in Shanghai on December 14. China warned Taiwan that declaring independence would be a 'dead end,' state media said December 14, after the island's democratically elected president called Donald Trump in a precedent-breaking move. (Photo: Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty) >>> President-elect Donald Trump's phone call earlier this month with President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan sent shock waves throughout China and much of the world. >>> >>> For nearly four decades, it has been Washington's official policy to diplomatically recognize only China and not Taiwan, an island the mainland considers a breakaway province. >>> >>> Trump has indicated that by abandoning this policy and, in effect, threatening China, he'll be able to bargain for concessions from the Asian power. >>> >>> In reality, though, the call will be remembered as one of the worst diplomatic miscalculations of all time. Trump's team also deserves blame, as apparently the long-distance chat wasn't just another foot-in-mouth Trump moment but was in fact a deliberate strategy shaped with lobbyist influence. >>> >>> And while the Chinese government responded with stern messaging, its actions have been relatively subdued. But don't be fooled: Chinese leaders are giving Trump a chance to chart a different course before he takes office Jan. 20. >>> >>> Bullying may have helped Trump in his real estate career but it is not going to move China. >>> >>> The Chinese economy is now bigger than ours on a purchasing power parity basis, which is what matters when we are talking about such things as military expenditures. >>> >>> The cost of a Chinese-made plane or a Chinese pilot is considerably less than its U.S. dollar equivalent at current exchange rates in America. >>> >>> When we had an arms race with the Soviet Union, its economy was a fraction the size of ours. If we have an arms race with China, we can forget about things like Medicare, which the Republicans already want to privatize. >>> >>> Trump's ostensible reason for the hard line against China is that he wants to negotiate a better deal for U.S. manufacturing, including for workers stateside. >>> >>> The big complaint here is that China has manipulated its currency, keeping it undervalued against the U.S. dollar. This would make U.S. imports from China artificially cheap and our exports more expensive. >>> >>> But there is an easy way to deal with this. As any economist knows, our Treasury Department and Federal Reserve can control the value of the dollar against foreign currencies, like any other country's central financial institutions can. >>> >>> In fact, it is even easier for us than for other countries, since the world accepts the U.S. dollar as the major international reserve currency. >>> >>> Blaming China for the value of the dollar against its currency is therefore mistaken. >>> >>> The reason that our government doesn't intervene to push down the value of the dollar is that powerful U.S. transnational corporations like Wal-Mart prefer a strong dollar because it makes imports and overseas labor cheaper for them. >>> >>> The financial sector also prefers it because it lowers inflation. These people don't care about manufacturing jobs in America. >>> >>> When our government has negotiated with China over economic issues, it has fought for things that profit U.S. corporations, like more patent and copyright protection and greater access for our financial corporations. >>> >>> Ironically, China has actually been intervening to keep its own currency from falling and has burned through about a quarter of its international reserves since June 2015 in the process. >>> >>> At this point, the Chinese would likely welcome our intervention in the same direction, at least to keep the dollar from rising further. >>> >>> So we will soon see if our new presidential administration actually wants to do anything to preserve American manufacturing jobs. >>> >>> In the meantime, picking a fight with China over Taiwan is about the worst way a new presidency could start out, short of actual warfare. >>> >>> © 2016 Sacramento Bee >>> >>> >>> Mark Weisbrot is Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research(CEPR), in Washington, DC. He is also president of Just Foreign Policy. He is co-author, with Dean Baker, of Social Security: The Phony Crisis. E-mail Mark: weisbrot at cepr.net >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Peace-discuss mailing list >>> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net >>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From galliher at illinois.edu Fri Dec 23 13:37:50 2016 From: galliher at illinois.edu (Carl G. Estabrook) Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2016 07:37:50 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] How to kill an uprising against fascist governments In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <26B6692D-59A6-4570-8DE5-4E37649C967B@illinois.edu> I just wrote in another note to this list, "I’m not interested in supporting Trump but rather in understanding the current US political situation, which includes a thoroughly ideologized press that doesn’t hesitate to misrepresent Trump.” And we should still be talking about Hillary (and Obama) because they’re the leading representatives of the neoconservative and neoliberal positions that Trump has disavowed - so the overriding task for the political establishment right now is to infect the Trump administration with Obama-Clinton views and lock it into their current economic and military policies. There are worrying signs that they’re succeeding, but it’s not proven, even by the amazing insights into Trump’s character provided by establishment pundits. There has of course been far too little bashing of Obama - he has a talent for turning it away - given his appalling record of mystified mass murder. As you have noted, he wouldn’t fare well before a Nuremberg tribunal, on a charge of committing "the supreme international crime [war of aggression] differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” Clinton, as the leading representative of the Democratic party, threatened that and more. Her defeat doesn’t end it; I hope it’s at least a setback. We differ on Jill Stein. Like Jeff St. Clair, I see her as carrying water for the Democrats and attempting to alter the outcome of the election (as her campaign manager - a road-company Svengali? - attempted to do in 2004); you see her as a principled defender of voting rights, even though the Green party Steering Committee (and her v.p. nominee) refused to back her recounts, which were ostensibly for that purpose. She may be both. —CGE > On Dec 23, 2016, at 6:40 AM, Karen Aram wrote: > > We are no longer talking about Hillary. In a few weeks we will no longer be talking about Obama, and yes there are concerns for what he may do over the coming weeks, but we are looking at a Trump Administration, which based upon choices he has made couldn’t be worse. None of them are interested in peace. Peace only with Russia as a tactic and strategy for now. While that looks good, there are too many other concerns to be addressed. > > It’s not just about Trump being a racist, people are concerned about the choices he has made in respect to almost every Institution. In spite of his choices you continue to support him, while continuing to bash Obama. > > You have spent weeks bashing Jill Stein, yet continuing to support Trump on every level > > >> On Dec 22, 2016, at 13:49, Carl G. Estabrook > wrote: >> >> "The defensible heart of identity politics is its commitment to opposing forms of discrimination like racism, sexism, and homophobia [and xenophobia]. I share that commitment. But opposing discrimination today has no more to do with a left politics than do equally powerful ethical commitments against, say, violence or dishonesty. Why? Because the core of a left politics is its critique of and resistance to capitalism—its commitment to decommodifying education, health care, and housing, and creating a more economically equal society. Neither hostility to discrimination nor the accompanying enthusiasm for diversity makes the slightest contribution to accomplishing any of those goals. Just the opposite, in fact. They function instead to provide inequality with a meritocratic justification: If everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed, there’s no injustice when some people fail.” [W. B. Michaels, emphasis added] >> >> Our rulers recognize how hostility to discrimination and enthusiasm for diversity (both good things) can be used as a distraction from a critique of the economic base of society. HRC knew quite well what she was doing when she attacked Sanders’ New Deal economics by asking a crowd, “If we broke up the big banks tomorrow, would that end racism? Would that end sexism?” >> >> Glen Ford made the point early on: "Hillary Wants a Crusade to Defeat Trump’s 'Bigotry' – and Leave Her Bankers Alone." >> >> And now when I argue that Trump seems superior to Obama (and Clinton) on war and the economy, I get the answer (even from ‘progressive’ [sic] Democrats) that that doesn’t matter - because Trump is a racist! >> >> He may be, but that’s not the point: the point is that Obama has killed 6,000 people with drones, and Hillary would have started a war with Russia in Syria. >> >> IP is a conscious distraction from opposition to neoliberalism (more inequality) and neoconservatism (more war). >> >> —CGE >> >> >> >>> On Dec 22, 2016, at 2:57 PM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss > wrote: >>> >>> Nit pick everything to death!!!! >>> >>> I posted two lines of congratulations to those who brought about the Urbana Sanctuary City Resolution, and what do we get? Reams of emails “trivializing and criticizing the work and motives of those involved”. Trivializing the efforts of those from previous years attempting to save people who were undocumented, as a result of US war and interventions. >>> >>> Have those who criticized the Sanctuary Movement, read the document, do they know the facts and details related to the law, have they heard the arguments presented by Prof. Boyle, or the issues in relation to what the Immigration Forum has been confronting? >>> >>> We know that currently most immigrants are economic refugees, and the corporations are responsible for bringing them here as cheap, slave labor. However, as one socialist/labor activist told me, “I’m going to support your efforts, because I don’t blame the “victims”. Maybe it only helps a few hundred people as compared to the millions we can save in the anti-war movement, but we here in Champaign/Urbana Il, are only a few grains of sand on the beach. It’s going to take tons of sand to accomplish our goals. >>> >>> We should be organizing to resist war and poverty, but instead we alienate those who may now have awakened to that which is occurring. Yes, the Obama administration has been doing many of these things insidiously, while Trump announced in advance, like a “baseball bat in the face” his intentions. All one has to do is look at his Cabinet appointments and others in his administration, Prof. Peter Navarro a China hater for one, to recognize where we’re headed. >>> >>> Yes, Trump may back away from Russia, for now. The “powers that be” recognize they must proceed more rapidly with China, as time is on China’s side, and attempting to take on two major world powers at the same time, is not strategically viable. This isn’t brain surgery, but it evaded the Obama administration who blindly just followed the advice of their warmongering Advisors, a misreading perhaps of Zbigniew? At least war criminal Kissinger has more sense than to foment wars that can’t be won, he sticks to the vulnerable nations, who have been suffering terribly and will likely continue to do so. >>> >>> So, we have a few more weeks to watch what the Obama administration does in respect to Russia and Syria, which maybe a lot. Given power is coming from “the system” the duck is lame, he isn’t yet dead. >>> >>> We need to prepare for the Trump administration on all fronts, and stop this nitpicking disguised as “intellectual discourse”. Those of us in the anti-war movement need to stop feeling superior because we’re concerned with the “big picture” we need to stop vilifying others for taking up Identity Issues, such as race, gender, etc., they are legitimate issues of concern. Criticize Prof. Dyson for making “race” the cause of all, with his articles in the NYT’s, thats fine. However, when our neighbors make an effort to change things for the better, for some, maybe we need to take a break. If we are to accomplish anything we need to unite and change our system of capitalism which is responsible for all, and we’re not going to do it if we alienate others because “we are right, and they are wrong”. >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Peace-discuss mailing list >>> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net >>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davegreen84 at yahoo.com Fri Dec 23 14:36:19 2016 From: davegreen84 at yahoo.com (David Green) Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2016 14:36:19 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace-discuss] How to kill an uprising against fascist governments In-Reply-To: <26B6692D-59A6-4570-8DE5-4E37649C967B@illinois.edu> References: <26B6692D-59A6-4570-8DE5-4E37649C967B@illinois.edu> Message-ID: <658199886.1447571.1482503779932@mail.yahoo.com> In his strange way, Trump is not an ideologue; that is, he didn't attend Harvard Law or Business, or Yale Law, etc. His stated views, however often self-contradictory, reflect that. Nevertheless, it seems possible or likely that Trump's appointments, as well as the actual responsibility of governing, will impose the elite consensus neoliberal (and perhaps neocon) perspective on Trump's choices, insofar as he is making the choices. Neoliberalism in particular--the country governed by Wall Street--is a powerful institutional force; I don't see the chops for challenging it among Trump and his appointees. But Clinton would have been assuming office, amidst rapturous IP, with a clear neoliberal/neocon agenda. DG On Friday, December 23, 2016 7:38 AM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss wrote: I just wrote in another note to this list, "I’m not interested in supporting Trump but rather in understanding the current US political situation, which includes a thoroughly ideologized press that doesn’t hesitate to misrepresent Trump.” And we should still be talking about Hillary (and Obama) because they’re the leading representatives of the neoconservative and neoliberal positions that Trump has disavowed - so the overriding task for the political establishment right now is to infect the Trump administration with Obama-Clinton views and lock it into their current economic and military policies.  There are worrying signs that they’re succeeding, but it’s not proven, even by the amazing insights into Trump’s character provided by establishment pundits.  There has of course been far too little bashing of Obama - he has a talent for turning it away - given his appalling record of mystified mass murder. As you have noted, he wouldn’t fare well before a Nuremberg tribunal, on a charge of committing "the supreme international crime [war of aggression] differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” Clinton, as the leading representative of the Democratic party, threatened that and more. Her defeat doesn’t end it; I hope it’s at least a setback.   We differ on Jill Stein. Like Jeff St. Clair, I see her as carrying water for the Democrats and attempting to alter the outcome of the election (as her campaign manager - a road-company Svengali? - attempted to do in 2004); you see her as a principled defender of voting rights, even though the Green party Steering Committee (and her v.p. nominee) refused to back her recounts, which were ostensibly for that purpose. She may be both. —CGE On Dec 23, 2016, at 6:40 AM, Karen Aram wrote: We are no longer talking about Hillary. In a few weeks we will no longer be talking about Obama, and yes there are concerns for what he may do over the coming weeks, but we are looking at a Trump Administration, which based upon choices he has made couldn’t be worse. None of them are interested in peace. Peace only with Russia as a tactic and strategy for now. While that looks good, there are too many other concerns to be addressed.  It’s not just about Trump being a racist, people are concerned about the choices he has made in respect to almost every Institution. In spite of his choices you continue to support him, while continuing to bash Obama. You have spent weeks bashing Jill Stein, yet continuing to support Trump on every level On Dec 22, 2016, at 13:49, Carl G. Estabrook wrote: "The defensible heart of identity politics is its commitment to opposing forms of discrimination like racism, sexism, and homophobia [and xenophobia].I share that commitment. But opposing discrimination today has no more to do with a left politics than do equally powerful ethical commitments against, say, violence or dishonesty.Why? Because the core of a left politics is its critique of and resistance to capitalism—its commitment to decommodifying education, health care, and housing, and creating a more economically equal society.Neither hostility to discrimination nor the accompanying enthusiasm for diversity makes the slightest contribution to accomplishing any of those goals. Just the opposite, in fact. They function instead to provide inequality with a meritocratic justification: If everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed, there’s no injustice when some people fail.” [W. B. Michaels, emphasis added] Our rulers recognize how hostility to discrimination and enthusiasm for diversity (both good things) can be used as a distraction from a critique of the economic base of society. HRC knew quite well what she was doing when she attacked Sanders’ New Deal economics by asking a crowd, “If we broke up the big banks tomorrow, would that end racism? Would that end sexism?”  Glen Ford made the point early on: "Hillary Wants a Crusade to Defeat Trump’s 'Bigotry' – and Leave Her Bankers Alone." And now when I argue that Trump seems superior to Obama (and Clinton) on war and the economy, I get the answer (even from ‘progressive’ [sic] Democrats) that that doesn’t matter - because Trump is a racist! He may be, but that’s not the point: the point is that Obama has killed 6,000 people with drones, and Hillary would have started a war with Russia in Syria. IP is a conscious distraction from opposition to neoliberalism (more inequality) and neoconservatism (more war). —CGE   On Dec 22, 2016, at 2:57 PM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss wrote: Nit pick everything to death!!!! I posted two lines of congratulations to those who brought about the Urbana Sanctuary City Resolution, and what do we get? Reams of emails “trivializing and criticizing the work and motives of those involved”. Trivializing the efforts of those from previous years attempting to save people who were undocumented, as a result of US war and interventions. Have those who criticized the Sanctuary Movement, read the document, do they know the facts and details related to the law, have they heard the arguments presented by Prof. Boyle, or the issues in relation to what the Immigration Forum has been confronting? We know that currently most immigrants are economic refugees, and the corporations are responsible for bringing them here as cheap, slave labor. However, as one socialist/labor activist told me, “I’m going to support your efforts, because I don’t blame the “victims”. Maybe it only helps a few hundred people as compared to the millions we can save in the anti-war movement, but we here in Champaign/Urbana Il, are only a few grains of sand on the beach. It’s going to take tons of sand to accomplish our goals. We should be organizing to resist war and poverty, but instead we alienate those who may now have awakened to that which is occurring. Yes, the Obama administration has been doing many of these things insidiously, while Trump announced in advance, like a “baseball bat in the face” his intentions. All one has to do is look at his Cabinet appointments and others in his administration, Prof. Peter Navarro a China hater for one, to recognize where we’re headed. Yes, Trump may back away from Russia, for now. The “powers that be” recognize they must proceed more rapidly with China, as time is on China’s side, and attempting to take on two major world powers at the same time, is not strategically viable. This isn’t brain surgery, but it evaded the Obama administration who blindly just followed the advice of their warmongering Advisors, a misreading perhaps of Zbigniew? At least war criminal Kissinger has more sense than to foment wars that can’t be won, he sticks to the vulnerable nations, who have been suffering terribly and will likely continue to do so. So, we have a few more weeks to watch what the Obama administration does in respect to Russia and Syria, which maybe a lot. Given power is coming from “the system” the duck is lame, he isn’t yet dead. We need to prepare for the Trump administration on all fronts, and stop this nitpicking disguised as “intellectual discourse”. Those of us in the anti-war movement need to stop feeling superior because we’re concerned with the “big picture” we need to stop vilifying others for taking up Identity Issues, such as race, gender, etc., they are legitimate issues of concern. Criticize Prof. Dyson for making “race” the cause of all, with his articles in the NYT’s, thats fine. However, when our neighbors make an effort to change things for the better, for some, maybe we need to take a break. If we are to accomplish anything we need to unite and change our system of capitalism which is responsible for all, and we’re not going to do it if we alienate others because “we are right, and they are wrong”. _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fboyle at illinois.edu Fri Dec 23 17:45:47 2016 From: fboyle at illinois.edu (Boyle, Francis A) Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2016 17:45:47 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] News Gazette: Good Riddance to Wise {sic!} & Her " Principles on Which We Stand at the University of Illiniwaks" Message-ID: Thanks to Wise {sic!} all the anti-Palestinian Bigots and Racists came out of the woodwork on campus and in town. And she single-handedly gutted our Native American Studies Department. A Two-'Fer for Bigotry and Racism. Way to go Phyllis! Glad to see you go! Take your Bigotry and your Racism with you! Fab. The Principles on Which We Stand At the University of Illiniwaks: The Cult of Chief Illiniwak Long Live Chief Illiniwak! Our Official Honored and Revered Symbol For the University of Illiniwaks And Illiniwaks all over the world! Illiniwak Pride! Illiniwak Fever! The Daily Illiniwak Illiniwaks Yearbooks Illiniwaks Homecoming Our Redskin Tradition Eagle Feathers too Illiniwak Stadium Our Illiniwakettes Our Fighting Illiniwaks Illiniwak Cheerleaders Our Marching Illiniwaks Band Our Famous 3 in 1 Illiniwak Spectacle Dumb! Dumb! Dumb! Dumb! Oskee! Bow! Wow! Just Honoring American Indians Not demeaning anyone Nor meaning them too All very civil How White of us all! The University of Illiniwaks Dumb! Dumb! Dumb! Dumb! And racists to boot Genocidaires too So very educational The Cult of Chief Illiniwak Anthro 101 A required course To get our degrees >From the University of Illiniwaks Oskee! Bow! Wow! Forever! Fab Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign, IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) fboyle at law.uiuc.edu (personal comments only) From: dorinda moreno [mailto:fuerzamundial at gmail.com] Sent: Saturday, December 29, 2007 4:01 PM To: Los Angeles Subject: The Racist Mascot: Why You Should Still Boo Illinois at the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1, 2008 please support this with action at the rose bowl, and forward widely. thanks, dm -----Original Message----- From: Boyle, Francis Sent: Saturday, December 29, 2007 3:05 PM To: nytr at olm.blythe-systems.com Subject: FW: [NYTr] The Racist Mascot: Why You Should Still Boo Illinois at the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1, 2008 Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign, IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) fboyle at law.uiuc.edu (personal comments only) -----Original Message----- From: Boyle, Francis Sent: Saturday, December 29, 2007 3:05 PM To: ' AALSMIN-L at lists.ubalt.edu' Subject: [NYTr] The Racist Mascot: Why You Should Still Boo Illinois at the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1, 2008 -----Original Message----- From: All the News That Doesn't Fit [ mailto:nytr at blythe-systems.com] To: undisclosed-recipients Subject: [NYTr] The Racist Mascot: Why You Should Still Boo Illinois Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit [Imagine that on game days everything remains exactly the same except that the Rabbi itself has since been "retired" from "performing" at half-times.-fab] The Racist Mascot from Urbana-Champaign: Why You Should Still Boo Illinois By FRANCIS BOYLE The self-styled "Fighting Illini" of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are on their way to the Jan. 1, 2008 Rose Bowl with their racist and genocidal mascot and symbol Chief Illiniwak still in tow. Although the NCAA forced the University of Illiniwaks to prevent this Little Red Sambo from desecrating at half-times everything American Indians hold dear and treasure, nevertheless Chief Illiniwak still remains the officially designated "honored symbol" of the University of Illiniwaks at Urbana-Champaign. Just recently the University of Illiniwaks resurrected Chief Illiniwak for the Fall 2007 Homecoming in order to better milk their Alumni/ae as part of their newly launched Capital Campaign, thus definitively proving their craven racism. In his "Year 501: The Conquest Continues" (1993) Noam Chomsky suggests an apt metaphor for such American Indian sports mascots and symbols that I will elaborate upon here in order to conform to our local and most peculiar rites on this campus: Suppose the Nazis had won the Second World War. Sixty years later, a prestigious German state university has a mascot for all of its sports teams and sports fans by the name of "The Rabbi." Basically what happens is that a student from the Hitler Youth League dresses up in an authentic costume for an Hasidic Rabbi, complete with the curl-locks and beard. The University itself collectively call themselves "The Fighting Jews", and the school's band is called "The Marching Jews." The student newspaper is called "The Daily Jew." All the sports fans in town wear jackets and t-shirts with pictures of The Rabbi prominently displayed on them. And most cars have Rabbi stickers planted all over them. Three years ago the University's Board of Trustees ran out of town on a rail a courageous and principled Chancellor who had the temerity to publicly suggest that the time had now come to "retire" the Rabbi. So of course there was a heated campaign on among the students and alumni to "Save the Rabbi!" This German state university plays its soccer matches over at the Nuremberg Stadium in front of an audience of about 75,000 White Aryans , almost all of whom are wearing pro-Rabbi images and clothes. At half-time the Marching Jews take to the stadium floor and begin playing what they purport to be Jewish sounding music along the lines of Fiddler-on-the-Roof. Then all 75,000 White Aryans rise as one and shout in unison: "Rabbi, Rabbi, Rabbi, Rabbi" gesticulating wildly and working themselves up into a feeding frenzy. One lone faculty member sits there in protest shouting "Racist Rabbi!" and everyone in the vicinity proceeds to throw garbage at him. Finally, the moment these ardent White Aryans have all waited for has arrived. The Rabbi runs out onto the arena floor from among the Marching Jews, proceeds to the center of the Nuremberg Stadium, and dances the Hava Nagila while the Marching Jews play on and march into an intricately choreographed maneuver that they all brag about and take special pride in that culminates with the band being organized into a swastika. So the Rabbi continues to dance the Hava Nagila while the Marching Jews form themselves into a swastika. By now all 75,000 White Aryans are hysterical, shouting, screaming and yelling: "Rabbi, Rabbi, Rabbi." This semi-religious spectacle that the Nazis are well known for staging, especially at the Nuremberg stadium, goes on for a good twenty minutes. It all concludes with everyone joining hands to sing "Deutschland, Deutschland Uber Alles," with the Rabbi leading all 75,000 White Aryans in the song. Then the Rabbi proceeds to dance the Hava Nagila out of the stadium followed by the Marching Jews. Everyone goes wild, clapping and cheering. This Rabbi ceremony brings tears to the eyes of many drunken alumni and students who had started several hours beforehand getting inebriated on schnapps and good German beer at pre-game tailgate parties. When it is all over, a visiting law professor from another country asks his host at the soccer match what this spectacle was all about. Without missing a beat the former Dean Mengele of the Law School turns to his guest and says:"We are honoring the Jews." Whom the Nazis had just exterminated 60 years ago, so of course the memory of the Jews needs to be honored by this spectacle. The Illiniwek Indians were ethnically cleansed out of Illinois about a century before that. These are the real "Little Eichmans." Be sure to "boo!" and root against the Illiniwaks. Historically, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, its Boards of Trustees, its Presidents, its Chancellors, its Provosts, its Deans, Directors and Department Heads, and most of its Faculty and Alumni/ae have always been the Ku Klux Klan dressed up in Caps and Gowns instead of Hoods and Sheets. [Francis A. Boyle is Professor of Law at the University of Illinois.] * ================================================================= .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org . List Archives: https://blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ . Subscribe: https://blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fboyle at illinois.edu Fri Dec 23 18:08:13 2016 From: fboyle at illinois.edu (Boyle, Francis A) Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2016 18:08:13 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] FW: FW: News Gazette: Good Riddance to Wise {sic!} & Her " Principles on Which We Stand at the University of Illiniwaks" Message-ID: Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) _____________________________________________ From: Wise, Phyllis M Sent: Friday, December 23, 2016 12:06 PM To: Boyle, Francis A Subject: Read: FW: News Gazette: Good Riddance to Wise {sic!} & Her " Principles on Which We Stand at the University of Illiniwaks" Your message To: Wise, Phyllis M Subject: FW: News Gazette: Good Riddance to Wise {sic!} & Her " Principles on Which We Stand at the University of Illiniwaks" Sent: Friday, December 23, 2016 11:55:03 AM (UTC-06:00) Central Time (US & Canada) was read on Friday, December 23, 2016 12:06:14 PM (UTC-06:00) Central Time (US & Canada). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Fri Dec 23 18:45:32 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2016 18:45:32 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] so called socialista Message-ID: People, anyone can espouse socialist rhetoric, believe me, those who work for the CIA are experts at it, in the “know thy enemy” category. My Professor of Russian studies at GWU who worked days as a CIA Analyst, reading Pravda/Tass on a daily basis. My close friend and colleague in the same class, knew it better than I. Though he was a republican and years later went to work for the CIA, unless I’m misreading the title “Pentagon Liaison to Macedonia”. He was not a military man. This so called socialist with whom I debated on the Labor Hour last week, asked if I would give him permission to quote me on his blog, I said “NO’, he went ahead anyway and has used my name to criticize me for supporting Putin, Iran, and the atrocities in Syria. He claims a book that he uses as his source has been around for a long time, though it just came out in February 2016. He claims an article in the WSWS.org which supports my argument, discredits them as “true socialists,” even though a year ago, he was complimentary of the WSWS.org. Basically he supports the information/propaganda coming from CNN and US mainstream media, you know, the “blame it all on Putin/Russia”, then use socialism and support for the working class as his reason or excuse for doing so. Is this the same methodology, as supporting Trump while claiming to be a Green? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fboyle at illinois.edu Fri Dec 23 20:50:01 2016 From: fboyle at illinois.edu (Boyle, Francis A) Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2016 20:50:01 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] FW: Watch Anthrax War Online Free Putlocker | Full Movie Message-ID: Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) -----Original Message----- From: Boyle, Francis A Sent: Friday, December 23, 2016 2:47 PM To: SECTNS.aals at lists.aals.org Subject: FW: Watch Anthrax War Online Free Putlocker | Full Movie Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) Watch Anthrax War Online Free Putlocker | Full Movie "A catastrophe waiting to happen."--fab. http://cartoonhd.online/anthrax-war-full-movie-free-putlocker-980 From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Fri Dec 23 20:53:39 2016 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2016 14:53:39 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] FW: World Labor Hour Sat. Dec. 24th Message-ID: <009401d25d5e$a73ff020$f5bfd060$@comcast.net> WORLD LABOR HOUR SATURDAY DECEMBER 24th 11 AM - 1 PM U.S. Central Time WRFU - 104.5 FM and webcast LIVE worldwide at www.wrfu.net Gina Petry - Gina is a queer activist and the organizer for Radical Women- Seattle chapter- who has led campaigns against ; budget cuts in Washington State that were impacting women and children the most, efforts to stop a rent-raising proposal on public housing tenants, as well as organizing campaigns for ; LGBTQ rights and reproductive justice, workers' rights and unionization, immigrant rights, stopping police brutality, protesting neo-Nazis, and ending sexual assault and violence against women. Radical Women believes that the liberation of women is linked to the battle against all the injustices that exist under capitalism Stay tuned after the World Labor Hour for THE UNION EDGE, with Host Charles Showalter. WRFU - Radio Free Urbana - corporate free community radio for the people. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fboyle at illinois.edu Fri Dec 23 22:14:24 2016 From: fboyle at illinois.edu (Boyle, Francis A) Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2016 22:14:24 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Killer Koh & Illinois Nazi Law Faculty v. 4 Arrested Enacting Nativity Scene @ Hancock Drone Base Message-ID: Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) @ Hancock Drone Base Subject: 4 Arrested Enacting Nativity Scene @ Hancock Drone Base FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 23 December 2016 Contact: Ann Tiffany (315) 478-4571 home- Syracuse, NY Mary Anne Grady Flores (607) 280-8797 Ithaca upstatedroneaction.org https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPISvGa-Zfk FOUR ARRESTED ENACTING NATIVITY SCENE AT HANCOCK DRONE BASE Syracuse, NY - On Friday, December 23, four activists were arrested at the main entrance of Hancock Air National Guard Base. Many throughout the world prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Prince of Peace from Palestine. Upstate Drone Action members engaged in civil resistance by setting up a nativity scene at the main entrance of Hancock Reaper Drone Base. Angels and carolers played a supporting role from across the street. The base is located on East Molloy Road in the town of DeWitt, E. Syracuse New York. Hancock hosts the 174th Attack Wing of the NY Air National Guard – the MQ9 Reaper drone hub. Hancock is also the national Reaper maintenance training center. The MQ9 Reaper is a robotic, satellite-linked, remote assassin drone. Hancock drone pilots fly unmanned missions over Afghanistan and other Middle Eastern, African and West Asian nations. The CIA uses Reapers for its illegal lethal missions over Northwest Pakistan. According to “LIVING UNDER DRONES: Death, Injury and Trauma to Civilians from US Drone Practices in Pakistan,” published by Stanford University and New York University Law Schools, such missions are responsible in that region for the deaths of hundreds of noncombatants, including women and children, and for the terrorizing of thousands more. Mary (Bev Rice), being handcuffed, noted that “If Herod had a Reaper, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph would have been been incinerated.” Joseph (John Amadon), also arrested, noted, “The indiscriminate and illegal killings of so many holy families in the Middle East must stop!” Today’s civil resistance action is one chapter in Upstate Drone Action’s six-year scrupulously nonviolent campaign to expose the Hancock AFB war crime. Since 2010 there have been over 170 anti-Reaper arrests at Hancock. Those arrested today: ~ John Amidon, Albany, NY, (518) 312-6442 cell ~ Ed Kinane, Syracuse, NY, (315) 478-4571 home ~ Jules Orkin, Bergenfield, NJ, (201)566-8403 cell ~ Bev Rice, New York, NY., (646) 335-2404 cell ### [IMG_7380.jpeg] [IMG_2636.JPG][https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/fMJrWYdMCY3eUFVmO4ZmFc5_wKDKSP0xgdIJw0Uu1Rl-MY_hTgqgA1Umgz1DBSmCDKOC6PXrskRSpS-0p5pTTkTGj5buIDxfuA_aeTqpTBF_3YRL_R3e3iR81J736kcHASE6w7Iu] -- Mary Anne Grady Flores Ithaca, NY 14850 1-607-280-8797 Ithaca Catholic Workers / Los Obreros Catolicos de Ithaca "If you think one person can't be effective, you've never been in bed with a mosquito" -War Resister's League "Si usted piensa que una persona no puede ser eficaz, nunca he estado en la cama con un mosquito" Liga de Opositores de Guerra "Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it" Howard Zinn (1922-2010) "La protesta más allá de la ley no se aparta de la democracia, es absolutamente esencial para que" Howard Zinn (1922-2010) “To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness... What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction...And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory." -- Howard Zinn www.democracynow.org www.upstatedroneaction.org www.cpt.org www.catholicworker.org Aljazeer a- look it up on line The Guardian -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: NativityActionHancock-2016 (3).pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 460093 bytes Desc: NativityActionHancock-2016 (3).pdf URL: -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Sat Dec 24 13:57:41 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sat, 24 Dec 2016 13:57:41 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] New Trade Wars Message-ID: * Print * Leaflet * Feedback * Share » Trump’s new White House office for trade war By Peter Symonds 24 December 2016 Wednesday’s announcement that President-elect Donald Trump will establish a new National Trade Council signals that his administration will proceed rapidly with its promised trade war measures. The new office will be headed by Peter Navarro, a University of California professor and prominent member of the Trump campaign and transition teams, who is notorious for his advocacy of aggressive trade policies and war-mongering, directed against China in particular. Trump’s transition team declared that the council would advise the president on “innovative strategies in trade negotiations” and coordinate with other agencies to assess US “manufacturing capabilities and defence industrial base.” During his election campaign, Trump threatened to leave the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and tear up trade deals, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement, that he considered detrimental to the American economy. He announced that from day one in office he would initiate the US withdrawal from the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). The TPP was not a free trade agreement but a US-led economic bloc, excluding China, to pressure Beijing to accept Washington’s demands on trade and investment. The TPP was the economic spearhead of the Obama’s administration’s “pivot to Asia” that also involved an aggressive diplomatic campaign and military build-up throughout the Asia Pacific aimed at ensuring American supremacy in Asia. Trump’s decision to pull out of the TPP is not a retreat from Obama’s confrontational policy toward China but a marked intensification on all fronts. Trump repeatedly denounced China during the election campaign for unfair trade practices, threatening to brand China as a currency manipulator and impose tariffs of up to 45 percent on Chinese exports to the United States. The Obama administration has already taken punitive trade action, including huge tariff increases on certain types of Chinese steel, of up to 522 percent and on some Chinese steel corporations of 266 percent. Whereas Obama, nominally at least, attempted to operate within existing international trade rules, Trump plans a dramatic expansion of blatantly protectionist measures that would result in WTO cases against the US and reprisal action. Navarro’s appointment to head the National Trade Council makes clear that it is in reality a national council for trade war. Navarro is not so much an academic economist but an anti-China ideologue. Along with Wilbur Ross, a billionaire corporate raider and the incoming commerce secretary, Navarro functioned as propagandist for Trump’s “America First” demagogy on trade. In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece in October entitled, “A vote for Trump is a vote for growth,” the pair dismissed warnings about “the trade war straw man,” arguing that “smart, tough negotiations” would eliminate the US trade deficit. Navarro and Ross targeted China, Germany, Japan, Mexico and South Korea, noting “[they] need our markets far more than we need theirs.” In reality, strong-arm tactics by the Trump administration and threats of punitive trade action would almost certainly trigger retaliation, and undermine world trade and economic growth, including in the United States. CNN reported on Thursday that the Trump transition team was already discussing proposals for tariffs of up to 10 percent on imports. Sections of American business have reacted with alarm. One organisation told CNN that Trump’s “trade policy sledgehammer” would “impose heavy costs on the US economy, particularly for the manufacturing sector and American workers.” Like their counterparts around the world, American manufacturers rely on global supply chains that would be hit by the tariffs. Navarro embodies the fact that trade war inevitably leads to war: his strident advocacy for punitive trade measures against China goes hand in hand with calls to prepare for conflict. His books include: The Coming China Wars: Where They Will be Fought and How They Can Be Won; Death by China: Confronting the Dragon—A Global Call to Action; and Crouching Tiger: What Chinese Militarism Means for the World. The last two have been made into films. Trump’s transition team said the new trade council would work with the National Security Council and other White House bodies to implement the president-elect’s slogan of “peace and prosperity through military and economic strength.” Navarro and another Trump adviser, Alexander Gray, spelled out what this catch-cry means in a lengthy article in Foreign Policy on November 7 entitled, “Donald Trump’s Peace through Strength Vision for the Asia Pacific.” The two were critical of Obama’s “pivot” or “rebalance” to Asia for failing to confront China aggressively enough and for reducing the size of the American military. Navarro and Gray declared that the pivot had turned out to be “an imprudent case of talking loudly but carrying a small stick, one that has led to more, not less, aggression and instability in the region.” Their remedy ties protectionist measures with a vast expansion of the US military, particularly the navy, and withdrawal from trade pacts such as the TPP that “only weaken our manufacturing base and ability to defend ourselves and our allies.” “Peace through strength” is not a recipe for peace, but for war. Significantly, Navarro is an open advocate of ditching the One China policy, which has been the cornerstone of US-China relations since 1979, and of forging closer relations with Taiwan. Under the One China policy, Washington recognised that Beijing was the sole legitimate government of all of China and ended diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Trump has already placed a question mark over the One China policy, declaring earlier this month that he did not see why he should be bound by it “unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade.” Trump also became the first American leader in more than three decades to speak directly to a Taiwanese president, when he took a phone call from President Tsai Ing-wen. In an article in the National Interest in July entitled “America Can’t Dump Taiwan,” Navarro makes clear that closer US ties with Taiwan are bound up with preparations for conflict with China. “Maintaining Taiwan as an independent, pro-US ally is absolutely critical for strategically balancing against the rise of an increasingly militaristic China,” he declared. Navarro, who had just visited Taiwan, warned of the military dangers of allowing the island to come under China’s sway—Chinese bases would allow Chinese submarines immediate access to the Pacific Ocean and extend the range of its air force. He called for the US to take steps to boost Taiwan’s military capacities. However, stronger US military ties with Taiwan pose a direct threat to China and would quickly raise tensions between Washington and Beijing. The Pentagon has long recognised the military value of the island, which is just 130 kilometres from the Chinese mainland at the narrowest point of the Taiwan Strait. US General Douglas MacArthur described it as an “immovable aircraft carrier” in the Pacific. The willingness of Trump to threaten to dump the One China policy and embrace Taiwan has only one meaning: it is the preparation to aggressively confront China all down the line—diplomatically, economically and, if necessary, through war. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From galliher at illinois.edu Sat Dec 24 14:04:44 2016 From: galliher at illinois.edu (Carl G. Estabrook) Date: Sat, 24 Dec 2016 08:04:44 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] New Trade Wars In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <0FA59488-97BB-471F-87DB-B25367FB28D2@illinois.edu> Write Congress & White House - demand cooperation with OBOR, not the confrontation along Nine-Dash Line that the Obama-Clinton admin pursued. —CGE > On Dec 24, 2016, at 7:57 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss wrote: > > > • Print > • Leaflet > • Feedback > • Share » > Trump’s new White House office for trade war > By Peter Symonds > 24 December 2016 > Wednesday’s announcement that President-elect Donald Trump will establish a new National Trade Council signals that his administration will proceed rapidly with its promised trade war measures. > The new office will be headed by Peter Navarro, a University of California professor and prominent member of the Trump campaign and transition teams, who is notorious for his advocacy of aggressive trade policies and war-mongering, directed against China in particular. > Trump’s transition team declared that the council would advise the president on “innovative strategies in trade negotiations” and coordinate with other agencies to assess US “manufacturing capabilities and defence industrial base.” > During his election campaign, Trump threatened to leave the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and tear up trade deals, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement, that he considered detrimental to the American economy. He announced that from day one in office he would initiate the US withdrawal from the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). > The TPP was not a free trade agreement but a US-led economic bloc, excluding China, to pressure Beijing to accept Washington’s demands on trade and investment. The TPP was the economic spearhead of the Obama’s administration’s “pivot to Asia” that also involved an aggressive diplomatic campaign and military build-up throughout the Asia Pacific aimed at ensuring American supremacy in Asia. > Trump’s decision to pull out of the TPP is not a retreat from Obama’s confrontational policy toward China but a marked intensification on all fronts. Trump repeatedly denounced China during the election campaign for unfair trade practices, threatening to brand China as a currency manipulator and impose tariffs of up to 45 percent on Chinese exports to the United States. > The Obama administration has already taken punitive trade action, including huge tariff increases on certain types of Chinese steel, of up to 522 percent and on some Chinese steel corporations of 266 percent. Whereas Obama, nominally at least, attempted to operate within existing international trade rules, Trump plans a dramatic expansion of blatantly protectionist measures that would result in WTO cases against the US and reprisal action. > Navarro’s appointment to head the National Trade Council makes clear that it is in reality a national council for trade war. Navarro is not so much an academic economist but an anti-China ideologue. > Along with Wilbur Ross, a billionaire corporate raider and the incoming commerce secretary, Navarro functioned as propagandist for Trump’s “America First” demagogy on trade. In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece in October entitled, “A vote for Trump is a vote for growth,” the pair dismissed warnings about “the trade war straw man,” arguing that “smart, tough negotiations” would eliminate the US trade deficit. > Navarro and Ross targeted China, Germany, Japan, Mexico and South Korea, noting “[they] need our markets far more than we need theirs.” In reality, strong-arm tactics by the Trump administration and threats of punitive trade action would almost certainly trigger retaliation, and undermine world trade and economic growth, including in the United States. > CNN reported on Thursday that the Trump transition team was already discussing proposals for tariffs of up to 10 percent on imports. Sections of American business have reacted with alarm. One organisation told CNN that Trump’s “trade policy sledgehammer” would “impose heavy costs on the US economy, particularly for the manufacturing sector and American workers.” Like their counterparts around the world, American manufacturers rely on global supply chains that would be hit by the tariffs. > Navarro embodies the fact that trade war inevitably leads to war: his strident advocacy for punitive trade measures against China goes hand in hand with calls to prepare for conflict. His books include: The Coming China Wars: Where They Will be Fought and How They Can Be Won; Death by China: Confronting the Dragon—A Global Call to Action; and Crouching Tiger: What Chinese Militarism Means for the World. The last two have been made into films. > Trump’s transition team said the new trade council would work with the National Security Council and other White House bodies to implement the president-elect’s slogan of “peace and prosperity through military and economic strength.” > Navarro and another Trump adviser, Alexander Gray, spelled out what this catch-cry means in a lengthy article in Foreign Policy on November 7 entitled, “Donald Trump’s Peace through Strength Vision for the Asia Pacific.” The two were critical of Obama’s “pivot” or “rebalance” to Asia for failing to confront China aggressively enough and for reducing the size of the American military. > Navarro and Gray declared that the pivot had turned out to be “an imprudent case of talking loudly but carrying a small stick, one that has led to more, not less, aggression and instability in the region.” Their remedy ties protectionist measures with a vast expansion of the US military, particularly the navy, and withdrawal from trade pacts such as the TPP that “only weaken our manufacturing base and ability to defend ourselves and our allies.” > “Peace through strength” is not a recipe for peace, but for war. Significantly, Navarro is an open advocate of ditching the One China policy, which has been the cornerstone of US-China relations since 1979, and of forging closer relations with Taiwan. Under the One China policy, Washington recognised that Beijing was the sole legitimate government of all of China and ended diplomatic ties with Taiwan. > Trump has already placed a question mark over the One China policy, declaring earlier this month that he did not see why he should be bound by it “unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade.” Trump also became the first American leader in more than three decades to speak directly to a Taiwanese president, when he took a phone call from President Tsai Ing-wen. > In an article in the National Interest in July entitled “America Can’t Dump Taiwan,” Navarro makes clear that closer US ties with Taiwan are bound up with preparations for conflict with China. “Maintaining Taiwan as an independent, pro-US ally is absolutely critical for strategically balancing against the rise of an increasingly militaristic China,” he declared. > Navarro, who had just visited Taiwan, warned of the military dangers of allowing the island to come under China’s sway—Chinese bases would allow Chinese submarines immediate access to the Pacific Ocean and extend the range of its air force. He called for the US to take steps to boost Taiwan’s military capacities. > However, stronger US military ties with Taiwan pose a direct threat to China and would quickly raise tensions between Washington and Beijing. The Pentagon has long recognised the military value of the island, which is just 130 kilometres from the Chinese mainland at the narrowest point of the Taiwan Strait. US General Douglas MacArthur described it as an “immovable aircraft carrier” in the Pacific. > The willingness of Trump to threaten to dump the One China policy and embrace Taiwan has only one meaning: it is the preparation to aggressively confront China all down the line—diplomatically, economically and, if necessary, through war. > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss From karenaram at hotmail.com Sat Dec 24 14:08:05 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sat, 24 Dec 2016 14:08:05 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] New Trade Wars In-Reply-To: <0FA59488-97BB-471F-87DB-B25367FB28D2@illinois.edu> References: <0FA59488-97BB-471F-87DB-B25367FB28D2@illinois.edu> Message-ID: We should send to the Trump White House in respect to Peter Navarro’s new Trade Council. Maybe they’ll actually take notice? > On Dec 24, 2016, at 06:04, Carl G. Estabrook wrote: > > Write Congress & White House - demand cooperation with OBOR, not the confrontation along Nine-Dash Line that the Obama-Clinton admin pursued. > > —CGE > > >> On Dec 24, 2016, at 7:57 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss wrote: >> >> >> • Print >> • Leaflet >> • Feedback >> • Share » >> Trump’s new White House office for trade war >> By Peter Symonds >> 24 December 2016 >> Wednesday’s announcement that President-elect Donald Trump will establish a new National Trade Council signals that his administration will proceed rapidly with its promised trade war measures. >> The new office will be headed by Peter Navarro, a University of California professor and prominent member of the Trump campaign and transition teams, who is notorious for his advocacy of aggressive trade policies and war-mongering, directed against China in particular. >> Trump’s transition team declared that the council would advise the president on “innovative strategies in trade negotiations” and coordinate with other agencies to assess US “manufacturing capabilities and defence industrial base.” >> During his election campaign, Trump threatened to leave the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and tear up trade deals, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement, that he considered detrimental to the American economy. He announced that from day one in office he would initiate the US withdrawal from the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). >> The TPP was not a free trade agreement but a US-led economic bloc, excluding China, to pressure Beijing to accept Washington’s demands on trade and investment. The TPP was the economic spearhead of the Obama’s administration’s “pivot to Asia” that also involved an aggressive diplomatic campaign and military build-up throughout the Asia Pacific aimed at ensuring American supremacy in Asia. >> Trump’s decision to pull out of the TPP is not a retreat from Obama’s confrontational policy toward China but a marked intensification on all fronts. Trump repeatedly denounced China during the election campaign for unfair trade practices, threatening to brand China as a currency manipulator and impose tariffs of up to 45 percent on Chinese exports to the United States. >> The Obama administration has already taken punitive trade action, including huge tariff increases on certain types of Chinese steel, of up to 522 percent and on some Chinese steel corporations of 266 percent. Whereas Obama, nominally at least, attempted to operate within existing international trade rules, Trump plans a dramatic expansion of blatantly protectionist measures that would result in WTO cases against the US and reprisal action. >> Navarro’s appointment to head the National Trade Council makes clear that it is in reality a national council for trade war. Navarro is not so much an academic economist but an anti-China ideologue. >> Along with Wilbur Ross, a billionaire corporate raider and the incoming commerce secretary, Navarro functioned as propagandist for Trump’s “America First” demagogy on trade. In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece in October entitled, “A vote for Trump is a vote for growth,” the pair dismissed warnings about “the trade war straw man,” arguing that “smart, tough negotiations” would eliminate the US trade deficit. >> Navarro and Ross targeted China, Germany, Japan, Mexico and South Korea, noting “[they] need our markets far more than we need theirs.” In reality, strong-arm tactics by the Trump administration and threats of punitive trade action would almost certainly trigger retaliation, and undermine world trade and economic growth, including in the United States. >> CNN reported on Thursday that the Trump transition team was already discussing proposals for tariffs of up to 10 percent on imports. Sections of American business have reacted with alarm. One organisation told CNN that Trump’s “trade policy sledgehammer” would “impose heavy costs on the US economy, particularly for the manufacturing sector and American workers.” Like their counterparts around the world, American manufacturers rely on global supply chains that would be hit by the tariffs. >> Navarro embodies the fact that trade war inevitably leads to war: his strident advocacy for punitive trade measures against China goes hand in hand with calls to prepare for conflict. His books include: The Coming China Wars: Where They Will be Fought and How They Can Be Won; Death by China: Confronting the Dragon—A Global Call to Action; and Crouching Tiger: What Chinese Militarism Means for the World. The last two have been made into films. >> Trump’s transition team said the new trade council would work with the National Security Council and other White House bodies to implement the president-elect’s slogan of “peace and prosperity through military and economic strength.” >> Navarro and another Trump adviser, Alexander Gray, spelled out what this catch-cry means in a lengthy article in Foreign Policy on November 7 entitled, “Donald Trump’s Peace through Strength Vision for the Asia Pacific.” The two were critical of Obama’s “pivot” or “rebalance” to Asia for failing to confront China aggressively enough and for reducing the size of the American military. >> Navarro and Gray declared that the pivot had turned out to be “an imprudent case of talking loudly but carrying a small stick, one that has led to more, not less, aggression and instability in the region.” Their remedy ties protectionist measures with a vast expansion of the US military, particularly the navy, and withdrawal from trade pacts such as the TPP that “only weaken our manufacturing base and ability to defend ourselves and our allies.” >> “Peace through strength” is not a recipe for peace, but for war. Significantly, Navarro is an open advocate of ditching the One China policy, which has been the cornerstone of US-China relations since 1979, and of forging closer relations with Taiwan. Under the One China policy, Washington recognised that Beijing was the sole legitimate government of all of China and ended diplomatic ties with Taiwan. >> Trump has already placed a question mark over the One China policy, declaring earlier this month that he did not see why he should be bound by it “unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade.” Trump also became the first American leader in more than three decades to speak directly to a Taiwanese president, when he took a phone call from President Tsai Ing-wen. >> In an article in the National Interest in July entitled “America Can’t Dump Taiwan,” Navarro makes clear that closer US ties with Taiwan are bound up with preparations for conflict with China. “Maintaining Taiwan as an independent, pro-US ally is absolutely critical for strategically balancing against the rise of an increasingly militaristic China,” he declared. >> Navarro, who had just visited Taiwan, warned of the military dangers of allowing the island to come under China’s sway—Chinese bases would allow Chinese submarines immediate access to the Pacific Ocean and extend the range of its air force. He called for the US to take steps to boost Taiwan’s military capacities. >> However, stronger US military ties with Taiwan pose a direct threat to China and would quickly raise tensions between Washington and Beijing. The Pentagon has long recognised the military value of the island, which is just 130 kilometres from the Chinese mainland at the narrowest point of the Taiwan Strait. US General Douglas MacArthur described it as an “immovable aircraft carrier” in the Pacific. >> The willingness of Trump to threaten to dump the One China policy and embrace Taiwan has only one meaning: it is the preparation to aggressively confront China all down the line—diplomatically, economically and, if necessary, through war. >> _______________________________________________ >> Peace-discuss mailing list >> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net >> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss > From galliher at illinois.edu Sat Dec 24 14:34:42 2016 From: galliher at illinois.edu (Carl G. Estabrook) Date: Sat, 24 Dec 2016 08:34:42 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Against hysteria In-Reply-To: References: <9266CF74-0DF6-4247-8518-094C3328BDA7@illinois.edu> <9F5E5B82-AE31-440B-8B52-869B9895B872@illinois.edu> <39BDD7C6-2B6A-4C12-8CC2-1738048B3F83@illinois.edu> <284A8CA5-87EE-4D46-9917-406FF7127E0F@gmail.com> <4BEF5039AB283245B9B22D29042452EB4E1B811C@CITESMBX4.ad.uillinois.edu> <4BEF5039AB283245B9B22D29042452EB4E1B8636@CITESMBX4.ad.uillinois.edu> <4BEF5039AB283245B9B22D29042452EB4E1B8ED1@CITESMBX4.ad.uillinois.edu> Message-ID: Why Le Pen is likely to become next French president: . Brexit-Trump-Le Pen represent the emergence of an [electorally-]organized working class immiserated by neoliberalism. ("What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers.”) “'Will François Hollande be remembered as the Franklin Roosevelt of Europe?' It was with this question that Thomas Piketty, author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century and one of France’s most vocal critics of austerity, began his reflection on Hollande’s electoral victory in 2012. There was undoubtedly a touch of irony in that question—'the comparison can make one chuckle'—but it was nonetheless an honest assessment of the forces that were already impinging on the new president and other major European leaders. In 1932, very little of what became the New Deal was spelled out in Roosevelt’s campaign against Herbert Hoover. [FDR’S 1932 PLATFORM: BALANCE THE BUDGET!] All that Roosevelt knew was that, as Piketty writes, 'the crisis of 1929 and the policies of austerity had brought the United States to its knees and that public power must reassert control over a finance capitalism on the run.' The scale of the crisis pressed Roosevelt into a daring rush of experimentation…. —CGE > On Dec 23, 2016, at 6:36 PM, Karen Aram wrote: > > For what it’s worth I am in agreement with Mort, Carl and Alex on Putin and Europe. > >> On Dec 23, 2016, at 14:34, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace wrote: >> >> I think Mort is right, on both Putin and Le Pen - although I disagree that “she is far from being an equivalent to Trump.” She resembles him at least in this: if she is elected president of France, her election will I think be part of the movement that includes Brexit and Trump's election. >> >> I offended Belden recently by quoting Alex Cockburn on race-fakers, so I’ll compound the felony with Alex’ piece on Le Pen from 2012: >> >> ============================================= >> Who are the real fascists: Marine Le Pen - or the United States? >> May 3, 2012 >> Alexander Cockburn >> >> AMERICAN discussions of Europe swivel between rationality and hysteria. A discussion of Europe's awful unemployment figures and swelling mutiny against austerity suddenly mutates into tremulous wails about the menace of fascism in France, rancid racism in the Netherlands, the anti-Semitic beast unchained in Germany (in the terrifying form of Günter Grass's new poem). >> >> A lot of this has to do with Marine Le Pen, leader of France's National Front. Now and again I'll mention her in something I've written without the obligatory insults about her family heritage and presumed totalitarian agenda. Furious letters pour in, particularly since she made a strong showing in the first round of the French presidential elections. >> >> Marine Le Pen is a nationalist politician, quite reasonably exploiting the intense social discontent in France amid the imposition of the bankers' austerity programs. As Ambrose Evans-Pritchard put it in The Daily Telegraph recently, she "presents herself as a latterday Jeanne d'Arc, openly comparing France's pro-EU camp with the Burgundians who plotted 'English Annexation' in the 1430s - or indeed 'Les Collabos' who bought peace after 1940. 'Let us break the chains of the French people. Bring on the French Spring,' she tells Front National rallies." >> >> Anti-Semitism? Diana Johnstone, an excellent journalist who has been reporting from France for years, writes to me, "There is absolutely nothing attesting to anti-Semitism on the part of Marine Le Pen. She has actually tried to woo the powerful Jewish organisations, and her anti-Islam stance is also a way to woo such groups. The simple fact is that the best way to destroy someone in this country is to call him or her 'anti-Semitic'." >> >> Marine Le Pen certainly has made some unsavoury comments about immigrants and Islamisation. But she has gone to the heart of the matter, asserting that monetary union cannot be fudged, that it is incompatible with the French nation-state. She has won 18 per cent of the vote by campaigning to pull France out of the euro and smash the whole project. As Johnstone explains, a new poll shows only three per cent of French voters consider immigration the main issue. So logically, Le Pen cannot owe her 18 percent to that issue. The number-one issue is employment. >> >> It's true, things could get ugly. Europe's politics are being refashioned before our eyes. Greece has 21 per cent unemployment, and the socialist Pasok party could face near-extinction in the upcoming elections. In Spain, one-in-four is out of work, and the right-wing prime minister insists on maintaining austerity. As Evans-Pritchard points out, "We forget now, but Germany was heavily indebted to foreigners in 1930, like Spain today. It was the refusal of the creditor powers (US and France) to reliquify the system and slow monetary contraction that pushed Germany over a cliff. The parallels are haunting." >> >> But there's another aspect to this habit of flinging the charge of fascism at Europe, and that's the simple matter of national hypocrisy. The mobs who flooded into the streets to revel in the execution of Osama bin Laden a year ago were not exulting in America, land of the free and of constitutional propriety. They were lauding brute, lawless, lethal force. In this year of political conventions we'll be hearing a lot of tub-thumping about American freedoms, but if there's any nation in the world that is well on the way to meriting the admittedly vague label of 'fascist', surely it's the United States. >> >> Fascism, among other things, is a system of extreme, methodical state repression, violent in contour and threat, buttressed by ultra-nationalist mythology, a militarist culture and imperial ambition. In the 1980s America started locking up its poor people. Seven million adults were under correctional supervision in 2009. A fascist system uses constant harassment. Last year there were more than 600,000 stop-and-frisks in New York City, overwhelmingly of blacks and Hispanics. Historically, fascist regimes have been particularly cruel toward what is deemed to be sexual deviancy. US sex offender registries doom three-quarters of a million people - many of them convicted on trumpery charges - to pale simulacra of real life. Others endure castration and open-ended incarceration. >> >> Fascist regimes, ultimately the expression of corporate power, repress labour in all efforts to organise. The onslaught here began with Taft-Hartley in 1947 and continued with methodical ferocity during the Reagan and Clinton years. Obama reneged on pledges to make organising easier, froze the wages of federal workers and advanced free trade across the globe. Attacks on collective bargaining are pervasive. Big money's grip on both parties ensures corporate control no matter who's nominally in charge. Fascist regimes show open contempt for democracy while deifying a leader who embodies the national spirit. We salute democracy while suppressing it. >> >> A fascist regime is the sworn foe of the right to assembly, 'unauthorised' marches and encampments. We're sure to see more signs of this around the Nato summit and the national conventions. America is a network of Swat teams and kindred state-employed thugs on permanent red alert. >> >> A fascist regime spies obsessively on its citizens. Study US laws on secret surveillance since the Patriot Act and you will find procedures that would have been the envy of the East Germans. >> >> Ultimately a fascist state claims the right to imprison its victims without term or hope of redress or legal representation. As the executive power, in the form of the president, it claims the right to kill its enemies, whether citizens (Awlaki) or others (Guantánamo), without judicial review. In other words, rule by decree - which is what Hitler's Enabling Act won him in March 1933. >> >> We live in a fascist country - 'proto-fascist' if you want to allay public disquiet, though there's scant sign that most Americans are disturbed by the trends. So quit beating up on Europe. >> ============================================= >> >> —CGE >> >> >>> On Dec 23, 2016, at 12:41 PM, Fields, A Belden via Peace wrote: >>> >>> Hi Mort, >>> >>> First, I think you misunderstood what I meant by opposition-killing regime. I was was not referring to what Russia did in Grozny or Aleppo (though I consider both of those war crimes--and I say that as one who has criticized US war crimes from Vietnam to Iraq). I was talking about the internal practices of Putin, the killing, imprisonment, and financial ruin of those who opposed him publicly or even reporters who just report the misdeeds of his regime. >>> >>> Second, I too have been following the National Front closely. Before that, in the 1960s, I had interviewed a leading member of the Action Francaise, its predecessor. Deb is absolutely right. Marine purged her father because he was always being hauled into court over his anti-Semitic statements. It was just bad PR for the Front. >>> The friend of a French friend of mine was a fellow student of Marine's and reports that she was a rabid anti-Semite. But now immigrants and the large North African Arab permanent population are more politically expedient targets. Don't minimize that Mort. Bigotry is bigotry. And it is not just against the newer immigrants. It is against the ghettoized North African-French people as well. The Front's idolized vision of the true "French" person, is the francais de souche--white, Christian (does not have to be practicing), with long historical roots in France. Of course, they do not say this out loud. They are way too smart now. m They have to use the millions they get from the Russian bank cleverly. >>> >>> Regarding anti-Semitism. The Jewish population in France, which was the largest in Western Europe, has been diminishing rapidly in recent years. There are two reasons for this. One is that there have very frequent violent attacks against visibly apparent Jews and Jewish institutions in France by North Africans Moslems. Second is the growing strength of the National Front. Just as they do did not fit the Nazi definition of an Aryan, so Jews do not fit the Front's definition of a true French person. Most of them have been going to Israel for safety. >>> >>> Which brings me to the saddest irony that someone who contends that Zionism is racism would give the National Front such a free pass on its bigotry, which is directed openly against Arab Moslems and now covertly against Jews. Xenophobic bigots should be called out as such. Putin's willingness to support such ultra-nationalistic, fascistic, and sometimes neo-Nazi (as in Austria) forces brings no credit to him or his regime. >>> For an older guy like me, it brings back the Hitler-Stalin Pact that so shook the anti-fascist movements in US and Western Europe. >>> >>> Attached you will find an abridged copy of an article I wrote on the National Front in the January 2016 issue of the Public i >>> >>> I wish everyone a peaceful and healthy 2017. >>> >>> Belden >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> From: Brussel, Morton K >>> Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2016 7:55 PM >>> To: Fields, A Belden >>> Cc: peace >>> Subject: Re: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Against hysteria >>> >>> Belden, >>> >>> I might say that you are being too mild with respect to the NATO/U.S moves towards Russian Borders. Yes, those moves are provocative, but more than that, they are militantly aggressive; U.S. leaders would probably not be unhappy to see a proxy conflict arise between Ukraine and Russia, hoping it to be conducive to regime change in Russia. The U.S. is arming Ukraine (and the Baltic states) for that purpose, why else? >>> >>> On the other hand, I have been following what has been occurring in France closely. Marine Le Pen is not her father, she has not assumed his racist belligerent anti-semitic character, even though she she does espouse anti-immigration policies. Many, and not only from the far-right, are drawn to her, not only because of her relatively benign regard to Russia, but also due to her anti-Brussels European federalist and NATO, policies—causing a loss of French sovereignty. There is something to be said for that. That is why she could win the coming presidential election there. Aside from the fact that both want to be more friendly to Russia, she is far from being an equivalent to Trump. Moreover, I believe Europe (NATO) and the U.S.should cease their economic and military cold war policies, policies which could lead to a disastrous conflagration. The U.S. war hawks and their media are acting with respect to Ukraine just as they have in Syria, not so stealthily pushing dangerous provocations. Cohen elaborates this argument well. >>> >>> Finally, are you not also falling into the trap of demonizing Russia by calling it an “opposition killing state”? Is the USA a less "opposition killing state"? Who has been more killingly destructive in recent decades? My opinion is that Russia under Putin has been a stabilizing influence compared to the U.S., perhaps due in part to her far weaker military capabilities. >>> >>> Mort >>> >>> >>> >>>> On Dec 22, 2016, at 2:46 PM, Fields, A Belden wrote: >>>> >>>> Mort, >>>> >>>> I just looked at the piece by Cohen in the Nation. I have always agreed with him that NATO was too provocative vs Russia in Eastern Europe. But I think Cohen puts it too mildly when he talks about Russia supporting "anti-status quo" movements in Europe. I understand Putin's desire to use any tool to fight back, but the movements he is supporting, including the French National Front in Front, are racist, xenophobic groups founded by collaborators in France and former Nazis in Austria. The combination of these groups coming to power, and allying with the puritanical/authoritarian/opposition killing state of Russia, is not a result I look forward to. Just look at Hungary under Oban. >>>> >>>> I think we should continue to be critical of the neo-cons of either party in the US, but we should also be very wary of the process going on in Europe now that Putin is encouraging--even if we understand why he is doing it. >>>> >>>> Belden >>>> >>>> >>>> From: Brussel, Morton K >>>> Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2016 12:36 PM >>>> To: Fields, A Belden >>>> Subject: Re: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Against hysteria >>>> >>>> I believe that Carl is primarily and justly concerned with US. wars and other depredations, and, in these perilous times, the new cold war—getting increasingly warmer— between the U.S. government and Russia/Putin. In this, he will find some confirmation of his attitude in the fascinating and enlightening podcast of Stephen Cohen on the subject of the demonization of Russia/Putin by the war parties inn D.C. Watch: https://www.thenation.com/article/american-cold-warriors-want-to-fight-russia-not-terrorism/ >>>> >>>> This is not an excuse relating to other mattters here discussed, but I think it is an important issue. >>>> >>>> —mkb >>>> >>>> >>>>> On Dec 22, 2016, at 12:04 PM, Fields, A Belden via Peace wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Carl, >>>>> >>>>> Your quoting from another source (the duran) contending that Trump is a moderate and your extensive quote in today's News-Gazette from Alexander Cockburn (whom you characterize as the "best political reporter in the US in his generation--a dubious contention at best) slamming the Southern Poverty Law Center as money-grabbing, are evasions in which you accept no responsibility because you are just quoting other sources. This is a cowardly way to write. I find your "letter" in the the N-G particularly offensive because it appeals to the generally conservative readers of the N-G to view the Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the major stalwarts against bigotry in this country, to be a rotten organization. We need the Center now more than ever. >>>>> You present yourself as critically progressive, but have a knack of serving the right. Your attack on the Southern Poverty Law Center is particularly low and gratuitous, even for you. It is beneath contemptible. >>>>> Belden >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> From: Peace [peace-bounces at lists.chambana.net] on behalf of Debra Schrishuhn via Peace [peace at lists.chambana.net] >>>>> Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2016 7:13 AM >>>>> To: Estabrook, Carl G >>>>> Cc: Peace Discuss; sf-core; Brussel, Morton K; peace; prairiegreens at lists.chambana.net; Occupy CU >>>>> Subject: Re: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Against hysteria >>>>> >>>>> As Mort writes, we do not know what policies the Trump regime will pursue. From his past words and actions and his Cabinet and staff nominations--including many white supremacists and individuals connected to racism and a disregard for civil rights, science deniers, skeptics of public education, and the potential for graft and corruption--we have ample reason to be concerned about both his character and his policies. To ignore this man's despicable character, as evidenced by his racism and xenophobia and fascist tendencies and his choices in staffing the next administration (regime), is to condone it. >>>>> >>>>> Debra >>>>> >>>>> Sent from my iPhone >>>>> >>>>> On Dec 22, 2016, at 6:48 AM, "Carl G. Estabrook" wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Shouldn’t we pay attention to the policies the Trump administration will follow, more than to his obvious deficiencies of character? >>>>>> >>>>>> The Obama administration is. They’re so afraid Trump will reverse Obama's warmongering policies, they’re rushing to try to lock the new administration into their lethal practices. >>>>>> >>>>>> Example: Obama has waved a restriction on providing shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles to the 'rebels’ in Syria (including al-Qaeda) - an obvious threat to the Russian air force (who, unlike the USAF, are in Syria legally). HRC wanted a no-fly zone, which she was told would lead to war with Russia; Obama is trying to use jihadists for that. >>>>>> >>>>>> The anti-war movement, of which AWARE is a part, should try to give an accurate account of the US government’s war-making, under this administration and the next. >>>>>> >>>>>> —CGE >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>>> On Dec 22, 2016, at 6:27 AM, Debra Schrishuhn wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Apparently, Trump's racism, xenophobia, and misogyny are true conservative values that you support? His intention to build a wall to keep brown people out of the US and his embrace of torture and extra-judicial killings don't bother you, Carl? His willingness to ignite trade wars and possibly hot wars with that military he plans to build up are OK? His lack of respect for fellow humans, his pathological tendency to lie or say whatever he thinks will advance him, get him attention -- these character traits are acceptable to you? Not to mention his graft, his bullying, his cruelty, his vindictiveness--these trait are acceptable in a US President or in any human being? >>>>>>> >>>>>>> That you embrace these odious qualities in another says a great deal about you. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Debra >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Sent from my iPhone >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On Dec 21, 2016, at 10:32 PM, "Carl G. Estabrook via Peace" wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> I have great respect for Richard Wolff, but I wish he’d button his shirt and give us a transcript. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> I’ve gotten too old to listen to lectures. —CGE >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> On Dec 21, 2016, at 10:04 PM, Brussel, Morton K wrote: >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> I must say that it remains to be seen what Trump will do/represent. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Aside from his asserted intention to talk to the Russians and emphasize domestic over foreign affairs, his statements relative to China and Cuba and…, with respect to climate change, his coziness with Generals and his expressed intention to increase military spending perhaps by a factor of two, his favoring of “order” (police?) over civil rights, does not lead me to believe the confident remarks of the author who wrote the sentence cited below.This, even leaving aside the various contradictory and ignorant statements he is prone to make.. But yes, he will be a traditionally conservative Republican in favoring the corporate world which he probably knows best and in diverse retrograde social issues. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> I highly recommend a recent YouTube presentation by economist Richard Wolf on the subject of Trumpenomics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dut6sPW52Q >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> —mkb >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> On Dec 21, 2016, at 9:09 PM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss wrote: >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> "This is what Trump represents, not radicalism but conservatism in its truest sense, a return to calm after a storm. His policies are amongst the most moderate in recent history. He is anti-interventionist, opposed to the apparatuses that should have been forgotten after the Cold War and his fiscal policies could easily be confused with those of a pre-Goldwater East Coast Republican.” >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> http://theduran.com/putin-trump-new-normalcy/ >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> ____ >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Peace mailing list >> Peace at lists.chambana.net >> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace > From brussel at illinois.edu Sat Dec 24 21:02:55 2016 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Sat, 24 Dec 2016 21:02:55 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] How to kill an uprising against fascist governments In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6B487525-912D-4DB6-AD76-DE630BAE10C4@illinois.edu> Thanks for your apropos comments. It seems that if a Trump strategy exists, presumably revealed by his appointments, it would be to privatize everything in sight. Insofar as those appointments involve foreign policy, it would seem ill advised to think that Trump can or want to overcome or counter the belligerence of those appointees. Could his business mind overcome that belligerence? David’s remarks also seem likely; the establishment/bureaucracy may well reimpose itself on this wild card personality. —mkb On Dec 23, 2016, at 6:40 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss > wrote: We are no longer talking about Hillary. In a few weeks we will no longer be talking about Obama, and yes there are concerns for what he may do over the coming weeks, but we are looking at a Trump Administration, which based upon choices he has made couldn’t be worse. None of them are interested in peace. Peace only with Russia as a tactic and strategy for now. While that looks good, there are too many other concerns to be addressed. It’s not just about Trump being a racist, people are concerned about the choices he has made in respect to almost every Institution. In spite of his choices you continue to support him, while continuing to bash Obama. You have spent weeks bashing Jill Stein, yet continuing to support Trump on every level On Dec 22, 2016, at 13:49, Carl G. Estabrook > wrote: "The defensible heart of identity politics is its commitment to opposing forms of discrimination like racism, sexism, and homophobia [and xenophobia]. I share that commitment. But opposing discrimination today has no more to do with a left politics than do equally powerful ethical commitments against, say, violence or dishonesty. Why? Because the core of a left politics is its critique of and resistance to capitalism—its commitment to decommodifying education, health care, and housing, and creating a more economically equal society. Neither hostility to discrimination nor the accompanying enthusiasm for diversity makes the slightest contribution to accomplishing any of those goals. Just the opposite, in fact. They function instead to provide inequality with a meritocratic justification: If everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed, there’s no injustice when some people fail.” [W. B. Michaels, emphasis added] Our rulers recognize how hostility to discrimination and enthusiasm for diversity (both good things) can be used as a distraction from a critique of the economic base of society. HRC knew quite well what she was doing when she attacked Sanders’ New Deal economics by asking a crowd, “If we broke up the big banks tomorrow, would that end racism? Would that end sexism?” Glen Ford made the point early on: "Hillary Wants a Crusade to Defeat Trump’s 'Bigotry' – and Leave Her Bankers Alone." And now when I argue that Trump seems superior to Obama (and Clinton) on war and the economy, I get the answer (even from ‘progressive’ [sic] Democrats) that that doesn’t matter - because Trump is a racist! He may be, but that’s not the point: the point is that Obama has killed 6,000 people with drones, and Hillary would have started a war with Russia in Syria. IP is a conscious distraction from opposition to neoliberalism (more inequality) and neoconservatism (more war). —CGE On Dec 22, 2016, at 2:57 PM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss > wrote: Nit pick everything to death!!!! I posted two lines of congratulations to those who brought about the Urbana Sanctuary City Resolution, and what do we get? Reams of emails “trivializing and criticizing the work and motives of those involved”. Trivializing the efforts of those from previous years attempting to save people who were undocumented, as a result of US war and interventions. Have those who criticized the Sanctuary Movement, read the document, do they know the facts and details related to the law, have they heard the arguments presented by Prof. Boyle, or the issues in relation to what the Immigration Forum has been confronting? We know that currently most immigrants are economic refugees, and the corporations are responsible for bringing them here as cheap, slave labor. However, as one socialist/labor activist told me, “I’m going to support your efforts, because I don’t blame the “victims”. Maybe it only helps a few hundred people as compared to the millions we can save in the anti-war movement, but we here in Champaign/Urbana Il, are only a few grains of sand on the beach. It’s going to take tons of sand to accomplish our goals. We should be organizing to resist war and poverty, but instead we alienate those who may now have awakened to that which is occurring. Yes, the Obama administration has been doing many of these things insidiously, while Trump announced in advance, like a “baseball bat in the face” his intentions. All one has to do is look at his Cabinet appointments and others in his administration, Prof. Peter Navarro a China hater for one, to recognize where we’re headed. Yes, Trump may back away from Russia, for now. The “powers that be” recognize they must proceed more rapidly with China, as time is on China’s side, and attempting to take on two major world powers at the same time, is not strategically viable. This isn’t brain surgery, but it evaded the Obama administration who blindly just followed the advice of their warmongering Advisors, a misreading perhaps of Zbigniew? At least war criminal Kissinger has more sense than to foment wars that can’t be won, he sticks to the vulnerable nations, who have been suffering terribly and will likely continue to do so. So, we have a few more weeks to watch what the Obama administration does in respect to Russia and Syria, which maybe a lot. Given power is coming from “the system” the duck is lame, he isn’t yet dead. We need to prepare for the Trump administration on all fronts, and stop this nitpicking disguised as “intellectual discourse”. Those of us in the anti-war movement need to stop feeling superior because we’re concerned with the “big picture” we need to stop vilifying others for taking up Identity Issues, such as race, gender, etc., they are legitimate issues of concern. Criticize Prof. Dyson for making “race” the cause of all, with his articles in the NYT’s, thats fine. However, when our neighbors make an effort to change things for the better, for some, maybe we need to take a break. If we are to accomplish anything we need to unite and change our system of capitalism which is responsible for all, and we’re not going to do it if we alienate others because “we are right, and they are wrong”. _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From galliher at illinois.edu Sun Dec 25 02:41:33 2016 From: galliher at illinois.edu (Carl G. Estabrook) Date: Sat, 24 Dec 2016 20:41:33 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Against hysteria In-Reply-To: <4BEF5039AB283245B9B22D29042452EB4E1B9A18@CITESMBX4.ad.uillinois.edu> References: <9266CF74-0DF6-4247-8518-094C3328BDA7@illinois.edu> <9F5E5B82-AE31-440B-8B52-869B9895B872@illinois.edu> <39BDD7C6-2B6A-4C12-8CC2-1738048B3F83@illinois.edu> <284A8CA5-87EE-4D46-9917-406FF7127E0F@gmail.com> <4BEF5039AB283245B9B22D29042452EB4E1B811C@CITESMBX4.ad.uillinois.edu> <4BEF5039AB283245B9B22D29042452EB4E1B8636@CITESMBX4.ad.uillinois.edu> <4BEF5039AB283245B9B22D29042452EB4E1B8ED1@CITESMBX4.ad.uillinois.edu> <4BEF5039AB283245B9B22D29042452EB4E1B9A18@CITESMBX4.ad.uillinois.edu> Message-ID: <318055A2-285B-420D-A180-9E848BF6223B@illinois.edu> Anyone on these lists who wants a serious - rather than fanciful - account of the current Russian state should consult Perry Anderson, “Incommensurate Russia,” New Left Review 94 (July-August 2015) >. Perhaps AWARE should consider sponsoring a teach-in in the new semester on “The Russian Regime: Implications for the New Administration." The task would be to counter the literally incredible propaganda issuing from the US government (both Republicans and Democrats) and their academic épigones. —CGE > On Dec 24, 2016, at 3:04 PM, 'Fields, A Belden' a-fields at illinois.edu [sf-core] wrote: > > > Mort, > > I have also used the regime to apply to the US govt. I and others in pol sci got censured by the board of trustees for referring to the Nixon Admin as a criminal regime. For me, as for most political scientists, a regime is a system of governance in place. So yes, the US govt is a regime. So you don't need to be so defensive of Putin on that score. > > It is true that the French Jewish population is more uniformly supportive of the Israeli government and its polices than is the case in the US. But French anti-Semitism has very old roots, well before Israel was created. Remember the Dryfus Affair. Remember the behavior of the French police in turning over Jews to the Nazis during Vichy. Some of those Vichyites and Nazi collaborators founded the National Front that you find so palatable. And the support for Israel in no way justifies the violent attacks against Jews in France any more than it would in the US. > > I have not had access to Putin's bank account, any more than I have access to Trump's tax returns. > I have read about his associates among the oligarchs. A political ruler him or herself does not have to have a large annual income to be very well situated. When former oligarch associates of Putin cross him, they pay dearly, sometimes with their lives. > > Putin was very high in the KGB, the intelligence service of a totalitarian regime. That, in itself, should tell you something about him. > > Mort, I do not hope to convince you. I just hope that you, and I, never have to live in a world dominated by the Trumps, Putins, and Le Pens and their cohorts in Europe, all at once. Some of us on the Left made too many excuses for Stalin. You say that Putin has massive support in Russia. True. Hitler did as well in Germany. Mass mobilization is characteristically part of the process in creating and maintaining totalitarian systems. The right-wing, ultranationalist, populist appeal (as the "Socialist" in "National Socialism") has always played a crucial role. > > Enough said, > > I wish you and Phyllis a Merry Christmas > > Belden > > > > > From: Brussel, Morton K > Sent: Friday, December 23, 2016 4:33 PM > To: Fields, A Belden > Cc: peace; sf-core at yahoogroups.com ; Mohraz, Jane E > Subject: Re: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Against hysteria > > I guess a reply is warranted: > > You seem to have inside information (from the NYT?) about the internal policies in Russia under Putin. I’m skeptical, for much of it is consistent with so much that is published elsewhere in our new cold war. Putin’s popularity in Russia is well recognized, despite all of his claimed “excesses”. In other words, theRussian people think his policies have been beneficial (on the whole). I know nothing of his personal wealth, although I’ve heard the retrograde Richard Tempest elaborate on that. Can you give a reliable reference to this claim? I think the issue in any case is largely irrelevant, more in the way of character assassination. Obama and Clinton have also amassed considerable wealth, no doubt. Putin's taming of (some of the) oligarchs is not so bad, I think. But I would agree that his party is controlling Russian policies/politics almost as much as our elites/oligarchs are controlling ours. > > You impute to Marine le Pen much evil, not the least antisemitism. I cannot assess your anecdotal information, but I do know that she is not being criticized on that issue in the French media, so perhaps indeed she has changed her spots, really . As for her positions relative to immigrants, you are probably right, but I feel that immigration of “others” is a wide cultural problem in France and elsewhere (Germany, Poland, UK, Italy, …). People are disturbed when they feel that their culture is being “infiltrated” with the changes (religious, economic, ethnic, etc.) that mass immigration entails. It is not just a question of racist bigotry, as you claim. > > Antisemitism in France: You seem to be obsessed by that. It requires a sociological study. But I do know that the Jewish/Zionist lobby in France is as powerful as it is in the USA, so that criticism of Israeli policies is almost forbidden in France. Is that because the French have a guilty conscience with respect to what occurred to French Jews in WWII? That there has been a modest exodus of Jews to Israel may be just a reflection of the power of Zionists in France. But it is probable that the increase in the Muslim population in France is also a cause. Muslims tend to be sympathetic to the Palestinian cause—are antiZionist. My conclusion is that antisemitism in France is overstated, despite some bad incidents, and used as a battering ram against those who would oppose Israeli policies. . > > My close friends in France, one of whom is Jewish, have not brought up as a fact that a major problem in France (and humanity) is antisemitism. But that too is anecdotal. > > What is your evidence that Putin is supporting "ultra-nationalistic, fascistic, and sometimes neo-Nazi (as in Austria) forces”. What does the support consist of, aside from some praise of Le Pen? Of course, he is not unhappy that Le Pen, as is Trump, seems not to be engaged or interested in the new cold war against Russia, but that cannot, obviously, be held against him. > > I note the pejorative “régime” that Putin is the head of. What would you call our political system? > > I’ve undoubtedly overwritten. My apologies. > > And best wishes for a healthy and happier next year. Respectfully, > > Mort > > > > >> On Dec 23, 2016, at 12:41 PM, Fields, A Belden > wrote: >> >> Hi Mort, >> >> First, I think you misunderstood what I meant by opposition-killing regime. I was was not referring to what Russia did in Grozny or Aleppo (though I consider both of those war crimes--and I say that as one who has criticized US war crimes from Vietnam to Iraq). I was talking about the internal practices of Putin, the killing, imprisonment, and financial ruin of those who opposed him publicly or even reporters who just report the misdeeds of his regime. >> >> Second, I too have been following the National Front closely. Before that, in the 1960s, I had interviewed a leading member of the Action Francaise, its predecessor. Deb is absolutely right. Marine purged her father because he was always being hauled into court over his anti-Semitic statements. It was just bad PR for the Front. >> The friend of a French friend of mine was a fellow student of Marine's and reports that she was a rabid anti-Semite. But now immigrants and the large North African Arab permanent population are more politically expedient targets. Don't minimize that Mort. Bigotry is bigotry. And it is not just against the newer immigrants. It is against the ghettoized North African-French people as well. The Front's idolized vision of the true "French" person, is the francais de souche--white, Christian (does not have to be practicing), with long historical roots in France. Of course, they do not say this out loud. They are way too smart now. m They have to use the millions they get from the Russian bank cleverly. >> >> Regarding anti-Semitism. The Jewish population in France, which was the largest in Western Europe, has been diminishing rapidly in recent years. There are two reasons for this. One is that there have very frequent violent attacks against visibly apparent Jews and Jewish institutions in France by North Africans Moslems. Second is the growing strength of the National Front. Just as they do did not fit the Nazi definition of an Aryan, so Jews do not fit the Front's definition of a true French person. Most of them have been going to Israel for safety. >> >> Which brings me to the saddest irony that someone who contends that Zionism is racism would give the National Front such a free pass on its bigotry, which is directed openly against Arab Moslems and now covertly against Jews. Xenophobic bigots should be called out as such. Putin's willingness to support such ultra-nationalistic, fascistic, and sometimes neo-Nazi (as in Austria) forces brings no credit to him or his regime. >> For an older guy like me, it brings back the Hitler-Stalin Pact that so shook the anti-fascist movements in US and Western Europe. >> >> Attached you will find an abridged copy of an article I wrote on the National Front in the January 2016 issue of the Public i >> >> I wish everyone a peaceful and healthy 2017. >> >> Belden >> >> >> >> >> From: Brussel, Morton K >> Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2016 7:55 PM >> To: Fields, A Belden >> Cc: peace >> Subject: Re: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Against hysteria >> >> Belden, >> >> I might say that you are being too mild with respect to the NATO/U.S moves towards Russian Borders. Yes, those moves are provocative, but more than that, they are militantly aggressive; U.S. leaders would probably not be unhappy to see a proxy conflict arise between Ukraine and Russia, hoping it to be conducive to regime change in Russia. The U.S. is arming Ukraine (and the Baltic states) for that purpose, why else? >> >> On the other hand, I have been following what has been occurring in France closely. Marine Le Pen is not her father, she has not assumed his racist belligerent anti-semitic character, even though she she does espouse anti-immigration policies. Many, and not only from the far-right, are drawn to her, not only because of her relatively benign regard to Russia, but also due to her anti-Brussels European federalist and NATO, policies—causing a loss of French sovereignty. There is something to be said for that. That is why she could win the coming presidential election there. Aside from the fact that both want to be more friendly to Russia, she is far from being an equivalent to Trump. Moreover, I believe Europe (NATO) and the U.S.should cease their economic and military cold war policies, policies which could lead to a disastrous conflagration. The U.S. war hawks and their media are acting with respect to Ukraine just as they have in Syria, not so stealthily pushing dangerous provocations. Cohen elaborates this argument well. >> >> Finally, are you not also falling into the trap of demonizing Russia by calling it an “opposition killing state”? Is the USA a less "opposition killing state"? Who has been more killingly destructive in recent decades? My opinion is that Russia under Putin has been a stabilizing influence compared to the U.S., perhaps due in part to her far weaker military capabilities. >> >> Mort >> >> >> >>> On Dec 22, 2016, at 2:46 PM, Fields, A Belden > wrote: >>> >>> Mort, >>> >>> I just looked at the piece by Cohen in the Nation. I have always agreed with him that NATO was too provocative vs Russia in Eastern Europe. But I think Cohen puts it too mildly when he talks about Russia supporting "anti-status quo" movements in Europe. I understand Putin's desire to use any tool to fight back, but the movements he is supporting, including the French National Front in Front, are racist, xenophobic groups founded by collaborators in France and former Nazis in Austria. The combination of these groups coming to power, and allying with the puritanical/authoritarian/opposition killing state of Russia, is not a result I look forward to. Just look at Hungary under Oban. >>> >>> I think we should continue to be critical of the neo-cons of either party in the US, but we should also be very wary of the process going on in Europe now that Putin is encouraging--even if we understand why he is doing it. >>> >>> Belden >>> >>> >>> From: Brussel, Morton K >>> Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2016 12:36 PM >>> To: Fields, A Belden >>> Subject: Re: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Against hysteria >>> >>> I believe that Carl is primarily and justly concerned with US. wars and other depredations, and, in these perilous times, the new cold war—getting increasingly warmer— between the U.S. government and Russia/Putin. In this, he will find some confirmation of his attitude in the fascinating and enlightening podcast of Stephen Cohen on the subject of the demonization of Russia/Putin by the war parties inn D.C. Watch: https://www.thenation.com/article/american-cold-warriors-want-to-fight-russia-not-terrorism/ >>> >>> This is not an excuse relating to other mattters here discussed, but I think it is an important issue. >>> >>> —mkb >>> >>> >>>> On Dec 22, 2016, at 12:04 PM, Fields, A Belden via Peace > wrote: >>>> >>>> Carl, >>>> >>>> Your quoting from another source (the duran) contending that Trump is a moderate and your extensive quote in today's News-Gazette from Alexander Cockburn (whom you characterize as the "best political reporter in the US in his generation--a dubious contention at best) slamming the Southern Poverty Law Center as money-grabbing, are evasions in which you accept no responsibility because you are just quoting other sources. This is a cowardly way to write. I find your "letter" in the the N-G particularly offensive because it appeals to the generally conservative readers of the N-G to view the Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the major stalwarts against bigotry in this country, to be a rotten organization. We need the Center now more than ever. >>>> You present yourself as critically progressive, but have a knack of serving the right. Your attack on the Southern Poverty Law Center is particularly low and gratuitous, even for you. It is beneath contemptible. >>>> Belden >>>> >>>> >>>> From: Peace [peace-bounces at lists.chambana.net ] on behalf of Debra Schrishuhn via Peace [peace at lists.chambana.net ] >>>> Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2016 7:13 AM >>>> To: Estabrook, Carl G >>>> Cc: Peace Discuss; sf-core; Brussel, Morton K; peace; prairiegreens at lists.chambana.net ; Occupy CU >>>> Subject: Re: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Against hysteria >>>> >>>> As Mort writes, we do not know what policies the Trump regime will pursue. From his past words and actions and his Cabinet and staff nominations--including many white supremacists and individuals connected to racism and a disregard for civil rights, science deniers, skeptics of public education, and the potential for graft and corruption--we have ample reason to be concerned about both his character and his policies. To ignore this man's despicable character, as evidenced by his racism and xenophobia and fascist tendencies and his choices in staffing the next administration (regime), is to condone it. >>>> >>>> Debra >>>> >>>> Sent from my iPhone >>>> >>>> On Dec 22, 2016, at 6:48 AM, "Carl G. Estabrook" > wrote: >>>> >>>>> Shouldn’t we pay attention to the policies the Trump administration will follow, more than to his obvious deficiencies of character? >>>>> >>>>> The Obama administration is. They’re so afraid Trump will reverse Obama's warmongering policies, they’re rushing to try to lock the new administration into their lethal practices. >>>>> >>>>> Example: Obama has waved a restriction on providing shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles to the 'rebels’ in Syria (including al-Qaeda) - an obvious threat to the Russian air force (who, unlike the USAF, are in Syria legally). HRC wanted a no-fly zone, which she was told would lead to war with Russia; Obama is trying to use jihadists for that. >>>>> >>>>> The anti-war movement, of which AWARE is a part, should try to give an accurate account of the US government’s war-making, under this administration and the next. >>>>> >>>>> —CGE >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> On Dec 22, 2016, at 6:27 AM, Debra Schrishuhn > wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> Apparently, Trump's racism, xenophobia, and misogyny are true conservative values that you support? His intention to build a wall to keep brown people out of the US and his embrace of torture and extra-judicial killings don't bother you, Carl? His willingness to ignite trade wars and possibly hot wars with that military he plans to build up are OK? His lack of respect for fellow humans, his pathological tendency to lie or say whatever he thinks will advance him, get him attention -- these character traits are acceptable to you? Not to mention his graft, his bullying, his cruelty, his vindictiveness--these trait are acceptable in a US President or in any human being? >>>>>> >>>>>> That you embrace these odious qualities in another says a great deal about you. >>>>>> >>>>>> Debra >>>>>> >>>>>> Sent from my iPhone >>>>>> >>>>>> On Dec 21, 2016, at 10:32 PM, "Carl G. Estabrook via Peace" > wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>> I have great respect for Richard Wolff, but I wish he’d button his shirt and give us a transcript. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I’ve gotten too old to listen to lectures. —CGE >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> On Dec 21, 2016, at 10:04 PM, Brussel, Morton K > wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> I must say that it remains to be seen what Trump will do/represent. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Aside from his asserted intention to talk to the Russians and emphasize domestic over foreign affairs, his statements relative to China and Cuba and…, with respect to climate change, his coziness with Generals and his expressed intention to increase military spending perhaps by a factor of two, his favoring of “order” (police?) over civil rights, does not lead me to believe the confident remarks of the author who wrote the sentence cited below.This, even leaving aside the various contradictory and ignorant statements he is prone to make.. But yes, he will be a traditionally conservative Republican in favoring the corporate world which he probably knows best and in diverse retrograde social issues. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> I highly recommend a recent YouTube presentation by economist Richard Wolf on the subject of Trumpenomics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dut6sPW52Q >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> —mkb >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> On Dec 21, 2016, at 9:09 PM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss > wrote: >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> "This is what Trump represents, not radicalism but conservatism in its truest sense, a return to calm after a storm. His policies are amongst the most moderate in recent history. He is anti-interventionist, opposed to the apparatuses that should have been forgotten after the Cold War and his fiscal policies could easily be confused with those of a pre-Goldwater East Coast Republican.” >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> http://theduran.com/putin-trump-new-normalcy/ >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> ____ >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Peace mailing list >>>> Peace at lists.chambana.net >>>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace >> > > > __._,_.___ > Posted by: "Fields, A Belden" > > Reply via web post • Reply to sender  • Reply to group  • Start a New Topic • Messages in this topic (4) > Have you tried the highest rated email app? > With 4.5 stars in iTunes, the Yahoo Mail app is the highest rated email app on the market. What are you waiting for? Now you can access all your inboxes (Gmail, Outlook, AOL and more) in one place. Never delete an email again with 1000GB of free cloud storage. > VISIT YOUR GROUP > • Privacy • Unsubscribe • Terms of Use > . > > > __,_._,___ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cge at shout.net Sun Dec 25 04:22:54 2016 From: cge at shout.net (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Sat, 24 Dec 2016 22:22:54 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Kyle Ammons' remarks after Passage of UrbanaSanctuary City In-Reply-To: <15932ff5637-10c8-20a6d@webprd-a14.mail.aol.com> References: <15932ff5637-10c8-20a6d@webprd-a14.mail.aol.com> Message-ID: <12bc5badd1f6e6f02b7c6e882e4602a1@shout.net> Ammons, like may other Americans, has been misled into thinking that slavery in America was a matter of race relations (black people and white people) rather than capitalism (owners and workers). "Probably a majority of American historians think of slavery in the United States as primarily a system of race relations — as though the chief business of slavery were the production of white supremacy rather than the production of cotton, sugar, rice and tobacco. One historian has gone so far as to call slavery ‘the ultimate segregator’. He does not ask why Europeans seeking the ‘ultimate’ method of segregating Africans would go to the trouble and expense of transporting them across the ocean for that purpose, when they could have achieved the same end so much more simply by leaving the Africans in Africa. "No one dreams of analyzing the struggle of the English against the Irish as a problem in race relations, even though the rationale that the English developed for suppressing the ‘barbarous’ Irish later served nearly word for word as a rationale for suppressing Africans and indigenous American Indians. Nor does anyone dream of analyzing serfdom in Russia as primarily a problem of race relations, even though the Russian nobility invented fictions of their innate, natural superiority over the serfs as preposterous as any devised by American racists." [B. J. Fields] See now "How Race Is Conjured: The fiction of race hides the real source of racism and inequity in America today," by Barbara J. Fields & Karen E. Fields, Jacobin 6.29.15 This misleading - sometimes innocent but often not - protects capitalism from criticism by directing that criticism to racial prejudice (which itself should be distinguished from racism properly speaking, which is a matter of law, as in apartheid South Africa or Israel). Racism existed in the Virginia of my youth, but the laws were changed (see the current film “Loving”). Racial prejudice still exists there - but racism as a legal structure doesn’t. --CGE On 2016-12-24 16:41, Mildred O'brien wrote: > I don't know if other people attending the Urbana City Council meeting > after the passage of the Urbana Sanctuary City Ordinance were > listening and offended as I was by remarks of Council person Ammons > who lectured "descendants of immigrants" who (supposedly) enslaved his > ancestors but now petitioned on behalf of undocumented immigrants. I > was astonished by such language at the time but thought perhaps I had > not heard what I thought I heard. Today on WEFT I heard a replay of > the Council proceedings of December 19 after the passage of the > Ordinance which confirmed my recollection of his words, which blamed > [white] immigrants in general for enslaving his people. > > It is not been historically established that more than 10 - 15% of > Colonials were responsible for the importation and exploitation of > slave labor. Realistically, servitude of black or white enforced > labor was not economically feasible for the majority of landless > immigrants to America who were destitute or themselves enslaved > (Caucasians for 7 to 10 years or more, Africans for life) but was > restricted to wealthy Europeans primarily from England. My own > paternal ancestor immigrant was kidnapped from Ireland in 1698 at > twelve years of age and transplanted to work for a wealthy Englishman > in tobacco fields of Maryland until the age of 21. > > It is not helpful for contemporary descendants of perceived past > aggrievances to tar people of good intentions with presumably > inherited guilt for which they had no responsibility, but to work in > harmony to prevent repetition of transgressions. > > Midge O'Brien From brussel at illinois.edu Sun Dec 25 04:38:33 2016 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Sun, 25 Dec 2016 04:38:33 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Against hysteria In-Reply-To: <318055A2-285B-420D-A180-9E848BF6223B@illinois.edu> References: <9266CF74-0DF6-4247-8518-094C3328BDA7@illinois.edu> <9F5E5B82-AE31-440B-8B52-869B9895B872@illinois.edu> <39BDD7C6-2B6A-4C12-8CC2-1738048B3F83@illinois.edu> <284A8CA5-87EE-4D46-9917-406FF7127E0F@gmail.com> <4BEF5039AB283245B9B22D29042452EB4E1B811C@CITESMBX4.ad.uillinois.edu> <4BEF5039AB283245B9B22D29042452EB4E1B8636@CITESMBX4.ad.uillinois.edu> <4BEF5039AB283245B9B22D29042452EB4E1B8ED1@CITESMBX4.ad.uillinois.edu> <4BEF5039AB283245B9B22D29042452EB4E1B9A18@CITESMBX4.ad.uillinois.edu> <318055A2-285B-420D-A180-9E848BF6223B@illinois.edu> Message-ID: <46E19CF3-0995-4709-A58D-4848AAF6B7F7@illinois.edu> The Perry Anderson analysis/prognosis of Russia’s future may already have been overtaken by recent events in the U.S. and in Syria, also involving Iran and China (which he ignores), and one can also argue that his descriptions of the Ukraine events are muddled and disputed. He thinks Russia/Putin is inescapably trapped in a situation of its/his own devices. I wonder what Stephen Cohen thinks of it. —mkb On Dec 24, 2016, at 8:41 PM, Carl G. Estabrook > wrote: Anyone on these lists who wants a serious - rather than fanciful - account of the current Russian state should consult Perry Anderson, “Incommensurate Russia,” New Left Review 94 (July-August 2015) >. Perhaps AWARE should consider sponsoring a teach-in in the new semester on “The Russian Regime: Implications for the New Administration." The task would be to counter the literally incredible propaganda issuing from the US government (both Republicans and Democrats) and their academic épigones. —CGE On Dec 24, 2016, at 3:04 PM, 'Fields, A Belden' a-fields at illinois.edu [sf-core] > wrote: Mort, I have also used the regime to apply to the US govt. I and others in pol sci got censured by the board of trustees for referring to the Nixon Admin as a criminal regime. For me, as for most political scientists, a regime is a system of governance in place. So yes, the US govt is a regime. So you don't need to be so defensive of Putin on that score. It is true that the French Jewish population is more uniformly supportive of the Israeli government and its polices than is the case in the US. But French anti-Semitism has very old roots, well before Israel was created. Remember the Dryfus Affair. Remember the behavior of the French police in turning over Jews to the Nazis during Vichy. Some of those Vichyites and Nazi collaborators founded the National Front that you find so palatable. And the support for Israel in no way justifies the violent attacks against Jews in France any more than it would in the US. I have not had access to Putin's bank account, any more than I have access to Trump's tax returns. I have read about his associates among the oligarchs. A political ruler him or herself does not have to have a large annual income to be very well situated. When former oligarch associates of Putin cross him, they pay dearly, sometimes with their lives. Putin was very high in the KGB, the intelligence service of a totalitarian regime. That, in itself, should tell you something about him. Mort, I do not hope to convince you. I just hope that you, and I, never have to live in a world dominated by the Trumps, Putins, and Le Pens and their cohorts in Europe, all at once. Some of us on the Left made too many excuses for Stalin. You say that Putin has massive support in Russia. True. Hitler did as well in Germany. Mass mobilization is characteristically part of the process in creating and maintaining totalitarian systems. The right-wing, ultranationalist, populist appeal (as the "Socialist" in "National Socialism") has always played a crucial role. Enough said, I wish you and Phyllis a Merry Christmas Belden ________________________________ From: Brussel, Morton K Sent: Friday, December 23, 2016 4:33 PM To: Fields, A Belden Cc: peace; sf-core at yahoogroups.com; Mohraz, Jane E Subject: Re: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Against hysteria I guess a reply is warranted: You seem to have inside information (from the NYT?) about the internal policies in Russia under Putin. I’m skeptical, for much of it is consistent with so much that is published elsewhere in our new cold war. Putin’s popularity in Russia is well recognized, despite all of his claimed “excesses”. In other words, theRussian people think his policies have been beneficial (on the whole). I know nothing of his personal wealth, although I’ve heard the retrograde Richard Tempest elaborate on that. Can you give a reliable reference to this claim? I think the issue in any case is largely irrelevant, more in the way of character assassination. Obama and Clinton have also amassed considerable wealth, no doubt. Putin's taming of (some of the) oligarchs is not so bad, I think. But I would agree that his party is controlling Russian policies/politics almost as much as our elites/oligarchs are controlling ours. You impute to Marine le Pen much evil, not the least antisemitism. I cannot assess your anecdotal information, but I do know that she is not being criticized on that issue in the French media, so perhaps indeed she has changed her spots, really . As for her positions relative to immigrants, you are probably right, but I feel that immigration of “others” is a wide cultural problem in France and elsewhere (Germany, Poland, UK, Italy, …). People are disturbed when they feel that their culture is being “infiltrated” with the changes (religious, economic, ethnic, etc.) that mass immigration entails. It is not just a question of racist bigotry, as you claim. Antisemitism in France: You seem to be obsessed by that. It requires a sociological study. But I do know that the Jewish/Zionist lobby in France is as powerful as it is in the USA, so that criticism of Israeli policies is almost forbidden in France. Is that because the French have a guilty conscience with respect to what occurred to French Jews in WWII? That there has been a modest exodus of Jews to Israel may be just a reflection of the power of Zionists in France. But it is probable that the increase in the Muslim population in France is also a cause. Muslims tend to be sympathetic to the Palestinian cause—are antiZionist. My conclusion is that antisemitism in France is overstated, despite some bad incidents, and used as a battering ram against those who would oppose Israeli policies. . My close friends in France, one of whom is Jewish, have not brought up as a fact that a major problem in France (and humanity) is antisemitism. But that too is anecdotal. What is your evidence that Putin is supporting "ultra-nationalistic, fascistic, and sometimes neo-Nazi (as in Austria) forces”. What does the support consist of, aside from some praise of Le Pen? Of course, he is not unhappy that Le Pen, as is Trump, seems not to be engaged or interested in the new cold war against Russia, but that cannot, obviously, be held against him. I note the pejorative “régime” that Putin is the head of. What would you call our political system? I’ve undoubtedly overwritten. My apologies. And best wishes for a healthy and happier next year. Respectfully, Mort On Dec 23, 2016, at 12:41 PM, Fields, A Belden > wrote: Hi Mort, First, I think you misunderstood what I meant by opposition-killing regime. I was was not referring to what Russia did in Grozny or Aleppo (though I consider both of those war crimes--and I say that as one who has criticized US war crimes from Vietnam to Iraq). I was talking about the internal practices of Putin, the killing, imprisonment, and financial ruin of those who opposed him publicly or even reporters who just report the misdeeds of his regime. Second, I too have been following the National Front closely. Before that, in the 1960s, I had interviewed a leading member of the Action Francaise, its predecessor. Deb is absolutely right. Marine purged her father because he was always being hauled into court over his anti-Semitic statements. It was just bad PR for the Front. The friend of a French friend of mine was a fellow student of Marine's and reports that she was a rabid anti-Semite. But now immigrants and the large North African Arab permanent population are more politically expedient targets. Don't minimize that Mort. Bigotry is bigotry. And it is not just against the newer immigrants. It is against the ghettoized North African-French people as well. The Front's idolized vision of the true "French" person, is the francais de souche--white, Christian (does not have to be practicing), with long historical roots in France. Of course, they do not say this out loud. They are way too smart now. m They have to use the millions they get from the Russian bank cleverly. Regarding anti-Semitism. The Jewish population in France, which was the largest in Western Europe, has been diminishing rapidly in recent years. There are two reasons for this. One is that there have very frequent violent attacks against visibly apparent Jews and Jewish institutions in France by North Africans Moslems. Second is the growing strength of the National Front. Just as they do did not fit the Nazi definition of an Aryan, so Jews do not fit the Front's definition of a true French person. Most of them have been going to Israel for safety. Which brings me to the saddest irony that someone who contends that Zionism is racism would give the National Front such a free pass on its bigotry, which is directed openly against Arab Moslems and now covertly against Jews. Xenophobic bigots should be called out as such. Putin's willingness to support such ultra-nationalistic, fascistic, and sometimes neo-Nazi (as in Austria) forces brings no credit to him or his regime. For an older guy like me, it brings back the Hitler-Stalin Pact that so shook the anti-fascist movements in US and Western Europe. Attached you will find an abridged copy of an article I wrote on the National Front in the January 2016 issue of the Public i I wish everyone a peaceful and healthy 2017. Belden ________________________________ From: Brussel, Morton K Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2016 7:55 PM To: Fields, A Belden Cc: peace Subject: Re: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Against hysteria Belden, I might say that you are being too mild with respect to the NATO/U.S moves towards Russian Borders. Yes, those moves are provocative, but more than that, they are militantly aggressive; U.S. leaders would probably not be unhappy to see a proxy conflict arise between Ukraine and Russia, hoping it to be conducive to regime change in Russia. The U.S. is arming Ukraine (and the Baltic states) for that purpose, why else? On the other hand, I have been following what has been occurring in France closely. Marine Le Pen is not her father, she has not assumed his racist belligerent anti-semitic character, even though she she does espouse anti-immigration policies. Many, and not only from the far-right, are drawn to her, not only because of her relatively benign regard to Russia, but also due to her anti-Brussels European federalist and NATO, policies—causing a loss of French sovereignty. There is something to be said for that. That is why she could win the coming presidential election there. Aside from the fact that both want to be more friendly to Russia, she is far from being an equivalent to Trump. Moreover, I believe Europe (NATO) and the U.S.should cease their economic and military cold war policies, policies which could lead to a disastrous conflagration. The U.S. war hawks and their media are acting with respect to Ukraine just as they have in Syria, not so stealthily pushing dangerous provocations. Cohen elaborates this argument well. Finally, are you not also falling into the trap of demonizing Russia by calling it an “opposition killing state”? Is the USA a less "opposition killing state"? Who has been more killingly destructive in recent decades? My opinion is that Russia under Putin has been a stabilizing influence compared to the U.S., perhaps due in part to her far weaker military capabilities. Mort On Dec 22, 2016, at 2:46 PM, Fields, A Belden > wrote: Mort, I just looked at the piece by Cohen in the Nation. I have always agreed with him that NATO was too provocative vs Russia in Eastern Europe. But I think Cohen puts it too mildly when he talks about Russia supporting "anti-status quo" movements in Europe. I understand Putin's desire to use any tool to fight back, but the movements he is supporting, including the French National Front in Front, are racist, xenophobic groups founded by collaborators in France and former Nazis in Austria. The combination of these groups coming to power, and allying with the puritanical/authoritarian/opposition killing state of Russia, is not a result I look forward to. Just look at Hungary under Oban. I think we should continue to be critical of the neo-cons of either party in the US, but we should also be very wary of the process going on in Europe now that Putin is encouraging--even if we understand why he is doing it. Belden ________________________________ From: Brussel, Morton K Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2016 12:36 PM To: Fields, A Belden Subject: Re: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Against hysteria I believe that Carl is primarily and justly concerned with US. wars and other depredations, and, in these perilous times, the new cold war—getting increasingly warmer— between the U.S. government and Russia/Putin. In this, he will find some confirmation of his attitude in the fascinating and enlightening podcast of Stephen Cohen on the subject of the demonization of Russia/Putin by the war parties inn D.C. Watch: https://www.thenation.com/article/american-cold-warriors-want-to-fight-russia-not-terrorism/ This is not an excuse relating to other mattters here discussed, but I think it is an important issue. —mkb On Dec 22, 2016, at 12:04 PM, Fields, A Belden via Peace > wrote: Carl, Your quoting from another source (the duran) contending that Trump is a moderate and your extensive quote in today's News-Gazette from Alexander Cockburn (whom you characterize as the "best political reporter in the US in his generation--a dubious contention at best) slamming the Southern Poverty Law Center as money-grabbing, are evasions in which you accept no responsibility because you are just quoting other sources. This is a cowardly way to write. I find your "letter" in the the N-G particularly offensive because it appeals to the generally conservative readers of the N-G to view the Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the major stalwarts against bigotry in this country, to be a rotten organization. We need the Center now more than ever. You present yourself as critically progressive, but have a knack of serving the right. Your attack on the Southern Poverty Law Center is particularly low and gratuitous, even for you. It is beneath contemptible. Belden ________________________________ From: Peace [peace-bounces at lists.chambana.net] on behalf of Debra Schrishuhn via Peace [peace at lists.chambana.net] Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2016 7:13 AM To: Estabrook, Carl G Cc: Peace Discuss; sf-core; Brussel, Morton K; peace; prairiegreens at lists.chambana.net; Occupy CU Subject: Re: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Against hysteria As Mort writes, we do not know what policies the Trump regime will pursue. From his past words and actions and his Cabinet and staff nominations--including many white supremacists and individuals connected to racism and a disregard for civil rights, science deniers, skeptics of public education, and the potential for graft and corruption--we have ample reason to be concerned about both his character and his policies. To ignore this man's despicable character, as evidenced by his racism and xenophobia and fascist tendencies and his choices in staffing the next administration (regime), is to condone it. Debra Sent from my iPhone On Dec 22, 2016, at 6:48 AM, "Carl G. Estabrook" > wrote: Shouldn’t we pay attention to the policies the Trump administration will follow, more than to his obvious deficiencies of character? The Obama administration is. They’re so afraid Trump will reverse Obama's warmongering policies, they’re rushing to try to lock the new administration into their lethal practices. Example: Obama has waved a restriction on providing shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles to the 'rebels’ in Syria (including al-Qaeda) - an obvious threat to the Russian air force (who, unlike the USAF, are in Syria legally). HRC wanted a no-fly zone, which she was told would lead to war with Russia; Obama is trying to use jihadists for that. The anti-war movement, of which AWARE is a part, should try to give an accurate account of the US government’s war-making, under this administration and the next. —CGE On Dec 22, 2016, at 6:27 AM, Debra Schrishuhn > wrote: Apparently, Trump's racism, xenophobia, and misogyny are true conservative values that you support? His intention to build a wall to keep brown people out of the US and his embrace of torture and extra-judicial killings don't bother you, Carl? His willingness to ignite trade wars and possibly hot wars with that military he plans to build up are OK? His lack of respect for fellow humans, his pathological tendency to lie or say whatever he thinks will advance him, get him attention -- these character traits are acceptable to you? Not to mention his graft, his bullying, his cruelty, his vindictiveness--these trait are acceptable in a US President or in any human being? That you embrace these odious qualities in another says a great deal about you. Debra Sent from my iPhone On Dec 21, 2016, at 10:32 PM, "Carl G. Estabrook via Peace" > wrote: I have great respect for Richard Wolff, but I wish he’d button his shirt and give us a transcript. I’ve gotten too old to listen to lectures. —CGE On Dec 21, 2016, at 10:04 PM, Brussel, Morton K > wrote: I must say that it remains to be seen what Trump will do/represent. Aside from his asserted intention to talk to the Russians and emphasize domestic over foreign affairs, his statements relative to China and Cuba and…, with respect to climate change, his coziness with Generals and his expressed intention to increase military spending perhaps by a factor of two, his favoring of “order” (police?) over civil rights, does not lead me to believe the confident remarks of the author who wrote the sentence cited below.This, even leaving aside the various contradictory and ignorant statements he is prone to make.. But yes, he will be a traditionally conservative Republican in favoring the corporate world which he probably knows best and in diverse retrograde social issues. I highly recommend a recent YouTube presentation by economist Richard Wolf on the subject of Trumpenomics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dut6sPW52Q —mkb On Dec 21, 2016, at 9:09 PM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss > wrote: "This is what Trump represents, not radicalism but conservatism in its truest sense, a return to calm after a storm. His policies are amongst the most moderate in recent history. He is anti-interventionist, opposed to the apparatuses that should have been forgotten after the Cold War and his fiscal policies could easily be confused with those of a pre-Goldwater East Coast Republican.” http://theduran.com/putin-trump-new-normalcy/ ____ _______________________________________________ Peace mailing list Peace at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace __._,_.___ ________________________________ Posted by: "Fields, A Belden" > ________________________________ Reply via web post • Reply to sender • Reply to group • Start a New Topic • Messages in this topic (4) ________________________________ [https://s.yimg.com/ru/static/images/yg/img/megaphone/1464031581_phpFA8bON] Have you tried the highest rated email app? With 4.5 stars in iTunes, the Yahoo Mail app is the highest rated email app on the market. What are you waiting for? Now you can access all your inboxes (Gmail, Outlook, AOL and more) in one place. Never delete an email again with 1000GB of free cloud storage. ________________________________ VISIT YOUR GROUP [Yahoo! Groups] • Privacy • Unsubscribe • Terms of Use . __,_._,___ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From galliher at illinois.edu Sun Dec 25 04:54:52 2016 From: galliher at illinois.edu (Carl G. Estabrook) Date: Sat, 24 Dec 2016 22:54:52 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Against hysteria In-Reply-To: <46E19CF3-0995-4709-A58D-4848AAF6B7F7@illinois.edu> References: <9266CF74-0DF6-4247-8518-094C3328BDA7@illinois.edu> <9F5E5B82-AE31-440B-8B52-869B9895B872@illinois.edu> <39BDD7C6-2B6A-4C12-8CC2-1738048B3F83@illinois.edu> <284A8CA5-87EE-4D46-9917-406FF7127E0F@gmail.com> <4BEF5039AB283245B9B22D29042452EB4E1B811C@CITESMBX4.ad.uillinois.edu> <4BEF5039AB283245B9B22D29042452EB4E1B8636@CITESMBX4.ad.uillinois.edu> <4BEF5039AB283245B9B22D29042452EB4E1B8ED1@CITESMBX4.ad.uillinois.edu> <4BEF5039AB283245B9B22D29042452EB4E1B9A18@CITESMBX4.ad.uillinois.edu> <318055A2-285B-420D-A180-9E848BF6223B@illinois.edu> <46E19CF3-0995-4709-A58D-4848AAF6B7F7@illinois.edu> Message-ID: <098645FF-1A52-400F-A3C9-48088BEDD2E8@illinois.edu> What’s wrong with Anderson's account of the Ukraine events? —CGE > On Dec 24, 2016, at 10:38 PM, Brussel, Morton K wrote: > > The Perry Anderson analysis/prognosis of Russia’s future may already have been overtaken by recent events in the U.S. and in Syria, also involving Iran and China (which he ignores), and one can also argue that his descriptions of the Ukraine events are muddled and disputed. He thinks Russia/Putin is inescapably trapped in a situation of its/his own devices. I wonder what Stephen Cohen thinks of it. > > —mkb > > >> On Dec 24, 2016, at 8:41 PM, Carl G. Estabrook > wrote: >> >> Anyone on these lists who wants a serious - rather than fanciful - account of the current Russian state should consult >> >> Perry Anderson, “Incommensurate Russia,” New Left Review 94 (July-August 2015) >. >> >> Perhaps AWARE should consider sponsoring a teach-in in the new semester on “The Russian Regime: Implications for the New Administration." >> >> The task would be to counter the literally incredible propaganda issuing from the US government (both Republicans and Democrats) and their academic épigones. >> >> —CGE >> >> >>> On Dec 24, 2016, at 3:04 PM, 'Fields, A Belden' a-fields at illinois.edu [sf-core] > wrote: >>> >>> >>> Mort, >>> >>> I have also used the regime to apply to the US govt. I and others in pol sci got censured by the board of trustees for referring to the Nixon Admin as a criminal regime. For me, as for most political scientists, a regime is a system of governance in place. So yes, the US govt is a regime. So you don't need to be so defensive of Putin on that score. >>> >>> It is true that the French Jewish population is more uniformly supportive of the Israeli government and its polices than is the case in the US. But French anti-Semitism has very old roots, well before Israel was created. Remember the Dryfus Affair. Remember the behavior of the French police in turning over Jews to the Nazis during Vichy. Some of those Vichyites and Nazi collaborators founded the National Front that you find so palatable. And the support for Israel in no way justifies the violent attacks against Jews in France any more than it would in the US. >>> >>> I have not had access to Putin's bank account, any more than I have access to Trump's tax returns. >>> I have read about his associates among the oligarchs. A political ruler him or herself does not have to have a large annual income to be very well situated. When former oligarch associates of Putin cross him, they pay dearly, sometimes with their lives. >>> >>> Putin was very high in the KGB, the intelligence service of a totalitarian regime. That, in itself, should tell you something about him. >>> >>> Mort, I do not hope to convince you. I just hope that you, and I, never have to live in a world dominated by the Trumps, Putins, and Le Pens and their cohorts in Europe, all at once. Some of us on the Left made too many excuses for Stalin. You say that Putin has massive support in Russia. True. Hitler did as well in Germany. Mass mobilization is characteristically part of the process in creating and maintaining totalitarian systems. The right-wing, ultranationalist, populist appeal (as the "Socialist" in "National Socialism") has always played a crucial role. >>> >>> Enough said, >>> >>> I wish you and Phyllis a Merry Christmas >>> >>> Belden >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> From: Brussel, Morton K >>> Sent: Friday, December 23, 2016 4:33 PM >>> To: Fields, A Belden >>> Cc: peace; sf-core at yahoogroups.com ; Mohraz, Jane E >>> Subject: Re: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Against hysteria >>> >>> I guess a reply is warranted: >>> >>> You seem to have inside information (from the NYT?) about the internal policies in Russia under Putin. I’m skeptical, for much of it is consistent with so much that is published elsewhere in our new cold war. Putin’s popularity in Russia is well recognized, despite all of his claimed “excesses”. In other words, theRussian people think his policies have been beneficial (on the whole). I know nothing of his personal wealth, although I’ve heard the retrograde Richard Tempest elaborate on that. Can you give a reliable reference to this claim? I think the issue in any case is largely irrelevant, more in the way of character assassination. Obama and Clinton have also amassed considerable wealth, no doubt. Putin's taming of (some of the) oligarchs is not so bad, I think. But I would agree that his party is controlling Russian policies/politics almost as much as our elites/oligarchs are controlling ours. >>> >>> You impute to Marine le Pen much evil, not the least antisemitism. I cannot assess your anecdotal information, but I do know that she is not being criticized on that issue in the French media, so perhaps indeed she has changed her spots, really . As for her positions relative to immigrants, you are probably right, but I feel that immigration of “others” is a wide cultural problem in France and elsewhere (Germany, Poland, UK, Italy, …). People are disturbed when they feel that their culture is being “infiltrated” with the changes (religious, economic, ethnic, etc.) that mass immigration entails. It is not just a question of racist bigotry, as you claim. >>> >>> Antisemitism in France: You seem to be obsessed by that. It requires a sociological study. But I do know that the Jewish/Zionist lobby in France is as powerful as it is in the USA, so that criticism of Israeli policies is almost forbidden in France. Is that because the French have a guilty conscience with respect to what occurred to French Jews in WWII? That there has been a modest exodus of Jews to Israel may be just a reflection of the power of Zionists in France. But it is probable that the increase in the Muslim population in France is also a cause. Muslims tend to be sympathetic to the Palestinian cause—are antiZionist. My conclusion is that antisemitism in France is overstated, despite some bad incidents, and used as a battering ram against those who would oppose Israeli policies. . >>> >>> My close friends in France, one of whom is Jewish, have not brought up as a fact that a major problem in France (and humanity) is antisemitism. But that too is anecdotal. >>> >>> What is your evidence that Putin is supporting "ultra-nationalistic, fascistic, and sometimes neo-Nazi (as in Austria) forces”. What does the support consist of, aside from some praise of Le Pen? Of course, he is not unhappy that Le Pen, as is Trump, seems not to be engaged or interested in the new cold war against Russia, but that cannot, obviously, be held against him. >>> >>> I note the pejorative “régime” that Putin is the head of. What would you call our political system? >>> >>> I’ve undoubtedly overwritten. My apologies. >>> >>> And best wishes for a healthy and happier next year. Respectfully, >>> >>> Mort >>> >>> >>> >>> >>>> On Dec 23, 2016, at 12:41 PM, Fields, A Belden > wrote: >>>> >>>> Hi Mort, >>>> >>>> First, I think you misunderstood what I meant by opposition-killing regime. I was was not referring to what Russia did in Grozny or Aleppo (though I consider both of those war crimes--and I say that as one who has criticized US war crimes from Vietnam to Iraq). I was talking about the internal practices of Putin, the killing, imprisonment, and financial ruin of those who opposed him publicly or even reporters who just report the misdeeds of his regime. >>>> >>>> Second, I too have been following the National Front closely. Before that, in the 1960s, I had interviewed a leading member of the Action Francaise, its predecessor. Deb is absolutely right. Marine purged her father because he was always being hauled into court over his anti-Semitic statements. It was just bad PR for the Front. >>>> The friend of a French friend of mine was a fellow student of Marine's and reports that she was a rabid anti-Semite. But now immigrants and the large North African Arab permanent population are more politically expedient targets. Don't minimize that Mort. Bigotry is bigotry. And it is not just against the newer immigrants. It is against the ghettoized North African-French people as well. The Front's idolized vision of the true "French" person, is the francais de souche--white, Christian (does not have to be practicing), with long historical roots in France. Of course, they do not say this out loud. They are way too smart now. m They have to use the millions they get from the Russian bank cleverly. >>>> >>>> Regarding anti-Semitism. The Jewish population in France, which was the largest in Western Europe, has been diminishing rapidly in recent years. There are two reasons for this. One is that there have very frequent violent attacks against visibly apparent Jews and Jewish institutions in France by North Africans Moslems. Second is the growing strength of the National Front. Just as they do did not fit the Nazi definition of an Aryan, so Jews do not fit the Front's definition of a true French person. Most of them have been going to Israel for safety. >>>> >>>> Which brings me to the saddest irony that someone who contends that Zionism is racism would give the National Front such a free pass on its bigotry, which is directed openly against Arab Moslems and now covertly against Jews. Xenophobic bigots should be called out as such. Putin's willingness to support such ultra-nationalistic, fascistic, and sometimes neo-Nazi (as in Austria) forces brings no credit to him or his regime. >>>> For an older guy like me, it brings back the Hitler-Stalin Pact that so shook the anti-fascist movements in US and Western Europe. >>>> >>>> Attached you will find an abridged copy of an article I wrote on the National Front in the January 2016 issue of the Public i >>>> >>>> I wish everyone a peaceful and healthy 2017. >>>> >>>> Belden >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> From: Brussel, Morton K >>>> Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2016 7:55 PM >>>> To: Fields, A Belden >>>> Cc: peace >>>> Subject: Re: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Against hysteria >>>> >>>> Belden, >>>> >>>> I might say that you are being too mild with respect to the NATO/U.S moves towards Russian Borders. Yes, those moves are provocative, but more than that, they are militantly aggressive; U.S. leaders would probably not be unhappy to see a proxy conflict arise between Ukraine and Russia, hoping it to be conducive to regime change in Russia. The U.S. is arming Ukraine (and the Baltic states) for that purpose, why else? >>>> >>>> On the other hand, I have been following what has been occurring in France closely. Marine Le Pen is not her father, she has not assumed his racist belligerent anti-semitic character, even though she she does espouse anti-immigration policies. Many, and not only from the far-right, are drawn to her, not only because of her relatively benign regard to Russia, but also due to her anti-Brussels European federalist and NATO, policies—causing a loss of French sovereignty. There is something to be said for that. That is why she could win the coming presidential election there. Aside from the fact that both want to be more friendly to Russia, she is far from being an equivalent to Trump. Moreover, I believe Europe (NATO) and the U.S.should cease their economic and military cold war policies, policies which could lead to a disastrous conflagration. The U.S. war hawks and their media are acting with respect to Ukraine just as they have in Syria, not so stealthily pushing dangerous provocations. Cohen elaborates this argument well. >>>> >>>> Finally, are you not also falling into the trap of demonizing Russia by calling it an “opposition killing state”? Is the USA a less "opposition killing state"? Who has been more killingly destructive in recent decades? My opinion is that Russia under Putin has been a stabilizing influence compared to the U.S., perhaps due in part to her far weaker military capabilities. >>>> >>>> Mort >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>>> On Dec 22, 2016, at 2:46 PM, Fields, A Belden > wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Mort, >>>>> >>>>> I just looked at the piece by Cohen in the Nation. I have always agreed with him that NATO was too provocative vs Russia in Eastern Europe. But I think Cohen puts it too mildly when he talks about Russia supporting "anti-status quo" movements in Europe. I understand Putin's desire to use any tool to fight back, but the movements he is supporting, including the French National Front in Front, are racist, xenophobic groups founded by collaborators in France and former Nazis in Austria. The combination of these groups coming to power, and allying with the puritanical/authoritarian/opposition killing state of Russia, is not a result I look forward to. Just look at Hungary under Oban. >>>>> >>>>> I think we should continue to be critical of the neo-cons of either party in the US, but we should also be very wary of the process going on in Europe now that Putin is encouraging--even if we understand why he is doing it. >>>>> >>>>> Belden >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> From: Brussel, Morton K >>>>> Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2016 12:36 PM >>>>> To: Fields, A Belden >>>>> Subject: Re: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Against hysteria >>>>> >>>>> I believe that Carl is primarily and justly concerned with US. wars and other depredations, and, in these perilous times, the new cold war—getting increasingly warmer— between the U.S. government and Russia/Putin. In this, he will find some confirmation of his attitude in the fascinating and enlightening podcast of Stephen Cohen on the subject of the demonization of Russia/Putin by the war parties inn D.C. Watch: https://www.thenation.com/article/american-cold-warriors-want-to-fight-russia-not-terrorism/ >>>>> >>>>> This is not an excuse relating to other mattters here discussed, but I think it is an important issue. >>>>> >>>>> —mkb >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> On Dec 22, 2016, at 12:04 PM, Fields, A Belden via Peace > wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> Carl, >>>>>> >>>>>> Your quoting from another source (the duran) contending that Trump is a moderate and your extensive quote in today's News-Gazette from Alexander Cockburn (whom you characterize as the "best political reporter in the US in his generation--a dubious contention at best) slamming the Southern Poverty Law Center as money-grabbing, are evasions in which you accept no responsibility because you are just quoting other sources. This is a cowardly way to write. I find your "letter" in the the N-G particularly offensive because it appeals to the generally conservative readers of the N-G to view the Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the major stalwarts against bigotry in this country, to be a rotten organization. We need the Center now more than ever. >>>>>> You present yourself as critically progressive, but have a knack of serving the right. Your attack on the Southern Poverty Law Center is particularly low and gratuitous, even for you. It is beneath contemptible. >>>>>> Belden >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> From: Peace [peace-bounces at lists.chambana.net ] on behalf of Debra Schrishuhn via Peace [peace at lists.chambana.net ] >>>>>> Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2016 7:13 AM >>>>>> To: Estabrook, Carl G >>>>>> Cc: Peace Discuss; sf-core; Brussel, Morton K; peace; prairiegreens at lists.chambana.net ; Occupy CU >>>>>> Subject: Re: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Against hysteria >>>>>> >>>>>> As Mort writes, we do not know what policies the Trump regime will pursue. From his past words and actions and his Cabinet and staff nominations--including many white supremacists and individuals connected to racism and a disregard for civil rights, science deniers, skeptics of public education, and the potential for graft and corruption--we have ample reason to be concerned about both his character and his policies. To ignore this man's despicable character, as evidenced by his racism and xenophobia and fascist tendencies and his choices in staffing the next administration (regime), is to condone it. >>>>>> >>>>>> Debra >>>>>> >>>>>> Sent from my iPhone >>>>>> >>>>>> On Dec 22, 2016, at 6:48 AM, "Carl G. Estabrook" > wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>> Shouldn’t we pay attention to the policies the Trump administration will follow, more than to his obvious deficiencies of character? >>>>>>> >>>>>>> The Obama administration is. They’re so afraid Trump will reverse Obama's warmongering policies, they’re rushing to try to lock the new administration into their lethal practices. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Example: Obama has waved a restriction on providing shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles to the 'rebels’ in Syria (including al-Qaeda) - an obvious threat to the Russian air force (who, unlike the USAF, are in Syria legally). HRC wanted a no-fly zone, which she was told would lead to war with Russia; Obama is trying to use jihadists for that. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> The anti-war movement, of which AWARE is a part, should try to give an accurate account of the US government’s war-making, under this administration and the next. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> —CGE >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> On Dec 22, 2016, at 6:27 AM, Debra Schrishuhn > wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Apparently, Trump's racism, xenophobia, and misogyny are true conservative values that you support? His intention to build a wall to keep brown people out of the US and his embrace of torture and extra-judicial killings don't bother you, Carl? His willingness to ignite trade wars and possibly hot wars with that military he plans to build up are OK? His lack of respect for fellow humans, his pathological tendency to lie or say whatever he thinks will advance him, get him attention -- these character traits are acceptable to you? Not to mention his graft, his bullying, his cruelty, his vindictiveness--these trait are acceptable in a US President or in any human being? >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> That you embrace these odious qualities in another says a great deal about you. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Debra >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Sent from my iPhone >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> On Dec 21, 2016, at 10:32 PM, "Carl G. Estabrook via Peace" > wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> I have great respect for Richard Wolff, but I wish he’d button his shirt and give us a transcript. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> I’ve gotten too old to listen to lectures. —CGE >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> On Dec 21, 2016, at 10:04 PM, Brussel, Morton K > wrote: >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> I must say that it remains to be seen what Trump will do/represent. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> Aside from his asserted intention to talk to the Russians and emphasize domestic over foreign affairs, his statements relative to China and Cuba and…, with respect to climate change, his coziness with Generals and his expressed intention to increase military spending perhaps by a factor of two, his favoring of “order” (police?) over civil rights, does not lead me to believe the confident remarks of the author who wrote the sentence cited below.This, even leaving aside the various contradictory and ignorant statements he is prone to make.. But yes, he will be a traditionally conservative Republican in favoring the corporate world which he probably knows best and in diverse retrograde social issues. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> I highly recommend a recent YouTube presentation by economist Richard Wolf on the subject of Trumpenomics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dut6sPW52Q >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> —mkb >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> On Dec 21, 2016, at 9:09 PM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss > wrote: >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> "This is what Trump represents, not radicalism but conservatism in its truest sense, a return to calm after a storm. His policies are amongst the most moderate in recent history. He is anti-interventionist, opposed to the apparatuses that should have been forgotten after the Cold War and his fiscal policies could easily be confused with those of a pre-Goldwater East Coast Republican.” >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> http://theduran.com/putin-trump-new-normalcy/ >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> ____ >>>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>>> Peace mailing list >>>>>> Peace at lists.chambana.net >>>>>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace >>>> >>> >>> >>> __._,_.___ >>> Posted by: "Fields, A Belden" > >>> Reply via web post • Reply to sender  • Reply to group  • Start a New Topic • Messages in this topic (4) >>> Have you tried the highest rated email app? >>> With 4.5 stars in iTunes, the Yahoo Mail app is the highest rated email app on the market. What are you waiting for? Now you can access all your inboxes (Gmail, Outlook, AOL and more) in one place. Never delete an email again with 1000GB of free cloud storage. >>> VISIT YOUR GROUP >>> • Privacy • Unsubscribe • Terms of Use >>> . >>> >>> >>> __,_._,___ >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brussel at illinois.edu Sun Dec 25 05:24:15 2016 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Sun, 25 Dec 2016 05:24:15 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Against hysteria In-Reply-To: <098645FF-1A52-400F-A3C9-48088BEDD2E8@illinois.edu> References: <9266CF74-0DF6-4247-8518-094C3328BDA7@illinois.edu> <9F5E5B82-AE31-440B-8B52-869B9895B872@illinois.edu> <39BDD7C6-2B6A-4C12-8CC2-1738048B3F83@illinois.edu> <284A8CA5-87EE-4D46-9917-406FF7127E0F@gmail.com> <4BEF5039AB283245B9B22D29042452EB4E1B811C@CITESMBX4.ad.uillinois.edu> <4BEF5039AB283245B9B22D29042452EB4E1B8636@CITESMBX4.ad.uillinois.edu> <4BEF5039AB283245B9B22D29042452EB4E1B8ED1@CITESMBX4.ad.uillinois.edu> <4BEF5039AB283245B9B22D29042452EB4E1B9A18@CITESMBX4.ad.uillinois.edu> <318055A2-285B-420D-A180-9E848BF6223B@illinois.edu> <46E19CF3-0995-4709-A58D-4848AAF6B7F7@illinois.edu> <098645FF-1A52-400F-A3C9-48088BEDD2E8@illinois.edu> Message-ID: <9FA6E3C7-C9C7-4153-9564-5BF57BEEFBF1@illinois.edu> 1) He states categorically that the Dutch airliner (M17?) was downed by the Ukrainian rebels. 2) He omits mentioning that a coup leading to the overthrow of the Ukraine president was orchestrated (funded and managed) by the U.S. He omits references to the neonazis involved in (or led?) the uprising. He omits references to the NATO buildup in the Baltic nations and in military (and economic) aid to Ukraine. On Dec 24, 2016, at 10:54 PM, Carl G. Estabrook > wrote: What’s wrong with Anderson's account of the Ukraine events? —CGE On Dec 24, 2016, at 10:38 PM, Brussel, Morton K > wrote: The Perry Anderson analysis/prognosis of Russia’s future may already have been overtaken by recent events in the U.S. and in Syria, also involving Iran and China (which he ignores), and one can also argue that his descriptions of the Ukraine events are muddled and disputed. He thinks Russia/Putin is inescapably trapped in a situation of its/his own devices. I wonder what Stephen Cohen thinks of it. —mkb On Dec 24, 2016, at 8:41 PM, Carl G. Estabrook > wrote: Anyone on these lists who wants a serious - rather than fanciful - account of the current Russian state should consult Perry Anderson, “Incommensurate Russia,” New Left Review 94 (July-August 2015) >. Perhaps AWARE should consider sponsoring a teach-in in the new semester on “The Russian Regime: Implications for the New Administration." The task would be to counter the literally incredible propaganda issuing from the US government (both Republicans and Democrats) and their academic épigones. —CGE On Dec 24, 2016, at 3:04 PM, 'Fields, A Belden' a-fields at illinois.edu [sf-core] > wrote: Mort, I have also used the regime to apply to the US govt. I and others in pol sci got censured by the board of trustees for referring to the Nixon Admin as a criminal regime. For me, as for most political scientists, a regime is a system of governance in place. So yes, the US govt is a regime. So you don't need to be so defensive of Putin on that score. It is true that the French Jewish population is more uniformly supportive of the Israeli government and its polices than is the case in the US. But French anti-Semitism has very old roots, well before Israel was created. Remember the Dryfus Affair. Remember the behavior of the French police in turning over Jews to the Nazis during Vichy. Some of those Vichyites and Nazi collaborators founded the National Front that you find so palatable. And the support for Israel in no way justifies the violent attacks against Jews in France any more than it would in the US. I have not had access to Putin's bank account, any more than I have access to Trump's tax returns. I have read about his associates among the oligarchs. A political ruler him or herself does not have to have a large annual income to be very well situated. When former oligarch associates of Putin cross him, they pay dearly, sometimes with their lives. Putin was very high in the KGB, the intelligence service of a totalitarian regime. That, in itself, should tell you something about him. Mort, I do not hope to convince you. I just hope that you, and I, never have to live in a world dominated by the Trumps, Putins, and Le Pens and their cohorts in Europe, all at once. Some of us on the Left made too many excuses for Stalin. You say that Putin has massive support in Russia. True. Hitler did as well in Germany. Mass mobilization is characteristically part of the process in creating and maintaining totalitarian systems. The right-wing, ultranationalist, populist appeal (as the "Socialist" in "National Socialism") has always played a crucial role. Enough said, I wish you and Phyllis a Merry Christmas Belden ________________________________ From: Brussel, Morton K Sent: Friday, December 23, 2016 4:33 PM To: Fields, A Belden Cc: peace; sf-core at yahoogroups.com; Mohraz, Jane E Subject: Re: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Against hysteria I guess a reply is warranted: You seem to have inside information (from the NYT?) about the internal policies in Russia under Putin. I’m skeptical, for much of it is consistent with so much that is published elsewhere in our new cold war. Putin’s popularity in Russia is well recognized, despite all of his claimed “excesses”. In other words, theRussian people think his policies have been beneficial (on the whole). I know nothing of his personal wealth, although I’ve heard the retrograde Richard Tempest elaborate on that. Can you give a reliable reference to this claim? I think the issue in any case is largely irrelevant, more in the way of character assassination. Obama and Clinton have also amassed considerable wealth, no doubt. Putin's taming of (some of the) oligarchs is not so bad, I think. But I would agree that his party is controlling Russian policies/politics almost as much as our elites/oligarchs are controlling ours. You impute to Marine le Pen much evil, not the least antisemitism. I cannot assess your anecdotal information, but I do know that she is not being criticized on that issue in the French media, so perhaps indeed she has changed her spots, really . As for her positions relative to immigrants, you are probably right, but I feel that immigration of “others” is a wide cultural problem in France and elsewhere (Germany, Poland, UK, Italy, …). People are disturbed when they feel that their culture is being “infiltrated” with the changes (religious, economic, ethnic, etc.) that mass immigration entails. It is not just a question of racist bigotry, as you claim. Antisemitism in France: You seem to be obsessed by that. It requires a sociological study. But I do know that the Jewish/Zionist lobby in France is as powerful as it is in the USA, so that criticism of Israeli policies is almost forbidden in France. Is that because the French have a guilty conscience with respect to what occurred to French Jews in WWII? That there has been a modest exodus of Jews to Israel may be just a reflection of the power of Zionists in France. But it is probable that the increase in the Muslim population in France is also a cause. Muslims tend to be sympathetic to the Palestinian cause—are antiZionist. My conclusion is that antisemitism in France is overstated, despite some bad incidents, and used as a battering ram against those who would oppose Israeli policies. . My close friends in France, one of whom is Jewish, have not brought up as a fact that a major problem in France (and humanity) is antisemitism. But that too is anecdotal. What is your evidence that Putin is supporting "ultra-nationalistic, fascistic, and sometimes neo-Nazi (as in Austria) forces”. What does the support consist of, aside from some praise of Le Pen? Of course, he is not unhappy that Le Pen, as is Trump, seems not to be engaged or interested in the new cold war against Russia, but that cannot, obviously, be held against him. I note the pejorative “régime” that Putin is the head of. What would you call our political system? I’ve undoubtedly overwritten. My apologies. And best wishes for a healthy and happier next year. Respectfully, Mort On Dec 23, 2016, at 12:41 PM, Fields, A Belden > wrote: Hi Mort, First, I think you misunderstood what I meant by opposition-killing regime. I was was not referring to what Russia did in Grozny or Aleppo (though I consider both of those war crimes--and I say that as one who has criticized US war crimes from Vietnam to Iraq). I was talking about the internal practices of Putin, the killing, imprisonment, and financial ruin of those who opposed him publicly or even reporters who just report the misdeeds of his regime. Second, I too have been following the National Front closely. Before that, in the 1960s, I had interviewed a leading member of the Action Francaise, its predecessor. Deb is absolutely right. Marine purged her father because he was always being hauled into court over his anti-Semitic statements. It was just bad PR for the Front. The friend of a French friend of mine was a fellow student of Marine's and reports that she was a rabid anti-Semite. But now immigrants and the large North African Arab permanent population are more politically expedient targets. Don't minimize that Mort. Bigotry is bigotry. And it is not just against the newer immigrants. It is against the ghettoized North African-French people as well. The Front's idolized vision of the true "French" person, is the francais de souche--white, Christian (does not have to be practicing), with long historical roots in France. Of course, they do not say this out loud. They are way too smart now. m They have to use the millions they get from the Russian bank cleverly. Regarding anti-Semitism. The Jewish population in France, which was the largest in Western Europe, has been diminishing rapidly in recent years. There are two reasons for this. One is that there have very frequent violent attacks against visibly apparent Jews and Jewish institutions in France by North Africans Moslems. Second is the growing strength of the National Front. Just as they do did not fit the Nazi definition of an Aryan, so Jews do not fit the Front's definition of a true French person. Most of them have been going to Israel for safety. Which brings me to the saddest irony that someone who contends that Zionism is racism would give the National Front such a free pass on its bigotry, which is directed openly against Arab Moslems and now covertly against Jews. Xenophobic bigots should be called out as such. Putin's willingness to support such ultra-nationalistic, fascistic, and sometimes neo-Nazi (as in Austria) forces brings no credit to him or his regime. For an older guy like me, it brings back the Hitler-Stalin Pact that so shook the anti-fascist movements in US and Western Europe. Attached you will find an abridged copy of an article I wrote on the National Front in the January 2016 issue of the Public i I wish everyone a peaceful and healthy 2017. Belden ________________________________ From: Brussel, Morton K Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2016 7:55 PM To: Fields, A Belden Cc: peace Subject: Re: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Against hysteria Belden, I might say that you are being too mild with respect to the NATO/U.S moves towards Russian Borders. Yes, those moves are provocative, but more than that, they are militantly aggressive; U.S. leaders would probably not be unhappy to see a proxy conflict arise between Ukraine and Russia, hoping it to be conducive to regime change in Russia. The U.S. is arming Ukraine (and the Baltic states) for that purpose, why else? On the other hand, I have been following what has been occurring in France closely. Marine Le Pen is not her father, she has not assumed his racist belligerent anti-semitic character, even though she she does espouse anti-immigration policies. Many, and not only from the far-right, are drawn to her, not only because of her relatively benign regard to Russia, but also due to her anti-Brussels European federalist and NATO, policies—causing a loss of French sovereignty. There is something to be said for that. That is why she could win the coming presidential election there. Aside from the fact that both want to be more friendly to Russia, she is far from being an equivalent to Trump. Moreover, I believe Europe (NATO) and the U.S.should cease their economic and military cold war policies, policies which could lead to a disastrous conflagration. The U.S. war hawks and their media are acting with respect to Ukraine just as they have in Syria, not so stealthily pushing dangerous provocations. Cohen elaborates this argument well. Finally, are you not also falling into the trap of demonizing Russia by calling it an “opposition killing state”? Is the USA a less "opposition killing state"? Who has been more killingly destructive in recent decades? My opinion is that Russia under Putin has been a stabilizing influence compared to the U.S., perhaps due in part to her far weaker military capabilities. Mort On Dec 22, 2016, at 2:46 PM, Fields, A Belden > wrote: Mort, I just looked at the piece by Cohen in the Nation. I have always agreed with him that NATO was too provocative vs Russia in Eastern Europe. But I think Cohen puts it too mildly when he talks about Russia supporting "anti-status quo" movements in Europe. I understand Putin's desire to use any tool to fight back, but the movements he is supporting, including the French National Front in Front, are racist, xenophobic groups founded by collaborators in France and former Nazis in Austria. The combination of these groups coming to power, and allying with the puritanical/authoritarian/opposition killing state of Russia, is not a result I look forward to. Just look at Hungary under Oban. I think we should continue to be critical of the neo-cons of either party in the US, but we should also be very wary of the process going on in Europe now that Putin is encouraging--even if we understand why he is doing it. Belden ________________________________ From: Brussel, Morton K Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2016 12:36 PM To: Fields, A Belden Subject: Re: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Against hysteria I believe that Carl is primarily and justly concerned with US. wars and other depredations, and, in these perilous times, the new cold war—getting increasingly warmer— between the U.S. government and Russia/Putin. In this, he will find some confirmation of his attitude in the fascinating and enlightening podcast of Stephen Cohen on the subject of the demonization of Russia/Putin by the war parties inn D.C. Watch: https://www.thenation.com/article/american-cold-warriors-want-to-fight-russia-not-terrorism/ This is not an excuse relating to other mattters here discussed, but I think it is an important issue. —mkb On Dec 22, 2016, at 12:04 PM, Fields, A Belden via Peace > wrote: Carl, Your quoting from another source (the duran) contending that Trump is a moderate and your extensive quote in today's News-Gazette from Alexander Cockburn (whom you characterize as the "best political reporter in the US in his generation--a dubious contention at best) slamming the Southern Poverty Law Center as money-grabbing, are evasions in which you accept no responsibility because you are just quoting other sources. This is a cowardly way to write. I find your "letter" in the the N-G particularly offensive because it appeals to the generally conservative readers of the N-G to view the Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the major stalwarts against bigotry in this country, to be a rotten organization. We need the Center now more than ever. You present yourself as critically progressive, but have a knack of serving the right. Your attack on the Southern Poverty Law Center is particularly low and gratuitous, even for you. It is beneath contemptible. Belden ________________________________ From: Peace [peace-bounces at lists.chambana.net] on behalf of Debra Schrishuhn via Peace [peace at lists.chambana.net] Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2016 7:13 AM To: Estabrook, Carl G Cc: Peace Discuss; sf-core; Brussel, Morton K; peace; prairiegreens at lists.chambana.net; Occupy CU Subject: Re: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Against hysteria As Mort writes, we do not know what policies the Trump regime will pursue. From his past words and actions and his Cabinet and staff nominations--including many white supremacists and individuals connected to racism and a disregard for civil rights, science deniers, skeptics of public education, and the potential for graft and corruption--we have ample reason to be concerned about both his character and his policies. To ignore this man's despicable character, as evidenced by his racism and xenophobia and fascist tendencies and his choices in staffing the next administration (regime), is to condone it. Debra Sent from my iPhone On Dec 22, 2016, at 6:48 AM, "Carl G. Estabrook" > wrote: Shouldn’t we pay attention to the policies the Trump administration will follow, more than to his obvious deficiencies of character? The Obama administration is. They’re so afraid Trump will reverse Obama's warmongering policies, they’re rushing to try to lock the new administration into their lethal practices. Example: Obama has waved a restriction on providing shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles to the 'rebels’ in Syria (including al-Qaeda) - an obvious threat to the Russian air force (who, unlike the USAF, are in Syria legally). HRC wanted a no-fly zone, which she was told would lead to war with Russia; Obama is trying to use jihadists for that. The anti-war movement, of which AWARE is a part, should try to give an accurate account of the US government’s war-making, under this administration and the next. —CGE On Dec 22, 2016, at 6:27 AM, Debra Schrishuhn > wrote: Apparently, Trump's racism, xenophobia, and misogyny are true conservative values that you support? His intention to build a wall to keep brown people out of the US and his embrace of torture and extra-judicial killings don't bother you, Carl? His willingness to ignite trade wars and possibly hot wars with that military he plans to build up are OK? His lack of respect for fellow humans, his pathological tendency to lie or say whatever he thinks will advance him, get him attention -- these character traits are acceptable to you? Not to mention his graft, his bullying, his cruelty, his vindictiveness--these trait are acceptable in a US President or in any human being? That you embrace these odious qualities in another says a great deal about you. Debra Sent from my iPhone On Dec 21, 2016, at 10:32 PM, "Carl G. Estabrook via Peace" > wrote: I have great respect for Richard Wolff, but I wish he’d button his shirt and give us a transcript. I’ve gotten too old to listen to lectures. —CGE On Dec 21, 2016, at 10:04 PM, Brussel, Morton K > wrote: I must say that it remains to be seen what Trump will do/represent. Aside from his asserted intention to talk to the Russians and emphasize domestic over foreign affairs, his statements relative to China and Cuba and…, with respect to climate change, his coziness with Generals and his expressed intention to increase military spending perhaps by a factor of two, his favoring of “order” (police?) over civil rights, does not lead me to believe the confident remarks of the author who wrote the sentence cited below.This, even leaving aside the various contradictory and ignorant statements he is prone to make.. But yes, he will be a traditionally conservative Republican in favoring the corporate world which he probably knows best and in diverse retrograde social issues. I highly recommend a recent YouTube presentation by economist Richard Wolf on the subject of Trumpenomics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dut6sPW52Q —mkb On Dec 21, 2016, at 9:09 PM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss > wrote: "This is what Trump represents, not radicalism but conservatism in its truest sense, a return to calm after a storm. His policies are amongst the most moderate in recent history. He is anti-interventionist, opposed to the apparatuses that should have been forgotten after the Cold War and his fiscal policies could easily be confused with those of a pre-Goldwater East Coast Republican.” http://theduran.com/putin-trump-new-normalcy/ ____ _______________________________________________ Peace mailing list Peace at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace __._,_.___ ________________________________ Posted by: "Fields, A Belden" > ________________________________ Reply via web post • Reply to sender • Reply to group • Start a New Topic • Messages in this topic (4) ________________________________ [https://s.yimg.com/ru/static/images/yg/img/megaphone/1464031581_phpFA8bON] Have you tried the highest rated email app? With 4.5 stars in iTunes, the Yahoo Mail app is the highest rated email app on the market. What are you waiting for? Now you can access all your inboxes (Gmail, Outlook, AOL and more) in one place. Never delete an email again with 1000GB of free cloud storage. ________________________________ VISIT YOUR GROUP [Yahoo! Groups] • Privacy • Unsubscribe • Terms of Use . __,_._,___ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From galliher at illinois.edu Sun Dec 25 05:56:09 2016 From: galliher at illinois.edu (Carl G. Estabrook) Date: Sat, 24 Dec 2016 23:56:09 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Against hysteria In-Reply-To: <9FA6E3C7-C9C7-4153-9564-5BF57BEEFBF1@illinois.edu> References: <9266CF74-0DF6-4247-8518-094C3328BDA7@illinois.edu> <9F5E5B82-AE31-440B-8B52-869B9895B872@illinois.edu> <39BDD7C6-2B6A-4C12-8CC2-1738048B3F83@illinois.edu> <284A8CA5-87EE-4D46-9917-406FF7127E0F@gmail.com> <4BEF5039AB283245B9B22D29042452EB4E1B811C@CITESMBX4.ad.uillinois.edu> <4BEF5039AB283245B9B22D29042452EB4E1B8636@CITESMBX4.ad.uillinois.edu> <4BEF5039AB283245B9B22D29042452EB4E1B8ED1@CITESMBX4.ad.uillinois.edu> <4BEF5039AB283245B9B22D29042452EB4E1B9A18@CITESMBX4.ad.uillinois.edu> <318055A2-285B-420D-A180-9E848BF6223B@illinois.edu> <46E19CF3-0995-4709-A58D-4848AAF6B7F7@illinois.edu> <098645FF-1A52-400F-A3C9-48088BEDD2E8@illinois.edu> <9FA6E3C7-C9C7-4153-9564-5BF57BEEFBF1@illinois.edu> Message-ID: One might say in defense of Anderson’s approach that his focus is on Russian policy, not American (which surely was responsible for the coup in Kiev - and clearly did not hesitate to use the neo-Nazis there). The manifold provocations of Russia by the Obama administration are generally unknown to Americans, but not to the rest of the world. —CGE > On Dec 24, 2016, at 11:24 PM, Brussel, Morton K wrote: > > 1) He states categorically that the Dutch airliner (M17?) was downed by the Ukrainian rebels. > 2) He omits mentioning that a coup leading to the overthrow of the Ukraine president was orchestrated (funded and managed) by the U.S. He omits references to the neonazis involved in (or led?) the uprising. He omits references to the NATO buildup in the Baltic nations and in military (and economic) aid to Ukraine. > > >> On Dec 24, 2016, at 10:54 PM, Carl G. Estabrook > wrote: >> >> What’s wrong with Anderson's account of the Ukraine events? >> >> —CGE >> >> >>> On Dec 24, 2016, at 10:38 PM, Brussel, Morton K > wrote: >>> >>> The Perry Anderson analysis/prognosis of Russia’s future may already have been overtaken by recent events in the U.S. and in Syria, also involving Iran and China (which he ignores), and one can also argue that his descriptions of the Ukraine events are muddled and disputed. He thinks Russia/Putin is inescapably trapped in a situation of its/his own devices. I wonder what Stephen Cohen thinks of it. >>> >>> —mkb >>> >>> >>>> On Dec 24, 2016, at 8:41 PM, Carl G. Estabrook > wrote: >>>> >>>> Anyone on these lists who wants a serious - rather than fanciful - account of the current Russian state should consult >>>> >>>> Perry Anderson, “Incommensurate Russia,” New Left Review 94 (July-August 2015) >. >>>> >>>> Perhaps AWARE should consider sponsoring a teach-in in the new semester on “The Russian Regime: Implications for the New Administration." >>>> >>>> The task would be to counter the literally incredible propaganda issuing from the US government (both Republicans and Democrats) and their academic épigones. >>>> >>>> —CGE >>>> >>>> >>>>> On Dec 24, 2016, at 3:04 PM, 'Fields, A Belden' a-fields at illinois.edu [sf-core] > wrote: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Mort, >>>>> >>>>> I have also used the regime to apply to the US govt. I and others in pol sci got censured by the board of trustees for referring to the Nixon Admin as a criminal regime. For me, as for most political scientists, a regime is a system of governance in place. So yes, the US govt is a regime. So you don't need to be so defensive of Putin on that score. >>>>> >>>>> It is true that the French Jewish population is more uniformly supportive of the Israeli government and its polices than is the case in the US. But French anti-Semitism has very old roots, well before Israel was created. Remember the Dryfus Affair. Remember the behavior of the French police in turning over Jews to the Nazis during Vichy. Some of those Vichyites and Nazi collaborators founded the National Front that you find so palatable. And the support for Israel in no way justifies the violent attacks against Jews in France any more than it would in the US. >>>>> >>>>> I have not had access to Putin's bank account, any more than I have access to Trump's tax returns. >>>>> I have read about his associates among the oligarchs. A political ruler him or herself does not have to have a large annual income to be very well situated. When former oligarch associates of Putin cross him, they pay dearly, sometimes with their lives. >>>>> >>>>> Putin was very high in the KGB, the intelligence service of a totalitarian regime. That, in itself, should tell you something about him. >>>>> >>>>> Mort, I do not hope to convince you. I just hope that you, and I, never have to live in a world dominated by the Trumps, Putins, and Le Pens and their cohorts in Europe, all at once. Some of us on the Left made too many excuses for Stalin. You say that Putin has massive support in Russia. True. Hitler did as well in Germany. Mass mobilization is characteristically part of the process in creating and maintaining totalitarian systems. The right-wing, ultranationalist, populist appeal (as the "Socialist" in "National Socialism") has always played a crucial role. >>>>> >>>>> Enough said, >>>>> >>>>> I wish you and Phyllis a Merry Christmas >>>>> >>>>> Belden >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> From: Brussel, Morton K >>>>> Sent: Friday, December 23, 2016 4:33 PM >>>>> To: Fields, A Belden >>>>> Cc: peace; sf-core at yahoogroups.com ; Mohraz, Jane E >>>>> Subject: Re: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Against hysteria >>>>> >>>>> I guess a reply is warranted: >>>>> >>>>> You seem to have inside information (from the NYT?) about the internal policies in Russia under Putin. I’m skeptical, for much of it is consistent with so much that is published elsewhere in our new cold war. Putin’s popularity in Russia is well recognized, despite all of his claimed “excesses”. In other words, theRussian people think his policies have been beneficial (on the whole). I know nothing of his personal wealth, although I’ve heard the retrograde Richard Tempest elaborate on that. Can you give a reliable reference to this claim? I think the issue in any case is largely irrelevant, more in the way of character assassination. Obama and Clinton have also amassed considerable wealth, no doubt. Putin's taming of (some of the) oligarchs is not so bad, I think. But I would agree that his party is controlling Russian policies/politics almost as much as our elites/oligarchs are controlling ours. >>>>> >>>>> You impute to Marine le Pen much evil, not the least antisemitism. I cannot assess your anecdotal information, but I do know that she is not being criticized on that issue in the French media, so perhaps indeed she has changed her spots, really . As for her positions relative to immigrants, you are probably right, but I feel that immigration of “others” is a wide cultural problem in France and elsewhere (Germany, Poland, UK, Italy, …). People are disturbed when they feel that their culture is being “infiltrated” with the changes (religious, economic, ethnic, etc.) that mass immigration entails. It is not just a question of racist bigotry, as you claim. >>>>> >>>>> Antisemitism in France: You seem to be obsessed by that. It requires a sociological study. But I do know that the Jewish/Zionist lobby in France is as powerful as it is in the USA, so that criticism of Israeli policies is almost forbidden in France. Is that because the French have a guilty conscience with respect to what occurred to French Jews in WWII? That there has been a modest exodus of Jews to Israel may be just a reflection of the power of Zionists in France. But it is probable that the increase in the Muslim population in France is also a cause. Muslims tend to be sympathetic to the Palestinian cause—are antiZionist. My conclusion is that antisemitism in France is overstated, despite some bad incidents, and used as a battering ram against those who would oppose Israeli policies. . >>>>> >>>>> My close friends in France, one of whom is Jewish, have not brought up as a fact that a major problem in France (and humanity) is antisemitism. But that too is anecdotal. >>>>> >>>>> What is your evidence that Putin is supporting "ultra-nationalistic, fascistic, and sometimes neo-Nazi (as in Austria) forces”. What does the support consist of, aside from some praise of Le Pen? Of course, he is not unhappy that Le Pen, as is Trump, seems not to be engaged or interested in the new cold war against Russia, but that cannot, obviously, be held against him. >>>>> >>>>> I note the pejorative “régime” that Putin is the head of. What would you call our political system? >>>>> >>>>> I’ve undoubtedly overwritten. My apologies. >>>>> >>>>> And best wishes for a healthy and happier next year. Respectfully, >>>>> >>>>> Mort >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> On Dec 23, 2016, at 12:41 PM, Fields, A Belden > wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> Hi Mort, >>>>>> >>>>>> First, I think you misunderstood what I meant by opposition-killing regime. I was was not referring to what Russia did in Grozny or Aleppo (though I consider both of those war crimes--and I say that as one who has criticized US war crimes from Vietnam to Iraq). I was talking about the internal practices of Putin, the killing, imprisonment, and financial ruin of those who opposed him publicly or even reporters who just report the misdeeds of his regime. >>>>>> >>>>>> Second, I too have been following the National Front closely. Before that, in the 1960s, I had interviewed a leading member of the Action Francaise, its predecessor. Deb is absolutely right. Marine purged her father because he was always being hauled into court over his anti-Semitic statements. It was just bad PR for the Front. >>>>>> The friend of a French friend of mine was a fellow student of Marine's and reports that she was a rabid anti-Semite. But now immigrants and the large North African Arab permanent population are more politically expedient targets. Don't minimize that Mort. Bigotry is bigotry. And it is not just against the newer immigrants. It is against the ghettoized North African-French people as well. The Front's idolized vision of the true "French" person, is the francais de souche--white, Christian (does not have to be practicing), with long historical roots in France. Of course, they do not say this out loud. They are way too smart now. m They have to use the millions they get from the Russian bank cleverly. >>>>>> >>>>>> Regarding anti-Semitism. The Jewish population in France, which was the largest in Western Europe, has been diminishing rapidly in recent years. There are two reasons for this. One is that there have very frequent violent attacks against visibly apparent Jews and Jewish institutions in France by North Africans Moslems. Second is the growing strength of the National Front. Just as they do did not fit the Nazi definition of an Aryan, so Jews do not fit the Front's definition of a true French person. Most of them have been going to Israel for safety. >>>>>> >>>>>> Which brings me to the saddest irony that someone who contends that Zionism is racism would give the National Front such a free pass on its bigotry, which is directed openly against Arab Moslems and now covertly against Jews. Xenophobic bigots should be called out as such. Putin's willingness to support such ultra-nationalistic, fascistic, and sometimes neo-Nazi (as in Austria) forces brings no credit to him or his regime. >>>>>> For an older guy like me, it brings back the Hitler-Stalin Pact that so shook the anti-fascist movements in US and Western Europe. >>>>>> >>>>>> Attached you will find an abridged copy of an article I wrote on the National Front in the January 2016 issue of the Public i >>>>>> >>>>>> I wish everyone a peaceful and healthy 2017. >>>>>> >>>>>> Belden >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> From: Brussel, Morton K >>>>>> Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2016 7:55 PM >>>>>> To: Fields, A Belden >>>>>> Cc: peace >>>>>> Subject: Re: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Against hysteria >>>>>> >>>>>> Belden, >>>>>> >>>>>> I might say that you are being too mild with respect to the NATO/U.S moves towards Russian Borders. Yes, those moves are provocative, but more than that, they are militantly aggressive; U.S. leaders would probably not be unhappy to see a proxy conflict arise between Ukraine and Russia, hoping it to be conducive to regime change in Russia. The U.S. is arming Ukraine (and the Baltic states) for that purpose, why else? >>>>>> >>>>>> On the other hand, I have been following what has been occurring in France closely. Marine Le Pen is not her father, she has not assumed his racist belligerent anti-semitic character, even though she she does espouse anti-immigration policies. Many, and not only from the far-right, are drawn to her, not only because of her relatively benign regard to Russia, but also due to her anti-Brussels European federalist and NATO, policies—causing a loss of French sovereignty. There is something to be said for that. That is why she could win the coming presidential election there. Aside from the fact that both want to be more friendly to Russia, she is far from being an equivalent to Trump. Moreover, I believe Europe (NATO) and the U.S.should cease their economic and military cold war policies, policies which could lead to a disastrous conflagration. The U.S. war hawks and their media are acting with respect to Ukraine just as they have in Syria, not so stealthily pushing dangerous provocations. Cohen elaborates this argument well. >>>>>> >>>>>> Finally, are you not also falling into the trap of demonizing Russia by calling it an “opposition killing state”? Is the USA a less "opposition killing state"? Who has been more killingly destructive in recent decades? My opinion is that Russia under Putin has been a stabilizing influence compared to the U.S., perhaps due in part to her far weaker military capabilities. >>>>>> >>>>>> Mort >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>>> On Dec 22, 2016, at 2:46 PM, Fields, A Belden > wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Mort, >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I just looked at the piece by Cohen in the Nation. I have always agreed with him that NATO was too provocative vs Russia in Eastern Europe. But I think Cohen puts it too mildly when he talks about Russia supporting "anti-status quo" movements in Europe. I understand Putin's desire to use any tool to fight back, but the movements he is supporting, including the French National Front in Front, are racist, xenophobic groups founded by collaborators in France and former Nazis in Austria. The combination of these groups coming to power, and allying with the puritanical/authoritarian/opposition killing state of Russia, is not a result I look forward to. Just look at Hungary under Oban. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I think we should continue to be critical of the neo-cons of either party in the US, but we should also be very wary of the process going on in Europe now that Putin is encouraging--even if we understand why he is doing it. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Belden >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> From: Brussel, Morton K >>>>>>> Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2016 12:36 PM >>>>>>> To: Fields, A Belden >>>>>>> Subject: Re: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Against hysteria >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I believe that Carl is primarily and justly concerned with US. wars and other depredations, and, in these perilous times, the new cold war—getting increasingly warmer— between the U.S. government and Russia/Putin. In this, he will find some confirmation of his attitude in the fascinating and enlightening podcast of Stephen Cohen on the subject of the demonization of Russia/Putin by the war parties inn D.C. Watch: https://www.thenation.com/article/american-cold-warriors-want-to-fight-russia-not-terrorism/ >>>>>>> >>>>>>> This is not an excuse relating to other mattters here discussed, but I think it is an important issue. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> —mkb >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> On Dec 22, 2016, at 12:04 PM, Fields, A Belden via Peace > wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Carl, >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Your quoting from another source (the duran) contending that Trump is a moderate and your extensive quote in today's News-Gazette from Alexander Cockburn (whom you characterize as the "best political reporter in the US in his generation--a dubious contention at best) slamming the Southern Poverty Law Center as money-grabbing, are evasions in which you accept no responsibility because you are just quoting other sources. This is a cowardly way to write. I find your "letter" in the the N-G particularly offensive because it appeals to the generally conservative readers of the N-G to view the Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the major stalwarts against bigotry in this country, to be a rotten organization. We need the Center now more than ever. >>>>>>>> You present yourself as critically progressive, but have a knack of serving the right. Your attack on the Southern Poverty Law Center is particularly low and gratuitous, even for you. It is beneath contemptible. >>>>>>>> Belden >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> From: Peace [peace-bounces at lists.chambana.net ] on behalf of Debra Schrishuhn via Peace [peace at lists.chambana.net ] >>>>>>>> Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2016 7:13 AM >>>>>>>> To: Estabrook, Carl G >>>>>>>> Cc: Peace Discuss; sf-core; Brussel, Morton K; peace; prairiegreens at lists.chambana.net ; Occupy CU >>>>>>>> Subject: Re: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Against hysteria >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> As Mort writes, we do not know what policies the Trump regime will pursue. From his past words and actions and his Cabinet and staff nominations--including many white supremacists and individuals connected to racism and a disregard for civil rights, science deniers, skeptics of public education, and the potential for graft and corruption--we have ample reason to be concerned about both his character and his policies. To ignore this man's despicable character, as evidenced by his racism and xenophobia and fascist tendencies and his choices in staffing the next administration (regime), is to condone it. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Debra >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Sent from my iPhone >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> On Dec 22, 2016, at 6:48 AM, "Carl G. Estabrook" > wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Shouldn’t we pay attention to the policies the Trump administration will follow, more than to his obvious deficiencies of character? >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> The Obama administration is. They’re so afraid Trump will reverse Obama's warmongering policies, they’re rushing to try to lock the new administration into their lethal practices. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Example: Obama has waved a restriction on providing shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles to the 'rebels’ in Syria (including al-Qaeda) - an obvious threat to the Russian air force (who, unlike the USAF, are in Syria legally). HRC wanted a no-fly zone, which she was told would lead to war with Russia; Obama is trying to use jihadists for that. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> The anti-war movement, of which AWARE is a part, should try to give an accurate account of the US government’s war-making, under this administration and the next. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> —CGE >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> On Dec 22, 2016, at 6:27 AM, Debra Schrishuhn > wrote: >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> Apparently, Trump's racism, xenophobia, and misogyny are true conservative values that you support? His intention to build a wall to keep brown people out of the US and his embrace of torture and extra-judicial killings don't bother you, Carl? His willingness to ignite trade wars and possibly hot wars with that military he plans to build up are OK? His lack of respect for fellow humans, his pathological tendency to lie or say whatever he thinks will advance him, get him attention -- these character traits are acceptable to you? Not to mention his graft, his bullying, his cruelty, his vindictiveness--these trait are acceptable in a US President or in any human being? >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> That you embrace these odious qualities in another says a great deal about you. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> Debra >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> Sent from my iPhone >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> On Dec 21, 2016, at 10:32 PM, "Carl G. Estabrook via Peace" > wrote: >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> I have great respect for Richard Wolff, but I wish he’d button his shirt and give us a transcript. >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> I’ve gotten too old to listen to lectures. —CGE >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> On Dec 21, 2016, at 10:04 PM, Brussel, Morton K > wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> I must say that it remains to be seen what Trump will do/represent. >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> Aside from his asserted intention to talk to the Russians and emphasize domestic over foreign affairs, his statements relative to China and Cuba and…, with respect to climate change, his coziness with Generals and his expressed intention to increase military spending perhaps by a factor of two, his favoring of “order” (police?) over civil rights, does not lead me to believe the confident remarks of the author who wrote the sentence cited below.This, even leaving aside the various contradictory and ignorant statements he is prone to make.. But yes, he will be a traditionally conservative Republican in favoring the corporate world which he probably knows best and in diverse retrograde social issues. >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> I highly recommend a recent YouTube presentation by economist Richard Wolf on the subject of Trumpenomics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dut6sPW52Q >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> —mkb >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> On Dec 21, 2016, at 9:09 PM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss > wrote: >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> "This is what Trump represents, not radicalism but conservatism in its truest sense, a return to calm after a storm. His policies are amongst the most moderate in recent history. He is anti-interventionist, opposed to the apparatuses that should have been forgotten after the Cold War and his fiscal policies could easily be confused with those of a pre-Goldwater East Coast Republican.” >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> http://theduran.com/putin-trump-new-normalcy/ >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>> ____ >>>>>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>>>>> Peace mailing list >>>>>>>> Peace at lists.chambana.net >>>>>>>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> __._,_.___ >>>>> Posted by: "Fields, A Belden" > >>>>> Reply via web post • Reply to sender  • Reply to group  • Start a New Topic • Messages in this topic (4) >>>>> Have you tried the highest rated email app? >>>>> With 4.5 stars in iTunes, the Yahoo Mail app is the highest rated email app on the market. What are you waiting for? Now you can access all your inboxes (Gmail, Outlook, AOL and more) in one place. Never delete an email again with 1000GB of free cloud storage. >>>>> VISIT YOUR GROUP >>>>> • Privacy • Unsubscribe • Terms of Use >>>>> . >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> __,_._,___ >>>> >>> >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From deb.pdamerica at gmail.com Sun Dec 25 13:07:03 2016 From: deb.pdamerica at gmail.com (Debra Schrishuhn) Date: Sun, 25 Dec 2016 07:07:03 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Kyle Ammons' remarks after Passage of UrbanaSanctuary City In-Reply-To: <12bc5badd1f6e6f02b7c6e882e4602a1@shout.net> References: <15932ff5637-10c8-20a6d@webprd-a14.mail.aol.com> <12bc5badd1f6e6f02b7c6e882e4602a1@shout.net> Message-ID: <337BB3B8-531C-4334-A4BB-EBFF855D0636@gmail.com> One hardly knows where to begin, other than correcting the subject line wherein Alderman Aaron Ammons is misidentified as "Kyle" Ammons. This list continually confounds and baffles. Deb Sent from my iPhone > On Dec 24, 2016, at 10:22 PM, "C. G. Estabrook via Peace" wrote: > > Ammons, like may other Americans, has been misled into thinking that slavery in America was a matter of race relations (black people and white people) rather than capitalism (owners and workers). > > "Probably a majority of American historians think of slavery in the United States as primarily a system of race relations — as though the chief business of slavery were the production of white supremacy rather than the production of cotton, sugar, rice and tobacco. One historian has gone so far as to call slavery ‘the ultimate segregator’. He does not ask why Europeans seeking the ‘ultimate’ method of segregating Africans would go to the trouble and expense of transporting them across the ocean for that purpose, when they could have achieved the same end so much more simply by leaving the Africans in Africa. > > "No one dreams of analyzing the struggle of the English against the Irish as a problem in race relations, even though the rationale that the English developed for suppressing the ‘barbarous’ Irish later served nearly word for word as a rationale for suppressing Africans and indigenous American Indians. Nor does anyone dream of analyzing serfdom in Russia as primarily a problem of race relations, even though the Russian nobility invented fictions of their innate, natural superiority over the serfs as preposterous as any devised by American racists." [B. J. Fields] > > See now "How Race Is Conjured: The fiction of race hides the real source of racism and inequity in America today," by Barbara J. Fields & Karen E. Fields, Jacobin 6.29.15 > > This misleading - sometimes innocent but often not - protects capitalism from criticism by directing that criticism to racial prejudice (which itself should be distinguished from racism properly speaking, which is a matter of law, as in apartheid South Africa or Israel). Racism existed in the Virginia of my youth, but the laws were changed (see the current film “Loving”). Racial prejudice still exists there - but racism as a legal structure doesn’t. > > --CGE > > >> On 2016-12-24 16:41, Mildred O'brien wrote: >> I don't know if other people attending the Urbana City Council meeting >> after the passage of the Urbana Sanctuary City Ordinance were >> listening and offended as I was by remarks of Council person Ammons >> who lectured "descendants of immigrants" who (supposedly) enslaved his >> ancestors but now petitioned on behalf of undocumented immigrants. I >> was astonished by such language at the time but thought perhaps I had >> not heard what I thought I heard. Today on WEFT I heard a replay of >> the Council proceedings of December 19 after the passage of the >> Ordinance which confirmed my recollection of his words, which blamed >> [white] immigrants in general for enslaving his people. >> It is not been historically established that more than 10 - 15% of >> Colonials were responsible for the importation and exploitation of >> slave labor. Realistically, servitude of black or white enforced >> labor was not economically feasible for the majority of landless >> immigrants to America who were destitute or themselves enslaved >> (Caucasians for 7 to 10 years or more, Africans for life) but was >> restricted to wealthy Europeans primarily from England. My own >> paternal ancestor immigrant was kidnapped from Ireland in 1698 at >> twelve years of age and transplanted to work for a wealthy Englishman >> in tobacco fields of Maryland until the age of 21. >> It is not helpful for contemporary descendants of perceived past >> aggrievances to tar people of good intentions with presumably >> inherited guilt for which they had no responsibility, but to work in >> harmony to prevent repetition of transgressions. >> Midge O'Brien > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace From fboyle at illinois.edu Sun Dec 25 13:58:21 2016 From: fboyle at illinois.edu (Boyle, Francis A) Date: Sun, 25 Dec 2016 13:58:21 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] FW: RIP: Ruth Hubbard Message-ID: Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) From: Boyle, Francis A Sent: Sunday, December 25, 2016 7:56 AM To: SECTNS.aals at lists.aals.org Subject: RIP: Ruth Hubbard There is a very fine Tribute to Ruth in the Sunday New York Times Magazine Special on The Lives They Lived. Ruth was the first woman to become a tenured professor of biology at Harvard. She was married to my friend George Wald of the Harvard Biology Department, Nobel Prize Winner in Biology , and a Leader of the American Peace Movement. Speaking before the Convention of the Council for Responsible Genetics at Harvard Divinity School in November 2001 with Ruth sitting in the audience, I paid Tribute to George and said that after 9/11/2001 we really needed George to lead us, but that the rest of us will have to carry on as best as we can without him. And now the same for Ruth. Professionally I have read and used her work on Biopiracy and Biocolonialism by the White Racist Capitalist World against People of Color in the Third World. Both Ruth and George were world class scientists. But even more importantly, they were true Humanitarians dedicated to promoting peace, justice and human rights around the world. I shall miss them. And the world is impoverished without them. RIP: Ruth and George. Francis A. Boyle Professor of Law Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fboyle at illinois.edu Sun Dec 25 14:00:50 2016 From: fboyle at illinois.edu (Boyle, Francis A) Date: Sun, 25 Dec 2016 14:00:50 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] FW: RIP: Ruth Hubbard Message-ID: Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) From: Boyle, Francis A Sent: Sunday, December 25, 2016 7:56 AM To: SECTNS.aals at lists.aals.org Subject: RIP: Ruth Hubbard There is a very fine Tribute to Ruth in the Sunday New York Times Magazine Special on The Lives They Lived. Ruth was the first woman to become a tenured professor of biology at Harvard. She was married to my friend George Wald of the Harvard Biology Department, Nobel Prize Winner in Biology , and a Leader of the American Peace Movement. Speaking before the Convention of the Council for Responsible Genetics at Harvard Divinity School in November 2001 with Ruth sitting in the audience, I paid Tribute to George and said that after 9/11/2001 we really needed George to lead us, but that the rest of us will have to carry on as best as we can without him. And now the same for Ruth. Professionally I have read and used her work on Biopiracy and Biocolonialism by the White Racist Capitalist World against People of Color in the Third World. Both Ruth and George were world class scientists. But even more importantly, they were true Humanitarians dedicated to promoting peace, justice and human rights around the world. I shall miss them. And the world is impoverished without them. RIP: Ruth and George. Francis A. Boyle Professor of Law Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fboyle at illinois.edu Sun Dec 25 14:23:15 2016 From: fboyle at illinois.edu (Boyle, Francis A) Date: Sun, 25 Dec 2016 14:23:15 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] RIP: Ruth Hubbard Message-ID: Of course Ruth proves that Larry Summers is an IDIOT. Women are not dumber than men when it comes to math and science. But of course Larry specializes in that voodoo junk social science known as "economics." Fab. Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) From: Boyle, Francis A Sent: Sunday, December 25, 2016 8:01 AM To: 'C. G. Estabrook' ; 'peace-discuss at anti-war.net' ; 'futureup2us at gmail.com' ; 'a-fields at uiuc.edu' ; Hoffman, Valerie J ; Miller, Joseph Thomas ; Szoke, Ron ; 'davetrippel at ameritech.net' ; 'a23h23 at yahoo.com' ; 'davidcnswanson at gmail.com' ; 'peace-discuss-request at lists.chambana.net' ; 'sherwoodross10 at gmail.com' ; 'abass10 at gmail.com' ; 'mickalideh at gmail.com' ; 'lina at worldcantwait.net' ; 'chicago at worldcantwait.net' ; Karen Aram ; Mildred O'brien Subject: FW: RIP: Ruth Hubbard Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) From: Boyle, Francis A Sent: Sunday, December 25, 2016 7:56 AM To: SECTNS.aals at lists.aals.org Subject: RIP: Ruth Hubbard There is a very fine Tribute to Ruth in the Sunday New York Times Magazine Special on The Lives They Lived. Ruth was the first woman to become a tenured professor of biology at Harvard. She was married to my friend George Wald of the Harvard Biology Department, Nobel Prize Winner in Biology , and a Leader of the American Peace Movement. Speaking before the Convention of the Council for Responsible Genetics at Harvard Divinity School in November 2001 with Ruth sitting in the audience, I paid Tribute to George and said that after 9/11/2001 we really needed George to lead us, but that the rest of us will have to carry on as best as we can without him. And now the same for Ruth. Professionally I have read and used her work on Biopiracy and Biocolonialism by the White Racist Capitalist World against People of Color in the Third World. Both Ruth and George were world class scientists. But even more importantly, they were true Humanitarians dedicated to promoting peace, justice and human rights around the world. I shall miss them. And the world is impoverished without them. RIP: Ruth and George. Francis A. Boyle Professor of Law Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Sun Dec 25 15:48:30 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sun, 25 Dec 2016 15:48:30 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] FW: RIP: Ruth Hubbard In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: A life well lived. Serving humanity on all fronts. That we all should strive to follow their path. On Dec 25, 2016, at 05:58, Boyle, Francis A via Peace-discuss > wrote: Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) From: Boyle, Francis A Sent: Sunday, December 25, 2016 7:56 AM To: SECTNS.aals at lists.aals.org Subject: RIP: Ruth Hubbard There is a very fine Tribute to Ruth in the Sunday New York Times Magazine Special on The Lives They Lived. Ruth was the first woman to become a tenured professor of biology at Harvard. She was married to my friend George Wald of the Harvard Biology Department, Nobel Prize Winner in Biology , and a Leader of the American Peace Movement. Speaking before the Convention of the Council for Responsible Genetics at Harvard Divinity School in November 2001 with Ruth sitting in the audience, I paid Tribute to George and said that after 9/11/2001 we really needed George to lead us, but that the rest of us will have to carry on as best as we can without him. And now the same for Ruth. Professionally I have read and used her work on Biopiracy and Biocolonialism by the White Racist Capitalist World against People of Color in the Third World. Both Ruth and George were world class scientists. But even more importantly, they were true Humanitarians dedicated to promoting peace, justice and human rights around the world. I shall miss them. And the world is impoverished without them. RIP: Ruth and George. Francis A. Boyle Professor of Law Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davegreen84 at yahoo.com Sun Dec 25 19:32:24 2016 From: davegreen84 at yahoo.com (David Green) Date: Sun, 25 Dec 2016 19:32:24 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Kyle Ammons' remarks after Passage of UrbanaSanctuary City In-Reply-To: <337BB3B8-531C-4334-A4BB-EBFF855D0636@gmail.com> References: <15932ff5637-10c8-20a6d@webprd-a14.mail.aol.com> <12bc5badd1f6e6f02b7c6e882e4602a1@shout.net> <337BB3B8-531C-4334-A4BB-EBFF855D0636@gmail.com> Message-ID: <1501313035.213629.1482694344812@mail.yahoo.com> I listened to the Ammons's WEFT program yesterday morning, and was left as nonplussed as Midge. Positive reflections on Ron Karenga's black nationalism, who opposed the Black Panther Party, are problematic. The related promotion of local "black capitalism" can hardly, in my view, be understood as challenging structural racism in any meaningful way. I was interested in some of the knowledgeable comments of Craig Walker about how housing/project developers operate in our community. But all of this seems to me a scattershot approach to an issue as fundamental as universal affordable housing, so desperately needed among what has become a majority of the population of all racial/ethnic backgrounds. DG On Sunday, December 25, 2016 7:07 AM, Debra Schrishuhn via Peace-discuss wrote: One hardly knows where to begin, other than correcting the subject line wherein Alderman Aaron Ammons is misidentified as "Kyle" Ammons. This list continually confounds and baffles. Deb Sent from my iPhone > On Dec 24, 2016, at 10:22 PM, "C. G. Estabrook via Peace" wrote: > > Ammons, like may other Americans, has been misled into thinking that slavery in America was a matter of race relations (black people and white people) rather than capitalism (owners and workers). > > "Probably a majority of American historians think of slavery in the United States as primarily a system of race relations — as though the chief business of slavery were the production of white supremacy rather than the production of cotton, sugar, rice and tobacco. One historian has gone so far as to call slavery ‘the ultimate segregator’. He does not ask why Europeans seeking the ‘ultimate’ method of segregating Africans would go to the trouble and expense of transporting them across the ocean for that purpose, when they could have achieved the same end so much more simply by leaving the Africans in Africa. > > "No one dreams of analyzing the struggle of the English against the Irish as a problem in race relations, even though the rationale that the English developed for suppressing the ‘barbarous’ Irish later served nearly word for word as a rationale for suppressing Africans and indigenous American Indians. Nor does anyone dream of analyzing serfdom in Russia as primarily a problem of race relations, even though the Russian nobility invented fictions of their innate, natural superiority over the serfs as preposterous as any devised by American racists." [B. J. Fields] > > See now "How Race Is Conjured: The fiction of race hides the real source of racism and inequity in America today," by Barbara J. Fields & Karen E. Fields, Jacobin 6.29.15 > > This misleading - sometimes innocent but often not - protects capitalism from criticism by directing that criticism to racial prejudice (which itself should be distinguished from racism properly speaking, which is a matter of law, as in apartheid South Africa or Israel). Racism existed in the Virginia of my youth, but the laws were changed (see the current film “Loving”). Racial prejudice still exists there - but racism as a legal structure doesn’t. > > --CGE > > >> On 2016-12-24 16:41, Mildred O'brien wrote: >> I don't know if other people attending the Urbana City Council meeting >> after the passage of the Urbana Sanctuary City Ordinance were >> listening and offended as I was by remarks of Council person Ammons >> who lectured "descendants of immigrants" who (supposedly) enslaved his >> ancestors but now petitioned on behalf of undocumented immigrants.  I >> was astonished by such language at the time but thought perhaps I had >> not heard what I thought I heard.  Today on WEFT I heard a replay of >> the Council proceedings of December 19 after the passage of the >> Ordinance which confirmed my recollection of his words, which blamed >> [white] immigrants in general for  enslaving his people. >> It is not been historically established that more than 10 - 15% of >> Colonials were responsible for the importation and exploitation of >> slave labor.  Realistically, servitude of black or white enforced >> labor was not economically feasible for the majority of landless >> immigrants to America who were destitute or themselves enslaved >> (Caucasians for 7 to 10 years or more, Africans for life) but was >> restricted to wealthy Europeans primarily from England. My own >> paternal ancestor immigrant was kidnapped from Ireland in 1698 at >> twelve years of age and transplanted to work for a wealthy Englishman >> in tobacco fields of Maryland until the age of 21. >> It is not helpful for contemporary descendants of perceived past >> aggrievances to tar people of good intentions with presumably >> inherited guilt for which they had no responsibility, but to work in >> harmony to prevent repetition of transgressions. >> Midge O'Brien > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Sun Dec 25 20:37:39 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sun, 25 Dec 2016 20:37:39 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: #SundayWire LIVE: Christmas Special from #Aleppo #MakeChristmasGreatAgain References: <8e2046b867880f405f4203dc4.8a1ecf423b.20161225170255.735734b21b.b975a942@mail43.atl11.rsgsv.net> Message-ID: Take a walk through the “old city of Aleppo”, while listening to the Christmas special Begin forwarded message: [ALEPPO: LIVE UPDATES] [Facebook] [Twitter] [https://gallery.mailchimp.com/8e2046b867880f405f4203dc4/images/704576da-c0d0-4b42-b9bf-a9bfa2e921dd.png] [Shout] [YouTube] [SoundCloud] [RSS] Daily updates for 21stCenturyWire.com subscribers View this email in your browser [21st Century Wire] Your Daily Dose of Truth. Curated by 21st Century Wire Top Stories Episode #166 – SUNDAY WIRE: ‘Bells of Christmas in Aleppo’ with guests Vanessa Beeley & Friends SUNDAY WIRE SHOW | Merry Christmas from Aleppo and Syria... Read on » 2017 NDAA: Obama Signs “Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act” 21WIRE & Zero Hedge | Obama quietly signed into law the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) authorizes $611 billion for the military in 2017. Read on » BREAKING: Russian Plane Crashes En Route To Syria RT | BREAKING: 92 feared dead after Russian plane crashes en route to Syria. Read on » Obama Signs Star Wars II Defense Bill: Shameful Hypocrisy In Blaming Trump for “Arms Race” Zero Hedge | Mainstream media and politicians feign repulsion at Trump's tweets about nuclear capability while Obama administration signs Star Wars II Defense Bill, endangering realtionships with China and Russia. Read on » THIS YEAR: Let’s Make Christmas Great Again… 21WIRE.TV | A special holiday video message from 21WIRE.TV... Read on » Newly Liberated Aleppo Celebrates First Christmas After Years of War RT | This year, many people in the liberated city of Aleppo are celebrating for the first time since the war began. Read on » Vladimir Putin Holds Annual Public Q&A – Damages Western Propaganda with Open Dialog The Duran | Putin's annual media conference focused on allegations of personal involvement in the US elections, the threat of a nuclear arms race, and the potential for a Syria ceasefire. Read on » EXCLUSIVE: Video Walkthrough of the Aftermath in Old City in East Aleppo Vanessa Beeley | A walk through the ancient souk that has been burnt many times by the terrorists, in an attempt to completely destroy this ancient cultural icon for the Syrian people. Read on » HAPPY HOLIDAYS: 21WIRE.TV Members Newsletter – Dec 24, 2016 21WIRE.TV | Thanks for your incredible support in helping us build this truly independent media platform. Read on » Patrick Henningsen LIVE – Replays @21WIRE.TV [EP 6: Patrick Henningsen LIVE with guest Robert Parry – ‘America’s Mainstream Media Meltdown’] EP 6: Patrick Henningsen LIVE with guest Robert Parry – ‘America’s Mainstream Media Meltdown’ Featured Archives ALEPPO UPDATES and more... [Aleppo Files] [The Last Clown in Aleppo: ‘Mr. Alhamdo’ Does Bad Monty Python for Al Jazeera and CNN] [EXCLUSIVE: The REAL Syria Civil Defence Exposes Fake ‘White Helmets’ as Terrorist-Linked Imposters] [Syria Files] ['Fake News' Files] [Facebook] [Twitter] [https://gallery.mailchimp.com/8e2046b867880f405f4203dc4/images/704576da-c0d0-4b42-b9bf-a9bfa2e921dd.png] [Shout] [YouTube] [SoundCloud] [RSS] We Need Your Support in 2016! [21st Century Wire Investigative Fund] 21st Century Wire Investigative Fund This fund supports our investigative news coverage, research and studio time for the Sunday Wire radio show. Thank you! The Sunday Wire with Patrick Henningsen – On-Demand Episode #165: ‘Syria’s Truth’ with guests Subrata Ghoshroy, Eva Bartlett, Vanessa Beeley Sunday Wire Archives [The Sunday Wire LIVE with Patrick Henningsen] [Alternate Current Radio]LIVE Replays Monday – Friday 4AM/12PM/5PM EST on Alternate Current Radio [Available on iTunes] Thank you for subscribing to our website updates at http://21stcenturywire.com. We value our community of readers and hope you are enjoying these updates. Our mailing address is: 21Wire Media P.O. Box 410654 Kansas City, MO 64141 Add us to your address book unsubscribe from this list update subscription preferences [21st Century Wire] COPYRIGHT © 2009-2016 · 21WIRE MEDIA · ALL RIGHTS RESERVED WORLDWIDE -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fboyle at illinois.edu Mon Dec 26 13:42:41 2016 From: fboyle at illinois.edu (Boyle, Francis A) Date: Mon, 26 Dec 2016 13:42:41 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] News Gazette Against Urbana Sanctuary: Birds of a Feather Message-ID: No surprise there. Back in 1986, going door to door against us on the Original Urbana Sanctuary Resolution were the American Nazi Party, the Ku Klux Klan, Phyllis Schafly's Eagle Forum, and the Republican Party of Champaign County. Birds of a feather flock together. Fab. Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Mon Dec 26 13:50:57 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Mon, 26 Dec 2016 13:50:57 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] News Gazette Against Urbana Sanctuary: Birds of a Feather In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The opposition of those mentioned below, is enough to have me support it. On Dec 26, 2016, at 05:42, Boyle, Francis A > wrote: No surprise there. Back in 1986, going door to door against us on the Original Urbana Sanctuary Resolution were the American Nazi Party, the Ku Klux Klan, Phyllis Schafly’s Eagle Forum, and the Republican Party of Champaign County. Birds of a feather flock together. Fab. Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fboyle at illinois.edu Mon Dec 26 13:54:28 2016 From: fboyle at illinois.edu (Boyle, Francis A) Date: Mon, 26 Dec 2016 13:54:28 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] News Gazette Against Urbana Sanctuary: Birds of a Feather In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: As I said before back in 1986 the American Nazi Party publicly threatened to kill me if I showed up to argue the case for Urbana becoming a Sanctuary for Central American Refugees. You know a Man by his enemies—and his Friends. Fab. Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) From: Karen Aram [mailto:karenaram at hotmail.com] Sent: Monday, December 26, 2016 7:51 AM To: Boyle, Francis A Cc: C. G. Estabrook ; peace-discuss at anti-war.net; futureup2us at gmail.com; a-fields at uiuc.edu; Hoffman, Valerie J ; Miller, Joseph Thomas ; Szoke, Ron ; davetrippel at ameritech.net; a23h23 at yahoo.com; davidcnswanson at gmail.com; peace-discuss-request at lists.chambana.net; sherwoodross10 at gmail.com; abass10 at gmail.com; mickalideh at gmail.com; lina at worldcantwait.net; chicago at worldcantwait.net; Mildred O'brien Subject: Re: News Gazette Against Urbana Sanctuary: Birds of a Feather The opposition of those mentioned below, is enough to have me support it. On Dec 26, 2016, at 05:42, Boyle, Francis A > wrote: No surprise there. Back in 1986, going door to door against us on the Original Urbana Sanctuary Resolution were the American Nazi Party, the Ku Klux Klan, Phyllis Schafly’s Eagle Forum, and the Republican Party of Champaign County. Birds of a feather flock together. Fab. Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fboyle at illinois.edu Mon Dec 26 14:59:19 2016 From: fboyle at illinois.edu (Boyle, Francis A) Date: Mon, 26 Dec 2016 14:59:19 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] News Gazette Against Urbana Sanctuary: Birds of a Feather References: Message-ID: As for the University of Illinois System refusing to become a Sanctuary, this is an act of MORAL COWARDICE. The entire University of California System set itself up as Sanctuary Campuses. The President of UCAL is Janet Napolitano who was Director of the Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE, and she is a Lawyer. She was in charge of enforcing the immigration laws for Obama—our Deporter in Chief. If Sanctuary Status was good enough for Napolitano, legally it should have been good enough for the University of Illinois System. But whenever has the University of Illinois been known for Moral Integrity? Last time I looked Chief Illiniwak still remains on the books as our “honored and revered symbol,” eventhough technically “retired” instead of outright repudiated. That’s it in a nutshell right there. Fab Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) From: Boyle, Francis A Sent: Monday, December 26, 2016 7:54 AM To: 'Karen Aram' Cc: C. G. Estabrook ; peace-discuss at anti-war.net; futureup2us at gmail.com; a-fields at uiuc.edu; Hoffman, Valerie J ; Miller, Joseph Thomas ; Szoke, Ron ; davetrippel at ameritech.net; a23h23 at yahoo.com; davidcnswanson at gmail.com; peace-discuss-request at lists.chambana.net; sherwoodross10 at gmail.com; abass10 at gmail.com; mickalideh at gmail.com; lina at worldcantwait.net; chicago at worldcantwait.net; Mildred O'brien ; David Johnson Subject: RE: News Gazette Against Urbana Sanctuary: Birds of a Feather As I said before back in 1986 the American Nazi Party publicly threatened to kill me if I showed up to argue the case for Urbana becoming a Sanctuary for Central American Refugees. You know a Man by his enemies—and his Friends. Fab. Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) From: Karen Aram [mailto:karenaram at hotmail.com] Sent: Monday, December 26, 2016 7:51 AM To: Boyle, Francis A > Cc: C. G. Estabrook >; peace-discuss at anti-war.net; futureup2us at gmail.com; a-fields at uiuc.edu; Hoffman, Valerie J >; Miller, Joseph Thomas >; Szoke, Ron >; davetrippel at ameritech.net; a23h23 at yahoo.com; davidcnswanson at gmail.com; peace-discuss-request at lists.chambana.net; sherwoodross10 at gmail.com; abass10 at gmail.com; mickalideh at gmail.com; lina at worldcantwait.net; chicago at worldcantwait.net; Mildred O'brien > Subject: Re: News Gazette Against Urbana Sanctuary: Birds of a Feather The opposition of those mentioned below, is enough to have me support it. On Dec 26, 2016, at 05:42, Boyle, Francis A > wrote: No surprise there. Back in 1986, going door to door against us on the Original Urbana Sanctuary Resolution were the American Nazi Party, the Ku Klux Klan, Phyllis Schafly’s Eagle Forum, and the Republican Party of Champaign County. Birds of a feather flock together. Fab. Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fboyle at illinois.edu Mon Dec 26 17:50:43 2016 From: fboyle at illinois.edu (Boyle, Francis A) Date: Mon, 26 Dec 2016 17:50:43 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] FW: Urbana's 2016 Sanctuary Resolution In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) From: Boyle, Francis A Sent: Monday, December 26, 2016 11:47 AM To: letters at news-gazette.com Subject: Urbana's 2016 Sanctuary Resolution Back in 1986, going door-to-door against us on the Original Urbana Sanctuary Resolution for Refugees from Central America were the American Nazi Party, the Ku Klux Klan, Phyllis Schaffly's Eagle Forum, and the Republican Party of Champaign County. Birds of a feather flock together. Francis A. Boyle Professor of Law Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Mon Dec 26 20:11:17 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Mon, 26 Dec 2016 20:11:17 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: Support for sanctuary cities References: Message-ID: My letter to the News-Gazette, just now. I know it needs editing, let them do it. > > > The humanitarians in Urbana, Illinois won, in 1986 and again in 2016. > > The colonialists who first settled in this land of America were breaking laws, by committing genocide against the indigenous peoples here. Further European immigrants broke laws when taking the states of Texas, Nevada, New Mexico, and California by force. > > Kidnapping and forcing Africans in shackles to come here as slaves was certainly breaking the laws of humanity. > > Every group of immigrants suffered discrimination when coming here for a better life, whether Irish forced here by the potato famine, genocide perpetrated by the British, or the Germans, Italians, Polish, Croatians, etc., etc. > > Hundreds of Chinese immigrants were murdered after the railways were built rather than allow them to stay. > > In 1986 a group of anti-war activists residing in Urbana, Illinois, came together and initiated a “Sanctuary City" Resolution, in order to protect the undocumented nationals arriving here from Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador. They were coming here as refugee’s due to the Reagan Administration interventions in their nations, either by means of regime change, or our “special forces” invading, torturing and murdering. Of course many of these intervention’s took place in Guatemala, Chile, Iran, dating back to the 50’s, and 60’s so we can’t blame it on only one political party. On the contrary, it has been US foreign policy for many decades. > > CIA interventions/or assassinations of government leaders, in the many African nations, whether Patrice Lumumba in the Congo, or Steve Biko in South Africa, results in similar upheaval and devastation. > > The Resolution at that time, #8586-R22 was upholding the Refugee Act of 1980, summarized as: > > “Whereas, over 40,000 noncombatant civilians were estimated to have been killed in El Salvador since 1979, with the INS granting political asylum to less than 3 percent of the hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans who applied, and in 1982 and 1983 over 4,800 refugees were returned to El Salvador, with at least 50 of those returned, turning up on the lists of victims killed by security forces or death squads; with thousands of Guatemalans tortured and/or murdered by security forces under government control, since the early 1970’s,……” > > There was opposition from the local Nazi Party and the local KKK, with Professor Francis Boyle, receiving a death threat, if he showed up at the City Council meeting, to argue on behalf of the litigation. He ignored it, and showed up anyway. One person brought a gun placing it on the podium while speaking, with the police escorting him out. The gun was not loaded, but…….and the Resolution passed. > > Again, Professor Boyle showed up in December 2016, minus death threats this time, to argue on behalf of a revised Resolution. Revised because this time it needed to be all inclusive, not just on behalf of the three former mentioned nationalities. > > All inclusive as a result of further US war and interventions, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Somalia, etc. > > One can argue that the majority of undocumented come to the US today for economic purposes. A response is, what happens to a nation when it is destroyed or when a democratically elected leader is murdered? A puppet regime is put in place, which generally supports the elites, further impoverishing the poor and middle classes. Infrastructures and businesses are destroyed, causing high rates of unemployment. > > Even Nafta which took jobs from Americans sending them over the borders, nonetheless harmed those in those very nations, who could no longer compete with US corporations in their lands, or were often then forced to work under even worse conditions than previous. > > Refugees are currently flocking into Europe as a result of USG foreign policies, with the US boundary of oceans between us. Do we now turn away those who are dying, starving, or freezing to death as we once did regrettably in 1939, those Jewish refugees that were forced to return to Germany aboard the St.Louis, most of whom died as a result? Though we were quick to accept the many German scientists, into our government. > > For those concerned with the “law,” we need to look at our government who breaks not only international laws but our laws, committing “crimes against humanity" that they do in our name. From brussel at illinois.edu Tue Dec 27 04:17:03 2016 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2016 04:17:03 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: [ufpj-activist] Very interesting analysis of US-Russia relationship References: Message-ID: <0C6A47E1-FF58-4F5A-8531-96FC0298EAD5@illinois.edu> FYI Begin forwarded message: From: Kevin Zeese > Subject: [ufpj-activist] Very interesting analysis of US-Russia relationship Date: December 26, 2016 at 9:46:50 PM CST To: ufpj-activist > This is a link to a well informed, balanced view of Russia and how the US should relate to Russia. It comes from the publication of the American Foreign Service Association which represents more than 32,000 active and retired Foreign Service employees of the Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and other US foreign policy agencies. It is quite a counter-balance to the propaganda of US media and the bi-partisans in Washington, DC who act like they are ignorant of the facts in this article and are encouraging US-Russian conflict. http://www.afsa.org/understanding-russian-foreign-policy-today @KBZeese Build power and resistance Popular Resistance ([X][X]www.PopularResistance.org) Shift Wealth: Economic Democracy Its Our Economy ([X][X]www.ItsOurEconomy.US) Democratize the Media Clearing the FOG (Forces of Greed) Radio ([X][X]http://www.ClearingTheFOGRadio.org) _______________________________________________ ufpj-activist mailing list Post: ufpj-activist at lists.mayfirst.org List info: https://lists.mayfirst.org/mailman/listinfo/ufpj-activist To Unsubscribe Send email to: ufpj-activist-unsubscribe at lists.mayfirst.org Or visit: https://lists.mayfirst.org/mailman/options/ufpj-activist/mkb0029%40gmail.com You are subscribed as: mkb0029 at gmail.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From galliher at illinois.edu Tue Dec 27 09:54:23 2016 From: galliher at illinois.edu (Carl G. Estabrook) Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2016 03:54:23 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: [ufpj-activist] Very interesting analysis of US-Russia relationship In-Reply-To: <0C6A47E1-FF58-4F5A-8531-96FC0298EAD5@illinois.edu> References: <0C6A47E1-FF58-4F5A-8531-96FC0298EAD5@illinois.edu> Message-ID: <76F93B37-CF46-4982-9E92-EA854116521D@illinois.edu> And here is an almost too leg-pulling account of Obama’s Russian policy: http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2016/12/is-obama-russian-agent.html ['To "pull one's leg", as a saying, ... dates back to the mid-1800s in England, and refers to physically tripping up another person, which puts him off balance, possibly makes him collide with others in awkward ways, and generally makes him look foolish. It quickly evolved to mean achieving that result - making a person look foolish - regardless of the specific means used. The most popular means to do so is to tell a deliberate plausible non-truth which, if believed, would lead the person react foolishly.’] —CGE > On Dec 26, 2016, at 10:17 PM, Brussel, Morton K via Peace-discuss wrote: > > FYI > >> Begin forwarded message: >> >> From: Kevin Zeese >> Subject: [ufpj-activist] Very interesting analysis of US-Russia relationship >> Date: December 26, 2016 at 9:46:50 PM CST >> To: ufpj-activist >> >> This is a link to a well informed, balanced view of Russia and how the >> US should relate to Russia. It comes from the publication of the American Foreign Service Association which represents more than 32,000 active and retired Foreign Service employees of the Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) >> and other US foreign policy agencies. It is quite a counter-balance to the propaganda of US media and the bi-partisans in Washington, DC who act like they are ignorant of the facts in this article and are encouraging US-Russian conflict. >> >> >> >> >> http://www.afsa.org/understanding-russian-foreign-policy-today >> >> >> @KBZeese >> Build power and resistance >> Popular Resistance >> (www.PopularResistance.org) >> Shift Wealth: Economic Democracy >> Its Our Economy >> (www.ItsOurEconomy.US) >> Democratize the Media >> Clearing the FOG (Forces of Greed) >> Radio (http://www.ClearingTheFOGRadio.org) >> _______________________________________________ >> ufpj-activist mailing list >> >> Post: ufpj-activist at lists.mayfirst.org >> List info: https://lists.mayfirst.org/mailman/listinfo/ufpj-activist >> >> To Unsubscribe >> Send email to: ufpj-activist-unsubscribe at lists.mayfirst.org >> Or visit: https://lists.mayfirst.org/mailman/options/ufpj-activist/mkb0029%40gmail.com >> >> You are subscribed as: mkb0029 at gmail.com > > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss From karenaram at hotmail.com Tue Dec 27 13:42:28 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2016 13:42:28 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: [ufpj-activist] Very interesting analysis of US-Russia relationship In-Reply-To: <76F93B37-CF46-4982-9E92-EA854116521D@illinois.edu> References: <0C6A47E1-FF58-4F5A-8531-96FC0298EAD5@illinois.edu> <76F93B37-CF46-4982-9E92-EA854116521D@illinois.edu> Message-ID: Mort I know the author of the article from Kevin Zeese, or did during the 70’s, assuming there weren’t two Raymond Smith’s during the Soviet era, at the same posting in Moscow. The article reflects a more positive take on Russia than I would have expected from him. > On Dec 27, 2016, at 01:54, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss wrote: > > And here is an almost too leg-pulling account of Obama’s Russian policy: > > http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2016/12/is-obama-russian-agent.html > > ['To "pull one's leg", as a saying, ... dates back to the mid-1800s in England, and refers to physically tripping up another person, which puts him off balance, possibly makes him collide with others in awkward ways, and generally makes him look foolish. It quickly evolved to mean achieving that result - making a person look foolish - regardless of the specific means used. The most popular means to do so is to tell a deliberate plausible non-truth which, if believed, would lead the person react foolishly.’] > > —CGE > >> On Dec 26, 2016, at 10:17 PM, Brussel, Morton K via Peace-discuss wrote: >> >> FYI >> >>> Begin forwarded message: >>> >>> From: Kevin Zeese >>> Subject: [ufpj-activist] Very interesting analysis of US-Russia relationship >>> Date: December 26, 2016 at 9:46:50 PM CST >>> To: ufpj-activist >>> >>> This is a link to a well informed, balanced view of Russia and how the >>> US should relate to Russia. It comes from the publication of the American Foreign Service Association which represents more than 32,000 active and retired Foreign Service employees of the Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) >>> and other US foreign policy agencies. It is quite a counter-balance to the propaganda of US media and the bi-partisans in Washington, DC who act like they are ignorant of the facts in this article and are encouraging US-Russian conflict. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> http://www.afsa.org/understanding-russian-foreign-policy-today >>> >>> >>> @KBZeese >>> Build power and resistance >>> Popular Resistance >>> (www.PopularResistance.org) >>> Shift Wealth: Economic Democracy >>> Its Our Economy >>> (www.ItsOurEconomy.US) >>> Democratize the Media >>> Clearing the FOG (Forces of Greed) >>> Radio (http://www.ClearingTheFOGRadio.org) >>> _______________________________________________ >>> ufpj-activist mailing list >>> >>> Post: ufpj-activist at lists.mayfirst.org >>> List info: https://lists.mayfirst.org/mailman/listinfo/ufpj-activist >>> >>> To Unsubscribe >>> Send email to: ufpj-activist-unsubscribe at lists.mayfirst.org >>> Or visit: https://lists.mayfirst.org/mailman/options/ufpj-activist/mkb0029%40gmail.com >>> >>> You are subscribed as: mkb0029 at gmail.com >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Peace-discuss mailing list >> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net >> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss > > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss From karenaram at hotmail.com Tue Dec 27 18:28:04 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2016 18:28:04 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] The humanitarians in Urbana, Illinois won, in 1986 and again in 2016. Message-ID: Okay, I’ve reduced it by about 550 words. It’s in the now required 250 words ballpark for the NG. Any suggestions welcomed. In the 1980’s refugee’s from Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador were coming to the US as a result of the USG interventions in their nations, as a result of our “special forces” invading, torturing and murdering. > In 1986 the INS granted political asylum to less than 3 percent of the hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans who applied, with over 4,800 refugees returned to El Salvador, with at least 50 of those returned, turning up on the lists of victims killed by security forces or death squads; and thousands of Guatemalans tortured and/or murdered by security forces under government control. > Thus a group of anti-war activists residing in Urbana, Illinois, initiated a “Sanctuary City” Resolution, in order to protect the undocumented nationals arriving here from those nations and in spite of opposition from the local Nazi Party, the local KKK, and a death threat if he showed up, at the Urbana City Council meeting, Law Professor Francis Boyle, argued on behalf of the Resolution, and it passed. > Again, in December 2016 Professor Boyle, minus death threats, showed up to argue on behalf of a “revised” Resolution. Revised because now it needed to be “all inclusive,” given our continuing wars and interventions, throughout the Middle East and North Africa. > Many come here for economic reasons, but when a nation is destroyed, chaos ensues leaving the infrastructure and businesses damaged, causing unemployment. > > For those concerned with obedience to Federal “law,” I suggest we look at our government who has been breaking our laws, with their continuing “crimes against humanity”. From galliher at illinois.edu Tue Dec 27 20:02:01 2016 From: galliher at illinois.edu (Carl G. Estabrook) Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2016 14:02:01 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] The humanitarians in Urbana, Illinois won, in 1986 and again in 2016. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003A4252-C15C-4929-8CC1-403CFDD1F31B@illinois.edu> Here’s what some in the USG thinks the threat is: >. —CGE > On Dec 27, 2016, at 12:28 PM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss wrote: > > > Okay, I’ve reduced it by about 550 words. It’s in the now required 250 words ballpark for the NG. Any suggestions welcomed. > > In the 1980’s refugee’s from Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador were coming to the US as a result of the USG interventions in their nations, as a result of our “special forces” invading, torturing and murdering. > >> In 1986 the INS granted political asylum to less than 3 percent of the hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans who applied, with over 4,800 refugees returned to El Salvador, with at least 50 of those returned, turning up on the lists of victims killed by security forces or death squads; and thousands of Guatemalans tortured and/or murdered by security forces under government control. > >> Thus a group of anti-war activists residing in Urbana, Illinois, initiated a “Sanctuary City” Resolution, in order to protect the undocumented nationals arriving here from those nations and in spite of opposition from the local Nazi Party, the local KKK, and a death threat if he showed up, at the Urbana City Council meeting, Law Professor Francis Boyle, argued on behalf of the Resolution, and it passed. > >> Again, in December 2016 Professor Boyle, minus death threats, showed up to argue on behalf of a “revised” Resolution. Revised because now it needed to be “all inclusive,” given our continuing wars and interventions, throughout the Middle East and North Africa. > >> Many come here for economic reasons, but when a nation is destroyed, chaos ensues leaving the infrastructure and businesses damaged, causing unemployment. >> >> For those concerned with obedience to Federal “law,” I suggest we look at our government who has been breaking our laws, with their continuing “crimes against humanity”. > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From galliher at illinois.edu Tue Dec 27 20:19:47 2016 From: galliher at illinois.edu (Carl G. Estabrook) Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2016 14:19:47 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Reassurance from the Giant Vampire Squid In-Reply-To: <567E5673-3C6B-4708-9E9D-AD61C9292E00@illinois.edu> References: <567E5673-3C6B-4708-9E9D-AD61C9292E00@illinois.edu> Message-ID: It’s looking like Trump won because the neoliberal/neocon alliance that backed both major parties came apart - the neocons going with warmonger Clinton and the neolibs with the “businessman” Trump. Will that result in Trump-admin belligerence toward China. instead of Obama-admin belligerence toward Russia? It would seem that US neoliberals have more to gain from co-operation with China’s OBOR than opposition. But that would conflict with the cornerstone of US fp for more than century: preventing Eurasian economic integration, which would be a threat to the wold dominance of US economic elites. (See Mackinder's 'Heartland Theory’: >. —CGE > On Dec 8, 2016, at 2:29 PM, Szoke, Ron via Peace-discuss wrote: > > > Trump won’t be a ‘dangerous’ president, says Goldman’s CEO  > Fears about a Donald Trump presidency may be misplaced, according to Goldman Sachs Group CEO Lloyd Blankfein in an interview published in the German newspaper Handelsblatt. > > Blankfein, head of the world’s most prominent investment bank, said Trump would be a level-headed leader despite his controversial anti-immigration rhetoric and his protectionist stance on trade policies. Trump has proposed building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and has discussed banning Muslims from entering the U.S. > > Read: Goldman Sachs is the big Dow winner of the Trump rally > > –– ADVERTISEMENT –– > > > > Still, he gets a thumbs up from Goldman’s head. > > > “He’s a very smart guy, a businessman…I am not pessimistic at all because he won,” Blankfein told the paper . “Mr. Trump may turn out to be a much better president than anyone else might have been in that place,’’ he said. “He’s just less of a known quantity as a politician.” > > Trump’s surprising Election Day victory sent initial shock waves throughout global markets, but since then equities have stormed higher, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.33% on track to notch its 12th closing record since the election, and the S&P 500 SPX, +0.16% Nasdaq Composite, small-cap focused Russell 2000 index RUT, +1.24% and Dow Jones Transportation Average DJT, +0.37% considered a gauge of U.S. economic health, blazing a path to fresh all-time highs. > > Read: Stock records signal that fighting the Trump rally is a losing battle > For Goldman’s part, the giant investment bank has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the recent surge in markets. Since the presidential election, Goldman’s shares GS, +2.27% have surged 33% to their highest levels since before the 2008, posting the biggest gains among the Dow’s components. > > Check out: MarketWatch’s stock-market column > Moreover, Trump has handpicked a number of Goldman alum to be a part of his administration, including Steven Mnuchin , who was tapped to serve as President-elect Trump’s Treasury secretary. > > 0:00 / 0:00 > Who is Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s Treasury pick? (1:43) > President-elect Donald Trump turned to former Goldman Sachs banker and movie financier Steven Mnuchin to be the next Treasury secretary. WSJ’s Rick Carew takes a look at his background. Photo: Getty > > Trump has proposed policies, including tax cuts and infrastructure spending, that are being viewed as pro-business by Wall Street investors and Mnuchin has expressed an interest in rolling back the Dodd-Frank Act, which was enacted in the wake of the financial crisis. Proponents of repealing parts of the rules argue that it has hobbled bank lending. > > Talk of looser regulations is likely a boon for the finance sector and Goldman in particular. > > > — WSJ MarketWatch online 120816 > > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Tue Dec 27 21:21:19 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2016 21:21:19 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: The New (Cold?) War With China References: <1126785513620.1103935397483.1591589519.0.581341JL.2002@scheduler.constantcontact.com> Message-ID: CounterPunch NEWS UPDATE 12-27-2016 Donate Today [http://files.constantcontact.com/b6e5da70101/2adf3ce7-498f-47f8-932a-c383418064b7.jpg] The New (Cold?) War With China Alan Nasser on the global ambitions of China and the US. [http://files.constantcontact.com/b6e5da70101/11c976ac-bfa7-4b7a-b6ca-1a9c6d0ae892.jpg] The End of Arab Revolutions? Robert Fisk asks; do the tragedies of Syria signal the end of Arab revolutions? [http://files.constantcontact.com/b6e5da70101/f554f199-479d-4555-ae3f-bad8b967f741.jpg] Syria and the Antiwar Movement Judith Deutsch writes that the continued slaughter of people in Syria poses urgent questions for the fragmented Left. [http://files.constantcontact.com/b6e5da70101/9dff0e8a-26af-495e-8bd8-efd55a8f8a71.jpg] Post-Truthers, Bullshiters and Politics Kenneth Surin on backlash and surreal politics. [http://files.constantcontact.com/b6e5da70101/ee4565f4-f855-465d-8bd5-7f199ae467a3.png] The Final Obama Doctrine Edward Hunt on Obama's mounting body count. [http://files.constantcontact.com/b6e5da70101/aecadd40-fe61-471d-aa92-2a4c876f23fd.jpg] Trump and the Phantom of Democracy Nozomi Hayase on Trump, WikiLeaks and the democratizing power of the internet. [http://files.constantcontact.com/b6e5da70101/db4d27df-105e-42de-862e-1eaa344d6fab.jpg] My Satirical Christmas Tweet George Ciccariello-Maher on academic freedom and the backlash to his satirical tweet. View all of CounterPunch's Recent Articles Media of the Day A Syrian Dissident on How a Fight Against a Dictator Became a Proxy War Quote of the Day Jean Baudrillard: "America is powerful and original; America is violent and abominable. We should not try to deny either of these aspects, nor to reconcile them." Dan Kovalik on CounterPunch Radio! [http://files.constantcontact.com/b6e5da70101/be7f7400-1d61-4a84-84fb-5b70650a71d3.jpg] This week CounterPunch Radio host Eric Draitser sits down with Dan Kovalik to discuss recent developments in Colombia, and how that strategic US ally fits into the broader politics and geopolitics of Latin America. Listen Today! Exclusively in the New Print Issue of CounterPunch [http://files.constantcontact.com/b6e5da70101/8ca2fbf3-ebb4-4da4-a11d-33491f0842a3.jpg] Trump and The Failure of Identity Politics Yvette Carnell explores the failure of identity politics; Mike Whitney dissects Trump's economic policy, which looks like the same old trickledown with a few troubling wrinkles; Chris Floyd charts the rise of Trump on the continuum of American politics; Jeffrey St. Clair dissects the Democrats' abandonment of the working class; Anthony DiMaggio reports on the street protests against Trump and Alena Wolflink examines how Trump's campaign hit all the right nerves. Plus: Jason Hirthler on whitewashing the crimes of empire; Joshua Frank on climate change and the future of the grizzly; Seth Sandronsky and Dan Berman on the struggle for workplace safety; Ruth Fowler on police violence and gentrification; Daniel Raventos and Julie Wark on the refugee crisis; Robert Hunziker on spiking radiation levels in the Pacific Ocean and much more. Subscribe Today! SIGN UP for the email version of CounterPunch magazine and save 37% What is a subscription? CounterPunch Magazine has exclusive articles for subscribers only, plus special features you can't find on our website. As an email subscriber you get discounts on books and everything else in the CounterPunch store. Subscribe STAY CONNECTED WITH COUNTERPUNCH ON SOCIAL MEDIA [Like us on Facebook] [Follow us on Twitter] CounterPunch, P.O. Box 228, Petrolia, CA 95558 SafeUnsubscribe™ karenaram at hotmail.com Forward this email | Update Profile | About our service provider Sent by counterpunch at counterpunch.org in collaboration with [Constant Contact] Try it free today -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Tue Dec 27 21:21:19 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2016 21:21:19 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: The New (Cold?) War With China References: <1126785513620.1103935397483.1591589519.0.581341JL.2002@scheduler.constantcontact.com> Message-ID: CounterPunch NEWS UPDATE 12-27-2016 Donate Today [http://files.constantcontact.com/b6e5da70101/2adf3ce7-498f-47f8-932a-c383418064b7.jpg] The New (Cold?) War With China Alan Nasser on the global ambitions of China and the US. [http://files.constantcontact.com/b6e5da70101/11c976ac-bfa7-4b7a-b6ca-1a9c6d0ae892.jpg] The End of Arab Revolutions? Robert Fisk asks; do the tragedies of Syria signal the end of Arab revolutions? [http://files.constantcontact.com/b6e5da70101/f554f199-479d-4555-ae3f-bad8b967f741.jpg] Syria and the Antiwar Movement Judith Deutsch writes that the continued slaughter of people in Syria poses urgent questions for the fragmented Left. [http://files.constantcontact.com/b6e5da70101/9dff0e8a-26af-495e-8bd8-efd55a8f8a71.jpg] Post-Truthers, Bullshiters and Politics Kenneth Surin on backlash and surreal politics. [http://files.constantcontact.com/b6e5da70101/ee4565f4-f855-465d-8bd5-7f199ae467a3.png] The Final Obama Doctrine Edward Hunt on Obama's mounting body count. [http://files.constantcontact.com/b6e5da70101/aecadd40-fe61-471d-aa92-2a4c876f23fd.jpg] Trump and the Phantom of Democracy Nozomi Hayase on Trump, WikiLeaks and the democratizing power of the internet. [http://files.constantcontact.com/b6e5da70101/db4d27df-105e-42de-862e-1eaa344d6fab.jpg] My Satirical Christmas Tweet George Ciccariello-Maher on academic freedom and the backlash to his satirical tweet. View all of CounterPunch's Recent Articles Media of the Day A Syrian Dissident on How a Fight Against a Dictator Became a Proxy War Quote of the Day Jean Baudrillard: "America is powerful and original; America is violent and abominable. We should not try to deny either of these aspects, nor to reconcile them." Dan Kovalik on CounterPunch Radio! [http://files.constantcontact.com/b6e5da70101/be7f7400-1d61-4a84-84fb-5b70650a71d3.jpg] This week CounterPunch Radio host Eric Draitser sits down with Dan Kovalik to discuss recent developments in Colombia, and how that strategic US ally fits into the broader politics and geopolitics of Latin America. Listen Today! Exclusively in the New Print Issue of CounterPunch [http://files.constantcontact.com/b6e5da70101/8ca2fbf3-ebb4-4da4-a11d-33491f0842a3.jpg] Trump and The Failure of Identity Politics Yvette Carnell explores the failure of identity politics; Mike Whitney dissects Trump's economic policy, which looks like the same old trickledown with a few troubling wrinkles; Chris Floyd charts the rise of Trump on the continuum of American politics; Jeffrey St. Clair dissects the Democrats' abandonment of the working class; Anthony DiMaggio reports on the street protests against Trump and Alena Wolflink examines how Trump's campaign hit all the right nerves. Plus: Jason Hirthler on whitewashing the crimes of empire; Joshua Frank on climate change and the future of the grizzly; Seth Sandronsky and Dan Berman on the struggle for workplace safety; Ruth Fowler on police violence and gentrification; Daniel Raventos and Julie Wark on the refugee crisis; Robert Hunziker on spiking radiation levels in the Pacific Ocean and much more. Subscribe Today! SIGN UP for the email version of CounterPunch magazine and save 37% What is a subscription? CounterPunch Magazine has exclusive articles for subscribers only, plus special features you can't find on our website. As an email subscriber you get discounts on books and everything else in the CounterPunch store. Subscribe STAY CONNECTED WITH COUNTERPUNCH ON SOCIAL MEDIA [Like us on Facebook] [Follow us on Twitter] CounterPunch, P.O. Box 228, Petrolia, CA 95558 SafeUnsubscribe™ karenaram at hotmail.com Forward this email | Update Profile | About our service provider Sent by counterpunch at counterpunch.org in collaboration with [Constant Contact] Try it free today -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Wed Dec 28 00:38:06 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2016 00:38:06 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] US abstains as UN passes toothless resolution criticizing Israeli settlements Message-ID: * Print * Leaflet * Feedback * Share » US abstains as UN passes toothless resolution criticizing Israeli settlements By Jean Shaoul 24 December 2016 On Friday, the United Nations Security Council passed a toothless resolution censuring Israel’s expansion of settlements. The vote followed a decision by the Obama administration to abstain, rather than exercising its veto power. A vote on the resolution was postponed on Thursday by its initial sponsor, Egypt, following the intervention of US president-elect Donald Trump. It was reintroduced on Friday with new sponsors New Zealand, Malaysia, Venezuela and Senegal. According to an Israeli official, after becoming aware that the Obama administration would not veto the resolution, “Israeli officials reached out to Trump’s transition team to ask for the president-elect’s help.” Trump reportedly called Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to urge him to withdraw it. Following the vote, Trump tweeted, “As to the UN, things will be different after Jan. 20,” that is, the day that he is inaugurated. The resolution states that the establishment of settlements by Israel has “no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law.” It expresses grave concern that continuing settlement activities “are dangerously imperilling the viability of a two-state solution,” adding that the council would “reiterate its demand that Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and that it fully respect all of its legal obligations in this regard.” However, the resolution has no enforcement mechanism and does not impose sanctions if it is ignored by Israel. A statement from the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following the vote declared that “Israel rejects this shameful anti-Israel resolution at the UN and will not abide by its terms.” Netanyahu added that the Obama administration had “failed to protect Israel from the gang-up at the UN,” and that Israel would work with Trump and “all our friends in Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike,” following Trump’s inauguration. The resolution followed a report published last July by the “Quartet” made up of the UN, the US, the European Union and Russia, which has postured as a supporter of the Israel/Palestine “peace process.” It called for an end to Israel’s settlement construction and stated that at least 570,000 Israelis were now living in the settlements in violation of Article 49 of the Geneva Convention, which forbids the transfer of civilians onto land captured in war. The Obama administration’s decision to abstain was a last-ditch attempt to present Washington as some kind of honest broker in the Israel/Palestine conflict and a break from Washington’s long tradition of supporting Israel unconditionally at the UN. According to a Security Council Report, the US has vetoed 30 resolutions relating to Israel and the Palestinians, and another dozen relating to Israel and Lebanon or Syria. Combined, these make up more than half of its 77 vetoes since the UN was established in 1946. For the past eight years, the Obama administration has used its veto to block any and all resolutions criticizing Israel, which is massively funded with US military aid. The decision to abstain in this vote is an expression of conflicts within the US ruling class over policy in the Middle East. Earlier this month, Kerry accused right-wing Israelis of deliberately obstructing efforts to broker a peace deal with the Palestinians. He said, “I'm not here to tell you that the settlements are the reason for the conflict, no, they're not… But I also cannot accept the notion that they don't affect the peace process, that they aren't a barrier to the capacity to have peace.” There are concerns that the open embrace of Israel’s settler project will further stoke hostility to US imperialism throughout the resource-rich Middle East and precipitate the collapse of the Palestinian Authority, whose role has been to police the Palestinian working class. Top Congressional Republicans and Democrats joined Trump in condemning the resolution before and after it was passed. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who oversees the Senate subcommittee that controls US financing of the UN, threatened to “suspend or significantly reduce” this financing if the resolution passed. Among the top Democrats condemning the resolution were incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer and Representative Eliot Engel, the ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The coming to power of Trump has encouraged the most right-wing factions of the Israeli ruling class. “The right is convinced that anything is possible now,” Shlomi Eldar, a columnist for Al Monitor Israeli Pulse, told the Christian Science Monitor. “The two-state solution can be erased, there will be no problem building in the settlements – the Messiah has come.” Just days before, Trump had tapped Daniel Friedman, a right-wing supporter of Israel’s settlers, for the post of US ambassador to Israel, signalling his intention to ditch the pretence of opposition to Israel’s expansion of the settlements and its outright annexation of the occupied West Bank. Furthermore, he made clear that the US would move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, thereby ending its support for a mini-Palestinian state. Trump’s appointment of Friedman has already given succour to the settler movement and Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition partners, particularly his rival and Education Minister Naftali Bennett of the Jewish Home Party, on whom his fractious Likud-led coalition depends for its survival. They view this as a chance to sideline Netanyahu and his Likud Party. Bennett has seized the political opportunity provided by the incoming Trump administration to push for the introduction of a “normalisation” or “regulation” bill, obtaining Netanyahu’s endorsement. It will allow the government to expropriate private Palestinian land on which thousands of housing units were built in many settlements, thereby retrospectively legalising settler outposts on Palestinian land. The bill, if passed, will transfer the right to use private land to the government and force the Palestinian landowners to accept compensation. In so doing, the law would end the ambiguous status whereby the West Bank has, since the 1967 war, been subject to Israel’s military commander and decrees, not Israel’s Knesset and its laws. This served to provide a cover for the occupation that allowed the Palestinians to appeal to Israel’s Supreme Court, while simultaneously settling 800,000 Israelis in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Syria’s Golan Heights. It will also pave the way for Israel’s full annexation of that part of the West Bank designated as Area C under the 1993 Oslo Accords. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From r-szoke at illinois.edu Wed Dec 28 04:50:12 2016 From: r-szoke at illinois.edu (Szoke, Ron) Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2016 04:50:12 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] The Psychological Research That Helps Explain the Election References: Message-ID: From: "Szoke, Ron" > Subject: The Psychological Research That Helps Explain the Election Date: December 27, 2016 at 3:37:09 PM CST To: "Szoke, Ron" > The Psychological Research That Helps Explain the Election http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/the-psychological-research-that-helps-explain-the-election -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davegreen84 at yahoo.com Wed Dec 28 14:55:18 2016 From: davegreen84 at yahoo.com (David Green) Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2016 14:55:18 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace-discuss] The Psychological Research That Helps Explain the Election In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1551053862.2147742.1482936918018@mail.yahoo.com> Alternatively, maybe people just know when they're being screwed. The field of cognitive psychology has for some time seemed to me to be infested by Israelis/Zionists who land at prestigious American universities. Perhaps not by accident. You need a lot of smart Jewish people to find complicated ways to explain the world in ways that are free from political and economic analysis. I think you could generate a whole psychological "theory" about how liberal Israelis, in denial of what is going on around them, develop elaborate approaches to the human mind, many of which seem to me to be trivial or bogus. DG On Tuesday, December 27, 2016 10:50 PM, "Szoke, Ron via Peace-discuss" wrote: From:"Szoke, Ron" Subject:The Psychological Research That Helps Explain the Election Date:December 27, 2016 at 3:37:09 PM CST To:"Szoke, Ron" The Psychological Research That Helps Explain the Election http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/the-psychological-research-that-helps-explain-the-election _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davegreen84 at yahoo.com Wed Dec 28 15:28:49 2016 From: davegreen84 at yahoo.com (David Green) Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2016 15:28:49 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace-discuss] It takes a Republican References: <553378604.2150541.1482938929233.ref@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <553378604.2150541.1482938929233@mail.yahoo.com> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/28/opinion/tom-cotton-fix-immigration-its-what-voters-want.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region®ion=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region&_r=0 The wicked Sen. Tom Cotton of AK has sensible things to say about immigration in the NYT. Of course he doesn't address neoliberalism at the core of it. But look at how enraged many liberal readers/commenters of the NYT are at some basic truths being told. DG -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From galliher at illinois.edu Wed Dec 28 15:40:31 2016 From: galliher at illinois.edu (Carl G. Estabrook) Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2016 09:40:31 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] The Psychological Research That Helps Explain the Election In-Reply-To: <1551053862.2147742.1482936918018@mail.yahoo.com> References: <1551053862.2147742.1482936918018@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: That’s worth an 'Ignore the Elephant!’ article… Or - 'It’s all in Your Mind!' We’d do better with 'The Sociological Research That Helps Explain the Election.' I must say, the New Yorker has become an awful, establishment rag under David Remnick. Was he this bad when he wrote "Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire” (1994)? Which I haven’t read & would do so now only if paid. (Where’s my Putin subvention?) And my price would be much higher to read his "The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama” (2010). Which was described at the time as “mythmaking [with] all the tell-tale signs of an authorised biography” (John R. MacArthur, The Spectator). The interesting cultural histories of the New Yorker ("Here at The New Yorker" [1975], by Brendan Gill; "Gone: The Last Days of The New Yorker" [2000], by Renata Adler) need to be supplemented by an account of its neolib/neocon degeneration in the 21st century. —CGE > On Dec 28, 2016, at 8:55 AM, David Green via Peace-discuss wrote: > > Alternatively, maybe people just know when they're being screwed. > > The field of cognitive psychology has for some time seemed to me to be infested by Israelis/Zionists who land at prestigious American universities. Perhaps not by accident. You need a lot of smart Jewish people to find complicated ways to explain the world in ways that are free from political and economic analysis. I think you could generate a whole psychological "theory" about how liberal Israelis, in denial of what is going on around them, develop elaborate approaches to the human mind, many of which seem to me to be trivial or bogus. > > DG > > > On Tuesday, December 27, 2016 10:50 PM, "Szoke, Ron via Peace-discuss" wrote: > > > >> From: "Szoke, Ron" > >> Subject: The Psychological Research That Helps Explain the Election >> Date: December 27, 2016 at 3:37:09 PM CST >> To: "Szoke, Ron" > >> >> The Psychological Research That Helps Explain the Election >> http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/the-psychological-research-that-helps-explain-the-election > > > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss > > > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From galliher at illinois.edu Wed Dec 28 15:56:28 2016 From: galliher at illinois.edu (Carl G. Estabrook) Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2016 09:56:28 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] It takes a Republican In-Reply-To: <553378604.2150541.1482938929233@mail.yahoo.com> References: <553378604.2150541.1482938929233.ref@mail.yahoo.com> <553378604.2150541.1482938929233@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: It’s surely the case that Americans' resentment of immigrants is not first of all a matter of racism (racial prejudice), as good liberals argue, but a quite real recognition that that their jobs and life chances are being confiscated. The real culprit is neoliberal economic policy as promoted by the Obama administration for most of a decade, and others before that. "Only Half Of America's 30-Year-Olds are earning more money than their parents did at the same age ... Those born in the 1940s had a very good chance (~90%) at earning more…” >. —CGE > On Dec 28, 2016, at 9:28 AM, David Green via Peace-discuss wrote: > > http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/28/opinion/tom-cotton-fix-immigration-its-what-voters-want.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region®ion=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region&_r=0 > > The wicked Sen. Tom Cotton of AK has sensible things to say about immigration in the NYT. Of course he doesn't address neoliberalism at the core of it. But look at how enraged many liberal readers/commenters of the NYT are at some basic truths being told. > > DG > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davegreen84 at yahoo.com Wed Dec 28 17:58:13 2016 From: davegreen84 at yahoo.com (David Green) Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2016 17:58:13 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace-discuss] Noura Erekat on 2334 References: <218189702.2275490.1482947893369.ref@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <218189702.2275490.1482947893369@mail.yahoo.com> From Jadaliyyah via Angry Arab: "The most significant aspect of UNSC Resolution 2334 is that it forms the first break with an otherwise absolute US policy to obstruct every Palestinian effort to resist Israeli expansion, especially during the past eight years. During his tenure, President Barack Obama has witnessed and colluded in two massive Israeli onslaughts upon the Gaza Strip, helped shelve the Goldstone Report, and adopted an unprecedented thirty-eight billion US dollars memorandum of understanding with Israel that increases US military aid to it from 3.0 to 3.8 billon US dollars annually over the next ten years. The administration used its first veto in the Security Council in early 2011 to quash a resolution condemning settlements very similar to the one that has just passed, citing Washington’s distaste for internationalizing the conflict.If the Obama Administration was concerned with ushering a new era of the peace process, it would have abstained five years ago and not mere weeks before departing office; or during Palestine’s 2011-12 statehood bid; or in 2015 when it quietly crushed an effort to set a deadline for ending the occupation in the United Nations’s law making body. The administration’s abstention appears more like a finger to US President-Elect Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rather than a change of heart. At this juncture of its tenure, the Obama Administration only had two embarrassing choices: to veto law and policy it has rhetorically upheld since 1967 or to abstain and expose Israel to international scrutiny. A veto was simply more costly in this instance. The resolution itself is not binding on member states and includes no enforcement mechanisms. In the wake of the UNSC 2334, Israel is set to approve 618 new settlements in East Jerusalem." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brussel at illinois.edu Wed Dec 28 18:06:43 2016 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2016 18:06:43 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] The Psychological Research That Helps Explain the Election In-Reply-To: References: <1551053862.2147742.1482936918018@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: "I must say, the New Yorker has become an awful, establishment rag under David Remnick.” Etc. I couldn’t agree more, yet I’m stuck with a subscription… David G’s comment is also useful to reflect upon. Thanks to you both. —mkb On Dec 28, 2016, at 9:40 AM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss > wrote: That’s worth an 'Ignore the Elephant!’ article… Or - 'It’s all in Your Mind!' We’d do better with 'The Sociological Research That Helps Explain the Election.' I must say, the New Yorker has become an awful, establishment rag under David Remnick. Was he this bad when he wrote "Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire” (1994)? Which I haven’t read & would do so now only if paid. (Where’s my Putin subvention?) And my price would be much higher to read his "The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama” (2010). Which was described at the time as “mythmaking [with] all the tell-tale signs of an authorised biography” (John R. MacArthur, The Spectator). The interesting cultural histories of the New Yorker ("Here at The New Yorker" [1975], by Brendan Gill; "Gone: The Last Days of The New Yorker" [2000], by Renata Adler) need to be supplemented by an account of its neolib/neocon degeneration in the 21st century. —CGE On Dec 28, 2016, at 8:55 AM, David Green via Peace-discuss > wrote: Alternatively, maybe people just know when they're being screwed. The field of cognitive psychology has for some time seemed to me to be infested by Israelis/Zionists who land at prestigious American universities. Perhaps not by accident. You need a lot of smart Jewish people to find complicated ways to explain the world in ways that are free from political and economic analysis. I think you could generate a whole psychological "theory" about how liberal Israelis, in denial of what is going on around them, develop elaborate approaches to the human mind, many of which seem to me to be trivial or bogus. DG On Tuesday, December 27, 2016 10:50 PM, "Szoke, Ron via Peace-discuss" > wrote: From: "Szoke, Ron" > Subject: The Psychological Research That Helps Explain the Election Date: December 27, 2016 at 3:37:09 PM CST To: "Szoke, Ron" > The Psychological Research That Helps Explain the Election http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/the-psychological-research-that-helps-explain-the-election _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davegreen84 at yahoo.com Wed Dec 28 18:21:36 2016 From: davegreen84 at yahoo.com (David Green) Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2016 18:21:36 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace-discuss] The Psychological Research That Helps Explain the Election In-Reply-To: References: <1551053862.2147742.1482936918018@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <264079575.2331333.1482949296689@mail.yahoo.com> With the exception of the New Yorker, I wish everyone a New Year of renewal. On Wednesday, December 28, 2016 12:06 PM, "Brussel, Morton K" wrote: "I must say, the New Yorker has become an awful, establishment rag under David Remnick.”  Etc. I couldn’t agree more, yet I’m stuck with a subscription… David G’s comment is also useful to reflect upon.  Thanks to you both. —mkb On Dec 28, 2016, at 9:40 AM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss wrote: That’s worth an 'Ignore the Elephant!’ article… Or - 'It’s all in Your Mind!' We’d do better with 'The Sociological Research That Helps Explain the Election.' I must say, the New Yorker has become an awful, establishment rag under David Remnick.  Was he this bad when he wrote "Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire” (1994)?  Which I haven’t read & would do so now only if paid. (Where’s my Putin subvention?) And my price would be much higher to read his "The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama” (2010). Which was described at the time as “mythmaking [with] all the tell-tale signs of an authorised biography” (John R. MacArthur, The Spectator). The interesting cultural histories of the New Yorker ("Here at The New Yorker" [1975], by Brendan Gill; "Gone: The Last Days of The New Yorker" [2000], by Renata Adler) need to be supplemented by an account of its neolib/neocon degeneration in the 21st century. —CGE On Dec 28, 2016, at 8:55 AM, David Green via Peace-discuss wrote: Alternatively, maybe people just know when they're being screwed. The field of cognitive psychology has for some time seemed to me to be infested by Israelis/Zionists who land at prestigious American universities. Perhaps not by accident. You need a lot of smart Jewish people to find complicated ways to explain the world in ways that are free from political and economic analysis. I think you could generate a whole psychological "theory" about how liberal Israelis, in denial of what is going on around them, develop elaborate approaches to the human mind, many of which seem to me to be trivial or bogus. DG On Tuesday, December 27, 2016 10:50 PM, "Szoke, Ron via Peace-discuss" wrote: From:"Szoke, Ron" Subject:The Psychological Research That Helps Explain the Election Date:December 27, 2016 at 3:37:09 PM CST To:"Szoke, Ron" The Psychological Research That Helps Explain the Election http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/the-psychological-research-that-helps-explain-the-election _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Thu Dec 29 14:08:11 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2016 14:08:11 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Legacy of Obama Message-ID: * WSWS * ICFI * Mehring Books * Mobile * RSS Feeds * Podcast * Newsletter * Select a language Afrikaans >العربية Čeština Deutsch Ελληνικά English Español فارسی Français Bahasa Indonesia Italiano Norsk Polski Português Română Русский Srpskohrvatski Sinhalese தமிழ் Türkçe اُردُو‎ 中文 [http://www.wsws.org/img/title.png] [http://www.wsws.org/img/logo.png] Published by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) Click here for advanced search » * Home * Perspectives * World News * World Economy * Arts Review * History * Science * Philosophy * Workers Struggles * ICFI/Marxist Library * Chronology * Full Archive * Print * Leaflet * Feedback * Share » Obama signs his last Pentagon budget: A legacy of war and reaction 29 December 2016 President Barack Obama signed into law last week his seventh and final Pentagon spending bill, providing $619 billion to continue and expand the murderous violence of the US war machine. Spending more than the next seven countries combined, the US military is currently engaged in combat operations in at least seven different countries, while maintaining some 800 overseas bases around the world. Obama’s signing statement was released on the Friday afternoon of a long holiday weekend, the favored time in Washington for dumping news that officials hope will escape the attention of the public. Once again, behind the backs of the American people, US imperialism is preparing another escalation of militarism and war. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), as the Pentagon budget legislation is known, runs over 3,000 pages. It can be safely said that few if any of the members of the House and Senate who overwhelming approved it (in the Senate it passed 92-7) read the bill before casting their votes. Yet, contained within its pages, along with the dry language of military personnel policies and the lucrative authorization of multi-billion-dollar contracts for new weapons systems, there is to be found a key to the real political legacy of Barack Obama, whose presidency comes to an end in barely three weeks. Eight years ago, Obama was swept into office on a wave of antiwar sentiment based on the misplaced hopes of large sections of the population that America’s first black president, with his promise of “change you can believe in,” would spell an end to the wars and crimes of the Bush administration. After barely nine months in office, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his supposed “vision” of a world free of nuclear weapons and for having “captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future.” Even as the peace prize was announced, Obama was meeting with his war council to plan a major escalation of the war in Afghanistan. He was putting in place the framework for his signature policy—the drone assassination program that has killed thousands from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Somalia and Yemen. And he was preparing what has since emerged as a $1 trillion nuclear weapons modernization program. The supposed candidate of peace and change will now leave office with the deplorable distinction of becoming the first American president to have kept the country at war for two entire four-year terms. He seamlessly continued the so-called “war on terror” launched by his predecessor, George W. Bush, at the cost of over a million lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, while adding to it the wars launched under the cynical pretense of “human rights” in Libya and Syria, killing hundreds of thousands more and turning millions of others into refugees. The bill that he signed last Friday provides the necessary resources for the uninterrupted continuation of this eruption of American militarism in pursuit of global US hegemony. The general outlines of the NDAA were previously reported. In addition to the base Pentagon budget, it includes a $67 billion Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) appropriation, a massive slush fund used to finance US wars abroad as well as budget-busting increases to military spending. Further funds are provided for the Energy Department’s nuclear weapons programs. In the final version of the legislation, previously unpublicized provisions have emerged that amount to a mandate to the incoming Trump administration to continue and escalate the provocative military confrontations initiated by the Obama White House. Included in the bill is language facilitating the “provision of man-portable air defense systems to the vetted Syrian opposition during fiscal year 2017.” As is well known, weapons funneled by the CIA and the Pentagon to the so-called “moderate rebels” have invariably ended up in the hands of Al Qaeda-affiliated militias that constitute the core fighting force in the US-orchestrated war for regime-change in Syria. These anti-aircraft missiles can be used not only to shoot down Russian warplanes, but also civilian passenger jets. Another part of the bill aimed directly against Moscow includes a major increase in military aid to the right-wing, anti-Russian government of Ukraine, including for “lethal” military equipment. In a blatant provocation directed against China, the legislation provides for high-level exchanges between the US military and the military of the island of Taiwan, which Beijing claims as part of its territory. The measure represents a further attack on the “One China” policy embraced by Washington for nearly four decades. It is in line with the provocation staged by Donald Trump earlier this month, accepting a congratulatory phone call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and thereby signaling plans for an even more confrontational policy toward China. Both Russia and China issued statements denouncing the provisions in the NDAA directed specifically against them. The legislation also includes a provision known as the “Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act,” which represents a plan to build up the propaganda arm of the US government. In the name of creating a new government agency to “counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining United States national security interests,” it establishes the framework for directing propaganda against the American people and cracking down on anyone who challenges or exposes the crimes of the US government. Perhaps most decisively for the legacy of the 44th president of the United States, the legislation enacted last Friday is the seventh NDAA in a row signed by Obama that explicitly prohibits the closure of the infamous US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In his signing statement, Obama cynically criticized this provision, while accepting it, declaring that “unless the Congress changes course, it will be judged harshly by history.” In reality, when it comes to Guantanamo, history will find Obama himself guilty. On his first day in office in 2009 he announced an executive order promising that within one year he would shut down the prison camp, which had become a hated symbol of US torture and criminality. Ever since, Obama has bowed to the Pentagon, the intelligence agencies and the political right, including within the Democratic Party, obeying the restrictions of Congress and refusing to take any action to close Guantanamo. At the same time, he protected all those within the Bush administration who were responsible for ordering and overseeing the systematic use of torture not only at Guantanamo, but in Iraq, Afghanistan and at CIA black sites round the world. On January 20, Obama will hand the keys of Guantanamo to Donald Trump, who has vowed to “load it up with some bad dudes.” He has also called for the imprisonment of US citizens there and indicated his support for a redoubled use of torture. Obama’s legacy is the seamless continuity between the crimes of the Bush administration, which were compounded during his own eight years in the White House, and the coming crimes of the government headed by Trump. Bill Van Auken WSWS,Org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fboyle at illinois.edu Thu Dec 29 14:48:22 2016 From: fboyle at illinois.edu (Boyle, Francis A) Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2016 14:48:22 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?windows-1252?q?FW=3A_Trump_Threats_to_Slash_UN_?= =?windows-1252?q?Funds=2C_Move_US_Embassy_to_Jerusalem_=91Unprecedented?= =?windows-1252?q?=92?= Message-ID: In fairness, Trump's proposed rapprochement with Russia is a positive development that I have commented upon before to RT and the Russian Media. Fab. Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) -----Original Message----- From: Boyle, Francis A Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2016 8:44 AM To: SECTNS.aals at lists.aals.org Subject: Trump Threats to Slash UN Funds, Move US Embassy to Jerusalem ‘Unprecedented’ "We will have to see what happens next. It’s pretty well unprecedented," University of Illinois Professor of International Law Francis Boyle said. "One would hope more cautious voices that he has appointed will rein him in." Boyle pointed out that Trump’s comments, made after the administration of outgoing president Barack Obama refused to veto a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement-building in eth West Bank, were part of a more widespread series of revolutionary initiatives he was proposing around the globe. "Trump is proposing revolutionary changes in longstanding major US policies on the Middle East, China and nuclear weapons before he has even taken office as president, including the disruption of the ‘one China’ policy," Boyle said. Trump’s comments on the United Nations, China and moving the US embassy to Jerusalem appeared to have made without awareness of the crises it may unleash by carrying out such actions, Boyle cautioned. "These actions demonstrate [Trump’s] lack of knowledge of the dynamics of the Sino-American relationship and of the balance of US relationships and assurances across the Middle East. We will have to see what the reactions and responses are going to be," he said. The United States has never recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and Trump comment could set off outrage against both Israel and the United States across the Arab world, Boyle explained. Read more: https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201612291049088672-trump-un-funds-threats/ https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201612291049088672-trump-un-funds-threats/ From karenaram at hotmail.com Thu Dec 29 15:52:09 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2016 15:52:09 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?windows-1252?q?Trump_Threats_to_Slash_UN_Funds?= =?windows-1252?q?=2C_Move_US_Embassy_to_Jerusalem_=91Unprecedented=92?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Though I agree, that rapprochement with Russia by the Trump administration is positive, I fear it’s a mere tactic, or strategy to drive a wedge between Russia and China, with US focus now on China. War by proxy, or, at the very least, serious containment continuing to take place. The neocons controlling our government, whether they be Pentagon, CIA, State Dept., or corporate advisors, as represented by the CFR, recognized that taking on both Russia and China at the same time wasn’t a viable strategy. > On Dec 29, 2016, at 06:48, Boyle, Francis A wrote: > > In fairness, Trump's proposed rapprochement with Russia is a positive development that I have commented upon before to RT and the Russian Media. Fab. > > Francis A. Boyle > Law Building > 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. > Champaign IL 61820 USA > 217-333-7954 (phone) > 217-244-1478 (fax) > (personal comments only) > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Boyle, Francis A > Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2016 8:44 AM > To: SECTNS.aals at lists.aals.org > Subject: Trump Threats to Slash UN Funds, Move US Embassy to Jerusalem ‘Unprecedented’ > > "We will have to see what happens next. It’s pretty well unprecedented," University of Illinois Professor of International Law Francis Boyle said. "One would hope more cautious voices that he has appointed will rein him in." > > Boyle pointed out that Trump’s comments, made after the administration of outgoing president Barack Obama refused to veto a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement-building in eth West Bank, were part of a more widespread series of revolutionary initiatives he was proposing around the globe. "Trump is proposing revolutionary changes in longstanding major US policies on the Middle East, China and nuclear weapons before he has even taken office as president, including the disruption of the ‘one China’ policy," Boyle said. Trump’s comments on the United Nations, China and moving the US embassy to Jerusalem appeared to have made without awareness of the crises it may unleash by carrying out such actions, Boyle cautioned. "These actions demonstrate [Trump’s] lack of knowledge of the dynamics of the Sino-American relationship and of the balance of US relationships and assurances across the Middle East. We will have to see what the reactions and responses are going to be," he said. The United States has never recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and Trump comment could set off outrage against both Israel and the United States across the Arab world, Boyle explained. > > Read more: https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201612291049088672-trump-un-funds-threats/ > https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201612291049088672-trump-un-funds-threats/ From karenaram at hotmail.com Thu Dec 29 15:53:06 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2016 15:53:06 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?windows-1252?q?Trump_Threats_to_Slash_UN_Funds?= =?windows-1252?q?=2C_Move_US_Embassy_to_Jerusalem_=91Unprecedented=92?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > On Dec 29, 2016, at 07:52, Karen wrote: > > Though I agree, that rapprochement with Russia by the Trump administration is positive, I fear it’s a mere tactic, or strategy to drive a wedge between Russia and China, with US focus now on China. War by proxy, or, at the very least, serious containment continuing to take place. The neocons controlling our government, whether they be Pentagon, CIA, State Dept., or corporate advisors, as represented by the CFR, recognized that taking on both Russia and China at the same time wasn’t a viable strategy. > > > >> On Dec 29, 2016, at 06:48, Boyle, Francis A wrote: >> >> In fairness, Trump's proposed rapprochement with Russia is a positive development that I have commented upon before to RT and the Russian Media. Fab. >> >> Francis A. Boyle >> Law Building >> 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. >> Champaign IL 61820 USA >> 217-333-7954 (phone) >> 217-244-1478 (fax) >> (personal comments only) >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Boyle, Francis A >> Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2016 8:44 AM >> To: SECTNS.aals at lists.aals.org >> Subject: Trump Threats to Slash UN Funds, Move US Embassy to Jerusalem ‘Unprecedented’ >> >> "We will have to see what happens next. It’s pretty well unprecedented," University of Illinois Professor of International Law Francis Boyle said. "One would hope more cautious voices that he has appointed will rein him in." >> >> Boyle pointed out that Trump’s comments, made after the administration of outgoing president Barack Obama refused to veto a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement-building in eth West Bank, were part of a more widespread series of revolutionary initiatives he was proposing around the globe. "Trump is proposing revolutionary changes in longstanding major US policies on the Middle East, China and nuclear weapons before he has even taken office as president, including the disruption of the ‘one China’ policy," Boyle said. Trump’s comments on the United Nations, China and moving the US embassy to Jerusalem appeared to have made without awareness of the crises it may unleash by carrying out such actions, Boyle cautioned. "These actions demonstrate [Trump’s] lack of knowledge of the dynamics of the Sino-American relationship and of the balance of US relationships and assurances across the Middle East. We will have to see what the reactions and responses are going to be," he said. The United States has never recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and Trump comment could set off outrage against both Israel and the United States across the Arab world, Boyle explained. >> >> Read more: https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201612291049088672-trump-un-funds-threats/ >> https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201612291049088672-trump-un-funds-threats/ > From karenaram at hotmail.com Thu Dec 29 15:53:13 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2016 15:53:13 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?windows-1252?q?Trump_Threats_to_Slash_UN_Funds?= =?windows-1252?q?=2C_Move_US_Embassy_to_Jerusalem_=91Unprecedented=92?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Though I agree, that rapprochement with Russia by the Trump administration is positive, I fear it’s a mere tactic, or strategy to drive a wedge between Russia and China, with US focus now on China. War by proxy, or, at the very least, serious containment continuing to take place. The neocons controlling our government, whether they be Pentagon, CIA, State Dept., or corporate advisors, as represented by the CFR, recognized that taking on both Russia and China at the same time wasn’t a viable strategy. > On Dec 29, 2016, at 06:48, Boyle, Francis A wrote: > > In fairness, Trump's proposed rapprochement with Russia is a positive development that I have commented upon before to RT and the Russian Media. Fab. > > Francis A. Boyle > Law Building > 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. > Champaign IL 61820 USA > 217-333-7954 (phone) > 217-244-1478 (fax) > (personal comments only) > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Boyle, Francis A > Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2016 8:44 AM > To: SECTNS.aals at lists.aals.org > Subject: Trump Threats to Slash UN Funds, Move US Embassy to Jerusalem ‘Unprecedented’ > > "We will have to see what happens next. It’s pretty well unprecedented," University of Illinois Professor of International Law Francis Boyle said. "One would hope more cautious voices that he has appointed will rein him in." > > Boyle pointed out that Trump’s comments, made after the administration of outgoing president Barack Obama refused to veto a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement-building in eth West Bank, were part of a more widespread series of revolutionary initiatives he was proposing around the globe. "Trump is proposing revolutionary changes in longstanding major US policies on the Middle East, China and nuclear weapons before he has even taken office as president, including the disruption of the ‘one China’ policy," Boyle said. Trump’s comments on the United Nations, China and moving the US embassy to Jerusalem appeared to have made without awareness of the crises it may unleash by carrying out such actions, Boyle cautioned. "These actions demonstrate [Trump’s] lack of knowledge of the dynamics of the Sino-American relationship and of the balance of US relationships and assurances across the Middle East. We will have to see what the reactions and responses are going to be," he said. The United States has never recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and Trump comment could set off outrage against both Israel and the United States across the Arab world, Boyle explained. > > Read more: https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201612291049088672-trump-un-funds-threats/ > https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201612291049088672-trump-un-funds-threats/ From futureup2us at gmail.com Thu Dec 29 16:07:42 2016 From: futureup2us at gmail.com (Jay) Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2016 10:07:42 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?q?Trump_Threats_to_Slash_UN_Funds=2C_Move?= =?utf-8?q?_US_Embassy_to_Jerusalem_=E2=80=98Unprecedented=E2=80=99?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8471BD33-D199-451F-AC36-23FC2CB6C34C@gmail.com> Look at Trump’s tweets about welcoming an arms race because “we’ll out last them all!” I think Karen’s hypothesis is certainly worth consideration. Please watch and share this video of Trump’s own statements on “Mexicans,” war, etc. and read and sign The Call to Action to stop him and Pence. Have you heard about the transition team’s witch hunt  against women and gender equality programs at the State Dept.? They are already gearing up there, as well as at the EPA. This is our Niemoeller moment , let’s take his lessons to heart. Mobilize everyone, now, to say NO! to fascist USA wherever you are! Jay > On Dec 29, 2016, at 09:53, Karen Aram wrote: > > Though I agree, that rapprochement with Russia by the Trump administration is positive, I fear it’s a mere tactic, or strategy to drive a wedge between Russia and China, with US focus now on China. War by proxy, or, at the very least, serious containment continuing to take place. The neocons controlling our government, whether they be Pentagon, CIA, State Dept., or corporate advisors, as represented by the CFR, recognized that taking on both Russia and China at the same time wasn’t a viable strategy. > > > >> On Dec 29, 2016, at 06:48, Boyle, Francis A wrote: >> >> In fairness, Trump's proposed rapprochement with Russia is a positive development that I have commented upon before to RT and the Russian Media. Fab. >> >> Francis A. Boyle >> Law Building >> 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. >> Champaign IL 61820 USA >> 217-333-7954 (phone) >> 217-244-1478 (fax) >> (personal comments only) >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Boyle, Francis A >> Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2016 8:44 AM >> To: SECTNS.aals at lists.aals.org >> Subject: Trump Threats to Slash UN Funds, Move US Embassy to Jerusalem ‘Unprecedented’ >> >> "We will have to see what happens next. It’s pretty well unprecedented," University of Illinois Professor of International Law Francis Boyle said. "One would hope more cautious voices that he has appointed will rein him in." >> >> Boyle pointed out that Trump’s comments, made after the administration of outgoing president Barack Obama refused to veto a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement-building in eth West Bank, were part of a more widespread series of revolutionary initiatives he was proposing around the globe. "Trump is proposing revolutionary changes in longstanding major US policies on the Middle East, China and nuclear weapons before he has even taken office as president, including the disruption of the ‘one China’ policy," Boyle said. Trump’s comments on the United Nations, China and moving the US embassy to Jerusalem appeared to have made without awareness of the crises it may unleash by carrying out such actions, Boyle cautioned. "These actions demonstrate [Trump’s] lack of knowledge of the dynamics of the Sino-American relationship and of the balance of US relationships and assurances across the Middle East. We will have to see what the reactions and responses are going to be," he said. The United States has never recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and Trump comment could set off outrage against both Israel and the United States across the Arab world, Boyle explained. >> >> Read more: https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201612291049088672-trump-un-funds-threats/ >> https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201612291049088672-trump-un-funds-threats/ > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Thu Dec 29 16:22:46 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2016 16:22:46 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?windows-1252?q?Trump_Threats_to_Slash_UN_Funds?= =?windows-1252?q?=2C_Move_US_Embassy_to_Jerusalem_=91Unprecedented=92?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Though I agree, that rapprochement with Russia by the Trump administration is positive, I fear it’s a mere tactic, or strategy to drive a wedge between Russia and China, with US focus now on China. War by proxy, or, at the very least, serious containment continuing to take place. The neocons controlling our government, whether they be Pentagon, CIA, State Dept., or corporate advisors, as represented by the CFR, recognized that taking on both Russia and China at the same time wasn’t a viable strategy. > On Dec 29, 2016, at 06:48, Boyle, Francis A wrote: > > In fairness, Trump's proposed rapprochement with Russia is a positive development that I have commented upon before to RT and the Russian Media. Fab. > > Francis A. Boyle > Law Building > 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. > Champaign IL 61820 USA > 217-333-7954 (phone) > 217-244-1478 (fax) > (personal comments only) > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Boyle, Francis A > Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2016 8:44 AM > To: SECTNS.aals at lists.aals.org > Subject: Trump Threats to Slash UN Funds, Move US Embassy to Jerusalem ‘Unprecedented’ > > "We will have to see what happens next. It’s pretty well unprecedented," University of Illinois Professor of International Law Francis Boyle said. "One would hope more cautious voices that he has appointed will rein him in." > > Boyle pointed out that Trump’s comments, made after the administration of outgoing president Barack Obama refused to veto a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement-building in eth West Bank, were part of a more widespread series of revolutionary initiatives he was proposing around the globe. "Trump is proposing revolutionary changes in longstanding major US policies on the Middle East, China and nuclear weapons before he has even taken office as president, including the disruption of the ‘one China’ policy," Boyle said. Trump’s comments on the United Nations, China and moving the US embassy to Jerusalem appeared to have made without awareness of the crises it may unleash by carrying out such actions, Boyle cautioned. "These actions demonstrate [Trump’s] lack of knowledge of the dynamics of the Sino-American relationship and of the balance of US relationships and assurances across the Middle East. We will have to see what the reactions and responses are going to be," he said. The United States has never recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and Trump comment could set off outrage against both Israel and the United States across the Arab world, Boyle explained. > > Read more: https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201612291049088672-trump-un-funds-threats/ > https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201612291049088672-trump-un-funds-threats/ From karenaram at hotmail.com Thu Dec 29 16:25:54 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2016 16:25:54 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?windows-1252?q?Trump_Threats_to_Slash_UN_Funds?= =?windows-1252?q?=2C_Move_US_Embassy_to_Jerusalem_=91Unprecedented=92?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Though I agree, that rapprochement with Russia by the Trump administration is positive, I fear it’s a mere tactic, or strategy to drive a wedge between Russia and China, with US focus now on China. War by proxy, or, at the very least, serious containment continuing to take place. The neocons controlling our government, whether they be Pentagon, CIA, State Dept., or corporate advisors, as represented by the CFR, recognized that taking on both Russia and China at the same time wasn’t a viable strategy. > On Dec 29, 2016, at 06:48, Boyle, Francis A wrote: > > In fairness, Trump's proposed rapprochement with Russia is a positive development that I have commented upon before to RT and the Russian Media. Fab. > > Francis A. Boyle > Law Building > 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. > Champaign IL 61820 USA > 217-333-7954 (phone) > 217-244-1478 (fax) > (personal comments only) > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Boyle, Francis A > Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2016 8:44 AM > To: SECTNS.aals at lists.aals.org > Subject: Trump Threats to Slash UN Funds, Move US Embassy to Jerusalem ‘Unprecedented’ > > "We will have to see what happens next. It’s pretty well unprecedented," University of Illinois Professor of International Law Francis Boyle said. "One would hope more cautious voices that he has appointed will rein him in." > > Boyle pointed out that Trump’s comments, made after the administration of outgoing president Barack Obama refused to veto a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement-building in eth West Bank, were part of a more widespread series of revolutionary initiatives he was proposing around the globe. "Trump is proposing revolutionary changes in longstanding major US policies on the Middle East, China and nuclear weapons before he has even taken office as president, including the disruption of the ‘one China’ policy," Boyle said. Trump’s comments on the United Nations, China and moving the US embassy to Jerusalem appeared to have made without awareness of the crises it may unleash by carrying out such actions, Boyle cautioned. "These actions demonstrate [Trump’s] lack of knowledge of the dynamics of the Sino-American relationship and of the balance of US relationships and assurances across the Middle East. We will have to see what the reactions and responses are going to be," he said. The United States has never recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and Trump comment could set off outrage against both Israel and the United States across the Arab world, Boyle explained. > > Read more: https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201612291049088672-trump-un-funds-threats/ > https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201612291049088672-trump-un-funds-threats/ From karenaram at hotmail.com Thu Dec 29 16:30:07 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2016 16:30:07 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] A must listen in relation to China/US relations during Trump era. Message-ID: https://sputniknews.com/radio_loud_and_clear/201612291049090433-china-america-during-trump-era-war-peace-something-in-between/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fboyle at illinois.edu Thu Dec 29 16:42:32 2016 From: fboyle at illinois.edu (Boyle, Francis A) Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2016 16:42:32 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?windows-1252?q?Trump_Threats_to_Slash_UN_Funds?= =?windows-1252?q?=2C_Move_US_Embassy_to_Jerusalem_=91Unprecedented=92?= In-Reply-To: <8471BD33-D199-451F-AC36-23FC2CB6C34C@gmail.com> References: <8471BD33-D199-451F-AC36-23FC2CB6C34C@gmail.com> Message-ID: “This is our Niemoeller moment.” For sure Jay! Which is precisely why we all just stood up here to have Urbana re-affirm itself as a Sanctuary City for the Undocumented—as of now the only one South of Chicago. And precisely why we all stood up against this Nazi UI Law Faculty and Clinton’s Killer Koh on behalf of Muslims/Arabs/Asians Men, Women and Children of Color around the world. This is Our Nuremberg Moment too. fab Carl Schmitt College of Law: “Mein Fuhrer, I can walk!” Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) From: Jay [mailto:futureup2us at gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2016 10:08 AM To: Karen Aram Cc: Boyle, Francis A ; C. G. Estabrook ; peace-discuss at anti-war.net; a-fields at uiuc.edu; Hoffman, Valerie J ; Miller, Joseph Thomas ; Szoke, Ron ; Dave Trippel ; Arlene Hickory ; davidcnswanson at gmail.com; peace-discuss-request at lists.chambana.net; sherwoodross10 at gmail.com; abass10 at gmail.com; mickalideh at gmail.com; Lina Thorne ; chicago at worldcantwait.net; Mildred O'brien ; David Johnson Subject: Re: Trump Threats to Slash UN Funds, Move US Embassy to Jerusalem ‘Unprecedented’ Look at Trump’s tweets about welcoming an arms race because “we’ll out last them all!” I think Karen’s hypothesis is certainly worth consideration. Please watch and share this video of Trump’s own statements on “Mexicans,” war, etc. and read and sign The Call to Action to stop him and Pence. Have you heard about the transition team’s witch hunt against women and gender equality programs at the State Dept.? They are already gearing up there, as well as at the EPA. This is our Niemoeller moment, let’s take his lessons to heart. Mobilize everyone, now, to say NO! to fascist USA wherever you are! Jay On Dec 29, 2016, at 09:53, Karen Aram > wrote: Though I agree, that rapprochement with Russia by the Trump administration is positive, I fear it’s a mere tactic, or strategy to drive a wedge between Russia and China, with US focus now on China. War by proxy, or, at the very least, serious containment continuing to take place. The neocons controlling our government, whether they be Pentagon, CIA, State Dept., or corporate advisors, as represented by the CFR, recognized that taking on both Russia and China at the same time wasn’t a viable strategy. On Dec 29, 2016, at 06:48, Boyle, Francis A > wrote: In fairness, Trump's proposed rapprochement with Russia is a positive development that I have commented upon before to RT and the Russian Media. Fab. Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) -----Original Message----- From: Boyle, Francis A Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2016 8:44 AM To: SECTNS.aals at lists.aals.org Subject: Trump Threats to Slash UN Funds, Move US Embassy to Jerusalem ‘Unprecedented’ "We will have to see what happens next. It’s pretty well unprecedented," University of Illinois Professor of International Law Francis Boyle said. "One would hope more cautious voices that he has appointed will rein him in." Boyle pointed out that Trump’s comments, made after the administration of outgoing president Barack Obama refused to veto a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement-building in eth West Bank, were part of a more widespread series of revolutionary initiatives he was proposing around the globe. "Trump is proposing revolutionary changes in longstanding major US policies on the Middle East, China and nuclear weapons before he has even taken office as president, including the disruption of the ‘one China’ policy," Boyle said. Trump’s comments on the United Nations, China and moving the US embassy to Jerusalem appeared to have made without awareness of the crises it may unleash by carrying out such actions, Boyle cautioned. "These actions demonstrate [Trump’s] lack of knowledge of the dynamics of the Sino-American relationship and of the balance of US relationships and assurances across the Middle East. We will have to see what the reactions and responses are going to be," he said. The United States has never recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and Trump comment could set off outrage against both Israel and the United States across the Arab world, Boyle explained. Read more: https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201612291049088672-trump-un-funds-threats/ https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201612291049088672-trump-un-funds-threats/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fboyle at illinois.edu Thu Dec 29 16:59:14 2016 From: fboyle at illinois.edu (Boyle, Francis A) Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2016 16:59:14 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?windows-1252?q?Trump_Threats_to_Slash_UN_Funds?= =?windows-1252?q?=2C_Move_US_Embassy_to_Jerusalem_=91Unprecedented=92?= References: <8471BD33-D199-451F-AC36-23FC2CB6C34C@gmail.com> Message-ID: Francis A. Boyle : Again I do set forth all of that comprehensively in this new book, Protesting Power. But to make a long story short actually I just resumed teaching my International Law students yesterday, I have about 50 second and third year law students, and went through this doctrine of preventive warfare at great length and pointed out that in fact this doctrine that was developed by Wolfowitz, my former colleague from the University of Chicago, was actually rejected by the Nuremberg Tribunal when lawyers for the Nazi defendants made an argument along the lines of preventive warfare to justify their invasion of Norway. And it was soundly rejected. Yet, unfortunately Wolfowitz and others put this into the national security directive of September 2002 to justify preventive warfare against Iraq. It is still on the books as the policy of this government. It is undoubtedly I suspect going to be used to justify a war against Iran and this is a Nazi doctrine. Again it gets back to my point that the Neocons because of the Strauss connection with Schmitt, these Neocons are in fact Neo Nazis and they are adopting and espousing and justifying Neo Nazi doctrines in our government and in our popular culture. For example, Francis Fukyama, one of the leading Neocons at John's Hopkins School of International Affairs, a center for Neocons, was asked to do a review on the hundredth anniversary of Max Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, for the New York Times Sunday book review. They gave him the whole back page of the book review to do this. And during the course of reviewing Max Weber's Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism, and I lecture my students in Jurisprudence on this subject, Fukuyama mentions Carl Schmitt as if Carl Schmitt were an ordinary German philosopher along the lines of Max Weber. And Fukuyama didn't bother to point out to anyone that Schmitt was a Nazi. What also astounded me was that the editor of the Sunday New York Times Book Review did not pick up the fact that Fukuyama was citing a Nazi philosopher right there in the Sunday New York Times Book Review. It simply astounded me. But that's what these Neocons do. They take Nazi, Neo Nazi ideology and doctrine, and either put them into government policy as Wolfowitz has done on the National Security Directive of Preventive Warfare which then gets carried out against Iraq and now might be carried out against Iran, or else they pollute and degrade the academic and intellectual culture here in America by espousing Nazi doctrines without attribution. I'm just appalled that the Sunday New York Times would run a favorable reference to a Nazi philosopher without any commentary at all. But this goes on all the time if you follow the Neocons closely as I have since the University of Chicago tried to train me to become a Neocon starting back in 1968. That's how long I've been fighting these people. Fab Ed Norton Professor of Law Carl Schmitt College of Law: “Mein Fuhrer, I can walk!” Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) From: Boyle, Francis A Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2016 10:43 AM To: 'Jay' ; Karen Aram Cc: C. G. Estabrook ; peace-discuss at anti-war.net; a-fields at uiuc.edu; Hoffman, Valerie J ; Miller, Joseph Thomas ; Szoke, Ron ; Dave Trippel ; Arlene Hickory ; davidcnswanson at gmail.com; peace-discuss-request at lists.chambana.net; sherwoodross10 at gmail.com; abass10 at gmail.com; mickalideh at gmail.com; Lina Thorne ; chicago at worldcantwait.net; Mildred O'brien ; David Johnson Subject: RE: Trump Threats to Slash UN Funds, Move US Embassy to Jerusalem ‘Unprecedented’ “This is our Niemoeller moment.” For sure Jay! Which is precisely why we all just stood up here to have Urbana re-affirm itself as a Sanctuary City for the Undocumented—as of now the only one South of Chicago. And precisely why we all stood up against this Nazi UI Law Faculty and Clinton’s Killer Koh on behalf of Muslims/Arabs/Asians Men, Women and Children of Color around the world. This is Our Nuremberg Moment too. fab Carl Schmitt College of Law: “Mein Fuhrer, I can walk!” Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) From: Jay [mailto:futureup2us at gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2016 10:08 AM To: Karen Aram > Cc: Boyle, Francis A >; C. G. Estabrook >; peace-discuss at anti-war.net; a-fields at uiuc.edu; Hoffman, Valerie J >; Miller, Joseph Thomas >; Szoke, Ron >; Dave Trippel >; Arlene Hickory >; davidcnswanson at gmail.com; peace-discuss-request at lists.chambana.net; sherwoodross10 at gmail.com; abass10 at gmail.com; mickalideh at gmail.com; Lina Thorne >; chicago at worldcantwait.net; Mildred O'brien >; David Johnson > Subject: Re: Trump Threats to Slash UN Funds, Move US Embassy to Jerusalem ‘Unprecedented’ Look at Trump’s tweets about welcoming an arms race because “we’ll out last them all!” I think Karen’s hypothesis is certainly worth consideration. Please watch and share this video of Trump’s own statements on “Mexicans,” war, etc. and read and sign The Call to Action to stop him and Pence. Have you heard about the transition team’s witch hunt against women and gender equality programs at the State Dept.? They are already gearing up there, as well as at the EPA. This is our Niemoeller moment, let’s take his lessons to heart. Mobilize everyone, now, to say NO! to fascist USA wherever you are! Jay On Dec 29, 2016, at 09:53, Karen Aram > wrote: Though I agree, that rapprochement with Russia by the Trump administration is positive, I fear it’s a mere tactic, or strategy to drive a wedge between Russia and China, with US focus now on China. War by proxy, or, at the very least, serious containment continuing to take place. The neocons controlling our government, whether they be Pentagon, CIA, State Dept., or corporate advisors, as represented by the CFR, recognized that taking on both Russia and China at the same time wasn’t a viable strategy. On Dec 29, 2016, at 06:48, Boyle, Francis A > wrote: In fairness, Trump's proposed rapprochement with Russia is a positive development that I have commented upon before to RT and the Russian Media. Fab. Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) -----Original Message----- From: Boyle, Francis A Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2016 8:44 AM To: SECTNS.aals at lists.aals.org Subject: Trump Threats to Slash UN Funds, Move US Embassy to Jerusalem ‘Unprecedented’ "We will have to see what happens next. It’s pretty well unprecedented," University of Illinois Professor of International Law Francis Boyle said. "One would hope more cautious voices that he has appointed will rein him in." Boyle pointed out that Trump’s comments, made after the administration of outgoing president Barack Obama refused to veto a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement-building in eth West Bank, were part of a more widespread series of revolutionary initiatives he was proposing around the globe. "Trump is proposing revolutionary changes in longstanding major US policies on the Middle East, China and nuclear weapons before he has even taken office as president, including the disruption of the ‘one China’ policy," Boyle said. Trump’s comments on the United Nations, China and moving the US embassy to Jerusalem appeared to have made without awareness of the crises it may unleash by carrying out such actions, Boyle cautioned. "These actions demonstrate [Trump’s] lack of knowledge of the dynamics of the Sino-American relationship and of the balance of US relationships and assurances across the Middle East. We will have to see what the reactions and responses are going to be," he said. The United States has never recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and Trump comment could set off outrage against both Israel and the United States across the Arab world, Boyle explained. Read more: https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201612291049088672-trump-un-funds-threats/ https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201612291049088672-trump-un-funds-threats/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davegreen84 at yahoo.com Thu Dec 29 18:26:40 2016 From: davegreen84 at yahoo.com (David Green) Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2016 18:26:40 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Et tu, Brute? Chris Murphy bashes Obama, Kerry, UN on UNSC Res 2334 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <675989440.3184929.1483036000576@mail.yahoo.com> Bob, I get that politicians are afraid of displeasing their Zionist donors. Otherwise, I'm not sure what your point is. Perhaps I'm experiencing some end-of-the-year density. Nevertheless, look at the comments in response to the NYT editorial, as well as the editorial itself: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/28/opinion/is-israel-abandoning-a-two-state-solution.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region®ion=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region&_r=0 Sort the comments by readers picks. This signals a significant change among liberal readers of the NYT. Admittedly, it is provoked mostly by their defense of Obama and their opposition to Trump. There is a certain superficiality regarding this issue among those who have kept silent during the Obama administration; but clearly there are a lot of repressed individuals who no longer feel they have anything to lose by criticizing Israel. And ironically, with Trump coming into office in reconciliation with Russia, he is also provoking sensible and perhaps effective opposition to his prospective hardline policy on I/P, including and especially among Jews. I can't imagine that this would have transpired with an incoming HRC administration. Under these circumstances, it hardly seems helpful to focus on "anti-Semitism" among Trump advisors, if that's what anyone is doing, and I fear that indeed is what JVP has been doing. Just food for thought. DG On Thursday, December 29, 2016 11:36 AM, Robert Naiman via Peace wrote: I try to tell my ultra-left friends about the terrain we're dealing with on I-P in DC. They don't want to hear it. They think I'm being a big bully for saying they can't have unicorns and ponies.  So. Show don't tell. Exhibit 7,233. The court calls Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy to testify. Mr. Progressive Foreign Policy. Mr. I-want-to-be-the-Elizabeth-War ren-of-foreign-policy. To his everlasting credit, the first Senator to say boo about the Obama Administration's support for Saudi Arabia's catastrophic war in Yemen. Enter Chris Murphy.  Speaking to MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” the Senate Foreign Relations Committee member said the U.N. is “just fundamentally not a fair forum for the Israelis” and that the White House should have vetoed the Security Council measure condemning America’s closest ally in the Middle East. [my emphasis] http://www.politico.com/story/ 2016/12/chris-murphy-barack-ob ama-john-kerry-israel-donald-t rump-233026 Chris Murphy's comment about the UN is pure sophistry, and Chris Murphy, as a not-completely-stupid person, surely knows it. Say the Human Rights Council is "not a fair forum for the Israelis." Fine. Say the General Assembly is "not a fair forum for the Israelis." Fine. The Security Council is not the Human Rights Council and is not the General Assembly, and as a not-completely-stupid person, Chris Murphy surely knows that. The United States of F*ing America has a VETO on the UN Security Council. NOTHING HAPPENS at the UN Security Council without US permission, and as a not-completely-stupid person, Chris Murphy surely knows that. Not to mention the subsidiary fact that to define Britain and France and even Russia as "anti-Israel," you have to define "anti-Israel" as "people who insist that we eat our vegetables before we can eat our dessert." If the UK and France are "anti-Israel," then your spouse who gently tries to suggest that maybe you've had enough wine to drink at the party is anti-Semitic.     === Robert Naiman Policy Director Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (202) 448-2898 x1 _______________________________________________ Peace mailing list Peace at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From galliher at illinois.edu Thu Dec 29 20:05:14 2016 From: galliher at illinois.edu (Carl G. Estabrook) Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2016 14:05:14 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Et tu, Brute? Chris Murphy bashes Obama, Kerry, UN on UNSC Res 2334 In-Reply-To: <675989440.3184929.1483036000576@mail.yahoo.com> References: <675989440.3184929.1483036000576@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: “...it hardly seems helpful to focus on 'anti-Semitism' among Trump advisors…” Exactly. The task would seem to be to discourage the colonization of the Trump administration by the neocons, as they did the Obama administration. They were frightened by Trump’s opposition to the war party. Let’s encourage their fears. —CGE > On Dec 29, 2016, at 12:26 PM, David Green via Peace wrote: > > Bob, I get that politicians are afraid of displeasing their Zionist donors. Otherwise, I'm not sure what your point is. Perhaps I'm experiencing some end-of-the-year density. > > Nevertheless, look at the comments in response to the NYT editorial, as well as the editorial itself: > > http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/28/opinion/is-israel-abandoning-a-two-state-solution.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region®ion=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region&_r=0 > > Sort the comments by readers picks. This signals a significant change among liberal readers of the NYT. Admittedly, it is provoked mostly by their defense of Obama and their opposition to Trump. There is a certain superficiality regarding this issue among those who have kept silent during the Obama administration; but clearly there are a lot of repressed individuals who no longer feel they have anything to lose by criticizing Israel. And ironically, with Trump coming into office in reconciliation with Russia, he is also provoking sensible and perhaps effective opposition to his prospective hardline policy on I/P, including and especially among Jews. > > I can't imagine that this would have transpired with an incoming HRC administration. > > Under these circumstances, it hardly seems helpful to focus on "anti-Semitism" among Trump advisors, if that's what anyone is doing, and I fear that indeed is what JVP has been doing. > > Just food for thought. > > DG > > > On Thursday, December 29, 2016 11:36 AM, Robert Naiman via Peace wrote: > > I try to tell my ultra-left friends about the terrain we're dealing with on I-P in DC. They don't want to hear it. They think I'm being a big bully for saying they can't have unicorns and ponies. > > So. Show don't tell. Exhibit 7,233. The court calls Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy to testify. Mr. Progressive Foreign Policy. Mr. I-want-to-be-the-Elizabeth-War ren-of-foreign-policy. To his everlasting credit, the first Senator to say boo about the Obama Administration's support for Saudi Arabia's catastrophic war in Yemen. Enter Chris Murphy. > > Speaking to MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” the Senate Foreign Relations Committee member said the U.N. is “just fundamentally not a fair forum for the Israelis” and that the White House should have vetoed the Security Council measure condemning America’s closest ally in the Middle East. > > [my emphasis] > > http://www.politico.com/story/ 2016/12/chris-murphy-barack-ob ama-john-kerry-israel-donald-t rump-233026 > > Chris Murphy's comment about the UN is pure sophistry, and Chris Murphy, as a not-completely-stupid person, surely knows it. Say the Human Rights Council is "not a fair forum for the Israelis." Fine. Say the General Assembly is "not a fair forum for the Israelis." Fine. The Security Council is not the Human Rights Council and is not the General Assembly, and as a not-completely-stupid person, Chris Murphy surely knows that. The United States of F*ing America has a VETO on the UN Security Council. NOTHING HAPPENS at the UN Security Council without US permission, and as a not-completely-stupid person, Chris Murphy surely knows that. Not to mention the subsidiary fact that to define Britain and France and even Russia as "anti-Israel," you have to define "anti-Israel" as "people who insist that we eat our vegetables before we can eat our dessert." If the UK and France are "anti-Israel," then your spouse who gently tries to suggest that maybe you've had enough wine to drink at the party is anti-Semitic. > > === From karenaram at hotmail.com Thu Dec 29 20:21:38 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2016 20:21:38 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Current Russia US relations Message-ID: The US is imposing sanctions against Russia over the alleged election hack. US State Department: 33 Russian Diplomats to be expelled. From kmedina67 at gmail.com Fri Dec 30 18:27:40 2016 From: kmedina67 at gmail.com (Karen Medina) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 12:27:40 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Urbana Sanctuary City Ordinance passed. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > I think I understand the very real human problems that you cite, Karen. > Thanks for the information. > So, how should we resolve these problems…? > The thing is, none of us can keep up on every single issue. I have found that I have to rely on people who are affected by current policies. So I choose to follow the lead of the people that I respect. 9 times out of 10, I would choose a local group over a national group. The reasons for this are: 1) For an issue to be supported by the national organization, it has been diluted, distilled, and the sharp edges removed. 2) A local group is on the cutting edge of the issues -- they know what is going on right here, they are well versed in the national issues too, but they are working locally. 3) The local group is more likely to be actively talking to all sides, including politicians on all sides of the issues. 4) The local group is more likely to need help at County Board Meetings and on the picket lines. 5) As opposed to the local group, the national group is more likely to support politicians that I would not support. I think of groups like the huge national labor unions where the national group often chooses to support a political campaign simply because that candidate is more "electable." 6) The local group is less likely to support politicians at all and be more about the issues. I have a great deal of respect for the Immigration Forum. * They have a lot of great ideas, invite the public to events, and work hard to educate. * They include people who work in the Danville schools, local housing and social work areas where a lot of migrant farmer families live, work, and raise their children. * They have been working on a long list of issues. * And commitment-wise -- sometimes all I need to do is attend a meeting or an event. Do I agree with absolutely everything they support? -- probably not. But then what group do I belong to where I do agree with everything said? NONE. My personal perspective has hurdles. My view of the world is restricted by the fact that I am a middle class white woman. I do my best to look over the hurdles -- I go to all sorts of places, including the Danville Prison, in order to experience life a little less sheltered, but not even my Peace Corps experiences tell me enough about the world to be an expert on all the issues. I choose to: * Follow the lead of those who are affected. * Be skeptical enough to do my own research. * But most of all, I choose to be most skeptical of people above me on the socio-economic planes. pace e bene, -karen medina -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Fri Dec 30 19:14:26 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 19:14:26 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Urbana Sanctuary City Ordinance passed. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Karen That’s a very real problem we all face, given there are so many issues. Picking and choosing which ones is difficult. Its’ best that you and others do focus on local issues, because everything begins locally, growing up and out from there. Since I have spent much of my life elsewhere in the world, having lived in many states and Asia, choosing Urbana as my current place of residence, I choose to focus on international issues, since that has been my interest most of my life. What is important is that we support each other when the need arises. That is why I supported the issue of “Sanctuary Cities”, in response to a very real local problem and the concerns of the Immigration Forum Community. I find it distressing that some choose not to do so and ridicule the efforts of those that do, because it’s not “part of the big picture” that of “ending neoliberalism". Or, those who claim to be socialists and therefore focus not on the war and intervention policies of their own government, but rather criticizing other nations, by using socialist rhetoric to do so. When people are dying as a result of our government war policies, the politics, religions and nationality should not be the concern, we should just be concerned with stopping the killing and saving lives. You do that every opportunity, and have for years, as well as working within the community. Thank you for that. On Dec 30, 2016, at 10:27, Karen Medina via Peace-discuss > wrote: > I think I understand the very real human problems that you cite, Karen. Thanks for the information. So, how should we resolve these problems…? The thing is, none of us can keep up on every single issue. I have found that I have to rely on people who are affected by current policies. So I choose to follow the lead of the people that I respect. 9 times out of 10, I would choose a local group over a national group. The reasons for this are: 1) For an issue to be supported by the national organization, it has been diluted, distilled, and the sharp edges removed. 2) A local group is on the cutting edge of the issues -- they know what is going on right here, they are well versed in the national issues too, but they are working locally. 3) The local group is more likely to be actively talking to all sides, including politicians on all sides of the issues. 4) The local group is more likely to need help at County Board Meetings and on the picket lines. 5) As opposed to the local group, the national group is more likely to support politicians that I would not support. I think of groups like the huge national labor unions where the national group often chooses to support a political campaign simply because that candidate is more "electable." 6) The local group is less likely to support politicians at all and be more about the issues. I have a great deal of respect for the Immigration Forum. * They have a lot of great ideas, invite the public to events, and work hard to educate. * They include people who work in the Danville schools, local housing and social work areas where a lot of migrant farmer families live, work, and raise their children. * They have been working on a long list of issues. * And commitment-wise -- sometimes all I need to do is attend a meeting or an event. Do I agree with absolutely everything they support? -- probably not. But then what group do I belong to where I do agree with everything said? NONE. My personal perspective has hurdles. My view of the world is restricted by the fact that I am a middle class white woman. I do my best to look over the hurdles -- I go to all sorts of places, including the Danville Prison, in order to experience life a little less sheltered, but not even my Peace Corps experiences tell me enough about the world to be an expert on all the issues. I choose to: * Follow the lead of those who are affected. * Be skeptical enough to do my own research. * But most of all, I choose to be most skeptical of people above me on the socio-economic planes. pace e bene, -karen medina _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cge at shout.net Fri Dec 30 23:20:27 2016 From: cge at shout.net (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 17:20:27 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] UPTV programs this week Message-ID: <2e2e33b754febf97f0d8bcf73b1f6ae6@shout.net> AWARE ON THE AIR - Episode #393 | Tuesday 27 December 2016. Members and friends of AWARE, the Anti-War Anti-Racism Effort of Champaign-Urbana, present a weekly hour of discussion of the US government's war-making and its attendant racism: . Produced and directed by Yousef Kash for Urbana (IL) Public TV. NEWS FROM NEPTUNE - Episode #324, a Personal is Political edition | Friday 30 December 2016. . Since 1990, News from Neptune has been a weekly hour of spontaneous and unrehearsed discussion of the news of the week and its coverage by the media, first on a soi-disant community radio station, and now on Urbana (IL) Public TV. This edition was produced and directed by Yousef Kash. The discussants are C. G. Estabrook and David Green. ### From karenaram at hotmail.com Sat Dec 31 01:39:33 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2016 01:39:33 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Small irritations Message-ID: I think its’ time to turn off my spellcheck. I frequently refer to “msm” on FB, writing in my usual stream of conscious, not correcting or editing but moving on to something else. Only when non native English speakers ask me “why do I care what my mom has to say or not, about Syria” or whatever do I catch it . Also my name keeps coming up when doing auto fill as Adam, rather than Aram which makes it difficult and time consuming to sign petitions. Any suggestions as to how to control spell check, other than slowing down and editing what I write, would be appreciated. From karenaram at hotmail.com Sat Dec 31 13:29:42 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2016 13:29:42 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: A List of credible justice organizations of interest, fighting for justice References: Message-ID: From Jeffrey Sinclair, Counterpunch Alliance for the Wild Rockies P. O. Box 505 Helena, MT 59624 https://allianceforthewildrockies.org/ From the grizzly to the bull trout, the grey wolf to the lynx, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies is the last line of defense for the largest swath of unprotected wild lands in North America. Anti-Police Terror Project Oakland, California http://www.antipoliceterrorproject.org Beatings, taserings, illegal arrests, chokeholds, and shootings are a daily occurrence in urban America. The police won’t police themselves. With Trump in power, the Justice Department will probably stop doing even cursory investigations of such brutal actions. The Anti Police-Terror Project is building a replicable and sustainable model to end state-sanctioned murder and violence against Black, Brown, and poor people. Beyond Nuclear 6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 400 Takoma Park, MD 20912 http://www.beyondnuclear.org/ Beyond Nuclear aims to educate and activate the public about the connections between nuclear power and nuclear weapons and the need to abandon both to safeguard our future. Beyond Nuclear advocates for an energy future that is sustainable, benign and democratic. Buffalo Field Campaign PO Box 957 West Yellowstone, MT 59758 1-406-646-0070 http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/ The annual slaughter of buffalo that migrate out of Yellowstone Park is one of the more horrific traditions in practice in the West today. Buffalo Field Campaign is perhaps the only group working tirelessly to defend the right of bison to wander to lower elevations during winter, without the threat of being killed by Montana bureaucrats. Campaign to End the Death Penalty PO Box 25730 Chicago, IL 60625 http://www.nodeathpenalty.org The Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP) is the premier national grassroots organization dedicated to the abolition of capital punishment with active chapters and members across the United States—including California, Texas, Delaware, New York, and Chicago. The campaign has placed those who have experienced the horrors of death row first hand–death row prisoners themselves and their family members–should be at the forefront of their movement, arguing that those experiences help to shape their political strategies. Civil Liberties Defense Center 259 E 5th Ave, Ste 300 A Eugene, OR 97401 (541)687-9180 http://cldc.org/ Increasingly the Civil Liberties Defense Center, a small, non-profit law firm based in Eugene, Oregon, has become the last line of defense for radical activists in America during this age of government repression and prosecutorial crack-downs on dissent. CLDC has led the legal fight against the McCarthy-like Green Scare attack on the constitutional rights of environmental and animal rights activists. They have defended the rights of Rastafarians to practice their religious rituals in prison. They successfully defended a mosque against the FBI’s first-ever attempt to subpoena religious records. CLDC has also developed and distributed much-needed “Know Your Rights” outreach material, and presented more than 150 “Know Your Rights” trainings. Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund P.O. Box 360 Mercersburg, PA 17236 http://celdf.org Communities facing fracking, pipelines, factory farms, and other threats are recognizing that these seemingly “single” issue threats share something in common – the community doesn’t have the legal authority to say “No” to them. The existing structure of law ensures that people cannot govern their own communities and act as stewards of the environment, while protecting corporate “rights” and interests over those of communities and nature. Family Farm Defenders P.O Box 1772 Madison, Wisconsin 53701 http://familyfarmers.org Family Farm Defenders mission is to create a farmer-controlled and consumer-oriented food and fiber system, based upon democratically controlled institutions that empower farmers to speak for and respect themselves in their quest for social and economic justice. To this end, FFD supports sustainable agriculture, farm worker rights, animal welfare, consumer safety, fair trade, and food sovereignty. FFD has also worked to create opportunities for farmers to join together in new cooperative marketing endeavors and to bridge the socioeconomic gap that often exists between rural and urban communities. Fatal Encounters 3375 San Mateo Ave. Reno, NV 89509-5046 http://www.fatalencounters.org Fatal Encounters is an incredibly vital project by D. Brian Burghart, the editor/publisher of the Reno News & Review, to create a national database of out how many people are killed by law enforcement, why they were killed, and whether training and policies can be modified to decrease the number of officer-involved deaths. Fatal Encounters’ efforts to collect information about officer-involved homicides going back to January 1, 2000, is completely funded by donations. Guardians of Our Ancestors Legacy (GOAL) P.O. Box 30000 #360 Jackson, Wy, 83002 http://www.goaltribal.org GOAL, the Tribal Coalition to Protect the Grizzly, may be the last best hope to save the grizzly. This fierce, small, grossly underfunded outfit has pulled together over 40 tribal nations in an effort to keep the Interior Department from removing the grizzly from the Endangered Species list. With many of the big green groups missing-in-action, GOAL has mounted a powerful legal and cultural defense of the bear, arguing that allowing trophy hunting of the grizzly infringes on tribal sovereignty and violates the federal trust responsibility by disregarding tribal interests and pursuing a policy that benefits three states over a coalition of tribes from Montana to Arizona. Israeli Committee Against Housing Demolitions (USA) PO Box 8118 New York, New York 10116 http://icahdusa.org Since 1967 and the beginning of the Occupation, the Israeli government has demolished over 28,000 houses belonging to Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. These demolitions are part of a web of policies designed to force Palestinians off their own land to make room for expanding Israeli settlements, construct a 26-foot high “separation barrier” that cuts deep into Palestinian territory, create a network of Israeli-only bypass roads, and generally “thin” Jerusalem of its Palestinian inhabitants. Largely obscured in U.S. politics and the media. ICAHD-USA works to educate the U.S. public about the realities of the Israeli Occupation. Living Rivers PO Box 466 Moab UT 84532 http://livingrivers.org From the Rocky Mountains through seven states and Mexico, the Colorado River is the artery of the desert southwest. Its canyons, ecology and heritage render an international treasure. However, ignorance, greed and complacency are robbing the Colorado of its ability to sustain life. Living Rivers empowers a movement to instill a new ethic of achieving ecological restoration, balanced with meeting human needs. They work to: restore inundated river canyons, wetlands and the delta and repeal the antiquated laws which represent the river’s death sentence. Los Alamos Study Group 2901 Summit Pl. NE Albuquerque, NM 87106 http://www.lasg.org/contact.htm Since 1989, the Los Alamos Study Group community—our staff and board, volunteers, interns, and supporters—has consistently provided vital leadership on nuclear disarmament and related issues. Their work includes research and scholarship , education of decisionmakers, providing an information clearinghouse for journalists, organizing, litigating, and advertising, with particular emphasis on the education and training of young activists and scholars. Middle East Children’s Alliance 1101 Eighth Street, Suite 100 Berkeley, CA 94710 US https://www.mecaforpeace.org The Middle East Children’s Alliance is a non-profit organization working for the rights of children in the Middle East by sending humanitarian aid, supporting projects for children and educating North American and international communities about the effects of the US foreign policy on children in the region. Migrant Justice 294 N. Winooski Ave, Ste. 130, Burlington, VT, 05401 http://migrantjustice.net The seeds of Migrant Justice were planted in 2009 after young dairy worker José Obeth Santiz Cruz was pulled into a mechanized gutter scraper and was strangled to death by his own clothing. This tragedy inspired the production of the documentary film Silenced Voices and led to the formation of a solidarity collective organizing to partner with farmworkers to gather the community to share food, discuss community problems, envision solutions and take collective action. Nevada Desert Experience 1420 W Bartlett Ave Las Vegas, Nevada 89106-2226 http://www.nevadadesertexperience.org Fighting drones at Creech Air Base, nuclear weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site and radioactive waste disposal at Yucca Mountain, Nevada Desert Experience is trying to keep the Great Basin from becoming a national sacrifice zone for the Nuclear-Military-Industrial Complex. Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign 174 W. Diamond St. Philadelphia, PA 19122 http://economichumanrights.org/ The Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign is building a movement that unites the poor across color lines. Poverty afflicts Americans of all colors. Daily more and more of us are downsized and impoverished. We share a common interest in uniting against the prevailing conditions and around our vision of a society where we all have the right to health care, housing, living wage jobs, and access to quality primary, secondary, and higher education. Solitary Watch Community Futures Collective: Attn. Solitary Watch 221 Idora Ave., Vallejo, CA 94591. http://solitarywatch.com While polls show that a decisive majority of Americans oppose the use of torture under any circumstances, even on foreign terrorism suspects, the conditions in U.S. prisons and jails, which at times transgress the boundaries of humane treatment, have produced little outcry. The widespread practice of solitary confinement, in particular, has received scant media attention, and has yet to find a firm place in the public discourse or on political platforms. Solitary Watch is a web-based project that brings the widespread use of solitary confinement out of the shadows and into the light of the public square. Their mission is to provide the public—as well as practicing attorneys, legal scholars, law enforcement and corrections officers, policymakers, educators, advocates, people in prison and their families—with the first centralized source of unfolding news, original reporting, firsthand accounts, and background research on solitary confinement in the United States. Stand With Standing Rock Standing Rock Sioux Tribe #1 N. Standing Rock Avenue Fort Yates, ND 58538 http://standwithstandingrock.net/donate/ The battle at Standing Rock isn’t over. In fact, it’s just beginning. Voices For Creative Nonviolence 1249 W. Argyle St. #2 Chicago, Illinois 60640 773-878-3815 http://vcnv.org/ Since Obama’s election, the anti-war movement in the United States has withered away, even as the wars and interventions have expanded with rising body counts. Yet one group has never wavered. You’ll find activists with Voices for Creative Nonviolence leading protests at the White House, blocking the entry to Drone Operational Centers, occupying nuclear missile silos, educating inside US prisons, and organizing for peace inside war zones, from Afghanistan to Syria. Most crucially, Voices for Creative Nonviolence recognizes that war is waged by many means. Almost alone among US anti-war groups, Voices For Creative Nonviolence is mounting a resistance to the economic war machine. Join the debate on Facebook Jeffrey St. Clair is editor of CounterPunch. His new book is Killing Trayvons: an Anthology of American Violence (with JoAnn Wypijewski and Kevin Alexander Gray). He can be reached at: sitka at comcast.net. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davegreen84 at yahoo.com Sat Dec 31 15:15:26 2016 From: davegreen84 at yahoo.com (David Green) Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2016 15:15:26 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: A List of credible justice organizations of interest, fighting for justice In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1229244385.4604059.1483197326289@mail.yahoo.com> Not to belabor the point, but Jeffrey St. Clair's comments in the rest of this article pertain to the recent debate about SPLC, etc., on this list. He doesn't mention SPLC by name, but it can I think be justifiably lumped in with those establishment non-profits that have essentially aligned themselves with the Democratic Party. DG On Saturday, December 31, 2016 7:30 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss wrote: From Jeffrey Sinclair, Counterpunch Alliance for the Wild Rockies P. O. Box 505 Helena, MT 59624 https://allianceforthewildrockies.org/ >From the grizzly to the bull trout, the grey wolf to the lynx, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies is the last line of defense for the largest swath of unprotected wild lands in North America. Anti-Police Terror Project Oakland, California http://www.antipoliceterrorproject.org Beatings, taserings, illegal arrests, chokeholds, and shootings are a daily occurrence in urban America. The police won’t police themselves. With Trump in power, the Justice Department will probably stop doing even cursory investigations of such brutal actions. The Anti Police-Terror Project is building a replicable and sustainable model to end state-sanctioned murder and violence against Black, Brown, and poor people. Beyond Nuclear 6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 400 Takoma Park, MD 20912 http://www.beyondnuclear.org/ Beyond Nuclear aims to educate and activate the public about the connections between nuclear power and nuclear weapons and the need to abandon both to safeguard our future. Beyond Nuclear advocates for an energy future that is sustainable, benign and democratic. Buffalo Field Campaign PO Box 957 West Yellowstone, MT 59758 1-406-646-0070 http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/ The annual slaughter of buffalo that migrate out of Yellowstone Park is one of the more horrific traditions in practice in the West today. Buffalo Field Campaign is perhaps the only group working tirelessly to defend the right of bison to wander to lower elevations during winter, without the threat of being killed by Montana bureaucrats. Campaign to End the Death Penalty PO Box 25730 Chicago, IL 60625 http://www.nodeathpenalty.org The Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP) is the premier national grassroots organization dedicated to the abolition of capital punishment with active chapters and members across the United States—including California, Texas, Delaware, New York, and Chicago. The campaign has placed those who have experienced the horrors of death row first hand–death row prisoners themselves and their family members–should be at the forefront of their movement, arguing that those experiences help to shape their political strategies. Civil Liberties Defense Center 259 E 5th Ave, Ste 300 A Eugene, OR 97401 (541)687-9180 http://cldc.org/ Increasingly the Civil Liberties Defense Center, a small, non-profit law firm based in Eugene, Oregon, has become the last line of defense for radical activists in America during this age of government repression and prosecutorial crack-downs on dissent.  CLDC has led the legal fight against the McCarthy-like Green Scare attack on the constitutional rights of environmental and animal rights activists. They have defended the rights of Rastafarians to practice their religious rituals in prison. They successfully defended a mosque against the FBI’s first-ever attempt to subpoena religious records. CLDC has also developed  and distributed much-needed “Know Your Rights” outreach material, and presented more than 150 “Know Your Rights” trainings. Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund P.O. Box 360 Mercersburg, PA 17236 http://celdf.org Communities facing fracking, pipelines, factory farms, and other threats are recognizing that these seemingly “single” issue threats share something in common – the community doesn’t have the legal authority to say “No” to them. The existing structure of law ensures that people cannot govern their own communities and act as stewards of the environment, while protecting corporate “rights” and interests over those of communities and nature. Family Farm Defenders P.O Box 1772 Madison, Wisconsin 53701 http://familyfarmers.org Family Farm Defenders mission is to create a farmer-controlled and consumer-oriented food and fiber system, based upon democratically controlled institutions that empower farmers to speak for and respect themselves in their quest for social and economic justice. To this end, FFD supports sustainable agriculture, farm worker rights, animal welfare, consumer safety, fair trade, and food sovereignty.  FFD has also worked to create opportunities for farmers to join together in new cooperative marketing endeavors and to bridge the socioeconomic gap that often exists between rural and urban communities. Fatal Encounters 3375 San Mateo Ave. Reno, NV 89509-5046 http://www.fatalencounters.org Fatal Encounters is an incredibly vital project by D. Brian Burghart, the editor/publisher of the Reno News & Review, to create a national database of out how many people are killed by law enforcement, why they were killed, and whether training and policies can be modified to decrease the number of officer-involved deaths. Fatal Encounters’ efforts to collect information about officer-involved homicides going back to January 1, 2000, is completely funded by donations. Guardians of Our Ancestors Legacy (GOAL) P.O. Box 30000 #360 Jackson, Wy, 83002 http://www.goaltribal.org GOAL, the Tribal Coalition to Protect the Grizzly, may be the last best hope to save the grizzly. This fierce, small, grossly underfunded outfit has pulled together over 40 tribal nations in an effort to keep the Interior Department from removing the grizzly from the Endangered Species list.  With many of the big green groups missing-in-action, GOAL has mounted a powerful legal and cultural defense of the bear, arguing that allowing trophy hunting of the grizzly infringes on tribal sovereignty and violates the federal trust responsibility by disregarding tribal interests and pursuing a policy that benefits three states over a coalition of tribes from Montana to Arizona. Israeli Committee Against Housing Demolitions (USA) PO Box 8118 New York, New York 10116 http://icahdusa.org Since 1967 and the beginning of the Occupation, the Israeli government has demolished over 28,000 houses belonging to Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. These demolitions are part of a web of policies designed to force Palestinians off their own land to make room for expanding Israeli settlements, construct a 26-foot high “separation barrier” that cuts deep into Palestinian territory, create a network of Israeli-only bypass roads, and generally “thin” Jerusalem of its Palestinian inhabitants. Largely obscured in U.S. politics and the media. ICAHD-USA works to educate the U.S. public about the realities of the Israeli Occupation. Living Rivers PO Box 466 Moab UT 84532 http://livingrivers.org >From the Rocky Mountains through seven states and Mexico, the Colorado River is the artery of the desert southwest. Its canyons, ecology and heritage render an international treasure. However, ignorance, greed and complacency are robbing the Colorado of its ability to sustain life. Living Rivers empowers a movement to instill a new ethic of achieving ecological restoration, balanced with meeting human needs. They work to: restore inundated river canyons, wetlands and the delta and repeal the antiquated laws which represent the river’s death sentence. Los Alamos Study Group 2901 Summit Pl. NE Albuquerque, NM 87106 http://www.lasg.org/contact.htm Since 1989, the Los Alamos Study Group community—our staff and board, volunteers, interns, and supporters—has consistently provided vital leadership on nuclear disarmament and related issues. Their work includes research and scholarship , education of decisionmakers, providing an information clearinghouse for journalists, organizing, litigating, and advertising, with particular emphasis on the education and training of young activists and scholars. Middle East Children’s Alliance 1101 Eighth Street, Suite 100 Berkeley, CA 94710 US https://www.mecaforpeace.org The Middle East Children’s Alliance is a non-profit organization working for the rights of children in the Middle East by sending  humanitarian aid, supporting projects for children and educating North American and international communities about the effects of the US foreign policy on children in the region. Migrant Justice 294 N. Winooski Ave, Ste. 130, Burlington, VT, 05401 http://migrantjustice.net The seeds of Migrant Justice were planted in 2009 after young dairy worker José Obeth Santiz Cruz was pulled into a mechanized gutter scraper and was strangled to death by his own clothing. This tragedy inspired the production of the documentary film Silenced Voices and led to the formation of a solidarity collective organizing to partner with farmworkers to gather the community to share food, discuss community problems, envision solutions and take collective action. Nevada Desert Experience 1420 W Bartlett Ave Las Vegas, Nevada 89106-2226 http://www.nevadadesertexperience.org Fighting drones at Creech Air Base, nuclear weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site and radioactive waste disposal at Yucca Mountain, Nevada Desert Experience is trying to keep the Great Basin from becoming a national sacrifice zone for the Nuclear-Military-Industrial Complex. Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign 174 W. Diamond St. Philadelphia, PA 19122 http://economichumanrights.org/ The Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign is building a movement that unites the poor across color lines. Poverty afflicts Americans of all colors. Daily more and more of us are downsized and impoverished. We share a common interest in uniting against the prevailing conditions and around our vision of a society where we all have the right to health care, housing, living wage jobs, and access to quality primary, secondary, and higher education. Solitary Watch Community Futures Collective: Attn. Solitary Watch 221 Idora Ave., Vallejo, CA 94591. http://solitarywatch.com While polls show that a decisive majority of Americans oppose the use of torture under any circumstances, even on foreign terrorism suspects, the conditions in U.S. prisons and jails, which at times transgress the boundaries of humane treatment, have produced little outcry. The widespread practice of solitary confinement, in particular, has received scant media attention, and has yet to find a firm place in the public discourse or on political platforms. Solitary Watch is a web-based project that brings the widespread use of solitary confinement out of the shadows and into the light of the public square. Their mission is to provide the public—as well as practicing attorneys, legal scholars, law enforcement and corrections officers, policymakers, educators, advocates, people in prison and their families—with the first centralized source of unfolding news, original reporting, firsthand accounts, and background research on solitary confinement in the United States. Stand With Standing Rock Standing Rock Sioux Tribe #1 N. Standing Rock Avenue Fort Yates, ND 58538 http://standwithstandingrock.net/donate/ The battle at Standing Rock isn’t over. In fact, it’s just beginning. Voices For Creative Nonviolence 1249 W. Argyle St. #2 Chicago, Illinois 60640 773-878-3815 http://vcnv.org/ Since Obama’s election, the anti-war movement in the United States has withered away, even as the wars and interventions have expanded with rising body counts. Yet one group has never wavered. You’ll find activists with Voices for Creative Nonviolence leading protests at the White House, blocking the entry to Drone Operational Centers, occupying nuclear missile silos, educating inside US prisons,  and organizing for peace inside war zones, from Afghanistan to Syria. Most crucially, Voices for Creative Nonviolence recognizes that war is waged by many means. Almost alone among US anti-war groups, Voices For Creative Nonviolence is mounting a resistance to the economic war machine. Join the debate on FacebookJeffrey St. Clair is editor of CounterPunch. His new book is Killing Trayvons: an Anthology of American Violence (with JoAnn Wypijewski and Kevin Alexander Gray). He can be reached at: sitka at comcast.net. _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From galliher at illinois.edu Sat Dec 31 15:49:33 2016 From: galliher at illinois.edu (Carl G. Estabrook) Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2016 09:49:33 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: A List of credible justice organizations of interest, fighting for justice In-Reply-To: <1229244385.4604059.1483197326289@mail.yahoo.com> References: <1229244385.4604059.1483197326289@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <583BADCD-5811-4A56-97C5-397C1139EB48@illinois.edu> 'Labor-faker' is a term - the meaning is obvious - from the social struggles of the last century. (It occurs e.g. in Steinbeck’s ‘The Grapes of Wrath.’) 'Race-faker' and 'eco-faker' (or 'enviro-faker') are contemporary examples of the phenomenon. It’s a matter of covertly giving up proclaimed principles for other commitments, personal or political. Jeffrey St. Clair, editor of CounterPunch and a leading environmental writer, suggests that the organizations of the latter should be called collectively “Gang Green.” —CGE > On Dec 31, 2016, at 9:15 AM, David Green via Peace-discuss wrote: > > Not to belabor the point, but Jeffrey St. Clair's comments in the rest of this article pertain to the recent debate about SPLC, etc., on this list. He doesn't mention SPLC by name, but it can I think be justifiably lumped in with those establishment non-profits that have essentially aligned themselves with the Democratic Party. > > DG > > > On Saturday, December 31, 2016 7:30 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss wrote: > > > From Jeffrey St. Clair, Counterpunch >> >> Alliance for the Wild Rockies >> P. O. Box 505 >> Helena, MT 59624 >> https://allianceforthewildrockies.org/ >> From the grizzly to the bull trout, the grey wolf to the lynx, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies is the last line of defense for the largest swath of unprotected wild lands in North America. >> Anti-Police Terror Project >> Oakland, California >> http://www.antipoliceterrorproject.org >> Beatings, taserings, illegal arrests, chokeholds, and shootings are a daily occurrence in urban America. The police won’t police themselves. With Trump in power, the Justice Department will probably stop doing even cursory investigations of such brutal actions. The Anti Police-Terror Project is building a replicable and sustainable model to end state-sanctioned murder and violence against Black, Brown, and poor people. >> Beyond Nuclear >> 6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 400 >> Takoma Park, MD 20912 >> http://www.beyondnuclear.org/ >> Beyond Nuclear aims to educate and activate the public about the connections between nuclear power and nuclear weapons and the need to abandon both to safeguard our future. Beyond Nuclear advocates for an energy future that is sustainable, benign and democratic. >> Buffalo Field Campaign >> PO Box 957 >> West Yellowstone, MT 59758 >> 1-406-646-0070 >> http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/ >> The annual slaughter of buffalo that migrate out of Yellowstone Park is one of the more horrific traditions in practice in the West today. Buffalo Field Campaign is perhaps the only group working tirelessly to defend the right of bison to wander to lower elevations during winter, without the threat of being killed by Montana bureaucrats. >> Campaign to End the Death Penalty >> PO Box 25730 >> Chicago, IL 60625 >> http://www.nodeathpenalty.org >> The Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP) is the premier national grassroots organization dedicated to the abolition of capital punishment with active chapters and members across the United States—including California, Texas, Delaware, New York, and Chicago. The campaign has placed those who have experienced the horrors of death row first hand–death row prisoners themselves and their family members–should be at the forefront of their movement, arguing that those experiences help to shape their political strategies. >> Civil Liberties Defense Center >> 259 E 5th Ave, Ste 300 A >> Eugene, OR 97401 >> (541)687-9180 >> http://cldc.org/ >> Increasingly the Civil Liberties Defense Center, a small, non-profit law firm based in Eugene, Oregon, has become the last line of defense for radical activists in America during this age of government repression and prosecutorial crack-downs on dissent. CLDC has led the legal fight against the McCarthy-like Green Scare attack on the constitutional rights of environmental and animal rights activists. They have defended the rights of Rastafarians to practice their religious rituals in prison. They successfully defended a mosque against the FBI’s first-ever attempt to subpoena religious records. CLDC has also developed and distributed much-needed “Know Your Rights” outreach material, and presented more than 150 “Know Your Rights” trainings. >> Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund >> P.O. Box 360 >> Mercersburg, PA 17236 >> http://celdf.org >> Communities facing fracking, pipelines, factory farms, and other threats are recognizing that these seemingly “single” issue threats share something in common – the community doesn’t have the legal authority to say “No” to them. The existing structure of law ensures that people cannot govern their own communities and act as stewards of the environment, while protecting corporate “rights” and interests over those of communities and nature. >> Family Farm Defenders >> P.O Box 1772 >> Madison, Wisconsin 53701 >> http://familyfarmers.org >> Family Farm Defenders mission is to create a farmer-controlled and consumer-oriented food and fiber system, based upon democratically controlled institutions that empower farmers to speak for and respect themselves in their quest for social and economic justice. To this end, FFD supports sustainable agriculture, farm worker rights, animal welfare, consumer safety, fair trade, and food sovereignty. FFD has also worked to create opportunities for farmers to join together in new cooperative marketing endeavors and to bridge the socioeconomic gap that often exists between rural and urban communities. >> Fatal Encounters >> 3375 San Mateo Ave. >> Reno, NV 89509-5046 >> http://www.fatalencounters.org >> Fatal Encounters is an incredibly vital project by D. Brian Burghart, the editor/publisher of the Reno News & Review, to create a national database of out how many people are killed by law enforcement, why they were killed, and whether training and policies can be modified to decrease the number of officer-involved deaths. Fatal Encounters’ efforts to collect information about officer-involved homicides going back to January 1, 2000, is completely funded by donations. >> Guardians of Our Ancestors Legacy (GOAL) >> P.O. Box 30000 #360 >> Jackson, Wy, 83002 >> http://www.goaltribal.org >> GOAL, the Tribal Coalition to Protect the Grizzly, may be the last best hope to save the grizzly. This fierce, small, grossly underfunded outfit has pulled together over 40 tribal nations in an effort to keep the Interior Department from removing the grizzly from the Endangered Species list. With many of the big green groups missing-in-action, GOAL has mounted a powerful legal and cultural defense of the bear, arguing that allowing trophy hunting of the grizzly infringes on tribal sovereignty and violates the federal trust responsibility by disregarding tribal interests and pursuing a policy that benefits three states over a coalition of tribes from Montana to Arizona. >> Israeli Committee Against Housing Demolitions (USA) >> PO Box 8118 >> New York, New York 10116 >> http://icahdusa.org >> Since 1967 and the beginning of the Occupation, the Israeli government has demolished over 28,000 houses belonging to Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. These demolitions are part of a web of policies designed to force Palestinians off their own land to make room for expanding Israeli settlements, construct a 26-foot high “separation barrier” that cuts deep into Palestinian territory, create a network of Israeli-only bypass roads, and generally “thin” Jerusalem of its Palestinian inhabitants. Largely obscured in U.S. politics and the media. ICAHD-USA works to educate the U.S. public about the realities of the Israeli Occupation. >> Living Rivers >> PO Box 466 >> Moab UT 84532 >> http://livingrivers.org >> From the Rocky Mountains through seven states and Mexico, the Colorado River is the artery of the desert southwest. Its canyons, ecology and heritage render an international treasure. However, ignorance, greed and complacency are robbing the Colorado of its ability to sustain life. Living Rivers empowers a movement to instill a new ethic of achieving ecological restoration, balanced with meeting human needs. They work to: restore inundated river canyons, wetlands and the delta and repeal the antiquated laws which represent the river’s death sentence. >> Los Alamos Study Group >> 2901 Summit Pl. NE >> Albuquerque, NM 87106 >> http://www.lasg.org/contact.htm >> Since 1989, the Los Alamos Study Group community—our staff and board, volunteers, interns, and supporters—has consistently provided vital leadership on nuclear disarmament and related issues. Their work includes research and scholarship , education of decisionmakers, providing an information clearinghouse for journalists, organizing, litigating, and advertising, with particular emphasis on the education and training of young activists and scholars. >> Middle East Children’s Alliance >> 1101 Eighth Street, Suite 100 >> Berkeley, CA 94710 US >> https://www.mecaforpeace.org >> The Middle East Children’s Alliance is a non-profit organization working for the rights of children in the Middle East by sending humanitarian aid, supporting projects for children and educating North American and international communities about the effects of the US foreign policy on children in the region. >> Migrant Justice >> 294 N. Winooski Ave, Ste. 130, >> Burlington, VT, 05401 >> http://migrantjustice.net >> The seeds of Migrant Justice were planted in 2009 after young dairy worker José Obeth Santiz Cruz was pulled into a mechanized gutter scraper and was strangled to death by his own clothing. This tragedy inspired the production of the documentary film Silenced Voices and led to the formation of a solidarity collective organizing to partner with farmworkers to gather the community to share food, discuss community problems, envision solutions and take collective action. >> Nevada Desert Experience >> 1420 W Bartlett Ave >> Las Vegas, Nevada 89106-2226 >> http://www.nevadadesertexperience.org >> Fighting drones at Creech Air Base, nuclear weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site and radioactive waste disposal at Yucca Mountain, Nevada Desert Experience is trying to keep the Great Basin from becoming a national sacrifice zone for the Nuclear-Military-Industrial Complex. >> Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign >> 174 W. Diamond St. >> Philadelphia, PA 19122 >> http://economichumanrights.org/ >> The Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign is building a movement that unites the poor across color lines. Poverty afflicts Americans of all colors. Daily more and more of us are downsized and impoverished. We share a common interest in uniting against the prevailing conditions and around our vision of a society where we all have the right to health care, housing, living wage jobs, and access to quality primary, secondary, and higher education. >> Solitary Watch >> Community Futures Collective: Attn. Solitary Watch >> 221 Idora Ave., Vallejo, CA 94591. >> http://solitarywatch.com >> While polls show that a decisive majority of Americans oppose the use of torture under any circumstances, even on foreign terrorism suspects, the conditions in U.S. prisons and jails, which at times transgress the boundaries of humane treatment, have produced little outcry. The widespread practice of solitary confinement, in particular, has received scant media attention, and has yet to find a firm place in the public discourse or on political platforms. Solitary Watch is a web-based project that brings the widespread use of solitary confinement out of the shadows and into the light of the public square. Their mission is to provide the public—as well as practicing attorneys, legal scholars, law enforcement and corrections officers, policymakers, educators, advocates, people in prison and their families—with the first centralized source of unfolding news, original reporting, firsthand accounts, and background research on solitary confinement in the United States. >> Stand With Standing Rock >> Standing Rock Sioux Tribe >> #1 N. Standing Rock Avenue >> Fort Yates, ND 58538 >> http://standwithstandingrock.net/donate/ >> The battle at Standing Rock isn’t over. In fact, it’s just beginning. >> Voices For Creative Nonviolence >> 1249 W. Argyle St. #2 >> Chicago, Illinois 60640 >> 773-878-3815 >> http://vcnv.org/ >> Since Obama’s election, the anti-war movement in the United States has withered away, even as the wars and interventions have expanded with rising body counts. Yet one group has never wavered. You’ll find activists with Voices for Creative Nonviolence leading protests at the White House, blocking the entry to Drone Operational Centers, occupying nuclear missile silos, educating inside US prisons, and organizing for peace inside war zones, from Afghanistan to Syria. Most crucially, Voices for Creative Nonviolence recognizes that war is waged by many means. Almost alone among US anti-war groups, Voices For Creative Nonviolence is mounting a resistance to the economic war machine. >> Join the debate on Facebook >> Jeffrey St. Clair is editor of CounterPunch. His new book is Killing Trayvons: an Anthology of American Violence (with JoAnn Wypijewski and Kevin Alexander Gray). He can be reached at: sitka at comcast.net . >> > > > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss > > > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Sat Dec 31 15:58:02 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2016 15:58:02 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: A List of credible justice organizations of interest, fighting for justice In-Reply-To: <583BADCD-5811-4A56-97C5-397C1139EB48@illinois.edu> References: <1229244385.4604059.1483197326289@mail.yahoo.com> <583BADCD-5811-4A56-97C5-397C1139EB48@illinois.edu> Message-ID: Gentlemen, Yes, that’s precisely why I neglected to post the full article on this Peace List, I didn’t really find it of value, only the list of those Jeffrey refers to as worthy organizations to support. Sometimes a positive message vs. a negative message has a greater impact. On Dec 31, 2016, at 07:49, Carl G. Estabrook > wrote: 'Labor-faker' is a term - the meaning is obvious - from the social struggles of the last century. (It occurs e.g. in Steinbeck’s ‘The Grapes of Wrath.’) 'Race-faker' and 'eco-faker' (or 'enviro-faker') are contemporary examples of the phenomenon. It’s a matter of covertly giving up proclaimed principles for other commitments, personal or political. Jeffrey St. Clair, editor of CounterPunch and a leading environmental writer, suggests that the organizations of the latter should be called collectively “Gang Green.” —CGE On Dec 31, 2016, at 9:15 AM, David Green via Peace-discuss > wrote: Not to belabor the point, but Jeffrey St. Clair's comments in the rest of this article pertain to the recent debate about SPLC, etc., on this list. He doesn't mention SPLC by name, but it can I think be justifiably lumped in with those establishment non-profits that have essentially aligned themselves with the Democratic Party. DG On Saturday, December 31, 2016 7:30 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss > wrote: From Jeffrey St. Clair, Counterpunch Alliance for the Wild Rockies P. O. Box 505 Helena, MT 59624 https://allianceforthewildrockies.org/ From the grizzly to the bull trout, the grey wolf to the lynx, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies is the last line of defense for the largest swath of unprotected wild lands in North America. Anti-Police Terror Project Oakland, California http://www.antipoliceterrorproject.org Beatings, taserings, illegal arrests, chokeholds, and shootings are a daily occurrence in urban America. The police won’t police themselves. With Trump in power, the Justice Department will probably stop doing even cursory investigations of such brutal actions. The Anti Police-Terror Project is building a replicable and sustainable model to end state-sanctioned murder and violence against Black, Brown, and poor people. Beyond Nuclear 6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 400 Takoma Park, MD 20912 http://www.beyondnuclear.org/ Beyond Nuclear aims to educate and activate the public about the connections between nuclear power and nuclear weapons and the need to abandon both to safeguard our future. Beyond Nuclear advocates for an energy future that is sustainable, benign and democratic. Buffalo Field Campaign PO Box 957 West Yellowstone, MT 59758 1-406-646-0070 http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/ The annual slaughter of buffalo that migrate out of Yellowstone Park is one of the more horrific traditions in practice in the West today. Buffalo Field Campaign is perhaps the only group working tirelessly to defend the right of bison to wander to lower elevations during winter, without the threat of being killed by Montana bureaucrats. Campaign to End the Death Penalty PO Box 25730 Chicago, IL 60625 http://www.nodeathpenalty.org The Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP) is the premier national grassroots organization dedicated to the abolition of capital punishment with active chapters and members across the United States—including California, Texas, Delaware, New York, and Chicago. The campaign has placed those who have experienced the horrors of death row first hand–death row prisoners themselves and their family members–should be at the forefront of their movement, arguing that those experiences help to shape their political strategies. Civil Liberties Defense Center 259 E 5th Ave, Ste 300 A Eugene, OR 97401 (541)687-9180 http://cldc.org/ Increasingly the Civil Liberties Defense Center, a small, non-profit law firm based in Eugene, Oregon, has become the last line of defense for radical activists in America during this age of government repression and prosecutorial crack-downs on dissent. CLDC has led the legal fight against the McCarthy-like Green Scare attack on the constitutional rights of environmental and animal rights activists. They have defended the rights of Rastafarians to practice their religious rituals in prison. They successfully defended a mosque against the FBI’s first-ever attempt to subpoena religious records. CLDC has also developed and distributed much-needed “Know Your Rights” outreach material, and presented more than 150 “Know Your Rights” trainings. Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund P.O. Box 360 Mercersburg, PA 17236 http://celdf.org Communities facing fracking, pipelines, factory farms, and other threats are recognizing that these seemingly “single” issue threats share something in common – the community doesn’t have the legal authority to say “No” to them. The existing structure of law ensures that people cannot govern their own communities and act as stewards of the environment, while protecting corporate “rights” and interests over those of communities and nature. Family Farm Defenders P.O Box 1772 Madison, Wisconsin 53701 http://familyfarmers.org Family Farm Defenders mission is to create a farmer-controlled and consumer-oriented food and fiber system, based upon democratically controlled institutions that empower farmers to speak for and respect themselves in their quest for social and economic justice. To this end, FFD supports sustainable agriculture, farm worker rights, animal welfare, consumer safety, fair trade, and food sovereignty. FFD has also worked to create opportunities for farmers to join together in new cooperative marketing endeavors and to bridge the socioeconomic gap that often exists between rural and urban communities. Fatal Encounters 3375 San Mateo Ave. Reno, NV 89509-5046 http://www.fatalencounters.org Fatal Encounters is an incredibly vital project by D. Brian Burghart, the editor/publisher of the Reno News & Review, to create a national database of out how many people are killed by law enforcement, why they were killed, and whether training and policies can be modified to decrease the number of officer-involved deaths. Fatal Encounters’ efforts to collect information about officer-involved homicides going back to January 1, 2000, is completely funded by donations. Guardians of Our Ancestors Legacy (GOAL) P.O. Box 30000 #360 Jackson, Wy, 83002 http://www.goaltribal.org GOAL, the Tribal Coalition to Protect the Grizzly, may be the last best hope to save the grizzly. This fierce, small, grossly underfunded outfit has pulled together over 40 tribal nations in an effort to keep the Interior Department from removing the grizzly from the Endangered Species list. With many of the big green groups missing-in-action, GOAL has mounted a powerful legal and cultural defense of the bear, arguing that allowing trophy hunting of the grizzly infringes on tribal sovereignty and violates the federal trust responsibility by disregarding tribal interests and pursuing a policy that benefits three states over a coalition of tribes from Montana to Arizona. Israeli Committee Against Housing Demolitions (USA) PO Box 8118 New York, New York 10116 http://icahdusa.org Since 1967 and the beginning of the Occupation, the Israeli government has demolished over 28,000 houses belonging to Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. These demolitions are part of a web of policies designed to force Palestinians off their own land to make room for expanding Israeli settlements, construct a 26-foot high “separation barrier” that cuts deep into Palestinian territory, create a network of Israeli-only bypass roads, and generally “thin” Jerusalem of its Palestinian inhabitants. Largely obscured in U.S. politics and the media. ICAHD-USA works to educate the U.S. public about the realities of the Israeli Occupation. Living Rivers PO Box 466 Moab UT 84532 http://livingrivers.org From the Rocky Mountains through seven states and Mexico, the Colorado River is the artery of the desert southwest. Its canyons, ecology and heritage render an international treasure. However, ignorance, greed and complacency are robbing the Colorado of its ability to sustain life. Living Rivers empowers a movement to instill a new ethic of achieving ecological restoration, balanced with meeting human needs. They work to: restore inundated river canyons, wetlands and the delta and repeal the antiquated laws which represent the river’s death sentence. Los Alamos Study Group 2901 Summit Pl. NE Albuquerque, NM 87106 http://www.lasg.org/contact.htm Since 1989, the Los Alamos Study Group community—our staff and board, volunteers, interns, and supporters—has consistently provided vital leadership on nuclear disarmament and related issues. Their work includes research and scholarship , education of decisionmakers, providing an information clearinghouse for journalists, organizing, litigating, and advertising, with particular emphasis on the education and training of young activists and scholars. Middle East Children’s Alliance 1101 Eighth Street, Suite 100 Berkeley, CA 94710 US https://www.mecaforpeace.org The Middle East Children’s Alliance is a non-profit organization working for the rights of children in the Middle East by sending humanitarian aid, supporting projects for children and educating North American and international communities about the effects of the US foreign policy on children in the region. Migrant Justice 294 N. Winooski Ave, Ste. 130, Burlington, VT, 05401 http://migrantjustice.net The seeds of Migrant Justice were planted in 2009 after young dairy worker José Obeth Santiz Cruz was pulled into a mechanized gutter scraper and was strangled to death by his own clothing. This tragedy inspired the production of the documentary film Silenced Voices and led to the formation of a solidarity collective organizing to partner with farmworkers to gather the community to share food, discuss community problems, envision solutions and take collective action. Nevada Desert Experience 1420 W Bartlett Ave Las Vegas, Nevada 89106-2226 http://www.nevadadesertexperience.org Fighting drones at Creech Air Base, nuclear weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site and radioactive waste disposal at Yucca Mountain, Nevada Desert Experience is trying to keep the Great Basin from becoming a national sacrifice zone for the Nuclear-Military-Industrial Complex. Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign 174 W. Diamond St. Philadelphia, PA 19122 http://economichumanrights.org/ The Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign is building a movement that unites the poor across color lines. Poverty afflicts Americans of all colors. Daily more and more of us are downsized and impoverished. We share a common interest in uniting against the prevailing conditions and around our vision of a society where we all have the right to health care, housing, living wage jobs, and access to quality primary, secondary, and higher education. Solitary Watch Community Futures Collective: Attn. Solitary Watch 221 Idora Ave., Vallejo, CA 94591. http://solitarywatch.com While polls show that a decisive majority of Americans oppose the use of torture under any circumstances, even on foreign terrorism suspects, the conditions in U.S. prisons and jails, which at times transgress the boundaries of humane treatment, have produced little outcry. The widespread practice of solitary confinement, in particular, has received scant media attention, and has yet to find a firm place in the public discourse or on political platforms. Solitary Watch is a web-based project that brings the widespread use of solitary confinement out of the shadows and into the light of the public square. Their mission is to provide the public—as well as practicing attorneys, legal scholars, law enforcement and corrections officers, policymakers, educators, advocates, people in prison and their families—with the first centralized source of unfolding news, original reporting, firsthand accounts, and background research on solitary confinement in the United States. Stand With Standing Rock Standing Rock Sioux Tribe #1 N. Standing Rock Avenue Fort Yates, ND 58538 http://standwithstandingrock.net/donate/ The battle at Standing Rock isn’t over. In fact, it’s just beginning. Voices For Creative Nonviolence 1249 W. Argyle St. #2 Chicago, Illinois 60640 773-878-3815 http://vcnv.org/ Since Obama’s election, the anti-war movement in the United States has withered away, even as the wars and interventions have expanded with rising body counts. Yet one group has never wavered. You’ll find activists with Voices for Creative Nonviolence leading protests at the White House, blocking the entry to Drone Operational Centers, occupying nuclear missile silos, educating inside US prisons, and organizing for peace inside war zones, from Afghanistan to Syria. Most crucially, Voices for Creative Nonviolence recognizes that war is waged by many means. Almost alone among US anti-war groups, Voices For Creative Nonviolence is mounting a resistance to the economic war machine. Join the debate on Facebook Jeffrey St. Clair is editor of CounterPunch. His new book is Killing Trayvons: an Anthology of American Violence (with JoAnn Wypijewski and Kevin Alexander Gray). He can be reached at: sitka at comcast.net. _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From galliher at illinois.edu Sat Dec 31 16:12:23 2016 From: galliher at illinois.edu (Carl G. Estabrook) Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2016 10:12:23 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: A List of credible justice organizations of interest, fighting for justice In-Reply-To: References: <1229244385.4604059.1483197326289@mail.yahoo.com> <583BADCD-5811-4A56-97C5-397C1139EB48@illinois.edu> Message-ID: [Here’s some more of the article, which seems to me correct and important.] JEFFREY ST. CLAIR: Last January during one of the early skirmishes in the Democratic Primaries, Bernie Sanders took a rare direct shot at Hillary Clinton and her political support group, the DC cabal of liberal NGOs. Sanders had been badgered for weeks by the media for his failure to attract more endorsements from public interest groups, like Planned Parenthood, NARAL and the Human Rights Campaign, even though his record on many of their core issues was much less blemished than Clinton’s. Finally, Sanders snapped back: “You know what? Hillary Clinton has been around there for a very, very long time. Some of these groups are, in fact, part of the establishment.” These groups responded with mock outrage, clustering before the cameras of MSDNC to denounce Bernie. How could Sanders possibly call us part of the “Establishment”! It’s ridiculous! He should be ashamed of himself!! He must apologize!!! But Sanders was absolutely right, of course. The Beltway network of liberal NGOS–from the Sierra Club to NOW–have become little more than dutiful subsidiaries of the Democratic Party. Many of them have enabled and abetted the party’s wholesale lurch toward neoliberalism without so much as a bleat, while howling against almost every minor infraction made by a Republican politician. Sanders deserved credit for pointing out the obvious, but he almost immediately backed away from his comments, which pretty much symbolizes the entire course of his advance-and-retreat campaign. Again and again, Sanders won on the issues, but his campaign seems to have changed nothing about the Democratic Party or its labor and NGO allies. This is in part true because both the Democratic Party and the liberal public interest community are dependent on and beholden to the same sources of corporate and philanthropic funding. Money talks and it gags... > On Dec 31, 2016, at 9:58 AM, Karen Aram wrote: > > Gentlemen, > > Yes, that’s precisely why I neglected to post the full article on this Peace List, I didn’t really find it of value, only the list of those Jeffrey refers to as worthy organizations to support. Sometimes a positive message vs. a negative message has a greater impact. > > >> On Dec 31, 2016, at 07:49, Carl G. Estabrook > wrote: >> >> 'Labor-faker' is a term - the meaning is obvious - from the social struggles of the last century. (It occurs e.g. in Steinbeck’s ‘The Grapes of Wrath.’) >> >> 'Race-faker' and 'eco-faker' (or 'enviro-faker') are contemporary examples of the phenomenon. >> >> It’s a matter of covertly giving up proclaimed principles for other commitments, personal or political. >> >> Jeffrey St. Clair, editor of CounterPunch and a leading environmental writer, suggests that the organizations of the latter should be called collectively “Gang Green.” >> >> —CGE >> >> >>> On Dec 31, 2016, at 9:15 AM, David Green via Peace-discuss > wrote: >>> >>> Not to belabor the point, but Jeffrey St. Clair's comments in the rest of this article pertain to the recent debate about SPLC, etc., on this list. He doesn't mention SPLC by name, but it can I think be justifiably lumped in with those establishment non-profits that have essentially aligned themselves with the Democratic Party. >>> >>> DG >>> >>> >>> On Saturday, December 31, 2016 7:30 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss > wrote: >>> >>> >>> From Jeffrey St. Clair, Counterpunch >>>> >>>> Alliance for the Wild Rockies >>>> P. O. Box 505 >>>> Helena, MT 59624 >>>> https://allianceforthewildrockies.org/ >>>> From the grizzly to the bull trout, the grey wolf to the lynx, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies is the last line of defense for the largest swath of unprotected wild lands in North America. >>>> Anti-Police Terror Project >>>> Oakland, California >>>> http://www.antipoliceterrorproject.org >>>> Beatings, taserings, illegal arrests, chokeholds, and shootings are a daily occurrence in urban America. The police won’t police themselves. With Trump in power, the Justice Department will probably stop doing even cursory investigations of such brutal actions. The Anti Police-Terror Project is building a replicable and sustainable model to end state-sanctioned murder and violence against Black, Brown, and poor people. >>>> Beyond Nuclear >>>> 6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 400 >>>> Takoma Park, MD 20912 >>>> http://www.beyondnuclear.org/ >>>> Beyond Nuclear aims to educate and activate the public about the connections between nuclear power and nuclear weapons and the need to abandon both to safeguard our future. Beyond Nuclear advocates for an energy future that is sustainable, benign and democratic. >>>> Buffalo Field Campaign >>>> PO Box 957 >>>> West Yellowstone, MT 59758 >>>> 1-406-646-0070 >>>> http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/ >>>> The annual slaughter of buffalo that migrate out of Yellowstone Park is one of the more horrific traditions in practice in the West today. Buffalo Field Campaign is perhaps the only group working tirelessly to defend the right of bison to wander to lower elevations during winter, without the threat of being killed by Montana bureaucrats. >>>> Campaign to End the Death Penalty >>>> PO Box 25730 >>>> Chicago, IL 60625 >>>> http://www.nodeathpenalty.org >>>> The Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP) is the premier national grassroots organization dedicated to the abolition of capital punishment with active chapters and members across the United States—including California, Texas, Delaware, New York, and Chicago. The campaign has placed those who have experienced the horrors of death row first hand–death row prisoners themselves and their family members–should be at the forefront of their movement, arguing that those experiences help to shape their political strategies. >>>> Civil Liberties Defense Center >>>> 259 E 5th Ave, Ste 300 A >>>> Eugene, OR 97401 >>>> (541)687-9180 >>>> http://cldc.org/ >>>> Increasingly the Civil Liberties Defense Center, a small, non-profit law firm based in Eugene, Oregon, has become the last line of defense for radical activists in America during this age of government repression and prosecutorial crack-downs on dissent. CLDC has led the legal fight against the McCarthy-like Green Scare attack on the constitutional rights of environmental and animal rights activists. They have defended the rights of Rastafarians to practice their religious rituals in prison. They successfully defended a mosque against the FBI’s first-ever attempt to subpoena religious records. CLDC has also developed and distributed much-needed “Know Your Rights” outreach material, and presented more than 150 “Know Your Rights” trainings. >>>> Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund >>>> P.O. Box 360 >>>> Mercersburg, PA 17236 >>>> http://celdf.org >>>> Communities facing fracking, pipelines, factory farms, and other threats are recognizing that these seemingly “single” issue threats share something in common – the community doesn’t have the legal authority to say “No” to them. The existing structure of law ensures that people cannot govern their own communities and act as stewards of the environment, while protecting corporate “rights” and interests over those of communities and nature. >>>> Family Farm Defenders >>>> P.O Box 1772 >>>> Madison, Wisconsin 53701 >>>> http://familyfarmers.org >>>> Family Farm Defenders mission is to create a farmer-controlled and consumer-oriented food and fiber system, based upon democratically controlled institutions that empower farmers to speak for and respect themselves in their quest for social and economic justice. To this end, FFD supports sustainable agriculture, farm worker rights, animal welfare, consumer safety, fair trade, and food sovereignty. FFD has also worked to create opportunities for farmers to join together in new cooperative marketing endeavors and to bridge the socioeconomic gap that often exists between rural and urban communities. >>>> Fatal Encounters >>>> 3375 San Mateo Ave. >>>> Reno, NV 89509-5046 >>>> http://www.fatalencounters.org >>>> Fatal Encounters is an incredibly vital project by D. Brian Burghart, the editor/publisher of the Reno News & Review, to create a national database of out how many people are killed by law enforcement, why they were killed, and whether training and policies can be modified to decrease the number of officer-involved deaths. Fatal Encounters’ efforts to collect information about officer-involved homicides going back to January 1, 2000, is completely funded by donations. >>>> Guardians of Our Ancestors Legacy (GOAL) >>>> P.O. Box 30000 #360 >>>> Jackson, Wy, 83002 >>>> http://www.goaltribal.org >>>> GOAL, the Tribal Coalition to Protect the Grizzly, may be the last best hope to save the grizzly. This fierce, small, grossly underfunded outfit has pulled together over 40 tribal nations in an effort to keep the Interior Department from removing the grizzly from the Endangered Species list. With many of the big green groups missing-in-action, GOAL has mounted a powerful legal and cultural defense of the bear, arguing that allowing trophy hunting of the grizzly infringes on tribal sovereignty and violates the federal trust responsibility by disregarding tribal interests and pursuing a policy that benefits three states over a coalition of tribes from Montana to Arizona. >>>> Israeli Committee Against Housing Demolitions (USA) >>>> PO Box 8118 >>>> New York, New York 10116 >>>> http://icahdusa.org >>>> Since 1967 and the beginning of the Occupation, the Israeli government has demolished over 28,000 houses belonging to Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. These demolitions are part of a web of policies designed to force Palestinians off their own land to make room for expanding Israeli settlements, construct a 26-foot high “separation barrier” that cuts deep into Palestinian territory, create a network of Israeli-only bypass roads, and generally “thin” Jerusalem of its Palestinian inhabitants. Largely obscured in U.S. politics and the media. ICAHD-USA works to educate the U.S. public about the realities of the Israeli Occupation. >>>> Living Rivers >>>> PO Box 466 >>>> Moab UT 84532 >>>> http://livingrivers.org >>>> From the Rocky Mountains through seven states and Mexico, the Colorado River is the artery of the desert southwest. Its canyons, ecology and heritage render an international treasure. However, ignorance, greed and complacency are robbing the Colorado of its ability to sustain life. Living Rivers empowers a movement to instill a new ethic of achieving ecological restoration, balanced with meeting human needs. They work to: restore inundated river canyons, wetlands and the delta and repeal the antiquated laws which represent the river’s death sentence. >>>> Los Alamos Study Group >>>> 2901 Summit Pl. NE >>>> Albuquerque, NM 87106 >>>> http://www.lasg.org/contact.htm >>>> Since 1989, the Los Alamos Study Group community—our staff and board, volunteers, interns, and supporters—has consistently provided vital leadership on nuclear disarmament and related issues. Their work includes research and scholarship , education of decisionmakers, providing an information clearinghouse for journalists, organizing, litigating, and advertising, with particular emphasis on the education and training of young activists and scholars. >>>> Middle East Children’s Alliance >>>> 1101 Eighth Street, Suite 100 >>>> Berkeley, CA 94710 US >>>> https://www.mecaforpeace.org >>>> The Middle East Children’s Alliance is a non-profit organization working for the rights of children in the Middle East by sending humanitarian aid, supporting projects for children and educating North American and international communities about the effects of the US foreign policy on children in the region. >>>> Migrant Justice >>>> 294 N. Winooski Ave, Ste. 130, >>>> Burlington, VT, 05401 >>>> http://migrantjustice.net >>>> The seeds of Migrant Justice were planted in 2009 after young dairy worker José Obeth Santiz Cruz was pulled into a mechanized gutter scraper and was strangled to death by his own clothing. This tragedy inspired the production of the documentary film Silenced Voices and led to the formation of a solidarity collective organizing to partner with farmworkers to gather the community to share food, discuss community problems, envision solutions and take collective action. >>>> Nevada Desert Experience >>>> 1420 W Bartlett Ave >>>> Las Vegas, Nevada 89106-2226 >>>> http://www.nevadadesertexperience.org >>>> Fighting drones at Creech Air Base, nuclear weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site and radioactive waste disposal at Yucca Mountain, Nevada Desert Experience is trying to keep the Great Basin from becoming a national sacrifice zone for the Nuclear-Military-Industrial Complex. >>>> Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign >>>> 174 W. Diamond St. >>>> Philadelphia, PA 19122 >>>> http://economichumanrights.org/ >>>> The Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign is building a movement that unites the poor across color lines. Poverty afflicts Americans of all colors. Daily more and more of us are downsized and impoverished. We share a common interest in uniting against the prevailing conditions and around our vision of a society where we all have the right to health care, housing, living wage jobs, and access to quality primary, secondary, and higher education. >>>> Solitary Watch >>>> Community Futures Collective: Attn. Solitary Watch >>>> 221 Idora Ave., Vallejo, CA 94591. >>>> http://solitarywatch.com >>>> While polls show that a decisive majority of Americans oppose the use of torture under any circumstances, even on foreign terrorism suspects, the conditions in U.S. prisons and jails, which at times transgress the boundaries of humane treatment, have produced little outcry. The widespread practice of solitary confinement, in particular, has received scant media attention, and has yet to find a firm place in the public discourse or on political platforms. Solitary Watch is a web-based project that brings the widespread use of solitary confinement out of the shadows and into the light of the public square. Their mission is to provide the public—as well as practicing attorneys, legal scholars, law enforcement and corrections officers, policymakers, educators, advocates, people in prison and their families—with the first centralized source of unfolding news, original reporting, firsthand accounts, and background research on solitary confinement in the United States. >>>> Stand With Standing Rock >>>> Standing Rock Sioux Tribe >>>> #1 N. Standing Rock Avenue >>>> Fort Yates, ND 58538 >>>> http://standwithstandingrock.net/donate/ >>>> The battle at Standing Rock isn’t over. In fact, it’s just beginning. >>>> Voices For Creative Nonviolence >>>> 1249 W. Argyle St. #2 >>>> Chicago, Illinois 60640 >>>> 773-878-3815 >>>> http://vcnv.org/ >>>> Since Obama’s election, the anti-war movement in the United States has withered away, even as the wars and interventions have expanded with rising body counts. Yet one group has never wavered. You’ll find activists with Voices for Creative Nonviolence leading protests at the White House, blocking the entry to Drone Operational Centers, occupying nuclear missile silos, educating inside US prisons, and organizing for peace inside war zones, from Afghanistan to Syria. Most crucially, Voices for Creative Nonviolence recognizes that war is waged by many means. Almost alone among US anti-war groups, Voices For Creative Nonviolence is mounting a resistance to the economic war machine. >>>> Join the debate on Facebook >>>> Jeffrey St. Clair is editor of CounterPunch. His new book is Killing Trayvons: an Anthology of American Violence (with JoAnn Wypijewski and Kevin Alexander Gray). He can be reached at: sitka at comcast.net . >>>> >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Peace-discuss mailing list >>> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net >>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Peace-discuss mailing list >>> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net >>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Sat Dec 31 17:09:36 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2016 17:09:36 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] NFN (News from Neptune) yesterday Message-ID: Good program, I think Carl was referring to “Mueller", close to Miller, in reference to CIA. I don’t have my notes while watching, so not sure. David: I think you make a good point, in respect to Erik Draitser. I used to listen to his programs faithfully, read his FB postings, to which I always received notification when he posted. Until after the election, when Erik was then on FB advising everyone, especially white people to get guns, loaded, to protect our “neighbors of color” as a result of the election and Trump. This was to me, worse hysteria than that which we saw being promoted by “move on.org” immediately after the election, and it was before the Cabinet appointments which are an indication of what’s to come. I responded to his email, “Erik, really, you want all white people to get loaded guns to kill other white people, in order to protect people of color?” Fomenting what I see as hysteria and “civil war” based upon race, religion, or politics, thus being counterproductive. I was astounded that such a bright young man, who seemed to be so knowledgeable in relation to current political events, would suggest anything other than “all people need to unite against the Establishment/Elite based upon issues, given he often referred to “class” and “capitalism" as the problem. I thought perhaps he had been hacked, but you have just confirmed my suspicions, that many on the “left” are questionable. I no longer receive his FB postings, maybe I’ve been blocked, given how many FB friends he has, I’m surprised anyone took note of what I said. Maybe he’s no longer doing them, but he evidently is still on Counterpunch radio. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davegreen84 at yahoo.com Sat Dec 31 17:28:15 2016 From: davegreen84 at yahoo.com (David Green) Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2016 17:28:15 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace-discuss] NFN (News from Neptune) yesterday In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1021362779.4544544.1483205295753@mail.yahoo.com> Thanks -- Yikes! On Saturday, December 31, 2016 11:09 AM, Karen Aram wrote: Good program, I think Carl was referring to “Mueller", close to Miller, in reference to CIA. I don’t have my notes while watching, so not sure. David: I think you make a good point, in respect to Erik Draitser. I used to listen to his programs faithfully, read his FB postings, to which I always received notification when he posted.  Until after the election, when Erik was then on FB advising everyone, especially white people to get guns, loaded, to protect our “neighbors of color” as a result of the election and Trump. This was to me, worse hysteria than that which we saw being promoted by “move on.org” immediately after the election, and it was before the Cabinet appointments which are an indication of what’s to come.  I responded to his email,  “Erik, really, you want all white people to get loaded guns to kill other white people, in order to protect people of color?” Fomenting what I see as hysteria and “civil war” based upon race, religion, or politics, thus being counterproductive. I was astounded that such a bright young man, who seemed to be so knowledgeable in relation to current political events, would suggest anything other than “all people need to unite against the Establishment/Elite based upon issues, given he often referred to “class” and “capitalism" as the problem. I thought perhaps he had been hacked, but you have just confirmed my suspicions, that many on the “left” are questionable.   I no longer receive his FB postings, maybe I’ve been blocked, given how many FB friends he has, I’m surprised anyone took note of what I said. Maybe he’s no longer doing them,  but he evidently is still on Counterpunch radio.  -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: