[Peace-discuss] AWARE flyer from eight years ago
Stuart Levy
salevy at illinois.edu
Sat Jan 7 13:30:24 UTC 2017
Here's another flyer from eight years ago (December, 2008). As Obama
did then, Trump now needs a protest movement.
=============================================================
AWARE calls on the Obama administration
to live up to the promise of change
Do we need to do this? Shouldn't we just wait and see what he does? No!
There's a great deal of power and trillions of dollars of money at stake in
keeping things as they are, from the military industry, the new "security"
industry, the media industry, the oil industry, the banking industry,
from many
sorts of powerful constituencies. They speak with confidence, calling
Obama's
Bush- and Clinton-era appointments "pragmatic" and "non-ideological".
Beware of such labels: "pragmatism" implies not questioning assumptions,
such as the
assumption that the US has an inalienable right to use military force
anywhere in
the world, that major changes to the way we use energy or provide health
care are
just not feasible, that "free market" practices serve our people well,
that erosion
of civil liberties and use of torture are regrettable but necessary.
That's why...
Obama Needs a Protest Movement [*]
Obama is being compared with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who brought in
the New Deal,
the fruits of which (Social Security, labor protections, infrastructure
creation, ...)
we still depend on. But as Frances Fox Piven[*] and others argue, FDR
didn't and
wouldn't have done it alone: "mass protests [...] forced him to make
choices he
would otherwise have avoided [...] the rise of protest movements forced
the new
president and the Democratic Congress to become bold reformers."
Obama and the Congress need our pressure now to resist pressure from our
opponents,
who are not waiting. We must call on the Administration to carry out
the best of
Obama's promises, and to do other things which he has not promised. Join
us [**],
join other groups, act on your own, but act. Write letters to the
editor, to the new
Administration, to Congress. Make signs and demonstrate. Talk with
your neighbors.
Some things AWARE [**] calls on the new Administration and Congress to do:
- Withdraw from Iraq *all* US troops, *and* all military contractors.
The Iraqi Parliament agreed to a 2011 deadline, but don't wait.
Make it plain that the US will keep no military bases there.
- End the war in Afghanistan. As in Iraq, our invasion violates
international law;
and as in Iraq, our violent presence there only strengthens our
opponents. Even
our own military have acknowledged that military means will not
suffice in
Afghanistan. Encourage the Afghan government's efforts to
negotiate with the
Taliban, including all who are willing to talk.
- Cease illegal and counterproductive incursions into Pakistan,
Syria, Somalia, ...
- Renew US efforts to resolve Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including
dismantling
West Bank settlements. Support the 2002 Arab League offer for
peace in exchange
for a return to the 1967 borders and agreement on refugee status.
Negotiate with
Hamas (as 64% of Israelis support doing) -- they won free and fair
elections.
- Put our vast military spending, including our own weapons of mass
destruction,
on the table for cuts.
- Close Guantanamo Bay, and end use of torture, as promised, and
promptly.
- Whether by prosecution of those who created and justified the
policies, or by a
Truth Commission, ensure that the world and the US people know we
understand that
wars of aggression, torture and arbitrary imprisonment are never
acceptable.
- Talk with Iran, as promised, without preconditions. Reestablish US
diplomatic
representation. Make clear that the US will accept a peaceful
Iranian nuclear power
program under international supervision. Seek Iran's help in
resolving Middle East
conflicts, including in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel/Palestine, and
Lebanon.
- Rethink our policies toward Central America and Latin America. End our
long-running, counterproductive embargo against Cuba, and open a dialog
with the Cuban government. Repair relations with Venezuela and
Bolivia,
including restoring Bolivia's preferential access to US markets.
- Repudiate the Bush Administration's signing statements, and the
whole notion
that a President can override laws by fiat. Stop this terrible
precedent now.
[*] http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081201/piven
Article by Frances Fox Piven's in the Dec. 1, 2008 issue of The Nation
[**] http://www.anti-war.net/ AWARE meets every Sunday at 5PM in the
basement
of the Independent Media Center, Broadway & Elm, Urbana.
==========================================
On 1/7/17 7:13 AM, Ricky Baldwin via Peace-discuss wrote:
> It is interesting to note that this flyer from the Bush-Obama
> transition nowhere mentions Bush, who started the specific wars in
> question (at least in their most recent form) and includes specific
> calls to action (phone numbers, etc.) to reach the president-elect,
> yet the new flyer for the Obama-Trump transition seemingly can't let
> go of beating up Obama for his crimes and hardly mentions Trump
> hypocrisy in any equivalent way or specifically calls on people to
> petition their government.
>
> An effective flyer would not only challenge and inform (agitate and
> educate) but tap into thoughts and feelings in its intended audience
> to move people into action (organize). I hope the goal is always to
> encourage resistance and opposition to war and racism and not simply
> to attack and distinguish oneself from people with whom one may disagree.
>
> Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__overview.mail.yahoo.com_mobile_-3F.src-3DAndroid&d=DQMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=_iuwmBDMEAIAz6k1h--JVoji6x5mlDiImSbbdIp2zWg&m=CqI0N3yfQ0MZypd6ALsNrtyIUCXEVQ2o_g-RUzsJS2Q&s=nBgGCb02ptyc6F9MYtmL1YurYyIqa7xo-CRiXiGPzOE&e=>
>
> On Fri, Jan 6, 2017 at 11:47 PM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss
> <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>
> Here’s a flyer that AWARE distributed eight years ago, as Bush was
> leaving office.
>
>
>> *U.S. WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST: AFGHANISTAN*
>>
>> Some people think that Barack Obama is poised for an historic
>> presidency that could unite this country and lead us to a better
>> future. He has talked of ending wars and negotiating
>> diplomatically with world leaders. Earlier this year he said,
>> */"I don't want to just end the war, I want to end the mindset
>> that got us into war." /*This talk and these positions gave us
>> some hope for peace in the world and an end to the millions of
>> killings. And millions of our people voted for Obama.
>>
>> *Just recently, though, he spoke of sending a surge of tens of
>> thousands of troops into Afghanistan.* *Whoa!* We already have
>> more than 30,000 U.S. troops there, in addition to more than
>> 140,000 troops and maybe 50,000 mercenaries in 17 permanent bases
>> in Iraq. And we will never "win" the war in Iraq, nor the one in
>> Afghanistan. How can we not have learned at least that much?
>> How can we kill one more person, one more old man, one more
>> woman, one more child? And how can we stand losing even one more
>> of our young men and women? And did you know that the recent
>> U.S. military death count in Afghanistan exceeds that in Iraq?
>>
>> Obama has made major appointments of people who have supported
>> the wars and the killings; these evoke serious concerns. *He must
>> defy the War Party and the corporate interests surrounding him*,
>> and pay homage to the millions of Americans who want real change
>> -- and the ones who voted for him and made him president.
>>
>> That which we do not resist, we may be forced to accept.
>> Millions of us want the wars to stop -- recent surveys suggest as
>> many as 70%-80%. Then anti-war movement needs to move
>> immediately to oppose this shift of the "central front" of the
>> fraudulent "war on terror" to Afghanistan. We must not be silent
>> and let the "surge" of American troops into Afghanistan become a
>> reality.
>>
>> The U.S. "war on terror," which began after the crimes of
>> September 11, 2001, was not just a campaign against the Taliban,
>> Al-Qaeda, and Osama bin Laden, but *a broad global war to control
>> Afghanistan and to the keep the U.S. the global superpower with
>> permanent domination over the Middle East.* It will be fought
>> the same way that the war in Iraq is being fought, where most of
>> he people killed are civilians. There is no such thing as a good
>> war on terror -- as Benjamin Franklin wrote on another September
>> 11, in 1773,
>>
>> /"After much occasion to consider the folly and mischiefs of a
>> state of warfare, and the little or no advantage obtained even by
>> those nations who have conducted it with the most success, I have
>> been apt to think /*/that there has never been, nor ever will be,
>> any such thing as /a good war, or a bad peace*/."/
>>
>> *We must show the people in the Middle East and in the world that
>> in the U.S. there is a difference between the people and the
>> government.* And we must stand up and show our government that
>> the great majority of us do not agree with more war.
>>
>> *Silence and passivity don't work.* We can't wait and see. The
>> "surge" must be stopped before it is started. We must be
>> visible, and we must be heard. Our world does not need any more
>> war.
>>
>> *We can write letters and make phone calls now -- right now! *
>> Obama (and Bush) needs to hear from us (202.456.1111) -- perhaps
>> we can remind him of his desire to */"end the war [and] end the
>> mindset that got us into war." /*Congressman Johnson needs to
>> hear from us (202.224.3121), and Senator Durbin needs to hear
>> from us (202.224.3121), and any other person whom we can tell
>> needs to hear from us. And we can all write and make phone calls...
>>
>> /###/
>>
>> {This comment, by Linda Weber, was cablecast on */AWARE on the
>> Air/* on 23 December 2008.
>> The program, presented by members and friends of the Anti-War
>> Anti-Racism Effort
>> of Champaign-Urbana, is seen every Tuesday at 10:00pm on cable
>> channel 6.}
>>
>>
>
>
>
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