From jbn at forestfield.org Thu Jan 2 02:30:49 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2020 20:30:49 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Notes Message-ID: Notes for items to discuss on News from Neptune. Have a good show guys. Happy new year! Theme: The beatings will continue until morale improves. -J Assange: ?Assange said, I?m slowly dying here? ? Friend recounts Christmas Eve call with WikiLeaks founder https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjQgED7mulI -- RT interview extracts https://cdnv.rt.com/files/2019.12/5e0a358085f54063ac3beb15.mp4 -- Full RT interview https://on.rt.com/a85u -- RT article RT remains one of the few places one can get drumbeat updates on Assange's status. Corporate-friendly media (including Democracy Now) simply don't bother to keep up with his court hearings, health status, insider (possibly leaked) video, and therefore you can tell this is not an important case for them. This case might well be something they'd rather you didn't know about at all. RT interviewed British journalist Vaughan Smith who is also Julian Assange's friend. Smith received a Christmas Eve call from Assange who is still in Belmarsh prison (a maximum security prison) being held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day. Smith noted that the WikiLeaks founder had trouble speaking. Assange's extradition hearing is pending and expected to last a couple of weeks. Given the reports of the obviously biased judge he's dealt with so far, this hearing is not expected to go well for Assange. Here's what Smith said: (Text from the YouTube-hosted video which has interview responses extracted from the other rt.com-hosted video): > Julian rang me because he spent Christmas with me and my family in 2010 > while on bail all that time ago. I think he wanted simply a few minutes > of escape and to talk to us because of the memories he had of that happy > memory. His speech was slurred, he was speaking slowly; now, Julian is a > highly articulate, very clear person when he speaks. And he sounded > awful and it was very upsetting to hear him. The idea of him being > sedated has come from several people who visited him who had clearly > been told. And the British government have been asked about it and they > refuse to address that matter. What they say is they're not mistreating > him but clearly he's being kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a > day. He sounded awful and he said to me that "I'm slowly dying here". He > said that also to my wife, not, of course, to my children. His father > keeps telling us this. His father is telling us this too. You know, we > must stop this. What I find so depressing, as a country, is that clearly > we harbor political prisoners, we have political prisoners because > that's exactly what he is. I didn't think that we were the sort of > country that mistreated them in this way. https://on.rt.com/a88c -- ?US is torturing Chelsea Manning?: Top UN official says her treatment is ?cruel and degrading? > Chelsea Manning is being subjected to cruel, inhumane and degrading > treatment, constituting torture by the US government over her refusal to > testify against whistleblower website WikiLeaks, a top United Nations > official has said. > > UN special rapporteur on torture Nils Melzer accused the government of > torturing Manning in a November letter, which was just released on > Tuesday. In the letter, Melzer wrote that Manning is suffering ?an > open-ended, progressively severe measure of coercion? which fulfils ?all > the constitutive elements of torture.? > > Manning, a former Army intelligence analyst, was arrested on May 16 > after she refused to testify against WikiLeaks before a grand jury. She > is still being detained at the Alexandria Detention Center in Virginia > and is facing fines of $1,000 a day. Nils Melzer tweeted https://twitter.com/NilsMelzer/status/1211819067503521792 > Just out: My official letter to #USGovt of 1 Nov 2019 explaining why > continued detention of @xychelsea is not a lawful sanction but an > open-ended, progressively severe coercive measure amounting to torture & > should be discontinued & abolished without delay https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMResultsBase/DownLoadPublicCommunicationFile?gId=24925 -- Nils Melzer's letter Media: Democracy Now executive director and host Amy Goodman repeat corporate talking points, miss several countervailing points while Goodman reiterated her now years-old speech about the media and media responsibility. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpGgvLZpeV4 -- About 3 weeks ago Amy Goodman was the subject of an "Intercept" interview with Intercept co-founder and former Democracy Now journalist Jeremy Scahill. Part of the interview concerned the media: > Jeremy Scahill: It's kind of fascinating the evolution or devolution, > however you want to view it, of the way journalists and large news > organizations handle these situations because you will have on any given > day on cable news many many Democrats -- politicians, pundits, whatever > a Democratic strategist is -- and they're all talking about how we can't > trust anything that the Trump administration says. And then you have, > oh, when it comes to Israel policy, or certain issues around Saudi > Arabia, or now Iran, where you have very prominent Democrats who claim > to believe that Trump is the greatest threat ever to American democracy > who are actively promoting this administration's case for war. And you > do see some news organizations picking up on that and saying 'Yes, he's > dangerous, but on this issue it's about our national security'. > > Amy Goodman: The media, obviously, is extremely critical of Trump on a > number of issues. And I think you should be critical of those in power, > holding those in power accountable. The reason they found their backbone > is because he's directly attacking them and he has from the beginning of > his presidency, you know, 'the media is enemy of the people', he keeps > intoning and he names the news organizations, he names journalists, and > he targets them. So they're standing up, as they should. Except when it > comes to foreign policy. When President Trump bombs Syria, you know, you > had the networks CNN and MSNBC, when he dropped that MOAB -- the Mother > of All Bombs -- in Afghanistan that was developed by Bush that was not > dropped by Bush or Obama, within a few weeks Trump is dropping this in > Afghanistan with no clear reason why and you have both Brian Williams on > MSNBC and Fareed Zakharia on CNN in these cases saying that's when he > became president. > > [We hear clips of Zakharia saying this is "when [Trump] became President > of the United States, I think this was actually a big moment" and > Williams saying "we see these beautiful pictures at night from the decks > of these two US Navy vessels in the Eastern Mediterranean. I am tempted > to quote the great Leonard Cohen 'I am guided by the beauty of our > weapons'] > > Amy Goodman (continues): They cannot diverge from the President even as > try to protect themselves from him attacking them. > > Jeremy Scahill: Well, I would add another issue to that: the issue of > the targeting of journalists and journalistic sources. I mean, it was > like a national scandal when Jim Acosta had his valuable press pass > taken away for, you know, some days. And it was drumbeat coverage of > this on CNN. And yet you have had record numbers of prosecutions of > journalistic sources beginning with Reality Winner; this administration > has gone after The Intercept. And you had Daniel Pail, the alleged drone > whistleblower, facing 50 years in prison. Julian Assange, 18 criminal > counts alleging espionage, could spend more than a century and a half in > prison if he ends up being extradited to the United States. And you see > no solidarity there. If Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers > today, many many news organizations, journalists, media figures, > politicians would all be talking about the crime that he committed, and > he needs to pay the price for what he's done. And yes, I understand > this, but there are official channels to go through. I mean it's > remarkable, I don't care how many movies Tom Hanks is in about the > Pentagon Papers, the fact of the matter remains that largely in this > country there remains no journalistic solidarity when it's happening in > realtime. > > Amy Goodman: It is a critical issue that there is press solidarity. I > mean that makes the difference, because how do people learn about the > world if they don't know something personally about a country or a > person? They learn about it through the media and that's why it's so > critical. It can't just happen once. It's the drumbeat, front page > coverage that matters. And in this case, this matters enormously. > Whether it's Julian Assange, or Chelsea Manning, who remains in jail; > we're talking about a whistleblower, we're talking about a publisher. > And everyone has to take a stand cause it isn't even only about them > it's about everyone. The media is essential to the functioning of a > democratic society. The media's releasing information is about people's > right to know. When the media releases information, people can, when > they know something, do something about it. And that's why it's so > critical. Yes, it is critical that the media not act as a conveyor belt > for the lies of an administration, the lies so often take lives, but > exposes mean that people live. I think that the above does not represent a fair analysis of either Goodman's recent journalism or how her show has changed around the time of the 2016 US presidential election. During 2003 and the run-up to the war in Iraq, her show was easily recommendable. She'd repeat the New York Times' front page lies and then immediately debunk them by quoting people who knew better such as the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), Hans Blix's group, who clearly said that the narrative of Iraqi WMDs was untrue and did not reflect their experience from on-the-ground inspections. During the early part of that invasion, Democracy Now told the audience they were running reports from "unembedded" journalists -- journalists who didn't go with the militaries that invaded and occupied Iraq -- and this set DN apart from the corporate media which took pride in their "embedded" reports, showing us only what the establishment (courtesy of the military) wanted us to see. Around and after the 2016 election, things at DN changed. Goodman started repeating talking points that avoided making the Democratic Party (and Hillary Clinton's campaign) look bad without any counternarrative. It would be up to guests to debunk a corporate-friendly narrative (such as Glenn Greenwald debunking Russiagate stories). I don't give DN much credit for that because DN is a live show which means guests don't speak for the show and live airing makes editing out counterspeech obvious and clumsy. The headline segments are another matter entirely: in the headline segments you get nothing but what DN wants you to know. Some points in this Intercept interview require some unpacking because the interview leaves out salient details that could help us reach a different conclusion than this non-challenging interview would have us believe: * Scahill mentioned Reality Winner -- Winner was an intelligence contractor accused of leaking classified NSA documents about alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election, leaked information to The Intercept. About an hour after The Intercept's publication of these NSA documents, the Justice Department announced it had arrested Winner charging her with violating the Espionage Act. How did the documents come to be identified as coming from Winner? Someone at The Intercept vetted the documents' veracity by sharing unredacted documents with the government and asking the US government if the documents were theirs. In June 2017 the New York Times published a few paragraphs on this which explain the situation. From https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/06/business/media/intercept-reality-winner-russia-trump-leak.html > The Intercept said it did not know the identity of its source, who > mailed the document in a plain envelope. But an F.B.I. affidavit > released on Monday described a series of actions by the news outlet, > such as sharing a copy of the document with the National Security > Agency, that allowed the document?s provenance to be quickly deduced. > > ?I haven?t seen a mistake this consequential before,? said Barton > Gellman, who reported for The Washington Post on the leaks provided by > Edward J. Snowden. > > In an interview, Mr. Gellman said The Intercept?s scoop was ?a really > good story? from a professional organization that ?knows a lot about > this stuff ? they have arguably the best operational security experts in > journalism over there.? > > ?So it?s baffling that they didn?t make use of them,? he added. > > National-security reporting is specialized, but journalists in the field > said Tuesday that The Intercept had appeared to ignore some basic > tenets. > > Sharing an original document when asking questions of government > officials, as The Intercept appears to have done, can expose metadata > and high-tech watermarks that may reveal a leaker?s identity. And an > affidavit asserts that The Intercept revealed to a second contractor > that the document was mailed from Augusta, Ga., where Ms. Winner > resides. Barton Gellman should become more familiar with WikiLeaks' setup; there's only one organization to leak to, according to CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou, that's WikiLeaks. As to the likelihood Gellman and the NYT has the correct story here: it's plausible. Printer microdots are tiny dots on the backside of a printed page coming out of a modern laser printer. These dots can be found (if one looks for them) and used to identify a specific print job ID. Looking up the print job ID in the print logs can identify which user printed the job, on which printer, and at which time. So it's possible that Winner used her office's printer to print the leaked documents and then sent those documents in a plain envelope to The Intercept. And then The Intercept revealed way too much information in its hamfisted method of authenticating the documents. None of this is mentioned in Scahill & Goodman's interview. * Goodman said "you should be critical of those in power, holding those in power accountable" but she's been that "conveyor belt for the lies of an administration" on Russiagate (repeating and never debunking the lies of Russiagate which lead to, among other things, Russian sanctions which help injure and kill people as sanctions do everywhere else the US imposes them: Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, etc.). Goodman also repeatedly hosts Marcy Wheeler, a Russiagate repeater whom former DN journalist Aaron Mate has interviewed and debunked during his brief tenure at The Real News. Goodman also echoes and never debunks reports of what happened in the Skripal poisonings (in Salisbury, England in early March 2018). Similar poisonings also later happened in the same city which killed one person. There are many questions worth raising there but you're not likely to hear them on Democracy Now. All DN offers are a series of 1-paragraph headline stories (8 mentioning "Skripal") none of which incentivize the audience to ask about the details of the story such as why the attacks occur so close to a British chemical lab (like the one needed to formulate the alleged "nerve agent"), what involvement the Russian state has in this versus other non-state Russians such as the Russian mafia (as Seymour Hirsch told RT). DN offers enough information on this to support the Russiagate narrative and nothing to challenge that narrative. Goodman also echoes a corporate-compatible line on the recent alleged gas attack in Douma, Syria. Evidence at the time suggested that attack never happened, and the leaked reports from OPCW (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) engineers say that the official OPCW report was untrue -- the gas canisters found on the scene were most likely "manually placed" and not dropped from the air. WikiLeaks has helped convey this OPCW information to us, and RT has been far more forthcoming with this story as it unfolds than Democracy Now. The mishandling of both the alleged Douma gas attack and Russiagate were cause for Aaron Mate to quit his job at DN. Mate would also leave The Real News and The Intercept for comparable reasons. Today he publishes with The Grayzone Project (with Ben Norton, Anya Parampil, and Max Blumenthal) on his own YouTube show "Pushback with Aaron Mate" and has won an Izzy award for his Russiagate debunking. None of this is mentioned in Scahill & Goodman's interview. * Jeremy Scahill mentioned "the issue of the targeting of journalists and journalistic sources". but left out what CNN's Jake Tapper told Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post on-air: "the Obama administration has used the Espionage Act to go after whistleblowers who leaked to journalists ... more than all previous administrations combined". Neither Obama's name nor his alarming statistic come up in this interview but this clip could have been found and the audio replayed (as The Intercept did for other portions of this interview). Goodman doesn't bring this up either. * Jeremy Scahill goes on to mention the 2018 kerfuffle involving CNN's Jim Acosta but it's not quite clear that Acosta's brief loss of press credentials pales in comparison to RT's under-pressure loss of capitol credentials in December 2017. Also, RT gets no mention in this Intercept interview, despite Goodman and Scahill agreeing that realtime "journalistic solidarity" is critical. RT was threatened with a FARA (Foreign Agents Registration Act) violation. You may have heard of FARA in the context of Russian gun rights activist Maria Butina who was smeared by the US government, charged with and convicted of a FARA violation. Butina recently finished serving prison time for her conviction and was deported to Russia. RT was put in a tough spot which is both unfair and requires extra work from them seemingly because they're Russian and they challenge the US Russiagate narrative. If RT didn't comply -- including RT America which is, as Redacted Tonight's host Lee Camp tells us at the start of every show since being threatened with FARA violation, "Where Americans in America covering American news are called foreign agents" -- RT would lose all credentials to be in the briefing sessions with other press. If they did comply, more work awaits them. Meanwhile other state-owned foreign news outlets (the BBC and France 24, to name a couple) were not similarly threatened or forced to do what RT does. RT explained: From https://on.rt.com/91l2 > Concerned that Americans may be watching ?foreign propaganda? (or > something different than what is offered on the mainstream media menu) > Representatives Seth Moulton (D-MA) and Elise Stefanik (R-NY) introduced > the Countering Foreign Propaganda Act. > > In practice, it would force RT to do even more reporting to the US > government than it currently does under the Foreign Agents Registration > Act (FARA) and will also force it to broadcast every 30 minutes a > message saying it is funded by, and is ?under editorial control? of, a > foreign government. Apparently, the Federal Communications Commission > (FCC) will also be the arbiter of who is under editorial control and who > is not, because the BBC and France 24 would not be forced to disclose > the origins of their funding, according to Foreign Policy (FP) ? > presumably, because their messaging is simply accidentally, sort of, in > line with that of the British and French governments respectively. > > RT?s stance on a potential crackdown in the US was summarized by its > editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonyan: ?When the high from FARA is no > longer hard enough, the representatives switch to even harder > legislation.? This unfair approach to foreign so-called "agents" and propaganda continues to this day. You can see this announcement of foreign control and the increased logging requirements at the start of other RT America shows such as Chris Hedges' program "On Contact" and "Redacted Tonight". In https://on.rt.com/8um6 RT wrote: > Dave Lindorff, investigative journalist and founder of the news website > This Can?t Be Happening, believes that evicting RT from the US Congress > serves only to further demonize Russia, and that Russia will likely > remain the only victim. > > ?I think this is all focused on demonizing Russia and it has to do with > the military-industrial complex wanting to have an enemy and people > getting tired of the war on terror, so why not to have the revival of a > sort of Cold War. That?s a great way to get money for weapons systems, > like, really expensive ones,? Lindorff said. > > Since Russia is such a convenient scapegoat, Lindorff suggested that > pushing the anti-Russian narrative may come in handy for US Congress > members from both sides of the aisle, as it ?allows a congressperson > without having really to do anything to go back to their voters and say: > 'Oh, I?m taking a tough stand against this Russian interference in our > democratic system.'? > > The continuing anti-Russian hysteria has also been fueled by the > Democratic leadership, which is still ?trying steer people away from the > idea that they blew away the election by pushing the nomination of > Hillary Clinton who then blew the elections,? Lindorff argued. Amy Goodman and Democracy Now present no information about nor challenge to the inequities of Russiagate, RT's additional burdens, and thus offer no journalistic solidarity with the journalists of RT. * In regard to Trump calling the media the enemy of the people, Trump has more of a point than Goodman describes in this interview. Let's not forget that the vast majority of the corporate media repeatedly predicted that Hillary Clinton would win the presidency in 2016. She lost and few in the media bothered to explain either that they were woefully wrong or tell their audience that they'd understand why the public would have so little trust for their methods. This alone represents a huge problem for anyone to conclude that Trump's media disdain is entirely without merit; every time we're reminded that he's POTUS versus what we were all told while he was a candidate is a sharp reminder of the failure of so much of the media. Right now, Bernie Sanders is getting less coverage on MSNBC than Amy Klobuchar despite his polling 7 times higher than Klobuchar. Kyle Kulinsky (known as "Secular Talk" on YouTube) posted about this in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9tnDuqJu2o -- a recent research project (the GDELT project) which tracked the number of mentions each Democratic Party presidential candidate received from December 16, 2019 through December 22, 2019 and compared the results to their polling popularity and their share of MSNBC mentions, and then listed the difference. See https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EMnRI-HXUAAMvkk.jpg for this chart. The largest difference is 11.9 points for Bernie Sanders -- Sanders got 238 mentions, making up 9.9% of MSNBC coverage but is polling at 21.8%, second only to Joe Biden at 30.4%. Most other candidates are within 4 points of difference between their polling and mentions on MSNBC (Buttigieg had 6.5 points difference and Klobuchar had 7 points difference). There's a reason people are using the "#BernieBlackout" hashtag on Twitter, and part of that is not just how he's being treated now but how this echoes his treatment by corporate media in 2016 (in other words, this isn't new and it's not surprising). Other examples include Russiagate stories like the Washington Post article claiming Russians are taking over the US electrical grid via a Vermont power station, virtually every episode of the Rachel Maddow show since Trump was duly elected (Aaron Mate in his Intercept article showed that Russigate stories make up the majority of Maddow's show's focus), the widespread repetition of various lies stemming from the debunked Steele dossier including that Trump urinated on a Russian prostitute while having extramarital sex, and the recent admissions from the Inspector General's report on 2016 FBI spying on Trump campaign members (spying which Trump has long alleged to be true but those with Trump Derangement Syndrome have argued never happened). The recent publication of the Afghan papers from the Washington Post clearly state that the Bush and Obama administrations had no idea who our Afghan enemies were, where they were, and yet we're now in our third administration to continue that war at the cost of billions every year. This WaPo report is only getting real coverage in the alternative media. A separate report about trillions of dollars which are unaccounted for in the first-ever Defense Dept. audit also gets covered only in alternative media (except for DN). These points also go to why so many people have no reason to believe the mainstream media when they tell us the US can't afford something (a counterpoint never raised to justify killing people). The Intercept has undergone a transformation as well: when it began it had a much smaller writing staff, they published far less frequently, and their publications were something to look forward to because each story was of high quality and stood up to inquiry. As the writing staff grew it became clear they were hiring people whose work was of a lesser quality; the kind of articles one finds in the New York Times (which still enjoys a largely undeserved good reputation). In https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsY70_uIXNc or https://theintercept.com/2018/02/21/intercepted-podcast-russiamania-glenn-greenwald-vs-james-risen/ Glenn Greenwald and Jim Risen debate the Trump/Russia investigation and the article where Risen wrote: https://theintercept.com/2018/02/16/trump-russia-election-hacking-investigation/ > But if a presidential candidate or his lieutenants secretly work with a > foreign government that is a longtime adversary of the United States to > manipulate and then win a presidential election, that is almost a > textbook definition of treason. Which Greenwald, a Constitutional lawyer, called "Not just wrong but dangerously wrong" and then Greenwald explained clearly why he found Risen to be so wrong (pointing to the excellent article from James Vladeck https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/americans-have-forgotten-what-treason-actually-means-how-it-can-ncna848651 ). Despite the facts Greenwald raised in this debate, despite Vladeck's clear counterpoint to Risen's aforementioned assertion, Risen continues to defend Russiagate today. Greenwald said early on in this debate that Risen is "one of my heroes in journalism" but the devastating evidence to the contrary Greenwald brought is unignorable -- we are given ample reason to discount what Risen wrote, dismissing his input just as we do with so many other Russiagators. President Trump lies on important issues quite a bit. But this isn't unique to Trump; remember Obama's "If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor"? That was a lie Obama took on tour across the country. The media most Americans are exposed to every day is riddled with what Trump famously calls "fake news". That term, fake news, has staying power precisely because it's not that hard to find fake news. But to listen to Amy Goodman in this Intercept interview you'd think that Trump's low opinion of the corporate media is entirely unjustified. -J From jbn at forestfield.org Thu Jan 2 07:31:42 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 01:31:42 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?q?Followup_on_the_ongoing_OPCW_scandal?= =?utf-8?q?=3A_Aaron_Mat=C3=A9_interviews_Theodore_Postol_on_=22Pushback?= =?utf-8?q?=22?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I wrote: > Goodman also echoes a corporate-compatible line on the recent alleged gas attack in Douma, Syria. > Evidence at the time suggested that attack never happened, and the leaked reports from OPCW > (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) engineers say that the official OPCW report > was untrue -- the gas canisters found on the scene were most likely "manually placed" and not > dropped from the air. WikiLeaks has helped convey this OPCW information to us, and RT has been far > more forthcoming with this story as it unfolds than Democracy Now. > > The mishandling of both the alleged Douma gas attack and Russiagate were cause for Aaron Mate to > quit his job at DN. Mate would also leave The Real News and The Intercept for comparable reasons. > Today he publishes with The Grayzone Project (with Ben Norton, Anya Parampil, and Max Blumenthal) on > his own YouTube show "Pushback with Aaron Mate" and has won an Izzy award for his Russiagate debunking. > > None of this is mentioned in Scahill & Goodman's interview. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IML3FpuLH_Q (31m02s) -- Aaron Mat?'s interview of Theodore Postol, a great summary and update on this ongoing scandal which threatens the legitimacy of the OPCW. This scandal is also reaffirms the importance of WikiLeaks as one of the most important publishers of our time. I still maintain that Amy Goodman's dismissive review of Pres. Trump's media chastisement is problematic. The issue of what to make of the modern media is more complicated and includes failures of Goodman's own news outlet Democracy Now, which I believe Mat? chastised without naming when he introduced the above interview thusly: > One of the biggest stories of 2019 was undoubtedly the OPCW's Syria scandal -- a coverup inside > the world's top chemical watchdog that was used to justify US-led military strikes on Syria. > [...K]ey findings [...] were kept from the public when the OPCW published its final report. > Ignoring its own data and experts, the OPCW concluded that there were "reasonable grounds that > the use of a toxic chemical as a weapon took place... This toxic chemical contained reactive > chlorine.". But even now as the suppressed findings come out via brave whistleblowers and > WikiLeaks, they are still being kept from the public. That is because the Western media, > including top progressive adversarial outlets, have ignored or whitewashed the story. And that > media self-censorship has become a scandal in itself. -J From jbn at forestfield.org Thu Jan 2 09:06:28 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 03:06:28 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?q?Followup_on_the_ongoing_OPCW_scandal?= =?utf-8?q?=3A_Aaron_Mat=C3=A9_interviews_Theodore_Postol_on_=22Pushback?= =?utf-8?q?=22?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <43c3760f-abe8-1b8c-72c4-c45a03108b15@forestfield.org> I wrote: > I still maintain that Amy Goodman's dismissive review of Pres. Trump's media chastisement is > problematic. The issue of what to make of the modern media is more complicated and includes failures > of Goodman's own news outlet Democracy Now, which I believe Mat? chastised without naming when he > introduced the above interview thusly: > >> One of the biggest stories of 2019 was undoubtedly the OPCW's Syria scandal -- a coverup inside >> the world's top chemical watchdog that was used to justify US-led military strikes on Syria. >> [...K]ey findings [...] were kept from the public when the OPCW published its final report. >> Ignoring its own data and experts, the OPCW concluded that there were "reasonable grounds that >> the use of a toxic chemical as a weapon took place... This toxic chemical contained reactive >> chlorine.". But even now as the suppressed findings come out via brave whistleblowers and >> WikiLeaks, they are still being kept from the public. That is because the Western media, >> including top progressive adversarial outlets, have ignored or whitewashed the story. And that >> media self-censorship has become a scandal in itself. Just to be clear and thorough about this, here's what Aaron Mat? said about The Intercept and Democracy Now on this at 18m46s into https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IML3FpuLH_Q : > Aaron Mat?: I want to also point out that this is not just the corporate media who, you know, > there's a history there of the corporate media silencing stories that undermine establishment > narratives. But in this case I've been really disappointed to see that this extends to > adversarial progressive media as well. Now I want to ask you about two examples: one is The > Intercept -- they've published a number of stories that advance the narrative that Assad was > guilty of this attack. You were interviewed for a story that offered sort of a, that took sort of > a neutral stance on it; it was sort of back and forth, it was back in February 2019. Since these > revelations have come out nothing in The Intercept at all; have they contacted you at all for an > interview-- > > Theodore Postol: No, no, no. Not at all. > > Aaron Mat?: Okay. Democracy Now, which is a very prominent progressive show. The reason I had > your phone number to be able to interview you here at The Grayzone is because I used to work > there for 10 years and we used to interview you pretty often, especially when you did your work > around Gaza exposing that the Iron Dome missile system sold to Israel by the US was basically a > fraud. Have they contacted you at all? > > Theodore Postol: No, no, no. Dead silence from them. So it seems that Mat? was chastising both The Intercept and Democracy Now, by name, and rightly so. Toward the end of the interview watch Postol's reaction to the New York Times seriously publishing that Bellingcat co-founder Eliot Higgins "attributed his skill not to any special knowledge of international conflicts or digital data, but to the hours he had spent playing video games, which, he said, gave him the idea that any mystery can be cracked." (from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/01/business/media/open-source-journalism-bellingcat.html ). Postol's reaction is remarkable, correct, and part of the reason why one should have a lower opinion of the New York Times. -J From jbn at forestfield.org Thu Jan 2 09:13:06 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 03:13:06 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Why is peace-discuss Cc:ing the poster? Message-ID: <9f6ad99f-4ff9-2b8c-1e2a-938427aeec25@forestfield.org> Since 2020 began (or thereabouts) I've noticed that peace-discuss adds a Cc: to the poster on each post to the list. Why? Can this be disabled? From jbn at forestfield.org Thu Jan 2 09:17:33 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2020 03:17:33 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Why is peace-discuss Cc:ing the poster? In-Reply-To: <9f6ad99f-4ff9-2b8c-1e2a-938427aeec25@forestfield.org> References: <9f6ad99f-4ff9-2b8c-1e2a-938427aeec25@forestfield.org> Message-ID: I wrote: > Since 2020 began (or thereabouts) I've noticed that peace-discuss adds a Cc: to the poster on each > post to the list. Why? Can this be disabled? A correction: peace-discuss does this when one sets a Reply-To: header pointing to the list address. How should I properly indicate to this list that I will pick up replies posted to the list on the list, and that I don't need another copy sent to me? From karenaram at hotmail.com Fri Jan 3 12:57:12 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2020 04:57:12 -0800 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Article by a friend of whats to come for 2020, it doesn't mention our upcoming war with Iran which adds to the doom and gloom Message-ID: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/2020-more-conflict-social-unrest-environment-damage-by-isabel-ortiz-2019-12?fbclid=IwAR2bLseIrF3jLS_Pib7h -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Fri Jan 3 17:59:39 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2020 09:59:39 -0800 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Prof. Morandi always makes a lot of sense Message-ID: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLARRLypGFs&fbclid=IwAR0b9Xx36fk-mhiZDWwmXydjRB5BW5A-Fi8PRmSPF668XOXlIxeDepcdV_A -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbn at forestfield.org Sat Jan 4 06:18:07 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2020 00:18:07 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] News from Neptune #446 notes Message-ID: <48670f93-ea3a-8c12-508b-8843c6c90e0b@forestfield.org> News from Neptune #446 A "War with Iran? A Trap for Trump?" edition A list of links to items referenced on the show. Tucker Carlson Tonight show https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlTLHnxSVuIzrARlmz9oCfQEF08UV-v-E Ben Norton on Trump's war with Iran https://twitter.com/BenjaminNorton/status/1212915105429635073 Anti-War Anti-Racism Effort https://anti-war.net Karen Aram's post to the Peace mailing list about the Saturday, January 4, 2020 National Day of Action -- U.S. Troops Out of Iraq! https://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace/2020-January/015558.html The Angry Arab (As`ad AbuKhalil) on twitter.com https://twitter.com/asadabukhalil http://angryarab.blogspot.com/ -- blog The Angry Arab on Consortium News https://consortiumnews.com/tag/asad-abukhalil/ Belt and Road Initiative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative Pepe Escobar on "The Peer Competitor to the US Has Now Emerged: The Russia-China Strategic Partnership" https://www.checkpointasia.net/the-peer-competitor-to-the-us-has-now-emerged-the-russia-china-strategic-partnership/ https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/06/article/putin-and-xi-step-up-the-strategic-game/ Statement by the U.S. Department of Defense on taking "decisive defensive action" to kill Qasem Soleimani https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Releases/Release/Article/2049534/statement-by-the-department-of-defense/ Precarious work https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precarious_work Trita Parsi on Democracy Now regarding Assassination of Iranian General https://www.democracynow.org/2020/1/3/trita_parsi_us_assassination_of_iranian Yassin al-Haj Saleh on Democracy Now regarding Assad's government https://www.democracynow.org/2020/1/2/syria_idlib_offensive_russia_assad The Grayzone's Syria articles (Ben Norton, Max Blumenthal, and Aaron Mat? are each with The Grayzone now) https://thegrayzone.com/category/syria/ Moon of Alabama on "U.S. Will Come To Regret Its Assassination of Qassim Soleimani" https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/01/us-will-come-to-regret-its-assassination-of-qassim-soleimani.html Gary Brecher's "The War Nerd" https://www.nsfwcorp.com/desk/war-nerd/ https://twitter.com/TheWarNerd mailto:radiowarnerd at gmail.com Shervin Malekzadeh on "Boys Go to Baghdad, Real Men Go to Tehran" https://lobelog.com/boys-go-to-baghdad-real-men-go-to-tehran/ https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/06/15/boys-go-baghdad-real-men-go-tehran Jerri-Lynn Scofield on "Boys Go to Baghdad. Men Go to Tehran." https://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2019/05/boys-go-to-baghdad-men-go-to-tehran.html https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/05/boys-go-to-baghdad-men-go-to-tehran.html Julie Wurth on "Local ACLU, NAACP chapters air concerns on achievement gaps in Unit 4" https://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/education/local-aclu-naacp-chapters-air-concerns-on-achievement-gaps-in/article_861752a7-b070-54de-a488-b1e91031cbd7.html Related: Juliann Xu on "Unit 4 must address achievement gap" https://www.news-gazette.com/opinion/guest-commentary/guest-commentary-unit-must-address-achievement-gap/article_3bdc67f6-454d-5c5e-95fc-2000d268a6fb.html David Green's most recent letter to the editor of the News-Gazette responding to the above News-Gazette articles https://www.news-gazette.com/opinion/letters-editor/letter-to-the-editor-greed-to-blame-for-disparities/article_8287c6ef-77dc-5eb7-a09c-21bc2fcd8b51.html The News-Gazette "Editorial Board" (per the credit line) editorial https://www.news-gazette.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-same-subject-different-time/article_65c76d43-d975-538e-a990-54d34b7efea1.html Basic income (also known as "Universal Basic Income" or "UBI") https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income Tom Mackaman on "An interview with historian Gordon Wood on the New York Times? 1619 Project" https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/11/28/wood-n28.html Tom Mackaman on "An interview with historian James McPherson on the New York Times? 1619 Project" https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/11/14/mcph-n14.html All pages on the wsws.org site mentioning "1619 project" https://www.wsws.org/en/search.html?sectionId=&maxResults=100&phrase=1619+project&submit=Search Carol & Aaron Ammons on "Higher Ground" on WEFT http://new.weft.org/audio/2019/higherground/HigherGround_2019-12-21.mp3 Larry Elliott on "Thomas Piketty's new War and Peace-sized book published on Thursday" https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/sep/09/thomas-pikettys-new-magnum-opus-published-on-thursday "Capital in the Twenty-first Century" by Thomas Piketty ISBN-10: 0674979850 ISBN-13: 978-0674979857 Complete book: https://dowbor.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/14Thomas-Piketty.pdf David Harvey's Anti-Capitalist Chronicles https://anticapitalistchronicles.libsyn.com/ RSS feed: https://anticapitalistchronicles.libsyn.com/rss January 2, 2020 episode: https://anticapitalistchronicles.libsyn.com/from-fordism-to-neoliberalism-and-beyond Populism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populism J.B. Nicholson's notes https://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/2019-December/051610.html https://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace/2020-January/015559.html -J From jbn at forestfield.org Sat Jan 4 06:20:08 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2020 00:20:08 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] News from Neptune #446 notes In-Reply-To: <48670f93-ea3a-8c12-508b-8843c6c90e0b@forestfield.org> References: <48670f93-ea3a-8c12-508b-8843c6c90e0b@forestfield.org> Message-ID: J.B. Nicholson wrote: > News from Neptune #446 > A "War with Iran? A Trap for Trump?" edition > > A list of links to items referenced on the show. I accidentally left out the URL of the video. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uWh2VP7qkg -J From karenaram at hotmail.com Sat Jan 4 14:43:54 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2020 06:43:54 -0800 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?q?Fwd=3A_jeremy_scahill_shared_=22Trump_?= =?utf-8?q?Is_Doing_the_Bidding_of_Washington=E2=80=99s_Mo=2E=2E=2Eplus?= References: Message-ID: > > > > > > What?s happening > jeremy scahill shared? > > The Intercept > Trump Is Doing the Bidding of Washington?s Most Vile Cabal > There?s no justification for assassinating foreign officials, including Qassim Suleimani. This is an aggressive act o... > Read more at Twitter? > jeremy scahill shared? > > > The Intercept > Trump Is Doing the Bidding of Washington?s Most Vile Cabal > There?s no justification for assassinating foreign officials, including Qassim Suleimani. This is an aggressive act o... > Read more at Twitter? > Ben Norton shared? > > ABC News > Pentagon to deploy roughly 3,500 more troops to Middle East amid tensions with Iran > The Pentagon is deploying roughly 3,500 more troops to the Middle East in response to rising tensions in the region w... > Read more at Twitter? > Ben Norton shared? > > > ABC News > Pentagon to deploy roughly 3,500 more troops to Middle East amid tensions with Iran > The Pentagon is deploying roughly 3,500 more troops to the Middle East in response to rising tensions in the region w... > Read more at Twitter? > Ben Norton shared? > > Defend WikiLeaks > Mexican President Calls for Assange?s Freedom > Mexican President Calls for Assange?s Freedom At a press conference in Mexico City this morning, Mexican President An... > Read more at Twitter? > Ben Norton shared? > > > Defend WikiLeaks > Mexican President Calls for Assange?s Freedom > Mexican President Calls for Assange?s Freedom At a press conference in Mexico City this morning, Mexican President An... > Read more at Twitter? > Ben Norton shared? > > The New York Times > How Chase Bank Chairman Helped the Deposed Shah of Iran Enter the U.S. > The fateful decision in 1979 to admit Mohammed Reza Pahlavi prompted the seizure of the American Embassy in Tehran an... > Read more at Twitter? > Ben Norton shared? > > > The New York Times > How Chase Bank Chairman Helped the Deposed Shah of Iran Enter the U.S. > The fateful decision in 1979 to admit Mohammed Reza Pahlavi prompted the seizure of the American Embassy in Tehran an... > Read more at Twitter? > Ben Norton shared? > > U.S. > Iraqi parliament speaker condemns U.S. air strike: statement > Iraq's Speaker of Parliament Mohammed al-Halbousi condemned on Friday a U.S. air strike in Baghdad that killed Iran's... > Read more at Twitter? > Ben Norton shared? > > > U.S. > Iraqi parliament speaker condemns U.S. air strike: statement > Iraq's Speaker of Parliament Mohammed al-Halbousi condemned on Friday a U.S. air strike in Baghdad that killed Iran's... > Read more at Twitter? > Aaron Mat? shared? > > The Grayzone > Top 20 The Grayzone stories of 2019: From Venezuela coup attempt to Russiagate delusions, information warfa... > 2019 was a big year for The Grayzone. We traveled the world and broke many stories, exposing the empire's schemes and... > Read more at Twitter? > Aaron Mat? shared? > > > The Grayzone > Top 20 The Grayzone stories of 2019: From Venezuela coup attempt to Russiagate delusions, information warfa... > 2019 was a big year for The Grayzone. We traveled the world and broke many stories, exposing the empire's schemes and... > Read more at Twitter? > > Twitter, Inc. 1355 Market Street, Suite 900 San?Francisco,?CA?94103 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Sat Jan 4 17:10:03 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2020 09:10:03 -0800 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] News from Neptune #446 In-Reply-To: References: <48670f93-ea3a-8c12-508b-8843c6c90e0b@forestfield.org> Message-ID: Excellent discussion, most folks know I agree completely with David Green in relation to Carl?s overly positive attitude to Trump, attempting a defense. Our foreign policy being conducted by the ?permanent state,? is without doubt, but doesn?t excuse the President or Administration carrying out or implementing interventions, sanctions, invasions, bombings etc. We took this stand when it was a Democrat in the WH, and the same applies to the Republican in the WH. That being said, Carl is absolutely on target in respect to the broader picture and goals of our corporate capitalist system. We were disappointed when Chomsky warned against Trump leaving us with Hilary whom we knew was a warmonger, rather than Jill Stein as the third Party candidate whom we knew would not bow to corporate supporters. Wm. Blum, god rest his soul, warned us in 2016 of the consequences of a Trump administration being the neocons supporting him, and their goals of control of Iran. He made the point which I think makes a lot of sense after reading Zbigniew?s ?The Grand Chess Board,? that being control of Russia requires control of Iran, not Blums exact words, but that is the essence and we should recognize that Russia is necessary to preventing US control of China, they need each other. This has been the strategy since the ?White Paper,? as Carl has pointed out frequently. It?s important we focus on the system and the power behind the throne which we know does not share the same ?interests? thus they do differ in relation to tactics, but the end goal control of Eurasia by whatever means still stands. China is the ultimate goal, their markets as well as labor, and these ideas and discussions date back to the late 1800?s. Imperialism is the foundation holding up our capitalist system, as it continues to impoverish most of the working class around the world, it is the tool being used to support capitalism and must be defeated. One step in the process is focus on class as David points out frequently. In spite of the bad weather and some thinking that there will be no war with Iran, is it something to be ignored? Hope to see you all this afternoon protesting wars in the Middle East. > On Jan 3, 2020, at 22:20, J.B. Nicholson via Peace wrote: > > J.B. Nicholson wrote: >> News from Neptune #446 >> A "War with Iran? A Trap for Trump?" edition >> A list of links to items referenced on the show. > > I accidentally left out the URL of the video. > > Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uWh2VP7qkg > > -J > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace From davidgreen50 at gmail.com Sat Jan 4 18:15:43 2020 From: davidgreen50 at gmail.com (David Green) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2020 12:15:43 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] News from Neptune #446 notes In-Reply-To: References: <48670f93-ea3a-8c12-508b-8843c6c90e0b@forestfield.org> Message-ID: Also, the David Harvey episode I referred to was actually the 2nd most recent: https://anticapitalistchronicles.libsyn.com/global-unrest On Sat, Jan 4, 2020 at 12:20 AM J.B. Nicholson via Peace < peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote: > J.B. Nicholson wrote: > > News from Neptune #446 > > A "War with Iran? A Trap for Trump?" edition > > > > A list of links to items referenced on the show. > > I accidentally left out the URL of the video. > > Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uWh2VP7qkg > > -J > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbn at forestfield.org Sun Jan 5 01:37:19 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2020 19:37:19 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] The "war on alternative media" (RT, Grayzone, Jimmy Dore, etc.) is underway -- according to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR2ZMduQE2s Message-ID: It's not clear which sources will go away but that will depend on how much they can afford to stay around and how much spine they show in response to censorship from their media hosts. RT, for instance, has hosted more of their own videos on their website in addition to posting them to YouTube. I suspect this is because the YouTube copies can be unpublished but different measures will be needed to adversely affect distributing the copies hosted on the rt.com website. The coordinated attack on Infowars was a test/tech-demo of sorts, and that appears to have worked. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjWllto0Xzg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TZqRabzbZg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR2ZMduQE2s -- "Democrats Pretend to Oppose Iran Attack They Enabled" also includes discussion of how alternative media that challenges the establishment will go away. These URLs are pointers to 3 recent Jimmy Dore segments from last night's Max Blumenthal (of The Grayzone) interview which ran live at the time of the interview. Jimmy Dore's staff breaks up the interview into topic-based segments. Due to uttering 'swear' words, we can't run them on UPTV which means without some censorship, they can't be part of AWARE on the Air or News from Neptune. As Dore & Blumenthal point out, Tucker Carlson is perhaps the only mainstream media voice challenging the Iran attack. You can see auto-generated captions on all of them now if you turn that on via the YouTube viewer. If you prefer to watch the media by downloading it, consider using the free software[1] youtube-dl program (from https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl ) which will write these auto-generated subtitles to a file (and include the auto-translated subs too, if so desired). Keep in mind that unless the uploader provides subtitles, YouTube auto-generated subtitles are based on speech-to-text translation. The quality varies; sometimes they're rather impressive and sometimes laughably wrong. Auto-translation adds subtitles for over 100 other languages based on whatever subtitles an uploader supplies or YouTube generates via speech-to-text (hence you'll get translations in over 100 languages on the aforementioned videos despite that Jimmy Dore is not hiring a team of translators to do this work). -J [1] Software you are free to run, share, and modify. Once you get a copy, run "youtube-dl --update" to update it to the latest version and easily keep up with new versions which add support for downloading videos from more websites (not just YouTube, despite the name). From carl at newsfromneptune.com Sun Jan 5 19:25:42 2020 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2020 13:25:42 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] News from Neptune #446 In-Reply-To: References: <48670f93-ea3a-8c12-508b-8843c6c90e0b@forestfield.org> Message-ID: <1770E8B5-3955-4022-A1F0-6FC29FF4889E@newsfromneptune.com> I have no ?overly positive attitude to Trump.? I try to account for two things: (1) why Trump was elected (it wasn?t because most white voters are deplorable racists - the Democrat cover-story); and (2) why the political establishment is so desperate to remove him (they fear that he might act on his anti-war pledges from the campaign). The establishment?s job is to defend the one-percent?s foreign policy: war and war-provocations vs. Russia and China to retard Eurasian economic integration and so defend US world economic hegemony. Trump was the first major candidate in 40 years to attack the neocon (more war) and neolib (more austerity) policies of the Clinton/Bush/Obama administrations. Those attacks convinced enough voters - who of course knew what the US government was doing in their own lives, despite what the press said - to vote for him. They would have reelected him, if the ?permanent government' hadn?t convinced Trump to abandon those attacks and adopt the neolib & neocon policies he was attacking - now perhaps most disastrously in regard to war with Iran. Perhaps the most destructive thing good liberals have done is allow their politics to be reduced to ?ORANGE MAN BAD!? (which is after all a way of protecting Clinton-Bush-Obama foreign and domestic policy without having actually to defend those policies). Trump should be impeached immediately for the high crime he just committed - the assassination of a foreign leader. (And not for the nonsense in the House resolutions - which are based on his hesitation to kill Ukrainians; his predecessors had few hesitations in such matters.) Incidentally, Jill Stein is one of the few US politicians (even within the Green Party) who?ve said anything sensible about this presidential murder: =================== [Dr. Jill Stein at DrJillStein] Now THIS is grounds for #impeachment - treachery unleashing the unthinkable for Americans & people the world over: Trump asked Iraqi prime minister to mediate with #Iran then assassinated Soleimani - on a mediation mission. [jane arraf at janearraf] This is stunning - #Iraq prime minister tells parliament US troops should leave. Says @realDonaldTrump called him to ask him to mediate with #Iran and then ordered drone strike on Soleimani. Says Soleimani carrying response to Saudi initiative to defuse tension when he was hit. =================== ?CGE > On Jan 4, 2020, at 11:10 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss wrote: > > > Excellent discussion, most folks know I agree completely with David Green in relation to Carl?s overly positive attitude to Trump, attempting a defense. Our foreign policy being conducted by the ?permanent state,? is without doubt, but doesn?t excuse the President or Administration carrying out or implementing interventions, sanctions, invasions, bombings etc. We took this stand when it was a Democrat in the WH, and the same applies to the Republican in the WH. > > That being said, Carl is absolutely on target in respect to the broader picture and goals of our corporate capitalist system. We were disappointed when Chomsky warned against Trump leaving us with Hilary whom we knew was a warmonger, rather than Jill Stein as the third Party candidate whom we knew would not bow to corporate supporters. > > Wm. Blum, god rest his soul, warned us in 2016 of the consequences of a Trump administration being the neocons supporting him, and their goals of control of Iran. He made the point which I think makes a lot of sense after reading Zbigniew?s ?The Grand Chess Board,? that being control of Russia requires control of Iran, not Blums exact words, but that is the essence and we should recognize that Russia is necessary to preventing US control of China, they need each other. This has been the strategy since the ?White Paper,? as Carl has pointed out frequently. > > It?s important we focus on the system and the power behind the throne which we know does not share the same ?interests? thus they do differ in relation to tactics, but the end goal control of Eurasia by whatever means still stands. China is the ultimate goal, their markets as well as labor, and these ideas and discussions date back to the late 1800?s. Imperialism is the foundation holding up our capitalist system, as it continues to impoverish most of the working class around the world, it is the tool being used to support capitalism and must be defeated. > > One step in the process is focus on class as David points out frequently. > > In spite of the bad weather and some thinking that there will be no war with Iran, is it something to be ignored? Hope to see you all this afternoon protesting wars in the Middle East. > > > > >> On Jan 3, 2020, at 22:20, J.B. Nicholson via Peace wrote: >> >> J.B. Nicholson wrote: >>> News from Neptune #446 >>> A "War with Iran? A Trap for Trump?" edition >>> A list of links to items referenced on the show. >> >> I accidentally left out the URL of the video. >> >> Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uWh2VP7qkg >> >> -J >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 jbw292002 at gmail.com Sun Jan 5 19:34:32 2020 From: jbw292002 at gmail.com (John W.) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2020 13:34:32 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] News from Neptune #446 In-Reply-To: <1770E8B5-3955-4022-A1F0-6FC29FF4889E@newsfromneptune.com> References: <48670f93-ea3a-8c12-508b-8843c6c90e0b@forestfield.org> <1770E8B5-3955-4022-A1F0-6FC29FF4889E@newsfromneptune.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 5, 2020 at 1:26 PM C. G. Estabrook via Peace < peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote: I have no ?overly positive attitude to Trump.? > > I try to account for two things: (1) why Trump was elected (it wasn?t > because most white voters are deplorable racists - the Democrat > cover-story); and (2) why the political establishment is so desperate to > remove him (they fear that he might act on his anti-war pledges from the > campaign). > > The establishment?s job is to defend the one-percent?s foreign policy: war > and war-provocations vs. Russia and China to retard Eurasian economic > integration and so defend US world economic hegemony. > > Trump was the first major candidate in 40 years to attack the neocon (more > war) and neolib (more austerity) policies of the Clinton/Bush/Obama > administrations. Those attacks convinced enough voters - who of course knew > what the US government was doing in their own lives, despite what the press > said - to vote for him. > > They would have reelected him, if the ?permanent government' hadn?t > convinced Trump to abandon those attacks and adopt the neolib & neocon > policies he was attacking - now perhaps most disastrously in regard to war > with Iran. > > Perhaps the most destructive thing good liberals have done is allow their > politics to be reduced to ?ORANGE MAN BAD!? (which is after all a way of > protecting Clinton-Bush-Obama foreign and domestic policy without having > actually to defend those policies). > > Trump should be impeached immediately for the high crime he just committed > - the assassination of a foreign leader. So Orange Man bad now? > (And not for the nonsense in the House resolutions - which are based on > his hesitation to kill Ukrainians; his predecessors had few hesitations in > such matters.) > > Incidentally, Jill Stein is one of the few US politicians (even within the > Green Party) who?ve said anything sensible about this presidential murder: > =================== > [Dr. Jill Stein at DrJillStein] Now THIS is grounds for #impeachment - > treachery unleashing the unthinkable for Americans & people the world over: > Trump asked Iraqi prime minister to mediate with #Iran then assassinated > Soleimani - on a mediation mission. > Yep, Orange Man bad!! > [jane arraf at janearraf] This is stunning - #Iraq prime minister tells > parliament US troops should leave. Says @realDonaldTrump called him to ask > him to mediate with #Iran and then ordered drone strike on Soleimani. Says > Soleimani carrying response to Saudi initiative to defuse tension when he > was hit. > =================== > > ?CGE > > > > > > On Jan 4, 2020, at 11:10 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss < > peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote: > > > > > > Excellent discussion, most folks know I agree completely with David > Green in relation to Carl?s overly positive attitude to Trump, attempting a > defense. Our foreign policy being conducted by the ?permanent state,? is > without doubt, but doesn?t excuse the President or Administration carrying > out or implementing interventions, sanctions, invasions, bombings etc. We > took this stand when it was a Democrat in the WH, and the same applies to > the Republican in the WH. > > > > That being said, Carl is absolutely on target in respect to the broader > picture and goals of our corporate capitalist system. We were disappointed > when Chomsky warned against Trump leaving us with Hilary whom we knew was a > warmonger, rather than Jill Stein as the third Party candidate whom we knew > would not bow to corporate supporters. > > > > Wm. Blum, god rest his soul, warned us in 2016 of the consequences of a > Trump administration being the neocons supporting him, and their goals of > control of Iran. He made the point which I think makes a lot of sense after > reading Zbigniew?s ?The Grand Chess Board,? that being control of Russia > requires control of Iran, not Blums exact words, but that is the essence > and we should recognize that Russia is necessary to preventing US control > of China, they need each other. This has been the strategy since the ?White > Paper,? as Carl has pointed out frequently. > > > > It?s important we focus on the system and the power behind the throne > which we know does not share the same ?interests? thus they do differ in > relation to tactics, but the end goal control of Eurasia by whatever means > still stands. China is the ultimate goal, their markets as well as labor, > and these ideas and discussions date back to the late 1800?s. Imperialism > is the foundation holding up our capitalist system, as it continues to > impoverish most of the working class around the world, it is the tool being > used to support capitalism and must be defeated. > > > > One step in the process is focus on class as David points out > frequently. > > > > In spite of the bad weather and some thinking that there will be no war > with Iran, is it something to be ignored? Hope to see you all this > afternoon protesting wars in the Middle East. > > > > > > > > > >> On Jan 3, 2020, at 22:20, J.B. Nicholson via Peace < > peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote: > >> > >> J.B. Nicholson wrote: > >>> News from Neptune #446 > >>> A "War with Iran? A Trap for Trump?" edition > >>> A list of links to items referenced on the show. > >> > >> I accidentally left out the URL of the video. > >> > >> Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uWh2VP7qkg > >> > >> -J > >> _______________________________________________ > >> 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 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 Jan 5 19:44:14 2020 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2020 13:44:14 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] News from Neptune #446 In-Reply-To: References: <48670f93-ea3a-8c12-508b-8843c6c90e0b@forestfield.org> <1770E8B5-3955-4022-A1F0-6FC29FF4889E@newsfromneptune.com> Message-ID: <37EE145A-EBE8-484D-B09D-02E8C4D935F2@newsfromneptune.com> Opposition to Trump himself is being used by the US political establishment to distract from real objections to the neocon (more war) and neolib (more austerity) policies - as practiced by the last administration. Those policies are supported by all the Democratic candidates, with the possible exception of Sanders and Gabbard. > On Jan 5, 2020, at 1:34 PM, John W. wrote: > > > On Sun, Jan 5, 2020 at 1:26 PM C. G. Estabrook via Peace wrote: > > I have no ?overly positive attitude to Trump.? > > I try to account for two things: (1) why Trump was elected (it wasn?t because most white voters are deplorable racists - the Democrat cover-story); and (2) why the political establishment is so desperate to remove him (they fear that he might act on his anti-war pledges from the campaign). > > The establishment?s job is to defend the one-percent?s foreign policy: war and war-provocations vs. Russia and China to retard Eurasian economic integration and so defend US world economic hegemony. > > Trump was the first major candidate in 40 years to attack the neocon (more war) and neolib (more austerity) policies of the Clinton/Bush/Obama administrations. Those attacks convinced enough voters - who of course knew what the US government was doing in their own lives, despite what the press said - to vote for him. > > They would have reelected him, if the ?permanent government' hadn?t convinced Trump to abandon those attacks and adopt the neolib & neocon policies he was attacking - now perhaps most disastrously in regard to war with Iran. > > Perhaps the most destructive thing good liberals have done is allow their politics to be reduced to ?ORANGE MAN BAD!? (which is after all a way of protecting Clinton-Bush-Obama foreign and domestic policy without having actually to defend those policies). > > Trump should be impeached immediately for the high crime he just committed - the assassination of a foreign leader. > > So Orange Man bad now? > > > (And not for the nonsense in the House resolutions - which are based on his hesitation to kill Ukrainians; his predecessors had few hesitations in such matters.) > > Incidentally, Jill Stein is one of the few US politicians (even within the Green Party) who?ve said anything sensible about this presidential murder: > =================== > [Dr. Jill Stein at DrJillStein] Now THIS is grounds for #impeachment - treachery unleashing the unthinkable for Americans & people the world over: Trump asked Iraqi prime minister to mediate with #Iran then assassinated Soleimani - on a mediation mission. > > Yep, Orange Man bad!! > > > [jane arraf at janearraf] This is stunning - #Iraq prime minister tells parliament US troops should leave. Says @realDonaldTrump called him to ask him to mediate with #Iran and then ordered drone strike on Soleimani. Says Soleimani carrying response to Saudi initiative to defuse tension when he was hit. > =================== > > ?CGE > > > > > > On Jan 4, 2020, at 11:10 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss wrote: > > > > > > Excellent discussion, most folks know I agree completely with David Green in relation to Carl?s overly positive attitude to Trump, attempting a defense. Our foreign policy being conducted by the ?permanent state,? is without doubt, but doesn?t excuse the President or Administration carrying out or implementing interventions, sanctions, invasions, bombings etc. We took this stand when it was a Democrat in the WH, and the same applies to the Republican in the WH. > > > > That being said, Carl is absolutely on target in respect to the broader picture and goals of our corporate capitalist system. We were disappointed when Chomsky warned against Trump leaving us with Hilary whom we knew was a warmonger, rather than Jill Stein as the third Party candidate whom we knew would not bow to corporate supporters. > > > > Wm. Blum, god rest his soul, warned us in 2016 of the consequences of a Trump administration being the neocons supporting him, and their goals of control of Iran. He made the point which I think makes a lot of sense after reading Zbigniew?s ?The Grand Chess Board,? that being control of Russia requires control of Iran, not Blums exact words, but that is the essence and we should recognize that Russia is necessary to preventing US control of China, they need each other. This has been the strategy since the ?White Paper,? as Carl has pointed out frequently. > > > > It?s important we focus on the system and the power behind the throne which we know does not share the same ?interests? thus they do differ in relation to tactics, but the end goal control of Eurasia by whatever means still stands. China is the ultimate goal, their markets as well as labor, and these ideas and discussions date back to the late 1800?s. Imperialism is the foundation holding up our capitalist system, as it continues to impoverish most of the working class around the world, it is the tool being used to support capitalism and must be defeated. > > > > One step in the process is focus on class as David points out frequently. > > > > In spite of the bad weather and some thinking that there will be no war with Iran, is it something to be ignored? Hope to see you all this afternoon protesting wars in the Middle East. > > > > > > > > > >> On Jan 3, 2020, at 22:20, J.B. Nicholson via Peace wrote: > >> > >> J.B. Nicholson wrote: > >>> News from Neptune #446 > >>> A "War with Iran? A Trap for Trump?" edition > >>> A list of links to items referenced on the show. > >> > >> I accidentally left out the URL of the video. > >> > >> Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uWh2VP7qkg > >> > >> -J > >> _______________________________________________ > >> 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 mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace From karenaram at hotmail.com Sun Jan 5 19:59:01 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2020 11:59:01 -0800 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] News from Neptune #446 In-Reply-To: <37EE145A-EBE8-484D-B09D-02E8C4D935F2@newsfromneptune.com> References: <48670f93-ea3a-8c12-508b-8843c6c90e0b@forestfield.org> <1770E8B5-3955-4022-A1F0-6FC29FF4889E@newsfromneptune.com> <37EE145A-EBE8-484D-B09D-02E8C4D935F2@newsfromneptune.com> Message-ID: It?s absolutely correct that the Democrats support more war, and more austerity, we have to look at what they do, not what they say because they lie. Many people supporting Trump were simply voting against the Democrats who did nothing for them, Obama bailed out the banks instead of the people, increased military spending with six more wars than Bush, his healthcare plan only helps those with the lowest income, and many of the working class struggling to survive paying exorbitant fees for healthcare and meds. feel they are carrying the burden of costs for all. The list of things our ?hope and change? administration did to further loss of jobs and austerity has a very long list of reasons people supported a Republican, but as we look at where we are, we have to focus less on individuals, Party?s and elections knowing full well our electoral system is corrupted, just as our whole system of capitalism is rotting and decayed. > On Jan 5, 2020, at 11:44, C. G. Estabrook wrote: > > Opposition to Trump himself is being used by the US political establishment to distract from real objections to the neocon (more war) and neolib (more austerity) policies - as practiced by the last administration. > > Those policies are supported by all the Democratic candidates, with the possible exception of Sanders and Gabbard. > > >> On Jan 5, 2020, at 1:34 PM, John W. wrote: >> >> >> On Sun, Jan 5, 2020 at 1:26 PM C. G. Estabrook via Peace wrote: >> >> I have no ?overly positive attitude to Trump.? >> >> I try to account for two things: (1) why Trump was elected (it wasn?t because most white voters are deplorable racists - the Democrat cover-story); and (2) why the political establishment is so desperate to remove him (they fear that he might act on his anti-war pledges from the campaign). >> >> The establishment?s job is to defend the one-percent?s foreign policy: war and war-provocations vs. Russia and China to retard Eurasian economic integration and so defend US world economic hegemony. >> >> Trump was the first major candidate in 40 years to attack the neocon (more war) and neolib (more austerity) policies of the Clinton/Bush/Obama administrations. Those attacks convinced enough voters - who of course knew what the US government was doing in their own lives, despite what the press said - to vote for him. >> >> They would have reelected him, if the ?permanent government' hadn?t convinced Trump to abandon those attacks and adopt the neolib & neocon policies he was attacking - now perhaps most disastrously in regard to war with Iran. >> >> Perhaps the most destructive thing good liberals have done is allow their politics to be reduced to ?ORANGE MAN BAD!? (which is after all a way of protecting Clinton-Bush-Obama foreign and domestic policy without having actually to defend those policies). >> >> Trump should be impeached immediately for the high crime he just committed - the assassination of a foreign leader. >> >> So Orange Man bad now? >> >> >> (And not for the nonsense in the House resolutions - which are based on his hesitation to kill Ukrainians; his predecessors had few hesitations in such matters.) >> >> Incidentally, Jill Stein is one of the few US politicians (even within the Green Party) who?ve said anything sensible about this presidential murder: >> =================== >> [Dr. Jill Stein at DrJillStein] Now THIS is grounds for #impeachment - treachery unleashing the unthinkable for Americans & people the world over: Trump asked Iraqi prime minister to mediate with #Iran then assassinated Soleimani - on a mediation mission. >> >> Yep, Orange Man bad!! >> >> >> [jane arraf at janearraf] This is stunning - #Iraq prime minister tells parliament US troops should leave. Says @realDonaldTrump called him to ask him to mediate with #Iran and then ordered drone strike on Soleimani. Says Soleimani carrying response to Saudi initiative to defuse tension when he was hit. >> =================== >> >> ?CGE >> >> >> >> >>> On Jan 4, 2020, at 11:10 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss wrote: >>> >>> >>> Excellent discussion, most folks know I agree completely with David Green in relation to Carl?s overly positive attitude to Trump, attempting a defense. Our foreign policy being conducted by the ?permanent state,? is without doubt, but doesn?t excuse the President or Administration carrying out or implementing interventions, sanctions, invasions, bombings etc. We took this stand when it was a Democrat in the WH, and the same applies to the Republican in the WH. >>> >>> That being said, Carl is absolutely on target in respect to the broader picture and goals of our corporate capitalist system. We were disappointed when Chomsky warned against Trump leaving us with Hilary whom we knew was a warmonger, rather than Jill Stein as the third Party candidate whom we knew would not bow to corporate supporters. >>> >>> Wm. Blum, god rest his soul, warned us in 2016 of the consequences of a Trump administration being the neocons supporting him, and their goals of control of Iran. He made the point which I think makes a lot of sense after reading Zbigniew?s ?The Grand Chess Board,? that being control of Russia requires control of Iran, not Blums exact words, but that is the essence and we should recognize that Russia is necessary to preventing US control of China, they need each other. This has been the strategy since the ?White Paper,? as Carl has pointed out frequently. >>> >>> It?s important we focus on the system and the power behind the throne which we know does not share the same ?interests? thus they do differ in relation to tactics, but the end goal control of Eurasia by whatever means still stands. China is the ultimate goal, their markets as well as labor, and these ideas and discussions date back to the late 1800?s. Imperialism is the foundation holding up our capitalist system, as it continues to impoverish most of the working class around the world, it is the tool being used to support capitalism and must be defeated. >>> >>> One step in the process is focus on class as David points out frequently. >>> >>> In spite of the bad weather and some thinking that there will be no war with Iran, is it something to be ignored? Hope to see you all this afternoon protesting wars in the Middle East. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>>> On Jan 3, 2020, at 22:20, J.B. Nicholson via Peace wrote: >>>> >>>> J.B. Nicholson wrote: >>>>> News from Neptune #446 >>>>> A "War with Iran? A Trap for Trump?" edition >>>>> A list of links to items referenced on the show. >>>> >>>> I accidentally left out the URL of the video. >>>> >>>> Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uWh2VP7qkg >>>> >>>> -J >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> 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 mailing list >> Peace at lists.chambana.net >> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace > From brussel at illinois.edu Mon Jan 6 00:05:50 2020 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2020 00:05:50 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] News from Neptune #446 In-Reply-To: <1770E8B5-3955-4022-A1F0-6FC29FF4889E@newsfromneptune.com> References: <48670f93-ea3a-8c12-508b-8843c6c90e0b@forestfield.org> <1770E8B5-3955-4022-A1F0-6FC29FF4889E@newsfromneptune.com> Message-ID: <6E4817B7-B5F4-4500-BB73-9D1E978BA364@illinois.edu> A more coherent view of the current conjuncture, not falling for the absurd view that considers an incompetent, impetuous, vicious, and inconsistent Trump as a peace leader.: https://original.antiwar.com/David_Stockman/2020/01/03/the-donald-is-now-america-firsts-own-assassin/ In any case, it is hard to give much credence to Carl?s speculations as to why the ?deep state? so mistrusts (if they do) Trump. He and Netanyahu seem linked minds. On Jan 5, 2020, at 1:25 PM, C. G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss > wrote: I have no ?overly positive attitude to Trump.? I try to account for two things: (1) why Trump was elected (it wasn?t because most white voters are deplorable racists - the Democrat cover-story); and (2) why the political establishment is so desperate to remove him (they fear that he might act on his anti-war pledges from the campaign). The establishment?s job is to defend the one-percent?s foreign policy: war and war-provocations vs. Russia and China to retard Eurasian economic integration and so defend US world economic hegemony. Trump was the first major candidate in 40 years to attack the neocon (more war) and neolib (more austerity) policies of the Clinton/Bush/Obama administrations. Those attacks convinced enough voters - who of course knew what the US government was doing in their own lives, despite what the press said - to vote for him. They would have reelected him, if the ?permanent government' hadn?t convinced Trump to abandon those attacks and adopt the neolib & neocon policies he was attacking - now perhaps most disastrously in regard to war with Iran. Perhaps the most destructive thing good liberals have done is allow their politics to be reduced to ?ORANGE MAN BAD!? (which is after all a way of protecting Clinton-Bush-Obama foreign and domestic policy without having actually to defend those policies). Trump should be impeached immediately for the high crime he just committed - the assassination of a foreign leader. (And not for the nonsense in the House resolutions - which are based on his hesitation to kill Ukrainians; his predecessors had few hesitations in such matters.) Incidentally, Jill Stein is one of the few US politicians (even within the Green Party) who?ve said anything sensible about this presidential murder: =================== [Dr. Jill Stein at DrJillStein] Now THIS is grounds for #impeachment - treachery unleashing the unthinkable for Americans & people the world over: Trump asked Iraqi prime minister to mediate with #Iran then assassinated Soleimani - on a mediation mission. [jane arraf at janearraf] This is stunning - #Iraq prime minister tells parliament US troops should leave. Says @realDonaldTrump called him to ask him to mediate with #Iran and then ordered drone strike on Soleimani. Says Soleimani carrying response to Saudi initiative to defuse tension when he was hit. =================== ?CGE On Jan 4, 2020, at 11:10 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss > wrote: Excellent discussion, most folks know I agree completely with David Green in relation to Carl?s overly positive attitude to Trump, attempting a defense. Our foreign policy being conducted by the ?permanent state,? is without doubt, but doesn?t excuse the President or Administration carrying out or implementing interventions, sanctions, invasions, bombings etc. We took this stand when it was a Democrat in the WH, and the same applies to the Republican in the WH. That being said, Carl is absolutely on target in respect to the broader picture and goals of our corporate capitalist system. We were disappointed when Chomsky warned against Trump leaving us with Hilary whom we knew was a warmonger, rather than Jill Stein as the third Party candidate whom we knew would not bow to corporate supporters. Wm. Blum, god rest his soul, warned us in 2016 of the consequences of a Trump administration being the neocons supporting him, and their goals of control of Iran. He made the point which I think makes a lot of sense after reading Zbigniew?s ?The Grand Chess Board,? that being control of Russia requires control of Iran, not Blums exact words, but that is the essence and we should recognize that Russia is necessary to preventing US control of China, they need each other. This has been the strategy since the ?White Paper,? as Carl has pointed out frequently. It?s important we focus on the system and the power behind the throne which we know does not share the same ?interests? thus they do differ in relation to tactics, but the end goal control of Eurasia by whatever means still stands. China is the ultimate goal, their markets as well as labor, and these ideas and discussions date back to the late 1800?s. Imperialism is the foundation holding up our capitalist system, as it continues to impoverish most of the working class around the world, it is the tool being used to support capitalism and must be defeated. One step in the process is focus on class as David points out frequently. In spite of the bad weather and some thinking that there will be no war with Iran, is it something to be ignored? Hope to see you all this afternoon protesting wars in the Middle East. On Jan 3, 2020, at 22:20, J.B. Nicholson via Peace > wrote: J.B. Nicholson wrote: News from Neptune #446 A "War with Iran? A Trap for Trump?" edition A list of links to items referenced on the show. I accidentally left out the URL of the video. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uWh2VP7qkg -J _______________________________________________ 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 rsesbenshade at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 00:39:26 2020 From: rsesbenshade at gmail.com (Richard Esbenshade) Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2020 01:39:26 +0100 Subject: [Peace-discuss] campaign video--corrected link Message-ID: Turns out the link I sent out a few days ago had been temporarily disabled because something needed to be corrected. Here is the new link. Please let me know if it doesn't work for you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9544-_h4Dh8&t=5s My daughter, former AWARE activist (and *Public i* collective member), Shara, who some of you know, has collaborated (as co-director, producer, cinematographer, editor) on a video to launch the campaign for the New Mexico House of Representatives of her friend, Lyla June Johnston. Lyla, who is Navajo, is running an insurgent, AOC-type, climate crisis-focused campaign against the Speaker of the NM House, who although a Democrat is in the pocket of the oil/fracking industry. You can check it out at: Please share widely, if you like what you see! Rick Esbenshade -- Richard S. Esbenshade, Ph.D Research Associate Russian, East European and Eurasian Center University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Mon Jan 6 01:17:58 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2020 17:17:58 -0800 Subject: [Peace-discuss] ANSWER Teach In (WHO in CU profits from the US WAR MACHINE? Message-ID: It?s an information session on local ?defense? contracts. FACT: 300 M in defense contracts awarded to Champaign County recipients. -80M of which was awarded to UIUC alone. CU residents must know how their community is directly involved with aiding U.S. imperialism! Saturday Jan. 11th @ the CU IMC 202 S. Broadway Ave. Event hosted by ANSWER-CU -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbw292002 at gmail.com Mon Jan 6 01:56:10 2020 From: jbw292002 at gmail.com (John W.) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2020 19:56:10 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] News from Neptune #446 In-Reply-To: <6E4817B7-B5F4-4500-BB73-9D1E978BA364@illinois.edu> References: <48670f93-ea3a-8c12-508b-8843c6c90e0b@forestfield.org> <1770E8B5-3955-4022-A1F0-6FC29FF4889E@newsfromneptune.com> <6E4817B7-B5F4-4500-BB73-9D1E978BA364@illinois.edu> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 5, 2020 at 6:06 PM Brussel, Morton K via Peace < peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote: A more coherent view of the current conjuncture, not falling for the absurd > view that considers an incompetent, impetuous, vicious, and inconsistent > Trump as a peace leader.: > *snicker* Indeed. A "peace leader". Hahahahaha! > > https://original.antiwar.com/David_Stockman/2020/01/03/the-donald-is-now-america-firsts-own-assassin/ > > In any case, it is hard to give much credence to Carl?s speculations as to > why the ?deep state? so mistrusts (if they do) Trump. He and Netanyahu seem > linked minds. > Shit, EVERYONE but the MAGA crowd distrusts tRump, albeit perhaps for somewhat differing reasons. tRump's own staff distrusts him. He is the loosest of loose cannons. > On Jan 5, 2020, at 1:25 PM, C. G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss < > peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote: > > I have no ?overly positive attitude to Trump.? > > I try to account for two things: (1) why Trump was elected (it wasn?t > because most white voters are deplorable racists - the Democrat > cover-story); and (2) why the political establishment is so desperate to > remove him (they fear that he might act on his anti-war pledges from the > campaign). > > The establishment?s job is to defend the one-percent?s foreign policy: war > and war-provocations vs. Russia and China to retard Eurasian economic > integration and so defend US world economic hegemony. > > Trump was the first major candidate in 40 years to attack the neocon (more > war) and neolib (more austerity) policies of the Clinton/Bush/Obama > administrations. Those attacks convinced enough voters - who of course knew > what the US government was doing in their own lives, despite what the press > said - to vote for him. > > They would have reelected him, if the ?permanent government' hadn?t > convinced Trump to abandon those attacks and adopt the neolib & neocon > policies he was attacking - now perhaps most disastrously in regard to war > with Iran. > > Perhaps the most destructive thing good liberals have done is allow their > politics to be reduced to ?ORANGE MAN BAD!? (which is after all a way of > protecting Clinton-Bush-Obama foreign and domestic policy without having > actually to defend those policies). > > Trump should be impeached immediately for the high crime he just committed > - the assassination of a foreign leader. (And not for the nonsense in the > House resolutions - which are based on his hesitation to kill Ukrainians; > his predecessors had few hesitations in such matters.) > > Incidentally, Jill Stein is one of the few US politicians (even within the > Green Party) who?ve said anything sensible about this presidential murder: > =================== > [Dr. Jill Stein at DrJillStein] Now THIS is grounds for #impeachment - > treachery unleashing the unthinkable for Americans & people the world over: > Trump asked Iraqi prime minister to mediate with #Iran then assassinated > Soleimani - on a mediation mission. > > [jane arraf at janearraf] This is stunning - #Iraq prime minister tells > parliament US troops should leave. Says @realDonaldTrump called him to ask > him to mediate with #Iran and then ordered drone strike on Soleimani. Says > Soleimani carrying response to Saudi initiative to defuse tension when he > was hit. > =================== > > ?CGE > > > > > On Jan 4, 2020, at 11:10 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss < > peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote: > > > Excellent discussion, most folks know I agree completely with David Green > in relation to Carl?s overly positive attitude to Trump, attempting a > defense. Our foreign policy being conducted by the ?permanent state,? is > without doubt, but doesn?t excuse the President or Administration carrying > out or implementing interventions, sanctions, invasions, bombings etc. We > took this stand when it was a Democrat in the WH, and the same applies to > the Republican in the WH. > > That being said, Carl is absolutely on target in respect to the broader > picture and goals of our corporate capitalist system. We were disappointed > when Chomsky warned against Trump leaving us with Hilary whom we knew was a > warmonger, rather than Jill Stein as the third Party candidate whom we knew > would not bow to corporate supporters. > > Wm. Blum, god rest his soul, warned us in 2016 of the consequences of a > Trump administration being the neocons supporting him, and their goals of > control of Iran. He made the point which I think makes a lot of sense after > reading Zbigniew?s ?The Grand Chess Board,? that being control of Russia > requires control of Iran, not Blums exact words, but that is the essence > and we should recognize that Russia is necessary to preventing US control > of China, they need each other. This has been the strategy since the ?White > Paper,? as Carl has pointed out frequently. > > It?s important we focus on the system and the power behind the throne > which we know does not share the same ?interests? thus they do differ in > relation to tactics, but the end goal control of Eurasia by whatever means > still stands. China is the ultimate goal, their markets as well as labor, > and these ideas and discussions date back to the late 1800?s. Imperialism > is the foundation holding up our capitalist system, as it continues to > impoverish most of the working class around the world, it is the tool being > used to support capitalism and must be defeated. > > One step in the process is focus on class as David points out frequently. > > In spite of the bad weather and some thinking that there will be no war > with Iran, is it something to be ignored? Hope to see you all this > afternoon protesting wars in the Middle East. > > > > > On Jan 3, 2020, at 22:20, J.B. Nicholson via Peace < > peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote: > > J.B. Nicholson wrote: > > News from Neptune #446 > A "War with Iran? A Trap for Trump?" edition > A list of links to items referenced on the show. > > > I accidentally left out the URL of the video. > > Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uWh2VP7qkg > > -J > _______________________________________________ > 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 > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 Jan 6 02:49:43 2020 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2020 20:49:43 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] News from Neptune #446 In-Reply-To: References: <48670f93-ea3a-8c12-508b-8843c6c90e0b@forestfield.org> <1770E8B5-3955-4022-A1F0-6FC29FF4889E@newsfromneptune.com> <6E4817B7-B5F4-4500-BB73-9D1E978BA364@illinois.edu> Message-ID: Stockman seems quite right about this: ?...the only decent thing Obama did on the foreign policy front was the Iran Nuke Deal. Under the latter, Iran gave up a nuclear weapons capability it never had or wanted for the return of billions of escrowed dollars (which belong to Tehran in the first place), while putting itself in a straight-jacket of international inspections and controls that even Houdini could not have broken free from. "But the Donald wantonly shit-canned this arrangement, not because Iran violated either the letter or spirit of the deal, but because the neocons ? led by his bubble-headed son-in-law and Bibi Netanyahu errand boy, Jared Kushner ? blatantly lied to him about its alleged defects.? > On Jan 5, 2020, at 7:56 PM, John W. wrote: > > On Sun, Jan 5, 2020 at 6:06 PM Brussel, Morton K via Peace wrote: > > A more coherent view of the current conjuncture, not falling for the absurd view that considers an incompetent, impetuous, vicious, and inconsistent Trump as a peace leader.: > > *snicker* Indeed. A "peace leader". Hahahahaha! > > > https://original.antiwar.com/David_Stockman/2020/01/03/the-donald-is-now-america-firsts-own-assassin/ > > In any case, it is hard to give much credence to Carl?s speculations as to why the ?deep state? so mistrusts (if they do) Trump. He and Netanyahu seem linked minds. > > Shit, EVERYONE but the MAGA crowd distrusts tRump, albeit perhaps for somewhat differing reasons. tRump's own staff distrusts him. He is the loosest of loose cannons. > > > >> On Jan 5, 2020, at 1:25 PM, C. G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss wrote: >> >> I have no ?overly positive attitude to Trump.? >> >> I try to account for two things: (1) why Trump was elected (it wasn?t because most white voters are deplorable racists - the Democrat cover-story); and (2) why the political establishment is so desperate to remove him (they fear that he might act on his anti-war pledges from the campaign). >> >> The establishment?s job is to defend the one-percent?s foreign policy: war and war-provocations vs. Russia and China to retard Eurasian economic integration and so defend US world economic hegemony. >> >> Trump was the first major candidate in 40 years to attack the neocon (more war) and neolib (more austerity) policies of the Clinton/Bush/Obama administrations. Those attacks convinced enough voters - who of course knew what the US government was doing in their own lives, despite what the press said - to vote for him. >> >> They would have reelected him, if the ?permanent government' hadn?t convinced Trump to abandon those attacks and adopt the neolib & neocon policies he was attacking - now perhaps most disastrously in regard to war with Iran. >> >> Perhaps the most destructive thing good liberals have done is allow their politics to be reduced to ?ORANGE MAN BAD!? (which is after all a way of protecting Clinton-Bush-Obama foreign and domestic policy without having actually to defend those policies). >> >> Trump should be impeached immediately for the high crime he just committed - the assassination of a foreign leader. (And not for the nonsense in the House resolutions - which are based on his hesitation to kill Ukrainians; his predecessors had few hesitations in such matters.) >> >> Incidentally, Jill Stein is one of the few US politicians (even within the Green Party) who?ve said anything sensible about this presidential murder: >> =================== >> [Dr. Jill Stein at DrJillStein] Now THIS is grounds for #impeachment - treachery unleashing the unthinkable for Americans & people the world over: Trump asked Iraqi prime minister to mediate with #Iran then assassinated Soleimani - on a mediation mission. >> >> [jane arraf at janearraf] This is stunning - #Iraq prime minister tells parliament US troops should leave. Says @realDonaldTrump called him to ask him to mediate with #Iran and then ordered drone strike on Soleimani. Says Soleimani carrying response to Saudi initiative to defuse tension when he was hit. >> =================== >> >> ?CGE >> >> >> >> >>> On Jan 4, 2020, at 11:10 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss wrote: >>> >>> >>> Excellent discussion, most folks know I agree completely with David Green in relation to Carl?s overly positive attitude to Trump, attempting a defense. Our foreign policy being conducted by the ?permanent state,? is without doubt, but doesn?t excuse the President or Administration carrying out or implementing interventions, sanctions, invasions, bombings etc. We took this stand when it was a Democrat in the WH, and the same applies to the Republican in the WH. >>> >>> That being said, Carl is absolutely on target in respect to the broader picture and goals of our corporate capitalist system. We were disappointed when Chomsky warned against Trump leaving us with Hilary whom we knew was a warmonger, rather than Jill Stein as the third Party candidate whom we knew would not bow to corporate supporters. >>> >>> Wm. Blum, god rest his soul, warned us in 2016 of the consequences of a Trump administration being the neocons supporting him, and their goals of control of Iran. He made the point which I think makes a lot of sense after reading Zbigniew?s ?The Grand Chess Board,? that being control of Russia requires control of Iran, not Blums exact words, but that is the essence and we should recognize that Russia is necessary to preventing US control of China, they need each other. This has been the strategy since the ?White Paper,? as Carl has pointed out frequently. >>> >>> It?s important we focus on the system and the power behind the throne which we know does not share the same ?interests? thus they do differ in relation to tactics, but the end goal control of Eurasia by whatever means still stands. China is the ultimate goal, their markets as well as labor, and these ideas and discussions date back to the late 1800?s. Imperialism is the foundation holding up our capitalist system, as it continues to impoverish most of the working class around the world, it is the tool being used to support capitalism and must be defeated. >>> >>> One step in the process is focus on class as David points out frequently. >>> >>> In spite of the bad weather and some thinking that there will be no war with Iran, is it something to be ignored? Hope to see you all this afternoon protesting wars in the Middle East. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>>> On Jan 3, 2020, at 22:20, J.B. Nicholson via Peace wrote: >>>> >>>> J.B. Nicholson wrote: >>>>> News from Neptune #446 >>>>> A "War with Iran? A Trap for Trump?" edition >>>>> A list of links to items referenced on the show. >>>> >>>> I accidentally left out the URL of the video. >>>> >>>> Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uWh2VP7qkg >>>> >>>> -J >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> 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 > > _______________________________________________ > 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 Jan 6 03:26:10 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2020 19:26:10 -0800 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] News from Neptune #446 In-Reply-To: References: <48670f93-ea3a-8c12-508b-8843c6c90e0b@forestfield.org> <1770E8B5-3955-4022-A1F0-6FC29FF4889E@newsfromneptune.com> <6E4817B7-B5F4-4500-BB73-9D1E978BA364@illinois.edu> Message-ID: A good article, and it makes a couple other points in addition to the two Carl just now provided. "The answer, of course, is that the foreign policy apparatus of the US government is controlled by anti-Iran neocons and regime changers. We are still in Syria not to fight ISIS, which is gone, but to block Iran?s land route to its allies in Syria and Lebanon (Hezbollah); and we remain in Iraq solely to use it as a base for clandestine US and Israeli attacks on these allies and proxy forces.? "These Washington instigated or conducted attacks on Iranian allies, in fact, are why there was growing pressure in the Iraqi government to demand that the US finally leave. These pressures will now become overwhelming in light of this week?s US bombing of five PMF camps (Popular Mobilization Forces) which are Shiite militias that have been integrated into the Iraqi army and which are under the command of its prime minister, and last night?s assassination of their Deputy Commander along with Soleimani.? The first paragraph is what Wm. Blum, god rest his soul, warned us in 2016, if Trump was elected. He said the neocons and their desire to take out Iran, not just because they are crazy blah, blah but because Iran is a necessary first step to control Russia. Of course they would rather have regime change, thats why we have sanctions and operatives fomenting dissent within Iran, but if that can?t be accomplished in a timely manner???.just my humble opinion. I recall reading somewhere that Obama could have locked in the Iran Nuclear Agreement so that it could not be so easily abrogated, but he chose not to do so. Does anyone have anything on this? > On Jan 5, 2020, at 18:49, C. G. Estabrook wrote: > > Stockman seems quite right about this: > > ?...the only decent thing Obama did on the foreign policy front was the Iran Nuke Deal. Under the latter, Iran gave up a nuclear weapons capability it never had or wanted for the return of billions of escrowed dollars (which belong to Tehran in the first place), while putting itself in a straight-jacket of international inspections and controls that even Houdini could not have broken free from. > > "But the Donald wantonly shit-canned this arrangement, not because Iran violated either the letter or spirit of the deal, but because the neocons ? led by his bubble-headed son-in-law and Bibi Netanyahu errand boy, Jared Kushner ? blatantly lied to him about its alleged defects.? > > >> On Jan 5, 2020, at 7:56 PM, John W. > wrote: >> >> On Sun, Jan 5, 2020 at 6:06 PM Brussel, Morton K via Peace > wrote: >> >> A more coherent view of the current conjuncture, not falling for the absurd view that considers an incompetent, impetuous, vicious, and inconsistent Trump as a peace leader.: >> >> *snicker* Indeed. A "peace leader". Hahahahaha! >> >> >> https://original.antiwar.com/David_Stockman/2020/01/03/the-donald-is-now-america-firsts-own-assassin/ >> >> In any case, it is hard to give much credence to Carl?s speculations as to why the ?deep state? so mistrusts (if they do) Trump. He and Netanyahu seem linked minds. >> >> Shit, EVERYONE but the MAGA crowd distrusts tRump, albeit perhaps for somewhat differing reasons. tRump's own staff distrusts him. He is the loosest of loose cannons. >> >> >> >>> On Jan 5, 2020, at 1:25 PM, C. G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss wrote: >>> >>> I have no ?overly positive attitude to Trump.? >>> >>> I try to account for two things: (1) why Trump was elected (it wasn?t because most white voters are deplorable racists - the Democrat cover-story); and (2) why the political establishment is so desperate to remove him (they fear that he might act on his anti-war pledges from the campaign). >>> >>> The establishment?s job is to defend the one-percent?s foreign policy: war and war-provocations vs. Russia and China to retard Eurasian economic integration and so defend US world economic hegemony. >>> >>> Trump was the first major candidate in 40 years to attack the neocon (more war) and neolib (more austerity) policies of the Clinton/Bush/Obama administrations. Those attacks convinced enough voters - who of course knew what the US government was doing in their own lives, despite what the press said - to vote for him. >>> >>> They would have reelected him, if the ?permanent government' hadn?t convinced Trump to abandon those attacks and adopt the neolib & neocon policies he was attacking - now perhaps most disastrously in regard to war with Iran. >>> >>> Perhaps the most destructive thing good liberals have done is allow their politics to be reduced to ?ORANGE MAN BAD!? (which is after all a way of protecting Clinton-Bush-Obama foreign and domestic policy without having actually to defend those policies). >>> >>> Trump should be impeached immediately for the high crime he just committed - the assassination of a foreign leader. (And not for the nonsense in the House resolutions - which are based on his hesitation to kill Ukrainians; his predecessors had few hesitations in such matters.) >>> >>> Incidentally, Jill Stein is one of the few US politicians (even within the Green Party) who?ve said anything sensible about this presidential murder: >>> =================== >>> [Dr. Jill Stein at DrJillStein] Now THIS is grounds for #impeachment - treachery unleashing the unthinkable for Americans & people the world over: Trump asked Iraqi prime minister to mediate with #Iran then assassinated Soleimani - on a mediation mission. >>> >>> [jane arraf at janearraf] This is stunning - #Iraq prime minister tells parliament US troops should leave. Says @realDonaldTrump called him to ask him to mediate with #Iran and then ordered drone strike on Soleimani. Says Soleimani carrying response to Saudi initiative to defuse tension when he was hit. >>> =================== >>> >>> ?CGE >>> >>> >>> >>> >>>> On Jan 4, 2020, at 11:10 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>> Excellent discussion, most folks know I agree completely with David Green in relation to Carl?s overly positive attitude to Trump, attempting a defense. Our foreign policy being conducted by the ?permanent state,? is without doubt, but doesn?t excuse the President or Administration carrying out or implementing interventions, sanctions, invasions, bombings etc. We took this stand when it was a Democrat in the WH, and the same applies to the Republican in the WH. >>>> >>>> That being said, Carl is absolutely on target in respect to the broader picture and goals of our corporate capitalist system. We were disappointed when Chomsky warned against Trump leaving us with Hilary whom we knew was a warmonger, rather than Jill Stein as the third Party candidate whom we knew would not bow to corporate supporters. >>>> >>>> Wm. Blum, god rest his soul, warned us in 2016 of the consequences of a Trump administration being the neocons supporting him, and their goals of control of Iran. He made the point which I think makes a lot of sense after reading Zbigniew?s ?The Grand Chess Board,? that being control of Russia requires control of Iran, not Blums exact words, but that is the essence and we should recognize that Russia is necessary to preventing US control of China, they need each other. This has been the strategy since the ?White Paper,? as Carl has pointed out frequently. >>>> >>>> It?s important we focus on the system and the power behind the throne which we know does not share the same ?interests? thus they do differ in relation to tactics, but the end goal control of Eurasia by whatever means still stands. China is the ultimate goal, their markets as well as labor, and these ideas and discussions date back to the late 1800?s. Imperialism is the foundation holding up our capitalist system, as it continues to impoverish most of the working class around the world, it is the tool being used to support capitalism and must be defeated. >>>> >>>> One step in the process is focus on class as David points out frequently. >>>> >>>> In spite of the bad weather and some thinking that there will be no war with Iran, is it something to be ignored? Hope to see you all this afternoon protesting wars in the Middle East. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>>> On Jan 3, 2020, at 22:20, J.B. Nicholson via Peace wrote: >>>>> >>>>> J.B. Nicholson wrote: >>>>>> News from Neptune #446 >>>>>> A "War with Iran? A Trap for Trump?" edition >>>>>> A list of links to items referenced on the show. >>>>> >>>>> I accidentally left out the URL of the video. >>>>> >>>>> Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uWh2VP7qkg >>>>> >>>>> -J >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> 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 >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Peace mailing list >> Peace at lists.chambana.net >> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbn at forestfield.org Wed Jan 8 00:03:02 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2020 18:03:02 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Good summaries of why we can conclude the Douma, Syria alleged gas attack didn't happen (a false flag attack) Message-ID: <44bfa543-ad4c-8869-d06a-0ed938f17f1e@forestfield.org> Here are some good reports on what happened in Douma, Syria on 7 April 2018 and what has happened since regarding the apparently embattled OPCW, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. The OPCW was viewed as an impartial chemical watchdog organization but a shift in who benefits from OPCW publications (due to management changes) now force us to see the OPCW as increasingly an establishment lapdog. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fVdPc-P0LQ -- RT https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/the-12-strongest-arguments-that-douma-was-a-false-flag-77d300b495c2 -- Caitlin Johnstone https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/11/15/the-opcw-and-douma-chemical-weapons-watchdog-accused-of-evidence-tampering-by-its-own-inspectors/ -- Jonathan Steele A few additional notes about the the alleged Douma gas attack of 7 April 2018 from RT's report because that is a video report where only automatic transcription is readily available. This phantom gas attack resulted in a very real coordinated US, UK, and French missile attack on Syria. Apparently not even world governments can do this alone; it takes a set of liars to carry this off: - Old liars are ready to serve the establishment's interests: The Navy's footage of this coordinated attack was widely replayed on corporate media. On Comcast-owned media, known fabricator Brian Williams (now famously) said he was "guided by the beauty of our weapons" while running the footage showing the rockets being launched. Three years prior Williams had been suspended without pay by NBC News President Deborah Turness for having lied about being in a military helicopter which was "forced down after being hit by an RPG [rocket propelled grenade]". Williams was also demoted from lead anchor for NBC to breaking anchor for MSNBC. - New OPCW management lied too: It took a year for the OPCW to publish on this alleged attack and the UK was pleased with the result: https://twitter.com/UK_OPCW/status/1101561760732057601 > Today's OPCW final report on the 7th of April 2018 attack in Douma confirms chemical weapons used > demonstrating the vital importance of the opcw's work this confirmed chlorine attack was only the > latest example of the Assad regime's chemical warfare attacks on its own population But this alleged gas attack made no sense politically as Assad was winning. People at the time stopped to ask why Assad would deploy "chemical warfare attacks on its own population". None of these questions show up in the corporate-friendly media (including Democracy Now). OPCW management cherry picked details in an attempt to make Assad look guilty. One member of the OPCW fact-finding mission wrote: > I was struck by how much the redacted version of the [OPCW] report misrepresented the facts. Many > of the facts and observations outlined in the full version are inextricably interconnected and, > by selectively omitting certain ones, an unintended bias has been introduced into the report, > undermining its credibility. As more OPCW leaked reports came out, as leakers spoke about what they reported to the OPCW (like in Brussels where one leaker spoke) we saw more details of how this plays out. Former OPCW engineer Ian Henderson wrote: > Observations at the scene of the two locations, [...] suggest that there is a higher probability > that both cylinders were manually placed at those two locations rather than being delivered from > aircraft. "Manually placed" means both cylinders were likely staged on-site for inspectors to see. Anyone who draws this conclusion isn't dutifully repeating the establishment narrative. Henderson was later kicked out of the OPCW and the OPCW alleged he was not an employee. We later learned (via a leaked email) that Henderson was an employee, the OPCW had lied about Henderson being an employee and not a hired consultant, and (as you'll see below) there was effort to cover up the existence of Henderson's non-conformant report: "get this document [Henderson's report] out of DRA [the OPCW's system] and please remove all traces, if any, of its delivery/storage/whatever in DRA". - Uncooperative reporters are pushed to quit by media outlets that refuse to diverge from being faithful stenographers to power: Tareq Haddad, freelance journalist who resigned from Newsweek when it refused to publish his story about documents published by WikiLeaks concerning the alleged Douma gas attack. Haddad told RT: > Tareq Haddad: I kept pushing to try and do the story because I feel like it's of extreme, you > know, public interest the attacks turned on me -- editors who were kind of nitpicking on certain > things I was doing in my articles but it was purely on just to be able to attack me in an email. > So after I kept pushing, kept pushing, I essentially was told a couple of lines about why they > wouldn't run the OPCW story. At the moment there are very few Western, well, mainstream Western > journalists that are reporting on this. So I would say this is a complete failure of the media. > Our job as journalists is to hold government to account and if governments are going to war > on on false premises then, you know, and we have good evidence to suggest that now, and no one is > reporting it, then we're not doing our job as journalists. Fortunately for us, not everyone involved lies. - WikiLeaks is publishing OPCW Douma documents at https://wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/ which contains what they claim it contains (as is the norm with WikiLeaks) internal documentation describing not only what the engineers saw on-site but information of the internal cover-up to hide said engineer reports such as: > WikiLeaks: One of the documents is an e-mail exchange dated 27 and 28 February between members of > the fact finding mission (FFM) deployed to Douma and the senior officials of the OPCW. It > includes an e-mail from Sebastien Braha, Chief of Cabinet at the OPCW, where he instructs that an > engineering report from Ian Henderson should be removed from the secure registry of the > organisation: > > ?Please get this document out of DRA [Documents Registry Archive]... And please remove all > traces, if any, of its delivery/storage/whatever in DRA?. - Outsiders speak up and tell us news that contradicts the establishment narrative: Professor Richard Falk was in Brussels when the second whistleblower spoke. > Professor Richard Falk: Well, essentially he presented evidence and testimonials to the effect > that the final report could not be justified in the form that it was submitted, and that it had > been tampered with in such a way as to create a set of conclusions that corresponded with what > the US and Britain friends hoped would be the outcome of an investigation but the evidence didn't > support that outcome. There are other real reporters and clear summaries of what happened and when at the aforementioned links. -J From jbn at forestfield.org Wed Jan 8 00:25:36 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2020 18:25:36 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] AWARE on the Air #500 notes Message-ID: AWARE on the Air #500 Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nh8jDlSemtA A list of links to items referenced on the show. On C. G. Estabrook having an "overly positive attitude to Trump" https://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/2020-January/051752.html -- Karen Aram's post https://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/2020-January/051755.html -- C. G. Estabrook's reply Other posts in this thread can be found in https://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/2020-January/thread.html#51755 Shervin Malekzadeh on "Boys Go to Baghdad, Real Men Go to Tehran" https://lobelog.com/boys-go-to-baghdad-real-men-go-to-tehran/ https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/06/15/boys-go-baghdad-real-men-go-tehran Jerri-Lynn Scofield on "Boys Go to Baghdad. Men Go to Tehran." https://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2019/05/boys-go-to-baghdad-men-go-to-tehran.html https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/05/boys-go-to-baghdad-men-go-to-tehran.html The Real News: "US Sanctions Leave Millions of Venezuelans Without Water" https://therealnews.com/stories/us-sanctions-leave-millions-of-venezuelans-without-water "Study Linking US Sanctions to Venezuelan Deaths Buried by Reuters for Over a Month" https://fair.org/home/study-linking-us-sanctions-to-venezuelan-deaths-buried-by-reuters-for-over-a-month/ -- news doesn't readily get out about the real harm of torturing Venezuelan via sanctions US sanctions on Venezuela led to 40,000 deaths https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/04/27/594506/US-sanctions-on-Venezuela-deaths https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/venezuela-sanctions-us-excess-death-toll-economy-oil-trump-maduro-juan-guaido-jeffrey-sachs-a8888516.html Where does the US get its oil from? US opinion versus reality https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/08/where-america-oil-come-from/ -- people believe it mostly comes from Saudi Arabia but the US imports about 183 million barrels of oil from SA and imports 701 million barrels from Canada (the Canadian tar sands work, the largest strip mining project in the world). Michael Hudson on US economic warfare -- Hudson from a keynote paper delivered on July 21, 2019 https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-07-26/michael-hudson-us-economic-warfare-and-likely-foreign-defenses https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/07/michael-hudson-u-s-economic-warfare-and-likely-foreign-defenses.html https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/07/22/u-s-economic-warfare-and-likely-foreign-defenses/ > Today?s world is at war on many fronts. The rules of international law and order put in place > toward the end of World War II are being broken by U.S. foreign policy escalating its > confrontation with countries that refrain from giving its companies control of their economic > surpluses. Countries that do not give the United States control their oil and financial sectors > or privatize their key sectors are being isolated by the United States imposing trade sanctions > and unilateral tariffs giving special advantages to U.S. producers in violation of free trade > agreements with European, Asian and other countries. Pepe Escobar on "The Economic Risks of Trump?s Reckless Assassination" https://www.asiatimes.com/2020/01/article/financial-n-option-will-settle-trumps-oil-war/ https://consortiumnews.com/2020/01/06/the-economic-risks-of-trumps-reckless-assassination/ Who was Gen. Soleimani? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASjINUJp9bw -- The Grayzone report https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_zwd9rYMPM -- "Iran and Qassem Soleimani defeated ISIS, while the US allies helped it" -Grayzone Soleimani was a messenger of peace when he was killed https://www.forexlive.com/news/%21/iraqi-pm-says-he-was-schedule-to-meet-with-soleimani-the-morning-he-was-killed-20200105 https://themindunleashed.com/2020/01/soleimani-iraq-peace-mission-trump-lied.html -- also includes claim that "Trump lied about 'Imminent attacks'" Continuity of policy: Obama's murderous administration used drone attacks and a secret "kill list" in his "Terror Tuesday" meetings where Obama reviewed CIA-supplied dossiers nicknamed "baseball cards" in selecting whom to assassinate. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html RT: "Trump follows Pentagon and State Department lead, says he wants US troops out of Iraq eventually ? but not just yet" https://on.rt.com/a8kl "Evidence? What evidence? Pompeo shows no proof of ?imminent? Soleimani attacks" -RT https://www.rt.com/usa/477663-pomepo-no-evidence-soleimani/ "Tucker Carlson Tonight" show https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlTLHnxSVuIzrARlmz9oCfQEF08UV-v-E Nasrallah on the Assassination http://normanfinkelstein.com/2020/01/07/nasrallah-on-the-assassination/ https://video.moqawama.org/details.php?cid=1&linkid=2088 https://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/x7q41jd Dr. Jill Stein on assassinating Soleimani https://twitter.com/DrJillStein/status/1213858241618337792 Jane Arraf followup to Dr. Jill Stein https://twitter.com/janearraf/status/1213823941321592834 Michael Hudson on "America Escalates Its ?Democratic? Oil War in the Near East" https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/06/america-escalates-its-democratic-oil-war-in-the-near-east/print/ -J From carl at newsfromneptune.com Thu Jan 9 00:56:56 2020 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2020 18:56:56 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] AWARE on the Air #500 notes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9F764319-EFB6-4095-8104-2A871BFB7D8F@newsfromneptune.com> Jeff? This is remarkable. Thanks for all your work. ?CGE > On Jan 7, 2020, at 6:25 PM, J.B. Nicholson via Peace-discuss wrote: > > AWARE on the Air #500 > Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nh8jDlSemtA > > A list of links to items referenced on the show. > > On C. G. Estabrook having an "overly positive attitude to Trump" > https://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/2020-January/051752.html -- Karen Aram's post > https://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/2020-January/051755.html -- C. G. Estabrook's reply > Other posts in this thread can be found in https://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/2020-January/thread.html#51755 > > Shervin Malekzadeh on "Boys Go to Baghdad, Real Men Go to Tehran" > https://lobelog.com/boys-go-to-baghdad-real-men-go-to-tehran/ > https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/06/15/boys-go-baghdad-real-men-go-tehran > > Jerri-Lynn Scofield on "Boys Go to Baghdad. Men Go to Tehran." > https://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2019/05/boys-go-to-baghdad-men-go-to-tehran.html > https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/05/boys-go-to-baghdad-men-go-to-tehran.html > > The Real News: "US Sanctions Leave Millions of Venezuelans Without Water" > https://therealnews.com/stories/us-sanctions-leave-millions-of-venezuelans-without-water > > "Study Linking US Sanctions to Venezuelan Deaths Buried by Reuters for Over a Month" > https://fair.org/home/study-linking-us-sanctions-to-venezuelan-deaths-buried-by-reuters-for-over-a-month/ -- news doesn't readily get out about the real harm of torturing Venezuelan via sanctions > > US sanctions on Venezuela led to 40,000 deaths > https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/04/27/594506/US-sanctions-on-Venezuela-deaths > https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/venezuela-sanctions-us-excess-death-toll-economy-oil-trump-maduro-juan-guaido-jeffrey-sachs-a8888516.html > > Where does the US get its oil from? US opinion versus reality > https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/08/where-america-oil-come-from/ -- people believe it mostly comes from Saudi Arabia but the US imports about 183 million barrels of oil from SA and imports 701 million barrels from Canada (the Canadian tar sands work, the largest strip mining project in the world). > > Michael Hudson on US economic warfare -- Hudson from a keynote paper delivered on July 21, 2019 > https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-07-26/michael-hudson-us-economic-warfare-and-likely-foreign-defenses > https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/07/michael-hudson-u-s-economic-warfare-and-likely-foreign-defenses.html > https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/07/22/u-s-economic-warfare-and-likely-foreign-defenses/ > >> Today?s world is at war on many fronts. The rules of international law and order put in place >> toward the end of World War II are being broken by U.S. foreign policy escalating its >> confrontation with countries that refrain from giving its companies control of their economic >> surpluses. Countries that do not give the United States control their oil and financial sectors >> or privatize their key sectors are being isolated by the United States imposing trade sanctions >> and unilateral tariffs giving special advantages to U.S. producers in violation of free trade >> agreements with European, Asian and other countries. > > > Pepe Escobar on "The Economic Risks of Trump?s Reckless Assassination" > https://www.asiatimes.com/2020/01/article/financial-n-option-will-settle-trumps-oil-war/ > https://consortiumnews.com/2020/01/06/the-economic-risks-of-trumps-reckless-assassination/ > > Who was Gen. Soleimani? > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASjINUJp9bw -- The Grayzone report > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_zwd9rYMPM -- "Iran and Qassem Soleimani defeated ISIS, while the US allies helped it" -Grayzone > > Soleimani was a messenger of peace when he was killed > https://www.forexlive.com/news/%21/iraqi-pm-says-he-was-schedule-to-meet-with-soleimani-the-morning-he-was-killed-20200105 > https://themindunleashed.com/2020/01/soleimani-iraq-peace-mission-trump-lied.html -- also includes claim that "Trump lied about 'Imminent attacks'" > > > > Continuity of policy: Obama's murderous administration used drone attacks and a secret "kill list" in his "Terror Tuesday" meetings where Obama reviewed CIA-supplied dossiers nicknamed "baseball cards" in selecting whom to assassinate. > https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html > > RT: "Trump follows Pentagon and State Department lead, says he wants US troops out of Iraq eventually ? but not just yet" > https://on.rt.com/a8kl > > "Evidence? What evidence? Pompeo shows no proof of ?imminent? Soleimani attacks" -RT > https://www.rt.com/usa/477663-pomepo-no-evidence-soleimani/ > > > > "Tucker Carlson Tonight" show > https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlTLHnxSVuIzrARlmz9oCfQEF08UV-v-E > > Nasrallah on the Assassination > http://normanfinkelstein.com/2020/01/07/nasrallah-on-the-assassination/ > https://video.moqawama.org/details.php?cid=1&linkid=2088 > https://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/x7q41jd > > > > Dr. Jill Stein on assassinating Soleimani > https://twitter.com/DrJillStein/status/1213858241618337792 > > Jane Arraf followup to Dr. Jill Stein > https://twitter.com/janearraf/status/1213823941321592834 > > Michael Hudson on "America Escalates Its ?Democratic? Oil War in the Near East" > https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/06/america-escalates-its-democratic-oil-war-in-the-near-east/print/ > > -J > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss From jbn at forestfield.org Thu Jan 9 06:45:29 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2020 00:45:29 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Notes Message-ID: I think you have some other topics from previous notes you could still bring up if you need more fodder for conversation. Here are some other items to consider for News from Neptune or AOTA. Have a good show guys! Coverage by the media: Congressional members need to be kept in line with permanent government (deep state) interests even if that means reusing old smears. Most media won't cover how this went down. RT: "Ms. Ocasio-Cortez Goes to Washington: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) shamed into un-liking antiwar journalist?s tweet, apologizing for wrongthink" https://on.rt.com/a8kb -- RT's report: AOC posted https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1213184923626070017 > Last night the President engaged in what is widely being recognized as an act of war against > Iran, one that now risks the lives of millions of innocent people.Now is the moment to prevent > war & protect innocent people - the question for many is how, publicly & Congressionally: Two days later Rania Khalek posted https://twitter.com/RaniaKhalek/status/1213862390774845441 > A friend flying into the US says he hasn?t seen so much security since 9/11. The US is terrified > of how Iran will retaliate. Iran won?t attack civilians, that?s what al Qaeda does. But it shows > this assassination did the opposite of making Americans safer and our leaders know it. AOC 'liked' Khalek's post. RT noted that: > Khalek?s tweet was largely in the same vein, making the point that ?this assassination did the > opposite of making Americans safer and our leaders know it.? > > But it wasn?t the content of the tweet that infuriated these social media hall monitors, who have > been gently prodding AOC toward an anodyne centrism since she arrived in Washington; it was the > account doing the tweeting. Khalek is an outspoken opponent of US foreign policy, particularly > the draconian sanctions and endless regime-change wars that have all but destroyed large swathes > of the Middle East over the past two decades. She has made a lot of enemies in standing up for > the US?s bogeymen, and they came out in force to concern-troll AOC. > > ?I?m a big fan, but did you know you?ve committed a thoughtcrime?? seemed to be the general > message. Miriam Elder replied https://twitter.com/MiriamElder/status/1214184743295733761 > AOC liking a tweet by a Syrian war crimes denier who says Iran doesn?t target civilians is one > way to start the week. It?s possible to be critical of this situation without being ahistorical. S. Rifai replied https://twitter.com/THE_47th/status/1214152869236092929 > Hi @AOC, I am 1 of those ppl who disagrees w/ you, yet respects you and your work a lot. I wanted > to let you know that you have been following/liking tweets of someone who spent the last 5yrs > whitewashing mass murder in the Mid East. Rania is a full time Assad whitewasher. AOC removed her 'like' and RT noted: > Some, like ?professional troll? Maryam Nayeb Yazdi, who has made no secret of her loathing for > Iran?s current government, deleted their tweets after AOC was badgered into un-liking Khalek?s > message and - supposedly - apologizing via Direct Message for her ?crime?. Dan Cohen (who works with Rania Khalek) posted https://twitter.com/dancohen3000/status/1214354319811719170 > The pressure campaign from pro-war trolls worked. @AOC unliked @RaniaKhalek?s tweet and thanked > them for alerting her that she committed a thought crime. Disturbing that she allows herself to > be pressured by such bullying. What happens when it?s over something more meaningful? So there's another target for the Assad whitewasher smear: AOC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeSSQZMqov4 -- Tulsi Gabbard (who opposes the assassination of Iranian Gen. Soleimani) explained to "Fox & Friends" (including sycophant Brian Kilmeade) why she objects to this assassination. Kilmeade is for whatever he thinks will agree with the leading Republican: he was against war in Iraq when candidate Trump objected to that war, but now he told Geraldo Rivera that he supports that same war after Geraldo Rivera pointed out that we were lied into that war by the US Government and this means we should not trust what they say when they claim Iran poses an imminent threat to us now. War: Sanctions are war https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04BZ7_eaDB0 -- Rania Khalek's informative new video explaining what sanctions are, showing that sanctions have never caused a population to work against their government (thus allowing the US to take over that government), and this means that sanctions don't work as the US claims they do. If the goal is to kill people sanctions are quite effective. Sanctions are war. Liberals need to understand this reality. Related: https://sanctionskill.org/ -- This site points out that: > Sanctions are imposed by the United States and its junior partners against countries that resist > their agendas. They are a weapon of Economic War, resulting in chronic shortages of basic > necessities, economic dislocation, chaotic hyperinflation, artificial famines, disease, and > poverty. And a call to Action for International Days of Action Against Sanctions and Economic War from March 13 through March 15, 2020 Related: Caitlin Johnstone on "Starvation Sanctions Are Worse Than Overt Warfare" https://archive.md/wip/Cx3mn https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/06/23/starvation-sanctions-are-worse-than-overt-warfare/ -- > Iran?s economy is already floundering due to the steadily mounting sanctions that the Trump > administration has been heaping upon it since its withdrawal from the JCPOA last year. Crucial > goods are four times the price they used to be, sick Iranians are having difficulty obtaining > life-saving medicine, and life in general has been getting much more difficult for the poorest > and frailest Iranian civilians. > > For this reason, it is a very safe bet that there have been Iranians who have died because of the > sanctions. Being unable to obtain enough life-saving medicine will inevitably increase mortality > rates, as will inadequate nutrition and care for those whose health is at risk. There?s not > really any way around that, and it?s only going to get worse. > > And that?s exactly what was supposed to happen. As far as their intended purpose is concerned, > the sanctions are working. They?re doing exactly what they were intended to do: hurt Iranian > civilians. > > How do I know this? Well for one thing America?s Secretary of State has said it openly. The New > York Times reports the following: > > [begin NYT quote] > Last week, Mr. Pompeo acknowledged to Michael J. Morrell, a former acting director of the C.I.A., > that the administration?s strategy would not persuade Iranian leaders to change their behavior. > > ?I think what can change is the people can change the government,? he said on a podcast hosted by > Mr. Morrell, in what appeared to be an endorsement of regime change. > [end NYT quote] > > The Trump administration isn?t leveling these sanctions because it believes they?ll cause Tehran > to capitulate to Washington?s impossible list of demands; they know full well that that will > never happen. What they claim, based on no evidence or historical precedent whatsoever, is that > by making life so painful for the hungry and malnourished Iranian people they?ll be forced to > rise up against their government to effect regime change themselves. > > Can you think of anything more sociopathic than this? Off the top of my head, I personally > cannot. [...] War: The U.S., consistent with having built the largest occupation bases in the world, is not leaving Iraq anytime soon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDphjFljGJk -- Despite the unaddressed leaked letter to the contrary, the US is not leaving Iraq. Protests: "No War On Iran" protests went national and more protests are planned. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFz68h0OgwI -- Jimmy Dore spoke at one in Los Angeles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGuga15EliM -- Mike Prysner (Empire Files, works with Abby Martin) spoke at the same Los Angeles protest. https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/08/we-need-everyone-streets-more-180-events-planned-across-us-protest-trumps-march-war -- more protests are planned. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtnvZuPVxzs -- Code Pink's Medea Benjamin on how the US is less safe after US assassinated Soleimani; upcoming protests against war with Iran. "Iranians hit the obvious targets" in an effort to respond but avoid "a kind of escalating spiral that could lead to war" -- Chris Hedges https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK2LUaHs8DI -- interview with Hedges. > Chris Hedges: The Iranians hit the obvious targets, and you have to go back to the period of time > between the election of Barack Obama and his inauguration. There was a huge effort on the part of > Israel and many of the hawks within the Bush administration to strike Iran. At that point the > footprint of the U.S. within Iraq, in terms of its military, was much larger, of course. And the > Iranians made it clear that if that happened the Green Zone and several of those bases would not > exist. So I would imagine that as soon as that assassination was carried out there was an > assumption which proved to be correct -- that these would be the Iranian targets and they > therefore prepared: whether that was dispersing US troops or making sure there was protective > cover. This is probably, at this moment, the best scenario: because if there had been significant > numbers of U.S. dead or U.S. losses, that may have pushed the Trump administration to respond in > a kind of escalating spiral that could lead to war. -J From jbn at forestfield.org Thu Jan 9 06:47:41 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2020 00:47:41 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] AWARE on the Air #500 notes In-Reply-To: <9F764319-EFB6-4095-8104-2A871BFB7D8F@newsfromneptune.com> References: <9F764319-EFB6-4095-8104-2A871BFB7D8F@newsfromneptune.com> Message-ID: C. G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss wrote: > Jeff? This is remarkable. Thanks for all your work. ?CGE I'm glad you like it, happy to help. -J From jbn at forestfield.org Sun Jan 12 00:48:01 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2020 18:48:01 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] News from Neptune #447 notes Message-ID: <9e8dbef9-7f42-24b4-1786-ec81bdfd28b0@forestfield.org> News from Neptune #447 A "U.S. War Crimes" edition Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKa6ZLXKTy8 A list of links to items referenced on the show. ANSWER panel discussion on war finance and related matters (3-4PM) Independent Media Center https://www.ucimc.org/ 202 South Broadway, #100, Urbana, IL 61801 (217) 344-8820 programdirector at ucimc.org Hosted by "ANSWER C-U" C. G. Estabrook on "Illinois Anti-Warriors and the Attractive Senator" https://www.counterpunch.org/2005/09/29/illinois-anti-warriors-and-the-attractive-senator/ C. G. Estabrook's articles for Counterpunch.org https://www.counterpunch.org/author/dr8gereswubecra/ David Green's recent letters to the editor of the News-Gazette https://www.news-gazette.com/opinion/letters-editor/letter-to-the-editor-harassment-study-is-silly-propaganda/article_9d4eee6b-a8fa-5d8a-8609-169c0d256af9.html -- "Harassment study is silly propaganda" https://www.news-gazette.com/opinion/letter-to-the-editor-concerns-voiced-about-bend-the-arc/article_99b2ac36-4279-5cad-8b60-892ca30dde6e.html -- "Concerns voiced about Bend the Arc" ANSWER: Act Now to Stop War & End Racism Coalition https://www.answercoalition.org/ T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets > We shall not cease from exploration > And the end of all our exploring > Will be to arrive where we started > And know the place for the first time. > Through the unknown, remembered gate > When the last of earth left to discover > Is that which was the beginning; > At the source of the longest river > The voice of the hidden waterfall > And the children in the apple-tree > Not known, because not looked for > But heard, half-heard, in the stillness > Between two waves of the sea. Selective Service System website crashes amid questions, fears of another military draft https://wqad.com/2020/01/06/selective-service-system-website-crashes-amid-questions-fears-of-another-military-draft/ https://krdo.com/news/politics/2020/01/03/selective-service-system-website-crashes-amid-questions-and-fears-of-another-us-military-draft/ https://fox8.com/2020/01/04/us-selective-service-website-crashes-amid-fears-of-military-draft/ Connor Mannion on "Tucker Carlson Slams Trump?s Strike on Top Iranian General: ?Lumbering Toward? War with Iran" https://www.mediaite.com/tv/tucker-carlson-slams-trumps-strike-on-top-iranian-general-lumbering-toward-war-with-iran/ Tucker Carlson Tonight https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlTLHnxSVuIzrARlmz9oCfQEF08UV-v-E Alexandria Kobryn on "Message of those at Urbana anti-war rally: ?Why are we doing this??" https://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/politics/message-of-those-at-urbana-anti-war-rally-why-are/article_9b7ed3d6-dd4b-5222-8c11-769983afc3fd.html Aaron Mat? on Twitter.com https://twitter.com/aaronjmate/status/1215689196188422146 > And he's already done a lot. Back in 2017, Senator Sanders was the *only* member of the > Democratic caucus in either chamber to vote against new sanctions on Iran. Caitlin Johnstone on "Starvation Sanctions Are Worse Than Overt Warfare" https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/06/23/starvation-sanctions-are-worse-than-overt-warfare/ https://archive.md/wip/Cx3mn Related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04BZ7_eaDB0 -- Rania Khalek on the lethality of sanctions. https://sanctionskill.org/ US war in Vietnam was not just a mistake but a crime https://monthlyreview.org/2016/12/01/lessons-from-the-vietnam-war/ https://www.laprogressive.com/vietnam-war-crime/ Norman Solomon "War With Iran is at Stake?and Democrats? High Jump Over Low Standards Aren?t Helping" https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/10/war-with-iran-is-at-stake-and-democrats-high-jump-over-low-standards-arent-helping/ Student Loan Repayment Programs for military members http://www.military.com/education/money-for-school/student-loan-repayment.html https://www.studentdebtrelief.us/news/does-the-military-pay-for-college/ https://studentloanhero.com/featured/strategies-army-officer-repay-68000-debt/ -- essentially a self-help ad for how to use one's military pay to pay down student debt. Joseph Bauers on "Lies, lies, lies drive war theme" https://www.news-gazette.com/opinion/letters-editor/letter-to-the-editor-lies-lies-lies-drive-war-theme/article_6848caac-e56e-542d-adde-df2cffd8ffca.html Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin briefing and "shitshow" reaction recordings https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul01ILKtGVo https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/god-almighty-that-was-a-shitshow-white-house-reporter-blasts-pompeo-mnuchin-presser -- inadvertently on-mic reaction from a White House reporter saying "God almighty, that was a shitshow!" All pages on the wsws.org site mentioning "1619 project" https://www.wsws.org/en/search.html?sectionId=&maxResults=100&phrase=1619+project&submit=Search Louis Proyect on "Project 1619 and Its Detractors" https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/10/project-1619-and-its-detractors/ Adolph Reed, Jr. on "What Materialist Black Political History Actually Looks Like" https://nonsite.org/editorial/what-materialist-black-political-history-actually-looks-like Cedric Johnson's articles on nonsite.org https://nonsite.org/author/cedjohnson J.B. Nicholson's notes https://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/2020-January/051768.html https://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace/2020-January/015599.html -J From davidgreen50 at gmail.com Sun Jan 12 21:38:11 2020 From: davidgreen50 at gmail.com (David Green) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2020 15:38:11 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?q?The_New_York_Times=E2=80=99_1619_Proje?= =?utf-8?q?ct_promoted_in_schools_across_the_US?= Message-ID: World Socialist Web Site wsws.org "The decision to go forward with this project, and to promote so emphatically, is bound up with the immense social changes taking place in the US and around the world. Young people are moving to the left. They are more politically engaged, less patriotic, and increasingly identifying as socialists. This radicalization is taking place alongside a massive growth of the class struggle internationally. These initial struggles have terrified the ruling classes of every country. It is in this context that the 1619 Project must be understood. This is the response of the ruling class to the growth of the class struggle. They are working to systematically push racialist politics in order to divide and disorient the working class." The New York Times? 1619 Project promoted in schools across the USBy Genevieve Leigh 10 January 2020 A recent lesson plan released by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, in collaboration with the *New York Times*, asks students to choose a historical document that interests them and to read through it. Next, the assignment instructs them to erase parts of the document that they do not like or believe in. The lesson plan, ?Erasure Poetry: Highlighting Inequities, Envisioning Liberation,? explains that ?erasure poems? can be ?a way of reclaiming and reshaping historical documents; they can lay bare the real purpose of the document or transform it into something wholly new. How will you highlight inequity?or envision liberation?through your erasure poem?? The Declaration of Independence as well as the 13th Amendment are among the documents suggested by the Pulitzer Center for the exercise, marked as appropriate for students of all grades. The lesson plan is one of dozens provided by the Pulitzer Center to promote a major initiative launched by the *Times* on August 16, ?The 1619 Project.? The aim, according to the *Times*, is to fundamentally change the way American history is understood and taught. The authors of the project concentrate their arguments on the premise that all problems can only be understood through the prism of ?white America? and ?black America,? seeing racial division, rather than class conflict, as the fundamental and abiding conflict in US history and in the present. The *World Socialist Web Site* has taken the lead in rebutting the historical falsifications of the *Times?* project. The WSWS coverage has included a series of in-depth historical analyses , interviews with leading historians of the American Revolution and Civil War, and a comprehensive reply to the *Times?* defense of the project. Poisoning the Well: Schools across the US adopt the NYT 1619 Project Despite the criticisms directed at the *Times* from historians, major efforts are underway to establish the 1619 Project as the official narrative of American history in schools and academic institutions. Chicago Public Schools was among the first districts to announce that the 1619 Project would be provided as a supplemental resource at every one of the system?s high schools. ?Thanks to our partners at the Pulitzer Center, every CPS high school will receive 200?400 copies of the New York Times? The 1619 Project this week as a resource to help reframe the institution of slavery, and how we?re still influenced by it today?from the workforce management system created to harness enslaved labor and the incredible wealth that came from its unsparing efficiency to the music that you may very well be listening to now,? Chicago Public School CEO Janice Jackson announced in September. So far, five additional districts have committed to rewriting their curriculum around the project, including Washington, D.C.; Buffalo, New York; and Newark, New Jersey. Some districts have gone a step further by developing special programs wholly dedicated to a study of the project. The Carroll School in Brooklyn, NY, which serves K?5 students, is working to secure a federal Title 3 grant to fund the creation of an ?after-school enrichment program? based on the project. The immense effort being made to ensure that copies of the project are distributed to school children should raise serious red flags. Many of these school systems are among the most poorly funded in the country. Just last fall, Chicago educators went on strike to demand increases in wages, funding to fix and repair decrepit and decaying school buildings, lower class sizes and the hiring of desperately needed support staff?none of which was realized. However, the dissemination of the 1619 Project is fully funded. In addition to the material resources provided to the schools, the project?s creator and leading author, Nikole Hannah-Jones, has been dispatched on a speaking tour, attending university and college campuses throughout the country. The effort has been funded in part by the Pulitzer Center. However, some major corporations have also been involved, including Shell Oil, which sponsored a recent appearance of Hannah-Jones in Houston, Texas. The 1619 Project will also be the basis for a series of books for readers of all ages. The series of books will include an expanded version of the magazine issue, including fiction essays and poetry as well as a graphic novel, and four ?1619 Project? publications for young people. The publication of the books is being overseen by Hannah-Jones and by Jake Silverstein, editor-in-chief of *The New York Times Magazine*. What is being taught in the NYT 1619 School Curriculum? The foundational lesson plan presented by the Pulitzer Center, ?Exploring ?the idea of America?, by Nikole Hannah Jones? is designed to introduce Hannah-Jones? essay and the 1619 Project to students. Hannah-Jones? essay, along with all the other 1619 material, is presented to teachers and students not as one ?narrative? among many, but as verified fact. Indeed, the material doubles down on many of the widely discredited historical assertions made in the project. One set of questions, for example, asks students to support the claim that the country was founded as a slavocracy: ?What examples of hypocrisy in the founding of the U.S. does Hannah-Jones supply? What evidence can you see for how ?some might argue that this nation was founded not as a democracy but as a slavocracy??? Another set of reading questions from the same lesson plan prompts students to expand on the project?s portrayal of the leaders of the American revolution and Civil War as racists: ?What picture does Hannah-Jones paint of major figures in classical U.S. history, such as Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln? Did you learn new information about them from her essay? If so, why do you think this information wasn?t included in other resources from which you have learned about U.S. history?? Present throughout the Pulitzer Center material is the insistence on the fundamental division of the country along racial lines. In one exercise, students are instructed to investigate the contributions of ?Black America?; In another, students are asked to carefully consider a quote from the essay: ?Out of our unique isolation, both from our native cultures and from white America, we forged this nation?s most significant original culture.?; Yet another asks, ?How does Hannah-Jones expand on this quote from sociologist Glenn Bracey: ?Out of the ashes of white denigration, we gave birth to ourselves??? Other lesson plans include ?Mapping Your Community?s Connection to Slavery,? in which students are to pick an article from the project and use it to develop a pitch ?for a news story about how this topic intersects with race in your community.? The curriculum is designed to inculcate in a new generation of workers a divisive racialist historical, and by extension political, worldview. All problems are to be explained by an ?endemic? conflict between the races that ?we still *cannot purge* from this nation to this day,? as Hannah-Jones puts it. The resources for the project?s nation-wide mass marketing and distribution effort have come from its co-sponsor, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, a Washington D.C. based non-profit founded in 2006 to support ?journalists, stories, and workplaces that represent and illuminate diversity and inclusion in all forms.? The function of the Pulitzer Center has been to legitimize the dissemination of the project as a credible historical work throughout the US education system. Funding for the Pulitzer Center comes from a wide range of sources. A number of billionaire philanthropic foundations, such as The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, and the Carnegie Foundation of New York, appear on its donor list, as well as other well connected companies such as BDT Capital Partners, a long-standing partner of Goldman Sachs, which handles the finances of the rich. With the help of the Pulitzer Center, the 1619 Project was launched in September with a fully developed school curriculum based on the project?s initial 18 essays. The school curriculum was immediately made available for public use from the Pulitzer Center website. The extensive set of materials are designed for children of all ages, from elementary school through college. Throughout the *Times* articles and the subsequent media blitz that accompanied the project, teachers and educational staff around the country were encouraged to adopt the project and use the material, presented as authoritative historical journalism, in their classrooms. The *New York Times* has taken it upon themselves to re-write school curriculum, without any oversight or input from leading historians who have spent their entire careers dedicated to the study of such history. They ignore decades of historiography of the Revolution and Civil War, which have been subject to intense and rigorous scholarly debate. The decision to go forward with this project, and to promote so emphatically, is bound up with the immense social changes taking place in the US and around the world. Young people are moving to the left. They are more politically engaged, less patriotic, and increasingly identifying as socialists. This radicalization is taking place alongside a massive growth of the class struggle internationally. These initial struggles have terrified the ruling classes of every country. It is in this context that the 1619 Project must be understood. This is the response of the ruling class to the growth of the class struggle. They are working to systematically push racialist politics in order to divide and disorient the working class. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From carl at newsfromneptune.com Sun Jan 12 23:39:01 2020 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2020 17:39:01 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?q?The_New_York_Times=E2=80=99_1619_Proje?= =?utf-8?q?ct_promoted_in_schools_across_the_US?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2B446604-E67C-4765-AEA3-D0E640177200@newsfromneptune.com> That seems to me right. And it comports well with BAR?s account of the ?Black misleadership class?. > On Jan 12, 2020, at 3:38 PM, David Green via Peace-discuss wrote: > > World Socialist Web Sitewsws.org > "The decision to go forward with this project, and to promote so emphatically, is bound up with the immense social changes taking place in the US and around the world. Young people are moving to the left. They are more politically engaged, less patriotic, and increasingly identifying as socialists. This radicalization is taking place alongside a massive growth of the class struggle internationally. These initial struggles have terrified the ruling classes of every country. It is in this context that the 1619 Project must be understood. This is the response of the ruling class to the growth of the class struggle. They are working to systematically push racialist politics in order to divide and disorient the working class." > > The New York Times? 1619 Project promoted in schools across the US > By Genevieve Leigh > 10 January 2020 > A recent lesson plan released by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, in collaboration with the New York Times, asks students to choose a historical document that interests them and to read through it. Next, the assignment instructs them to erase parts of the document that they do not like or believe in. > The lesson plan, ?Erasure Poetry: Highlighting Inequities, Envisioning Liberation,? explains that ?erasure poems? can be ?a way of reclaiming and reshaping historical documents; they can lay bare the real purpose of the document or transform it into something wholly new. How will you highlight inequity?or envision liberation?through your erasure poem?? > The Declaration of Independence as well as the 13th Amendment are among the documents suggested by the Pulitzer Center for the exercise, marked as appropriate for students of all grades. The lesson plan is one of dozens provided by the Pulitzer Center to promote a major initiative launched by the Times on August 16, ?The 1619 Project.? The aim, according to the Times, is to fundamentally change the way American history is understood and taught. > The authors of the project concentrate their arguments on the premise that all problems can only be understood through the prism of ?white America? and ?black America,? seeing racial division, rather than class conflict, as the fundamental and abiding conflict in US history and in the present. > The World Socialist Web Site has taken the lead in rebutting the historical falsifications of the Times? project. The WSWS coverage has included a series of in-depth historical analyses, interviews with leading historians of the American Revolution and Civil War, and a comprehensive reply to the Times? defense of the project. > Poisoning the Well: Schools across the US adopt the NYT 1619 Project > Despite the criticisms directed at the Times from historians, major efforts are underway to establish the 1619 Project as the official narrative of American history in schools and academic institutions. Chicago Public Schools was among the first districts to announce that the 1619 Project would be provided as a supplemental resource at every one of the system?s high schools. ?Thanks to our partners at the Pulitzer Center, every CPS high school will receive 200?400 copies of the New York Times? The 1619 Project this week as a resource to help reframe the institution of slavery, and how we?re still influenced by it today?from the workforce management system created to harness enslaved labor and the incredible wealth that came from its unsparing efficiency to the music that you may very well be listening to now,? Chicago Public School CEO Janice Jackson announced in September. > So far, five additional districts have committed to rewriting their curriculum around the project, including Washington, D.C.; Buffalo, New York; and Newark, New Jersey. Some districts have gone a step further by developing special programs wholly dedicated to a study of the project. The Carroll School in Brooklyn, NY, which serves K?5 students, is working to secure a federal Title 3 grant to fund the creation of an ?after-school enrichment program? based on the project. The immense effort being made to ensure that copies of the project are distributed to school children should raise serious red flags. Many of these school systems are among the most poorly funded in the country. Just last fall, Chicago educators went on strike to demand increases in wages, funding to fix and repair decrepit and decaying school buildings, lower class sizes and the hiring of desperately needed support staff?none of which was realized. However, the dissemination of the 1619 Project is fully funded. > In addition to the material resources provided to the schools, the project?s creator and leading author, Nikole Hannah-Jones, has been dispatched on a speaking tour, attending university and college campuses throughout the country. The effort has been funded in part by the Pulitzer Center. However, some major corporations have also been involved, including Shell Oil, which sponsored a recent appearance of Hannah-Jones in Houston, Texas. > The 1619 Project will also be the basis for a series of books for readers of all ages. The series of books will include an expanded version of the magazine issue, including fiction essays and poetry as well as a graphic novel, and four ?1619 Project? publications for young people. The publication of the books is being overseen by Hannah-Jones and by Jake Silverstein, editor-in-chief of The New York Times Magazine. > What is being taught in the NYT 1619 School Curriculum? > The foundational lesson plan presented by the Pulitzer Center, ?Exploring ?the idea of America?, by Nikole Hannah Jones? is designed to introduce Hannah-Jones? essay and the 1619 Project to students. Hannah-Jones? essay, along with all the other 1619 material, is presented to teachers and students not as one ?narrative? among many, but as verified fact. Indeed, the material doubles down on many of the widely discredited historical assertions made in the project. One set of questions, for example, asks students to support the claim that the country was founded as a slavocracy: ?What examples of hypocrisy in the founding of the U.S. does Hannah-Jones supply? What evidence can you see for how ?some might argue that this nation was founded not as a democracy but as a slavocracy??? > Another set of reading questions from the same lesson plan prompts students to expand on the project?s portrayal of the leaders of the American revolution and Civil War as racists: ?What picture does Hannah-Jones paint of major figures in classical U.S. history, such as Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln? Did you learn new information about them from her essay? If so, why do you think this information wasn?t included in other resources from which you have learned about U.S. history?? > Present throughout the Pulitzer Center material is the insistence on the fundamental division of the country along racial lines. In one exercise, students are instructed to investigate the contributions of ?Black America?; In another, students are asked to carefully consider a quote from the essay: ?Out of our unique isolation, both from our native cultures and from white America, we forged this nation?s most significant original culture.?; Yet another asks, ?How does Hannah-Jones expand on this quote from sociologist Glenn Bracey: ?Out of the ashes of white denigration, we gave birth to ourselves??? > Other lesson plans include ?Mapping Your Community?s Connection to Slavery,? in which students are to pick an article from the project and use it to develop a pitch ?for a news story about how this topic intersects with race in your community.? > The curriculum is designed to inculcate in a new generation of workers a divisive racialist historical, and by extension political, worldview. All problems are to be explained by an ?endemic? conflict between the races that ?we still cannot purge from this nation to this day,? as Hannah-Jones puts it. The resources for the project?s nation-wide mass marketing and distribution effort have come from its co-sponsor, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, a Washington D.C. based non-profit founded in 2006 to support ?journalists, stories, and workplaces that represent and illuminate diversity and inclusion in all forms.? The function of the Pulitzer Center has been to legitimize the dissemination of the project as a credible historical work throughout the US education system. > Funding for the Pulitzer Center comes from a wide range of sources. A number of billionaire philanthropic foundations, such as The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, and the Carnegie Foundation of New York, appear on its donor list, as well as other well connected companies such as BDT Capital Partners, a long-standing partner of Goldman Sachs, which handles the finances of the rich. > With the help of the Pulitzer Center, the 1619 Project was launched in September with a fully developed school curriculum based on the project?s initial 18 essays. The school curriculum was immediately made available for public use from the Pulitzer Center website. The extensive set of materials are designed for children of all ages, from elementary school through college. Throughout the Times articles and the subsequent media blitz that accompanied the project, teachers and educational staff around the country were encouraged to adopt the project and use the material, presented as authoritative historical journalism, in their classrooms. > The New York Times has taken it upon themselves to re-write school curriculum, without any oversight or input from leading historians who have spent their entire careers dedicated to the study of such history. They ignore decades of historiography of the Revolution and Civil War, which have been subject to intense and rigorous scholarly debate. > The decision to go forward with this project, and to promote so emphatically, is bound up with the immense social changes taking place in the US and around the world. Young people are moving to the left. They are more politically engaged, less patriotic, and increasingly identifying as socialists. This radicalization is taking place alongside a massive growth of the class struggle internationally. These initial struggles have terrified the ruling classes of every country. It is in this context that the 1619 Project must be understood. This is the response of the ruling class to the growth of the class struggle. They are working to systematically push racialist politics in order to divide and disorient the working class. > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss From brussel at illinois.edu Mon Jan 13 05:11:12 2020 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2020 05:11:12 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: [PeaceTalk-UFPJ] The Democrats must become a real anti-war party | Hamilton Nolan | Opinion | The Guardian References: Message-ID: <94EE922B-2F3A-407C-B8A8-1A257D08BE56@illinois.edu> Keveen Zeese puts forth what must, or ought to, be done to change th U.S. political system. I wonder what support that could muster. ?mkb Begin forwarded message: From: Kevin Zeese > Subject: Re: [PeaceTalk-UFPJ] The Democrats must become a real anti-war party | Hamilton Nolan | Opinion | The Guardian Date: January 10, 2020 at 10:56:18 AM CST To: Alice Slater > Cc: "wbw-discussion at googlegroups.com" > If the Democrats steal this nomination from Bernie again, my hope is that elected officials begin to abandon the Democratic Party. It is critical for this party to be broken up. In the Counterpunch article I linked to earlier, it makes these points in its conclusion: "Alexandria Acasio-Cortez recently said, correctly, that in most countries she and Joe Biden would be in a different political party. The Democrats are proving, yet again, that she and Bernie are the ones that don?t belong in the establishment party ? outsiders who are trying to reform an unreformable party of big business and imperialism. ... "If Bernie and the Squad are serious about stopping war they should throw a serious gauntlet down: threatening to form a new party if Democrats don?t actively agitate, organize, and legislate for peace talks to be immediately held, with the goal of removing the U.S. military from the Middle East. This or a similarly-meaningful demand is what?s required to actually mobilize the energy of working people to break the bi-partisan unity for war. "One cannot stay in a party with so much blood on its hands that passively allows another catastrophic war, the repercussions of which may lead to not only bloodshed, but the final nail in the coffin of U.S. democracy." I was pleased to see AOC is withholding her dues from the DCCC. She knows that the Democratic Party will try and destroy her. New York is losing a congressional seat and it is very likely redistricting will focus on her district, making it more difficult for her to win re-election. This should be a signal to all members of the Squad and Sanders, that it is time to form a new party that challenges the corporatism of the Democrats. A nomination stolen from Sanders could instigate such action. We need a viable party that stands for economic, racial and environmental justice as well as peace and anti-imperialism. There are independents and third party activists, as well as Democrats, and probably some Republicans, who would rapidly join such a party. KZ @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 On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 11:20 AM Alice Slater > wrote: Thanks for your great thoughts Kevin! And for your words of encouragement in the face of awful odds! Just to add to what did the peace movement in, for those of us in the Democratic party that worked for five years to take it over and nominate an anti-war candidate, George McGovern, don't underestrmate the power of the military-industrial controlled media who never said a good word about McGovern after he was nominated, never talked about the war, poverty, civil rights women's rights and all the great movements of the 60s that manifested politically and captured the Democratic nomination for McGovern, without an internet, going door to door and talking to registered democrats all over the country and getting out delegates elected to the Convention in 1972 in Miami. They hounded him merciless about his VP choice, Senator Eagleton from Missouri who had been hospitalized many years earlier for manic-depression and he had to actually get him off the ticket to shut them up, and put Sargent Shriver on instead but he never recovered or got any decent press coverage. Indeed the super-delegates that stopped Bernie from getting the nomination in 2016 were put in because of the McGovern stealth capture of the party against the wishes of the party bosses. At this 2020 convention where the party rejected Eliason as the party chair and gave us another triangulating neo-liberal, Perez, he has agreed to have a straight delegate vote on the first ballot only, after which the superdelegates, representig the party regulars get to vote for their neoliberal choice. Wish us all luck! Faiilng to take over the party for Bernie doesn't preclude us from supporting a third party in the aftermath. Maybe he would run on a third party this time if he cant get the nomination. It's still all an open question, unless we win the nomination for Bernie on the first ballot. It's worth a try as we will still have a President then committed to movement building which is absolutely essential to change course. Alice Alice Slater 446 E 86 St New York NY 10028 212-744-2005 646-238-9000(mobile) www.wagingpeace.org www.worldbeyondwar.org We may now care for each Earthian individual at a sustainable billionaire's level of affluence while living exclusively on less than 1 percent of our planet's daily energy income from our cosmically designed nuclear reactor, the Sun, optimally located 92 million safe miles away from us. Buckminster Fuller On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 10:33 AM Kevin Zeese > wrote: Well said, but the Democratic Party is going in the opposite direction. In the mid-term elections, more veterans and former intelligence officers were elected to the Congress for the Democratic Party. AOC was the exception, replacing a corporate Democrat, the other members of the Squad replaced other progressive Democrats. When Trump sought to get out of Syria, he was attacked by neocon Republicans and corporate/military Democrats. The Democratic Party's invention of Russiagate prevented diplomacy between Trump and Putin. And, the impeachment is about Trump slowing shipments of weapons to Ukraine for a proxy war with Russia. It is fanciful thinking to expect the Democrats to become a real anti-war opposition party. I hope Sanders can win the nomination against the tremendous efforts of the Democratic Party to stop him at all costs. And, I hope that if he does he will be able to overcome Dems abandoning him in the General Election as they did to George McGovern. And, if he survives all of that, I hope that the Democratic Party will be transformed to a Sanders party just as the Republicans became a Trump party. Those are a lot of hurdles to overcome. I gave up on the Democratic Party during the Clinton era and have never returned. My view is we need to build outside of the corrupt Democratic Party, build both a mass movement and an alternative political party that represents the movement. I realize many are working for Sanders and trying to change the party from the inside. I wish them good luck but am not convinced that reforming a party of millionaires and billionaires is the best use of my time. KZ @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 On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 9:15 AM Alice Slater > wrote: This is so well-said! Alice Alice Slater 446 E 86 St New York NY 10028 212-744-2005 646-238-9000(mobile) www.wagingpeace.org www.worldbeyondwar.org We may now care for each Earthian individual at a sustainable billionaire's level of affluence while living exclusively on less than 1 percent of our planet's daily energy income from our cosmically designed nuclear reactor, the Sun, optimally located 92 million safe miles away from us. Buckminster Fuller ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Kevin Lindemann and Cathy Campo kklcac at earthlink.net [PeaceTalk-UFPJ] > Date: Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 8:37 AM Subject: [PeaceTalk-UFPJ] The Democrats must become a real anti-war party | Hamilton Nolan | Opinion | The Guardian To: > ?? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/10/democrats-anti-war-trump-iran-hamilton-nolan The Democrats must become a real anti-war party Hamilton NolanFri 10 Jan 2020 05.30 EST Geopolitically speaking, we are the bad guys. The United States government, that is. The extent to which this is true fluctuates somewhat from administration to administration, but in the postwar decades it has been a fairly reliable judgment. We sponsor coups, fund death squads, stage unjustified invasions and enable all manner of human rights violations in exchange for economic and political gain. This is a fact that our political class has long deemed too unpleasant for the populace to swallow. What should be an uncontroversial observation of reality is therefore considered a taboo in mainstream political discourse. The Democratic party has long participated in this jingoistic hologram-weaving almost as enthusiastically as Republicans have. What we need are unapologetic soldiers for peace. What we usually get instead is ? Pete Buttigieg. Donald Trump got mad watching cable news, impulsively assassinated a top Iranian military figure, and has brought us to the brink of an entirely needless war. Unsurprising. We knew he was a tantrum-prone child when we elected him. We chose this incredibly stupid path. Guns and the flag are the bread and butter of the Republican party, and they will continue to feed these things to Americans as long as they continue to be an effective way to distract everyone from the fact that they are funneling all of your money to the rich. The only hope of salvation from our B-movie nightmare lies in having an opposition party that actually opposes this stuff. As long as the Democratsthemselves remain dazzled by militarism like a bunch of eight-year-olds gaping at a cool fighter jet, we are doomed to debate only how fast our world-annihilating stockpile of weapons should expand. The gravitational pull of the US military and its more than $700bn budget warps our national politics like a black hole. It is plainly insane. It sucks up money that could be spent improving lives rather than planning to destroy them; it sucks up human talent that could be put to more beneficial use than blowing things up; and, like all bureaucracies, the military tends to create the conditions to sustain itself ? in this case, a profusion of congressmen with military bases and defense contractors in their districts, who see forever wars as useful employment boosters. This structural danger has been apparent since the Eisenhower years, but our situation today ? the most powerful army in history under the total control of the biggest idiot in history ? is another fun legacy of the Clinton-era Democratic triangulation strategy, which holds that the path to Democratic power is to act more like Republicans. It is this approach to politics that earned us enthusiastic bipartisan backing for the Iraq war, and it remains the guiding philosophy of politicians like Joe Biden and his younger avatar Buttigieg. (The idea of joining the military reserve as a r?sum? line item right after joining McKinsey has a very strong Clinton-era vibe.) These types of Democrats seek out veterans for the same reason that Republicans try to recruit black candidates: they see politics purely as an optics game, and they have an extremely low opinion of the voting public.. A Democrat with an M-16 or a black Republican are an idiot?s idea of a foolproof ?checkmate!? moment in political debate. Consequently, a substantive movement for peace has long been dismissed as foolish by the same political geniuses who transformed John Kerry, a veteran best known for being a peace activist, into a flag-saluting ?Reporting for duty!? soldier man on stage at the Democratic convention. Kerry lost to a Republican draft dodger. Now we are ruled by another Republican draft-dodger. Our military budget is still larger than those of the next seven countries combined. We?re still starting new wars in the Middle East. And other than Bernie Sanders, all of the Democratic candidates seem incapable of saying clearly and without qualification that this is insane. The vast military buildup that followed 9/11 did nothing to prevent the biggest economic collapse since the Great Depression. The ?recovery? decade after that has been accompanied by inequality that continues to rise to ludicrous levels. From the perspective of a normal person, this has all been one long con. This is how societies break down. Trump?s election was a blind grasp for the most different thing. Imagine if people were given the chance to vote for something even more different: peace. Not the political talking point of ?peace through strength?, but peace through justice, a genuine acknowledgment that our empire-building days need to end, because all they do is get poor people killed in exchange for making rich people richer. Most Americans can?t name their own senator. I?m quite sure they don?t know that the US sponsored a coup to overthrow the democratically elected leader of Iran in 1953 and strengthen an autocratic shah whose secret police oppressed and tortured citizens for decades. It is little wonder Iranians whose parents and grandparents had their fingernails extracted by force thanks to America?s desire for ?stability in the region? might feel less than gracious towards America. This is the sort of conversation we should be having in our country right now; instead, we are treated to elected leaders competing to see who can best explain away our recent assassination of a Very, Very Bad Man. For decades, voters have not had a real alternative to militarism. The Republicans were all about it, and the Democrats were determined to show that they were too, like an undersized kid starting fights in a schoolyard. Those few Democrats brave enough to call for peace as a real policy goal have long been marginalized and mocked. But we live in a different time now. In the same way that socialism has gone from a punchline to a platform, peace is ready for its turn in power. And just like the old-school Democrats who hew to the failed centrist gospel of triangulation are being replaced with a new generation, so too must those who think that they need to strike muscular war poses for political reasons be pushed out of the party. The Iraq war is their legacy, and they don?t deserve a chance to make the same mistake again. Nothing requires less courage than letting yourself go along with a march towards war when you have the biggest military in the world. Show me a candidate willing to fight for peace, and I?ll show you the future. Sent from my iPhone __._,_.___ ________________________________ Posted by: Kevin Lindemann and Cathy Campo > ________________________________ Reply via web post ? Reply to sender ? Reply to group ? Start a New Topic ? Messages in this topic (1) Visit Your Group [Yahoo! Groups] ? Privacy ? Unsubscribe ? Terms of Use . __,_._,___ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WBW discussion" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to wbw-discussion+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/wbw-discussion/CAJxaZGUptqGJ71G8OC3VfnAc7_yD1Hn%2BgWxyFpbwB66n8MB1LQ%40mail.gmail.com. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WBW discussion" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to wbw-discussion+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/wbw-discussion/CAAyfi47E-ej6K18Sdqpb%3DMVjuX0vuaGjUgpUvGckMvWC5a6wMg%40mail.gmail.com. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mkb3 at icloud.com Mon Jan 13 05:23:02 2020 From: mkb3 at icloud.com (Morton K. Brussel) Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2020 23:23:02 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?b?RndkOiBbTmV3IHBvc3RdIOKAnElyYW4gTXVz?= =?utf-8?q?t_Begin_Acting_Like_A_Normal_Nation=2C=E2=80=9D_Says_Totally_No?= =?utf-8?q?rmal_Nation?= References: <139971992.7654.0@wordpress.com> Message-ID: <2C1F73FB-9477-47CE-A656-BE5EE0128192@icloud.com> If only this message could be printed in the NYT or the WaPo?. Brilliant take down . > Begin forwarded message: > > From: Caitlin Johnstone > Subject: [New post] ?Iran Must Begin Acting Like A Normal Nation,? Says Totally Normal Nation > Date: January 12, 2020 at 9:20:15 PM CST > To: mkb3 at mac.com > > New post on Caitlin Johnstone > > > ?Iran Must Begin Acting Like A Normal Nation,? Says Totally Normal?Nation by Caitlin Johnstone > > The government which runs a globe-spanning empire led by a reality TV host keeps talking about the lack of normality in the nation of Iran. > > "What we want all countries to join in," said State Department Spokesperson Morgan Ortagus in a recent Fox News interview, "is to help us not only to de-escalate any tensions with Iran, but to help us bring Iran to a place where they are ready to stop their terrorist and malign behavior, and where they are ready to discuss with the United States, with Europe, with everyone, about how they can change their behavior to act like a normal nation." > > "We want Iran to simply behave like a normal nation," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a press statement the other day. "We believe that the sanctions we imposed today further that strategic objective." > > These would be the additional sanctions which have been expanded to include virtually the entire Iranian economy , deliberately targeting Iran's already sanction-starved populace , with the explicit goal of fomenting a civil war in that nation. > > Which is of course a perfectly normal thing to do, from a perfectly normal nation. > > . at StateDeptSPOX : We want all countries to join us in encouraging #Iran to behave like a normal nation. pic.twitter.com/XvnG8x0YZ8 > ? Department of State (@StateDept) January 12, 2020 > This would be the same Iran whose cultural heritage sites were threatened with destruction if it retaliated for the totally normal assassination of its top military official via flying robot. The same Iran whose financial system was just threatened with destruction using the totally normal hegemony of American central banking. Perfectly normal, perfectly healthy. > > So what can Iran do to become a "normal nation"? Well, since it's the United States making this demand, we can safely assume that it's the model Iran should look to. > > In order to become a normal nation, Iran will need to expand its interests from the region and begin toppling noncompliant governments and invading nations all around the world. > > In order to become a normal nation, Iran will need to circle the planet with hundreds of Iranian military bases. > > In order to become a normal nation, Iran will need to become the most dominant military, economic and cultural force in the world, and then use that dominance to destroy any government, political party, ideology, faction, movement or person who stands in its way. > > In order to become a normal nation, Iran will need to arm violent extremist factions all around the world with the goal of eliminating all governments that refuse to bow to its interests. > > In order to become a normal nation, Iran will need to become the dominant producer of films, music and TV shows and use this influence to propagandize its power structure's ideology to every possible cultural sphere. > > In order to become a normal nation, Iran will need to begin meddling in scores of democratic elections all around the world and then crying for years at the possibility of any nation returning the favor. > > In order to become a normal nation, Iran will need to shore up economic control of the world so that it can crush any sort of disobedience by starving civilians and depriving them of medical care while pretending that it's a force for peace. > > In order to become a normal nation, Iran will need to indefinitely occupy a vast region on the other side of the planet with thousands upon thousands of troops and trillions of dollars in military equipment to no benefit of a single ordinary Iranian. > > In order to become a normal nation, Iran will need to create a presidency led by a reality TV star oligarch who is only supported because Iran's populace is so disgusted with the status quo of their government. > > Sec. of State Mike Pompeo: "The goal of our campaign is to deny the regime the resource to conduct its destructive foreign policy. We want Iran to simply behave like a normal nation. We believe the sanctions that we impose today further that strategic objective." pic.twitter.com/f4Wz0c1q9r > ? CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) January 10, 2020 > I am kidding, of course. The US government does not want Iran to become like the US. The US government does not want any nation to become like the US. The US likes its abnormality among nations just the way it is, thank you very much. The US is the exception to all its own rules. That's how American exceptionalism works. This is one of those "do as I say, not as I do" situations. > > The US doesn't want Iran to be like America. The US wants Iran to be like the other nations which have allowed themselves to be absorbed into the blob of the US-centralized empire. > > The US would be perfectly happy for Iran to begin acting like Saudi Arabia: arming terrorist factions, beheading heretics, committing war crimes and deliberately creating humanitarian disasters for geostrategic convenience, yet aligning fully with US military, financial, and resource control agendas. > > The US would be perfectly happy for Iran to begin acting like Israel: a nuclear-armed military outpost which constantly bombs adjacent nations, interferes in the US and other nations' politics to shore up support, works toward the slow extermination of its indigenous population and fires upon protesters with live ammunition. > > The US would be perfectly happy for Iran to begin acting like Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand or the EU: obedient military/intelligence assets who function as extra American states when it comes to foreign policy and international affairs. > > That is what the US means by acting "normal". Not acting moral. Not acting healthy. Certainly not acting like the US. It means acting obedient, compliant, and enslaved. > > Which is precisely what Iran is resisting. > > ________________________ > > Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website , which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported , so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook , following my antics on Twitter , checking out my podcast on either Youtube , soundcloud , Apple podcasts or Spotify , following me on Steemit , throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal , purchasing some of my sweet merchandise , buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone , or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers . For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I?m trying to do with this platform, click here . Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish or use any part of this work (or anything else I?ve written) in any way they like free of charge. > > > > Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2 > > Caitlin Johnstone | January 13, 2020 at 3:17 am | Tags: america , caitlin johnstone , Iran , nation , normal , satire , usa | Categories: Article , News | URL: https://wp.me/p9tj6M-1Zs > Comment See all comments > Unsubscribe to no longer receive posts from Caitlin Johnstone. > Change your email settings at Manage Subscriptions . > > Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser: > https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/01/13/iran-must-begin-acting-like-a-normal-nation-says-totally-normal-nation/ > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From carl at newsfromneptune.com Mon Jan 13 18:09:11 2020 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2020 12:09:11 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: [Peace] Wars Are Like Trade Deals: Simple Majority of Congress is Enough to Stop Them References: Message-ID: > https://www.facebook.com/robert.naiman/posts/10159038944957656 > > Wars Are Like Bad Trade Deals: Simple Majority of Congress is Enough to Stop Them > > A central organizing project of my life since 2006 has been to try to do in Congress to U.S. wars what Lori Wallach of Public Citizen?s Global Trade Watch, for whom I worked in 1997-1998, tries to do to bad trade deals: stop them. In this sense, the passage by the House last Thursday of a concurrent resolution [not subject to presidential veto] ? exactly as envisioned by the War Powers Resolution of 1973 - to end Trump's unconstitutional war with Iran was like Fast Track '97, when we blocked Bill Clinton on the House floor from getting "fast track" authority to negotiate new trade and investment agreements. It would be salutary if a journalist like John Nichols, who has chronicled Congressional reform efforts in these two areas since Dennis Kucinich was in Congress, would write an article to educate activist public opinion about how wars are like bad trade deals and how trying to stop them is similar. > > I started thinking about this again this morning because I was listening to a story on This American Life related to migration from Mexico to the United States which noted the huge increase in that migration that occurred in the 1990s. Which, of course, was during the first years of the NAFTA agreement. One of the marketing stories of the NAFTA agreement prior to its passage by Congress was that it was going to reduce migration from Mexico to the United States by creating more economic opportunity in Mexico; the opposite happened. When you look back at what the NAFTA agreement was designed to do, which included replacing Mexican food production for Mexican consumers with U.S. food production for Mexican consumers, the claim that NAFTA was going to reduce migration from Mexico to the United States was preposterous. The Mexican farmers who were thrown out of work by U.S. agricultural dumping had to go somewhere. So the claim that NAFTA was going to reduce Mexican migration to the U.S. was about as preposterous as the claim that the U.S. invaded Iraq in order to address the alleged threat of weapons of mass destruction or to bring democracy and freedom and human rights to Iraqis. In both cases, it wasn't really a "mistake" - it was a bald-face lie, ?from the morning,? as the Palestinians say. > > One way that wars are like bad trade deals is that the owners of America have an agenda of permanently remaking a foreign country for the benefit of the owners, which agenda is going to victimize a lot of Americans, in addition to victimizing a lot of people in the foreign country which is intended to be victimized. The owners of America sometimes face a usually one-time-only obstacle of democratic accountability they have to get through in order to execute their victimization agenda: the Congress of the United States. In order to get their victimization agenda through Congress - the bad trade deal or the war ? the owners have to lie about what the actual effects of their agenda on the victims are going to be. Of course, the owners lie about what's going to happen to the intended victims in the foreign country which is intended to be victimized. That's not very hard to get away with, since the intended victims in the foreign country which is intended to be victimized don't generally vote in U.S. elections or have other good means for voice here. But the owners also lie about what's going to happen to intended victims in America as a result of their agenda, and that part can be trickier, because the intended victims in America do still have some voice in Congress occasionally, even if that voice is usually badly attenuated by the power in Washington of Big Money. > > So the opponents of the owners? agenda have to expose and oppose both sets of lies, but the opponents of the owners? agenda often have to prioritize exposing and opposing the lies about what's going to happen to the American victims, because those concerns are usually the engine that's pulling the train in terms of what Congress is going to do. In this sense, flag-draped caskets at Dover Air Force Base, the destruction of the World Trade Center by Saudis linked to the Saudi regime, and the assassination of U.S. resident journalist Jamal Khashoggi by the Saudi regime are like the destruction of union manufacturing jobs in the Midwest by U.S. trade agreements. > > We can see the effects of these dynamics when we compare efforts to oppose unconstitutional war with Iran with efforts to oppose unconstitutional U.S. participation in the genocidal Saudi regime war in Yemen. The half-empty is this: the main reason that the House voted last Thursday to stop unconstitutional war with Iran while it didn't vote last Thursday to stop unconstitutional U.S. participation in the genocidal Saudi regime war in Yemen is that Iran has the capacity to kill Americans and starving children in Yemen and their parents do not. But the spectacular half-full whose robust implications are not yet on public display is this: the underlying mechanism of democratic accountability is exactly the same - Congress invoking the War Powers Resolution of 1973 exactly as intended to pass a concurrent resolution [not subject to presidential veto] to end unconstitutional U.S. participation in an unauthorized war; and when the House did this on Thursday, with the vigorous backing of the House Democratic leadership, they set a precedent that we can use to try to end the Yemen war, any time we want. > > On Thursday, top House Democratic leaders, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Eliot Engel, threw down for Congressional insistence that Congress can stop an unconstitutional war with a simple majority in both houses by passing a concurrent resolution [not subject to presidential veto] to direct the President to stop the unconstitutional war, exactly as envisioned by the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which is the law of the land. > > This is a game-changer in a Democratic House, because under the War Powers Resolution, any Member of the House can introduce a privileged concurrent resolution to end unconstitutional U.S. participation in a war any time the House is in session, and that bill must go to the floor for a vote if the sponsor insists. It doesn?t say anywhere in the War Powers Resolution that it has to be Ro Khanna. It could be Ilhan Omar. It could be Rashida Tlaib. It could be Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It could be Tulsi Gabbard. It could be Jim McGovern, it could be Barbara Lee, it could be Peter DeFazio, it could be Pramila Jayapal. To prevent the introduction of such a privileged concurrent resolution therefore requires the unanimous consent of every single House Democrat. And therefore, every single House Democrat can be held individually accountable for the failure to introduce such a resolution. > > Moreover, under the War Powers Resolution, any such resolution which is passed by the House is privileged in the Senate, which means that Mitch McConnell can?t block a Senate vote. So this means that if House Democrats are on record as opposing a war ? as they are on record opposing unconstitutional U.S. participation in the genocidal Saudi regime war in Yemen ? then a single House Democrat ? like Ilhan Omar, for example ? can pull the plunger on the pinball that will force a Senate vote which Mitch McConnell can do nothing to stop and which can pass the Senate with a simple majority. [Such privileged resolutions only require a simple majority in the Senate.] > > If we compare the world in which we ?only? need a simple majority in both houses to end an unconstitutional war with the world in which we need a two-thirds majority in both houses to end an unconstitutional war because we have to override a presidential veto, the world in which we ?only? need a simple majority in both houses to end an unconstitutional war is going to have much less war in it. Much less. > > For these reasons, the introduction and passage in the House of a concurrent resolution to end unconstitutional U.S. participation in the genocidal Saudi war in Yemen is an urgent priority; not only to end the war ? which would certainly be reason enough ? but to clarify and underscore and nail to the church door for all time the ?new normal? that we ?only? need a simple majority in both houses to end an unconstitutional war. > https://www.facebook.com/robert.naiman/posts/10159038944957656 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mkb3 at icloud.com Mon Jan 13 22:31:31 2020 From: mkb3 at icloud.com (Morton K. Brussel) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2020 16:31:31 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Wilkerson interview Message-ID: <00167CA4-D4FA-432E-BD0C-53B266B0C1F6@icloud.com> As strong a statement as one is likely to encounter against Trump and Company. I was impressed byhis fervor. https://www.democracynow.org/2020/1/13/lawrence_wilkerson_american_empire_war?utm_source=Democracy+Now%21&utm_campaign=55dd9c28cd-Daily_Digest_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fa2346a853-55dd9c28cd-190166725 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From carl at newsfromneptune.com Tue Jan 14 00:33:24 2020 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Mon, 13 Jan 2020 18:33:24 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Wilkerson interview In-Reply-To: <00167CA4-D4FA-432E-BD0C-53B266B0C1F6@icloud.com> References: <00167CA4-D4FA-432E-BD0C-53B266B0C1F6@icloud.com> Message-ID: And the US political establishment - which aggressively conducted ?American empire war? in the previous administration (and long before) - very much wants us to believe that Trump is the problem - so that the war-making can continue undisturbed, with his departure. It?s a particularly cynical attempt to mislead US public opinion. Trump was the first major party presidential candidate in 40 years to *attack* the government?s expanding neocon and and neolib policies (more war and more austerity). Those attacks made him president (not America racism, as the Democrats insisted.) But in office he?s largely adopted those policies. Obama was the first US president ever to be at war throughout two presidential terms, but we may with luck have an election between two candidates thrown up by the burgeoning populist wave, Trump and Sanders, populism being the conviction that "a virtuous and homogeneous people [is under attack from] a set of elites and dangerous ?others? who are together depicted as depriving (or attempting to deprive) the sovereign people of their rights, values, prosperity, identity, and voice.? The political establishment - working for the 1% - are desperate to see that the populist wave is suppressed (in both parties), and conventional candidates (like Pence and Biden) confront one another, so that American empire war & immiseration continue, regardless of the election returns. ======================== Wilkerson on 'Democracy Now': "America exists today to make war. How else do we interpret 19 straight years of war and no end in sight? It?s part of who we are. It?s part of what the American Empire is. We are going to lie, cheat and steal, as Pompeo is doing right now, as Trump is doing right now, as Esper is doing right now, as Lindsey Graham is doing right now, as Tom Cotton is doing right now, and a host of other members of my political party, the Republicans, are doing right now. We are going to cheat and steal to do whatever it is we have to do to continue this war complex. That?s the truth of it. And that?s the agony of it. "What we saw President Trump do was not in President Trump?s character, really. Those boys and girls who were getting on those planes at Fort Bragg to augment forces in Iraq, if you looked at their faces and, even more importantly, if you looked at the faces of the families assembled along the line that they were traversing to get onto the airplanes, you saw a lot of Donald Trump?s base. That base voted for Donald Trump because he promised to end these endless wars. He promised to drain the swamp. Well, as I said, an alligator from that swamp jumped out and bit him. And when he ordered the killing of Qassem Soleimani, he was a member of the national security state in good standing. And all that state knows how to do is make war.? At that point, Amy Goodman (speaking for the political establishment) says, "I want to turn to President Trump?! Of course she does. ?CGE > On Jan 13, 2020, at 4:31 PM, Morton K. Brussel via Peace-discuss wrote: > > As strong a statement as one is likely to encounter against Trump and Company. I was impressed byhis fervor. > > https://www.democracynow.org/2020/1/13/lawrence_wilkerson_american_empire_war?utm_source=Democracy+Now%21&utm_campaign=55dd9c28cd-Daily_Digest_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fa2346a853-55dd9c28cd-190166725 > > > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Tue Jan 14 19:48:23 2020 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2020 13:48:23 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?q?=5BPeace=5D_NPR_Rakes_Esper_on_?= =?utf-8?b?4oCcSW1taW5lbnQgVGhyZWF0PyHigJ0gYW5kIOKAnENvbnN0aXR1dGlv?= =?utf-8?q?nal_War_Powers=E2=80=9D?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <007001d5cb13$95c28cb0$c147a610$@comcast.net> Bob, I am glad to hear that about that particular NPR interview of Esper, but I think you are being WAY too over optimistic about the corporate owned ( and in the case of NPR / PBS - corporate funded ) media. You should watch / read what the rest of the corporate media does ( and even other NPR programs ) within the next few days before you make those conclusions. I really wish that somehow it would be the case, but I am not going to hold my breath, not even for a second. And as far as what you describe as the ? oppositional Democratic leadership ? is absolute fantasy ! There are only 41 Democrats in the U.S. House ( and about 6 in the Senate ) who opposed the recent NDAA Bill, out of 188 who supported it. Your analysis has been excellent lately, but I am sorry to say, this position you are describing is way off the mark of accuracy. David J. From: Peace [mailto:peace-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of Robert Naiman via Peace Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2020 9:51 AM To: peace Subject: [Peace] NPR Rakes Esper on ?Imminent Threat?!? and ?Constitutional War Powers? https://www.facebook.com/robert.naiman/posts/10159042202582656 NPR Rakes Esper on ?Imminent Threat?!? and ?Constitutional War Powers? Pentagon boss Esper was on NPR this morning. NPR pressed Esper on ?imminent threat?? and Constitutional War Powers. It was absolutely glorious. NPR totally humiliated Esper. NPR made Esper sound like a lying fool. Which, of course, is exactly what he is. I?ve been listening to NPR for decades. I never heard this version of NPR before. It was like listening to the BBC. On the BBC, if a government official won?t answer a question, they just keep repeating the question over and over until the government official answers it, or until they feel they?ve adequately demonstrated exactly what important question it is that government officials are unable or unwilling to answer. Then, if the government official still won?t answer the question, they cut the broadcast clip right there. Like, if this government official is unable or unwilling to answer our questions, then there?s no point in talking to them anymore. Then, everybody who hears the interview knows exactly what important question it was that government officials were unable or unwilling to answer. The only difference between NPR this morning and the BBC was the tone. NPR has this deferential, reverential tone when they?re talking with or about Pentagon officials. ?Please, suh, can I have some more?? That was the same as usual. On the BBC, the reporters have this swashbuckling tone, like if government officials don?t hate you, then you?re not a real journalist. But that was the only difference between NPR and the BBC this morning, the tone. The effective content was the same. Government lying was exposed. Everybody who heard that NPR interview now knows that ?Imminent Threat? vs. Constitutional War Powers? is the question that Administration officials are unable or unwilling to answer. We?re getting the oppositional U.S. media right now that we were entitled to in October 2002. If we could have had this oppositional U.S. media in October 2002, before Congress approved the Iraq AUMF, we could have stopped the Iraq war. The most important reason why we?re getting the oppositional media we deserve right now and not the lapdog media we had in October 2002 is that we?re getting the oppositional Democratic leadership we deserve right now, not the lapdog Democratic leadership we had in October 2002. The U.S. media takes key cues from Congress about what the boundaries of permissible debate are and where to strategically press government officials. This is where the ?extra-parliamentary? antiwar Left got it badly wrong in the past by not engaging with Congress more, not just in the immediate run-up to war, but all the way along, when the seeds for war were being planted. U.S. media need two Batsignals from Congress in this juncture to go to town: 1. The ?opposition party? is mostly united in opposition. 2. There are some members of the President?s party speaking out. This is what?s happening right now. U.S. media are getting the two Batsignals they need from Congress, and they?re going to town. Members of Congress go on TV and they say, ?Imminent Threat??!! Constitutional War Powers!!? And U.S. media says, ?Woof, woof! Imminent threat??!! Woof, woof! Constitutional War Powers!!? Recall the scene in ?All the President?s Men? with Bob Woodward and ?Deep Throat?/Mark Felt in the parking garage. Associate FBI Director Mark Felt doesn?t tell Woodward what the truth is. He tells the Washington Post cub reporter from Wheaton, Illinois what the right questions to ask are. He tells Woodward what leads the Justice Department and the FBI would be pursuing if they didn?t have the misfortune to be headed by appointees of Richard Nixon. ?Follow the money!!!? This is what the Members of Congress are doing when they go to the microphone and say, ?Imminent Threat??!! Constitutional War Powers!!? They?re telling the U.S. media: ?Look over there! Follow this lead! Press government officials on this question! This question is their Achilles? Heel! This is the question they can?t answer!? The main reason that we didn?t have the dynamics in October 2002 that we?re having now is that key Democratic leaders in Congress folded immediately to the Bush Administration on the Iraq AUMF. Dick Gephardt, Joe Biden, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton folded immediately on the Bush Administration?s fraudulent case for war, and this undercut opposition in Congress, including Republican opposition. Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey asked, why would we attack Iraq? Iraq hasn?t attacked us. But Democratic House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt undercut Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey?s opposition to the war by announcing that he would work with the Bush Administration to pass an AUMF. It was widely perceived at the time that a key reason, if not the main reason, why Dick Gephardt, Joe Biden, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton folded immediately to the Bush Administration on the Iraq war was that they were all planning to run for President, and they believed that opposing the war would be a liability for their presidential ambitions. Let?s suppose that this causation story is substantially true. Here are the questions for the final exam: 1. When Dick Gephardt, Joe Biden, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton folded immediately to the Bush Administration?s fraudulent case for war because of their presidential ambitions, were they primarily concerned about the opinions of voters, or were they primarily concerned about the opinions of some other group of people? 2. If they were primarily concerned with the opinions of some other group of people, what group of people were they primarily concerned about? 3. What implications does this have for the present juncture? 4. What did Deep Throat say to Bob Woodward in the parking garage? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From naiman.uiuc at gmail.com Tue Jan 14 20:24:59 2020 From: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com (Robert Naiman) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2020 15:24:59 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?q?=5BPeace=5D_NPR_Rakes_Esper_on_?= =?utf-8?b?4oCcSW1taW5lbnQgVGhyZWF0PyHigJ0gYW5kIOKAnENvbnN0aXR1dGlv?= =?utf-8?q?nal_War_Powers=E2=80=9D?= In-Reply-To: <007001d5cb13$95c28cb0$c147a610$@comcast.net> References: <007001d5cb13$95c28cb0$c147a610$@comcast.net> Message-ID: I never claimed that there was a permanent change in NPR or the U.S. media generally. I was just referring to what happened on NPR this morning and in the U.S. media in last few days, where the Trump Administration is getting hammered on its claim that its assassination of a top Iranian official was constitutional and legal because there was an "imminent threat" of attack. There's no intrinsic reason to expect this change to be permanent; on the contrary, I argued in what I wrote that a key cause of the change was the difference between the position of the Democratic leadership in Congress on Iran now from the behavior of the Democratic leadership in Congress on Iraq in October 2002. This is obviously a contingent thing; for example, if the House were debating U.S. policy in Syria now, the dynamics might be quite different, because until now the House Democratic leadership has supported U.S. policy in Syria. It is quite true that most House Democrats and especially most of the House Democratic leadership were quite terrible on NDAA, a fact of which I assure you I am fully aware, in great detail. However, the world has changed significantly in the last few weeks, due to 1] the outcry over what happened on NDAA 2] the subsequent unconstitutional Trump military escalation against Iran 3] people mobilizing against Trump's escalation 4] people slagging on House Democrats for enabling Trump's military escalation by standing down on the Khanna-Gaetz NDAA amendment that would likely have stopped it 5] CPC leaders, especially Rep. Ilhan Omar, pushing on House Democrats to respond to Trump's military escalation. All that was the context in which last Thursday House Democrats overwhelming voted for a War Powers Resolution to stop Trump's unconstitutional military escalation against Iran, with some key Republicans like Rand Paul and Mike Lee and Tom Massie and Matt Gaetz also speaking up, and that vote on Thursday, together with other slagging on the Administration's claims by both Democrats and Republicans, have formed the key context for the media being aggressive in challenging the Trump Administration's claims, exactly as I wrote. On Tue, Jan 14, 2020 at 2:48 PM David Johnson wrote: > Bob, > > > > I am glad to hear that about that particular NPR interview of Esper, but I > think you are being WAY too over optimistic about the corporate owned ( and > in the case of NPR / PBS - corporate funded ) media. > > You should watch / read what the rest of the corporate media does ( and > even other NPR programs ) within the next few days before you make those > conclusions. > > I really wish that somehow it would be the case, but I am not going to > hold my breath, not even for a second. > > > > And as far as what you describe as the ? oppositional Democratic > leadership ? is absolute fantasy ! > > There are only 41 Democrats in the U.S. House ( and about 6 in the Senate > ) who opposed the recent NDAA Bill, out of 188 who supported it. > > > > Your analysis has been excellent lately, but I am sorry to say, this > position you are describing is way off the mark of accuracy. > > > > David J. > > > > *From:* Peace [mailto:peace-bounces at lists.chambana.net] *On Behalf Of *Robert > Naiman via Peace > *Sent:* Tuesday, January 14, 2020 9:51 AM > *To:* peace > *Subject:* [Peace] NPR Rakes Esper on ?Imminent Threat?!? and > ?Constitutional War Powers? > > > > > > https://www.facebook.com/robert.naiman/posts/10159042202582656 > > > > NPR Rakes Esper on ?Imminent Threat?!? and ?Constitutional War Powers? > > > > Pentagon boss Esper was on NPR this morning. NPR pressed Esper on > ?imminent threat?? and Constitutional War Powers. It was absolutely > glorious. NPR totally humiliated Esper. NPR made Esper sound like a lying > fool. Which, of course, is exactly what he is. I?ve been listening to NPR > for decades. I never heard this version of NPR before. It was like > listening to the BBC. On the BBC, if a government official won?t answer a > question, they just keep repeating the question over and over until the > government official answers it, or until they feel they?ve adequately > demonstrated exactly what important question it is that government > officials are unable or unwilling to answer. Then, if the government > official still won?t answer the question, they cut the broadcast clip right > there. Like, if this government official is unable or unwilling to answer > our questions, then there?s no point in talking to them anymore. Then, > everybody who hears the interview knows exactly what important question it > was that government officials were unable or unwilling to answer. The only > difference between NPR this morning and the BBC was the tone. NPR has this > deferential, reverential tone when they?re talking with or about Pentagon > officials. ?Please, suh, can I have some more?? That was the same as usual. > On the BBC, the reporters have this swashbuckling tone, like if government > officials don?t hate you, then you?re not a real journalist. But that was > the only difference between NPR and the BBC this morning, the tone. The > effective content was the same. Government lying was exposed. Everybody who > heard that NPR interview now knows that ?Imminent Threat? vs. > Constitutional War Powers? is the question that Administration officials > are unable or unwilling to answer. > > > > We?re getting the oppositional U.S. media right now that we were entitled > to in October 2002. If we could have had this oppositional U.S. media in > October 2002, before Congress approved the Iraq AUMF, we could have stopped > the Iraq war. > > > > The most important reason why we?re getting the oppositional media we > deserve right now and not the lapdog media we had in October 2002 is that > we?re getting the oppositional Democratic leadership we deserve right now, > not the lapdog Democratic leadership we had in October 2002. > > > > The U.S. media takes key cues from Congress about what the boundaries of > permissible debate are and where to strategically press government > officials. This is where the ?extra-parliamentary? antiwar Left got it > badly wrong in the past by not engaging with Congress more, not just in the > immediate run-up to war, but all the way along, when the seeds for war were > being planted. > > > > U.S. media need two Batsignals from Congress in this juncture to go to > town: > > > > 1. The ?opposition party? is mostly united in opposition. > > 2. There are some members of the President?s party speaking out. > > > > This is what?s happening right now. U.S. media are getting the two > Batsignals they need from Congress, and they?re going to town. > > > > Members of Congress go on TV and they say, ?Imminent Threat??!! > Constitutional War Powers!!? And U.S. media says, ?Woof, woof! Imminent > threat??!! Woof, woof! Constitutional War Powers!!? > > > > Recall the scene in ?All the President?s Men? with Bob Woodward and ?Deep > Throat?/Mark Felt in the parking garage. Associate FBI Director Mark Felt > doesn?t tell Woodward what the truth is. He tells the Washington Post cub > reporter from Wheaton, Illinois what the right questions to ask are. He > tells Woodward what leads the Justice Department and the FBI would be > pursuing if they didn?t have the misfortune to be headed by appointees of > Richard Nixon. ?Follow the money!!!? > > > > This is what the Members of Congress are doing when they go to the > microphone and say, ?Imminent Threat??!! Constitutional War Powers!!? > They?re telling the U.S. media: ?Look over there! Follow this lead! Press > government officials on this question! This question is their Achilles? > Heel! This is the question they can?t answer!? > > > > The main reason that we didn?t have the dynamics in October 2002 that > we?re having now is that key Democratic leaders in Congress folded > immediately to the Bush Administration on the Iraq AUMF. Dick Gephardt, Joe > Biden, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton folded immediately on the Bush > Administration?s fraudulent case for war, and this undercut opposition in > Congress, including Republican opposition. Republican House Majority Leader > Dick Armey asked, why would we attack Iraq? Iraq hasn?t attacked us. But > Democratic House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt undercut Republican House > Majority Leader Dick Armey?s opposition to the war by announcing that he > would work with the Bush Administration to pass an AUMF. > > > > It was widely perceived at the time that a key reason, if not the main > reason, why Dick Gephardt, Joe Biden, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton > folded immediately to the Bush Administration on the Iraq war was that they > were all planning to run for President, and they believed that opposing the > war would be a liability for their presidential ambitions. > > > > Let?s suppose that this causation story is substantially true. Here are > the questions for the final exam: > > > > 1. When Dick Gephardt, Joe Biden, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton folded > immediately to the Bush Administration?s fraudulent case for war because of > their presidential ambitions, were they primarily concerned about the > opinions of voters, or were they primarily concerned about the opinions of > some other group of people? > > > > 2. If they were primarily concerned with the opinions of some other group > of people, what group of people were they primarily concerned about? > > > > 3. What implications does this have for the present juncture? > > > > 4. What did Deep Throat say to Bob Woodward in the parking garage? > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbn at forestfield.org Wed Jan 15 00:01:00 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2020 18:01:00 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Leading reasons to join the US military for 16-21 year olds: money (#1 and #3 answer out of 10) Message-ID: <77b9c86d-12ff-e612-08db-c7722661d0d6@forestfield.org> https://therealnews.com/stories/poverty-draft-healthcare-education-students -- transcript https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MG2GbRW0AcE -- video The Real News has a good interview on how the poor are economically drafted into the military and that saying "sanctions are an act of war" (as Erica Caines does) is right and proper anti-war activism. It's not common to hear anyone in the media talk about this let alone be so frank about it. An excerpt from Erica Caines: > "I would say that poverty in fact is the new draft. I think they are creating conditions, > systemic and systematic conditions that are leaving poor black colonized people without choices. > We?re seeing that we?re suffering from lack of healthcare. The military offers that. Lack of free > education, the military offers that. Housing, the military offers that. So what?s happening is > we?re kind of getting squeezed into if you don?t find yourself with the ability to go to higher > education or go to college because you have been deemed not smart enough of or don?t have the > money to get into colleges because higher education is not free, then the military is always the > other option." As the attached screenshot shows: payment (either for "future education" or "pay/money" which I'm interpreting to mean earning money to live on) is 2 of the top 3 reasons 16-21 year olds join the US military. As for the Girl Scouts "partnering" with Raytheon: Caines is, again, correct -- this doesn't come up much and is not well-known. The Girl Scouts boasts of their partnership with Raytheon, pitched to young girls under the aegis of women's empowerment (identity politics pushing aside class again) and Raytheon helping girls get more exposure to STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) courses sponsored by the weapons contractor. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0atqH8pmMzg for the full promotional clip. Raytheon calls their Girl Scouts partnership "Thinking like a programmer" and says this effort is "making the world a safer place" and increase the odds that the students will think of Raytheon 'as a force for good in the world' while they also learn mathematics and computer programming. Saudi Arabia has been using US-supplied/Raytheon-made bombs to kill Yemeni civilians (including children); Ben Norton wrote about this in https://www.mintpressnews.com/saudi-arabia-kills-civilians-in-yemen-with-another-us-made-raytheon-bomb/251104/ Politico's David Brown wrote "How women took over the military-industrial complex" describing a similar trend in US military contractors (a majority of which are now headed by women): > It?s a watershed for what has always been a male-dominated bastion, the culmination of decades of > women entering science and engineering fields and knocking down barriers as government agencies > and the private sector increasingly weigh merit over machismo. > > And, as Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson told POLITICO, it's also the result of "quieting that > little voice in your head that doubts whether you can do that next job or take on that special > assignment." > > ?I think there?s critical mass, where you have enough women that they?re getting noticed,? said > Rachel McCaffrey, a retired Air Force colonel and executive director of Women in Defense, a > career development and networking organization affiliated with the National Defense Industrial > Association, a leading industry group. What I would have liked to hear is support for reallocating money away from the military (cut the military budget by at least 50%) and spend those billions on various efforts of national need (gratis homes for the homeless, start and maintain a national jobs program, gratis college for all, and more), and bring home the military & contractors as well as the weaponry. I'm not saying that the cuts are the only way to afford these things (the US is quite wealthy as a country), I'm saying that the military needs to be scaled down and we need to end all of the sanctions (which, according to Sara Flounders of sanctionskill.org are more lethal than guns and bombs -- see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7lQQiKzKMs for her interview). But on balance I'd say this interview is quite interesting and Caines brings up a number of things we don't often get to hear anyone discuss in corporate media, items that the public needs to hear more of. Poverty is the New Draft transcript: > Jackie Luqman: This is Jackie Luqman with The Real News Network. Last week and this, Black > Twitter was aflood with funny memes that seem to make light about how black people aren?t > included in the ?We?re going to war with Iran? sentiment because the push for this war wasn?t > about black people or what black people wanted. But all jokes aside, are black and Latino and > native and poor white people really sitting on the sidelines of America?s military actions, or > are they more involved in them than they realize or would even like to be? > > Here to talk about all the ways that black people, brown people, and poor people actually are the > people most targeted by military recruiters, which puts them right in the cross hairs of military > action, is Erica Caines. Erica is a local organizer in Baltimore and is the founder of Liberation > Through Reading. You can find that on #liberationthroughreading on Twitter. Erica, thank you so > much for joining. > > Erica Caines: Thank you for having me. > > Jackie Luqman: So since the draft ended in 1973, militaries relied on an all voluntary service > and has used strategies that target young people that include placing recruiters in schools. > People don?t know where that comes from because it?s from the No Child Left Behind Act signed by > President George Bush in 2002 which requires military recruiters to be granted the same access in > schools that college recruiters are granted. Erica, how does this affect black and brown and > indigenous and poor communities and does it affect them differently than everybody else? > > Erica Caines: Oh yeah. Well, as we can see, it?s a societal issue obviously. What we know is that > we are, well, black and brown colonized people, are specifically targeted because they kind of > corner us, squeeze us without options. I think a report just came out that said that this was the > highest recruitment year specifically because they targeted student loan debt. What it is is that > the common thing that we are hearing is that black people are not necessarily patriotic. We are > just out of option. So I would attribute that to what?s happening at the schools and why they?re > also making it an access to or access out of poverty the same way that colleges are used. > > Jackie Luqman: So Erica, what you?re saying is that the military is targeting young people who > are out of financial and economic options. So what is going on is that it may not be a national > draft, but it is what people called a few years ago, the phrase popped up a few years ago, a > poverty draft. Is that pretty accurate? > > Erica Caines: Yes. I would say that poverty in fact is the new draft. I think they are creating > conditions, systemic and systematic conditions that are leaving poor black colonized people > without choices. We?re seeing that we?re suffering from lack of healthcare. The military offers > that. Lack of free education, the military offers that. Housing, the military offers that. So > what?s happening is we?re kind of getting squeezed into if you don?t find yourself with the > ability to go to higher education or go to college because you have been deemed not smart enough > of or don?t have the money to get into colleges because higher education is not free, then the > military is always the other option. > > Jackie Luqman: And actually the data from the Department of Defense actually backs up what you > say because the 2017 population representation in the military services report indicates that > nearly 20% of military members come from neighborhoods with a median household income of around > $40,000 or less. Keeping in mind that in 2017 the median US household income was around $60,000, > and that?s according to the United States census. So the things that military recruiters are > doing, Erica, to entice kids in high schools and sometimes even from what I understand middle > school to get them to sign up in the military seemed pretty nefarious. One of the things are > military sponsored a video game tournaments. But what are some other ways that recruiters might > entice young people to join the military that their parents may not be aware of that are going > on? > > Erica Caines: I mean, I talk about this often about Girl Scouts of America, just with their > partnership with Raytheon, even though that is not the military itself, it?s still an extension > of the military. And I think that partnership, what it does is it normalizes that relationship or > normalizes military or the US military existence. I don?t think that many people are aware that > that partnership exists because a lot of the enticement with military is wrapped up in STEM or > tech programs. That?s a big push. And I think that we see that push, especially during the Obama > years. And I do want to say that it was especially during those years that you can see that black > people, I don?t want to say became extra patriotic, but kind of gotten used to the idea of > assimilating into being an American and what that meant and just that pride of America, and that > all translated into acceptance of the military. > > Jackie Luqman: So I want to touch on really quickly what you said about black people in > particular wanted to be accepted as American, especially under the Obama years. What?s the > historical reference to that? Because I think there is a unique strain of the history of black > people in this country that ties wanting to be accepted as American in military service. Can you > elaborate on that a little bit? > > Erica Caines: I think that I try to be cautious in how I speak about military servicemen as > individuals and just the function of a military because many black people do join, and we do have > many black veterans. I think the difference now though is that when we speak to elders, we?re > speaking to people who were drafted. We?re not necessarily talking to people who volunteered. > Whereas now we have been involved in a war since I was a freshman in high school at 2001, and > black people have since continuously volunteered. > > And that disconnect I think is not necessarily a product of over-patriotism or the sense of pride > of America, but I think that that disconnect really occurred during the Obama years where we got > to see ourselves or somebody who looked like us represented this country that always denied us. > And I think before we looked at, especially during the Bush years, we were incredibly anti-war > because it was always looked at ?this is a y?all thing, this is a us and them, this is not a > black people?s war.? But then when it became a black president, there was no way to separate any > conflicts. > > Jackie Luqman: That is really interesting, especially because it seems like we?ve gone back to > that sentiment in the black community with this conflict that we are hoping is a deescalating > between the United States and Iran, where, as I said at the beginning of our discussion, there > were a lot of memes floating around social media, on Black Twitter, on Facebook, and on Instagram > kind of making light of the fact that this war with Iran, if it was going to exist, was not black > people?s war. And I?m going to venture to say that some native Americans and some Latino people > and certainly some poor people express the idea that they were not willing to fight another rich > man?s war. But what were your sentiments? What were you thinking when you saw some of those memes > come up on your social media timeline? > > Erica Caines: I mean naturally as an anti-imperialist and an antiwar organizer, I didn?t find it > funny. I found it kind of disturbing in a way because I don?t think that connections or I don?t > think people understood why it wasn?t funny. It wasn?t that I didn?t? The common excuse was, was > that this is just something that black people traditionally do. We laugh at our pain. But I > counter that with, but this isn?t our pain. We?re not the people who are going to be affected by > it and are the people complicit in it. I mean regardless if we are for the war, we are for > candidates that push sanctions. We are for candidates that support wars and support these > actions. And to remove yourself from these things and not consider your part, it just shows this > vast disconnect and the kind of black apathy that I don?t recall ever seeing or reading a text or > even speaking to elders about. > > There?s always been that contradiction and it?s always been that battle between black veterans > and black people who served and those who didn?t. But I think now what we?re seeing is just a > sort of just don?t care. I mean, we noticed that with all these uprisings going around the world. > There?s no real investment in it. Not in the days of of the Civil Rights Black Power Movement > where we were distinctly antiwar and pushed the antiwar movement. We were the head of it. I know > now they rewrite it and they put other people there, but it was a lot of black people standing > down against the draft and refusing to take part of it. That really rocked the boat. And I think > that we are so far removed from that now. > > Jackie Luqman: Now, that seems to me that that?s a function of lack of political education > especially when you mentioned the issue of sanctions where people in this country, and I want to > get your thoughts on this, people in this country don?t think of the economic dire straits that > marginalized communities are in and that it?s manufactured. Poverty is a manufactured condition > in the United States. People don?t think that way. So when they?re talking about, they meaning > the US government, talking about imposing sanctions on another country full of brown people or > another country full of Muslims, or another country that this government has considered the other > and the enemy, most Americans don?t think that that?s so bad as long as we?re not dropping bombs > on people because it?s just sanctions. > > But we experience economic sanctions in this country. Marginalized people do, and we feel the > pain from that. But we cannot make the connection between the imposed economic conditions that > cause young people to be more likely to look at the military as a viable option for getting a > college education, for getting healthcare, for getting housing. We don?t connect that pain, that > economic pain that is created here in this country with the economic pain that?s created when > sanctions are imposed on another country. And so it seems easier to me for marginalized young > people in this country to sign up to be a part of that imperialist machine because they lack the > political education to understand the connections. What are your thoughts on that? > > Erica Caines: Well, that?s what I think the big part of the antiwar movement is lacking. I think > a lot of the criticisms of mass protests are partly valid. I think a lot of it is criticism for > criticism?s sake, but there is a point that what do we do after we mobilize? We can chant > anti-war. We can chant hands off Iran, but we have to really get the people to understand why > it?s important. I think that that?s part of the reason why there?s such a huge disconnect. Again, > I think that happened a lot during the Obama years where it was less, I don?t think people even > understand how long we?ve been in Afghanistan or how long we?ve been in that region because we > haven?t had to directly go there as often or how we visualize war with people boots on the > ground. > > It?s not how we?ve been doing war these last few years. We sort of turn that around with droning > and sanctions. And I don?t think that people that sanctions are an act of war. I mean, when you > are intentionally starving people and preventing them for the ability to get medicine, that is an > act of war. When we look at what happened in Venezuela where thousands of people died, yet people > were still referring to Maduro as a dictator and not look at anything wrong with America?s role > and how and why people weren?t able to get food and medicine and such things in that country. The > same thing with Iran. What?s happening in that nation is a lot of it is the cause of the US and > we?re not understanding how war has changed, shifted more towards technology and more towards not > needing to put our people in direct harm. > > Jackie Luqman: So, Erica, the same survey that I mentioned earlier, the 2017 Population > Representation in the Military Services Report from the Department of Defense says that of the > young people they surveyed, 49% said that if they were to join the military, one reason for doing > so would be to pay for future education. So young people who are joining the military do > understand, especially marginalized young people who as you repeatedly made clear, recognize that > they don?t have any options to achieve parts of the so-called American dream that they want to > achieve, don?t have those options outside of the military. In that reality, how do we address > this situation? How do we challenge this system of creating an environment in which young people > feel they have no other choice but to join the military in order to get healthcare and a decent > place to live and a college education at the same time we are challenging the imperialism of this > government and at the same time that we are trying to educate a whole new generation of people > into all of those things? How do we challenge this? > > Erica Caines: So I think that in realizing that poor black and brown marginalized people are > pushed and squeezed and kind of cornered into joining the military, I think that people say that > also as a soft way of justifying why people join the military. They don?t actually say that to > combat those reasons, but just to excuse it. And I think that?s another way that we kind fall > complicitly in it, even if it?s not intentional. When you talk about the destruction and the > devastation and all of the placement has caused, people go, ?Well, it?s not the soldier?s fault.? > Yeah. But in saying that we?re making this an individual issue and not actually challenging the > structure and function of the US military. And I think the best way to do that is create mutual > aid. > > I don?t think that people understand that we?re not helpless. And I think that that?s just a > fallback to make it seem that we are pretty helpless in this. So we have no choice but to join > the military. And I think even in that, when we talk about why people are joining, they?re > joining for individual reasons. They?re not joining for communal uplifting. It?s for an uplifting > of themselves out of poverty or out of their situation or to a better way of life. But it?s not > like it?s a communal effort. > > And I think if more people were to join organizations that are focused on creating these avenues > of mutual aid and basic community building, we can alleviate the amount of people that feel like, > well the military is an option because I don?t have a house, I don?t have housing, I don?t have > food, I don?t have education. And we?re helping to provide these things. Or we are seriously > challenging candidates. If voting is your thing and you?re seriously challenging candidates about > providing these things, then that?s one way that we can alleviate the amount of people that do > join the military. But we?re not helpless. > > Jackie Luqman: You mentioned? Oh, I?m sorry, go ahead. > > Erica Caines: No, you?re good. > > Jackie Luqman: So you mentioned joining organizations. What are some of the organizations that > you can recommend for our viewers in Baltimore and even some organizations that our viewers > internationally and nationally can look into? > > Erica Caines: I am a member of the Black Lives for Peace, and I am in the Baltimore chapter and > this is what we do. We do political education. We do disruptions. We show up at the marches. It?s > not just a one facet thing. It?s a multifaceted. You have to combat at all angles. We are also > linked up with Eugene with People?s Progress Party, which I am a member of that as well. And they > do mutual aid in the community and in Baltimore they?re helping right now currently Douglas Homes > fight to keep their housing. So there?s different organizations of people in different avenues of > ways to combat this. But I fear that we?re always going to continue to fall back on. There?s > nothing we do and the military is our only option. So for as long as we continue to do that and > so long as we justify the strong and long arm of US imperialism, intentional or not. > > Jackie Luqman: Well, we certainly have our work cut out for us, but we thank you so much, Erica, > for coming on today and explaining why this situation with Iran really does involve black, brown, > native, Latin and poor white communities, why it is their fight also, we?re just fighting it from > a different perspective. So thank you so much for joining me. > > Erica Caines: Thank you for having me. > > Jackie Luqman: And thank you for watching. This is Jacquelyn Luqman with the Real News Network in > Washington DC. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: reasons to join (the military).jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 193589 bytes Desc: not available URL: From r-szoke at illinois.edu Wed Jan 15 02:16:43 2020 From: r-szoke at illinois.edu (Szoke, Ron) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2020 02:16:43 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Happiness & despair, when & where? Message-ID: Here?s the No. 1 happiest country in the world (America does NOT make the top 10) WSJ Jan 14, 2020 By Quentin Fottrell, Personal Finance Editor People, overwhelmingly, report feeling their worst at the same time of life [at around age 50], regardless of where they live, a new study finds Finland was No. 1 out of 156 countries on the 2019 ?World Happiness Report,? followed by Denmark, Norway, Iceland, the Netherlands and Switzerland. The U.S. trailed at No. 19. The top countries ranked highly on all the main factors found to support happiness: caring, freedom, generosity, honesty, health, income and good governance. ?Governments set the institutional and policy framework in which individuals, businesses and governments themselves operate,? the authors wrote. ?The links between the government and happiness operate in both directions: What governments do affects happiness and, in turn, the happiness of citizens in most countries determines what kind of governments they support.? The ?World Happiness Report? polled 1,000 residents per country by research organization Gallup. Where necessary, Gallup seeks the permissions of national, regional and local governments. ?Happier people are not only more likely to engage in politics and vote, but are also more likely to vote for incumbent parties,? the report concluded. People, overwhelming, report feeling their worst at the same time of life, regardless of where they live. ?There is growing evidence from around the world that prime-age adults are struggling, and especially so if they have low levels of education,? Dartmouth College economist David Blanchflower wrote in a study released Monday. ?This is particularly apparent in the United States that has seen a rapid rise in deaths of despair, principally down to drug poisonings and suicide.? From r-szoke at illinois.edu Wed Jan 15 02:16:43 2020 From: r-szoke at illinois.edu (Szoke, Ron) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2020 02:16:43 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Happiness & despair, when & where? Message-ID: Here?s the No. 1 happiest country in the world (America does NOT make the top 10) WSJ Jan 14, 2020 By Quentin Fottrell, Personal Finance Editor People, overwhelmingly, report feeling their worst at the same time of life [at around age 50], regardless of where they live, a new study finds Finland was No. 1 out of 156 countries on the 2019 ?World Happiness Report,? followed by Denmark, Norway, Iceland, the Netherlands and Switzerland. The U.S. trailed at No. 19. The top countries ranked highly on all the main factors found to support happiness: caring, freedom, generosity, honesty, health, income and good governance. ?Governments set the institutional and policy framework in which individuals, businesses and governments themselves operate,? the authors wrote. ?The links between the government and happiness operate in both directions: What governments do affects happiness and, in turn, the happiness of citizens in most countries determines what kind of governments they support.? The ?World Happiness Report? polled 1,000 residents per country by research organization Gallup. Where necessary, Gallup seeks the permissions of national, regional and local governments. ?Happier people are not only more likely to engage in politics and vote, but are also more likely to vote for incumbent parties,? the report concluded. People, overwhelming, report feeling their worst at the same time of life, regardless of where they live. ?There is growing evidence from around the world that prime-age adults are struggling, and especially so if they have low levels of education,? Dartmouth College economist David Blanchflower wrote in a study released Monday. ?This is particularly apparent in the United States that has seen a rapid rise in deaths of despair, principally down to drug poisonings and suicide.? From jbn at forestfield.org Wed Jan 15 02:17:04 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2020 20:17:04 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] AWARE on the Air - Episode #501 notes Message-ID: <2e5e972d-25b0-26f3-0732-90f96cb8d56b@forestfield.org> AWARE on the Air - Episode #501 Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bh4T5slexN8 A list of links to items referenced on the show. Dr. Jill Stein on assassinating Soleimani https://twitter.com/DrJillStein/status/1213858241618337792 Jane Arraf followup to Dr. Jill Stein https://twitter.com/janearraf/status/1213823941321592834 Shervin Malekzadeh on "Boys Go to Baghdad, Real Men Go to Tehran" https://lobelog.com/boys-go-to-baghdad-real-men-go-to-tehran/ https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/06/15/boys-go-baghdad-real-men-go-tehran Jerri-Lynn Scofield on "Boys Go to Baghdad. Men Go to Tehran." https://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2019/05/boys-go-to-baghdad-men-go-to-tehran.html https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/05/boys-go-to-baghdad-men-go-to-tehran.html Daniele Albertazzi & Duncan McDonnell define populism http://www.palgrave.com/resources/sample-chapters/9780230013490_sample.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20150924103230/http://www.palgrave.com/resources/sample-chapters/9780230013490_sample.pdf Lawrence Wilkerson interview on Democracy Now in "?America Exists Today to Make War?: Lawrence Wilkerson on Endless War & American Empire" https://www.democracynow.org/2020/1/13/lawrence_wilkerson_american_empire_war Ibn Riad - ??? ???? from a thread regarding "the anti-government protests that sprung up today in Iran, and the failed imperial plot that they point towards." https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1216217400598761474.html "Colour revolution" term https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_revolution Moon of Alabama on "The Long Planned U.S. Assassinations In Iraq Will Increase Its Political Chaos" https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/01/the-long-planned-us-assassinations-in-iraq-will-increase-the-political-chaos.html Bobby Allyn & Ari Shapiro on "Esper: U.S. Could Strike Iran Or Proxies 'Where Legally Available And Appropriate'" https://www.npr.org/2020/01/13/796102188/esper-u-s-could-strike-iran-or-proxies-where-legally-available-and-appropriate Zachary Cohen on "Barr and Pompeo shift justification for Iran strike from 'imminent' threat to deterrence" https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/13/politics/pompeo-barr-soleimani-strike-iran-rationale/index.html Jimmy Dore guest hosts The World According to Jesse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbkLcjxdZpg -J From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Wed Jan 15 13:04:18 2020 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2020 07:04:18 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Happiness & despair, when & where? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <002901d5cba4$4c80eb50$e582c1f0$@comcast.net> Great article Ron ! David J. -----Original Message----- From: Peace-discuss [mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of Szoke, Ron via Peace-discuss Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2020 8:17 PM To: peace-discuss at anti-war.net Cc: peace-discuss Subject: [Peace-discuss] Happiness & despair, when & where? Here's the No. 1 happiest country in the world (America does NOT make the top 10) WSJ Jan 14, 2020 By Quentin Fottrell, Personal Finance Editor People, overwhelmingly, report feeling their worst at the same time of life [at around age 50], regardless of where they live, a new study finds Finland was No. 1 out of 156 countries on the 2019 "World Happiness Report," followed by Denmark, Norway, Iceland, the Netherlands and Switzerland. The U.S. trailed at No. 19. The top countries ranked highly on all the main factors found to support happiness: caring, freedom, generosity, honesty, health, income and good governance. "Governments set the institutional and policy framework in which individuals, businesses and governments themselves operate," the authors wrote. "The links between the government and happiness operate in both directions: What governments do affects happiness and, in turn, the happiness of citizens in most countries determines what kind of governments they support." The "World Happiness Report" polled 1,000 residents per country by research organization Gallup. Where necessary, Gallup seeks the permissions of national, regional and local governments. "Happier people are not only more likely to engage in politics and vote, but are also more likely to vote for incumbent parties," the report concluded. People, overwhelming, report feeling their worst at the same time of life, regardless of where they live. "There is growing evidence from around the world that prime-age adults are struggling, and especially so if they have low levels of education," Dartmouth College economist David Blanchflower wrote in a study released Monday. "This is particularly apparent in the United States that has seen a rapid rise in deaths of despair, principally down to drug poisonings and suicide." _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss From carl at newsfromneptune.com Thu Jan 16 03:57:51 2020 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2020 21:57:51 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] New Silk Road Message-ID: https://www.blackagendareport.com/my-trip-china-exposed-shameful-lies-peddled-american-empire?fbclid=IwAR1K0om3kfvPzgtNChcglVKU7RlpOrRFjEaiKzopbKgRzdCtoZ5tsZKjAD0 = why the US should join rather than attempt to subvert the New Silk Road project (formerly called The Belt and Road Initiative - BRI). ?CGE From carl at newsfromneptune.com Thu Jan 16 16:04:42 2020 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2020 10:04:42 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] "Trump Administration Violated Law by Withholding Ukraine Security Aid" Message-ID: Trump Administration Violated Law by Withholding Ukraine Security Aid - US Congressional Watchdog https://sputniknews.com/us/202001161078053730-trump-administration-violated-law-by-withholding-ukraine-security-aid---us-congressional-watchdog/ Of course the "security aid" - money for weapons to kill its own people - *should* have been withheld from the nazi-infested government that the Obama administration installed in Ukraine by a coup against an elected president! The US political establishment wants to remove Trump for fear he won?t continue the Obama administration (& before) policies of war and war provocations against Russia (and China). The cornerstone of US fp for more than century (cf. 'Open Door,? 1899) has been to prevent an economic consolidation of Eurasia, for fear that that will limit the economic hegemony of the US 1%. ?CGE From jbn at forestfield.org Fri Jan 17 02:46:16 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2020 20:46:16 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] notes Message-ID: <60d8063c-260b-6345-ce64-9a8ce57fd97e@forestfield.org> Notes for your consideration on News from Neptune in which one can find pointers to some media the mainstream corporate sources won't cover, and critique DN for their ongoing support of Russiagate. Have a great show, guys. https://on.rt.com/a910 -- Danielle Ryan op-ed on "Trump?s threat to freeze Iraq?s US bank account over request to withdraw troops is pure mobster-style intimidation" > On January 5, the Iraqi parliament voted to approve a resolution calling for the removal of US > troops. A day later, Donald Trump threatened to hit Iraqis with deadly economic sanctions ?like > they?ve never seen before? if Baghdad tries to expel American troops without first ?paying us > back? for an ?extraordinarily expensive air base? built there. > > Days later, when Fox News anchor Laura Ingraham grotesquely suggested that Iraq should indeed > "repay the American taxpayer" for the base ? built after US forces laid waste to the country in > an illegal invasion ? Trump, in typical fashion, did not even try to cloak his threat in > niceties, opting for unequivocal blackmail instead. > > "We have a lot of their money right now. We have 35 billion dollars of their money right now > sitting in an account ? and I think they'll agree to pay. I think they'll agree to pay, otherwise > we'll stay there.? > > How embarrassing for Americans this guy is. A disgrace. He sounds like a mobster or an > extortionist. #MAGA ?#Syria#Iraq#Trumppic.twitter.com/XbsNyp8Mi7 ? Walid (@walid970721) January > 12, 2020 > > Iraq keeps its revenue from oil sales, which accounts for 90 percent of its budget, in the New > York bank. Like many other countries around the world, they do this in order to be able to access > the dominant US dollar, but that comes with risks. Iraqi officials have warned of total economic > collapse if Trump goes through with the threat to impose new sanctions and hold the country?s > money hostage, at a time when Iraqis are struggling to get by and tensions in the region are > already on the rise. > > In this context, Trump?s comment to Ingraham sounds like the equivalent of something you might > hear in a mobster movie: You be good, do what we say ? and maybe then we won?t kill your family. > > What happened to Washington?s deep desire to secure freedom and democracy for the Iraqi people? > In a statement released following the Iraqi parliament?s vote to expel American troops ? which > have been present in the country to fight ISIS militants under a 2014 deal ? the US State > Department somehow managed to completely ignore the resolution and instead harp on about how it > is a ?force for good? in the region. Calling the US?s presence in the country ?appropriate,? the > statement shot down the notion that US troops would be leaving any time soon. Also on rt.com US > won?t heed Iraq?s call for troop withdrawal, calls military presence there ?appropriate? > > This is essentially the US once again asserting itself as a brute occupying force in Iraq, > blatantly ignoring Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi?s request for Washington to begin preparations > for withdrawal. Barely an eyebrow was raised in Western media, though, because for too long there > has been an assumption that American troops have a simple, unassailable right to be in Iraq. It > has somehow become completely normal and unremarkable for the US to dictate the terms of Iraq?s > survival. > > The statement went on to assert that the US wants to be a ?partner? to a ?sovereign? Iraq. A real > "partner" does not use threats of devastating economic warfare as leverage ? and if Trump or any > of the empire-driven neocons advising him were truly interested in a sovereign Iraq, they would > respect the wishes of the Iraqi parliament and set in motion a plan to remove America?s troops. > > This is pure thuggery. "The Trump administration warned Iraq this week that it risks losing > access to a critical government bank account if Baghdad kicks out American forces ... according > to Iraqi officials." https://t.co/ID9plNgyL5pic.twitter.com/TSDPsk2qfk ? Shashank Joshi (@shashj) > January 11, 2020 > > It?s not the first time the US has threatened to freeze Iraq?s Fed account and used its own money > as leverage to produce favored geopolitical outcomes. In 2008, the Bush administration used the > same tactic to force Iraq to sign an unpopular military deal prolonging its previous occupation. > Barack Obama admitted, after all, that the US engages in ?arm-twisting? to force other nations to > ?do what we need them to do.? > > If it came down to it, Washington would be perfectly happy to use Iraq as a battleground on which > to fight a war against Iran ? and this is exactly the reason why Iraqis have begun to feel > increasingly uneasy about a continued US troop presence in their country. Far from a ?force for > good? in the region, the US is a bringer of chaos ? and Iraq knows that better than anyone else. Assange: The railroading/show-trial continues. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKj9Di580Cg -- An RT report from a rally outside Westminster Magistrates. Why RT? Because RT is one of very few outlets that reports on Assange's condition at all. This includes Democracy Now, where the most recent story featuring the word "Assange" is from December 5, 2019 (visit https://www.democracynow.org/search?utf8=?&query=assange to check if that's still true when you read this). A transcript from the video: > Speaker 1: We've had a short hearing today and practically the entire focus of it was the lack of > access that Julian Assange's legal team has had to their client. Gareth Peirce, Julian's > solicitor, said that since the last time that they talked in the court they've had precisely two > hours of contact with their client, he was brought to the court today because they expected to be > able to spend considerable amounts of time with him preparing the case here at court. The judge > told them that because of the number of other prisoners in the court that was going to be reduced > to just one hour, and it was clear, I think from the judge's attitude, which in previous hearing > has been distinctly unsympathetic, that even she thought that this was an outrageous denial of > proper preparation of this legal case. > > Speaker 2: Julian Assange is a publisher and a journalist, he is not someone who should be in > prison. If they have these ridiculous, ridiculous hearings about an American extradition request > then they should be done while he's on bail and in a safe environment with his friends his family > and his legal team. Coverage by the media: Warren/Sanders kerfuffle is really about corporate media lying on behalf of the establishment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQTWM1_qIcI -- Jimmy Dore on Sanders/Warren debate coverage including clear evidence of CNN lying. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5X0OReq2IY -- Jimmy Dore on New York Times lying including citing CNN's baseless lying as backing for their own lying. CNN published an evidenceless claim sourced with 4 anonymous figures. The claim in https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/13/politics/bernie-sanders-elizabeth-warren-meeting/index.html reads: Headline: "Bernie Sanders told Elizabeth Warren in private 2018 meeting that a woman can't win, sources say" by MJ Lee > The stakes were high when Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren met at Warren's apartment in > Washington, DC, one evening in December 2018. The longtime friends knew that they could soon be > running against each other for president. > > The two agreed that if they ultimately faced each other as presidential candidates, they should > remain civil and avoid attacking one another, so as not to hurt the progressive movement. They > also discussed how to best take on President Donald Trump, and Warren laid out two main reasons > she believed she would be a strong candidate: She could make a robust argument about the economy > and earn broad support from female voters. > > Sanders responded that he did not believe a woman could win. > > The description of that meeting is based on the accounts of four people: two people Warren spoke > with directly soon after the encounter, and two people familiar with the meeting. > > After publication of this story, Warren herself backed up this account of the meeting, saying in > part in a statement Monday, "I thought a woman could win; he disagreed." > > That evening in 2018, Sanders expressed frustration at what he saw as a growing focus among > Democrats on identity politics, according to one of the people familiar with the conversation. > Warren told Sanders she disagreed with his assessment that a woman could not win, three of the > four sources said. > > Sanders denied the characterization of the meeting in a statement to CNN. None of the 4 alleged sources are named and none clearly attended this meeting -- two of them spoke "directly soon after the encounter" (Is that a day later? 10 minutes after? A week later? What is "directly soon" exactly?) and two people were "familiar with the meeting". This language too is not the same as saying these anonymous people attended the meeting. Then there's what happened at the Democratic Presidential so-called Debate which CNN hosted and ran asking a question based on their own sourceless reporting: > CNN questioner: Senator Sanders, I do want to be clear here: You're saying that you never told > Senator Warren that a woman could not win the election. > > Bernie Sanders: That is correct. > > CNN questioner: Senator Warren, what did you think when Senator Sanders told you a woman could > not win the election? > > [Sanders shakes his head, the crowd laughs.] This CNN report and Q&A at the "debate" was so ridiculous that even MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program called it out: > Mika Brzezinski, "Morning Joe" co-host: I am completely confused as to why it turned from Bernie > Sanders saying I didn't say it to Elizabeth Warren being asked when he said it. So you turn to > Elizabeth Warren and say 'Did he say it?'. That's the issue. I mean, it's bizarre! What the heck > happened there? Are they listening? 'Cause you gotta listen when you do a debate and then take > the question to the next candidate! [...] By the way, I've had conversations, private > conversations, taken to the press and totally manipulated for the benefit of the person who was > sharing the story. This happens all the time. It's clear there is a misunderstanding or > Elizabeth Warren is focused on something that was said-- > > Jimmy Dore [interjecting]: OR -- third option -- she's [Sen. Warren] lying to gain a political > advantage and doing it in an underhanded, transparently slimy and dishonest way. That's the > third option and she [Brzezinski] left that one out. > > Mika Brzezinski, "Morning Joe" co-host: --and Bernie Sanders is not gonna be someone who says 'I > don't think a woman can win' that's just stupid! The panel on "Morning Joe" concurred with Brzezinski. Keep in mind, these are MSNBC show hosts: they are the same professional liars who (as Jimmy Dore said) "call anyone they don't agree with Russians and even to them this is beyond the pale". These are not upstanding journalists taking on the establishment, they're well-paid commentators who are part of the establishment defending the interests of the billionaires who own the MSNBC network. Jimmy Dore adds: > Jimmy Dore: Okay, I'm gonna unpack it for you Mika so you won't be confused anymore: This is a > hit job that originated, probably, at the Elizabeth Warren [campaign] and the DNC together came > up with this idea and then they called up CNN and they planted this story and they go 'We can't > give you any-- just write this story for us!' because CNN's in bed with the Democratic Party, the > establishment, and they were in bed for Hillary Clinton and now they're in the tank for Elizabeth > Warren. How do we know CNN's repeated claim is completely untrue? Here's a transcript of a segment of Bernie Sanders speaking on video on C-SPAN on January 20, 1988: > Bernie Sanders: The real issue is not whether you're black or white, whether you're a woman or a > man -- in my view a woman could be elected President of the United States -- the real issue is > whose side are you on? Are you on the side of the workers and poor people? Or are you on the side > of big money and the corporations? And we also know CNN is lying because Sanders tried to recruit Elizabeth Warren to run for US President in 2015, a point Joe Scarborough (co-host of "Morning Joe") brought up on-air. Consider another CNN interview with Jess McIntosh, political commentator (from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCwKh30WSd8 ) > Jess McIntosh: Yeah, I couldn't agree more, I think that the moment between Warren and Bernie is > obviously the one that's going to be replayed the most and I think that what Bernie forgot was > that this isn't a he said-she said story, this is a reported out story that CNN was part of > breaking... CNN doesn't consistently tell their audience who McIntosh was: she was the Communications Director for Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign. It stands to reason that she could have an axe to grind favoring a neo-con/neo-lib such as Elizabeth Warren and against someone with domestic policies like Sanders'. Later, the New York Times (see https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/14/us/politics/democratic-debate-recap.html ) published an article which distorted what happened: > Prompted by the moderators, Ms. Warren and Senator Bernie Sanders continued a back-and-forth over > the fraught subject of whether a woman could be elected president [...] Anyone who heard what Sanders said at the debate, knew of his history with Warren, or heard him in 1988 knows there was no debate about this. NYT article authors Shane Goldmacher and Jonathan Martin are lying on behalf of the establishment (which is rewarded and never punished) providing backing for the baseless claim that the two debated "whether a woman could be elected president". Perhaps now more people understand why Pres. Trump gets such an approving response when he calls CNN "fake news" and says the New York Times "is going to hell" (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/doug-mills-new-york-times-photographer-trump-calls-a-genius-2019-12-17/). Anyone who recalls the Times' coverage of Iraqi WMDs leading up to the 2003 invasion & occupation of Iraq would argue saying the NYT is "going" to hell is generous to the Times. Russiagate/Coverage by the media: Democracy Now offers up more corporate-friendly Russiagate spin on the resignation of the Russian government and Pres. Putin's proposed changes. RT offers more information and a read that actually fits their own headlines. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbf_2u511h8 -- RT report: > Try explaining this: when Putin empowers the office of president, the media accuses him of > seizing more power, more control over Russia. But when Putin gives up that power and hands it over > to Parliament at his own expense it is also because he's seizing more control over Russia. As > first to discover this syndrome, I named it 'Paranoid Putinophrenia' and there's a real > epidemic: jbn: RT offers a series of headlines from corporate media backing their claim: https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/15/europe/russian-government-resigns-vladimir-putin-reforms-intl/ CNN: Russian government resigns as Putin proposes reforms that could extend his grip on power https://time.com/5765369/russia-prime-minister-medvedev-government-resigns/ Time: Putin engineers surprised Russian political shake-up that could keep him in power longer https://www.huffpost.com/entry/russian-pm-resigns-after-putin-announces-constitutional-overhaul_n_5e1f2403c5b674e44b90bd98 Huffpost: Russian government resigns as Putin plots post presidency power-grab jbn: I'll add one more headline to the mix: https://www.democracynow.org/2020/1/16/russia_putin_medvedev_tony_wood https://archive.md/wip/JntTr Democracy Now: Putin Proposes Sweeping Changes to Russian Constitution, Possibly Prolonging His Grip on Power But that DN headline is just as untrue as the corporate media and doesn't capture what their Russiagator guest, Tony Wood, said: > AMY GOODMAN: Do you see Putin doing something along the lines of what the Chinese President Xi > did with getting rid of term limits? > > TONY WOOD: I think, actually, we need to see this change and the set of changes that he?s > talking about as designed to avoid that solution. I think one of the reasons that these things > have happened is that since 2018, when Putin was re-elected to another six-year term, the > question on everyone?s minds has been ?What is going to happen in 2024? Is he going to stay > forever? Is he going to leave?? And what these changes do is really open up that question to say > he?s probably not going to stay as president, because he can?t do that, but here are a series of > other roles he could slip into, and he will have some kind of alternative power base. > > The other thing it says is that whoever becomes president after him is not going to have > anywhere near as much power as Putin has had. So, what?s confusing about this, I think ? and this > is why I think we need to see how this plays out ? is that it looks like Putin is carving out a > way for him to slide into a parallel role and remain powerful. So, he?s remaking a system, but > breaking it, as well, so that no one has as much power as he used to have. jbn: Wait -- if "he?s probably not going to stay as president, because he can?t do that" that doesn't "prolong his grip on power". And it makes us ask: why can't he stay in power? It's because of the changes he's making where he proposed limits on his own power and setting up a system where "whoever becomes president after him is not going to have anywhere near as much power as Putin has had"? And all of these changes are up to the people in two major ways: 1. The upcoming referendum vote -- the people will decide if they want these changes. 2. The bulk of the changes shifts more power from a single authority to a more democratically determined body. It's also worth pointing out that if the people didn't want him to be in power as long as he was, they could have voted him out before. People did run against him in their most recent presidential election and they were heard from in televised debates (which is more than we can say for some US presidential candidates). To back the suspicion that Putin did something wrong by being President for so long we need evidence that he didn't really win re-elections. Tony Wood, Amy Goodman, and Nermeen Shaikh offer no such evidence. And it's telling that none of the participants quote Putin's own words. https://on.rt.com/a94d -- "Russian political earthquake: Putin sets out plan for Kremlin departure & Medvedev resigns" > Today, the president set out the roadmap for his exit from the Kremlin, more-or-less kicking off > the build-up to the transition of power. He will step down in 2024, or perhaps even earlier, and > he intends to dismantle the ?hyper-Presidential? system which allowed him to wield so much > control in office. This was introduced by Boris Yeltsin in 1993 with American support, after he > had used tanks to fire on the Parliament. Also on rt.com Russian government resigns after > President Putin?s state-of-the-nation address proposes changes to the constitution > > Putin plans to give more powers to the latter body, with the prime minister, in particular, > enjoying more authority. He also wants to bulk up the role of the State Council. Indeed, he will > probably end up there himself after leaving office, in some sort of ?elder statesman? role. The > body will consist of heads of Russian regions and members of the Presidential Administration. It > seems it will fulfill an advisory function. > > To achieve these goals, Putin wants to reduce presidential powers and introduce a two-term > limit. This would mean a maximum of 12 years in the Kremlin; he has already been there for 16. > The broad vision is to have more checks and balances, with a weaker presidency and other branches > of government strengthened. > > Make no mistake, Putin?s goal is to preserve the system which he inherited from Yeltsin, and > then tweaked. For all its faults, after a difficult birth it has given Russians the greatest > freedom and prosperity they have ever known. Even if much work remains to be done on > distributing economic gains more fairly. jbn: It's interesting that RT points out what DN does not -- RT points out that Putin got "the system which he inherited from Yeltsin", the system the US approved of (Yeltsin was the American-friendly stooge in Russia). But to hear corporate-friendly media talk about that system (or any derivative of it) now, there's no mention of the American-led past or that the proposed changes offer "more checks and balances, with a weaker presidency and other branches of government strengthened". Tony Wood wasn't clear on what the changes were (a clear description of the changes would have further highlighted the contradiction between Wood's role on DN as Russiagator versus the available evidence from Putin's speech describing his own proposed reforms). The far more informative RT reports on this have quoted Putin and offered a summary of the pending changes: > The Cabinet > Now: appointed by president, approved by parliament > After changes: appointed by parliament, president can't object > > Top security and military officials > Now: appointed by president > After changes: appointed by president with parliamentary consultation > > Power to dismiss supreme, constitutional judges > Now: courts decide > After changes: Parliament decides jbn: Democracy Now's Amy Goodman published a headline which reads "Russian Government Resigns as Vladimir Putin Seeks to Retain Power Beyond 2024" (https://www.democracynow.org/2020/1/16/headlines/russian_government_resigns_as_vladimir_putin_seeks_to_retain_power_beyond_2024) but she didn't tell the audience that Putin is expected to move to what's been described as an "advisory function" "in some sort of 'elder statesman' role" (https://www.rt.com/op-ed/478381-russian-government-resignation-mishustin/) which doesn't confer as much power as he has now. Nor was Goodman interested in telling her audience that the Russian voters will decide on whether to adopt Putin's proposed changes. Shame on you, Amy Goodman, Nermeen Shaikh, and the rest of the Democracy Now team. Your Russiagate-repeating means you've thrown away what street cred you earned years ago during the run-up to the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. Labor: Amazon is still mistreating their workforce. Organizing proves fruitful to challenge management and reverse some minor violations of unduly harsh leave policies. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NP2ZHzof77E -- 218 Amazon co-workers and thousands of customers support more time off (and paid time off) for Amazon employees and strike to get sit-down talks with Amazon management. https://labornotes.org/2020/01/amazon-warehouse-workers-deliver-christmas-walkout -- "Amazon Warehouse Workers Deliver Christmas Walkout" > Workers at Amazon?s DSM1 warehouse in Sacramento celebrated Christmas in their own fashion?by > walking out. It was the latest move in their campaign for paid time off. > > Night-shift workers delivered a petition with 4,015 signatures to management during their 2:30 > a.m. break on December 23. After reading out loud their demands for a meeting with management and > paid time off, 36 of the 100 night-shift workers clocked out at 2:45 a.m. and walked off the job > mid-shift. > > ?A lot of people were scared, but it was encouraging to see how many people came through,? said > one of the workers who walked out. (The organizing committee has agreed that members won?t > identify themselves individually.) ?That was the best result from the action, showing ourselves > and our co-workers we can all do this. > > ?We didn?t cause any major disruptions necessarily to deliveries, but it was good to show people > we can stick together,? the worker added. [...] > The Sacramento group first took on the company over the most blatant effects of its strict > time-off policies, which allow workers to take just 20 unpaid hours off per quarter. In > September, a worker at the warehouse was fired for going one hour over her allotted unpaid time > off while her mother-in-law was dying in the hospital. Her co-workers quickly put together a > petition demanding that she be rehired and circulated it around the facility. > > While talking to other workers, the petitioners discovered that another worker had been fired for > a minor violation of the time-off policy, and demanded that he be rehired as well. The group > delivered 80 signatures to management. Within 24 hours, HR contacted the first worker to tell her > that she would be rehired with back pay; the second worker received his notification a few days > later. > > Getting these two workers rehired through collective action appears to be the first example of > such a win by Amazon workers in the U.S. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAQ5K2YySLw -- Sen. Elizabeth Warren wants to put men (who identify as women) in women's prisons. Those who don't accept identity politics (or the notion that a man becomes a woman merely by claiming as such) argue this is a horrible and dangerous idea for women. RT's interview with journalist Megan Murphy. > Megan Murphy: [...] I am NOT saying anything hateful, really, what I'm defending are women's > rights and then I'm stating basic facts. You know, for example, you can't change sex. It's not > possible, if you're born male, to become female. I fully support people, you know, dressing, > behaving in ways that make them feel like they're living out full authentic lives, but a male > can't become a female, a female can't become a male. And that shouldn't be a controversial thing > to say but trans activists have so much control over this debate and narrative that anyone who > challenges the ideology behind transgenderism is labeled bigoted and, you know, 'no platformed', > ostracized, bullied, threatened with violence, of course. You know I've I've received death > threats -- just on Friday I got a call from the police as a as a death threat had been sent to > the event venue that I I'm scheduled to appear at for an upcoming event saying you know if you > don't shut it down I'm gonna come there and get rid of Megan myself, so it's it's quite scary. > [...] -J From r-szoke at illinois.edu Fri Jan 17 18:17:08 2020 From: r-szoke at illinois.edu (Szoke, Ron) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2020 18:17:08 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Boozers in the Greatest Nation Message-ID: The number of Americans drinking themselves to death has more than doubled By NICOLE LYN PESCE WSJ Jan 17, 2020 Here?s another reason to try a Dry January. The number of Americans drinking themselves to death has more than doubled over the last two decades, according to a sobering new report. Researchers from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism analyzed the death certificates of Americans ages 16 and up between 1999 and 2017. And while 35,914 deaths were alcohol-related in 1999, that number doubled to reach 72,558 in 2017. The death rate spiked 50.9% from 16.9 to 25.5 per 100,000. In other words, alcohol was a factor in nearly 1 million deaths during that time period, with about half of these deaths resulting from liver disease, or a fatal overdose from alcohol or alcohol mixed with other drugs. In 2017 alone, 2.6% of roughly 2.8 million deaths in the United States involved alcohol. What?s more, the CDC warned in a separate report on Thursday that binge drinkers (defined as four drinks during one occasion for women, and five drinks for men) are consuming more alcohol than they were before. The number of drinks they?ve knocked back spiked from 472 on average in 2011 to 529 in 2017, or a 12% increase. And the number of binge drinks per adult who reported binge-drinking increased ?significantly? in nine states, the report added, including Idaho, Indiana, Maine, Montana, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, and Virginia. But it decreased significantly in Massachusetts and West Virginia, and did not change significantly in the other 30 states or D.C. Some groups appear to be more vulnerable than others, according to the morbidity study published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research last week. While rates of alcohol-related deaths were highest among men in general, the largest annual increase in deaths was seen among non-Hispanic white women. Indeed, a recent Columbia University study found that the greatest increases in binge drinking were reported among women ages 30 to 44 without children, although binge drinking increased among men and women overall, as well. The death rate related to alcohol was also higher among people ages 55 and 64 in the new report, which is supported by a recent report that found that binge drinking among Americans over 50 jumped 19% between 2005 and 2014. And by ethnicity, non-Hispanic American Indians and Alaska natives had the highest alcohol-related death rates. These startling figures probably fall short of the actual number, the researchers noted, since death certificates often fail to indicate alcohol?s role in mortality. (Only one in six drunk driving deaths are reported as alcohol-related, according to one study.) # # # From r-szoke at illinois.edu Fri Jan 17 18:17:08 2020 From: r-szoke at illinois.edu (Szoke, Ron) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2020 18:17:08 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Boozers in the Greatest Nation Message-ID: The number of Americans drinking themselves to death has more than doubled By NICOLE LYN PESCE WSJ Jan 17, 2020 Here?s another reason to try a Dry January. The number of Americans drinking themselves to death has more than doubled over the last two decades, according to a sobering new report. Researchers from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism analyzed the death certificates of Americans ages 16 and up between 1999 and 2017. And while 35,914 deaths were alcohol-related in 1999, that number doubled to reach 72,558 in 2017. The death rate spiked 50.9% from 16.9 to 25.5 per 100,000. In other words, alcohol was a factor in nearly 1 million deaths during that time period, with about half of these deaths resulting from liver disease, or a fatal overdose from alcohol or alcohol mixed with other drugs. In 2017 alone, 2.6% of roughly 2.8 million deaths in the United States involved alcohol. What?s more, the CDC warned in a separate report on Thursday that binge drinkers (defined as four drinks during one occasion for women, and five drinks for men) are consuming more alcohol than they were before. The number of drinks they?ve knocked back spiked from 472 on average in 2011 to 529 in 2017, or a 12% increase. And the number of binge drinks per adult who reported binge-drinking increased ?significantly? in nine states, the report added, including Idaho, Indiana, Maine, Montana, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, and Virginia. But it decreased significantly in Massachusetts and West Virginia, and did not change significantly in the other 30 states or D.C. Some groups appear to be more vulnerable than others, according to the morbidity study published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research last week. While rates of alcohol-related deaths were highest among men in general, the largest annual increase in deaths was seen among non-Hispanic white women. Indeed, a recent Columbia University study found that the greatest increases in binge drinking were reported among women ages 30 to 44 without children, although binge drinking increased among men and women overall, as well. The death rate related to alcohol was also higher among people ages 55 and 64 in the new report, which is supported by a recent report that found that binge drinking among Americans over 50 jumped 19% between 2005 and 2014. And by ethnicity, non-Hispanic American Indians and Alaska natives had the highest alcohol-related death rates. These startling figures probably fall short of the actual number, the researchers noted, since death certificates often fail to indicate alcohol?s role in mortality. (Only one in six drunk driving deaths are reported as alcohol-related, according to one study.) # # # From r-szoke at illinois.edu Fri Jan 17 19:40:04 2020 From: r-szoke at illinois.edu (Szoke, Ron) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2020 19:40:04 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] The futility & nihilism factory Message-ID: ?Flood the zone with shit?: How misinformation overwhelmed our democracy The impeachment trial probably won?t change any minds. Here?s why. By Sean Illing @seanilling sean.illing at vox.com Jan 16, 2020 No matter how President Trump?s impeachment trial plays out in the Senate, one thing is certain: Despite the incontrovertible facts at the center of the story, the process will change very few minds. Regardless of how clear a case Democrats make, it seems likely that a majority of voters will remain confused and unsure about the details of Trump?s transgressions. No single version of the truth will be accepted. This is a serious problem for our democratic culture. No amount of evidence, on virtually any topic, is likely to move public opinion one way or the other. We can attribute some of this to rank partisanship ? some people simply refuse to acknowledge inconvenient facts about their own side. But there?s another, equally vexing problem. We live in a media ecosystem that overwhelms people with information. Some of that information is accurate, some of it is bogus, and much of it is intentionally misleading. The result is a polity that has increasingly given up on finding out the truth. As Sabrina Tavernise and Aidan Gardiner put it in a New York Times piece, ?people are numb and disoriented, struggling to discern what is real in a sea of slant, fake, and fact.? This is partly why an earth-shattering historical event like a president?s impeachment has done very little to move public opinion. The core challenge we?re facing today is information saturation and a hackable media system. If you follow politics at all, you know how exhausting the environment is. The sheer volume of content, the dizzying number of narratives and counternarratives, and the pace of the news cycle are too much for anyone to process. One response to this situation is to walk away and tune everything out. After all, it takes real effort to comb through the bullshit, and most people have busy lives and limited bandwidth. Another reaction is to retreat into tribal allegiances. There?s Team Liberal and Team Conservative, and pretty much everyone knows which side they?re on. So you stick to the places that feed you the information you most want to hear. My Vox colleague Dave Roberts calls this an ?epistemic crisis.? The foundation for shared truth, he argues, has collapsed. I don?t disagree with that, but I?d frame the problem a little differently. We?re in an age of manufactured nihilism. The issue for many people isn?t exactly a denial of truth as such. It?s more a growing weariness over the process of finding the truth at all. And that weariness leads more and more people to abandon the idea that the truth is knowable. I call this ?manufactured? because it?s the consequence of a deliberate strategy. It was distilled almost perfectly by Steve Bannon, the former head of Breitbart News and chief strategist for Donald Trump. ?The Democrats don?t matter,? Bannon reportedly said in 2018. ?The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.? This idea isn?t new, but Bannon articulated it about as well as anyone can. The press ideally should sift fact from fiction and give the public the information it needs to make enlightened political choices. If you short-circuit that process by saturating the ecosystem with misinformation and overwhelm the media?s ability to mediate, then you can disrupt the democratic process. What we?re facing is a new form of propaganda that wasn?t really possible until the digital age. And it works not by creating a consensus around any particular narrative but by muddying the waters so that consensus isn?t achievable. Bannon?s political objective is clear. As he explained in a 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference talk, he sees Trump as a stick of dynamite with which to blow up the status quo. So ?flooding the zone? is a means to that end. But more generally, creating widespread cynicism about the truth and the institutions charged with unearthing it erodes the very foundation of liberal democracy. And the strategy is working. # # # From r-szoke at illinois.edu Fri Jan 17 19:40:04 2020 From: r-szoke at illinois.edu (Szoke, Ron) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2020 19:40:04 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] The futility & nihilism factory Message-ID: ?Flood the zone with shit?: How misinformation overwhelmed our democracy The impeachment trial probably won?t change any minds. Here?s why. By Sean Illing @seanilling sean.illing at vox.com Jan 16, 2020 No matter how President Trump?s impeachment trial plays out in the Senate, one thing is certain: Despite the incontrovertible facts at the center of the story, the process will change very few minds. Regardless of how clear a case Democrats make, it seems likely that a majority of voters will remain confused and unsure about the details of Trump?s transgressions. No single version of the truth will be accepted. This is a serious problem for our democratic culture. No amount of evidence, on virtually any topic, is likely to move public opinion one way or the other. We can attribute some of this to rank partisanship ? some people simply refuse to acknowledge inconvenient facts about their own side. But there?s another, equally vexing problem. We live in a media ecosystem that overwhelms people with information. Some of that information is accurate, some of it is bogus, and much of it is intentionally misleading. The result is a polity that has increasingly given up on finding out the truth. As Sabrina Tavernise and Aidan Gardiner put it in a New York Times piece, ?people are numb and disoriented, struggling to discern what is real in a sea of slant, fake, and fact.? This is partly why an earth-shattering historical event like a president?s impeachment has done very little to move public opinion. The core challenge we?re facing today is information saturation and a hackable media system. If you follow politics at all, you know how exhausting the environment is. The sheer volume of content, the dizzying number of narratives and counternarratives, and the pace of the news cycle are too much for anyone to process. One response to this situation is to walk away and tune everything out. After all, it takes real effort to comb through the bullshit, and most people have busy lives and limited bandwidth. Another reaction is to retreat into tribal allegiances. There?s Team Liberal and Team Conservative, and pretty much everyone knows which side they?re on. So you stick to the places that feed you the information you most want to hear. My Vox colleague Dave Roberts calls this an ?epistemic crisis.? The foundation for shared truth, he argues, has collapsed. I don?t disagree with that, but I?d frame the problem a little differently. We?re in an age of manufactured nihilism. The issue for many people isn?t exactly a denial of truth as such. It?s more a growing weariness over the process of finding the truth at all. And that weariness leads more and more people to abandon the idea that the truth is knowable. I call this ?manufactured? because it?s the consequence of a deliberate strategy. It was distilled almost perfectly by Steve Bannon, the former head of Breitbart News and chief strategist for Donald Trump. ?The Democrats don?t matter,? Bannon reportedly said in 2018. ?The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.? This idea isn?t new, but Bannon articulated it about as well as anyone can. The press ideally should sift fact from fiction and give the public the information it needs to make enlightened political choices. If you short-circuit that process by saturating the ecosystem with misinformation and overwhelm the media?s ability to mediate, then you can disrupt the democratic process. What we?re facing is a new form of propaganda that wasn?t really possible until the digital age. And it works not by creating a consensus around any particular narrative but by muddying the waters so that consensus isn?t achievable. Bannon?s political objective is clear. As he explained in a 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference talk, he sees Trump as a stick of dynamite with which to blow up the status quo. So ?flooding the zone? is a means to that end. But more generally, creating widespread cynicism about the truth and the institutions charged with unearthing it erodes the very foundation of liberal democracy. And the strategy is working. # # # From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Fri Jan 17 20:07:55 2020 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2020 14:07:55 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] The futility & nihilism factory In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <006701d5cd71$cf092820$6d1b7860$@comcast.net> " The press ideally should sift fact from fiction and give the public the information it needs to make enlightened political choices. " I absolutely agree. The problem is that CORPORATE OWNED MEDIA does NOT sift fact from fiction. It produces and repeats corporate propaganda fiction and ignores and buries the facts. " If you short-circuit that process by saturating the ecosystem with misinformation and overwhelm the media's ability to mediate, then you can disrupt the democratic process. " So they are saying that there is too much information, therefore anything but corporate owned and financed media should be banned. The corporate media does NOT " mediate " and in fact is one of the largest impediments to REAL democracy in the U.S. and the rest of the world as well. Why do you think so many people have been deserting corporate media as their info source ( especially people under 40 ) for the last 15-20 years and turning to REAL independent journalists on the internet and YouTube ? ...Weapons of mass destruction anyone ? Journalists like ; Glen Greenwald, Abby Martin, Max Blumenthal, Jimmy Dore, Aaron Matte, Chris Hedges, etc.. Who are banned from corporate media. Lastly Ron.....Look at your source for this article ...." VOX " - The corporate hipster magazine for Neo-Liberalism and the U.S. corporate empire. David J. -----Original Message----- From: Peace-discuss [mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of Szoke, Ron via Peace-discuss Sent: Friday, January 17, 2020 1:40 PM To: peace-discuss at anti-war.net Cc: peace-discuss Subject: [Peace-discuss] The futility & nihilism factory "Flood the zone with shit": How misinformation overwhelmed our democracy The impeachment trial probably won't change any minds. Here's why. By Sean Illing @seanilling sean.illing at vox.com Jan 16, 2020 No matter how President Trump's impeachment trial plays out in the Senate, one thing is certain: Despite the incontrovertible facts at the center of the story, the process will change very few minds. Regardless of how clear a case Democrats make, it seems likely that a majority of voters will remain confused and unsure about the details of Trump's transgressions. No single version of the truth will be accepted. This is a serious problem for our democratic culture. No amount of evidence, on virtually any topic, is likely to move public opinion one way or the other. We can attribute some of this to rank partisanship - some people simply refuse to acknowledge inconvenient facts about their own side. But there's another, equally vexing problem. We live in a media ecosystem that overwhelms people with information. Some of that information is accurate, some of it is bogus, and much of it is intentionally misleading. The result is a polity that has increasingly given up on finding out the truth. As Sabrina Tavernise and Aidan Gardiner put it in a New York Times piece, "people are numb and disoriented, struggling to discern what is real in a sea of slant, fake, and fact." This is partly why an earth-shattering historical event like a president's impeachment has done very little to move public opinion. The core challenge we're facing today is information saturation and a hackable media system. If you follow politics at all, you know how exhausting the environment is. The sheer volume of content, the dizzying number of narratives and counternarratives, and the pace of the news cycle are too much for anyone to process. One response to this situation is to walk away and tune everything out. After all, it takes real effort to comb through the bullshit, and most people have busy lives and limited bandwidth. Another reaction is to retreat into tribal allegiances. There's Team Liberal and Team Conservative, and pretty much everyone knows which side they're on. So you stick to the places that feed you the information you most want to hear. My Vox colleague Dave Roberts calls this an "epistemic crisis." The foundation for shared truth, he argues, has collapsed. I don't disagree with that, but I'd frame the problem a little differently. We're in an age of manufactured nihilism. The issue for many people isn't exactly a denial of truth as such. It's more a growing weariness over the process of finding the truth at all. And that weariness leads more and more people to abandon the idea that the truth is knowable. I call this "manufactured" because it's the consequence of a deliberate strategy. It was distilled almost perfectly by Steve Bannon, the former head of Breitbart News and chief strategist for Donald Trump. "The Democrats don't matter," Bannon reportedly said in 2018. "The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit." This idea isn't new, but Bannon articulated it about as well as anyone can. The press ideally should sift fact from fiction and give the public the information it needs to make enlightened political choices. If you short-circuit that process by saturating the ecosystem with misinformation and overwhelm the media's ability to mediate, then you can disrupt the democratic process. What we're facing is a new form of propaganda that wasn't really possible until the digital age. And it works not by creating a consensus around any particular narrative but by muddying the waters so that consensus isn't achievable. Bannon's political objective is clear. As he explained in a 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference talk, he sees Trump as a stick of dynamite with which to blow up the status quo. So "flooding the zone" is a means to that end. But more generally, creating widespread cynicism about the truth and the institutions charged with unearthing it erodes the very foundation of liberal democracy. And the strategy is working. # # # _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss From brussel at illinois.edu Fri Jan 17 21:30:45 2020 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2020 21:30:45 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] The futility & nihilism factory In-Reply-To: <006701d5cd71$cf092820$6d1b7860$@comcast.net> References: <006701d5cd71$cf092820$6d1b7860$@comcast.net> Message-ID: Apt reply! Where do most get their information from? NYT, WP, WSJ, USA Today set the stage for newspapers. CNN, MSNBC, Fox, NPR, cover simlilar ground. There seems to be no significant media antidotes. So how do most get to know what really is happening around the world, and domestically? It?s too facile to attribute it to nihilism, although given the current dreadful situation, nihilism is a result. Who has the money and the power? These largely control the levers, and that goes for the educational system also. I recently attended a coarse propagandistic ?lecture? at OLLI on the subjsect of Ukraine given by a UIUC faculty member. One can?t imagine how bad it was and sadly its attendance was gleeful, or silent, and large. On Jan 17, 2020, at 2:07 PM, David Johnson via Peace-discuss > wrote: " The press ideally should sift fact from fiction and give the public the information it needs to make enlightened political choices. " I absolutely agree. The problem is that CORPORATE OWNED MEDIA does NOT sift fact from fiction. It produces and repeats corporate propaganda fiction and ignores and buries the facts. " If you short-circuit that process by saturating the ecosystem with misinformation and overwhelm the media's ability to mediate, then you can disrupt the democratic process. " So they are saying that there is too much information, therefore anything but corporate owned and financed media should be banned. The corporate media does NOT " mediate " and in fact is one of the largest impediments to REAL democracy in the U.S. and the rest of the world as well. Why do you think so many people have been deserting corporate media as their info source ( especially people under 40 ) for the last 15-20 years and turning to REAL independent journalists on the internet and YouTube ? ...Weapons of mass destruction anyone ? Journalists like ; Glen Greenwald, Abby Martin, Max Blumenthal, Jimmy Dore, Aaron Matte, Chris Hedges, etc.. Who are banned from corporate media. Lastly Ron.....Look at your source for this article ...." VOX " - The corporate hipster magazine for Neo-Liberalism and the U.S. corporate empire. David J. -----Original Message----- From: Peace-discuss [mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of Szoke, Ron via Peace-discuss Sent: Friday, January 17, 2020 1:40 PM To: peace-discuss at anti-war.net Cc: peace-discuss Subject: [Peace-discuss] The futility & nihilism factory "Flood the zone with shit": How misinformation overwhelmed our democracy The impeachment trial probably won't change any minds. Here's why. By Sean Illing @seanilling sean.illing at vox.com Jan 16, 2020 No matter how President Trump's impeachment trial plays out in the Senate, one thing is certain: Despite the incontrovertible facts at the center of the story, the process will change very few minds. Regardless of how clear a case Democrats make, it seems likely that a majority of voters will remain confused and unsure about the details of Trump's transgressions. No single version of the truth will be accepted. This is a serious problem for our democratic culture. No amount of evidence, on virtually any topic, is likely to move public opinion one way or the other. We can attribute some of this to rank partisanship - some people simply refuse to acknowledge inconvenient facts about their own side. But there's another, equally vexing problem. We live in a media ecosystem that overwhelms people with information. Some of that information is accurate, some of it is bogus, and much of it is intentionally misleading. The result is a polity that has increasingly given up on finding out the truth. As Sabrina Tavernise and Aidan Gardiner put it in a New York Times piece, "people are numb and disoriented, struggling to discern what is real in a sea of slant, fake, and fact." This is partly why an earth-shattering historical event like a president's impeachment has done very little to move public opinion. The core challenge we're facing today is information saturation and a hackable media system. If you follow politics at all, you know how exhausting the environment is. The sheer volume of content, the dizzying number of narratives and counternarratives, and the pace of the news cycle are too much for anyone to process. One response to this situation is to walk away and tune everything out. After all, it takes real effort to comb through the bullshit, and most people have busy lives and limited bandwidth. Another reaction is to retreat into tribal allegiances. There's Team Liberal and Team Conservative, and pretty much everyone knows which side they're on. So you stick to the places that feed you the information you most want to hear. My Vox colleague Dave Roberts calls this an "epistemic crisis." The foundation for shared truth, he argues, has collapsed. I don't disagree with that, but I'd frame the problem a little differently. We're in an age of manufactured nihilism. The issue for many people isn't exactly a denial of truth as such. It's more a growing weariness over the process of finding the truth at all. And that weariness leads more and more people to abandon the idea that the truth is knowable. I call this "manufactured" because it's the consequence of a deliberate strategy. It was distilled almost perfectly by Steve Bannon, the former head of Breitbart News and chief strategist for Donald Trump. "The Democrats don't matter," Bannon reportedly said in 2018. "The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit." This idea isn't new, but Bannon articulated it about as well as anyone can. The press ideally should sift fact from fiction and give the public the information it needs to make enlightened political choices. If you short-circuit that process by saturating the ecosystem with misinformation and overwhelm the media's ability to mediate, then you can disrupt the democratic process. What we're facing is a new form of propaganda that wasn't really possible until the digital age. And it works not by creating a consensus around any particular narrative but by muddying the waters so that consensus isn't achievable. Bannon's political objective is clear. As he explained in a 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference talk, he sees Trump as a stick of dynamite with which to blow up the status quo. So "flooding the zone" is a means to that end. But more generally, creating widespread cynicism about the truth and the institutions charged with unearthing it erodes the very foundation of liberal democracy. And the strategy is working. # # # _______________________________________________ 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 brussel at illinois.edu Fri Jan 17 21:47:16 2020 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2020 21:47:16 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] The futility & nihilism factory In-Reply-To: <006701d5cd71$cf092820$6d1b7860$@comcast.net> References: <006701d5cd71$cf092820$6d1b7860$@comcast.net> Message-ID: <37F38DB0-577E-4DD5-920E-BBB1E6926744@illinois.edu> And quoting Caitlin Johnstone: There is at this time no legitimate reason to believe that the GRU was involved in any kind of cyberattack on Burisma, let alone that it found anything worth publishing. At the moment the only information we've gleaned from this incident is more insight into the fact that the news media environment of the most powerful nation on earth is deeply, profoundly unhealthy, and so are the individuals operating within it. These are the people who shape the dominant narrative. These are the thought leaders, who really do lead the way a very large sector of the population thinks. We need to bring more consciousness to how wildly dysfunctional this is. 2020 has been wild already. And all signs indicate that it's only going to get a whole lot crazier. On Jan 17, 2020, at 2:07 PM, David Johnson via Peace-discuss > wrote: " The press ideally should sift fact from fiction and give the public the information it needs to make enlightened political choices. " I absolutely agree. The problem is that CORPORATE OWNED MEDIA does NOT sift fact from fiction. It produces and repeats corporate propaganda fiction and ignores and buries the facts. " If you short-circuit that process by saturating the ecosystem with misinformation and overwhelm the media's ability to mediate, then you can disrupt the democratic process. " So they are saying that there is too much information, therefore anything but corporate owned and financed media should be banned. The corporate media does NOT " mediate " and in fact is one of the largest impediments to REAL democracy in the U.S. and the rest of the world as well. Why do you think so many people have been deserting corporate media as their info source ( especially people under 40 ) for the last 15-20 years and turning to REAL independent journalists on the internet and YouTube ? ...Weapons of mass destruction anyone ? Journalists like ; Glen Greenwald, Abby Martin, Max Blumenthal, Jimmy Dore, Aaron Matte, Chris Hedges, etc.. Who are banned from corporate media. Lastly Ron.....Look at your source for this article ...." VOX " - The corporate hipster magazine for Neo-Liberalism and the U.S. corporate empire. David J. -----Original Message----- From: Peace-discuss [mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of Szoke, Ron via Peace-discuss Sent: Friday, January 17, 2020 1:40 PM To: peace-discuss at anti-war.net Cc: peace-discuss Subject: [Peace-discuss] The futility & nihilism factory "Flood the zone with shit": How misinformation overwhelmed our democracy The impeachment trial probably won't change any minds. Here's why. By Sean Illing @seanilling sean.illing at vox.com Jan 16, 2020 No matter how President Trump's impeachment trial plays out in the Senate, one thing is certain: Despite the incontrovertible facts at the center of the story, the process will change very few minds. Regardless of how clear a case Democrats make, it seems likely that a majority of voters will remain confused and unsure about the details of Trump's transgressions. No single version of the truth will be accepted. This is a serious problem for our democratic culture. No amount of evidence, on virtually any topic, is likely to move public opinion one way or the other. We can attribute some of this to rank partisanship - some people simply refuse to acknowledge inconvenient facts about their own side. But there's another, equally vexing problem. We live in a media ecosystem that overwhelms people with information. Some of that information is accurate, some of it is bogus, and much of it is intentionally misleading. The result is a polity that has increasingly given up on finding out the truth. As Sabrina Tavernise and Aidan Gardiner put it in a New York Times piece, "people are numb and disoriented, struggling to discern what is real in a sea of slant, fake, and fact." This is partly why an earth-shattering historical event like a president's impeachment has done very little to move public opinion. The core challenge we're facing today is information saturation and a hackable media system. If you follow politics at all, you know how exhausting the environment is. The sheer volume of content, the dizzying number of narratives and counternarratives, and the pace of the news cycle are too much for anyone to process. One response to this situation is to walk away and tune everything out. After all, it takes real effort to comb through the bullshit, and most people have busy lives and limited bandwidth. Another reaction is to retreat into tribal allegiances. There's Team Liberal and Team Conservative, and pretty much everyone knows which side they're on. So you stick to the places that feed you the information you most want to hear. My Vox colleague Dave Roberts calls this an "epistemic crisis." The foundation for shared truth, he argues, has collapsed. I don't disagree with that, but I'd frame the problem a little differently. We're in an age of manufactured nihilism. The issue for many people isn't exactly a denial of truth as such. It's more a growing weariness over the process of finding the truth at all. And that weariness leads more and more people to abandon the idea that the truth is knowable. I call this "manufactured" because it's the consequence of a deliberate strategy. It was distilled almost perfectly by Steve Bannon, the former head of Breitbart News and chief strategist for Donald Trump. "The Democrats don't matter," Bannon reportedly said in 2018. "The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit." This idea isn't new, but Bannon articulated it about as well as anyone can. The press ideally should sift fact from fiction and give the public the information it needs to make enlightened political choices. If you short-circuit that process by saturating the ecosystem with misinformation and overwhelm the media's ability to mediate, then you can disrupt the democratic process. What we're facing is a new form of propaganda that wasn't really possible until the digital age. And it works not by creating a consensus around any particular narrative but by muddying the waters so that consensus isn't achievable. Bannon's political objective is clear. As he explained in a 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference talk, he sees Trump as a stick of dynamite with which to blow up the status quo. So "flooding the zone" is a means to that end. But more generally, creating widespread cynicism about the truth and the institutions charged with unearthing it erodes the very foundation of liberal democracy. And the strategy is working. # # # _______________________________________________ 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 naiman.uiuc at gmail.com Fri Jan 17 21:50:42 2020 From: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com (Robert Naiman) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2020 16:50:42 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] How a Presidential Election is like a War or a Trade Deal In-Reply-To: <3429B83C-C1DA-4F84-87CD-7F97C6E5ABFF@illinois.edu> References: <3429B83C-C1DA-4F84-87CD-7F97C6E5ABFF@illinois.edu> Message-ID: To me, the point is: now we're at a juncture where we could make a different choice and it might have an opportunity to matter unprecedented in the time since some of us 54-year-olds were old enough to vote. On Fri, Jan 17, 2020 at 4:04 PM Brussel, Morton K wrote: > A useful narrative, but that omits early indications that Obama could not > be trusted, as Paul Street wrote about. And now? > > On Jan 17, 2020, at 12:45 PM, Robert Naiman via Peace < > peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote: > > > https://www.facebook.com/robert.naiman/posts/10159052620347656 > > How a Presidential Election is like a War or a Trade Deal > > Have you ever accidentally turned into a one-way street going the wrong > way when there was significant traffic? It?s not always trivial to figure > out how to safely extract yourself from your mistake. Somehow you have to > turn your car around 180 degrees to get back into the legal flow of > traffic, while the legal flow of traffic is swarming around you, honking at > the annoying illegal obstacle in the middle of the legal flow of traffic. > Some mistakes are easy to reverse. Some mistakes are hard to reverse. The > people who own America understand these dynamics very well, so they and > their designees work very hard at three things: creating one-time choices > for us that are very hard to reverse, limiting the number of apparent > available choices, and then tricking us into making the worst available > choice for us and the best available choice for them. Three things that we > face have these dynamics in common: presidential elections, wars, and trade > deals. > > In 2007-2008, it was a ?slam dunk? that Obama was the best available > realistic choice among the presidential candidates from the point of view > of those who were trying to end and prevent wars. Polls indicated that > there were three realistic Democratic candidates: Clinton, Edwards, and > Obama. Clinton and Edwards had voted for the Iraq war and were clearly > close to and pandering to the pro-war wing of the Democratic Party. Obama > had not been in Congress, but he had opposed the Iraq war and promised to > end it and promised to engage Iran and other ?U.S. adversaries? > diplomatically [including, it?s hard to remember now, Russia, Syria, Cuba, > Venezuela, and North Korea.] > > But as soon as he was on track to win the Democratic presidential > nomination, Obama started pivoting away from the things he had promised to > do to ?end the mindset that got us into war in the first place.? And in the > main, he never stopped pivoting away from the things he had promised to do, > as much as he could get away with. He took Joe Biden as his running mate, > the same Joe Biden who as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee > had ensured the passage of the authorization for the use of military force > that enabled the catastrophic Iraq war. This choice was justified at the > time as being necessary to appease the pro-war wing of the Democratic > Party. Then he took Hillary Clinton, who had also voted for the Iraq war, > as his Secretary of State. Again, this choice was justified as being > necessary to appease the pro-war wing of the Democratic Party, but by this > point, Obama had already been elected President. That should have been a > big warning signal that people who wanted Obama to ?end the mindset that > got us into war in the first place,? which he had promised to do, were in > big trouble in terms of what Obama?s intentions were. It was also a strong > indication that regardless of what happened in the election, regardless of > who won, regardless of what they had promised to do, there was an entirely > different process at work in Washington DC shaping Obama?s choices as > President that had nothing to do with a democratic election, but had > everything to do with appeasing the pro-war forces in the Democratic Party > that Obama had run against. > > In my experience, if you try to raise these issues with Democrats, they > tend to make dismissive excuses, like ?Republican obstruction.? But while > there was undoubtedly ?Republican obstruction,? there were also key > junctures where Obama did the opposite of what he had promised to do, where > there was no ?Republican obstruction? explanation for his choice. > > One of the most spectacular of these choices, for those who care about war > and peace, was Obama?s decision to use military force to overthrow the > Libyan government without Congressional authorization in 2011. This was a > violation of two key interrelated Obama promises: his promise to ?end the > mindset that got us into war in the first place,? and his promise to > respect Article I of the Constitution, reaffirmed by the War Powers > Resolution in 1973, which says that Congress, not the President, decides > when we go to war. ?Republican obstruction? didn?t force Obama to do this. > On the contrary, the majority of House Republicans were against it. Obama?s > Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, was against it. Gates, a Republican, had > been Bush?s Defense Secretary after Bush fired Donald Rumsfeld following > the 2006 Congressional election when Democrats took over Congress. But > Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whom Obama had defeated in the > Democratic primary, promising that he would ?end the mindset that got us > into war,? was strongly for it. > > This decision unleashed a lot of terrible consequences which we?re still > living with today. It set a terrible precedent for presidential war without > Congressional authorization which we are still working to unwind and which > made a major contribution to the catastrophes in Yemen and Syria. Libya > still doesn?t have a functioning government, it?s still the victim of an > ongoing civil war and proxy war fueled by outside powers. The overthrow of > the Libyan government unleashed Al Qaeda fighters and weapons into Africa > and the Middle East, which is still causing destabilization today, and > which is the purported justification for even more U.S. military action > which Congress never authorized. Obama?s unilateral decision to overthrow > the Libyan government, without Congressional authorization, created an > expectation among the Syrian opposition that at the end of the day, Obama > would do the same in Syria, and this made them more intransigent towards > diplomatic and political efforts to end the Syrian civil war, a major > contribution to that catastrophe. By the time that Obama helped launch the > Saudi military intervention in Yemen in March 2015 without Congressional > authorization, unleashing the worst humanitarian catastrophe in the world > which persists today, most Democrats were habituated to the idea that Obama > uses military force without Congressional authorization. Dennis Kucinich > was gone from Congress. There were no Democrats left to object. > > And the terrible Libya 2011 decision was largely supported by Democrats at > the time [except for Dennis Kucinich and a group of House Democrats who > stood with him for the Constitution and against Obama.] Indeed, those of us > who opposed it were viciously attacked by Democrats as ?helping Republicans > to hurt Obama.? And this was in the context of an Obama choice that was > 100% the opposite of what he had promised to do, which was not forced on > him by ?Republican obstruction? but by appeasing the pro-war wing of the > Democratic Party which he had run against, which was opposed by his own > Republican Secretary of Defense, and which choice he himself described as a > ?turd sandwich,? right before he made the choice. > > This is the context in which Democrats who really care about ending > endless war must now evaluate current promises by Democratic presidential > candidates to end endless war. Every such promise like this was broken by > Obama, and the people backing Obama did nothing about it, in fact they > attacked the people who tried to do something about it. > > We?re about to make a turn which might lead to going the wrong way down a > one-way street that will be hard to turn back from. And unfortunately, > we?re living in a world of ?Mr. Pine?s Mixed-Up Signs.? All the street > signs are wrong. Everything Democratic Presidential candidates say is > completely meaningless as a judge of what they will do. We have to figure > out some way to decide what the correct turn to make is without relying on > the mixed-up road signs. > > _______________________________________________ > 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 Sat Jan 18 01:41:25 2020 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2020 19:41:25 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] How Trump rebelled against the generals Message-ID: <5AE2A0D6-CA11-4F35-AA5F-D3381FE52CCE@newsfromneptune.com> https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/01/how-trump-rebelled-against-the-generals.html#more From brussel at illinois.edu Sat Jan 18 17:02:02 2020 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 17:02:02 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?windows-1252?q?Most_enlightening=85=2C_France?= Message-ID: It concerns France, but informs more widely. Diana Johnstone is remarkably clairvoyant. https://consortiumnews.com/2020/01/17/french-popular-uprising-revolution-or-frozen-conflict/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbn at forestfield.org Sat Jan 18 21:37:39 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 15:37:39 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Noam Chomsky Audio Conservatory Message-ID: <67fcf16b-4eb0-8ccf-cdba-2e4dd1b5f22c@forestfield.org> Noam Chomsky Audio Conservatory is a collection of recordings of Noam Chomsky interviews. https://archive.org/details/noamchomskyaudioconservatory From carl at newsfromneptune.com Sun Jan 19 03:14:04 2020 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 21:14:04 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?q?Most_enlightening=E2=80=A6=2C_France?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: And she argues that, "The real issue is a choice of systems: to be precise, economic globalization versus national sovereignty.? She?s correct, and that, remember, is the assertion that helped to make Trump president. He explicitly opposed 'MAGA' to economic globalization. ?CGE > On Jan 18, 2020, at 11:02 AM, Brussel, Morton K via Peace-discuss wrote: > > It concerns France, but informs more widely. Diana Johnstone is remarkably clairvoyant. > > https://consortiumnews.com/2020/01/17/french-popular-uprising-revolution-or-frozen-conflict/ > > > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss From carl at newsfromneptune.com Sun Jan 19 03:25:39 2020 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 21:25:39 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] World War III by C. J. Hopkins / January 13th, 2020 In-Reply-To: <37F38DB0-577E-4DD5-920E-BBB1E6926744@illinois.edu> References: <006701d5cd71$cf092820$6d1b7860$@comcast.net> <37F38DB0-577E-4DD5-920E-BBB1E6926744@illinois.edu> Message-ID: https://dissidentvoice.org/2020/01/world-war-iii/ So, 2020 is off to an exciting start. It?s barely the middle of January, and we?ve already made it through World War III, which was slightly less apocalyptic than expected. Forensic teams are still sifting through the ashes, but preliminary reports suggest that the global capitalist empire has emerged from the carnage largely intact. It started in the Middle East, of course, when Donald Trump (a ?Russian-asset?) ordered the murder of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani outside the Baghdad Airport, presumably after clearing it with Putin, which, given Iran and Russia?s relationship, doesn?t really make much sense. But whatever. According to the U.S. government and the corporate media, Soleimani was a ?terrorist,? who had been working with Assad (another ?terrorist?) to destroy ISIS (who are also ?terrorists?) and elements of Al-Qaeda (who used to be ?terrorists?) with the support of the Russians (who are kind of ?terrorists?) and doing all sorts of other unspecified but allegedly imminent ?terrorist? things. Apparently, Soleimani had flown to Baghdad on a secret commercial ?terrorist? flight and was on his way to some kind of covert ?terrorist? diplomatic meeting to respond to a de-escalation proposal from Saudi Arabia (who are definitely not ?terrorists?) when the U.S. military preventatively murdered him with a General Atomics Aeronautical Systems MQ-9B Reaper drone. Iran (officially a ?terrorist? country since January 1979, when they overthrew the brutal Western puppet that the CIA and MI6 had installed as their ?Shah? in 1953, after they regime-changed the Iranian prime minister, after he nationalized the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, later to be known as British Petroleum) reacted to the preventative murder of their ?terrorist? general like a bunch of ?terrorists.? The Ayatollah Khamenei (you guessed it, a ?terrorist?) issued a series of ?terrorist? threats against the 50,000 U.S. military personnel more or less completely surrounding his country on bases all across the Middle East. Millions of Iranians (currently ?terrorists,? except for members of MeK), who, according to the U.S. officials, hated Soleimani, took to the streets of Tehran and other cities to mourn his death, burn American flags, and chant ?death to America? and other ?terrorist? slogans. The empire went to DEFCON 1. The 82nd Airborne was activated. The State Department advised Americans vacationing in Iraq to get the hell out of there. #worldwar3 started trending on Twitter. Freedom-loving countries throughout the region stood by to be annihilated. Saudi Arabia postponed its previously scheduled weekend edition of public head-chopping. Israel dialed up its non-existent nukes. The Kuwaitis posted armed guards on their incubators. The Qataris, Bahrainians, United Arab Emiratis, and other loyal empire outposts did whatever those folks do when they?re facing nuclear Armageddon. In the U.S.A., it was mass hysteria. The corporate media starting pumping out stories about Soleimani having ?blood on his hands,? and being ?the number one terrorist in the world,? and having ruthlessly genocided hundreds of American soldiers, who, back in 2003, had preventatively invaded and destroyed Iraq and were preventatively slaughtering and torturing its people to keep them from attacking America with their non-existent WMDs. Americans (most of whom had never even heard of Soleimani until their government murdered him, and many of whom can?t find Iran on a map) took to Twitter to call for the immediate nuking of Iran from orbit. Mayor Bill de Blasio ordered a division of heavily-armed anti-?terror? forces to stand around in New York City with their rifles in the classic ?sling-ready? position to prevent the Iranians from swimming the Atlantic (along with their communist killer dolphins), crawling up onto East Hampton Beach, taking the LIRR into town, and committing some devastating ?terrorist? atrocity that would be commemorated throughout eternity on key rings, T-shirts, and jumbo coffee mugs. Trump, disciplined Russian agent that he is, held his nerve and maintained his cover, performing his ?total moron? act as only a seasoned Russian operative can. While Iran was still mourning, he started publicly jabbering about Soleimani?s dismembered corpse, bombing Iranian cultural sites, and otherwise bombastically taunting Iran like an emotionally-challenged street-corner drunk. His strategy was clearly to convince the Iranians (and the rest of the world) that he is a dangerous imbecile who will murder the officials of any foreign government that Mike Pompeo tells him to, and then incinerate their museums and mosques, and presumably the rest of their ?shithole? countries, if they even think about retaliating. Nevertheless, retaliate the Iranians did. In a sadistic display of cold-hearted ?terrorism,? they launched a firestorm of ballistic ?terror? missiles at two U.S. military bases in Iraq, killing no one and injuring no one, but damaging the hell out of some empty buildings, a helicopter, and a couple of tents. First, though, in order to maximize the ?terror,? they called the Swiss embassy in Tehran and asked them to warn the U.S. military that they would be launching missiles at their bases shortly. As the Moon of Alabama website reported: The Swiss embassy in Tehran, which represents the U.S., was warned at least one hour before the attack happened. Around 0:00 UTC the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration issued a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) which prohibited civil U.S. flights over Iraq, Iran, the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. In the wake of the Iranians? devastating counter-strike, and the mass-non-casualties resulting therefrom, anyone with an Internet connection or access to a television descended into their anti-terror bunkers and held their breath in anticipation of the nuclear hell Trump was sure to unleash. I confess, even I tuned into his speech, which was one of the most disturbing public spectacles I have ever witnessed. Trump burst through the doors of the White House Grand Foyer, dramatically backlit, freshly ?tanned,? scowling like a WWF wrestler, and announced that, as long as he is president, ?Iran will never be allowed to have nuclear weapons? ? as if any of the events of the preceding week had had anything to do with nuclear weapons (which the Iranians don?t need and do not want, except in some neoconservative fantasy wherein Iran intends to commit national suicide by nuking Israel off the face of the Earth). I didn?t make it through his entire address, which he delivered in a breathless, robotic staccato (possibly because Putin, or Mike Pompeo, was dictating it word-for-word into his earpiece), but it was clear from the start that all-out, toe-to-toe nuclear combat with the Axis of Resistance, or the Axis of Terror, or the Axis of Evil, or the Axis of Whatever, had been averted. But, seriously, all mass hysteria aside, despite whatever atrocities are still to come, World War III is not going to happen. Why, you ask, is it not going to happen? OK, I?ll tell you, but you?re not going to like it. World War III is not going to happen because World War III already happened ? and the global capitalist empire won. Take a look at these NATO maps (make sure to explore all the various missions). Then take a look at this Smithsonian map of where the U.S. military is ?combating terrorism.? And there are plenty of other maps you can google. What you will be looking at is the global capitalist empire. Not the American empire, the global capitalist empire. If that sounds like a distinction without a difference ? well, it kind of is, and it kind of isn?t. What I mean by that is that it isn?t America (i.e., America the nation-state, which most Americans still believe they live in) that is militarily occupying much of the planet, making a mockery of international law, bombing and invading other countries, and assassinating heads of state and military officers with complete impunity. Or, rather, sure, it is America ? but America is not America. America is a simulation. It is the mask the global capitalist empire wears to conceal the fact that there is no America ? that there is only the global capitalist empire. The whole idea of ?World War III,? of powerful nation-states conquering other powerful nation-states, is pure nostalgia. ?America? does not want to conquer Iran. The empire wants to restructure Iran, and then absorb Iran into the empire. It doesn?t give a rat?s ass about democracy, or whether Iranian women are allowed to wear mini-skirts, or any other ?human rights.? If it did, it would be restructuring Saudi Arabia and applying ?maximum pressure? to Israel. Likewise, the notion that ?America? has been making a series of unfortunate ?strategic mistakes? in the Middle East is a convenient illusion. Granted, its foreign policy makes no sense from the perspective of a nation-state, but it makes perfect sense from the perspective of the empire. While ?America? appears to be mindlessly thrashing around like a bull in a china shop, the empire knows exactly what it?s doing, what it has been doing since the end of the Cold War, opening up formerly inaccessible markets, eliminating internal resistance, aggressively restructuring any and all territories that are not playing ball with global capitalism. I know it?s gratifying to wave the flag, or burn it, depending on your political persuasion, whenever things flare up militarily, but at some point we (i.e., we Americans, Brits, Western Europeans, et al.) are going to need to face the fact that we are living in a global empire, which is actively pursuing its global interests, and not in sovereign nation-states pursuing the interests of nation-states. (The fact that the nation-state is defunct is why we?ve been experiencing a resurgence of ?nationalism.? It isn?t a return to the 1930s. It is the death throes of the nation-state, nationalism, and national sovereignty ? the supernova of a dying star.) World War III was an ideological battle, between two aspiring hegemonic systems. It is over. It?s a global capitalist world. As Mr. Jensen put it in the movie Network: You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That system of systems, that multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars, has us all by the short hairs, folks. All of us. And it won?t be satisfied until the world is transformed into one big, valueless, neo-feudal, privatized market ? so maybe we should forget about World War III, and start focusing on World War IV. You know the war I?m talking about, don?t you? It?s the global capitalist empire versus the ?terrorists.? ========================================== C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing and Broadway Play Publishing, Inc. His dystopian novel, Zone 23, is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant. Volume I of his Consent Factory Essays is published by Consent Factory Publishing, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amalgamated Content, Inc. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org. Read other articles by C. J.. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From carl at newsfromneptune.com Mon Jan 20 16:08:52 2020 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2020 10:08:52 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: Watch our CEO defend The Babylon Bee on Tucker Carlson References: <6753249476fcd9d02359150a6.8e884fe8e3.20200120155343.9a61db9920.a4f37dec@mail144.sea101.rsgsv.net> Message-ID: > Begin forwarded message: > > From: The Babylon Bee > Subject: Watch our CEO defend The Babylon Bee on Tucker Carlson > Date: January 20, 2020 at 9:54:03 AM CST > To: > Reply-To: The Babylon Bee > > > Our CEO Seth Dillon was on with Tucker Carlson Friday night discussing fake news. But they didn't only talk about CNN. Watch the full video below: > > Save Satire | Support The Babylon Bee > > > Pelosi Releases Limited-Edition Replica Of Dentures Worn During Trump Impeachment > WASHINGTON, D.C.?Nancy Pelosi has announced a new creative fundraiser for Dems in 2020: auctioning off limited-edition replicas of the dentures she wore during Trump's impeachment... Read more > You Might Like > > > > > > > Peter Jackson To Honor Christopher Tolkien With 578-Film Adaptation Of 'The Silmarillion' > > Church Drummers To Play 70-Minute Solos In Honor Of Neil Peart This Sunday > > Governor Northam: 'Virginia Will Be Kept Comfortable While Lawmakers Debate Whether To Kill It' > You Might Like > > > > > > > Archaeologists Discover King David's 'Make Israel Great Again' Hat > > Astros Fire Trash Can Responsible For Sign-Stealing Scandal > > President Trump Declares The Babylon Bee His Most-Trusted News Source > You Might Like > > > > > > > > > > Was this email forwarded to you? Subscribe here . > > Need to update your email address? Edit your preferences here . > > Want us to stop emailing you? Unsubscribe he re . > > > Latest News | Store | Podcast | Download?App | Subscribe > > PO Box 546, Jupiter, FL 33468 > Copyright ? 2020 The Babylon Bee, LLC. All rights reserved. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stuartnlevy at gmail.com Mon Jan 20 16:13:25 2020 From: stuartnlevy at gmail.com (Stuart Levy) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2020 10:13:25 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Martin Luther King's "Beyond Vietnam" speech, each hour from 10am-4pm today, wrfu.net / WRFU 104.5FM Message-ID: <1a64fe7a-0466-2681-9539-6685e2829fe1@gmail.com> You can hear Martin Luther King's 1967 "Beyond Vietnam" speech on the air on WRFU (wrfu.net and 104.5FM), each hour from 10am to 4pm today, MLK day. It was a controversial speech, then and now. It is likely not a coincidence that he was murdered exactly one year later. This is Alternative Radio's recording of the speech. Their description: By 1967, King had become the country's most prominent opponent of the Vietnam War, and a staunch critic of overall U.S. foreign policy, which he deemed militaristic. In his "Beyond Vietnam" speech delivered at New York's Riverside Church on April 4, 1967 -- a year to the day before he was murdered -- King called the United States "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today." Time magazine called the speech "demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi," and the Washington Post declared that King had "diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people." One quote: Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: Why are you speaking about war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent? Peace and civil rights don't mix, they say. Aren't you hurting the cause of your people, they ask? And when I hear them, though I often understand the source of their concern, I am nevertheless greatly saddened, for such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling. Indeed, their questions suggest that they do not know the world in which they live. and: Since I am a preacher by trade, I suppose it is not surprising that I have seven major reasons for bringing Vietnam into the field of my moral vision. *There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor -- both black and white -- through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.* *Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. So we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would never live on the same block in Detroit. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.* My third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettoes of the North over the last three years -- especially the last three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action.**But they asked -- and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.** -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From carl at newsfromneptune.com Mon Jan 20 16:25:57 2020 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2020 10:25:57 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?q?Fwd=3A_The_Puppet_Master_Behind_the_Mo?= =?utf-8?q?st_Blatant_Coup_D=E2=80=99etat_in_US_History?= References: Message-ID: > Begin forwarded message: > > From: "F. William Engdahl" > Subject: The Puppet Master Behind the Most Blatant Coup D?etat in US History > Date: January 20, 2020 at 7:51:19 AM CST > To: cgestabrook at gmail.com > > Dear Readers, > > In this installment of my free newsletter series I have decided to share with you the hidden history of who was actually behind the February 2014 Ukraine crisis that forced President Viktor Yanukovic from office fleeing for his life. The consequence of the US-organized regime change, called by Stratfor founder, George Friedman ?the most blatant coup d?etat in US history,? has been a series of sanctions that have cost the EU member country economies more than ? 100 billion in lost trade over three years and have driven Russia to build far more positive economic and political ties with China and countries of Eurasia. Here I detail the insidious role of a man whose dark side is hidden behind a fa?ade of so-called philanthropy. In my book, NGO Tyranny, publication in November, 2017, the deceptive role of Washington NGOs in creating pro-Washington coups and wars since the early 1980?s is documented in detail. Here I present a picture of the role of the tax-exempt foundation of George Soros in Ukraine. If you find it interesting, please note you will receive email note from me when the NGO Tyranny book is available on Amazon. > > For a better reading experience I converted the text to a pfd-file which You can find in the attachment of this mail. It's 5 pages in A4 format. > > Thank you for your support and feel free to share this, > > F. William Engdahl > www.williamengdahl.com > > > _______________________________________________________________ > > > > An American Oligarch?s Dirty Tale of Corruption > > Author: F. William Engdahl > > > > Rarely does the world get a true look inside the corrupt world of Western oligarchs and the brazen manipulations they use to enhance their fortunes at the expense of the public good. The following comes from correspondence of the Hungarian-born billionaire, now naturalized American speculator, George Soros. The hacker group CyberBerkut has published online letters allegedly written by Soros that reveal him not only as puppet master of the US-backed Ukraine regime. They also reveal his machinations with the US Government and the officials of the European Union in a scheme where, if he succeeds, he could win billions in the plunder of Ukraine assets. All, of course, would be at the expense of Ukrainian citizens and of EU taxpayers. > > What the three hacked documents reveal is a degree of behind-the-scene manipulation of the most minute details of the Kiev regime by the New York billionaire. > > In the longest memo, dated March 15, 2015 and marked ?Confidential? Soros outlines a detailed map of actions for the Ukraine regime. Titled, ?A short and medium term comprehensive strategy for the new Ukraine,? the memo from Soros calls for steps to ?restore the fighting capacity of Ukraine without violating the Minsk agreement.? To do the restoring, Soros blithely notes that ?General Wesley Clark, Polish General Skrzypczak and a few specialists under the auspices of the Atlantic Council [emphasis added?f.w.e.] will advise President Poroshenko how to restore the fighting capacity of Ukraine without violating the Minsk agreement .? > > Soros also calls for supplying lethal arms to Ukraine and secretly training Ukrainian army personnel in Romania to avoid direct NATO presence in Ukraine . The Atlantic Council is a leading Washington pro-NATO think tank . > Notably, Wesley Clark is also a business associate of Soros in BNK Petroleum which does business in Poland. > > Clark, some might recall, was the mentally-unstable NATO General in charge of the 1999 bombing of Serbia who ordered NATO soldiers to fire on Russian soldiers guarding the Pristina International Airport. The Russians were there as a part of an agreed joint NATO?Russia peacekeeping operation supposed to police Kosovo. The British Commander, General Mike Jackson refused Clark, retorting, ?I?m not going to start the Third World War for you .? Now Clark apparently decided to come out of retirement for the chance to go at Russia directly. > > > Naked asset grab > > In his March 2015 memo Soros further writes that Ukrainian President Poroshenko?s ?first priority must be to regain control of financial markets,? which he assures Poroshenko that Soros would be ready to assist in: ?I am ready to call Jack Lew of the US Treasury to sound him out about the swap agreement.? > > He also calls on the EU to give Ukraine an annual aid sum of ?11 billion via a special EU borrowing facility. Soros proposes in effect using the EU?s ?AAA? top credit rating to provide a risk insurance for investment into Ukraine. > > Whose risk would the EU insure? > > Soros details, ?I am prepared to invest up to ?1 billion in Ukrainian businesses. This is likely to attract the interest of the investment community. As stated above, Ukraine must become an attractive investment destination.? Not to leave any doubt, Soros continues, ?The investments will be for-profit but I will pledge to contribute the profits to my foundations. This should allay suspicions that I am advocating policies in search of personal gain. ? > > For anyone familiar with the history of the Soros Open Society Foundations in Eastern Europe and around the world since the late 1980?s, will know that his supposedly philanthropic ?democracy-building? projects in Poland, Russia, or Ukraine in the 1990?s allowed Soros the businessman to literally plunder the former communist countries using Harvard University?s ?shock therapy? messiah, and Soros associate, Jeffrey Sachs, to convince the post-Soviet governments to privatize and open to a ?free market? at once, rather than gradually. > > The example of Soros in Liberia is instructive for understanding the seemingly seamless interplay between Soros the shrewd businessman and Soros the philanthropist. In West Africa George Soros backed a former Open Society employee of his, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, giving her international publicity and through his influence, even arranging a Nobel Peace Prize for her in 2011, insuring her election as president. Before her presidency she had been well-indoctrinated into the Western free market game, studying economics at Harvard and working for the US-controlled World Bank in Washington and the Rockefeller Citibank in Nairobi. Before becoming Liberia?s President, she worked for Soros directly as chair of his Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA ). > > Once in office, President Sirleaf opened the doors for Soros to take over major Liberian gold and base metals assets along with his partner, Nathaniel Rothschild. One of her first acts as President was to also invite the Pentagon?s new Africa Command, AFRICOM, into Liberia whose purpose as a Liberian investigation revealed, was to ?protect George Soros and Rothschild mining operations in West Africa rather than champion stability and human rights .? > > > Naftogaz the target > > The Soros memo makes clear he has his eyes on the Ukrainian state gas and energy monopoly, Naftogaz. He writes, ?The centerpiece of economic reforms will be the reorganization of Naftogaz and the introduction of market pricing for all forms of energy, replacing hidden subsidies ?? > > In an earlier letter Soros wrote in December 2014 to both President Poroshenko and Prime Minister Yatsenyuk, Soros openly called for his Shock Therapy: ?I want to appeal to you to unite behind the reformers in your government and give your wholehearted support to a radical, ?big bang? type of approach. That is to say, administrative controls would be removed and the economy would move to market prices rapidly rather than gradually?Naftogaz needs to be reorganized with a big bang replacing the hidden subsidies ?? > > Splitting Naftogaz into separate companies could allow Soros to take control of one of the new branches and essentially privatize its profits. He already suggested that he indirectly brought in US consulting company, McKinsey, to advise Naftogaz on the privatization ?big bang .? > > > The Puppet-Master? > > The totality of what is revealed in the three hacked documents show that Soros is effectively the puppet-master pulling most of the strings in Kiev. Soros Foundation?s Ukraine branch, International Renaissance Foundation (IRF) has been involved in Ukraine since 1989. His IRF doled out more than $100 million to Ukrainian NGOs two years before the fall of the Soviet Union, creating the preconditions for Ukraine?s independence from Russia in 1991. Soros also admitted to financing the 2013-2014 Maidan Square protests that brought the current government into power. > > Soros? foundations were also deeply involved in the 2004 Orange Revolution that brought the corrupt but pro-NATO Viktor Yushchenko into power with his American wife who had been in the US State Department. In 2004 just weeks after Soros? International Renaissance Foundation had succeeded in getting Viktor Yushchenko as President of Ukraine, Michael McFaul wrote an OpEd for the Washington Post. McFaul, a specialist in organizing color revolutions, who later became US Ambassador to Russia, revealed: > > Did Americans meddle in the internal affairs of Ukraine? Yes. The American agents of influence would prefer different language to describe their activities ? democratic assistance, democracy promotion, civil society support, etc. ? but their work, however labeled, seeks to influence political change in Ukraine. The U.S. Agency for International Development, the National Endowment for Democracy and a few other foundations sponsored certain U.S. organizations, including Freedom House, the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute, the Solidarity Center, the Eurasia Foundation, Internews and several others to provide small grants and technical assistance to Ukrainian civil society. The European Union, individual European countries and the Soros-funded International Renaissance Foundation did the same . > > > Soros shapes ?New Ukraine? > > Today the CyberBerkut hacked papers show that Soros? IRF money is behind creation of a National Reform Council, a body organized by presidential decree from Poroshenko which allows the Ukrainian president to push bills through Ukraine?s legislature. Soros writes, ?The framework for bringing the various branches of government together has also emerged. The National Reform Council (NRC) brings together the presidential administration, the cabinet of ministers, the Rada and its committees and civil society. The International Renaissance Foundation which is the Ukrainian branch of the Soros Foundations was the sole financial supporter of the NRC until now ?? > > Soros? NRC in effect is the vehicle to allow the President to override parliamentary debate to push through ?reforms,? with the declared first priority being privatization of Naftogaz and raising gas prices drastically to Ukrainian industry and households, something the bankrupt country can hardly afford . > > In his letter to Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk, Soros hints that he played a key role in selection of three key non-Ukrainian ministers?Natalia Jaresko, an American ex- State Department official as Finance Minister; Aivras Abromavicius of Lithuania as Economics Minister, and a health minister from Georgia. Soros in his December 2014 letter, referring to his proposal for a ?big bank? privatization of Naftogaz and price rise, states, ?You are fortunate to have appointed three ?new Ukrainian? ministers and several natives (sic) who are committed to this approach .? > ??????? > Elsewhere Soros speaks about de facto creating the impression within the EU that the current government of Yatsenyuk is finally cleaning out the notorious corruption that has dominated every Kiev regime since 1991. Creating that temporary reform illusion, he remarks, will convince the EU to cough up the ?11 billion annual investment insurance fund. His March 2015 paper says that, ?It is essential for the government to produce a visible demonstration (sic) during the next three months in order to change the widely prevailing image of Ukraine as an utterly corrupt country.? That he states will open the EU to make the ?11 billion insurance guarantee investment fund . > > While saying that it is important to show Ukraine as a country that is not corrupt, Soros reveals he has little concern when transparency and proper procedures block his agenda. Talking about his proposals to reform Ukraine?s constitution to enable privatizations and other Soros-friendly moves, he complains, ?The process has been slowed down by the insistence of the newly elected Rada on proper procedures and total transparency .? > > Soros suggests that he intends to create this ?visible demonstration? through his initiatives, such as using the Soros-funded National Reform Council, a body organized by presidential decree which allows the Ukrainian president to push bills through Ukraine?s legislature. > George Soros is also using his new European Council on Foreign Relations think-tank to lobby his Ukraine strategy, with his council members such as Alexander Graf Lambsdorff or Joschka Fischer or Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, not to mention former ECB head, Jean-Claude Trichet no doubt laying a subtle role. > > George Soros, now 84, was born in Hungary as a Jew, George Sorosz. Soros once boasted in a TV interview that he posed during the war as a gentile with forged papers, assisting the Horthy government to seize property of other Hungarian Jews who were being shipped to the Nazi death camps. Soros told the TV moderator, ?There was no sense that I shouldn?t be there, because that was?well, actually, in a funny way, it?s just like in markets?that if I weren?t there?of course, I wasn?t doing it, but somebody else would.? > > This is the same morality apparently behind Soros? activities in Ukraine today. It seems again to matter not to him that the Ukrainian government he helped bring to power in February 2014 US coup d?etat is riddled with explicit anti-semites and self-proclaimed neo-Nazis from the Svoboda Party and Pravy Sektor. George Soros is clearly a devotee of ?public-private-partnership.? Only here the public gets fleeced to enrich private investors like Mr. Soros and friends. Cynically, Soros signs his Ukraine strategy memo, ?George Soros?A self-appointed advocate of the new Ukraine, March 12, 2015.? > > > Strasse der Republik 17 > Wiesbaden Hessen 65203 > GERMANY > > Unsubscribe | Change Subscriber Options > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Newsletter_25_The_Secret_Puppet_Master_Behind_Ukraine_2014_Coup.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 156922 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidgreen50 at gmail.com Wed Jan 22 00:24:05 2020 From: davidgreen50 at gmail.com (David Green) Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 18:24:05 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] The Logic of U.S. Foreign Policy (from @historic_ly) Message-ID: [image: image.png] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image.png Type: image/png Size: 965515 bytes Desc: not available URL: From naiman.uiuc at gmail.com Wed Jan 22 15:48:45 2020 From: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com (Robert Naiman) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2020 10:48:45 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?q?Nancy_Pelosi_Isn=E2=80=99t_a_Warhawk_L?= =?utf-8?q?ike_the_Queen_of_the_Warmongers?= Message-ID: https://www.facebook.com/robert.naiman/posts/10159069925577656 Nancy Pelosi Isn?t a Warhawk Like the Queen of the Warmongers The recent intervention by the Queen of the Warmongers against Team Bernie presents us with yet another Teachable Moment for understanding Washington, DC political culture as it relates to the Warmonger DNC Dem Establishment. I have previously noted that, when trying to understand Warmonger DNC Dem Establishment political culture, ?snake? is not a useful distinction, because ?snake behavior is normal? consciousness is a standard feature of Warmonger DNC Dem Establishment political culture, so that saying that someone who relates to Warmonger DNC Dem Establishment political culture is a ?snake? is like saying that a someone who relates to Warmonger DNC Dem Establishment political culture is ?close to AIPAC.? You didn?t learn anything. It?s ?snake? and ?AIPAC? all the way down. In the case of AIPAC, I have argued that we have to distinguish between ?normal AIPAC? and ?hyper AIPAC.? We can refer to someone who relates to Warmonger DNC Dem Establishment political culture as ?normal AIPAC? when they do whatever AIPAC wants when the toiling progressive Democratic masses are not watching and engaged. We can refer to someone who relates to Warmonger DNC Dem Establishment political culture as ?hyper AIPAC? when they do whatever AIPAC wants even when the toiling progressive Democratic masses are watching and engaged. Joe Lieberman was hyper AIPAC. He went up to 11. He was one louder. He was a True Believer. I saw it with my own eyes in Connecticut in August 2006. In his support for the Iraq war, he was like a tree that was standing by the water. He would not be moved. He preferred to go down in flames in a Democratic Primary in Connecticut in 2006 than to take three steps away from his support for the Iraq war. ?Hier bin ich. Ich kann nicht anders.? I have a certain respect for that, like Boris Spassky respected Bobby Fischer, like the CIA respected the KGB. You?re me, on the other side. The Queen of the Warmongers is not like that. The Queen of the Warmongers supported Obama?s Iran deal. At the eleventh hour, at the last minute, but she supported it. Not every Democrat supported Obama?s Iran deal. Chuck Schumer, Bob Menendez, Ben Cardin, and Joe Manchin voted against it. Menendez said that decorated war hero John Kerry was spouting ?talking points from Tehran.? Eliot Engel and Ted Lieu voted against it. So you can?t put the Queen of the Warmongers in the top bucket of warmongers with Joe Lieberman. She wasn?t a tree standing by the water. She could be moved. In 2007, the Queen of the Warmongers voted against Bush?s Iraq ?surge.? Later, when she was Obama?s Secretary of State, she ?confessed? to Obama?s Republican Secretary of State, Robert Gates, that she had voted against Bush?s 2007 Iraq ?surge? for ?political reasons.? She was ?pandering? to the toiling progressive Democratic masses ? us ? because she was planning to run for POTUS in 2008. So she wasn?t a tree that was planted by the water. She could be moved. On the other hand, when she was Obama?s Secretary of State, she was the main organizer of and cheerleader for the unconstitutional Libya war, which Robert Gates opposed on realist grounds. The unconstitutional Libya war unleashed a chain of biblical catastrophes in the Middle East which we are still working to unwind, including the Yemen war and the Syria war. So while the Queen of the Warmongers is not Joe Lieberman, she is close by. If Joe Lieberman is a 10, let?s give the Queen of the Warmongers a 9. If the Queen of the Warmongers is a 9, what is Nancy Pelosi? Nancy Pelosi voted against the Iraq war and supported the Iran deal. But every single one of her chosen national security lieutenants ? Steny Hoyer, Eliot Engel, Adam Smith, and Adam Schiff ? voted for the Iraq war. Eliot Engel voted against the Iran deal. Steny Hoyer voted for the Iran deal but put out a statement trashing the deal that could have been written by Donald Trump and Sheldon Adelson. The entire House Democratic leadership backed Trump?s ?maximum pressure? strategy against Iran that brought us to the brink of war, including new sanctions that violated the Iran deal. But none of these people is Joe Lieberman, because under pressure from the toiling progressive Democratic masses they moved on the Yemen war and they moved on the Iran war. So none of these people can be a 10. Are they all a 9? Here?s another piece of information: in the 2008 Obama-Hillary race, when Obama had won a majority of elected delegates but hadn?t sealed the nomination because of the unelected superdelegates who were supporting Hillary, Nancy Pelosi wrote a letter saying that the unelected superdelegates should respect the will of the majority of Democratic voters and back Obama. For this thoughtcrime, Nancy Pelosi got scolded by Haim Saban and other warmonger donors to the DNC who were backing Hillary, who told Nancy Pelosi to butt out. So Nancy Pelosi can?t be a 9, she has to be an 8. Because when the majority of Democratic voters were on one side, and the Queen of the Warmongers and Haim Saban were on the other, Nancy Pelosi tried to stand up to the Queen of the Warmongers. Nancy Pelosi can?t be a 9, she has to be an 8, because when push came to shove, and the house lights were on, and the toiling progressive Democratic masses were watching, Nancy Pelosi stood up for democracy in the Democratic Party against the Queen of the Warmongers and Haim Saban. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Wed Jan 22 19:45:33 2020 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2020 13:45:33 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?q?Nancy_Pelosi_Isn=E2=80=99t_a_Warhawk_L?= =?utf-8?q?ike_the_Queen_of_the_Warmongers?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00cf01d5d15c$8311dcc0$89359640$@comcast.net> Everybody ? 5 ? and above needs to be replaced ! David J. From: Peace-discuss [mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of Robert Naiman via Peace-discuss Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2020 9:49 AM To: Peace Discuss Subject: [Peace-discuss] Nancy Pelosi Isn?t a Warhawk Like the Queen of the Warmongers https://www.facebook.com/robert.naiman/posts/10159069925577656 Nancy Pelosi Isn?t a Warhawk Like the Queen of the Warmongers The recent intervention by the Queen of the Warmongers against Team Bernie presents us with yet another Teachable Moment for understanding Washington, DC political culture as it relates to the Warmonger DNC Dem Establishment. I have previously noted that, when trying to understand Warmonger DNC Dem Establishment political culture, ?snake? is not a useful distinction, because ?snake behavior is normal? consciousness is a standard feature of Warmonger DNC Dem Establishment political culture, so that saying that someone who relates to Warmonger DNC Dem Establishment political culture is a ?snake? is like saying that a someone who relates to Warmonger DNC Dem Establishment political culture is ?close to AIPAC.? You didn?t learn anything. It?s ?snake? and ?AIPAC? all the way down. In the case of AIPAC, I have argued that we have to distinguish between ?normal AIPAC? and ?hyper AIPAC.? We can refer to someone who relates to Warmonger DNC Dem Establishment political culture as ?normal AIPAC? when they do whatever AIPAC wants when the toiling progressive Democratic masses are not watching and engaged. We can refer to someone who relates to Warmonger DNC Dem Establishment political culture as ?hyper AIPAC? when they do whatever AIPAC wants even when the toiling progressive Democratic masses are watching and engaged. Joe Lieberman was hyper AIPAC. He went up to 11. He was one louder. He was a True Believer. I saw it with my own eyes in Connecticut in August 2006. In his support for the Iraq war, he was like a tree that was standing by the water. He would not be moved. He preferred to go down in flames in a Democratic Primary in Connecticut in 2006 than to take three steps away from his support for the Iraq war. ?Hier bin ich. Ich kann nicht anders.? I have a certain respect for that, like Boris Spassky respected Bobby Fischer, like the CIA respected the KGB. You?re me, on the other side. The Queen of the Warmongers is not like that. The Queen of the Warmongers supported Obama?s Iran deal. At the eleventh hour, at the last minute, but she supported it. Not every Democrat supported Obama?s Iran deal. Chuck Schumer, Bob Menendez, Ben Cardin, and Joe Manchin voted against it. Menendez said that decorated war hero John Kerry was spouting ?talking points from Tehran.? Eliot Engel and Ted Lieu voted against it. So you can?t put the Queen of the Warmongers in the top bucket of warmongers with Joe Lieberman. She wasn?t a tree standing by the water. She could be moved. In 2007, the Queen of the Warmongers voted against Bush?s Iraq ?surge.? Later, when she was Obama?s Secretary of State, she ?confessed? to Obama?s Republican Secretary of State, Robert Gates, that she had voted against Bush?s 2007 Iraq ?surge? for ?political reasons.? She was ?pandering? to the toiling progressive Democratic masses ? us ? because she was planning to run for POTUS in 2008. So she wasn?t a tree that was planted by the water. She could be moved. On the other hand, when she was Obama?s Secretary of State, she was the main organizer of and cheerleader for the unconstitutional Libya war, which Robert Gates opposed on realist grounds. The unconstitutional Libya war unleashed a chain of biblical catastrophes in the Middle East which we are still working to unwind, including the Yemen war and the Syria war. So while the Queen of the Warmongers is not Joe Lieberman, she is close by. If Joe Lieberman is a 10, let?s give the Queen of the Warmongers a 9. If the Queen of the Warmongers is a 9, what is Nancy Pelosi? Nancy Pelosi voted against the Iraq war and supported the Iran deal. But every single one of her chosen national security lieutenants ? Steny Hoyer, Eliot Engel, Adam Smith, and Adam Schiff ? voted for the Iraq war. Eliot Engel voted against the Iran deal. Steny Hoyer voted for the Iran deal but put out a statement trashing the deal that could have been written by Donald Trump and Sheldon Adelson. The entire House Democratic leadership backed Trump?s ?maximum pressure? strategy against Iran that brought us to the brink of war, including new sanctions that violated the Iran deal. But none of these people is Joe Lieberman, because under pressure from the toiling progressive Democratic masses they moved on the Yemen war and they moved on the Iran war. So none of these people can be a 10. Are they all a 9? Here?s another piece of information: in the 2008 Obama-Hillary race, when Obama had won a majority of elected delegates but hadn?t sealed the nomination because of the unelected superdelegates who were supporting Hillary, Nancy Pelosi wrote a letter saying that the unelected superdelegates should respect the will of the majority of Democratic voters and back Obama. For this thoughtcrime, Nancy Pelosi got scolded by Haim Saban and other warmonger donors to the DNC who were backing Hillary, who told Nancy Pelosi to butt out. So Nancy Pelosi can?t be a 9, she has to be an 8. Because when the majority of Democratic voters were on one side, and the Queen of the Warmongers and Haim Saban were on the other, Nancy Pelosi tried to stand up to the Queen of the Warmongers. Nancy Pelosi can?t be a 9, she has to be an 8, because when push came to shove, and the house lights were on, and the toiling progressive Democratic masses were watching, Nancy Pelosi stood up for democracy in the Democratic Party against the Queen of the Warmongers and Haim Saban. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From naiman.uiuc at gmail.com Wed Jan 22 20:00:01 2020 From: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com (Robert Naiman) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2020 15:00:01 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?q?Nancy_Pelosi_Isn=E2=80=99t_a_Warhawk_L?= =?utf-8?q?ike_the_Queen_of_the_Warmongers?= In-Reply-To: <00cf01d5d15c$8311dcc0$89359640$@comcast.net> References: <00cf01d5d15c$8311dcc0$89359640$@comcast.net> Message-ID: I couldn't agree more. I'm nagging my friends all the time: "Let's have a plan to fight Pelosi for the gavel after the election." On Wed, Jan 22, 2020 at 2:45 PM David Johnson wrote: > Everybody ? 5 ? and above needs to be replaced ! > > > > David J. > > > > *From:* Peace-discuss [mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] *On > Behalf Of *Robert Naiman via Peace-discuss > *Sent:* Wednesday, January 22, 2020 9:49 AM > *To:* Peace Discuss > *Subject:* [Peace-discuss] Nancy Pelosi Isn?t a Warhawk Like the Queen of > the Warmongers > > > > > > https://www.facebook.com/robert.naiman/posts/10159069925577656 > > > > Nancy Pelosi Isn?t a Warhawk Like the Queen of the Warmongers > > > > The recent intervention by the Queen of the Warmongers against Team Bernie > presents us with yet another Teachable Moment for understanding Washington, > DC political culture as it relates to the Warmonger DNC Dem Establishment. > I have previously noted that, when trying to understand Warmonger DNC Dem > Establishment political culture, ?snake? is not a useful distinction, > because ?snake behavior is normal? consciousness is a standard feature of > Warmonger DNC Dem Establishment political culture, so that saying that > someone who relates to Warmonger DNC Dem Establishment political culture is > a ?snake? is like saying that a someone who relates to Warmonger DNC Dem > Establishment political culture is ?close to AIPAC.? You didn?t learn > anything. It?s ?snake? and ?AIPAC? all the way down. In the case of AIPAC, > I have argued that we have to distinguish between ?normal AIPAC? and ?hyper > AIPAC.? We can refer to someone who relates to Warmonger DNC Dem > Establishment political culture as ?normal AIPAC? when they do whatever > AIPAC wants when the toiling progressive Democratic masses are not watching > and engaged. We can refer to someone who relates to Warmonger DNC Dem > Establishment political culture as ?hyper AIPAC? when they do whatever > AIPAC wants even when the toiling progressive Democratic masses are > watching and engaged. > > > > Joe Lieberman was hyper AIPAC. He went up to 11. He was one louder. He was > a True Believer. I saw it with my own eyes in Connecticut in August 2006. > In his support for the Iraq war, he was like a tree that was standing by > the water. He would not be moved. He preferred to go down in flames in a > Democratic Primary in Connecticut in 2006 than to take three steps away > from his support for the Iraq war. ?Hier bin ich. Ich kann nicht anders.? I > have a certain respect for that, like Boris Spassky respected Bobby > Fischer, like the CIA respected the KGB. You?re me, on the other side. > > > > The Queen of the Warmongers is not like that. The Queen of the Warmongers > supported Obama?s Iran deal. At the eleventh hour, at the last minute, but > she supported it. Not every Democrat supported Obama?s Iran deal. Chuck > Schumer, Bob Menendez, Ben Cardin, and Joe Manchin voted against it. > Menendez said that decorated war hero John Kerry was spouting ?talking > points from Tehran.? Eliot Engel and Ted Lieu voted against it. So you > can?t put the Queen of the Warmongers in the top bucket of warmongers with > Joe Lieberman. She wasn?t a tree standing by the water. She could be moved. > In 2007, the Queen of the Warmongers voted against Bush?s Iraq ?surge.? > Later, when she was Obama?s Secretary of State, she ?confessed? to Obama?s > Republican Secretary of State, Robert Gates, that she had voted against > Bush?s 2007 Iraq ?surge? for ?political reasons.? She was ?pandering? to > the toiling progressive Democratic masses ? us ? because she was planning > to run for POTUS in 2008. So she wasn?t a tree that was planted by the > water. She could be moved. On the other hand, when she was Obama?s > Secretary of State, she was the main organizer of and cheerleader for the > unconstitutional Libya war, which Robert Gates opposed on realist grounds. > The unconstitutional Libya war unleashed a chain of biblical catastrophes > in the Middle East which we are still working to unwind, including the > Yemen war and the Syria war. So while the Queen of the Warmongers is not > Joe Lieberman, she is close by. If Joe Lieberman is a 10, let?s give the > Queen of the Warmongers a 9. > > > > If the Queen of the Warmongers is a 9, what is Nancy Pelosi? Nancy Pelosi > voted against the Iraq war and supported the Iran deal. But every single > one of her chosen national security lieutenants ? Steny Hoyer, Eliot Engel, > Adam Smith, and Adam Schiff ? voted for the Iraq war. Eliot Engel voted > against the Iran deal. Steny Hoyer voted for the Iran deal but put out a > statement trashing the deal that could have been written by Donald Trump > and Sheldon Adelson. The entire House Democratic leadership backed Trump?s > ?maximum pressure? strategy against Iran that brought us to the brink of > war, including new sanctions that violated the Iran deal. But none of these > people is Joe Lieberman, because under pressure from the toiling > progressive Democratic masses they moved on the Yemen war and they moved on > the Iran war. So none of these people can be a 10. Are they all a 9? Here?s > another piece of information: in the 2008 Obama-Hillary race, when Obama > had won a majority of elected delegates but hadn?t sealed the nomination > because of the unelected superdelegates who were supporting Hillary, Nancy > Pelosi wrote a letter saying that the unelected superdelegates should > respect the will of the majority of Democratic voters and back Obama. For > this thoughtcrime, Nancy Pelosi got scolded by Haim Saban and other > warmonger donors to the DNC who were backing Hillary, who told Nancy Pelosi > to butt out. So Nancy Pelosi can?t be a 9, she has to be an 8. Because when > the majority of Democratic voters were on one side, and the Queen of the > Warmongers and Haim Saban were on the other, Nancy Pelosi tried to stand up > to the Queen of the Warmongers. Nancy Pelosi can?t be a 9, she has to be an > 8, because when push came to shove, and the house lights were on, and the > toiling progressive Democratic masses were watching, Nancy Pelosi stood up > for democracy in the Democratic Party against the Queen of the Warmongers > and Haim Saban. > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From carl at newsfromneptune.com Thu Jan 23 00:54:09 2020 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2020 18:54:09 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] The Logic of U.S. Foreign Policy (from @historic_ly) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9183AB3E-71A6-451A-A30F-EDAEEF3A6563@newsfromneptune.com> Horribly accurate. We must be ashamed. > On Jan 21, 2020, at 6:24 PM, David Green via Peace-discuss wrote: > > > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss From jbn at forestfield.org Thu Jan 23 03:58:39 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2020 21:58:39 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Notes Message-ID: <7eda9116-35b7-0066-8c19-178cc8f2098c@forestfield.org> Just in case you need something to discuss, here are a few conversation starters. Have a good show guys. -J Diana Johnstone's latest for Consortium News and CN Live https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDZuNFwJ4BIRV_Z5IxFXVrA/videos -- Consortium News videos (including episodes of "CN Live!" their CN's talk and analysis show) https://consortiumnews.com/2020/01/17/french-popular-uprising-revolution-or-frozen-conflict/ -- Diana Johnstone's new article for ConsortiumNews.com: Thanks to Mort Brussel for the pointer. > The people are angry with their government. Where? Just about everywhere. So what makes ongoing > strikes in France so special? Nothing, perhaps, except a certain expectation based on history > that French uprisings can produce important changes ? or if not, can at least help clarify the > issues in contemporary social conflicts. > > The current ongoing social unrest in France appears to pit a majority of working people against > President Emmanuel Macron. But since Macron is merely a technocratic tool of global financial > governance, the conflict is essentially an uprising against policies that put the avaricious > demands of financial markets ahead of the needs of the people. This basic conflict is at the > root of the weekly demonstrations of Yellow Vest protesters who have been demonstrating every > Saturday for well over a year, despite brutal police repression. Now trade unionists, public > sector workers and Yellow Vests demonstrate together, as partial work stoppages continue to > perturb public transportation. > > In the latest developments, teachers in Paris schools are joining the revolt. Even the > prestigious prep school, the Lyc?e Louis le Grand, went on strike. This is significant because > even a government that shows no qualms in smashing the heads of working class malcontents can > hesitate before bashing the brains of the future elite. > > Pension System > > However general the discontent, the direct cause for what has become the longest period of unrest > in memory is a single issue: the government?s determination to overhaul the national social > security pension system. This is just one aspect of Macron?s anti-social program, but no other > aspect touches just about everybody?s lives as much as this one. > > French retirement is financed in the same way as U.S. Social Security. Employees and employers > pay a proportion of wages into a fund that pays current pensions, in the expectation that > tomorrow?s workers will pay for the pensions of those working today. > > The existing system is complex, with particular regimes for 42 different professions, but it > works well enough. As things are, despite the growing gap between the ultra-rich and those of > modest means, there is less dire poverty among the elderly in France than, for example, in > Germany. > > The Macron plan to unify and simplify the system by a universal point system claims to improve > ?equality,? but it is a downward, not an upward leveling. The general thrust of the reform is > clearly to make people work longer for smaller pensions. Bit by bit, the input and output of the > social security system are being squeezed. This would further reduce the percentage of GDP going > into wages and pensions. > > The calculated result: as people fear the prospect of a penniless old age, they will feel obliged > to put their savings into private pension schemes. > > In a rare display of old-fashioned working-class international solidarity, Belgian trade unions > have spoken out in strong support of French unions? opposition to Macron?s reforms, even > offering to contribute to a strike fund for French workers. Support by workers of one country > for the struggle of workers in another country is what international solidarity used to mean. It > is largely forgotten by the contemporary left, which tends to see it in terms of opening > national borders. This perfectly reflects the aspirations of global capitalism. > > The international solidarity of financial capital is structural. > > Macron is an investment banker, whose campaign was financed and promoted by investment bankers, > including foreign investors. These are the people who helped inspire his policies, which are > all designed to strengthen the power of international finance and weaken the role of the State. > > Their goal is to induce the State to surrender decision-making to the impersonal power of ?the > markets,? whose mechanical criterion is profit rather than subjective political considerations > of social welfare. This has been the trend throughout the West since the 1980s and is simply > intensifying under the rule of Macron. > > President Emmanuel Macron celebrating France?s victory over Croatia in the 2018 World Cup final > in Moscow. (Kremlin) > > The European Union has become the principal watch dog of this transformation. Totally under the > influence of unelected experts, every two years the EU Commission lays out ?Broad Economic > Policy Guidelines? ? in French GOP? (Grandes Orientations des Politiques ?conomiques), to be > followed by member states. The May 2018 GOP? for France ?recommended? (this is an order!) a set > of ?reforms,? including ?uniformization? of retirement schemes, ostensibly to improve > ?transparency,? ?equity,? labor mobility and ? last but definitely not least ? ?better control of > public expenditures.?. In short, government budget cuts. > > The Macron economic reform policy was essentially defined in Brussels. > > But Wall Street is interested too. The team of experts assigned by Prime Minister Edouard > Philippe to devise the administration?s economic reforms includes Jean-Fran?ois Cirelli, head of > the French branch of Black Rock, the seven trillion-dollar New York-based investment manager. > About two thirds of Black Rock?s capital comes from pension funds all over the world. > > Larry Fink, the American CEO of this monstrous heap of money, was a welcome visitor at the > Elys?e Palace in June 2017, shortly after Macron?s election. Two weeks later, economics minister > Bruno Le Maire was in New York consulting with Larry Fink. Then, in October 2017, Fink led a > Wall Street delegation to Paris for a confidential meeting (leaked to Le Canard Encha?n?) with > Macron and five top cabinet ministers to discuss how to make France especially attractive to > foreign investment. > > Larry Fink has an obvious interest in Macron?s reforms. By gradually impoverishing social > security, the new system is designed to spur a boom in private pension schemes, a field > dominated by Black Rock. These schemes lack the guarantee of government social security. Private > pensions depend on stock market performance, and if there is a crash, there goes your > retirement. Meanwhile, the money managers play with your savings, taking their cut whatever > happens. > > There is nothing conspiratorial about this. It is simply international finance at work. Macron > and his cabinet ministers are eager to have Black Rock invest in France. For them, this is the > way the world works. > > Larry Fink, third from right, receiving a Woodrow Wilson Award in April 2010. (Wilson Center, CC > BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons) > > The most cynical pretext for Macron?s pension reform is that combining all the various > professional regimes into a universal point system favors ?equality? ? even as it increases the > growing gap between salaried people and the super-rich, who don?t need pensions. > > But professions are different. At Christmas, striking ballet dancers illustrated this fact by > performing a portion of Swan Lake on the cold stones of the entrance to the Opera Garnier in > Paris. They were calling public attention to the fact that they cannot be expected to keep > working into their sixties, nor can other professions requiring extreme physical effort. > > The variations in the current French pension system perform a social function. Some > professions, such as teaching and nursing, are essential to society, but wages tend to be lower > than in the private sector. These professions are able to renew themselves by ensuring job > stability and the promise of comfortable retirement. Take away their ?privileges? and recruiting > competent teachers and nurses will be even harder than it is already. At present, medical > personnel are threatening to resign en masse, because conditions in hospitals are becoming > unbearable as a result of drastic cuts in budgets and personnel. > > Is There an Alternative? > > The real issue is a choice of systems: to be precise, economic globalization versus national > sovereignty. > > For historic reasons, most French people do not share the ardent faith of British and Americans > in the benevolence of the invisible hand of the market. There is a national leaning toward a > mixed economy, where the State plays a strong determining role. The French do not easily > believe that privatization is better, least of all when they can see it doing worse. > > Macron is an ardent devotee of the invisible hand. He seems to expect that by draining French > savings into an international investment giant such as Black Rock, Black Rock will reciprocate > by pumping investment into French technological and industrial progress. > > Nothing could be less certain. In the West these days, there is lots of low interest credit, > lots of debt, but investment is rarely creative. Money is used largely to buy what is already > there ? existing companies, mergers, stock trading (massive in the U.S.) and, for individuals, > housing. Most foreign investment in France buys up things like vineyards or goes into safe > infrastructure such as ports, airports and autoroutes. When General Electric bought out Alstom, > it soon broke its promise to preserve jobs and began cutting back. It also is depriving France > of control of an essential aspect of its national independence, its nuclear energy. > > In short, foreign investment may weaken the nation in terms in crucial ways. In a mixed economy, > profit-making assets such as autoroutes can increase the government?s capacity to make up for > periodic deficits in social security, among other things. With privatization, foreign > shareholders must get their returns. > > The United States, for all its ideological devotion to the invisible hand, actually has a > strongly State-supported military industrial sector, dependent on Congressional appropriations, > Pentagon contracts, favorable legislation and pressure on ?allies? to buy U.S.-made weaponry. > This is indeed a form of planned economy, one that fails utterly to meet social needs. > > The rules of the European Union prohibit a Member State such as France from developing its own > civil-oriented industrial policy, since everything must be open to unhindered international > competition. Utilities, services and infrastructure must all be open to foreign owners. > Foreign investors may feel no inhibition about taking their profits while allowing these public > services to deteriorate. > > The ongoing disruption of daily life seems to be forcing Macron?s government to make minor > concessions. But nothing can change the basic aims of this presidency. > > At the same time, the arrogance and brutal repression of the Macron regime increase demands for > radical political change. The Yellow Vest movement has largely adopted the demand developed by > Etienne Chouard for a new Constitution empowering citizen-initiated referendums ? in short, a > peaceful democratic revolution. > > But how to get there? Overthrowing a monarch is one thing, but overthrowing the power of > international finance is another, especially in a nation bound by EU and NATO treaties. Personal > animosity toward Macron tends to shelter the European Union from sharp criticism of its major > responsibility. > > A peaceful electoral revolution calls for popular leaders with a clear program. Fran?ois > Asselineau continues to spread his radical critique of the EU among the intelligentsia without > his party, the Union Populaire R?publicaine, gaining any significant electoral strength. > Leftist leader Jean-Luc M?lenchon has the oratorical punch to lead a revolution, but his > popularity seems to have suffered from attacks even harsher than those unleashed against Jeremy > Corbyn in Britain or Bernie Sanders in the U.S. With M?lenchon weakened and no other strong > personalities in sight, Marine Le Pen has established herself as Macron?s main challenger in the > 2022 presidential election, which risks presenting voters with the same choice they had in 2017. > > Asselineau?s analysis, Yellow Vest strategic mass, M?lenchon?s oratory, Chouard?s institutional > reforms ? these are elements that could theoretically combine (with others yet unknown) to > produce a peaceful revolution. But combining political elements is hard chemistry, especially in > individualistic France. Without some big surprises, France appears headed not for revolution > but for a long frozen combat. Redacted Tonight: Still the only comedy news show worth watching. https://www.youtube.com/user/redactedtonight/videos -- past show archive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9p7xInsU2E -- The most recent (as I type this) episode. Redacted Tonight is a great set of pointers and humor on other stories with a proper focus against war, against killing, and repeated (drumbeat) critiques of capitalism. A clear departure from every other news comedy show on terrestrial or cable TV. Economy: Maybe it is good to give poor people more money! Huh. Imagine that. https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/longevity/477423-raising-the-minimum-wage-by-1-could-decrease-the -- > Raising the minimum wage by just $1 per hour could lower suicide rates between 3.5 percent and > 5.9 percent among those with a high school education or less, according to a new study. > > Researchers estimated that an extra dollar an hour could have prevented almost 14,000 suicides > after the Great Recession, Business Insider reported Wednesday. > > Suicide is on the rise as a cause of death in the United States, increasing 33 percent in > prevalence from 1999 through 2017. To examine the relationship between suicide and hourly pay, > the researchers compared the effects of 478 changes in state minimum wages from 1990 to 2015. > Though the federal minimum wage hasn?t changed since 2009, states are able to make changes on > their own. > > The researchers found a correlation between increased wages and lower suicide rates, an effect > that was strongest during periods of high unemployment. > > "Our findings are consistent with the notion that policies designed to improve the livelihoods of > individuals with less education, who are more likely to work at lower wages and at higher risk > for adverse mental health outcomes, can reduce the suicide risk in this group," the authors > wrote. > > Increasing the minimum wage has emerged as a prominent issue in the 2020 presidential race, with > many Democratic candidates proposing an increase of the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $15. > The recent findings suggest that such a change could help reduce the number of suicides by > lifting more Americans out of poverty, but other studies have estimated it could also result in a > loss of jobs. Economy: Could we do something besides killing with all that money? https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2019/US%20Budgetary%20Costs%20of%20Wars%20November%202019.pdf -- Cost of War study from November 2019. That's $3.8M per hour or $640,000 per minute. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/20/us-spent-6point4-trillion-on-middle-east-wars-since-2001-study.html -- > American taxpayers have spent $6.4 trillion on post-9/11 wars and military action in the Middle > East and Asia, according to a new study. > > That total is $2 trillion more than the entire federal government spending during the recently > completed 2019 fiscal year. The U.S. government spent $4.4 trillion during the fiscal year that > ended Sept. 30, according to the Treasury Department. > > The report, from the Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs at Brown University, > also finds that more than 801,000 people have died as a direct result of fighting. Of those, more > than 335,000 have been civilians. Another 21 million people have been displaced due to violence. > > The report comes as the Trump administration works to withdraw the U.S. military presence from > war-torn Syria. Last year, President Donald Trump went through a similar debate over whether to > withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan, ultimately agreeing to keep them there but only after > repeatedly raising questions about why they should stay. > > The $6.4 trillion figure reflects the cost across the U.S. federal government since the price of > America's wars is not borne by the Defense Department alone, according to Neta Crawford, who > authored the study. > > Crawford explains that the post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria have expanded > to more than 80 countries ? "becoming a truly global war on terror." > > The longer wars drag on, more and more service members will ultimately claim veterans benefits > and disability payments, the study points out. > > "Even if the United States withdraws completely from the major war zones by the end of FY2020 and > halts its other Global War on Terror operations, in the Philippines and Africa for example, the > total budgetary burden of the post-9/11 wars will continue to rise as the U.S. pays the on-going > costs of veterans' care and for interest on borrowing to pay for the wars," Crawford writes. > > In March, the Pentagon estimated that the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria have cost each > taxpayer $7,623 through fiscal 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIEUGgSGVEo -- Newly appointed Grenfell inquiry figure has links to cladding firm. https://vocalviews.com/blog/2020/01/16/grenfell-tower-inquiry-families-raise-conflict-of-interest-concerns-with-pm/ RT's report on the continuing Grenfell inquiry tells us: - 315 buildings are still wrapped in flammable material according to the Ministry of Housing. - 72 died in the Grenfell building fire 31 months ago on June 14. - Benita Mehra is a civil engineer who was appointed to the Grenfell inquiry shortly before Christmas (2019) by PM Boris Johnson but Mehra ran a charity that received funding linked to US firm Arconic, which supplied the cladding that helped the fire spread, a conflict of interest. Related: https://on.rt.com/a5sf -- similar story with a principal Grenfell Tower contractor being awarded a new contract worth almost ?100 million to redevelop a London council estate (from November 2019) Labor: United States-Mexico-Canada pact (USMCA) (also called "NAFTA 2.0" chiefly by objectors) passes the Senate, of the Democrats running for president in the Senate, only Sen. Sanders voted against the bill, Sen. Warren voted for the USMCA. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UImjWJybYZM -- Jimmy Dore & co. coverage including critical coverage of how Sen. Warren "is your enemy" and the Democrats and Republicans agree to support this bill (as Sen. Durbin says below, "it's truly bipartisan"). https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/16/senate-north-american-trade-deal-usmca > One day after signing a new trade deal with China, Donald Trump received a second victory for his > trade agenda as the Senate passed a new North American pact. > > As as lawmakers prepared to read aloud charges against Trump in his impeachment trial the Senate > voted 89 to 10 pass the revised United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). Trump is expected > to sign the deal next week. [...] > Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat, marveled on Wednesday at how leaders of organized labor and farm > groups in his state appeared together to support the pact. > > ?They both agree that this USMCA trade agreement is a step forward, an improvement over the > original Nafta,? Durbin said. ?I think we?ve added to this process by making it truly > bipartisan.? Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) voted against USMCA. Coverage by the media: Drone warfare piques the attention of a UK watchdog https://dronewars.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/InTheFrame-Web.pdf -- the report. From https://dronewars.net/category/uk-drones-targeted-killing/ > Our new report looks at UK involvement in drone targeted killing and in particular at media > coverage of British citizens killed in such strikes. It argues that the government?s refusal to > discuss key details or policy issues around these operations has helped to curtail coverage, > creating a climate where targeted killing has become normalised and accepted, eroding human > rights norms. > > In recent days, we have seen exactly how far the US is willing to take targeted killing by armed > drone. The jump from targeting members of non-state groups classed as terrorists to the > assassination of top military personnel of a state that US is not at war with may appear huge in > terms of strategy and legality. Unfortunately, however, it is also inevitable. Drone Wars UK has > consistently argued that drones ? with their particular capabilities to stay airborne long > periods, hovering over targets, able to track them undetected before firing ?precision? missiles > ? were always likely to be used in provocative ways that blur the boundary between war and peace > and cause further destabilisation in international relations. > > In 2015, the UK military joined the small (now expanded) club of states who have engaged in > drone targeted killing. The first target was Reyaad Khan, a British member of ISIS, who was > killed alongside Ruhul Amin, another UK member of ISIS, and a Belgian national. The reason given > was the threat of an imminent attack orchestrated by Khan, someone who was part of a terrorist > group that could not be negotiated with. These are much the same reasons used to justify the US > targeting of Soleimani, which exemplifies how easy the jump from unknown non-state actor to major > military commander is in the ?war on terror?, of which armed drones are a central component. > > Although UK commanders insist that armed drones will only be used in the same way that any > weapon system would be, subject to the same international law and rules of engagement, it is > clear that drone targeted killing is attractive for domestic governments. It is seen as a > relatively risk free way of securing foreign policy goals without engaging in difficult and messy > diplomacy or troop deployment. As a form of military engagement it has been shown to have less > public resistance and the risks of conflict escalation are very real. > > Conversely, it has also been shown that public understanding and critical engagement with issues > of peace and war can be increased by comprehensive media coverage. Unfortunately, however, over > the past few years, as we have become increasingly familiar with the concept of armed drones > ?hunting down? terrorist suspects, debate on the issue remains severely hampered. This is > largely a resulted of media reports containing carefully controlled government messaging, whilst > ministers and officials refuse to engage in discussions about policy and legality, giving vague > answers to MPs? written questions and deploying the ?we never discuss intelligence matters? > line. > > In the first study of its kind in the UK, drone Wars has conducted research on media coverage of > UK drone targeted killing to see how far public understanding and debate have been enabled or > hindered by the way government have engaged with media. Related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEe9bseVePc -- RT report on drone media coverage report above. The report mentions how drone warfare is carried out, drone casualties, the high degree of government secrecy about who is assassinated, and the cooperative media which can be relied upon to never scrutinize the killings while employing "carefully controlled government messaging". This messaging repeats claims that the victim was about to launch a terror attack with no evidence given to back the claim (very much like the lies that ostensibly justified killing Iran's Gen. Suleimani). Drones are cheaper than traditional bombers, remotely-controlled (and thus "safer" for those controlling them than traditional bombers and "boots on the ground"), and drones can hover in the clouds for long periods of time allowing surveillance before, during, and after a strike. OPCW leaks continue, OPCW's reputation continues to fall. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IztEGCaVBro -- RT's report based on WikiLeaks-leaked meeting minutes from OPCW engineers that according to a toxicologist, a pharmacologist, and a bioanalytical chemist who were present in that meeting to discuss the evidence from the alleged Syrian "gas attack": > It was agreed among all present that the key 'take-away message' from the meeting was that the > symptoms observed were inconsistent with exposure to chlorine and no other obvious candidate > chemical causing the symptoms could be identified. And what of the claim that the gas canister photographed on a bed was dropped from above (as one would expect in a gas bomb attack, and as was claimed by the US and its allies before any investigation even took place)? Analysis of the best available evidence says that did not happen which means that canister was placed, not dropped, on the scene. Someone who had "unhindered access to the site and a fully rebel-controlled area". The OPCW tried to cover this up including expunging evidence to the contrary from their database (per an order from Sebastien Braha, Chief of Cabinet at the OPCW, in an email which was also leaked): > Please get this document [Henderson's report] out of DRA [DocumentsRegistry Archive] and please > remove all traces, if any, of its delivery/storage/whatever in DRA. RT also mentions that the leaked reports contain feedback from the OPCW chemists where the chemists question the "professionalism of the investigation in which chemists apparently had less authority than American intelligence agents. So much so that even a former Director-General of the OPCW (Jose Bustani, OPCW Director-General from 1997-2002") felt like writing a letter to the body he used to steer." Bustani did write that open letter wherein he called on the OPCW "to allow all members of the FFM [Fact-finding Mission] team to speak freely and without censure". WikiLeaks published 4 batches of leaked documents relating to the Douma chemical attack including e-mails, fact-finding mission reports, and whistleblower testimonies. Only one OPCW team member who took part in the final report was in Douma. A leaked memo reads: > The FFM [fact-finding mission] report does not reflect the views of all the team members that > deployed to Douma. Only one FFM team member (a paramedic) of the so-called 'FFM core team' was in > Douma. The FFM report was written by this core team. So the best available evidence from those on-the-ground tell us this alleged attack was a phantom, those who know best were purposefully ignored, and the official report was written overwhelmingly by people who weren't there and took their narrative from American intelligence agents. That's the basis of the US/UK/French coordinated rocket attack into Syria. Shades of Assange: Glenn Greenwald charged with crimes in Brazil, allegations of "hacking" reminiscent of what the US claims about Assange https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vd0N5wa86bY -- RT's report. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/01/glenn-greenwald-charged-with-cybercrimes-in-brazil-for-publishing-leaked-chats/ -- Cond? Nast's report. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/21/world/americas/glenn-greenwald-brazil-cybercrimes.html -- The New York Times report includes: > Citing intercepted messages between Mr. Greenwald and the hackers, prosecutors say the journalist > played a "clear role in facilitating the commission of a crime." > > For instance, prosecutors contend that Mr. Greenwald encouraged the hackers to delete archives > that had already been shared with The Intercept Brasil, in order to cover their tracks. > > Prosecutors also say that Mr. Greenwald was communicating with the hackers while they were > actively monitoring private chats on Telegram, a messaging app. Glenn Greenwald recently published an expos? series in The Intercept based on the "Operation Car Wash" leaked documents. What is Operation Car Wash? From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Car_Wash > Operation Car Wash is an ongoing criminal investigation by the Federal Police of Brazil, Curitiba > Branch. It began in March 2014 and was initially headed by investigative judge[a] S?rgio Moro, > and in 2019 by Judge Luiz Ant?nio Bonat [pt]. It has resulted in more than a thousand warrants of > various types. According to the Operation Car Wash task force, investigations implicate > administrative members of the state-owned oil company Petrobras, politicians from Brazil's > largest parties (including presidents of the Republic), presidents of the Chamber of Deputies and > the Federal Senate, state governors, and businessmen from large Brazilian companies. The Federal > Police consider it the largest corruption investigation in the country's history. > > Originally a money laundering investigation, it expanded to cover allegations of corruption at > Petrobras, where executives allegedly accepted bribes in return for awarding contracts to > construction firms at inflated prices. This criminal scheme was initially known as Petrol?o > (Portuguese for "big oil") because of the Petrobras scandal. The investigation is called > "Operation Car Wash" because it was first uncovered at a car wash in Bras?lia. > > The aim of the investigation is to ascertain the extent of a money laundering scheme, estimated > by the Regional Superintendent of the Federal Police of Paran? State in 2015 at R$6.4?42.8 > billion (US$2?13 billion), largely through the embezzlement of Petrobras funds. It has included > more than a thousand warrants for search and seizure, temporary and preventive detention, and > plea bargaining, against business figures and politicians in numerous parties. > > At least eleven other countries were involved, mostly in Latin America, and the Brazilian company > Odebrecht was deeply implicated. > > Investigators indicted and jailed some well-known politicians, including former presidents > Fernando Collor de Mello, Michel Temer and Luiz In?cio Lula da Silva. The scandal seemed to > challenge the impunity of politicians and business leaders and the structural corruption in the > political and economic system that had prevailed until then. This was initially thought possible > because of the independence of the judiciary. > > However documents leaked in June 2019 to Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept suggest that Judge > Sergio Moro may have been partial in his decisions, passing on 'advice, investigative leads, and > inside information to the prosecutors' to 'prevent Lula?s Workers? Party from winning' the 2018 > elections. Several top jurisprudence authorities and experts in the world have reacted to the > leaks by describing former President Lula as a political prisoner and calling for his release. Da > Silva was ultimately released on November 8, 2019. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4edeJiqY41E for a brief, 14m40s, summary from Greenwald himself. There are still more documents to come out, according to The Intercept. Brazil's governmental reaction is very much like the strategy the US is using against Julian Assange for publishing clear evidence of US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan (the subject of the US case against Assange for which the US wants England to extradite Assange to the US). This will, undoubtedly, become another case we'll have to watch closely. -J From naiman.uiuc at gmail.com Thu Jan 23 16:06:22 2020 From: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com (Robert Naiman) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2020 11:06:22 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?q?Ending_Wars_is_Like_Abolishing_Unelect?= =?utf-8?q?ed_Superdelegates=3A_It=E2=80=99s_About_Restoring_Majori?= =?utf-8?q?ty_Rule?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: https://www.facebook.com/robert.naiman/posts/10159073407267656 Ending Wars is Like Abolishing Unelected Superdelegates: It?s About Restoring Majority Rule ?Rule in England and rule in Japan. Rule in America and rule in Russia. Then why not rule in Africa?? - Jimmy Cliff, Majority Rule, 1981 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1sQSHo43DQ By law and custom, there are two political parties in the United States, one of which is ?the Democratic Party.? There are a set of policies and procedures in place to try to ensure that the Democratic Party is not too democratic, not too subject to Majority Rule. Arguably the most notorious of these is the role of unelected superdelegates appointed by the Democratic National Committee in choosing the Democratic nominee for President. These unelected superdelegates have pulled the nomination process towards pro-war interests in the Democratic Party, including pro-war donors to the DNC. After the 2016 Sanders-Clinton election, in which elected Sanders delegates believed that the role of unelected superdelegates pulled the nomination towards Clinton, a partial reform of unelected superdelegates reduced their role by barring them from voting on the first ballot. The stakes of this skewing of the Democratic presidential nomination towards pro-war interests have been dramatically raised by the heretofore practical evisceration of the role of Congress in deciding when we go to war. Under Article I of the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution of 1973, Congress and only Congress is supposed to decide when we go to war. But in practice Article I and the War Powers Resolution have been disrespected. Until now no court will enforce them. President Obama defied them in the case of the Libya war and the Saudi war in Yemen; Congress moved belatedly to enforce them against Trump in the case of the Saudi war in Yemen, but has still failed to enforce its will. Part of the problem is Trump?s unprecedented defiance of Congress and part of the problem is Congress? unwillingness so far to use a key tool of the War Powers Resolution to try to end unconstitutional war, the concurrent resolution. Congress? unwillingness to use this tool so far is thwarting Majority Rule. The War Powers Resolution provided two key tools for Congress to stop an unconstitutional war: a ?concurrent resolution? and a ?joint resolution.? A concurrent resolution is a joint statement of the House and the Senate which is not presented to the President for signature and which the President therefore cannot veto. A joint resolution is presented to the President for signature and the President can veto it. If the President vetoes it, a two-thirds majority in each house is required to override the President?s veto. When Congress passed the Sanders-Lee-Murphy resolution to end unconstitutional U.S. participation in the Saudi war in Yemen, it used a joint resolution. Trump vetoed the resolution, and Congress failed to override, and the war continues with unconstitutional U.S. participation. The practical consequence is that it now takes a 2/3 vote in both houses to stop an unconstitutional war, because Trump is defiant and Congress won?t yet press its case by passing a concurrent resolution which would only require a simple majority in each house. Thus, the majority of the minority, the Republicans in the House and Senate who are backing unconstitutional war, are now playing the role that unelected superdelegates play in the Democratic presidential nomination process: thwarting the will of the majority for less war. Note that a two-thirds majority in each house is a higher bar than for impeaching and removing a President [simple majority in the House, 2/3 in the Senate] or ratifying a treaty [2/3 vote in the Senate, no vote in the House.] It is now harder to end an unconstitutional war than it is to remove a President or ratify a treaty. This is not the situation that the authors of Article I of the Constitution or the War Powers Resolution of 1973 intended. In order to eliminate the role of Republican ?superdelegates? in the House and Senate in perpetuating unconstitutional war against the will of the majority, we need to enforce the concurrent resolution provisions of the War Powers Resolution. House Democrats signed up for this when they recently passed the Slotkin Iran War Powers Resolution as a concurrent resolution. We need to make Senate Democrats sign up for this as well. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From naiman.uiuc at gmail.com Thu Jan 23 17:28:52 2020 From: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com (Robert Naiman) Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2020 12:28:52 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?q?NYT=3A_Did_the_Saudis_Play_a_Role_in_9?= =?utf-8?q?/11=3F_Here=E2=80=99s_What_We_Found?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: NYT gives these two things as main takeaways: 1. "Potential leads went unpursued for years." 2. "The C.I.A. interfered with a planned F.B.I. investigation, officials say." Given what we know now about the Saudi regime, its support of Al Qaeda, its anti-civilian war in Yemen, its murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and its relationship to the CIA, isn't it quite plausible that the CIA deliberately sabotaged the overall investigation, with the eventual cooperation of some in the FBI leadership? Isn't it quite plausible that senior U.S. officials suspected that the Saudi government was more involved than U.S. officials publicly claimed? Isn't it quite plausible that senior U.S. officials didn't want to know how involved the Saudi government was, because they didn't want us to know? Why aren't Democrats in Congress clamoring for the release of the FBI investigation files that the 9/11 families have asked for? Why isn't there a push for a Congressional vote on declassification, as a means of pressure for disclosure, as there was with the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on CIA torture? https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/us/september-11-attacks-saudi-arabia.html Did the Saudis Play a Role in 9/11? Here?s What We Found Investigators continued to investigate Saudi links to 9/11 even after high-level officials discounted connections. By Daniel Victor Jan. 23, 2020 Updated 11:25 a.m. ET F.B.I. agents who secretly investigated Saudi connections to the 9/11 attacks for more than a decade after high-level officials discounted any government links found circumstantial evidence of such support but could not find a smoking gun, a joint investigation by The New York Times Magazine and ProPublica shows. One dogged F.B.I. agent in San Diego helped drive the investigation for years, after superiors advised the team to give up on the case. Three presidential administrations have built a wall of secrecy around information about possible Saudi government ties to the attacks. ?Given the lapse of time, I don?t know any reason why the truth should be kept from the American people,? said Richard Lambert, who led the F.B.I.?s initial 9/11 investigation in San Diego. The full article includes new details that have never been reported before, revealing missed investigative opportunities. Read the entire article from The New York Times Magazine here. But if you have limited time, here are the main takeaways. Potential leads went unpursued for years. An investigator found evidence that suggested Omar al-Bayoumi, a mysteriously well-connected Saudi student who knew two of the hijackers, might have had prior knowledge of the attacks, even though senior U.S. officials had essentially exonerated him. In a trove of seemingly disorganized evidence taken from Bayoumi?s home in Birmingham, England, in 2001, [a] detective found a spiral notebook that contained a hand-drawn aviation diagram of a plane descending to strike a spot on the ground. An F.B.I. agent who had studied aeronautical engineering concluded that the diagram showed a formula for an aerial descent like the one performed by Flight 77, the jet that Hazmi and Mihdhar hijacked, before it struck the Pentagon. Apparently, the notebook and its contents went unnoticed after Bayoumi?s detention and hadn?t been looked at again. A former supervisor of the investigation said he thought the finding would have been more significant if it had been discovered in the fall of 2001. ?That would have been harder evidence,? the supervisor, Joseph Foelsch, said. ?If not a smoking gun, a warm gun.? Telephone records that were reanalyzed years later revealed multiple calls among Mr. Bayoumi; Fahad al-Thumairy, a Saudi diplomat and imam; and Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemeni-American imam who was killed in a drone attack in 2011. The C.I.A. interfered with a planned F.B.I. investigation, officials say. In 2010, the F.B.I. planned to place two Saudi religious officials from the kingdom?s Ministry of Islamic Affairs under full-time surveillance. The bureau had previously found that their travel overlapped with movements by the hijackers and people believed to be supporting them, and that they had ties to suspected militants. The two men sought new visas to study English in the United States, which officials feared could be cover for something nefarious. But, F.B.I. agents believe, the C.I.A. intervened before the surveillance could happen. The episode, which has not been previously reported, ended abruptly. In the Saudi capital of Riyadh, C.I.A. officers objected strongly to the F.B.I. plan, one former official said. ?They didn?t want to give the Saudis a black eye by letting these guys walk into a trap,? the former official said. For reasons that remain unclear, the two Saudis canceled the visit at the last minute. F.B.I. officials suspected that someone in the Saudi government had been warned. [...] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbn at forestfield.org Fri Jan 24 23:24:35 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2020 17:24:35 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] AWARE On The Air #502 notes Message-ID: <4beae5d0-02e7-8eff-e23c-c35afbc6c68a@forestfield.org> AWARE On The Air #502 Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3FuFvpvyeM A list of links to items referenced on the show. Dr. Jill Stein on assassinating Soleimani https://twitter.com/DrJillStein/status/1213858241618337792 Jane Arraf followup to Dr. Jill Stein https://twitter.com/janearraf/status/1213823941321592834 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was an anti-war socialist Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from a letter to Coretta Scott in 1952: https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/mlk-was-a-socialist.html https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/coretta-scott > "I imagine you already know that I am much more socialistic in my economic theory > than capitalistic. And yet I am not so opposed to capitalism that I have failed to > see its relative merits. It started out with a noble and high motive, viz, to > block the trade monopolies of nobles, but like most human systems, it falls victim > to the very thing it was revolting against. So today capitalism has outlived its > usefulness. It has brought about a system that takes necessities from the masses > to give luxuries to the classes." More quotes from MLK in https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/mlk-was-a-socialist.html > "As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told > them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have > tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that > social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked, > and rightly so, ?What about Vietnam?? They asked if our own nation wasn?t using > massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it > wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my > voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first > spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own > government. ?" > > ?I started thinking about the fact that right here in our country we spend > millions of dollars every day to store surplus food. And I said to myself: ?I know > where we can store that food free of charge ? in the wrinkled stomachs of the > millions of God?s children in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and even in our own > nation, who go to bed hungry at night.?" https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/1/16/1621178/-Dr-King-the-greatest-purveyor-of-violence-in-the-world-today-my-own-government -- one of the few things worth pointing to on this Democratic Party front group, "Daily Kos" The ongoing Trump impeachment https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEocwXiX2TQ -- Jimmy Dore and Stef Zamorano raise an interesting point on the impeachment: > Jimmy Dore: [...T]he impeachment trial last night, last night I saw it was on > [television] on the west coast. It was midnight, I flipped through the channels > [and] it was still going on. So that's 3AM their time, right? That's nuts! Why do > they pretend like they have to do that in the middle of the night? > > Stef Zamorano: Why are they acting like this impeachment is such hard work and > they couldn't be doing that shit all the time, getting us health care for > everybody, giving us infrastructure, giving us a jobs program, working 24 hours > until those things are handled. > > Jimmy Dore: No shit, right? > > Stef Zamorano: When have you seen Congress do that shit on behalf of the people > like before they go out on vacation? > > Jimmy Dore: Like, hey, we got to get to this-- there's people sleeping in the > streets, we gotta address this right now. We got to do legislation at 3:00 in the > morning. No. No. The only time they'll do shit like that is for bullshit like this > [the Trump impeachment]. New York Times Endorses Both Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar for Democratic Nominee https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/19/opinion/amy-klobuchar-elizabeth-warren-nytimes-endorsement.html https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/new-york-times-endorses-warren-klobuchar-940188/ Sheldon Richman on "Warmonger Cotton Accuses Antiwar Think Tank of Anti-Semitism" https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/21/118648/ Notes from J.B. Nicholson https://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/2020-January/051809.html Aaron Mat? interviews Scott Ritter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK2kc0eOGS4 -J From naiman.uiuc at gmail.com Sat Jan 25 11:10:38 2020 From: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com (Robert Naiman) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2020 06:10:38 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] NYT on how Joe Rogan's endorsement can help Bernie Message-ID: https://www.facebook.com/robert.naiman/posts/10159080146647656 Yuuuuge. This guy has four million people downloading his podcast every week. How many divisions do the politically correct concern trolls control? Winning elections is about voters, not about appeasing politically correct concern trolls. This moment is like August 2013, when Obama wanted to bomb Syria without Congressional authorization, in violation of the Constitution, and there was a transpartisan mass uprising against it, with the phone lines in Congress melting, with the phone calls running 99-1 against. Then-member of Congress Alan Grayson, who was a vocal populist critic of Obama's plan to bomb Syria, went on Democracy Now with Amy Goodman. Amy said: what about AIPAC? AIPAC is backing Obama's plan to bomb Syria. And Alan Grayson said: AIPAC doesn't matter now. When the masses are engaged, AIPAC doesn't matter. Nobody cares about AIPAC now. That's what this is like. The masses are engaged. Nobody cares about the politically correct concern trolls now. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/us/politics/bernie-sanders-endorsement-joe-rogan.html Why a Joe Rogan Endorsement Could Help (or Backfire on) Bernie Sanders The Sanders campaign highlighted Mr. Rogan?s supportive comments in a video. But the podcast host has been criticized for aiding conspiracy theorists and for remarks about transgender people. By Matt Stevens Jan. 24, 2020 The entrepreneur Andrew Yang was struggling in obscurity when, about a year ago, he went on Joe Rogan?s podcast , ?The Joe Rogan Experience.? Almost immediately, the donations started pouring in. Senior members of Mr. Yang?s campaign have said his two-hour interview with Mr. Rogan was responsible for bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars and significantly raising his profile. Three months later, Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii joined the podcast ; three months after that, on came Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont . All of the candidates knew just how huge an audience Mr. Rogan had developed. This week, Mr. Rogan, the stand-up comedian, mixed martial arts commentator and sometime actor who, through his podcast, has become an unlikely political influencer, said he would throw his support behind Mr. Sanders in the 2020 Democratic primary ? an endorsement that could bolster the candidate particularly among the legions of disaffected male voters who have long been critical to his chances to win. ?I think I?ll probably vote for Bernie,? Mr. Rogan told Bari Weiss, an editor and writer for the New York Times Opinion section, in an episode of his podcast released Tuesday. ?Him as a human being, when I was hanging out with him, I believe in him, I like him ? I like him a lot.? ?He?s been insanely consistent his entire life,? Mr. Rogan added. ?He?s basically been saying the same thing, been for the same thing, his whole life. And that in and of itself is a very powerful structure to operate from.? Perhaps in recognition of Mr. Rogan?s reach, Mr. Sanders?s campaign quickly capitalized on the comments, posting a video of them on its Twitter account Thursday afternoon. [image: image.png] But the Sanders campaign?s decision to lean into Mr. Rogan?s praise has drawn fire from some liberals and progressives ? another group of voters at the core of Mr. Sanders?s political base ? who recalled Mr. Rogan?s history of giving voice to conspiracy theories, making comments that some see as bigoted toward transgender people and making a racist remark about a black neighborhood on his podcast. Rogan?s impact on the 2020 race A former host of the reality competition series ?Fear Factor? and an actor who played an electrician on the NBC comedy series ?NewsRadio,? Mr. Rogan has built an expansive following of mostly men through his podcast, appealing particularly to disaffected white men, many of whom have proudly labeled themselves as ?Bernie Bros.? Mr. Rogan?s show is one of the most popular podcasts in America and is downloaded millions of times each week. His long-form interviews offer a profanity-laced mix of blunt assessment and thoughtful nudging that has won him countless fans, many of whom share a distaste for what they see as an overemphasis on political correctness in society. Mr. Rogan had previously said he would vote for Ms. Gabbard . And Mr. Yang?s advisers have long acknowledged that being on Mr. Rogan?s show helped their candidate break out. In some retellings, Mr. Yang?s appearance on the podcast was perhaps the single biggest turning point in his campaign, an event that vaulted the businessman onto voters? radars. Like Mr. Sanders, both Ms. Gabbard and Mr. Yang stand somewhat outside the Democratic mainstream and have been praised by supporters as truth tellers directly confronting America?s problems. In fact, the three candidates have won support among such a similar share of young, male voters who lean Republican, Libertarian or independent that Ms. Gabbard and Mr. Yang could potentially peel away critical support from Mr. Sanders as he seeks to win early contests in Iowa and New Hampshire. Conspiracy theories and controversial comments Mr. Rogan and his podcast are immensely popular, but he is also a controversial figure. Through his podcast, Mr. Rogan twice gave a platform to the Infowars founder and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones , who spread the false narrative that the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax and that the parents of the children killed were ?crisis actors.? (Mr. Jones has been sued for defamation by the father of one of the shooting victims.) ?I go back and forth with conspiracies. I have a love-hate relationship with conspiracies,? Mr. Rogan said last April on his podcast. He has come under scrutiny for comments and jokes he has reportedly made about M.M.A. fighters and about male and female bodies that some say are harmful to transgender people; he has also ridiculed gender-neutral pronouns . ?One thing we can do is keep women from getting beaten up by men ? and men who transition to being women,? he said in 2018 when discussing a transgender M.M.A. fighter. ?If you think that?s fair,? he added, using an expletive, ?you?re crazy.? ?The arguments for it,? he continued, are ?riddled with progressive speak.? In the wake of his endorsement of Mr. Sanders, Mr. Rogan has also faced social media condemnation for a remark he made several years ago in which he compared going into a black neighborhood to see a movie with the movie itself, ?Planet of the Apes.? ?We get out, we?re giggling, ?We?re going to go see Planet of the Apes.? We walk into Planet of the Apes. We walked into Africa,? he said on his podcast in 2013 . ?We walked into the blackest neighborhood we could find,? Mr. Rogan continued, noting that he had said a ?racist thing.? An attempt to reach Mr. Rogan and his representatives was not successful. Blowback for Sanders The Sanders campaign came under fire this week from critics who said it should not have highlighted Mr. Rogan?s endorsement. ?Rogan is an incredibly influential bigot and Democrats should be marginalizing him,? Carlos Maza, a video producer and media critic, wrote on Twitter after criticizing the Sanders campaign?s decision to make and post the Rogan video. ?Rogan?s transphobia harm a community whose rights are actively under attack right now,? added Alexis Goldstein , a writer, organizer and co-host of the ?Humorless Queers? podcast. ?This isn?t good for a Dem candidate to boost with an official campaign video.? Late Friday, the Human Rights Campaign, the largest national lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer civil rights organization, released a statement praising Mr. Sanders?s support for ?the rights of L.G.B.T.Q. people? but condemning what it said was Mr. Rogan?s ?vicious rhetoric? that ?has dehumanized transgender people.? ?Given Rogan?s comments, it is disappointing that the Sanders campaign has accepted and promoted the endorsement,? Alphonso David, the organization?s president, said in the statement. ?The Sanders campaign must reconsider this endorsement and the decision to publicize the views of someone who has consistently attacked and dehumanized marginalized people.? In its own statement, the Sanders campaign said its goal was ?to build a multiracial, multigenerational movement that is large enough to defeat Donald Trump and the powerful special interests whose greed and corruption is the root cause of the outrageous inequality in America.? ?Sharing a big tent requires including those who do not share every one of our beliefs, while always making clear that we will never compromise our values,? Briahna Joy Gray, a spokeswoman for the campaign, said in the statement. ?The truth is that by standing together in solidarity, we share the values of love and respect that will move us in the direction of a more humane, more equal world.? Earlier this month, Ms. Gray sent and then deleted a tweet expressing her views about Mr. Rogan: ?Listening to Joe Rogan and it?s better political analysis than most stuff I hear on the MSM,? she said, in an apparent reference to the mainstream media. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image.png Type: image/png Size: 375468 bytes Desc: not available URL: From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Sat Jan 25 13:17:03 2020 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2020 07:17:03 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Belmarsh Prison Inmates Prove More Ethical Than Entire Western Empire Message-ID: <002101d5d381$bc9c9d00$35d5d700$@comcast.net> Caitlin Johnstone posted: "In some refreshingly good news about Julian Assange, WikiLeaks is reporting that its founder has finally been moved out of solitary confinement to a different wing in Belmarsh Prison where he can have normal social interactions with 40 other inmates. T" New post on Caitlin Johnstone Image removed by sender. Image removed by sender. Belmarsh Prison Inmates Prove More Ethical Than Entire Western Empire by Caitlin Johnstone In some refreshingly good news about Julian Assange, WikiLeaks is reporting that its founder has finally been moved out of solitary confinement to a different wing in Belmarsh Prison where he can have normal social interactions with 40 other inmates. This fantastic news lifts a huge weight from the chests of those of us who've been protesting Assange's cruel and unusual treatment at the hands of an international alliance of governments bent on making a draconian public example of a journalist whose publications exposed US war crimes. Solitary confinement is a form of torture, and a UN Special Rapporteur has confirmed that Assange shows clear symptoms that he is a victim of psychological torture caused by his persecution from coordinated efforts by Washington, London, Stockholm, Canberra and Quito. So what caused this shift in Assange's treatment? Did the powerful empire-like alliance loosely centralized around the United States suddenly come to its senses and realize that torturing journalists for telling the truth is the sort of tyrannical abuse that it accuses other governments of perpetrating? Did officials in the British government bow to public pressure from the pro-Assange demonstrations which have been taking place in London month after month and have some faint flickerings of conscience? Did Belmarsh Prison authorities come to their senses after more than a hundred doctors warned that their cruelty was killing the award-winning publisher? Why no. As it turns out, Assange was in fact rescued from the cruelty of this globe-sprawling empire by the concerted protests of high-security prison inmates. Prisoners' revolt and pressure from legal team and campaigners forces Belmarsh to move Assange out of solitary. WikiLeaks statement: pic.twitter.com/9Af9y3zC93 ? Don't Extradite Assange (@DEAcampaign) January 24, 2020 ?In a dramatic climbdown, authorities at Belmarsh Prison have moved Julian Assange from solitary confinement in the medical wing and relocated him to an area with other inmates," said WikiLeaks Ambassador Joseph Farrell in a statement today. "The move is a huge victory for Assange?s legal team and for campaigners who have been insisting for weeks that the prison authorities must end the punitive treatment of Assange.? "But the decision to relocate Assange is also a massive victory of prisoners in Belmarsh," Farrell added. "A group of inmates have petitioned the prison governor on three occasions, insisting that the treatment of Assange was unjust and unfair. After meetings between prisoners, lawyers and the Belmarsh authorities, Assange was moved to a different prison wing ? albeit one with only 40 inmates.? Belmarsh is a notoriously harsh maximum-security prison full of violent offenders and prisoners convicted under anti-terrorism laws, one of many reasons that Assange supporters have so vigorously opposed his confinement there. What does it tell you about the society you are living in that this population has a superior moral compass to the people who are actually running things? For years I've been arguing with Democratic Party-aligned liberals on one side saying that Assange is a Russian agent who deserves to be tortured, and a bunch of Trump-aligned right wingers on the other side saying their president is extraditing Assange for the good of the world. These are the two mainstream views on Assange within the western empire today. And a group of Belmarsh prisoners just proved themselves infinitely more ethical than any of them. They have a better sense of right and wrong than those running the empire, and they have a better sense of right and wrong than the propagandized apologists for that empire. UN Special Rapporteur on torture: ?In 20 years..I have never seen a group of democratic States ganging up to deliberately isolate, demonise and abuse a single individual for such a long time and with so little regard for human dignity and the rule of law? https://t.co/UMGegjYrBS ? WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) May 31, 2019 Not that this should surprise us. This group of Belmarsh prisoners demonstrated their moral superiority to the mainstream public not because prison inmates are on average inherently better people than those on the outside, but because they were confronted with the reality of Assange's situation instead of mainlining mass media propaganda about Assange. They were dealing with reality rather than narrative, so they addressed that reality. And they did so admirably. The smear campaign that has been conducted against Assange by the political/media class has distorted public perception of his plight so severely that there are far more people seeing his case through a distorted understanding than there are people who actually understand what's happening to him. We saw this illustrated very clearly when the aforementioned UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, admitted frankly that before going to investigate Assange's case for himself he'd been propagandized by this same smear campaign as well. "When I was first approached by his defense team seeking protection from my mandate in December last year, I was reluctant to do so, because, me too, I had been affected by this prejudice that I had absorbed through all these public narratives spread in the media over the years," Melzer told Democracy Now in an interview last year. "And only when I scratched the surface a little bit, I saw how little foundation there was to back this up and how much fabrication and manipulation there is in this case. So I encourage everybody to really look below the surface in this case.? Inmates of Belmarsh prison had a superior understanding of Assange's plight because they wouldn't have been affected by these narratives. They would simply have seen what's right in front of them, with their own eyes: a nonviolent prisoner being caged in solitary confinement 23 hours a day for no discernible reason. You couldn't ask for a clearer example of the difference between fact and narrative than this. Whoever controls the narrative controls the world. Whoever can see beyond narrative can see the truth. We must all strive for this. _______________________ Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, checking out my podcast on either Youtube, soundcloud, Apple podcasts or Spotify, following me on Steemit, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my sweet merchandise, buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone, or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I?m trying to do with this platform, click here. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish or use any part of this work (or anything else I?ve written) in any way they like free of charge. Image removed by sender. Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2 Caitlin Johnstone | January 25, 2020 at 3:25 am | Tags: assange, Belmarsh, inmates, propaganda, smear, solitary | Categories: Article, News | URL: https://wp.me/p9tj6M-20d Comment See all comments Unsubscribe to no longer receive posts from Caitlin Johnstone. Change your email settings at Manage Subscriptions. Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser: https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/01/25/belmarsh-prison-inmates-prove-more-ethical-than-entire-western-empire/ Image removed by sender.Image removed by sender. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: ~WRD000.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 823 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 344 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 368 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image003.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 332 bytes Desc: not available URL: From moboct1 at aim.com Sat Jan 25 18:34:36 2020 From: moboct1 at aim.com (Mildred O'brien) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2020 18:34:36 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: News Gazette & Channel 3 Treatment of Carol Ammons In-Reply-To: <648781321.343860.1579977037063@mail.yahoo.com> References: <26334624.19694075.1579976764115.ref@mail.yahoo.com> <26334624.19694075.1579976764115@mail.yahoo.com> <648781321.343860.1579977037063@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1993357308.9428980.1579977276320@mail.yahoo.com> ?Although not a supporter of Democratic Representative Carol Ammons, nevertheless?it?becomes clear to me that the "Breaking News" on all three 5hannel 3 newscasts on January 24 and the lead headline of Saturday Jan 25 on the front page of the News Gazette is?the major?news of?the criminal accusation and investigation?the dangerous local criminal?Democrat?who represents District 15 in Illinois State Legislature for larceny theft of an $80 (second-hand)?handbag from Carle Auxilliary Boutique.? The Shame!? The Scandal!? And only about 6 weeks before the St. Patrick's Day election! ? That this scandal?became a major story in the local news suggests?two things:?there is a concerted effort to smear?a popular local politician,/or there is a paucity of crime news this week to fill?the declining?sensationalism news media?to satisfy?the subscribers?of?the outstanding reportage?from our stellar journalism monopolies. Seriously, does anything connected with the name?Carle?consider a donated item marked up to $80 amajor financial blow to their bottom line?? Could they not have allowed the alleged culprit the opportunity to explain or offer to reimburse the said $80?before bringing charges of "theft" and the public expense of the taxpayers to investigate a petty charge against a public figure?which was?was a misunderstanding?as postulated, or perhaps an oversight) whose financial ability to cover the purchase?is not in doubt?? Is the economic condition of entrepreneurism so dire as to require police action before considering contacting the person of interest to compensate or attempt to resolve the situation before?involving news media to besmear her reputation,as if guilty as charged before conviction?? Maybe Carol's predicament is a reflection of?what some people of color?experience before they can?even defend themselves.?? Midge.?? ?.? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbn at forestfield.org Sat Jan 25 20:31:38 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2020 14:31:38 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] News from Neptune #448 notes Message-ID: <8bec2e2a-960e-4543-9c70-df3d760b405a@forestfield.org> News from Neptune #448 Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF951fpWbV0 A "What War?" edition A list of links to items referenced on the show. Paul Street's articles on CounterPunch https://www.counterpunch.org/author/paul-street/ Rob Urie's articles on CounterPunch https://www.counterpunch.org/author/3abre/ Benjamin Studebaker & Aimee Terese's show "What's Left?" https://soundcloud.com/whatisleftpod/ -- list of recent episodes https://twitter.com/whatisleftpod -- Twitter account https://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:595199712/sounds.rss -- RSS feed Recent Jimmy Dore Show pieces about Elizabeth Warren https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5JWIiVMj6g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vrzgVczc1Y -- CNN Conflates #MeToo & Warren's Attack On Bernie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmyc--yEjHk -- Audio Confirms Warren's Attack On Bernie As Predicted! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsXBm7aPPqA -- Progressive Destroys CNN's Garbage Bernie/Warren Reporting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ_xK4_dpxw -- Bernie's Poll Numbers RISE After Warren Attack https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7UjRmQ5-CE -- Meghan McCain Twists Liz Warren Like Pretzel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5X0OReq2IY -- NYTimes Blatantly Lying About Bernie/Warren https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQTWM1_qIcI -- Bernie/Warren Smackdown Start To Finish Paul Street on "A Letter From Iowa" https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/24/a-letter-from-iowa/ Tucker Carlson Tonight https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlTLHnxSVuIzrARlmz9oCfQEF08UV-v-E New York Times Endorses Both Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar for Democratic Nominee https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/19/opinion/amy-klobuchar-elizabeth-warren-nytimes-endorsement.html Daniele Albertazzi & Duncan McDonnell define populism http://www.palgrave.com/resources/sample-chapters/9780230013490_sample.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20150924103230/http://www.palgrave.com/resources/sample-chapters/9780230013490_sample.pdf Populism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populism Katie Miranda's Elizabeth Warren as contortionist https://mondoweiss.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/lizloz.jpg https://mondoweiss.net/2020/01/warrens-praise-and-occasional-criticism-of-israel-reflects-liberal-establishment-thinking/ Jimmy Dore shows Krystal Ball confusing a Clinton advisor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GT2EOL13Wo Two suggestions on how to defeat New York Times' limited reading: 1. Turn off Javascript when reading pages from nytimes.com. This is easy to do in Firefox with the uMatrix browser add-on. This will also make all browsing faster. 2. Delete nytimes.com cookies after you no longer have any nytimes.com windows/tabs open. This is easy to do in Firefox with the Cookie AutoDelete add-on. These add-ons might work in other browsers as well, but I only recommend free software (software we're free to run, inspect, share, and modify). So I recommend Firefox. Elizabeth Bruenig on "Bernie Will Have to Fight Dirty" https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/opinion/sanders-biden-2020-corruption.html Elizabeth Bruenig 'tweet' on her young child https://twitter.com/ebruenig/status/1221067805698723843 DNC lawyer Bruce Spiva to the court in the lawsuit started by the Bernie Sanders 2016 supporters against the DNC on how much power the DNC has to determine their own corporate representative (also known as the Democratic Party candidate for US President) http://jampac.us/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/042517cw2.pdf Tulsi Gabbard suing Hillary Clinton on Aaron Mat?'s "Pushback with Aaron Mat?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0BhVyWLBfQ Asad Abukhalili ("The Angry Arab") twitter.com posts on corporate media and corporate social media misrepresentation of the Iraqi protests against continued US occupation: https://twitter.com/asadabukhalil/status/1221131053609312256 -- "This crowd in Baghdad for example has been more circulated on social media than scenes of the hundreds of thousands in the anti-US protests of yesterday." https://twitter.com/asadabukhalil/status/1220918811517284352 -- "A million people took to the streets in Iraq again act US occupation but NYT managed to cite five people who are in favor of US occupation. Lousy journalism. ??I reject this kind of protest ? it is an abuse of the American and foreign presence,??" A followup from Hussain Bakar says the BBC is following suit in not covering the Baghdad protests properly either: https://twitter.com/HussainBakar1/status/1220920564941873153 -- "To some extent, same thing with the BBC too. A correspondent spoke about people who still yearn for the US' presence." Aaron Mat? interviews Scott Ritter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK2kc0eOGS4 Jim Kavanagh on "Aftermath: The Iran War After the Soleimani Assassination" https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/24/aftermath-the-iran-war-after-the-soleimani-assassination/ The Grayzone https://thegrayzone.com/ -- Main site https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEXR8pRTkE2vFeJePNe9UcQ/videos -- Videos Glen Ford on "Throw Off the Dead Weight of the Democratic Party" (from February 11, 2016) https://blackagendareport.com/node/22770 > ?Blacks haven?t transformed the Democratic Party by our overwhelming presence. > Instead, the Party has transformed us ? and overwhelmed our radical politics.? The > best result that can occur from the Sanders campaign would be that it leads to a > split in the Democratic Party, and an end to the Rich Man?s Duopoly. All pages on the wsws.org site mentioning "1619 project" https://www.wsws.org/en/search.html?sectionId=&maxResults=100&phrase=1619+project&submit=Search Tom Mackaman on "An interview with historian Clayborne Carson on the New York Times? 1619 Project" https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/01/15/clay-j15.html "Higher Ground" program on WEFT http://new.weft.org/publicaffairs/higherground.html Adolph Reed, Jr. on "What Materialist Black Political History Actually Looks Like" https://nonsite.org/editorial/what-materialist-black-political-history-actually-looks-like J.B. Nicholson's notes https://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/2020-January/051809.html https://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace/2020-January/015648.html -J From brussel at illinois.edu Sat Jan 25 22:31:19 2020 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2020 22:31:19 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?q?Fwd=3A_Jill_Stein_on_Assange_and_democ?= =?utf-8?q?racy_and_empire=E2=80=A6?= References: <30ECE05D-7CD1-42C9-BB45-B551EC98996A@illinois.edu> Message-ID: <8936297C-50C0-43F4-B750-46DAEF4FCE21@illinois.edu> Apologies if received already. Begin forwarded message: From: "Brussel, Morton K" > Subject: Jill Stein on Assange and democracy and empire? Date: January 23, 2020 at 10:43:32 AM CST To: "Peace-discuss at antiwar.net" > Cc: "Brussel, Morton K" > Well worth a visit, even if one hour long. https://consortiumnews.com/2020/01/23/cn-live-season-2-episode-3-jill-stein-on-assange-and-the-new-mccarthyism/ The brilliance and humanity of Jill Stein is manifested. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brussel at illinois.edu Sun Jan 26 19:12:33 2020 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2020 19:12:33 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Vizualizing U.S. activities aroun the globe. Message-ID: Interactive: http://progressivememes.org/bases/index.html Shows bases and more if you click appropriately. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Sun Jan 26 21:33:38 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2020 13:33:38 -0800 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] News from Neptune #448 notes In-Reply-To: <8bec2e2a-960e-4543-9c70-df3d760b405a@forestfield.org> References: <8bec2e2a-960e-4543-9c70-df3d760b405a@forestfield.org> Message-ID: I liked Carl?s statement related to the NYT article making the point ?both Trump and Sanders as populists is opposition to neoliberal policies.? It?s too bad Americans don?t recognize ?class,? as the great divide recognizing the shared grievances, and come together to reject our one Party system of neoliberalism, rather than fighting one another, for which our ruling elites have set us up. > On Jan 25, 2020, at 12:31, J.B. Nicholson via Peace wrote: > > News from Neptune #448 > Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF951fpWbV0 > A "What War?" edition > > A list of links to items referenced on the show. > > Paul Street's articles on CounterPunch > https://www.counterpunch.org/author/paul-street/ > > Rob Urie's articles on CounterPunch > https://www.counterpunch.org/author/3abre/ > > Benjamin Studebaker & Aimee Terese's show "What's Left?" > https://soundcloud.com/whatisleftpod/ -- list of recent episodes > https://twitter.com/whatisleftpod -- Twitter account > https://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:595199712/sounds.rss -- RSS feed > > Recent Jimmy Dore Show pieces about Elizabeth Warren > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5JWIiVMj6g > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vrzgVczc1Y -- CNN Conflates #MeToo & Warren's Attack On Bernie > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmyc--yEjHk -- Audio Confirms Warren's Attack On Bernie As Predicted! > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsXBm7aPPqA -- Progressive Destroys CNN's Garbage Bernie/Warren Reporting > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ_xK4_dpxw -- Bernie's Poll Numbers RISE After Warren Attack > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7UjRmQ5-CE -- Meghan McCain Twists Liz Warren Like Pretzel > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5X0OReq2IY -- NYTimes Blatantly Lying About Bernie/Warren > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQTWM1_qIcI -- Bernie/Warren Smackdown Start To Finish > > Paul Street on "A Letter From Iowa" > https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/24/a-letter-from-iowa/ > > Tucker Carlson Tonight > https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlTLHnxSVuIzrARlmz9oCfQEF08UV-v-E > > New York Times Endorses Both Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar for Democratic Nominee > https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/19/opinion/amy-klobuchar-elizabeth-warren-nytimes-endorsement.html > > Daniele Albertazzi & Duncan McDonnell define populism > http://www.palgrave.com/resources/sample-chapters/9780230013490_sample.pdf > https://web.archive.org/web/20150924103230/http://www.palgrave.com/resources/sample-chapters/9780230013490_sample.pdf > > Populism > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populism > > Katie Miranda's Elizabeth Warren as contortionist > https://mondoweiss.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/lizloz.jpg > https://mondoweiss.net/2020/01/warrens-praise-and-occasional-criticism-of-israel-reflects-liberal-establishment-thinking/ > > > > > > Jimmy Dore shows Krystal Ball confusing a Clinton advisor > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GT2EOL13Wo > > Two suggestions on how to defeat New York Times' limited reading: > > 1. Turn off Javascript when reading pages from nytimes.com. This is easy to do in Firefox with the uMatrix browser add-on. This will also make all browsing faster. > > 2. Delete nytimes.com cookies after you no longer have any nytimes.com windows/tabs open. This is easy to do in Firefox with the Cookie AutoDelete add-on. > > These add-ons might work in other browsers as well, but I only recommend free software (software we're free to run, inspect, share, and modify). So I recommend Firefox. > > Elizabeth Bruenig on "Bernie Will Have to Fight Dirty" > https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/opinion/sanders-biden-2020-corruption.html > > Elizabeth Bruenig 'tweet' on her young child > https://twitter.com/ebruenig/status/1221067805698723843 > > > > > DNC lawyer Bruce Spiva to the court in the lawsuit started by the Bernie Sanders 2016 supporters against the DNC on how much power the DNC has to determine their own corporate representative (also known as the Democratic Party candidate for US President) > http://jampac.us/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/042517cw2.pdf > > Tulsi Gabbard suing Hillary Clinton on Aaron Mat?'s "Pushback with Aaron Mat?" > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0BhVyWLBfQ > > Asad Abukhalili ("The Angry Arab") twitter.com posts on corporate media and corporate social media misrepresentation of the Iraqi protests against continued US occupation: > https://twitter.com/asadabukhalil/status/1221131053609312256 -- "This crowd in Baghdad for example has been more circulated on social media than scenes of the hundreds of thousands in the anti-US protests of yesterday." > > https://twitter.com/asadabukhalil/status/1220918811517284352 -- "A million people took to the streets in Iraq again act US occupation but NYT managed to cite five people who are in favor of US occupation. Lousy journalism. ??I reject this kind of protest ? it is an abuse of the American and foreign presence,??" > > A followup from Hussain Bakar says the BBC is following suit in not covering the Baghdad protests properly either: > > https://twitter.com/HussainBakar1/status/1220920564941873153 -- "To some extent, same thing with the BBC too. A correspondent spoke about people who still yearn for the US' presence." > > > > Aaron Mat? interviews Scott Ritter > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK2kc0eOGS4 > > Jim Kavanagh on "Aftermath: The Iran War After the Soleimani Assassination" > https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/24/aftermath-the-iran-war-after-the-soleimani-assassination/ > > The Grayzone > https://thegrayzone.com/ -- Main site > https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEXR8pRTkE2vFeJePNe9UcQ/videos -- Videos > > > > > Glen Ford on "Throw Off the Dead Weight of the Democratic Party" (from February 11, 2016) > https://blackagendareport.com/node/22770 >> ?Blacks haven?t transformed the Democratic Party by our overwhelming presence. >> Instead, the Party has transformed us ? and overwhelmed our radical politics.? The >> best result that can occur from the Sanders campaign would be that it leads to a >> split in the Democratic Party, and an end to the Rich Man?s Duopoly. > > > > > > All pages on the wsws.org site mentioning "1619 project" > https://www.wsws.org/en/search.html?sectionId=&maxResults=100&phrase=1619+project&submit=Search > > Tom Mackaman on "An interview with historian Clayborne Carson on the New York Times? 1619 Project" > https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/01/15/clay-j15.html > > "Higher Ground" program on WEFT > http://new.weft.org/publicaffairs/higherground.html > > Adolph Reed, Jr. on "What Materialist Black Political History Actually Looks Like" > https://nonsite.org/editorial/what-materialist-black-political-history-actually-looks-like > > > > J.B. Nicholson's notes > https://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/2020-January/051809.html > https://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace/2020-January/015648.html > > -J > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace From karenaram at hotmail.com Sun Jan 26 23:48:22 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2020 15:48:22 -0800 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] News from Neptune #448 notes In-Reply-To: References: <8bec2e2a-960e-4543-9c70-df3d760b405a@forestfield.org> Message-ID: Carl and David On the topic of racism, I suggest in addition to the African American scholars often referred to by you both, as well as CLR James, Ernst Mandel. In his brief book, ?The Meaning of World War Two,? recommended by David, it refers to the true origins of the war, and he clarifies the use of racism not as the ?cause of war,? but as a tool to vilify those we choose to victimize. I was watching a British series the other evening, dated 2004, dealing with WW2, and Nazi occupation, where the German Commander is saying, ?the reason for this war is we need to get rid of the Jews.? Only when we understand the true cause are we able to create and implement a solution. > On Jan 26, 2020, at 13:33, Karen Aram via Peace wrote: > > > > I liked Carl?s statement related to the NYT article making the point ?both Trump and Sanders as populists is opposition to neoliberal policies.? > It?s too bad Americans don?t recognize ?class,? as the great divide recognizing the shared grievances, and come together to reject our one Party system of neoliberalism, rather than fighting one another, for which our ruling elites have set us up. > > >> On Jan 25, 2020, at 12:31, J.B. Nicholson via Peace wrote: >> >> News from Neptune #448 >> Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF951fpWbV0 >> A "What War?" edition >> >> A list of links to items referenced on the show. >> >> Paul Street's articles on CounterPunch >> https://www.counterpunch.org/author/paul-street/ >> >> Rob Urie's articles on CounterPunch >> https://www.counterpunch.org/author/3abre/ >> >> Benjamin Studebaker & Aimee Terese's show "What's Left?" >> https://soundcloud.com/whatisleftpod/ -- list of recent episodes >> https://twitter.com/whatisleftpod -- Twitter account >> https://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:595199712/sounds.rss -- RSS feed >> >> Recent Jimmy Dore Show pieces about Elizabeth Warren >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5JWIiVMj6g >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vrzgVczc1Y -- CNN Conflates #MeToo & Warren's Attack On Bernie >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmyc--yEjHk -- Audio Confirms Warren's Attack On Bernie As Predicted! >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsXBm7aPPqA -- Progressive Destroys CNN's Garbage Bernie/Warren Reporting >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ_xK4_dpxw -- Bernie's Poll Numbers RISE After Warren Attack >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7UjRmQ5-CE -- Meghan McCain Twists Liz Warren Like Pretzel >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5X0OReq2IY -- NYTimes Blatantly Lying About Bernie/Warren >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQTWM1_qIcI -- Bernie/Warren Smackdown Start To Finish >> >> Paul Street on "A Letter From Iowa" >> https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/24/a-letter-from-iowa/ >> >> Tucker Carlson Tonight >> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlTLHnxSVuIzrARlmz9oCfQEF08UV-v-E >> >> New York Times Endorses Both Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar for Democratic Nominee >> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/19/opinion/amy-klobuchar-elizabeth-warren-nytimes-endorsement.html >> >> Daniele Albertazzi & Duncan McDonnell define populism >> http://www.palgrave.com/resources/sample-chapters/9780230013490_sample.pdf >> https://web.archive.org/web/20150924103230/http://www.palgrave.com/resources/sample-chapters/9780230013490_sample.pdf >> >> Populism >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populism >> >> Katie Miranda's Elizabeth Warren as contortionist >> https://mondoweiss.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/lizloz.jpg >> https://mondoweiss.net/2020/01/warrens-praise-and-occasional-criticism-of-israel-reflects-liberal-establishment-thinking/ >> >> >> >> >> >> Jimmy Dore shows Krystal Ball confusing a Clinton advisor >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GT2EOL13Wo >> >> Two suggestions on how to defeat New York Times' limited reading: >> >> 1. Turn off Javascript when reading pages from nytimes.com. This is easy to do in Firefox with the uMatrix browser add-on. This will also make all browsing faster. >> >> 2. Delete nytimes.com cookies after you no longer have any nytimes.com windows/tabs open. This is easy to do in Firefox with the Cookie AutoDelete add-on. >> >> These add-ons might work in other browsers as well, but I only recommend free software (software we're free to run, inspect, share, and modify). So I recommend Firefox. >> >> Elizabeth Bruenig on "Bernie Will Have to Fight Dirty" >> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/opinion/sanders-biden-2020-corruption.html >> >> Elizabeth Bruenig 'tweet' on her young child >> https://twitter.com/ebruenig/status/1221067805698723843 >> >> >> >> >> DNC lawyer Bruce Spiva to the court in the lawsuit started by the Bernie Sanders 2016 supporters against the DNC on how much power the DNC has to determine their own corporate representative (also known as the Democratic Party candidate for US President) >> http://jampac.us/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/042517cw2.pdf >> >> Tulsi Gabbard suing Hillary Clinton on Aaron Mat?'s "Pushback with Aaron Mat?" >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0BhVyWLBfQ >> >> Asad Abukhalili ("The Angry Arab") twitter.com posts on corporate media and corporate social media misrepresentation of the Iraqi protests against continued US occupation: >> https://twitter.com/asadabukhalil/status/1221131053609312256 -- "This crowd in Baghdad for example has been more circulated on social media than scenes of the hundreds of thousands in the anti-US protests of yesterday." >> >> https://twitter.com/asadabukhalil/status/1220918811517284352 -- "A million people took to the streets in Iraq again act US occupation but NYT managed to cite five people who are in favor of US occupation. Lousy journalism. ??I reject this kind of protest ? it is an abuse of the American and foreign presence,??" >> >> A followup from Hussain Bakar says the BBC is following suit in not covering the Baghdad protests properly either: >> >> https://twitter.com/HussainBakar1/status/1220920564941873153 -- "To some extent, same thing with the BBC too. A correspondent spoke about people who still yearn for the US' presence." >> >> >> >> Aaron Mat? interviews Scott Ritter >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK2kc0eOGS4 >> >> Jim Kavanagh on "Aftermath: The Iran War After the Soleimani Assassination" >> https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/24/aftermath-the-iran-war-after-the-soleimani-assassination/ >> >> The Grayzone >> https://thegrayzone.com/ -- Main site >> https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEXR8pRTkE2vFeJePNe9UcQ/videos -- Videos >> >> >> >> >> Glen Ford on "Throw Off the Dead Weight of the Democratic Party" (from February 11, 2016) >> https://blackagendareport.com/node/22770 >>> ?Blacks haven?t transformed the Democratic Party by our overwhelming presence. >>> Instead, the Party has transformed us ? and overwhelmed our radical politics.? The >>> best result that can occur from the Sanders campaign would be that it leads to a >>> split in the Democratic Party, and an end to the Rich Man?s Duopoly. >> >> >> >> >> >> All pages on the wsws.org site mentioning "1619 project" >> https://www.wsws.org/en/search.html?sectionId=&maxResults=100&phrase=1619+project&submit=Search >> >> Tom Mackaman on "An interview with historian Clayborne Carson on the New York Times? 1619 Project" >> https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/01/15/clay-j15.html >> >> "Higher Ground" program on WEFT >> http://new.weft.org/publicaffairs/higherground.html >> >> Adolph Reed, Jr. on "What Materialist Black Political History Actually Looks Like" >> https://nonsite.org/editorial/what-materialist-black-political-history-actually-looks-like >> >> >> >> J.B. Nicholson's notes >> https://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/2020-January/051809.html >> https://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace/2020-January/015648.html >> >> -J >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 jbn at forestfield.org Sun Jan 26 23:57:31 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2020 17:57:31 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] AWARE on the Air recommendation on class and the importance of historian Howard Zinn In-Reply-To: References: <8bec2e2a-960e-4543-9c70-df3d760b405a@forestfield.org> Message-ID: <19627cbe-0493-4f9c-1c06-c45bb1d6c7b1@forestfield.org> Karen Aram wrote: > I liked Carl?s statement related to the NYT article making the point ?both Trump > and Sanders as populists is opposition to neoliberal policies.? > > It?s too bad Americans don?t recognize ?class,? as the great divide recognizing > the shared grievances, and come together to reject our one Party system of > neoliberalism, rather than fighting one another, for which our ruling elites have > set us up. If you'd like to hear more on this, consider the following discussion on the importance of Howard Zinn (1922-2010) with Ray Suarez who has a new book out, "Conversations about A People's History: Truth Has a Power of Its Own". You've probably seen Suarez on PBS' "NewsHour" program. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7KHRb2dxkY (28m23s) is the latest "On Contact" with Chris Hedges where Hedges interviews Ray Suarez about class and "A People's History of the USA" by Howard Zinn. Here's an excerpt from the opener: > Ray Suarez: It's one of the reasons why we've never had a successful class-based > politics in this country because people cling to other master statuses as the way > of to think of themselves rather than a person who shares an economic state of > being with someone very much unlike them but they both face the same oppression. > Zinn: this is a popular theme and since writing he returns to it again and again; > an economic analysis class location but also this terrible story of how working > people become each other's enemies. -J From r-szoke at illinois.edu Mon Jan 27 00:47:23 2020 From: r-szoke at illinois.edu (Szoke, Ron) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2020 00:47:23 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Is rationality overrated? Message-ID: Sometimes, it?s better to be reasonable. By Sigal Samuel, Vox, Jan 20, 2020 Since the 1970s, behavioral economists ? from Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky to Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler ? have been chipping away at the idea that human beings are basically rational creatures. Their work has suggested that we?re actually a lot more irrational than we think. That?s caused no small amount of hand-wringing: Humans were supposed to be ?the rational animal?! Are we instead just doomed to keep making lots of terrible decisions? New research says there?s another way to look at it. What if people often choose to be irrational in cases where doing the rational thing would violate something they value more ? like socially conscious behavior? And if that?s the case, should we actually embrace some instances of irrationality rather than discounting it as an embarrassing nuisance? New research says there?s another way to look at it. What if people often choose to be irrational in cases where doing the rational thing would violate something they value more ? like socially conscious behavior? And if that?s the case, should we actually embrace some instances of irrationality rather than discounting it as an embarrassing nuisance? That?s one of the possibilities raised in an interesting psychology study published last week in Science Advances. Researchers based at the University of Waterloo in Canada wanted to understand what prompts people to use rationality ? or deviate from it ? in their decision-making. To get at this, they first analyzed reams of text to see what people generally take rationality to mean. ? ? From r-szoke at illinois.edu Mon Jan 27 00:47:23 2020 From: r-szoke at illinois.edu (Szoke, Ron) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2020 00:47:23 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Is rationality overrated? Message-ID: Sometimes, it?s better to be reasonable. By Sigal Samuel, Vox, Jan 20, 2020 Since the 1970s, behavioral economists ? from Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky to Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler ? have been chipping away at the idea that human beings are basically rational creatures. Their work has suggested that we?re actually a lot more irrational than we think. That?s caused no small amount of hand-wringing: Humans were supposed to be ?the rational animal?! Are we instead just doomed to keep making lots of terrible decisions? New research says there?s another way to look at it. What if people often choose to be irrational in cases where doing the rational thing would violate something they value more ? like socially conscious behavior? And if that?s the case, should we actually embrace some instances of irrationality rather than discounting it as an embarrassing nuisance? New research says there?s another way to look at it. What if people often choose to be irrational in cases where doing the rational thing would violate something they value more ? like socially conscious behavior? And if that?s the case, should we actually embrace some instances of irrationality rather than discounting it as an embarrassing nuisance? That?s one of the possibilities raised in an interesting psychology study published last week in Science Advances. Researchers based at the University of Waterloo in Canada wanted to understand what prompts people to use rationality ? or deviate from it ? in their decision-making. To get at this, they first analyzed reams of text to see what people generally take rationality to mean. ? ? From carl at newsfromneptune.com Mon Jan 27 00:59:34 2020 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2020 18:59:34 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] War with Iran Message-ID: <97D37E13-DEF2-4EEF-BD42-5B24D914FBC2@newsfromneptune.com> "...Iran will try its best to avoid all-out war. The U.S. will not. "This is the war that, as the NYT reports, 'Hawks in Israel and America have spent more than a decade agitating for.' "It will start, upon some pretext, with a full-scale U.S. air attack on Iran, followed by Iranian and allied attacks on U.S. forces and allies in the region, including Israel, and then an Israeli nuclear attack on Iran?which they think will end it. It is an incomprehensible disaster. And it?s becoming almost impossible to avoid. "The best prospect for stopping it would be for Iran and Russia to enter into a mutual defense treaty right now. But that?s not going to happen. Neither Russia nor China is going to fight for Iran. Why would they? They will sit back and watch the war destroy Iran, Israel, and the United States.? ?CGE From jbw292002 at gmail.com Mon Jan 27 01:11:09 2020 From: jbw292002 at gmail.com (John W.) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2020 19:11:09 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] War with Iran In-Reply-To: <97D37E13-DEF2-4EEF-BD42-5B24D914FBC2@newsfromneptune.com> References: <97D37E13-DEF2-4EEF-BD42-5B24D914FBC2@newsfromneptune.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 26, 2020, 7:00 PM C. G. Estabrook via Peace < peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote: > < > https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/24/aftermath-the-iran-war-after-the-soleimani-assassination/ > > > > "...Iran will try its best to avoid all-out war. The U.S. will not. > > "This is the war that, as the NYT reports, 'Hawks in Israel and America > have spent more than a decade agitating for.' > > "It will start, upon some pretext, with a full-scale U.S. air attack on > Iran, followed by Iranian and allied attacks on U.S. forces and allies in > the region, including Israel, and then an Israeli nuclear attack on > Iran?which they think will end it. It is an incomprehensible disaster. And > it?s becoming almost impossible to avoid. > > "The best prospect for stopping it would be for Iran and Russia to enter > into a mutual defense treaty right now. But that?s not going to happen. > Neither Russia nor China is going to fight for Iran. Why would they? They > will sit back and watch the war destroy Iran, Israel, and the United > States.? > > ?CGE > Except fallout. Ain't there nuclear fallout??? ?? _______________________________________________ > 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 Jan 27 01:23:33 2020 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2020 19:23:33 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] War with Iran In-Reply-To: References: <97D37E13-DEF2-4EEF-BD42-5B24D914FBC2@newsfromneptune.com> Message-ID: "Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks.? ?Gen. Buck Turgidson > On Jan 26, 2020, at 7:11 PM, John W. wrote: > > Except fallout. Ain't there nuclear fallout??? ?? > > On Sun, Jan 26, 2020, 7:00 PM C. G. Estabrook via Peace wrote: > > > "...Iran will try its best to avoid all-out war. The U.S. will not. > > "This is the war that, as the NYT reports, 'Hawks in Israel and America have spent more than a decade agitating for.' > > "It will start, upon some pretext, with a full-scale U.S. air attack on Iran, followed by Iranian and allied attacks on U.S. forces and allies in the region, including Israel, and then an Israeli nuclear attack on Iran?which they think will end it. It is an incomprehensible disaster. And it?s becoming almost impossible to avoid. > > "The best prospect for stopping it would be for Iran and Russia to enter into a mutual defense treaty right now. But that?s not going to happen. Neither Russia nor China is going to fight for Iran. Why would they? They will sit back and watch the war destroy Iran, Israel, and the United States.? > > > > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace From karenaram at hotmail.com Mon Jan 27 03:08:06 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2020 19:08:06 -0800 Subject: [Peace-discuss] War with Iran In-Reply-To: <97D37E13-DEF2-4EEF-BD42-5B24D914FBC2@newsfromneptune.com> References: <97D37E13-DEF2-4EEF-BD42-5B24D914FBC2@newsfromneptune.com> Message-ID: Carl Many say that Russia and China won?t intervene on behalf of Iran, but a war between the US, Iran, and Israel will impact all nations in the vicinity. Destruction of Iran by the US and/or Israel, means US control of the Straits of Hormutz, Yemen soon to fall to the KSA, and Eritrea with its proxy US military base involved in bombing Yemen, they are the two nations on each side of the Straits, both US allies once Yemen is finished off. The interruption of oil flowing to China and Russia if the Straits are block aided would bring them into the fray. I remember Wm. Blum?s warning that the neocons, if Trump was elected, would want war with Iran, or regime change if they can get it, as a stepping stone to Russia. Russia knows that very well, and China knows well what will happen to them if Russia falls, so I don?t see China or Russia backing off from supporting Iran anymore than Russia backed off from supporting Syria. Perhaps naive and wishful thinking on my part. > On Jan 26, 2020, at 16:59, C. G. Estabrook wrote: > > > > "...Iran will try its best to avoid all-out war. The U.S. will not. > > "This is the war that, as the NYT reports, 'Hawks in Israel and America have spent more than a decade agitating for.' > > "It will start, upon some pretext, with a full-scale U.S. air attack on Iran, followed by Iranian and allied attacks on U.S. forces and allies in the region, including Israel, and then an Israeli nuclear attack on Iran?which they think will end it. It is an incomprehensible disaster. And it?s becoming almost impossible to avoid. > > "The best prospect for stopping it would be for Iran and Russia to enter into a mutual defense treaty right now. But that?s not going to happen. Neither Russia nor China is going to fight for Iran. Why would they? They will sit back and watch the war destroy Iran, Israel, and the United States.? > > ?CGE From karenaram at hotmail.com Mon Jan 27 03:18:54 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2020 19:18:54 -0800 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] AWARE on the Air recommendation on class and the importance of historian Howard Zinn In-Reply-To: <19627cbe-0493-4f9c-1c06-c45bb1d6c7b1@forestfield.org> References: <8bec2e2a-960e-4543-9c70-df3d760b405a@forestfield.org> <19627cbe-0493-4f9c-1c06-c45bb1d6c7b1@forestfield.org> Message-ID: J.B. I did see Ray Suarez on Chris Hedges this morning, I never miss Hedges ?On Contact?. A socialist always recognizes ?class? as most important to focus on, if we are to eliminate inequality and exploitation. I also like Hedges two weeks ago, with Ron Purser whose book critiques ?Mindfulness,? which I see as a close relative of IP. I will check out the below links provided. Thank you again, for all you do. > On Jan 26, 2020, at 15:57, J.B. Nicholson via Peace wrote: > > Karen Aram wrote: >> I liked Carl?s statement related to the NYT article making the point ?both Trump and Sanders as populists is opposition to neoliberal policies.? >> It?s too bad Americans don?t recognize ?class,? as the great divide recognizing the shared grievances, and come together to reject our one Party system of neoliberalism, rather than fighting one another, for which our ruling elites have set us up. > If you'd like to hear more on this, consider the following discussion on the importance of Howard Zinn (1922-2010) with Ray Suarez who has a new book out, "Conversations about A People's History: Truth Has a Power of Its Own". You've probably seen Suarez on PBS' "NewsHour" program. > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7KHRb2dxkY (28m23s) is the latest "On Contact" with Chris Hedges where Hedges interviews Ray Suarez about class and "A People's History of the USA" by Howard Zinn. Here's an excerpt from the opener: > >> Ray Suarez: It's one of the reasons why we've never had a successful class-based politics in this country because people cling to other master statuses as the way of to think of themselves rather than a person who shares an economic state of being with someone very much unlike them but they both face the same oppression. Zinn: this is a popular theme and since writing he returns to it again and again; >> an economic analysis class location but also this terrible story of how working people become each other's enemies. > > -J > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace From carl at newsfromneptune.com Mon Jan 27 10:02:31 2020 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2020 04:02:31 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] US push for war Message-ID: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/26/us/politics/john-bolton-trump-book-takeaways.html What this testifies to is the split between Trump's populism (opposed to the pro-war and pro-austerity policies of the last and previous administrations) and the establishment's push for war in the Mideast, to deter Eurasian economic development (China-Russia-Iran), seen as a threat to the profits of the US 1%. Bolton of course is a vicious neocon. ?CGE [On the US push for war with Iran, see : '...Iran will try its best to avoid all-out war. The U.S. will not. This is the war that, as the NYT reports, ?Hawks in Israel and America have spent more than a decade agitating for.? It will start, upon some pretext, with a full-scale U.S. air attack on Iran, followed by Iranian and allied attacks on U.S. forces and allies in the region, including Israel, and then an Israeli nuclear attack on Iran?which they think will end it. It is an incomprehensible disaster. And it?s becoming almost impossible to avoid. 'The best prospect for stopping it would be for Iran and Russia to enter into a mutual defense treaty right now. But that?s not going to happen. Neither Russia nor China is going to fight for Iran. Why would they? They will sit back and watch the war destroy Iran, Israel, and the United States.? ### From moboct1 at aim.com Mon Jan 27 13:32:43 2020 From: moboct1 at aim.com (Mildred O'brien) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2020 13:32:43 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?q?Fwd=3A_Jill_Stein_on_Assange_and_democ?= =?utf-8?q?racy_and_empire=E2=80=A6?= In-Reply-To: <8936297C-50C0-43F4-B750-46DAEF4FCE21@illinois.edu> References: <30ECE05D-7CD1-42C9-BB45-B551EC98996A@illinois.edu> <8936297C-50C0-43F4-B750-46DAEF4FCE21@illinois.edu> Message-ID: <464022636.20418370.1580131963131@mail.yahoo.com> Thanks for sharing this, Mort.? I have used the analogy for some time of McCarthyism?on the current?political situation?in both parties ("one party with two right wings" as accurately identified by Gore Vidal) From:"Brussel, Morton K" Subject:Jill Stein on Assange and democracy and empire? Date:January 23, 2020 at 10:43:32 AM CST To:"Peace-discuss at antiwar.net" Cc:"Brussel, Morton K" Well worth a visit, even if one hour long.https://consortiumnews.com/2020/01/23/cn-live-season-2-episode-3-jill-stein-on-assange-and-the-new-mccarthyism/ The brilliance and humanity of Jill Stein is manifested. _______________________________________________ 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 Mon Jan 27 15:03:36 2020 From: moboct1 at aim.com (Mildred O'brien) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2020 15:03:36 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace-discuss] US push for war In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1527911639.20450055.1580137416813@mail.yahoo.com> Carl:? Thanks--I think--for sharing this comprehensive and disturbing analysis by Jim (no relation to Brett) Kavanagh.? Wow!? I'm not sure I can sleep at night instead of reaching for the Tullamore Dew.? Guess I shoulda been out on the street in freezing weather January 25 (for all the?good that would do on JCPOA).? Best to mobilize for Bernie?(for all the good that would do).? Impeachment is a lame waste of time... Midge?? -----Original Message----- From: C. G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss To: peace-discuss Cc: Peace Sent: Mon, Jan 27, 2020 4:03 am Subject: [Peace-discuss] US push for war https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/26/us/politics/john-bolton-trump-book-takeaways.html What this testifies to is the split between Trump's populism (opposed to the pro-war and pro-austerity policies of the last and previous administrations) and the establishment's push for war in the Mideast, to deter Eurasian economic development (China-Russia-Iran), seen as a threat to the profits of the US 1%. Bolton of course is a vicious neocon. ?CGE [On the US push for war with Iran, see : '...Iran will try its best to avoid all-out war. The U.S. will not. This is the war that, as the NYT reports, ?Hawks in Israel and America have spent more than a decade agitating for.? It will start, upon some pretext, with a full-scale U.S. air attack on Iran, followed by Iranian and allied attacks on U.S. forces and allies in the region, including Israel, and then an Israeli nuclear attack on Iran?which they think will end it. It is an incomprehensible disaster. And it?s becoming almost impossible to avoid. 'The best prospect for stopping it would be for Iran and Russia to enter into a mutual defense treaty right now. But that?s not going to happen. Neither Russia nor China is going to fight for Iran. Why would they? They will sit back and watch the war destroy Iran, Israel, and the United States.? ### _______________________________________________ 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 carl at newsfromneptune.com Mon Jan 27 16:09:08 2020 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2020 10:09:08 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] US push for war In-Reply-To: <1527911639.20450055.1580137416813@mail.yahoo.com> References: <1527911639.20450055.1580137416813@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Midge? I agree with you - including the Tullamore Dew, staying in on the 25th, Bernie, and the waste of impeachment. ?...night is coming when no one can work.? Ora pro nobis, CGE > On Jan 27, 2020, at 9:03 AM, Mildred O'brien wrote: > > Carl: Thanks--I think--for sharing this comprehensive and disturbing analysis by Jim (no relation to Brett) Kavanagh. Wow! I'm not sure I can sleep at night instead of reaching for the Tullamore Dew. Guess I shoulda been out on the street in freezing weather January 25 (for all the good that would do on JCPOA). Best to mobilize for Bernie (for all the good that would do). Impeachment is a lame waste of time... > > Midge > > > -----Original Message----- > From: C. G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss > To: peace-discuss > Cc: Peace > Sent: Mon, Jan 27, 2020 4:03 am > Subject: [Peace-discuss] US push for war > > https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/26/us/politics/john-bolton-trump-book-takeaways.html > > What this testifies to is the split between Trump's populism (opposed to the pro-war and pro-austerity policies of the last and previous administrations) and the establishment's push for war in the Mideast, to deter Eurasian economic development (China-Russia-Iran), seen as a threat to the profits of the US 1%. > > Bolton of course is a vicious neocon. > > ?CGE > > [On the US push for war with Iran, see : > > '...Iran will try its best to avoid all-out war. The U.S. will not. This is the war that, as the NYT reports, ?Hawks in Israel and America have spent more than a decade agitating for.? It will start, upon some pretext, with a full-scale U.S. air attack on Iran, followed by Iranian and allied attacks on U.S. forces and allies in the region, including Israel, and then an Israeli nuclear attack on Iran?which they think will end it. It is an incomprehensible disaster. And it?s becoming almost impossible to avoid. > > 'The best prospect for stopping it would be for Iran and Russia to enter into a mutual defense treaty right now. But that?s not going to happen. Neither Russia nor China is going to fight for Iran. Why would they? They will sit back and watch the war destroy Iran, Israel, and the United States.? > > ### > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss From carl at newsfromneptune.com Mon Jan 27 19:37:47 2020 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2020 13:37:47 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: Environmental Voter Guide: We Just Graded the Candidates References: <5A.5A.19186.4FE2F2E5@asv11mtam002.ngpweb.com> Message-ID: <0FDF5B5C-695E-48A5-B2E2-B5BC98727854@newsfromneptune.com> > Begin forwarded message: > > From: "Kier?n Suckling, Center Action Fund" > Subject: Environmental Voter Guide: We Just Graded the Candidates > Date: January 27, 2020 at 12:41:55 PM CST > To: "Cg Estabrook" > Reply-To: kieran at centeractionfund.org > > > > Hi Cg, > > This is a critical election year ? and it's more important than ever we understand where candidates stand on the most important environmental issues of our time, and hold them accountable for their records and their promises. > > That's why just hours ago the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund, the 501(c)(4) political arm of the Center, released our first-ever voter guide evaluating the major Democratic presidential candidates on the wildlife extinction emergency, protecting public lands, addressing environmental justice and taking on the climate crisis. > > Read the full guide and what's behind the grades here. > > The next four years will determine so much about the future of our planet. > > We need leaders who have the courage and vision to do what's needed to stem the extinction crisis, take on the global climate emergency, protect wild places and do right by local communities. > > It's time for all candidates ? as well as the Democratic Party ? to prioritize these critical issues. > > Take a look at the scorecard and then get involved so that whoever challenges Trump values wildlife and public lands as much as you do. > > For the wild, > > > > Kier?n Suckling > President of the Board > Center Action Fund > P.S. The consequences of another four years of Trump are staggering to think about. We must win this fight, and to do so, we need you with us. Please chip in to the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund today so we can advance real leaders in local communities and on the national stage . > > Donate > > > Gifts to the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund are used to advance elected officials who will fight for wildlife and our environment, and are not tax deductible as a charitable contribution or business expense. > > > This message was sent to carl at newsfromneptune.com . > Opt out of mail list. > > The Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund paid for this communication and is solely responsible for its content. It's not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. > > Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund > 1411 K Street NW, Suite 1300 > Washington, DC 20005 > United States -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From carl at newsfromneptune.com Mon Jan 27 21:09:27 2020 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2020 15:09:27 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Warren fp team: pro-war/regime change Message-ID: https://thegrayzone.com/2020/01/26/elizabeth-warren-foreign-policy-team-pro-war-regime-change/ From jbw292002 at gmail.com Mon Jan 27 22:42:56 2020 From: jbw292002 at gmail.com (John W.) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2020 16:42:56 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] News from Neptune #448 notes In-Reply-To: References: <8bec2e2a-960e-4543-9c70-df3d760b405a@forestfield.org> Message-ID: On Sun, Jan 26, 2020 at 5:49 PM Karen Aram via Peace < peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote: Carl and David > > On the topic of racism, I suggest in addition to the African American > scholars often referred to by you both, as well as CLR James, Ernst > Mandel. In his brief book, ?The Meaning of World War Two,? recommended by > David, it refers to the true origins of the war, and he clarifies the use > of racism not as the ?cause of war,? but as a tool to vilify those we > choose to victimize. > I'm a bit confused. If war is used as a tool to vilify, to victimize (or dare I say exterminate?) how is that racial victimization not the cause, or a cause, of the war? What's the distinction? > I was watching a British series the other evening, dated 2004, dealing > with WW2, and Nazi occupation, where the German Commander is saying, ?the > reason for this war is we need to get rid of the Jews.? > > Only when we understand the true cause are we able to create and implement > a solution. > The "true cause".... The reason? In this example, getting rid of the Jews? Is that not the true cause? > > On Jan 26, 2020, at 13:33, Karen Aram via Peace < > peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote: > > > > > > > > I liked Carl?s statement related to the NYT article making the point > ?both Trump and Sanders as populists is opposition to neoliberal policies.? > > It?s too bad Americans don?t recognize ?class,? as the great divide > recognizing the shared grievances, and come together to reject our one > Party system of neoliberalism, rather than fighting one another, for which > our ruling elites have set us up. > > > > > >> On Jan 25, 2020, at 12:31, J.B. Nicholson via Peace < > peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote: > >> > >> News from Neptune #448 > >> Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF951fpWbV0 > >> A "What War?" edition > >> > >> A list of links to items referenced on the show. > >> > >> Paul Street's articles on CounterPunch > >> https://www.counterpunch.org/author/paul-street/ > >> > >> Rob Urie's articles on CounterPunch > >> https://www.counterpunch.org/author/3abre/ > >> > >> Benjamin Studebaker & Aimee Terese's show "What's Left?" > >> https://soundcloud.com/whatisleftpod/ -- list of recent episodes > >> https://twitter.com/whatisleftpod -- Twitter account > >> > https://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:595199712/sounds.rss > -- RSS feed > >> > >> Recent Jimmy Dore Show pieces about Elizabeth Warren > >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5JWIiVMj6g > >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vrzgVczc1Y -- CNN Conflates #MeToo & > Warren's Attack On Bernie > >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmyc--yEjHk -- Audio Confirms Warren's > Attack On Bernie As Predicted! > >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsXBm7aPPqA -- Progressive Destroys > CNN's Garbage Bernie/Warren Reporting > >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ_xK4_dpxw -- Bernie's Poll Numbers > RISE After Warren Attack > >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7UjRmQ5-CE -- Meghan McCain Twists > Liz Warren Like Pretzel > >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5X0OReq2IY -- NYTimes Blatantly Lying > About Bernie/Warren > >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQTWM1_qIcI -- Bernie/Warren Smackdown > Start To Finish > >> > >> Paul Street on "A Letter From Iowa" > >> https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/24/a-letter-from-iowa/ > >> > >> Tucker Carlson Tonight > >> > https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlTLHnxSVuIzrARlmz9oCfQEF08UV-v-E > >> > >> New York Times Endorses Both Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar for > Democratic Nominee > >> > https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/19/opinion/amy-klobuchar-elizabeth-warren-nytimes-endorsement.html > >> > >> Daniele Albertazzi & Duncan McDonnell define populism > >> > http://www.palgrave.com/resources/sample-chapters/9780230013490_sample.pdf > >> > https://web.archive.org/web/20150924103230/http://www.palgrave.com/resources/sample-chapters/9780230013490_sample.pdf > >> > >> Populism > >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populism > >> > >> Katie Miranda's Elizabeth Warren as contortionist > >> https://mondoweiss.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/lizloz.jpg > >> > https://mondoweiss.net/2020/01/warrens-praise-and-occasional-criticism-of-israel-reflects-liberal-establishment-thinking/ > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> Jimmy Dore shows Krystal Ball confusing a Clinton advisor > >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GT2EOL13Wo > >> > >> Two suggestions on how to defeat New York Times' limited reading: > >> > >> 1. Turn off Javascript when reading pages from nytimes.com. This is > easy to do in Firefox with the uMatrix browser add-on. This will also make > all browsing faster. > >> > >> 2. Delete nytimes.com cookies after you no longer have any nytimes.com > windows/tabs open. This is easy to do in Firefox with the Cookie AutoDelete > add-on. > >> > >> These add-ons might work in other browsers as well, but I only > recommend free software (software we're free to run, inspect, share, and > modify). So I recommend Firefox. > >> > >> Elizabeth Bruenig on "Bernie Will Have to Fight Dirty" > >> > https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/opinion/sanders-biden-2020-corruption.html > >> > >> Elizabeth Bruenig 'tweet' on her young child > >> https://twitter.com/ebruenig/status/1221067805698723843 > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> DNC lawyer Bruce Spiva to the court in the lawsuit started by the > Bernie Sanders 2016 supporters against the DNC on how much power the DNC > has to determine their own corporate representative (also known as the > Democratic Party candidate for US President) > >> http://jampac.us/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/042517cw2.pdf > >> > >> Tulsi Gabbard suing Hillary Clinton on Aaron Mat?'s "Pushback with > Aaron Mat?" > >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0BhVyWLBfQ > >> > >> Asad Abukhalili ("The Angry Arab") twitter.com posts on corporate > media and corporate social media misrepresentation of the Iraqi protests > against continued US occupation: > >> https://twitter.com/asadabukhalil/status/1221131053609312256 -- "This > crowd in Baghdad for example has been more circulated on social media than > scenes of the hundreds of thousands in the anti-US protests of yesterday." > >> > >> https://twitter.com/asadabukhalil/status/1220918811517284352 -- "A > million people took to the streets in Iraq again act US occupation but NYT > managed to cite five people who are in favor of US occupation. Lousy > journalism. ??I reject this kind of protest ? it is an abuse of the > American and foreign presence,??" > >> > >> A followup from Hussain Bakar says the BBC is following suit in not > covering the Baghdad protests properly either: > >> > >> https://twitter.com/HussainBakar1/status/1220920564941873153 -- "To > some extent, same thing with the BBC too. A correspondent spoke about > people who still yearn for the US' presence." > >> > >> > >> > >> Aaron Mat? interviews Scott Ritter > >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK2kc0eOGS4 > >> > >> Jim Kavanagh on "Aftermath: The Iran War After the Soleimani > Assassination" > >> > https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/24/aftermath-the-iran-war-after-the-soleimani-assassination/ > >> > >> The Grayzone > >> https://thegrayzone.com/ -- Main site > >> https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEXR8pRTkE2vFeJePNe9UcQ/videos -- > Videos > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> Glen Ford on "Throw Off the Dead Weight of the Democratic Party" (from > February 11, 2016) > >> https://blackagendareport.com/node/22770 > >>> ?Blacks haven?t transformed the Democratic Party by our overwhelming > presence. > >>> Instead, the Party has transformed us ? and overwhelmed our radical > politics.? The > >>> best result that can occur from the Sanders campaign would be that it > leads to a > >>> split in the Democratic Party, and an end to the Rich Man?s Duopoly. > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> All pages on the wsws.org site mentioning "1619 project" > >> > https://www.wsws.org/en/search.html?sectionId=&maxResults=100&phrase=1619+project&submit=Search > >> > >> Tom Mackaman on "An interview with historian Clayborne Carson on the > New York Times? 1619 Project" > >> https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/01/15/clay-j15.html > >> > >> "Higher Ground" program on WEFT > >> http://new.weft.org/publicaffairs/higherground.html > >> > >> Adolph Reed, Jr. on "What Materialist Black Political History Actually > Looks Like" > >> > https://nonsite.org/editorial/what-materialist-black-political-history-actually-looks-like > >> > >> > >> > >> J.B. Nicholson's notes > >> > https://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/2020-January/051809.html > >> https://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace/2020-January/015648.html > >> > >> -J > >> _______________________________________________ > >> 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 karenaram at hotmail.com Mon Jan 27 23:37:23 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2020 15:37:23 -0800 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] News from Neptune #448 notes In-Reply-To: References: <8bec2e2a-960e-4543-9c70-df3d760b405a@forestfield.org> Message-ID: John, I didn?t say war is a tool used to vilify, I said racism is a tool used to vilify victims of our wars etc. Racism is a component, an important component, of war. The cause of war, colonialism, and imperialism is to steal or control the resources and/or to utilize the inexpensive labor for profit. Profit is the goal of capitalism. Capitalism will collapse without imperialism to prop it up. Understanding class is necessary to understanding inequality. I?m neither a teacher nor an academic, there are others who can explain it much better than I. I recommend reading ?The Black Jacobins?, by CLR James, and or the book by Ernst Mandel referred to below. . > On Jan 27, 2020, at 14:42, John W. wrote: > > > On Sun, Jan 26, 2020 at 5:49 PM Karen Aram via Peace > wrote: > > Carl and David > > On the topic of racism, I suggest in addition to the African American scholars often referred to by you both, as well as CLR James, Ernst Mandel. In his brief book, ?The Meaning of World War Two,? recommended by David, it refers to the true origins of the war, and he clarifies the use of racism not as the ?cause of war,? but as a tool to vilify those we choose to victimize. > > I'm a bit confused. If war is used as a tool to vilify, to victimize (or dare I say exterminate?) how is that racial victimization not the cause, or a cause, of the war? What's the distinction? > > > I was watching a British series the other evening, dated 2004, dealing with WW2, and Nazi occupation, where the German Commander is saying, ?the reason for this war is we need to get rid of the Jews.? > > Only when we understand the true cause are we able to create and implement a solution. > > The "true cause".... The reason? In this example, getting rid of the Jews? Is that not the true cause? > > > > > On Jan 26, 2020, at 13:33, Karen Aram via Peace > wrote: > > > > > > > > I liked Carl?s statement related to the NYT article making the point ?both Trump and Sanders as populists is opposition to neoliberal policies.? > > It?s too bad Americans don?t recognize ?class,? as the great divide recognizing the shared grievances, and come together to reject our one Party system of neoliberalism, rather than fighting one another, for which our ruling elites have set us up. > > > > > >> On Jan 25, 2020, at 12:31, J.B. Nicholson via Peace > wrote: > >> > >> News from Neptune #448 > >> Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF951fpWbV0 > >> A "What War?" edition > >> > >> A list of links to items referenced on the show. > >> > >> Paul Street's articles on CounterPunch > >> https://www.counterpunch.org/author/paul-street/ > >> > >> Rob Urie's articles on CounterPunch > >> https://www.counterpunch.org/author/3abre/ > >> > >> Benjamin Studebaker & Aimee Terese's show "What's Left?" > >> https://soundcloud.com/whatisleftpod/ -- list of recent episodes > >> https://twitter.com/whatisleftpod -- Twitter account > >> https://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:595199712/sounds.rss -- RSS feed > >> > >> Recent Jimmy Dore Show pieces about Elizabeth Warren > >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5JWIiVMj6g > >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vrzgVczc1Y -- CNN Conflates #MeToo & Warren's Attack On Bernie > >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmyc--yEjHk -- Audio Confirms Warren's Attack On Bernie As Predicted! > >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsXBm7aPPqA -- Progressive Destroys CNN's Garbage Bernie/Warren Reporting > >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ_xK4_dpxw -- Bernie's Poll Numbers RISE After Warren Attack > >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7UjRmQ5-CE -- Meghan McCain Twists Liz Warren Like Pretzel > >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5X0OReq2IY -- NYTimes Blatantly Lying About Bernie/Warren > >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQTWM1_qIcI -- Bernie/Warren Smackdown Start To Finish > >> > >> Paul Street on "A Letter From Iowa" > >> https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/24/a-letter-from-iowa/ > >> > >> Tucker Carlson Tonight > >> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlTLHnxSVuIzrARlmz9oCfQEF08UV-v-E > >> > >> New York Times Endorses Both Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar for Democratic Nominee > >> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/19/opinion/amy-klobuchar-elizabeth-warren-nytimes-endorsement.html > >> > >> Daniele Albertazzi & Duncan McDonnell define populism > >> http://www.palgrave.com/resources/sample-chapters/9780230013490_sample.pdf > >> https://web.archive.org/web/20150924103230/http://www.palgrave.com/resources/sample-chapters/9780230013490_sample.pdf > >> > >> Populism > >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populism > >> > >> Katie Miranda's Elizabeth Warren as contortionist > >> https://mondoweiss.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/lizloz.jpg > >> https://mondoweiss.net/2020/01/warrens-praise-and-occasional-criticism-of-israel-reflects-liberal-establishment-thinking/ > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> Jimmy Dore shows Krystal Ball confusing a Clinton advisor > >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GT2EOL13Wo > >> > >> Two suggestions on how to defeat New York Times' limited reading: > >> > >> 1. Turn off Javascript when reading pages from nytimes.com . This is easy to do in Firefox with the uMatrix browser add-on. This will also make all browsing faster. > >> > >> 2. Delete nytimes.com cookies after you no longer have any nytimes.com windows/tabs open. This is easy to do in Firefox with the Cookie AutoDelete add-on. > >> > >> These add-ons might work in other browsers as well, but I only recommend free software (software we're free to run, inspect, share, and modify). So I recommend Firefox. > >> > >> Elizabeth Bruenig on "Bernie Will Have to Fight Dirty" > >> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/opinion/sanders-biden-2020-corruption.html > >> > >> Elizabeth Bruenig 'tweet' on her young child > >> https://twitter.com/ebruenig/status/1221067805698723843 > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> DNC lawyer Bruce Spiva to the court in the lawsuit started by the Bernie Sanders 2016 supporters against the DNC on how much power the DNC has to determine their own corporate representative (also known as the Democratic Party candidate for US President) > >> http://jampac.us/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/042517cw2.pdf > >> > >> Tulsi Gabbard suing Hillary Clinton on Aaron Mat?'s "Pushback with Aaron Mat?" > >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0BhVyWLBfQ > >> > >> Asad Abukhalili ("The Angry Arab") twitter.com posts on corporate media and corporate social media misrepresentation of the Iraqi protests against continued US occupation: > >> https://twitter.com/asadabukhalil/status/1221131053609312256 -- "This crowd in Baghdad for example has been more circulated on social media than scenes of the hundreds of thousands in the anti-US protests of yesterday." > >> > >> https://twitter.com/asadabukhalil/status/1220918811517284352 -- "A million people took to the streets in Iraq again act US occupation but NYT managed to cite five people who are in favor of US occupation. Lousy journalism. ??I reject this kind of protest ? it is an abuse of the American and foreign presence,??" > >> > >> A followup from Hussain Bakar says the BBC is following suit in not covering the Baghdad protests properly either: > >> > >> https://twitter.com/HussainBakar1/status/1220920564941873153 -- "To some extent, same thing with the BBC too. A correspondent spoke about people who still yearn for the US' presence." > >> > >> > >> > >> Aaron Mat? interviews Scott Ritter > >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK2kc0eOGS4 > >> > >> Jim Kavanagh on "Aftermath: The Iran War After the Soleimani Assassination" > >> https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/24/aftermath-the-iran-war-after-the-soleimani-assassination/ > >> > >> The Grayzone > >> https://thegrayzone.com/ -- Main site > >> https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEXR8pRTkE2vFeJePNe9UcQ/videos -- Videos > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> Glen Ford on "Throw Off the Dead Weight of the Democratic Party" (from February 11, 2016) > >> https://blackagendareport.com/node/22770 > >>> ?Blacks haven?t transformed the Democratic Party by our overwhelming presence. > >>> Instead, the Party has transformed us ? and overwhelmed our radical politics.? The > >>> best result that can occur from the Sanders campaign would be that it leads to a > >>> split in the Democratic Party, and an end to the Rich Man?s Duopoly. > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> All pages on the wsws.org site mentioning "1619 project" > >> https://www.wsws.org/en/search.html?sectionId=&maxResults=100&phrase=1619+project&submit=Search > >> > >> Tom Mackaman on "An interview with historian Clayborne Carson on the New York Times? 1619 Project" > >> https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/01/15/clay-j15.html > >> > >> "Higher Ground" program on WEFT > >> http://new.weft.org/publicaffairs/higherground.html > >> > >> Adolph Reed, Jr. on "What Materialist Black Political History Actually Looks Like" > >> https://nonsite.org/editorial/what-materialist-black-political-history-actually-looks-like > >> > >> > >> > >> J.B. Nicholson's notes > >> https://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/2020-January/051809.html > >> https://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace/2020-January/015648.html > >> > >> -J > >> _______________________________________________ > >> 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 Tue Jan 28 01:00:31 2020 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2020 19:00:31 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] News from Neptune #448 notes In-Reply-To: References: <8bec2e2a-960e-4543-9c70-df3d760b405a@forestfield.org> Message-ID: http://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article6381 ?Material, social and ideological preconditions for the Nazi genocide? by Ernest Mandel This is the text of Ernest Mandel?s contribution to a symposium on the Nazi genocide held in Brussels in 1988. It was first published in French in Yannis Thanassekos and Heinz Wismann, eds., R?vision de l?Histoire: Totalitarisme, crimes et g?nocides nazis, Editions du Cerf, Paris 1990, pp. 169-74. The English translation was published in Gilbert Achcar. ed., The Legacy of Ernest Mandel, Verso, London 1999, pp. 225 - 232. > On Jan 27, 2020, at 4:42 PM, John W. wrote: > > > On Sun, Jan 26, 2020 at 5:49 PM Karen Aram via Peace wrote: > > Carl and David > > On the topic of racism, I suggest in addition to the African American scholars often referred to by you both, as well as CLR James, Ernst Mandel. In his brief book, ?The Meaning of World War Two,? recommended by David, it refers to the true origins of the war, and he clarifies the use of racism not as the ?cause of war,? but as a tool to vilify those we choose to victimize. > > I'm a bit confused. If war is used as a tool to vilify, to victimize (or dare I say exterminate?) how is that racial victimization not the cause, or a cause, of the war? What's the distinction? > > > I was watching a British series the other evening, dated 2004, dealing with WW2, and Nazi occupation, where the German Commander is saying, ?the reason for this war is we need to get rid of the Jews.? > > Only when we understand the true cause are we able to create and implement a solution. > > The "true cause".... The reason? In this example, getting rid of the Jews? Is that not the true cause? > > > > > On Jan 26, 2020, at 13:33, Karen Aram via Peace wrote: > > > > > > > > I liked Carl?s statement related to the NYT article making the point ?both Trump and Sanders as populists is opposition to neoliberal policies.? > > It?s too bad Americans don?t recognize ?class,? as the great divide recognizing the shared grievances, and come together to reject our one Party system of neoliberalism, rather than fighting one another, for which our ruling elites have set us up. > > > > > >> On Jan 25, 2020, at 12:31, J.B. Nicholson via Peace wrote: > >> > >> News from Neptune #448 > >> Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF951fpWbV0 > >> A "What War?" edition > >> > >> A list of links to items referenced on the show. > >> > >> Paul Street's articles on CounterPunch > >> https://www.counterpunch.org/author/paul-street/ > >> > >> Rob Urie's articles on CounterPunch > >> https://www.counterpunch.org/author/3abre/ > >> > >> Benjamin Studebaker & Aimee Terese's show "What's Left?" > >> https://soundcloud.com/whatisleftpod/ -- list of recent episodes > >> https://twitter.com/whatisleftpod -- Twitter account > >> https://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:595199712/sounds.rss -- RSS feed > >> > >> Recent Jimmy Dore Show pieces about Elizabeth Warren > >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5JWIiVMj6g > >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vrzgVczc1Y -- CNN Conflates #MeToo & Warren's Attack On Bernie > >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmyc--yEjHk -- Audio Confirms Warren's Attack On Bernie As Predicted! > >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsXBm7aPPqA -- Progressive Destroys CNN's Garbage Bernie/Warren Reporting > >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ_xK4_dpxw -- Bernie's Poll Numbers RISE After Warren Attack > >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7UjRmQ5-CE -- Meghan McCain Twists Liz Warren Like Pretzel > >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5X0OReq2IY -- NYTimes Blatantly Lying About Bernie/Warren > >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQTWM1_qIcI -- Bernie/Warren Smackdown Start To Finish > >> > >> Paul Street on "A Letter From Iowa" > >> https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/24/a-letter-from-iowa/ > >> > >> Tucker Carlson Tonight > >> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlTLHnxSVuIzrARlmz9oCfQEF08UV-v-E > >> > >> New York Times Endorses Both Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar for Democratic Nominee > >> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/19/opinion/amy-klobuchar-elizabeth-warren-nytimes-endorsement.html > >> > >> Daniele Albertazzi & Duncan McDonnell define populism > >> http://www.palgrave.com/resources/sample-chapters/9780230013490_sample.pdf > >> https://web.archive.org/web/20150924103230/http://www.palgrave.com/resources/sample-chapters/9780230013490_sample.pdf > >> > >> Populism > >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populism > >> > >> Katie Miranda's Elizabeth Warren as contortionist > >> https://mondoweiss.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/lizloz.jpg > >> https://mondoweiss.net/2020/01/warrens-praise-and-occasional-criticism-of-israel-reflects-liberal-establishment-thinking/ > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> Jimmy Dore shows Krystal Ball confusing a Clinton advisor > >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GT2EOL13Wo > >> > >> Two suggestions on how to defeat New York Times' limited reading: > >> > >> 1. Turn off Javascript when reading pages from nytimes.com. This is easy to do in Firefox with the uMatrix browser add-on. This will also make all browsing faster. > >> > >> 2. Delete nytimes.com cookies after you no longer have any nytimes.com windows/tabs open. This is easy to do in Firefox with the Cookie AutoDelete add-on. > >> > >> These add-ons might work in other browsers as well, but I only recommend free software (software we're free to run, inspect, share, and modify). So I recommend Firefox. > >> > >> Elizabeth Bruenig on "Bernie Will Have to Fight Dirty" > >> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/opinion/sanders-biden-2020-corruption.html > >> > >> Elizabeth Bruenig 'tweet' on her young child > >> https://twitter.com/ebruenig/status/1221067805698723843 > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> DNC lawyer Bruce Spiva to the court in the lawsuit started by the Bernie Sanders 2016 supporters against the DNC on how much power the DNC has to determine their own corporate representative (also known as the Democratic Party candidate for US President) > >> http://jampac.us/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/042517cw2.pdf > >> > >> Tulsi Gabbard suing Hillary Clinton on Aaron Mat?'s "Pushback with Aaron Mat?" > >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0BhVyWLBfQ > >> > >> Asad Abukhalili ("The Angry Arab") twitter.com posts on corporate media and corporate social media misrepresentation of the Iraqi protests against continued US occupation: > >> https://twitter.com/asadabukhalil/status/1221131053609312256 -- "This crowd in Baghdad for example has been more circulated on social media than scenes of the hundreds of thousands in the anti-US protests of yesterday." > >> > >> https://twitter.com/asadabukhalil/status/1220918811517284352 -- "A million people took to the streets in Iraq again act US occupation but NYT managed to cite five people who are in favor of US occupation. Lousy journalism. ??I reject this kind of protest ? it is an abuse of the American and foreign presence,??" > >> > >> A followup from Hussain Bakar says the BBC is following suit in not covering the Baghdad protests properly either: > >> > >> https://twitter.com/HussainBakar1/status/1220920564941873153 -- "To some extent, same thing with the BBC too. A correspondent spoke about people who still yearn for the US' presence." > >> > >> > >> > >> Aaron Mat? interviews Scott Ritter > >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK2kc0eOGS4 > >> > >> Jim Kavanagh on "Aftermath: The Iran War After the Soleimani Assassination" > >> https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/24/aftermath-the-iran-war-after-the-soleimani-assassination/ > >> > >> The Grayzone > >> https://thegrayzone.com/ -- Main site > >> https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEXR8pRTkE2vFeJePNe9UcQ/videos -- Videos > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> Glen Ford on "Throw Off the Dead Weight of the Democratic Party" (from February 11, 2016) > >> https://blackagendareport.com/node/22770 > >>> ?Blacks haven?t transformed the Democratic Party by our overwhelming presence. > >>> Instead, the Party has transformed us ? and overwhelmed our radical politics.? The > >>> best result that can occur from the Sanders campaign would be that it leads to a > >>> split in the Democratic Party, and an end to the Rich Man?s Duopoly. > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> All pages on the wsws.org site mentioning "1619 project" > >> https://www.wsws.org/en/search.html?sectionId=&maxResults=100&phrase=1619+project&submit=Search > >> > >> Tom Mackaman on "An interview with historian Clayborne Carson on the New York Times? 1619 Project" > >> https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/01/15/clay-j15.html > >> > >> "Higher Ground" program on WEFT > >> http://new.weft.org/publicaffairs/higherground.html > >> > >> Adolph Reed, Jr. on "What Materialist Black Political History Actually Looks Like" > >> https://nonsite.org/editorial/what-materialist-black-political-history-actually-looks-like > >> > >> > >> > >> J.B. Nicholson's notes > >> https://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/2020-January/051809.html > >> https://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace/2020-January/015648.html > >> > >> -J > >> _______________________________________________ > >> 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 From carl at newsfromneptune.com Tue Jan 28 01:03:09 2020 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2020 19:03:09 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: Tell Congress: Vote YES on Measures to Prevent War with Iran! References: <17b4f-2e11-5e2f6439@list.fcnl.org> Message-ID: <0E919274-4C90-4F7C-BE29-9F6CE7D1B291@newsfromneptune.com> > Begin forwarded message: > > From: "Hassan El-Tayyab, FCNL" > Subject: Tell Congress: Vote YES on Measures to Prevent War with Iran! > Date: January 27, 2020 at 4:29:27 PM CST > To: "Dr. C. G. Estabrook" > Reply-To: support at fcnl.org > > View online ? > > > > Dear C. G., > > On Thursday, Rep. Davis will vote on two important amendments to prevent war with Iran: > > Rep. Ro Khanna?s (CA-17) measure to prevent funding for an unauthorized war with Iran. > Rep. Barbara Lee?s (CA-13) repeal of the 2002 Iraq Authorization for Use of Military Force, which was recently invoked by the Trump administration as the legal basis for the assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani. > Act Now > In this moment of heightened tensions, every vote is critical. We must be unrelenting in calling on Congress to return to diplomacy, reassert its war authority, and prevent yet another endless war in the Middle East. > > Each time Congress votes on resolutions to prevent war, they are sending an undeniable message: the American people do not support war with Iran. > > Your voice is needed once again: Urge Rep. Davis to vote for these measures and prevent further unauthorized war. > > > Sincerely, > Hassan El-Tayyab > Legislative Manager for Middle East Policy > > > > > Update your contact information. > > We are Quakers and friends changing public policy. > > Find Events | Make a Donation | More About FCNL > Follow us on: > > > > 245 2nd Street NE Washington, DC 20002 | 800-630-1330 > > ? Friends Committee on National Legislation | Powered by ActionKit | Design by Threespot > > > > You can unsubscribe from this mailing list at any time. > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Tue Jan 28 02:03:25 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2020 18:03:25 -0800 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] News from Neptune #448 notes In-Reply-To: References: <8bec2e2a-960e-4543-9c70-df3d760b405a@forestfield.org> Message-ID: It should be noted that Ernest Mandel was a German born, Belgian Jew who fought in the Belgian underground resistance during the Nazi occupation. > On Jan 27, 2020, at 17:00, C. G. Estabrook wrote: > > http://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article6381 > > ?Material, social and ideological preconditions for the Nazi genocide? by Ernest Mandel > > This is the text of Ernest Mandel?s contribution to a symposium on the Nazi genocide held in Brussels in 1988. It was first published in French in Yannis Thanassekos and Heinz Wismann, eds., R?vision de l?Histoire: Totalitarisme, crimes et g?nocides nazis, Editions du Cerf, Paris 1990, pp. 169-74. The English translation was published in Gilbert Achcar. ed., The Legacy of Ernest Mandel, Verso, London 1999, pp. 225 - 232. > > >> On Jan 27, 2020, at 4:42 PM, John W. wrote: >> >> >> On Sun, Jan 26, 2020 at 5:49 PM Karen Aram via Peace wrote: >> >> Carl and David >> >> On the topic of racism, I suggest in addition to the African American scholars often referred to by you both, as well as CLR James, Ernst Mandel. In his brief book, ?The Meaning of World War Two,? recommended by David, it refers to the true origins of the war, and he clarifies the use of racism not as the ?cause of war,? but as a tool to vilify those we choose to victimize. >> >> I'm a bit confused. If war is used as a tool to vilify, to victimize (or dare I say exterminate?) how is that racial victimization not the cause, or a cause, of the war? What's the distinction? >> >> >> I was watching a British series the other evening, dated 2004, dealing with WW2, and Nazi occupation, where the German Commander is saying, ?the reason for this war is we need to get rid of the Jews.? >> >> Only when we understand the true cause are we able to create and implement a solution. >> >> The "true cause".... The reason? In this example, getting rid of the Jews? Is that not the true cause? >> >> >> >>> On Jan 26, 2020, at 13:33, Karen Aram via Peace wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>> I liked Carl?s statement related to the NYT article making the point ?both Trump and Sanders as populists is opposition to neoliberal policies.? >>> It?s too bad Americans don?t recognize ?class,? as the great divide recognizing the shared grievances, and come together to reject our one Party system of neoliberalism, rather than fighting one another, for which our ruling elites have set us up. >>> >>> >>>> On Jan 25, 2020, at 12:31, J.B. Nicholson via Peace wrote: >>>> >>>> News from Neptune #448 >>>> Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF951fpWbV0 >>>> A "What War?" edition >>>> >>>> A list of links to items referenced on the show. >>>> >>>> Paul Street's articles on CounterPunch >>>> https://www.counterpunch.org/author/paul-street/ >>>> >>>> Rob Urie's articles on CounterPunch >>>> https://www.counterpunch.org/author/3abre/ >>>> >>>> Benjamin Studebaker & Aimee Terese's show "What's Left?" >>>> https://soundcloud.com/whatisleftpod/ -- list of recent episodes >>>> https://twitter.com/whatisleftpod -- Twitter account >>>> https://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:595199712/sounds.rss -- RSS feed >>>> >>>> Recent Jimmy Dore Show pieces about Elizabeth Warren >>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5JWIiVMj6g >>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vrzgVczc1Y -- CNN Conflates #MeToo & Warren's Attack On Bernie >>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmyc--yEjHk -- Audio Confirms Warren's Attack On Bernie As Predicted! >>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsXBm7aPPqA -- Progressive Destroys CNN's Garbage Bernie/Warren Reporting >>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ_xK4_dpxw -- Bernie's Poll Numbers RISE After Warren Attack >>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7UjRmQ5-CE -- Meghan McCain Twists Liz Warren Like Pretzel >>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5X0OReq2IY -- NYTimes Blatantly Lying About Bernie/Warren >>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQTWM1_qIcI -- Bernie/Warren Smackdown Start To Finish >>>> >>>> Paul Street on "A Letter From Iowa" >>>> https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/24/a-letter-from-iowa/ >>>> >>>> Tucker Carlson Tonight >>>> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlTLHnxSVuIzrARlmz9oCfQEF08UV-v-E >>>> >>>> New York Times Endorses Both Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar for Democratic Nominee >>>> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/19/opinion/amy-klobuchar-elizabeth-warren-nytimes-endorsement.html >>>> >>>> Daniele Albertazzi & Duncan McDonnell define populism >>>> http://www.palgrave.com/resources/sample-chapters/9780230013490_sample.pdf >>>> https://web.archive.org/web/20150924103230/http://www.palgrave.com/resources/sample-chapters/9780230013490_sample.pdf >>>> >>>> Populism >>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populism >>>> >>>> Katie Miranda's Elizabeth Warren as contortionist >>>> https://mondoweiss.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/lizloz.jpg >>>> https://mondoweiss.net/2020/01/warrens-praise-and-occasional-criticism-of-israel-reflects-liberal-establishment-thinking/ >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Jimmy Dore shows Krystal Ball confusing a Clinton advisor >>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GT2EOL13Wo >>>> >>>> Two suggestions on how to defeat New York Times' limited reading: >>>> >>>> 1. Turn off Javascript when reading pages from nytimes.com. This is easy to do in Firefox with the uMatrix browser add-on. This will also make all browsing faster. >>>> >>>> 2. Delete nytimes.com cookies after you no longer have any nytimes.com windows/tabs open. This is easy to do in Firefox with the Cookie AutoDelete add-on. >>>> >>>> These add-ons might work in other browsers as well, but I only recommend free software (software we're free to run, inspect, share, and modify). So I recommend Firefox. >>>> >>>> Elizabeth Bruenig on "Bernie Will Have to Fight Dirty" >>>> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/opinion/sanders-biden-2020-corruption.html >>>> >>>> Elizabeth Bruenig 'tweet' on her young child >>>> https://twitter.com/ebruenig/status/1221067805698723843 >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> DNC lawyer Bruce Spiva to the court in the lawsuit started by the Bernie Sanders 2016 supporters against the DNC on how much power the DNC has to determine their own corporate representative (also known as the Democratic Party candidate for US President) >>>> http://jampac.us/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/042517cw2.pdf >>>> >>>> Tulsi Gabbard suing Hillary Clinton on Aaron Mat?'s "Pushback with Aaron Mat?" >>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0BhVyWLBfQ >>>> >>>> Asad Abukhalili ("The Angry Arab") twitter.com posts on corporate media and corporate social media misrepresentation of the Iraqi protests against continued US occupation: >>>> https://twitter.com/asadabukhalil/status/1221131053609312256 -- "This crowd in Baghdad for example has been more circulated on social media than scenes of the hundreds of thousands in the anti-US protests of yesterday." >>>> >>>> https://twitter.com/asadabukhalil/status/1220918811517284352 -- "A million people took to the streets in Iraq again act US occupation but NYT managed to cite five people who are in favor of US occupation. Lousy journalism. ??I reject this kind of protest ? it is an abuse of the American and foreign presence,??" >>>> >>>> A followup from Hussain Bakar says the BBC is following suit in not covering the Baghdad protests properly either: >>>> >>>> https://twitter.com/HussainBakar1/status/1220920564941873153 -- "To some extent, same thing with the BBC too. A correspondent spoke about people who still yearn for the US' presence." >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Aaron Mat? interviews Scott Ritter >>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK2kc0eOGS4 >>>> >>>> Jim Kavanagh on "Aftermath: The Iran War After the Soleimani Assassination" >>>> https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/24/aftermath-the-iran-war-after-the-soleimani-assassination/ >>>> >>>> The Grayzone >>>> https://thegrayzone.com/ -- Main site >>>> https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEXR8pRTkE2vFeJePNe9UcQ/videos -- Videos >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Glen Ford on "Throw Off the Dead Weight of the Democratic Party" (from February 11, 2016) >>>> https://blackagendareport.com/node/22770 >>>>> ?Blacks haven?t transformed the Democratic Party by our overwhelming presence. >>>>> Instead, the Party has transformed us ? and overwhelmed our radical politics.? The >>>>> best result that can occur from the Sanders campaign would be that it leads to a >>>>> split in the Democratic Party, and an end to the Rich Man?s Duopoly. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> All pages on the wsws.org site mentioning "1619 project" >>>> https://www.wsws.org/en/search.html?sectionId=&maxResults=100&phrase=1619+project&submit=Search >>>> >>>> Tom Mackaman on "An interview with historian Clayborne Carson on the New York Times? 1619 Project" >>>> https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/01/15/clay-j15.html >>>> >>>> "Higher Ground" program on WEFT >>>> http://new.weft.org/publicaffairs/higherground.html >>>> >>>> Adolph Reed, Jr. on "What Materialist Black Political History Actually Looks Like" >>>> https://nonsite.org/editorial/what-materialist-black-political-history-actually-looks-like >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> J.B. Nicholson's notes >>>> https://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/2020-January/051809.html >>>> https://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace/2020-January/015648.html >>>> >>>> -J >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> 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 > From carl at newsfromneptune.com Tue Jan 28 05:06:51 2020 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2020 23:06:51 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?b?Qy5KLiBIT1BLSU5TIOKAoiBKQU5VQVJZIDI3?= =?utf-8?b?LCAyMDIwIOKAog==?= Message-ID: <629A06AD-454D-4A2D-B983-D104AC1E67BC@newsfromneptune.com> https://www.unz.com/chopkins/dead-president-walking/ From moboct1 at aim.com Tue Jan 28 13:54:59 2020 From: moboct1 at aim.com (Mildred O'brien) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2020 13:54:59 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace-discuss] Warren fp team: pro-war/regime change In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1770203702.417663.1580219699253@mail.yahoo.com> Warren's list of fp "advisors" reads like a rogue's gallery of War(ren)mongers.? Can't even call her "Hilary Light." -----Original Message----- From: C. G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss To: peace-discuss Cc: Peace Sent: Mon, Jan 27, 2020 3:10 pm Subject: [Peace-discuss] Warren fp team: pro-war/regime change https://thegrayzone.com/2020/01/26/elizabeth-warren-foreign-policy-team-pro-war-regime-change/ _______________________________________________ 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 Tue Jan 28 14:11:17 2020 From: moboct1 at aim.com (Mildred O'brien) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2020 14:11:17 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?b?Qy5KLiBIT1BLSU5TIOKAoiBKQU5VQVJZIDI3?= =?utf-8?b?LCAyMDIwIOKAog==?= In-Reply-To: <629A06AD-454D-4A2D-B983-D104AC1E67BC@newsfromneptune.com> References: <629A06AD-454D-4A2D-B983-D104AC1E67BC@newsfromneptune.com> Message-ID: <2043454779.338474.1580220677420@mail.yahoo.com> This reminds me of?the latest news?in (company of Bibi): The POTUS demonstrated his skill at "deal" making when he announced this gem regarding his "peace" plan for the Middle East: ? ???? We're going to negotiate a peace conference with the Palestinians; they probably won't want to do it, but they will-- ?????you know we've cut their aid--they're not living well..." Now how could they turn down a Deal like that? mo'b -----Original Message----- From: C. G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss To: peace-discuss Cc: Peace Sent: Mon, Jan 27, 2020 11:07 pm Subject: [Peace-discuss] C.J. HOPKINS ? JANUARY 27, 2020 ? https://www.unz.com/chopkins/dead-president-walking/ _______________________________________________ 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 naiman.uiuc at gmail.com Tue Jan 28 20:13:33 2020 From: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com (Robert Naiman) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2020 15:13:33 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] JFP: Tell Senators: We need a SecDef who'll end wars - like Ro or Tulsi In-Reply-To: <4469245965.1636539993@org.orgDB.reply.salsalabs.com> References: <4469245965.1636539993@org.orgDB.reply.salsalabs.com> Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Just Foreign Policy Date: Tue, Jan 28, 2020 at 3:09 PM Subject: Tell Senators: We need a SecDef who'll end wars - like Ro or Tulsi [image: Just Foreign Policy] *Tell the Senate: We Need a Secretary of Defense who will end the wars -- like Ro Khanna or Tulsi Gabbard **Sign the petition * Dear Robert, The tireless efforts of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper to escalate conflict with Iran remind us that ?personnel is policy? on war and peace even more than it is in domestic policy. On domestic policy, Congress and the courts provide a counterweight to the President. But on war and peace, Congress has failed to enforce its constitutional war powers, and the courts have refused to intervene. That makes presidential appointments to ?national security positions? like Defense, State, and CIA even more important. Presidential candidates have been asked to say they?d end endless war. But they haven?t committed to appointing national security officials who have a track record of seeking to end endless war. Presidential nominations to national security positions are often drawn from people who advised the presidential campaign on foreign policy. Worryingly, a new analysis found that many of the foreign policy advisers for a major presidential candidate are either veterans of the Obama Administration -- which launched unconstitutional wars in Libya, Syria, and Yemen, and assisted the coup d?etat in Honduras -- or alumni of pro-war think tanks in DC like the Center for American Progress. California Rep. Ro Khanna and Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard are two Members of Congress with national security experience who have consistently advocated for ending wars and preventing new ones. Khanna has led opposition to unconstitutional U.S. participation in the genocidal Saudi war in Yemen and led efforts to end the seven-decade-long Korean War . Gabbard has called for ending wars for regime change, like the unconstitutional wars in Libya and Syria , and has been vocal in her opposition to a new Cold War and nuclear arms race with Russia and China. Every Senator gets to vote on appointments to Defense, State, and CIA. * Urge your Senators to support nominees to these positions who will end endless war by signing our petition *. And if you use Twitter, please take a moment to *retweet our tweet about the petition here* . Thank you for all you do to make U.S. foreign policy more just, Erik Sperling, Sarah Burns, and the Just Foreign Policy Team *If you think our work is important, please make a donation to support it.* *http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/donate * [image: Please support our work. Donate for a Just Foreign Policy] ? 2019 Just Foreign Policy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbn at forestfield.org Wed Jan 29 02:06:08 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2020 20:06:08 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] AWARE on the Air #503 notes Message-ID: AWARE on the Air #503 Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsTHaUeXsj4 Upcoming events: AWARE & ANSWER anti-war protest 2020-02-01 from 2PM-4PM on the corner of Church & Neil streets, Champaign, Illinois ANSWER teach-in 2020-02-08 at 1PM Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center (IMC) in Urbana, Illinois -- https://www.ucimc.org/ Early election for UIUC campus March 2, 2020 Election Day March 17, 2020 Notes: Maj. Danny Sjursen on "The Impeachment Show: Asking All the Wrong Questions on Ukraine" https://original.antiwar.com/danny_sjursen/2020/01/26/the-impeachment-show-asking-all-the-wrong-questions-on-ukraine/ Carol D. Leonnig and Philip Rucker's "A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America" https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/youre-a-bunch-of-dopes-and-babies-inside-trumps-stunning-tirade-against-generals/2020/01/16/d6dbb8a6-387e-11ea-bb7b-265f4554af6d_story.html Betsy Dirksen Londrigan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois%27s_13th_congressional_district Tammy Duckworth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammy_Duckworth Stefanie Smith https://www.stefanie2020.com/ Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Congressional_Campaign_Committee Rodney Davis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Davis_(politician) Rep. Ro Khanna (CA-17) on voting during the week of January 27 on bills to stop funding an unauthorized war with Iran and to repeal the 2002 Iraq Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) (Rep. Barbara Lee's (CA-13) bill) https://khanna.house.gov/media/press-releases/release-house-will-vote-lee-khanna-iran-bills-week-january-27 Carol Ammons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Ammons https://justfacts.votesmart.org/candidate/key-votes/106935/carol-ammons -- summary of some of her votes Ranked voting (ranked-choice voting) and methods of counting such votes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_voting -J From naiman.uiuc at gmail.com Wed Jan 29 14:41:52 2020 From: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com (Robert Naiman) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2020 09:41:52 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?q?NYT=3A_Here_comes_the_Wall_Street_Wing?= =?utf-8?q?_of_King_Bibi=E2=80=99s_Air_Force?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: https://www.facebook.com/robert.naiman/posts/10159096633997656 NYT: Here comes the Wall Street Wing of King Bibi?s Air Force *Incoming :* ?Pro-Israel Democratic Super PAC to Air Attack Ads Against Bernie Sanders The group, the Democratic Majority for Israel, will begin airing a negative campaign spot on Wednesday, as worries mount among ?moderate Democrats? [ *sic*] that Mr. Sanders could win the Iowa caucuses.? https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/28/us/politics/bernie-sanders-attack-ads.html Here?s who these people *claim* they are : [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Majority_for_Israel] ?The Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) is a lobbying group that advocates pro-Israel and progressive policies to the Congress and Executive Branch of the United States. The current President and CEO of the Democratic Majority for Israel, is renowned pollster, Mark Mellman.? Here?s who these people *really* are. A. The co-chair of DMFI associated with money is Todd Richman. Here's how the Jewish Telegraphic Agency describes Todd Richman: [ https://www.jta.org/quick-reads/leading-dems-launch-centrist-pro-israel-faction-to-counter-lefts-influence ] "Todd Richman, a J.P. Morgan executive who is also a major donor to the party" B. Here?s how the Jewish News Service describes Todd Richman: [ https://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/jns/new-group-of-democrats-aims-to-counter-anti-israel-trend/article_4739e336-af76-53c0-92c0-e2db726f0197.html ] "acclaimed Democratic fundraiser and activist Todd Richman" C. Here's his bio on his blog at the *Times of Israel* [defending AIPAC from criticism for hosting Trump]: [ https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/all-the-aipac-bashing-is-just-not-fair/] "Todd Richman is a financial advisor and managing director with a firm based in New York City. He is active in several pro-Israel and Jewish organizations most notably AIPAC and UJA-Federation of New York. He previously worked as a non-profit executive for such organizations as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the American Jewish Congress. In the 1990s he was a Democratic consultant running and raising money for Congressional campaigns. For his commitment to Jewish life and community service, he was recently honored with the Robert S. Boaz Award by UJA-Federation of New York." D. Here's his bio at DMFI : [https://demmajorityforisrael.org/todd-richman/] "Todd Richman is a top Democratic fundraiser raising money for several Members of the House leadership and several US Senators including; Sherrod Brown, Amy Klobuchar, Joe Manchin, and Jeanne Shaheen. Richman served as a Democratic political consultant and worked for numerous elected officials, including: Congressman Gary Ackerman (D-NY), Congressman Steve Rothman (D-NJ), NY State Attorney General Robert Abrams (D-NY) and Congressman Stephen Solarz (D-NY). Currently, Richman is a Managing Director and Financial Advisor for a firm in New York City. Richman has served as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention and was a John Kerry Trustee in his 2004 bid for the Presidency. He has also led and participated in several missions to Israel with elected officials." How would we feel if ?Israel? were replaced in the forgoing with ?Saudi Arabia? or ?UAE?? Welcome to the desert of the real. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidgreen50 at gmail.com Wed Jan 29 16:51:55 2020 From: davidgreen50 at gmail.com (David Green) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2020 10:51:55 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?q?NYT=3A_Here_comes_the_Wall_Street_Wing?= =?utf-8?q?_of_King_Bibi=E2=80=99s_Air_Force?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: As mentioned on the Jimmy Dore show, along with other "super-delegates", including our very own Dan Shapiro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4rc6r9TVjU On Wed, Jan 29, 2020 at 8:42 AM Robert Naiman via Peace-discuss < peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote: > > https://www.facebook.com/robert.naiman/posts/10159096633997656 > > > > NYT: Here comes the Wall Street Wing of King Bibi?s Air Force > > > > *Incoming > :* > > > > ?Pro-Israel Democratic Super PAC to Air Attack Ads Against Bernie Sanders > > The group, the Democratic Majority for Israel, will begin airing a > negative campaign spot on Wednesday, as worries mount among ?moderate > Democrats? [*sic*] that Mr. Sanders could win the Iowa caucuses.? > > > https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/28/us/politics/bernie-sanders-attack-ads.html > > > > Here?s who these people *claim* they are > : [ > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Majority_for_Israel] > > > > ?The Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) is a lobbying group that > advocates pro-Israel and progressive policies to the Congress and Executive > Branch of the United States. The current President and CEO of the > Democratic Majority for Israel, is renowned pollster, Mark Mellman.? > > > > Here?s who these people *really* are. > > > > A. The co-chair of DMFI associated with money is Todd Richman. > > > > Here's how the Jewish Telegraphic Agency describes > Todd > Richman: [ > https://www.jta.org/quick-reads/leading-dems-launch-centrist-pro-israel-faction-to-counter-lefts-influence > ] > > > > "Todd Richman, a J.P. Morgan executive who is also a major donor to the > party" > > > > B. Here?s how the Jewish News Service describes > Todd > Richman: [ > https://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/jns/new-group-of-democrats-aims-to-counter-anti-israel-trend/article_4739e336-af76-53c0-92c0-e2db726f0197.html > ] > > > > "acclaimed Democratic fundraiser and activist Todd Richman" > > > > C. Here's his bio > on > his blog at the *Times of Israel* [defending AIPAC from criticism for > hosting Trump]: [ > https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/all-the-aipac-bashing-is-just-not-fair/] > > > > "Todd Richman is a financial advisor and managing director with a firm > based in New York City. He is active in several pro-Israel and Jewish > organizations most notably AIPAC and UJA-Federation of New York. He > previously worked as a non-profit executive for such organizations as the > American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the American Jewish > Congress. In the 1990s he was a Democratic consultant running and raising > money for Congressional campaigns. For his commitment to Jewish life and > community service, he was recently honored with the Robert S. Boaz Award by > UJA-Federation of New York." > > > > D. Here's his bio at DMFI : > [https://demmajorityforisrael.org/todd-richman/] > > > > "Todd Richman is a top Democratic fundraiser raising money for several > Members of the House leadership and several US Senators including; Sherrod > Brown, Amy Klobuchar, Joe Manchin, and Jeanne Shaheen. Richman served as a > Democratic political consultant and worked for numerous elected officials, > including: Congressman Gary Ackerman (D-NY), Congressman Steve Rothman > (D-NJ), NY State Attorney General Robert Abrams (D-NY) and Congressman > Stephen Solarz (D-NY). Currently, Richman is a Managing Director and > Financial Advisor for a firm in New York City. Richman has served as a > delegate to the Democratic National Convention and was a John Kerry Trustee > in his 2004 bid for the Presidency. He has also led and participated in > several missions to Israel with elected officials." > > > > How would we feel if ?Israel? were replaced in the forgoing with ?Saudi > Arabia? or ?UAE?? > > > > Welcome to the desert of the real. > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 Wed Jan 29 17:52:06 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2020 09:52:06 -0800 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] AWARE on the Air #503 notes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Correction: It was not AWARE that had the meeting with Carol Ammons in relation to her vote on BDS, it was the local Green Party. Granted the Officers of the Prairie Greens are the same people in both organizations, but not all. Carol and her advisors did request this meeting with the Prairie Greens as a result of some with AWARE, notably Carl calling her out on her vote on the ?News from Neptune? as well as the "AWARE" programs. > On Jan 28, 2020, at 18:06, J.B. Nicholson via Peace wrote: > > AWARE on the Air #503 > Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsTHaUeXsj4 > > Upcoming events: > > AWARE & ANSWER anti-war protest > 2020-02-01 from 2PM-4PM on the corner of Church & Neil streets, Champaign, Illinois > > ANSWER teach-in > 2020-02-08 at 1PM Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center (IMC) in Urbana, Illinois -- https://www.ucimc.org/ > > Early election for UIUC campus > March 2, 2020 > > Election Day > March 17, 2020 > > > > Notes: > > Maj. Danny Sjursen on "The Impeachment Show: Asking All the Wrong Questions on Ukraine" > https://original.antiwar.com/danny_sjursen/2020/01/26/the-impeachment-show-asking-all-the-wrong-questions-on-ukraine/ > > Carol D. Leonnig and > Philip Rucker's "A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America" > https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/youre-a-bunch-of-dopes-and-babies-inside-trumps-stunning-tirade-against-generals/2020/01/16/d6dbb8a6-387e-11ea-bb7b-265f4554af6d_story.html > > > > > Betsy Dirksen Londrigan > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois%27s_13th_congressional_district > > Tammy Duckworth > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammy_Duckworth > > Stefanie Smith > https://www.stefanie2020.com/ > > Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Congressional_Campaign_Committee > > Rodney Davis > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Davis_(politician) > > > > > Rep. Ro Khanna (CA-17) on voting during the week of January 27 on bills to stop funding an unauthorized war with Iran and to repeal the 2002 Iraq Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) (Rep. Barbara Lee's (CA-13) bill) > https://khanna.house.gov/media/press-releases/release-house-will-vote-lee-khanna-iran-bills-week-january-27 > > Carol Ammons > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Ammons > https://justfacts.votesmart.org/candidate/key-votes/106935/carol-ammons -- summary of some of her votes > > Ranked voting (ranked-choice voting) and methods of counting such votes > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_voting > > -J > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace From naiman.uiuc at gmail.com Wed Jan 29 20:45:35 2020 From: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com (Robert Naiman) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2020 15:45:35 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] JFP: Tell NYT: Report who's funding "pro-Israel" SuperPAC's Iowa attack ads In-Reply-To: <4469519197.-764975900@org.orgDB.reply.salsalabs.com> References: <4469519197.-764975900@org.orgDB.reply.salsalabs.com> Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Just Foreign Policy Date: Wed, Jan 29, 2020 at 3:28 PM Subject: Tell NYT: Report who's funding "pro-Israel" SuperPAC's Iowa attack ads To: [image: Just Foreign Policy] *Tell the NY Times: Report on who is funding the attack ads by a "pro-Israel" SuperPAC in Iowa **Sign the petition & Retweet @NYTimes * Dear Robert, On January 28, the New York Times reported that a ?super PAC? that calls itself ?Democratic Majority for Israel? was airing attack ads in Iowa against a frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination. DMFI was launched last year to counter the progress activists have made within the Democratic Party in challenging U.S. support for Israel?s military occupation of Palestinian civilians. *But the Times didn?t tell readers anything about where DMFI gets its money for these attack ads. * The Times article extensively quoted Mark Mellman, who was identified as ?the president of Democratic Majority for Israel and a longtime Democratic pollster.? But previous reporting and its own website strongly suggest that Wall Street oligarch Todd Richman, ?co-chair? of DMFI, is a key money man behind this effort to combat human rights advocates in the Democratic Party. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency describes Richman as "a J.P. Morgan executive who is also a major donor to the party?, and his J.P. Morgan bio says he specializes in managing money for ?high-net-worth individuals?. On his bio on his blog at the Times of Israel defending AIPAC from criticism for hosting Trump, Richman is described as ?a financial advisor and managing director with a firm based in New York City ? active in several pro-Israel and Jewish organizations most notably AIPAC ? He previously worked as a non-profit executive for such organizations as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the American Jewish Congress." His bio at DMFI describes him as "a top Democratic fundraiser raising money for several Members of the House leadership and several US Senators including; Sherrod Brown, Amy Klobuchar, Joe Manchin, and Jeanne Shaheen? Richman has served as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention and was a John Kerry Trustee in his 2004 bid for the Presidency. He has also led and participated in several missions to Israel with elected officials." At a time when big money interests are attempting to buy our democracy, readers deserve to know who is funding the efforts to sway public opinion. *Urge the New York Times to tell its readers where ?Democratic Majority for Israel? gets its money for attack ads in Iowa by **signing our petition* * and **retweeting our tweet to the NYT* *. * Thank you for all you do to make U.S. foreign policy more just, Erik Sperling, Sarah Burns, and the Just Foreign Policy Team *If you think our work is important, please make a donation to support it.* *http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/donate * [image: Please support our work. Donate for a Just Foreign Policy] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From carl at newsfromneptune.com Thu Jan 30 00:04:30 2020 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2020 18:04:30 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Brexit Message-ID: <48D0CFE0-1381-4C80-B1C2-8FD3F954DD9E@newsfromneptune.com> ?There is a battle going on, in the West and elsewhere. It is globalism against populism. And you may loathe populism, but I?ll tell you a funny thing, it?s becoming very popular.? --Nigel Farage, leader of the Brexit Party since 2019 and Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South East England until today globalism = an ideology based on the belief that goods ought to be able to cross national borders unfettered ("free trade and free access to markets"); a socio-economic system controlled by capitalist firms rather than national governments. populism = an ideology that "pits a virtuous and homogeneous people against a set of elites and dangerous ?others? who are together depicted as depriving (or attempting to deprive) the sovereign people of their rights, values, prosperity, identity, and voice.? ?CGE From jbw292002 at gmail.com Thu Jan 30 01:22:33 2020 From: jbw292002 at gmail.com (John W.) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2020 19:22:33 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Brexit In-Reply-To: <48D0CFE0-1381-4C80-B1C2-8FD3F954DD9E@newsfromneptune.com> References: <48D0CFE0-1381-4C80-B1C2-8FD3F954DD9E@newsfromneptune.com> Message-ID: I'm curious whose definition of "populism" this is. On Wed, Jan 29, 2020, 6:05 PM C. G. Estabrook via Peace < peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote: > ?There is a battle going on, in the West and elsewhere. It is globalism > against populism. And you may loathe populism, but I?ll tell you a funny > thing, it?s becoming very popular.? > --Nigel Farage, leader of the Brexit Party since 2019 and Member of the > European Parliament (MEP) for South East England until today > > globalism = an ideology based on the belief that goods ought to be able to > cross national borders unfettered ("free trade and free access to > markets"); a socio-economic system controlled by capitalist firms rather > than national governments. > > populism = an ideology that "pits a virtuous and homogeneous people > against a set of elites and dangerous ?others? who are together depicted as > depriving (or attempting to deprive) the sovereign people of their rights, > values, prosperity, identity, and voice.? > > ?CGE > _______________________________________________ > 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 Thu Jan 30 01:30:21 2020 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2020 19:30:21 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] Brexit In-Reply-To: References: <48D0CFE0-1381-4C80-B1C2-8FD3F954DD9E@newsfromneptune.com> Message-ID: <8D2735E6-C0E3-477C-9E76-24F5CC473BC1@newsfromneptune.com> Daniele Albertazzi and Duncan McDonnell, "Twenty-First Century Populism: The Spectre of Western European Democracy" (2008). ?CGE > On Jan 29, 2020, at 7:22 PM, John W. wrote: > > I'm curious whose definition of "populism" this is. > > > On Wed, Jan 29, 2020, 6:05 PM C. G. Estabrook via Peace wrote: > ?There is a battle going on, in the West and elsewhere. It is globalism against populism. And you may loathe populism, but I?ll tell you a funny thing, it?s becoming very popular.? > --Nigel Farage, leader of the Brexit Party since 2019 and Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South East England until today > > globalism = an ideology based on the belief that goods ought to be able to cross national borders unfettered ("free trade and free access to markets"); a socio-economic system controlled by capitalist firms rather than national governments. > > populism = an ideology that "pits a virtuous and homogeneous people against a set of elites and dangerous ?others? who are together depicted as depriving (or attempting to deprive) the sovereign people of their rights, values, prosperity, identity, and voice.? > > ?CGE > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace From naiman.uiuc at gmail.com Thu Jan 30 15:30:51 2020 From: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com (Robert Naiman) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2020 10:30:51 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Minnesota NAACP calls on Klobuchar to suspend campaign Message-ID: Looks like Amy Klobuchar is done. https://thehill.com/campaign-issues/480611-minneapolis-naacp-black-lives-matter-call-on-klobuchar-to-suspend-campaign -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidgreen50 at gmail.com Thu Jan 30 16:09:25 2020 From: davidgreen50 at gmail.com (David Green) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2020 10:09:25 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Minnesota NAACP calls on Klobuchar to suspend campaign In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: She may be done, she may deserve to be done; but the manner in which things like this go down should be of concern. It sets a bad precedent when neoliberal NAACP/BLM can dictate events. On Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 9:31 AM Robert Naiman via Peace-discuss < peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote: > Looks like Amy Klobuchar is done. > > > https://thehill.com/campaign-issues/480611-minneapolis-naacp-black-lives-matter-call-on-klobuchar-to-suspend-campaign > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 naiman.uiuc at gmail.com Thu Jan 30 16:44:45 2020 From: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com (Robert Naiman) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2020 11:44:45 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Minnesota NAACP calls on Klobuchar to suspend campaign In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: But they're not dictating anything. She can do what she wants; I expect her to keep running through the Iowa caucus, which will be good for Team Bernie because she'll take votes away from War Criminal Biden and Wine Cave Pete. But there is a matter of objective reality here. And in that sense she is done, because people are going to find out about this, and she's going to be toast in South Carolina. Did Amy Klobuchar help send an innocent teen away for life? https://news.yahoo.com/did-amy-klobuchar-help-send-235658914.html On Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 11:09 AM David Green wrote: > She may be done, she may deserve to be done; but the manner in which > things like this go down should be of concern. It sets a bad precedent when > neoliberal NAACP/BLM can dictate events. > > On Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 9:31 AM Robert Naiman via Peace-discuss < > peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote: > >> Looks like Amy Klobuchar is done. >> >> >> https://thehill.com/campaign-issues/480611-minneapolis-naacp-black-lives-matter-call-on-klobuchar-to-suspend-campaign >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 naiman.uiuc at gmail.com Thu Jan 30 16:51:46 2020 From: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com (Robert Naiman) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2020 11:51:46 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Elizabeth Warren is coming for your internet freedom Message-ID: https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1222593605392588800 [image: image.png] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image.png Type: image/png Size: 96337 bytes Desc: not available URL: From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Thu Jan 30 17:54:32 2020 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2020 11:54:32 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Minnesota NAACP calls on Klobuchar to suspend campaign In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <006d01d5d796$53f837a0$fbe8a6e0$@comcast.net> ? Wine Cave Pete ? I love it !...Good one Bob. David J. From: Peace-discuss [mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of Robert Naiman via Peace-discuss Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2020 10:45 AM To: David Green Cc: Peace Discuss Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Minnesota NAACP calls on Klobuchar to suspend campaign But they're not dictating anything. She can do what she wants; I expect her to keep running through the Iowa caucus, which will be good for Team Bernie because she'll take votes away from War Criminal Biden and Wine Cave Pete. But there is a matter of objective reality here. And in that sense she is done, because people are going to find out about this, and she's going to be toast in South Carolina. Did Amy Klobuchar help send an innocent teen away for life? https://news.yahoo.com/did-amy-klobuchar-help-send-235658914.html On Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 11:09 AM David Green wrote: She may be done, she may deserve to be done; but the manner in which things like this go down should be of concern. It sets a bad precedent when neoliberal NAACP/BLM can dictate events. On Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 9:31 AM Robert Naiman via Peace-discuss wrote: Looks like Amy Klobuchar is done. https://thehill.com/campaign-issues/480611-minneapolis-naacp-black-lives-matter-call-on-klobuchar-to-suspend-campaign _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Thu Jan 30 18:05:34 2020 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2020 12:05:34 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Elizabeth Warren is coming for your internet freedom In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <007a01d5d797$deab9d00$9c02d700$@comcast.net> CNBC and Warren Partisans were trying to downplay this, saying that it only applied to disinformation about election information ( polling places and times, etc. ), but if you go to the last comment, the person posts screen shots from Warren?s website about her proposal, which shows that it is in fact NOT just about election info but goes into a long unsourced statement that is a rehash of the Russia gate conspiracy theory and DOES advocate for censorship of ALL info that the corporate powers that be deem ? false ?. Go to the link in the post that Bob Naimann first made on this topic to read it for yourself. David J. Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald ? 6h Replying to @ggreenwald CNBC has changed its article to specify Warren's plan seeks to criminalize disinformation about voting, not disinformation generally. I still oppose state attempts to criminalize internet content - it's not the solution - but it's not as dangerous as CNBC originally suggested. https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/758697146606641152/VD1abdoi_bigger.jpg Matt BREAKING NEWS Steinglass @mattsteinglass ? 22h Replying to @ggreenwald Her proposal would criminalize spreading disinformation *about the date of elections* or other election requirements. It wouldn?t criminalize the sort of negligent spread of false information in which you are engaged. https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/962052841643716611/efxT1aJx_bigger.jpg gaijingirl2004 - "Bronx Residue" 42 ?? @gaijingirl2004 ? 21h If that's actually true, it's strange that the press release on Warren's website points to far more. Here are the screenshots. From: Peace-discuss [mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of Robert Naiman via Peace-discuss Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2020 10:52 AM To: Peace Discuss Subject: [Peace-discuss] Elizabeth Warren is coming for your internet freedom https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1222593605392588800 image.png -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 3151 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 2973 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image005.png Type: image/png Size: 174 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image006.png Type: image/png Size: 105813 bytes Desc: not available URL: From naiman.uiuc at gmail.com Thu Jan 30 18:07:13 2020 From: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com (Robert Naiman) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2020 13:07:13 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Minnesota NAACP calls on Klobuchar to suspend campaign In-Reply-To: <006d01d5d796$53f837a0$fbe8a6e0$@comcast.net> References: <006d01d5d796$53f837a0$fbe8a6e0$@comcast.net> Message-ID: I'm afraid I can't take credit for that one. :) 'Wine cave' lights up Twitter after Buttigieg criticised for glitzy fundraiser https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/19/wine-cave-pete-buttigieg-democratic-debate On Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 12:54 PM David Johnson wrote: > ? Wine Cave Pete ? > > > > I love it !...Good one Bob. > > > > David J. > > > > *From:* Peace-discuss [mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] *On > Behalf Of *Robert Naiman via Peace-discuss > *Sent:* Thursday, January 30, 2020 10:45 AM > *To:* David Green > *Cc:* Peace Discuss > *Subject:* Re: [Peace-discuss] Minnesota NAACP calls on Klobuchar to > suspend campaign > > > > > > But they're not dictating anything. She can do what she wants; I expect > her to keep running through the Iowa caucus, which will be good for Team > Bernie because she'll take votes away from War Criminal Biden and Wine Cave > Pete. > > > > But there is a matter of objective reality here. And in that sense she is > done, because people are going to find out about this, and she's going to > be toast in South Carolina. > > > > Did Amy Klobuchar help send an innocent teen away for life? > > https://news.yahoo.com/did-amy-klobuchar-help-send-235658914.html > > > > > > > > On Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 11:09 AM David Green > wrote: > > She may be done, she may deserve to be done; but the manner in which > things like this go down should be of concern. It sets a bad precedent when > neoliberal NAACP/BLM can dictate events. > > > > On Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 9:31 AM Robert Naiman via Peace-discuss < > peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote: > > Looks like Amy Klobuchar is done. > > > > > https://thehill.com/campaign-issues/480611-minneapolis-naacp-black-lives-matter-call-on-klobuchar-to-suspend-campaign > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 naiman.uiuc at gmail.com Thu Jan 30 18:12:36 2020 From: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com (Robert Naiman) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2020 13:12:36 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Postal Workers Union With 200, 000 Members Endorses Sanders Message-ID: https://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2020-01-30/postal-workers-union-with-200-000-members-endorses-sanders Postal Workers Union With 200,000 Members Endorses SandersBernie Sanders has been endorsed by the 200,000-member American Postal Workers Union. By Associated Press , Wire Service Content Jan. 30, 2020, at 11:02 a.m. By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) ? Bernie Sanders was endorsed Thursday by the 200,000-member American Postal Workers Union, an influential group that also backed the Vermont senator's presidential bid against Hillary Clinton during the 2016 Democratic presidential primary. The union's support is key because it promises organizing muscle across the country. Sanders says that if turnout is high during Monday's lead-off Iowa caucus, he will win ? and a win there will key victories in the next two states that vote, New Hampshire and Nevada. ?As with 2016, once again the Sanders campaign is boldly uplifting the goals and aspirations of workers," union president Mark Dimondstein said in a statement. ?Simply put, we believe it is in the best interests of all postal workers, our job security and our union to support and elect Bernie Sanders for president.? Polls in Iowa and other states show Sanders bunched near the top of the polls with former Vice President Joe Biden, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana. Warren and Sanders have both long called for expanding the services offered by post offices, especially in rural communities, to include things like banking. National labor unions wield a great deal of influence in the Democratic primary. Though many have yet to pick sides in the still-crowded 2020 Democratic primary, though the National Nurses United backed Sanders in November, after endorsing him in 2016. Biden's campaign got an earlier boost last year with the endorsement of the International Association of Fire Fighters. Buttigieg once worked at the high-powered consulting firm McKinsey & Company and has previously released a client list that included the U.S. Postal Service. In 2010, the Postal Service hired McKinsey and other consulting firms and they eventually recommended ways to increase revenue, including cutting back on daily mail service. Buttigieg's campaign released a statement in December saying he was ?part of a team tasked with generating ideas to increase revenue like selling greeting cards and increasing the use of flat rate boxes.? It added that the candidate ?never worked on cost-cutting or anything involving staff reorganization or the privatization of essential post office services.? In it's statement endorsing Sanders on Thursday, the postal workers' union said that the Trump administration ?has released a series of proposals that would end the universal service requirement and also would make significant changes in the pricing structure of mail products." It also noted that there have also been calls to sell the federally run postal service to private corporations. The union promised to ?encourage its members and their families who live and work in all 50 states" to "join Sanders rallies, make individual campaign contributions and volunteer for campaign activities.? It also said it would launch voter registration drives and urge its members, their families and friends to choose ?vote by mail? options in states without restrictions on absentee balloting. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Thu Jan 30 18:13:54 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2020 10:13:54 -0800 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] AWARE on the Air #503 notes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Crosstalk has Brian Becker the Director of ANSWER on this weeks program. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zILRjIf03t0&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR2wqLnTlQR-XdsrJz-Ym-5Q5sGgrGF73fiR1S7VVfAeGnbW23tt4ssviYI > On Jan 29, 2020, at 09:52, Karen Aram via Peace wrote: > > Correction: It was not AWARE that had the meeting with Carol Ammons in relation to her vote on BDS, it was the local Green Party. Granted the Officers of the Prairie Greens are the same people in both organizations, but not all. > > Carol and her advisors did request this meeting with the Prairie Greens as a result of some with AWARE, notably Carl calling her out on her vote on the ?News from Neptune? as well as the "AWARE" programs. > > >> On Jan 28, 2020, at 18:06, J.B. Nicholson via Peace wrote: >> >> AWARE on the Air #503 >> Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsTHaUeXsj4 >> >> Upcoming events: >> >> AWARE & ANSWER anti-war protest >> 2020-02-01 from 2PM-4PM on the corner of Church & Neil streets, Champaign, Illinois >> >> ANSWER teach-in >> 2020-02-08 at 1PM Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center (IMC) in Urbana, Illinois -- https://www.ucimc.org/ >> >> Early election for UIUC campus >> March 2, 2020 >> >> Election Day >> March 17, 2020 >> >> >> >> Notes: >> >> Maj. Danny Sjursen on "The Impeachment Show: Asking All the Wrong Questions on Ukraine" >> https://original.antiwar.com/danny_sjursen/2020/01/26/the-impeachment-show-asking-all-the-wrong-questions-on-ukraine/ >> >> Carol D. Leonnig and >> Philip Rucker's "A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America" >> https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/youre-a-bunch-of-dopes-and-babies-inside-trumps-stunning-tirade-against-generals/2020/01/16/d6dbb8a6-387e-11ea-bb7b-265f4554af6d_story.html >> >> >> >> >> Betsy Dirksen Londrigan >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois%27s_13th_congressional_district >> >> Tammy Duckworth >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammy_Duckworth >> >> Stefanie Smith >> https://www.stefanie2020.com/ >> >> Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Congressional_Campaign_Committee >> >> Rodney Davis >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Davis_(politician) >> >> >> >> >> Rep. Ro Khanna (CA-17) on voting during the week of January 27 on bills to stop funding an unauthorized war with Iran and to repeal the 2002 Iraq Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) (Rep. Barbara Lee's (CA-13) bill) >> https://khanna.house.gov/media/press-releases/release-house-will-vote-lee-khanna-iran-bills-week-january-27 >> >> Carol Ammons >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Ammons >> https://justfacts.votesmart.org/candidate/key-votes/106935/carol-ammons -- summary of some of her votes >> >> Ranked voting (ranked-choice voting) and methods of counting such votes >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_voting >> >> -J >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 naiman.uiuc at gmail.com Thu Jan 30 18:46:53 2020 From: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com (Robert Naiman) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2020 13:46:53 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] NYT: Biden Push for Labor Support Is Burdened by Obama-Era Baggage Message-ID: This article hits a lot of important points which have not been well-acknowledged: the failure of the Obama-Biden Administration to fight for card check ["The Employee Free Choice Act"] to make it easier to form unions, as they had promised to make a priority; the benefit to unions of taking health care issues out of negotiations; Biden's role in Obama-Clinton trade policies hated by unions that played a big role in helping elect Trump; Obama-Biden efforts to cut Social Security and Biden's role in that; Biden's hawkish foreign policy views [yes, a bunch of people in the labor movement care about that!] The Official DNC Establishment view is that Hillary lost to Trump in the industrial midwest because she was a "poor candidate," etc. Biden, on the other hand, is supposed to be a "good candidate" because he's from Scranton and can pal around with working class people, etc. This completely misses the boat on how the Obama-Biden Administration screwed the agenda of union people, and that's no accident. It's because the DNC people are bought, so they're not allowed to have any ideas that aren't bought. ======== https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/30/business/economy/joe-biden-labor-unions.html [...] But to many union officials, those years were a disappointment ? a time when the administration failed to pass a labor rights bill that was their top priority and imposed a tax that would affect many union members? health plans. And they partly blame Mr. Biden. ?They were in the driver?s seat for the first two years, and what did they get done from a labor perspective?? said Chris Laursen, the president of a United Automobile Workers local in Ottumwa, Iowa, with nearly 600 members. ?Joe Biden is complete status quo.? [...] But for many labor voters ? even white, blue-collar union members whose votes skewed toward Mr. Trump ? the reaction to the former vice president has been more mixed. They frequently cite his policy centrism, which many associate with his time in President Barack Obama?s White House. A mid-January poll by SurveyUSA showed Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont surging to within three points of Mr. Biden among union households nationally. The combined support of Mr. Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has generally outpaced Mr. Biden?s among union households since August. [...] While the Labor Department recently reported that union membership last year fell to a record low ? 10.3 percent of the work force ? labor endorsements can still be critical because of the role of unions in educating members about candidates and canvassing for them on the ground. Mr. Laursen, the U.A.W. local leader in Ottumwa, estimates that more than half his members ? who are primarily workers at a John Deere plant ? backed Mr. Trump in 2016. But he says many of those who oppose the president?s re-election are supporting Mr. Sanders over Mr. Biden. And the skepticism toward Mr. Biden among union voters may be even more pronounced in the less white, less male parts of the labor force. Nicole McCormick, a West Virginia music teacher who helped organize a statewide walkout that made national headlines in 2018, said she worried that Mr. Biden wasn?t ?willing to push for the things that we as Americans look at as radical, but the rest of the world looks at and is like, ?We did that 50 years ago.?? She cited expanded access to unions, universal health care and paid parental leave as examples. [...] Keon Liberato, the president of a Philadelphia-based local of more than 200 workers who maintain and construct railroad tracks, said many of his members preferred Mr. Sanders. Mr. Liberato said his members, both African-American and white, knew Mr. Biden as a friend to railroad workers, but tended to believe that taking health care off the bargaining table under Mr. Sanders?s Medicare for All plan ?would be huge for the American people.? [...] ?I was really disappointed with his trade policies,? said Nick Diveley, a U.A.W. member in Ottumwa, who supported Mr. Obama in 2008. ?That?s what pushed me to Trump.? Mr. Diveley said he was open to voting for someone other than Mr. Trump in the fall but called Mr. Biden ?just another established Washington guy.? [...] But many labor officials regard Mr. Biden as essentially a sympathetic face for unfriendly policies he was either powerless to reverse or personally advanced. One cited Mr. Biden?s role in leading the negotiations with Republicans over a long-term deficit-cutting deal that could have led to cuts in programs like Social Security and Medicare. [...] Frank Flanders, the political director of the food workers? local in Ottumwa, said that he was skeptical of Mr. Biden?s views on trade and his more hawkish foreign policy views, and that he regarded Mr. Biden as a ?corporate Democrat.? ?I think we had a lot of Trump voters in the general, for the most part it?s because he wasn?t Hillary,? said Mr. Flanders, describing how his members voted in 2016. ?It?s also a concern I have about a Biden candidacy.? https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/30/business/economy/joe-biden-labor-unions.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidgreen50 at gmail.com Thu Jan 30 18:59:24 2020 From: davidgreen50 at gmail.com (David Green) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2020 12:59:24 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Minnesota NAACP calls on Klobuchar to suspend campaign In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: It's particularly ironic that Klobuchar became Senator when Al Franken was me-tooed. So if I'm to be consistent, I oppose both Franken's capitulation to the neoliberal feminist witch-hunters and Klobuchar's to the neoliberal Black Misleadership Class. If it can actually be proved that Klobuchar behaved illegally or unethically, then there would be more cause for her to leave the Senate than there was for Franken, and obviously to terminate her Presidential candidacy. But of course when you start with identitarian politics, perception becomes reality, and that perception drives a shaming culture, regardless of the reality. Not good for our politics or society. I will not approve of that. DG On Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 10:44 AM Robert Naiman wrote: > > But they're not dictating anything. She can do what she wants; I expect > her to keep running through the Iowa caucus, which will be good for Team > Bernie because she'll take votes away from War Criminal Biden and Wine Cave > Pete. > > But there is a matter of objective reality here. And in that sense she is > done, because people are going to find out about this, and she's going to > be toast in South Carolina. > > Did Amy Klobuchar help send an innocent teen away for life? > https://news.yahoo.com/did-amy-klobuchar-help-send-235658914.html > > > > On Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 11:09 AM David Green > wrote: > >> She may be done, she may deserve to be done; but the manner in which >> things like this go down should be of concern. It sets a bad precedent when >> neoliberal NAACP/BLM can dictate events. >> >> On Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 9:31 AM Robert Naiman via Peace-discuss < >> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote: >> >>> Looks like Amy Klobuchar is done. >>> >>> >>> https://thehill.com/campaign-issues/480611-minneapolis-naacp-black-lives-matter-call-on-klobuchar-to-suspend-campaign >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 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 naiman.uiuc at gmail.com Thu Jan 30 19:06:56 2020 From: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com (Robert Naiman) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2020 14:06:56 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Minnesota NAACP calls on Klobuchar to suspend campaign In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: No, Klobuchar was already a Senator. Franken was replaced by Tina Smith. https://www.smith.senate.gov On Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 1:59 PM David Green wrote: > It's particularly ironic that Klobuchar became Senator when Al Franken was > me-tooed. So if I'm to be consistent, I oppose both Franken's capitulation > to the neoliberal feminist witch-hunters and Klobuchar's to the neoliberal > Black Misleadership Class. If it can actually be proved that Klobuchar > behaved illegally or unethically, then there would be more cause for her to > leave the Senate than there was for Franken, and obviously to terminate her > Presidential candidacy. But of course when you start with identitarian > politics, perception becomes reality, and that perception drives a shaming > culture, regardless of the reality. Not good for our politics or society. I > will not approve of that. > > DG > > On Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 10:44 AM Robert Naiman > wrote: > >> >> But they're not dictating anything. She can do what she wants; I expect >> her to keep running through the Iowa caucus, which will be good for Team >> Bernie because she'll take votes away from War Criminal Biden and Wine Cave >> Pete. >> >> But there is a matter of objective reality here. And in that sense she is >> done, because people are going to find out about this, and she's going to >> be toast in South Carolina. >> >> Did Amy Klobuchar help send an innocent teen away for life? >> https://news.yahoo.com/did-amy-klobuchar-help-send-235658914.html >> >> >> >> On Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 11:09 AM David Green >> wrote: >> >>> She may be done, she may deserve to be done; but the manner in which >>> things like this go down should be of concern. It sets a bad precedent when >>> neoliberal NAACP/BLM can dictate events. >>> >>> On Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 9:31 AM Robert Naiman via Peace-discuss < >>> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote: >>> >>>> Looks like Amy Klobuchar is done. >>>> >>>> >>>> https://thehill.com/campaign-issues/480611-minneapolis-naacp-black-lives-matter-call-on-klobuchar-to-suspend-campaign >>>> >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> 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 naiman.uiuc at gmail.com Thu Jan 30 19:11:49 2020 From: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com (Robert Naiman) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2020 14:11:49 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Biden campaign risked lives of Iowa staffers by suspending work rules Message-ID: https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/biden-iowa-car-accident/ The Biden Campaign Pushed Iowa Staffers to Drive in Dangerous Weather Leaked messages show staffers worrying about their safety on Iowa?s icy roads. By Ken Klippenstein January 24, 2020 With the pivotal Iowa caucuses coming up on February 3, Biden campaign staffers have had at least one concern besides the election: their own safety. On December 30, with Iowa sheathed in snow, the campaign?s regional organizing director for Iowa, Kay Glad, instructed staffers that its inclement weather policy was being suspended, according to staff text messages reviewed by *The Nation*. The policy had allowed them to avoid driving during potentially hazardous weather conditions, but, at that busy time, it was being called off. ?Hey guys, all weather policy is dissolved throughout the entire state because we have five weeks left until the election,? Kay Glad, Biden?s regional organizing director for Iowa, informed staffers. ?If it feels like unsafe driving conditions, then talk to me separately but quite frankly I don?t want to hear any complaints because you know how important this is and how much time we have left.? Glad added: ?By showing an ability to be adaptable, flexible, and willing to what [sic] you?ve been hired to do, then that is the most basic threshold of demonstrating your ability of leading others. Every single day is an audition for post-Iowa.? Glad?s admonition carries with it a sad irony. In 1972, both Biden?s then-wife and daughter died in a fatal car accident when a truck broadsided them while they were shopping for a Christmas tree. He has frequently referenced the tragedy in public as well as during this campaign. The text messages were provided to *The Nation* by a Biden staffer on the condition of anonymity since they were not authorized to speak. The staffer also said that there had been at least five different car accidents among the campaign?s Iowa staffers between Christmas and New Years Day alone. Citing a recent car accident that resulted in the death of a Warren campaign volunteer, the staffer described other campaign workers as fearful of another potential accident. In September, Zachary Presberg, a former field organizing fellow and volunteer for the Warren campaign in Iowa, died when his car was struck by a semitruck while he tried to pass another vehicle. Presberg was 22. In 2016, Braden Joplin, an Iowa staffer for Ben Carson?s presidential campaign, died in a car accident while trying to navigate slick roads, which left three other campaign staff injured. Joplin was 25. [...] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidgreen50 at gmail.com Thu Jan 30 20:19:10 2020 From: davidgreen50 at gmail.com (David Green) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2020 14:19:10 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Minnesota NAACP calls on Klobuchar to suspend campaign In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Ok I got that wrong. My point still holds. Cancel politics are shitty On Thu, Jan 30, 2020, 1:07 PM Robert Naiman wrote: > No, Klobuchar was already a Senator. Franken was replaced by Tina Smith. > > https://www.smith.senate.gov > > > > On Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 1:59 PM David Green > wrote: > >> It's particularly ironic that Klobuchar became Senator when Al Franken >> was me-tooed. So if I'm to be consistent, I oppose both Franken's >> capitulation to the neoliberal feminist witch-hunters and Klobuchar's to >> the neoliberal Black Misleadership Class. If it can actually be proved that >> Klobuchar behaved illegally or unethically, then there would be more cause >> for her to leave the Senate than there was for Franken, and obviously to >> terminate her Presidential candidacy. But of course when you start with >> identitarian politics, perception becomes reality, and that perception >> drives a shaming culture, regardless of the reality. Not good for our >> politics or society. I will not approve of that. >> >> DG >> >> On Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 10:44 AM Robert Naiman >> wrote: >> >>> >>> But they're not dictating anything. She can do what she wants; I expect >>> her to keep running through the Iowa caucus, which will be good for Team >>> Bernie because she'll take votes away from War Criminal Biden and Wine Cave >>> Pete. >>> >>> But there is a matter of objective reality here. And in that sense she >>> is done, because people are going to find out about this, and she's going >>> to be toast in South Carolina. >>> >>> Did Amy Klobuchar help send an innocent teen away for life? >>> https://news.yahoo.com/did-amy-klobuchar-help-send-235658914.html >>> >>> >>> >>> On Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 11:09 AM David Green >>> wrote: >>> >>>> She may be done, she may deserve to be done; but the manner in which >>>> things like this go down should be of concern. It sets a bad precedent when >>>> neoliberal NAACP/BLM can dictate events. >>>> >>>> On Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 9:31 AM Robert Naiman via Peace-discuss < >>>> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Looks like Amy Klobuchar is done. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> https://thehill.com/campaign-issues/480611-minneapolis-naacp-black-lives-matter-call-on-klobuchar-to-suspend-campaign >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> 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 brussel at illinois.edu Thu Jan 30 22:04:50 2020 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2020 22:04:50 +0000 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] AWARE on the Air #503 notes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9C6CC31E-A5DB-48C9-8B88-4C6F8E7C0C92@illinois.edu> The host can be annoying. Where did they dig up the middle guy? Becker was grinding his teeth wishing to comment more on what was said. > On Jan 30, 2020, at 12:13 PM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss wrote: > > > > Crosstalk has Brian Becker the Director of ANSWER on this weeks program. > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zILRjIf03t0&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR2wqLnTlQR-XdsrJz-Ym-5Q5sGgrGF73fiR1S7VVfAeGnbW23tt4ssviYI > > >> On Jan 29, 2020, at 09:52, Karen Aram via Peace wrote: >> >> Correction: It was not AWARE that had the meeting with Carol Ammons in relation to her vote on BDS, it was the local Green Party. Granted the Officers of the Prairie Greens are the same people in both organizations, but not all. >> >> Carol and her advisors did request this meeting with the Prairie Greens as a result of some with AWARE, notably Carl calling her out on her vote on the ?News from Neptune? as well as the "AWARE" programs. >> >> >>> On Jan 28, 2020, at 18:06, J.B. Nicholson via Peace wrote: >>> >>> AWARE on the Air #503 >>> Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsTHaUeXsj4 >>> >>> Upcoming events: >>> >>> AWARE & ANSWER anti-war protest >>> 2020-02-01 from 2PM-4PM on the corner of Church & Neil streets, Champaign, Illinois >>> >>> ANSWER teach-in >>> 2020-02-08 at 1PM Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center (IMC) in Urbana, Illinois -- https://www.ucimc.org/ >>> >>> Early election for UIUC campus >>> March 2, 2020 >>> >>> Election Day >>> March 17, 2020 >>> >>> >>> >>> Notes: >>> >>> Maj. Danny Sjursen on "The Impeachment Show: Asking All the Wrong Questions on Ukraine" >>> https://original.antiwar.com/danny_sjursen/2020/01/26/the-impeachment-show-asking-all-the-wrong-questions-on-ukraine/ >>> >>> Carol D. Leonnig and >>> Philip Rucker's "A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America" >>> https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/youre-a-bunch-of-dopes-and-babies-inside-trumps-stunning-tirade-against-generals/2020/01/16/d6dbb8a6-387e-11ea-bb7b-265f4554af6d_story.html >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> Betsy Dirksen Londrigan >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois%27s_13th_congressional_district >>> >>> Tammy Duckworth >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammy_Duckworth >>> >>> Stefanie Smith >>> https://www.stefanie2020.com/ >>> >>> Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Congressional_Campaign_Committee >>> >>> Rodney Davis >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Davis_(politician) >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> Rep. Ro Khanna (CA-17) on voting during the week of January 27 on bills to stop funding an unauthorized war with Iran and to repeal the 2002 Iraq Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) (Rep. Barbara Lee's (CA-13) bill) >>> https://khanna.house.gov/media/press-releases/release-house-will-vote-lee-khanna-iran-bills-week-january-27 >>> >>> Carol Ammons >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Ammons >>> https://justfacts.votesmart.org/candidate/key-votes/106935/carol-ammons -- summary of some of her votes >>> >>> Ranked voting (ranked-choice voting) and methods of counting such votes >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_voting >>> >>> -J >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 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-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss From naiman.uiuc at gmail.com Fri Jan 31 07:46:59 2020 From: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com (Robert Naiman) Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2020 02:46:59 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] =?utf-8?q?Rand_Paul=3A_=22My_question_made_no_re?= =?utf-8?q?ference_to_any_whistleblower=E2=80=A6=22?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Is Rand Paul getting slimed? Did he ask an "illegal question"? How can something be "top secret" and "common knowledge among reporters and editors" at the same time? "Top secret": a bunch of people are calling for Rand Paul to be arrested for allegedly "violating the whistleblower law," so much so that "arrest Rand Paul" trended on Twitter. [Experts in the whistleblower law say there is no basis for this claim, that indeed Rand Paul is exercising his First Amendment rights so long as he's using information available to any U.S. citizen who looks for it, which there is no evidence that he is not doing.] "Common knowledge among reporters and editors" - apparently the name that Rand Paul used in his question is such common knowledge among reporters and editors as a suspected identity of "the whistleblower" that they feel comfortable *reporting *that Rand Paul tried to "out the whistleblower" by asking a question that used this person's name, even though Rand Paul's question made no reference to the claim that this person is "the whistleblower." How can both these things be true at the same time? As Rand Paul referenced in his remarks at the c-span clip below, the people screaming about the whistleblower law now are the same gang who took away the passport of NSA whistleblower Ed Snowden and refuse to give it back. Is Rand Paul getting slimed? Judge for yourself. "We are all Spartacus." https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1222985993772589057 [image: image.png] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image.png Type: image/png Size: 269639 bytes Desc: not available URL: From naiman.uiuc at gmail.com Fri Jan 31 11:05:27 2020 From: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com (Robert Naiman) Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2020 06:05:27 -0500 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: Readers Respond: An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy In-Reply-To: <431447c095ec96fdcfcbe325984c64ff@portside.org> References: <431447c095ec96fdcfcbe325984c64ff@portside.org> Message-ID: This is interesting. I didn't read all of it, I skimmed it. I like that Portside is letting it all hang out. Personally, I have no intention of supporting the Green Party in 2020. But if Bernie is not the Dem nominee, I will do nothing to stand in their way. :) ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Portside Date: Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 8:34 PM Subject: Readers Respond: An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy To: [image: Friday Portside posted An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy, by Noam Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich, Bill Fletcher, Leslie Cagan, Ron Daniels, Kathy Kelly, Norman Solomon, Cynthia Peters, and Michael Albert.] Readers Respond: An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy Portside Readers, including: Eisenscher; Collier Lamont; Millstone; Kinnucan; Jones; Young; Krug; Schwartzman; Zeese; Hawkins; Nack; Schwartz; and Markey January 30, 2020 Portside - - - - * Friday Portside posted An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy, by Noam Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich, Bill Fletcher, Leslie Cagan, Ron Daniels, Kathy Kelly, Norman Solomon, Cynthia Peters, and Michael Albert. * , Below are some of the responses that Portside received to An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy, from Michael Eisenscher; Susan Collier Lamont; Steve Schnapp; Gene Glickman; Daniel Millstone; Jay Jurie; Michael Kinnucan; Steven Sherman; Jeff Jones; Ethan Young; Bert Schultz; Lew Ward; Glenn Kirk; Steve Krug; Tom Caves; Cliff Gulliver; David Schwartzman; Tom Shcherbenko; Kevin Zeese; Howie Hawkins; Jonathan Nack; Ellen Schwartz; and Ray Markey. I appreciate the effort that went into this open letter, https://portside.org/2020-01-24/open-letter-green-party-about-2020-elec? and agree with its central argument. But I found it a bit hard to follow and think it would have been better to have a bullet pointed list of the arguments rather than a dialog. But I also have a simpler way to make the point: If a raging forest fire threatens your home, and professional firefighters are no where to be found, you fight the fire with whatever is at hand - a fire extinguisher, a garden hose, a water bucket - and save your argument about the best way to fight fires for after the one in front of you is out. Once the fire is out, you can go back to developing new firefighting techniques. In solidarity, Michael Eisenscher Here are some new memes I just posted to SolidarityINFOService.org . *=====* What a bunch of crock. I am thoroughly disgusted with the circular logic of these folks - particularly Noam Chomsky. We do not have Trump because of the Green Party. We have Trump because the Democratic Party is neoliberal. The racists have always been racist, so that hasn't changed. You might have had Bernie in 2016, but you accepted that the DNC didn't want him. If they know you'll vote for their choice no matter what they do, why would they give you your choice when it isn't theirs? I voted for the most radical Democrat in the primaries and whatever garbage was thrown at me in the general for 30 years. Watched the party keep moving to right, steadily, all that time and finally said (too late), "Fuck this shit!" It's not that the Green Party has all its shit together, but people talk as though the Democratic Party does! Anyway, it is beyond insulting for these assholes to say that voting for one's values is "feel good" voting. The logic in this letter is so twisted that I'll have to question everything I hear from them in the future. That they would repeat the falsehood that Greens want Trump is disgusting. I don't think "Clinton is the same as Trump," but she is horrendous just the same and I haven't been able to hold my nose that hard for a long time. And I'm really not interested in hearing Facebookers repeat what I've been hearing for so long. You all know that I think deeply about issues. You all know that I think they are complex. Do me the favor of not insulting my intelligence. And if I can be accused of wanting Trump more than Hillary, can't the Democrats be accused of wanting Trump more than Bernie? Susan Collier Lamont Posted on Portside's Facebook page *=====* Just saw this and couldn't agree more. Steve Schnapp * =====* I appreciate that Portside opened its space to publish this open letter. The issue is an important one and should be the subject of critical thinking by Portside's readers. The letter deals with relatively recent history, going back as far as the 2000 election, but also focusing much attention on the 2016 election. In both elections, there are some who want to make the Green Party's campaign a scapegoat for Democratic Party failures. I think the open letter does a good job of tackling these issues. But the thrust of the letter has to do, of course, with the upcoming election. In my opinion, the letter's strongest argument has to do with the battleground states, where, the letter asserts, if Stein had not been on the ballot in 2016 and her votes had gone to Clinton, Trump would not be president now. it is correct to assume that this is a possible danger in 2020 as well. The letter's weakest aspects are all conjectural. 1) It asserts that Clinton would have been better than, or at least not as bad as, Trump. Of course we cannot know how Clinton would have been as president and whether the supposed difference between her and Trump would have made it important enough to be decisive. 2) It does not dwell on how a Trump re-election poses a danger, although it says it would be a "catastrophe." 3) While it spends much of its efforts talking as if the Democratic candidate will be "Sanders, Warren or whoever," (this expression is used five times in the letter), it doesn't say how good or bad "whoever" would turn out to be, assuming that Sanders or Warren were not the candidate. Sanders and Biden truly have consistent track records ? Sanders' record is pretty positive, Biden's pretty negative. Warren's is less clearcut, Klobuchar's even less so and Buttigieg's almost non-existent. If we're considering ordinary policy issues, where time is not a crucial factor, we can merely plead ignorance: we do not know how serious an outcome might be with one of the three of them. But if we're thinking about the climate crisis, it's quite clear that if radical changes in policy are not made very rapidly in the direction of a Green New Deal, all will be for naught; incremental changes will not be sufficient. This leads me to what turns out to be a compromise between the two positions ? that of the open letter and that of the Green Party's Howie Hawkins: Here is my suggestion: the Green Party holds its nominating convention after the Democratic Convention. If the Democrats nominate Sanders, the Green Party either also nominates him, or does not put up a competing candidate. If the Democrats nominate someone other than Sanders, the Greens nominate a Green Party candidate and go all out for their own candidate. Gene Glickman *=====* This is not for everyone because it?s far inside the Interior beltway of left wing politics. But if it?s for you, do not miss it. Here many friends sign an open letter to address a problem posed by the Green Party. In an article in December, Howie Hawkins argued that Greens should contest everywhere (I have put a link to that article in the comments). Hawkins rejects a ?safe state? strategy for the Greens (in which Greens would not contest swing state elections). I agree with the signers of the open letter. But. I don?t know that this is a useful conversation. If green voters could have been persuaded to vote for HRC in swing states, she would have won and we would have been spared some of the nightmare excesses of trumpery. Could they have been persuaded? Can they be persuaded this time? Only by a political program that appeals to them. Thanks to Portside for publishing the letter and helping to continue the discussion. Daniel Millstone Posted on Portside's Facebook page Thanks for posting both sides of this debate. While it can certainly be agreed the absolute imperative at the moment is the defeat of Trump and right-wing coup for which he is the leading edge, the Neidig statement goes too far in asserting a "vote for the Greens is a vote for Trump." There can be no doubt that a vote for whomever the Green presidential candidate might be doesn't help the situation any, but playing the blame game isn't all that helpful either. What'd be a better approach would be simply old fashioned politics, making the case to the Greens and other left third party candidates, as to why voting for them is simply a luxury we cannot afford at this moment, when all hands are needed on deck to push back the rising tide of neo-fascism that threatens to engulf us all. Footnote: why is the Neidig article dated 07/27/16? Was it first published then, and then updated with Trump's name? Jay Jurie Posted on Portside's Facebook page *=====* most interesting thing here is the paragraph that?s like ?look, we don?t even WANT to run for president, but we?re forced to do so by ballot access laws to guarantee a line for our down ballot candidates.? Like, at the point when your most important strategic decision as a party is being basically determined by ballot-access law, you should really ask yourself whether having your own ?party? (ballot line) is really granting you the independence you thought it would. Michael Kinnucan Posted on Portside's Facebook page *=====* If virtually all Green voters in swing states had voted for HRC... quite a stretch. I agree the focus of campaigns should be on winning voters not issuing these warnings. Steven Sherman Posted on Portside's Facebook page *=====* Thanks for posting this. I always find it interesting how roughly half the country doesn?t vote, following their own rational decision making (laid out by Chomsky years ago), and no one frets about why? No one really seeks to mobilize that block of potential voters who never vote. Instead, Nader gets racked over the coals to explain away Gore?s complete failure. And now we get Clinton lost because of Russia! She lost because her program sucks. Jeff Jones Posted on Portside's Facebook page *=====* Wrong Jeff. I don't care about Gore's or Clinton's careers but the facts show they won the popular vote, and lost the election due to GOP maneuvering. -In 2000, a combination of SCOTUS and far right cadres in the Florida count; Gore was ahead nationally. In 2016, the GOP saw gaping holes in the Dems' strategy and took advantage, enabling them to again bypass the popular vote, which went substantially to Hill. Let's get serious about the state of democracy in the USA - to paraphrase Gandhi, it's a good idea.That's the significance of Bernie's groundswell. He actually IS mobilizing MIA voters. Ethan Young Posted on Portside's Facebook page *=====* In 2016, my state of PA was supposed to be a safe state for Clinton. She lost by less than the Green vote. Including mine. Bert Schultz Posted on Portside's Facebook page *=====* Surprised that you, believe the spin blaming the Greens on Clinton's losing the election. A convenient scapegoat. There were far more non-voters than Greens. Be realistic, Clinton was a bad candidate and didn't appeal to the voters. Let's hope after 4 years of Trump the non voters wake up. Lew Ward Posted on Portside's Facebook page When have I heard this desperate Democratic party shill appeal before? Oh right, each and every election for last 30 years at least. Glenn Kirk Posted on Portside's Facebook page *=====* Third parties in U.S. Elections As a person who has voted for the SWP, the SPUSA and the Greens I wish to take issue with the somewhat tired notion that all people who vote for third parties are responsible the more "evil" of the two mainstream candidates to win. I voted for Jill Stein in Wisconsin. If my only choices had been Trump/Clinton I wouldn't have voted at all. I am not one of those folks who say there is no difference between the repubs/demos, but recognizing that fact it is very important to remember there is also a sizable difference between the dems and, in the case of this article, the Greens. The article says that even though I agree with Green policies and not the neo-liberal policies of the dems I still ought to vote for them because otherwise I'm supporting the greater "evil" that the repubs embody. I am well aware of the pitfalls of the "glorious defeats" all third parties, who never stand a chance of winning, have swam in. So, why bother voting for what you want, when your vote might help someone "evil" to be elected (was it Nader who quipped about the "evil of two lessors"?). Third parties in the U.S., in my mind, are responsible for the big shifts in both policy and elect-ability of both mainstream parties. The repubs "southern Strategy" was made possible when George Wallace got several million votes , the repubs happily changed their pitch to the right to woo those voters and dems stopped winning southern states. When Debs, sitting in a jail cell, was still able to get votes, the dems ,through FDR ,modified their platforms to avail themselves of those votes from the left. Elections have long been decided by voters who are not card carrying repubs/dems. Having a bloc of those voters gives you some power to force the issues. Recent history has shown us that the working class has continued to loose ground under both repub/dem administrations, both parties embrace militarism and capitalism. How does one nudge a mainstream party one way or another when the party elites don't want change? Can the dems be transformed into a progressive party? We all witnessed what the old establishment dems did to Bernie last election cycle and what they did to Henry Wallace in the 40's. I applaud those who organize, be it thru unions or progressive wings, to give some clout, and decent candidates, to working people. Democrats who expect someone like me to vote for them are going to have to put forward policies that serve the class I belong to, not just provide me with a clothespin for my nose so I'll vote for 'em. Steve Krug * =====* I refuse to vote for Trump or a corporate Democrat. So as a progressive I'm stuck with an independent or Green party candidate. Tom Caves Posted on Portside's Facebook page * =====* Tom Caves then you?re voting for trump. Cliff Gulliver Posted on Portside's Facebook page *=====* This Open Letter is in response to Howie Hawkins? CounterPunch article . Portside should have run both side by side so readers could make their own judgement without having to retrieve the Hawkins article. According to the Open Letter, ?If Clinton got Jill Stein's Green votes in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, Clinton would have won the election. Thus, the Green Party's decision to run in those states, saying even that there was little or no difference between Trump and Clinton, seems to us to be a factor worthy of being removed from contested state dynamics, just like the Electoral College is a factor worthy of being removed across all states.? This analysis is not supported by pre-election polls and the national exit poll suggesting that a lot of Stein?s supporters wouldn?t have voted at all, if they?d been forced to pick between the two major candidates, plus there were many factors involved in Trump?s win in these swing states . The Open Letter should have acknowledged what Cornel West said at the Green Party (GP) Convention in 2016, making a distinction between a catastrophe (Trump) and a disaster (Clinton), rather than equating the two. On domestic issues and the climate challenge Clinton would have likely been far better than Trump, but don?t rule out the potential for a catastrophic outcome on foreign policy if Trump had been defeated in 2016. Clinton?s foreign policy guru is Henry Kissinger. Her role in regime change in Libya is a red flag regarding the possibility of full-scale war with Iran, North Korea and even Russia in a Clinton administration for the last four years. And now the Democrats are attacking Trump from the right in the Impeachment process, casting the nuclear power Russia, encircled by U.S./NATO bases, as our prime enemy. We should recognize one positive from the Trump catastrophe: the exponential rise of the U.S. socialist left, especially the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). I doubt this would have happened if Clinton were President. The Open Letter concludes by asking ??is a Green candidate running for President after the summer really going to argue we shouldn't vote for Sanders in contested states not just to end Trumpism but also to enact all kinds of important changes including urging and facilitating grass roots activism and thereby advancing Green program?? But what Howie Hawkins said was ?Greens want to get Trump out as much as anybody. Our advice to Democrats is to stop worrying about the Green Party and focus on getting your own base out. Our position is that we are running our own candidates because neither corporate- indentured party will support real solutions to the life-or-death issues of climate change, growing inequality, and nuclear weapons.? I am a leader of the DC Statehood Green Party (DCSGP) and former candidate. DCSGP is an affiliate of the GP. I am strongly supporting Howie Hawkins for the GP Presidential nomination and will vote for him in DC, where any Democrat on the ballot will certainly win the 3 electoral votes. While the open letter says ?we admire the Greens' Green New Deal and economic justice commitments?, it fails to recognize the GP?s historic role in its launch into the public discourse. Howie Hawkins was the first to champion a Green New Deal (GND) in his campaign for New York State Governor in 2010, an ecosocialist GND was the focus of both of Jill Stein?s Presidential campaigns. An ecosocialist GND goes beyond the historic Congressional Resolution introduced by AOC and there is good evidence that the latter came about because of the GP?s introduction of a GND dating back to 2010. I am also a proud member of DSA, enthusiastically supporting their effort to get Bernie Sanders elected. Trump, the white supremacist climate denier must be defeated in 2020 and Bernie Sanders with his GND proposal is the best candidate to make this possible and thereby open up unprecedented possibilities for a much stronger ecosocialist movement. So we should certainly emphasize the consequences of a Trump re-election, emphasizing the still decisive role of the white supremacist Electoral College with the voters and respect their choice for President in each state, and of course maximize the turnout of women, people of color and young voters as Michael Moore has wisely advised, as well as fight against the voter suppression which played a big role in the 2016 election. If Bernie wins the Democratic Party nomination there can be a positive relationship with Howie Hawkins? campaign. Don?t tell voters how to vote, rather share the consequences as we see them. Show respect to voters, even potential Trump voters, and Trump will be defeated. So lets think through our electoral approach strategically, to both defeat Trump and maximize the synergy between the democratic socialist movement behind Bernie and the GP. I know there is a lot of bitterness on both sides, but can?t we work for ?the greater good, rather than the lesser evil?, Jill Stein?s slogan for the 2016 election? Now the greater good is defeating Trump, electing Bernie Sanders and promoting an ecosocialist GND. David Schwartzman, Washington DC *=====* My idea: Green Party gives up Presidential and Congressional candidates, and focuses exclusively on legislatures safely under Democratic Party leadership. I think a Green Party member of the New York City Council or State Assembly would be a good thing. Of course, I'd want to see a few WFP members of both bodies first. Tom Shcherbenko Posted on Portside's Facebook page You published an open letter urging Greens not to run against Democrats in battleground states. Howie Hawkins, a candidate for the Green Party nomination was specifically mentioned. Howie has been responding to these kinds of positions for years. They recur every presidential election campaign. Below is his response to the open letter. I hope you will consider publishing it. Thanks. Kevin Zeese *=====* Every State Is a Battleground By Howie Hawkins A Response to "An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy " The Open Letter is a response to my article (The Green Party Is Not the Democrats? Problem , December 25, 2019). The signers want the Green Party presidential campaign to adopt the ?safe states strategy? of campaigning only in safe states where the outcome is a forgone conclusion. They want the Green Party to support the Democratic presidential ticket in the battleground states where the race is close. For the Greens, every state is a battleground. No state is safe. Greens in every state want a presidential candidate who campaigns in their states in support of their local candidates and causes. Greens in every state are fighting Democrats every day on fracking, oil and gas pipelines, single-payer, school privatization, living wages, police brutality, bloated military budgets and forever wars, and the Greens? very right to appear on ballots. In fighting escalating rents, gentrification, displacement, and homelessness, Greens find local Democrats are thick as thieves with their banker and real estate developer campaign donors, as Trump himself was with the Democratic machine New York City before he ran for president. Of course, the Greens are fighting the Republicans on these issues, too. Is anything different this time around? The two-capitalist-party system?s stranglehold on US politics has not changed. The safe states strategy does nothing to challenge that. The signers argue that Trump is what is different this time around. *The Left Can?t Outsource Fighting the Right to the Democrats* The signers say Greens ?refuse to recognize the special danger of Trump? and that Greens say there is ?no difference between Democrats and Republicans.? I did not say any of that in my article, or in 2016, or ever. In my view, Trump?s racism, corruption, and narcissistic sociopathy make him not just a man with bad policies, but a bad man as well. He was the greater evil compared to Clinton. He?s a greater evil than previous Republican presidents. He is an ever present danger right now in office. What is different about Trump from previous Republicans is his vicious public scapegoating, which has given permission to institutional gatekeepers to increase covert discrimination and to white nationalists to inflict slurs, vandalism, and violence against immigrants, people of color, Muslims, Jews, LGBTQ people, and women. Recognizing the danger of Trump does not mean that electing any damned Democrat should trump all other considerations. The Democrats might beat Trump, but they won?t beat Trumpism because they have enabled it. In office the Democrats join the Republicans to support the basic policies that the capitalist class cares about: neoliberal economic austerity at home and neoconservative imperialism abroad. The Democrats should have crushed Trump in a landslide in 2016 because the hard right Republicans he reflects are a shrinking political minority in the US. But they lost to Trump because most working people didn?t vote at all since Clinton personified their corporate bosses who disrespect and mistreat them. One difference among the Democrats is that the corporate wing will not return the favor of support that Sanders has given to them by pledging to support to any Democratic nominee. Obama has made it known that he opposes a Sanders nomination. Clinton recently refused very publicly to say she would support Sanders if he is the nominee. The signers of this Open Letter have bigger problems inside the Democratic Party than they do with the Greens. *Independent Left Politics Is More Powerful* The signers note that I say in my article that ?Greens want to get Trump out as much as anybody.? Then they ask ?how can that be if Greens would vote for a Green candidate, and not for Sanders, Warren, or any Democrat in a contested state knowing that doing so could mean Trump?s victory.? That can be because there are stronger ways to fight Trump than depending on the Democrats. Trump is dangerous now. The Democrats should have impeached him long ago. Trump was committing crimes in plain sight from the moment he took office. He also should have been impeached for corrupt self-enriching emoluments, nepotism, campaign finance felonies, racist policies and provocations that incited violence, atrocities against migrants at the borders, war crimes, gutting federal regulations and agencies, and constant obstructions of justice. Instead, the Democrats have belatedly chosen to go small instead of big by impeaching him just on the Ukraine extortion scheme and cover-up, as if all his other crimes are acceptable. Instead of beating Trump up politically on multiple grounds for a protracted period of time, the Democrats have given Trump a short Senate trial peppered with militaristic messaging in support of the US proxy war with Russia in Ukraine. The Democrats short, narrow, and often jingoistic impeachment trial fails to show the people how Trump?s crimes hurt them as workers, consumers, minorities, and women, undermined peace, and harmed the environment. That is typical for how the Democrats enable Trumpism. Democratic support for bipartisan militarism abroad enabled Trump to successfully appeal to voters who want to end the endless wars, although that was a big lie by Trump. Decades-long Democratic support for pro-corporate economic policies has created the growing economic inequality and insecurity that are the social conditions in which Trump and the Republicans have been able to expand their base among downwardly-mobile whites with racist, xenophobic, and mysogynist scapegoating. The previous Democratic administration refused to prosecute the corporate criminals who stole 14 million homes or the war criminals who tortured people. The Democrats left them walking free and they walked right into the Trump administration. For details on that, see my article, ?The Rich White Man?s Justice System Protects Trump and His Cronies .? The Democrats have helped to normalize Trump by joining with him to overwhelming support military budget increases, the US Mexico Canada Trade Agreement (NAFTA 2.0), and the prosecution of Julian Assange and persecution of Chelsea Manning. The left is more powerful when it makes its demands independently of either pro-corporate, pro-war party. Instead of depending on the soft-right Democrats to fight the hard-right Republicans, the most effective way to fight the right is to build an independent left movement and party with its own program, actions, and candidates. Instead of futilely begging the politicians of the lesser evil between the two capitalist parties to say and do the right things, the left should speak to the public for itself and build its own independent power. *Real Solutions* The signers claim ?Voting Green in the swing states is a feel-good activity (?vote your hopes, not your fears?) as if fear of climate disaster, for example, shouldn?t be a motivator for political action.? Greens are not political dilettantes who cast votes just to feel good. We vote to make politicians meet our demands if they want our votes. We vote to show people who agree with our demands that they are not alone. We don?t waste our votes affirming Democrats like Clinton who exemplified the elite consensus for the neoliberal economics and neoconservative imperialism that has given us unabated global warming, growing economic insecurity, and endless wars. We used our vote for Jill Stein to demand a Green New Deal, improved Medicare for All, a job guarantee, student debt relief, ending US military aggression, and fair elections. The climate crisis is a prime reason why Greens don?t support Democrats. The last Democratic administration?s ?all of the above? energy policy was a euphemism for fracking the hell out of the country. Obama still brags about how the US became the world?s largest oil and gas producer under his administration. Clinton had her delegates to the Democratic Platform Committee vote against all the climate policies proposed by the Sanders campaign. The one Sanders plank that was adopted was later reversed by the Democratic National Committee in August 2018 when it re-committed the party to taking fossil fuel industry money and went back on the record for the ?all of the above? energy policy , the language that Sanders got removed from the 2016 Democratic platform. Trump calls climate change a hoax, but the Democrats *act* as if it is a hoax. The signers continue, saying ?Real solutions require Trump out of office. Real solutions will become far more probable with Sanders or Warren in office. And real solutions will become somewhat more probable even with the likes of Biden in office.? Yes, let?s be realistic. The Democrats are not going to bring us Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, or deep cuts in the war budget. Progressive Democrats are allowed to make speeches. But the corporate Democrats make the decisions. One would think that after the last two Republican presidents first assumed office after losing the popular vote that the Democrats would move to abolish the Electoral College. But no, it is only the Green Party that is campaigning for a national popular vote for president using ranked-choice voting. Ranked-choice voting would eliminate the spoiler problem that the safe states strategists are so worried about. The Democrats have had 20 years since Bush took the presidency after losing the popular vote to make these rigged elections an issue. Since Trump, the loser by 3 million votes, took the presidency for the Republicans, all the Democrats have been able to do is blame Russians and Greens. We are not waiting for the Democrats. *The Real Green Party* The Open Letter makes a couple of other assertions about the Green Party that are simply wrong. It asks rhetorically, ?Weren?t more potential Green Party members and voters driven off by the party?s dismissal of the dangers of Trump than were inspired by it?? To the contrary, Stein?s vote tripled from 469,627 votes (0.36%) in 2012 to 1,457,218 (1.07%) in 2016. Clinton, on the other hand , only got 81% of 2012 Obama voters in 2016, while 9% voted for Trump, 7% stayed home, and 3% voted for a third party candidate. Stein and the Green Party grew. It was Clinton who drove voters away from her party. As I titled my article, ?The Green Party Is Not the Democrats? Problem.? The Open Letter also asks rhetorically, ?Weren?t the Greens in the late ?80s and early ?90s winning elections to city councils and other local offices across the country, consistent with a grass roots strategy, though for much of the past 20 years, they?ve largely abandoned local and state contests, devoting nearly all their attention to increasingly harmful races for president?? Not true again. In the ?80s and ?90s, the number of Green candidates each year grew from handfuls in the late ?80s to around 100 in even years in the ?90s. Since Ralph Nader?s campaign in 2000, the Greens have run hundreds of candidates every year and won 30%-40% of their local races each year. 130 Greens currently hold elected office. The presidential campaigns have been helpful to state and local parties in securing the 21 state ballot lines the Green Party currently has. These campaigns also helped locals to recruit people to the party for local and state politics. But by far the most Green time and money has gone into local politics. My purpose in seeking the Green Party nomination for president is to urge and assist the Green Party to qualify for more state ballots and to use those ballot lines to elect thousands of local candidates as we move into the 2020s to municipal and county and soon state and congressional offices. The strategy is to build an independent movement and party for ecosocialism from the bottom up into a major party in American politics. We are running out of time to address the life-or-death issues of the climate crisis, the nuclear arms race, and the growing economic inequality that has become a survival issue for working people whose life expectancies are now declining in this country. We don?t have time to march in place with a safe states strategy to elect a lesser evil Democrat. If the Democrats again give us a dismal choice between a corporate Democrat and Trump, and lose again because they cannot get their natural base out to vote for them, it will be their fault, not the Greens?. *[Howie Hawkins is a retired Teamster in Syracuse, New York. A co-founder of the US Green Party, he was the first US candidate to campaign for a Green New Deal in a run for governor of New York in 2010. He is currently seeking the Green nomination for president.]* I believe there is a serious need for discussion about the strategy we Greens should take in this Presidential election, if we want to contribute to the defeat of Trump. I don't know how helpful the "open letter" will be in stimulating such discussion, since it's not written from a perspective of building the Green Party, and few of its authors have done much to build the Green Party. Most Greens I'm hearing from are pretty pissed off by it and dismissing it as a smear against the Green Presidential campaign. The letter may have even harmed chances for there to be a discussion within the Green Party on our Presidential strategy. We'll have to see. I come from a place of having supported the Green Party since its founding in California in the early 1990s. My argument centers on how a strategic approach to this election can help to build the Green Party and greatly enhance its reputation. In the interests of full disclosure, I am also one of many Greens supporting Bernie's campaign for the Democrat's nomination. There is a strong consensus among constituencies the Green Party seeks to represent that Trump must be defeated - that a second Trump term must be prevented. Included in this consensus are the great majority of environmentalists, leftists, progressives, anti-racist activists, immigrant rights and LGBT rights activists, feminists, labor organizers, and activists spanning the social movements. Probably the majority of registered Greens also agree that it is important that Trump be defeated. Given all this, a serious discussion about how the Green Party can accomplish our goals in this Presidential election, get out our party's platform out to the public, along with our critique of the two party system, as well as how we can contribute to the defeat of Trump, is warranted. I'm not sure of the best strategic approach for the Greens, if we acknowledge that contributing to the defeat of Trump is one our strategic goals in this election. That's why I favor a public discourse on the matter among party registrants. A collective process in which a collective strategy could emerge. While my mind is open regarding strategy, and it could be influenced and changed through discussion, the approach I currently favor is actually mentioned in a back-handed way in the "open letter." "[I]f a Green candidate weren?t telling everyone who was a potential Green voter to vote for Trump?s opponent in contested states, how could that evidence that Greens want Trump to lose as much as anyone?" To put this in a positive way, why shouldn't our Green candidate for President publicly call on Green voters in certain swing states, and only those states, to cast their votes for the Democrat in order to ensure Trump's defeat? There are many arguments for and against such a strategy. Would its overall impact be beneficial in building the Green Party and enhancing its mass reputation or detrimental? I currently think the benefits would far outweigh negatives, but am eager to know what other Greens think. I see many potential benefits to this strategy. The first is that the announcement by the Green candidate that Greens in certain swing states (it might end up being very few states) should vote for the Democrat, the Green candidate would immediately receive more corporate media coverage than the rest of their previous coverage of the Green campaign combined. The corporate media (and all other media) will all ask why such an announcement is being made. This will give our Green candidate the opportunity to explain that this is not an endorsement of the Democrat, but rather a call for strategic voting to ensure Trump's defeat. They could explain that it is made necessary by our undemocratic Presidential elections, and specifically the Electoral College, which need to be abolished. Our nominee could also take the opportunity to deliver the Green Party's platform to a much wider audience. Overnight the corporate media's characterization of the Green Party could change ? from a party that is portrayed as at best irrelevant and at worst a spoiler, to questioning whether the party could be a potential kingmaker that could actually tip the balance in a close election. It could also go a considerable distance in changing the views progressives, leftists, and activists of all types that want to see Trump defeated. It might even change the outcome of the election. (Although as many Greens have pointed out, the Green Party isn't nearly the spoiler many critics think it is, and it's potential to swing the election results even in one state is actually quite small. Perceptions are very important in politics, however.) Taking more of a realpolitik strategy in the Presidential election might also attract more interest in the Green Party from more pragmatic voters. This could be quite significant if there are a significant number of Bernie backers ready to take another look at the Green Party, if the Democrats again rig the primary selection process, and perhaps the Democratic Convention. There are also arguments that such a strategy, or perhaps any Green Party strategy developed to help insure Trump's defeat, could lose support from Greens who may see it as a betrayal of the party's principles. It could also impact the party's ballot status in the swing states involved. (I don't know the details about all that and it would depend on which of swing states are involved.) A rich strategic discussion and debate could and should be had. I believe such an open discussion within the Green Party could be very helpful, especially if it seeks to involve a maximum number of party registrants. Unfortunately, many Green Party leaders and hardliners seem to want no such discussion. They seem to view even the suggestion of opening up for such a discussion to be tantamount to treason to the party. Howie Hawkins' article, which also basically dismisses all concerns raised in the "open letter," is not helpful in terms of organizing a collective discussion on Green Party strategy. What I'm proposing is frankly a tough sell. Most Green Party activists I've talked to about the idea are against it. Decades of being attacked as spoilers by liberal, progressive, and left wing Democrats have hardened the attitudes of most of the party's activists. There also really is a big difference between what remains (unless and until Bernie. AOC and insurgent progressives and democratic socialists take it over) a pro-corporate capitalist and imperialist Democratic Party, compared to the Green Party's radical eco-socialist anti-war platform, and perhaps its too big a gulf for such a strategy to be considered. The party's very weak infrastructure also makes having a collective discussion on strategy, especially one which includes all registered Greens and not just the very small number of Greens who participate in organizational activities, to be extremely difficult. Nevertheless, I think the Green Party should attempt to engage its registrants in a discussion regarding our party's strategy for this coming election. The party's weak primary and convention system can be used as vehicles for such a discussion, but I think a more direct vehicle which is all about engaging as many members as possible in a discussion of strategy is also needed. The above is written under the assumption that Bernie is prevented by establishment opposition from winning the Democrat's nomination. If Bernie wins their nomination, it will be a game changer and a different ballgame. That's because of the large number of Greens, including myself, who support Bernie and would gladly vote for him in the General Election. There are even some Greens calling on the Green Party to nominate Bernie as our candidate (although that is quite unlikely). In solidarity, Jonathan Nack *=====* Seems to me there?s another path, and one that is needed no matter who gets the Democratic nomination, and no matter who is elected. It?s not enough for the Greens, maybe even P&F, Bernie-ites, whoever, to tell their members ?to vote? for the Bernie or even some neocon Democrat in the general election. We need a mass movement, or how about a bunch of small mass movements, to oppose whoever gets elected if it isn?t Bernie, and to protect Bernie if somehow the election doesn?t get stolen from him. DSA is working for Bernie but not getting lost inside the Bernie campaign. Chapters are running their own pro-Bernie independent campaigns. That can continue and be even more important if some schnook like Biden is nominated. We have to work for him, but not like in the past, inside campaigns controlled by our enemies. And still more important to have that structure in place if, oh, let?s say Elizabeth Warren is elected ? we can?t let it happen like we did with Obama, not daring to criticize the first black President. If the Green Party lacks the infrastructure to carry out a campaign, phonebanking, door knocking, tabling, whatever, now is the time to build it. Along with other organizations, working independently, but toward compatible goals. For the working class and oppressed minorities, to save the planet, end imperialist wars, the whole shebang. The aforementioned Barack Obama built a mass of volunteers who worked to get him elected, but he was careful not to let them have any contact with each other after the election, and because they wouldn?t be fooled a second time, didn?t even unleash them to save Democratic congressional and senatorial and gubernatorial candidates in subsequent elections. Or maybe he couldn?t have if he wanted to, because he had turned all the contact info over to the Democratic central committee, and THEY certainly don?t want the masses in motion. So even if we work for a Democrat, we must not ever again work *as* Democrats. If we work as progressives, as Socialists, as whatever we may happen to be, even if we?re working to get a non-Trump stinker elected, we?ll be building a movement that can turn the tide. Ellen Schwartz *=====* Thank you Portside for posting the Open Letter . What amazes me about those critical of the letter is that they don?t seemed worried about Impeached Trump and his alt-right allies. My question is just what country are they living in? I?ll keep this brief. I believe Impeached Trump is a menace to our Republic and none of those running in the Democratic Party Primary are so I will vote for whomever is the nominee of the Democratic Party. I thank the authors for writing their letter. Ray Markey - - - - Interpret the world and change it Submit via web Submit via email Frequently asked questions Manage subscription Visit portside.org Twitter Facebook -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From moboct1 at aim.com Fri Jan 31 14:32:49 2020 From: moboct1 at aim.com (Mildred O'brien) Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2020 14:32:49 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] AWARE on the Air #503 notes In-Reply-To: <9C6CC31E-A5DB-48C9-8B88-4C6F8E7C0C92@illinois.edu> References: <9C6CC31E-A5DB-48C9-8B88-4C6F8E7C0C92@illinois.edu> Message-ID: <256215566.973382.1580481169381@mail.yahoo.com> I was amused by Ted Rall's reply to the question how to get our military out of the Middle East (by air, etc).? It reminded me of the burning question when it looked like U.S. wasn't winning the war on Vietnam: "how do we get out of Vietnam?."? Gene McCarthy's answer was "by sea, the same way we got there."? Pundits slammed him for being cynical, but in the end that's exactly how we did get out. Midge -----Original Message----- From: Brussel, Morton K via Peace-discuss To: Karen Aram Cc: Peace Discuss ; J.B. Nicholson ; Brussel, Morton K ; Peace ; C. G. Estabrook Sent: Thu, Jan 30, 2020 4:05 pm Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] AWARE on the Air #503 notes The host can be annoying. Where did they dig up the middle guy? Becker was grinding his teeth wishing to comment more on what was said. > On Jan 30, 2020, at 12:13 PM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss wrote: > > > > Crosstalk has Brian Becker the Director of ANSWER on this weeks program. > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zILRjIf03t0&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR2wqLnTlQR-XdsrJz-Ym-5Q5sGgrGF73fiR1S7VVfAeGnbW23tt4ssviYI > > >> On Jan 29, 2020, at 09:52, Karen Aram via Peace wrote: >> >> Correction: It was not AWARE that had the meeting with Carol Ammons in relation to her vote on BDS, it was the local Green Party. Granted the Officers of the Prairie Greens are the same people in both organizations, but not all. >> >> Carol and her advisors did request this meeting with the Prairie Greens as a result of some with AWARE, notably Carl calling her out on her vote on the ?News from Neptune? as well as the "AWARE" programs. >> >> >>> On Jan 28, 2020, at 18:06, J.B. Nicholson via Peace wrote: >>> >>> AWARE on the Air #503 >>> Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsTHaUeXsj4 >>> >>> Upcoming events: >>> >>> AWARE & ANSWER anti-war protest >>> 2020-02-01 from 2PM-4PM on the corner of Church & Neil streets, Champaign, Illinois >>> >>> ANSWER teach-in >>> 2020-02-08 at 1PM Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center (IMC) in Urbana, Illinois -- https://www.ucimc.org/ >>> >>> Early election for UIUC campus >>> March 2, 2020 >>> >>> Election Day >>> March 17, 2020 >>> >>> >>> >>> Notes: >>> >>> Maj. Danny Sjursen on "The Impeachment Show: Asking All the Wrong Questions on Ukraine" >>> https://original.antiwar.com/danny_sjursen/2020/01/26/the-impeachment-show-asking-all-the-wrong-questions-on-ukraine/ >>> >>> Carol D. Leonnig and >>> Philip Rucker's "A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America" >>> https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/youre-a-bunch-of-dopes-and-babies-inside-trumps-stunning-tirade-against-generals/2020/01/16/d6dbb8a6-387e-11ea-bb7b-265f4554af6d_story.html >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> Betsy Dirksen Londrigan >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois%27s_13th_congressional_district >>> >>> Tammy Duckworth >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammy_Duckworth >>> >>> Stefanie Smith >>> https://www.stefanie2020.com/ >>> >>> Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Congressional_Campaign_Committee >>> >>> Rodney Davis >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Davis_(politician) >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> Rep. Ro Khanna (CA-17) on voting during the week of January 27 on bills to stop funding an unauthorized war with Iran and to repeal the 2002 Iraq Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) (Rep. Barbara Lee's (CA-13) bill) >>> https://khanna.house.gov/media/press-releases/release-house-will-vote-lee-khanna-iran-bills-week-january-27 >>> >>> Carol Ammons >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Ammons >>> https://justfacts.votesmart.org/candidate/key-votes/106935/carol-ammons -- summary of some of her votes >>> >>> Ranked voting (ranked-choice voting) and methods of counting such votes >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_voting >>> >>> -J >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 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-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 Fri Jan 31 14:49:59 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2020 06:49:59 -0800 Subject: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] AWARE on the Air #503 notes In-Reply-To: <256215566.973382.1580481169381@mail.yahoo.com> References: <9C6CC31E-A5DB-48C9-8B88-4C6F8E7C0C92@illinois.edu> <256215566.973382.1580481169381@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Midge Yes, loved it. How to get out of the Mideast, ?go to the airport, board a plane and leave.? Though McCarthy?s response is even better. > On Jan 31, 2020, at 06:32, Mildred O'brien wrote: > > I was amused by Ted Rall's reply to the question how to get our military out of the Middle East (by air, etc). It reminded me of the burning question when it looked like U.S. wasn't winning the war on Vietnam: "how do we get out of Vietnam?." Gene McCarthy's answer was "by sea, the same way we got there." Pundits slammed him for being cynical, but in the end that's exactly how we did get out. > > Midge > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Brussel, Morton K via Peace-discuss > To: Karen Aram > Cc: Peace Discuss ; J.B. Nicholson ; Brussel, Morton K ; Peace ; C. G. Estabrook > Sent: Thu, Jan 30, 2020 4:05 pm > Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] [Peace] AWARE on the Air #503 notes > > The host can be annoying. Where did they dig up the middle guy? Becker was grinding his teeth wishing to comment more on what was said. > > > On Jan 30, 2020, at 12:13 PM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss > wrote: > > > > > > > > Crosstalk has Brian Becker the Director of ANSWER on this weeks program. > > > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zILRjIf03t0&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR2wqLnTlQR-XdsrJz-Ym-5Q5sGgrGF73fiR1S7VVfAeGnbW23tt4ssviYI > > > > > > >> On Jan 29, 2020, at 09:52, Karen Aram via Peace > wrote: > >> > >> Correction: It was not AWARE that had the meeting with Carol Ammons in relation to her vote on BDS, it was the local Green Party. Granted the Officers of the Prairie Greens are the same people in both organizations, but not all. > >> > >> Carol and her advisors did request this meeting with the Prairie Greens as a result of some with AWARE, notably Carl calling her out on her vote on the ?News from Neptune? as well as the "AWARE" programs. > >> > >> > >>> On Jan 28, 2020, at 18:06, J.B. Nicholson via Peace > wrote: > >>> > >>> AWARE on the Air #503 > >>> Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsTHaUeXsj4 > >>> > >>> Upcoming events: > >>> > >>> AWARE & ANSWER anti-war protest > >>> 2020-02-01 from 2PM-4PM on the corner of Church & Neil streets, Champaign, Illinois > >>> > >>> ANSWER teach-in > >>> 2020-02-08 at 1PM Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center (IMC) in Urbana, Illinois -- https://www.ucimc.org/ > >>> > >>> Early election for UIUC campus > >>> March 2, 2020 > >>> > >>> Election Day > >>> March 17, 2020 > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> Notes: > >>> > >>> Maj. Danny Sjursen on "The Impeachment Show: Asking All the Wrong Questions on Ukraine" > >>> https://original.antiwar.com/danny_sjursen/2020/01/26/the-impeachment-show-asking-all-the-wrong-questions-on-ukraine/ > >>> > >>> Carol D. Leonnig and > >>> Philip Rucker's "A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America" > >>> https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/youre-a-bunch-of-dopes-and-babies-inside-trumps-stunning-tirade-against-generals/2020/01/16/d6dbb8a6-387e-11ea-bb7b-265f4554af6d_story.html > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> Betsy Dirksen Londrigan > >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois%27s_13th_congressional_district > >>> > >>> Tammy Duckworth > >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammy_Duckworth > >>> > >>> Stefanie Smith > >>> https://www.stefanie2020.com/ > >>> > >>> Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) > >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Congressional_Campaign_Committee > >>> > >>> Rodney Davis > >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Davis_ (politician) > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> Rep. Ro Khanna (CA-17) on voting during the week of January 27 on bills to stop funding an unauthorized war with Iran and to repeal the 2002 Iraq Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) (Rep. Barbara Lee's (CA-13) bill) > >>> https://khanna.house.gov/media/press-releases/release-house-will-vote-lee-khanna-iran-bills-week-january-27 > >>> > >>> Carol Ammons > >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Ammons > >>> https://justfacts.votesmart.org/candidate/key-votes/106935/carol-ammons -- summary of some of her votes > >>> > >>> Ranked voting (ranked-choice voting) and methods of counting such votes > >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_voting > >>> > >>> -J > >>> _______________________________________________ > >>> 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-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 davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net Fri Jan 31 15:44:39 2020 From: davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net (David Johnson) Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2020 09:44:39 -0600 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: Readers Respond: An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy In-Reply-To: References: <431447c095ec96fdcfcbe325984c64ff@portside.org> Message-ID: <003601d5d84d$5965e8b0$0c31ba10$@comcast.net> This response pretty well sums up my feelings as well ! David J. ? What a bunch of crock. I am thoroughly disgusted with the circular logic of these folks - particularly Noam Chomsky. We do not have Trump because of the Green Party. We have Trump because the Democratic Party is neoliberal. The racists have always been racist, so that hasn't changed. You might have had Bernie in 2016, but you accepted that the DNC didn't want him. If they know you'll vote for their choice no matter what they do, why would they give you your choice when it isn't theirs? I voted for the most radical Democrat in the primaries and whatever garbage was thrown at me in the general for 30 years. Watched the party keep moving to right, steadily, all that time and finally said (too late), "Fuck this shit!" It's not that the Green Party has all its shit together, but people talk as though the Democratic Party does! Anyway, it is beyond insulting for these assholes to say that voting for one's values is "feel good" voting. The logic in this letter is so twisted that I'll have to question everything I hear from them in the future. That they would repeat the falsehood that Greens want Trump is disgusting. I don't think "Clinton is the same as Trump," but she is horrendous just the same and I haven't been able to hold my nose that hard for a long time. And I'm really not interested in hearing Facebookers repeat what I've been hearing for so long. You all know that I think deeply about issues. You all know that I think they are complex. Do me the favor of not insulting my intelligence. And if I can be accused of wanting Trump more than Hillary, can't the Democrats be accused of wanting Trump more than Bernie? ? Susan Collier Lamont Posted on Portside's Facebook page ===== ? Just saw this and couldn't agree more. ? Steve Schnapp From: Peace-discuss [mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of Robert Naiman via Peace-discuss Sent: Friday, January 31, 2020 5:05 AM To: Peace Discuss Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: Readers Respond: An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy This is interesting. I didn't read all of it, I skimmed it. I like that Portside is letting it all hang out. Personally, I have no intention of supporting the Green Party in 2020. But if Bernie is not the Dem nominee, I will do nothing to stand in their way. :) ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Portside Date: Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 8:34 PM Subject: Readers Respond: An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy To: Image removed by sender. Friday Portside posted An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy, by Noam Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich, Bill Fletcher, Leslie Cagan, Ron Daniels, Kathy Kelly, Norman Solomon, Cynthia Peters, and Michael Albert. Readers Respond: An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy Portside Readers, including: Eisenscher; Collier Lamont; Millstone; Kinnucan; Jones; Young; Krug; Schwartzman; Zeese; Hawkins; Nack; Schwartz; and Markey January 30, 2020 Portside ? Image removed by sender. ? Image removed by sender. ? Image removed by sender. ? Image removed by sender. Friday Portside posted An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy, by Noam Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich, Bill Fletcher, Leslie Cagan, Ron Daniels, Kathy Kelly, Norman Solomon, Cynthia Peters, and Michael Albert. Image removed by sender. , Below are some of the responses that Portside received to An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy, from Michael Eisenscher; Susan Collier Lamont; Steve Schnapp; Gene Glickman; Daniel Millstone; Jay Jurie; Michael Kinnucan; Steven Sherman; Jeff Jones; Ethan Young; Bert Schultz; Lew Ward; Glenn Kirk; Steve Krug; Tom Caves; Cliff Gulliver; David Schwartzman; Tom Shcherbenko; Kevin Zeese; Howie Hawkins; Jonathan Nack; Ellen Schwartz; and Ray Markey. I appreciate the effort that went into this open letter, https://portside.org/2020-01-24/open-letter-green-party-about-2020-elec? and agree with its central argument. But I found it a bit hard to follow and think it would have been better to have a bullet pointed list of the arguments rather than a dialog. But I also have a simpler way to make the point: If a raging forest fire threatens your home, and professional firefighters are no where to be found, you fight the fire with whatever is at hand - a fire extinguisher, a garden hose, a water bucket - and save your argument about the best way to fight fires for after the one in front of you is out. Once the fire is out, you can go back to developing new firefighting techniques. In solidarity, Michael Eisenscher Here are some new memes I just posted to SolidarityINFOService.org . ===== What a bunch of crock. I am thoroughly disgusted with the circular logic of these folks - particularly Noam Chomsky. We do not have Trump because of the Green Party. We have Trump because the Democratic Party is neoliberal. The racists have always been racist, so that hasn't changed. You might have had Bernie in 2016, but you accepted that the DNC didn't want him. If they know you'll vote for their choice no matter what they do, why would they give you your choice when it isn't theirs? I voted for the most radical Democrat in the primaries and whatever garbage was thrown at me in the general for 30 years. Watched the party keep moving to right, steadily, all that time and finally said (too late), "Fuck this shit!" It's not that the Green Party has all its shit together, but people talk as though the Democratic Party does! Anyway, it is beyond insulting for these assholes to say that voting for one's values is "feel good" voting. The logic in this letter is so twisted that I'll have to question everything I hear from them in the future. That they would repeat the falsehood that Greens want Trump is disgusting. I don't think "Clinton is the same as Trump," but she is horrendous just the same and I haven't been able to hold my nose that hard for a long time. And I'm really not interested in hearing Facebookers repeat what I've been hearing for so long. You all know that I think deeply about issues. You all know that I think they are complex. Do me the favor of not insulting my intelligence. And if I can be accused of wanting Trump more than Hillary, can't the Democrats be accused of wanting Trump more than Bernie? Susan Collier Lamont Posted on Portside's Facebook page ===== Just saw this and couldn't agree more. Steve Schnapp ===== I appreciate that Portside opened its space to publish this open letter. The issue is an important one and should be the subject of critical thinking by Portside's readers. The letter deals with relatively recent history, going back as far as the 2000 election, but also focusing much attention on the 2016 election. In both elections, there are some who want to make the Green Party's campaign a scapegoat for Democratic Party failures. I think the open letter does a good job of tackling these issues. But the thrust of the letter has to do, of course, with the upcoming election. In my opinion, the letter's strongest argument has to do with the battleground states, where, the letter asserts, if Stein had not been on the ballot in 2016 and her votes had gone to Clinton, Trump would not be president now. it is correct to assume that this is a possible danger in 2020 as well. The letter's weakest aspects are all conjectural. 1) It asserts that Clinton would have been better than, or at least not as bad as, Trump. Of course we cannot know how Clinton would have been as president and whether the supposed difference between her and Trump would have made it important enough to be decisive. 2) It does not dwell on how a Trump re-election poses a danger, although it says it would be a "catastrophe." 3) While it spends much of its efforts talking as if the Democratic candidate will be "Sanders, Warren or whoever," (this expression is used five times in the letter), it doesn't say how good or bad "whoever" would turn out to be, assuming that Sanders or Warren were not the candidate. Sanders and Biden truly have consistent track records ? Sanders' record is pretty positive, Biden's pretty negative. Warren's is less clearcut, Klobuchar's even less so and Buttigieg's almost non-existent. If we're considering ordinary policy issues, where time is not a crucial factor, we can merely plead ignorance: we do not know how serious an outcome might be with one of the three of them. But if we're thinking about the climate crisis, it's quite clear that if radical changes in policy are not made very rapidly in the direction of a Green New Deal, all will be for naught; incremental changes will not be sufficient. This leads me to what turns out to be a compromise between the two positions ? that of the open letter and that of the Green Party's Howie Hawkins: Here is my suggestion: the Green Party holds its nominating convention after the Democratic Convention. If the Democrats nominate Sanders, the Green Party either also nominates him, or does not put up a competing candidate. If the Democrats nominate someone other than Sanders, the Greens nominate a Green Party candidate and go all out for their own candidate. Gene Glickman ===== This is not for everyone because it?s far inside the Interior beltway of left wing politics. But if it?s for you, do not miss it. Here many friends sign an open letter to address a problem posed by the Green Party. In an article in December, Howie Hawkins argued that Greens should contest everywhere (I have put a link to that article in the comments). Hawkins rejects a ?safe state? strategy for the Greens (in which Greens would not contest swing state elections). I agree with the signers of the open letter. But. I don?t know that this is a useful conversation. If green voters could have been persuaded to vote for HRC in swing states, she would have won and we would have been spared some of the nightmare excesses of trumpery. Could they have been persuaded? Can they be persuaded this time? Only by a political program that appeals to them. Thanks to Portside for publishing the letter and helping to continue the discussion. Daniel Millstone Posted on Portside's Facebook page Image removed by sender. Thanks for posting both sides of this debate. While it can certainly be agreed the absolute imperative at the moment is the defeat of Trump and right-wing coup for which he is the leading edge, the Neidig statement goes too far in asserting a "vote for the Greens is a vote for Trump." There can be no doubt that a vote for whomever the Green presidential candidate might be doesn't help the situation any, but playing the blame game isn't all that helpful either. What'd be a better approach would be simply old fashioned politics, making the case to the Greens and other left third party candidates, as to why voting for them is simply a luxury we cannot afford at this moment, when all hands are needed on deck to push back the rising tide of neo-fascism that threatens to engulf us all. Footnote: why is the Neidig article dated 07/27/16? Was it first published then, and then updated with Trump's name? Jay Jurie Posted on Portside's Facebook page ===== most interesting thing here is the paragraph that?s like ?look, we don?t even WANT to run for president, but we?re forced to do so by ballot access laws to guarantee a line for our down ballot candidates.? Like, at the point when your most important strategic decision as a party is being basically determined by ballot-access law, you should really ask yourself whether having your own ?party? (ballot line) is really granting you the independence you thought it would. Michael Kinnucan Posted on Portside's Facebook page ===== If virtually all Green voters in swing states had voted for HRC... quite a stretch. I agree the focus of campaigns should be on winning voters not issuing these warnings. Steven Sherman Posted on Portside's Facebook page ===== Thanks for posting this. I always find it interesting how roughly half the country doesn?t vote, following their own rational decision making (laid out by Chomsky years ago), and no one frets about why? No one really seeks to mobilize that block of potential voters who never vote. Instead, Nader gets racked over the coals to explain away Gore?s complete failure. And now we get Clinton lost because of Russia! She lost because her program sucks. Jeff Jones Posted on Portside's Facebook page ===== Wrong Jeff. I don't care about Gore's or Clinton's careers but the facts show they won the popular vote, and lost the election due to GOP maneuvering. -In 2000, a combination of SCOTUS and far right cadres in the Florida count; Gore was ahead nationally. In 2016, the GOP saw gaping holes in the Dems' strategy and took advantage, enabling them to again bypass the popular vote, which went substantially to Hill. Let's get serious about the state of democracy in the USA - to paraphrase Gandhi, it's a good idea.That's the significance of Bernie's groundswell. He actually IS mobilizing MIA voters. Ethan Young Posted on Portside's Facebook page ===== In 2016, my state of PA was supposed to be a safe state for Clinton. She lost by less than the Green vote. Including mine. Bert Schultz Posted on Portside's Facebook page ===== Surprised that you, believe the spin blaming the Greens on Clinton's losing the election. A convenient scapegoat. There were far more non-voters than Greens. Be realistic, Clinton was a bad candidate and didn't appeal to the voters. Let's hope after 4 years of Trump the non voters wake up. Lew Ward Posted on Portside's Facebook page Image removed by sender. When have I heard this desperate Democratic party shill appeal before? Oh right, each and every election for last 30 years at least. Glenn Kirk Posted on Portside's Facebook page ===== Third parties in U.S. Elections As a person who has voted for the SWP, the SPUSA and the Greens I wish to take issue with the somewhat tired notion that all people who vote for third parties are responsible the more "evil" of the two mainstream candidates to win. I voted for Jill Stein in Wisconsin. If my only choices had been Trump/Clinton I wouldn't have voted at all. I am not one of those folks who say there is no difference between the repubs/demos, but recognizing that fact it is very important to remember there is also a sizable difference between the dems and, in the case of this article, the Greens. The article says that even though I agree with Green policies and not the neo-liberal policies of the dems I still ought to vote for them because otherwise I'm supporting the greater "evil" that the repubs embody. I am well aware of the pitfalls of the "glorious defeats" all third parties, who never stand a chance of winning, have swam in. So, why bother voting for what you want, when your vote might help someone "evil" to be elected (was it Nader who quipped about the "evil of two lessors"?). Third parties in the U.S., in my mind, are responsible for the big shifts in both policy and elect-ability of both mainstream parties. The repubs "southern Strategy" was made possible when George Wallace got several million votes , the repubs happily changed their pitch to the right to woo those voters and dems stopped winning southern states. When Debs, sitting in a jail cell, was still able to get votes, the dems ,through FDR ,modified their platforms to avail themselves of those votes from the left. Elections have long been decided by voters who are not card carrying repubs/dems. Having a bloc of those voters gives you some power to force the issues. Recent history has shown us that the working class has continued to loose ground under both repub/dem administrations, both parties embrace militarism and capitalism. How does one nudge a mainstream party one way or another when the party elites don't want change? Can the dems be transformed into a progressive party? We all witnessed what the old establishment dems did to Bernie last election cycle and what they did to Henry Wallace in the 40's. I applaud those who organize, be it thru unions or progressive wings, to give some clout, and decent candidates, to working people. Democrats who expect someone like me to vote for them are going to have to put forward policies that serve the class I belong to, not just provide me with a clothespin for my nose so I'll vote for 'em. Steve Krug ===== I refuse to vote for Trump or a corporate Democrat. So as a progressive I'm stuck with an independent or Green party candidate. Tom Caves Posted on Portside's Facebook page ===== Tom Caves then you?re voting for trump. Cliff Gulliver Posted on Portside's Facebook page ===== This Open Letter is in response to Howie Hawkins? CounterPunch article . Portside should have run both side by side so readers could make their own judgement without having to retrieve the Hawkins article. According to the Open Letter, ?If Clinton got Jill Stein's Green votes in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, Clinton would have won the election. Thus, the Green Party's decision to run in those states, saying even that there was little or no difference between Trump and Clinton, seems to us to be a factor worthy of being removed from contested state dynamics, just like the Electoral College is a factor worthy of being removed across all states.? This analysis is not supported by pre-election polls and the national exit poll suggesting that a lot of Stein?s supporters wouldn?t have voted at all, if they?d been forced to pick between the two major candidates, plus there were many factors involved in Trump?s win in these swing states . The Open Letter should have acknowledged what Cornel West said at the Green Party (GP) Convention in 2016, making a distinction between a catastrophe (Trump) and a disaster (Clinton), rather than equating the two. On domestic issues and the climate challenge Clinton would have likely been far better than Trump, but don?t rule out the potential for a catastrophic outcome on foreign policy if Trump had been defeated in 2016. Clinton?s foreign policy guru is Henry Kissinger. Her role in regime change in Libya is a red flag regarding the possibility of full-scale war with Iran, North Korea and even Russia in a Clinton administration for the last four years. And now the Democrats are attacking Trump from the right in the Impeachment process, casting the nuclear power Russia, encircled by U.S./NATO bases, as our prime enemy. We should recognize one positive from the Trump catastrophe: the exponential rise of the U.S. socialist left, especially the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). I doubt this would have happened if Clinton were President. The Open Letter concludes by asking ??is a Green candidate running for President after the summer really going to argue we shouldn't vote for Sanders in contested states not just to end Trumpism but also to enact all kinds of important changes including urging and facilitating grass roots activism and thereby advancing Green program?? But what Howie Hawkins said was ?Greens want to get Trump out as much as anybody. Our advice to Democrats is to stop worrying about the Green Party and focus on getting your own base out. Our position is that we are running our own candidates because neither corporate- indentured party will support real solutions to the life-or-death issues of climate change, growing inequality, and nuclear weapons.? I am a leader of the DC Statehood Green Party (DCSGP) and former candidate. DCSGP is an affiliate of the GP. I am strongly supporting Howie Hawkins for the GP Presidential nomination and will vote for him in DC, where any Democrat on the ballot will certainly win the 3 electoral votes. While the open letter says ?we admire the Greens' Green New Deal and economic justice commitments?, it fails to recognize the GP?s historic role in its launch into the public discourse. Howie Hawkins was the first to champion a Green New Deal (GND) in his campaign for New York State Governor in 2010, an ecosocialist GND was the focus of both of Jill Stein?s Presidential campaigns. An ecosocialist GND goes beyond the historic Congressional Resolution introduced by AOC and there is good evidence that the latter came about because of the GP?s introduction of a GND dating back to 2010. I am also a proud member of DSA, enthusiastically supporting their effort to get Bernie Sanders elected. Trump, the white supremacist climate denier must be defeated in 2020 and Bernie Sanders with his GND proposal is the best candidate to make this possible and thereby open up unprecedented possibilities for a much stronger ecosocialist movement. So we should certainly emphasize the consequences of a Trump re-election, emphasizing the still decisive role of the white supremacist Electoral College with the voters and respect their choice for President in each state, and of course maximize the turnout of women, people of color and young voters as Michael Moore has wisely advised, as well as fight against the voter suppression which played a big role in the 2016 election. If Bernie wins the Democratic Party nomination there can be a positive relationship with Howie Hawkins? campaign. Don?t tell voters how to vote, rather share the consequences as we see them. Show respect to voters, even potential Trump voters, and Trump will be defeated. So lets think through our electoral approach strategically, to both defeat Trump and maximize the synergy between the democratic socialist movement behind Bernie and the GP. I know there is a lot of bitterness on both sides, but can?t we work for ?the greater good, rather than the lesser evil?, Jill Stein?s slogan for the 2016 election? Now the greater good is defeating Trump, electing Bernie Sanders and promoting an ecosocialist GND. David Schwartzman, Washington DC ===== My idea: Green Party gives up Presidential and Congressional candidates, and focuses exclusively on legislatures safely under Democratic Party leadership. I think a Green Party member of the New York City Council or State Assembly would be a good thing. Of course, I'd want to see a few WFP members of both bodies first. Tom Shcherbenko Posted on Portside's Facebook page Image removed by sender. You published an open letter urging Greens not to run against Democrats in battleground states. Howie Hawkins, a candidate for the Green Party nomination was specifically mentioned. Howie has been responding to these kinds of positions for years. They recur every presidential election campaign. Below is his response to the open letter. I hope you will consider publishing it. Thanks. Kevin Zeese ===== Every State Is a Battleground By Howie Hawkins A Response to "An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy " The Open Letter is a response to my article (The Green Party Is Not the Democrats? Problem , December 25, 2019). The signers want the Green Party presidential campaign to adopt the ?safe states strategy? of campaigning only in safe states where the outcome is a forgone conclusion. They want the Green Party to support the Democratic presidential ticket in the battleground states where the race is close. For the Greens, every state is a battleground. No state is safe. Greens in every state want a presidential candidate who campaigns in their states in support of their local candidates and causes. Greens in every state are fighting Democrats every day on fracking, oil and gas pipelines, single-payer, school privatization, living wages, police brutality, bloated military budgets and forever wars, and the Greens? very right to appear on ballots. In fighting escalating rents, gentrification, displacement, and homelessness, Greens find local Democrats are thick as thieves with their banker and real estate developer campaign donors, as Trump himself was with the Democratic machine New York City before he ran for president. Of course, the Greens are fighting the Republicans on these issues, too. Is anything different this time around? The two-capitalist-party system?s stranglehold on US politics has not changed. The safe states strategy does nothing to challenge that. The signers argue that Trump is what is different this time around. The Left Can?t Outsource Fighting the Right to the Democrats The signers say Greens ?refuse to recognize the special danger of Trump? and that Greens say there is ?no difference between Democrats and Republicans.? I did not say any of that in my article, or in 2016, or ever. In my view, Trump?s racism, corruption, and narcissistic sociopathy make him not just a man with bad policies, but a bad man as well. He was the greater evil compared to Clinton. He?s a greater evil than previous Republican presidents. He is an ever present danger right now in office. What is different about Trump from previous Republicans is his vicious public scapegoating, which has given permission to institutional gatekeepers to increase covert discrimination and to white nationalists to inflict slurs, vandalism, and violence against immigrants, people of color, Muslims, Jews, LGBTQ people, and women. Recognizing the danger of Trump does not mean that electing any damned Democrat should trump all other considerations. The Democrats might beat Trump, but they won?t beat Trumpism because they have enabled it. In office the Democrats join the Republicans to support the basic policies that the capitalist class cares about: neoliberal economic austerity at home and neoconservative imperialism abroad. The Democrats should have crushed Trump in a landslide in 2016 because the hard right Republicans he reflects are a shrinking political minority in the US. But they lost to Trump because most working people didn?t vote at all since Clinton personified their corporate bosses who disrespect and mistreat them. One difference among the Democrats is that the corporate wing will not return the favor of support that Sanders has given to them by pledging to support to any Democratic nominee. Obama has made it known that he opposes a Sanders nomination. Clinton recently refused very publicly to say she would support Sanders if he is the nominee. The signers of this Open Letter have bigger problems inside the Democratic Party than they do with the Greens. Independent Left Politics Is More Powerful The signers note that I say in my article that ?Greens want to get Trump out as much as anybody.? Then they ask ?how can that be if Greens would vote for a Green candidate, and not for Sanders, Warren, or any Democrat in a contested state knowing that doing so could mean Trump?s victory.? That can be because there are stronger ways to fight Trump than depending on the Democrats. Trump is dangerous now. The Democrats should have impeached him long ago. Trump was committing crimes in plain sight from the moment he took office. He also should have been impeached for corrupt self-enriching emoluments, nepotism, campaign finance felonies, racist policies and provocations that incited violence, atrocities against migrants at the borders, war crimes, gutting federal regulations and agencies, and constant obstructions of justice. Instead, the Democrats have belatedly chosen to go small instead of big by impeaching him just on the Ukraine extortion scheme and cover-up, as if all his other crimes are acceptable. Instead of beating Trump up politically on multiple grounds for a protracted period of time, the Democrats have given Trump a short Senate trial peppered with militaristic messaging in support of the US proxy war with Russia in Ukraine. The Democrats short, narrow, and often jingoistic impeachment trial fails to show the people how Trump?s crimes hurt them as workers, consumers, minorities, and women, undermined peace, and harmed the environment. That is typical for how the Democrats enable Trumpism. Democratic support for bipartisan militarism abroad enabled Trump to successfully appeal to voters who want to end the endless wars, although that was a big lie by Trump. Decades-long Democratic support for pro-corporate economic policies has created the growing economic inequality and insecurity that are the social conditions in which Trump and the Republicans have been able to expand their base among downwardly-mobile whites with racist, xenophobic, and mysogynist scapegoating. The previous Democratic administration refused to prosecute the corporate criminals who stole 14 million homes or the war criminals who tortured people. The Democrats left them walking free and they walked right into the Trump administration. For details on that, see my article, ?The Rich White Man?s Justice System Protects Trump and His Cronies .? The Democrats have helped to normalize Trump by joining with him to overwhelming support military budget increases, the US Mexico Canada Trade Agreement (NAFTA 2.0), and the prosecution of Julian Assange and persecution of Chelsea Manning. The left is more powerful when it makes its demands independently of either pro-corporate, pro-war party. Instead of depending on the soft-right Democrats to fight the hard-right Republicans, the most effective way to fight the right is to build an independent left movement and party with its own program, actions, and candidates. Instead of futilely begging the politicians of the lesser evil between the two capitalist parties to say and do the right things, the left should speak to the public for itself and build its own independent power. Real Solutions The signers claim ?Voting Green in the swing states is a feel-good activity (?vote your hopes, not your fears?) as if fear of climate disaster, for example, shouldn?t be a motivator for political action.? Greens are not political dilettantes who cast votes just to feel good. We vote to make politicians meet our demands if they want our votes. We vote to show people who agree with our demands that they are not alone. We don?t waste our votes affirming Democrats like Clinton who exemplified the elite consensus for the neoliberal economics and neoconservative imperialism that has given us unabated global warming, growing economic insecurity, and endless wars. We used our vote for Jill Stein to demand a Green New Deal, improved Medicare for All, a job guarantee, student debt relief, ending US military aggression, and fair elections. The climate crisis is a prime reason why Greens don?t support Democrats. The last Democratic administration?s ?all of the above? energy policy was a euphemism for fracking the hell out of the country. Obama still brags about how the US became the world?s largest oil and gas producer under his administration. Clinton had her delegates to the Democratic Platform Committee vote against all the climate policies proposed by the Sanders campaign. The one Sanders plank that was adopted was later reversed by the Democratic National Committee in August 2018 when it re-committed the party to taking fossil fuel industry money and went back on the record for the ?all of the above? energy policy , the language that Sanders got removed from the 2016 Democratic platform. Trump calls climate change a hoax, but the Democrats act as if it is a hoax. The signers continue, saying ?Real solutions require Trump out of office. Real solutions will become far more probable with Sanders or Warren in office. And real solutions will become somewhat more probable even with the likes of Biden in office.? Yes, let?s be realistic. The Democrats are not going to bring us Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, or deep cuts in the war budget. Progressive Democrats are allowed to make speeches. But the corporate Democrats make the decisions. One would think that after the last two Republican presidents first assumed office after losing the popular vote that the Democrats would move to abolish the Electoral College. But no, it is only the Green Party that is campaigning for a national popular vote for president using ranked-choice voting. Ranked-choice voting would eliminate the spoiler problem that the safe states strategists are so worried about. The Democrats have had 20 years since Bush took the presidency after losing the popular vote to make these rigged elections an issue. Since Trump, the loser by 3 million votes, took the presidency for the Republicans, all the Democrats have been able to do is blame Russians and Greens. We are not waiting for the Democrats. The Real Green Party The Open Letter makes a couple of other assertions about the Green Party that are simply wrong. It asks rhetorically, ?Weren?t more potential Green Party members and voters driven off by the party?s dismissal of the dangers of Trump than were inspired by it?? To the contrary, Stein?s vote tripled from 469,627 votes (0.36%) in 2012 to 1,457,218 (1.07%) in 2016. Clinton, on the other hand , only got 81% of 2012 Obama voters in 2016, while 9% voted for Trump, 7% stayed home, and 3% voted for a third party candidate. Stein and the Green Party grew. It was Clinton who drove voters away from her party. As I titled my article, ?The Green Party Is Not the Democrats? Problem.? The Open Letter also asks rhetorically, ?Weren?t the Greens in the late ?80s and early ?90s winning elections to city councils and other local offices across the country, consistent with a grass roots strategy, though for much of the past 20 years, they?ve largely abandoned local and state contests, devoting nearly all their attention to increasingly harmful races for president?? Not true again. In the ?80s and ?90s, the number of Green candidates each year grew from handfuls in the late ?80s to around 100 in even years in the ?90s. Since Ralph Nader?s campaign in 2000, the Greens have run hundreds of candidates every year and won 30%-40% of their local races each year. 130 Greens currently hold elected office. The presidential campaigns have been helpful to state and local parties in securing the 21 state ballot lines the Green Party currently has. These campaigns also helped locals to recruit people to the party for local and state politics. But by far the most Green time and money has gone into local politics. My purpose in seeking the Green Party nomination for president is to urge and assist the Green Party to qualify for more state ballots and to use those ballot lines to elect thousands of local candidates as we move into the 2020s to municipal and county and soon state and congressional offices. The strategy is to build an independent movement and party for ecosocialism from the bottom up into a major party in American politics. We are running out of time to address the life-or-death issues of the climate crisis, the nuclear arms race, and the growing economic inequality that has become a survival issue for working people whose life expectancies are now declining in this country. We don?t have time to march in place with a safe states strategy to elect a lesser evil Democrat. If the Democrats again give us a dismal choice between a corporate Democrat and Trump, and lose again because they cannot get their natural base out to vote for them, it will be their fault, not the Greens?. [Howie Hawkins is a retired Teamster in Syracuse, New York. A co-founder of the US Green Party, he was the first US candidate to campaign for a Green New Deal in a run for governor of New York in 2010. He is currently seeking the Green nomination for president.] Image removed by sender. I believe there is a serious need for discussion about the strategy we Greens should take in this Presidential election, if we want to contribute to the defeat of Trump. I don't know how helpful the "open letter" will be in stimulating such discussion, since it's not written from a perspective of building the Green Party, and few of its authors have done much to build the Green Party. Most Greens I'm hearing from are pretty pissed off by it and dismissing it as a smear against the Green Presidential campaign. The letter may have even harmed chances for there to be a discussion within the Green Party on our Presidential strategy. We'll have to see. I come from a place of having supported the Green Party since its founding in California in the early 1990s. My argument centers on how a strategic approach to this election can help to build the Green Party and greatly enhance its reputation. In the interests of full disclosure, I am also one of many Greens supporting Bernie's campaign for the Democrat's nomination. There is a strong consensus among constituencies the Green Party seeks to represent that Trump must be defeated - that a second Trump term must be prevented. Included in this consensus are the great majority of environmentalists, leftists, progressives, anti-racist activists, immigrant rights and LGBT rights activists, feminists, labor organizers, and activists spanning the social movements. Probably the majority of registered Greens also agree that it is important that Trump be defeated. Given all this, a serious discussion about how the Green Party can accomplish our goals in this Presidential election, get out our party's platform out to the public, along with our critique of the two party system, as well as how we can contribute to the defeat of Trump, is warranted. I'm not sure of the best strategic approach for the Greens, if we acknowledge that contributing to the defeat of Trump is one our strategic goals in this election. That's why I favor a public discourse on the matter among party registrants. A collective process in which a collective strategy could emerge. While my mind is open regarding strategy, and it could be influenced and changed through discussion, the approach I currently favor is actually mentioned in a back-handed way in the "open letter." "[I]f a Green candidate weren?t telling everyone who was a potential Green voter to vote for Trump?s opponent in contested states, how could that evidence that Greens want Trump to lose as much as anyone?" To put this in a positive way, why shouldn't our Green candidate for President publicly call on Green voters in certain swing states, and only those states, to cast their votes for the Democrat in order to ensure Trump's defeat? There are many arguments for and against such a strategy. Would its overall impact be beneficial in building the Green Party and enhancing its mass reputation or detrimental? I currently think the benefits would far outweigh negatives, but am eager to know what other Greens think. I see many potential benefits to this strategy. The first is that the announcement by the Green candidate that Greens in certain swing states (it might end up being very few states) should vote for the Democrat, the Green candidate would immediately receive more corporate media coverage than the rest of their previous coverage of the Green campaign combined. The corporate media (and all other media) will all ask why such an announcement is being made. This will give our Green candidate the opportunity to explain that this is not an endorsement of the Democrat, but rather a call for strategic voting to ensure Trump's defeat. They could explain that it is made necessary by our undemocratic Presidential elections, and specifically the Electoral College, which need to be abolished. Our nominee could also take the opportunity to deliver the Green Party's platform to a much wider audience. Overnight the corporate media's characterization of the Green Party could change ? from a party that is portrayed as at best irrelevant and at worst a spoiler, to questioning whether the party could be a potential kingmaker that could actually tip the balance in a close election. It could also go a considerable distance in changing the views progressives, leftists, and activists of all types that want to see Trump defeated. It might even change the outcome of the election. (Although as many Greens have pointed out, the Green Party isn't nearly the spoiler many critics think it is, and it's potential to swing the election results even in one state is actually quite small. Perceptions are very important in politics, however.) Taking more of a realpolitik strategy in the Presidential election might also attract more interest in the Green Party from more pragmatic voters. This could be quite significant if there are a significant number of Bernie backers ready to take another look at the Green Party, if the Democrats again rig the primary selection process, and perhaps the Democratic Convention. There are also arguments that such a strategy, or perhaps any Green Party strategy developed to help insure Trump's defeat, could lose support from Greens who may see it as a betrayal of the party's principles. It could also impact the party's ballot status in the swing states involved. (I don't know the details about all that and it would depend on which of swing states are involved.) A rich strategic discussion and debate could and should be had. I believe such an open discussion within the Green Party could be very helpful, especially if it seeks to involve a maximum number of party registrants. Unfortunately, many Green Party leaders and hardliners seem to want no such discussion. They seem to view even the suggestion of opening up for such a discussion to be tantamount to treason to the party. Howie Hawkins' article, which also basically dismisses all concerns raised in the "open letter," is not helpful in terms of organizing a collective discussion on Green Party strategy. What I'm proposing is frankly a tough sell. Most Green Party activists I've talked to about the idea are against it. Decades of being attacked as spoilers by liberal, progressive, and left wing Democrats have hardened the attitudes of most of the party's activists. There also really is a big difference between what remains (unless and until Bernie. AOC and insurgent progressives and democratic socialists take it over) a pro-corporate capitalist and imperialist Democratic Party, compared to the Green Party's radical eco-socialist anti-war platform, and perhaps its too big a gulf for such a strategy to be considered. The party's very weak infrastructure also makes having a collective discussion on strategy, especially one which includes all registered Greens and not just the very small number of Greens who participate in organizational activities, to be extremely difficult. Nevertheless, I think the Green Party should attempt to engage its registrants in a discussion regarding our party's strategy for this coming election. The party's weak primary and convention system can be used as vehicles for such a discussion, but I think a more direct vehicle which is all about engaging as many members as possible in a discussion of strategy is also needed. The above is written under the assumption that Bernie is prevented by establishment opposition from winning the Democrat's nomination. If Bernie wins their nomination, it will be a game changer and a different ballgame. That's because of the large number of Greens, including myself, who support Bernie and would gladly vote for him in the General Election. There are even some Greens calling on the Green Party to nominate Bernie as our candidate (although that is quite unlikely). In solidarity, Jonathan Nack ===== Seems to me there?s another path, and one that is needed no matter who gets the Democratic nomination, and no matter who is elected. It?s not enough for the Greens, maybe even P&F, Bernie-ites, whoever, to tell their members ?to vote? for the Bernie or even some neocon Democrat in the general election. We need a mass movement, or how about a bunch of small mass movements, to oppose whoever gets elected if it isn?t Bernie, and to protect Bernie if somehow the election doesn?t get stolen from him. DSA is working for Bernie but not getting lost inside the Bernie campaign. Chapters are running their own pro-Bernie independent campaigns. That can continue and be even more important if some schnook like Biden is nominated. We have to work for him, but not like in the past, inside campaigns controlled by our enemies. And still more important to have that structure in place if, oh, let?s say Elizabeth Warren is elected ? we can?t let it happen like we did with Obama, not daring to criticize the first black President. If the Green Party lacks the infrastructure to carry out a campaign, phonebanking, door knocking, tabling, whatever, now is the time to build it. Along with other organizations, working independently, but toward compatible goals. For the working class and oppressed minorities, to save the planet, end imperialist wars, the whole shebang. The aforementioned Barack Obama built a mass of volunteers who worked to get him elected, but he was careful not to let them have any contact with each other after the election, and because they wouldn?t be fooled a second time, didn?t even unleash them to save Democratic congressional and senatorial and gubernatorial candidates in subsequent elections. Or maybe he couldn?t have if he wanted to, because he had turned all the contact info over to the Democratic central committee, and THEY certainly don?t want the masses in motion. So even if we work for a Democrat, we must not ever again work *as* Democrats. If we work as progressives, as Socialists, as whatever we may happen to be, even if we?re working to get a non-Trump stinker elected, we?ll be building a movement that can turn the tide. Ellen Schwartz ===== Thank you Portside for posting the Open Letter . What amazes me about those critical of the letter is that they don?t seemed worried about Impeached Trump and his alt-right allies. My question is just what country are they living in? I?ll keep this brief. I believe Impeached Trump is a menace to our Republic and none of those running in the Democratic Party Primary are so I will vote for whomever is the nominee of the Democratic Party. I thank the authors for writing their letter. Ray Markey Image removed by sender. ? Image removed by sender. ? Image removed by sender. ? Image removed by sender. ? Image removed by sender. Interpret the world and change it Submit via web Submit via email Frequently asked questions Manage subscription Visit portside.org Twitter Facebook -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: ~WRD000.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 823 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 344 bytes Desc: not available URL: From moboct1 at aim.com Fri Jan 31 18:44:36 2020 From: moboct1 at aim.com (Mildred O'brien) Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2020 18:44:36 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: Readers Respond: An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy In-Reply-To: <003601d5d84d$5965e8b0$0c31ba10$@comcast.net> References: <431447c095ec96fdcfcbe325984c64ff@portside.org> <003601d5d84d$5965e8b0$0c31ba10$@comcast.net> Message-ID: <321839495.1146674.1580496276184@mail.yahoo.com> This letter obviously came from the?liberals who?still blame Ralph Nader and Jill Stein?and?Green Party voters instead of looking inward?for the failures of the DNC in supporting neoliberal Democrats who have been responsible for U.S. imperialism and endless wars.? Trump is just the logical absurdity of their failure to address the lack of integrity?and misplaced loyalty to big Money and Big Med?and corruption that goes along with the Party's dictates that?stand for?nothing to correct?what ails America. Midge O'Brien ? -----Original Message----- From: David Johnson via Peace-discuss To: naiman.uiuc ; 'Peace Discuss' Sent: Fri, Jan 31, 2020 9:46 am Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: Readers Respond: An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy #yiv4048797977 #yiv4048797977 -- _filtered {} _filtered {} _filtered {} _filtered {} #yiv4048797977 #yiv4048797977 p.yiv4048797977MsoNormal, #yiv4048797977 li.yiv4048797977MsoNormal, #yiv4048797977 div.yiv4048797977MsoNormal {margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;font-size:12.0pt;font-family:New;} #yiv4048797977 h2 {margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:18.0pt;font-family:New;font-weight:bold;} #yiv4048797977 h3 {margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:13.5pt;font-family:New;font-weight:bold;} #yiv4048797977 a:link, #yiv4048797977 span.yiv4048797977MsoHyperlink {color:blue;text-decoration:underline;} #yiv4048797977 a:visited, #yiv4048797977 span.yiv4048797977MsoHyperlinkFollowed {color:purple;text-decoration:underline;} #yiv4048797977 p {margin-right:0in;margin-left:0in;font-size:12.0pt;font-family:New;} #yiv4048797977 span.yiv4048797977Heading2Char {color:#4F81BD;font-weight:bold;} #yiv4048797977 span.yiv4048797977Heading3Char {color:#4F81BD;font-weight:bold;} #yiv4048797977 span.yiv4048797977EmailStyle22 {color:#1F497D;} #yiv4048797977 .yiv4048797977MsoChpDefault {} #yiv4048797977 .yiv4048797977MsoPapDefault {text-align:justify;} _filtered {} #yiv4048797977 div.yiv4048797977WordSection1 {} #yiv4048797977 _filtered {} _filtered {} _filtered {} _filtered {} _filtered {} _filtered {} _filtered {} _filtered {} _filtered {} _filtered {} _filtered {} _filtered {} _filtered {} _filtered {} _filtered {} _filtered {} _filtered {} _filtered {} _filtered {} _filtered {} #yiv4048797977 ol {margin-bottom:0in;} #yiv4048797977 ul {margin-bottom:0in;} #yiv4048797977 This response pretty well sums up my feelings as well ! ? David J. ? ? What a bunch of crock. I am thoroughly disgusted with the circular logic of these folks - particularly Noam Chomsky. We do not have Trump because of the Green Party. We have Trump because the Democratic Party is neoliberal. The racists have always been racist, so that hasn't changed. You might have had Bernie in 2016, but you accepted that the DNC didn't want him. If they know you'll vote for their choice no matter what they do, why would they give you your choice when it isn't theirs? I voted for the most radical Democrat in the primaries and whatever garbage was thrown at me in the general for 30 years. Watched the party keep moving to right, steadily, all that time and finally said (too late), "Fuck this shit!" It's not that the Green Party has all its shit together, but people talk as though the Democratic Party does! Anyway, it is beyond insulting for these assholes to say that voting for one's values is "feel good" voting. The logic in this letter is so twisted that I'll have to question everything I hear from them in the future. That they would repeat the falsehood that Greens want Trump is disgusting. I don't think "Clinton is the same as Trump," but she is horrendous just the same and I haven't been able to hold my nose that hard for a long time. And I'm really not interested in hearing Facebookers repeat what I've been hearing for so long. You all know that I think deeply about issues. You all know that I think they are complex. Do me the favor of not insulting my intelligence. And if I can be accused of wanting Trump more than Hillary, can't the Democrats be accused of wanting Trump more than Bernie? ? Susan Collier Lamont Posted on Portside's Facebook page ? ? ?===== ? Just saw this and couldn't agree more. ? Steve Schnapp ? From: Peace-discuss [mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of Robert Naiman via Peace-discuss Sent: Friday, January 31, 2020 5:05 AM To: Peace Discuss Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: Readers Respond: An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy ? ? This is interesting. I didn't read all of it, I skimmed it. I like that Portside is letting it all hang out.? ? Personally, I have no intention of supporting the Green Party in 2020.? ? But if Bernie is not the Dem nominee, I will do nothing to stand in their way. :)? ? ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Portside Date: Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 8:34 PM Subject: Readers Respond: An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy To: ? | | | | | | | | Readers Respond: An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy ? ? Portside Readers, including: Eisenscher; Collier Lamont; Millstone; Kinnucan; Jones; Young; Krug; Schwartzman; Zeese; Hawkins; Nack; Schwartz; and Markey January 30, 2020 Portside ??????? ??????? ??????? ??????? Friday Portside posted An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy, by Noam Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich, Bill Fletcher, Leslie Cagan, Ron Daniels, Kathy Kelly, Norman Solomon, Cynthia Peters, and Michael Albert. | | , | | ? Below are some of the responses that Portside received to An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy, from Michael Eisenscher; Susan Collier Lamont; Steve Schnapp; Gene Glickman; Daniel Millstone; Jay Jurie; Michael Kinnucan; Steven Sherman; Jeff Jones; Ethan Young; Bert Schultz; Lew Ward; Glenn Kirk; Steve Krug; Tom Caves; Cliff Gulliver; David Schwartzman; Tom Shcherbenko; Kevin Zeese; Howie Hawkins; Jonathan Nack; Ellen Schwartz;?and Ray Markey. I appreciate the effort that went into this open letter, https://portside.org/2020-01-24/open-letter-green-party-about-2020-elec? and agree with its central argument. But I found it a bit hard to follow and think it would have been better to have a bullet pointed list of the arguments rather than a dialog. But I also have a simpler way to make the point: If a raging forest fire threatens your home, and professional firefighters are no where to be found, you fight the fire with whatever is at hand - a fire extinguisher, a garden hose, a water bucket -? and save your argument about the best way to fight fires for after the one in front of you is out.? Once the fire is out, you can go back to developing new firefighting techniques. In solidarity, Michael Eisenscher Here are some new memes I just posted to SolidarityINFOService.org. ? ? ?===== What a bunch of crock. I am thoroughly disgusted with the circular logic of these folks - particularly Noam Chomsky. We do not have Trump because of the Green Party. We have Trump because the Democratic Party is neoliberal. The racists have always been racist, so that hasn't changed. You might have had Bernie in 2016, but you accepted that the DNC didn't want him. If they know you'll vote for their choice no matter what they do, why would they give you your choice when it isn't theirs? I voted for the most radical Democrat in the primaries and whatever garbage was thrown at me in the general for 30 years. Watched the party keep moving to right, steadily, all that time and finally said (too late), "Fuck this shit!" It's not that the Green Party has all its shit together, but people talk as though the Democratic Party does! Anyway, it is beyond insulting for these assholes to say that voting for one's values is "feel good" voting. The logic in this letter is so twisted that I'll have to question everything I hear from them in the future. That they would repeat the falsehood that Greens want Trump is disgusting. I don't think "Clinton is the same as Trump," but she is horrendous just the same and I haven't been able to hold my nose that hard for a long time. And I'm really not interested in hearing Facebookers repeat what I've been hearing for so long. You all know that I think deeply about issues. You all know that I think they are complex. Do me the favor of not insulting my intelligence. And if I can be accused of wanting Trump more than Hillary, can't the Democrats be accused of wanting Trump more than Bernie? Susan Collier Lamont Posted on Portside's Facebook page ? ? ?===== Just saw this and couldn't agree more. Steve Schnapp ? ? ?===== I appreciate that Portside opened its space to publish this open letter. The issue is an important one and should be the subject of critical thinking by Portside's readers. The letter deals with relatively recent history, going back as far as the 2000 election, but also focusing much attention on the 2016 election. In both elections, there are some who want to make the Green Party's campaign a scapegoat for Democratic Party failures. I think the open letter does a good job of tackling these issues. But the thrust of the letter has to do, of course, with the upcoming election.? In my opinion, the letter's strongest argument has to do with the battleground states, where, the letter asserts, if Stein had not been on the ballot in 2016 and her votes ?had gone to Clinton, Trump would not be president now. it is correct to assume that this is a possible danger in 2020 as well. The letter's weakest aspects are all conjectural. 1) It asserts that Clinton would have been better than, or at least not as bad as, Trump. Of course we cannot know how Clinton would have been as president and whether the supposed difference between her and Trump would have made it important enough to be decisive. 2) It does not dwell on how a Trump re-election poses a danger, although it ?says it would be a "catastrophe." 3) While it spends much of its efforts talking as if the Democratic candidate will be "Sanders, Warren or whoever," (this expression is used five times in the letter), it doesn't say how good or bad "whoever" would turn out to be, assuming that Sanders or Warren were not the candidate. Sanders and Biden truly have consistent track records ? Sanders' record is pretty positive, Biden's pretty negative. Warren's is less clearcut, Klobuchar's even less so and Buttigieg's almost non-existent. If we're considering ordinary policy issues, where time is not a crucial factor, we can merely plead ignorance: we do not know how serious an outcome might be with one of the three of them. But if we're thinking about the climate crisis, it's quite clear that if radical changes in policy are not made very rapidly in the direction of a Green New Deal, all will be for naught; incremental changes will not be sufficient. This leads me to what turns out to be a compromise between the two positions ? that of the open letter and that of the Green Party's Howie Hawkins: Here is my suggestion: the Green Party holds its nominating convention after the Democratic Convention. If the Democrats nominate Sanders, the Green Party either also nominates him, or does not put up a competing candidate. If the Democrats nominate someone other than Sanders, the Greens nominate a Green Party candidate and go all out for their own candidate. Gene Glickman ? ? ?===== This is not for everyone because it?s far inside the Interior beltway of left wing politics. But if it?s for you, do not miss it. Here many friends sign an open letter to address a problem posed by the Green Party. In an article in December, Howie Hawkins argued that Greens should contest everywhere (I have put a link to that article in the comments). Hawkins rejects a ?safe state? strategy for the Greens (in which Greens would not contest swing state elections). I agree with the signers of the open letter. But. I don?t know that this is a useful conversation. If green voters could have been persuaded to vote for HRC in swing states, she would have won and we would have been spared some of the nightmare excesses of trumpery. Could they have been persuaded? Can they be persuaded this time? Only by a political program that appeals to them. Thanks to Portside for publishing the letter and helping to continue the discussion. Daniel Millstone Posted on Portside's Facebook page Thanks for posting both sides of this debate. While it can certainly be agreed the absolute imperative at the moment is the defeat of Trump and right-wing coup for which he is the leading edge, the Neidig statement goes too far in asserting a "vote for the Greens is a vote for Trump." There can be no doubt that a vote for whomever the Green presidential candidate might be doesn't help the situation any, but playing the blame game isn't all that helpful either. What'd be a better approach would be simply old fashioned politics, making the case to the Greens and other left third party candidates, as to why voting for them is simply a luxury we cannot afford at this moment, when all hands are needed on deck to push back the rising tide of neo-fascism that threatens to engulf us all. Footnote: why is the Neidig article dated 07/27/16? Was it first published then, and then updated with Trump's name? Jay Jurie Posted on Portside's Facebook page ? ? ?===== most interesting thing here is the paragraph that?s like ?look, we don?t even WANT to run for president, but we?re forced to do so by ballot access laws to guarantee a line for our down ballot candidates.? Like, at the point when your most important strategic decision as a party is being basically determined by ballot-access law, you should really ask yourself whether having your own ?party? (ballot line) is really granting you the independence you thought it would. Michael Kinnucan Posted on Portside's Facebook page ? ? ?===== If virtually all Green voters in swing states had voted for HRC... quite a stretch. I agree the focus of campaigns should be on winning voters not issuing these warnings. Steven Sherman Posted on Portside's Facebook page ? ? ?===== Thanks for posting this. I always find it interesting how roughly half the country doesn?t vote, following their own rational decision making (laid out by Chomsky years ago), and no one frets about why? No one really seeks to mobilize that block of potential voters who never vote. Instead, Nader gets racked over the coals to explain away Gore?s complete failure. And now we get Clinton lost because of Russia! She lost because her program sucks. Jeff Jones Posted on Portside's Facebook page ? ? ?===== Wrong Jeff. I don't care about Gore's or Clinton's careers but the facts show they won the popular vote, and lost the election due to GOP maneuvering. -In 2000, a combination of SCOTUS and far right cadres in the Florida count; Gore was ahead nationally. In 2016, the GOP saw gaping holes in the Dems' strategy and took advantage, enabling them to again bypass the popular vote, which went substantially to Hill. Let's get serious about the state of democracy in the USA - to paraphrase Gandhi, it's a good idea.That's the significance of Bernie's groundswell. He actually IS mobilizing MIA voters. Ethan Young Posted on Portside's Facebook page ? ? ?===== In 2016, my state of PA was supposed to be a safe state for Clinton. She lost by less than the Green vote. Including mine. Bert Schultz Posted on Portside's Facebook page ? ? ?===== Surprised that you, believe the spin blaming the Greens on Clinton's losing the election. A convenient scapegoat. There were far more non-voters than Greens. Be realistic, Clinton was a bad candidate and didn't appeal to the voters. Let's hope after 4 years of Trump the non voters wake up. Lew Ward Posted on Portside's Facebook page ? When have I heard this desperate Democratic party shill appeal before? Oh right, each and every election for last 30 years at least. Glenn Kirk Posted on Portside's Facebook page ? ? ?===== Third parties in U.S. Elections As a person who has voted for the SWP, the SPUSA and the Greens I wish to take issue with the somewhat tired notion that all people who vote for third parties are responsible the more "evil" of the two mainstream candidates to win. I voted for Jill Stein in Wisconsin. If my only choices had been Trump/Clinton I wouldn't have voted at all. I am not one of those folks who say there is no difference between the repubs/demos, but recognizing that fact it is very important to remember there is also a sizable difference between the dems and, in the case of this article, the Greens.? The article says that even though I agree with Green policies and not the neo-liberal policies of the dems I still ought to vote for them because otherwise I'm supporting the greater "evil" that the repubs embody. I am well aware of the pitfalls of the "glorious defeats" all third parties, who never stand a chance of winning, have swam in. So, why bother voting for what you want, when your vote might help someone "evil" to be elected (was it Nader who quipped about the "evil of two lessors"?).? Third parties in the U.S., in my mind, are responsible for the big shifts in both policy and elect-ability of both mainstream parties. The repubs "southern Strategy" was made possible when George Wallace got several million votes , the repubs happily changed their pitch to the right to woo those voters and dems stopped winning southern states. When Debs, sitting in a jail cell, was still able to get votes, the dems ,through FDR ,modified their platforms to avail themselves of those votes from the left. Elections have long been decided by voters who are not card carrying repubs/dems. Having a bloc of those voters gives you some power to force the issues.? Recent history has shown us that the working class has continued to loose ground under both repub/dem administrations, both parties embrace militarism and capitalism. How does one nudge a mainstream party one way or another when the party elites don't want change? Can the dems be transformed into a progressive party? We all witnessed what the old establishment dems did to Bernie last election cycle and what they did to Henry Wallace in the 40's. I applaud those who organize, be it thru unions or progressive wings, to give some clout, and decent candidates, to working people. Democrats who expect someone like me to vote for them are going to have to put forward policies that serve the class I belong to, not just provide me with a clothespin for my nose so I'll vote for 'em.? Steve Krug ? ? ?===== I refuse to vote for Trump or a corporate Democrat. So as a progressive I'm stuck with an independent or Green party candidate. Tom Caves Posted on Portside's Facebook page ? ? ?===== Tom Caves then you?re voting for trump. Cliff Gulliver Posted on Portside's Facebook page ? ? ?===== This Open Letter is in response to Howie Hawkins? CounterPunch article. Portside should have run both side by side so readers could make their own judgement without having to retrieve the Hawkins article. According to the Open Letter, ?If Clinton got Jill Stein's Green votes in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, Clinton would have won the election. Thus, the Green Party's decision to run in those states, saying even that there was little or no difference between Trump and Clinton, seems to us to be a factor worthy of being removed from contested state dynamics, just like the Electoral College is a factor worthy of being removed across all states.? This analysis is not supported by pre-election polls and the national exit poll suggesting that a lot of Stein?s supporters wouldn?t have voted at all, if they?d been forced to pick between the two major candidates, plus there were many factors involved in Trump?s win in these swing states. The Open Letter should have acknowledged what Cornel West said at the Green Party (GP) Convention in 2016, making a distinction between a catastrophe (Trump) and a disaster (Clinton), rather than equating the two. On domestic issues and the climate challenge Clinton would have likely been far better than Trump, but don?t rule out the potential for a catastrophic outcome on foreign policy if Trump had been defeated in 2016. Clinton?s foreign policy guru is Henry Kissinger. Her role in regime change in Libya is a red flag regarding the possibility of full-scale war with Iran, North Korea and even Russia in a Clinton administration for the last four years.? And now the Democrats are attacking Trump from the right in the Impeachment process, casting the nuclear power Russia, encircled by U.S./NATO bases, as our prime enemy. We should recognize one positive from the Trump catastrophe: the exponential rise of the U.S. socialist left, especially the Democratic Socialists of America ?(DSA).? I doubt this would have happened if Clinton were President. The Open Letter concludes by asking ??is a Green candidate running for President after the summer really going to argue we shouldn't vote for Sanders in contested states not just to end Trumpism but also to enact all kinds of important changes including urging and facilitating grass roots activism and thereby advancing Green program?? But what Howie Hawkins ?said was ?Greens want to get Trump out as much as anybody. Our advice to Democrats is to stop worrying about the Green Party and focus on getting your own base out. Our position is that we are running our own candidates because neither corporate- indentured party will support real solutions to the life-or-death issues of climate change, growing inequality, and nuclear weapons.? I am a leader of the DC Statehood Green Party (DCSGP) and former candidate. DCSGP is an affiliate of the GP. I am strongly supporting Howie Hawkins for the GP Presidential nomination and will vote for him in DC, where any Democrat on the ballot will certainly win the 3 electoral votes. While the open letter says ?we admire the Greens' Green New Deal and economic justice commitments?, it fails to recognize the GP?s historic role in its launch into the public discourse.? Howie Hawkins was the first to champion a Green New Deal (GND) in his campaign for New York State Governor in 2010, an ecosocialist GND was the focus of both of Jill Stein?s Presidential campaigns. An ecosocialist GND goes beyond the historic Congressional Resolution introduced by AOC and there is good evidence that the latter came about because of the GP?s introduction of a GND dating back to 2010. I am also a proud member of DSA, enthusiastically supporting their effort to get Bernie Sanders elected. Trump, the white supremacist climate denier must be defeated in 2020 and Bernie Sanders with his GND proposal is the best candidate to make this possible and thereby open up unprecedented possibilities for a much stronger ecosocialist movement. So we should certainly emphasize the consequences of a Trump re-election, emphasizing the still decisive role of the white supremacist Electoral College with the voters and respect their choice for President in each state, and of course maximize the turnout of women, people of color and young voters as Michael Moore has wisely advised, as well as fight against the voter suppression which played a big role in the 2016 election.? If Bernie wins the Democratic Party nomination there can be a positive relationship with Howie Hawkins? campaign. Don?t tell voters how to vote, rather share the consequences as we see them. Show respect to voters, even potential Trump voters, and Trump will be defeated.? So lets think through our electoral approach strategically, to both defeat Trump and maximize the synergy between the democratic socialist movement behind Bernie and the GP. ? I know there is a lot of bitterness on both sides, but can?t we work for ?the greater good, rather than the lesser evil?, Jill Stein?s slogan for the 2016 election? Now the greater good is defeating Trump, electing Bernie Sanders and promoting an ecosocialist GND. David Schwartzman, Washington DC ? ? ?===== My idea: Green Party gives up Presidential and Congressional candidates, and focuses exclusively on legislatures safely under Democratic Party leadership. I think a Green Party member of the New York City Council or State Assembly would be a good thing. Of course, I'd want to see a few WFP members of both bodies first. Tom Shcherbenko Posted on Portside's Facebook page ? You published an open letter urging Greens not to run against Democrats in battleground states. Howie Hawkins, a candidate for the Green Party nomination was specifically mentioned. Howie has been responding to these kinds of positions for years. They recur every presidential election campaign. Below is his response to the open letter. I hope you will consider publishing it. Thanks. Kevin Zeese ? ? ?===== Every State Is a Battleground By Howie Hawkins A Response to "An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy" The Open Letter is a response to my article (The Green Party Is Not the Democrats? Problem, December 25, 2019). The signers want the Green Party presidential campaign to adopt the ?safe states strategy? of campaigning only in safe states where the outcome is a forgone conclusion. They want the Green Party to support the Democratic presidential ticket in the battleground states where the race is close. For the Greens, every state is a battleground. No state is safe. Greens in every state want a presidential candidate who campaigns in their states in support of their local candidates and causes. Greens in every state are fighting Democrats every day on fracking, oil and gas pipelines, single-payer, school privatization, living wages, police brutality, bloated military budgets and forever wars, and the Greens? very right to appear on ballots. In fighting escalating rents, gentrification, displacement, and homelessness, Greens find local Democrats are thick as thieves with their banker and real estate developer campaign donors, as Trump himself was with the Democratic machine New York City before he ran for president. Of course, the Greens are fighting the Republicans on these issues, too. Is anything different this time around? The two-capitalist-party system?s stranglehold on US politics has not changed. The safe states strategy does nothing to challenge that. The signers argue that Trump is what is different this time around. The Left Can?t Outsource Fighting the Right to the Democrats The signers say Greens ?refuse to recognize the special danger of Trump? and that Greens say there is ?no difference between Democrats and Republicans.? I did not say any of that in my article, or in 2016, or ever. In my view, Trump?s racism, corruption, and narcissistic sociopathy make him not just a man with bad policies, but a bad man as well. He was the greater evil compared to Clinton. He?s a greater evil than previous Republican presidents. He is an ever present danger right now in office.? What is different about Trump from previous Republicans is his vicious public scapegoating, which has given permission to institutional gatekeepers to increase covert discrimination and to white nationalists to inflict slurs, vandalism, and violence against immigrants, people of color, Muslims, Jews, LGBTQ people, and women. Recognizing the danger of Trump does not mean that electing any damned Democrat should trump all other considerations. The Democrats might beat Trump, but they won?t beat Trumpism because they have enabled it. In office the Democrats join the Republicans to support the basic policies that the capitalist class cares about: neoliberal economic austerity at home and neoconservative imperialism abroad. The Democrats should have crushed Trump in a landslide in 2016 because the hard right Republicans he reflects are a shrinking political minority in the US. But they lost to Trump because most working people didn?t vote at all since Clinton personified their corporate bosses who disrespect and mistreat them. One difference among the Democrats is that the corporate wing will not return the favor of support that Sanders has given to them by pledging to support to any Democratic nominee. Obama has made it known that he opposes a Sanders nomination. Clinton recently refused very publicly to say she would support Sanders if he is the nominee. The signers of this Open Letter have bigger problems inside the Democratic Party than they do with the Greens. Independent Left Politics Is More Powerful The signers note that I say in my article that ?Greens want to get Trump out as much as anybody.? Then they ask ?how can that be if Greens would vote for a Green candidate, and not for Sanders, Warren, or any Democrat in a contested state knowing that doing so could mean Trump?s victory.? That can be because there are stronger ways to fight Trump than depending on the Democrats. Trump is dangerous now. The Democrats should have impeached him long ago. Trump was committing crimes in plain sight from the moment he took office. He also should have been impeached for corrupt self-enriching emoluments, nepotism, campaign finance felonies, racist policies and provocations that incited violence, atrocities against migrants at the borders, war crimes, gutting federal regulations and agencies, and constant obstructions of justice.? Instead, the Democrats have belatedly chosen to go small instead of big by impeaching him just on the Ukraine extortion scheme and cover-up, as if all his other crimes are acceptable. Instead of beating Trump up politically on multiple grounds for a protracted period of time, the Democrats have given Trump a short Senate trial peppered with militaristic messaging in support of the US proxy war with Russia in Ukraine. The Democrats short, narrow, and often jingoistic impeachment trial fails to show the people how Trump?s crimes hurt them as workers, consumers, minorities, and women, undermined peace, and harmed the environment. That is typical for how the Democrats enable Trumpism. Democratic support for bipartisan militarism abroad enabled Trump to successfully appeal to voters who want to end the endless wars, although that was a big lie by Trump. Decades-long Democratic support for pro-corporate economic policies has created the growing economic inequality and insecurity that are the social conditions in which Trump and the Republicans have been able to expand their base among downwardly-mobile whites with racist, xenophobic, and mysogynist scapegoating. The previous Democratic administration refused to prosecute the corporate criminals who stole 14 million homes or the war criminals who tortured people. The Democrats left them walking free and they walked right into the Trump administration. For details on that, see my article, ?The Rich White Man?s Justice System Protects Trump and His Cronies.? The Democrats have helped to normalize Trump by joining with him to overwhelming support military budget increases, the US Mexico Canada Trade Agreement (NAFTA 2.0), and the prosecution of Julian Assange and persecution of Chelsea Manning. The left is more powerful when it makes its demands independently of either pro-corporate, pro-war party. Instead of depending on the soft-right Democrats to fight the hard-right Republicans, the most effective way to fight the right is to build an independent left movement and party with its own program, actions, and candidates. Instead of futilely begging the politicians of the lesser evil between the two capitalist parties to say and do the right things, the left should speak to the public for itself and build its own independent power. Real Solutions The signers claim ?Voting Green in the swing states is a feel-good activity (?vote your hopes, not your fears?) as if fear of climate disaster, for example, shouldn?t be a motivator for political action.? Greens are not political dilettantes who cast votes just to feel good. We vote to make politicians meet our demands if they want our votes. We vote to show people who agree with our demands that they are not alone. We don?t waste our votes affirming Democrats like Clinton who exemplified the elite consensus for the neoliberal economics and neoconservative imperialism that has given us unabated global warming, growing economic insecurity, and endless wars. We used our vote for Jill Stein to demand a Green New Deal, improved Medicare for All, a job guarantee, student debt relief, ending US military aggression, and fair elections. The climate crisis is a prime reason why Greens don?t support Democrats. The last Democratic administration?s ?all of the above? energy policy was a euphemism for fracking the hell out of the country. Obama still brags about how the US became the world?s largest oil and gas producer under his administration. Clinton had her delegates to the Democratic Platform Committee vote against all the climate policies proposed by the Sanders campaign. The one Sanders plank that was adopted was later reversed by the Democratic National Committee in August 2018 when it re-committed the party to taking fossil fuel industry money and went?back on the record for the ?all of the above? energy policy, the language that Sanders got removed from the 2016 Democratic platform. Trump calls climate change a hoax, but the Democrats?act?as if it is a hoax. The signers continue, saying ?Real solutions require Trump out of office. Real solutions will become far more probable with Sanders or Warren in office. And real solutions will become somewhat more probable even with the likes of Biden in office.?? Yes, let?s be realistic. The Democrats are not going to bring us Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, or deep cuts in the war budget. Progressive Democrats are allowed to make speeches. But the corporate Democrats make the decisions. One would think that after the last two Republican presidents first assumed office after losing the popular vote that the Democrats would move to abolish the Electoral College. But no, it is only the Green Party that is campaigning for a national popular vote for president using ranked-choice voting. Ranked-choice voting would eliminate the spoiler problem that the safe states strategists are so worried about. The Democrats have had 20 years since Bush took the presidency after losing the popular vote to make these rigged elections an issue. Since Trump, the loser by 3 million votes, took the presidency for the Republicans, all the Democrats have been able to do is blame Russians and Greens. We are not waiting for the Democrats. The Real Green Party The Open Letter makes a couple of other assertions about the Green Party that are simply wrong. It asks rhetorically, ?Weren?t more potential Green Party members and voters driven off by the party?s dismissal of the dangers of Trump than were inspired by it?? To the contrary, Stein?s vote tripled from 469,627 votes (0.36%) in 2012 to 1,457,218 (1.07%) in 2016.?Clinton, on the other hand, only got 81% of 2012 Obama voters in 2016, while 9% voted for Trump, 7% stayed home, and 3% voted for a third party candidate. Stein and the Green Party grew. It was Clinton who drove voters away from her party. As I titled my article, ?The Green Party Is Not the Democrats? Problem.? The Open Letter also asks rhetorically, ?Weren?t the Greens in the late ?80s and early ?90s winning elections to city councils and other local offices across the country, consistent with a grass roots strategy, though for much of the past 20 years, they?ve largely abandoned local and state contests, devoting nearly all their attention to increasingly harmful races for president?? Not true again. In the ?80s and ?90s, the number of Green candidates each year grew from handfuls in the late ?80s to around 100 in even years in the ?90s. Since Ralph Nader?s campaign in 2000, the Greens have run hundreds of candidates every year and won 30%-40% of their local races each year. 130 Greens currently hold elected office. The presidential campaigns have been helpful to state and local parties in securing the 21 state? ballot lines the Green Party currently has. These campaigns also helped locals to recruit people to the party for local and state politics. But by far the most Green time and money has gone into local politics.? My purpose in seeking the Green Party nomination for president is to urge and assist the Green Party to qualify for more state ballots and to use those ballot lines to elect thousands of local candidates as we move into the 2020s to municipal and county and soon state and congressional offices. The strategy is to?build an independent movement and party for ecosocialism from the bottom up?into a major party in American politics.? We are running out of time to address the life-or-death issues of the climate crisis, the nuclear arms race, and the growing economic inequality that has become a survival issue for working people whose life expectancies are now declining in this country. We don?t have time to march in place with a safe states strategy to elect a lesser evil Democrat. If the Democrats again give us a dismal choice between a corporate Democrat and Trump, and lose again because they cannot get their natural base out to vote for them, it will be their fault, not the Greens?. [Howie Hawkins is a retired Teamster in Syracuse, New York. A co-founder of the US Green Party, he was the first US candidate to campaign for a Green New Deal in a run for governor of New York in 2010. He is currently seeking the Green nomination for president.] ? I believe there is a serious need for discussion about the strategy we Greens should take in this Presidential election, if we want to contribute to the defeat of Trump. I don't know how helpful the "open letter" will be in stimulating such discussion, since it's not written from a perspective of building the Green Party, and few of its authors have done much to build the Green Party.? Most Greens I'm hearing from are pretty pissed off by it and dismissing it as a smear against the Green Presidential campaign.? The letter may have even harmed chances for there to be a discussion within the Green Party on our Presidential strategy.? We'll have to see. I come from a place of having supported the Green Party since its founding in California in the early 1990s.? My argument centers on how a strategic approach to this election can help to build the Green Party and greatly enhance its reputation. In the interests of full disclosure, I am also one of many Greens supporting Bernie's campaign for the Democrat's nomination. There is a strong consensus among constituencies the Green Party seeks to represent that Trump must be defeated - that a second Trump term must be prevented. Included in this consensus are the great majority of environmentalists, leftists, progressives, anti-racist activists, immigrant rights and LGBT rights activists, feminists, labor organizers, and activists spanning the social movements. Probably the majority of registered Greens also agree that it is important that Trump be defeated.? Given all this, a serious discussion about how the Green Party can accomplish our goals in this Presidential election, get out our party's platform out to the public, along with our critique of the two party system, as well as how we can contribute to the defeat of Trump, is warranted. I'm not sure of the best strategic approach for the Greens, if we acknowledge that contributing to the defeat of Trump is one our strategic goals in this election.? That's why I favor a public discourse on the matter among party registrants.? A collective process in which a collective strategy could emerge. While my mind is open regarding strategy, and it could be influenced and changed through discussion, the approach I currently favor is actually mentioned in a back-handed way in the "open letter." ?"[I]f a Green candidate weren?t telling everyone who was a potential Green voter to vote for Trump?s opponent in contested states, how could that evidence that Greens want Trump to lose as much as anyone?" ?To put this in a positive way, why shouldn't our Green candidate for President publicly call on Green voters in certain swing states, and only those states, to cast their votes for the Democrat in order to ensure Trump's defeat? There are many arguments for and against such a strategy.? Would its overall impact be beneficial in building the Green Party and enhancing its mass reputation or detrimental?? I currently think the benefits would far outweigh negatives, but am eager to know what other Greens think. I see many potential benefits to this strategy. The first is that the announcement by the Green candidate that Greens in certain swing states (it might end up being very few states) should vote for the Democrat, the Green candidate would immediately receive more corporate media coverage than the rest of their previous coverage of the Green campaign combined. The corporate media (and all other media) will all ask why such an announcement is being made. This will give our Green candidate the opportunity to explain that this is not an endorsement of the Democrat, but rather a call for strategic voting to ensure Trump's defeat. They could explain that it is made necessary by our undemocratic Presidential elections, and specifically the Electoral College, which need to be abolished. Our nominee could also take the opportunity to deliver the Green Party's platform to a much wider audience. Overnight the corporate media's characterization of the Green Party could change ? from a party that is portrayed as at best irrelevant and at worst a spoiler, to questioning whether the party could be a potential kingmaker that could actually tip the balance in a close election. It could also go a considerable distance in changing the views progressives, leftists, and activists of all types that want to see Trump defeated. It might even change the outcome of the election. (Although as many Greens have pointed out, the Green Party isn't nearly the spoiler many critics think it is, and it's potential to swing the election results even in one state is actually quite small. Perceptions are very important in politics, however.) Taking more of a realpolitik strategy in the Presidential election might also attract more interest in the Green Party from more pragmatic voters. This could be quite significant if there are a significant number of Bernie backers ready to take another look at the Green Party, if the Democrats again rig the primary selection process, and perhaps the Democratic Convention. There are also arguments that such a strategy, or perhaps any Green Party strategy developed to help insure Trump's defeat, could lose support from Greens who may see it as a betrayal of the party's principles. It could also impact the party's ballot status in the swing states involved. (I don't know the details about all that and it would depend on which of swing states are involved.) A rich strategic discussion and debate could and should be had. I believe such an open discussion within the Green Party could be very helpful, especially if it seeks to involve a maximum number of party registrants. Unfortunately, many Green Party leaders and hardliners seem to want no such discussion.? They seem to view even the suggestion of opening up for such a discussion to be tantamount to treason to the party.? Howie Hawkins' article, which also basically dismisses all concerns raised in the "open letter," is not helpful in terms of organizing a collective discussion on Green Party strategy. What I'm proposing is frankly a tough sell.? Most Green Party activists I've talked to about the idea are against it.? Decades of being attacked as spoilers by liberal, progressive, and left wing Democrats have hardened the attitudes of most of the party's activists.? There also really is a big difference between what remains (unless and until Bernie. AOC and insurgent progressives and democratic socialists take it over) a pro-corporate capitalist and imperialist Democratic Party, compared to the Green Party's radical eco-socialist anti-war platform, and perhaps its too big a gulf for such a strategy to be considered. The party's very weak infrastructure also makes having a collective discussion on strategy, especially one which includes all registered Greens and not just the very small number of Greens who participate in organizational activities, to be extremely difficult. Nevertheless, I think the Green Party should attempt to engage its registrants in a discussion regarding our party's strategy for this coming election.? The party's weak primary and convention system can be used as vehicles for such a discussion, but I think a more direct vehicle which is all about engaging as many members as possible in a discussion of strategy is also needed. The above is written under the assumption that Bernie is prevented by establishment opposition from winning the Democrat's nomination.? If Bernie wins their nomination, it will be a game changer and a different ballgame.? That's because of the large number of Greens, including myself, who support Bernie and would gladly vote for him in the General Election.? There are even some Greens calling on the Green Party to nominate Bernie as our candidate (although that is quite unlikely). In solidarity, Jonathan Nack ? ? ?===== Seems to me there?s another path, and one that is needed no matter who gets the Democratic nomination, and no matter who is elected.? It?s not enough for the Greens, maybe even P&F, Bernie-ites, whoever, to tell their members ?to vote? for the Bernie or even some neocon Democrat in the general election.? We need a mass movement, or how about a bunch of small mass movements, to oppose whoever gets elected if it isn?t Bernie, and to protect Bernie if somehow the election doesn?t get stolen from him. DSA is working for Bernie but not getting lost inside the Bernie campaign.? Chapters are running their own pro-Bernie independent campaigns.? That can continue and be even more important if some schnook like Biden is nominated. We have to work for him, but ?not like in the past, inside campaigns controlled by our enemies.? And still more important to have that structure in place if, oh, let?s say Elizabeth Warren is elected ? we can?t let it happen like we did with Obama, not daring to criticize the first black President. If the Green Party lacks the infrastructure to carry out a campaign, phonebanking, door knocking, tabling, whatever, now is the time to build it.? Along with other organizations, working independently, but toward compatible goals.? For the working class and oppressed minorities, to save the planet, end imperialist wars, the whole shebang. The aforementioned Barack Obama built a mass of volunteers who worked to get him elected, but he was careful not to let them have any contact with each other after the election, and because they wouldn?t be fooled a second time, didn?t even unleash them to save Democratic congressional and senatorial and gubernatorial candidates in subsequent elections. Or maybe he couldn?t have if he wanted to, because he had turned all the contact info over to the Democratic central committee, and THEY certainly don?t want the masses in motion.? So even if we work for a Democrat, we must not ever again work *as* Democrats.? If we work as progressives, as Socialists, as whatever we may happen to be, even if we?re working to get a non-Trump stinker elected, we?ll be building a movement that can turn the tide. Ellen Schwartz ? ? ?===== Thank you Portside for posting the Open Letter. What amazes me about those critical of the letter is that they don?t seemed worried about Impeached Trump and his alt-right allies. My question is just what country are they living in? I?ll keep this brief. I believe Impeached Trump is a menace to our Republic and none of those running in the Democratic Party Primary are so I will vote for whomever is the nominee of the Democratic Party. I thank the authors for writing their letter. Ray Markey ??????? ??????? ??????? ??????? ? | | | ? | ? | | ? | | Interpret the world and change it | | ? | | | | ? | | Submit via web Submit via email Frequently asked questions Manage subscription | Visit portside.org Twitter Facebook | | ? | | | | ? _______________________________________________ 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: -------------- next part -------------- An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: Untitled URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: ~WRD000.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 823 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 344 bytes Desc: not available URL: