[Peace] AWARE on the Air tonight at 10pm cable channel 6

[C. G. Estabrook]

“AWARE ON THE AIR” FOR THE 4th WEEK OF NOVEMBER, 2010

Our program is presented by members & friends of AWARE, the Anti-War Anti-Racism 
Effort of Champaign-Urbana, a local peace group - and brought to you by Urbana 
Public Television. It will also be available on Facebook (search AWARE) and on 
the website <anti-war.net>.

Each week we present an account of the US government's wars, notably the 
invasion & occupation of the Middle East, from Palestine to Pakistan - and of 
the opposition to them, both locally and nationally, from American citizens like 
us who are appalled at the government's betrayal of our democratic principles. 
Tonight we hear from

	RON SZOKE ON THE SORROWS OF EMPIRE";
	LINDA WEBER on FOUR MORE YEARS OF WAR;
	KAREN MEDINA ON PTSD IN THE MILITARY; &
	RECENT & UPCOMING EVENTS ON THE ANTI-WAR SCENE LOCALLY & NATIONALLY

Today is November 23rd - as we open the book of slaughter and forgetting, we 
find that on this day in
     *1644 – John Milton publishes Areopagitica, a pamphlet decrying censorship. 
"Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to 
conscience, above all liberties." Published in the midst  of the English Civil 
War, it is titled after a speech of the classical Athenian orator Isocrates. 
Milton argues against Parliament's Licensing Order of 1643, noting that such 
censorship had never been a part of classical Greek and Roman society. It was 
distributed via pamphlet, defying the same publication ban that Milton argued 
against.
      *1981 – Iran-Contra Affair: Ronald Reagan signs the top secret National 
Security Decision Directive 17 (NSDD-17), giving the Central Intelligence Agency 
the authority to recruit and support Contra terrorists in Nicaragua, the 
Constitution to the contrary notwithstanding.
      *And in real news, Miley Cyrus is 18 today.

We'll turn to recent & upcoming events on the local scene from the minutes of 
recent AWARE meetings and the AWARE email lists. (AWARE meets every Sunday at 
5pm at the McKinley foundation, 5th & Daniel Sts. in Champaign.  Visitors and 
new members - and the merely curious - are welcome.  If you're opposed to the 
war & want to know what you can do, join us & work on it together.)

	***
Anti-War Anti-Racism Calendar, November 2010
Recent and upcoming events on the local scene,
from last Sunday's AWARE meeting and the AWARE mailing lists,
<peace at lists.chambana.net> and <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
(Thanks to MOA Karen Medina.)

	***
	Let the dead of November rest!
	For us the living there's quite enough to do.
	For these are not those who have awakened and
	have imagined themselves perpetrators of the same thing.
	Neither written-off nor tax-free is the profit
	from the debts for which I am responsible.
	--from Guenter Grass, Novemberland

	***
*Friday-Sunday, 19-21 November. Fort Benning, Georgia (USA).
School of the Americas Watch annual "Nonviolent Direct Action to Close the 
SOA/WHINSEC" -- a combat training school for Latin American soldiers. The SOA - 
"the School of Assassins," has left a trail of blood and suffering in every 
country where its graduates have returned. Graduates have consistently used 
their skills to wage a war against their own people.
	The demonstration is usually a peaceful affair; this year following the SOA 
Watch rally, human rights activists brought their nonviolent witness to close 
the SOA into the street leading onto the military base. The activists briefly 
shut down the road with a large sign that said, "Stop: This is the End of the 
Road for the SOA": a dozen people were arrested, and others charged, including 
the 90-year old Jesuit priest Bill Brennan. When the rally participants tried to 
leave the vigil area, the police blocked off all exit points. After a few 
minutes, the police allowed people to leave on the sidewalk, only to follow 
them, indiscriminately arresting people who had neither committed any crimes nor 
engaged in civil disobedience. Among those arrested was the RT America TV crew, 
who was filming the police misconduct and bystanders. See <www.SOAW.org>.

*Mondays through 29 November, 7pm.
"Faith and Food Justice": an in-depth look at the current Midwest American food 
system. Weekly readings will guide discussion on how our food's ecology, 
distribution, economics, government policies, and history relate to faith and 
justice. Contact Ann Rasmus <ann at universityymca.org> or (217)337-1514

*Thursday 25 November is the national holiday of Thanksgiving. Forty years ago, 
an American writer recalled another Thanksgiving.  He wrote about "Colonel 
Joseph Bellas, commanding officer of a hospital in Vietnam where soldiers 
boycotted Thanksgiving dinner in protest against the war: ‘They’re young, 
they’re idealistic and don’t like man’s inhumanity to man. As they get older 
they will become wiser and more tolerant’ [said the good colonel]. If a majority 
of the American people will, indeed, ignore resultant atrocities and support 
[the US government’s] policy of pursuing a war without discernible end, then 
this segment of American society may be subjected to domestic repression of a 
sort that is not without precedent in American history; we seem to be seeing the 
early signs today with the savage repression of the Panthers, the conspiracy 
trial in Chicago, and other incidents. [Today we would mention the FBI raids, 
the suppression of the demonstrators and reporters at the School of Americas, 
and even the harassment of Americans by the TSA.]
      "The fact that repression may be attempted [today as 40 years ago] does 
not imply that it must succeed. Surely the possibility exists, today, to create 
a broad-based movement of opposition to war and repression that might stave off 
such an attack. It is now even imaginable, as a few years ago it was not, that a 
significant American left may emerge that will be a voice in national affairs, 
and even, perhaps, a potential force for radical social change. There has been a 
remarkable shift in popular attitudes over the past months, an openness to 
radical political thinking of a sort that I do not recall for many years. To let 
these opportunities pass is to condemn many others to the fate of Vietnam."

*Saturday 27 November, 3pm. Channing-Murray Foundation, 1209 W. Oregon, Urbana
"9500 Liberty," a film that tells the story of Prince William County, Virginia, 
and its 2007 Immigration Resolution - a law similar to Arizona's SB 1070 that 
requires police to question anyone that they have "probable cause" to suspect is 
undocumented. "The film is as close as anyone can come to a crystal ball for 
Arizona, and it's not pretty. Not only did the Immigration Resolution bitterly 
divide the community, but it created a shocking economic impact that you will 
have to watch to believe."

*Monday 6 December, 6pm.  St. Jude Catholic Worker House, 317 S. Randolph St., 
Champaign
Potluck and Roundtable.  We'll watch "Money as Debt," an animated short film 
that gives the history of currency, banking, and our government's "fractional 
reserve system:" the creation of money through citizens' debt

*Saturday 4 December, 2-4pm. Main & Neil Sts., Champaign
"The Main Event" - AWARE's monthly peace demonstration. Bring a sign or use one 
of ours; we'll hand out information about the war to motorists and passers-by.

*Thursday 16 December.  The White House, Washington, DC.
Veteran-led civil resistance to the wars. Activists and veterans will march to 
the White House, refuse to move, demand an immediate end to U.S. wars, whether 
conducted by occupation troops, drones or proxy, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, 
Yemen and Palestine. Groups being led by Veterans for Peace will nonviolently 
refuse to leave the White House, willing to be dragged away and arrested for 
peace. They will carry forward a flame of resistance to the war machine that 
will not diminish as we place themselves, as Mario Savio said, "upon the gears 
and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus" and we will make 
it stop. See <www.stopthesewars.org>.
***

The AWARE Presents committee is planning a public program on suicides in the 
military and their effect on our community. Interested? Please contact Conrad 
Wetzel <mc-wetzel at hotmail.com>. Planning meeting will likely be in the Mennonite 
church.

AWARE is happy to provide anti-war speakers and discussion leaders for local 
events.  See our Facebook page, our website at <anti-war.net>, or write 
<cge at shout.net>. AWARE is an independent organization that works with other 
political groups and parties opposed to US war, but it is not a member of them.

###