[Peace] [sf-core] Re: Sinai Temple: Help Reconcile C-U's Traumatized Communities

Sun Dec 4 22:39:00 UTC 2016

The ‘defense’ industries are looking for more spending from a president who says he wants to make the US military so strong that no one will attack it. But that’s not the same (in part it’s more honest) as a president who gets elected by pretending to be against George Bush’s wars and then expands them, attacking eight countries. (Bush only attacked six.) Obama is the first US president - ever - to be at war throughout two presidential terms. I’d prefer an administration that buys weapons - “arming to parley,” as a noted war-criminal said - to one that uses them and transfers them to notable human rights violators, like the KSA, Israel, and Al Qaeda. (See Andrew Cockburn, "A Special Relationship: The United States is teaming up with Al Qaeda, again,” Harper’s, January 2016). Obama produced a lot of dead Syrians (and others). It’s clear that Clinton would continue and intensify Bush/Obama war-making; she’s said as much (and more).

As for the recounts supported by Jill Stein (and not, it’s important to note, by the Green party) - cui bono? Follow the money: the Democratic party, the front group MoveOn, and the Soros interests are not suddenly putting up many times the total budget of the Green party presidential campaign just to increase the marginal fairness of US elections (a consummation devoutly to be wished). For what they are doing, take a look at what Stein campaign manager David Cobb, 2004 Green presidential candidate, did in Ohio after that election. He wasn’t even on the ballot in Ohio, but he filed for a recount in that state - the crucial swing state in the Bush/Kerry election, where Bush won by 2.1%. 

After Cobb’s call for a recount, the Democratic party filed a Congressional objection to the certification of Ohio's Electoral College votes due to alleged irregularities including disqualification of provisional ballots, alleged misallocation of voting machines, and disproportionally long waits in poor and predominantly African-American communities. The Senate voted the objection down 1–74; the House voted the objection down 31–267. It was only the second Congressional objection to an entire State's electoral delegation in U.S. history; the first instance was in 1877, where a presidential election was 'adjusted' by the famous ‘Compromise’ of that year; what can the Democrats be thinking of this year? 

Cobb's minuscule national vote total in 2004 resulted from a ‘safe state’ strategy that aided the Democrats. (Many people left the Greens in those years when it was typical for Green party officials to say, “We just want to be a regular political party, like the Republicans and Democrats.”) See now "The Stein Campaign and the Fight for Green Party Independence" by Brandy Baker, CounterPunch 28 Nov. 2016.)

Stein’s recounts are in aid of the Clinton campaign’s desperate attempt to draw down Trump’s Electoral College vote below 270, forcing the House of Representatives to choose the next president. (Representatives need not vote in accord with their state’s popular vote.) The hysterical media attention to Trumps’ deficient character might give an excuse for the House not to vote for an “unsuitable president” - who happens not to be a neoliberal or a neoconservative. 

Jill Stein’s cave-in to the neolib and neocon Clinton campaign is as bad as Bernie Sanders’ and Elizabeth Warren’s. It’s the year of liberal tergiversation.  —CGE

> On Dec 4, 2016, at 2:33 PM, Stuart Levy <stuartnlevy at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> We should note that stock prices of arms manufacturers leaped up after the election.    That shows the capitalist reading of what a Trump admin plus a unified Republican congress means for the military.
> 
> So yes it is important that Trump recognized the value of speaking out against military adventures abroad as part of his campaign - he saw that it was something that could move people.     Though as we were discussing at last week's AWARE meeting, other candidates in past elections have sold themselves as opponents of war and turned out to be no such thing - "I have a plan" Nixon, GW Bush, "Nobel Peace Prize" Obama came to mind.
> 
> How Trump and the people around him will act on their power we'll have to see.    I believe Blum's argument that Trump is unlikely to start a hot war with Russia, and was very worried that Clinton was hurtling along a course to do just that.    But will the Trump administration push for war with Iran?  It seems all too likely.   Will it keep up the trillion-dollar US nuclear weapons upgrade (as Clinton would have), and the anti-ballistic missile sites in eastern Europe?   
> 
> This is why I've kept saying that neither major party's Presidential offering is any sort of convincing peace candidate.
>    
> As for the Jill Stein-supported recounts, it seems a very smart course to me from the Green Party's point of view - not because it would be liable to change the outcome of the presidential race, but because it might well turn up real sloppiness, or inconsistencies of tabulation that could suggest (probably insider) tampering, or expose the numbers of people who were given provisional ballots because of voter-rolls purges or other vote access restrictions.   When neither major party is standing up for election integrity, the Green Party can say that theirs was the party that fought for it.   That has to be valuable for their reputation in the next election cycles.
> 
> 
> 
> On 12/4/16 11:41 AM, C. G. Estabrook via Peace wrote:
>> John Pilger wrote before the election, ""The CIA has demanded Trump is not elected. Pentagon generals have demanded he is not elected. The pro-war New York Times — taking a breather from its relentless low-rent Putin smears — demands that he is not elected. Something is up. These tribunes of 'perpetual war' are terrified that the multi-billion-dollar business of war by which the United States maintains its dominance will be undermined if Trump does a deal with Putin, then with China’s Xi Jinping. Their panic at the possibility of the world’s great power talking peace – however unlikely – would be the blackest farce were the issues not so dire.” 
>> 
>> https://newmatilda.com/2016/03/23/john-pilger-why-hillary-clinton-is-more-dangerous-than-donald-trump/ <https://newmatilda.com/2016/03/23/john-pilger-why-hillary-clinton-is-more-dangerous-than-donald-trump/>
>> 
>> —CGE
>> 
>> 
>>> On Dec 4, 2016, at 11:15 AM, Debra Schrishuhn via Peace <peace at lists.chambana.net <mailto:peace at lists.chambana.net>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> If it walks like a duck....
>>> 
>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>> 
>>>> On Dec 4, 2016, at 10:17 AM, "Fields, A Belden via Peace" <peace at lists.chambana.net <mailto:peace at lists.chambana.net>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Carl,
>>>> 
>>>> Is this an endorsement of Trump?
>>>> Belden
>>>> 
>>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>> 
>>>>> On Dec 3, 2016, at 7:58 PM, 'C. G. Estabrook' carl at newsfromneptune.com <mailto:carl at newsfromneptune.com> [sf-core] <sf-core-noreply at yahoogroups.com <mailto:sf-core-noreply at yahoogroups.com>> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> MoveOn and some members of the Stein campaign (but not the Green party) are attempting to use recounts and appeals to make the neoliberal and neoconservative candidate, Hillary Clinton, president.
>>>>> 
>>>>> All major party presidential candidates for 40 years have been both neoliberal (which means more inequality) and neoconservative (which means more war). 
>>>>> 
>>>>> For proof, look what the US government has done since the 1970s - in all administrations -  in regard to jobs and war: our jobs - and our military - are sent overseas, for the profits of the American economic elite, the 1%.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Trump is the first major party presidential candidate in that time who isn’t either a neoliberal or a neoconservative. Therefore the US political class - the 1% and their minions in the "permanent government/deep state" - are trying to deny him the presidency, by way of the Electoral College - because he might not continue the Bush-Obama-Clinton policies of war and austerity.
>>>>> 
>>>>> They might succeed.  
>>>>> 
>>>>> (BTW, it's NOT the Greens: the Green party said no to flacking for Clinton, as did Green VP nominee Ajamu Baraka; Jill Stein, her campaign manager David Cobb, and Democratic party front group ‘MoveOn' are the ones attempting to deny Trump a majority in the Electoral College.)
>>>>> 
>>>>> —CGE
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Dec 3, 2016, at 6:57 PM, Just Foreign Policy <naiman at justforeignpolicy.org> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Dear Supporter,
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Urge Sinai Temple's Alan Cook to lead to help reconcile C-U communities.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Take Action
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Many communities in Champaign-Urbana were unexpectedly traumatized by the election of Donald Trump. Now, we need enlightened and responsible leadership in all corners to help our traumatized communities reconcile. 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Hillel said: 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> "If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
>>>>>> If I am only for myself, what am I? 
>>>>>> If not now, when?"
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn."
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> The children of Abraham - fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer - need to be reconciled. 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Urge Alan Cook to use his leadership position at Sinai Temple to help chase away darkness and reconcile the children of Abraham in Champaign-Urbana by signing our petition at MoveOn.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Thanks for all you do to help make the house we live in more just, 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Robert Naiman
>>>>>> Just Foreign Policy
>>>>>> 

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