From karenaram at hotmail.com Tue Nov 1 15:34:56 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Tue, 1 Nov 2016 15:34:56 +0000 Subject: [Peace] This morning on the News Gazette Message-ID: day, November 1, 2016 67°F Today's Paper * News * Sports * Business * Living * A&E * Blogs * Opinion * Multimedia * Classified * Jobs * Shop * Weekly Ads BREAKING NEWS Two in custody for shootings in Urbana Home » Opinion » Letters to the Editor Colleague accepts U.S. propaganda Tue, 11/01/2016 - 7:00am | The News-Gazette I was startled to read, in the Oct. 23 News-Gazette, the historian Mark Steinberg — a former colleague when I was a visiting professor at the University of Illinois — repeating dangerous Obama-Clinton propaganda about Russia. He speaks of "Russia's belligerent role in world affairs" — when Russia's role seems defensive in comparison with the much more belligerent role of the U.S.: President Barack Obama has attacked eight countries (Bush attacked only six) and killed thousands of civilians with his drone assassinations, which have been called "the most extreme terrorist campaign of modern times." Steinberg speaks of Russia's "covert armed intervention in Ukraine" — referring to Russia's limited support for the Donbass region's resistance to attack from the government in Kiev, established by a U.S.-organized coup against a legitimate president; the Minsk II agreement, to bring the fighting to an end, was arranged by Russia, not the U.S. He refers to "the bombing in Syria," where Russia is legally supporting a legitimate secular government against a U.S.-supported jihadist insurrection; Obama administration killing (which Clinton proposes to expand) in Syria is illegal by international (and U.S.) law. And as the refugee Edward Snowden — in Moscow — makes clear, "cyberespionage in the U.S." is at best a case of the U.S. pot calling the Russian kettle black. And it is at least embarrassing, in the midst of the present U.S. election, to refer to "the erosion of democratic pluralism" in Russia, where Putin has far greater support than either Obama or Clinton do in the U.S. C.G. ESTABROOK Champaign -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Tue Nov 1 16:08:55 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Tue, 1 Nov 2016 16:08:55 +0000 Subject: [Peace] NG letter "offering choices for voters." Message-ID: [http://www.news-gazette.com/sites/all/themes/custom/ng_fbg/images/news-gazette-full.png] Subscribe Log In Search Listen Now [http://www.news-gazette.com/sites/all/themes/custom/ng_fbg/images/wdws-wide-rev-full.png] Tuesday, November 1, 2016 67°F Today's Paper * News * Sports * Business * Living * A&E * Blogs * Opinion * Multimedia * Classified * Jobs * Shop * Weekly Ads BREAKING NEWS Two in custody for shootings in Urbana Home » Opinion » Letters to the Editor Green Party offers choice for voters Mon, 10/31/2016 - 7:00am | The News-Gazette I too wonder about the lack of media attention to the alternatives in this presidential election — as Gloria Baker Tillman (for Libertarians on Oct. 24) and Kipp Weickersheimmer (for independent Evan McMullin on Oct. 20) did too. I find it concerning, to say the least, that there is absolutely no coverage in the mainstream media — including our own News-Gazette — about the third-party candidates who will also be on the Nov. 8 ballot, even in light of the current "dog and pony show" that they call a presidential campaign. There has been no discussion about the many environmental issues that are effecting our planet now. Nor any discussion about the aging baby boomers and their health care needs (and high costs) and the massive influx of wounded soldiers who need health care that are coming home from our endless wars that have been sucking our economies for decades. These issues are impacting all of us. I would venture to say this "block out" of options is intentional. But thank goodness we can (still) access the internet for information beyond the spoon-fed agendas of the status quo. If you are as disgusted as I am — not to mention ashamed — I encourage you to learn more about the Green Party's "Green New Deal." Go to Dr. Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka's website at Jill2016.com. DARCY GENTNER Urbana -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Tue Nov 1 23:28:53 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Tue, 1 Nov 2016 23:28:53 +0000 Subject: [Peace] ICC Preparing to Investigate US War Crimes in Afghanistan Message-ID: Don’t break out the champagne, there are issues……... In Historic First, ICC Preparing to Investigate US War Crimes in Afghanistan Published on Tuesday, November 01, 2016 by Common Dreams In Historic First, ICC Preparing to Investigate US War Crimes in Afghanistan Foreign Policy reports that the International Criminal Court is poised to formally investigate U.S. actions for the first time in its history by Nika Knight, staff writer * * * * * * * 14 Comments [The remains of the MSF hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, six months after it was attacked in a U.S. airstrike.] The remains of the Médecins Sans Frontières hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, six months after it was attacked in a U.S. airstrike. (Photo: Reuters) The International Criminal Court (ICC) is preparing to initiate a full investigation into potential war crimes in Afghanistan, including those committed by U.S. military personnel, Foreign Policy exclusively reported Tuesday. The magazine writes: Multiple sources have indicated that the chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, will seek to initiate an investigation in the coming weeks, likely after the U.S. presidential election but before the end of the year. U.S. officials visited The Hague recently to discuss the potential investigation and to express concerns about its scope. "Is the prosecutor concerned enough about the accusations of discrimination levied against the ICC that she's willing to go after U.S. clients and U.S. officials?" —Phyllis Bennis, Institute for Policy Studies A formal investigation of U.S. activities would be the first in the history of the ICC, to which the U.S. is not a party. But because Afghanistan is a member, an investigation is "certainly possible," Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies told Common Dreams. "Afghanistan joined the ICC in 2003, so all actions after that time are subject to ICC jurisdiction," Bennis said. "But then you get to the question of political will," Bennis added. The ICC has famously failed to investigate powerful Western nations while prosecuting African dictators, a disparity so glaring that several African countries recently quit the court, condemning it as the "International Caucasian Court." "Is the prosecutor concerned enough about the accusations of discrimination levied against the ICC that she's willing to go after U.S. clients and U.S. officials?" Bennis asked. Rights advocates hope that Bensouda may be willing to take aim at powerful nations. The prosecutor was behind the preliminary ICC report published last year, "Report on Preliminary Examination Activities" (pdf), which suggested that the U.S. was "responsible for 'physical and psychological' violence and torture that 'debased the basic human dignity' of those detained" in Afghanistan, as Common Dreams reported. Indeed, photos released by the Pentagon earlier this year demonstrated the brutal abuse of detainees at the hands of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Bensouda may also probe the deadly bombing by U.S. forces of a Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, Foreign Policy reports. MSF has characterized the airstrike as a war crime, and rights groups have harshly criticized the Pentagon for its light punishment of those responsible for the attack. [Fall Fundraising Banner] Despite the looming investigation, Foreign Policy observes that prosecution of U.S. forces for war crimes is still a long way away and may not happen: [Prosecution] would require significantly more evidence than the prosecutor's office currently possesses. The ICC normally does not interview witnesses, take testimony, or gather forensic evidence during its preliminary examinations, and that work would be just the beginning. In order to charge Americans with war crimes, Bensouda would likely also have to demonstrate a link between the conflict in Afghanistan and U.S. detention policies, which may not be easy; the United States reportedly brought several detainees to Afghanistan from other parts of the world. Perhaps most controversial, the prosecutor's office would have to determine that the United States has failed to address allegations of torture through its own domestic prosecutions, investigations, and reviews. Moreover, any indictments related to Afghanistan would be months if not years away. Because no ICC member has referred the situation to the court, Bensouda will need the approval of a three-judge panel before launching an investigation. ICC judges have approved all three previous investigative requests from the prosecutor (in Kenya, Cote d’Ivoire, and Georgia), but their review can take several months, and the judges might request additional information before authorizing an investigation. "Still, the readiness of the prosecutor's office to open an investigation represents a sharp setback for President Barack Obama's administration, which has soughtseveral times to discourage an investigation in Afghanistan and even to avoid ICC mention of possible U.S. crimes," Foreign Policy notes. And once an investigation is underway, Bennis noted, the ICC prosecutor will be faced with "the question of how far up the chain of command do you go." "Do you start and stop with the soldier who tortured and abused detainees? This is what happened with Abu Ghraib," Bennis explained. "Individual soldiers were slapped on the wrist. Their commanders who set the standards that said it was okay to humiliate and sexually abuse people, to tie them up naked in a dog collar and take pictures of it—the commander establishes the tone of what their work entailed, but that was never considered." Bennis observed: "One of the questions that will have to be dealt with by the prosecutor if she decides to go forward is: do you go all the way up? Do you go after George W. Bush for using torture as a part of U.S. strategy? This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License Share This Article -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Thu Nov 3 12:53:53 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2016 12:53:53 +0000 Subject: [Peace] A message from Rich Whitney Message-ID: John Pilger’s article yet to come News Feed [https://scontent.ford1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-1/c38.38.481.481/s80x80/482973_10151100277126394_1113620074_n.jpg?oh=d6b60d2123d816135b6aa4090d424493&oe=58CED5A5] ‎Rich Whitney‎ to Paula Densnow November 1 at 9:50pm · Some of you may have seen the latest hit piece from the Daily Kos, entitled, "Yes, the "Green" Party has Endorsed Trump Over Clinton." Here is my response; please share as you see fit: First, the headline is a flat-out lie: The Green Party has endorsed its candidate, Jill Stein. It has not ever suggested, nor has its candidates ever suggested, that anyone vote for Donald Trump. The entire article is predicated on the premise that if Greens and their supporters stay true to their convictions and vote for their chosen candidate, this will be tantamount to a vote for Donald Trump. What is the foundation for this? That if the Green Party just disappeared, or abandoned the field, its supporters and voters would flock to Hillary Clinton. But since we refuse to go away, we don’t flock to Hillary Clinton. Therefore, according to this argument, we are “helping” Trump to win – and we are in effect “endorsing” Trump, even though we are not. The premise is false. I, for one, have not voted Democratic OR Republican since 1980 except in lower-level races where there was no acceptable third-party choice – typically judicial races and the like. If the Green Party did not exist, it would be necessary to create it, or something just like it – and Hillary Clinton STILL would not get my vote, nor that of all or most Greens. The Democratic Party and its candidates are not serving the interests of the people. They are serving the same corporatist/Wall Street/Big Oil/Big Pharma/Big Agra/Military-Industrial Complex interests as the Republicans. They are only doing it with a different veneer. Yes, some of them are better on a few social issues. They usually give better speeches. They don’t CHANT, “Drill, Baby Drill” – they just continue supporting Big Oil in FACT, including fracking, more pipelines and more offshore oil leases, all of which have proliferated under Obama and were championed by Clinton as Secretary of State. Under the Obama administration, frequently pushed by Hillary, the U.S. has not championed peace but war. From Afghanistan and Iraq and the first few strikes in Pakistan under Bush, we have now flagrantly violated international law and murdered thousands of people from the sky in those three countries plus Somalia, Libya, Yemen and Syria. Clinton also supported the coup in Honduras that has led to the murder of environmentalists, arming the misogynistic, terror-supporting dictatorship in Saudi Arabia, and supporting the armed insurrection in Syria that has now brought death and destruction to that country, contributed to the rise of ISIS and created millions of refugees, creating a massive humanitarian crisis racking all of Europe and the Middle East. She has also supported policies of dangerous brinksmanship with Russia and China, including support for the fascistic post-coup government in Ukraine (engineered by her appointee Victoria Nuland, a protégée of Dick Cheney), and I presume that she supports the Obama administration’s plan to spend a trillion dollars on a new generation of nuclear weapons. That last point deserves some context. In 1990, then-Secretary of State James Baker promised Mikhail Gorbachev, as part of the agreement to end the Soviet Union and the Cold War, that NATO would expand not “one inch to the east.” He even promised that “we were going to make them a member [of NATO], we were–observer first and then a member.” In other words: the U.S. promised that NATO would not extend up to the borders of Russia and so become a mortal threat to the national security of the Russian people — now isolated and separated from its former military allies. Russia kept its part of the bargain. The United States did not; from Clinton I, through Bush II and then Obama, both Dem and Republican presidents instead broke the promise and expanded NATO to absorb former member-nations of the Warsaw Pact, turning it into an anti-Russian military alliance — exactly what the U.S. had promised would never happen. Under Obama and Secretary of State Clinton, this included expending $5 billion to foment the coup in Ukraine, tightening the noose. The administration has engaged in similar military brinksmanship against China. Now Clinton proposes the insane idea of a “no-fly zone” in Syria, ignoring the fact that Russia is there at the invitation of a sovereign government, while the U.S. has no legal authority to be in Syria at all, and is violating the U.N. Charter by fomenting an insurrection with fighters who are essentially (and some literally) Al-Quaeda. Clinton is to the right of Obama on war issues. She pushed for the illegal attack on Libya, which morphed from the blatant lie of “preventing a bloodbath” into a push for regime change, with no one in the Obama administration blinking an eye as they just carried out another illegal war, paving the way for the rise of ISIS. In sum, the Democrats put up a cold-blooded killer, a tool of Wall Street and the military-industrial complex willing to risk nuclear Armageddon in order to continue to dominate supplies of oil and other wealth, while the Republicans put up a crazy, racist and sexist capitalist huckster and con artist for president. So, of course, many people who really care about the future of humankind and the eco-system, and find aggressive war to be morally unacceptable, make the rational choice not to vote for either of them but to stick to voting for someone who represents a genuine choice for peace, environmental restoration and progress. And they get attacked for it. Not by Republicans but by Democratic operatives, in institutions like the Daily Kos or the Daily Beast, et al., who continue to insist on some sort of “loyalty” to a party that many of us never embraced in the first place, and that, in any event, has failed to earn it. The only real case that they have for supporting Clinton is to try to persuade us that Trump is scarier. But that is incapable of proof one way or the other. What’s worse, a loose cannon or a cannon pointed squarely at the people of the Middle East, Africa, Russia and China? What’s worse, a climate denier, or someone who acknowledges the climate crisis but promotes policies that continue to promote the combustion of more fossil fuels? One can debate it either way but the only certainty is that BOTH ARE UNACCEPTABLE. So in response to that, of course Stein and Baraka are going to emphasize the scariness of Clinton – because it’s the Clintonites who are doing the attacking. In that context, they make a valid point: When Republicans are in power, some Democrats tend to get motivated. They push back on environmental and peace issues. But when their own get in power, they go to sleep. In 2002 - 2007, we had a militant peace movement in this country. After Obama got elected in 2008, where have all the mass protests gone? Yes, die-hards like me are still at it, but armchair liberals all went home because one of their “own” was in the Oval Office. And then he went about attacking four more countries, illegally, with virtually no resistance. The author of this article doesn’t even get her facts straight. The article entitled “ “Why Hillary Clinton Is More Dangerous Than Donald Trump,” was not written by Baraka but by John Pilger. It’s worth a read:https://newmatilda.com/…/john-pilger-why-hillary-clinton-…/… But the author doesn’t want people to read and analyze. The author wants to take a few quotes and tweets out of context and spin it into a fairy tale that Greens are “endorsing” Trump. It’s rubbish – another hit piece based on a lie. Our current situation DEMANDS political revolution. Bernie started one, and if enough Sanderistas come on board with Jill Stein, we can make something happen. The 2016 race has already defied the usual expectations. Support for third-party and independent candidates is at an historic high. There is still time for more dramatic change to occur. We are not prisoners of history; we can make our own. The world can't afford to wait. We can't afford once again, to be herded into the camp of a destructive Democratic leadership out of fear that the Republican buffoon will be worse. We can’t keep bankrupting ourselves funding a war on terrorism that both sows and reaps ever more terror. We can’t afford another nuclear arms race, coupled with a dangerous policy of strangling Russia. The global ecosystem is not going to wait for us to make a gradual shift in the political temperature. This is the time for American voters to stand up and demand real change. We're out of time to do anything less. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stuartnlevy at gmail.com Thu Nov 3 14:55:02 2016 From: stuartnlevy at gmail.com (Stuart Levy) Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2016 09:55:02 -0500 Subject: [Peace] 3 events Sat Nov 5th! 2pm Demonstration; 4pm Medea Benjamin (CODE PINK); 6:30pm "The 13th" Message-ID: <8cd6a608-3fd1-7259-ecf5-bf8e82e65cd8@gmail.com> Three events coming this Saturday, Nov. 5th - hope you can attend some or all: 2-4pm, corner of Main and Neil, downtown Champaign AWARE monthly anti-war demonstration 4-5:30pm, McKinley Foundation, 809 S 5th St, Champaign Antiwar activist Medea Benjamin, of CODE PINK, speaks on her book: * "Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the US-Saudi Connection"* 6:30pm, Channing Murray Foundation, 1209 W Oregon, Urbana *Showing and discussion of "The 13th",* documentary on mass incarceration in America and its roots in slavery - a film by Ava Duvernay (who also made "Selma"). Local activist James Kilgore, who is interviewed in the film, will lead a discussion following the film showing. Details below. ===================== Central Illinois Progressive Democrats of America, Just Foreign Policy, Eco-Justice Collaborative, and Anti-War Anti-Racism Effort (AWARE) present Activist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Medea Benjamin Medea will sign and discuss her new book, *Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the US-Saudi Connection,* and the condition of the international Peace Movement. WHERE: Thanks to McKinley Presbyterian Church, 809 S. Fifth St., Champaign, IL 61820. Parking available in garage across from church or on-street. WHEN: Saturday, Nov. 5, 4:00-5:30 pm Books available for purchase on-site. Medea Benjamin, co-founder of women’s peace organization CODEPINK, has become famous for fearlessly tackling head-on subjects most of us studiously avoid. In Kingdom of the Unjust, she researches the sinister nature of the relationship between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. In seven succinct chapters followed by a meditation on prospects for change, Benjamin—cited by the L.A. Times as “one of the high-profile members of the peace movement”—shines a light on one of the most perplexing elements of American foreign policy. What is the origin of this strange alliance between two countries that seemingly have very little in common? Why does it persist, and what are its consequences? This event is free and open to the public. =============================== 6:30PM 11/5 showing of *"The 13th"* at Channing-Murray Foundation As the final event in our campaign to defeat the sales tax (jails tax) referendum, Build Programs, Not Jails presents a showing of 13th. Ava Duvernay (of /Selma/ and /Queen Sugar/ fame) has produced this new documentary, a history of mass incarceration and its roots in the legacy of slavery. The film takes its name after the 13th amendment to the constitution which supposedly abolished slavery but still permits it for those "duly convicted" of a crime. Nominated for five critics choice awards, the film includes interviews with Angela Davis, Michelle Alexander, Newt Gingrich, Van Jones and a host of others. Among these is U of I faculty member and local activist JAMES KILGORE who will be on hand to speak about the film and lead a discussion after the showing. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Fri Nov 4 13:48:19 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2016 13:48:19 +0000 Subject: [Peace] UILaw speaker Killer Koh part of U.S. war machine | News-Gazette.com In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Coverage of the demonstration, filmed by Paul Muth, is being presented on UPTV6 this evening at 7:00pm. It will be on U-Tube as well. > On Nov 4, 2016, at 06:43, Boyle, Francis A wrote: > > Great letter. Congrats! This Nazi Law Faculty have now forfeited the legal, ethical and moral right to run a law school. Not to cause people inconvenience, but I do hope that you could circulate that speech I gave at our Rally on Friday so that everyone knows why. > Fab > Ed Norton Professor of Law > Illinois Nazis Law School > > > Francis A. Boyle > Law Building > 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. > Champaign, IL 61820 USA > 217-333-7954 (phone) > 217-244-1478 (fax) > (personal comments only) > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Boyle, Francis A > Sent: Friday, November 04, 2016 8:37 AM > To: 'SECTNS.aals at lists.aals.org' > Subject: UILaw speaker Killer Koh part of U.S. war machine | News-Gazette.com > > http://www.news-gazette.com/opinion/letters-editor/2016-11-04/ui-speaker-part-us-war-machine.html > UI speaker part of U.S. war machine > > > > > > Fri, 11/04/2016 - 7:00am | The News-Gazette > > > I and other members of the Champaign-Urbana peace group AWARE (Anti-War Anti-Racism Effort) are disappointed that The News-Gazette chose not to cover our demonstration at the University of Illinois College of Law on Oct. 28. But we were pleased that other local news organizations - notably Fox News Champaign - did so. > > We, along with Professor Francis Boyle, a law faculty member, and other local organizations (The World Can't Wait, STEM Boycotts the War Machine, WRFU World Labor Hour, Prairie Greens) were protesting the support of the Obama administration's war-making, as expressed by a speaker at the law school, Harold Koh. > > Koh is a lawyer, a Yale dean and professor, and former legal adviser to the State Department in the Obama administration. He was a member of the Reagan and Clinton administrations and is a strong supporter of Obama's drone assassinations. Koh is expected to be appointed to a position in a Hillary Clinton administration, for his support of her war-making. > > Like all American presidents for more than a generation, President Barack Obama is making war around the world. He has killed thousands with drone assassinations - for which he is reported to choose the targets himself, from lists prepared by the CIA. And now his administration is threatening Russia with war in Syria - and beyond. > > > > > > Hillary Clinton threatens to do the same, or worse. Unless the American people stand up to our elected officials and urge them to stop the killing and destruction, humanity may well be doomed. > > KAREN ARAM > > Urbana > > > > Share From kmedina67 at gmail.com Sat Nov 5 04:36:00 2016 From: kmedina67 at gmail.com (Karen Medina) Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2016 23:36:00 -0500 Subject: [Peace] peace demonstration Saturday, Nov. 5, 2016 // be there in fair weather! Message-ID: Dear Peace, What wonderful weather for a peace demonstration. Be there to enjoy it. Take the temperature of the anti-war climate. Saturday November 5, 2016 (mere days before the election) 2pm-4pm Downtown Champaign / the corners of Neil St and Main St. From deb.pdamerica at gmail.com Sun Nov 6 08:24:27 2016 From: deb.pdamerica at gmail.com (Debra Schrishuhn) Date: Sun, 6 Nov 2016 02:24:27 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Medea Benjamin book tour Message-ID: <8C69FED6-6B0B-41DE-BE31-D98A409B856E@gmail.com> Thanks to everyone who attended and helped to make Medea Benjamin's stop in Champaign a success and thought-provoking experience. Deb Sent from my iPhone From naiman at justforeignpolicy.org Tue Nov 8 13:36:47 2016 From: naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (Robert Naiman) Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2016 07:36:47 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Nov. 15 Champaign #NoDAPL Army Corps of Engineers / CERL Message-ID: This is happening on November 15: Nov 15 #NoDAPL Day of Action at Army Corps of Engineers https://actionnetwork.org/event_campaigns/nov-15-nodapl-day-of-action-at-army-corps-of-engineers Indigenous leaders are calling on us to take to the streets and disrupt "business-as-usual" one week after the election to demand that President Obama’s Army Corps of Engineers and the incoming administration stop the Dakota Access Pipeline -- and all those after it. On Tuesday, November 15th, join a massive day of action in solidarity with those at Standing Rock, and demand the Federal government and the Army Corps reject this pipeline. Find an event at an Army Corps of Engineer office near you, or sign up to host an action in your city to support the indigenous communities and landowners fighting on the front lines. Click here for a map of the Army Corps of Engineers District Headquarter offices around the country. *(If you're not near a District HQ, you can search Google to identify if there's a local Army Corps of Engineers field office in your city)* [...] So, here's what putting "Army Corps of Engineers" and "Champaign" in the Google turned up: US Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratory WebsiteDirections Research institute in Champaign, Illinois · 3.2 mi Address: 2902 Newmark Dr, Champaign, IL 61822 Phone: (217) 352-6511 http://www.erdc.usace.army.mil/Locations/CERL/ Anyone know anything about this place? Seems like it probably has a bunch of ties to the University - otherwise, what is it doing here? There's just a few of these Army Corps research labs across the U.S. What do you think about pressing the leadership there to make some kind of statement about DAPL? Who's up for going to visit them on November 15? === Robert Naiman Policy Director Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (202) 448-2898 x1 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Wed Nov 9 02:32:23 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2016 02:32:23 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Interview with Chris Hedges Message-ID: People angry, anarchic levels of violence possible after vote – Chris Hedges Published time: 7 Nov, 2016 07:3 The end to the dirtiest presidential race in American history is just around the corner. Candidates marred by scandals and allegations of corruption are running neck and neck. The nation is divided and tensions are running high, as both Trump and Hillary head into the vote with historically low approval ratings. With both candidates loathed by the public, who is going to be the real loser in this race? And with the price tag for the campaign set to exceed a record $6.6 billion dollars, why does the cost of the American elections amount to the budget of a small country? We ask American journalist, Pulitzer prize-winning author – Chris Hedges. Follow @SophieCo_RT Sophie Shevardnadze:Chris Hedges, Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, author, welcome to the show once again, great to have you back. Hillary was seemingly cruising to victory just after the debates - some polls gave her a 10 point lead - and now there’s virtually nothing separating the candidates. Today, if you had a million bucks who’d you bet it on - Clinton or Trump? Chris Hedges: It’s impossible to tell you, because it really will depend on the mood, on the emotions of the voters on election day. That's all these campaigns are about, because they both essentially are neo-liberal candidates who will do nothing to impede imperial expansion and corporate power. The whole campaign has descended to, you know, not surprisingly, to the level of a reality TV show, with presidential debates featuring women who have accused former President Bill Clinton of sexual assault being brought in by Donald Trump; videos - I'll go back to the primaries - of the size of people's genitals. I mean, it's just appalling, but all of that is emblematic of a political system in deep decay and one that no longer revolves around fundamental issues. We know from the Wikileaks emails, the John Podesta emails that were leaked from Hillary Clinton, that there was a calculated effort on a part of a Clinton campaign to promote these fringe candidates - like Trump, and they particularly wanted Trump, because the difference between Hillary Clinton and a more mainstream Republican candidate, like Jeb Bush, is so marginal. So if you had to ask me, I don't think Trump will win, but I don't rule out the possibility that he will win - we have to look at the Brexit polls in Britain... SS: Right. CH: ...And same kind of anger is underway here. SS: The FBI is extending its investigation into the Clinton email case - after obtaining a warrant to search the laptop of Clinton’s closest aide Huma Abedin. The Clinton campaign says the move is political - is the FBI guilty of swaying the vote, like Hillary suggests? CH: To be fair to FBI, they were put in a very difficult position - there are tens of thousands, they say 660,000 emails, we don't really know how many of those, but if the FBI made this discovery and did not make it public, they would be accused, of course, of aiding Clinton campaign. I don't know the motives, but I think we do have to recognise that the FBI, I think, felt correctly, that given the volatility of the campaign and the fact that they had, after the investigation of the Clinton email - she had used a private server - while they certainly felt that it was inappropriate to exonerate her of criminal activity that they felt kind of a responsibility to be transparent. SS: Another FBI investigation showed that the bureau didn’t find any evidence that Trump is tied to the Kremlin, like the Clinton campaign implied - has Hillary’s attempt to play the Russian card failed? CH: I don't know that it's failed, because the media has been quite obsequious in terms of parroting back this narrative, and one of the frustrations of the Wikileaks email dumps, the John Podesta emails, he is her campaign manager, runs her campaign - is that the contents were often overlooked to essentially ask the question: "Is Russia trying to influence the elections?", and as a former investigative reporter for the New York times, this is just not a legitimate question. I spent many-many years, 15 years with the Times, I was elated all sorts of information by all sorts of governments, from the French Intelligence agency to the Israeli Secret Service, the Mossad, to the U.S. government - and these people were not leaking it because they cared about democracy or an open society, they were leaking this information because it was in their interest to do so, and my job, as a reporter, was to determine whether this leaked information was true or untrue - and that's really the only thing the reporter should do with the leaked information on the Podesta emails. But one of the things that as a reporter, as a former investigative reporter, that has disturbed me is that they have - I'm talking about the press, especially about the electronic, commercial corporate press - they have effectively ignored much of what is in the emails to carry up this speculation. Meanwhile, of course, nobody has offered us any evidence that the Trump campaign is linked in any way to Russia or that Russia is responsible for the email dump. SS: We’re used to the fact that ordinary Americans don’t really care about foreign policy, but this campaign has focused a lot on foreign issues and Russia in particular. Are candidates trying to unite the nation by creating the image of a foreign threat? CH: Yeah. It's very disturbing on many levels, the kind of neo-conservative foreign policy cabal led by Robert Kagan and others that is around Clinton. The very people who gave the disastrous Iraq war, are now proposing policies to bait Russia. You know, it makes absolutely no sense to those of us who spend as many, as I did, two decades abroad as a foreign correspondent, except that it plays well politically into this very stunted, peculiar, neocon vision of the world, and that is that everybody out there only understands one language, and that's force. That's how you see these 15 years now of war, the longest war in U.S. history. It's been an utter disaster, utter failure, both in Iraq and Afghanistan, and of course, Syria, and Libya - and yet, what's the response? More bombs, more bombs, more bombs, which created the problems in the first place. SS:Yeah, and do Americans like being scared by a foreign adversary? CH: No, I don't think they "like" it, but it's a very effective form of control. Fear works, and Americans are hardly the only people to use it. Terrorism, the specter of Russia...whatever it is! Fear is a form of social control, and when you have essentially two political parties that are doing corporate bidding that serves the interests of corporate global elites, at the expense of the citizens - they need fear, they need to manufacture fear, and I think that's what we're seeing. SS: Trump has said things along the lines of ‘this election is rigged’ and he’s hinted that he may contend the results, which is kind of like admitting he’ll be defeated. Is this talk backfiring and scaring away voters? Why would people head to the ballots if they think their voice doesn’t count anyway? CH: The Trump's base, primarily white lower-working class, which has been dispossessed through de-industrialisation, is going to head to the polls. They are attempting to work within the system. If the race is close and Trump loses, I think, everything we have seen, given the volatility of Trump, suggests that he will charge that the elections were rigged. We certainly have seen evidence now, from in particular the leaked emails, of the rigging of the primaries on the part of the Democratic National Committee, on behalf of the Clintons. It's pretty clear that Nevada Caucus was stolen, they blocked independents from voting in many of the primaries, in many of the states, and independents were Bernie Sanders' primary base. We just saw a few days ago, a day or two ago, that Clinton was actually leaked questions that would be given to her at a staged... I mean, they call them "Townhalls", they're totally Potemkin-like reality shows, totally scripted - so, it’s enough to look into the inner workings to suggest that these people, the Clinton machine, the Democratic party do not play fair. So, yeah, I think that that is the danger and the danger becomes then, when enraged Trump supporters believe that the system is rigged, the system is broken, it doesn't function fairly - and that becomes dangerous, because these people will resort to kind of anarchic levels of violence. SS: Filmmaker Michael Moore, who you can’t call a Republican-friendly figure exactly, called Trump “a human Molotov cocktail” which desperate poor voters can throw at the system that stole their lives from them. How come a Republican candidate is the candidate of the dispossessed, shouldn’t Hillary be the one taking care of them? CH: Yeah. That is the whole idea, that a billionaire developer is somehow the voice of the dispossessed, but he has tapped into this right-wing populism. This is coupled with a kind of xenophobia, kind of exalted nationalism, and a statement - which is true, of course - that the elites have betrayed the ordinary citizenry. So, when Donald Trump goes to Michigan and stands before the executives from car manufacturers, who are moving their plants over the border, courtesy of NAFTA, to Mexico, and says that if you try to make cars in Mexico, I'll put a 35% tariff on it - this is something that no candidate, in either party, has been saying, and there are many-many really struggling... I mean, half of this country now lives in poverty, people who have been waiting a long time for somebody to stand up and defy these corporate executives and CEOs who have destroyed their lives, the lives of their communities, destroyed the lives of their families. So, in that sense, Trump is not a traditional Republican which is why the Republican establishment itself has united with the Democratic establishment to try and destroy the Trump presidency - much as in 1972, the left-wing insurgent candidate George McGovern saw the establishment of the Democratic party unite with the establishment of the Republican party to elect Richard Nixon. SS: The election is estimated to have cost 6.6 billion dollars so far -that’s including the House and Senate campaign spending, and is likely to end up being even more pricey than that. That’s the whole budget of Bahrain. Elections in India have four times as many voters and cost one billion less. Is this price tag cutting off any truly independent candidate, like Bernie Sanders? CH: You can't compete, unless you can raise that kind of money, unless you can get into debates. Bernie Sanders actually raised significant sums, he didn't do it through corporations, his average campaign contribution was $27 - but yeah, you can't play in this game of political theater, unless you're bankrolled to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. That is the part of the way they lock out third-party candidates, like the Green party candidate Jill Stein. SS:The Democratic party managed to fend off an anti-system challenger - Sanders - how come the Republicans couldn’t find anyone who could defeat Trump? CH: Because the establishment itself is so deeply hated, so when the Republican establishment finally did - they didn't take him seriously in the beginning, and when they did turn on him, they trotted out the former presidential candidate Mitt Romney to attack him, and people just laughed. It's the Romneys, the Bushes, the Clintons, the Obamas, it's that establishment that people are turning against - which is why Hillary Clinton is having such a difficult time competing against such an imbecilic, undisciplined and impulsive and, frankly, ignorant candidate. SS: I'm just wondering - why is the media, even the right-leaning media, which created Trump’s phenomenon - turning on him in this campaign? CH: Two reasons. One - he is attacking the trade agreements, which is how the elites make their money, and secondly, he's a public relations disaster for the U.S. I think those are the two reasons. Maybe, the third reason is that they don't know what they're getting with Trump - nobody knows what they're getting with Trump. Trump doesn't know what he's getting with Trump, and they know that Clinton will maintain both the imperial overreach and the design of the corporate state. So, Clinton’s a sure bet and Trump is just too volatile a candidate, and that's why the establishment has turned on him. SS: PresidentObama has hit the campaign trail to endorse Hillary Clinton - he’s warning that ‘all the progress will go out the window if we don’t make the right choice’. Do you think everything Obama achieved will really go out the window if Trump gets elected? CH: I don't think Obama has achieved very much. His healthcare program which is essentially forcing citizens to buy defective corporate products and we're watching now massive increases, on an average of 22%, and people that have the bronze plan, different levels of plans cannot even afford the kinds of premiums and copayments... - I mean, the whole system is a disaster. His assault on civil liberties has been worse than under Bush, he has expanded imperial wars, in places like Libya, create more failed states. I don't think Obama has much of a legacy. He'll walk out and get rich and will start his own Foundation like the Clintons - there's almost a complete continuity between Bush and Obama. SS: A recent CNN ORC poll says Obama’s approval rating is higher than at any time during his presidency - why is he doing so great now that he’s leaving? Is that his Hillary campaigning paying off? CH: You know, these people run very skilled public relations operations which revolve not around policy but around creating manufactured personalities, and that has been very difficult for Clinton - and that's why Clinton has the second-highest disapproval rating of any Presidential candidate as far as we know in American history, with the exception, of course, of the person she's competing against - Donald Trump. We have to look at what American politics is - it's really about creating feelings, emotions, getting voters to confuse how they are made to feel with knowledge. It is not about actual policies, and both Michelle Obama who has a very high kind of favourability rating and Barack Obama have been skilled in doing that. It's much more difficult, that's part of the problem, for the Clinton campaign. SS: Looking back at the beginning of Obama's presidency, the Nobel committee handed Obama the peace prize in 2009 - not for his accomplishments, but for his intentions. But the promised peace didn’t come to Afghanistan, didn’t come to Iraq, we’re seeing the unravelling of other Middle Eastern states - did Obama’s peace vision not only fail but make things worse? CH: Oh yeah, of course, look at Libya, look at Syria, look at Somalia, look at Iraq, look at Afghanistan, look at Pakistan. No, it's a complete catastrophe. I've spent seven years in the Middle East, I was the Middle East bureau chief for the New York Times, and what we've done is, I would argue, the greatest strategic blunder in American history, and it's one that Obama aided and abetted. The whole idea of him as a peace candidate is... I mean, I kind of gave up on the Nobel Prize Committee, I have no idea why this was done. As you correctly pointed out, he hadn't even done anything. SS: Was it a genuine inability to make things better, were his hands tied? CH: No. He was an establishment candidate, he was selected, anointed and promoted by the Democratic Chicago political machine, which is one of the dirtiest in the country, he got more money in 2008 from Wall St. than the Republican candidate who was against him - McCain. No, he's very cynical...bright, talented, unlike George Bush, but deeply cynical candidate. He brought in the old establishment, including the old Defence Secretary Robert Gates, who had been the Secretary of Defence under Bush, he brought in old these figures like Larry Summers and Geithner who are Wall St. marionettes. No, Obama knew very well what he was doing from the very beginning and effectively... Look, he won Advertising Age's top annual award which was "Marketer of the Year". His campaign did, because the professionals knew just what he done - he functioned as a brand for the corporate state, a very powerful and a very effective one. SS: On the other hand America has restored relations with Cuba and reached a nuclear deal with Iran - both seemed unachievable just a couple of years ago. Do you count those as a Obama's foreign policy successes? CH: Yeah, they are foreign policy successes, but we have to understand that the Pentagon had long fought the neocons call for war with Iran, even under the Bush administration they put a stop to it. So, there was no appetite within the American military establishment for war with Iran anyway. So that wasn't really an option, despite Israeli pressure. In terms of Cuba, it just got to the point of absurdity - the boycott of Cuba, and we must also remember that the second generation of Cuban Americans did not have that kind of hatred towards Fidel Castro and towards the Cuban regime, and so it was politically safer for the Democratic party because the new generation, just like the new second and third generation of Jewish Americans don't have that loyalty to Israel - it wasn't as politically volatile a decision. SS:Obama made ‘global zero’ a strategic objective - however he failed to get America to ban nuclear tests by ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban treaty, while the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the Doomsday Clock to ‘three minutes to midnight’ - that is to a nuclear war. Why did Obama’s promise to ‘reduce the role of nuclear weapons in American foreign policy’ backfire? CH: Because the military-industrial establishment is so powerful in the United States that politicians serve its interests. They don't dictate what the interests of that industry is - officialy, it swallows about 53% of our discretionary budget, but that, of course, masks huge other expenditures, including for our nuclear weapon systems, which isn't counted for Veteran's affairs, which is huge for, if you want to count, the security and surveillance state, which is officially hidden, but probably at least a hundred billion dollars... We're starving the rest of society to do that, and you can't fight these wars. Indeed, if you were watching the Bernie Sander's campaign, Sanders did not take on imperial adventurism or the military establishment - because you can't, within the American political system - and Obama, I think, is an example of that. SS: Police shootings of unarmed black men have sparked massive protests and the Black lives matter movement - does Obama being the first black president actually mean little for race troubles in the U.S.? CH: It means nothing, because you have de-industrialised urban centres, i.e. places that once had factories and jobs, which are now in ruins - you walk through them and it's boarded up factories and pothole streets and crumbling infrastructure, dysfunctional schools, and there are no jobs. So you have created mini police states in these marginal communities, where police can serve, as we see, as Judge, Jury and Executioner - three in one. Americans, almost all poor people of colour, are shot by police in this country every day, and it's a form of social control, along, of course, with mass incarceration. We have 25% of the world's prison population and 4% of the world's population - most of those imprisoned are poor people of colour. So, when you've taken away the possibility for jobs and with it the possibilities for hope, for advancement, for inclusion within both the economic and political system - then you need these very harsh forms of controls in order to keep people, essentially, fenced in. That's why these killings don't stop, it doesn't matter how many protests are carried out, and Obama has quite sadly betrayed, if we go back especially to 2008 and even to 2012, his primary base - African-Americans voted in staggering numbers for Obama, I think, 90% or something. Almost that high, and yet life for African-Americans, I would argue, after 8 years of Obama, is worse than when he took power. SS: We've been talking to Chris Hedges, author, Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, talking about the ups and downs of 2016 U.S. Presidential Campaign, and the end of the Obama era as the Americans are gearing up to choose their next President tomorrow. We'll of course be watching the vote closely. That's it for this edition of SophieCo, I will see you next time. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From galliher at illinois.edu Wed Nov 9 02:35:57 2016 From: galliher at illinois.edu (Carl G. Estabrook) Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2016 20:35:57 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Interview with Chris Hedges In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: “... anarchic levels of violence possible after vote”? Does that seem likely to anyone outside of the Clinton campaign? —CGE > On Nov 8, 2016, at 8:32 PM, Karen Aram via Peace wrote: > > People angry, anarchic levels of violence possible after vote – Chris Hedges > Published time: 7 Nov, 2016 07:3 > The end to the dirtiest presidential race in American history is just around the corner. Candidates marred by scandals and allegations of corruption are running neck and neck. The nation is divided and tensions are running high, as both Trump and Hillary head into the vote with historically low approval ratings. With both candidates loathed by the public, who is going to be the real loser in this race? And with the price tag for the campaign set to exceed a record $6.6 billion dollars, why does the cost of the American elections amount to the budget of a small country? We ask American journalist, Pulitzer prize-winning author – Chris Hedges. > Follow @SophieCo_RT > Sophie Shevardnadze:Chris Hedges, Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, author, welcome to the show once again, great to have you back. Hillary was seemingly cruising to victory just after the debates - some polls gave her a 10 point lead - and now there’s virtually nothing separating the candidates. Today, if you had a million bucks who’d you bet it on - Clinton or Trump? > Chris Hedges: It’s impossible to tell you, because it really will depend on the mood, on the emotions of the voters on election day. That's all these campaigns are about, because they both essentially are neo-liberal candidates who will do nothing to impede imperial expansion and corporate power. The whole campaign has descended to, you know, not surprisingly, to the level of a reality TV show, with presidential debates featuring women who have accused former President Bill Clinton of sexual assault being brought in by Donald Trump; videos - I'll go back to the primaries - of the size of people's genitals. I mean, it's just appalling, but all of that is emblematic of a political system in deep decay and one that no longer revolves around fundamental issues. We know from the Wikileaks emails, the John Podesta emails that were leaked from Hillary Clinton, that there was a calculated effort on a part of a Clinton campaign to promote these fringe candidates - like Trump, and they particularly wanted Trump, because the difference between Hillary Clinton and a more mainstream Republican candidate, like Jeb Bush, is so marginal. So if you had to ask me, I don't think Trump will win, but I don't rule out the possibility that he will win - we have to look at the Brexit polls in Britain... > SS: Right. > CH: ...And same kind of anger is underway here. > SS: The FBI is extending its investigation into the Clinton email case - after obtaining a warrant to search the laptop of Clinton’s closest aide Huma Abedin. The Clinton campaign says the move is political - is the FBI guilty of swaying the vote, like Hillary suggests? > CH: To be fair to FBI, they were put in a very difficult position - there are tens of thousands, they say 660,000 emails, we don't really know how many of those, but if the FBI made this discovery and did not make it public, they would be accused, of course, of aiding Clinton campaign. I don't know the motives, but I think we do have to recognise that the FBI, I think, felt correctly, that given the volatility of the campaign and the fact that they had, after the investigation of the Clinton email - she had used a private server - while they certainly felt that it was inappropriate to exonerate her of criminal activity that they felt kind of a responsibility to be transparent. > SS: Another FBI investigation showed that the bureau didn’t find any evidence that Trump is tied to the Kremlin, like the Clinton campaign implied - has Hillary’s attempt to play the Russian card failed? > CH: I don't know that it's failed, because the media has been quite obsequious in terms of parroting back this narrative, and one of the frustrations of the Wikileaks email dumps, the John Podesta emails, he is her campaign manager, runs her campaign - is that the contents were often overlooked to essentially ask the question: "Is Russia trying to influence the elections?", and as a former investigative reporter for the New York times, this is just not a legitimate question. I spent many-many years, 15 years with the Times, I was elated all sorts of information by all sorts of governments, from the French Intelligence agency to the Israeli Secret Service, the Mossad, to the U.S. government - and these people were not leaking it because they cared about democracy or an open society, they were leaking this information because it was in their interest to do so, and my job, as a reporter, was to determine whether this leaked information was true or untrue - and that's really the only thing the reporter should do with the leaked information on the Podesta emails. But one of the things that as a reporter, as a former investigative reporter, that has disturbed me is that they have - I'm talking about the press, especially about the electronic, commercial corporate press - they have effectively ignored much of what is in the emails to carry up this speculation. Meanwhile, of course, nobody has offered us any evidence that the Trump campaign is linked in any way to Russia or that Russia is responsible for the email dump. > SS: We’re used to the fact that ordinary Americans don’t really care about foreign policy, but this campaign has focused a lot on foreign issues and Russia in particular. Are candidates trying to unite the nation by creating the image of a foreign threat? > CH: Yeah. It's very disturbing on many levels, the kind of neo-conservative foreign policy cabal led by Robert Kagan and others that is around Clinton. The very people who gave the disastrous Iraq war, are now proposing policies to bait Russia. You know, it makes absolutely no sense to those of us who spend as many, as I did, two decades abroad as a foreign correspondent, except that it plays well politically into this very stunted, peculiar, neocon vision of the world, and that is that everybody out there only understands one language, and that's force. That's how you see these 15 years now of war, the longest war in U.S. history. It's been an utter disaster, utter failure, both in Iraq and Afghanistan, and of course, Syria, and Libya - and yet, what's the response? More bombs, more bombs, more bombs, which created the problems in the first place. > SS:Yeah, and do Americans like being scared by a foreign adversary? > CH: No, I don't think they "like" it, but it's a very effective form of control. Fear works, and Americans are hardly the only people to use it. Terrorism, the specter of Russia...whatever it is! Fear is a form of social control, and when you have essentially two political parties that are doing corporate bidding that serves the interests of corporate global elites, at the expense of the citizens - they need fear, they need to manufacture fear, and I think that's what we're seeing. > SS: Trump has said things along the lines of ‘this election is rigged’ and he’s hinted that he may contend the results, which is kind of like admitting he’ll be defeated. Is this talk backfiring and scaring away voters? Why would people head to the ballots if they think their voice doesn’t count anyway? > CH: The Trump's base, primarily white lower-working class, which has been dispossessed through de-industrialisation, is going to head to the polls. They are attempting to work within the system. If the race is close and Trump loses, I think, everything we have seen, given the volatility of Trump, suggests that he will charge that the elections were rigged. We certainly have seen evidence now, from in particular the leaked emails, of the rigging of the primaries on the part of the Democratic National Committee, on behalf of the Clintons. It's pretty clear that Nevada Caucus was stolen, they blocked independents from voting in many of the primaries, in many of the states, and independents were Bernie Sanders' primary base. We just saw a few days ago, a day or two ago, that Clinton was actually leaked questions that would be given to her at a staged... I mean, they call them "Townhalls", they're totally Potemkin-like reality shows, totally scripted - so, it’s enough to look into the inner workings to suggest that these people, the Clinton machine, the Democratic party do not play fair. So, yeah, I think that that is the danger and the danger becomes then, when enraged Trump supporters believe that the system is rigged, the system is broken, it doesn't function fairly - and that becomes dangerous, because these people will resort to kind of anarchic levels of violence. > SS: Filmmaker Michael Moore, who you can’t call a Republican-friendly figure exactly, called Trump “a human Molotov cocktail” which desperate poor voters can throw at the system that stole their lives from them. How come a Republican candidate is the candidate of the dispossessed, shouldn’t Hillary be the one taking care of them? > CH: Yeah. That is the whole idea, that a billionaire developer is somehow the voice of the dispossessed, but he has tapped into this right-wing populism. This is coupled with a kind of xenophobia, kind of exalted nationalism, and a statement - which is true, of course - that the elites have betrayed the ordinary citizenry. So, when Donald Trump goes to Michigan and stands before the executives from car manufacturers, who are moving their plants over the border, courtesy of NAFTA, to Mexico, and says that if you try to make cars in Mexico, I'll put a 35% tariff on it - this is something that no candidate, in either party, has been saying, and there are many-many really struggling... I mean, half of this country now lives in poverty, people who have been waiting a long time for somebody to stand up and defy these corporate executives and CEOs who have destroyed their lives, the lives of their communities, destroyed the lives of their families. So, in that sense, Trump is not a traditional Republican which is why the Republican establishment itself has united with the Democratic establishment to try and destroy the Trump presidency - much as in 1972, the left-wing insurgent candidate George McGovern saw the establishment of the Democratic party unite with the establishment of the Republican party to elect Richard Nixon. > SS: The election is estimated to have cost 6.6 billion dollars so far -that’s including the House and Senate campaign spending, and is likely to end up being even more pricey than that. That’s the whole budget of Bahrain. Elections in India have four times as many voters and cost one billion less. Is this price tag cutting off any truly independent candidate, like Bernie Sanders? > CH: You can't compete, unless you can raise that kind of money, unless you can get into debates. Bernie Sanders actually raised significant sums, he didn't do it through corporations, his average campaign contribution was $27 - but yeah, you can't play in this game of political theater, unless you're bankrolled to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. That is the part of the way they lock out third-party candidates, like the Green party candidate Jill Stein. > SS:The Democratic party managed to fend off an anti-system challenger - Sanders - how come the Republicans couldn’t find anyone who could defeat Trump? > CH: Because the establishment itself is so deeply hated, so when the Republican establishment finally did - they didn't take him seriously in the beginning, and when they did turn on him, they trotted out the former presidential candidate Mitt Romney to attack him, and people just laughed. It's the Romneys, the Bushes, the Clintons, the Obamas, it's that establishment that people are turning against - which is why Hillary Clinton is having such a difficult time competing against such an imbecilic, undisciplined and impulsive and, frankly, ignorant candidate. > SS: I'm just wondering - why is the media, even the right-leaning media, which created Trump’s phenomenon - turning on him in this campaign? > CH: Two reasons. One - he is attacking the trade agreements, which is how the elites make their money, and secondly, he's a public relations disaster for the U.S. I think those are the two reasons. Maybe, the third reason is that they don't know what they're getting with Trump - nobody knows what they're getting with Trump. Trump doesn't know what he's getting with Trump, and they know that Clinton will maintain both the imperial overreach and the design of the corporate state. So, Clinton’s a sure bet and Trump is just too volatile a candidate, and that's why the establishment has turned on him. > SS: PresidentObama has hit the campaign trail to endorse Hillary Clinton - he’s warning that ‘all the progress will go out the window if we don’t make the right choice’. Do you think everything Obama achieved will really go out the window if Trump gets elected? > CH: I don't think Obama has achieved very much. His healthcare program which is essentially forcing citizens to buy defective corporate products and we're watching now massive increases, on an average of 22%, and people that have the bronze plan, different levels of plans cannot even afford the kinds of premiums and copayments... - I mean, the whole system is a disaster. His assault on civil liberties has been worse than under Bush, he has expanded imperial wars, in places like Libya, create more failed states. I don't think Obama has much of a legacy. He'll walk out and get rich and will start his own Foundation like the Clintons - there's almost a complete continuity between Bush and Obama. > SS: A recent CNN ORC poll says Obama’s approval rating is higher than at any time during his presidency - why is he doing so great now that he’s leaving? Is that his Hillary campaigning paying off? > CH: You know, these people run very skilled public relations operations which revolve not around policy but around creating manufactured personalities, and that has been very difficult for Clinton - and that's why Clinton has the second-highest disapproval rating of any Presidential candidate as far as we know in American history, with the exception, of course, of the person she's competing against - Donald Trump. We have to look at what American politics is - it's really about creating feelings, emotions, getting voters to confuse how they are made to feel with knowledge. It is not about actual policies, and both Michelle Obama who has a very high kind of favourability rating and Barack Obama have been skilled in doing that. It's much more difficult, that's part of the problem, for the Clinton campaign. > SS: Looking back at the beginning of Obama's presidency, the Nobel committee handed Obama the peace prize in 2009 - not for his accomplishments, but for his intentions. But the promised peace didn’t come to Afghanistan, didn’t come to Iraq, we’re seeing the unravelling of other Middle Eastern states - did Obama’s peace vision not only fail but make things worse? > CH: Oh yeah, of course, look at Libya, look at Syria, look at Somalia, look at Iraq, look at Afghanistan, look at Pakistan. No, it's a complete catastrophe. I've spent seven years in the Middle East, I was the Middle East bureau chief for the New York Times, and what we've done is, I would argue, the greatest strategic blunder in American history, and it's one that Obama aided and abetted. The whole idea of him as a peace candidate is... I mean, I kind of gave up on the Nobel Prize Committee, I have no idea why this was done. As you correctly pointed out, he hadn't even done anything. > SS: Was it a genuine inability to make things better, were his hands tied? > CH: No. He was an establishment candidate, he was selected, anointed and promoted by the Democratic Chicago political machine, which is one of the dirtiest in the country, he got more money in 2008 from Wall St. than the Republican candidate who was against him - McCain. No, he's very cynical...bright, talented, unlike George Bush, but deeply cynical candidate. He brought in the old establishment, including the old Defence Secretary Robert Gates, who had been the Secretary of Defence under Bush, he brought in old these figures like Larry Summers and Geithner who are Wall St. marionettes. No, Obama knew very well what he was doing from the very beginning and effectively... Look, he won Advertising Age's top annual award which was "Marketer of the Year". His campaign did, because the professionals knew just what he done - he functioned as a brand for the corporate state, a very powerful and a very effective one. > SS: On the other hand America has restored relations with Cuba and reached a nuclear deal with Iran - both seemed unachievable just a couple of years ago. Do you count those as a Obama's foreign policy successes? > CH: Yeah, they are foreign policy successes, but we have to understand that the Pentagon had long fought the neocons call for war with Iran, even under the Bush administration they put a stop to it. So, there was no appetite within the American military establishment for war with Iran anyway. So that wasn't really an option, despite Israeli pressure. In terms of Cuba, it just got to the point of absurdity - the boycott of Cuba, and we must also remember that the second generation of Cuban Americans did not have that kind of hatred towards Fidel Castro and towards the Cuban regime, and so it was politically safer for the Democratic party because the new generation, just like the new second and third generation of Jewish Americans don't have that loyalty to Israel - it wasn't as politically volatile a decision. > SS:Obama made ‘global zero’ a strategic objective - however he failed to get America to ban nuclear tests by ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban treaty, while the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the Doomsday Clock to ‘three minutes to midnight’ - that is to a nuclear war. Why did Obama’s promise to ‘reduce the role of nuclear weapons in American foreign policy’ backfire? > CH: Because the military-industrial establishment is so powerful in the United States that politicians serve its interests. They don't dictate what the interests of that industry is - officialy, it swallows about 53% of our discretionary budget, but that, of course, masks huge other expenditures, including for our nuclear weapon systems, which isn't counted for Veteran's affairs, which is huge for, if you want to count, the security and surveillance state, which is officially hidden, but probably at least a hundred billion dollars... We're starving the rest of society to do that, and you can't fight these wars. Indeed, if you were watching the Bernie Sander's campaign, Sanders did not take on imperial adventurism or the military establishment - because you can't, within the American political system - and Obama, I think, is an example of that. > SS: Police shootings of unarmed black men have sparked massive protests and the Black lives matter movement - does Obama being the first black president actually mean little for race troubles in the U.S.? > CH: It means nothing, because you have de-industrialised urban centres, i.e. places that once had factories and jobs, which are now in ruins - you walk through them and it's boarded up factories and pothole streets and crumbling infrastructure, dysfunctional schools, and there are no jobs. So you have created mini police states in these marginal communities, where police can serve, as we see, as Judge, Jury and Executioner - three in one. Americans, almost all poor people of colour, are shot by police in this country every day, and it's a form of social control, along, of course, with mass incarceration. We have 25% of the world's prison population and 4% of the world's population - most of those imprisoned are poor people of colour. So, when you've taken away the possibility for jobs and with it the possibilities for hope, for advancement, for inclusion within both the economic and political system - then you need these very harsh forms of controls in order to keep people, essentially, fenced in. That's why these killings don't stop, it doesn't matter how many protests are carried out, and Obama has quite sadly betrayed, if we go back especially to 2008 and even to 2012, his primary base - African-Americans voted in staggering numbers for Obama, I think, 90% or something. Almost that high, and yet life for African-Americans, I would argue, after 8 years of Obama, is worse than when he took power. > SS: We've been talking to Chris Hedges, author, Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, talking about the ups and downs of 2016 U.S. Presidential Campaign, and the end of the Obama era as the Americans are gearing up to choose their next President tomorrow. We'll of course be watching the vote closely. That's it for this edition of SophieCo, I will see you next time. > > > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace From karenaram at hotmail.com Wed Nov 9 02:45:21 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2016 02:45:21 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Interview with Chris Hedges In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The title is inflammatory, if you read the whole article Hedges predictions aren’t far off. > On Nov 8, 2016, at 18:35, Carl G. Estabrook wrote: > > “... anarchic levels of violence possible after vote”? > > Does that seem likely to anyone outside of the Clinton campaign? > > —CGE > >> On Nov 8, 2016, at 8:32 PM, Karen Aram via Peace wrote: >> >> People angry, anarchic levels of violence possible after vote – Chris Hedges >> Published time: 7 Nov, 2016 07:3 >> The end to the dirtiest presidential race in American history is just around the corner. Candidates marred by scandals and allegations of corruption are running neck and neck. The nation is divided and tensions are running high, as both Trump and Hillary head into the vote with historically low approval ratings. With both candidates loathed by the public, who is going to be the real loser in this race? And with the price tag for the campaign set to exceed a record $6.6 billion dollars, why does the cost of the American elections amount to the budget of a small country? We ask American journalist, Pulitzer prize-winning author – Chris Hedges. >> Follow @SophieCo_RT >> Sophie Shevardnadze:Chris Hedges, Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, author, welcome to the show once again, great to have you back. Hillary was seemingly cruising to victory just after the debates - some polls gave her a 10 point lead - and now there’s virtually nothing separating the candidates. Today, if you had a million bucks who’d you bet it on - Clinton or Trump? >> Chris Hedges: It’s impossible to tell you, because it really will depend on the mood, on the emotions of the voters on election day. That's all these campaigns are about, because they both essentially are neo-liberal candidates who will do nothing to impede imperial expansion and corporate power. The whole campaign has descended to, you know, not surprisingly, to the level of a reality TV show, with presidential debates featuring women who have accused former President Bill Clinton of sexual assault being brought in by Donald Trump; videos - I'll go back to the primaries - of the size of people's genitals. I mean, it's just appalling, but all of that is emblematic of a political system in deep decay and one that no longer revolves around fundamental issues. We know from the Wikileaks emails, the John Podesta emails that were leaked from Hillary Clinton, that there was a calculated effort on a part of a Clinton campaign to promote these fringe candidates - like Trump, and they particularly wanted Trump, because the difference between Hillary Clinton and a more mainstream Republican candidate, like Jeb Bush, is so marginal. So if you had to ask me, I don't think Trump will win, but I don't rule out the possibility that he will win - we have to look at the Brexit polls in Britain... >> SS: Right. >> CH: ...And same kind of anger is underway here. >> SS: The FBI is extending its investigation into the Clinton email case - after obtaining a warrant to search the laptop of Clinton’s closest aide Huma Abedin. The Clinton campaign says the move is political - is the FBI guilty of swaying the vote, like Hillary suggests? >> CH: To be fair to FBI, they were put in a very difficult position - there are tens of thousands, they say 660,000 emails, we don't really know how many of those, but if the FBI made this discovery and did not make it public, they would be accused, of course, of aiding Clinton campaign. I don't know the motives, but I think we do have to recognise that the FBI, I think, felt correctly, that given the volatility of the campaign and the fact that they had, after the investigation of the Clinton email - she had used a private server - while they certainly felt that it was inappropriate to exonerate her of criminal activity that they felt kind of a responsibility to be transparent. >> SS: Another FBI investigation showed that the bureau didn’t find any evidence that Trump is tied to the Kremlin, like the Clinton campaign implied - has Hillary’s attempt to play the Russian card failed? >> CH: I don't know that it's failed, because the media has been quite obsequious in terms of parroting back this narrative, and one of the frustrations of the Wikileaks email dumps, the John Podesta emails, he is her campaign manager, runs her campaign - is that the contents were often overlooked to essentially ask the question: "Is Russia trying to influence the elections?", and as a former investigative reporter for the New York times, this is just not a legitimate question. I spent many-many years, 15 years with the Times, I was elated all sorts of information by all sorts of governments, from the French Intelligence agency to the Israeli Secret Service, the Mossad, to the U.S. government - and these people were not leaking it because they cared about democracy or an open society, they were leaking this information because it was in their interest to do so, and my job, as a reporter, was to determine whether this leaked information was true or untrue - and that's really the only thing the reporter should do with the leaked information on the Podesta emails. But one of the things that as a reporter, as a former investigative reporter, that has disturbed me is that they have - I'm talking about the press, especially about the electronic, commercial corporate press - they have effectively ignored much of what is in the emails to carry up this speculation. Meanwhile, of course, nobody has offered us any evidence that the Trump campaign is linked in any way to Russia or that Russia is responsible for the email dump. >> SS: We’re used to the fact that ordinary Americans don’t really care about foreign policy, but this campaign has focused a lot on foreign issues and Russia in particular. Are candidates trying to unite the nation by creating the image of a foreign threat? >> CH: Yeah. It's very disturbing on many levels, the kind of neo-conservative foreign policy cabal led by Robert Kagan and others that is around Clinton. The very people who gave the disastrous Iraq war, are now proposing policies to bait Russia. You know, it makes absolutely no sense to those of us who spend as many, as I did, two decades abroad as a foreign correspondent, except that it plays well politically into this very stunted, peculiar, neocon vision of the world, and that is that everybody out there only understands one language, and that's force. That's how you see these 15 years now of war, the longest war in U.S. history. It's been an utter disaster, utter failure, both in Iraq and Afghanistan, and of course, Syria, and Libya - and yet, what's the response? More bombs, more bombs, more bombs, which created the problems in the first place. >> SS:Yeah, and do Americans like being scared by a foreign adversary? >> CH: No, I don't think they "like" it, but it's a very effective form of control. Fear works, and Americans are hardly the only people to use it. Terrorism, the specter of Russia...whatever it is! Fear is a form of social control, and when you have essentially two political parties that are doing corporate bidding that serves the interests of corporate global elites, at the expense of the citizens - they need fear, they need to manufacture fear, and I think that's what we're seeing. >> SS: Trump has said things along the lines of ‘this election is rigged’ and he’s hinted that he may contend the results, which is kind of like admitting he’ll be defeated. Is this talk backfiring and scaring away voters? Why would people head to the ballots if they think their voice doesn’t count anyway? >> CH: The Trump's base, primarily white lower-working class, which has been dispossessed through de-industrialisation, is going to head to the polls. They are attempting to work within the system. If the race is close and Trump loses, I think, everything we have seen, given the volatility of Trump, suggests that he will charge that the elections were rigged. We certainly have seen evidence now, from in particular the leaked emails, of the rigging of the primaries on the part of the Democratic National Committee, on behalf of the Clintons. It's pretty clear that Nevada Caucus was stolen, they blocked independents from voting in many of the primaries, in many of the states, and independents were Bernie Sanders' primary base. We just saw a few days ago, a day or two ago, that Clinton was actually leaked questions that would be given to her at a staged... I mean, they call them "Townhalls", they're totally Potemkin-like reality shows, totally scripted - so, it’s enough to look into the inner workings to suggest that these people, the Clinton machine, the Democratic party do not play fair. So, yeah, I think that that is the danger and the danger becomes then, when enraged Trump supporters believe that the system is rigged, the system is broken, it doesn't function fairly - and that becomes dangerous, because these people will resort to kind of anarchic levels of violence. >> SS: Filmmaker Michael Moore, who you can’t call a Republican-friendly figure exactly, called Trump “a human Molotov cocktail” which desperate poor voters can throw at the system that stole their lives from them. How come a Republican candidate is the candidate of the dispossessed, shouldn’t Hillary be the one taking care of them? >> CH: Yeah. That is the whole idea, that a billionaire developer is somehow the voice of the dispossessed, but he has tapped into this right-wing populism. This is coupled with a kind of xenophobia, kind of exalted nationalism, and a statement - which is true, of course - that the elites have betrayed the ordinary citizenry. So, when Donald Trump goes to Michigan and stands before the executives from car manufacturers, who are moving their plants over the border, courtesy of NAFTA, to Mexico, and says that if you try to make cars in Mexico, I'll put a 35% tariff on it - this is something that no candidate, in either party, has been saying, and there are many-many really struggling... I mean, half of this country now lives in poverty, people who have been waiting a long time for somebody to stand up and defy these corporate executives and CEOs who have destroyed their lives, the lives of their communities, destroyed the lives of their families. So, in that sense, Trump is not a traditional Republican which is why the Republican establishment itself has united with the Democratic establishment to try and destroy the Trump presidency - much as in 1972, the left-wing insurgent candidate George McGovern saw the establishment of the Democratic party unite with the establishment of the Republican party to elect Richard Nixon. >> SS: The election is estimated to have cost 6.6 billion dollars so far -that’s including the House and Senate campaign spending, and is likely to end up being even more pricey than that. That’s the whole budget of Bahrain. Elections in India have four times as many voters and cost one billion less. Is this price tag cutting off any truly independent candidate, like Bernie Sanders? >> CH: You can't compete, unless you can raise that kind of money, unless you can get into debates. Bernie Sanders actually raised significant sums, he didn't do it through corporations, his average campaign contribution was $27 - but yeah, you can't play in this game of political theater, unless you're bankrolled to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. That is the part of the way they lock out third-party candidates, like the Green party candidate Jill Stein. >> SS:The Democratic party managed to fend off an anti-system challenger - Sanders - how come the Republicans couldn’t find anyone who could defeat Trump? >> CH: Because the establishment itself is so deeply hated, so when the Republican establishment finally did - they didn't take him seriously in the beginning, and when they did turn on him, they trotted out the former presidential candidate Mitt Romney to attack him, and people just laughed. It's the Romneys, the Bushes, the Clintons, the Obamas, it's that establishment that people are turning against - which is why Hillary Clinton is having such a difficult time competing against such an imbecilic, undisciplined and impulsive and, frankly, ignorant candidate. >> SS: I'm just wondering - why is the media, even the right-leaning media, which created Trump’s phenomenon - turning on him in this campaign? >> CH: Two reasons. One - he is attacking the trade agreements, which is how the elites make their money, and secondly, he's a public relations disaster for the U.S. I think those are the two reasons. Maybe, the third reason is that they don't know what they're getting with Trump - nobody knows what they're getting with Trump. Trump doesn't know what he's getting with Trump, and they know that Clinton will maintain both the imperial overreach and the design of the corporate state. So, Clinton’s a sure bet and Trump is just too volatile a candidate, and that's why the establishment has turned on him. >> SS: PresidentObama has hit the campaign trail to endorse Hillary Clinton - he’s warning that ‘all the progress will go out the window if we don’t make the right choice’. Do you think everything Obama achieved will really go out the window if Trump gets elected? >> CH: I don't think Obama has achieved very much. His healthcare program which is essentially forcing citizens to buy defective corporate products and we're watching now massive increases, on an average of 22%, and people that have the bronze plan, different levels of plans cannot even afford the kinds of premiums and copayments... - I mean, the whole system is a disaster. His assault on civil liberties has been worse than under Bush, he has expanded imperial wars, in places like Libya, create more failed states. I don't think Obama has much of a legacy. He'll walk out and get rich and will start his own Foundation like the Clintons - there's almost a complete continuity between Bush and Obama. >> SS: A recent CNN ORC poll says Obama’s approval rating is higher than at any time during his presidency - why is he doing so great now that he’s leaving? Is that his Hillary campaigning paying off? >> CH: You know, these people run very skilled public relations operations which revolve not around policy but around creating manufactured personalities, and that has been very difficult for Clinton - and that's why Clinton has the second-highest disapproval rating of any Presidential candidate as far as we know in American history, with the exception, of course, of the person she's competing against - Donald Trump. We have to look at what American politics is - it's really about creating feelings, emotions, getting voters to confuse how they are made to feel with knowledge. It is not about actual policies, and both Michelle Obama who has a very high kind of favourability rating and Barack Obama have been skilled in doing that. It's much more difficult, that's part of the problem, for the Clinton campaign. >> SS: Looking back at the beginning of Obama's presidency, the Nobel committee handed Obama the peace prize in 2009 - not for his accomplishments, but for his intentions. But the promised peace didn’t come to Afghanistan, didn’t come to Iraq, we’re seeing the unravelling of other Middle Eastern states - did Obama’s peace vision not only fail but make things worse? >> CH: Oh yeah, of course, look at Libya, look at Syria, look at Somalia, look at Iraq, look at Afghanistan, look at Pakistan. No, it's a complete catastrophe. I've spent seven years in the Middle East, I was the Middle East bureau chief for the New York Times, and what we've done is, I would argue, the greatest strategic blunder in American history, and it's one that Obama aided and abetted. The whole idea of him as a peace candidate is... I mean, I kind of gave up on the Nobel Prize Committee, I have no idea why this was done. As you correctly pointed out, he hadn't even done anything. >> SS: Was it a genuine inability to make things better, were his hands tied? >> CH: No. He was an establishment candidate, he was selected, anointed and promoted by the Democratic Chicago political machine, which is one of the dirtiest in the country, he got more money in 2008 from Wall St. than the Republican candidate who was against him - McCain. No, he's very cynical...bright, talented, unlike George Bush, but deeply cynical candidate. He brought in the old establishment, including the old Defence Secretary Robert Gates, who had been the Secretary of Defence under Bush, he brought in old these figures like Larry Summers and Geithner who are Wall St. marionettes. No, Obama knew very well what he was doing from the very beginning and effectively... Look, he won Advertising Age's top annual award which was "Marketer of the Year". His campaign did, because the professionals knew just what he done - he functioned as a brand for the corporate state, a very powerful and a very effective one. >> SS: On the other hand America has restored relations with Cuba and reached a nuclear deal with Iran - both seemed unachievable just a couple of years ago. Do you count those as a Obama's foreign policy successes? >> CH: Yeah, they are foreign policy successes, but we have to understand that the Pentagon had long fought the neocons call for war with Iran, even under the Bush administration they put a stop to it. So, there was no appetite within the American military establishment for war with Iran anyway. So that wasn't really an option, despite Israeli pressure. In terms of Cuba, it just got to the point of absurdity - the boycott of Cuba, and we must also remember that the second generation of Cuban Americans did not have that kind of hatred towards Fidel Castro and towards the Cuban regime, and so it was politically safer for the Democratic party because the new generation, just like the new second and third generation of Jewish Americans don't have that loyalty to Israel - it wasn't as politically volatile a decision. >> SS:Obama made ‘global zero’ a strategic objective - however he failed to get America to ban nuclear tests by ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban treaty, while the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the Doomsday Clock to ‘three minutes to midnight’ - that is to a nuclear war. Why did Obama’s promise to ‘reduce the role of nuclear weapons in American foreign policy’ backfire? >> CH: Because the military-industrial establishment is so powerful in the United States that politicians serve its interests. They don't dictate what the interests of that industry is - officialy, it swallows about 53% of our discretionary budget, but that, of course, masks huge other expenditures, including for our nuclear weapon systems, which isn't counted for Veteran's affairs, which is huge for, if you want to count, the security and surveillance state, which is officially hidden, but probably at least a hundred billion dollars... We're starving the rest of society to do that, and you can't fight these wars. Indeed, if you were watching the Bernie Sander's campaign, Sanders did not take on imperial adventurism or the military establishment - because you can't, within the American political system - and Obama, I think, is an example of that. >> SS: Police shootings of unarmed black men have sparked massive protests and the Black lives matter movement - does Obama being the first black president actually mean little for race troubles in the U.S.? >> CH: It means nothing, because you have de-industrialised urban centres, i.e. places that once had factories and jobs, which are now in ruins - you walk through them and it's boarded up factories and pothole streets and crumbling infrastructure, dysfunctional schools, and there are no jobs. So you have created mini police states in these marginal communities, where police can serve, as we see, as Judge, Jury and Executioner - three in one. Americans, almost all poor people of colour, are shot by police in this country every day, and it's a form of social control, along, of course, with mass incarceration. We have 25% of the world's prison population and 4% of the world's population - most of those imprisoned are poor people of colour. So, when you've taken away the possibility for jobs and with it the possibilities for hope, for advancement, for inclusion within both the economic and political system - then you need these very harsh forms of controls in order to keep people, essentially, fenced in. That's why these killings don't stop, it doesn't matter how many protests are carried out, and Obama has quite sadly betrayed, if we go back especially to 2008 and even to 2012, his primary base - African-Americans voted in staggering numbers for Obama, I think, 90% or something. Almost that high, and yet life for African-Americans, I would argue, after 8 years of Obama, is worse than when he took power. >> SS: We've been talking to Chris Hedges, author, Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, talking about the ups and downs of 2016 U.S. Presidential Campaign, and the end of the Obama era as the Americans are gearing up to choose their next President tomorrow. We'll of course be watching the vote closely. That's it for this edition of SophieCo, I will see you next time. >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Peace mailing list >> Peace at lists.chambana.net >> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace > From stuartnlevy at gmail.com Wed Nov 9 14:23:19 2016 From: stuartnlevy at gmail.com (stuartnlevy) Date: Wed, 09 Nov 2016 08:23:19 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: David Swanson: "Now We Can Finally Get to Work" Message-ID: -------- Original message --------From: David Swanson Date: 11/9/16 03:22 (GMT-06:00) To: David Swanson Subject: [ufpj-activist] Now We Can Finally Get to Work Now We Can Finally Get to Work By David Swanson http://davidswanson.org/node/5341 Dear Democrats, Are you finding yourselves suddenly a bit doubtful of the wisdom of drone wars? Presidential wars without Congress? Massive investment in new, smaller, "more usable" nuclear weapons? The expansion of bases across Africa and Asia? Are you disturbed by the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen? Can total surveillance and the persecution of whistleblowers hit a point where they've gone too far? Is the new Cold War with Russia looking less than ideal now? How about the militarization of U.S. police: is it time to consider alternatives to that? I hear you. I'm with you. Let's build a movement together to end the madness of constantly overthrowing governments with bombs. Let's propose nonviolent alternatives to a culture gone mad with war. Let's end the mindset that creates war in the first place. We have opportunities as well as dangers. A President Trump is unpredictable. He wants to proliferate nuclear weapons, bomb people, kill people, stir up hatred of people, and increase yet further military spending. But he also said the new Cold War was a bad idea. He said he wanted to end NATO, not to mention NAFTA, as well as breaking the habit of overthrowing countries left and right. Trump seems to immediately back off such positions under the slightest pressure. Will he adhere to them under massive pressure from across the political spectrum? It's worth a try. We have an opportunity to build a movement that includes a focus on and participation from refugees/immigrants. We have a chance to create opposition to racist wars and racism at home. We may just discover that what's left of the U.S. labor movement is suddenly more open to opposing wars. Environmental groups may find a willingness to oppose the world's top destroyer of the environment: the U.S. military. Civil liberties groups may at long last be willing to take on the militarism that creates the atrocities they oppose. We have to work for such a broader movement. We have to build on the trend of protesting the national anthem and make it a trend of actively resisting the greatest purveyor of violence on earth. I know you're feeling a little beat down at the moment. You shouldn't. You had a winning candidate in Bernie Sanders. Your party cheated him out of the nomination. All that stuff you tell yourselves about encouraging demographic trends and the better positions of young people is all true. You just looked for love in all the wrong places. Running an unpopular candidate in a broken election system is not the way to change the world. Even a working election system would not be the central means by which to improve anything. There's no getting back the mountains of money and energy invested in this election. But activism is an unlimited resource. Directing your energies now in more strategic directions can inspire others who in turn can re-inspire you.   Dear Republicans, Your outsider is threatening insiderness. He's got the same tribe of DC corporate lobbyists planning his nominations that Hillary Clinton had lined up for hers. Can we resist that trend? Can we insist that the wars be ended? Can those moments of off-the-cuff honesty about dinosaurs like NATO be turned into actual action? Donald Trump took a lot of heat for proposing to be fair to Palestinians as well as Israelis, and he backed off fast. Can we encourage him to stand behind that initial inclination? Can we stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership and end NAFTA as well? We heard a million speeches about how bad NAFTA is. How about actually ending it? Can we stop the looming war supplemental spending bill? Can we put a swift halt to efforts in Congress to repeal the right to sue Saudi Arabia and other nations for their wars and lesser acts of terrorism? How about all that well deserved disgust with the corporate media? Can we actually break up that cartel and allow opportunities for media entrepreneurs?   Dear United States, Donald Trump admitted we had a broken election system and for a while pretended that he would operate outside of it by funding his own campaign. It's time to actually fix it. It's time to end the system of legalized bribery, fund elections, make registration automatic, make election day a holiday, end gerrymandering, eliminate the electoral college, create the right to vote, create the public hand-counting of paper ballots at every polling place, and create ranked choice voting as Maine just did. Voter suppression efforts in this year's elections should be prosecuted in each state. And any indications of fraud in vote counting by machines should be investigated. We should take the opportunity created by all the McCarthyist nonsense allegations of Russian interference to get rid of unverifiable voting. There are also areas in which localities and states, as well as international organizations and alliances, must now step up to take the lead. First and foremost is investing in a serious effort to avoid climate catastrophe. Second is addressing inequality that has surpassed the Middle Ages: both taxing the overclass and upholding the underclass must be pursued creatively. Mass incarceration and militarized police are problems that states can solve. But we can advance a positive agenda across the board by understanding this election in the way that much of the world will understand it: as a vote against endless war. Let's end the wars, end the weapons dealing, close the bases, and cut the $1 trillion a year going into the military. Hell, why not demand that a businessman president for the first time ever audit the Pentagon and find out what it's spending money on?   Dear World, We apologize for having elected President Trump as well as for nearly electing President Clinton. Many of you believe we defeated the representative of the enlightenment in favor of the sexist racist buffoon. This may be a good thing. Or at least it may be preferable to your eight-year-long delusion that President Obama was a man of peace and justice. I hate to break it to you, but the United States government has been intent on dominating the rest of you since the day it was formed. If electing an obnoxious president helps you understand that, so much the better. Stop joining in U.S. "humanitarian wars" please. They never were humanitarian, and if you can recognize that now, so much the better. The new guy openly wants to "steal their oil." So did the last several presidents, although none of them said so. Are we awake now? Shut down the U.S. bases in your country. They represent your subservience to Donald Trump. Close them. Want to save the earth's climate? Build a nonviolent movement that resists destructive agendas coming out of the United States. Want to uphold the rule of law, diplomacy, aid, decency, and humanitarianism? Stop making exceptions for U.S. crimes. Tell the International Criminal Court to indict a non-African. Prosecute the crime and crimes of war in your own courts. Stop cooperating in the surrounding and threatening of Russia, China, and Iran. Clinton wanted to send weapons to Ukraine and bomb Syria. Make sure Trump doesn't. Make peace in Ukraine and Syria before January. It's time that we all began treating the institution of war as the unacceptable vestige of barbarism that it can appear when given an openly racist, sexist, bigoted face. We have the ability to use nonviolent tools to direct the world where we want it to go. We have to stop believing the two big lies: that we are generally powerless, and that our only power lies in elections. Let's finally get active. Let's start by ending war making. -- David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is director of WorldBeyondWar.org and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson's books include War Is A Lie. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio. He is a 2015 and 2016 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee. Follow him on Twitter: @davidcnswanson and FaceBook. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rachelstrm at gmail.com Wed Nov 9 16:47:12 2016 From: rachelstrm at gmail.com (Rachel Storm) Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2016 10:47:12 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Go see Moonlight! Message-ID: Dear friends, Check out this important film showing at the Art Theater co-op this weekend. A message from the Art Theater's general manager: Hi — this is Austin McCann from the Art Theater Co-op in Champaign. I wanted to alert you to a really special & important film opening this weekend at the Art. The film is Barry Jenkins’s *Moonlight*, which is about the coming-of-age of a young queer black man in Miami, based on Tarell Alvin McCraney’s play *In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue*. It broke indie box office records in its October release & is a major Oscar contender. Critical and audience reviews have been ecstatic, & it is a rare opportunity to see a film that tells such a badly-needed story so beautifully. This soul-bearing, heart-breaking, but restorative film looks at issues of race, sexuality, family & friendship, and masculinity with unflinching compassion. We’re recommending the film to everyone in the community and hoping you will all get a chance to come see the film. Please help us promote the film in your community, to your family & friends & groups. Here's more info: *Moonlight @ The Art Theater Co-op* (2016, U.S., 110 min, CC available) *The MPAA rated this film R for drug use, language, & sexuality, but we’re allowing everyone to come see the film who wants to. * Opens Fri, Nov 11 — plays every day Tickets: $6.50-9.75 — discounts for students, seniors, & youth For showtimes & tickets click here *Special post-show discussion after Monday’s 7:00pm show*, featuring Dr. Eric Darnell Pritchard (UIUC English — sexuality, gender, & race scholar, Bryce Henson (UIUC African-American Studies & communications), & more TBA A timeless story of human connection and self-discovery, *Moonlight* chronicles the life of a young black man from childhood to adulthood as he struggles to find his place in the world while growing up in a rough neighborhood of Miami. At once a vital portrait of contemporary African American life and an intensely personal and poetic meditation on identity, family, friendship, and love, *Moonlight* is a groundbreaking piece of cinema that reverberates with deep compassion and universal truths. Anchored by extraordinary performances from a tremendous ensemble cast, Jenkins’s staggering, singular vision is profoundly moving in its portrayal of the moments, people, and unknowable forces that shape our lives and make us who we are. (2016, Barry Jenkins, 110 min, R, DCP) *“Leaves you feeling both stripped bare and restored, slightly better prepared to step out and face the people around you, with all the confounding challenges they present. There’s not much more you can ask from a movie.” –Time Magazine” … both lyrical and deeply grounded in its character work, a balancing act that’s breathtaking to behold.” —RogerEbert.com“Moonlight takes the pain of growing up and turns it into hardened scars and private caresses. This film is, without a doubt, the reason we go to the movies: to understand, to come closer, to ache, hopefully with another.” —Time Out* *Contact information: * Austin McCann, General Manager @ Art Theater Co-op austin at arttheater.coop www.arttheater.coop -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Wed Nov 9 18:51:15 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2016 18:51:15 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Good Riddance Killary! Hillary R Clinton. We Came, We Saw, He Died" In-Reply-To: References: <5365C98A-AADD-4DAA-9646-045C26F6E7BF@newsfromneptune.com> <2A53DB53-B469-4C9F-899E-212614A8972B@gmail.com> Message-ID: Prof. Boyle I’m currently reading your book "United Ireland Human Rights and International Law”, whereby you take us through the process of establishing the "Irish Potato famine" as a precedent for genocide vs. those that would diminish the deaths of one million people in a crime perpetrated by the British. I’m only in the first quarter of the book, but I love it because it sets standards and provides arguments that anyone involved in anti-war activities can appreciate. I am honored to have met you. Karen Aram On Nov 9, 2016, at 09:42, Boyle, Francis A > wrote: Defending Civil Resistance Under International Law by Francis A. Boyle Professor of International Law University of Illinois College of Law in Champaign Since the Reagan administration's ascent to power in 1981, thousands of American citizens have engaged in various forms of non-violent civil resistance activities in order to protest against distinct elements of U.S. foreign policy that violate basic principles of international law. These citizen protests have led to numerous arrests and prosecutions by federal, state, and local governments around the country. The author has given advice, counsel and assistance to individuals and groups who have engaged in acts of non-violent civil resistance directed against several aspects of the U.S. government's foreign policy: the Nuclear Freeze Movement, the Sanctuary Movement, the Anti-Apartheid Movement, the Plowshares, and the Pledge of Resistance, among others. He has also participated in the defense of individuals who are not part of formal movements but nevertheless resorted to non-violent civil resistance to protest the U.S. government's policies on nuclear weapons, Central America, Southern Africa, and the Middle East. Because of these experiences, he drew up a set of rules and materials for criminal defense attorneys who seek to defend those who have engaged in acts of non-violent civil resistance by utilizing considerations of international law in the courtroom. This book should be of interest to all those who are members of these movements, or who are contemplating joining them, in order to inform themselves on the best legal arguments in defense of such activities. The book contains extensive materials analyzing the illegality of the U.S. government's foreign policies toward nuclear weapons, Central America, Southern Africa, and the Middle East in a manner that can be readily comprehended and used by non-experts as well. Defending Civil Resistance Under International Law When you "step across the line" at the Nevada Test Site, at a military base or at your local federal building, you are probably protected by International Law. Our treaties (like the Partial Test Ban Treaty) and the Nuremburg Principles provide you with a legal defense against arrest and imprisonment when you commit acts of "civil resistance" against our government's illegal warmaking. A number of juries have returned "not guilty" verdicts after hearing this defense. The presentation of this defense allows you to educate the jurors, the judge and the prosecutors--maximizing the impact of your action. Dr. Francis Boyle's landmark book tells you how to run your own legal defense of civil resistance actions. This book is a must for any person who has taken part in a civil resistance action, or who has contemplated doing so. See how this defense can not only give you your best chance to avoid jail, but can also advance the cause for which you risked arrest. Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign, IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) From: Boyle, Francis A Sent: Wednesday, November 09, 2016 8:57 AM To: Jay >; C. G. Estabrook > Cc: Karen Aram >; chicago at worldcantwait.net; Amanda Bass >; Peace Discuss >; David Johnson >; Stuart Levy >; Lina Thorne >; mickalideh at gmail.com; Dave Trippel >; Arlene Hickory >; David Green >; Karen Medina >; Mildred O'brien >; Szoke, Ron >; Readel, Karin >; Belden Fields >; Hoffman, Valerie J >; Miller, Joseph Thomas >; sherwoodross10 at gmail.com; David Swanson > Subject: RE: Good Riddance Killary! Hillary R Clinton. We Came, We Saw, He Died" Yeah Jay—Civil Resistance is the way to go! Fab Ed Norton Professor of Law Carl Schmitt College of Law ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD 4501 Forbes Blvd., Suite 200 Lanham, Maryland 20706 LITTLEFIELD (800) 462-6420 www.RowmanLittlefield.com PROTESTING POWER WAR, RESISTANCE, AND LAW By Francis A. Boyle “If you believe Dante may be right, that “the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in time of moral crisis, remain neutral,” you need this book…If you are concerned that our country lives by its Constitution and laws, its often-proclaimed principles . . . you too should read this book. . ..If you cherish freedom, here is your chance to learn how much you have. A person ignorant of her rights has little advantage over those who have none,” —Ramsey Clark, Former U.S. Attorney General “Francis Boyle, who has distinguished himself again and again as a fierce and brilliant defender of international law and human rights, now takes his mission one step further. He lays out a comprehensive argument in defense of citizens who commit civil resistance to protest illegal governmental aggressions and war crimes. He does so with impeccable research, stylistic elegance, and devastating evidence. This is an invaluable and powerful handbook for citizens who dare to challenge our war-makers,” —Howard Zinn “In this expert and lucid manual, international lawyer Francis Boyle focuses his attention on civil resistance, a category that he distinguishes sharply from civil disobedience. Civil resistance, he persuasively argues, is a ‘basic right’ of American citizens under international and domestic law, as ‘it is the civil-resisters who are the sheriffs, and the U.S. government officials committing state crimes are the outlaws.’ The historical and legal analysis provides information and understanding of inestimable value to all citizens who care about their country.” —Noam Chomsky “Francis Boyle has, once again, given us a valuable lesson in current history and invaluable insight into the role that lawyers must now play in defending human rights. He reminds us also that the significant cases are not ‘about the lawyers.’ We lawyers are called upon to give voice to the struggles and aspirations of others. This book will help us learn to play that role,” —Michael F. Tigar, Washington College of Law and Chair, ABA Section of Litigation, 1989-1990 In this indispensable book, distinguished activist lawyer Francis Boyle sounds an impassioned clarion call to citizen action against Bush administration policies, both domestic and international. Especially since the Reagan Administration, hundreds of thousands of Americans have used non-violent civil resistance to protest against elements of U.S. policy that violate basic principles of international law, the United States Constitution, and human rights. Such citizen protests have led to an unprecedented number of arrests and prosecutions by federal, state, and local governments around the country. Boyle, who has spent his career advising and defending civil resisters, explores how international law can be used to question the legality of specific U.S. government foreign and domestic policies. He focuses especially on the aftermath of 9/11 and the implications of the war on Afghanistan, the war on terrorism, the war on Iraq, the doctrine of preventive warfare, and the domestic abridgement of civil rights. Written for concerned citizens, activists, NGOs, civil resisters, their supporters, and their lawyers, Protesting Power provides the best legal and constitutional arguments to support and defend civil resistance activities. Including a number of compelling excerpts from his own trial appearances as an expert witness and as counsel, the author offers inspirational and practical advice for protesters who find themselves in court. This invaluable book stands alone as the only guide available on how to use international law, constitutional law, and the laws of war to defend peaceful non-violent protesters against governmental policies that are illegal and criminal. About the Author Francis Boyle is professor of law at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. A Harvard law graduate, for the past twenty years he has been involved as lawyer and/or witness in the major cases challenging U.S. defense policy, notably nuclear issues, and, in recent years, preemptive wars. He speaks and writes regularly on civil resistance and antiwar issues. War and Peace Library series November 2007, 256 pages ISBN 0-7425-3892-3 / 978-0-7425-3892-4 $24.95 paper ISBN 0-7425-3891-5 / 978-0-7425-3891-7 $75.00 cloth Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign, IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (Voice) 217-244-1478 (Fax) (personal comments only) Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign, IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax) (personal comments only) From: Jay [mailto:futureup2us at gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, November 09, 2016 8:47 AM To: C. G. Estabrook > Cc: Bryan Savage >; Karen Aram >; Boyle, Francis A >;chicago at worldcantwait.net; Amanda Bass >; Peace Discuss >; David Johnson >; Stuart Levy >; Lina Thorne >; mickalideh at gmail.com; Dave Trippel >; Arlene Hickory >; David Green >; Karen Medina >; Mildred O'brien >; Szoke, Ron >; Readel, Karin >; Belden Fields >; Hoffman, Valerie J >; Miller, Joseph Thomas >;sherwoodross10 at gmail.com; David Swanson > Subject: Re: Good Riddance Killary! Hillary R Clinton. We Came, We Saw, He Died" I couldn’t agree with you more about HRC demonizing herself. She is a war criminal with a proven record that deserves vilification, and more. However, I see nothing to celebrate in Trump’s triumph. I think all of us on this email chain recognize and are gearing up for the struggles to come. I thought you’d be interested in Revolution newspaper’s comment below. Good news: Students and young people have been out in the streets already! A time for daring, not despair... Jay 5 a.m., November 9, 2016. A vile fascist has been elected President of the United States. There must be no illusions that somehow this will be OK. It won't. Every immigrant, woman, Black, Latino, Native American, Muslim or differently gendered person... every person who cares about the planet, every person with even an elementary sense of justice and compassion—all over the world—has reason to hurt and be concerned for the future like never before. All that Trump represents must not stand. Starting today, there must be massive resistance to everything Donald Trump represents and every reactionary measure that he has promised to deliver. This is a time for courage, not despair. Struggle, not retreat, escape or conciliation. Donald Trump promised to “Make America Great Again.” Hillary Clinton countered that America was already great. The reality: America Was Never Great. This country has been a nightmare from its founding with enslavement of Africans and the genocide of Native Americans, continuing through theft of Mexico and on through the endless wars and invasions of countries and peoples around the world while here at home the horror is unrelenting for tens of millions. The American nightmare is real, and it has just gotten more horrific. But, this too is real: Donald Trump is a grotesque representative of a system that has a name—capitalism-imperialism—and this system means, and can only mean, misery and horrors for majority of humanity. Through the whole election process this vicious buffoon has been treated as a legitimate candidate for president. Any system that treats such a racist and misogynist fascist as legitimate reveals itself to be illegitimate. There should be no illusions or rationalizations to explain this reality away. And, the fact that there has been and will continue to be such intense ugly infighting among the ruling class reveals a system facing major challenges and in crisis, and potential openings and freedom to be wrenched for the struggle of the people for a radically new and better world. Trump represents an even more grotesque and openly murderous form of this system, and his attacks against the people should be met with massive resistance. But what is needed will NOT be to return to what has been, continuing the same brutal system, its crimes and horrors. What is needed and possible is a radically new society, and a radically different kind of state, that will open the way and lead finally to the abolition of all forms of oppressive and repressive rule and all relations of domination and exploitation, throughout the world. This is a society charted and embodied in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America. This path-breaking work is authored by Bob Avakian, architect of the new communism, and the leader of the revolution—an ACTUAL revolution, to overthrow this system at the soonest possible time. HOW WE CAN WIN—How We Can Really Make Revolution, from the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA starts with this foundational point: An actual revolution does not mean trying to make some changes withinthis system—it means overthrowing this system and bringing into being a radically different and far better system. This system of capitalism-imperialism cannot be reformed. There is no way, under this system, to put an end to the brutality and murder by police, the wars and destruction of people and the environment, the exploitation, oppression and degradation of millions and billions of people, including the half of humanity that is female, here and throughout the world—all of which is rooted in profound contradictions built into the basic functioning, relations, and structures of this system. Only an actual revolution can bring about the fundamental change that is needed. This is a time for Daring. People need to be in the streets and getting into, and getting with, the revolution. See "As news of Trump's election hits: Protests Erupt Across the Country" On Nov 9, 2016, at 08:43, C. G. Estabrook > wrote: HRC 'demonized’ herself by being an enthusiastic participant in murder on behalf to the US 1% in Serbia, Honduras, Libya, Syria - and planning more. For the first time in 40 years we have a president(-elect) who’s not a neoconservative (more war) or a neoliberal (more inequality). Clinton is both. There are of course serious problems with a Trump presidency (climate change at the top of the list) and the War Party won’t go away (we still have two months of Obama) - but the news is surely good for the anti-war movement - and the world at large. --CGE On Nov 9, 2016, at 7:14 AM, Bryan Savage > wrote: did anyone stop to think that demonizing HRC and supporting third parties might actually help put trump in office? or does everyone on this list have clean hands and a clean conscience and feel that they took no part in electing this: take me off this list. On Wed, Nov 9, 2016 at 7:08 AM, Karen Aram > wrote: We have to double down our efforts in building the Green Party, given what we are facing. Will Trump demilitarize, as some on the left seem to think? I doubt it. Let’s see who he chooses for his Cabinet. He already has a war monger/fascist style for a running mate. On Nov 9, 2016, at 04:57, Boyle, Francis A > wrote: For the Greens on the list:Too bad what happened to Jill. I voted for her the last time too. Fab. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Wed Nov 9 19:20:42 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2016 19:20:42 +0000 Subject: [Peace] NO MORE JAILS Message-ID: Kudos to all those activists who worked tirelessly to bring about the failure of the “Jail Tax”. A small success for a lot of hard work, but well worth the effort. Thank you From karenaram at hotmail.com Sat Nov 12 18:43:01 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2016 18:43:01 +0000 Subject: [Peace] John Pilger: How the liberal class enabled the election of Donald Trump In-Reply-To: <81e01f026144a7a39810a239b6beeae6966.20161112171448@mail123.suw17.mcsv.net> References: <81e01f026144a7a39810a239b6beeae6966.20161112171448@mail123.suw17.mcsv.net> Message-ID: On Nov 12, 2016, at 09:15, John Pilger > wrote: View this email in your browser [https://gallery.mailchimp.com/81e01f026144a7a39810a239b/images/df5455a0-74bf-4af0-96b5-25fda126ba64.png] [https://gallery.mailchimp.com/81e01f026144a7a39810a239b/images/d2c20baf-4e2e-4013-ae0d-6502d09404e1.png] In a filmed interview with Afshin Rattansi, John Pilger describes how the collusion and silence of America's 'enlightened' liberal elite, notably its journalists, helped create President Trump. WATCH JOHN PILGER HERE [https://gallery.mailchimp.com/81e01f026144a7a39810a239b/images/6682ddaa-77cb-4ace-a886-5f6f51318e2c.png] Julian Assange’s pre-US election interview with award-winning journalist John Pilger has become the most viral news interview on RT this year, clocking up millions of views across the channel’s social media platforms. WATCH THE INTERVIEW HERE [https://gallery.mailchimp.com/81e01f026144a7a39810a239b/images/6ad1b54a-2744-4f6f-b95a-de5b932ce351.png] The Coming War on China is John Pilger's 60th film for ITV. Pilger reveals what the news doesn't - that the world's greatest military power, the United States, and the world's second economic power, China, both nuclear-armed, are on the road to war. Pilger's film is a warning and an inspiring story of resistance. We are delighted to announce the UK cinema release of the film this December. On the 5 December Picturehouse Central in the West End of London will host the UK premiere of 'The Coming War on China' with a post-screening Q&A with John Pilger. RT's Afshin Rattansi will moderate and the event will be broadcast to cinemas across the UK and Ireland. Tickets and further information here On the 6 December the film will be broadcast on ITV at 10.40pm. THE COMING WAR in UK CINEMAS [https://cdn-images.mailchimp.com/icons/social-block-v2/outline-dark-facebook-48.png] Share [https://cdn-images.mailchimp.com/icons/social-block-v2/outline-dark-twitter-48.png] Tweet [https://cdn-images.mailchimp.com/icons/social-block-v2/outline-dark-forwardtofriend-48.png] Forward update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Sun Nov 13 12:46:48 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2016 12:46:48 +0000 Subject: [Peace] [New post] Conspiratorial nonsense exposed In-Reply-To: <61854989.1533.0@wordpress.com> References: <61854989.1533.0@wordpress.com> Message-ID: On Nov 13, 2016, at 00:00, Uglytruth-Thailand > wrote: New post on Uglytruth-Thailand [http://s0.wp.com/i/emails/blavatar.png] [http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/b94c98491e599510a5ec039e64af3261?s=50&d=identicon&r=G] Conspiratorial nonsense exposed by uglytruththailand Giles Ji Ungpakorn Now that King Pumipon has died and it has been officially announced that the loathsome Wachiralongkorn is to be the next king, it is time to ask questions about all the conspiratorial nonsense surrounding the Thai royal family which has kept fairy-tale fans and lazy journalists occupied for years. Firstly, if Pumipon had political power, why is there no political vacuum in Thailand? A recent rubbish article in the British newspaper, The Guardian, claimed that Pumipon could force soldiers and politicians to crawl on the ground in front of him “in order to keep them in check”. Others have claimed that Pumipon ordered various military coups, including Paryut’s coup in 2014. If so, who is giving orders to the generals now? How could they possibly have a clue about what to do without their king’s instructions? [confused-prayut] The truth of the matter is that Pumipon had no power what so ever and it was always the military and other senior members of the Thai ruling class who advised (told) him what to do and say. What is more, Pumipon was incapacitated for years previous to his death and the military junta has ruled the country just like previous Thai military juntas. When we had elected governments, they also ruled the country along with other members of the ruling elites. Pumipon was just a symbol of their status quo. Following his death that symbol of status quo has to be honoured in the long, expensive and tedious funeral ceremony. Coercion and socialisation are being used to continue the life of this reactionary symbol with those not wearing black being subjected to abuse and threats of violence and extra long royal anthems introduced into cinemas. Secondly, supporters of the “Succession Crisis” conspiracy theory have suggested in the past that there was going to be a war or at least a serious fight between the Crown Prince and the Princess and their respective supporters. Where is the evidence for this civil war now? [bro-sis] Failing to show any evidence for the above, they quickly and conveniently “moved on” to hint that the delay in the Crown Prince’s coronation was an indication that he might not be king. They wet themselves with excitement when it was also announced that General Prem, top Privy Councillor, would be the Regent. Swiftly the junta announced that Wachiralongkorn was going to be the next king and Generalissimo Prayut and Genarl Prem went to see Wachiralongkorn, supposedly to “take orders”. In reality they were probably telling the half-witted thug about their plan for him and the country. Never the less, they emerged from the meeting to announce that “his majesty” was concerned about the happiness of the Thai people and that he had “instructed” them to protect the well-being of the population. That would be a first! Normally Wachiralongkorn is only concerned about his own happiness! Those who fear that Wachiralongkorn would not make a good king (if there is such a thing) have nothing to fear. As Thomas Paine once wrote in the Rights of Man: being a mechanic requires some skill, but being a king only requires the animal body of a man. The delay in Wachiralongkorn’s coronation is just an act designed to show the population that he is sad about his father’s death and is not impatient to sit on the throne. In fact he and his father never really liked each other. He was closer to his dreadful mother. The delay in the coronation could be useful to the junta in dragging out this whole tedious mourning event and keeping up the royalist hype and repression. What is more we should not be at all surprised to learn soon that elections will have to be postponed until after the funeral and the coronation…. Taking us into 2018 or even 2019 and beyond. uglytruththailand | November 13, 2016 at 8:00 am | Tags: crisis of succession, Giles Ji Ungpakorn, Military junta, Monarchy, Wachiralongkorn | Categories: Thai politics | URL: http://wp.me/p4bxj7-oJ Unsubscribe to no longer receive posts from Uglytruth-Thailand. Change your email settings at Manage Subscriptions. Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser: https://uglytruththailand.wordpress.com/2016/11/13/conspiratorial-nonsense-exposed/ Thanks for flying with [https://s0.wp.com/i/emails/blavatar-default.png] WordPress.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stuartnlevy at gmail.com Sun Nov 13 23:55:12 2016 From: stuartnlevy at gmail.com (Stuart Levy) Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2016 17:55:12 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Urbana School District proposal - let's try to stop it Message-ID: <820e54c2-cd74-ca79-f572-3595dc661383@gmail.com> This Tuesday night, 7:30pm, at 205 N. Race St (just north of downtown Urbana), the Urbana School District will consider an appalling proposal, coming from the Champaign County Housing Authority: If students are not regularly attending school, and their families live in public housing, then those families would lose their assistance from the housing authority. They'd be kicked out of their homes. This terrible idea needs to be stopped. Please come out to say so. Below is the original announcement: TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 15: URBANA SCHOOL DISTRICT #116 BOARD OF EDUCATION MEETING Time: 730pm Location: Jean F. Burkholder Administrative Service Center, 205 North Race Street, Urbana, IL Last Tuesday, the executive director of the Housing Authority of Champaign County asked the Urbana school board to consider making regular attendance a requirement for families receiving assistance from the housing authority. The regular attendance mandate would be a new addition to a long list of requirements for families in need. There were no objections by the school board to this racialized penalty on low-income families. This is a prime example of the school to prison pipeline. Actions such as these could easily lead to incarceration and broken homes. Please come to this meeting and oppose the Housing Authority’s request. The Housing Authority of Champaign County should have no power in the operations of schools! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Sun Nov 13 23:59:52 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2016 23:59:52 +0000 Subject: [Peace] The Sunday Wire with Patrick Henningsen LIVE 12PM EST/5PM UK @21WIRE @RadioACR In-Reply-To: <8e2046b867880f405f4203dc48a1ecf423b.20161113170208@mail78.suw15.mcsv.net> References: <8e2046b867880f405f4203dc48a1ecf423b.20161113170208@mail78.suw15.mcsv.net> Message-ID: On Nov 13, 2016, at 09:02, 21st Century Wire > wrote: [Become a Member at 21WIRE.TV] [Facebook] [Twitter] [https://gallery.mailchimp.com/8e2046b867880f405f4203dc4/images/704576da-c0d0-4b42-b9bf-a9bfa2e921dd.png] [Shout] [YouTube] [SoundCloud] [RSS] Daily updates for 21stCenturyWire.com subscribers View this email in your browser [21st Century Wire] Your Daily Dose of Truth. Curated by 21st Century Wire Top Stories Episode #160 – SUNDAY WIRE: ‘Hail to the Deplorables’ with guests Randy J, Basil Valentine SUNDAY WIRE SHOW | Strap yourselves in and lower the blast shield - this is your brave new world... Read on » Conspiracy of Enlightenment: Augustin Barruel and his “Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism” (pt. 2) Branko Malić | We continue with the introduction to Augustin Barruel's "Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism", a veritable historical nucleus of modern conspiracy theory. Read on » Trump, Tragedy & Hope Pt. 8: The Philosophy of Globalism – Conclusion (Video) Jay Dyer | We conclude the Tragedy & Hope lectures with the timely election of Donald Trump which eerily parallels the Goldwater era while questioning the cabinet circles that may surround Trump and the expected Soros riots. Read on » Post-Trump Liberal Meltdown: Counseling, Cry-ins, Therapy Dogs and Poetry 21WIRE | US college students are now suffering from mass psychological trauma. Read on » REPORTS: Yemen Houthis Claim Saudi Villages Under Their Control Oil Price | Several villages in the southwestern Saudi province of Jizan now under the control of Shi’ite militias, according to unconfirmed media reports. Read on » Featured Archives 2016 Election Files and more... [2016 Election Files] [2016 Election Files] [White Helmets Files] [WWIII Files] [Syria Files] [Facebook] [Twitter] [https://gallery.mailchimp.com/8e2046b867880f405f4203dc4/images/704576da-c0d0-4b42-b9bf-a9bfa2e921dd.png] [Shout] [YouTube] [SoundCloud] [RSS] We Need Your Support in 2016! [21st Century Wire Investigative Fund] 21st Century Wire Investigative Fund This fund supports our investigative news coverage, research and studio time for the Sunday Wire radio show. Thank you! The Sunday Wire with Patrick Henningsen – On-Demand Episode #159: ‘Tick-Tock USA’ with guests Dr Marcus Papadopoulos, Basil Valentine Sunday Wire Archives [The Sunday Wire LIVE with Patrick Henningsen] [Alternate Current Radio]LIVE Replays Monday – Friday 4AM/12PM/5PM EST on Alternate Current Radio [Available on iTunes] Thank you for subscribing to our website updates at http://21stcenturywire.com. We value our community of readers and hope you are enjoying these updates. Our mailing address is: 21Wire Media P.O. Box 410654 Kansas City, MO 64141 Add us to your address book unsubscribe from this list update subscription preferences [21st Century Wire] COPYRIGHT © 2009-2016 · 21WIRE MEDIA · ALL RIGHTS RESERVED WORLDWIDE -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Mon Nov 14 15:10:09 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2016 15:10:09 +0000 Subject: [Peace] UIUC as Sanctuary for Undocumented Community Members In-Reply-To: <83F1C328-46F7-491A-B16A-F464483B96DA@gmail.com> References: <12D141BE-E65B-48F3-A460-92E04C867EA9@gmail.com> <83F1C328-46F7-491A-B16A-F464483B96DA@gmail.com> Message-ID: Please sign the petition. According to Professor Francis Boyle “Champaign Urbana is a Sanctuary of Refuge," and should remain so, he did the legal work. On Nov 14, 2016, at 04:30, Gilberto Rosas > wrote: Hello Friends, Please consider adding your name to this particularly if you are affiliated w/ the university. Thanks, Gilberto Rosas Associate Professor Anthropology and Latina/o Studies https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSezI8q-k326vRu3VXiE19tOC6odn65YZeXbLgOgrGa9cbjvKg/viewform?c=0&w=1 Sent from my iPhone -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "CU Immigration Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to cu-immigration-forum+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to cu-immigration-forum at googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/cu-immigration-forum. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From briandolinar at gmail.com Mon Nov 14 15:13:02 2016 From: briandolinar at gmail.com (Brian Dolinar) Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2016 09:13:02 -0600 Subject: [Peace] UIUC as Sanctuary for Undocumented Community Members In-Reply-To: References: <12D141BE-E65B-48F3-A460-92E04C867EA9@gmail.com> <83F1C328-46F7-491A-B16A-F464483B96DA@gmail.com> Message-ID: Hi Karen - can you say more? Is there documentation? Who signed this agreement? BD On Mon, Nov 14, 2016 at 9:10 AM, Karen Aram via Peace < peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote: > Please sign the petition. > > According to Professor Francis Boyle “Champaign Urbana is a Sanctuary of > Refuge," and should remain so, he did the legal work. > > On Nov 14, 2016, at 04:30, Gilberto Rosas > wrote: > > > Hello Friends, > Please consider adding your name to this particularly if you are > affiliated w/ the university. > > Thanks, > > > Gilberto Rosas > Associate Professor > Anthropology and Latina/o Studies > > https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSezI8q- > k326vRu3VXiE19tOC6odn65YZeXbLgOgrGa9cbjvKg/viewform?c=0&w=1 > > > Sent from my iPhone > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "CU Immigration Forum" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to cu-immigration-forum+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to cu-immigration-forum at googlegroups.com > . > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/cu-immigration-forum > > . > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout > > . > > > > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace > > -- Brian Dolinar, Ph.D. briandolinar.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Mon Nov 14 15:20:08 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2016 15:20:08 +0000 Subject: [Peace] UIUC as Sanctuary for Undocumented Community Members In-Reply-To: References: <12D141BE-E65B-48F3-A460-92E04C867EA9@gmail.com> <83F1C328-46F7-491A-B16A-F464483B96DA@gmail.com> Message-ID: Hi Brian I received it from the CU Immigration Forum. I just now received notice from Prof. Boyle, that only Urbana is a City of Refuge, and should still be on the books, they lost Champaign. The link below from Prof. Roxas has the petition with many signatures. On Nov 14, 2016, at 07:13, Brian Dolinar > wrote: Hi Karen - can you say more? Is there documentation? Who signed this agreement? BD On Mon, Nov 14, 2016 at 9:10 AM, Karen Aram via Peace > wrote: Please sign the petition. According to Professor Francis Boyle “Champaign Urbana is a Sanctuary of Refuge," and should remain so, he did the legal work. On Nov 14, 2016, at 04:30, Gilberto Rosas > wrote: Hello Friends, Please consider adding your name to this particularly if you are affiliated w/ the university. Thanks, Gilberto Rosas Associate Professor Anthropology and Latina/o Studies https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSezI8q-k326vRu3VXiE19tOC6odn65YZeXbLgOgrGa9cbjvKg/viewform?c=0&w=1 Sent from my iPhone -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "CU Immigration Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to cu-immigration-forum+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to cu-immigration-forum at googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/cu-immigration-forum. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. _______________________________________________ Peace mailing list Peace at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace -- Brian Dolinar, Ph.D. briandolinar.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Mon Nov 14 16:07:22 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2016 16:07:22 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Champaign School District Petition In-Reply-To: <134E8D89-BA3A-40AD-990F-21E1AD84F75E@gmail.com> References: <134E8D89-BA3A-40AD-990F-21E1AD84F75E@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Nov 14, 2016, at 07:46, Gilberto Rosas > wrote: Hello, I don’t mean to flood your inbox today but I’m sharing with another important intervention, particularly for those members of the forum who have children in the Champaign schools or who live in Champaign. Attached please find a PDF of a letter and here is a link for an accompanying petition: https://goo.gl/forms/8m8hvdRFMMdxYbvJ3. What we are calling for are preemptive measures by the district and in cooperation with parents to prevent any hostilities from breaking out in the institutions and classrooms. As you sure many of who are aware, there are been many hostile acts across the United States against those perceived as immigrants, Black people, Muslim, young men and other vulnerable groups. Several of the letter writers hope to speak tonight at the Champaign School Board Meeting. All the Best, Gilberto Rosas Senior Research Fellow Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory Associate Professor Anthropology & Latin@ Studies University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign http://illinois.academia.edu/GilbertoRosas Author of Barrio Libre: Criminalizing States and Delinquenty Refusals of the New Frontier Winner of 2012-2014 Association of Latin@ Anthropologists Book Award https://www.dukeupress.edu/Barrio-Libre/indexviewby=subject&categoryid=13&sort=newest.html grosas2 at illinois.edu (217)244-4117 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "CU Immigration Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to cu-immigration-forum+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to cu-immigration-forum at googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/cu-immigration-forum. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "CU Immigration Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to cu-immigration-forum+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to cu-immigration-forum at googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/cu-immigration-forum. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. <14Nov2016SchoolBoard.pdf> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From susanroseparenti at gmail.com Mon Nov 14 16:19:21 2016 From: susanroseparenti at gmail.com (Susan Parenti) Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2016 10:19:21 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Water This Flower! Message-ID: Hi Friends---In these dark times, I think it's important to keep supporting the great projects that are already happening in our community. The Education Justice Project (EJP) is one such great project, bringing higher education to people at the Danville Correctional Center. Tomorrow, Tuesday, November 15th, 6:30--8:30pm is a fundraising event for EJP---dinner and a film. Please come! Tickets are $30 in advance, $35 at the door---if that's too much, contribute what you can. No one will be turned away for lack of funds. Buy your tickets at educationjustice.net If you can't attend, please donate---educationjustice.net. Join us for a film screening fundraiser for the Education Justice Project. “They Took My Parent Away: Little Ones Affected by Incarceration Speak” is a film by Michael Trout, Director of the Infant-Parent Institute exploring the impact of incarceration on infant development. Let's water this flower! *Susan Parenti* *Educational Coordinator * *The School for Designing a Society *www.designingasociety.net *Like us on Facebook !* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From susanroseparenti at gmail.com Tue Nov 15 00:12:36 2016 From: susanroseparenti at gmail.com (Susan Parenti) Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2016 18:12:36 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Tomorrow, 12 noon--protest in champaign to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline! Message-ID: Hi---I'm going and have room in my car and in my heart. Come with? A little more than a week ago, police brutally attacked Indigenous protectors in Standing Rock as they peacefully defended their land and water. Within days, over 1.5 million people checked in to Standing Rock on Facebook in solidarity with this fight. *By all measures, this is a historic moment of resistance – and the movement is growing stronger by the day.* Now, Indigenous leaders are calling on us to take to the streets one week after the election to demand that President Obama’s Army Corps of Engineers and the incoming Administration put a stop to the Dakota Access Pipeline. *Together, we must show President Obama and the new president-elect that this resistance movement is here to stay.* The Army Corps can approve or deny the final permit needed to complete construction – that’s why we must act now, and act strongly, to be sure the permit is rejected. There are events all across the country to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline, and there's one near you that you should attend: *NoDAPL Day of Action: Tuesday, November 15ᵗʰ in Champaign * 12:00 pm CST *RSVP TO ATTEND » * Water protectors in Standing Rock have withstood brutal police repression, freezing temperatures, and bulldozers destroying their sacred land – yet they’re standing strong and determined. Join them in this important day of action. In solidarity, The Organizing Team Our Revolution -- *Susan Parenti* *Educational Coordinator * *The School for Designing a Society *www.designingasociety.net *Like us on Facebook !* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From renny.carney at gmail.com Tue Nov 15 00:19:24 2016 From: renny.carney at gmail.com (Irenka Carney) Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2016 18:19:24 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Tomorrow, 12 noon--protest in champaign to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: There is a facebook event where people attending are coordinating about rides and signs. Here is the link: https://www.facebook.com/events/1799263060362528/?active_tab=about On Mon, Nov 14, 2016 at 6:12 PM, Susan Parenti via Peace < peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote: > Hi---I'm going and have room in my car and in my heart. > Come with? > > A little more than a week ago, police brutally attacked Indigenous > protectors in Standing Rock as they peacefully defended their land and > water. Within days, over 1.5 million people checked in to Standing Rock on > Facebook in solidarity with this fight. *By all measures, this is a > historic moment of resistance – and the movement is growing stronger by the > day.* > > Now, Indigenous leaders are calling on us to take to the streets one week > after the election to demand that President Obama’s Army Corps of Engineers > and the incoming Administration put a stop to the Dakota Access Pipeline. *Together, > we must show President Obama and the new president-elect that this > resistance movement is here to stay.* > > The Army Corps can approve or deny the final permit needed to complete > construction – that’s why we must act now, and act strongly, to be sure the > permit is rejected. > > There are events all across the country to stop the Dakota Access > Pipeline, and there's one near you that you should attend: > > > *NoDAPL Day of Action: > Tuesday, November > 15ᵗʰ in Champaign * > 12:00 pm CST > *RSVP TO ATTEND » * > > Water protectors in Standing Rock have withstood brutal police repression, > freezing temperatures, and bulldozers destroying their sacred land – yet > they’re standing strong and determined. Join them in this important day of > action. > > In solidarity, > > The Organizing Team > Our Revolution > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > *Susan Parenti* > *Educational Coordinator * > > *The School for Designing a Society *www.designingasociety.net > > *Like us on Facebook !* > > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace > > -- *ɪ'rɛn.**kə* *ɪ*: like in *i*t *rɛn* : like a *wren* *kə*: like in *cu*t -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Tue Nov 15 00:38:36 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2016 00:38:36 +0000 Subject: [Peace] From Common Dreams, important to know. Message-ID: Trump Will Have Vast Powers. He Can Thank Democrats for Them Published on Sunday, November 13, 2016 by Washington Post Trump Will Have Vast Powers. He Can Thank Democrats for Them. by Glenn Greenwald * * * * * * * 67 Comments [http://www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_large/public/views-article/trumpwillhavevast.jpg?itok=j91_l3DG] "Beginning in his first month in office and continuing through today, Obama not only continued many of the most extreme executive-power policies he once condemned, but in many cases strengthened and extended them," Greenwald writes. (Photo: DoD) Liberals are understandably panicked about what Donald Trump can carry out. “We have a president-elect with authoritarian tendencies assuming a presidency that has never been more powerful ,” Franklin Foer wrote this past week in Slate. Trump will command not only a massive nuclear arsenal and the most robust military in history, but also the ability to wage numerous wars in secret and without congressional authorization; a ubiquitous system of electronic surveillance that can reach most forms of human communication and activity; and countless methods for shielding himself from judicial accountability, congressional oversight and the rule of law — exactly what the Constitution was created to prevent. Trump assumes the presidency “at the peak of its imperial powers,” as Foer put it. Sen. Barack Obama certainly saw it that way when he first ran for president in 2008. Limiting executive-power abuses and protecting civil liberties were central themes of his campaign. The former law professor repeatedly railed against the Bush-Cheney template of vesting the president with unchecked authorities in the name of fighting terrorism or achieving other policy objectives. “This administration also puts forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we provide,” he said in 2007. Listing an array of controversial Bush-Cheney policies, from warrantless domestic surveillance to due-process-free investigations and imprisonment, he vowed: “We will again set an example for the world that the law is not subject to the whims of stubborn rulers.” Yet, beginning in his first month in office and continuing through today, Obama not onlycontinued many of the most extreme executive-power policies he once condemned, but in many cases strengthened and extended them. His administration detained terrorism suspects without due process, proposed new frameworks to keep them locked up without trial, targeted thousands of individuals (including a U.S. citizen) for execution by drone, invoked secrecy doctrines to shield torture and eavesdropping programs from judicial review, and covertly expanded the nation’s mass electronic surveillance. Blinded by the belief that Obama was too benevolent and benign to abuse his office, and drowning in partisan loyalties at the expense of political principles, Democrats consecrated this framework with their acquiescence and, often, their explicit approval. This is the unrestrained set of powers Trump will inherit. The president-elect frightens them, so they are now alarmed. But if they want to know whom to blame, they should look in the mirror. Obama’s approach to executive power flipped so quickly and diametrically that’s it is impossible to say if he ever believed his campaign-era professions of restraint. As early as May 2009, Jack Goldsmith, a Justice Department official under George W. Bush, celebrated Obama’s abandonment of his promises to rein in these authorities, writing that “the new administration has copied most of the Bush program, has expanded some of it, and has narrowed only a bit.” He added that the “Obama practices will be much closer to late Bush practices than almost anyone expected in January 2009.” By putting a prettier liberal face on these policies, and transforming them from a symbol of GOP radicalism into one of bipartisan security consensus, the president entrenched them as permanent fixtures of the American presidency. As Goldsmith put it, Obama’s actions were “designed to fortify the bulk of the Bush program for the long-run.” Liberals vehemently denounced these abuses during the Bush presidency. From 2001 through 2008, Democrats called them the embodiment of tyranny, an existential threat to democracy, a menacing expression of right-wing radicalism. “America’s Constitution is in grave danger,” Al Gore warned in a widely praised 2006 speech on civil liberties. Bush had become “the central threat that the founders sought to nullify in the Constitution, an all-powerful executive, too reminiscent of the king from whom they had broken free.” In one 2007 poll, 57 percent of Democrats said they wanted the Guantanamo Bay prison camp to be closed. But after Obama took office, many liberals often tolerated — and even praised — his aggressive assertions of executive authority. It is hard to overstate how complete the Democrats’ about-face on these questions was once their own leader controlled the levers of power. According to a 2012 Washington Post-ABC News poll, 53 percent of self-identified liberal Democrats and 67 percent of moderate or conservative ones nowsupported keeping Guantanamo Bay open. After just three years of the Obama presidency, liberals sanctioned a system that allowed the president to imprison people without any trial or an ounce of due process. In fact, a new Democratic Party orthodoxy took hold under Obama: the right of a president to detain people, or even assassinate them, without charges or a whiff of judicial oversight. This included even American citizens. “We do not believe that [Anwar] al-Aulaqi’s U.S. citizenship imposes constitutional limitations that would preclude the contemplated lethal action” by the military or the CIA, a Justice Department memo proclaimed in 2010. Democrats (who had bitterly complained in 2005 about mere eavesdropping without court approval) not only failed to contest this assassination program but ultimately expressed their support for it. “Fully 77 percent of liberal Democrats endorse the use of drones,” according to the write-up of that 2012 Post-ABC poll. Support drops “only somewhat when respondents are asked specifically about targeting American citizens living overseas, as was the case with Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yemeni American killed in September in a drone strike in northern Yemen.” This same dynamic — Democrats endorsing vast expansions of executive powers — repeated itself time and again, both within the national security realm and outside it. Obama issued numerous signing statements purporting to nullify legal obligations, invokedradical secrecy privileges to avoid lawsuits, eroded long-standing Miranda rights for terrorism suspects, waged a war in Libya even after Congress voted against its authorization and pioneered novel means of using executive orders to circumvent congressional (i.e. democratic) approval in a wide array of domestic policy arenas. And of course, Obama aggressively expanded the system of mass surveillance, including on U.S. soil, that had been secretly implemented by the National Security Agency after 9/11. Once Edward Snowden showed the world what had been created, many Democrats became the leaders in protecting this spying system from meaningful limits, reform or oversight. When, in the immediate aftermath of the Snowden revelations, a bipartisan coalition of House members headed by Reps. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Justin Amash (R-Mich.) sought to impose serious limits on the NSA’s domestic spying, the White House turned to then-Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to lead the successful effort to stop them. Civil liberties advocates and proponents of limited executive authority tried everything they could think of to persuade and cajole Democrats to rediscover their concerns about these abuses and once again become allies in the battle to constrain government power. But those efforts were largely futile. Partisan loyalties easily subordinated any commitment to the principles that they had purported, in the Bush years, to support. The problem such advocates encountered was the same one they’d faced during the Bush presidency when trying (and failing) to persuade putatively small-government conservatives to oppose these expansions of presidential power: namely, many people are perfectly content to have such authority vested in leaders they trust, and fear them only when a politician from the opposing party wields them. As such, the tactic of last resort to induce Democrats and liberals to oppose such policies was to ask them to think about how, one day, these powers could be in the hands of someone other than a benevolent, kind-hearted, trustworthy progressive like Barack Obama. Instead, Democrats were urged, imagine that a right-wing authoritarian, or a lawless demagogue, or a petty, vindictive tyrant won the presidency and inherited the framework of unrestrained, unchecked powers that Republicans implemented and Democrats expanded. That day has arrived. With Trump looming, there is much talk of uniting across ideological and partisan lines to impose meaningful limits on executive authority, and those efforts are justified. But, as progressives were repeatedly warned, a matrix of power that has been defended and legitimized for 15 years by both parties will be very difficult to uproot. [Glenn Greenwald] Glenn Greenwald is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, constitutional lawyer, commentator, author of three New York Times best-selling books on politics and law, and a staff writer and editor at First Look media. His fifth and latest book is, No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State, about the U.S. surveillance state and his experiences reporting on the Snowden documents around the world. Prior to his collaboration with Pierre Omidyar, Glenn’s column was featured at Guardian US and Salon. His previous books include: With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful, Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics, A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency, and How Would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values from a President Run Amok. He is the recipient of the first annual I.F. Stone Award for Independent Journalism, a George Polk Award, and was on The Guardian team that won the Pulitzer Prize for public interest journalism in 2014. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Wed Nov 16 13:08:16 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2016 13:08:16 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Bring on the protesters we really need them now, if these two guys are the choices....... Message-ID: [http://www.wsws.org/img/title.png] [http://www.wsws.org/img/logo.png] Published by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) Click here for advanced search » * Home * Perspectives * World News * World Economy * Arts Review * History * Science * Philosophy * Workers Struggles * ICFI/Marxist Library * Chronology * Full Archive * Print * Leaflet * Feedback * Share » Trump transition points to escalation of US militarism By Bill Van Auken 16 November 2016 Multiple media reports that former New York City Republican Mayor Rudolph Giuliani is president-elect Donald Trump’s top choice for secretary of state have provided further indication of the extreme right-wing and militarily bellicose character of the incoming US administration. A senior Trump campaign official told the Associated Press Tuesday that Giuliani was the favorite for the post, while indicating that the equally right-wing and militaristic former US ambassador to the United Nations under the administration of George W. Bush, John Bolton, was also in the running. The fact that these two—both adamant supporters of every US war over the past quarter century—are the front-runners for the top foreign policy position in the incoming Republican administration gives the lie to Trump’s pretensions on the campaign trail that he was somehow opposed to recent US military interventions and “nation building.” Trump’s phony claims that he had been against the Iraq war were meant to appeal to popular hostility to the endless US military interventions with which his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton was so clearly identified. At the same time, however, he repeatedly advocated a major increase in US military spending and a modernization of Washington’s nuclear arsenal. His “America First” rhetoric and promotion of economic nationalism go hand-in-hand with a further escalation of a US campaign of global military aggression that has brought the planet ever closer to a third world war. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the former New York mayor is openly pushing for his own appointment. Giuliani, the newspaper said, “suggested several times that he would be interested in the [secretary of state] post” during remarks delivered Monday to the Wall Street Journal CEO Council in Washington, a gathering billed as an “unparalleled opportunity for business leaders to learn the myriad implications of the biggest change in Washington in many years.” In his remarks, Giuliani insisted that the so-called war on ISIS would be the administration’s first priority, making clear that the global “war on terror” that has been used to justify wars throughout the Middle East and Central Asia will continue. The former New York mayor, who has never tired of waving the bloody shirt of 9/11 to promote his own political and personal fortune and to obscure the rampant corruption that characterized his administration, is heavily invested in this policy, though he has played no role in its implementation. Asked about Trump’s demands for ripping up the nuclear deal with Iran, Giuliani replied, “You have to set priorities. So if the priority is, let’s eliminate ISIS, maybe you put that off a little bit. And you get rid of ISIS and then get back to that.” In other words, a new US war with Iran remains on the agenda of the incoming administration. During his run for the presidency in 2008, Giuliani said that the use of tactical nuclear weapons against Iran’s nuclear program could not be taken “off the table.” And, while Trump has spoken in vague terms of a rapprochement with Russia—and was repeatedly denounced from the right by the Democrats as a puppet of Vladimir Putin—Giuliani sounded a more threatening tone toward Moscow, suggesting military confrontation as a means of shifting relations with Moscow. “Russia thinks it’s a military competitor, it really isn’t,” Giuliani said. “It’s our unwillingness under Obama to even threaten the use of our military that makes Russia so powerful.” While Giuliani has no foreign policy experience whatsoever, he is a prominent Trump loyalist and a longtime proponent of police state methods of rule. During his tenure as mayor, he was identified with a repressive “stop and frisk” program—later ruled unconstitutional—that turned virtually every minority and working class youth in the city into a suspect and resulted in a series of egregious police murders of innocent victims like Amadou Diallo and Patrick Dorismond that he vehemently defended. Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, he proposed that mayoral elections in New York be called off and that he be granted a new unelected term as the only man capable of confronting terrorism. More recently, he has suggested that the anti-Trump demonstrations that have swept the country should be met with police repression. His apparent principal rival for the secretary of state post, John Bolton, is every bit as reactionary and a pathological supporter of unilateral US military aggression. Barely a year and a half ago, Bolton penned an opinion piece for the New York Times titled “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran.” His prescription was for intensive bombing followed by “regime change.” Bolton rose to prominence in Republican circles after serving as a lawyer in the George W. Bush campaign’s successful operation to steal the 2000 election by halting the vote count in Florida. He was an advocate of a US war for regime change in Iraq at least since 1998. In 2002, he was the State Department’s undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security, playing a key role in preparing the war of aggression against Iraq the following year by promoting the lies that Saddam Hussein was developing “weapons of mass destruction” and preparing to hand them over to Al Qaeda. Bolton, described by one of his former colleagues at the State Department as “the quintessential kiss up, kick down kind of guy,” was named ambassador to the United Nations in an August 2005 recess appointment by the Bush administration that was meant to serve as a deliberate provocation toward the UN, for which Bolton had repeatedly and publicly declared his contempt. Both Giuliani and Bolton—like president-elect Trump—have defended the use of torture by the Pentagon and the CIA at Guantanamo, Bagram Air Base and black sites around the world. The discussion of a possible appointment of either Giuliani or Bolton as the face of US foreign policy is every bit as revealing as the naming Sunday of the outright fascist Steve Bannon as Trump’s chief White House strategist. While not indulging in the open politics of white supremacy and anti-Semitism that has characterized Bannon’s stewardship of Breitbart News, these are unquestionably among the most reactionary and discredited figures in American politics. When an appointment would be announced was far from clear late Tuesday, with reports of the Trump transition team in a state of utter disarray and beset by bitter internecine conflicts. Former Michigan Republican congressman Mike Rogers, who was brought in to advise Trump on national security and was thought to be a possible nominee for CIA director, has been pushed out of the transition process, following the earlier purge of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who was hastily replaced by vice president-elect Mike Pence as head of the overall transition operation. The Washington Post reported Tuesday that the expulsion of Christie and his allies was carried out in apparent “retaliation for Christie’s role as a US prosecutor in sending [Trump’s son-in-law Jared] Kushner’s father to prison” when he was a federal prosecutor. Christie’s ouster effectively placed the transition on hold as far as the Obama administration is concerned as the New Jersey governor was the signatory of a document establishing the framework for the process. The chaos and divisions within the Trump camp were also spelled out in an about-face by a former Republican national security official, Eliot Cohen, who had previously led similar figures in denouncing Trump as unfit for the presidency. In an open letter published last week in the American Interest, he argued that a Trump presidency “may be better than we think,” and that checks and balances and bureaucratic inertia would restrain the incoming administration. In a tweet early Tuesday, Cohen wrote: “After exchange w Trump transition team, changed my recommendation: stay away. They’re angry, arrogant, screaming ‘you LOST!’ Will be ugly.” -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Wed Nov 16 13:57:16 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2016 13:57:16 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Bring on the protesters we really need them now, if these two guys are the choices....... In-Reply-To: <1917030733.1291045.1479303431865@mail.yahoo.com> References: <1917030733.1291045.1479303431865@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: [https://scontent.ford1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-1/p80x80/12631393_10153930712742533_2276458015901580676_n.jpg?oh=05d91f8eb157dfd78e64254f41a3131b&oe=58D04DAE] Bruce A. Dixon 8 hrs · Libsyn · War Less Imminent in Wake of Trump Election A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford “Trump says he wants to cooperate with the Syrians and the Russians to defeat ISIS.” With so many people who call themselves liberals and leftists tearing their hair out in dread of a President Donald Trump, it is necessary to point out that the prospects of avoiding nuclear war are much better than they were the day before the election. Hillary Clinton was committed to imposing a “no fly zone” over Syria that would have meant instant war with Russia, likely resulting in the annihilation of the human species. You’d think that would have made Clinton anathema to decent people. But Americans, including those who call themselves liberals, are not decent people – not really. Based on their political behavior, they just pretend to be decent, but support U.S. governments that have slaughtered millions since the end of World War Two. If you voted for Obama and Clinton, you gave your assent to continuing George Bush’s wars, allowing Obama to start two major wars of his own, in Libya and Syria, and to Hillary Clinton’s plans to roll the nuclear dice on the fate of humanity. The whole world knows that Americans are dangerous, to themselves and to others. But, decent? Since when, and to whom? Donald Trump looks and talks like the ugly, racist, bullying American -- and he is exactly that, but he hasn’t killed anybody yet, and his public statements have been of a far more peaceful nature than the woman he beat at the polls. Trump says he wants to cooperate with the Syrians and the Russians to defeat ISIS. Trump also does not make distinctions between the various Islamic jihadist groups in Syria, unlike the Obama administration, which has directly and indirectly armed and funded all of the jihadist groups, and has spent much of the last several months trying to protect the al Nusra Front, the al Qaida affiliate in eastern Aleppo, from Russian bombing. “The jihadists are in despair, and the prospects for driving them out of Aleppo look promising.” No sooner had the votes been counted, than President Obama ordered U.S. Special Forces to go all-out to kill the leadership of al-Nusra. This war has been entirely based on lies, so Obama will probably limit his Kill List to al Qaida leaders, while sparing the rank and file jihadist fighters for future use by the United States. But it is safe to say that, had Hillary Clinton been elected, the most warlike factions in the U.S. military, the CIA, the State Department, and the foreign policy establishment at-large would be setting the stage for full-scale confrontation with Russia and all of Syria’s allies under President Clinton. Instead, the jihadists are in despair, and the prospects for driving them out of Aleppo look promising. Hopefully, the Syrian government and its friends will be on the road to victory before Donald Trump’s presidency is decisively captured by the bipartisan War Party that runs the empire. Syrian President Bashar Assad says it’s fine with him if Trump wants to fight the terrorists. But, Assad isn’t sure that Trump can deliver on his campaign pledge. “What about the countervailing forces within the administration, the mainstream media that were against him?” Assad asks. Assad thinks the notion of Trump bucking the War Party is “dubious.” He’s right. Half a million Syrians are dead because most Americans don’t much care who their government kills, as long as they’re not white. But, getting rid of Clinton has slowed the War Party down a bit, and maybe prevented a nuclear war. If you are a decent person, you should be pleased about that. For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go toBlackAgendaReport.com.On Nov 16, 2016, at 05:37, Gregg Gordon > wrote: Gee -- and you've been telling me Trump was preferable to Clinton. At least he won't start a war with Russia, right? ________________________________ From: Karen Aram via Peace > To: peace >; Peace Discuss > Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2016 7:08 AM Subject: [Peace] Bring on the protesters we really need them now, if these two guys are the choices....... [http://www.wsws.org/img/title.png] [http://www.wsws.org/img/logo.png] Published by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) Click here for advanced search » * Home * Perspectives * World News * World Economy * Arts Review * History * Science * Philosophy * Workers Struggles * ICFI/Marxist Library * Chronology * Full Archive * Print * Leaflet * Feedback * Share » Trump transition points to escalation of US militarism By Bill Van Auken 16 November 2016 Multiple media reports that former New York City Republican Mayor Rudolph Giuliani is president-elect Donald Trump’s top choice for secretary of state have provided further indication of the extreme right-wing and militarily bellicose character of the incoming US administration. A senior Trump campaign official told the Associated Press Tuesday that Giuliani was the favorite for the post, while indicating that the equally right-wing and militaristic former US ambassador to the United Nations under the administration of George W. Bush, John Bolton, was also in the running. The fact that these two—both adamant supporters of every US war over the past quarter century—are the front-runners for the top foreign policy position in the incoming Republican administration gives the lie to Trump’s pretensions on the campaign trail that he was somehow opposed to recent US military interventions and “nation building.” Trump’s phony claims that he had been against the Iraq war were meant to appeal to popular hostility to the endless US military interventions with which his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton was so clearly identified. At the same time, however, he repeatedly advocated a major increase in US military spending and a modernization of Washington’s nuclear arsenal. His “America First” rhetoric and promotion of economic nationalism go hand-in-hand with a further escalation of a US campaign of global military aggression that has brought the planet ever closer to a third world war. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the former New York mayor is openly pushing for his own appointment. Giuliani, the newspaper said, “suggested several times that he would be interested in the [secretary of state] post” during remarks delivered Monday to the Wall Street Journal CEO Council in Washington, a gathering billed as an “unparalleled opportunity for business leaders to learn the myriad implications of the biggest change in Washington in many years.” In his remarks, Giuliani insisted that the so-called war on ISIS would be the administration’s first priority, making clear that the global “war on terror” that has been used to justify wars throughout the Middle East and Central Asia will continue. The former New York mayor, who has never tired of waving the bloody shirt of 9/11 to promote his own political and personal fortune and to obscure the rampant corruption that characterized his administration, is heavily invested in this policy, though he has played no role in its implementation. Asked about Trump’s demands for ripping up the nuclear deal with Iran, Giuliani replied, “You have to set priorities. So if the priority is, let’s eliminate ISIS, maybe you put that off a little bit. And you get rid of ISIS and then get back to that.” In other words, a new US war with Iran remains on the agenda of the incoming administration. During his run for the presidency in 2008, Giuliani said that the use of tactical nuclear weapons against Iran’s nuclear program could not be taken “off the table.” And, while Trump has spoken in vague terms of a rapprochement with Russia—and was repeatedly denounced from the right by the Democrats as a puppet of Vladimir Putin—Giuliani sounded a more threatening tone toward Moscow, suggesting military confrontation as a means of shifting relations with Moscow. “Russia thinks it’s a military competitor, it really isn’t,” Giuliani said. “It’s our unwillingness under Obama to even threaten the use of our military that makes Russia so powerful.” While Giuliani has no foreign policy experience whatsoever, he is a prominent Trump loyalist and a longtime proponent of police state methods of rule. During his tenure as mayor, he was identified with a repressive “stop and frisk” program—later ruled unconstitutional—that turned virtually every minority and working class youth in the city into a suspect and resulted in a series of egregious police murders of innocent victims like Amadou Diallo and Patrick Dorismond that he vehemently defended. Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, he proposed that mayoral elections in New York be called off and that he be granted a new unelected term as the only man capable of confronting terrorism. More recently, he has suggested that the anti-Trump demonstrations that have swept the country should be met with police repression. His apparent principal rival for the secretary of state post, John Bolton, is every bit as reactionary and a pathological supporter of unilateral US military aggression. Barely a year and a half ago, Bolton penned an opinion piece for the New York Times titled “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran.” His prescription was for intensive bombing followed by “regime change.” Bolton rose to prominence in Republican circles after serving as a lawyer in the George W. Bush campaign’s successful operation to steal the 2000 election by halting the vote count in Florida. He was an advocate of a US war for regime change in Iraq at least since 1998. In 2002, he was the State Department’s undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security, playing a key role in preparing the war of aggression against Iraq the following year by promoting the lies that Saddam Hussein was developing “weapons of mass destruction” and preparing to hand them over to Al Qaeda. Bolton, described by one of his former colleagues at the State Department as “the quintessential kiss up, kick down kind of guy,” was named ambassador to the United Nations in an August 2005 recess appointment by the Bush administration that was meant to serve as a deliberate provocation toward the UN, for which Bolton had repeatedly and publicly declared his contempt. Both Giuliani and Bolton—like president-elect Trump—have defended the use of torture by the Pentagon and the CIA at Guantanamo, Bagram Air Base and black sites around the world. The discussion of a possible appointment of either Giuliani or Bolton as the face of US foreign policy is every bit as revealing as the naming Sunday of the outright fascist Steve Bannon as Trump’s chief White House strategist. While not indulging in the open politics of white supremacy and anti-Semitism that has characterized Bannon’s stewardship of Breitbart News, these are unquestionably among the most reactionary and discredited figures in American politics. When an appointment would be announced was far from clear late Tuesday, with reports of the Trump transition team in a state of utter disarray and beset by bitter internecine conflicts. Former Michigan Republican congressman Mike Rogers, who was brought in to advise Trump on national security and was thought to be a possible nominee for CIA director, has been pushed out of the transition process, following the earlier purge of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who was hastily replaced by vice president-elect Mike Pence as head of the overall transition operation. The Washington Post reported Tuesday that the expulsion of Christie and his allies was carried out in apparent “retaliation for Christie’s role as a US prosecutor in sending [Trump’s son-in-law Jared] Kushner’s father to prison” when he was a federal prosecutor. Christie’s ouster effectively placed the transition on hold as far as the Obama administration is concerned as the New Jersey governor was the signatory of a document establishing the framework for the process. The chaos and divisions within the Trump camp were also spelled out in an about-face by a former Republican national security official, Eliot Cohen, who had previously led similar figures in denouncing Trump as unfit for the presidency. In an open letter published last week in the American Interest, he argued that a Trump presidency “may be better than we think,” and that checks and balances and bureaucratic inertia would restrain the incoming administration. In a tweet early Tuesday, Cohen wrote: “After exchange w Trump transition team, changed my recommendation: stay away. They’re angry, arrogant, screaming ‘you LOST!’ Will be ugly.” _______________________________________________ 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 Wed Nov 16 14:20:22 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2016 14:20:22 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Bring on the protesters we really need them now, if these two guys are the choices....... In-Reply-To: <1386750402.1298800.1479305062412@mail.yahoo.com> References: <1917030733.1291045.1479303431865@mail.yahoo.com> <1386750402.1298800.1479305062412@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Speaking with you Greg, is a headache because you just want to argue, complain and make personal attacks, you don’t stick to the issues. Also, the last time I sent something out you told me personally to leave you alone. To be clear, I have never supported Trump or any republican, I spent five years working with and organizing the US Democrats Abroad in Thailand, volunteerism, when living there. That was before Clinton, and I voted for Obama’s “hope and change”. Now that I know what they have done I will never support the Democratic Party again. I will support local democrats on an individual basis of course, based upon their performance, goals and values. It’s time Americans rebuild our nation and its going to require a lot of work, maybe now they have awakened to the fact that concern with politics is important and we have a lot of work to do. Had Hillary been elected people would have gone to sleep and assumed everything was alright, just as they did when Obama was elected. We have very serious issues of concern and we need to deal with them. End of conversation. On Nov 16, 2016, at 06:04, Gregg Gordon > wrote: Can't you speak for yourself? ________________________________ From: Karen Aram > To: Gregg Gordon > Cc: peace >; Peace Discuss > Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2016 7:57 AM Subject: Re: [Peace] Bring on the protesters we really need them now, if these two guys are the choices....... [https://scontent.ford1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-1/p80x80/12631393_10153930712742533_2276458015901580676_n.jpg?oh=05d91f8eb157dfd78e64254f41a3131b&oe=58D04DAE] Bruce A. Dixon 8 hrs · Libsyn · War Less Imminent in Wake of Trump Election A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford “Trump says he wants to cooperate with the Syrians and the Russians to defeat ISIS.” With so many people who call themselves liberals and leftists tearing their hair out in dread of a President Donald Trump, it is necessary to point out that the prospects of avoiding nuclear war are much better than they were the day before the election. Hillary Clinton was committed to imposing a “no fly zone” over Syria that would have meant instant war with Russia, likely resulting in the annihilation of the human species. You’d think that would have made Clinton anathema to decent people. But Americans, including those who call themselves liberals, are not decent people – not really. Based on their political behavior, they just pretend to be decent, but support U.S. governments that have slaughtered millions since the end of World War Two. If you voted for Obama and Clinton, you gave your assent to continuing George Bush’s wars, allowing Obama to start two major wars of his own, in Libya and Syria, and to Hillary Clinton’s plans to roll the nuclear dice on the fate of humanity. The whole world knows that Americans are dangerous, to themselves and to others. But, decent? Since when, and to whom? Donald Trump looks and talks like the ugly, racist, bullying American -- and he is exactly that, but he hasn’t killed anybody yet, and his public statements have been of a far more peaceful nature than the woman he beat at the polls. Trump says he wants to cooperate with the Syrians and the Russians to defeat ISIS. Trump also does not make distinctions between the various Islamic jihadist groups in Syria, unlike the Obama administration, which has directly and indirectly armed and funded all of the jihadist groups, and has spent much of the last several months trying to protect the al Nusra Front, the al Qaida affiliate in eastern Aleppo, from Russian bombing. “The jihadists are in despair, and the prospects for driving them out of Aleppo look promising.” No sooner had the votes been counted, than President Obama ordered U.S. Special Forces to go all-out to kill the leadership of al-Nusra. This war has been entirely based on lies, so Obama will probably limit his Kill List to al Qaida leaders, while sparing the rank and file jihadist fighters for future use by the United States. But it is safe to say that, had Hillary Clinton been elected, the most warlike factions in the U.S. military, the CIA, the State Department, and the foreign policy establishment at-large would be setting the stage for full-scale confrontation with Russia and all of Syria’s allies under President Clinton. Instead, the jihadists are in despair, and the prospects for driving them out of Aleppo look promising. Hopefully, the Syrian government and its friends will be on the road to victory before Donald Trump’s presidency is decisively captured by the bipartisan War Party that runs the empire. Syrian President Bashar Assad says it’s fine with him if Trump wants to fight the terrorists. But, Assad isn’t sure that Trump can deliver on his campaign pledge. “What about the countervailing forces within the administration, the mainstream media that were against him?” Assad asks. Assad thinks the notion of Trump bucking the War Party is “dubious.” He’s right. Half a million Syrians are dead because most Americans don’t much care who their government kills, as long as they’re not white. But, getting rid of Clinton has slowed the War Party down a bit, and maybe prevented a nuclear war. If you are a decent person, you should be pleased about that. For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go toBlackAgendaReport.com.On Nov 16, 2016, at 05:37, Gregg Gordon > wrote: Gee -- and you've been telling me Trump was preferable to Clinton. At least he won't start a war with Russia, right? ________________________________ From: Karen Aram via Peace > To: peace >; Peace Discuss > Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2016 7:08 AM Subject: [Peace] Bring on the protesters we really need them now, if these two guys are the choices....... [http://www.wsws.org/img/title.png] [http://www.wsws.org/img/logo.png] Published by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) Click here for advanced search » * Home * Perspectives * World News * World Economy * Arts Review * History * Science * Philosophy * Workers Struggles * ICFI/Marxist Library * Chronology * Full Archive * Print * Leaflet * Feedback * Share » Trump transition points to escalation of US militarism By Bill Van Auken 16 November 2016 Multiple media reports that former New York City Republican Mayor Rudolph Giuliani is president-elect Donald Trump’s top choice for secretary of state have provided further indication of the extreme right-wing and militarily bellicose character of the incoming US administration. A senior Trump campaign official told the Associated Press Tuesday that Giuliani was the favorite for the post, while indicating that the equally right-wing and militaristic former US ambassador to the United Nations under the administration of George W. Bush, John Bolton, was also in the running. The fact that these two—both adamant supporters of every US war over the past quarter century—are the front-runners for the top foreign policy position in the incoming Republican administration gives the lie to Trump’s pretensions on the campaign trail that he was somehow opposed to recent US military interventions and “nation building.” Trump’s phony claims that he had been against the Iraq war were meant to appeal to popular hostility to the endless US military interventions with which his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton was so clearly identified. At the same time, however, he repeatedly advocated a major increase in US military spending and a modernization of Washington’s nuclear arsenal. His “America First” rhetoric and promotion of economic nationalism go hand-in-hand with a further escalation of a US campaign of global military aggression that has brought the planet ever closer to a third world war. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the former New York mayor is openly pushing for his own appointment. Giuliani, the newspaper said, “suggested several times that he would be interested in the [secretary of state] post” during remarks delivered Monday to the Wall Street Journal CEO Council in Washington, a gathering billed as an “unparalleled opportunity for business leaders to learn the myriad implications of the biggest change in Washington in many years.” In his remarks, Giuliani insisted that the so-called war on ISIS would be the administration’s first priority, making clear that the global “war on terror” that has been used to justify wars throughout the Middle East and Central Asia will continue. The former New York mayor, who has never tired of waving the bloody shirt of 9/11 to promote his own political and personal fortune and to obscure the rampant corruption that characterized his administration, is heavily invested in this policy, though he has played no role in its implementation. Asked about Trump’s demands for ripping up the nuclear deal with Iran, Giuliani replied, “You have to set priorities. So if the priority is, let’s eliminate ISIS, maybe you put that off a little bit. And you get rid of ISIS and then get back to that.” In other words, a new US war with Iran remains on the agenda of the incoming administration. During his run for the presidency in 2008, Giuliani said that the use of tactical nuclear weapons against Iran’s nuclear program could not be taken “off the table.” And, while Trump has spoken in vague terms of a rapprochement with Russia—and was repeatedly denounced from the right by the Democrats as a puppet of Vladimir Putin—Giuliani sounded a more threatening tone toward Moscow, suggesting military confrontation as a means of shifting relations with Moscow. “Russia thinks it’s a military competitor, it really isn’t,” Giuliani said. “It’s our unwillingness under Obama to even threaten the use of our military that makes Russia so powerful.” While Giuliani has no foreign policy experience whatsoever, he is a prominent Trump loyalist and a longtime proponent of police state methods of rule. During his tenure as mayor, he was identified with a repressive “stop and frisk” program—later ruled unconstitutional—that turned virtually every minority and working class youth in the city into a suspect and resulted in a series of egregious police murders of innocent victims like Amadou Diallo and Patrick Dorismond that he vehemently defended. Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, he proposed that mayoral elections in New York be called off and that he be granted a new unelected term as the only man capable of confronting terrorism. More recently, he has suggested that the anti-Trump demonstrations that have swept the country should be met with police repression. His apparent principal rival for the secretary of state post, John Bolton, is every bit as reactionary and a pathological supporter of unilateral US military aggression. Barely a year and a half ago, Bolton penned an opinion piece for the New York Times titled “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran.” His prescription was for intensive bombing followed by “regime change.” Bolton rose to prominence in Republican circles after serving as a lawyer in the George W. Bush campaign’s successful operation to steal the 2000 election by halting the vote count in Florida. He was an advocate of a US war for regime change in Iraq at least since 1998. In 2002, he was the State Department’s undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security, playing a key role in preparing the war of aggression against Iraq the following year by promoting the lies that Saddam Hussein was developing “weapons of mass destruction” and preparing to hand them over to Al Qaeda. Bolton, described by one of his former colleagues at the State Department as “the quintessential kiss up, kick down kind of guy,” was named ambassador to the United Nations in an August 2005 recess appointment by the Bush administration that was meant to serve as a deliberate provocation toward the UN, for which Bolton had repeatedly and publicly declared his contempt. Both Giuliani and Bolton—like president-elect Trump—have defended the use of torture by the Pentagon and the CIA at Guantanamo, Bagram Air Base and black sites around the world. The discussion of a possible appointment of either Giuliani or Bolton as the face of US foreign policy is every bit as revealing as the naming Sunday of the outright fascist Steve Bannon as Trump’s chief White House strategist. While not indulging in the open politics of white supremacy and anti-Semitism that has characterized Bannon’s stewardship of Breitbart News, these are unquestionably among the most reactionary and discredited figures in American politics. When an appointment would be announced was far from clear late Tuesday, with reports of the Trump transition team in a state of utter disarray and beset by bitter internecine conflicts. Former Michigan Republican congressman Mike Rogers, who was brought in to advise Trump on national security and was thought to be a possible nominee for CIA director, has been pushed out of the transition process, following the earlier purge of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who was hastily replaced by vice president-elect Mike Pence as head of the overall transition operation. The Washington Post reported Tuesday that the expulsion of Christie and his allies was carried out in apparent “retaliation for Christie’s role as a US prosecutor in sending [Trump’s son-in-law Jared] Kushner’s father to prison” when he was a federal prosecutor. Christie’s ouster effectively placed the transition on hold as far as the Obama administration is concerned as the New Jersey governor was the signatory of a document establishing the framework for the process. The chaos and divisions within the Trump camp were also spelled out in an about-face by a former Republican national security official, Eliot Cohen, who had previously led similar figures in denouncing Trump as unfit for the presidency. In an open letter published last week in the American Interest, he argued that a Trump presidency “may be better than we think,” and that checks and balances and bureaucratic inertia would restrain the incoming administration. In a tweet early Tuesday, Cohen wrote: “After exchange w Trump transition team, changed my recommendation: stay away. They’re angry, arrogant, screaming ‘you LOST!’ Will be ugly.” _______________________________________________ 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 Wed Nov 16 15:51:12 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2016 15:51:12 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Bring on the protesters we really need them now, if these two guys are the choices....... In-Reply-To: <1049161940.1356089.1479306782755@mail.yahoo.com> References: <1917030733.1291045.1479303431865@mail.yahoo.com> <1386750402.1298800.1479305062412@mail.yahoo.com> <1049161940.1356089.1479306782755@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: The articles are not contradictory. I suggest you try “reading," thats why I post, for those who maybe interested in reading, I’m not attempting to contact you “personally,” no need for paranoia. I did ask Stuart to send you instructions on how to “delete”, you do know how to delete don’t you? On Nov 16, 2016, at 06:33, Gregg Gordon > wrote: Yes, I told you to leave me alone, and you won't do it. Now you've sent me two articles -- neither from a credible source -- making completely contradictory arguments. What am I (or anyone) supposed to do with that? ________________________________ From: Karen Aram > To: Gregg Gordon > Cc: peace >; Peace Discuss > Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2016 8:20 AM Subject: Re: [Peace] Bring on the protesters we really need them now, if these two guys are the choices....... Speaking with you Greg, is a headache because you just want to argue, complain and make personal attacks, you don’t stick to the issues. Also, the last time I sent something out you told me personally to leave you alone. To be clear, I have never supported Trump or any republican, I spent five years working with and organizing the US Democrats Abroad in Thailand, volunteerism, when living there. That was before Clinton, and I voted for Obama’s “hope and change”. Now that I know what they have done I will never support the Democratic Party again. I will support local democrats on an individual basis of course, based upon their performance, goals and values. It’s time Americans rebuild our nation and its going to require a lot of work, maybe now they have awakened to the fact that concern with politics is important and we have a lot of work to do. Had Hillary been elected people would have gone to sleep and assumed everything was alright, just as they did when Obama was elected. We have very serious issues of concern and we need to deal with them. End of conversation. On Nov 16, 2016, at 06:04, Gregg Gordon > wrote: Can't you speak for yourself? ________________________________ From: Karen Aram > To: Gregg Gordon > Cc: peace >; Peace Discuss > Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2016 7:57 AM Subject: Re: [Peace] Bring on the protesters we really need them now, if these two guys are the choices....... [https://scontent.ford1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-1/p80x80/12631393_10153930712742533_2276458015901580676_n.jpg?oh=05d91f8eb157dfd78e64254f41a3131b&oe=58D04DAE] Bruce A. Dixon 8 hrs · Libsyn · War Less Imminent in Wake of Trump Election A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford “Trump says he wants to cooperate with the Syrians and the Russians to defeat ISIS.” With so many people who call themselves liberals and leftists tearing their hair out in dread of a President Donald Trump, it is necessary to point out that the prospects of avoiding nuclear war are much better than they were the day before the election. Hillary Clinton was committed to imposing a “no fly zone” over Syria that would have meant instant war with Russia, likely resulting in the annihilation of the human species. You’d think that would have made Clinton anathema to decent people. But Americans, including those who call themselves liberals, are not decent people – not really. Based on their political behavior, they just pretend to be decent, but support U.S. governments that have slaughtered millions since the end of World War Two. If you voted for Obama and Clinton, you gave your assent to continuing George Bush’s wars, allowing Obama to start two major wars of his own, in Libya and Syria, and to Hillary Clinton’s plans to roll the nuclear dice on the fate of humanity. The whole world knows that Americans are dangerous, to themselves and to others. But, decent? Since when, and to whom? Donald Trump looks and talks like the ugly, racist, bullying American -- and he is exactly that, but he hasn’t killed anybody yet, and his public statements have been of a far more peaceful nature than the woman he beat at the polls. Trump says he wants to cooperate with the Syrians and the Russians to defeat ISIS. Trump also does not make distinctions between the various Islamic jihadist groups in Syria, unlike the Obama administration, which has directly and indirectly armed and funded all of the jihadist groups, and has spent much of the last several months trying to protect the al Nusra Front, the al Qaida affiliate in eastern Aleppo, from Russian bombing. “The jihadists are in despair, and the prospects for driving them out of Aleppo look promising.” No sooner had the votes been counted, than President Obama ordered U.S. Special Forces to go all-out to kill the leadership of al-Nusra. This war has been entirely based on lies, so Obama will probably limit his Kill List to al Qaida leaders, while sparing the rank and file jihadist fighters for future use by the United States. But it is safe to say that, had Hillary Clinton been elected, the most warlike factions in the U.S. military, the CIA, the State Department, and the foreign policy establishment at-large would be setting the stage for full-scale confrontation with Russia and all of Syria’s allies under President Clinton. Instead, the jihadists are in despair, and the prospects for driving them out of Aleppo look promising. Hopefully, the Syrian government and its friends will be on the road to victory before Donald Trump’s presidency is decisively captured by the bipartisan War Party that runs the empire. Syrian President Bashar Assad says it’s fine with him if Trump wants to fight the terrorists. But, Assad isn’t sure that Trump can deliver on his campaign pledge. “What about the countervailing forces within the administration, the mainstream media that were against him?” Assad asks. Assad thinks the notion of Trump bucking the War Party is “dubious.” He’s right. Half a million Syrians are dead because most Americans don’t much care who their government kills, as long as they’re not white. But, getting rid of Clinton has slowed the War Party down a bit, and maybe prevented a nuclear war. If you are a decent person, you should be pleased about that. For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go toBlackAgendaReport.com.On Nov 16, 2016, at 05:37, Gregg Gordon > wrote: Gee -- and you've been telling me Trump was preferable to Clinton. At least he won't start a war with Russia, right? ________________________________ From: Karen Aram via Peace > To: peace >; Peace Discuss > Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2016 7:08 AM Subject: [Peace] Bring on the protesters we really need them now, if these two guys are the choices....... [http://www.wsws.org/img/title.png] [http://www.wsws.org/img/logo.png] Published by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) Click here for advanced search » * Home * Perspectives * World News * World Economy * Arts Review * History * Science * Philosophy * Workers Struggles * ICFI/Marxist Library * Chronology * Full Archive * Print * Leaflet * Feedback * Share » Trump transition points to escalation of US militarism By Bill Van Auken 16 November 2016 Multiple media reports that former New York City Republican Mayor Rudolph Giuliani is president-elect Donald Trump’s top choice for secretary of state have provided further indication of the extreme right-wing and militarily bellicose character of the incoming US administration. A senior Trump campaign official told the Associated Press Tuesday that Giuliani was the favorite for the post, while indicating that the equally right-wing and militaristic former US ambassador to the United Nations under the administration of George W. Bush, John Bolton, was also in the running. The fact that these two—both adamant supporters of every US war over the past quarter century—are the front-runners for the top foreign policy position in the incoming Republican administration gives the lie to Trump’s pretensions on the campaign trail that he was somehow opposed to recent US military interventions and “nation building.” Trump’s phony claims that he had been against the Iraq war were meant to appeal to popular hostility to the endless US military interventions with which his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton was so clearly identified. At the same time, however, he repeatedly advocated a major increase in US military spending and a modernization of Washington’s nuclear arsenal. His “America First” rhetoric and promotion of economic nationalism go hand-in-hand with a further escalation of a US campaign of global military aggression that has brought the planet ever closer to a third world war. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the former New York mayor is openly pushing for his own appointment. Giuliani, the newspaper said, “suggested several times that he would be interested in the [secretary of state] post” during remarks delivered Monday to the Wall Street Journal CEO Council in Washington, a gathering billed as an “unparalleled opportunity for business leaders to learn the myriad implications of the biggest change in Washington in many years.” In his remarks, Giuliani insisted that the so-called war on ISIS would be the administration’s first priority, making clear that the global “war on terror” that has been used to justify wars throughout the Middle East and Central Asia will continue. The former New York mayor, who has never tired of waving the bloody shirt of 9/11 to promote his own political and personal fortune and to obscure the rampant corruption that characterized his administration, is heavily invested in this policy, though he has played no role in its implementation. Asked about Trump’s demands for ripping up the nuclear deal with Iran, Giuliani replied, “You have to set priorities. So if the priority is, let’s eliminate ISIS, maybe you put that off a little bit. And you get rid of ISIS and then get back to that.” In other words, a new US war with Iran remains on the agenda of the incoming administration. During his run for the presidency in 2008, Giuliani said that the use of tactical nuclear weapons against Iran’s nuclear program could not be taken “off the table.” And, while Trump has spoken in vague terms of a rapprochement with Russia—and was repeatedly denounced from the right by the Democrats as a puppet of Vladimir Putin—Giuliani sounded a more threatening tone toward Moscow, suggesting military confrontation as a means of shifting relations with Moscow. “Russia thinks it’s a military competitor, it really isn’t,” Giuliani said. “It’s our unwillingness under Obama to even threaten the use of our military that makes Russia so powerful.” While Giuliani has no foreign policy experience whatsoever, he is a prominent Trump loyalist and a longtime proponent of police state methods of rule. During his tenure as mayor, he was identified with a repressive “stop and frisk” program—later ruled unconstitutional—that turned virtually every minority and working class youth in the city into a suspect and resulted in a series of egregious police murders of innocent victims like Amadou Diallo and Patrick Dorismond that he vehemently defended. Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, he proposed that mayoral elections in New York be called off and that he be granted a new unelected term as the only man capable of confronting terrorism. More recently, he has suggested that the anti-Trump demonstrations that have swept the country should be met with police repression. His apparent principal rival for the secretary of state post, John Bolton, is every bit as reactionary and a pathological supporter of unilateral US military aggression. Barely a year and a half ago, Bolton penned an opinion piece for the New York Times titled “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran.” His prescription was for intensive bombing followed by “regime change.” Bolton rose to prominence in Republican circles after serving as a lawyer in the George W. Bush campaign’s successful operation to steal the 2000 election by halting the vote count in Florida. He was an advocate of a US war for regime change in Iraq at least since 1998. In 2002, he was the State Department’s undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security, playing a key role in preparing the war of aggression against Iraq the following year by promoting the lies that Saddam Hussein was developing “weapons of mass destruction” and preparing to hand them over to Al Qaeda. Bolton, described by one of his former colleagues at the State Department as “the quintessential kiss up, kick down kind of guy,” was named ambassador to the United Nations in an August 2005 recess appointment by the Bush administration that was meant to serve as a deliberate provocation toward the UN, for which Bolton had repeatedly and publicly declared his contempt. Both Giuliani and Bolton—like president-elect Trump—have defended the use of torture by the Pentagon and the CIA at Guantanamo, Bagram Air Base and black sites around the world. The discussion of a possible appointment of either Giuliani or Bolton as the face of US foreign policy is every bit as revealing as the naming Sunday of the outright fascist Steve Bannon as Trump’s chief White House strategist. While not indulging in the open politics of white supremacy and anti-Semitism that has characterized Bannon’s stewardship of Breitbart News, these are unquestionably among the most reactionary and discredited figures in American politics. When an appointment would be announced was far from clear late Tuesday, with reports of the Trump transition team in a state of utter disarray and beset by bitter internecine conflicts. Former Michigan Republican congressman Mike Rogers, who was brought in to advise Trump on national security and was thought to be a possible nominee for CIA director, has been pushed out of the transition process, following the earlier purge of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who was hastily replaced by vice president-elect Mike Pence as head of the overall transition operation. The Washington Post reported Tuesday that the expulsion of Christie and his allies was carried out in apparent “retaliation for Christie’s role as a US prosecutor in sending [Trump’s son-in-law Jared] Kushner’s father to prison” when he was a federal prosecutor. Christie’s ouster effectively placed the transition on hold as far as the Obama administration is concerned as the New Jersey governor was the signatory of a document establishing the framework for the process. The chaos and divisions within the Trump camp were also spelled out in an about-face by a former Republican national security official, Eliot Cohen, who had previously led similar figures in denouncing Trump as unfit for the presidency. In an open letter published last week in the American Interest, he argued that a Trump presidency “may be better than we think,” and that checks and balances and bureaucratic inertia would restrain the incoming administration. In a tweet early Tuesday, Cohen wrote: “After exchange w Trump transition team, changed my recommendation: stay away. They’re angry, arrogant, screaming ‘you LOST!’ Will be ugly.” _______________________________________________ Peace mailing list Peace at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From salevy at illinois.edu Wed Nov 16 16:12:06 2016 From: salevy at illinois.edu (Stuart Levy) Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2016 10:12:06 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Bring on the protesters we really need them now, if these two guys are the choices....... In-Reply-To: References: <1917030733.1291045.1479303431865@mail.yahoo.com> <1386750402.1298800.1479305062412@mail.yahoo.com> <1049161940.1356089.1479306782755@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <7c2372c3-25b3-69c5-a781-e6c58768c2ff@illinois.edu> Please keep this off the Peace list. Peace-discuss is pretty much open, but we should keep "peace" for announcements and calls to action, rather than general discussions. On 11/16/16 9:51 AM, Karen Aram via Peace wrote: > The articles are not contradictory. > > I suggest you try “reading," thats why I post, for those who maybe > interested in reading, I’m not attempting to contact you “personally,” > no need for paranoia. > > I did ask Stuart to send you instructions on how to “delete”, you do > know how to delete don’t you? > > > >> On Nov 16, 2016, at 06:33, Gregg Gordon > > wrote: >> >> Yes, I told you to leave me alone, and you won't do it. Now you've >> sent me two articles -- neither from a credible source -- making >> completely contradictory arguments. What am I (or anyone) supposed >> to do with that? >> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> *From:* Karen Aram > >> *To:* Gregg Gordon > >> *Cc:* peace > >; Peace Discuss >> > >> *Sent:* Wednesday, November 16, 2016 8:20 AM >> *Subject:* Re: [Peace] Bring on the protesters we really need them >> now, if these two guys are the choices....... >> >> Speaking with you Greg, is a headache because you just want to argue, >> complain and make personal attacks, you don’t stick to the issues. >> Also, the last time I sent something out you told me personally to >> leave you alone. >> >> To be clear, I have never supported Trump or any republican, I spent >> five years working with and organizing the US Democrats Abroad in >> Thailand, volunteerism, when living there. That was before Clinton, >> and I voted for Obama’s “hope and change”. Now that I know what they >> have done I will never support the Democratic Party again. >> >> I will support local democrats on an individual basis of course, >> based upon their performance, goals and values. >> >> It’s time Americans rebuild our nation and its going to require a lot >> of work, maybe now they have awakened to the fact that concern with >> politics is important and we have a lot of work to do. Had Hillary >> been elected people would have gone to sleep and assumed everything >> was alright, just as they did when Obama was elected. >> >> We have very serious issues of concern and we need to deal with them. >> >> End of conversation. >> >>> On Nov 16, 2016, at 06:04, Gregg Gordon >> > wrote: >>> >>> Can't you speak for yourself? >>> >>> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>> *From:* Karen Aram >> > >>> *To:* Gregg Gordon > >>> *Cc:* peace >> >; Peace Discuss >>> > >>> *Sent:* Wednesday, November 16, 2016 7:57 AM >>> *Subject:* Re: [Peace] Bring on the protesters we really need them >>> now, if these two guys are the choices....... >>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> >>>> Bruce A. Dixon >>>> >>>> >>>> 8 hrs >>>> · >>>> >>>> Libsyn >>>> · >>>> >>>> War Less Imminent in Wake of Trump Election >>>> A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford >>>> “Trump says he wants to cooperate with the Syrians and the Russians >>>> to defeat ISIS.” >>>> With so many people who call themselves liberals and leftists >>>> tearing their hair out in dread of a President Donald Trump, it is >>>> necessary to point out that the prospects of avoiding nuclear war >>>> are much better than they were the day before the election. Hillary >>>> Clinton was committed to imposing a “no fly zone” over Syria that >>>> would have meant instant war with Russia, likely resulting in the >>>> annihilation of the human species. You’d think that would have made >>>> Clinton anathema to decent people. But Americans, including those >>>> who call themselves liberals, are not decent people – not really. >>>> Based on their political behavior, they just pretend to be decent, >>>> but support U.S. governments that have slaughtered millions since >>>> the end of World War Two. If you voted for Obama and Clinton, you >>>> gave your assent to continuing George Bush’s wars, allowing Obama >>>> to start two major wars of his own, in Libya and Syria, and to >>>> Hillary Clinton’s plans to roll the nuclear dice on the fate of >>>> humanity. The whole world knows that Americans are dangerous, to >>>> themselves and to others. But, decent? Since when, and to whom? >>>> Donald Trump looks and talks like the ugly, racist, bullying >>>> American -- and he is exactly that, but he hasn’t killed anybody >>>> yet, and his public statements have been of a far more peaceful >>>> nature than the woman he beat at the polls. Trump says he wants to >>>> cooperate with the Syrians and the Russians to defeat ISIS. Trump >>>> also does not make distinctions between the various Islamic >>>> jihadist groups in Syria, unlike the Obama administration, which >>>> has directly and indirectly armed and funded all of the jihadist >>>> groups, and has spent much of the last several months trying to >>>> protect the al Nusra Front, the al Qaida affiliate in eastern >>>> Aleppo, from Russian bombing. >>>> “The jihadists are in despair, and the prospects for driving them >>>> out of Aleppo look promising.” >>>> No sooner had the votes been counted, than President Obama ordered >>>> U.S. Special Forces to go all-out to kill the leadership of al-Nusra. >>>> This war has been entirely based on lies, so Obama will probably >>>> limit his Kill List to al Qaida leaders, while sparing the rank and >>>> file jihadist fighters for future use by the United States. But it >>>> is safe to say that, had Hillary Clinton been elected, the most >>>> warlike factions in the U.S. military, the CIA, the State >>>> Department, and the foreign policy establishment at-large would be >>>> setting the stage for full-scale confrontation with Russia and all >>>> of Syria’s allies under President Clinton. Instead, the jihadists >>>> are in despair, and the prospects for driving them out of Aleppo >>>> look promising. Hopefully, the Syrian government and its friends >>>> will be on the road to victory before Donald Trump’s presidency is >>>> decisively captured by the bipartisan War Party that runs the empire. >>>> Syrian President Bashar Assad says it’s fine with him if Trump >>>> wants to fight the terrorists. But, Assad isn’t sure that Trump can >>>> deliver on his campaign pledge. “What about the countervailing >>>> forces within the administration, the mainstream media that were >>>> against him?” Assad asks. Assad thinks the notion of Trump bucking >>>> the War Party is “dubious.” He’s right. Half a million Syrians are >>>> dead because most Americans don’t much care who their government >>>> kills, as long as they’re not white. But, getting rid of Clinton >>>> has slowed the War Party down a bit, and maybe prevented a nuclear >>>> war. If you are a decent person, you should be pleased about that. >>>> For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go >>>> toBlackAgendaReport.com. >>>> On >>>> Nov 16, 2016, at 05:37, Gregg Gordon >>> > wrote: >>>> >>>> Gee -- and you've been telling me Trump was preferable to Clinton. >>>> At least he won't start a war with Russia, right? >>>> >>>> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>>> *From:* Karen Aram via Peace >>> > >>>> *To:* peace >>> >; Peace Discuss >>>> > >>>> *Sent:* Wednesday, November 16, 2016 7:08 AM >>>> *Subject:* [Peace] Bring on the protesters we really need them now, >>>> if these two guys are the choices....... >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Published by the International Committee of the Fourth >>>> International (ICFI) >>>> >>>> Click here for advanced search » >>>> >>>> >>>> * Home >>>> >>>> * Perspectives >>>> >>>> * World News >>>> >>>> * World Economy >>>> >>>> * Arts Review >>>> >>>> * History >>>> >>>> * Science >>>> >>>> * Philosophy >>>> >>>> * Workers Struggles >>>> >>>> * ICFI/Marxist Library >>>> >>>> * Chronology >>>> >>>> * Full Archive >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> * Print >>>> >>>> * Leaflet >>>> >>>> * Feedback >>>> >>>> * Share » >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Trump transition points to escalation of US militarism >>>> >>>> >>>> By Bill Van Auken 16 November 2016 >>>> >>>> Multiple media reports that former New York City Republican Mayor >>>> Rudolph Giuliani is president-elect Donald Trump’s top choice for >>>> secretary of state have provided further indication of the extreme >>>> right-wing and militarily bellicose character of the incoming US >>>> administration. >>>> A senior Trump campaign official told the Associated Press Tuesday >>>> that Giuliani was the favorite for the post, while indicating that >>>> the equally right-wing and militaristic former US ambassador to the >>>> United Nations under the administration of George W. Bush, John >>>> Bolton, was also in the running. >>>> The fact that these two—both adamant supporters of every US war >>>> over the past quarter century—are the front-runners for the top >>>> foreign policy position in the incoming Republican administration >>>> gives the lie to Trump’s pretensions on the campaign trail that he >>>> was somehow opposed to recent US military interventions and “nation >>>> building.” >>>> Trump’s phony claims that he had been against the Iraq war were >>>> meant to appeal to popular hostility to the endless US military >>>> interventions with which his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton >>>> was so clearly identified. At the same time, however, he repeatedly >>>> advocated a major increase in US military spending and a >>>> modernization of Washington’s nuclear arsenal. >>>> His “America First” rhetoric and promotion of economic nationalism >>>> go hand-in-hand with a further escalation of a US campaign of >>>> global military aggression that has brought the planet ever closer >>>> to a third world war. >>>> According to a report in the /Wall Street Journal/, the former New >>>> York mayor is openly pushing for his own appointment. Giuliani, the >>>> newspaper said, “suggested several times that he would be >>>> interested in the [secretary of state] post” during remarks >>>> delivered Monday to the /Wall Street Journal/ CEO Council in >>>> Washington, a gathering billed as an “unparalleled opportunity for >>>> business leaders to learn the myriad implications of the biggest >>>> change in Washington in many years.” >>>> In his remarks, Giuliani insisted that the so-called war on ISIS >>>> would be the administration’s first priority, making clear that the >>>> global “war on terror” that has been used to justify wars >>>> throughout the Middle East and Central Asia will continue. The >>>> former New York mayor, who has never tired of waving the bloody >>>> shirt of 9/11 to promote his own political and personal fortune and >>>> to obscure the rampant corruption that characterized his >>>> administration, is heavily invested in this policy, though he has >>>> played no role in its implementation. >>>> Asked about Trump’s demands for ripping up the nuclear deal with >>>> Iran, Giuliani replied, “You have to set priorities. So if the >>>> priority is, let’s eliminate ISIS, maybe you put that off a little >>>> bit. And you get rid of ISIS and then get back to that.” In other >>>> words, a new US war with Iran remains on the agenda of the incoming >>>> administration. During his run for the presidency in 2008, Giuliani >>>> said that the use of tactical nuclear weapons against Iran’s >>>> nuclear program could not be taken “off the table.” >>>> And, while Trump has spoken in vague terms of a rapprochement with >>>> Russia—and was repeatedly denounced from the right by the Democrats >>>> as a puppet of Vladimir Putin—Giuliani sounded a more threatening >>>> tone toward Moscow, suggesting military confrontation as a means of >>>> shifting relations with Moscow. >>>> “Russia thinks it’s a military competitor, it really isn’t,” >>>> Giuliani said. “It’s our unwillingness under Obama to even threaten >>>> the use of our military that makes Russia so powerful.” >>>> While Giuliani has no foreign policy experience whatsoever, he is a >>>> prominent Trump loyalist and a longtime proponent of police state >>>> methods of rule. During his tenure as mayor, he was identified with >>>> a repressive “stop and frisk” program—later ruled >>>> unconstitutional—that turned virtually every minority and working >>>> class youth in the city into a suspect and resulted in a series of >>>> egregious police murders of innocent victims like Amadou Diallo and >>>> Patrick Dorismond that he vehemently defended. >>>> Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, he proposed that mayoral >>>> elections in New York be called off and that he be granted a new >>>> unelected term as the only man capable of confronting terrorism. >>>> More recently, he has suggested that the anti-Trump demonstrations >>>> that have swept the country should be met with police repression. >>>> His apparent principal rival for the secretary of state post, John >>>> Bolton, is every bit as reactionary and a pathological supporter of >>>> unilateral US military aggression. Barely a year and a half ago, >>>> Bolton penned an opinion piece for the /New York Times/ titled “To >>>> Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran.” His prescription was for intensive >>>> bombing followed by “regime change.” >>>> Bolton rose to prominence in Republican circles after serving as a >>>> lawyer in the George W. Bush campaign’s successful operation to >>>> steal the 2000 election by halting the vote count in Florida. >>>> He was an advocate of a US war for regime change in Iraq at least >>>> since 1998. In 2002, he was the State Department’s undersecretary >>>> for Arms Control and International Security, playing a key role in >>>> preparing the war of aggression against Iraq the following year by >>>> promoting the lies that Saddam Hussein was developing “weapons of >>>> mass destruction” and preparing to hand them over to Al Qaeda. >>>> Bolton, described by one of his former colleagues at the State >>>> Department as “the quintessential kiss up, kick down kind of guy,” >>>> was named ambassador to the United Nations in an August 2005 recess >>>> appointment by the Bush administration that was meant to serve as a >>>> deliberate provocation toward the UN, for which Bolton had >>>> repeatedly and publicly declared his contempt. >>>> Both Giuliani and Bolton—like president-elect Trump—have defended >>>> the use of torture by the Pentagon and the CIA at Guantanamo, >>>> Bagram Air Base and black sites around the world. >>>> The discussion of a possible appointment of either Giuliani or >>>> Bolton as the face of US foreign policy is every bit as revealing >>>> as the naming Sunday of the outright fascist Steve Bannon as >>>> Trump’s chief White House strategist. While not indulging in the >>>> open politics of white supremacy and anti-Semitism that has >>>> characterized Bannon’s stewardship of /Breitbart News/, these are >>>> unquestionably among the most reactionary and discredited figures >>>> in American politics. >>>> When an appointment would be announced was far from clear late >>>> Tuesday, with reports of the Trump transition team in a state of >>>> utter disarray and beset by bitter internecine conflicts. Former >>>> Michigan Republican congressman Mike Rogers, who was brought in to >>>> advise Trump on national security and was thought to be a possible >>>> nominee for CIA director, has been pushed out of the transition >>>> process, following the earlier purge of New Jersey Governor Chris >>>> Christie, who was hastily replaced by vice president-elect Mike >>>> Pence as head of the overall transition operation. >>>> The /Washington Post/ reported Tuesday that the expulsion of >>>> Christie and his allies was carried out in apparent “retaliation >>>> for Christie’s role as a US prosecutor in sending [Trump’s >>>> son-in-law Jared] Kushner’s father to prison” when he was a federal >>>> prosecutor. >>>> Christie’s ouster effectively placed the transition on hold as far >>>> as the Obama administration is concerned as the New Jersey governor >>>> was the signatory of a document establishing the framework for the >>>> process. >>>> The chaos and divisions within the Trump camp were also spelled out >>>> in an about-face by a former Republican national security official, >>>> Eliot Cohen, who had previously led similar figures in denouncing >>>> Trump as unfit for the presidency. In an open letter published last >>>> week in the /American Interest,/ he argued that a Trump presidency >>>> “may be better than we think,” and that checks and balances and >>>> bureaucratic inertia would restrain the incoming administration. >>>> In a tweet early Tuesday, Cohen wrote: “After exchange w Trump >>>> transition team, changed my recommendation: stay away. They’re >>>> angry, arrogant, screaming ‘you LOST!’ Will be ugly.” >>>> _______________________________________________ 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 naiman at justforeignpolicy.org Fri Nov 18 19:32:17 2016 From: naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (Robert Naiman) Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2016 13:32:17 -0600 Subject: [Peace] JFP alert: ADL: Disentangle from settlements advocacy to maintain credibility on anti-Semitism Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Just Foreign Policy Date: Fri, Nov 18, 2016 at 1:21 PM Subject: ADL: Disentangle from settlements advocacy to maintain credibility on anti-Semitism To: naiman at justforeignpolicy.org [image: Just Foreign Policy] Dear Robert, *Urge the Anti-Defamation League to disentangle from advocacy for settlements to maintain the ADL's credibility on allegations of anti-Semitism. * Take Action With the rise and election of Trump, anti-Semitism is appearing in mainstream U.S. discourse in an unprecedented way. At the same time, false and grossly exaggerated accusations of anti-Semitism remain a potent political weapon in U.S. politics. Now, more than ever, we need organizations that can serve the public as principled, credible, unbiased investigators and referees of allegations of anti-Semitism in the U.S. The Anti-Defamation League would be ideally positioned to occupy this role, but unfortunately it currently suffers from a perceived conflict of interest. In addition to advocating against anti-Semitism, the ADL also advocates for settlements in the West Bank. The ADL's entanglement in the settlements issue diminishes the ADL's credibility on anti-Semitism in the eyes of many Americans. *If the ADL accuses an American who opposes the settlements of anti-Semitism, many Americans will wonder, rightly or wrongly, if the ADL's advocacy for settlements is coloring the ADL's judgment.* Thus, the ADL's settlements advocacy undermines its ability to combat anti-Semitism. *Urge the ADL to disentangle itself from advocacy for settlements to maintain its credibility on allegations of anti-Semitism by signing our petition at MoveOn .* Thanks for all you do to help make U.S. foreign policy more just, Robert Naiman, Avram Reisman, and Sarah Burns Just Foreign Policy *Help support our work!* If you think our work is important, support us with a $15 donation. http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/donate [image: Please support our work. Donate for a Just Foreign Policy] © 2016 Just Foreign Policy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From carl at newsfromneptune.com Sun Nov 20 01:19:23 2016 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2016 19:19:23 -0600 Subject: [Peace] News from Neptune for Friday 18 November In-Reply-To: <99ADC184-CDFB-4E96-80D0-69A6991AC1D2@newsfromneptune.com> References: <745FA348-0FE6-4122-86C3-7F01FC157753@newsfromneptune.com> <5489C839-553A-4E34-B30A-E11DC2FC15FA@newsfromneptune.com> <99ADC184-CDFB-4E96-80D0-69A6991AC1D2@newsfromneptune.com> Message-ID: <5606E578-D71F-488A-A63E-E1768A0F0800@newsfromneptune.com> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt4CpnQNkKQ&feature=em-subs_digest News from Neptune, a Controlling Eurasia edition, news commentary on Urbana (IL) Public TV 18 November 2016: Karen Aram, David Green, and I discuss the news of the week and its coverage by the media. —CGE From davegreen84 at yahoo.com Sun Nov 20 16:48:25 2016 From: davegreen84 at yahoo.com (David Green) Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2016 16:48:25 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] News from Neptune for Friday 18 November In-Reply-To: <5606E578-D71F-488A-A63E-E1768A0F0800@newsfromneptune.com> References: <745FA348-0FE6-4122-86C3-7F01FC157753@newsfromneptune.com> <5489C839-553A-4E34-B30A-E11DC2FC15FA@newsfromneptune.com> <99ADC184-CDFB-4E96-80D0-69A6991AC1D2@newsfromneptune.com> <5606E578-D71F-488A-A63E-E1768A0F0800@newsfromneptune.com> Message-ID: <377281830.732884.1479660505497@mail.yahoo.com> A huge mea culpa on my part for my opening comments; Jackson County, where the Green Party got it's highest % of any county in the state, is of course the county of Carbondale, SIU, Rich Whitney, and the Shawnee Greens; that might have something to do with their achieving 3%. Champaign County was 2nd with 2%. On Saturday, November 19, 2016 7:20 PM, C. G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss wrote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt4CpnQNkKQ&feature=em-subs_digest News from Neptune, a Controlling Eurasia edition, news commentary on Urbana (IL) Public TV 18 November 2016: Karen Aram, David Green, and I discuss the news of the week and its coverage by the media. —CGE _______________________________________________ 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 at justforeignpolicy.org Sun Nov 20 20:43:01 2016 From: naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (Robert Naiman) Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2016 14:43:01 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Urge Champaign County Dems to back Keith Ellison for DNC Message-ID: There is a central committee meeting on November 30. We'll be asking them to pass a resolution in support of Keith Ellison's candidacy to lead the DNC. Here's our petition at MoveOn: @ChampaignCoDems: Back @KeithEllison for #DNCChair http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/champaigncodems-back?r_by=1135580 === Robert Naiman Policy Director Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (202) 448-2898 x1 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From carl at newsfromneptune.com Sun Nov 20 20:58:19 2016 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2016 14:58:19 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Urge Champaign County Dems to back Keith Ellison for DNC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <35FE1920-25D6-4EDD-AB2E-C53D3188D2C0@newsfromneptune.com> “Ellison is part of the pro-war Left, whose primary mission is make self-described liberals and leftists comfortable supporting imperial wars.” http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/rep-keith-ellison-personification-phony-pro-war-%E2%80%9Cprogressive%E2%80%9D —CGE > On Nov 20, 2016, at 2:43 PM, Robert Naiman via Peace wrote: > > There is a central committee meeting on November 30. We'll be asking them to pass a resolution in support of Keith Ellison's candidacy to lead the DNC. > > Here's our petition at MoveOn: > > @ChampaignCoDems: Back @KeithEllison for #DNCChair > http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/champaigncodems-back?r_by=1135580 > > === > > Robert Naiman > Policy Director > Just Foreign Policy > www.justforeignpolicy.org > naiman at justforeignpolicy.org > (202) 448-2898 x1 > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From naiman at justforeignpolicy.org Sun Nov 20 21:13:58 2016 From: naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (Robert Naiman) Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2016 15:13:58 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Urge Champaign County Dems to back Keith Ellison for DNC In-Reply-To: <35FE1920-25D6-4EDD-AB2E-C53D3188D2C0@newsfromneptune.com> References: <35FE1920-25D6-4EDD-AB2E-C53D3188D2C0@newsfromneptune.com> Message-ID: I like Glen Ford as an individual human being. He's had me on his radio show. He's a very nice, affable guy. But as an authority on the topic at hand - and this piece is from three years ago - Glen Ford is not credible. Anyone who thinks that there's not a dime's worth of difference between Ellison and McCain on war and peace is not a serious person. It's a free country. People can say whatever they want. You can be a Truther, a Birther, an anti-vaxxer. But, given that people have other things to do with their lives, people who are serious shouldn't waste time with such things. And, of course, people who support the Green Party are not meaningful authority on the affairs of progressive Democrats. Here are the three serious candidates. https://theintercept.com/2016/11/15/race-for-next-dnc-chair-is-between-americas-first-muslim-congressman-and-two-corporate-lobbyists/ Robert Naiman Policy Director Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (202) 448-2898 x1 On Sun, Nov 20, 2016 at 2:58 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote: > “Ellison is part of the pro-war Left, whose primary mission is make > self-described liberals and leftists comfortable supporting imperial wars.” > > http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/rep-keith-ellison- > personification-phony-pro-war-%E2%80%9Cprogressive%E2%80%9D > > > —CGE > > > On Nov 20, 2016, at 2:43 PM, Robert Naiman via Peace < > peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote: > > There is a central committee meeting on November 30. We'll be asking them > to pass a resolution in support of Keith Ellison's candidacy to lead the > DNC. > > Here's our petition at MoveOn: > > @ChampaignCoDems: Back @KeithEllison for #DNCChair > http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/champaigncodems-back?r_by=1135580 > > > === > > Robert Naiman > Policy Director > Just Foreign Policy > www.justforeignpolicy.org > > naiman at justforeignpolicy.org > (202) 448-2898 x1 > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tbeelel at outlook.com Sun Nov 20 21:17:07 2016 From: tbeelel at outlook.com (Tina Beelel) Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2016 21:17:07 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Your a bunch of bloated morons Message-ID: Get Outlook for Android -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tbeelel at outlook.com Sun Nov 20 21:17:47 2016 From: tbeelel at outlook.com (Tina Beelel) Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2016 21:17:47 +0000 Subject: [Peace] People like you have no clue Message-ID: Get Outlook for Android -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davegreen84 at yahoo.com Sun Nov 20 22:32:59 2016 From: davegreen84 at yahoo.com (David Green) Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2016 22:32:59 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace] Urge Champaign County Dems to back Keith Ellison for DNC In-Reply-To: References: <35FE1920-25D6-4EDD-AB2E-C53D3188D2C0@newsfromneptune.com> Message-ID: <934358964.890132.1479681179908@mail.yahoo.com> The question, and I mean this in all sincerity, is whether serious and decent people should care who becomes the head of the DNC; or whether, given the financial basis for the DP, it doesn't really matter in the larger bourgeois scheme of things. On Sunday, November 20, 2016 3:14 PM, Robert Naiman via Peace wrote: I like Glen Ford as an individual human being. He's had me on his radio show. He's a very nice, affable guy. But as an authority on the topic at hand - and this piece is from three years ago - Glen Ford is not credible.  Anyone who thinks that there's not a dime's worth of difference between Ellison and McCain on war and peace is not a serious person. It's a free country. People can say whatever they want. You can be a Truther, a Birther, an anti-vaxxer. But, given that people have other things to do with their lives, people who are serious shouldn't waste time with such things. And, of course, people who support the Green Party are not meaningful authority on the affairs of progressive Democrats.  Here are the three serious candidates.  https://theintercept.com/2016/11/15/race-for-next-dnc-chair-is-between-americas-first-muslim-congressman-and-two-corporate-lobbyists/ Robert Naiman Policy Director Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (202) 448-2898 x1 On Sun, Nov 20, 2016 at 2:58 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote: “Ellison is part of the pro-war Left, whose primary mission is make self-described liberals and leftists comfortable supporting imperial wars.” http://www.blackagendareport. com/content/rep-keith-ellison- personification-phony-pro-war- %E2%80%9Cprogressive%E2%80%9D —CGE On Nov 20, 2016, at 2:43 PM, Robert Naiman via Peace wrote: There is a central committee meeting on November 30. We'll be asking them to pass a resolution in support of Keith Ellison's candidacy to lead the DNC. Here's our petition at MoveOn: @ChampaignCoDems: Back @KeithEllison for #DNCChair http://petitions.moveon.org/ sign/champaigncodems-back?r_ by=1135580 === Robert Naiman Policy Director Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (202) 448-2898 x1 ______________________________ _________________ Peace mailing list Peace at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/ mailman/listinfo/peace _______________________________________________ Peace mailing list Peace at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Sun Nov 20 22:49:00 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2016 22:49:00 +0000 Subject: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Urge Champaign County Dems to back Keith Ellison for DNC In-Reply-To: <934358964.890132.1479681179908@mail.yahoo.com> References: <35FE1920-25D6-4EDD-AB2E-C53D3188D2C0@newsfromneptune.com> <934358964.890132.1479681179908@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: I couldn’t disagree with Robert Naiman more on this topic. Glen Ford is more than just a nice man, he is very prescient, and right on target here as well as most things. Ellison, maybe nice, and he fits the bill as a token for what the DNC needs or wants to spiff up their image. He’s Black, a Muslim, and articulate, okay he’s not a woman, but they tried that one recently….... However, he supports war, and will offer the continuity that the Democratic Party wants in respect to US foreign policy, and hegemony, just in case the Republicans under Trump don’t comply. Maybe McCain is an extreme example, in so far as rhetoric is concerned, but hey the Democrats have always used words of peace, and McCain is just the “bad” cop to Ellison’s (good) cop. It’s all about appearances. On Nov 20, 2016, at 14:32, David Green via Peace-discuss > wrote: The question, and I mean this in all sincerity, is whether serious and decent people should care who becomes the head of the DNC; or whether, given the financial basis for the DP, it doesn't really matter in the larger bourgeois scheme of things. On Sunday, November 20, 2016 3:14 PM, Robert Naiman via Peace > wrote: I like Glen Ford as an individual human being. He's had me on his radio show. He's a very nice, affable guy. But as an authority on the topic at hand - and this piece is from three years ago - Glen Ford is not credible. Anyone who thinks that there's not a dime's worth of difference between Ellison and McCain on war and peace is not a serious person. It's a free country. People can say whatever they want. You can be a Truther, a Birther, an anti-vaxxer. But, given that people have other things to do with their lives, people who are serious shouldn't waste time with such things. And, of course, people who support the Green Party are not meaningful authority on the affairs of progressive Democrats. Here are the three serious candidates. https://theintercept.com/2016/11/15/race-for-next-dnc-chair-is-between-americas-first-muslim-congressman-and-two-corporate-lobbyists/ Robert Naiman Policy Director Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (202) 448-2898 x1 On Sun, Nov 20, 2016 at 2:58 PM, C. G. Estabrook > wrote: “Ellison is part of the pro-war Left, whose primary mission is make self-described liberals and leftists comfortable supporting imperial wars.” http://www.blackagendareport. com/content/rep-keith-ellison- personification-phony-pro-war- %E2%80%9Cprogressive%E2%80%9D —CGE On Nov 20, 2016, at 2:43 PM, Robert Naiman via Peace > wrote: There is a central committee meeting on November 30. We'll be asking them to pass a resolution in support of Keith Ellison's candidacy to lead the DNC. Here's our petition at MoveOn: @ChampaignCoDems: Back @KeithEllison for #DNCChair http://petitions.moveon.org/ sign/champaigncodems-back?r_ by=1135580 === Robert Naiman Policy Director Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (202) 448-2898 x1 ______________________________ _________________ Peace mailing list Peace at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/ mailman/listinfo/peace _______________________________________________ Peace mailing list Peace at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace _______________________________________________ Peace-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 Nov 21 02:16:23 2016 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2016 20:16:23 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Urge Champaign County Dems to back Keith Ellison for DNC In-Reply-To: References: <35FE1920-25D6-4EDD-AB2E-C53D3188D2C0@newsfromneptune.com> Message-ID: <4CE0328D-ADE4-400A-A7B0-AA44D36E6617@newsfromneptune.com> The idea that the three "serious candidates" to lead [sic] the DNC are “two corporate lobbyists” and a person "whose primary mission is make self-described liberals and leftists comfortable supporting imperial wars” is an indication of the terminal lack of political seriousness in the Democratic party - so painfully on display in the recent election. Écrasez l’infâme. Ellison’s delicts have been clear all along, as David Swanson points out: >. —CGE > On Nov 20, 2016, at 3:13 PM, Robert Naiman wrote: > > I like Glen Ford as an individual human being. He's had me on his radio show. He's a very nice, affable guy. > > But as an authority on the topic at hand - and this piece is from three years ago - Glen Ford is not credible. > > Anyone who thinks that there's not a dime's worth of difference between Ellison and McCain on war and peace is not a serious person. It's a free country. People can say whatever they want. You can be a Truther, a Birther, an anti-vaxxer. But, given that people have other things to do with their lives, people who are serious shouldn't waste time with such things. And, of course, people who support the Green Party are not meaningful authority on the affairs of progressive Democrats. > > Here are the three serious candidates. > > https://theintercept.com/2016/11/15/race-for-next-dnc-chair-is-between-americas-first-muslim-congressman-and-two-corporate-lobbyists/ > > > > > > Robert Naiman > Policy Director > Just Foreign Policy > www.justforeignpolicy.org > naiman at justforeignpolicy.org > (202) 448-2898 x1 > > On Sun, Nov 20, 2016 at 2:58 PM, C. G. Estabrook > wrote: > “Ellison is part of the pro-war Left, whose primary mission is make self-described liberals and leftists comfortable supporting imperial wars.” > > http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/rep-keith-ellison-personification-phony-pro-war-%E2%80%9Cprogressive%E2%80%9D > > —CGE > > >> On Nov 20, 2016, at 2:43 PM, Robert Naiman via Peace > wrote: >> >> There is a central committee meeting on November 30. We'll be asking them to pass a resolution in support of Keith Ellison's candidacy to lead the DNC. >> >> Here's our petition at MoveOn: >> >> @ChampaignCoDems: Back @KeithEllison for #DNCChair >> http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/champaigncodems-back?r_by=1135580 >> >> === >> >> Robert Naiman >> Policy Director >> Just Foreign Policy >> www.justforeignpolicy.org >> naiman at justforeignpolicy.org >> (202) 448-2898 x1 >> _______________________________________________ >> Peace mailing list >> Peace at lists.chambana.net >> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From naiman at justforeignpolicy.org Mon Nov 21 13:27:08 2016 From: naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (Robert Naiman) Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2016 07:27:08 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Young Women Lock Down TD Bank calling them for them to divest #NoDAPL Message-ID: *Fw:* *===* *Right now: Young PA women from across the state have locked down a TD bank in Philly, calling for them to divest their money from DAPL.* We're camped out for as long as we can in the busiest area of downtown, across from city hall. The action was in response to a call from women of color for escalated action at an intense moment where the path to ending the Dakota Access Pipeline is in sight. We know that pressure on financial institutions work, with the biggest international bank DNB pulling out. TD bank is one of the major financial backers of the pipeline and it could be next. *Without the funding provided by TD bank, the pipeline could not go forward, and these human rights abuses would not be occurring. * *Can you help get the word out and share on social media* with THIS TWEET and THIS FACEBOOK VIDEO? https://twitter.com/eresnickday/status/800680682288775168 https://twitter.com/eresnickday/status/800683346586202112 Sample tweet: Women shut down @TDBank_US in Philadelphia, PA in solidarity with #StandingRock, demanding they #DivestFromDAPL #NoDAPL #BankExit ​ We want the folks at Standing Rock to know that escalated solidarity acts are continuing. People all around the country are standing with them with more than just words. These banks rely on their public brand to make money. Racism is bad for business. Poisoning children is bad for business. Digging up graves and destroying human remains is bad for business. Attacking a pregnant woman, children and old people with attack dogs and mace is bad for business. Best, Eva -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: tdbankshutdown.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 240420 bytes Desc: not available URL: From naiman at justforeignpolicy.org Mon Nov 21 21:58:41 2016 From: naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (Robert Naiman) Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2016 15:58:41 -0600 Subject: [Peace] How some Jews are talking to other Jews about the Ellison thing Message-ID: I received this yesterday from a local Democrat who publicly supported Bernie in the primary and is well known in local "social justice" circles. Welcome to the desert of the real. Of course, it's all about having a full-time chair. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Robert Naiman Policy Director Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org naiman at justforeignpolicy.org ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: *XXX XXX* Date: Sun, Nov 20, 2016 at 4:45 PM Subject: ellison To: naiman He was a pal and spokesman for farrakhan. he is anti-israel and pro-palestinian. his efforts to unseat a jewish democratic congressman included going to all the mosques in the guy's district to tell muslims to oppose him. why be so eager to please the gentiles by supporting your enemies. they will still be your enemies -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From naiman at justforeignpolicy.org Mon Nov 21 22:12:48 2016 From: naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (Robert Naiman) Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2016 16:12:48 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Sanders: Ellison critics using "full-time chair" as ploy to undermine his candidacy Message-ID: [...] The real reason it's being discussed, Sanders added, is because it's a way for Ellison's critics to undermine his candidacy. "I don't believe it was being raised when Debbie took the job. And I think this is just a way for Keith's opponents — I mean, the usual line is, 'We love Keith, he's great, but,' and that's the ‘but.’ So I think this is a way for his opponents to try to criticize him and end up supporting somebody else," he said. [...] http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/keith-ellison-dnc-resistance-231575 === Robert Naiman Policy Director Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (202) 448-2898 x1 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From naiman at justforeignpolicy.org Wed Nov 23 16:16:30 2016 From: naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (Robert Naiman) Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2016 10:16:30 -0600 Subject: [Peace] JFP alert: General Flynn: Urge that we stop helping Saudi Arabia bomb Yemen Message-ID: Here's the alert we sent out yesterday, urging that General Flynn oppose continued U.S. participation in the Saudi bombing of Yemen. Robert Naiman Policy Director Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (202) 448-2898 x1 ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Just Foreign Policy Date: Tue, Nov 22, 2016 at 5:15 PM Subject: General Flynn: Urge that we stop helping Saudi Arabia bomb Yemen To: naiman at justforeignpolicy.org [image: Just Foreign Policy] Dear Robert, *Urge the incoming Administration to stop helping Saudi Arabia bomb Yemen.* Take Action President-elect Trump and his advisers have expressed opposition to U.S. wars that don't contribute to the fight against ISIS and Al-Qaeda. Therefore, they should oppose continued U.S. participation in the Saudi bombing of Yemen, because that doesn't contribute to the fight against ISIS and Al-Qaeda. Whatever one may think of the Houthi rebels in Yemen that the U.S. has been helping Saudi Arabia bomb, they are not ISIS or Al-Qaeda; they hate ISIS and Al-Qaeda. In fact, the U.S.-backed Saudi war in Yemen has contributed to the growth of ISIS and Al-Qaeda in Yemen. *Urge incoming National Security Adviser General Michael Flynn to oppose continued U.S. participation in the Saudi bombing of Yemen by signing our petition at MoveOn .* Thanks for all you do to help make U.S. foreign policy more just, Robert Naiman, Avram Reisman, and Sarah Burns Just Foreign Policy *Help support our work!* If you think our work is important, support us with a $15 donation. http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/donate [image: Please support our work. Donate for a Just Foreign Policy] © 2016 Just Foreign Policy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Thu Nov 24 19:23:28 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2016 19:23:28 +0000 Subject: [Peace] WAY TO GO !!!! Message-ID: Published on Thursday, November 24, 2016 by Common Dreams Veterans Plan "Deployment" to Join Water Protectors' Battle Against DAPL "Let's stop this savage injustice being committed right here at home. If not us, who? If not now, when?" by Nika Knight, staff writer * * * * * * * 3 Comments [Water protectors march against the Dakota Access Pipeline.] Water protectors march against the Dakota Access Pipeline. (Photo: Andrew Cullen/Reuters) Over 1,000 U.S. military veterans are planning to "deploy" to join the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and peacefully support the water protectors' fight against the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline near Cannon Ball, North Dakota. "If we're going to be heroes, if we're really going to be those veterans that this country praises, well, then we need to do the things that we actually said we're going to do when we took the oath to defend the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic." —Michael Wood Jr., Veterans Stand for Standing Rock"We are calling for our fellow veterans to assemble as a peaceful, unarmed militia at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation on Dec 4-7 and defend the water protectors from assault and intimidation at the hands of the militarized police force and DAPL security," the organizers wrote on the group's GoFundMe page. "Come to Standing Rock Indian Reservation and hold the line with Wes Clark Jr., Michael Wood Jr., [Hawaii Democratic Rep.] Tulsi Gabbard, and hundreds of other veterans in support of the Sioux nation against the DAPL pipeline," reads the description of the action on Facebook. The event, Veterans Stand for Standing Rock, was put together by "veterans of the United States Armed Forces, including the U.S. Army, United States Marine Corps, U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, and U.S. Coast Guard," according to the group's fundraiser. The call to action has already garnered nearly $200,000 in donations, which will to go toward funding veterans' travel to North Dakota and legal fees they are likely to incur. Clark Jr. and Wood Jr., the two primary organizers of the campaign, spoke to their passion for the water protectors' cause and their commitment to nonviolence when they were profiled earlier this week in the veterans' publication Task & Purpose: "This country is repressing our people," Wood Jr. says. "If we’re going to be heroes, if we're really going to be those veterans that this country praises, well, then we need to do the things that we actually said we're going to do when we took the oath to defend the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic." [...] "We're not going out there to get in a fight with anyone," Clark Jr. says. "They can feel free to beat us up, but we're 100% nonviolence." "According to an 'operations order' for the planned engagement, posted to social media in mid-November, 'First Americans have served in the United States Military, defending the soil of our homelands, at a greater percentage than any other group of Americans. There is no other people more deserving of veteran support,'" Task & Purpose writes. Indeed, Wood Jr. posted full the operations order on Twitter: The veterans are prepared for the police violence that they may encounter: "Bring [b]ody armor, gas masks, earplugs, AND shooting mufflers (we may be facing a sound cannon) but no drugs, alcohol, or weapons," the organizers told the volunteers. Task & Purpose delved into all the details of the veterans' plan, which is intended both to bolster the peaceful water protectors' fight as well as to draw media attention to the ongoing protest: On Dec. 4, Clark Jr. and Wood Jr., along with a group of veterans and other folks in the "bravery business," as Wood Jr. puts it [...] will muster at Standing Rock. The following morning they will join members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, including Young, for a traditional healing ceremony. With an eye toward the media, old military uniforms will be donned so that if the veterans are brutalized by the police, they are brutalized not as ordinary citizens, but as people who once served the government they are protesting against. Then body armor, ear plugs, and gas masks will be issued to those who didn’t bring their own. Bagpipes will play, and traditional Sioux war songs will be sung. The music will continue as everyone marches together to the banks of the Missouri, on the other side of which a line of guards in riot gear will be standing ready with rifles, mace, batons, and dogs. Then, the veterans and their allies—or at least the ones who are brave enough—will lock arms and cross the river in a "massive line" for their "first encounter" with the "opposing forces." The goal is to make it to the drilling pad and surround it, arm in arm. That will require making it through the line of guards, who have repelled other such attempts with a level of physical force Sioux tribal members and protesters have described as "excessive"—claims that recently prompted a United Nations investigation. Of course, that's what the body armor and gas masks are for. "We'll have those people who will recognize that they're not willing to take a bullet, and those who recognize that they are," Wood Jr. told Task & Purpose. "It's okay if some of them step back, but Wes and I have no intention of doing so." This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Fri Nov 25 20:51:59 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2016 20:51:59 +0000 Subject: [Peace] GREEN PARTY error Message-ID: Correction to my previous statement claiming that Adrian, former Campaign Manager for Jill, is no longer with the Green Party. He most certainly is, and I apologize to him and to others, for misrepresenting something he said. It was my misunderstanding, again he is still with the Green Party. From karenaram at hotmail.com Sat Nov 26 03:36:36 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2016 03:36:36 +0000 Subject: [Peace] So Why is Green Party Presidential CandidateJill Stein Filing For Recounts in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania? Message-ID: Here is the reason why Jill Stein has asked for a recount, and it makes a lot of sense…… by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon Is the Green Party's Jill Stein tailing behind the Democrats in her call for recounts in PA, WI and MI? Or are Greens trying to lead the movement for voting rights, for fair elections tht count every vote, and to protect Green candidates in local races from having their elections stolen out from under them, often by Democrats? So Why is Green Party Presidential CandidateJill Stein Filing For Recounts in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania? by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon For the record I haven’t been on the staff of the Stein campaign since late June, so my opinions are pretty much my own. I’m also a current co-chair of the GA Green Party. So why is the Green Party's Jill Stein campaign filing for recounts in 3 states? It’s not to overturn the election results. As the Green Party hasmaintained all along when the choices are limited to Trump and Clinton we don’t have a dog in that fight. Fact is, it’s not even a fight. President Obama said it best at his post-election White House meeting with the Donald, when he asserted that they were both on the same relay team and he was just passing the baton. To us Republicans and Democrats look a lot less like a relay team and much more like a sleazy wrestling tag team. Barack is tagging out, and now Trump is tagging in. Neither one is on our side. The Stein campaign and the Green Party are filing for recounts because persuasive evidence exists that the vote totals were tampered with in several states. The researchers who uncovered these anomalies brought them to Democrats first. But since both capitalist parties are on the same team, Democrats were uninterested. But the Green Party and Jill Stein are NOT on their team. While we don’t much care which of the two capitalist candidates win,Greens care very much about the integrity and security of the election process. We have candidates in local races across the country in 2017 and 2018 to protect. Hundreds of Green candidates will be running for local office around the country as mayors, aldermen, school board members and the like. They need to know the votes their neighbors cast for them will actually be counted. If vote totals in multiple states can be manipulated in a presidential election, the same thing can and likely will happen in local races, often at the hands of Democrats. Greens cannot turn a blind eye to vote tampering in 2016, and hypocritically ask people to pour their energies into local campaigns for office in 2017 and 2018. We have to do what Democrats won’t do and have never done, and that’s fight for accountable, tamper proof election processes, for the right for everyone to vote and have every vote counted. While Democrats frequently claim voting is the single most important civic act you can perform, they have a history of throwing their constituents’ ballots away when it suits them, as in the presidential contests of 2000 and 2004. In 2000 Democrats rolled over and threw away the vote in Florida and other states. In November 2000 I was working for the Cook County Elections Department under the Cook County Clerk, a prominent local Democrat. That department conducts elections in the more than 2000 precincts making up the suburban half of Cook County, which is about equally divided between the city of Chicago and its inner suburbs. For us, the November 2000 election was uneventful. By 10 or 11 PM all our precincts had reported. All the original tapes had been received at regional counting stations and were at or on the way to the vault to await the official tabulation. Like everybody else, we got up Wednesday morning to the news that Florida’s votes were still uncounted. Thursday or Friday morning our office was booking rental cars and flights to parachute a team into Florida to help find those missing votes, or as we joked among ourselves, to bring them with us. About lunch time the Gore campaign and Jesse Jackson both called telling us to stand down and stay home. They called other political operations around the country and told them to stay home too. Scores of Republican congressional staff and other operatives flooded into Florida and the rest is history. The first chapter of Jane McAlevey’s indispensable book Raising Expectations Raising Hell recounts her own November 2000 Florida experience. She was part of an AFLCIO team which did the prep work for what could well have been a successful statewide recount effort. The Gore campaign she says, shut them down too. There was a circus of rampant irregularities in other states as well, fights that Democrats might have picked if the rights of ordinary people to have their votes counted really mattered more than being “on the same team” as Republicans. But they didn’t. Democrats dragged their long slow surrender all the way into December, by which they’d begun a partial recount in only a few counties instead of statewide and no attendant mass mobilizations. On December 9 the Supreme Court stopped the count and make George Bush president. In 2004 Democrats ignored a nationwide crime wave of illegally disenfranchised voters and vote machine fraud to capitulate before all the votes were even counted. In supposed response to the debacle of the 2000 election HAVA, the 107thCongress passed the cynically misnamed “Help America Vote Act.” It provided hundreds of millions to states and counties for the purchase of DRE or direct record entry voting machines. DRE machines are supposed to record a voters’ choice directly into electronic storage, which makes verifiable audits and tracking impossible, and renders the manipulation of results untrackable and trivially easy to whoever can access the software running the machines. That’s why reliance upon DRE machines to count votes is called “black box voting.” The result was a 2004 electoral crime wave that Democrats did nothing to halt while it was in progress and which they declined to investigate or educate the public about. When US State Dept. observers monitor elections overseas they watch to see if exit poll results conform to announced voter totals. When the exit polls – surveys of actual voters leaving the polling places – differ significantly from announced results, US officials call that election fraudulent. Except when it happens inside the US. In 2004 exit polls inexplicably diverged from announced returns in thousands of precincts across the country. Strong Republican precincts where exit polls said Bush got 65% came in at 80%. Democratic votes in heavily black and brown precincts were lost, left uncounted, falsely labeled “felons” and prevented from casting ballots, or had their votes disappear in the DRE machines in heavily black and brown precincts dropped off the map by the hundreds of thousands in Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, New Mexico and Ohio. In New Mexico the Democratic presidential candidate mysteriously lostEVERY precinct statewide where DRE machines were used. And tellingly, none of the anomalies favored Democrats, they all broke in favor of Republicans. In Ohio more than 300,000 votes mostly from black and brown people and students were lost, stolen, destroyed or left uncounted according to Greg Palast. That state alone provided Bush’s margin of victory. But Democrats refused to demand the recounts which would be the beginning of any investigation, not in Virginia or Florida, not in North Carolina or New Mexico or Ohio. It fell to the 2004 Green Party candidate David Cobb’s campaign (David Cobb is Jill Stein’s 2016 campaign manager) to raise $800,000 online in about 4 days to fund an Ohio recount. This Green Party funded Ohio recount provided the evidence to spark other investigations in multiple states. It sent one election official in Ohio to prison and helped give birth to a nationwide movement against black box voting. As a result of this nationwide movement several states gave up their exclusive reliance on DRE machines and adopted hybrid systems. California conducted a top to bottom review of its voting setup and and attached a kind of paper trail to DRE. And in New Mexico outraged citizens forged a potent movement led by the Green Party that changed that state’s election law to one of the most accountable in the nation. Some Democratic party outliers including Rep. John Conyers used the findings of the Green funded recount to hold minority hearings on the 2004 electoral crime wave, but Democratic party shot callers and funders, and the Democratic led US Senate would have no part of it. Illinois’ newly sworn in Senator Barack Obama, disappointed many by not being the one to question Ohio’s electoral vote. It was not to be their last disappointment. The recounts are supposed to cost $7 million. Wouldn’t that money be better spent building the capacity of the Green Party in communities across the country? Protecting our local candidates from having their elections stolen out from under them is a definite benefit to local organizing. $7 million is double what the Stein campaign raised and spent, maybe twenty times what the national Green Party raised and spent. They expect to raise this in a few days. Legal restrictions prevent those funds from going to local Green parties except to underwrite direct operations in that effort, like dispatching a busload of precinct recount observers. So it's not as though the Stein campaign is diverting these resources from other places. If Stein and the Greens put out a call for contributions to build local and national Green Party capacity they wouldn’t get $7 million. They probably wouldn’t get $70,000. The recount effort and attendant publicity will get more people on Stein’s lists and those will eventually become the property of state parties. So leading the fight for election integrity and to protect our local candidates isn’t something that takes place at the expense of growing state parties. By filing for recounts in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania aren’tStein and the Greens selling out to, allowing themselves to be led by, orjumping into bed with Hillary and the Democrats? Absolutely not. Democrats didn’t fight for voting rights in 2000 or 2004. Hillary and her Democrats are not fighting for voting rights today. Democrats are not standing up for the victims of felony disenfranchisement. Democrats aren’t insisting on voting rights for the District of Columbia. In 30 years, Democrats have not meaningfully contested unfair state level redistricting schemes in states like Indiana and Texas which Republicans lopsided Congressional majorities elected by a couple million fewer votes than a minority of House Democrats. Democratic politicians had more than 40 yearsafter the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act to consolidate their victory with a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote, which would have put voting rights in a place untouchable even by the Supreme Court, and prevented the entire panoply of laws and practices that currently infringe on that right. Democrats are perfectly content to keep Greens off the ballot entirely in Georgia, North Carolina, Indiana and Oklahoma, and force Green candidates to run without party labels in Tennessee, Alabama and many other states. Fighting for voting rights is just something Democratic shot callers don’t DO. When Jill Stein appeared on CNN to answer questions about filing for the recount, the host insisted that American voting machines were bulletproof, and that questioning the integrity of the elections was almost “conspiracy theory.” Stein might have reminded her that high ranking Democrats in and out of government and their media mouthpieces have been peddling baseless stories about Russian meddling in US elections for months, but she did not. There are rank and file Democrats, voters not elected officials, who support the Jill Stein and Green recounts. MoveOn.Org, for instance is encouraging its devotees to contribute. Some of them might even believe this effort will overturn the election results. We know better. Democratic shot callers, Democratic funders and the Democratic president have embraced Trump. They’re tagging out, and he’s tagging in. Fortunately Democrats are not leading this recount effort or a movement for truth and transparency in elections. Greens are, and for our own reasons. We have local candidates across the country whose elections can be stolen, in many instances by Democrats, if we don’t create a broad movement to prevent it. If Jill and the Greens don’t pick this necessary fight, nobody else will. We’re fighting to lift felony disenfranchisement, something most Democrats won’t even talk about. We’re fighting to make voting a constitutional right, and to make sure every vote cast is actually counted, something Hillary and her crew care nothing about. Instead of asking as some are, whether Jill and the Greens are selling out, maybe the question ought to be whether rank and file Democrats who forsake their party bosses and their elected officials to follow our lead are really still Democrats? Or are they on the way to becoming something else? Bruce Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report and co-chair of the GA Green Party. He lives and works near Marietta GA and can be reached via email at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From carl at newsfromneptune.com Mon Nov 28 10:49:57 2016 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2016 04:49:57 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Endorse The People's Agenda References: <33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413d0707cabd5.20161128011813@mail252.suw12.mcsv.net> Message-ID: <041A5F62-49DE-4B54-A7E6-78B285B44998@newsfromneptune.com> > > This is a time to examine and discuss some fundamental issues: who we are and who we want to be. > This newsletter is also available > on the web here . > > The United States has reached a turning point. Where we turn is dependent on what we do as people to determine our future. > > Cornel West writes that we are at the end of forty years of neo-liberal order with the rejection of the Democrats and the election of Trump. “This lethal fusion of economic insecurity and cultural scapegoating brought neoliberalism to its knees.” Unfortunately, the policies of a Trump presidency are unlikely to bring economic security for most people. > > Danny Haiphong argues that the election was the reflection of a crisis of legitimacy for the two ruling parties and that “Whether one analyzes the economic, military, or political spheres of US imperialism, one thing is abundantly clear. The very fabric of the United States is in deep crisis.” > > Neither of the major political parties are going to adequately solve the crises we face. This is a time to examine and discuss some fundamental issues: who we are and who we want to be. Out of crises come opportunities to put bold solutions in place. We are calling for a People’s Agenda. > > CLICK HERE TO READ THE PEOPLE’s AGENDA AND SIGN ON > An Opportunity to Change History > > The current conflict at Standing Rock is an opportunity to reverse the 500-year history of American Genocide . At present, we understand that 10,000 people are at the Sacred Stone camp in North Dakota to oppose the completion of the Dakota Access oil pipeline that will run under the Missouri River. Hundreds of tribes have joined in solidarity to oppose the pipeline in a way that has never happened before. > > The pipeline is being built by Energy Transfer Partners against the will of the Standing Rock Sioux and in violation of sacred lands and an ancestral burial ground. The tribe sued to stop the pipeline and lost, but the Army Corps of Engineers put a hold on it. Then the pipeline company sued to be able to complete the pipeline anyway. The pipeline is still not being built on the Army Corps of Engineers' land, really land that is Indigenous land based on a treaty, and where the water protectors encampments are located. > > Water protectors at Standing Rock have persisted in peaceful protest to stop construction of the pipeline, but they have been met with very aggressive attacks by militarized police coming from all across the country. Last Sunday night, police sprayed demonstrators with water cannons in freezing weather causing near-lethal hypothermia. Police shot concussion grenades, tear gas and pepper spray causing serious injuries, including to 21-year-old Sophia Wilansky who may lose her arm. This is reminiscent of past large-scale attacks on indigenous peoples; of course, the commercial media covered it poorly . > > Activists have responded in a powerful way with actions throughout the US and Canada on Friday to protest banks that are invested in the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) and at malls to raise awareness. In Baltimore, six people locked down in a branch of Wells Fargo. In Toronto, three women locked down at the head office of TD Bank. Some towns have passed resolutions in solidarity with Standing Rock. And Anonymous shut down the Safariland website , the company that supplies police with weapons. > > Also on Friday, the Army Corps of Engineers sent an eviction notice to the people at Sacred Stone Camp, effective December 5, and offered to set up a free speech zone in a safe place. This shows how out of touch the government is with the people. The best way to keep people safe is not to build pipelines and not to attack nonviolent protesters, especially when they are on land given to them through a treaty. The Standing Rock Tribal Chairman, Dave Archambault II, replied that they will not leave and are filing a lawsuit and calling for an injunction against the police and Energy Transfers. > > This is our moment to stand in solidarity with the people of Standing Rock and the hundreds of tribes who have joined them. This is the time to say “No more” to centuries of genocide against Native Americans. On Dec. 4, thousands of veterans are planning to go to Standing Rock to stand with the water protectors. We and others who we know are heading to Standing Rock to serve in any way that we can. We must demand that the pipeline be stopped, that the violence be stopped and that we honor the treaties. Click here for more information about the camp. > > A United Front Against Trumpism > > Just as we take action in unity to protect indigenous rights and Mother Earth, we will need to unite against harmful policies of a Trump presidency (which would also have been true of a Clinton presidency). Deborah Rogers calls for Solidarity Politics, creating a broad movement across the political spectrum in our communities and offers concrete suggestions for doing that. > > It is particularly important that we work together to protect each other from hate crimes. The Southern Poverty Law Center has already documented over 700 acts of hate since election day. Several hundred Neo-Nazis of the National Policy Institute gathered in Washington, DC last week and were protested both at their conference and at their dinner. > > There will be much to protest under a Trump administration. His selection of Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education means even more attacks on our public schools and privatization masked as ‘choice’. His immigration plan will significantly roll back immigrant rights and continue the tide of deportations. The appointment of Jeff Sessions as attorney general is good news for the Monsanto-Bayer merger  and other moves toward monopolies. Attacks on workers will come from multiple directions and will create a workers crisis that will force labor to reinvent itself or disappear . Trump’s tax plan will create massive tax cuts for the wealthy, which will force austerity measures on the rest of us. And it looks like all of the work we did in 2014 and 15 to protect net neutrality will be undone , unless we mobilize to stop them. > > While we are pleased that Trump is willing to pursue a less aggressive stance with Russia, there are signs that his administration will not exactly respect international law or human rights under the influence of Michael Flynn or under Mike Pompeo , who is a proponent of torture, as CIA Director. In addition, the weapons industry is well represented in the Trump transition team and he has promised increased budgets especially for space weapons. > > Noam Chomsky states that two very important and life-altering events occurred on election day. One was a report by the World Meteorological Organization at the climate talks that global warming is accelerating and the other is the election of Republicans in the White House, Senate and House who largely deny the climate crisis and are determined to burn more carbon when we should be moving rapidly off it. At the climate talks, many countries made a commitment to act on climate regardless of what the United States does. The power of oil, gas and coal inside the Trump administration will require the climate movement , which has grown so rapidly during the “all of the above” Obama years, to escalate, expand and mobilize more aggressively. > > Next Steps > > We have the power to make changes in this country that completely alter the course of our nation and the world. We can say no to genocide against Native Americans. We can end systemic racism. We can demand respect for the human rights of all people. We can promote peace and prosperity for all. We can solve the climate crisis. It is up to us and how we organize in our communities. > > Erica Chenowith, author of “Why Civil Resistance Works,” writes that we are living in a time of dissent. She offers “10 established social science insights about unarmed dissent that everyone should know.” At the heart of the success of popular movements is what we have advocated – the building of a broad and diverse unified movement that is active and has built national consensus for the changes we wish to see. We offer the People’s agenda as one example of the vision for the future. > > CLICK HERE TO READ THE PEOPLE’s AGENDA AND SIGN ON > Here are some upcoming events that you can join: > > Nov. 29 – Join the Fight for Fifteen nationwide day of action. > > Dec. 1 and 2 – We will participate in the People’s Tribunal on the Iraq War. > > Dec. 5 – Stand with Standing Rock in North Dakota or plan local actions at banks or the Army Corps of Engineers. > > Jan. 20 and 21 – Join Occupy the Inauguration and the Women’s March . We hope to create a Popular Resistance contingent in the march that highlights the People’s Agenda. > > March 3 to 5 – Attend the Left Elect conference in Chicago to move towards building a united left in the United States. > > follow on Twitter | like on Facebook | forward to a friend > Our mailing address is: > PopularResistance.org > 402 East Lake Ave. > Baltimore, MD 21212 > (Please do not send checks to this address) > > PLEASE CLICK HERE TO DONATE . > "Because a sustainable future depends on the people willing to see the truth for what it is, and for those to stand up in unison in order to make a difference." — Jake Edwards Keli'i Eakin > unsubscribe from this list | update subscription preferences > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rohnkoester at gmail.com Mon Nov 28 17:21:03 2016 From: rohnkoester at gmail.com (Rohn Koester) Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2016 11:21:03 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Touching base FINAL WEEK! Extending the Efforts of Domestic Violence Awareness Month INNER VOICES Social Issues Theatre presents; In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Please share the news -- Inner Voices Social Issues Theatre presents: Stories That Need Telling Wednesday, Nov. 30, 7pm, Channing-Murray Free and open to the public "Brings a deeper understanding of the complex issues, impact and dynamics surrounding intimate partner violence and dating abuse." * INNER VOICES* *Social Issues Theatre* innervoices at illinois.edu www.c ounselingcenter.illinois/ innervoices.edu www.facebook.com/innervoicessocialissuestheatre *MAIL* *Student Services Building* *University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign* *610 E. John Street, Room 110* *Champaign, IL 61820* *OFFICE* *Illini Media Building* *512 E. Green St, Room 412* *INNER VOICES Social Issues Theatre is sponsored by the Counseling Center and the Department of Theatre at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign* *You are receiving this email because you are on friends of INNER VOICES Social Issues Theatre list. If you do not wish to be on the list any more please let us know and we**’ll remove your name! Thanks.* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: C0AEAF3A-54B7-43FA-B6D4-EE428022149F.png Type: image/png Size: 732073 bytes Desc: not available URL: From carl at newsfromneptune.com Mon Nov 28 22:20:00 2016 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2016 16:20:00 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Record AWARE ON THE AIR Tuesday at noon In-Reply-To: <041A5F62-49DE-4B54-A7E6-78B285B44998@newsfromneptune.com> References: <33602bebba8fb7dd6e71fb413d0707cabd5.20161128011813@mail252.suw12.mcsv.net> <041A5F62-49DE-4B54-A7E6-78B285B44998@newsfromneptune.com> Message-ID: Members and friends of the Anti-War Anti-Racism Effort of Champaign-Urbana (AWARE) are invited to participate in an hour’s panel discussion of the US war-making. The unrehearsed program will be recorded noon-1pm Tuesday 29 November in the studios of Urbana Public Television ( = the Urbana City Council chambers, 100 Vine St.) The program - AWARE ON THE AIR - will be cablecast at 10pm that night on UPTV; it will also be available on YouTube. ### From naiman at justforeignpolicy.org Wed Nov 30 17:13:53 2016 From: naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (Robert Naiman) Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2016 11:13:53 -0600 Subject: [Peace] CCDCC draft resolution supporting Rep. Keith Ellison for DNC chair Message-ID: At tonight's meeting, Champaign County Democrats will consider a resolution I have proposed in support of the candidacy of CPC co-chair Rep. Keith Ellison to lead the Democratic National Committee. The agenda of the meeting is below, followed by the draft resolution. Folks can still sign the petition at MoveOn, which I will present at the meeting tonight. @ChampaignCoDems: Back @KeithEllison for #DNCChair http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/champaigncodems-back?r_by=1135580 Note that at this point this is just the proposal of one member of the committee. Now, members of the Champaign County Democratic Central Committee will work their will. P.S. If past is prologue, members of the public who want a good seat may wish to arrive a bit early. Champaign County Democrats 110 S. Neil St, Champaign, IL Regular Meeting of the Central Committee Wednesday, November 30, 2016 at 7:00 p.m. Agenda 1. Call to Order 2. Roll Call 3. Approval of Agenda 4. Approval of October 26, 2016 minutes 5. Approval of Treasurer’s Report 6. Public Participation 4 minutes per participant Precinct committee persons’ announcements 7. New Business Resolution – Robert Naiman Chair’s Report 8. Adjourn === Draft Resolution in support of the candidacy of CPC co-chair Rep. Keith Ellison to lead the Democratic National Committee Whereas, Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Rep. Keith Ellison is running for Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and he has been endorsed by Senators Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer, Representatives Tammy Duckworth and Raul Grijalva, CWA, National Nurses United, IBEW, Steelworkers, MoveOn, the Working Families Party, and PDA, among others; and Whereas, Rep. Ellison has been a champion for working people, the environment, and human rights, and he opposed the Trans-Pacific Partnership and helped lead the fight to get the Democratic Party Platform to take an explicit stand against the TPP, and will focus the party on building political power for working people; and Whereas, Champaign County Democrats voted for Bernie Sanders in the primary by a margin of two to one, and Rep. Ellison was a leading surrogate for Bernie in the primary; Therefore, be it resolved that the Champaign County Democratic Central Committee endorses CPC co-chair Keith Ellison to be the next Chairman of the Democratic National Committee. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Wed Nov 30 17:42:39 2016 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2016 17:42:39 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: UPTV Annual Membership Meeting & Holiday Party - December 10th References: Message-ID: Begin forwarded message: From: "Liggett, Jason" > Subject: UPTV Annual Membership Meeting & Holiday Party - December 10th Date: November 30, 2016 at 09:12:40 PST Hello, You are invited to attend Urbana Public Television’s Annual Membership Meeting & Holiday Party on Saturday, December 10th from 12PM-1PM inside the Urbana City Council Chambers at 400 South Vine Street in Urbana. We will discuss UPTV's accomplishments over the past year and look forward to what's next for UPTV. It's also a great chance to get to chat with the people you see on UPTV every week! Light refreshments will be served. Here’s a link to the Facebook event to share with others. All our welcome to attend. https://www.facebook.com/events/1769836366615342/ We hope to see you there! Jake, Jason and Josef -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: