From karenaram at hotmail.com Tue Aug 1 12:04:36 2017 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2017 12:04:36 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Sanctions and the danger of war Message-ID: * Print * Leaflet * Feedback * Share » The US sanctions drive and the danger of war 1 August 2017 Moscow’s expulsion of 750 American diplomats and contractors after the US Congress passed a bill imposing economic sanctions on Russia, Iran and North Korea marks a historical watershed. The neo-colonial wars launched by the United States and its imperialist allies in the last quarter century are producing a generalized breakdown of international trade and diplomatic relations, posing the danger of war between the major nuclear-armed powers. The overwhelming passage of the Russian sanctions bill, with which the US Congress committed Trump to blocking Russian trade with Europe, staggered the Kremlin. Hoping for improved relations under Trump, Russia did not retaliate for Obama’s expulsion of Russian diplomats last year, after Washington issued unfounded declarations that Russia “hacked” the US elections. In the half year since Trump's inauguration, however, the faction of the US ruling class demanding a confrontation with Russia has emerged as dominant in the media and state apparatus. The bill, passed over protests from Germany and France, will also escalate tensions between Washington and its supposed NATO allies in Europe. Yesterday, US officials confirmed that the Pentagon is reviving plans, abandoned in 2015, to arm the far-right Ukrainian regime that emerged from the fascist-led coup in 2014. The aid would include anti-tank missiles and other lethal weaponry. As a result, Moscow is planning for an extended armed stand-off with Washington, placing the military situation in Europe on a hair trigger. “We waited quite a long time for something to maybe change,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a televised address this weekend. “But all things considered, if it changes, it won’t be anytime soon.” As it threatens Russia, Washington is simultaneously escalating its campaign against China. After Friday’s missile test by North Korea, which potentially put US cities including Los Angeles, Denver and Chicago in range of North Korean nuclear weapons, US officials confirmed that they are considering economic sanctions on China. “I am very disappointed in China. Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet they do NOTHING for us with North Korea,” Trump wrote in two Twitter posts. “We will no longer allow this to continue.” After last week’s statement in Australia by US Admiral Scott Swift that he would follow orders from Trump to launch nuclear strikes on China, the Wall Street Journal posted a comment titled “The Regime Change Solution in North Korea,” advocating a pro-US military coup in Pyongyang. There is a political logic to this relentless intensification of commercial, diplomatic and military tensions between the major powers. It cannot continue very long without exploding into war. The media is attempting to downplay the danger in the face of growing popular concern. “Sanctions are often controversial,” the New York Times wrote of the Russia sanctions on July 27. “But they are a nonviolent tool—and in this case a timely and appropriate one—for making clear when another country’s behavior has crossed a line and for applying pressure that could make its leaders reconsider course.” Who does the Times think it is kidding? In the last quarter century since the Stalinist bureaucracy dissolved the Soviet Union, sanctions were directed at countries—often allied to Russia or China—like Iraq, Yugoslavia, Iran and North Korea, each of which Washington or the entire NATO alliance targeted for war or regime-change. Today, however, sanctions are being directly aimed at major, nuclear-armed powers central to the world capitalist economy. The last time Washington sought to arm the far-right Kiev regime, in 2015, Berlin and Paris cut across the US initiative and negotiated a peace deal between Moscow and Kiev. Before the talks, then-French President François Hollande warned of the danger of “total war,” that is, of nuclear war, between NATO and Russia. As Washington prepares a new escalation, all-out war is doubtless again being actively discussed in chancelleries, foreign offices and military headquarters worldwide, behind the backs of the world’s people. The election of Trump was not the cause, but a symptom of a broad collapse of the imperialist system that threatens the world with catastrophe. The US sanctions bill against Russia has overwhelming bipartisan support, led by the Democratic Party. Great-power rivalries, including between the United States and its European imperialist allies, are rooted in objective conflicts lodged in the structure of world capitalism that twice in the previous century erupted into world war. As the major powers fight over strategic positions and trillions of dollars in trade, it is ever clearer that the contradictions of capitalism identified by the great Marxists of the 20th century as the causes of war and social revolution—the contradiction between global economy and the nation-state system, and between socialized production and private appropriation of profit—are still operative today. The key political question is the formation of a mass, anti-war and socialist movement of the international working class. A situation in which workers allow themselves to be swept behind the contending capitalist factions can lead only to disaster. While US imperialism’s attempts to assert its rapidly-collapsing global hegemony most immediately raise the threat of war, its European imperialist rivals and the reactionary post-Soviet capitalist oligarchies in Russia and China are no less bankrupt. Washington’s policy against Russia and China will doubtless accelerate ongoing moves by the European powers, led by Germany, to pour tens of billions of euros into their military forces and set up military machines “independent from,” that is, potentially hostile to, Washington. This imperialist policy, carried out in the profit interests of the European banks and corporations and financed by attacks on European workers, goes hand-in-hand with the rise of nationalistic and far-right political forces across the continent. As for the Russian and Chinese oligarchies, they oscillate between attempts to work out a deal with the imperialist powers and to confront them militarily. This was graphically revealed by Chinese President Xi Jinping’s appearance on Sunday at a massive military parade at Zhurihe. “The world is not all at peace, and peace must be safeguarded,” Xi said, telling Chinese troops: “Always obey and follow the party. Go and fight wherever the party points.” Should the Chinese Stalinist regime, or the Kremlin, opt for a military confrontation with Washington, this could very rapidly lead the world to a nuclear conflagration. The most urgent task is to mobilize the sentiment against war and social inequality that is growing among the working class all over the world. As the International Committee of the Fourth International explained in its statement, “Socialism and the Fight Against War:” * The struggle against war must be based on the working class, the great revolutionary force in society, uniting behind it all progressive elements in the population. * The new anti-war movement must be anti-capitalist and socialist, since there can be no serious struggle against war except in the fight to end the dictatorship of finance capital and put an end to the economic system that is the fundamental cause of militarism and war. * The new anti-war movement must therefore, of necessity, be completely and unequivocally independent of, and hostile to, all political parties and organizations of the capitalist class. * The new anti-war movement must, above all, be international, mobilizing the vast power of the working class in a unified global struggle against imperialism. Alex Lantier wsws.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Tue Aug 1 14:23:43 2017 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2017 14:23:43 +0000 Subject: [Peace] It's about time, from Kevin Zeese and Dr. Margaret Flowers Message-ID: We need to add to this, “stop the killing and” The Coalition Against Foreign Military Bases is a new campaign focused on closing all US military bases abroad. This campaign strikes at the foundation of US empire, confronting its militarism, corporatism and imperialism. We urge you to endorse this campaign. On the occasion of its announcement, the coalition issued a unity statement, which describes its intent as “raising public awareness and organizing non-violent mass resistance against U.S. foreign military bases.” It further explains that US foreign military bases are “the principal instruments of imperial global domination and environmental damage through wars of aggression and occupation, and that the closure of U.S. foreign military bases is one of the first necessary steps toward a just, peaceful and sustainable world.” While the US sought to be an imperial force beginning just after the US Civil War and then escalated those efforts at the turn of the 20th Century, it became the dominant empire globally after World War II. This was during the time of de-colonization, when many traditional empires were forced to let their colonies become independent nations. So, while the US is the largest empire in world history, it is not a traditional empire in which nations are described as colonies of the US empire. Nations remain independent, at least in name, while allowing US bases on their soil and serving as a client state of the United States. They are controlled through the economic power of the US, World Bank and International Monetary Fund. The US has used regime change tactics, including assassination and military force, to keep its empire intact. Commentators have described the United States as an “empire of bases.” Chalmers Johnson wrote in 2004: As distinct from other peoples, most Americans do not recognize — or do not want to recognize — that the United States dominates the world through its military power. Due to government secrecy, our citizens are often ignorant of the fact that our garrisons encircle the planet. This vast network of American bases on every continent except Antarctica actually constitutes a new form of empire — an empire of bases with its own geography not likely to be taught in any high school geography class. Without grasping the dimensions of this globe-girdling Baseworld, one can’t begin to understand the size and nature of our imperial aspirations or the degree to which a new kind of militarism is undermining our constitutional order. Our military deploys well over half a million soldiers, spies, technicians, teachers, dependents, and civilian contractors in other nations. To dominate the oceans and seas of the world, we are creating some thirteen naval task forces built around aircraft carriers whose names sum up our martial heritage — Kitty Hawk, Constellation, Enterprise, John F. Kennedy, Nimitz, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Carl Vinson, Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, John C. Stennis, Harry S. Truman, and Ronald Reagan. We operate numerous secret bases outside our territory to monitor what the people of the world, including our own citizens, are saying, faxing, or e-mailing to one another. We do not know the exact number of US military bases and outposts throughout the world. The Unity Statement says “the United States maintains the highest number of military bases outside its territory, estimated at almost 1000 (95% of all foreign military bases in the world). . . . In addition, the United States has 19 Naval air carriers (and 15 more planned), each as part of a Carrier Strike Group, composed of roughly 7,500 personnel, and a carrier air wing of 65 to 70 aircraft — each of which can be considered a floating military base.” The annual Department of Defense (DoD) Base Structure Report says the DoD manages a massive “global real property portfolio that consists of nearly 562,000 facilities (buildings, structures, and linear structures), located on over 4,800 sites worldwide and covering over 24.9 million acres.” They value DoD property located in 42 nations at over $585 billion. It is difficult to tell from this report the number of bases and military outposts, which has led analysts like Tom Engelhardt to describe US empire as an “invisible” empire of bases. He points out the US military bases are rarely discussed in the media. It usually takes an incident, like US soldiers being attacked or a US aircraft being shot down, for them to get any mention in the media. Many of the bases remain from previous wars, especially World War II and the Korean War: According to official information provided by the Department of Defense (DoD) and its Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) there are still about 40,000 US troops, and 179 US bases in Germany, over 50,000 troops in Japan (and 109 bases), and tens of thousands of troops, with hundreds of bases, all over Europe. Over 28,000 US troops are present in 85 bases in South Korea, and have been since 1957. The number of bases is always changing as the US seeks to continuously expand its empire of bases. Just this week the US is opening a military base in South Korea, which is described as a city of 25,000 people. The Washington Post reports: “We built an entire city from scratch,” said Col. Scott W. Mueller, garrison commander of Camp Humphreys, one of the U.S. military’s largest overseas construction projects. If it were laid across Washington, the 3,454-acre base would stretch from Key Bridge to Nationals Park, from Arlington National Cemetery to the Capitol. * * * Now, the $11 billion base is beginning to look like the garrison that military planners envisaged decades ago. The Eighth Army moved its headquarters here this month and there are about 25,000 people based here, including family members and contractors. There are apartment buildings, sports fields, playgrounds and a water park, and an 18- hole golf course with the generals’ houses overlooking the greens. There is a “warrior zone” with Xboxes and Playstations, pool tables and dart boards, and a tavern for those old enough to drink. Starting this August, there will be two elementary schools, a middle school and a high school. A new, 68-bed military hospital to replace the one at Yongsan is close to completion. Also this week, it was reported that the United States has created ten new military bases in Syria. This was done without permission of the Syrian government and was exposed by Turkey in protest against the United States. There is a cost to these bases, not only the $156 billion in annual funds spent on them, but also the conflicts they create between the United States and people around the world. There have been protests against the presence or development of US bases in Okinawa, Italy, Jeju Island Korea, Diego Garcia, Cyprus, Greece, and Germany. Some of the bases are illegal, as the unity statement points out, “The base that the U.S. has illegally occupied the longest, for over a century, is Guantánamo Bay, whose existence constitutes an imposition of the empire and a violation of International Law.” Cuba has called for the return of Guantánamo since 1959. David Vine, the author of Base Nation, describes how these bases, which seek to project US power around the globe, create political tensions, are a source for military attacks and create alliances with dictators. They breed sexual violence, displace indigenous peoples, and destroy the environment. The unity statement of the Coalition Against Foreign Military Bases concludes by urging all of us to unite to close US bases around the world because: U.S. foreign military bases are NOT in defense of U.S. national, or global security. They are the military expression of U.S. intrusion in the lives of sovereign countries on behalf of the dominant financial, political, and military interests of the ruling elite. Whether invited in or not by domestic interests that have agreed to be junior partners, no country, no peoples, no government, can claim to be able to make decisions totally in the interest of their people, with foreign troops on their soil representing interests antagonistic to the national purpose. Please endorse the statement and join the campaign to remove US military bases from foreign soil. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From divisek at yahoo.com Wed Aug 2 01:58:11 2017 From: divisek at yahoo.com (Dianna Visek) Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2017 01:58:11 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace] Shall We Fight Them All? References: <190326034.5173732.1501639091963.ref@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <190326034.5173732.1501639091963@mail.yahoo.com> More from Patrick Buchanan: Shall We Fight Them All? | | | | Shall We Fight Them All? Rasmussen Reports Saturday, Kim Jong Un tested an ICBM of sufficient range to hit the U.S. mainland. He is now working on its accu... | | | -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Wed Aug 2 15:42:18 2017 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2017 15:42:18 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Chris Hedges on Contact Interview related to corporate crime Message-ID: Who owns who and what……https://www.rt.com/shows/on-contact/397802-corporate-crime-money-us/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Thu Aug 3 12:59:06 2017 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2017 12:59:06 +0000 Subject: [Peace] If you consider yourself a "leftist" a "Socialist" "anti-capitalist" this is a "must read analysis" Message-ID: The wsws.org does often criticize other socialist organizations, this criticism of the DSA is spot on, which likely includes other organizations as well. * Print * Leaflet * Feedback * Share » The anti-socialist politics of the Democratic Socialists of America By Tom Hall 3 August 2017 The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) will open its national convention today in Chicago. Despite the populist and left-sounding rhetoric that will be on display in the various speeches, roundtables, workshops and resolutions, the DSA is a pro-capitalist organization steeped in a tradition of anti-communism and bitterly opposed to the political independence of the working class. The meeting is taking place as the various ostensibly “left” organizations that operate in and around the Democratic Party attempt to grapple with the deep disgust with that big business party among workers and young people, which was strikingly revealed in the Democrats’ 2016 election debacle. The political radicalization and growth of anti-capitalist sentiment found an initial expression during the Democratic Party primary contest in mass support for the self-described “socialist” Senator Bernie Sanders, who claimed to be leading a “political revolution” while actually working to channel opposition back behind the Democrats and their eventual nominee, Hillary Clinton. Clinton ran a pro-war campaign and evinced indifference to the questions of poverty and social inequality that dominated popular sentiment during the Democratic primary campaign. With Clinton widely despised in the working class as a personification of the corrupt political status quo, her candidacy produced a sharp drop in turnout among traditional Democratic voters and, in economically devastated former industrial states, a shift to Trump, who presented himself as the anti-establishment alternative, by a section of low-income workers who had voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012. Studies have shown that anti-war sentiment in these regions and hostility to Clinton’s anti-Russia agitation also played a major role. The alienation from the Democrats has only deepened since the election, with the Democratic Party basing its opposition to the new administration not on Trump’s attacks on immigrants and democratic rights more broadly, his assault on social programs, or his appointment of fascists and Wall Street billionaires to top White House and cabinet posts, but rather on his reluctance to continue the confrontational policy against Russia initiated under Obama. Approval ratings for the Democrats have actually fallen at a faster rate than for the Republicans, according to a Gallup poll released in May. Nothing is more frightening to the pseudo-left than the discrediting of the Democratic Party, which raises the specter of a break with bourgeois politics by the working class and the formation of a new, socialist working class movement. Organizations and publications such as the International Socialist Organization (ISO), Socialist Alternative and Jacobinare discussing some kind of political regroupment, either within the Democratic Party or nominally independent of it, to achieve their shared goal of shoring up and refurbishing the political credibility of that party and of capitalist politics overall. Toward this end, they continue to promote Sanders, who claims to be leading a “political revolution” to reform the Democratic Party. Within this reactionary political milieu, the DSA’s star is rising. It is seen as an organization that could play a central role in these plans. Thus, the ISO had DSA-aligned Jacobin magazine co-sponsor its annual conference for the first time this summer, with DSA vice-chairman and Jacobin editor-in-chief Bhaskar Sunkara appearing as a featured speaker. Socialist Alternative, which openly functioned as a faction of the Sanders campaign last year, is now prostrating itself before the DSA. It is calling on it to form a new “broad-left” political formation into which Socialist Alternative would liquidate itself. Socialist Alternative justifies this line by claiming that the DSA has shifted from its anti-communist, social democratic foundations since Occupy Wall Street in 2011 and the entry of the group around Sunkara into the organization. In fact, few pseudo-left organizations, with the possible exception of Socialist Alternative itself, are as closely integrated into and function so openly as a faction of the Democratic Party as the DSA. The DSA’s top leadership includes Democratic Party luminaries, among them union bureaucrats such as Dolores Huerta (who supported Clinton over Sanders in the Democratic primaries) and celebrity intellectuals such as academic Cornel West and feminist writer and former CIA collaborator Gloria Steinem. The DSA endorsed Hillary Clinton in the general election in all but name, attempting to camouflage its position by calling for a “social movement” to defeat Trump in key swing states. After the election, it endorsed Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison in the contest for the chair of the Democratic National Committee. Through its membership in the Socialist International, the DSA is affiliated with such organizations as the British Labour Party, the French Socialist Party and the German Social Democrats, all of which have carried out savage attacks on the working class and participated in neo-colonial wars in the Middle East and Africa while in government. The DSA of today cannot be separated from its history. The predecessor organization of the DSA, the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC), emerged out of a split within the Socialist Party of America in 1972. The latter organization expelled the American supporters of the Russian Revolution from its ranks in 1919. The founders of the DSOC, Michael Harrington in particular, had entered the Socialist Party more than a decade before 1972 as part of the tendency led by Max Shachtman, who split from the Trotskyist movement in 1940. The Shachtmanites, bending to the pressure of bourgeois public opinion in the wake of the Stalin-Hitler Pact, refused to uphold the defense of the Soviet Union. By 1950, this group was defending American imperialism in the Korean War and by 1961 Shachtman was publicly supporting the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. Such was Harrington’s anti-communist pedigree. By 1972, Shachtman had essentially captured the rump of the nearly moribund Socialist Party. Harrington now criticized his mentor from the left. He drew close to the liberal wing of the anti-communist trade union bureaucracy, the Reutherite officialdom of the United Auto Workers, in particular. From the beginning, DSOC’s orientation, in the DSA’s own words, was toward “building a strong coalition among progressive trade unionists, civil rights and feminist activists and the ‘new politics’ left-liberals in the McGovern wing of the Democrats.” Its fusion in 1982 with an organizational remnant of the 1960s generation of student protesters to form the DSA was a reflection of the latter’s shift to the right and abandonment of its former radical pretenses, which made the anti-communist foundations of the DSA attractive. The rejection by the DSA of principled politics is such that it does not have a program or platform upon which its political activity is, at least nominally, based. However, a review of the DSA’s “national strategy document,” published last June but re-posted on the DSA website in advance of this week’s convention, demonstrates the anti-communist and nationalist orientation of this middle-class organization. The title of the document, “Resistance Rising: Socialist Strategy in the Age of Political Revolution,” is itself significant. The use of the term “political revolution” reflects the DSA’s promotion of Bernie Sanders and the illusion that the Democrats can be transformed into a “people’s party” through popular pressure. Lest there be any doubt on this, the banner linking to the statement on the DSA’s website features a photo of a Sanders rally. The DSA’s support for the term used by Sanders above all signifies its opposition to social revolution, to a genuine social transformation that would bring the working class to power. Instead, like Sanders, it seeks to “purify” capitalism. Radical democracy vs. socialism The DSA statement is suffused with identity politics. One sub-heading calls for “Building Multiracial, Intentionally Intersectional Coalitions.” At several points, the DSA engages in self-flagellation for being “dominated by white activists.” It promotes the reactionary Democratic Party narrative that Trump’s Electoral College victory was the result of the racism of the white working class. It states that “appeals to racism and fear will continue to gain traction among economically and socially insecure white voters--particularly men, who face the erosion of traditional gender prominence due to the gains of the feminist movement.” From a theoretical standpoint, the most significant element of the DSA’s document is its rejection of the Marxist theory of the state as an instrument of class rule, and its substitution in its stead of a nebulous, non-class notion of socialism as “radical democracy.” “[The] DSA believes that the fight for democratic socialism is one and the same as the fight for radical democracy, which we understand as the freedom of all people to determine all aspects of their lives to the greatest extent possible,” the document states. “Our vision entails nothing less than the radical democratization of all areas of life, not least of which is the economy. This simply means that democracy would be expanded beyond the election of political officials to include the democratic management of all businesses by the workers who comprise them and by the communities in which they operate.” The DSA’s “radical democracy” would also include changes to the method of electing members of Congress, the abolition of the Senate and the establishment of vague “local participatory institutions.” The DSA’s use of the term “democracy” is a non-class abstraction. Its call for “industrial democracy” leaves out precisely who will be participating in this “democracy” and in what capacity, not to mention who will actually own the means of production. In fact, the DSA’s conception of “radical democracy” means little more than the establishment of joint union-management boards, co-ops nominally owned by the workers, and other such initiatives that serve only to bind the workers hand-and-foot to the bosses. Since the emergence of scientific socialism as first elaborated by Marx and Engels, socialists have explained that the state is an instrument of class rule. This is no less true for democratic governments than for authoritarian ones. In fact, socialists have always understood the bourgeois democratic state to be the form of government that best suits the needs of the class dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, which is why, as a general historical rule, the oldest and most established capitalist countries developed some form of democratic parliamentary system. If, nevertheless, the ruling class in all of the old capitalist democracies is turning toward more openly authoritarian methods, this is the product of the massive concentration of wealth, which is incompatible with democratic forms of rule. The rule of the bourgeoisie is increasingly incompatible with the maintenance of past social reforms, and the crisis of capitalism is assuming revolutionary dimensions. As Lenin explained, a revolutionary situation requires not only that the masses cannot continue to live in the old way, but also that the ruling class can no longer rule in the old way. The class character of the state, even the most “democratic,” explains why socialists since the time of Marx have insisted that the working class cannot “capture” the existing state machinery through elections, but must smash it and replace it with a state of its own, established on the basis of the dictatorship of the proletariat, understood in the Marxist sense of “dictatorship” as the political domination of a particular class. The working class, which by virtue of its relationship to the means of production is the antithesis of private property, takes power by establishing genuinely democratic forms of rule. The broad masses of people are for the first time actively involved in the management of social life, and economic policy is determined by social need, not private profit. The DSA explicitly states that its vision of a “democratic socialist society” does not include the disappearance of class antagonisms. “It should always be remembered, however, that like every other form of society, a democratic socialist society cannot produce total social harmony,” the statement declares. “Such a society will always have to navigate among the competing claims of different groups and democratic political institutions will always be needed to arbitrate and mediate such conflict. Democratic socialism, that is, will not be the utopia that many socialists of old imagined.” Instead of the alleged “utopia” of an end to class exploitation, achieved through a revolutionary movement led by a Marxist party, the DSA promotes the reactionary utopia of “democratic socialism” enacted through the Democratic Party and the reform of capitalism. “The nature of our electoral activism will vary based on local and political conditions,” the DSA writes. “But it will include supporting progressive and socialist candidates running for office, usually in Democratic primaries or as Democrats in general elections, but also in support of independent socialist and other third-party campaigns outside of the Democratic Party (emphasis added).” In other words, the DSA will throw its support either behind Democratic Party candidates or the campaigns of third-party appendages of the Democrats such as the Green Party. The DSA’s anticommunist politics The slogan of “radical democracy” is consistent with the anti-communism that forms the bedrock of the DSA’s politics. The justification for the DSA’s opposition to the Russian Revolution is that it destroyed “democracy” by overthrowing the bourgeois Provisional Government, which jailed and shot revolutionaries and continued Russia’s involvement in the slaughter of the First World War. The DSA equates the October Revolution, the most genuinely democratic revolution in history, in which the masses themselves took control of their own destiny, with totalitarianism and the crimes of Stalin, whose bureaucracy usurped power and destroyed workers’ democracy in the Soviet Union. In order to accomplish this counterrevolutionary task, Stalin murdered the entire generation of old Bolsheviks who had led the revolution, concentrating the full wrath of his police apparatus on Leon Trotsky and his supporters, who represented the conscious Marxist and internationalist opposition to the Stalin regime. The DSA’s hostility to the Russian Revolution and its rejection of the Marxist assertion that the class struggle of the working class leads inevitably to the dictatorship of the proletariat is a practical political as well as a theoretical question. It is at the very core of the DSA’s opposition to the fight for socialist politics within the working class and its character as a counter-revolutionary organization. Social democracy, of which the DSA is part, has upheld and defended the capitalist dictatorship over the working class for more than a century. This was definitively established with the support given by all of the major social democratic parties to their own national bourgeoisies in the first imperialist world war that began in 1914. Since the suppression of the 1918 German Revolution and the murder of the Marxist leaders Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg at the hands of the German Social Democracy, social democratic parties in power have not hesitated to use state violence to crush workers’ uprisings and rescue the capitalist class. If the DSA is given the opportunity, it will not hesitate to do the same in the United States. Bhaskar Sunkara, in a column published in the New York Timestwo months ago, expressed the hostility of the DSA to the legacy of the Russian Revolution when he claimed that Lenin, once he returned to Russia in April of 1917, “set into motion the events that led to Stalin’s gulags.” To return socialism to “radical democracy,” Sunkara argued, it was necessary to return to the “early days of the Second International.” His reference to the “early days” of the Second International, as opposed to its collapse as a socialist organization at the beginning of World War I, cannot conceal the fact that Sunkara is promoting the very aspects that led to its betrayal of socialism, including the domination of its day-to-day political activity by campaigns for reform, rather than Social Democracy’s positive contribution to the promotion and development of Marxism, which was carried forward after 1914 by Lenin, Trotsky and the Bolsheviks, and put into practice in the October Revolution. Sunkara’s article, it should be noted, met with enthusiastic support from the ISO on its Socialist Worker website. The DSA’s embrace of the “democratic” imperialist state is consistent with the complete silence of its strategy statement on American imperialism and the danger of war. The DSA is not merely indifferent to this question, however. Along with virtually all of the other pseudo-left organizations, it supports and identifies with the criminal wars waged by American imperialism. The DSA has posted only two statements on its website in 2017 about foreign policy. While they are meant to appear as criticisms of US policy in the Middle East, they make clear the DSA’s actual support for the US war for regime-change in Syria, which has displaced millions and killed hundreds of thousands. After formally condemning the Trump administration’s cruise missile attack on a Syrian air base in a statement published in April, the DSA hastens to add that “[t]he DSA has also supported from spring 2011 onwards the massive and democratic Syrian uprising against the brutal Assad regime.” The statement treats as good coin the putative justification for the attack--exposed as a lie by journalist Seymour Hersh--that the Syrian government carried out gas attacks against civilians. (An article published in Jacobin denounced Hersh’s article.) The DSA attempts to provide its pro-imperialist line with an anti-imperialist gloss by absurdly claiming that the US has “in effect” sided with the Assad regime and the Russian military. It does not attempt to reconcile the obvious contradiction between supposed US support for Assad and the cruise missile attack on the Syrian airbase. The DSA statement places chief responsibility for the Syrian civil war on Russia and Iran, calling on the US to “engage in the necessary diplomacy to press Russia, Iran and Hezbollah to cease their military aid to the Assad dictatorship, as well as end United States and Gulf State funding of internal Syrian combatants.” This advice to the State Department is a clear signal to the American bourgeoisie of its support for US imperialism’s war drive and the escalating campaign against Russia, which raises the specter of nuclear war. The DSA argues that the “democratic” imperialist powers in Western Europe are more progressive than the workers’ government established by the October Revolution. Thus, it claims that the reformist regimes in postwar Europe and America, not the establishment of the first workers’ state in history, “represents the high-water mark of working class strength” and “significant progress toward a democratic socialist transition.” The DSA’s nostalgic tribute to the postwar welfare state underscores the delusionary and utopian character of its entire perspective. It promotes the idea that the reformist programs of that period can be revived, under conditions where, for forty years, the bourgeoisie throughout the world, and above all the United States, has been clawing back every social concession won by workers through more than a century of struggle. A return to previous conditions is impossible because the driving force behind this social counterrevolution is not bad “neoliberal” policy, as the DSA claims, but the objective crisis of the capitalist system. What the DSA is really mourning is the longstanding decline of American capitalism, whose untrammeled dominance provided the foundation for the temporary restabilization of world capitalism after the Second World War and the ability of the bourgeoisie in the advanced countries to dispense modest reforms and engage in a policy of relative class compromise. Such blindness to the objective roots of this historic decline and lack of any objective analysis of the crisis of American and world capitalism are characteristic of the politics of the DSA and the pseudo-left as a whole. The DSA’s promotion of the postwar era as a model demonstrates precisely what it means when it refers, at the beginning of its document, to the “game changing” opportunities it sees for “leftists and progressives.” It is not referring to the growing shift to the left within the working class and the increasing alignment of workers’ experiences with the perspective of socialist revolution. Rather, with the crisis of capitalism having discredited all of the traditional institutions of the existing system, it sees itself and the pseudo-left as a whole as playing a more prominent and active role in diverting and smothering social opposition, including in positions of state power. Like Syriza in Greece, whose rise to power it cites as an example of the “left’s” re-emergence, it envisions the American pseudo-left being called upon to carry out historic betrayals. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Thu Aug 3 13:14:04 2017 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2017 13:14:04 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Attacks on Academics over personal statements on FB or otherwise, if truth, are metastasizing. Message-ID: San Diego State University professor attacked over Facebook post criticizing Senator John McCain By Jill Lux 3 August 2017 In an attack on free speech and democratic rights, Jonathan Graubart, a Professor in Political Science at San Diego State University (SDSU), has been targeted by a media campaign following a Facebook post he made on July 21. Responding to the torrent of hagiographical news stories surrounding Republican Senator John McCain in recent days Graubart posted a short comment on his personal Facebook page, which was followed by a media campaign that not only misrepresented his views but also used empty moralistic cancer sympathy to glorify the war monger McCain while inspiring violent threats against the professor. The expression of goodwill for McCain, Graubart stated, seemed to him to be a reflection of a society that valued elite lives over ordinary ones. To build on this theme, he quoted Hannah Arendt’s line on the German cultural elite that bemoaned the fact that the Nazis sent Albert Einstein into exile, “without realizing that it was a much greater crime to kill little Hans Cohn from around the corner, even though he was no genius.” McCain, Graubart pointed out, was no Albert Einstein, and not just in terms of brain power. Unlike Einstein, who had “very appealing humanist instincts, as a socialist, antiwar, anti-imperialist, and anti-statist Zionist,” McCain was “a risible public figure,” a “war criminal,” who in his political career had “championed horrific actions,” and undermined “state commitment to public health.” Graubart concluded the post by stating that he would rather see an outpouring of good wishes for “random contemporary Hans Cohns than politicians.” The more or less innocuous post on a personal Facebook page, was picked up initially by Channel 10 in San Diego, and then drew the attention of national right-wing media outlets including Fox News and the Washington Times, leading to Graubart becoming the target of a torrent of hate mail, with some threatening outright violence. Graubart’s post, which remains on his profile page, contradicting the Washington Times’ claim that is was deleted, was followed by over 200 comments. Many of the comments were supportive in defense of free speech, calling on the university to fight back “by denouncing the threats to free-speech and the vicious attacks against Dr. G(raubart),” as well as highlighting the one-sided media campaign slandering the professor. However, this post and the University’s official statement addressing this issue have also been barraged with hateful comments. Facebook comments were accompanied by angry email and voicemail messages with numerous threats of violence, calling him a “hook-nosed f-ing Jew,” and attacks on his late mother. Graubart told WSWS reporters that the voicemails have been especially chilling, since almost half have warned of violence and one even pointed out his home address. Some of the student organizations on the SDSU campus, particularly those directly linked to the Democrats and Republicans, were quick to jump on board the smear campaign. Brandon Jones, the president of the SDSU College Republicans, declared piously, “[it] is one thing to disagree with a politician, or anyone, for that matter, based on differences in ideology.. [but] to wish bad health upon them because of those differences is outrageous...I hope next time you try and find some more compassion within yourself.” More ominously, Jones went on to say, “If you don’t want to stand behind our troops, feel free to stand in front of them, professor.” The official statement of the SDSU College Republicans claimed that Graubart’s post “set a discriminatory environment towards conservatives on our campus,” and would not be tolerated by their organization. The statement did not quite explain how this lack of tolerance would be expressed. The SDSU College Democrats were not far behind. While claiming to support Graubart’s right to free speech, Michael Cline, the president of the organization condemned the “nasty and inappropriate” personal attacks. Neither organization seemed to have actually paid attention to the content of Graubart’s post. While the campus public safety officers have advised Graubart to stay away from his university office (putatively for his own safety), the reaction of the SDSU administration has been characteristically spineless. The administration quite consciously distanced itself from Graubart, taking pains to reiterate its “respect and appreciation” for “Senator John McCain’s service to our country during both his military and public service careers.” With no real expression of support from the institution he has served for over a decade and half, Graubart continues to be the target of right-wing groups on and off-campus, with many sending ominous anti-Semitic death threats. This incident should be taken very seriously for it is reflective of some of the dangerous trends visible in contemporary politics, the most obvious being the erosion of basic democratic rights. The right to free speech, once the cornerstone of bourgeois democracy, is being systematically attacked on all fronts, particularly in educational institutions where the ruling class has always tended to react swiftly to any signs of opposition, real or imagined. While a right-wing professor, Jörg Baberowski, has been able to freely use his position at the Humboldt University in Berlin and can rely on a network of contacts among politicians and the media to spread his extremist positions, and a conformist academic community to protect him, left-leaning academics have faced witch hunts or firing for defending basic democratic rights. Baberowski, it should be noted, has not only declared his support for Ernst Nolte, the most well-known Nazi apologist among German historians of the post-war era, but also stated in a Der Spiegel article from early 2014 “Hitler was no psychopath, he was not vicious. He did not want the extermination of the Jews to be discussed at his table.” In recent months, Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington has become the site of a reactionary, racialist campaign against biology Professor Bret Weinstein, after he spoke out against a college-sponsored event that called for all white students and faculty to leave the school grounds for a day. In another attack on academic freedom, Trinity College suspended Professor Johnny Eric Williams earlier this year following Facebook posts he made regarding race relations in the United States. In 2015, protests focused on allegations of racial insensitivity and racism on the part of college administrations, occurred at the University of Missouri, later spreading to Yale University, Ithaca College, and Amherst College. The protests at Yale called for the resignation of professor Erika Christakis, a lecturer in early childhood development, after she questioned a memo sent by the university on “culturally unaware and insensitive” Halloween costumes. Ultimately, Christakis decided not to continue teaching courses at the university. Professor Graubart’s post was a short comment on a personal Facebook page, and as he himself noted, it was an account that had less than a hundred “friends.” Yet, this short post became a news story that highlighted not just its supposedly treasonous sentiments, but also the putatively bigger problem of “left wing” professors running rampant in universities, poisoning young minds. The way in which this was done is also revealing of a particular tactic used by the ruling class and its acolytes to attack anyone who might smack of not toeing the line or of tapping into genuine oppositional sentiments amongst the broader population. The International Youth and Students for Social Equality at SDSU extends its unequivocal support to Professor Graubart and condemns the campaign against him. We call on the students and faculty of SDSU and other universities across the United States and internationally to join us in the fight to preserve free speech and democratic rights. With the acceleration of the attack on core democratic principles under the Trump administration, this fight has become even more pressing. wsws.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cgestabrook at gmail.com Thu Aug 3 13:46:45 2017 From: cgestabrook at gmail.com (C G Estabrook) Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2017 08:46:45 -0500 Subject: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] If you consider yourself a "leftist" a "Socialist" "anti-capitalist" this is a "must read analysis" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: "Clinton ran a pro-war campaign and evinced indifference to the questions of poverty and social inequality that dominated popular sentiment during the Democratic primary campaign. With Clinton widely despised in the working class as a personification of the corrupt political status quo, her candidacy produced a sharp drop in turnout among traditional Democratic voters and, in economically devastated former industrial states, a shift to Trump, who presented himself as the anti-establishment alternative, by a section of low-income workers who had voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012. Studies have shown that anti-war sentiment in these regions and hostility to Clinton’s anti-Russia agitation also played a major role. "The alienation from the Democrats has only deepened since the election, with the Democratic Party basing its opposition to the new administration not on Trump’s attacks on immigrants and democratic rights more broadly, his assault on social programs, or his appointment of fascists and Wall Street billionaires to top White House and cabinet posts, but rather on his reluctance to continue the confrontational policy against Russia initiated under Obama. Approval ratings for the Democrats have actually fallen at a faster rate than for the Republicans, according to a Gallup poll released in May.” I knew Michael Harrington slightly and am glad to see the DSA at least raise the question of the democratization of the economy as well as the polity, inadequate as their answers may be. Meanwhile the Democrats hope to restore their fortunes by their consciously mendacious and dangerous campaign to continue the Obama-Calinotn war provocations against Russia and China. Those in the Trump administration opposed to that must be supported. —CGE > On Aug 3, 2017, at 7:59 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss wrote: > > The wsws.org does often criticize other socialist organizations, this criticism of the DSA is spot on, which likely includes other organizations as well. > The anti-socialist politics of the Democratic Socialists of America > By Tom Hall > 3 August 2017 > The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) will open its national convention today in Chicago. Despite the populist and left-sounding rhetoric that will be on display in the various speeches, roundtables, workshops and resolutions, the DSA is a pro-capitalist organization steeped in a tradition of anti-communism and bitterly opposed to the political independence of the working class. > The meeting is taking place as the various ostensibly “left” organizations that operate in and around the Democratic Party attempt to grapple with the deep disgust with that big business party among workers and young people, which was strikingly revealed in the Democrats’ 2016 election debacle. > The political radicalization and growth of anti-capitalist sentiment found an initial expression during the Democratic Party primary contest in mass support for the self-described “socialist” Senator Bernie Sanders, who claimed to be leading a “political revolution” while actually working to channel opposition back behind the Democrats and their eventual nominee, Hillary Clinton. > Clinton ran a pro-war campaign and evinced indifference to the questions of poverty and social inequality that dominated popular sentiment during the Democratic primary campaign. With Clinton widely despised in the working class as a personification of the corrupt political status quo, her candidacy produced a sharp drop in turnout among traditional Democratic voters and, in economically devastated former industrial states, a shift to Trump, who presented himself as the anti-establishment alternative, by a section of low-income workers who had voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012. Studies have shown that anti-war sentiment in these regions and hostility to Clinton’s anti-Russia agitation also played a major role. > The alienation from the Democrats has only deepened since the election, with the Democratic Party basing its opposition to the new administration not on Trump’s attacks on immigrants and democratic rights more broadly, his assault on social programs, or his appointment of fascists and Wall Street billionaires to top White House and cabinet posts, but rather on his reluctance to continue the confrontational policy against Russia initiated under Obama. Approval ratings for the Democrats have actually fallen at a faster rate than for the Republicans, according to a Gallup poll released in May. > Nothing is more frightening to the pseudo-left than the discrediting of the Democratic Party, which raises the specter of a break with bourgeois politics by the working class and the formation of a new, socialist working class movement. Organizations and publications such as the International Socialist Organization (ISO), Socialist Alternative and Jacobin are discussing some kind of political regroupment, either within the Democratic Party or nominally independent of it, to achieve their shared goal of shoring up and refurbishing the political credibility of that party and of capitalist politics overall. Toward this end, they continue to promote Sanders, who claims to be leading a “political revolution” to reform the Democratic Party. > Within this reactionary political milieu, the DSA’s star is rising. It is seen as an organization that could play a central role in these plans. Thus, the ISO had DSA-aligned Jacobin magazine co-sponsor its annual conference for the first time this summer, with DSA vice-chairman and Jacobin editor-in-chief Bhaskar Sunkara appearing as a featured speaker. > Socialist Alternative, which openly functioned as a faction of the Sanders campaign last year, is now prostrating itself before the DSA. It is calling on it to form a new “broad-left” political formation into which Socialist Alternative would liquidate itself. Socialist Alternative justifies this line by claiming that the DSA has shifted from its anti-communist, social democratic foundations since Occupy Wall Street in 2011 and the entry of the group around Sunkara into the organization. > In fact, few pseudo-left organizations, with the possible exception of Socialist Alternative itself, are as closely integrated into and function so openly as a faction of the Democratic Party as the DSA. The DSA’s top leadership includes Democratic Party luminaries, among them union bureaucrats such as Dolores Huerta (who supported Clinton over Sanders in the Democratic primaries) and celebrity intellectuals such as academic Cornel West and feminist writer and former CIA collaborator Gloria Steinem. The DSA endorsed Hillary Clinton in the general election in all but name, attempting to camouflage its position by calling for a “social movement” to defeat Trump in key swing states. After the election, it endorsed Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison in the contest for the chair of the Democratic National Committee. > Through its membership in the Socialist International, the DSA is affiliated with such organizations as the British Labour Party, the French Socialist Party and the German Social Democrats, all of which have carried out savage attacks on the working class and participated in neo-colonial wars in the Middle East and Africa while in government. > The DSA of today cannot be separated from its history. The predecessor organization of the DSA, the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC), emerged out of a split within the Socialist Party of America in 1972. The latter organization expelled the American supporters of the Russian Revolution from its ranks in 1919. > The founders of the DSOC, Michael Harrington in particular, had entered the Socialist Party more than a decade before 1972 as part of the tendency led by Max Shachtman, who split from the Trotskyist movement in 1940. The Shachtmanites, bending to the pressure of bourgeois public opinion in the wake of the Stalin-Hitler Pact, refused to uphold the defense of the Soviet Union. By 1950, this group was defending American imperialism in the Korean War and by 1961 Shachtman was publicly supporting the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. Such was Harrington’s anti-communist pedigree. > By 1972, Shachtman had essentially captured the rump of the nearly moribund Socialist Party. Harrington now criticized his mentor from the left. He drew close to the liberal wing of the anti-communist trade union bureaucracy, the Reutherite officialdom of the United Auto Workers, in particular. > From the beginning, DSOC’s orientation, in the DSA’s own words, was toward “building a strong coalition among progressive trade unionists, civil rights and feminist activists and the ‘new politics’ left-liberals in the McGovern wing of the Democrats.” Its fusion in 1982 with an organizational remnant of the 1960s generation of student protesters to form the DSA was a reflection of the latter’s shift to the right and abandonment of its former radical pretenses, which made the anti-communist foundations of the DSA attractive. > The rejection by the DSA of principled politics is such that it does not have a program or platform upon which its political activity is, at least nominally, based. However, a review of the DSA’s “national strategy document,” published last June but re-posted on the DSA website in advance of this week’s convention, demonstrates the anti-communist and nationalist orientation of this middle-class organization. > The title of the document, “Resistance Rising: Socialist Strategy in the Age of Political Revolution,” is itself significant. The use of the term “political revolution” reflects the DSA’s promotion of Bernie Sanders and the illusion that the Democrats can be transformed into a “people’s party” through popular pressure. Lest there be any doubt on this, the banner linking to the statement on the DSA’s website features a photo of a Sanders rally. The DSA’s support for the term used by Sanders above all signifies its opposition to social revolution, to a genuine social transformation that would bring the working class to power. Instead, like Sanders, it seeks to “purify” capitalism. > Radical democracy vs. socialism > The DSA statement is suffused with identity politics. One sub-heading calls for “Building Multiracial, Intentionally Intersectional Coalitions.” At several points, the DSA engages in self-flagellation for being “dominated by white activists.” > It promotes the reactionary Democratic Party narrative that Trump’s Electoral College victory was the result of the racism of the white working class. It states that “appeals to racism and fear will continue to gain traction among economically and socially insecure white voters--particularly men, who face the erosion of traditional gender prominence due to the gains of the feminist movement.” > From a theoretical standpoint, the most significant element of the DSA’s document is its rejection of the Marxist theory of the state as an instrument of class rule, and its substitution in its stead of a nebulous, non-class notion of socialism as “radical democracy.” > “[The] DSA believes that the fight for democratic socialism is one and the same as the fight for radical democracy, which we understand as the freedom of all people to determine all aspects of their lives to the greatest extent possible,” the document states. “Our vision entails nothing less than the radical democratization of all areas of life, not least of which is the economy. This simply means that democracy would be expanded beyond the election of political officials to include the democratic management of all businesses by the workers who comprise them and by the communities in which they operate.” > The DSA’s “radical democracy” would also include changes to the method of electing members of Congress, the abolition of the Senate and the establishment of vague “local participatory institutions.” > The DSA’s use of the term “democracy” is a non-class abstraction. Its call for “industrial democracy” leaves out precisely who will be participating in this “democracy” and in what capacity, not to mention who will actually own the means of production. In fact, the DSA’s conception of “radical democracy” means little more than the establishment of joint union-management boards, co-ops nominally owned by the workers, and other such initiatives that serve only to bind the workers hand-and-foot to the bosses. > Since the emergence of scientific socialism as first elaborated by Marx and Engels, socialists have explained that the state is an instrument of class rule. This is no less true for democratic governments than for authoritarian ones. In fact, socialists have always understood the bourgeois democratic state to be the form of government that best suits the needs of the class dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, which is why, as a general historical rule, the oldest and most established capitalist countries developed some form of democratic parliamentary system. > If, nevertheless, the ruling class in all of the old capitalist democracies is turning toward more openly authoritarian methods, this is the product of the massive concentration of wealth, which is incompatible with democratic forms of rule. The rule of the bourgeoisie is increasingly incompatible with the maintenance of past social reforms, and the crisis of capitalism is assuming revolutionary dimensions. As Lenin explained, a revolutionary situation requires not only that the masses cannot continue to live in the old way, but also that the ruling class can no longer rule in the old way. > The class character of the state, even the most “democratic,” explains why socialists since the time of Marx have insisted that the working class cannot “capture” the existing state machinery through elections, but must smash it and replace it with a state of its own, established on the basis of the dictatorship of the proletariat, understood in the Marxist sense of “dictatorship” as the political domination of a particular class. The working class, which by virtue of its relationship to the means of production is the antithesis of private property, takes power by establishing genuinely democratic forms of rule. The broad masses of people are for the first time actively involved in the management of social life, and economic policy is determined by social need, not private profit. > The DSA explicitly states that its vision of a “democratic socialist society” does not include the disappearance of class antagonisms. “It should always be remembered, however, that like every other form of society, a democratic socialist society cannot produce total social harmony,” the statement declares. “Such a society will always have to navigate among the competing claims of different groups and democratic political institutions will always be needed to arbitrate and mediate such conflict. Democratic socialism, that is, will not be the utopia that many socialists of old imagined.” > Instead of the alleged “utopia” of an end to class exploitation, achieved through a revolutionary movement led by a Marxist party, the DSA promotes the reactionary utopia of “democratic socialism” enacted through the Democratic Party and the reform of capitalism. “The nature of our electoral activism will vary based on local and political conditions,” the DSA writes. “But it will include supporting progressive and socialist candidates running for office, usually in Democratic primaries or as Democrats in general elections, but also in support of independent socialist and other third-party campaigns outside of the Democratic Party (emphasis added).” > In other words, the DSA will throw its support either behind Democratic Party candidates or the campaigns of third-party appendages of the Democrats such as the Green Party. > The DSA’s anticommunist politics > The slogan of “radical democracy” is consistent with the anti-communism that forms the bedrock of the DSA’s politics. The justification for the DSA’s opposition to the Russian Revolution is that it destroyed “democracy” by overthrowing the bourgeois Provisional Government, which jailed and shot revolutionaries and continued Russia’s involvement in the slaughter of the First World War. > The DSA equates the October Revolution, the most genuinely democratic revolution in history, in which the masses themselves took control of their own destiny, with totalitarianism and the crimes of Stalin, whose bureaucracy usurped power and destroyed workers’ democracy in the Soviet Union. In order to accomplish this counterrevolutionary task, Stalin murdered the entire generation of old Bolsheviks who had led the revolution, concentrating the full wrath of his police apparatus on Leon Trotsky and his supporters, who represented the conscious Marxist and internationalist opposition to the Stalin regime. > The DSA’s hostility to the Russian Revolution and its rejection of the Marxist assertion that the class struggle of the working class leads inevitably to the dictatorship of the proletariat is a practical political as well as a theoretical question. It is at the very core of the DSA’s opposition to the fight for socialist politics within the working class and its character as a counter-revolutionary organization. > Social democracy, of which the DSA is part, has upheld and defended the capitalist dictatorship over the working class for more than a century. This was definitively established with the support given by all of the major social democratic parties to their own national bourgeoisies in the first imperialist world war that began in 1914. Since the suppression of the 1918 German Revolution and the murder of the Marxist leaders Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg at the hands of the German Social Democracy, social democratic parties in power have not hesitated to use state violence to crush workers’ uprisings and rescue the capitalist class. If the DSA is given the opportunity, it will not hesitate to do the same in the United States. > Bhaskar Sunkara, in a column published in the New York Timestwo months ago, expressed the hostility of the DSA to the legacy of the Russian Revolution when he claimed that Lenin, once he returned to Russia in April of 1917, “set into motion the events that led to Stalin’s gulags.” To return socialism to “radical democracy,” Sunkara argued, it was necessary to return to the “early days of the Second International.” > His reference to the “early days” of the Second International, as opposed to its collapse as a socialist organization at the beginning of World War I, cannot conceal the fact that Sunkara is promoting the very aspects that led to its betrayal of socialism, including the domination of its day-to-day political activity by campaigns for reform, rather than Social Democracy’s positive contribution to the promotion and development of Marxism, which was carried forward after 1914 by Lenin, Trotsky and the Bolsheviks, and put into practice in the October Revolution. > Sunkara’s article, it should be noted, met with enthusiastic support from the ISO on its Socialist Worker website. > The DSA’s embrace of the “democratic” imperialist state is consistent with the complete silence of its strategy statement on American imperialism and the danger of war. The DSA is not merely indifferent to this question, however. Along with virtually all of the other pseudo-left organizations, it supports and identifies with the criminal wars waged by American imperialism. > The DSA has posted only two statements on its website in 2017 about foreign policy. While they are meant to appear as criticisms of US policy in the Middle East, they make clear the DSA’s actual support for the US war for regime-change in Syria, which has displaced millions and killed hundreds of thousands. After formally condemning the Trump administration’s cruise missile attack on a Syrian air base in a statement published in April, the DSA hastens to add that “[t]he DSA has also supported from spring 2011 onwards the massive and democratic Syrian uprising against the brutal Assad regime.” > The statement treats as good coin the putative justification for the attack--exposed as a lie by journalist Seymour Hersh--that the Syrian government carried out gas attacks against civilians. (An article published in Jacobin denounced Hersh’s article.) The DSA attempts to provide its pro-imperialist line with an anti-imperialist gloss by absurdly claiming that the US has “in effect” sided with the Assad regime and the Russian military. It does not attempt to reconcile the obvious contradiction between supposed US support for Assad and the cruise missile attack on the Syrian airbase. > The DSA statement places chief responsibility for the Syrian civil war on Russia and Iran, calling on the US to “engage in the necessary diplomacy to press Russia, Iran and Hezbollah to cease their military aid to the Assad dictatorship, as well as end United States and Gulf State funding of internal Syrian combatants.” This advice to the State Department is a clear signal to the American bourgeoisie of its support for US imperialism’s war drive and the escalating campaign against Russia, which raises the specter of nuclear war. > The DSA argues that the “democratic” imperialist powers in Western Europe are more progressive than the workers’ government established by the October Revolution. Thus, it claims that the reformist regimes in postwar Europe and America, not the establishment of the first workers’ state in history, “represents the high-water mark of working class strength” and “significant progress toward a democratic socialist transition.” > The DSA’s nostalgic tribute to the postwar welfare state underscores the delusionary and utopian character of its entire perspective. It promotes the idea that the reformist programs of that period can be revived, under conditions where, for forty years, the bourgeoisie throughout the world, and above all the United States, has been clawing back every social concession won by workers through more than a century of struggle. > A return to previous conditions is impossible because the driving force behind this social counterrevolution is not bad “neoliberal” policy, as the DSA claims, but the objective crisis of the capitalist system. What the DSA is really mourning is the longstanding decline of American capitalism, whose untrammeled dominance provided the foundation for the temporary restabilization of world capitalism after the Second World War and the ability of the bourgeoisie in the advanced countries to dispense modest reforms and engage in a policy of relative class compromise. > Such blindness to the objective roots of this historic decline and lack of any objective analysis of the crisis of American and world capitalism are characteristic of the politics of the DSA and the pseudo-left as a whole. > The DSA’s promotion of the postwar era as a model demonstrates precisely what it means when it refers, at the beginning of its document, to the “game changing” opportunities it sees for “leftists and progressives.” It is not referring to the growing shift to the left within the working class and the increasing alignment of workers’ experiences with the perspective of socialist revolution. Rather, with the crisis of capitalism having discredited all of the traditional institutions of the existing system, it sees itself and the pseudo-left as a whole as playing a more prominent and active role in diverting and smothering social opposition, including in positions of state power. Like Syriza in Greece, whose rise to power it cites as an example of the “left’s” re-emergence, it envisions the American pseudo-left being called upon to carry out historic betrayals. > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss From karenaram at hotmail.com Thu Aug 3 14:00:44 2017 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2017 14:00:44 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Max Blumenthal and Aron Mate nail it......see The Real News Message-ID: http://therealnews.com/t2/story:19670:Debate%3A-As-Trump-Drops-Rebels%2C-What-Next-for-Syria%3F -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cgestabrook at gmail.com Thu Aug 3 16:31:52 2017 From: cgestabrook at gmail.com (C G Estabrook) Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2017 11:31:52 -0500 Subject: [Peace] US war on Syria In-Reply-To: <79D6EC93-D21B-4AA1-8A48-95E8A6F7BC9C@gmail.com> References: <79D6EC93-D21B-4AA1-8A48-95E8A6F7BC9C@gmail.com> Message-ID: <98C069A4-6E78-4FAD-B804-901266384C54@gmail.com> https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/08/03/did-trump-really-end-the-cias-secret-war-in-syria/ I’m not sure this article is quite right, but the following is surely correct: "The demand for the immediate and total withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Syria and the Middle East must stand at the center of the U.S. antiwar movement’s efforts today.” —CGE From susanroseparenti at gmail.com Thu Aug 3 19:53:11 2017 From: susanroseparenti at gmail.com (Susan Parenti) Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2017 14:53:11 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Free for the First Comer--Full Over Full Bunk House Bunk Beds Message-ID: [image: Inline image 1][image: Inline image 2]Hi friends---we bought these 2 sets of bunk beds this spring for $50 each, and now have no further use for them. These bunk beds are of wood--not light weight---67" tall and 58" wide, with a ladder at the side. You'd need to come and pick them up. When we bought them the seller sold us the beds without the hardware, but it's pretty obvious what you need from the hardware store to put them together. Let me know if you want them, or know of someone who would. [image: Inline image 2] -- *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: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: IMG_1362.JPG Type: image/jpeg Size: 1684917 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: IMG_1362.JPG Type: image/jpeg Size: 1684917 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: IMG_1363.JPG Type: image/jpeg Size: 1621264 bytes Desc: not available URL: From divisek at yahoo.com Fri Aug 4 15:38:46 2017 From: divisek at yahoo.com (Dianna Visek) Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2017 15:38:46 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace] Is Trump's Russia Policy Being Hijacked? References: <1796730284.7438413.1501861126958.ref@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1796730284.7438413.1501861126958@mail.yahoo.com> Is Trump's Russia Policy Being Hijacked? | | | | Is Trump's Russia Policy Being Hijacked? Rasmussen Reports In crafting the platform in Cleveland on which Donald Trump would run, America Firsters inflicted a major defeat... | | | -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Mon Aug 7 13:12:47 2017 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2017 13:12:47 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: ON THE BEACH 2017. THE BECKONING OF NUCLEAR WAR. References: <81e01f026144a7a39810a239b.6beeae6966.20170807120826.11497f4f62.c5d8b609@mail197.atl121.mcsv.net> Message-ID: From: John Pilger > Subject: ON THE BEACH 2017. THE BECKONING OF NUCLEAR WAR. Date: August 7, 2017 at 05:09:15 PDT ON THE BEACH 2017. THE BECKONING OF NUCLEAR WAR. [https://gallery.mailchimp.com/81e01f026144a7a39810a239b/images/07abcc97-de9a-4e71-83f3-8fe878159d43.jpg] 4 August 2017 John Pilger writes - The US submarine captain says, "We've all got to die one day, some sooner and some later. The trouble always has been that you're never ready, because you don't know when it's coming. Well, now we do know and there's nothing to be done about it." He says he will be dead by September. It will take about a week to die, though no one can be sure. Animals live the longest. The war was over in a month. The United States, Russia and China were the protagonists. It is not clear if it was started by accident or mistake. There was no victor. The northern hemisphere is contaminated and lifeless now. A curtain of radioactivity is moving south towards Australia and New Zealand, southern Africa and South America. By September, the last cities, towns and villages will succumb. As in the north, most buildings will remain untouched, some illuminated by the last flickers of electric light. This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper These lines from T.S. Eliot's poem The Hollow Men appear at the beginning of Nevil Shute's novel On the Beach, which left me close to tears. The endorsements on the cover said the same. Published in 1957 at the height of the Cold War when too many writers were silent or cowed, it is a masterpiece. At first the language suggests a genteel relic; yet nothing I have read on nuclear war is as unyielding in its warning. No book is more urgent. Some readers will remember the black and white Hollywood film starring Gregory Peck as the US Navy commander who takes his submarine to Australia to await the silent, formless spectre descending on the last of the living world. I read On the Beach for the first time the other day, finishing it as the US Congress passed a law to wage economic war on Russia, the world's second most lethal nuclear power. There was no justification for this insane vote, except the promise of plunder. The "sanctions" are aimed at Europe, too, mainly Germany, which depends on Russian natural gas and on European companies that do legitimate business with Russia. In what passed for debate on Capitol Hill, the more garrulous senators left no doubt that the embargo was designed to force Europe to import expensive American gas. Their main aim seems to be war - real war. No provocation as extreme can suggest anything else. They seem to crave it, even though Americans have little idea what war is. The Civil War of 1861-5 was the last on their mainland. War is what the United States does to others. The only nation to have used nuclear weapons against human beings, they have since destroyed scores of governments, many of them democracies, and laid to waste whole societies - the million deaths in Iraq were a fraction of the carnage in Indo-China, which President Reagan called "a noble cause" and President Obama revised as the tragedy of an "exceptional people"He was not referring to the Vietnamese. Filming last year at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, I overheard a National Parks Service guide lecturing a school party of young teenagers. "Listen up," he said. "We lost 58,000 young soldiers in Vietnam, and they died defending your freedom." At a stroke, the truth was inverted. No freedom was defended. Freedom was destroyed. A peasant country was invaded and millions of its people were killed, maimed, dispossessed, poisoned; 60,000 of the invaders took their own lives. Listen up, indeed. A lobotomy is performed on each generation. Facts are removed. History is excised and replaced by what Time magazine calls "an eternal present". Harold Pinter described this as "manipulation of power worldwide, while masquerading as a force for universal good, a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis [which meant] that it never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest." Those who call themselves liberals or tendentiously "the left" are eager participants in this manipulation, and its brainwashing, which today revert to one name: Trump. Trump is mad, a fascist, a dupe of Russia. He is also a gift for "liberal brains pickled in the formaldehyde of identity politics", wrote Luciana Bohne memorably. The obsession with Trump the man - not Trump as a symptom and caricature of an enduring system - beckons great danger for all of us. While they pursue their fossilised anti-Russia agendas, narcissistic media such as the Washington Post, the BBC and the Guardian suppress the essence of the most important political story of our time as they warmonger on a scale I cannot remember in my lifetime. On 3 August, in contrast to the acreage the Guardian has given to drivel that the Russians conspired with Trump (reminiscent of the far-right smearing of John Kennedy as a "Soviet agent"), the paper buried, on page 16, news that the President of the United States was forced to sign a Congressional bill declaring economic war on Russia. Unlike every other Trump signing, this was conducted in virtual secrecy and attached with a caveat from Trump himself that it was "clearly unconstitutional". A coup against the man in the White House is under way. This is not because he is an odious human being, but because he has consistently made clear he does not want war with Russia. This glimpse of sanity, or simple pragmatism, is anathema to the "national security" managers who guard a system based on war, surveillance, armaments, threats and extreme capitalism. Martin Luther King called them "the greatest purveyors of violence in the world today". They have encircled Russia and China with missiles and a nuclear arsenal. They have used neo-Nazis to instal an unstable, aggressive regime on Russia's "borderland" - the way through which Hitler invaded, causing the deaths of 27 million people. Their goal is to dismember the modern Russian Federation. In response, "partnership" is a word used incessantly by Vladimir Putin - anything, it seems, that might halt an evangelical drive to war in the United States. Incredulity in Russia may have now turned to fear and perhaps a certain resolution. The Russians almost certainly have war-gamed nuclear counter strikes. Air-raid drills are not uncommon. Their history tells them to get ready. The threat is simultaneous. Russia is first, China is next. The US has just completed a huge military exercise with Australia known as Talisman Sabre. They rehearsed a blockade of the Malacca Straits and the South China Sea, through which pass China's economic lifelines. The admiral commanding the US Pacific fleet said that, "if required", he would nuke China. That he would say such a thing publicly in the current perfidious atmosphere begins to make fact of Nevil Shute's fiction. None of this is considered news. No connection is made as the bloodfest of Passchendaele a century ago is remembered. Honest reporting is no longer welcome in much of the media. Windbags, known as pundits, dominate: editors are infotainment or party line managers. Where there was once sub-editing, there is the liberation of axe-grinding clichés. Those journalists who do not comply are defenestrated. The urgency has plenty of precedents. In my film, The Coming War on China, John Bordne, a member of a US Air Force missile combat crew based in Okinawa, Japan, describes how in 1962 - during the Cuban missile crisis - he and his colleagues were "told to launch all the missiles" from their silos. Nuclear armed, the missiles were aimed at both China and Russia. A junior officer questioned this, and the order was eventually rescinded - but only after they were issued with service revolvers and ordered to shoot at others in a missile crew if they did not "stand down". At the height of the Cold War, the anti-communist hysteria in the United States was such that US officials who were on official business in China were accused of treason and sacked. In 1957 - the year Shute wrote On the Beach - no official in the State Department could speak the language of the world's most populous nation. Mandarin speakers were purged under strictures now echoed in the Congressional bill that has just passed, aimed at Russia. The bill was bipartisan. There is no fundamental difference between Democrats and Republicans. The terms "left" and "right" are meaningless. Most of America's modern wars were started not by conservatives, but by liberal Democrats. When Obama left office, he presided over a record seven wars, including America's longest war and an unprecedented campaign of extrajudicial killings - murder - by drones. In his last year, according to a Council on Foreign Relations study, Obama, the "reluctant liberal warrior", dropped 26,171 bombs - three bombs every hour, 24 hours a day. Having pledged to help "rid the world" of nuclear weapons, the Nobel Peace Laureate built more nuclear warheads than any president since the Cold War. Trump is a wimp by comparison. It was Obama - with his secretary of state Hillary Clinton at his side - who destroyed Libya as a modern state and launched the human stampede to Europe. At home, immigration groups knew him as the "deporter-in-chief". One of Obama's last acts as president was to sign a bill that handed a record $618billion to the Pentagon, reflecting the soaring ascendancy of fascist militarism in the governance of the United States. Trump has endorsed this. Buried in the detail was the establishment of a "Center for Information Analysis and Response". This is a ministry of truth. It is tasked with providing an "official narrative of facts" that will prepare us for the real possibility of nuclear war - if we allow it. [Twitter] [Facebook] [Website] Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cgestabrook at gmail.com Mon Aug 7 16:38:51 2017 From: cgestabrook at gmail.com (C G Estabrook) Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2017 11:38:51 -0500 Subject: [Peace] AWARE ON THE AIR format In-Reply-To: <98C069A4-6E78-4FAD-B804-901266384C54@gmail.com> References: <79D6EC93-D21B-4AA1-8A48-95E8A6F7BC9C@gmail.com> <98C069A4-6E78-4FAD-B804-901266384C54@gmail.com> Message-ID: <73B789D8-4983-4529-91FC-52CC1508DC6E@gmail.com> AWARE ON THE AIR is a weekly discussion of US war-making, presented on Urbana Public Television and YouTube by the ANTI-WAR ANTI-RACISM EFFORT of Champaign-Urbana. Members & friends of AWARE are invited to participate in this unrehearsed program, which is recorded from noon to 1pm on Tuesdays in the studios of UPTV, 400 South Vine Street, Urbana. The format of the show is that the participants take turns presenting “nuggets” of war news - often ignored by mainstream media - for discussion by the other participants. ### From stuartnlevy at gmail.com Mon Aug 7 18:31:02 2017 From: stuartnlevy at gmail.com (Stuart Levy) Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2017 13:31:02 -0500 Subject: [Peace] School Supplies needed for CU Days, this weekend 8/11-12 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hello peaceable people, This is a request about, maybe, a different sort of contribution to peace -- taking up a collection of/for school supplies for children in our town. This weekend (Fri-Sat Aug 11-12) is the annual C-U Days festival at Douglass Park in north Champaign. That is a low and moderate income part of town, with a large Black population. School supplies are expensive. The local social justice group, Build Programs, Not Jails, will have a table there - both to talk about public investment in public safety and alternatives to incarceration, and to offer school supplies without charge to any family who needs some. I'm contributing, and I'll be at the park for some of Saturday afternoon. If you're willing to contribute something too, here are some ways to help: 1. Online donations: https://fundly.com/cu-days-school-supplies 2. Checks written to: CU Citizens for Peace and Justice (they are a registered non-profit) 3. Donate school supplies. See list below of what's most needed. You could bring them by Douglass Park during C-U Days ( https://champaignparks.com/cu-days/ ), 6-9pm Friday or Saturday starting at 11am. If that is inconvenient, please let me know and we can arrange something! *Paper* College rule Loose leaf (200 count) 1/4-inch graph paper Pocket folders, 3 hole punch Composition notebook Spiral Notebook (wide / college rule) 3x5 Index card Post-it notes *Pens / etc* #2 Pencils Pens (Blue/black) Highlighters Erasers Sharpeners *Art Supplies* Crayons (16 count / 24 count) Colored Pencils Washable Markers Elmer's glue (7 5/8 fl oz, or 4 oz) Glue sticks *Other* Rulers Hand Sanitizers Facial tissues Ziploc bags (Gallon / Sandwich) Book bags Scientific calculator (Casio fx-300MS) Candy (preferably healthy options) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: School Supply List.xlsx Type: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet Size: 9666 bytes Desc: not available URL: From r-szoke at illinois.edu Tue Aug 8 02:01:24 2017 From: r-szoke at illinois.edu (Szoke, Ron) Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2017 02:01:24 +0000 Subject: [Peace] School Supplies also needed for Thursday, Aug. 10th, in Urbana In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <07C6E85E-E9E4-4972-B7B1-DF490B96FB8A@illinois.edu> Let me add a another notice concerning a $5 lunch buffet to benefit & fill backpacks for M.L. King school in Urbana: “King School has the highest rate of free & reduced lunches & the highest homeless rate of all schools in the Urbana district. Without our help, most of these students would not have a backpack or supplies at all. "We will also be accepting donations of children clothing, socks & new underwear. . . . Our goal is $3,000.” Thursday, August 10th, 11 am to 2 pm, $5 for all you can eat buffet or carry out. At Piato Cafe inside Lincoln Square Mall, Urbana. ~~ Ron Szoke From karenaram at hotmail.com Wed Aug 9 12:50:03 2017 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2017 12:50:03 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Greens call for Peace Action Committee Message-ID: [https://scontent.ford1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-1/p80x80/20155613_10154490893476394_4901231235633439312_n.jpg?oh=9a541ef6efadb3f41fdff51f60699ee2&oe=59F96A67] Rich Whitney 1 hr Dear Friends, please share to other Green pages and list-serves: Call to Re-Constitute Green Peace Action Committee We the undersigned seek to re-constitute the Green Peace Action Committee, a former standing committee of the Green Party of the United States that has been inactive for several years. At a time when our nation is committing brazenly illegal, immoral and indefensible acts of war in Syria, Yemen, elsewhere in the Middle East and Africa and engaging in dangerous acts of brinksmanship with Russia, China and North Korea, it is essential that the Green Party play a strong role in building a more effective peace movement and stand tall as a clear and uncompromising voice against war, the military-industrial complex and the institutional causes of war. We call upon other concerned Greens to volunteer to join our Committee, so that it can be activated and recognized by the GP-US and begin to engage in this vital task. Please note that you will need to seek appointment or approval by your state party before you can join this Committee in an official capacity. If interested in being a part of this important work, please contact Interim Co-Chairs Deanna Dee Taylor at deedeelivesgreen at greenpartyutah.com and Rich Whitney at richwhitney at frontier.com. Please note that our next conference call is set for Wednesday, August 16th, at 5pm Eastern Time. Please contact the Interim Co-Chairs if you are willing and able to participate in the call. Signed, Deanna Dee Taylor, Utah Kim Murphy, Utah Rich Whitney, Illinois Wes Gaige, Texas Jacqui Deveneau, Maine Logan Martinez, Ohio Mike DeRosa, Connecticut Amy Vas Nunes, Connecticut Eugene Woloszyn, Connecticut -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From susanroseparenti at gmail.com Thu Aug 10 15:10:56 2017 From: susanroseparenti at gmail.com (Susan Parenti) Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2017 10:10:56 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Would you like to be part of a touring play this autumn? Spread the word! Message-ID: *LOOKING FOR ACTORS* FOR A PLAY ABOUT GLOBAL MIGRATION IN THE MIDWEST titled "Glo Heart / Displaced Lullaby" based on a book by Faranak Miraftab, *GLOBAL HEARTLAND:** Displaced Labor, Transnational Lives, and Local Placemaking. * *Who we are looking for:* We are looking for actors who have personal experience with the issues of the play (particularly the stories of the workers from Togo, Michoacán, and Detroit) and an interest in performance as a way to engage audiences with these issues. Acting experience is helpful but not required. *Plans and contact*: We are planning to take the play on tour to community spaces in Illinois and elsewhere in the midwest in October & November 2017. We would like to begin rehearsals before the end of August. The first performance is scheduled for September 22 at the University Y as part of Welcoming Week. We would like to hear from you whatever your level of interest: email enslin.mark at gmail.com phone 212-518-3018. *Who we are: * The play was written by Susan Parenti and Mark Enslin, composers and performers of experimental music and theater connected to desires for egalitarian, participatory social change. Co-founders of the School for Designing a Society. Faranak Miraftab approached us with the proposal for this project about three years ago, and the present script follows several stages of collaboration with other authors. The play is directed by Latrelle Bright, a freelance theatre maker focused on directing, solo performance and devising. When not making theatre, she uses theatre exercises and techniques to engage groups and communities in arts-based civic dialogue. *The book and the play:* The book follows the lives of workers from Togo, Mexico, and Detroit who were recruited by Cargill in waves over the last 30 years. In the play, we have three soliloquies by people from these places giving some account of their path from home to the plant at Beardstown. There are also satirical subplots -- a film crew making a propaganda movie about immigration; a pair of unemployed locals trying to figure out what's happening in their town; and a disastrous hole in the road giving rise to an industry trying to exploit the disaster. The stories include acknowledgment that Beardstown was a "sundown town" and how the history of racism in our area has affected these stories, and also how "immigrant" has become a political buzzword overshadowing people's actual lives. *Our main goals with the play:* • To present to immigrant and African American audiences a sense of witness and acknowledgment of collective experience and to convey a fundamental message of solidarity; • To show to 3rd, 4th, 5th generation European American audiences something of the hardship but also contribution to Beardstown, to Illinois, to the Midwest, and to the US made by recent migrant workers. • To offer, with humor and seriousness, an alternate framing of the current immigration debate. -- *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 cgestabrook at gmail.com Fri Aug 11 00:02:04 2017 From: cgestabrook at gmail.com (C G Estabrook) Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2017 19:02:04 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Nuclear Threats a US Tradition, the Indecent Black Misleadership Class, UAW Defeat at Nissan: BA Report for August 9, 2017 References: Message-ID: <0469EC25-0AC4-4F76-9F89-5B6FE45E7F51@gmail.com> > Begin forwarded message: > > From: "Black Agenda Report" > Subject: Nuclear Threats a US Tradition, the Indecent Black Misleadership Class, UAW Defeat at Nissan: BA Report for August 9, 2017 > Date: August 10, 2017 at 7:00:10 PM CDT > To: "Cgestabrook" > Reply-To: publisher at blackagendareport.com > > > You received this email either because you are subscribed to Black Agenda Report's weekly email notification of new content at www.blackagendareport.com or because someone forwarded it to you. > Every US President Makes Unilateral Nuclear Threats. It's an American Tradition. > Bruce A. Dixon , BAR managing editor > Every US president since Harry Truman has menaced humanity with unilateral nuclear destruction. When Trump balls up his little fists and bleats about raining death and destruction he's following in the footsteps of the last dozen presidents. He's making America great again. And again. > > > The Indecency of the Black Misleadership Class > by BAR executive editor Glen Ford > If Rep, Barbara Lee (D-CA) is among the best of the black political class we're in deep trouble. Our cohort of black politicians are self-serving cowards, utterly unfit to lead anything, least of all 40 million African Americans. > > > Freedom Rider: UAW Loses Election at Mississippi Nissan Plant > by BAR Senior Columnist Margaret Kimberley > There should and there will be a lot of searching analysis to determine how and why the UAW failed to win its union election at Nissan's Canton Mississippi plant. Maybe they relied too much on rallying outside support, and not enough on slow and patient organizing on the shop floor. Maybe it was something else. In any case, the struggle will continue. > > > 5.4 Million Dead Since 1998 in Congo Genocide: An Interview with Sylvester Mido > by BAR contributor Ann Garrison > In 1998 the US puppet armies of Rwanda and Uganda invaded neighboring Congo, followed by armed forces from five other African nations. Millions of Congolese perished, as their nation's wealth plundered to enrich African warlords and sustain the industrial engines of Western Europe, the US and China. The killing goes on to this day. > > Barbara Lee and Tulsi Gabbard Join the War Party > The Democrats’ two leading congressional dissidents have finally > surrendered, now that the party has “taken the lead in the project of endless war.” U.S. imperialism demands unanimous support from its servants in Congress. > > > “Reparations is Dead” Authors Seek to Spark Public Discussion of New Legal Strategy > Dr. Jahi Issa , Reggie A. Mabry , Patrick Delices > The authors elaborate on their contention that activists have bungled the legal battle for reparations. They are willing to debate N’Cobra, December 12th Movement, Dr. Ron Daniels, Assemblyman Charles Barron, Dr. > Claude Anderson, Randall Robinson, Ta Nehisi Coates and others. > > Black Agenda Radio, week of August 7, 2017 > This week BA Radio talks to Dr. Gerald Horne about the latest predicaments caused by the US drive for world domination, > to UNAC's Sara Flounders about the 1,000 overseas military bases maintained by the US, and to the Sentencing Project's Marc Mauer on Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who blames an alleged rise in crime on Trump's predecessor President Obama. > Click the link for the whole show, or any of the next three links for those individual segments. > > > Anti-War Coalition: Shut Down U.S. Global Empire of Bases > “Any campaign which is really talking about U.S. wars and U.S. intervention has to address the role of the foreign military bases and aircraft carriers, which are huge floating military bases,” said Sara Flounders, of the United National Anti-War Coalition. UNAC has been joined by other peace organizations in demanding closure of the approximately 1,000 overseas U.S. bases. This “infrastructure of U.S. imperialism,” said Flounders, “exercises total control over the economies and social and political life of countries all over the world,” and “completely distorts life here in the United States.” > > > U.S. Aims to Claim Venezuelan Oil > U.S. efforts to topple the socialist government in Venezuela are largely driven by Washington’s quest to control the global energy market. “The energy question hovers above all others,” said Dr. Gerald Horne, the prolific author and professor of history and African American Studies at the University of Houston. “It is felt among rightwing Texas oil men that if the United States can get a stranglehold over Venezuelan oil, then Texas and the U.S. will be in position to dominate what remains of the oil industry” in the future, said Horne. “Washington feels it is on a roll” with the rise of rightwing governments in Brazil and Argentina, said Horne. > > > Sessions Blames Obama for Crime > Attorney General Jeff Sessions claims crime has gone up in some U.S. cities because the Obama administration was too lenient in sentencing offenders. But the facts don’t back him up, according to Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project, in Washington. “It’s discouraging that, in the 21st century, we’re making policy decisions based on sound bites and gut instincts rather than evidence,” said Mauer. “There is no lack of evidence to show that mass incarceration has been counter-productive to public safety and devastating for low-income communities of color.” > > > Richard B. Moore: “Dogs and Slaves are Named by Their Masters; Free Men Name Themselves!" > by Norman Otis Richmond aka Jalal’ > Not so very long ago, most Black Americans answered to the term “Negro.” But, not Richard B. Moore, a “race man” who was also a socialist and a member of the African Blood Brotherhood, the Black Panthers of the 1920s. Moore later “joined the Communist Party and stayed until he was expelled in 1942 for being an African-American Nationalist.” > > > “Nissan, You Made Us Mad”: Union Promises to Fight Mississippi Defeat > by Mike Elk > A coalition of community groups, students, clergy and environmentalists joined with labor to attempt to unionize the Nissan auto plant in Canton, Mississippi. “Despite having only a narrow majority of Nissan workers signing cards, the union decided it was time to call an election.” But Nissan won this time with more than 60 percent of the vote. > > The Latest Challenges to the South's Felony Disenfranchisement Laws > by Olivia Paschal > Florida accounts for almost half of the 6.1 million Americans that cannot vote because of a felony conviction. Every state in the South disenfranchised felons after the Civil War, “for the specific purpose of disenfranchising as many emancipated slaves as possible.” Today’s laws have the same effect on their descendants. > > Tillerson Threatens Regime Change in Venezuela > TeleSur > President Trump’s Secretary of State hhttps://blackagendareport.com/felony-disenfrachisement-in-the-south as made it explicitly clear that the U.S. wants regime change in Venezuela. The country is under “imperialist attack,” said President Nicolás Maduro, whose personal assets have been targeted. “I feel proud to be sanctioned, Mister Imperialist Donald Trump,” said Maduro. > > Cuba Trains Medical Students From the US and Around the World Free > Cuba News Agency > Under Fidel Castro’s direction, Cuban became a “medical superpower,” setting new standards for global solidarity in the interests of human health. Cuba’s Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) has been training students from the United States to be doctors since 1999, and “has graduated more than 28,500 doctors from 103 countries, free of charge > > > > An Anatomy of the Black South African “Middle Class” > by Henning Melber > The question of who is “middle class” is as perplexing in Black South Africa as it is in Black America. A study of residents of Soweto showed “two-thirds of the respondents classified themselves as middle class” -- far more than called themselves “working class.” The term is largely aspirational, but to what do they aspire? > 190 Pemberton Ave, Plainfield, NJ 07060, United States > You may unsubscribe or change your contact details at any time. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gwoodiii3 at gmail.com Fri Aug 11 18:21:27 2017 From: gwoodiii3 at gmail.com (Gus Wood) Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2017 13:21:27 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: [campus_labor] GEO Rally for Fair Contract. Next week! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Natalie Nagel" Date: Aug 10, 2017 1:19 PM Subject: [campus_labor] GEO Rally for Fair Contract. Next week! To: Cc: Hi all, > Here is the info on GEO's rally next week. The actual rally will be on > the quad from 12-1 on Wednesday 8/16. We will still have our Weekly > Wednesday Work-In from 11-11:45 in the Courtyard Cafe. > > Facebook event link > > ------------------------------ > > On August 15th, the GEO's contract with the UIUC administration expires. > Since March, the GEO has been bargaining for a new, more equitable contract > centered around the four pillars voted by our membership: Tuition Waivers > and Fees, Wages, Healthcare, and Access and Equality. And although we have > already won a major victory by expanding our non-discrimination clause, due > to stalling on the part of the administration we have yet to make progress > in many key areas--and we haven't even started discussing some of the more > contentious issues such as healthcare and wages. > > On August 16th, the day after our contract expires, join us as we rally on > the quad to demonstrate our unity and power and send a clear message to the > administration: they need to work with us on creating a fair contract for > all graduate employees. From 11-11:45, GEO members will be in the Courtyard > Cafe of the Illini Union with materials to make signs and posters, and the > rally will begin at noon. Our friends in AFSCME Local 3700 also have a > contract about to expire, so we stand in solidarity with them as well! > > Speakers: TBA > Exact Location on Quad: TBA > > -- > Natalie Nagel, PhD > Staff Organizer > Graduate Employees' Organization > IFT/AFT 6300, AFL-CIO > 317-652-7298 <(317)%20652-7298> > > -- > Campus Labor List > Graduate Employees’ Organization > 809 S. 5th St., Geneva Room > Champaign, IL 61820 > Phone: 217-344-8283 <(217)%20344-8283> > Email: geo at uigeo.org > Website: https://www.uigeo.org > Twitter: @geo_uiuc > Facebook: @uigeo @geosolcomm > Instagram: @geo_uiuc > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Campus Labor List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to campuslaborlist+unsubscribe at uigeo.org. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/a/uigeo.org/group/ > campuslaborlist/. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/a/uigeo.org/d/optout. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cgestabrook at gmail.com Fri Aug 11 23:06:41 2017 From: cgestabrook at gmail.com (C G Estabrook) Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2017 18:06:41 -0500 Subject: [Peace] News from Neptune for August 11 Message-ID: <85B98C05-1166-4CA9-8F80-AC582C5C2844@gmail.com> David Green and I discuss the news of the week and its coverage by the media on a (what else?) NUCLEAR WARS edition: >. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davegreen84 at yahoo.com Sat Aug 12 17:52:24 2017 From: davegreen84 at yahoo.com (David Green) Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2017 17:52:24 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Peace] Farmers Market References: <1735047643.571111.1502560344483.ref@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1735047643.571111.1502560344483@mail.yahoo.com> A good morning at the Farmers Market, aided of course by the great weather; thanks to Stuart, Carl, Nick, Grant, and Matt for helping out. DG -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From deb.pdamerica at gmail.com Tue Aug 15 22:21:10 2017 From: deb.pdamerica at gmail.com (Debra Schrishuhn) Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2017 17:21:10 -0500 Subject: [Peace] please help spread our petition to oppose pardon of racist Arpaio Message-ID: Please sign and spread on social media. Deadline for signatures is Monday. Thanks Deb Join Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) in sending a message to Donald Trump and his alt-right, confederate, neo-Nazi supporters. No pardons for white supremacy. Trump grudgingly distanced himself from White supremacist violence and racist terrorism (before he defended them again this afternoon). He is now preparing to pardon former sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was convicted of criminally and flagrantly disregarding a federal judge’s order to halt immigration round-ups that led to abuse of minorities in Maricopa County, Arizona. Sign the Petition: NO Pardons for White Supremacy! Tell Trump You Oppose Him Pardoning Joe Arpaio: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/no-pardon-for-white-supremacy/ From cgestabrook at gmail.com Wed Aug 16 21:52:20 2017 From: cgestabrook at gmail.com (C G Estabrook) Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2017 16:52:20 -0500 Subject: [Peace] The US war in Afghanistan In-Reply-To: <85B98C05-1166-4CA9-8F80-AC582C5C2844@gmail.com> References: <85B98C05-1166-4CA9-8F80-AC582C5C2844@gmail.com> Message-ID: <98ACC34A-3EA8-4772-BFD0-BEEE10D971C4@gmail.com> > "...a meeting, chaired by Vice President Pence, was held at the beginning of August, and three principals were tasked to come up with ‘creative' options for Trump to consider: [National Security Adviser] McMaster, CIA chief Mike Pompeo, and [Attorney General] Sessions. "McMaster initially came up with a plan for inserting 50,000 more troops into Afghanistan, but scaled it back after realizing Trump would never go for it. Both Bannon and Pompeo want to lighten the US footprint, with the former coming up with a problematic scheme to ‘privatize' the military campaign, and the latter wanting to basically farm it out to the CIA and Special Operations units. As for Sessions, he’s the most radical of the anti-interventionists... "Sessions, stalwart of the America First camp, has long been ‘the biggest skeptic in the room’ when the subject of a continued presence in Afghanistan arises in meetings of Trump’s war cabinet ... ‘The A.G. asks the same question: Is this what we were elected to do? And the answer to the question is no.’” —CGE -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From naiman at justforeignpolicy.org Thu Aug 17 20:05:14 2017 From: naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (Robert Naiman) Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2017 15:05:14 -0500 Subject: [Peace] J Street: Censure Trump Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Dylan Williams, J Street Date: Thu, Aug 17, 2017 at 2:32 PM Subject: Censure Trump To: "Mr. Robert Naiman" TELL CONGRESS: Censure President Trump for his defense of white supremacists and neo-Nazis. [image: J Street] *TELL CONGRESS: Censure President Trump for his defense of white supremacists and neo-Nazis.* *TAKE ACTION »* Robert -- With his remarks this week about what happened in Charlottesville, President Trump disgraced himself and his office -- and horrified our country. We’ve seen a lot of unacceptable behavior and rhetoric from this president and his administration. But giving praise and cover to neo-Nazis and white supremacists crosses every line imaginable. This kind of outrage requires an official rebuke from Congress. Members of the House and Senate must go beyond condemning Trump -- they should pass a resolution to officially censure him for his defense of hateful extremists. We’re partnering with our friends at MoveOn.org to demand that Congress do just that. *TAKE ACTION NOW: Tell Representative Rodney Davis and Senators Richard J. Durbin and Tammy Duckworth to back the formal censure of President Trump.* Representatives Jerry Nadler, Bonnie Watson Coleman and Pramila Jayapal are leading this effort. They’ll introduce legislation shortly to censure Trump for his behavior after Charlottesville and urge him to fire employees, like Sebastian Gorka and Steve Bannon, who cater to white supremacists. Every member of Congress -- regardless of party -- should back them up. A formal censure would send a message to President Trump that his conduct is unacceptable -- and show the world that his behavior does not represent American values. *Join J Street and MoveOn: Call on Congress to censure President Trump for his defense of neo-Nazis and white supremacists. * Thanks, Dylan Williams VP for Government Affairs DONATE [image: Facebook] [image: Twitter] © 2017 J Street | www.jstreet.org | info at jstreet.org J Street is the political home for pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans who want Israel to be secure, democratic and the national home of the Jewish people. Working in American politics and the Jewish community, we advocate policies that advance shared US and Israeli interests as well as Jewish and democratic values, leading to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cgestabrook at gmail.com Sat Aug 19 18:38:02 2017 From: cgestabrook at gmail.com (C G Estabrook) Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2017 13:38:02 -0500 Subject: [Peace] What does Bannon's exit mean? Message-ID: <5420A983-FAD1-4FDF-8801-2E6389B6F00B@gmail.com> https://sputniknews.com/columnists/201708191056603401-steve-bannon-white-house-trump-war/ "Hysteria reigns on what is essentially a fight of identity versus class politics. The key variable to watch from now on is how — and if — Trump, helped by outsider Bannon, may emerge as the winner, finally empowered to implement economic nationalism.” —CGE "American privilege is being able to celebrate the removal of the only figure in the administration who was resisting the US war machine because he has said offensive things.” --Caitlin Johnstone From cgestabrook at gmail.com Sun Aug 20 23:27:12 2017 From: cgestabrook at gmail.com (C G Estabrook) Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2017 18:27:12 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Afghanistan Message-ID: If the president doesn't announce a complete withdrawal of US (and Nato) troops (and weapons) from Afghanistan, there should be major antiwar demonstrations this week. Shut it down. —CGE From galliher at illinois.edu Mon Aug 21 18:38:50 2017 From: galliher at illinois.edu (Carl G. Estabrook) Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2017 13:38:50 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Is the DMCW the first CW to be raided by the FBI? Phil Runkel's answer .... waiting for the other show to fall .... References: <36f4bdc4-02f0-40c5-b427-479ede2ffabd@googlegroups.com> Message-ID: > Begin forwarded message: > > From: Frank Cordaro > Subject: Is the DMCW the first CW to be raided by the FBI? Phil Runkel's answer .... waiting for the other show to fall .... > Date: August 21, 2017 at 1:05:55 PM CDT > To: "A National Catholic Worker List:" > Reply-To: > > Tens days since the FBI Raided the Phil Berrigan CW House .... > > > Jess & Ruby - Mississippi Stand page & info.... > http://www.mississippistand.com/statement > Donate to Jess and Ruby's deffense fund: > http://www.mississippistand.com/donate > --- > > FC's posting of Jess and Ruby's post coming out confessions July 24 - Aug 13, 2017 > https://frankcordaro.wordpress.com/2017/07/25/postings-from-jess-rubys-pipeline-outing-july-24-25/ > > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "A National Catholic Worker List:" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to National-CW-E-mail-List+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com . > To post to this group, send email to National-CW-E-mail-List at googlegroups.com . > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/National-CW-E-mail-List . > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout . -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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Name: FBI Raid DM Reg story.jpeg Type: image/jpeg Size: 124999 bytes Desc: not available URL: From naiman at justforeignpolicy.org Tue Aug 22 22:40:30 2017 From: naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (Robert Naiman) Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2017 17:40:30 -0500 Subject: [Peace] JFP alert: Tomorrow, we're challenging McCaskill's support for Saudi war crimes in Yemen Message-ID: If you have people in Missouri, please pass this along. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Robert Naiman, Just Foreign Policy Date: Tue, Aug 22, 2017 at 5:30 PM Subject: Tomorrow, we're challenging McCaskill's support for Saudi war crimes in Yemen To: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com [image: Just Foreign Policy] Dear Robert, Tomorrow, I'm going to St. Louis to deliver Missouri petitions to *Senator Claire McCaskill*, urging her to stop arming Saudi Arabia's war crimes in Yemen. *Please sign and share our petition now *, so McCaskill will know that voters across Missouri want her to stop voting to arm Saudi Arabia's war and blockade that is killing Yemeni children from malnutrition and cholera every day. And if you happen to be in St. Louis and could come, or know others who could come, the sign-up is *here *. Thanks for all you do to help make U.S. foreign policy more just, Robert Naiman Just Foreign Policy *If you think our work is important, support us with a $17 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 Wed Aug 23 15:54:16 2017 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2017 15:54:16 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Worthwhile discussion References: <089e0821f7803e002705576db5a9@google.com> Message-ID: [http://s.ytimg.com/yt/img/email/digest/email_header.png] aramkaren64 at gmail.com has shared a video playlist with you on YouTube. [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/oGvDgzGll2I/hqdefault.jpg] 157 videos [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/8F4ypFtmK_I/mqdefault.jpg] [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/IGv5J5o_QZQ/mqdefault.jpg] [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/l8xLon7ST0U/mqdefault.jpg] AWARE on the Air PLAYLIST by UPTV6 Help center • Report spam ©2017 YouTube, LLC 901 Cherry Ave, San Bruno, CA 94066, USA -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From susanroseparenti at gmail.com Fri Aug 25 22:51:17 2017 From: susanroseparenti at gmail.com (Susan Parenti) Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2017 17:51:17 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Hiring help this weekend---from meadow Message-ID: Comrades,. I am seeking assistance in making a house I bought, become a a habitable home for two disabled women in our beloved Urbana. If you or someone you know, has some talent for tools, or craft in creating, or can just handle a hammer. I would like to hire you to come help. I am seeking to pay ten to fifteen dollars an hour for help in repairing siding this weekend (Saturday August 26- Sunday August 27). In addition if you have building supplies you no longer need, appliances you want to sell, or a love for landscaping and advice for the overwhelmed, I am looking for those in the long term. You can reach me here or by phone at 217-369-1316 In solidarity, Meadow p.s. My well loved and frequently lent truck has come to an end. As it was so often borrowed I doubt there are many others around- but seems like now I am on the asking end. Got a truck I can beg, borrow, or rent? -- *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 Fri Aug 25 22:54:09 2017 From: susanroseparenti at gmail.com (Susan Parenti) Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2017 17:54:09 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Meadow's email Message-ID: meadow.jones at gmail.com 217-369-1316 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From grapes17 at gmail.com Sat Aug 26 14:42:55 2017 From: grapes17 at gmail.com (James M.) Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2017 09:42:55 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Champaign County Voters Alliance Meeting Today Message-ID: Hi all, Today at 5-6pm we are hosting our first meeting at the Champaign Public Library (meeting room 215). We will be discussing our plans for Quad Day (which is tomorrow), and discussing our plans for September. We are a non-partisan group, and our goal is to increase voter-turnout by as much as possible in the upcoming primary election March 20th. We want to do a lot more than door knocking & voter registration, and we could certainly use any additional help that wants to pitch in. Thanks :) James M. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Sat Aug 26 22:07:46 2017 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2017 22:07:46 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Letter from colleagues of Prof Chayan References: Message-ID: Welcome to the real Thailand, land of smiles…….. > > > http://www.newmandala.org/letter-pm-prayut-friends-prof-chayan/ From naiman at justforeignpolicy.org Sun Aug 27 19:50:41 2017 From: naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (Robert Naiman) Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2017 14:50:41 -0500 Subject: [Peace] NG: Five Dems appearing at IL-13 candidate forum at UIUC 9/5 Message-ID: Unfortunately, I'm going to be in St. Louis that day, hassling Claire McCaskill for voting to arm Saudi Arabia. Let's see if we can get anyone to go to this IL-13 forum and ask the candidates if they support or oppose arming the famine-producing Saudi war in Yemen and whether they support invoking the War Powers Resolution to force a vote on withdrawing U.S. participation from Saudi Arabia's war - including ending the U.S. refueling of Saudi/UAE planes bombing Yemen - given that U.S. participation in the war has never been authorized by Congress. [...] — a forum featuring the five Democratic candidate for Congress in the 13th Congressional District will be held from *6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.* on *Tuesday, Sept. 5* at a site to be determined on the University of Illinois campus. The five candidates are: Jonathan Ebel of Urbana, Dr. David Gill of Bloomington, Erik Jones of Edwardsville, Betsy Londrigan of Springfield and Benjamin Webb of Normal. All are seeking the seat now held by U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville. The forum will be moderated by UI journalism Professor Jennifer Follis and Max Weiss, the communications director at the Illini Democrats. [...] http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2017-08-27/tom-kacich-vision-remains-unclear-county-exec-position.html === Robert Naiman Policy Director Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (202) 448-2898 x1 House: Use War Powers to Save A Million Yemeni Kids from Cholera & Famine https://petitions.moveon.org/sign/force-vote-on-saudi-war?r_by=1135580 @clairecmc, @SenDonnelly, @Sen_JoeManchin, @MarkWarner, @SenBillNelson: #StopArmingSaudi War Crimes in Yemen https://petitions.moveon.org/sign/senate-stop-arming-saudi?r_by=1135580 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kmedina67 at gmail.com Mon Aug 28 22:03:35 2017 From: kmedina67 at gmail.com (Karen Medina) Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2017 17:03:35 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Program on Active Hope at Quaker Meetinghouse In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Dear Peace, The local Friends Meeting (Quakers) and Faith in Place would like to invite AWARE and friends of AWARE to a few events: * Event: Active Hope When: Saturday, September 30, 10:00 am to noon, Where: Urbana-Champaign Friends Meetinghouse, 1904 E. Main St., Urbana. Description: Sharon Monday will provide an overview of the practice of active hope (see a longer description below and on the attachment) * Event: A retreat, *Healing Earth’s Healers*, When: Friday, November 3 (7:00 – 9:00 pm) and Saturday, November 4 (9:00 am – 5:00 pm) Where: Friends Meetinghouse / 1904 E. Main St., Urbana, IL. Description: The retreat, sponsored by Faith in Place, will provide a more intensive experience with group exercises, time for reflection, dialogue, music, and more. * Event: Stories of Standing Rock and the Sapara people in the Amazon. Where: First Mennonite Church, 902 W. Springfield, Urbana, When: Thursday, November 2 at 7:00 pm. Description: The event is a fundraiser for Gloria Ushigua, an activist working on behalf of the Sapara Women’s Association to stop plans for exploration and exploitation of their tribal territory by an oil company. Some events require an RSVP. See a longer description below and on the attachment ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Charlotte Green Subject: Program on Active Hope at Quaker Meetinghouse Hi Karen, The Friends would like to invite the public to our program on Active Hope as well as the other two events listed in the following announcement. Could you forward this to the AWARE listserve? I have attached the announcement, also. Thanks, Charlotte Green *Active Hope: An Overview * In response to concerns about our current national situation, the Urbana-Champaign Friends Meeting has scheduled a two-hour program to help individuals maintain their courage and grounding in spirit. On Saturday, September 30, 10:00 am to noon, Sharon Monday will provide an overview of the practice of active hope at the Urbana-Champaign Friends Meetinghouse, 1904 E. Main St., Urbana. The program is based on themes from the book, *Active Hope*, by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone. Active hope is a process we can apply to any situation, even in times when we feel hopeless. In the words of Joanna Macy, “Our focus is on how we strengthen and support our intention to act, so that we can best play our part, whatever that may be, in the healing of our world.” Hot tea and cold water will be provided. Participants may bring their own drinks if they like. Sharon Monday is a certified workshop trainer. She teaches peer development and process at the University of Illinois. The public is welcome to join Friends for this program! If you plan to attend, please RSVP to Charlotte Green (charlotteg588 at gmail.com). *Here’s another opportunity to learn more about Active Hope:* Sharon Monday will also lead a retreat, *Healing Earth’s Healers*, on Friday, November 3 (7:00 – 9:00 pm) and Saturday, November 4 (9:00 am – 5:00 pm) at the meetinghouse. The retreat, sponsored by Faith in Place, will provide a more intensive experience with group exercises, time for reflection, dialogue, music, and more. Because of the nature of the work, participants are asked to commit to attending both days. To register, please go to www.faithinplace.org. Click on *Events*, then go to *November’s calendar*, and click on *Friday, November 3* *and Saturday, November 4.* *An example of Active Hope: From Standing Rock to Standing with the Sapara* Maria Dorsey, Sharon Monday’s daughter, will share stories of Standing Rock and the Sapara people in the Amazon at First Mennonite Church, 902 W. Springfield, Urbana, on Thursday, November 2 at 7:00 pm. The event is a fundraiser for Gloria Ushigua, an activist working on behalf of the Sapara Women’s Association to stop plans for exploration and exploitation of their tribal territory by an oil company. There will be prints for sale of Maria’s paintings. She is splitting the proceeds from paintings ordered that night with Gloria Ushigua. (View at Maria Dorsey Art). For more information about this event: www.eventbrite.com/e/from- standing-rock-to-standing-with-the-sapara-tickets-36987508634 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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Name: Active Hope.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 74653 bytes Desc: not available URL: From kmedina67 at gmail.com Mon Aug 28 23:21:05 2017 From: kmedina67 at gmail.com (Karen Medina) Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2017 18:21:05 -0500 Subject: [Peace] 2 day symposium / "Constructing Solidarities" / Sat Sept 9, 5pm-8 / Sun Sept 10, 9-5 Message-ID: Event: Constructing Solidarities: Ethics, Politics and the Challenges of Crossing “Boundaries” Type of event: 2 day symposium 1st day: Opening Panel / SATURDAY, SEPT 9TH, 2017 / 5:00-8PM // Where: (Asian American Cultural Center) / 1210 W Nevada St, Urbana, IL 61801 2nd day: daylong discussion / SUNDAY, SEPT 10TH / 9:00AM-5PM // Where: (223 Temple Buell Hall) / 611 Loredo Taft Drive, Champaign, IL Description: This symposium engages transnational activists, artists and academics in a dialogue to share their experiences and thoughts constructing a new, more humane politics of belonging and solidarities. Please join us for the Opening Panel by activists from Chicagoland, Champaign, and Cape Town on Saturday Sept 9th and for a daylong discussions on Sunday Sept 10th. For more info and registration visit: https://insurgentmidwest.wordpress.com/symposium/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kmedina67 at gmail.com Tue Aug 29 00:16:15 2017 From: kmedina67 at gmail.com (Karen Medina) Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2017 19:16:15 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Whose Streets at the Art Theater (plus Q&A!) / Tues Sep 5 / 7pm Message-ID: Dear Peace Event: Film: "Whose Streets?" + Q&A Date: Tuesday, September 5, 2017 Time: 7 PM - 9:30 PM Where: The Art Theater // 126 W Church St, Champaign, Illinois 61820 Details and Description: Q&A is after the film. Post-show Q&A w/ Sundiata Cha-Jua (UIUC History & The North End Breakfast Club), Karen Olowu (Black Students for Revolution), & Gus Wood (UIUC History & The North End Breakfast Club) “Whose streets? Our streets!” became the iconic slogan of protesters reclaiming public spaces to express their voices. Directed by artists and activists Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis, Whose Streets? is a compelling film about police brutality in the U.S. nowadays. The narrative focuses on the popular mobilization in Ferguson in 2014, where Michael Brown, an 18-year-old black teenager, was shot by Darren Wilson, a 28-year-old white police officer. The documentary is a sprawling, powerful immersion into the upheavals of the area, presenting the portraits of several suffering inhabitants and activists, why they want to fight for justice, and allowing those affected to stand up and give their perspective about race relations in modern America and their vision for their community’s future. Highlighting a provocative topic, the storytelling is captivating and sincere, thanks to incorporation of original cell phone footages shot by the crowd of protesters and social media quotes that had a tremendous impact on demonstrations. Politically strong and knowledgeable, Whose Streets? pulls no punches, enabling the viewer to feel and understand the perspective of people of color, and link individual stories to the bigger historical picture of racism. For this generation, the battle is not for civil rights, but for the right to live. (2017, Sabaah Folayan & Damon Davis, US, 100 min, NR) (Bonus show sans Q&A Weds @ 7) “Folayan and Davis’s outstanding and incendiary documentary about Ferguson does a tremendous end run around mainstream news outlets and the agenda-driven narratives that emerge, particularly on television.” -The Guardian -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Tue Aug 29 22:27:34 2017 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2017 22:27:34 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Anti-War Teach-In Message-ID: Anti-War Teach-In Sponsored by Students for Economic Empowerment (SEE) Anti-War Anti-Racism Effort of Champaign-Urbana (AWARE) Channing-Murray Foundation Oregon and Goodwin, Urbana Saturday, September 23rd 1:00 - 5:00pm Speakers and topics include: Francis Boyle, Professor of International Law Morton Brussel, Professor of Physics Emeritus Carl Estabrook, Professor of Sociology, Retired (History of U.S. Foreign Policy) David Green, Jewish Voice for Peace (Palestine & Israel) David Johnson, World Labor Hour (The Cost of War) Vukoni Lupa Lasaga, Ph.D Candidate (Africa) Father Tom Royer (Central America) Rich Whitney Esq., Illinois Green Party (Syria) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From naiman at justforeignpolicy.org Wed Aug 30 21:55:15 2017 From: naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (Robert Naiman) Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2017 16:55:15 -0500 Subject: [Peace] IL-13 candidates forum, 9/5, UIUC Message-ID: There will be a forum featuring five Democratic candidates for the 13th Congressional District seat at 6 pm Tuesday 9/5 in Noyes Lab Room 100 at the UIUC campus. The forum will feature candidates Jon Ebel, Ben Webb, Betsy Londrigan, Erik Jones and David Gill. All 5 intend to be candidates in the Democratic primary in March, to run against Rep. Rodney Davis. http://www.news-gazette.com/sports/illini-sports/baseball/2017-08-30/tom-kacich-war-chant-rooted-theme-song-1950s-cartoon.html === Robert Naiman Policy Director Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (202) 448-2898 x1 House: Use War Powers to Save A Million Yemeni Kids from Cholera & Famine https://petitions.moveon.org/sign/force-vote-on-saudi-war?r_by=1135580 @clairecmc, @SenDonnelly, @Sen_JoeManchin, @MarkWarner, @SenBillNelson: #StopArmingSaudi War Crimes in Yemen https://petitions.moveon.org/sign/senate-stop-arming-saudi?r_by=1135580 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cgestabrook at gmail.com Thu Aug 31 00:50:53 2017 From: cgestabrook at gmail.com (C G Estabrook) Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2017 19:50:53 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Liberal pro-war hypocrisy Message-ID: <1520CBB7-A43E-4ED7-9091-6B8C9DB8F553@gmail.com> https://blackagendareport.com/senators-cory-booker-al-franken-and-elizabeth-warren-propose-us-prevent-genocide An excellent and disturbing account of the pro-war hypocrisy of some leading American liberals. —CGE -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Thu Aug 31 13:27:44 2017 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2017 13:27:44 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Interview with Dan Kovalik, hold your stomach its tough to take the truth..... Message-ID: Empire Files: Human Rights Hypocrisy - Colombia vs ... - YouTube [Video for Empire Files: Human Rights Hypocrisy]▶ 39:06 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWAP8a7R5Uo -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Thu Aug 31 13:31:45 2017 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2017 13:31:45 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Very encouraging news: The Democratic Socialists of America voted for BDS Message-ID: Ne[http://www.rawstory.com/rs/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/facebook.png] [http://www.rawstory.com/rs/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/twitter.png] [http://www.rawstory.com/rs/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/rss.png] SEARCH Search form Search [Home] * ◀ * ENVIRONMENT / FOOD * ECONOMY * EDUCATION * RIGHTS * MEDIA / CULTURE * HEALTH * ACTIVISM * THE PERSONAL * TRUMP TRAUMA GRAYZONE PROJECT Why the Democratic Socialists of America Vote for BDS Is a Turning Point in American Left Politics America’s largest socialist organization votes to stand in solidarity with Palestine. By Rob Bryan / AlterNet August 9, 2017, 10:37 AM GMT * 1.7K49 Print 19 COMMENTS [http://www.alternet.org/sites/default/files/styles/story_image/public/story_images/screen_shot_2017-08-09_at_2.26.03_pm.png?itok=C9O-CSPI] DSA members vote almost unanimously to support BDS at their 2017 convention in Chicago (photo by Annie Shields via Twitter) For a few veteran members of the Democratic Socialists of America like Eric Lee, this year’s annual convention in Chicago was a rude awakening. The DSA’s ranks suddenly swelled with thousands of new members, mostly younger activists mobilized by the presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders and inspired by the success of socialist Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn in the U.K. Lee shared their excitement about Sanders, and about the prospects of socialism gaining traction among middle-class voters worn down by decades of neoliberal austerity. What he could not stomach, however, was the new DSA generation’s enthusiastic support for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement. Forged out of a consensus of Palestinian civil society organizations, BDS is a movement sweeping grassroots activism in the West that calls for the right of return of Palestinian refugees, equal rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel and an end to the occupation. On August 5, DSA members voted almost unanimously in support of a resolution to back BDS. Immediately after the measure passed, spontaneous cheering erupted along with chants of “Free Palestine” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” as someone waved a giant Palestinian flag. [https://pbs.twimg.com/ext_tw_video_thumb/893857810517291008/pu/img/zqcXhfgQSeSUWuBd.jpg] Follow [https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/895382696532291584/h9HIoYB8_normal.jpg]liz[🌹] @ldrinkh20 The vote to endorse BDS passes! #dsacon17 8:35 AM - Aug 5, 2017 * 99 Replies * 137137 Retweets * 390390 likes Twitter Ads info and privacy The vote sent Lee into a rage, and ultimately out of an organization he had been affiliated with for decades. “I cannot in good conscience be a member of an organization which promotes a boycott of the Jewish state,” he wrote in a post on his personal blog. “I consider the BDS campaign to be antisemitic and racist. I oppose it as a socialist and as a Jew. I am appalled that DSA would take such a position.” (In a previous blog entry, Lee boasted of his service in the Israeli military and defended its occupation of the Palestinian West Bank.) Though the old DSA had its share of anti-Zionists, it has typically avoided contentious votes that might have rankled the sensibilities of left Zionists like Lee. But at the DSA’s convention this year, its members voted to end the party’s 35-year relationship with the Socialist International, a constellation of center-left parties that include the corruption laden Mexican PRI, the increasingly neoliberal Socialist Party of France and Germany’s SPD—all parties that supported the special relationship with Israel in one form or another. The vote set the stage for approving the resolution in support of BDS. Formed in 1982, DSA grew out of the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee and the New American Movement. Membership has more than tripled in the last two years to over 25,000, owing largely to the momentous energy behind Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, anger with Trump and widespread disillusionment with the Democratic Party. The new members have brought fresh life and vital new perspectives to the group, allowing it to shake off whatever vestiges of Zionism remained among members, particularly that handful who still believed in the ethnically exclusive “socialism” of the kibbutzim. For the new generation of DSA members, supporting the Palestinian civil society boycott of Israel made more sense than seeking common ground with liberal-left Israeli parties like Meretz or Labor whose leadership had thrown their weight behind Israel’s past three wars on the Gaza Strip. The question of how to respond to Israel has long been an issue that divided DSA members. The breakdown among the ranks went something like this: certain members (usually older), tried to reconcile socialism with Zionism by condemning the Israeli right while ignoring the many human rights abuses carried out by so-called leftists in the name of engineering a demographic majority for Jews in Palestine. Other members (usually younger), supported BDS unequivocally, recognizing it as the latest manifestation of a time-tested means of nonviolent protest and the most powerful force to combat Israeli apartheid in the 21st century. These contradictory stances led to some interorganizational disputes, but without a vote on the official stance, determining how many people believed what, and what they thought DSA should do about it, remained a challenge. Support from France’s Mélenchon and a direct challenge to Democrats Chip Gibbons joined DSA earlier this year after being involved in BDS activism since 2007. An architect of the BDS resolution, he sees Palestine solidarity as an essential component of the socialist tradition of internationalism. Gibbons told me that a representative of La France Insoumise, the party of French leftist presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, commended the delegates after they passed the measure. The text’s other main author, Delé Balogun from DSA’s North Chicago chapter, saw Israel’s occupation up close when he joined the African Heritage Delegation to Palestine, a special trip to Israel-Palestine aimed at fostering Black solidarity for the Palestinian struggle. At this past weekend’s convention, Balogun was elected to the 16-person National Political Committee, DSA’s primary governing body. Report Advertisement DSA’s resolution arrives at a crucial moment for the BDS movement. Democratic Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland recently introduced a billcalled the Israel Anti-Boycott Act that would make boycotting Israel a felony punishable by up to a $1 million fine or 20 years in prison. After a major public backlash, Cardin amended the bill so it would not apply to individuals and would not apply criminal penalties to violators, but the language remains disturbingly vague. The DSA resolution took direct aim at Cardin, declaring that “DSA strongly opposes the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, which would make it a felony to advocate or support boycotts targeting Israel, as well as all similar legislation at the state and local levels.” With this statement, DSA has recorded its formal objection to the reactionary brand of hate speech laws that have already led to the arrests and convictions of BDS activists in France. Rising anti-imperialism in DSA’sranks Though DSA has come under fire from some quarters for its perceived indifference to imperialism, the organization’s critics may surprised to learn that over 90% of the delegates voted for the BDS resolution on Saturday morning. The 700 delegates’ votes, representing 42 local and statewide chapters, were so close to unanimous than an official tally wasn’t necessary. “Those who struggle against oppression and for equality will always have our support,” said DSA Deputy National Director David Duhalde in an official statement. “Just as we answered the call to boycott South Africa during apartheid, we stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people.” Rawan Tayoon, a Palestinian activist with DSA’s youth wing (known as Young Democratic Socialists, or YDS), added, “Democratic socialists aren’t afraid to challenge the status quo and demand what’s right. We stand against imperialism, we stand against racism, and so we must stand against Israeli apartheid and occupation.” An informal group within DSA calling itself Democratic Socialists for Justice in Palestine workshopped and revised the text multiple times in order to maximize the impact of the statement and ensure that it represented the spirit of democratic socialism. Olivia Katbi Smith, a Portland delegate and member of the group, felt a sense of urgency in drafting the document: “As an Arab woman and a democratic socialist, it was incredibly important to me that the BDS resolution passed, especially in the face of the disgusting anti-BDS legislation that's currently being pushed nationally.” She saw the vote as a chance for DSA members to participate in campaigns with concrete goals and demonstrated successes—an opportunity to go beyond moral symbolism and performative politics. “Frankly this organization should have endorsed BDS a decade ago,” says Smith, reflecting the mood of many longtime DSA members. “As socialists we have a responsibility to side with the oppressed and commit to their unconditional liberation, and it's about time that DSA takes a public stand in solidarity with our Palestinian brothers and sisters.” Rob Bryan is a journalist who has written for Jacobin and Mondoweiss among other publications. Follow him on Twitter at @rbryan86 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mickalideh at gmail.com Thu Aug 31 15:24:58 2017 From: mickalideh at gmail.com (Harry Mickalide) Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2017 10:24:58 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Very encouraging news: The Democratic Socialists of America voted for BDS In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: great news! Thanks Karen On Thu, Aug 31, 2017 at 8:31 AM, Karen Aram via Peace < peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote: > Ne > > SEARCH > Search form > Search > [image: Home] > > - ◀ > - ENVIRONMENT / FOOD > - ECONOMY > - EDUCATION > - RIGHTS > - MEDIA / CULTURE > - HEALTH > - ACTIVISM > - THE PERSONAL > - TRUMP TRAUMA > > GRAYZONE PROJECT > Why the Democratic Socialists of America Vote for BDS Is a Turning Point > in American Left Politics > America’s largest socialist organization votes to stand in solidarity with > Palestine. > *By* *Rob Bryan * / AlterNet > > *August 9, 2017, 10:37 AM GMT* > > - > > 1.7K49 > Print > > 19 COMMENTS > > > DSA members vote almost unanimously to support BDS at their 2017 > convention in Chicago (photo by Annie Shields via Twitter) > > For a few veteran members of the Democratic Socialists of America like > Eric Lee, this year’s annual convention in Chicago was a rude awakening. > The DSA’s ranks suddenly swelled with thousands of new members, mostly > younger activists mobilized by the presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie > Sanders and inspired by the success of socialist Labour Party leader Jeremy > Corbyn in the U.K. Lee shared their excitement about Sanders, and about the > prospects of socialism gaining traction among middle-class voters worn down > by decades of neoliberal austerity. What he could not stomach, however, was > the new DSA generation’s enthusiastic support for the boycott, divestment > and sanctions (BDS) movement. > > Forged out of a consensus of Palestinian civil society organizations, BDS > is a movement sweeping grassroots activism in the West that calls for the > right of return of Palestinian refugees, equal rights for Palestinian > citizens of Israel and an end to the occupation. On August 5, DSA members > voted almost unanimously in support of a resolution to back BDS. > > Immediately after the measure passed, spontaneous cheering erupted along > with chants of “Free Palestine” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine > will be free” as someone waved a giant Palestinian flag. > > > Follow > liz[image: 🌹] @ldrinkh20 > > The vote to endorse BDS passes! #dsacon17 > > 8:35 AM - Aug 5, 2017 > > > - > 99 Replies > > - > 137137 Retweets > > - > 390390 likes > > > Twitter Ads info and privacy > > > > > The vote sent Lee into a rage, and ultimately out of an organization he > had been affiliated with for decades. “I cannot in good conscience be a > member of an organization which promotes a boycott of the Jewish state,” he > wrote in a post on his personal blog > . “I consider the BDS campaign to > be antisemitic and racist. I oppose it as a socialist and as a Jew. I am > appalled that DSA would take such a position.” (In a previous blog entry > , Lee boasted of his service in the > Israeli military and defended its occupation of the Palestinian West Bank.) > > Though the old DSA had its share of anti-Zionists, it has typically > avoided contentious votes that might have rankled the sensibilities of left > Zionists like Lee. But at the DSA’s convention this year, its members voted > to end > the > party’s 35-year relationship with the Socialist International, a > constellation of center-left parties that include the corruption laden > Mexican PRI, the increasingly neoliberal Socialist Party of France and > Germany’s SPD—all parties that supported the special relationship with > Israel in one form or another. The vote set the stage for approving the > resolution in support of BDS. > > Formed in 1982, DSA grew out of the Democratic Socialist Organizing > Committee and the New American Movement. Membership has more than tripled > in the last two years to over 25,000, owing largely to the momentous energy > behind Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, anger with Trump and > widespread disillusionment with the Democratic Party. The new members have > brought fresh life and vital new perspectives to the group, allowing it to > shake off whatever vestiges of Zionism remained among members, particularly > that handful who still believed in the ethnically exclusive “socialism” of > the kibbutzim. For the new generation of DSA members, supporting the > Palestinian civil society boycott of Israel made more sense than seeking > common ground with liberal-left Israeli parties like Meretz or Labor whose > leadership had thrown their weight behind Israel’s past three wars on the > Gaza Strip. > > The question of how to respond to Israel has long been an issue that > divided DSA members. The breakdown among the ranks went something like > this: certain members (usually older), tried to reconcile socialism with > Zionism by condemning the Israeli right while ignoring the many human > rights abuses carried out by so-called leftists in the name of engineering > a demographic majority for Jews in Palestine. Other members (usually > younger), supported BDS unequivocally, recognizing it as the latest > manifestation of a time-tested means of nonviolent protest and the most > powerful force to combat Israeli apartheid in the 21st century. These > contradictory stances led to some interorganizational disputes, but without > a vote on the official stance, determining how many people believed what, > and what they thought DSA should do about it, remained a challenge. > > *Support from France’s Mélenchon and a direct challenge to Democrats* > > Chip Gibbons joined DSA earlier this year after being involved in BDS > activism since 2007. An architect of the BDS resolution, he sees Palestine > solidarity as an essential component of the socialist tradition of > internationalism. > > Gibbons told me that a representative of La France Insoumise, the party of > French leftist presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, commended the > delegates after they passed the measure. > > The text’s other main author, Delé Balogun from DSA’s North Chicago > chapter, saw Israel’s occupation up close when he joined the African > Heritage Delegation to Palestine, a special trip to Israel-Palestine aimed > at fostering Black solidarity for the Palestinian struggle. At this past > weekend’s convention, Balogun was elected to the 16-person National > Political Committee, DSA’s primary governing body. > Report Advertisement > > > DSA’s resolution arrives at a crucial moment for the BDS movement. > Democratic Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland recently introduced a bill > called > the Israel Anti-Boycott Act that would make boycotting Israel a felony > punishable by up to a $1 million fine or 20 years in prison. After a major > public backlash, Cardin amended the bill so it would not apply to > individuals and would not apply criminal penalties to violators, but the > language remains disturbingly vague. > > The DSA resolution took direct aim at Cardin, declaring that “DSA strongly > opposes the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, which would make it a felony to > advocate or support boycotts targeting Israel, as well as all similar > legislation at the state and local levels.” With this statement, DSA has > recorded its formal objection to the reactionary brand of hate speech laws > that have already led to the arrests > and > convictions of BDS activists in France. > > *Rising anti-imperialism in DSA’s**ranks* > > Though DSA has come under fire from some quarters for its perceived > indifference to imperialism, the organization’s critics may surprised to > learn that over 90% of the delegates voted for the BDS resolution on > Saturday morning. The 700 delegates’ votes, representing 42 local and > statewide chapters, were so close to unanimous than an official tally > wasn’t necessary. > > “Those who struggle against oppression and for equality will always have > our support,” said DSA Deputy National Director David Duhalde in an > official statement. “Just as we answered the call to boycott South Africa > during apartheid, we stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people.” > Rawan Tayoon, a Palestinian activist with DSA’s youth wing (known as Young > Democratic Socialists, or YDS), added, “Democratic socialists aren’t afraid > to challenge the status quo and demand what’s right. We stand against > imperialism, we stand against racism, and so we must stand against Israeli > apartheid and occupation.” > > An informal group within DSA calling itself Democratic Socialists for > Justice in Palestine workshopped and revised the text multiple times in > order to maximize the impact of the statement and ensure that it > represented the spirit of democratic socialism. Olivia Katbi Smith, a > Portland delegate and member of the group, felt a sense of urgency in > drafting the document: “As an Arab woman and a democratic socialist, it was > incredibly important to me that the BDS resolution passed, especially in > the face of the disgusting anti-BDS legislation that's currently being > pushed nationally.” She saw the vote as a chance for DSA members to > participate in campaigns with concrete goals and demonstrated successes—an > opportunity to go beyond moral symbolism and performative politics. > > “Frankly this organization should have endorsed BDS a decade ago,” says > Smith, reflecting the mood of many longtime DSA members. “As socialists we > have a responsibility to side with the oppressed and commit to their > unconditional liberation, and it's about time that DSA takes a public stand > in solidarity with our Palestinian brothers and sisters.” > > Rob Bryan is a journalist who has written for Jacobin and Mondoweiss among > other publications. Follow him on Twitter at @rbryan86 > > _______________________________________________ > 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 Thu Aug 31 22:12:22 2017 From: naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (Robert Naiman) Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2017 17:12:22 -0500 Subject: [Peace] IL-13 Dems: Challenge Rodney Davis to Oppose U.S. Role in Saudi war in Yemen Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Robert Naiman, Just Foreign Policy Date: Thu, Aug 31, 2017 at 2:39 PM Subject: IL-13 Dems: Challenge Rodney Davis to Oppose U.S. Role in Saudi war in Yemen To: naiman at justforeignpolicy.org [image: Just Foreign Policy] Dear Robert, *Urge IL-13 candidates to challenge Rep. Davis to oppose U.S. participation in the Saudi war in Yemen.* *Take Action .* There will be a forum featuring 5 Democratic candidates for the 13th Congressional District seat at 6 pm Tuesday 9/5 in Noyes Lab Room 100 at the UIUC campus. The forum will feature candidates Jon Ebel, Ben Webb, Betsy Londrigan, Erik Jones and David Gill. All 5 intend to be candidates in the Democratic primary in March, to run against Rep. Rodney Davis. [1] *Urge the 5 candidates to oppose U.S. participation in the Saudi war in Yemen and challenge Rodney Davis to do the same by signing our petition at MoveOn .* The Saudi-UAE war and blockade in Yemen has *pushed Yemen to the brink of famine* and *ignited the worst cholera outbreak on record*, with *a million malnourished children at risk from cholera*. [2] According to UNICEF, *every 10 minutes at least one child in Yemen dies of preventable causes* like malnutrition and diarrhea. [3] In addition to supplying weapons Saudi Arabia and the UAE are using in Yemen, the U.S. is a *direct participant* in the Saudi-UAE war by providing targeting information and by refueling Saudi and UAE warplanes bombing Yemen. [4] The Saudi-UAE warplanes can't conduct their bombing runs without U.S. refueling. [5] UNICEF director Anthony Lake was clear when asked by AP about how to end the disaster: *"Stop the war."* [6] *Congress never authorized* U.S. participation in the Saudi-UAE war in Yemen against the Houthi-Saleh alliance, as Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Bob Corker has acknowledged. [7] Whatever one thinks of the U.S. war on Al Qaeda and ISIS, the Saudi-UAE war in Yemen against the Houthi-Saleh alliance is indisputably not part of that; on the contrary, *the Saudis and the UAE are allied with Al Qaeda* in Yemen against the Houthi-Saleh alliance [8], and the Saudi-UAE war in Yemen *has strengthened Al Qaeda in Yemen*, [9] as the State Department acknowledged in a July 2017 report on terrorism. [10] *Urge the five candidates to oppose U.S. participation in the Saudi war in Yemen and to challenge Rodney Davis to oppose it by signing and sharing our petition . * Thanks for all you do to help make U.S. foreign policy more just, Robert Naiman Just Foreign Policy *If you think our work is important, support us with a $17 donation.* http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/donate References: 1. http://www.news-gazette.com/sports/illini-sports/baseball/ 2017-08-30/tom-kacich-war-chant-rooted-theme-song-1950s-cartoon.html 2. http://www.npr.org/2017/08/02/541181026/one-million- malnourished-children-at-risk-of-cholera-in-yemen 3. https://www.unicef.org/yemen/reallives_12051.html 4. https://theintercept.com/2017/07/13/u-s-doubled-fuel- support-for-saudi-bombing-campaign-in-yemen-after-deadly-strike-on-funeral/ 5. http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/06/24/ 534236954/yemen-now-faces-the-worst-cholera-outbreak-in-the-world-u-n-says 6. http://www.npr.org/2017/08/02/541181026/one-million- malnourished-children-at-risk-of-cholera-in-yemen 7. http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/03/ congress-raise-alarm-us-confrontation-yemen-houthis.html 8. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/al- qaeda-group-leader-claims-fighting-alongside-us-backed- coalition-forces-yemen-a7713321.html 9. http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/yemen-aqap/ 10. https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/272488.pdf [image: Please support our work. 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