From karenaram at hotmail.com Thu May 3 12:43:58 2018 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Thu, 3 May 2018 12:43:58 +0000 Subject: [Peace] March to Protest More War in the Middle East Message-ID: MAY6 Going March to Protest More War in the Middle East Sun 5 PM CDT · Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center · Urbana, IL Answer Coalition Champaign-Urbana added an event. Just a few weeks ago on April 13th the US led the UK, France, and other western NATO powers in the airstrikes bombing Syria's capital of Damascus. This followed unsubstantiated claims from the US of a chemical attack by the Syrian government on Syrian citizens. Despite a continued lack of evidence, the warmongering around Syria persists. This week in Israel, the US's primary ally in the Middle East, president Benjamin Netanyahu gave an alarmist presentation about Iran's capability to produce nuclear weapons. It featured 10+ year-old news about Iran's ability to redirect their nuclear energy program to a nuclear weapons program. This was an attempt to stir outrage against the Iranian government and to set the stage for US intervention. There is no evidence that the Iranian government is pursuing a nuclear weapons program or has any desire to do so. It's more than a little ironic that the only country to have ever used nuclear weapons presumes to dictate to any other country how they should handle their nuclear programs. The false claims of "weapons of mass destruction" preceding the US's invasion of Iraq in 2003 stand out as preposterous accusations to create a pretext for war. The ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) Coalition here in Champaign-Urbana understands the similarity between chemical attack claims in Syria and nuclear programs in Iran to be as ridiculous as the "weapons of mass destruction" claims about Iraq in 2003. Therefore we are staging a march to protest further war and warmongering against all countries in the Middle East, which the United States has no business interfering in. Join us at 5pm on Sunday at the IMC in Urbana for a march through downtown Urbana to oppose war. You can find us near the circle drive on the west side of the IMC building off of Elm street. Co-sponsored by the Young Democratic Socialists of America and Party for Socialism and Liberation -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cgestabrook at gmail.com Thu May 3 13:48:38 2018 From: cgestabrook at gmail.com (C G Estabrook) Date: Thu, 3 May 2018 08:48:38 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Regular AWARE meeting, Sunday 6 May Message-ID: <30C98B61-7182-4C4F-8384-BA7B645598A8@gmail.com> In view of the anti-war march noted below, the AWARE meeting scheduled for this Sunday 5-6pm at Hammerhead Coffee should be canceled. ======================================= MAY 6 - March to Protest More War in the Middle East Sun 5 PM CDT · Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center · Urbana, IL Answer Coalition Champaign-Urbana added an event. Just a few weeks ago on April 13th the US led the UK, France, and other western NATO powers in the airstrikes bombing Syria's capital of Damascus. This followed unsubstantiated claims from the US of a chemical attack by the Syrian government on Syrian citizens. Despite a continued lack of evidence, the warmongering around Syria persists. This week in Israel, the US's primary ally in the Middle East, president Benjamin Netanyahu gave an alarmist presentation about Iran's capability to produce nuclear weapons. It featured 10+ year-old news about Iran's ability to redirect their nuclear energy program to a nuclear weapons program. This was an attempt to stir outrage against the Iranian government and to set the stage for US intervention. There is no evidence that the Iranian government is pursuing a nuclear weapons program or has any desire to do so. It's more than a little ironic that the only country to have ever used nuclear weapons presumes to dictate to any other country how they should handle their nuclear programs. The false claims of "weapons of mass destruction" preceding the US's invasion of Iraq in 2003 stand out as preposterous accusations to create a pretext for war. The ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) Coalition here in Champaign-Urbana understands the similarity between chemical attack claims in Syria and nuclear programs in Iran to be as ridiculous as the "weapons of mass destruction" claims about Iraq in 2003. Therefore we are staging a march to protest further war and warmongering against all countries in the Middle East, which the United States has no business interfering in. Join us at 5pm on Sunday at the IMC in Urbana for a march through downtown Urbana to oppose war. You can find us near the circle drive on the west side of the IMC building off of Elm street. Co-sponsored by the Young Democratic Socialists of America and Party for Socialism and Liberation -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stuartnlevy at gmail.com Thu May 3 20:22:05 2018 From: stuartnlevy at gmail.com (Stuart Levy) Date: Thu, 3 May 2018 15:22:05 -0500 Subject: [Peace] IL state bill HB4405/SB2562 would allow use of drones to monitor protestors - call Rep. Ammons to vote No on it. Message-ID: Bill HB4405 / SB2562 in the IL legislature, apparently supported by Chicago Mayor Emanuel, would allow police to use drones to record protestors.   The ACLU of IL opposes it.   It passed in the IL Senate yesterday - unfortunately our Sen. Bennett cast one of many Yes votes, though Sen. Biss was among only 6 No votes. I called Rep. Ammons' office this morning to ask her to oppose HB4405 - hope you will too. Ammons' office: 217-531-1660 [Sorry if you're seeing this more than once.] ==== ACLU-IL sounds the alarm about bill allowing use of drones to monitor protesters - Urgent calls to your IL Rep needed Fran Spielman @fspielman | email   The American Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday accused Mayor Rahm Emanuel of being the heavy hand behind legislation that would allow police officers to use drones to monitor the growing number of protests on the streets of Chicago.   The groundbreaking bill would allow drones to be used to hover over crowds, for the purpose of taking still photos and making audio and video recordings of demonstrations. Even more troubling to the ACLU, the drones could be equipped with facial recognition technology.   The legislation has already cleared Illinois House and Senate committees and is poised for a final vote in both chambers.   The bills are sponsored by a pair of Chicago Democrats with close ties to the mayor: State Sen. Martin Sandoval and State Rep. John D’Amico, nephew of Ald. Marge Laurino (39th), the City Council’s president pro tem and one of Emanuel’s closest aldermanic allies.   “Given Chicago’s history of surveillance against protesters and social justice advocates – including by the notorious Red Squad — the Chicago police should not be able to use this new, powerful tool to monitor protesters near silently and from above,” Karen Sheley, director of the ACLU Police Practices Project, was quoted as saying in a news release.   “The legislation also ignores sweeping surveillance tools currently available to the police – including an integrated public camera system that covers much of the city.”   Sheley noted that the House and Senate versions of the controversial bill “effectively guts” legislation passed three years ago requiring a judicial warrant for the use of drones by police in Illinois.   She wondered aloud why that’s even necessary at a time when there are 2,700 public safety cameras in Chicago that are part of a broader network of 27,000 private and government surveillance cameras.   That Big Brother network should be more than enough to keep close watch over the growing number of demonstrations protesting the immigration, travel ban and environmental policies of President Donald Trump.   “If this bill is passed, as drafted, during the next large scale political rally, drones could identify and list people protesting the Trump administration,” added Sheley.   “The sight of drones overhead, collecting information, may deter people from protesting in a time when so many want to exercise their First Amendment rights . . . This is too much unchecked power to give to the police — in Chicago or anywhere.”   Mayoral spokesperson Julienn Kaviar said the city met with the ACLU and “incorporated their input” to develop the proposed update to Illinois’ drone regulations.   The goal was “balancing privacy rights and ensuring the safety of those attending large-scale events in Chicago – whether at the annual Lollapalooza music festival or an impromptu World Series celebration,” Kaviar said.   If House and Senate approve the plan, law enforcement agencies would be required to report the date, time, location and authorized exception under the law in which the drone was used. The police department would also be required to delete any surveillance or other information gathered after 30 days, unless the information is relevant to a criminal matter.   “Under the current state law, CPD can only use a drone under very limited circumstances, such as preventing terrorism. This update simply allows CPD to monitor and secure large-scale events where a legitimate public safety interest exists in a more efficient manner, as we do currently with the existing security camera network,” Kaviar wrote in an email to the Sun-Times.   “The proposed updates would not change the existing privacy protections and limitations under the current law.”   Two years ago, a Chicago Sun-Times report that Chicago Police had opened six investigation into protest groups since 2009 prompted the chairman of the City Council’s Progressive Caucus to demand a hearing on police spying on protest groups.   At the time, Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd) characterized the police monitoring of labor organizations, Occupy Chicago, Rainbow PUSH and other demonstrators as unnecessary and intrusive.   After demonstrations in Ferguson, Missouri, police began using an intelligence-gathering center in Chicago they share with federal authorities to collect Internet data on African-American and left-wing groups protesting police tactics.   Police officials have said the investigations are legal and crucial to protecting public safety and they make sure that people’s rights are protected.   But Waguespack maintained that the investigations were “absolutely politically motivated.”   The alderman further noted before the NATO Summit in 2012, the City Council approved new regulations that required protesters to share event plans with the police.   At the time, Emanuel took issue with the resolution’s claim that the police “failed to provide evidence” its surveillance programs require “any proper legal evidentiary standard of proof.”   “We’ll take a look at the notion,” Emanuel said, but he added, “I do believe that doing proper policing and civil liberties are consistent.” Fran Spielman Follow me on Twitter @fspielman Email: fspielman at suntimes.com   https://chicago.suntimes.com/?post_type=cst_article&p=1070628   More coverage of this bill is here: http://www.thedrive.com/tech/20587/police-should-not-be-allowed-to-monitor-protests-via-drone-aclu-says -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Fri May 4 12:52:58 2018 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Fri, 4 May 2018 12:52:58 +0000 Subject: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] AWARE demo, Saturday 2-4pm, downtown Champaign In-Reply-To: <8116E7CB-6E5F-41FA-8BCF-5E5C1F5F13B0@gmail.com> References: <8116E7CB-6E5F-41FA-8BCF-5E5C1F5F13B0@gmail.com> Message-ID: I have a problem with one sentence: “We must do more to save the honor of the United States and prevent this new criminal war.” Save lives yes, but “honor” in respect to the US? Thats long gone, if ever. On May 4, 2018, at 05:49, C G Estabrook via Peace-discuss > wrote: Flyer for the regular AWARE anti-war demonstration, Saturday 5 May, 2-4pm, at the corner of Main and Neil streets in downtown Champaign =============================================================================== ISRAEL IS PUSHING THE U.S. TO GO TO WAR WITH IRAN ~ WE SHOULDN’T LET IT HAPPEN Fifteen years ago the U.S. government attacked Iraq and killed a million people - on the basis of lies that Iraq had dangerous “weapons of mass destruction.” During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump talked of his opposition to the attack on Iraq: “Look at the war in Iraq and the mess that we’re in. I would never have handled it that way ... What was the purpose of this whole thing? Hundreds and hundreds of young people killed. And what about the people coming back with no arms and legs? Not to mention the other side. All those Iraqi kids who’ve been blown to pieces. And it turns out that all of the reasons for the war were blatantly wrong. All this for nothing!” A principal instigator of that shameful US war against Iraq was the government of Israel, who wished to remove Iraq as a regional rival in the Middle East. Now Israel is trying to repeat that crime, urging the US to attack and kill Iranians. But the US is part of a deal with Iran and six other countries that guarantees that Iran will not develop even one nuclear weapon. (The US has thousands; Israel has at least 200.) The ‘Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,’ known as the Iran nuclear deal, is an international agreement reached in Vienna on 14 July 2015 between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States) plus Germany and the European Union. President Trump threatens to withdraw from the deal on May 12. The Israeli government cheers, because they want the US to attack Iran, for their benefit. In order to get its war on, Israel has attacked Iranian troops in Syria -- last week with a bombing that registered as a 2.6 earthquake on seismographs. An Israeli government advisor has all but admitted that killing Iranians in Syria is designed to provoke an open war with Iran. Meanwhile, Israeli snipers kill peaceful protesters in Gaza, including children and journalists. We should not let the Trump administration be manipulated into war by Israel. The president and our Congressional representatives should be urged to remember the lessons of Iraq and not attack Iran - among other things a more populous and better armed country, with powerful allies, notably Russia and China. War with Iran risks a larger - even nuclear - war. The largest anti-war demonstrations in history occurred before the US attacked Iraq. We must do more to save the honor of the United States and prevent this new criminal war. If the US and Israel attack Iran, there should be general work stoppages - strikes - and street demonstrations across the US. In the meantime, write the president and our Congressional representatives: President Donald Trump: Representative Rodney Davis: Senator Tammy Duckworth: Senator Dick Durbin: ~ The ANTI-WAR ANTI-RACISM EFFORT of Champaign-Urbana on Facebook at ~ U.S. troops & weapons out of the Mideast ~ Medicare for all ~ Universal basic income ~ ### _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Fri May 4 13:33:59 2018 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Fri, 4 May 2018 13:33:59 +0000 Subject: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] AWARE demo, Saturday 2-4pm, downtown Champaign In-Reply-To: <41FE1F65-4F98-4BD0-9123-7004E4349401@gmail.com> References: <8116E7CB-6E5F-41FA-8BCF-5E5C1F5F13B0@gmail.com> <41FE1F65-4F98-4BD0-9123-7004E4349401@gmail.com> Message-ID: No, I never suggested that. Vilifying representatives by making it personal, is a losing proposition, acting as an apologist for representatives is a losing proposition as well. “Truth" without making it “personal” one way or the other is the best means. This is not truth given there is nothing “honorable” about war, killing, destroying, occupying, etc. and is what the US is known for doing. All the rest is fine. On May 4, 2018, at 06:10, C G Estabrook > wrote: I thought you were particularly concerned with addressing people 'where they are.’ Americans generally oppose war-making, except in a good cause. We should make it clear that this isn’t. —CGE On May 4, 2018, at 7:52 AM, Karen Aram > wrote: I have a problem with one sentence: “We must do more to save the honor of the United States and prevent this new criminal war.” Save lives yes, but “honor” in respect to the US? Thats long gone, if ever. On May 4, 2018, at 05:49, C G Estabrook via Peace-discuss > wrote: Flyer for the regular AWARE anti-war demonstration, Saturday 5 May, 2-4pm, at the corner of Main and Neil streets in downtown Champaign =============================================================================== ISRAEL IS PUSHING THE U.S. TO GO TO WAR WITH IRAN ~ WE SHOULDN’T LET IT HAPPEN Fifteen years ago the U.S. government attacked Iraq and killed a million people - on the basis of lies that Iraq had dangerous “weapons of mass destruction.” During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump talked of his opposition to the attack on Iraq: “Look at the war in Iraq and the mess that we’re in. I would never have handled it that way ... What was the purpose of this whole thing? Hundreds and hundreds of young people killed. And what about the people coming back with no arms and legs? Not to mention the other side. All those Iraqi kids who’ve been blown to pieces. And it turns out that all of the reasons for the war were blatantly wrong. All this for nothing!” A principal instigator of that shameful US war against Iraq was the government of Israel, who wished to remove Iraq as a regional rival in the Middle East. Now Israel is trying to repeat that crime, urging the US to attack and kill Iranians. But the US is part of a deal with Iran and six other countries that guarantees that Iran will not develop even one nuclear weapon. (The US has thousands; Israel has at least 200.) The ‘Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,’ known as the Iran nuclear deal, is an international agreement reached in Vienna on 14 July 2015 between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States) plus Germany and the European Union. President Trump threatens to withdraw from the deal on May 12. The Israeli government cheers, because they want the US to attack Iran, for their benefit. In order to get its war on, Israel has attacked Iranian troops in Syria -- last week with a bombing that registered as a 2.6 earthquake on seismographs. An Israeli government advisor has all but admitted that killing Iranians in Syria is designed to provoke an open war with Iran. Meanwhile, Israeli snipers kill peaceful protesters in Gaza, including children and journalists. We should not let the Trump administration be manipulated into war by Israel. The president and our Congressional representatives should be urged to remember the lessons of Iraq and not attack Iran - among other things a more populous and better armed country, with powerful allies, notably Russia and China. War with Iran risks a larger - even nuclear - war. The largest anti-war demonstrations in history occurred before the US attacked Iraq. We must do more to save the honor of the United States and prevent this new criminal war. If the US and Israel attack Iran, there should be general work stoppages - strikes - and street demonstrations across the US. In the meantime, write the president and our Congressional representatives: President Donald Trump: Representative Rodney Davis: Senator Tammy Duckworth: Senator Dick Durbin: ~ The ANTI-WAR ANTI-RACISM EFFORT of Champaign-Urbana on Facebook at ~ U.S. troops & weapons out of the Mideast ~ Medicare for all ~ Universal basic income ~ ### _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Fri May 4 13:46:29 2018 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Fri, 4 May 2018 13:46:29 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: video link of rally at the U of I opposing Alan Dershowitz last week References: Message-ID: > > https://youtu.be/GUFVWVB8L_o > > > > From brussel at illinois.edu Fri May 4 14:07:06 2018 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Fri, 4 May 2018 14:07:06 +0000 Subject: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] AWARE demo, Saturday 2-4pm, downtown Champaign In-Reply-To: <8116E7CB-6E5F-41FA-8BCF-5E5C1F5F13B0@gmail.com> References: <8116E7CB-6E5F-41FA-8BCF-5E5C1F5F13B0@gmail.com> Message-ID: <74EBA154-3EF8-456F-B9B6-9C8143D2CD87@illinois.edu> Very good piece! But the “honor" thing also makes me shake my head. On May 4, 2018, at 7:49 AM, C G Estabrook via Peace-discuss > wrote: Flyer for the regular AWARE anti-war demonstration, Saturday 5 May, 2-4pm, at the corner of Main and Neil streets in downtown Champaign =============================================================================== ISRAEL IS PUSHING THE U.S. TO GO TO WAR WITH IRAN ~ WE SHOULDN’T LET IT HAPPEN Fifteen years ago the U.S. government attacked Iraq and killed a million people - on the basis of lies that Iraq had dangerous “weapons of mass destruction.” During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump talked of his opposition to the attack on Iraq: “Look at the war in Iraq and the mess that we’re in. I would never have handled it that way ... What was the purpose of this whole thing? Hundreds and hundreds of young people killed. And what about the people coming back with no arms and legs? Not to mention the other side. All those Iraqi kids who’ve been blown to pieces. And it turns out that all of the reasons for the war were blatantly wrong. All this for nothing!” A principal instigator of that shameful US war against Iraq was the government of Israel, who wished to remove Iraq as a regional rival in the Middle East. Now Israel is trying to repeat that crime, urging the US to attack and kill Iranians. But the US is part of a deal with Iran and six other countries that guarantees that Iran will not develop even one nuclear weapon. (The US has thousands; Israel has at least 200.) The ‘Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,’ known as the Iran nuclear deal, is an international agreement reached in Vienna on 14 July 2015 between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States) plus Germany and the European Union. President Trump threatens to withdraw from the deal on May 12. The Israeli government cheers, because they want the US to attack Iran, for their benefit. In order to get its war on, Israel has attacked Iranian troops in Syria -- last week with a bombing that registered as a 2.6 earthquake on seismographs. An Israeli government advisor has all but admitted that killing Iranians in Syria is designed to provoke an open war with Iran. Meanwhile, Israeli snipers kill peaceful protesters in Gaza, including children and journalists. We should not let the Trump administration be manipulated into war by Israel. The president and our Congressional representatives should be urged to remember the lessons of Iraq and not attack Iran - among other things a more populous and better armed country, with powerful allies, notably Russia and China. War with Iran risks a larger - even nuclear - war. The largest anti-war demonstrations in history occurred before the US attacked Iraq. We must do more to save the honor of the United States and prevent this new criminal war. If the US and Israel attack Iran, there should be general work stoppages - strikes - and street demonstrations across the US. In the meantime, write the president and our Congressional representatives: President Donald Trump: Representative Rodney Davis: Senator Tammy Duckworth: Senator Dick Durbin: ~ The ANTI-WAR ANTI-RACISM EFFORT of Champaign-Urbana on Facebook at ~ U.S. troops & weapons out of the Mideast ~ Medicare for all ~ Universal basic income ~ ### _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Fri May 4 22:57:10 2018 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Fri, 4 May 2018 22:57:10 +0000 Subject: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Flyer for the regular AWARE anti-war demonstration [revised] In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I like this one much better, especially the second to last sentence. I’m not sure the statement “We should not let the Trump administration be manipulated into war by Israel.” is a good idea, given so many people think Israel manipulates the US into doing “their” bidding. And, we are too weak to resist, as well as bought off. Even though Israel wants the US to attack Iran for its sake, the US has had Iran in our crosshairs for sometime now, its not just due to Israel’s influence. On May 4, 2018, at 08:29, C G Estabrook via Peace-discuss > wrote: =============================================================================== ISRAEL IS PUSHING THE U.S. TO GO TO WAR WITH IRAN ~ WE SHOULDN’T LET IT HAPPEN Fifteen years ago the U.S. government attacked Iraq and killed a million people - on the basis of lies that Iraq had dangerous “weapons of mass destruction.” During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump talked of his opposition to the attack on Iraq: “Look at the war in Iraq and the mess that we’re in. I would never have handled it that way ... What was the purpose of this whole thing? Hundreds and hundreds of young people killed. And what about the people coming back with no arms and legs? Not to mention the other side. All those Iraqi kids who’ve been blown to pieces. And it turns out that all of the reasons for the war were blatantly wrong. All this for nothing!” A principal instigator of that shameful US war against Iraq was the government of Israel, who wished to remove Iraq as a regional rival in the Middle East. Now Israel is trying to repeat that crime, urging the US to attack and kill Iranians. But the US is part of a deal with Iran and six other countries that guarantees that Iran will not develop even one nuclear weapon. (The US has thousands; Israel has at least 200.) The ‘Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,’ known as the Iran nuclear deal, is an international agreement reached in Vienna on 14 July 2015 between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States) plus Germany and the European Union. President Trump threatens to withdraw from the deal on May 12. The Israeli government cheers, because they want the US to attack Iran, for their benefit. In order to get its war on, Israel has attacked Iranian troops in Syria -- last week with a bombing that registered as a 2.6 earthquake on seismographs. An Israeli government advisor has all but admitted that killing Iranians in Syria is designed to provoke an open war with Iran. Meanwhile, Israeli snipers kill peaceful protesters in Gaza, including children and journalists. We should not let the Trump administration be manipulated into war by Israel. The president and our Congressional representatives should be urged to remember the lessons of Iraq and not attack Iran - among other things a more populous and better armed country, with powerful allies, notably Russia and China. War with Iran risks a larger - even nuclear - war. The largest anti-war demonstrations in history occurred around the world before the US attacked Iraq. As Americans we must do even more to prevent this new criminal war. If the US and Israel attack Iran, there should be general work stoppages - strikes - and street demonstrations across the US. In the meantime, write the president and our Congressional representatives: President Donald Trump: Representative Rodney Davis: Senator Tammy Duckworth: Senator Dick Durbin: ~ The ANTI-WAR ANTI-RACISM EFFORT of Champaign-Urbana on Facebook at ~ U.S. troops & weapons out of the Mideast ~ Medicare for all ~ Universal basic income ~ ### _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Fri May 4 23:18:24 2018 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Fri, 4 May 2018 23:18:24 +0000 Subject: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Flyer for the regular AWARE anti-war demonstration [revised] In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I will watch NFN when uploaded on to UTube. I did see Netanyahu’s dog and pony show, when first shown. I then suggested to ANSWER at their meeting, they might add Iran to their war concerns, for their anti-war march on Sunday, I’m pleased they did. Syria, or Iran, we are closer to disaster than ever. On May 4, 2018, at 16:08, C G Estabrook > wrote: That’s true. David made the same point on the air today. Did you see Netanyahu’s dog & pony show? And Israel’s bombing (of Iranians) in Syria is meant to draw the US (further) in. I wanted also to mention Israel's killings in Gaza. And make it clear that war with Iran is an institutional decision, in which popular opinion counts. On Kent State day (May 4, 1970). On May 4, 2018, at 5:57 PM, Karen Aram via Peace > wrote: I like this one much better, especially the second to last sentence. I’m not sure the statement “We should not let the Trump administration be manipulated into war by Israel.” is a good idea, given so many people think Israel manipulates the US into doing “their” bidding. And, we are too weak to resist, as well as bought off. Even though Israel wants the US to attack Iran for its sake, the US has had Iran in our crosshairs for sometime now, its not just due to Israel’s influence. On May 4, 2018, at 08:29, C G Estabrook via Peace-discuss > wrote: =============================================================================== ISRAEL IS PUSHING THE U.S. TO GO TO WAR WITH IRAN ~ WE SHOULDN’T LET IT HAPPEN Fifteen years ago the U.S. government attacked Iraq and killed a million people - on the basis of lies that Iraq had dangerous “weapons of mass destruction.” During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump talked of his opposition to the attack on Iraq: “Look at the war in Iraq and the mess that we’re in. I would never have handled it that way ... What was the purpose of this whole thing? Hundreds and hundreds of young people killed. And what about the people coming back with no arms and legs? Not to mention the other side. All those Iraqi kids who’ve been blown to pieces. And it turns out that all of the reasons for the war were blatantly wrong. All this for nothing!” A principal instigator of that shameful US war against Iraq was the government of Israel, who wished to remove Iraq as a regional rival in the Middle East. Now Israel is trying to repeat that crime, urging the US to attack and kill Iranians. But the US is part of a deal with Iran and six other countries that guarantees that Iran will not develop even one nuclear weapon. (The US has thousands; Israel has at least 200.) The ‘Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,’ known as the Iran nuclear deal, is an international agreement reached in Vienna on 14 July 2015 between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States) plus Germany and the European Union. President Trump threatens to withdraw from the deal on May 12. The Israeli government cheers, because they want the US to attack Iran, for their benefit. In order to get its war on, Israel has attacked Iranian troops in Syria -- last week with a bombing that registered as a 2.6 earthquake on seismographs. An Israeli government advisor has all but admitted that killing Iranians in Syria is designed to provoke an open war with Iran. Meanwhile, Israeli snipers kill peaceful protesters in Gaza, including children and journalists. We should not let the Trump administration be manipulated into war by Israel. The president and our Congressional representatives should be urged to remember the lessons of Iraq and not attack Iran - among other things a more populous and better armed country, with powerful allies, notably Russia and China. War with Iran risks a larger - even nuclear - war. The largest anti-war demonstrations in history occurred around the world before the US attacked Iraq. As Americans we must do even more to prevent this new criminal war. If the US and Israel attack Iran, there should be general work stoppages - strikes - and street demonstrations across the US. In the meantime, write the president and our Congressional representatives: President Donald Trump: Representative Rodney Davis: Senator Tammy Duckworth: Senator Dick Durbin: ~ The ANTI-WAR ANTI-RACISM EFFORT of Champaign-Urbana on Facebook at ~ U.S. troops & weapons out of the Mideast ~ Medicare for all ~ Universal basic income ~ ### _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss _______________________________________________ Peace mailing list Peace at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Sat May 5 22:56:33 2018 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sat, 5 May 2018 22:56:33 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: March to Protest More War in the Middle East on Sunday References: Message-ID: MAY6 Going March to Protest More War in the Middle East Sun 5 PM CDT · Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center · Urbana, IL Answer Coalition Champaign-Urbana added an event. Just a few weeks ago on April 13th the US led the UK, France, and other western NATO powers in the airstrikes bombing Syria's capital of Damascus. This followed unsubstantiated claims from the US of a chemical attack by the Syrian government on Syrian citizens. Despite a continued lack of evidence, the warmongering around Syria persists. This week in Israel, the US's primary ally in the Middle East, president Benjamin Netanyahu gave an alarmist presentation about Iran's capability to produce nuclear weapons. It featured 10+ year-old news about Iran's ability to redirect their nuclear energy program to a nuclear weapons program. This was an attempt to stir outrage against the Iranian government and to set the stage for US intervention. There is no evidence that the Iranian government is pursuing a nuclear weapons program or has any desire to do so. It's more than a little ironic that the only country to have ever used nuclear weapons presumes to dictate to any other country how they should handle their nuclear programs. The false claims of "weapons of mass destruction" preceding the US's invasion of Iraq in 2003 stand out as preposterous accusations to create a pretext for war. The ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) Coalition here in Champaign-Urbana understands the similarity between chemical attack claims in Syria and nuclear programs in Iran to be as ridiculous as the "weapons of mass destruction" claims about Iraq in 2003. Therefore we are staging a march to protest further war and warmongering against all countries in the Middle East, which the United States has no business interfering in. Join us at 5pm on Sunday at the IMC in Urbana for a march through downtown Urbana to oppose war. You can find us near the circle drive on the west side of the IMC building off of Elm street. Co-sponsored by the Young Democratic Socialists of America and Party for Socialism and Liberation _______________________________________________ Peace mailing list Peace at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cgestabrook at gmail.com Mon May 7 22:49:43 2018 From: cgestabrook at gmail.com (C G Estabrook) Date: Mon, 7 May 2018 17:49:43 -0500 Subject: [Peace] AWARE on the Air, 5/8 Message-ID: <807C99EC-FB54-4AAD-83B8-472BE55BFBE5@gmail.com> On Tuesday, May 8, AWARE's weekly TV hour, 'AWARE on the Air,' will be recorded at Urbana Public Television at 3pm - not noon, as we usually do. Members and friends of AWARE are invited to participate in this unrehearsed discussion of US war-making. Space in the studio is limited, so let me know if you plan to attend. —CGE From karenaram at hotmail.com Wed May 9 12:57:02 2018 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 9 May 2018 12:57:02 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Trump torpedoes Iran nuclear accord Message-ID: * Print * Leaflet * Feedback * Share » Trump torpedoes Iran nuclear accord 9 May 2018 US President Donald Trump announced yesterday that America has withdrawn from the Iran nuclear accord, is reimposing crippling economic sanctions on Iran, and will soon add further unspecified sanctions. In doing so, Trump ignored warnings from Washington’s closest European allies and cosignatories of the nuclear accord—Britain, France and Germany—that such action risks plunging the Middle East into all-out war. Whilst provocative and incendiary, yesterday’s announcement is not in the least surprising. As the World Socialist Web Site warned in a perspective published in April 2015 in response to the announcement that Iran and the great powers had reached the “framework” for a nuclear accord: “In a broader historical sense, the deal is not worth the paper it is written on. If and when it is expedient, the US will shred the agreement, as has happened many times in the past. The Libyan regime of Muammar Gaddafi cut a deal in 2003 to give up its WMD [Weapons of Mass Destruction] programs only to find itself the target of a NATO-led war for regime-change in 2011. Amid its own economic decline, US imperialism will stop at nothing in its reckless drive for global domination at the expense of its major rivals.” Changing what needs to be changed, there are striking and instructive parallels between imperialist diplomacy in the 1930s and today. In the run-up to World War II, all sorts of diplomatic agreements were signed, only to be shredded soon after, with the Nazi regime leading the wolf pack. In this, Trump is only more brazen and thuggish than his White House predecessors. His speech was a rant. The wars the US has waged, fomented, and aided and abetted in the greater Middle East over the course of the past quarter-century have blown up complex societies, from Afghanistan and Iraq to Libya, Syria and Yemen. Yet the billionaire, fascist-minded demagogue accused Iran of being “the world’s leading state sponsor of state terrorism,” whose “malign” and “sinister” activities have caused “havoc” in the Middle East. The International Atomic Energy Agency, which has subjected Iran’s nuclear program to the most intrusive inspection regime in history, all the other signatories of the Iran accord, US Defense Secretary James Mattis and other top members of the Trump administration all state categorically that Iran has fulfilled all its obligations under the Iran deal to the letter and has not had any nuclear-weapons program for at least a decade and a half. Yet Trump claimed Iran is on the cusp of threatening the US with nuclear-armed ballistic missiles. As proof for these lies, he pointed to the April 30 show-and-tell presentation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which was panned by the European Union and all but the most right-wing Western media outlets as hype and lies. The New York Times, which is an expert at war propaganda, deception and forgery, felt professionally affronted that Washington was associating itself with so crude a performance, headlining its editorial response “Netanyahu’s Flimflam on Iran.” Near the end of his speech Trump underscored—using language akin to that of a mafia don touting an “offer you can’t refuse”—that Washington has embarked on an escalating campaign of economic, diplomatic and military pressure aimed at reimposing on the Iranian people the type of neocolonial subjugation that prevailed under the savage US-backed dictatorship of the Shah. First he sung a paean to the Shah, claiming that prior to the 1979 Revolution Iran “commanded the respect of the world.” Then he declared Iran’s leaders will reject Washington’s demands for a “new” US-dictated “deal,” adding, “I’d probably say the same thing if I was in their position. But the fact is, they are going to want to make a new and lasting deal.” Trump made a brief reference to North Korea in his statement, immediately after boasting that by blowing up the Iran deal he had demonstrated “The United States no longer makes empty threats.” Whatever the immediate outcome of the planned talks between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jung-un, the US repudiation of the Iran deal makes clear that the Korean Peninsula “peace talks” are a tactical maneuver aimed at facilitating US imperialist violence and banditry. Should a deal be reached, it will only be to free America’s hands for confrontations with its more substantial adversaries. If and when US strategic priorities change, or circumstances allow, Washington will invoke the most flimsy and contrived pretext to jettison a Korean denuclearization agreement. The Democrats and wide sections of the US military-intelligence establishment have, it should be noted, decried Trump’s turn to negotiations with Pyongyang and more or less announced that they would repudiate any deal he signs with the North Korean regime. No doubt the European imperialist powers are angered and shaken by Trump’s indifference to their counsels. French Prime Minister Emanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel both came to Washington in late April to personally plea for Trump not to jettison the Iran deal. On Monday, it was British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson’s turn, although he only had audiences with Vice-President Pence and Secretary of State Pompeo. Once again US imperialism has brushed aside the concerns of its ostensible European allies in the naked pursuit of its own interests. Whatever is said in public statements, relations between the imperialist powers are ever more venomous as each pursues its own interests under conditions of economic crisis and ever-intensifying geopolitical and commercial rivalry. The history of the last century demonstrated that the imperialist appetites of the British, French and German ruling elites are no less voracious than those of the capitalist rulers of America. If they have sought to dissuade Trump from jettisoning the Iran deal it is only because this would cut across their attempts to exploit Iran economically, and because they fear the destabilizing impact of a war with Iran, including soaring oil prices and a further mass influx of refugees. In their vain attempt to convince Trump to remain in the deal, the Europeans joined with him in making a whole series of fresh demands on Teheran, including for drastic limits to its ballistic-missile program, and pledged their steadfast support for Israel—thus encouraging both Trump and Netanyahu to proceed with their offensive against Iran. This points to another of the chief concerns of the European imperialists, which underscores that their intentions are no less belligerent. Along with the Democratic Party and much of the US military-intelligence apparatus, they have been arguing that the best strategy for bringing Iran to heel, and integrating that campaign with NATO’s military-strategic offensive against Russia, is to concentrate on prosecuting the war for regime change in Syria. As was frankly admitted by political leaders and the capitalist media in the run-up to last month’s US-French-British airstrikes on Syria, this alternate imperialist strategy could rapidly result in direct military clashes between US and Russian forces, with all that entails. Washington’s trashing of the nuclear deal constitutes an immense crisis and devastating exposure of Iran’s bourgeois nationalist regime. Terrified of the growing class contradictions in Iran, the Islamic Republic’s bourgeois-clerical regime placed its hopes in a rapprochement with US imperialism and Barack Obama’s phony promises of a new US Mideast foreign policy. No matter that it was under Obama that the US attacked Libya, launched a similar regime-change operation in Syria and supported the military in restoring its bloody grip over Egypt. Since Trump, an avowed opponent of the Iran deal from its inception, came to office, Teheran has desperately appealed to the Europeans to shield them from America’s wrath. Meanwhile, in line with these efforts to ingratiate itself with the imperialists and woo investment, the Iranian bourgeoisie has pressed forward with its anti-working-class austerity policies. In response to Trump’s announcement, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and the Europeans announced that they intend to stay in the nuclear deal. In doing so, Rouhani is clutching at straws. Keith Jones WSWS.ORG -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Wed May 9 13:43:24 2018 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 9 May 2018 13:43:24 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Trump torpedoes Iran nuclear accord In-Reply-To: <7C800042-BF43-42AA-BC29-3AED399574BF@illinois.edu> References: <7C800042-BF43-42AA-BC29-3AED399574BF@illinois.edu> Message-ID: Carl Stop with the “Trump Administration” being manipulated by Israel.” This is where your credibility comes into question. > On May 9, 2018, at 06:03, Carl G. Estabrook wrote: > > Israel is pushing the U.S. to go to war with Iran. We shouldn’t let it happen. > > Fifteen years ago the U.S. government attacked Iraq and killed a million people - on the basis of lies that Iraq had dangerous “weapons of mass destruction.” > > During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump talked of his opposition to the attack on Iraq: > > “Look at the war in Iraq and the mess that we’re in. I would never have handled it that way ... What was the purpose of this whole thing? Hundreds and hundreds of young people killed. And what about the people coming back with no arms and legs? Not to mention the other side. All those Iraqi kids who’ve been blown to pieces. And it turns out that all of the reasons for the war were blatantly wrong. All this for nothing!” > > A principal instigator of that shameful US war against Iraq was the government of Israel, who wished to remove Iraq as a regional rival in the Middle East. > > Now Israel is trying to repeat that crime, urging the US to attack and kill Iranians. > > But the US is part of a deal with Iran and six other countries that guarantees that Iran will not develop even one nuclear weapon. (The US has thousands; Israel has at least two hundred.) > > The ‘Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,’ known as the Iran nuclear deal, is an international agreement reached in Vienna in 2015 between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (China, France, Russia, Britain and the US), plus Germany and the European Union. > > President Trump has announced he will violate the agreement and ‘withdraw’ from the deal. The Israeli government cheers, because they want the US to attack Iran, for their benefit. > > (Aaron Maté writes, “Trump cited Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's bogus speech from last week. Without doubt this effort is coordinated. Will any Democrats call for an investigation of this Trump collusion with a foreign power [like ‘Russiagate’]?”) > > In order to get its war on, Israel has attacked Iranian troops in Syria (who are there legally, unlike US troops) -- including a bombing last week that registered as a 2.6 earthquake on seismographs. An Israeli government advisor has all but admitted that killing Iranians in Syria is designed to provoke an open war with Iran. Meanwhile, Israeli snipers kill peaceful protesters in Gaza, including children and journalists. > > We should not let the Trump administration be manipulated into war. The president and our Congressional representatives should be urged to remember the lessons of Iraq and not attack Iran - among other things a more populous and better armed country, with powerful allies, notably Russia and China. War with Iran risks a much larger war - even a nuclear war. > > The largest anti-war demonstrations in history occurred around the world before the US attacked Iraq. As Americans we must do even more to prevent this new criminal war. > > If the US and Israel attack Iran, there should be general work stoppages - strikes - and street demonstrations across the US. > > In the meantime, write the president and our Congressional representatives - Representative Rodney Davis, Senator Tammy Duckworth, and Senator Dick Durbin. > > —CGE > >> On May 9, 2018, at 7:57 AM, Karen Aram via Peace wrote: >> >> Trump torpedoes Iran nuclear accord >> 9 May 2018 >> US President Donald Trump announced yesterday that America has withdrawn from the Iran nuclear accord, is reimposing crippling economic sanctions on Iran, and will soon add further unspecified sanctions. >> In doing so, Trump ignored warnings from Washington’s closest European allies and cosignatories of the nuclear accord—Britain, France and Germany—that such action risks plunging the Middle East into all-out war. >> Whilst provocative and incendiary, yesterday’s announcement is not in the least surprising. >> As the World Socialist Web Site warned in a perspective published in April 2015 in response to the announcement that Iran and the great powers had reached the “framework” for a nuclear accord: “In a broader historical sense, the deal is not worth the paper it is written on. If and when it is expedient, the US will shred the agreement, as has happened many times in the past. The Libyan regime of Muammar Gaddafi cut a deal in 2003 to give up its WMD [Weapons of Mass Destruction] programs only to find itself the target of a NATO-led war for regime-change in 2011. Amid its own economic decline, US imperialism will stop at nothing in its reckless drive for global domination at the expense of its major rivals.” >> Changing what needs to be changed, there are striking and instructive parallels between imperialist diplomacy in the 1930s and today. In the run-up to World War II, all sorts of diplomatic agreements were signed, only to be shredded soon after, with the Nazi regime leading the wolf pack. >> In this, Trump is only more brazen and thuggish than his White House predecessors. >> His speech was a rant. The wars the US has waged, fomented, and aided and abetted in the greater Middle East over the course of the past quarter-century have blown up complex societies, from Afghanistan and Iraq to Libya, Syria and Yemen. Yet the billionaire, fascist-minded demagogue accused Iran of being “the world’s leading state sponsor of state terrorism,” whose “malign” and “sinister” activities have caused “havoc” in the Middle East. >> The International Atomic Energy Agency, which has subjected Iran’s nuclear program to the most intrusive inspection regime in history, all the other signatories of the Iran accord, US Defense Secretary James Mattis and other top members of the Trump administration all state categorically that Iran has fulfilled all its obligations under the Iran deal to the letter and has not had any nuclear-weapons program for at least a decade and a half. Yet Trump claimed Iran is on the cusp of threatening the US with nuclear-armed ballistic missiles. >> As proof for these lies, he pointed to the April 30 show-and-tell presentation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which was panned by the European Union and all but the most right-wing Western media outlets as hype and lies. The New York Times, which is an expert at war propaganda, deception and forgery, felt professionally affronted that Washington was associating itself with so crude a performance, headlining its editorial response “Netanyahu’s Flimflam on Iran.” >> Near the end of his speech Trump underscored—using language akin to that of a mafia don touting an “offer you can’t refuse”—that Washington has embarked on an escalating campaign of economic, diplomatic and military pressure aimed at reimposing on the Iranian people the type of neocolonial subjugation that prevailed under the savage US-backed dictatorship of the Shah. >> First he sung a paean to the Shah, claiming that prior to the 1979 Revolution Iran “commanded the respect of the world.” Then he declared Iran’s leaders will reject Washington’s demands for a “new” US-dictated “deal,” adding, “I’d probably say the same thing if I was in their position. But the fact is, they are going to want to make a new and lasting deal.” >> Trump made a brief reference to North Korea in his statement, immediately after boasting that by blowing up the Iran deal he had demonstrated “The United States no longer makes empty threats.” >> Whatever the immediate outcome of the planned talks between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jung-un, the US repudiation of the Iran deal makes clear that the Korean Peninsula “peace talks” are a tactical maneuver aimed at facilitating US imperialist violence and banditry. Should a deal be reached, it will only be to free America’s hands for confrontations with its more substantial adversaries. If and when US strategic priorities change, or circumstances allow, Washington will invoke the most flimsy and contrived pretext to jettison a Korean denuclearization agreement. >> The Democrats and wide sections of the US military-intelligence establishment have, it should be noted, decried Trump’s turn to negotiations with Pyongyang and more or less announced that they would repudiate any deal he signs with the North Korean regime. >> No doubt the European imperialist powers are angered and shaken by Trump’s indifference to their counsels. French Prime Minister Emanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel both came to Washington in late April to personally plea for Trump not to jettison the Iran deal. On Monday, it was British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson’s turn, although he only had audiences with Vice-President Pence and Secretary of State Pompeo. >> Once again US imperialism has brushed aside the concerns of its ostensible European allies in the naked pursuit of its own interests. Whatever is said in public statements, relations between the imperialist powers are ever more venomous as each pursues its own interests under conditions of economic crisis and ever-intensifying geopolitical and commercial rivalry. >> The history of the last century demonstrated that the imperialist appetites of the British, French and German ruling elites are no less voracious than those of the capitalist rulers of America. >> If they have sought to dissuade Trump from jettisoning the Iran deal it is only because this would cut across their attempts to exploit Iran economically, and because they fear the destabilizing impact of a war with Iran, including soaring oil prices and a further mass influx of refugees. >> In their vain attempt to convince Trump to remain in the deal, the Europeans joined with him in making a whole series of fresh demands on Teheran, including for drastic limits to its ballistic-missile program, and pledged their steadfast support for Israel—thus encouraging both Trump and Netanyahu to proceed with their offensive against Iran. >> This points to another of the chief concerns of the European imperialists, which underscores that their intentions are no less belligerent. Along with the Democratic Party and much of the US military-intelligence apparatus, they have been arguing that the best strategy for bringing Iran to heel, and integrating that campaign with NATO’s military-strategic offensive against Russia, is to concentrate on prosecuting the war for regime change in Syria. As was frankly admitted by political leaders and the capitalist media in the run-up to last month’s US-French-British airstrikes on Syria, this alternate imperialist strategy could rapidly result in direct military clashes between US and Russian forces, with all that entails. >> Washington’s trashing of the nuclear deal constitutes an immense crisis and devastating exposure of Iran’s bourgeois nationalist regime. Terrified of the growing class contradictions in Iran, the Islamic Republic’s bourgeois-clerical regime placed its hopes in a rapprochement with US imperialism and Barack Obama’s phony promises of a new US Mideast foreign policy. No matter that it was under Obama that the US attacked Libya, launched a similar regime-change operation in Syria and supported the military in restoring its bloody grip over Egypt. >> Since Trump, an avowed opponent of the Iran deal from its inception, came to office, Teheran has desperately appealed to the Europeans to shield them from America’s wrath. Meanwhile, in line with these efforts to ingratiate itself with the imperialists and woo investment, the Iranian bourgeoisie has pressed forward with its anti-working-class austerity policies. >> In response to Trump’s announcement, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and the Europeans announced that they intend to stay in the nuclear deal. In doing so, Rouhani is clutching at straws. >> Keith Jones >> WSWS.ORG >> _______________________________________________ >> Peace mailing list >> Peace at lists.chambana.net >> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace > From karenaram at hotmail.com Wed May 9 14:18:57 2018 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 9 May 2018 14:18:57 +0000 Subject: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Trump torpedoes Iran nuclear accord In-Reply-To: References: <7C800042-BF43-42AA-BC29-3AED399574BF@illinois.edu> Message-ID: Carl I read this, I posted it, but to state that the Trump Administration is being “manipulated," would we have said that Obama was being manipulated when Libya was destroyed on his watch? No, you would not. “Manipulated” implies innocence, naïveté” being controlled, influenced. The statement: “Apart from Netanyahu, who has long been advocating the collapse of the internationally recognized agreement, Israeli lobbies within the US greatly contributed to Trump’s decision to take a more hawkish stance on Iran in line with Israel’s own, Blumenthal said.” is a more accurate portrayal, along with the last sentence related to the amounts of money paid to USG Representatives. Both Obama, and Trump, are willing partners, when they take that first cheque from lobbyists. Thats not manipulation, thats complicity. On May 9, 2018, at 06:59, Carl G. Estabrook > wrote: 'Israel lobby calling the shots in Trump's rollback policy on Iran' – Max Blumenthal — RT US News President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal is a result of a lobbying effort by American Jewish billionaires and recycled, cooked-up intelligence touted by the Israeli PM, journalist Max Blumenthal told RT. Trump's decision to pull the US out of the deal, which capped Iran's uranium enrichment in return for economic sanctions relief, has drawn widespread criticism from Washington's European allies and Moscow, but it was lauded in Israel, which has long pushed for dismantling of the 2015 accord. If this doesn't speak for itself, Blumenthal told RT that the roots of Trump's decision to scrap the deal can be easily traced back to Israel. "Israeli influence is absolutely key here. At least, Trump sided Netanyahu's kind of used car salesman style of presentation in order to justify withdrawing from the Iran deal and his new policy of rollback," the journalist said. Taking aim at the bizarre PowerPoint presentation delivered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu late last month, Blumenthal pointed out the Israeli leader essentially "introduced nothing new in his presentation," adding that "much of the intelligence" appears to be "cooked" and stem from the early 2000s. In 2004, the George W. Bush administration claimed that it had obtained 1,000 pages of technical documentation shedding the light on Iran's intentions to produce a nuclear weapon. According to the US officials who spoke to the media at the time, the documents came from a "stolen Iranian laptop," and not from an anti-government group. However, it was later revealed by German intelligence officials that the source of the documents was Iranian resistance group Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), which is recognized as terrorist by the US State Department. "It's another intelligence scam driving us to war," Blumenthal said, calling the intelligence cited by Netanyahu "arguably fabricated." Apart from Netanyahu, who has long been advocating the collapse of the internationally recognized agreement, Israeli lobbies within the US greatly contributed to Trump's decision to take a more hawkish stance on Iran in line with Israel's own, Blumenthal said. "This triad of likudic billionaires – [ Home Deport co-founder] Bernard Marcus, [casino magnate] Sheldon Adelson and [hedge fund billionaire] Paul Signer – contributed over $40 million to pro-Trump Super PACs, and also contributed enormous amount of money to Trump's UN ambassador Nikki Haley and Tom Cotton, the senator that shaped Trump's Iran policy," the journalist pointed out. On May 9, 2018, at 8:43 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss > wrote: Carl Stop with the “Trump Administration” being manipulated by Israel.” This is where your credibility comes into question. On May 9, 2018, at 06:03, Carl G. Estabrook > wrote: Israel is pushing the U.S. to go to war with Iran. We shouldn’t let it happen. Fifteen years ago the U.S. government attacked Iraq and killed a million people - on the basis of lies that Iraq had dangerous “weapons of mass destruction.” During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump talked of his opposition to the attack on Iraq: “Look at the war in Iraq and the mess that we’re in. I would never have handled it that way ... What was the purpose of this whole thing? Hundreds and hundreds of young people killed. And what about the people coming back with no arms and legs? Not to mention the other side. All those Iraqi kids who’ve been blown to pieces. And it turns out that all of the reasons for the war were blatantly wrong. All this for nothing!” A principal instigator of that shameful US war against Iraq was the government of Israel, who wished to remove Iraq as a regional rival in the Middle East. Now Israel is trying to repeat that crime, urging the US to attack and kill Iranians. But the US is part of a deal with Iran and six other countries that guarantees that Iran will not develop even one nuclear weapon. (The US has thousands; Israel has at least two hundred.) The ‘Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,’ known as the Iran nuclear deal, is an international agreement reached in Vienna in 2015 between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (China, France, Russia, Britain and the US), plus Germany and the European Union. President Trump has announced he will violate the agreement and ‘withdraw’ from the deal. The Israeli government cheers, because they want the US to attack Iran, for their benefit. (Aaron Maté writes, “Trump cited Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's bogus speech from last week. Without doubt this effort is coordinated. Will any Democrats call for an investigation of this Trump collusion with a foreign power [like ‘Russiagate’]?”) In order to get its war on, Israel has attacked Iranian troops in Syria (who are there legally, unlike US troops) -- including a bombing last week that registered as a 2.6 earthquake on seismographs. An Israeli government advisor has all but admitted that killing Iranians in Syria is designed to provoke an open war with Iran. Meanwhile, Israeli snipers kill peaceful protesters in Gaza, including children and journalists. We should not let the Trump administration be manipulated into war. The president and our Congressional representatives should be urged to remember the lessons of Iraq and not attack Iran - among other things a more populous and better armed country, with powerful allies, notably Russia and China. War with Iran risks a much larger war - even a nuclear war. The largest anti-war demonstrations in history occurred around the world before the US attacked Iraq. As Americans we must do even more to prevent this new criminal war. If the US and Israel attack Iran, there should be general work stoppages - strikes - and street demonstrations across the US. In the meantime, write the president and our Congressional representatives - Representative Rodney Davis, Senator Tammy Duckworth, and Senator Dick Durbin. —CGE On May 9, 2018, at 7:57 AM, Karen Aram via Peace > wrote: Trump torpedoes Iran nuclear accord 9 May 2018 US President Donald Trump announced yesterday that America has withdrawn from the Iran nuclear accord, is reimposing crippling economic sanctions on Iran, and will soon add further unspecified sanctions. In doing so, Trump ignored warnings from Washington’s closest European allies and cosignatories of the nuclear accord—Britain, France and Germany—that such action risks plunging the Middle East into all-out war. Whilst provocative and incendiary, yesterday’s announcement is not in the least surprising. As the World Socialist Web Site warned in a perspective published in April 2015 in response to the announcement that Iran and the great powers had reached the “framework” for a nuclear accord: “In a broader historical sense, the deal is not worth the paper it is written on. If and when it is expedient, the US will shred the agreement, as has happened many times in the past. The Libyan regime of Muammar Gaddafi cut a deal in 2003 to give up its WMD [Weapons of Mass Destruction] programs only to find itself the target of a NATO-led war for regime-change in 2011. Amid its own economic decline, US imperialism will stop at nothing in its reckless drive for global domination at the expense of its major rivals.” Changing what needs to be changed, there are striking and instructive parallels between imperialist diplomacy in the 1930s and today. In the run-up to World War II, all sorts of diplomatic agreements were signed, only to be shredded soon after, with the Nazi regime leading the wolf pack. In this, Trump is only more brazen and thuggish than his White House predecessors. His speech was a rant. The wars the US has waged, fomented, and aided and abetted in the greater Middle East over the course of the past quarter-century have blown up complex societies, from Afghanistan and Iraq to Libya, Syria and Yemen. Yet the billionaire, fascist-minded demagogue accused Iran of being “the world’s leading state sponsor of state terrorism,” whose “malign” and “sinister” activities have caused “havoc” in the Middle East. The International Atomic Energy Agency, which has subjected Iran’s nuclear program to the most intrusive inspection regime in history, all the other signatories of the Iran accord, US Defense Secretary James Mattis and other top members of the Trump administration all state categorically that Iran has fulfilled all its obligations under the Iran deal to the letter and has not had any nuclear-weapons program for at least a decade and a half. Yet Trump claimed Iran is on the cusp of threatening the US with nuclear-armed ballistic missiles. As proof for these lies, he pointed to the April 30 show-and-tell presentation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which was panned by the European Union and all but the most right-wing Western media outlets as hype and lies. The New York Times, which is an expert at war propaganda, deception and forgery, felt professionally affronted that Washington was associating itself with so crude a performance, headlining its editorial response “Netanyahu’s Flimflam on Iran.” Near the end of his speech Trump underscored—using language akin to that of a mafia don touting an “offer you can’t refuse”—that Washington has embarked on an escalating campaign of economic, diplomatic and military pressure aimed at reimposing on the Iranian people the type of neocolonial subjugation that prevailed under the savage US-backed dictatorship of the Shah. First he sung a paean to the Shah, claiming that prior to the 1979 Revolution Iran “commanded the respect of the world.” Then he declared Iran’s leaders will reject Washington’s demands for a “new” US-dictated “deal,” adding, “I’d probably say the same thing if I was in their position. But the fact is, they are going to want to make a new and lasting deal.” Trump made a brief reference to North Korea in his statement, immediately after boasting that by blowing up the Iran deal he had demonstrated “The United States no longer makes empty threats.” Whatever the immediate outcome of the planned talks between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jung-un, the US repudiation of the Iran deal makes clear that the Korean Peninsula “peace talks” are a tactical maneuver aimed at facilitating US imperialist violence and banditry. Should a deal be reached, it will only be to free America’s hands for confrontations with its more substantial adversaries. If and when US strategic priorities change, or circumstances allow, Washington will invoke the most flimsy and contrived pretext to jettison a Korean denuclearization agreement. The Democrats and wide sections of the US military-intelligence establishment have, it should be noted, decried Trump’s turn to negotiations with Pyongyang and more or less announced that they would repudiate any deal he signs with the North Korean regime. No doubt the European imperialist powers are angered and shaken by Trump’s indifference to their counsels. French Prime Minister Emanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel both came to Washington in late April to personally plea for Trump not to jettison the Iran deal. On Monday, it was British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson’s turn, although he only had audiences with Vice-President Pence and Secretary of State Pompeo. Once again US imperialism has brushed aside the concerns of its ostensible European allies in the naked pursuit of its own interests. Whatever is said in public statements, relations between the imperialist powers are ever more venomous as each pursues its own interests under conditions of economic crisis and ever-intensifying geopolitical and commercial rivalry. The history of the last century demonstrated that the imperialist appetites of the British, French and German ruling elites are no less voracious than those of the capitalist rulers of America. If they have sought to dissuade Trump from jettisoning the Iran deal it is only because this would cut across their attempts to exploit Iran economically, and because they fear the destabilizing impact of a war with Iran, including soaring oil prices and a further mass influx of refugees. In their vain attempt to convince Trump to remain in the deal, the Europeans joined with him in making a whole series of fresh demands on Teheran, including for drastic limits to its ballistic-missile program, and pledged their steadfast support for Israel—thus encouraging both Trump and Netanyahu to proceed with their offensive against Iran. This points to another of the chief concerns of the European imperialists, which underscores that their intentions are no less belligerent. Along with the Democratic Party and much of the US military-intelligence apparatus, they have been arguing that the best strategy for bringing Iran to heel, and integrating that campaign with NATO’s military-strategic offensive against Russia, is to concentrate on prosecuting the war for regime change in Syria. As was frankly admitted by political leaders and the capitalist media in the run-up to last month’s US-French-British airstrikes on Syria, this alternate imperialist strategy could rapidly result in direct military clashes between US and Russian forces, with all that entails. Washington’s trashing of the nuclear deal constitutes an immense crisis and devastating exposure of Iran’s bourgeois nationalist regime. Terrified of the growing class contradictions in Iran, the Islamic Republic’s bourgeois-clerical regime placed its hopes in a rapprochement with US imperialism and Barack Obama’s phony promises of a new US Mideast foreign policy. No matter that it was under Obama that the US attacked Libya, launched a similar regime-change operation in Syria and supported the military in restoring its bloody grip over Egypt. Since Trump, an avowed opponent of the Iran deal from its inception, came to office, Teheran has desperately appealed to the Europeans to shield them from America’s wrath. Meanwhile, in line with these efforts to ingratiate itself with the imperialists and woo investment, the Iranian bourgeoisie has pressed forward with its anti-working-class austerity policies. In response to Trump’s announcement, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and the Europeans announced that they intend to stay in the nuclear deal. In doing so, Rouhani is clutching at straws. Keith Jones WSWS.ORG _______________________________________________ Peace mailing list Peace at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From naiman at justforeignpolicy.org Wed May 9 15:28:12 2018 From: naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (Robert Naiman) Date: Wed, 9 May 2018 10:28:12 -0500 Subject: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Trump torpedoes Iran nuclear accord In-Reply-To: References: <7C800042-BF43-42AA-BC29-3AED399574BF@illinois.edu> Message-ID: I think it's a hard distinction to draw. Trump and Netanyahu are close; they have similar worldviews, overlapping objectives, we don't get to see their whole interaction; each has incentives to play up the degree to which they are acting on behalf of each other as opposed to acting on their own behalf, or on behalf of other actors, such as Saudi Arabia. We know that Netanyahu gave a big speech about Iran, recycling and spinning old information ahead of Trump's decision; we know that Trump cited the speech in announcing his decision. But the time sequence doesn't tell us which was the effect and which was the cause; the thing that came second could have been the cause of the thing that came first. Bibi was delighted, but a lot of the Israeli national security establishment was against it. Saudi Arabia was delighted; Israel has a track record of acting in Washington as Saudi Arabia's lawyer. If you look at AIPAC's stuff on Yemen, it's Saudi talking points. There was a big debate about the role of AIPAC and Israel in promoting the Iraq war. Certainly, Israel was invoked and AIPAC and Israel lobbied for it, but there was also a lot of AIPAC and Israel initial skepticism and concern and some argued that AIPAC and Israel didn't lobby for it that strongly until it was clear that Bush was totally committed anyway, so they did it to support Bush as much or more as they did it for their own perceived direct interests, figuring that Bush was going to do it anyway. That doesn't mean that they didn't have an impact, but it affects the sharpness of the causation story. AIPAC lobbied for Obama's proposed 2013 military action in Syria; the House rejected it anyway. There's a problem in statistics called "collinearity." If you have multiple independent variables influencing a dependent variable which are highly correlated with each other, it's hard to pull apart the contribution to causation of the individual variables. There's the military, the Pentagon-industrial complex, the Israel lobby, Saudi Arabia, the media, other domestic political considerations, like changing the channel, rallying around the flag, etc. They're all pointing in the same direction, as they often do. How to say that one of them is the One True Cause, when they overlap so much? Robert Naiman Policy Director Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (202) 448-2898 x1 On Wed, May 9, 2018 at 9:18 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss < peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote: > Carl > > I read this, I posted it, but to state that the Trump Administration is > being “manipulated," would we have said that Obama was being manipulated > when Libya was destroyed on his watch? No, you would not. > > “Manipulated” implies innocence, naïveté” being controlled, influenced. > > The statement: “Apart from Netanyahu, who has long been advocating the > collapse of the internationally recognized agreement, Israeli lobbies > within the US greatly contributed to Trump’s decision to take a more > hawkish stance on Iran in line with Israel’s own, Blumenthal said.” is a > more accurate portrayal, along with the last sentence related to the > amounts of money paid to USG Representatives. > > Both Obama, and Trump, are willing partners, when they take that first > cheque from lobbyists. Thats not manipulation, thats complicity. > > > On May 9, 2018, at 06:59, Carl G. Estabrook wrote: > > 'Israel lobby calling the shots in Trump's rollback policy on Iran' – Max > Blumenthal — RT US News > > President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal is a result > of a lobbying effort by American Jewish billionaires and recycled, > cooked-up intelligence touted by the Israeli PM, journalist Max Blumenthal > told RT. > > Trump's decision to pull the US out of the deal, which capped Iran's > uranium enrichment in return for economic sanctions relief, has drawn > widespread criticism from Washington's European allies and Moscow, but it > was lauded in Israel, which has long pushed for dismantling of the 2015 > accord. > > If this doesn't speak for itself, Blumenthal told RT that the roots of > Trump's decision to scrap the deal can be easily traced back to Israel. > > "Israeli influence is absolutely key here. At least, Trump sided > Netanyahu's kind of used car salesman style of presentation in order to > justify withdrawing from the Iran deal and his new policy of rollback," the > journalist said. > > Taking aim at the bizarre PowerPoint presentation delivered by Israeli > Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu late last month, Blumenthal pointed out > the Israeli leader essentially "introduced nothing new in his > presentation," adding that "much of the intelligence" appears to > be "cooked" and stem from the early 2000s. > > In 2004, the George W. Bush administration claimed that it had > obtained 1,000 pages of technical documentation shedding the light on > Iran's intentions to produce a nuclear weapon. According to the US > officials who spoke to the media at the time, the documents came from > a "stolen Iranian laptop," and not from an anti-government group. However, > it was later revealed by German intelligence officials that the source of > the documents was Iranian resistance group Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), which > is recognized as terrorist by the US State Department. > > "It's another intelligence scam driving us to war," Blumenthal said, > calling the intelligence cited by Netanyahu "arguably fabricated." > > Apart from Netanyahu, who has long been advocating the collapse of > the internationally recognized agreement, Israeli lobbies within the > US greatly contributed to Trump's decision to take a more hawkish stance > on Iran in line with Israel's own, Blumenthal said. > > "This triad of likudic billionaires – [ Home Deport co-founder] Bernard > Marcus, [casino magnate] Sheldon Adelson and [hedge fund billionaire] > Paul Signer – contributed over $40 million to pro-Trump Super PACs, and > also contributed enormous amount of money to Trump's UN ambassador > Nikki Haley and Tom Cotton, the senator that shaped Trump's Iran policy," > the journalist pointed out. > > > > > On May 9, 2018, at 8:43 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss < > peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote: > > Carl > > Stop with the “Trump Administration” being manipulated by Israel.” This is > where your credibility comes into question. > > > On May 9, 2018, at 06:03, Carl G. Estabrook wrote: > > Israel is pushing the U.S. to go to war with Iran. We shouldn’t let it > happen. > > Fifteen years ago the U.S. government attacked Iraq and killed a million > people - on the basis of lies that Iraq had dangerous “weapons of mass > destruction.” > > During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump talked of his opposition to > the attack on Iraq: > > “Look at the war in Iraq and the mess that we’re in. I would never have > handled it that way ... What was the purpose of this whole thing? Hundreds > and hundreds of young people killed. And what about the people coming back > with no arms and legs? Not to mention the other side. All those Iraqi kids > who’ve been blown to pieces. And it turns out that all of the reasons for > the war were blatantly wrong. All this for nothing!” > > A principal instigator of that shameful US war against Iraq was the > government of Israel, who wished to remove Iraq as a regional rival in the > Middle East. > > Now Israel is trying to repeat that crime, urging the US to attack and > kill Iranians. > > But the US is part of a deal with Iran and six other countries that > guarantees that Iran will not develop even one nuclear weapon. (The US has > thousands; Israel has at least two hundred.) > > The ‘Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,’ known as the Iran nuclear deal, > is an international agreement reached in Vienna in 2015 between Iran and > the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (China, > France, Russia, Britain and the US), plus Germany and the European Union. > > President Trump has announced he will violate the agreement and ‘withdraw’ > from the deal. The Israeli government cheers, because they want the US to > attack Iran, for their benefit. > > (Aaron Maté writes, “Trump cited Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's bogus > speech from last week. Without doubt this effort is coordinated. Will any > Democrats call for an investigation of this Trump collusion with a foreign > power [like ‘Russiagate’]?”) > > In order to get its war on, Israel has attacked Iranian troops in Syria > (who are there legally, unlike US troops) -- including a bombing last week > that registered as a 2.6 earthquake on seismographs. An Israeli government > advisor has all but admitted that killing Iranians in Syria is designed to > provoke an open war with Iran. Meanwhile, Israeli snipers kill peaceful > protesters in Gaza, including children and journalists. > > We should not let the Trump administration be manipulated into war. The > president and our Congressional representatives should be urged to remember > the lessons of Iraq and not attack Iran - among other things a more > populous and better armed country, with powerful allies, notably Russia and > China. War with Iran risks a much larger war - even a nuclear war. > > The largest anti-war demonstrations in history occurred around the world > before the US attacked Iraq. As Americans we must do even more to prevent > this new criminal war. > > If the US and Israel attack Iran, there should be general work stoppages - > strikes - and street demonstrations across the US. > > In the meantime, write the president and our Congressional representatives > - Representative Rodney Davis, Senator Tammy Duckworth, and Senator Dick > Durbin. > > —CGE > > On May 9, 2018, at 7:57 AM, Karen Aram via Peace > wrote: > > Trump torpedoes Iran nuclear accord > 9 May 2018 > US President Donald Trump announced yesterday that America has withdrawn > from the Iran nuclear accord, is reimposing crippling economic sanctions on > Iran, and will soon add further unspecified sanctions. > In doing so, Trump ignored warnings from Washington’s closest European > allies and cosignatories of the nuclear accord—Britain, France and > Germany—that such action risks plunging the Middle East into all-out war. > Whilst provocative and incendiary, yesterday’s announcement is not in the > least surprising. > As the World Socialist Web Site warned in a perspective published in April > 2015 in response to the announcement that Iran and the great powers had > reached the “framework” for a nuclear accord: “In a broader historical > sense, the deal is not worth the paper it is written on. If and when it is > expedient, the US will shred the agreement, as has happened many times in > the past. The Libyan regime of Muammar Gaddafi cut a deal in 2003 to give > up its WMD [Weapons of Mass Destruction] programs only to find itself the > target of a NATO-led war for regime-change in 2011. Amid its own economic > decline, US imperialism will stop at nothing in its reckless drive for > global domination at the expense of its major rivals.” > Changing what needs to be changed, there are striking and instructive > parallels between imperialist diplomacy in the 1930s and today. In the > run-up to World War II, all sorts of diplomatic agreements were signed, > only to be shredded soon after, with the Nazi regime leading the wolf pack. > In this, Trump is only more brazen and thuggish than his White House > predecessors. > His speech was a rant. The wars the US has waged, fomented, and aided and > abetted in the greater Middle East over the course of the past > quarter-century have blown up complex societies, from Afghanistan and Iraq > to Libya, Syria and Yemen. Yet the billionaire, fascist-minded demagogue > accused Iran of being “the world’s leading state sponsor of state > terrorism,” whose “malign” and “sinister” activities have caused “havoc” in > the Middle East. > The International Atomic Energy Agency, which has subjected Iran’s nuclear > program to the most intrusive inspection regime in history, all the other > signatories of the Iran accord, US Defense Secretary James Mattis and other > top members of the Trump administration all state categorically that Iran > has fulfilled all its obligations under the Iran deal to the letter and has > not had any nuclear-weapons program for at least a decade and a half. Yet > Trump claimed Iran is on the cusp of threatening the US with nuclear-armed > ballistic missiles. > As proof for these lies, he pointed to the April 30 show-and-tell > presentation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which was panned > by the European Union and all but the most right-wing Western media outlets > as hype and lies. The New York Times, which is an expert at war propaganda, > deception and forgery, felt professionally affronted that Washington was > associating itself with so crude a performance, headlining its editorial > response “Netanyahu’s Flimflam on Iran.” > Near the end of his speech Trump underscored—using language akin to that > of a mafia don touting an “offer you can’t refuse”—that Washington has > embarked on an escalating campaign of economic, diplomatic and military > pressure aimed at reimposing on the Iranian people the type of neocolonial > subjugation that prevailed under the savage US-backed dictatorship of the > Shah. > First he sung a paean to the Shah, claiming that prior to the 1979 > Revolution Iran “commanded the respect of the world.” Then he declared > Iran’s leaders will reject Washington’s demands for a “new” US-dictated > “deal,” adding, “I’d probably say the same thing if I was in their > position. But the fact is, they are going to want to make a new and lasting > deal.” > Trump made a brief reference to North Korea in his statement, immediately > after boasting that by blowing up the Iran deal he had demonstrated “The > United States no longer makes empty threats.” > Whatever the immediate outcome of the planned talks between Trump and > North Korean leader Kim Jung-un, the US repudiation of the Iran deal makes > clear that the Korean Peninsula “peace talks” are a tactical maneuver aimed > at facilitating US imperialist violence and banditry. Should a deal be > reached, it will only be to free America’s hands for confrontations with > its more substantial adversaries. If and when US strategic priorities > change, or circumstances allow, Washington will invoke the most flimsy and > contrived pretext to jettison a Korean denuclearization agreement. > The Democrats and wide sections of the US military-intelligence > establishment have, it should be noted, decried Trump’s turn to > negotiations with Pyongyang and more or less announced that they would > repudiate any deal he signs with the North Korean regime. > No doubt the European imperialist powers are angered and shaken by Trump’s > indifference to their counsels. French Prime Minister Emanuel Macron and > German Chancellor Angela Merkel both came to Washington in late April to > personally plea for Trump not to jettison the Iran deal. On Monday, it was > British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson’s turn, although he only had > audiences with Vice-President Pence and Secretary of State Pompeo. > Once again US imperialism has brushed aside the concerns of its ostensible > European allies in the naked pursuit of its own interests. Whatever is said > in public statements, relations between the imperialist powers are ever > more venomous as each pursues its own interests under conditions of > economic crisis and ever-intensifying geopolitical and commercial rivalry. > The history of the last century demonstrated that the imperialist > appetites of the British, French and German ruling elites are no less > voracious than those of the capitalist rulers of America. > If they have sought to dissuade Trump from jettisoning the Iran deal it is > only because this would cut across their attempts to exploit Iran > economically, and because they fear the destabilizing impact of a war with > Iran, including soaring oil prices and a further mass influx of refugees. > In their vain attempt to convince Trump to remain in the deal, the > Europeans joined with him in making a whole series of fresh demands on > Teheran, including for drastic limits to its ballistic-missile program, and > pledged their steadfast support for Israel—thus encouraging both Trump and > Netanyahu to proceed with their offensive against Iran. > This points to another of the chief concerns of the European imperialists, > which underscores that their intentions are no less belligerent. Along with > the Democratic Party and much of the US military-intelligence apparatus, > they have been arguing that the best strategy for bringing Iran to heel, > and integrating that campaign with NATO’s military-strategic offensive > against Russia, is to concentrate on prosecuting the war for regime change > in Syria. As was frankly admitted by political leaders and the capitalist > media in the run-up to last month’s US-French-British airstrikes on Syria, > this alternate imperialist strategy could rapidly result in direct military > clashes between US and Russian forces, with all that entails. > Washington’s trashing of the nuclear deal constitutes an immense crisis > and devastating exposure of Iran’s bourgeois nationalist regime. Terrified > of the growing class contradictions in Iran, the Islamic Republic’s > bourgeois-clerical regime placed its hopes in a rapprochement with US > imperialism and Barack Obama’s phony promises of a new US Mideast foreign > policy. No matter that it was under Obama that the US attacked Libya, > launched a similar regime-change operation in Syria and supported the > military in restoring its bloody grip over Egypt. > Since Trump, an avowed opponent of the Iran deal from its inception, came > to office, Teheran has desperately appealed to the Europeans to shield them > from America’s wrath. Meanwhile, in line with these efforts to ingratiate > itself with the imperialists and woo investment, the Iranian bourgeoisie > has pressed forward with its anti-working-class austerity policies. > In response to Trump’s announcement, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and > the Europeans announced that they intend to stay in the nuclear deal. In > doing so, Rouhani is clutching at straws. > Keith Jones > WSWS.ORG > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace > > > > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Wed May 9 17:37:38 2018 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 9 May 2018 17:37:38 +0000 Subject: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Trump torpedoes Iran nuclear accord In-Reply-To: <05BD1FFC-04BB-4AC1-A1B5-5F8F20A1C048@illinois.edu> References: <7C800042-BF43-42AA-BC29-3AED399574BF@illinois.edu> <05BD1FFC-04BB-4AC1-A1B5-5F8F20A1C048@illinois.edu> Message-ID: I agree with both Carl, and Roberts assessments, keeping in mind everything happening now was revealed by General Wesley Clark. After 9/11 the decision was to go to war with 7 nations in five years. Iran the final one. These plans didn’t just materialize as a result of 9/11 they had been in the planning stages for some time, as they take time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RC1Mepk_Sw We’re referring to the middle east only, it doesn’t include plans for Asia, the plans for “Eurasia” were provided in Zbigniew Brzezink\ski’s “The Grand Chessboard’ in 1997. All men are responsible for their actions, and Presidents are not exempt from that responsibility. Though it should be clear to most people by now, that the powers behind the throne are responsible for “what” is carried out, with the President and the White House implementing those plans. Yes, they work in concert with allies, who usually go along with whatever the US requires of them, but ultimately it’s the US decision as to when it takes place, and we’re long overdue in respect to Iran, perhaps because we didn’t achieve regime change in Syria, and partition isn’t quite what we had in mind. Perhaps the nuclear deal that took place under the Obama Administration, slowed things up. It appears the Democrats and the CIA were focused on Asia, while the Republican Neocons and the Pentagon were focused on control of the middle east first. It’s a matter of strategy, but the main goal of US foreign policy continues unabated no matter which Party is in power. On May 9, 2018, at 10:10, Carl G. Estabrook > wrote: I think that’s well put. The source of US war crimes is institutional - a patterned way of doing things. 'Collinearity’ may help when we come to assess personal responsibility. How much was Kennedy responsible for Vietnam? A lot? A little? Does it matter, beyond his final interview with the Most High (which might have been difficult)? Our task is to recognize the crimes of the institutions we’re responsible for - against the propaganda - publicize, and oppose them. On May 9, 2018, at 10:28 AM, Robert Naiman > wrote: I think it's a hard distinction to draw. Trump and Netanyahu are close; they have similar worldviews, overlapping objectives, we don't get to see their whole interaction; each has incentives to play up the degree to which they are acting on behalf of each other as opposed to acting on their own behalf, or on behalf of other actors, such as Saudi Arabia. We know that Netanyahu gave a big speech about Iran, recycling and spinning old information ahead of Trump's decision; we know that Trump cited the speech in announcing his decision. But the time sequence doesn't tell us which was the effect and which was the cause; the thing that came second could have been the cause of the thing that came first. Bibi was delighted, but a lot of the Israeli national security establishment was against it. Saudi Arabia was delighted; Israel has a track record of acting in Washington as Saudi Arabia's lawyer. If you look at AIPAC's stuff on Yemen, it's Saudi talking points. There was a big debate about the role of AIPAC and Israel in promoting the Iraq war. Certainly, Israel was invoked and AIPAC and Israel lobbied for it, but there was also a lot of AIPAC and Israel initial skepticism and concern and some argued that AIPAC and Israel didn't lobby for it that strongly until it was clear that Bush was totally committed anyway, so they did it to support Bush as much or more as they did it for their own perceived direct interests, figuring that Bush was going to do it anyway. That doesn't mean that they didn't have an impact, but it affects the sharpness of the causation story. AIPAC lobbied for Obama's proposed 2013 military action in Syria; the House rejected it anyway. There's a problem in statistics called "collinearity." If you have multiple independent variables influencing a dependent variable which are highly correlated with each other, it's hard to pull apart the contribution to causation of the individual variables. There's the military, the Pentagon-industrial complex, the Israel lobby, Saudi Arabia, the media, other domestic political considerations, like changing the channel, rallying around the flag, etc. They're all pointing in the same direction, as they often do. How to say that one of them is the One True Cause, when they overlap so much? Robert Naiman Policy Director Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org naiman at justforeignpolicy.org (202) 448-2898 x1 On Wed, May 9, 2018 at 9:18 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss > wrote: Carl I read this, I posted it, but to state that the Trump Administration is being “manipulated," would we have said that Obama was being manipulated when Libya was destroyed on his watch? No, you would not. “Manipulated” implies innocence, naïveté” being controlled, influenced. The statement: “Apart from Netanyahu, who has long been advocating the collapse of the internationally recognized agreement, Israeli lobbies within the US greatly contributed to Trump’s decision to take a more hawkish stance on Iran in line with Israel’s own, Blumenthal said.” is a more accurate portrayal, along with the last sentence related to the amounts of money paid to USG Representatives. Both Obama, and Trump, are willing partners, when they take that first cheque from lobbyists. Thats not manipulation, thats complicity. On May 9, 2018, at 06:59, Carl G. Estabrook > wrote: 'Israel lobby calling the shots in Trump's rollback policy on Iran' – Max Blumenthal — RT US News President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal is a result of a lobbying effort by American Jewish billionaires and recycled, cooked-up intelligence touted by the Israeli PM, journalist Max Blumenthal told RT. Trump's decision to pull the US out of the deal, which capped Iran's uranium enrichment in return for economic sanctions relief, has drawn widespread criticism from Washington's European allies and Moscow, but it was lauded in Israel, which has long pushed for dismantling of the 2015 accord. If this doesn't speak for itself, Blumenthal told RT that the roots of Trump's decision to scrap the deal can be easily traced back to Israel. "Israeli influence is absolutely key here. At least, Trump sided Netanyahu's kind of used car salesman style of presentation in order to justify withdrawing from the Iran deal and his new policy of rollback," the journalist said. Taking aim at the bizarre PowerPoint presentation delivered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu late last month, Blumenthal pointed out the Israeli leader essentially "introduced nothing new in his presentation," adding that "much of the intelligence" appears to be "cooked" and stem from the early 2000s. In 2004, the George W. Bush administration claimed that it had obtained 1,000 pages of technical documentation shedding the light on Iran's intentions to produce a nuclear weapon. According to the US officials who spoke to the media at the time, the documents came from a "stolen Iranian laptop," and not from an anti-government group. However, it was later revealed by German intelligence officials that the source of the documents was Iranian resistance group Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), which is recognized as terrorist by the US State Department. "It's another intelligence scam driving us to war," Blumenthal said, calling the intelligence cited by Netanyahu "arguably fabricated." Apart from Netanyahu, who has long been advocating the collapse of the internationally recognized agreement, Israeli lobbies within the US greatly contributed to Trump's decision to take a more hawkish stance on Iran in line with Israel's own, Blumenthal said. "This triad of likudic billionaires – [ Home Deport co-founder] Bernard Marcus, [casino magnate] Sheldon Adelson and [hedge fund billionaire] Paul Signer – contributed over $40 million to pro-Trump Super PACs, and also contributed enormous amount of money to Trump's UN ambassador Nikki Haley and Tom Cotton, the senator that shaped Trump's Iran policy," the journalist pointed out. On May 9, 2018, at 8:43 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss > wrote: Carl Stop with the “Trump Administration” being manipulated by Israel.” This is where your credibility comes into question. On May 9, 2018, at 06:03, Carl G. Estabrook > wrote: Israel is pushing the U.S. to go to war with Iran. We shouldn’t let it happen. Fifteen years ago the U.S. government attacked Iraq and killed a million people - on the basis of lies that Iraq had dangerous “weapons of mass destruction.” During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump talked of his opposition to the attack on Iraq: “Look at the war in Iraq and the mess that we’re in. I would never have handled it that way ... What was the purpose of this whole thing? Hundreds and hundreds of young people killed. And what about the people coming back with no arms and legs? Not to mention the other side. All those Iraqi kids who’ve been blown to pieces. And it turns out that all of the reasons for the war were blatantly wrong. All this for nothing!” A principal instigator of that shameful US war against Iraq was the government of Israel, who wished to remove Iraq as a regional rival in the Middle East. Now Israel is trying to repeat that crime, urging the US to attack and kill Iranians. But the US is part of a deal with Iran and six other countries that guarantees that Iran will not develop even one nuclear weapon. (The US has thousands; Israel has at least two hundred.) The ‘Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,’ known as the Iran nuclear deal, is an international agreement reached in Vienna in 2015 between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (China, France, Russia, Britain and the US), plus Germany and the European Union. President Trump has announced he will violate the agreement and ‘withdraw’ from the deal. The Israeli government cheers, because they want the US to attack Iran, for their benefit. (Aaron Maté writes, “Trump cited Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's bogus speech from last week. Without doubt this effort is coordinated. Will any Democrats call for an investigation of this Trump collusion with a foreign power [like ‘Russiagate’]?”) In order to get its war on, Israel has attacked Iranian troops in Syria (who are there legally, unlike US troops) -- including a bombing last week that registered as a 2.6 earthquake on seismographs. An Israeli government advisor has all but admitted that killing Iranians in Syria is designed to provoke an open war with Iran. Meanwhile, Israeli snipers kill peaceful protesters in Gaza, including children and journalists. We should not let the Trump administration be manipulated into war. The president and our Congressional representatives should be urged to remember the lessons of Iraq and not attack Iran - among other things a more populous and better armed country, with powerful allies, notably Russia and China. War with Iran risks a much larger war - even a nuclear war. The largest anti-war demonstrations in history occurred around the world before the US attacked Iraq. As Americans we must do even more to prevent this new criminal war. If the US and Israel attack Iran, there should be general work stoppages - strikes - and street demonstrations across the US. In the meantime, write the president and our Congressional representatives - Representative Rodney Davis, Senator Tammy Duckworth, and Senator Dick Durbin. —CGE On May 9, 2018, at 7:57 AM, Karen Aram via Peace > wrote: Trump torpedoes Iran nuclear accord 9 May 2018 US President Donald Trump announced yesterday that America has withdrawn from the Iran nuclear accord, is reimposing crippling economic sanctions on Iran, and will soon add further unspecified sanctions. In doing so, Trump ignored warnings from Washington’s closest European allies and cosignatories of the nuclear accord—Britain, France and Germany—that such action risks plunging the Middle East into all-out war. Whilst provocative and incendiary, yesterday’s announcement is not in the least surprising. As the World Socialist Web Site warned in a perspective published in April 2015 in response to the announcement that Iran and the great powers had reached the “framework” for a nuclear accord: “In a broader historical sense, the deal is not worth the paper it is written on. If and when it is expedient, the US will shred the agreement, as has happened many times in the past. The Libyan regime of Muammar Gaddafi cut a deal in 2003 to give up its WMD [Weapons of Mass Destruction] programs only to find itself the target of a NATO-led war for regime-change in 2011. Amid its own economic decline, US imperialism will stop at nothing in its reckless drive for global domination at the expense of its major rivals.” Changing what needs to be changed, there are striking and instructive parallels between imperialist diplomacy in the 1930s and today. In the run-up to World War II, all sorts of diplomatic agreements were signed, only to be shredded soon after, with the Nazi regime leading the wolf pack. In this, Trump is only more brazen and thuggish than his White House predecessors. His speech was a rant. The wars the US has waged, fomented, and aided and abetted in the greater Middle East over the course of the past quarter-century have blown up complex societies, from Afghanistan and Iraq to Libya, Syria and Yemen. Yet the billionaire, fascist-minded demagogue accused Iran of being “the world’s leading state sponsor of state terrorism,” whose “malign” and “sinister” activities have caused “havoc” in the Middle East. The International Atomic Energy Agency, which has subjected Iran’s nuclear program to the most intrusive inspection regime in history, all the other signatories of the Iran accord, US Defense Secretary James Mattis and other top members of the Trump administration all state categorically that Iran has fulfilled all its obligations under the Iran deal to the letter and has not had any nuclear-weapons program for at least a decade and a half. Yet Trump claimed Iran is on the cusp of threatening the US with nuclear-armed ballistic missiles. As proof for these lies, he pointed to the April 30 show-and-tell presentation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which was panned by the European Union and all but the most right-wing Western media outlets as hype and lies. The New York Times, which is an expert at war propaganda, deception and forgery, felt professionally affronted that Washington was associating itself with so crude a performance, headlining its editorial response “Netanyahu’s Flimflam on Iran.” Near the end of his speech Trump underscored—using language akin to that of a mafia don touting an “offer you can’t refuse”—that Washington has embarked on an escalating campaign of economic, diplomatic and military pressure aimed at reimposing on the Iranian people the type of neocolonial subjugation that prevailed under the savage US-backed dictatorship of the Shah. First he sung a paean to the Shah, claiming that prior to the 1979 Revolution Iran “commanded the respect of the world.” Then he declared Iran’s leaders will reject Washington’s demands for a “new” US-dictated “deal,” adding, “I’d probably say the same thing if I was in their position. But the fact is, they are going to want to make a new and lasting deal.” Trump made a brief reference to North Korea in his statement, immediately after boasting that by blowing up the Iran deal he had demonstrated “The United States no longer makes empty threats.” Whatever the immediate outcome of the planned talks between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jung-un, the US repudiation of the Iran deal makes clear that the Korean Peninsula “peace talks” are a tactical maneuver aimed at facilitating US imperialist violence and banditry. Should a deal be reached, it will only be to free America’s hands for confrontations with its more substantial adversaries. If and when US strategic priorities change, or circumstances allow, Washington will invoke the most flimsy and contrived pretext to jettison a Korean denuclearization agreement. The Democrats and wide sections of the US military-intelligence establishment have, it should be noted, decried Trump’s turn to negotiations with Pyongyang and more or less announced that they would repudiate any deal he signs with the North Korean regime. No doubt the European imperialist powers are angered and shaken by Trump’s indifference to their counsels. French Prime Minister Emanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel both came to Washington in late April to personally plea for Trump not to jettison the Iran deal. On Monday, it was British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson’s turn, although he only had audiences with Vice-President Pence and Secretary of State Pompeo. Once again US imperialism has brushed aside the concerns of its ostensible European allies in the naked pursuit of its own interests. Whatever is said in public statements, relations between the imperialist powers are ever more venomous as each pursues its own interests under conditions of economic crisis and ever-intensifying geopolitical and commercial rivalry. The history of the last century demonstrated that the imperialist appetites of the British, French and German ruling elites are no less voracious than those of the capitalist rulers of America. If they have sought to dissuade Trump from jettisoning the Iran deal it is only because this would cut across their attempts to exploit Iran economically, and because they fear the destabilizing impact of a war with Iran, including soaring oil prices and a further mass influx of refugees. In their vain attempt to convince Trump to remain in the deal, the Europeans joined with him in making a whole series of fresh demands on Teheran, including for drastic limits to its ballistic-missile program, and pledged their steadfast support for Israel—thus encouraging both Trump and Netanyahu to proceed with their offensive against Iran. This points to another of the chief concerns of the European imperialists, which underscores that their intentions are no less belligerent. Along with the Democratic Party and much of the US military-intelligence apparatus, they have been arguing that the best strategy for bringing Iran to heel, and integrating that campaign with NATO’s military-strategic offensive against Russia, is to concentrate on prosecuting the war for regime change in Syria. As was frankly admitted by political leaders and the capitalist media in the run-up to last month’s US-French-British airstrikes on Syria, this alternate imperialist strategy could rapidly result in direct military clashes between US and Russian forces, with all that entails. Washington’s trashing of the nuclear deal constitutes an immense crisis and devastating exposure of Iran’s bourgeois nationalist regime. Terrified of the growing class contradictions in Iran, the Islamic Republic’s bourgeois-clerical regime placed its hopes in a rapprochement with US imperialism and Barack Obama’s phony promises of a new US Mideast foreign policy. No matter that it was under Obama that the US attacked Libya, launched a similar regime-change operation in Syria and supported the military in restoring its bloody grip over Egypt. Since Trump, an avowed opponent of the Iran deal from its inception, came to office, Teheran has desperately appealed to the Europeans to shield them from America’s wrath. Meanwhile, in line with these efforts to ingratiate itself with the imperialists and woo investment, the Iranian bourgeoisie has pressed forward with its anti-working-class austerity policies. In response to Trump’s announcement, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and the Europeans announced that they intend to stay in the nuclear deal. In doing so, Rouhani is clutching at straws. Keith Jones WSWS.ORG _______________________________________________ Peace mailing list Peace at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brussel at illinois.edu Wed May 9 19:22:28 2018 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Wed, 9 May 2018 19:22:28 +0000 Subject: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Trump torpedoes Iran nuclear accord In-Reply-To: References: <7C800042-BF43-42AA-BC29-3AED399574BF@illinois.edu> Message-ID: <714540F5-D753-488E-91AC-9DB52C592B8D@illinois.edu> Given all this ratiocination, i remain with the strong impression e.g. from their recent NfN program, that Carl and David let Israel off the hook too easily in its pushing for wars in Syria and Iran by the U.S.. Yes, of course there are others—weapons makers, Saudis, etc—, also pushing for these wars. Nevertheless, the virtual unanimity in Congress with whatever Israel proposes is further evidence of the toxic influence of Zionists, their lobbying and money, on U.S. foreign policy. There seems to be inadequate counterweight offsetting their pressures, given the mentality of the Trump administration. > On May 9, 2018, at 8:43 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss wrote: > > Carl > > Stop with the “Trump Administration” being manipulated by Israel.” This is where your credibility comes into question. > > >> On May 9, 2018, at 06:03, Carl G. Estabrook wrote: >> >> Israel is pushing the U.S. to go to war with Iran. We shouldn’t let it happen. >> >> Fifteen years ago the U.S. government attacked Iraq and killed a million people - on the basis of lies that Iraq had dangerous “weapons of mass destruction.” >> >> During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump talked of his opposition to the attack on Iraq: >> >> “Look at the war in Iraq and the mess that we’re in. I would never have handled it that way ... What was the purpose of this whole thing? Hundreds and hundreds of young people killed. And what about the people coming back with no arms and legs? Not to mention the other side. All those Iraqi kids who’ve been blown to pieces. And it turns out that all of the reasons for the war were blatantly wrong. All this for nothing!” >> >> A principal instigator of that shameful US war against Iraq was the government of Israel, who wished to remove Iraq as a regional rival in the Middle East. >> >> Now Israel is trying to repeat that crime, urging the US to attack and kill Iranians. >> >> But the US is part of a deal with Iran and six other countries that guarantees that Iran will not develop even one nuclear weapon. (The US has thousands; Israel has at least two hundred.) >> >> The ‘Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,’ known as the Iran nuclear deal, is an international agreement reached in Vienna in 2015 between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (China, France, Russia, Britain and the US), plus Germany and the European Union. >> >> President Trump has announced he will violate the agreement and ‘withdraw’ from the deal. The Israeli government cheers, because they want the US to attack Iran, for their benefit. >> >> (Aaron Maté writes, “Trump cited Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's bogus speech from last week. Without doubt this effort is coordinated. Will any Democrats call for an investigation of this Trump collusion with a foreign power [like ‘Russiagate’]?”) >> >> In order to get its war on, Israel has attacked Iranian troops in Syria (who are there legally, unlike US troops) -- including a bombing last week that registered as a 2.6 earthquake on seismographs. An Israeli government advisor has all but admitted that killing Iranians in Syria is designed to provoke an open war with Iran. Meanwhile, Israeli snipers kill peaceful protesters in Gaza, including children and journalists. >> >> We should not let the Trump administration be manipulated into war. The president and our Congressional representatives should be urged to remember the lessons of Iraq and not attack Iran - among other things a more populous and better armed country, with powerful allies, notably Russia and China. War with Iran risks a much larger war - even a nuclear war. >> >> The largest anti-war demonstrations in history occurred around the world before the US attacked Iraq. As Americans we must do even more to prevent this new criminal war. >> >> If the US and Israel attack Iran, there should be general work stoppages - strikes - and street demonstrations across the US. >> >> In the meantime, write the president and our Congressional representatives - Representative Rodney Davis, Senator Tammy Duckworth, and Senator Dick Durbin. >> >> —CGE >> >>> On May 9, 2018, at 7:57 AM, Karen Aram via Peace wrote: >>> >>> Trump torpedoes Iran nuclear accord >>> 9 May 2018 >>> US President Donald Trump announced yesterday that America has withdrawn from the Iran nuclear accord, is reimposing crippling economic sanctions on Iran, and will soon add further unspecified sanctions. >>> In doing so, Trump ignored warnings from Washington’s closest European allies and cosignatories of the nuclear accord—Britain, France and Germany—that such action risks plunging the Middle East into all-out war. >>> Whilst provocative and incendiary, yesterday’s announcement is not in the least surprising. >>> As the World Socialist Web Site warned in a perspective published in April 2015 in response to the announcement that Iran and the great powers had reached the “framework” for a nuclear accord: “In a broader historical sense, the deal is not worth the paper it is written on. If and when it is expedient, the US will shred the agreement, as has happened many times in the past. The Libyan regime of Muammar Gaddafi cut a deal in 2003 to give up its WMD [Weapons of Mass Destruction] programs only to find itself the target of a NATO-led war for regime-change in 2011. Amid its own economic decline, US imperialism will stop at nothing in its reckless drive for global domination at the expense of its major rivals.” >>> Changing what needs to be changed, there are striking and instructive parallels between imperialist diplomacy in the 1930s and today. In the run-up to World War II, all sorts of diplomatic agreements were signed, only to be shredded soon after, with the Nazi regime leading the wolf pack. >>> In this, Trump is only more brazen and thuggish than his White House predecessors. >>> His speech was a rant. The wars the US has waged, fomented, and aided and abetted in the greater Middle East over the course of the past quarter-century have blown up complex societies, from Afghanistan and Iraq to Libya, Syria and Yemen. Yet the billionaire, fascist-minded demagogue accused Iran of being “the world’s leading state sponsor of state terrorism,” whose “malign” and “sinister” activities have caused “havoc” in the Middle East. >>> The International Atomic Energy Agency, which has subjected Iran’s nuclear program to the most intrusive inspection regime in history, all the other signatories of the Iran accord, US Defense Secretary James Mattis and other top members of the Trump administration all state categorically that Iran has fulfilled all its obligations under the Iran deal to the letter and has not had any nuclear-weapons program for at least a decade and a half. Yet Trump claimed Iran is on the cusp of threatening the US with nuclear-armed ballistic missiles. >>> As proof for these lies, he pointed to the April 30 show-and-tell presentation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which was panned by the European Union and all but the most right-wing Western media outlets as hype and lies. The New York Times, which is an expert at war propaganda, deception and forgery, felt professionally affronted that Washington was associating itself with so crude a performance, headlining its editorial response “Netanyahu’s Flimflam on Iran.” >>> Near the end of his speech Trump underscored—using language akin to that of a mafia don touting an “offer you can’t refuse”—that Washington has embarked on an escalating campaign of economic, diplomatic and military pressure aimed at reimposing on the Iranian people the type of neocolonial subjugation that prevailed under the savage US-backed dictatorship of the Shah. >>> First he sung a paean to the Shah, claiming that prior to the 1979 Revolution Iran “commanded the respect of the world.” Then he declared Iran’s leaders will reject Washington’s demands for a “new” US-dictated “deal,” adding, “I’d probably say the same thing if I was in their position. But the fact is, they are going to want to make a new and lasting deal.” >>> Trump made a brief reference to North Korea in his statement, immediately after boasting that by blowing up the Iran deal he had demonstrated “The United States no longer makes empty threats.” >>> Whatever the immediate outcome of the planned talks between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jung-un, the US repudiation of the Iran deal makes clear that the Korean Peninsula “peace talks” are a tactical maneuver aimed at facilitating US imperialist violence and banditry. Should a deal be reached, it will only be to free America’s hands for confrontations with its more substantial adversaries. If and when US strategic priorities change, or circumstances allow, Washington will invoke the most flimsy and contrived pretext to jettison a Korean denuclearization agreement. >>> The Democrats and wide sections of the US military-intelligence establishment have, it should be noted, decried Trump’s turn to negotiations with Pyongyang and more or less announced that they would repudiate any deal he signs with the North Korean regime. >>> No doubt the European imperialist powers are angered and shaken by Trump’s indifference to their counsels. French Prime Minister Emanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel both came to Washington in late April to personally plea for Trump not to jettison the Iran deal. On Monday, it was British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson’s turn, although he only had audiences with Vice-President Pence and Secretary of State Pompeo. >>> Once again US imperialism has brushed aside the concerns of its ostensible European allies in the naked pursuit of its own interests. Whatever is said in public statements, relations between the imperialist powers are ever more venomous as each pursues its own interests under conditions of economic crisis and ever-intensifying geopolitical and commercial rivalry. >>> The history of the last century demonstrated that the imperialist appetites of the British, French and German ruling elites are no less voracious than those of the capitalist rulers of America. >>> If they have sought to dissuade Trump from jettisoning the Iran deal it is only because this would cut across their attempts to exploit Iran economically, and because they fear the destabilizing impact of a war with Iran, including soaring oil prices and a further mass influx of refugees. >>> In their vain attempt to convince Trump to remain in the deal, the Europeans joined with him in making a whole series of fresh demands on Teheran, including for drastic limits to its ballistic-missile program, and pledged their steadfast support for Israel—thus encouraging both Trump and Netanyahu to proceed with their offensive against Iran. >>> This points to another of the chief concerns of the European imperialists, which underscores that their intentions are no less belligerent. Along with the Democratic Party and much of the US military-intelligence apparatus, they have been arguing that the best strategy for bringing Iran to heel, and integrating that campaign with NATO’s military-strategic offensive against Russia, is to concentrate on prosecuting the war for regime change in Syria. As was frankly admitted by political leaders and the capitalist media in the run-up to last month’s US-French-British airstrikes on Syria, this alternate imperialist strategy could rapidly result in direct military clashes between US and Russian forces, with all that entails. >>> Washington’s trashing of the nuclear deal constitutes an immense crisis and devastating exposure of Iran’s bourgeois nationalist regime. Terrified of the growing class contradictions in Iran, the Islamic Republic’s bourgeois-clerical regime placed its hopes in a rapprochement with US imperialism and Barack Obama’s phony promises of a new US Mideast foreign policy. No matter that it was under Obama that the US attacked Libya, launched a similar regime-change operation in Syria and supported the military in restoring its bloody grip over Egypt. >>> Since Trump, an avowed opponent of the Iran deal from its inception, came to office, Teheran has desperately appealed to the Europeans to shield them from America’s wrath. Meanwhile, in line with these efforts to ingratiate itself with the imperialists and woo investment, the Iranian bourgeoisie has pressed forward with its anti-working-class austerity policies. >>> In response to Trump’s announcement, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and the Europeans announced that they intend to stay in the nuclear deal. In doing so, Rouhani is clutching at straws. >>> Keith Jones >>> WSWS.ORG >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Peace mailing list >>> Peace at lists.chambana.net >>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace >> > > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss From karenaram at hotmail.com Wed May 9 21:31:41 2018 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 9 May 2018 21:31:41 +0000 Subject: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Trump torpedoes Iran nuclear accord In-Reply-To: <714540F5-D753-488E-91AC-9DB52C592B8D@illinois.edu> References: <7C800042-BF43-42AA-BC29-3AED399574BF@illinois.edu> <714540F5-D753-488E-91AC-9DB52C592B8D@illinois.edu> Message-ID: Mort, et al I think your statement that David and Carl, “let Israel off the hook too easily is a bit unfair," given I have been following them on NFN for years, and accompanied Carl and others on AWARE as well. I think the point is that it’s the US who is responsible, this is an important distinction to make given so many people constantly blame others, especially Israel, for everything. Stay on FB, and it will become quite apparent. Your statement "Nevertheless, the virtual unanimity in Congress with whatever Israel proposes is further evidence of the toxic influence of Zionists, their lobbying and money, on U.S. foreign policy. There seems to be inadequate counterweight offsetting their pressures, given the mentality of the Trump administration.” is quite accurate, and no one is denying the power of the lobbying group AIPAC. My point is “no ones hands are tied, everyone has free will, one can always resign when being pressured to do that which is illegal or just distasteful, what a message that sends. Unfortunately our Representatives are motivated only by self interest therefore they will support anyone, who makes it worth their while. We know where Trump’s sympathies lie, just viewing the most awful people he has appointed to positions of power. And, many of these same people were his advisors before he was elected. My point is, when we blame others for that which we are responsible, we lesson opposition. The focus must be on what the USG is doing, no matter who we are influenced by, no matter who is in power. Most Americans are confused and focused on “getting rid of Trump,” which I think we all agree, will solve nothing, then we have Pence, then we have the Speaker of the House, then the next election we have another Democrat. One can say Obama, brought about peace with the Nuclear Accord, but choking that down with the destruction of Libya and his expansion of the Bush wars from two to eight, does us absolutely not good. I like the WSWS.ORG position which is “we need to change our whole damn system." See More from Karen Aram On May 9, 2018, at 12:22, Brussel, Morton K > wrote: Given all this ratiocination, i remain with the strong impression e.g. from their recent NfN program, that Carl and David let Israel off the hook too easily in its pushing for wars in Syria and Iran by the U.S.. Yes, of course there are others—weapons makers, Saudis, etc—, also pushing for these wars. Nevertheless, the virtual unanimity in Congress with whatever Israel proposes is further evidence of the toxic influence of Zionists, their lobbying and money, on U.S. foreign policy. There seems to be inadequate counterweight offsetting their pressures, given the mentality of the Trump administration. On May 9, 2018, at 8:43 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss > wrote: Carl Stop with the “Trump Administration” being manipulated by Israel.” This is where your credibility comes into question. On May 9, 2018, at 06:03, Carl G. Estabrook > wrote: Israel is pushing the U.S. to go to war with Iran. We shouldn’t let it happen. Fifteen years ago the U.S. government attacked Iraq and killed a million people - on the basis of lies that Iraq had dangerous “weapons of mass destruction.” During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump talked of his opposition to the attack on Iraq: “Look at the war in Iraq and the mess that we’re in. I would never have handled it that way ... What was the purpose of this whole thing? Hundreds and hundreds of young people killed. And what about the people coming back with no arms and legs? Not to mention the other side. All those Iraqi kids who’ve been blown to pieces. And it turns out that all of the reasons for the war were blatantly wrong. All this for nothing!” A principal instigator of that shameful US war against Iraq was the government of Israel, who wished to remove Iraq as a regional rival in the Middle East. Now Israel is trying to repeat that crime, urging the US to attack and kill Iranians. But the US is part of a deal with Iran and six other countries that guarantees that Iran will not develop even one nuclear weapon. (The US has thousands; Israel has at least two hundred.) The ‘Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,’ known as the Iran nuclear deal, is an international agreement reached in Vienna in 2015 between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (China, France, Russia, Britain and the US), plus Germany and the European Union. President Trump has announced he will violate the agreement and ‘withdraw’ from the deal. The Israeli government cheers, because they want the US to attack Iran, for their benefit. (Aaron Maté writes, “Trump cited Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's bogus speech from last week. Without doubt this effort is coordinated. Will any Democrats call for an investigation of this Trump collusion with a foreign power [like ‘Russiagate’]?”) In order to get its war on, Israel has attacked Iranian troops in Syria (who are there legally, unlike US troops) -- including a bombing last week that registered as a 2.6 earthquake on seismographs. An Israeli government advisor has all but admitted that killing Iranians in Syria is designed to provoke an open war with Iran. Meanwhile, Israeli snipers kill peaceful protesters in Gaza, including children and journalists. We should not let the Trump administration be manipulated into war. The president and our Congressional representatives should be urged to remember the lessons of Iraq and not attack Iran - among other things a more populous and better armed country, with powerful allies, notably Russia and China. War with Iran risks a much larger war - even a nuclear war. The largest anti-war demonstrations in history occurred around the world before the US attacked Iraq. As Americans we must do even more to prevent this new criminal war. If the US and Israel attack Iran, there should be general work stoppages - strikes - and street demonstrations across the US. In the meantime, write the president and our Congressional representatives - Representative Rodney Davis, Senator Tammy Duckworth, and Senator Dick Durbin. —CGE On May 9, 2018, at 7:57 AM, Karen Aram via Peace > wrote: Trump torpedoes Iran nuclear accord 9 May 2018 US President Donald Trump announced yesterday that America has withdrawn from the Iran nuclear accord, is reimposing crippling economic sanctions on Iran, and will soon add further unspecified sanctions. In doing so, Trump ignored warnings from Washington’s closest European allies and cosignatories of the nuclear accord—Britain, France and Germany—that such action risks plunging the Middle East into all-out war. Whilst provocative and incendiary, yesterday’s announcement is not in the least surprising. As the World Socialist Web Site warned in a perspective published in April 2015 in response to the announcement that Iran and the great powers had reached the “framework” for a nuclear accord: “In a broader historical sense, the deal is not worth the paper it is written on. If and when it is expedient, the US will shred the agreement, as has happened many times in the past. The Libyan regime of Muammar Gaddafi cut a deal in 2003 to give up its WMD [Weapons of Mass Destruction] programs only to find itself the target of a NATO-led war for regime-change in 2011. Amid its own economic decline, US imperialism will stop at nothing in its reckless drive for global domination at the expense of its major rivals.” Changing what needs to be changed, there are striking and instructive parallels between imperialist diplomacy in the 1930s and today. In the run-up to World War II, all sorts of diplomatic agreements were signed, only to be shredded soon after, with the Nazi regime leading the wolf pack. In this, Trump is only more brazen and thuggish than his White House predecessors. His speech was a rant. The wars the US has waged, fomented, and aided and abetted in the greater Middle East over the course of the past quarter-century have blown up complex societies, from Afghanistan and Iraq to Libya, Syria and Yemen. Yet the billionaire, fascist-minded demagogue accused Iran of being “the world’s leading state sponsor of state terrorism,” whose “malign” and “sinister” activities have caused “havoc” in the Middle East. The International Atomic Energy Agency, which has subjected Iran’s nuclear program to the most intrusive inspection regime in history, all the other signatories of the Iran accord, US Defense Secretary James Mattis and other top members of the Trump administration all state categorically that Iran has fulfilled all its obligations under the Iran deal to the letter and has not had any nuclear-weapons program for at least a decade and a half. Yet Trump claimed Iran is on the cusp of threatening the US with nuclear-armed ballistic missiles. As proof for these lies, he pointed to the April 30 show-and-tell presentation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which was panned by the European Union and all but the most right-wing Western media outlets as hype and lies. The New York Times, which is an expert at war propaganda, deception and forgery, felt professionally affronted that Washington was associating itself with so crude a performance, headlining its editorial response “Netanyahu’s Flimflam on Iran.” Near the end of his speech Trump underscored—using language akin to that of a mafia don touting an “offer you can’t refuse”—that Washington has embarked on an escalating campaign of economic, diplomatic and military pressure aimed at reimposing on the Iranian people the type of neocolonial subjugation that prevailed under the savage US-backed dictatorship of the Shah. First he sung a paean to the Shah, claiming that prior to the 1979 Revolution Iran “commanded the respect of the world.” Then he declared Iran’s leaders will reject Washington’s demands for a “new” US-dictated “deal,” adding, “I’d probably say the same thing if I was in their position. But the fact is, they are going to want to make a new and lasting deal.” Trump made a brief reference to North Korea in his statement, immediately after boasting that by blowing up the Iran deal he had demonstrated “The United States no longer makes empty threats.” Whatever the immediate outcome of the planned talks between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jung-un, the US repudiation of the Iran deal makes clear that the Korean Peninsula “peace talks” are a tactical maneuver aimed at facilitating US imperialist violence and banditry. Should a deal be reached, it will only be to free America’s hands for confrontations with its more substantial adversaries. If and when US strategic priorities change, or circumstances allow, Washington will invoke the most flimsy and contrived pretext to jettison a Korean denuclearization agreement. The Democrats and wide sections of the US military-intelligence establishment have, it should be noted, decried Trump’s turn to negotiations with Pyongyang and more or less announced that they would repudiate any deal he signs with the North Korean regime. No doubt the European imperialist powers are angered and shaken by Trump’s indifference to their counsels. French Prime Minister Emanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel both came to Washington in late April to personally plea for Trump not to jettison the Iran deal. On Monday, it was British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson’s turn, although he only had audiences with Vice-President Pence and Secretary of State Pompeo. Once again US imperialism has brushed aside the concerns of its ostensible European allies in the naked pursuit of its own interests. Whatever is said in public statements, relations between the imperialist powers are ever more venomous as each pursues its own interests under conditions of economic crisis and ever-intensifying geopolitical and commercial rivalry. The history of the last century demonstrated that the imperialist appetites of the British, French and German ruling elites are no less voracious than those of the capitalist rulers of America. If they have sought to dissuade Trump from jettisoning the Iran deal it is only because this would cut across their attempts to exploit Iran economically, and because they fear the destabilizing impact of a war with Iran, including soaring oil prices and a further mass influx of refugees. In their vain attempt to convince Trump to remain in the deal, the Europeans joined with him in making a whole series of fresh demands on Teheran, including for drastic limits to its ballistic-missile program, and pledged their steadfast support for Israel—thus encouraging both Trump and Netanyahu to proceed with their offensive against Iran. This points to another of the chief concerns of the European imperialists, which underscores that their intentions are no less belligerent. Along with the Democratic Party and much of the US military-intelligence apparatus, they have been arguing that the best strategy for bringing Iran to heel, and integrating that campaign with NATO’s military-strategic offensive against Russia, is to concentrate on prosecuting the war for regime change in Syria. As was frankly admitted by political leaders and the capitalist media in the run-up to last month’s US-French-British airstrikes on Syria, this alternate imperialist strategy could rapidly result in direct military clashes between US and Russian forces, with all that entails. Washington’s trashing of the nuclear deal constitutes an immense crisis and devastating exposure of Iran’s bourgeois nationalist regime. Terrified of the growing class contradictions in Iran, the Islamic Republic’s bourgeois-clerical regime placed its hopes in a rapprochement with US imperialism and Barack Obama’s phony promises of a new US Mideast foreign policy. No matter that it was under Obama that the US attacked Libya, launched a similar regime-change operation in Syria and supported the military in restoring its bloody grip over Egypt. Since Trump, an avowed opponent of the Iran deal from its inception, came to office, Teheran has desperately appealed to the Europeans to shield them from America’s wrath. Meanwhile, in line with these efforts to ingratiate itself with the imperialists and woo investment, the Iranian bourgeoisie has pressed forward with its anti-working-class austerity policies. In response to Trump’s announcement, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and the Europeans announced that they intend to stay in the nuclear deal. In doing so, Rouhani is clutching at straws. Keith Jones WSWS.ORG _______________________________________________ Peace mailing list Peace at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Wed May 9 21:33:04 2018 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 9 May 2018 21:33:04 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: video link to: US Out of the Middle East march in Urbana References: <512a8c28506e44f096980b3c745d49ea@Zefram.city.urbana.il.us> Message-ID: Subject: video link Date: May 9, 2018 at 14:08:38 PDT https://youtu.be/e14RRUBpqyE -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbw292002 at gmail.com Wed May 9 21:43:08 2018 From: jbw292002 at gmail.com (John W.) Date: Wed, 9 May 2018 16:43:08 -0500 Subject: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Trump torpedoes Iran nuclear accord In-Reply-To: References: <7C800042-BF43-42AA-BC29-3AED399574BF@illinois.edu> <714540F5-D753-488E-91AC-9DB52C592B8D@illinois.edu> Message-ID: "It's a breath mint!" "It's a candy mint!" "It's a BREATH mint!!" "It's a CANDY mint!!" STOP!! You're BOTH right!!! Lets just burn down this whole rotten system and start over, like we did in the '60's!!!!! On Wed, May 9, 2018 at 4:31 PM, Karen Aram via Peace < peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote: Mort, et al > > I think your statement that David and Carl, “let Israel off the hook too > easily is a bit unfair," given I have been following them on NFN for years, > and accompanied Carl and others on AWARE as well. I think the point is that > it’s the US who is responsible, this is an important distinction to make > given so many people constantly blame others, especially Israel, for > everything. Stay on FB, and it will become quite apparent. > > Your statement "*Nevertheless, the virtual unanimity in Congress with > whatever Israel proposes is further evidence of the toxic influence of > Zionists, their lobbying and money, on U.S. foreign policy. There seems to > be inadequate counterweight offsetting their pressures, given the mentality > of the Trump administration.”* is quite accurate, and no one is denying > the power of the lobbying group AIPAC. > > My point is “no ones hands are tied, everyone has free will, one can > always resign when being pressured to do that which is illegal or just > distasteful, what a message that sends. Unfortunately our Representatives > are motivated only by self interest therefore they will support anyone, who > makes it worth their while. We know where Trump’s sympathies lie, just > viewing the most awful people he has appointed to positions of power. And, > many of these same people were his advisors before he was elected. > > My point is, when we blame others for that which we are responsible, we > lesson opposition. The focus must be on what the USG is doing, no matter > who we are influenced by, no matter who is in power. Most Americans are > confused and focused on “getting rid of Trump,” which I think we all agree, > will solve nothing, then we have Pence, then we have the Speaker of the > House, then the next election we have another Democrat. One can say Obama, > brought about peace with the Nuclear Accord, but choking that down with the > destruction of Libya and his expansion of the Bush wars from two to eight, > does us absolutely not good. > > I like the WSWS.ORG position which is “we need to > change our whole damn system." > > *See More* from Karen Aram > > On May 9, 2018, at 12:22, Brussel, Morton K wrote: > > Given all this ratiocination, i remain with the strong impression e.g. > from their recent NfN program, that Carl and David let Israel off the hook > too easily in its pushing for wars in Syria and Iran by the U.S.. Yes, of > course there are others—weapons makers, Saudis, etc—, also pushing for > these wars. Nevertheless, the virtual unanimity in Congress with whatever > Israel proposes is further evidence of the toxic influence of Zionists, > their lobbying and money, on U.S. foreign policy. There seems to be > inadequate counterweight offsetting their pressures, given the mentality of > the Trump administration. > > On May 9, 2018, at 8:43 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss < > peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote: > > Carl > > Stop with the “Trump Administration” being manipulated by Israel.” This is > where your credibility comes into question. > > > On May 9, 2018, at 06:03, Carl G. Estabrook wrote: > > Israel is pushing the U.S. to go to war with Iran. We shouldn’t let it > happen. > > Fifteen years ago the U.S. government attacked Iraq and killed a million > people - on the basis of lies that Iraq had dangerous “weapons of mass > destruction.” > > During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump talked of his opposition to > the attack on Iraq: > > “Look at the war in Iraq and the mess that we’re in. I would never have > handled it that way ... What was the purpose of this whole thing? Hundreds > and hundreds of young people killed. And what about the people coming back > with no arms and legs? Not to mention the other side. All those Iraqi kids > who’ve been blown to pieces. And it turns out that all of the reasons for > the war were blatantly wrong. All this for nothing!” > > A principal instigator of that shameful US war against Iraq was the > government of Israel, who wished to remove Iraq as a regional rival in the > Middle East. > > Now Israel is trying to repeat that crime, urging the US to attack and > kill Iranians. > > But the US is part of a deal with Iran and six other countries that > guarantees that Iran will not develop even one nuclear weapon. (The US has > thousands; Israel has at least two hundred.) > > The ‘Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,’ known as the Iran nuclear deal, > is an international agreement reached in Vienna in 2015 between Iran and > the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council > (China, France, Russia, Britain and the US), plus Germany and the European > Union. > > President Trump has announced he will violate the agreement and ‘withdraw’ > from the deal. The Israeli government cheers, because they want the US to > attack Iran, for their benefit. > > (Aaron Maté writes, “Trump cited Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's bogus > speech from last week. Without doubt this effort is coordinated. Will any > Democrats call for an investigation of this Trump collusion with a foreign > power [like ‘Russiagate’]?”) > > In order to get its war on, Israel has attacked Iranian troops in Syria > (who are there legally, unlike US troops) -- including a bombing last week > that registered as a 2.6 earthquake on seismographs. An Israeli > government advisor has all but admitted that killing Iranians in Syria is > designed to provoke an open war with Iran. Meanwhile, Israeli snipers kill > peaceful protesters in Gaza, including children and journalists. > > We should not let the Trump administration be manipulated into war. The > president and our Congressional representatives should be urged to remember > the lessons of Iraq and not attack Iran - among other things a > more populous and better armed country, with powerful allies, notably > Russia and China. War with Iran risks a much larger war - even a nuclear > war. > > The largest anti-war demonstrations in history occurred around the world > before the US attacked Iraq. As Americans we must do even more to prevent > this new criminal war. > > If the US and Israel attack Iran, there should be general work stoppages - > strikes - and street demonstrations across the US. > > In the meantime, write the president and our Congressional representatives > - Representative Rodney Davis, Senator Tammy Duckworth, and Senator Dick > Durbin. > > —CGE > > On May 9, 2018, at 7:57 AM, Karen Aram via Peace > wrote: > > Trump torpedoes Iran nuclear accord > 9 May 2018 > US President Donald Trump announced yesterday that America has withdrawn > from the Iran nuclear accord, is reimposing crippling economic sanctions on > Iran, and will soon add further unspecified sanctions. > In doing so, Trump ignored warnings from Washington’s closest European > allies and cosignatories of the nuclear accord—Britain, France and > Germany—that such action risks plunging the Middle East into all-out war. > Whilst provocative and incendiary, yesterday’s announcement is not in the > least surprising. > As the World Socialist Web Site warned in a perspective published in April > 2015 in response to the announcement that Iran and the great powers had > reached the “framework” for a nuclear accord: “In a broader historical > sense, the deal is not worth the paper it is written on. If and when it is > expedient, the US will shred the agreement, as has happened many times in > the past. The Libyan regime of Muammar Gaddafi cut a deal in 2003 to give > up its WMD [Weapons of Mass Destruction] programs only to find itself the > target of a NATO-led war for regime-change in 2011. Amid its own economic > decline, US imperialism will stop at nothing in its reckless drive for > global domination at the expense of its major rivals.” > Changing what needs to be changed, there are striking and instructive > parallels between imperialist diplomacy in the 1930s and today. In the > run-up to World War II, all sorts of diplomatic agreements were signed, > only to be shredded soon after, with the Nazi regime leading the wolf pack. > In this, Trump is only more brazen and thuggish than his White House > predecessors. > His speech was a rant. The wars the US has waged, fomented, and aided and > abetted in the greater Middle East over the course of the past > quarter-century have blown up complex societies, from Afghanistan and Iraq > to Libya, Syria and Yemen. Yet the billionaire, fascist-minded demagogue > accused Iran of being “the world’s leading state sponsor of state > terrorism,” whose “malign” and “sinister” activities have caused “havoc” in > the Middle East. > The International Atomic Energy Agency, which has subjected Iran’s nuclear > program to the most intrusive inspection regime in history, all the other > signatories of the Iran accord, US Defense Secretary James Mattis and other > top members of the Trump administration all state categorically that Iran > has fulfilled all its obligations under the Iran deal to the letter and has > not had any nuclear-weapons program for at least a decade and a half. Yet > Trump claimed Iran is on the cusp of threatening the US with nuclear-armed > ballistic missiles. > As proof for these lies, he pointed to the April 30 show-and-tell > presentation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which was panned > by the European Union and all but the most right-wing Western media outlets > as hype and lies. The New York Times, which is an expert at war propaganda, > deception and forgery, felt professionally affronted that Washington was > associating itself with so crude a performance, headlining its editorial > response “Netanyahu’s Flimflam on Iran.” > Near the end of his speech Trump underscored—using language akin to that > of a mafia don touting an “offer you can’t refuse”—that Washington has > embarked on an escalating campaign of economic, diplomatic and > military pressure aimed at reimposing on the Iranian people the type of > neocolonial subjugation that prevailed under the savage US-backed > dictatorship of the Shah. > First he sung a paean to the Shah, claiming that prior to the 1979 > Revolution Iran “commanded the respect of the world.” Then he declared > Iran’s leaders will reject Washington’s demands for a “new” US-dictated > “deal,” adding, “I’d probably say the same thing if I was in their > position. But the fact is, they are going to want to make a new and lasting > deal.” > Trump made a brief reference to North Korea in his statement, immediately > after boasting that by blowing up the Iran deal he had demonstrated “The > United States no longer makes empty threats.” > Whatever the immediate outcome of the planned talks between Trump and > North Korean leader Kim Jung-un, the US repudiation of the Iran deal makes > clear that the Korean Peninsula “peace talks” are a tactical maneuver aimed > at facilitating US imperialist violence and banditry. Should a deal be > reached, it will only be to free America’s hands for confrontations with > its more substantial adversaries. If and when US strategic > priorities change, or circumstances allow, Washington will invoke the most > flimsy and contrived pretext to jettison a Korean denuclearization > agreement. > The Democrats and wide sections of the US military-intelligence > establishment have, it should be noted, decried Trump’s turn to > negotiations with Pyongyang and more or less announced that they would > repudiate any deal he signs with the North Korean regime. > No doubt the European imperialist powers are angered and shaken by Trump’s > indifference to their counsels. French Prime Minister Emanuel Macron and > German Chancellor Angela Merkel both came to Washington in late April to > personally plea for Trump not to jettison the Iran deal. On Monday, it was > British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson’s turn, although he only had > audiences with Vice-President Pence and Secretary of State Pompeo. > Once again US imperialism has brushed aside the concerns of its ostensible > European allies in the naked pursuit of its own interests. Whatever is said > in public statements, relations between the imperialist powers are ever > more venomous as each pursues its own interests under conditions of > economic crisis and ever-intensifying geopolitical and commercial rivalry. > The history of the last century demonstrated that the imperialist > appetites of the British, French and German ruling elites are no less > voracious than those of the capitalist rulers of America. > If they have sought to dissuade Trump from jettisoning the Iran deal it is > only because this would cut across their attempts to exploit Iran > economically, and because they fear the destabilizing impact of a war with > Iran, including soaring oil prices and a further mass influx of refugees. > In their vain attempt to convince Trump to remain in the deal, the > Europeans joined with him in making a whole series of fresh demands on > Teheran, including for drastic limits to its ballistic-missile program, and > pledged their steadfast support for Israel—thus encouraging both Trump and > Netanyahu to proceed with their offensive against Iran. > This points to another of the chief concerns of the European imperialists, > which underscores that their intentions are no less belligerent. Along with > the Democratic Party and much of the US military-intelligence apparatus, > they have been arguing that the best strategy for bringing Iran to heel, > and integrating that campaign with NATO’s military-strategic offensive > against Russia, is to concentrate on prosecuting the war for regime change > in Syria. As was frankly admitted by political leaders and the capitalist > media in the run-up to last month’s US-French-British airstrikes on Syria, > this alternate imperialist strategy could rapidly result in direct military > clashes between US and Russian forces, with all that entails. > Washington’s trashing of the nuclear deal constitutes an immense crisis > and devastating exposure of Iran’s bourgeois nationalist regime. Terrified > of the growing class contradictions in Iran, the Islamic > Republic’s bourgeois-clerical regime placed its hopes in a rapprochement > with US imperialism and Barack Obama’s phony promises of a new US Mideast > foreign policy. No matter that it was under Obama that the US attacked > Libya, launched a similar regime-change operation in Syria and supported > the military in restoring its bloody grip over Egypt. > Since Trump, an avowed opponent of the Iran deal from its inception, came > to office, Teheran has desperately appealed to the Europeans to shield them > from America’s wrath. Meanwhile, in line with these efforts to ingratiate > itself with the imperialists and woo investment, the Iranian bourgeoisie > has pressed forward with its anti-working-class austerity policies. > In response to Trump’s announcement, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and > the Europeans announced that they intend to stay in the nuclear deal. In > doing so, Rouhani is clutching at straws. > Keith Jones > WSWS.ORG > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace > > > > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Wed May 9 21:52:22 2018 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 9 May 2018 21:52:22 +0000 Subject: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Trump torpedoes Iran nuclear accord In-Reply-To: References: <7C800042-BF43-42AA-BC29-3AED399574BF@illinois.edu> <714540F5-D753-488E-91AC-9DB52C592B8D@illinois.edu> Message-ID: Unfortunately, thats not what we did in the sixties. Once the Vietnam war was over, everyone went home, I left the country, many went to California to join communes, and navel gaze, while others got swept up into the eighties, where greed was good. So here we are on the brink of nuclear war, and climate catastrophe, pick your poison. On May 9, 2018, at 14:43, John W. > wrote: "It's a breath mint!" "It's a candy mint!" "It's a BREATH mint!!" "It's a CANDY mint!!" STOP!! You're BOTH right!!! Lets just burn down this whole rotten system and start over, like we did in the '60's!!!!! On Wed, May 9, 2018 at 4:31 PM, Karen Aram via Peace > wrote: Mort, et al I think your statement that David and Carl, “let Israel off the hook too easily is a bit unfair," given I have been following them on NFN for years, and accompanied Carl and others on AWARE as well. I think the point is that it’s the US who is responsible, this is an important distinction to make given so many people constantly blame others, especially Israel, for everything. Stay on FB, and it will become quite apparent. Your statement "Nevertheless, the virtual unanimity in Congress with whatever Israel proposes is further evidence of the toxic influence of Zionists, their lobbying and money, on U.S. foreign policy. There seems to be inadequate counterweight offsetting their pressures, given the mentality of the Trump administration.” is quite accurate, and no one is denying the power of the lobbying group AIPAC. My point is “no ones hands are tied, everyone has free will, one can always resign when being pressured to do that which is illegal or just distasteful, what a message that sends. Unfortunately our Representatives are motivated only by self interest therefore they will support anyone, who makes it worth their while. We know where Trump’s sympathies lie, just viewing the most awful people he has appointed to positions of power. And, many of these same people were his advisors before he was elected. My point is, when we blame others for that which we are responsible, we lesson opposition. The focus must be on what the USG is doing, no matter who we are influenced by, no matter who is in power. Most Americans are confused and focused on “getting rid of Trump,” which I think we all agree, will solve nothing, then we have Pence, then we have the Speaker of the House, then the next election we have another Democrat. One can say Obama, brought about peace with the Nuclear Accord, but choking that down with the destruction of Libya and his expansion of the Bush wars from two to eight, does us absolutely not good. I like the WSWS.ORG position which is “we need to change our whole damn system." See More from Karen Aram On May 9, 2018, at 12:22, Brussel, Morton K > wrote: Given all this ratiocination, i remain with the strong impression e.g. from their recent NfN program, that Carl and David let Israel off the hook too easily in its pushing for wars in Syria and Iran by the U.S.. Yes, of course there are others—weapons makers, Saudis, etc—, also pushing for these wars. Nevertheless, the virtual unanimity in Congress with whatever Israel proposes is further evidence of the toxic influence of Zionists, their lobbying and money, on U.S. foreign policy. There seems to be inadequate counterweight offsetting their pressures, given the mentality of the Trump administration. On May 9, 2018, at 8:43 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss > wrote: Carl Stop with the “Trump Administration” being manipulated by Israel.” This is where your credibility comes into question. On May 9, 2018, at 06:03, Carl G. Estabrook > wrote: Israel is pushing the U.S. to go to war with Iran. We shouldn’t let it happen. Fifteen years ago the U.S. government attacked Iraq and killed a million people - on the basis of lies that Iraq had dangerous “weapons of mass destruction.” During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump talked of his opposition to the attack on Iraq: “Look at the war in Iraq and the mess that we’re in. I would never have handled it that way ... What was the purpose of this whole thing? Hundreds and hundreds of young people killed. And what about the people coming back with no arms and legs? Not to mention the other side. All those Iraqi kids who’ve been blown to pieces. And it turns out that all of the reasons for the war were blatantly wrong. All this for nothing!” A principal instigator of that shameful US war against Iraq was the government of Israel, who wished to remove Iraq as a regional rival in the Middle East. Now Israel is trying to repeat that crime, urging the US to attack and kill Iranians. But the US is part of a deal with Iran and six other countries that guarantees that Iran will not develop even one nuclear weapon. (The US has thousands; Israel has at least two hundred.) The ‘Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,’ known as the Iran nuclear deal, is an international agreement reached in Vienna in 2015 between Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (China, France, Russia, Britain and the US), plus Germany and the European Union. President Trump has announced he will violate the agreement and ‘withdraw’ from the deal. The Israeli government cheers, because they want the US to attack Iran, for their benefit. (Aaron Maté writes, “Trump cited Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's bogus speech from last week. Without doubt this effort is coordinated. Will any Democrats call for an investigation of this Trump collusion with a foreign power [like ‘Russiagate’]?”) In order to get its war on, Israel has attacked Iranian troops in Syria (who are there legally, unlike US troops) -- including a bombing last week that registered as a 2.6 earthquake on seismographs. An Israeli government advisor has all but admitted that killing Iranians in Syria is designed to provoke an open war with Iran. Meanwhile, Israeli snipers kill peaceful protesters in Gaza, including children and journalists. We should not let the Trump administration be manipulated into war. The president and our Congressional representatives should be urged to remember the lessons of Iraq and not attack Iran - among other things a more populous and better armed country, with powerful allies, notably Russia and China. War with Iran risks a much larger war - even a nuclear war. The largest anti-war demonstrations in history occurred around the world before the US attacked Iraq. As Americans we must do even more to prevent this new criminal war. If the US and Israel attack Iran, there should be general work stoppages - strikes - and street demonstrations across the US. In the meantime, write the president and our Congressional representatives - Representative Rodney Davis, Senator Tammy Duckworth, and Senator Dick Durbin. —CGE On May 9, 2018, at 7:57 AM, Karen Aram via Peace > wrote: Trump torpedoes Iran nuclear accord 9 May 2018 US President Donald Trump announced yesterday that America has withdrawn from the Iran nuclear accord, is reimposing crippling economic sanctions on Iran, and will soon add further unspecified sanctions. In doing so, Trump ignored warnings from Washington’s closest European allies and cosignatories of the nuclear accord—Britain, France and Germany—that such action risks plunging the Middle East into all-out war. Whilst provocative and incendiary, yesterday’s announcement is not in the least surprising. As the World Socialist Web Site warned in a perspective published in April 2015 in response to the announcement that Iran and the great powers had reached the “framework” for a nuclear accord: “In a broader historical sense, the deal is not worth the paper it is written on. If and when it is expedient, the US will shred the agreement, as has happened many times in the past. The Libyan regime of Muammar Gaddafi cut a deal in 2003 to give up its WMD [Weapons of Mass Destruction] programs only to find itself the target of a NATO-led war for regime-change in 2011. Amid its own economic decline, US imperialism will stop at nothing in its reckless drive for global domination at the expense of its major rivals.” Changing what needs to be changed, there are striking and instructive parallels between imperialist diplomacy in the 1930s and today. In the run-up to World War II, all sorts of diplomatic agreements were signed, only to be shredded soon after, with the Nazi regime leading the wolf pack. In this, Trump is only more brazen and thuggish than his White House predecessors. His speech was a rant. The wars the US has waged, fomented, and aided and abetted in the greater Middle East over the course of the past quarter-century have blown up complex societies, from Afghanistan and Iraq to Libya, Syria and Yemen. Yet the billionaire, fascist-minded demagogue accused Iran of being “the world’s leading state sponsor of state terrorism,” whose “malign” and “sinister” activities have caused “havoc” in the Middle East. The International Atomic Energy Agency, which has subjected Iran’s nuclear program to the most intrusive inspection regime in history, all the other signatories of the Iran accord, US Defense Secretary James Mattis and other top members of the Trump administration all state categorically that Iran has fulfilled all its obligations under the Iran deal to the letter and has not had any nuclear-weapons program for at least a decade and a half. Yet Trump claimed Iran is on the cusp of threatening the US with nuclear-armed ballistic missiles. As proof for these lies, he pointed to the April 30 show-and-tell presentation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which was panned by the European Union and all but the most right-wing Western media outlets as hype and lies. The New York Times, which is an expert at war propaganda, deception and forgery, felt professionally affronted that Washington was associating itself with so crude a performance, headlining its editorial response “Netanyahu’s Flimflam on Iran.” Near the end of his speech Trump underscored—using language akin to that of a mafia don touting an “offer you can’t refuse”—that Washington has embarked on an escalating campaign of economic, diplomatic and military pressure aimed at reimposing on the Iranian people the type of neocolonial subjugation that prevailed under the savage US-backed dictatorship of the Shah. First he sung a paean to the Shah, claiming that prior to the 1979 Revolution Iran “commanded the respect of the world.” Then he declared Iran’s leaders will reject Washington’s demands for a “new” US-dictated “deal,” adding, “I’d probably say the same thing if I was in their position. But the fact is, they are going to want to make a new and lasting deal.” Trump made a brief reference to North Korea in his statement, immediately after boasting that by blowing up the Iran deal he had demonstrated “The United States no longer makes empty threats.” Whatever the immediate outcome of the planned talks between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jung-un, the US repudiation of the Iran deal makes clear that the Korean Peninsula “peace talks” are a tactical maneuver aimed at facilitating US imperialist violence and banditry. Should a deal be reached, it will only be to free America’s hands for confrontations with its more substantial adversaries. If and when US strategic priorities change, or circumstances allow, Washington will invoke the most flimsy and contrived pretext to jettison a Korean denuclearization agreement. The Democrats and wide sections of the US military-intelligence establishment have, it should be noted, decried Trump’s turn to negotiations with Pyongyang and more or less announced that they would repudiate any deal he signs with the North Korean regime. No doubt the European imperialist powers are angered and shaken by Trump’s indifference to their counsels. French Prime Minister Emanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel both came to Washington in late April to personally plea for Trump not to jettison the Iran deal. On Monday, it was British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson’s turn, although he only had audiences with Vice-President Pence and Secretary of State Pompeo. Once again US imperialism has brushed aside the concerns of its ostensible European allies in the naked pursuit of its own interests. Whatever is said in public statements, relations between the imperialist powers are ever more venomous as each pursues its own interests under conditions of economic crisis and ever-intensifying geopolitical and commercial rivalry. The history of the last century demonstrated that the imperialist appetites of the British, French and German ruling elites are no less voracious than those of the capitalist rulers of America. If they have sought to dissuade Trump from jettisoning the Iran deal it is only because this would cut across their attempts to exploit Iran economically, and because they fear the destabilizing impact of a war with Iran, including soaring oil prices and a further mass influx of refugees. In their vain attempt to convince Trump to remain in the deal, the Europeans joined with him in making a whole series of fresh demands on Teheran, including for drastic limits to its ballistic-missile program, and pledged their steadfast support for Israel—thus encouraging both Trump and Netanyahu to proceed with their offensive against Iran. This points to another of the chief concerns of the European imperialists, which underscores that their intentions are no less belligerent. Along with the Democratic Party and much of the US military-intelligence apparatus, they have been arguing that the best strategy for bringing Iran to heel, and integrating that campaign with NATO’s military-strategic offensive against Russia, is to concentrate on prosecuting the war for regime change in Syria. As was frankly admitted by political leaders and the capitalist media in the run-up to last month’s US-French-British airstrikes on Syria, this alternate imperialist strategy could rapidly result in direct military clashes between US and Russian forces, with all that entails. Washington’s trashing of the nuclear deal constitutes an immense crisis and devastating exposure of Iran’s bourgeois nationalist regime. Terrified of the growing class contradictions in Iran, the Islamic Republic’s bourgeois-clerical regime placed its hopes in a rapprochement with US imperialism and Barack Obama’s phony promises of a new US Mideast foreign policy. No matter that it was under Obama that the US attacked Libya, launched a similar regime-change operation in Syria and supported the military in restoring its bloody grip over Egypt. Since Trump, an avowed opponent of the Iran deal from its inception, came to office, Teheran has desperately appealed to the Europeans to shield them from America’s wrath. Meanwhile, in line with these efforts to ingratiate itself with the imperialists and woo investment, the Iranian bourgeoisie has pressed forward with its anti-working-class austerity policies. In response to Trump’s announcement, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and the Europeans announced that they intend to stay in the nuclear deal. In doing so, Rouhani is clutching at straws. Keith Jones WSWS.ORG _______________________________________________ Peace mailing list Peace at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss _______________________________________________ Peace mailing list Peace at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Sat May 12 12:44:22 2018 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sat, 12 May 2018 12:44:22 +0000 Subject: [Peace] AWARE at the Market today Message-ID: AWARE is at the Urbana Market today. In the Community Group section #18-19. Drop by for books, literature, and conversation. From karenaram at hotmail.com Sat May 12 22:22:59 2018 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sat, 12 May 2018 22:22:59 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Julian Assange is in danger References: <380cabff931cd452085b8d4a5.2cb7388bc9.20180512175938.075eb226c5.127adbe7@mail77.suw91.mcdlv.net> Message-ID: [https://gallery.mailchimp.com/380cabff931cd452085b8d4a5/images/3f463dd2-fd12-43f3-8738-5ab4826bcca7.png] Dear Karen, Julian Assange is in immense danger. Remarks made this week by Ecuador’s foreign minister suggest that her government may be preparing to renege on the political asylum it granted to the WikiLeaks editor in 2012 and hand him over to British and then American authorities. On March 28, under immense pressure from the governments in the US, Britain and other powers, Ecuador imposed a complete ban on Assange having any Internet or phone contact with the outside world, and blocked his friends and supporters from physically visiting him. For 45 days, he has not been heard from. Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Maria Fernanda Espinosa stated in a Spanish-language interview on Wednesday that her government and Britain “have the intention and the interest that this be resolved.” Moves were underway, she said, to reach a “definite agreement” on Assange. Read the Full Report The World Socialist Web Site and the International Committee of the Fourth International unconditionally defend Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. If the ruling elite can haul him before a court, it will hold him up as an example of what happens to those who speak out against social inequality, militarism, war and police-state measures. His prosecution would be used to try to intimidate and silence all dissent. If Assange is imprisoned or worse, and WikiLeaks shut down, it will be a serious blow to the democratic rights of the entire international working class. Workers and young people should join with the WSWS and ICFI in demanding and fighting for the immediate freedom of Julian Assange. Help spread expose what is happening! Share this article as widely as possible on social media! Sincerely, The World Socialist Web Site Socialism and the Struggle Against Internet Censorship At the May Day Online Rally May 5, Andre Damon delivered this speech on internet censorship. Read the text and listen to the remarks on the WSWS. Other recent articles: * Google, Amazon assist in blocking encrypted communications * Facebook censors Arizona educators' rank-and-file committee group * Socialist Equality Party holds meetings in Australia on Internet censorship * How Google, Facebook and Twitter are manipulating the Mexican presidential elections (Part 2) [https://cdn-images.mailchimp.com/icons/social-block-v2/color-facebook-48.png] Share [https://cdn-images.mailchimp.com/icons/social-block-v2/color-twitter-48.png] Tweet [https://cdn-images.mailchimp.com/icons/social-block-v2/color-forwardtofriend-48.png] Forward World Socialist Web Site | wsws.org Articles: Copyright © 2017 wsws.org, All rights reserved. unsubscribe from this list update subscription preferences -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cgestabrook at gmail.com Sun May 13 14:19:19 2018 From: cgestabrook at gmail.com (C G Estabrook) Date: Sun, 13 May 2018 09:19:19 -0500 Subject: [Peace] News from Neptune, Friday 11 May 2018 Message-ID: > An AMERICAN TORTURE & WAR edition ### -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kmedina67 at gmail.com Mon May 14 17:48:12 2018 From: kmedina67 at gmail.com (Karen Medina) Date: Mon, 14 May 2018 12:48:12 -0500 Subject: [Peace] this week: re-entry program speaker / a play: Mountaintop / Malcolm X event Message-ID: Dear Peace, Below: 3 upcoming events that some of you might want to attend. 1) Susan Burton, a passionate advocate for women leaving prison, Tuesday, May 15, 2018 2) play: Mountaintop,Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday May 17-20, 2018 3) Malcolm X Day event, Saturday, May 19, 2018 1) Susan Burton will speak about her experiences as a formerly incarcerated person, an individual in recovery, a movement builder, a passionate advocate for women leaving prison and in the fight against mass incarceration. Susan Burton is an inspiration to all those who value social justice. // Susan Burton is the founder of “A New Way of Life” -- a model reentry program for women, and author of “Becoming Ms. Burton : from prison to recovery to leading the fight for incarcerated women” -- a book about her personal journey of abuse, addiction, incarceration, AND empowerment. Where: Pilgrim Baptist Church / 1310 N. 6th Street, Champaign Time: 7pm - 9pm Date: Tuesday May 15, 2018 All are welcome. [Both local libraries have copies of the book: call number 365.973 BUR. But some copies are currently out. https://cucatalog.org/polaris/search/title.aspx?ctx=6.1033.0.0.1&pos=1 ] 2) A play: The Mountaintop Description: A gripping re-imagination of events the night before the assassination of the civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. On April 3 1968, after delivering one of his most memorable speeches, an exhausted Dr. King retires to his room at the Lorraine Motel while a storm rages outside. When a mysterious stranger arrives with some surprising news, King is forced to confront his destiny and his legacy to his people. Where: Sodo Theatre, 114 S. Neil St. Thursday, 05/17/2018 - 7:00pm - 10:00pm Friday, 05/18/2018 - 7:00pm - 10:00pm Saturday, 05/19/2018 - 7:00pm - 10:00pm Sunday, 05/20/2018 -- I am still looking for the details about this 3) 2nd Annual Malcolm X Day - Champaign/Urbana Who was Malcolm X really, and why does he persist in our collective memory? Join us as we celebrate him and discuss the importance of his legacy on Saturday May 19th from 3 - 6 PM at the Independent Media Center. Please contact the hosts if you're a local Black business or organization who'd like to set up a table during the event. Date: Saturday, May 19, 2018 Time: 3 PM - 6 PM Location: Independent Media Center / 202 S. Broadway, Urbana, Illinois Public event: All are welcome Hosted by Speak Truth Collective These are valuable events, Karen Medina From karenaram at hotmail.com Tue May 15 14:21:45 2018 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Tue, 15 May 2018 14:21:45 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Debut Novel - Now Available on Amazon for Pre-Order/Sale. References: Message-ID: Dear friends, A recently published mystery novel, by someone I know, is now available for pre-order on Amazon. 50% off until the launch date - 5/29/18. Thank you for your support, https://www.facebook.com/FirmResolveLiciaFlynn/ Firm Resolve - Home | Facebook www.facebook.com Firm Resolve. 2 likes. FIRM RESOLVE - mystery novel about a Silicon Valley pharmaceutical startup relocating to Shanghai and the disappearance of an... [cid:98ED6700-F55A-4763-B6DA-C44BC46764DF] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Slide1.JPG Type: image/jpeg Size: 58611 bytes Desc: Slide1.JPG URL: From susanroseparenti at gmail.com Tue May 15 17:10:57 2018 From: susanroseparenti at gmail.com (Susan Parenti) Date: Tue, 15 May 2018 12:10:57 -0500 Subject: [Peace] You're invited---BBQ Sat May 26, 12--3pm--launch of artist-residence on Franklin Street! Message-ID: -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Free BBQ in Crystal Lake Park (single)(1).pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 53964 bytes Desc: not available URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Tue May 15 22:35:58 2018 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Tue, 15 May 2018 22:35:58 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Mass Murder in Gaza Message-ID: * Print * Leaflet * Feedback * Share » Mass murder in Gaza 15 May 2018 The Israeli military slaughtered dozens of unarmed Palestinian demonstrators and wounded thousands more in Gaza on Monday. As this atrocity was being carried out, a grotesque ceremony was unfolding barely 50 miles away to mark the formal opening of a US embassy in the divided and occupied city of Jerusalem. The two events—occurring on the 70th anniversary of Israel’s declaration of independence—were juxtaposed by the media, broadcast simultaneously on split screens by television networks. What could not be concealed was the fact that the opening of the American embassy was entirely in line with and, indeed, a statement of political support for the massacre taking place at the security fence separating the impoverished occupied territory from Israel. The number of unarmed Palestinian protesters shot dead by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) snipers on the eastern border of Gaza rose to at least 60 Tuesday, with over 2,700 others wounded, many suffering grievous injuries from live ammunition that will almost certainly drive up the death toll. Many of the injured who survive will lose one or more limbs as a result of Israeli sniper fire. Palestinian ambulance teams were reportedly unable to collect some of the bodies of protesters who were cut down as they reached the heavily fortified fence. Among the dead were at least eight children under the age of 16, including a 12-year-old and one young girl. The wounded included 78 women and 203 children, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza reported. This deliberate mass killing of refugees demanding the right to return to the homes and villages from which their families were violently expelled 70 years ago with the founding of the state of Israel is a monstrous criminal act. The lethal violence unleashed by the Israeli military included air strikes, tank shelling and the dropping of flammable material on tent encampments where Palestinian families had gathered. This unbridled state violence is motivated not by any lethal threat from the tens of thousands of unarmed demonstrators. The IDF, while killing well over 100 Palestinians, has suffered not a single casualty since the “Great March of Return” protests began in Gaza on March 30. Rather, the elementary right demanded by the youth marching into gunfire poses an existential threat to the entire Zionist project of carving out a Jewish state based upon racial and religious exclusivity through the dispossession of the Palestinian people. All those involved in this mass killing, from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet, their enablers in Washington, down to the snipers firing the bullets, are collectively and personally responsible for war crimes. As the Nuremberg trials of the Nazi war criminals established, soldiers are able and obliged to refuse an illegal order to wantonly kill civilians. Only an army saturated with racist and fascistic ideology can be counted on to commit such crimes. The carnage on the Gaza border was matched by the atmosphere of criminality and reaction at the US embassy ceremony, which was staged before an audience of right-wing Israeli and American politicians, army commanders and leading rabbis. Present for the occasion was Sheldon Adelson, the Las Vegas casino mogul whose millions have gone to fund Zionist settlements in the occupied West Bank as well as Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Also present was Joseph Lieberman, the former Democratic senator and vice-presidential candidate, who drafted the 1995 US legislation—supported overwhelmingly by both parties—that called for transferring the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Further underscoring the bipartisan support for Israel’s criminal policy, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York hailed the opening of the Jerusalem embassy as “long overdue,” adding, “I applaud President Trump for doing it.” Providing an opening invocation was Robert Jeffress, the right-wing Dallas Baptist preacher who has declared that “all Jews will go to hell” and that Islam is “a heresy from the pit of hell.” He spoke alongside an Israeli rabbi who has described blacks as “monkeys.” Also present was another prominent “Christian Zionist,” John Hagee, who has declared that Hitler was “a hunter” sent by God to fulfill biblical prophesy by chasing the Jews into Israel. Such are the friends of the Israeli state. While Trump appeared via video, the main speech was given by his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who told the audience, “We stand with Israel because we both believe in human rights, democracy worth defending, and believe that we know that it is the right thing to do.” Nothing could provide a more graphic exposure of the “human rights” and “democracy” promoted by Washington than US support for the mass killing of civilian protesters by the Israeli military. Kushner went on to blame the Palestinians for their own deaths, declaring to applause that “those provoking violence are part of the problem and not part of the solution.” This position was concretized Monday afternoon by a White House spokesman who rebuffed repeated questions about whether Washington was calling on Israel to exercise restraint. He insisted that the “cynical actions” of Hamas, the bourgeois Islamist party that administers the territory, were entirely to blame for the massacre. The corporate media has done its best to conceal the scale of the crime being carried out in Gaza. Television networks in the US gave the bloodbath short shrift, while making no criticism of Israel’s savage repression. One can easily imagine the reaction had such killings been carried out by the government in Russia, Iran, Venezuela or any other country targeted by the hypocritical “human rights” imperialists. The European powers issued hand-wringing statements on the Gaza bloodbath that only point to their own complicity. The European Union’s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini called for Israel to respect the “principle of proportionality in the use of force’”—something that it clearly will not do—while demanding that Hamas insure that the protests “remain strictly nonviolent.” For their part, the Arab bourgeois regimes that once falsely postured as defenders of the Palestinian people have turned their backs on the carnage in Gaza. The Saudi monarchy, which has aligned itself firmly with the US and Israel in preparations for a region-wide war with Iran, welcomes the repression. The Egyptian regime of Gen. Abdel-Fateh al-Sisi issued a hypocritical statement declaring that it “rejects the use of force against peaceful marches demanding legitimate and just rights.” This came from a government that consolidated its power by massacring 1,600 followers of the elected president backed by the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Mursi, toppled in a 2013 coup. The Egyptian regime has demanded that the Gaza protests stop, fearing that the contagion of mass resistance could spill across its own border. In exchange for suppressing the demonstrators, Cairo has offered to open up the country’s border crossing to Gaza to allow in food, fuel, medicine and other vital supplies that have been stopped by Israel. Tel Aviv has closed down its one open border crossing in retaliation for the protests, threatening to throw the territory’s fragile infrastructure into a state of complete collapse. There is no fundamental difference between what the Israeli government has done in Gaza and the actions carried out by the most reactionary regimes in history, from British colonialism’s mass killing of Indians in Amritsar in 1919, to the South African apartheid regime’s massacre at Sharpeville in 1960 to the crimes of the Nazi regime itself. Attempts by Israel to justify its slaughter of Palestinians with references to the Holocaust are morally obscene, as are the efforts to intimidate those who denounce these crimes by labeling them as anti-Semites. This was grotesquely illustrated by Israeli Security Minister Gilad Erdan, who said on Monday that the scale of the death toll on the Gaza border “doesn’t indicate anything—just as the number of Nazis who died in the world war doesn’t make Nazism something you can explain or understand.” Only a deeply diseased and demoralized society could produce such a comparison between the desperate youth of Gaza, imprisoned by the Israeli military in a territory where they confront 60 percent unemployment, mass poverty and deprivation, with Nazis. The reality is that the Israeli occupation and repression have produced conditions that resemble nothing so much as the Warsaw Ghetto, replete with snipers ready to kill anyone attempting to get out. Israel as a society and a country is heading toward the abyss. Regardless of the support it enjoys from Washington and other imperialist powers, in the eyes of millions around the world it is viewed as a criminal state, having lost all moral and political legitimacy. No government claiming to be democratic has ever committed such atrocities. The crimes in Gaza are the end product of the methods through which the state was founded 70 years ago and all of the consequences since. Behind the Zionist myths of Israel representing a “safe haven” for the Jewish people, the onslaught against Gaza and the drive by Tel Aviv toward a wider war in the Middle East are in large measure driven by the desperation of the country’s capitalist ruling class to divert social and class tensions outward by promoting fear, anti-Arab chauvinism and militarism. Israel is second only to the US as the most socially unequal of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, with a 22 percent poverty rate and one of the world’s highest per capita concentrations of billionaires. The bloody events in Gaza pose with utmost urgency the necessity of uniting the working class, Arab and Jewish alike, across national, religious and sectarian divides in a common struggle against imperialism, Zionism and the Arab bourgeoisie on the basis of a socialist and internationalist program. There is no national road out of the present bloody impasse, either in the continuation of the crisis-ridden Zionist project or in the chimera of a “two-state solution” based on the creation of a Bantustan-style Palestinian state under the rule of a corrupt native bourgeoisie. At the same time, the massacre in Gaza constitutes an urgent warning to workers everywhere. The Israeli state’s turn to savage repression is part of a shift to the right by capitalist governments all over the world. The indifference of the media and bourgeois governments to the mowing down of unarmed Palestinian demonstrators is an indication of their readiness to carry out and justify even greater crimes in any country where they face mass resistance. Bill Van Auken WSWS.ORG -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From galliher at illinois.edu Tue May 15 19:22:02 2018 From: galliher at illinois.edu (Carl G. Estabrook) Date: Tue, 15 May 2018 14:22:02 -0500 Subject: [Peace] AWARE on the Air - May 15, 2018 Message-ID: <8985C735-89F2-4A7D-9EA4-23C62B607C21@illinois.edu> Good evening and welcome to ‘AWARE on the Air,’ presented by members and friends of AWARE, the ‘anti-war anti-racism effort’ of Champaign-Urbana. I’m Carl Estabrook. We are recording this at noon on Tuesday, May 15, in the studios of Urbana Public Television. Our subject is the wars the US government is waging around the world, and the racism we display to those we’re killing, in accord with the Latin proverb, ‘Proprium humani ingenii est odisse quem laeseris” - “It’s human nature to hate those you have injured.” At this moment the US is making war in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, & Yemen - principally to control the flow of oil out of the Mideast and North Africa, which the US uses as a weapon against its economic rivals from Germany to China. Thousands of U.S. troops are killing people in these countries, although most Americans are barely aware of it. ~ More than a quarter of a million US troops are stationed in a thousand US bases on foreign soil, most of them ringing Russia and China. ~ The 70,000-members of the U.S. ‘Special Operations Command’ are active in three-quarters of the countries of the world. Their activities include kidnapping (‘rendition’), torture, and murder. As the rest of the world recognizes - but Americans don’t - they are nothing less than American death squads. The rest of the world recognizes that the US today is what ML King called it long ago, the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world today” - an international criminal surpassing all others. But most Americans don’t know that, protected as they are by government and media propaganda. What we do here at AWARE ON THE AIR is try to encourage our fellow-citizens to oppose US government killing around the world. =================== The crime of the week has been committed by American client Israel - attacking & killing unarmed protesters, including children & journalists. [WikiLeaks] Israeli snipers shot 1,359 Gaza border protesters yesterday killing 60 so far. While media reports the trigger to be the US embassy move, the context is the blockade of Gaza & and a criminal corruption probe into Israeli PM Netanyahu which threatens to bring down his government. [CNN] The decision to open a US Embassy in Jerusalem has been met with deadly clashes [SIC] along the Israeli-Gaza border. At least 58 Palestinians were killed in protests and confrontations on Monday as the new embassy was officially opened. Global leaders condemned Israeli forces for using lethal force against protesters, but there could be even more bloodshed to come. Today, Palestinians are observing what they call "Nakba," or Catastrophe, in memory of the more than 700,000 Palestinians who [WERE ETHNICALLY CLEANSED FOR] the state of Israel. The 1948 Palestinian exodus, also known as the Nakba (Arabic: al-Nakbah, literally "disaster", "catastrophe", or "cataclysm"), occurred when more than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled from their homes, during the 1948 Palestine war. Between 400 and 600 Palestinian villages were sacked during the war, while urban Palestine was almost entirely extinguished. The term "nakba" also refers to the period of war itself and events affecting Palestinians from December 1947 to January 1949. The precise number of refugees, many of whom settled in refugee camps in neighboring states, is a matter of dispute[4] but around 80 percent of the Arab inhabitants of what became Israel (half of the Arab total of Mandatory Palestine) left or were expelled from their homes.[5][6] About 250,000-300,000 Palestinians had fled or been expelled before the Israeli Declaration of Independence in May 1948, a fact which was named as a casus belli for the entry of the Arab League into the country, sparking the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. ======== [HAARETZ] “Jerusalem celebrates, Tel Aviv parties and Gaza bleeds - a surreal 24 hours” “Tens of Thousands Attend Funerals for 60 Gazans Killed [BY IDF] in Border Protests” “In this photo combination, Palestinians protest near the Israel-Gaza border and U.S. and Israeli dignitaries applaud at the opening ceremony of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem , May 14, 2018.” “Messianic U.S.-Israel Axis Showcased at Jerusalem Embassy Ceremony Is Gut-punch for Most American Jews.” ============ [MONDOWEISS] Yesterday was a horrifying and tragic day in Palestine. The Israeli military opened fire on Gaza protesters as the U.S. and Israeli governments celebrated the move of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem in what was the deadliest day in Gaza since the end of Operation Protective Edge in 2014. Here is our coverage from a day that will not be soon forgotten: ~ ‘America crossed every red line’: Palestinians in Jerusalem protest new US embassy Israel kills 58 Palestinian protesters during deadliest day in Gaza in four years ~ ‘If Not Now’ blocks traffic outside Trump DC hotel to protest embassy move Israeli government minister justifies Gaza massacre by calling Palestinians ‘Nazis’ ~ ‘Gaza, Gaza’ is chant from Palestinians demonstrating near new US embassy ============= [AJAMU BARAKA] Yesterday was a horrifying and tragic day in Palestine. The Israeli military opened fire on Gaza protesters as the U.S. and Israeli governments celebrated the move of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem in what was the deadliest day in Gaza since the end of Operation Protective Edge in 2014. ‘If Not Now’ blocks traffic outside Trump DC hotel to protest embassy move Israeli government minister justifies Gaza massacre by calling Palestinians ‘Nazis’ The democrats were ready to support Trump's war on Syria to "punish" Assad after it was reported that the army had gassed civilians. But the Israelis kill over 50 human beings on one day and close to a hundred over last few weeks and silence from both parties. Yesterday was turning point for the criminal regime in Israel. The nature of that state was revealed even to the super-propagandized US public. Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) Condemns Slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza: Calls on members of the Congressional Black Caucus and leadership of Poor Peoples Campaign to publicly condemn Israeli violence. Obama gave impunity for crimes against humanity committed by Bush officials like Gina Haspel, while his DOJ prosecuted Snowden, the Freddie Gray resisters in Baltimore &Julian Assange, that set stage for Trump to be in position to get his hands on Assange. Most people don't realize that 1968 was a pivotal year for counterrevolution in the U.S. and Western Europe. The capitalist class was under assault and had real concerns about its survival when it decided to launch a murderous counter against popular forces world-wide. Dems not standing up for anything except impeach Trump. That's what they're running on. EVEN Sanders can't help himself from emphasizing the bogus "Hamas violence" theme... Bernie Sanders: "Over 50 killed in Gaza today and 2,000 wounded, on top of the 41 killed and more than 9,000 wounded over the past weeks. This is a staggering toll. Hamas violence does not justify Israel firing on unarmed protesters." =========== [Gary Brecher] A huge massacre. Death toll now given as 58, with 2700 wounded. And "wounded" is a very light term for this. There'll be many disabled for life, which in a blockaded resettlement zone like Gaza means families exhausting themselves for decades trying to find medical care, supplies, and accessible transport. The dead are a different sort of burden to the community. In cold terms Hamas wins (at terrible cost) and Israel loses today, but insurgents, it's worth remembering, are human and come from families. Families want justice. Thus the First Intifada, rocks against tanks, is followed by the second, more lethal one. Israel probably wants Hamas to jump to that stage, which it knows how to exploit in its time-honored fashion. But that's a short-term solution at best. Does Israel have any long-term one? I can't see it. The long slide to pariah status, the retreat to raw ethno-religious chauvinism, and the bottom line: "We've got the US backing us, and nukes." Which means another round--another dozen, maybe hundred more rounds--of this, followed by the transformation, distraction, or extinction of the foreign backer, at which point it will become clear that the nukes are not really such effective deterrents. Can't see any other end to this. As Mark Ames and I said on the RWN we recorded yesterday, there COULD have been a relatively happy ending once--something better than this slow metal-fatigue attrition--but that doesn't mean there's one now. Enoch Allred Promo heard on NPR yesterday: "the US opened its embassy in Jerusalem today. It was met with cheers from Israelis, but some Palestinians were not so happy". The liberal media. And one thing you can count on in American stories on this: the passive voice will have a big, big day. Instead of the classic who-did-what-to-whom sentence from Journalism 101, you'll see a thousand variations on something-happened-to-some people. WaPO hedline: "Under banner of peace, U.S. opens embassy in Jerusalem. Sixty miles away, dozens of Palestinians are killed." Must have been a really bad traffice accident or tornado outbreak i guess... ================================ {“Who is the Vassal? Israel, the US and Iran” by URI AVNERY, an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is a contributor to CounterPunch’s book The Politics of Anti-Semitism.} “If you want to understand the policy of a nation, look at the map!” Napoleon is supposed to have said. It is good advice. If you are living in Israel, these days, you get the impression that the huge State of Israel is dictating to its American vassal what to do about Iran. [HIGHER ANTI-SEMITISM] President Donald Trump listens and complies. Bibi the Great tells him to tear up the Iranian deal for no obvious reason, and he obeys. He has no choice, poor man. But then you look at the map, and to your great surprise you discover that the USA is a huge country, while Israel is a mere speck, so small that its name has to be written outside its borders, in the sea. So what is wrong? Geography, of course, is not the only factor. Israel has some millions of faithful adherents, who are American citizens and have a lot of money. But still. Can it be that we got the picture wrong? That Trump is not the vassal of Netanyahu, that it’s the other way round? That Trump dictates, and Bibi, for all his bluster, just obeys? It would not be the first time. In ancient times, the leaders of the Jewish commonwealth in Palestine tried very hard to please the imperator in Rome. Nero, for example, the man who enjoyed setting fire to his own city, and to the world, while playing the flute, or whatever. Donald Trump is the present-day Nero, the imperator of the New Rome. Trump’s main object in life is to get out of the Iran deal, “the worst deal ever”. Why? I have listened intently and have discerned no other reason than that the deal was forged by his hated predecessor, Barack Obama. What other reason was there for annulling the deal? I have heard none. The deal stopped Iran from proceeding with the building of a nuclear weapon. All experts, without exception (even in Israel) confirm that Iran has scrupulously adhered to its commitment. Indeed, the entire world outside the US (and Israel, of course) has now decided to go on with the deal. Germany, France and Britain, three not quite insignificant powers, believe that the deal has to be maintained. So do Russia and China, no tiny countries, either. Except Israel. Ah, Israel. Most people in Israel now believe that Binyamin Netanyahu, Bibi the Great, is really leading Trump on a leash. Bibi has such a magical hold over Trump, that the American president has to follow Israel’s lead. Bibi is obsessed with Iran. He wakes up in the morning with Iran and goes to sleep with Iran. Nobody seems to ask: Why, for God’s sake? Going back to Napoleon’s map: there seems to be no clash of interests between the countries of Iran and Israel. No common border. No territories of one that the other desires. Also, no natural resources of one that the other would like to get its hands on. Proof: not so long ago, well within my lifetime, Iran was Israel’s closest ally (except our American vassal, of course). Iran was governed by the Shah, with his beautiful uniform and his beautiful wife (please indulge me for once, dear feminists). Israel and Iran went to steal chickens together, as we say. The Iranians helped us to infiltrate agents into the Kurdish region of Iraq, in order to make trouble for the Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein. Later, we supported Iran in its war against Iraq, started by the same Hussein. In one of the greatest scandals of its time, the so-called Iran-Contra affair, Israel transferred American arms to Iran. (Iran paid for them, and the Americans used the money to illegally finance the “Contra'” war against the leftist government in Nicaragua. My friend Amiram Nir, a journalist turned government security advisor, personally delivered the arms to Tehran. (His US counterpart, Oliver North, has just been appointed to head the powerful American Rifle Association.) Enough amusing anecdotes. There is no basic antagonism, dictated by geography, between our two nations. So what is it? Well, there is ideology. The present rulers of Iran are extreme Shia Islamists. They want to become the overlords of the Arab Muslim world. The Arabs hate Israel, mainly because of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. So the Iranians pretend to be the great enemy of the “Little Satan” (their rather insulting appellation of Israel, to distinguish it from the Great Satan, the USA). Frankly, I think that the rulers of Iran don’t give a damn about Israel, except as an useful instrument. The hatred of Israel is a weapon in the battle with the Sunni Arab world, led by the hyper-active Saudi Crown Prince. (The conflict between Sunni and Shia goes back almost to the times of the Prophet, more than 15 centuries ago.) *** So why is Bibi obsessed with Iran, to such an extent that he commands his American vassal to drive towards World War III? Depends how cynical you are. If you are very cynical, you might well say that both Trump and Bibi are up to their respective necks in criminal investigations. With a bit of luck, both might end up in prison. What better way to divert the attention of their subjects than a little war? It is a precept that has been tried out since the beginning of the world, and it almost never fails. Who will worry about trifles like Trump’s porno stars or Bibi’s gifts from (American) billionaires, when the lives of our boys are at stake? The US is still far from war with Iran but we are not. Perhaps we are already in it, without believing it. These days – or should I say, these nights – our brave boys fly over Syria and bomb Iranian army installations there. Until this minute, the Iranians have not reacted, except for a feeble attempt that was quickly answered by a massive Israeli air strike. Why are Iranians there in the first place? It is a part of their objective to create an Iranian sphere of influence extending from Iran proper to the Mediterranean Sea. In Iraq, which has a large Shia population, they are already dominant. With the help of Russia, they are now almost dominant in Syria. In Lebanon their close allies, the Shia Hizbollah movement, controls a large part of the country and has just won the elections. *** The US does not like this at all. True, Trump has decided to withdraw from the Middle East (costs too much money), but he does not want the void to be filled by Vladimir Putin. Not at all. So he sends his boys back, and tells Israel to make the life of the Iranians in Syria hell. It is playing with fire (for us). Until now, the Iranians have limited their reaction to our nightly bombing of their forces to the utterance of dire threats and the ineffectual response this week. But for how much longer? Iran is a wise country. Whatever the bluster of the present regime, it does exercise a lot of restraint. It remembers that quite recently (just about 2500 years ago) it was a world power. It can wait. It does not satisfy Trump’s expectations. After all, how long does the USA exist? So we bomb. So they react with threats. So Trump is happy. *** And the Israeli public? One may wonder: is there such a thing? Some local commentators are already asking: have Israeli citizens turned into mere subjects? Israel is obviously on the path to war. The nightly bombing of Iranian forces is an insult to their national pride. In our region, national pride plays a large role. Our army has told the population in the north of the country to open the air-raid shelters and prepare them for use. Large anti-aircraft forces have been moved to the Syrian frontier. And the Israelis? They shrug their shoulders. They know that Bibi is a showman of genius. Just now he has held the country and the world in thrall with a superb TV demonstration, in which he revealed a wealth of information about Iran’s nuclear activities. The brave boys and girls of the Mossad stole this trove in Teheran and brought it to Israel, risking their lives. Wonderful. Except that it turned out that this trove consists of obsolete documents from before the deal, which show what everybody already knew: that Iran wanted to emulate Israel and produce its own nuclear bomb. It was to prevent this that the nuclear deal was initiated in the first place. But what showmanship! What a stage set! What wonderful (American) English! What perfect coordination with Trump’s decision to scuttle the deal!Can it be that the entire showwas ordered by Trump? Some Israeli commentators pointed all this out. But there is no real opposition to Bibi in the Knesset, the popular press or on TV. The vast majority of the people in Israel – and everywhere else – stand at attention when the word “security” is mentioned. OK, Bibi may be a tiny bit corrupt, he may have taken some bribes here and there, but he is our commander-in-chief! He is sending our boys into battle! So hail to the Chief! Hail Bibi! =========================== {“Israel Repurposes Old Nakba Myths to Justify the Massacre in Gaza” by JONATHAN COOK, in Nazareth} On Monday and Tuesday, Palestinians commemorate the anniversary of the Nakba, or catastrophe, their mass expulsion and dispossession 70 years ago as the new state of Israel was built on the ruins of their homeland. As a result, most Palestinians were turned into refugees, denied by Israel the right to return to their homes. Tens of thousands turned out on Monday in the occupied territories to protest against seven decades of Israel’s refusal to make amends or end its oppressive rule. The move on Monday of the US embassy to Jerusalem, a city under belligerent occupation, has only inflamed Palestinian grievances – and a sense that the West is still conspiring in their dispossession. The focus of the protests is Gaza, where unarmed Palestinians have been massing every Friday since late March at the perimeter fence that encages two million of them. For their troubles, they have faced a hail of live ammunition, rubber bullets and clouds of tear gas. Dozens had been killed and many hundreds more maimed, including children. Early reports on Monday suggested that Gaza’s demonstrators were being massacred by the Israeli army. Amnesty International called the events a “horror show”. But for more than a month, Israel has been working to manage western perceptions of the protests – and its response – in ways designed to discredit the outpouring of anger from Palestinians. In a message all too readily accepted by some western audiences, Israel has presented the protests as a “security threat”. Israeli officials have even argued before the country’s high court that the protesters lack any rights – that army snipers are entitled to shoot them, even if facing no danger – because Israel is supposedly in a “state of war” with Gaza, defending itself. On Sunday night the Israeli air force dropped leaflets across Gaza warning Palestinians not to go near fence. “The Israel Defense Forces is determined to defend Israel’s citizens and sovereignty against Hamas’ attempts at terrorism under cover of violent riots,” the leaflets said. “Don’t get near the fence and don’t take part in Hamas’ show, which endangers you.” Many Americans and Europeans, worried about an influx of “economic migrants” flooding into their own countries, readily sympathise with Israel’s concerns – and its actions. Until now, the vast majority of Gaza’s protesters have been peaceful and made no attempt to break through the fence. But Israel claims that Hamas has exploited this week’s protests in Gaza to encourage Palestinians to storm the fence. The implication is that the protesters have been trying to cross a “border” and “enter” Israel illegally. The truth is rather different. There is no border because there is no Palestinian state. Israel has made sure of that. Palestinians live under occupation, with Israel controlling every aspect of their lives. In Gaza, even the air and sea are Israel’s domain. Meanwhile, the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their former lands – now in Israel – is recognised in United Nations Resolutions. Nonetheless, Israel has been crafting a dishonest counter-narrative ever since the Nakba, myths that historians scouring the archives have slowly exploded. One claim – that Arab leaders told the 750,000 Palestinian refugees to flee in 1948 – was in fact invented by Israel’s founding father, David Ben Gurion. He hoped it would deflect US pressure on Israel to honour its obligations to allow the refugees back. Even had the refugees chosen to leave during the heat of battle, rather than wait to be expelled, it would not have justified denying them a right to return when the fighting finished. It was that refusal that transformed flight into ethnic cleansing. In another myth unsupported by the records, Ben Gurion is said to have appealed to the refugees to come back. In truth, Israel defined Palestinians who tried to return to their lands as “infiltrators”. That entitled Israeli security officials to shoot them on sight – in what was effectively execution as a deterrence policy. Nothing much has changed seven decades on. A majority of Gaza’s population today are descended from refugees driven into the enclave in 1948. They have been penned up like cattle ever since. That is why the Palestinians’ current protests take place under the banner of the March of Return. For decades, Israel has not only denied Palestinians the prospect of a minimal state. It has carved the Palestinian territories into a series of ghettos – and in the case of Gaza, blockaded it for 12 years, choking it into a humanitarian catastrophe. Despite this, Israel wants the world to view Gaza as an embryonic Palestinian state, supposedly liberated from occupation in 2005 when it pulled out several thousand Jewish settlers. Again, this narrative has been crafted only to deceive. Hamas has never been allowed to rule Gaza, any more than Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority governs the West Bank. But echoing the events of the Nakba, Israel has cast the protesters as “infiltrators”, a narrative that has left most observers strangely indifferent to the fate of Palestinian youth demonstrating for their freedom. Once again, the executions of recent weeks, supposedly carried out by the Israeli army in self-defence, are intended to dissuade Palestinians from demanding their rights. Israel is not defending its borders but the walls of cages it has built to safeguard the continuing theft of Palestinian land and preserve Jewish privilege. In the West Bank, the prison contracts by the day as Jewish settlers and the Israeli army steal more land. In Gaza’s case, the prison cannot be shrunk any smaller. For many years, world heads of state have castigated Palestinians for using violence and lambasted Hamas for firing rockets out of Gaza. But now that young Palestinians prefer to take up mass civil disobedience, their plight is barely attracting attention, let alone sympathy. Instead, they are criticised for “breaching the border” and threatening Israel’s security. The only legitimate struggle for Palestinians, it seems, is keeping quiet, allowing their lands to be plundered and their children to be starved. Western leaders and the public betrayed the Palestinians in 1948. There is no sign, 70 years on, that the West is about to change its ways. =============================== You've been watching AWARE ON THE AIR, presented by members and friends of AWARE, the Anti-War Anti-Racism Effort of Champaign-Urbana, a local peace group - in the 20th week of 2018 [May 8] - another week in which the world can see that the most extensive global terrorism is US world-wide war-making. We’ll conclude with (two) videos: ~ > [12:34] ~ > [13:00] ~ My thanks tonight to Dr.Know/J. B. Nicholson, for research. See Know’s Notes on the Fb page for AOTA >, along with articles referred to tonight. =========================== ~ Our show is produced and directed by Jason Liggett & Ethan Young, thanks to whom also this program & others like it will be available on YouTube and > ~ AWARE meeting this coming Sunday, 5-6Pm - at Hammerhead Coffee - University Avenue at Wright Street on the edge of campus. ~ Finally, AWARE honors those who reveal the crimes of the US government - which the rest of the world knows about, but Americans don't - Manning, Assange, Snowden, and others - who truth-tellers persecuted by the US government. ~ This is Carl Estabrook for members & friends of the anti-war anti-racism effort of Champaign-Urbana - saying in the words of the late Edward Murrow, “Good night - and good luck." ### Ray McGovern: Gina Haspel Supervised Nazi-Era Interrogation Techniques (Pt. 1/2) During her Senate confirmation hearings, CIA nominee Gina Haspel evaded questions about her role in using “enhanced interrogation” (torture)… therealnews.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From susanroseparenti at gmail.com Tue May 15 18:15:29 2018 From: susanroseparenti at gmail.com (Susan Parenti) Date: Tue, 15 May 2018 13:15:29 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Large One bedroom in home in Crystal Lake Park, available June 1 Message-ID: Welcome to our home in Crystal Lake Park. We have a room available to move in on the first of June! The room is fully furnished with new hardwood floors, new queen bed, and hand-made curtains. The room has a very large closet, plenty of storage space, central AC, a porch in the front, a fruit and flower garden in back. The house is 5 blocks away from Downtown Urbana and located near the Gold Bus Line for easy access. We have two friendly kitties living with us, so we are looking for people who are friendly to kitties as well. Unfortunately, no other pets would be allowed at this time. This home is also a non-smoking home. Rental price includes all utilities (heat, AC, water, sewage, internet, trash, and recycle) This bedroom is on the 2nd floor, west side of house, is 16'8" x 11'4" *Take a look: * https://chambana.craigslist.org/roo/d/home-near-crystal-lake-park/6589708473.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From susanroseparenti at gmail.com Wed May 16 16:09:19 2018 From: susanroseparenti at gmail.com (Susan Parenti) Date: Wed, 16 May 2018 11:09:19 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Beardstown Poster of this Saturday' Glo Heart Message-ID: -- *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: GloHeart.poster Beardstown English.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 232858 bytes Desc: not available URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Sat May 19 14:58:34 2018 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sat, 19 May 2018 14:58:34 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Recent NFN, worth a watch or listen..... Message-ID: https://youtu.be/Oi0NoRUF2eg From susanroseparenti at gmail.com Sat May 19 18:23:19 2018 From: susanroseparenti at gmail.com (Susan Parenti) Date: Sat, 19 May 2018 13:23:19 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Solo experimental performance this Wednesday, May 23, 7pm, Free---Al Schneider! Message-ID: ​ once more, with laboured breath and a need to cough, al & dog present a performance about spoons, tomato soup, and other things. al & dog are a performance duo from the pacific northwest, glasgow, and most recently, new orleans. two creatures, one of flesh and one of fabric, they devise absurd performances out of everyday language and howl with the spoons. their work plays with the relationship between the queer and the creaturely body in its movement through language. al is a creature with very small and somewhat crooked pinky fingers. al is unsure about most things. dog is an autonomous creature, half-priced polyester stuffing and all. dog is neither a goat nor a sheep. dog is a dog. al has been living in urbana with dog since january as an artist-in-residence/research assistant/stage manager/performer for susan/mark/school for designing a society. al & dog are leaving soon, never to return again, on the gust of a midsummer’s west virginia wind. the performance will last approximately 40 minutes, with the option to stay longer for a discussion. www.alanddog.co.uk -- *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: alanddog sdas poster may23 copy.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 551844 bytes Desc: not available URL: From cgestabrook at gmail.com Sun May 20 15:49:25 2018 From: cgestabrook at gmail.com (C G Estabrook) Date: Sun, 20 May 2018 10:49:25 -0500 Subject: [Peace] From today's N-G Message-ID: <137955B7-A81B-4A25-BA79-4CEA5AFE9865@gmail.com> Sunday Extra | War with Iran is a bad idea Sun, 05/20/2018 - 7:00am | The News-Gazette <> By C.G. ESTABROOK Israel is pushing the U.S. to go to war with Iran. We shouldn't let it happen. Fifteen years ago, the U.S. government attacked Iraq and killed a million people — on the basis of lies that Iraq had dangerous "weapons of mass destruction." During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump talked of his opposition to the attack on Iraq: "Look at the war in Iraq and the mess that we're in. I would never have handled it that way. ... What was the purpose of this whole thing? Hundreds and hundreds of young people killed. And what about the people coming back with no arms and legs? Not to mention the other side. All those Iraqi kids who've been blown to pieces. And it turns out that all of the reasons for the war were blatantly wrong. All this for nothing!" A principal instigator of that shameful U.S. war against Iraq was the government of Israel, which wished to remove Iraq as a regional rival in the Middle East. Now Israel is trying to repeat that crime, urging the U.S. to attack and kill Iranians. The Iran nuclear deal guaranteed that Iran would not develop even one nuclear weapon. (The U.S. has thousands; Israel has at least 200.) But Trump is violating the agreement and withdrew from the deal. The Israeli government cheers, because they want the U.S. to attack Iran for their benefit. One commentator writes, "Trump cited Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's bogus speech from last week. Without doubt, this effort is coordinated. Will any Democrats call for an investigation of this Trump collusion with a foreign power (like 'Russiagate')?" In order to get its war on, Israel has attacked Iranian troops in Syria (who are there legally, unlike U.S. troops). An Israeli government adviser has all but admitted that killing Iranians in Syria is designed to provoke an open war with Iran. Meanwhile, Israeli snipers kill peaceful protesters in Gaza, including children and journalists. We should not allow the Trump administration to expand U.S. wars in the Mideast. The president and our congressional representatives should be urged to remember the lessons of Iraq and not attack Iran — among other things a more populous and better armed country, with powerful allies, notably Russia and China. War with Iran risks a much larger war — even a nuclear war. The largest anti-war demonstrations in history occurred around the world before the U.S. attacked Iraq. As Americans, we must do even more to prevent this new criminal war. If the U.S. and Israel attack Iran, there should be general work stoppages — strikes — and street demonstrations across the U.S. In the meantime, write the president and our congressional representatives — Rep. Rodney Davis, Sen. Tammy Duckworth and Sen. Dick Durbin. C.G. Estabrook is a retired visiting professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He conducts the weekly hour of news commentary, "News from Neptune " on Urbana Public Television. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From susanroseparenti at gmail.com Mon May 21 17:00:16 2018 From: susanroseparenti at gmail.com (Susan Parenti) Date: Mon, 21 May 2018 12:00:16 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Invitation to 2 fun events Message-ID: Hi friends---We'd like to invite you to 2 fun events: this Wednesday at 7pm, performance artist Al Schneider will give a solo show that last around an hour. It's at the Parkhouse. And, this Saturday, May 26, we're hosting a barbecue-and-arts events 12-3pm, at the North Woods Pavilion in Crystal Lake Park. In addition to lots of free food. there will be puppet-making, face-painting, balloon bailing (what's that?) singing and music. It's fun for the whole family, and fun for us isolationist-non-family types. Please come--this will be the launch of the Composer's Cove artist-in-residence program. -- *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: alanddog sdas poster may23 copy.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 551844 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Free BBQ in Crystal Lake Park (single).pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 99033 bytes Desc: not available URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Mon May 21 21:25:11 2018 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Mon, 21 May 2018 21:25:11 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Supreme Court Decision Delivers Blow to Workers' Rights Message-ID: LAW Supreme Court Decision Delivers Blow To Workers' Rights Audio will be available later today. * Facebook * Twitter * Flipboard * Email May 21, 201810:55 AM ET Heard on All Things Considered [Nina Totenberg] NINA TOTENBERG FacebookTwitter [https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2018/05/21/gettyimages-950315496_wide-a3c1e35e9933cfefab747d2a61b4365197d3d826-s800-c85.jpg] People wait in line to enter the U.S. Supreme Court last month. The court sided with businesses on not allowing class-action lawsuits for federal labor violations. Mark Wilson/Getty Images In a case involving the rights of tens of millions of private-sector employees, the U.S. Supreme Court, by a 5-4 vote, delivered a major blow to workers, ruling for the first time that workers may not band together to challenge violations of federal labor laws. Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch said that the 1925 Federal Arbitration Act trumps the National Labor Relations Act and that employees who sign employment agreements to arbitrate claims must do so on an individual basis — and may not band together to enforce claims of wage and hour violations. [A 'Yellow Dog Contract' And Other Jabs During Supreme Court Opening Arguments] LAW A 'Yellow Dog Contract' And Other Jabs During Supreme Court Opening Arguments "The policy may be debatable but the law is clear: Congress has instructed that arbitration agreements like those before us must be enforced as written," Gorsuch writes. "While Congress is of course always free to amend this judgment, we see nothing suggesting it did so in the NLRA — much less that it manifested a clear intention to displace the Arbitration Act. Because we can easily read Congress's statutes to work in harmony, that is where our duty lies." Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the four dissenters, called the majority opinion "egregiously wrong." She said the 1925 arbitration law came well before federal labor laws and should not cover these "arm-twisted," "take-it-or-leave it" provisions that employers are now insisting on. The inevitable result, she warned, is that there will be huge underenforcement of federal and state statutes designed to advance the well-being of workers. "[T]he edict that employees with wage and hours claims may seek relief only one-by-one does not come from Congress," Ginsburg writes. "It is the result of take-it-or-leave-it labor contracts harking back to the type called 'yellow dog,' and of the readiness of this Court to enforce those unbargained-for agreements. The FAA demands no such suppression of the right of workers to take concerted action for their 'mutual aid or protection.'" She urged Congress to correct the court's elevation of the arbitration act over workers' rights. [The War Over Confirming Federal Judges Is Heating Up — Again] LAW The War Over Confirming Federal Judges Is Heating Up — Again Notably, Ginsburg's dissent is five pages longer than the majority's opinion. And Gorsuch spends time in his opinion to respond point by point to the minority's arguments. The ruling came in three cases — potentially involving tens of thousands of nonunion employees — brought against Ernst & Young LLP, Epic Systems Corp. and Murphy Oil USA Inc. Each required its individual employees, as a condition of employment, to waive their rights to join a class-action suit. In all three cases, employees tried to sue together, maintaining that the amounts they could obtain in individual lawsuits were dwarfed by the legal fees they would have to pay as individuals to bring their cases under the private arbitration procedures required by the company. [Supreme Court Upholds Individual Rights In 2 Key Criminal Justice Cases] LAW Supreme Court Upholds Individual Rights In 2 Key Criminal Justice Cases The employees contended that their right to collective action is guaranteed by the National Labor Relations Act. The employers countered that they are entitled to ban collective legal action under the Federal Arbitration Act, which was enacted in 1925 to reverse the judicial hostility to arbitration at the time. A study by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute shows that 56 percent of nonunion private-sector employees are currently subject to mandatory individual arbitration procedures under the 1925 Federal Arbitration Act, which allows employers to bar collective legal actions by employees. The court's decision means that tens of millions of private nonunion employees will be barred from suing collectively over the terms of their employment. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Tue May 22 01:35:24 2018 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Tue, 22 May 2018 01:35:24 +0000 Subject: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] "Antifa or Antiwar: Leftist Exclusionism..." By Diana Johnstone In-Reply-To: <0D230C86-8D1C-48FC-869B-DB7DCE626CF5@gmail.com> References: <0D230C86-8D1C-48FC-869B-DB7DCE626CF5@gmail.com> Message-ID: Excellent article, I couldn’t agree more. I have been disturbed for some time with Eric Draitser, and Jeffrey’s inclusion of him along with Louis Proyect as voices of Counterpunch. > On May 21, 2018, at 17:56, C G Estabrook via Peace-discuss wrote: > > https://consortiumnews.com/2018/05/21/antifa-or-antiwar-leftist-exclusionism-against-the-quest-for-peace/ > > Jeffrey St. Clair has been an informed and erudite friend for years, but Johnstone is correct here. > > —CGE > > > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss From susanroseparenti at gmail.com Tue May 22 17:21:33 2018 From: susanroseparenti at gmail.com (Susan Parenti) Date: Tue, 22 May 2018 12:21:33 -0500 Subject: [Peace] do you have a pick up we could borrow for 1 hour for the BBQ on Saturday? Message-ID: HI Friends---we want to transport a large BBQ grill from our house to the Park for the Saturday noon barbecue. Does anyone have one we could borrow Saturday morning, return SAt, afternoon?Free BBQ for you! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Free BBQ in Crystal Lake Park (single) 2.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 99033 bytes Desc: not available URL: From brussel at illinois.edu Wed May 23 00:59:39 2018 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Wed, 23 May 2018 00:59:39 +0000 Subject: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Don't send a Democrat to the House In-Reply-To: <2E07096F-06CD-48B6-B45E-DE360DD8F910@illinois.edu> References: <2E07096F-06CD-48B6-B45E-DE360DD8F910@illinois.edu> Message-ID: <9F3A812B-271C-478D-B5D4-70DB2BD16525@illinois.edu> Carl, I find your arguments for voting for Davis truly bizarre, contorted. On foreign issues Davis will take typical administration positions [e.g., on Cuba, Venezuela, Israel-Palestine, Iran, N. Korea, Ukraine, Honduras, S. America, …empire and militarism,…] , given the evidence available. On domestic social issues Davis is worse than most of the Democrats (but against abortion, a stance with which you no doubt agree! Aha!). Neither candidate inspires confidence (in me). The obvious choice is not to vote for either. > On May 22, 2018, at 7:28 PM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss wrote: > > Which is more likely to hesitate at Deep State war-mongering, a Republican House, or a Democratic one? > > John Pilger wrote in 2016, “The CIA, Pentagon generals, and the pro-war New York Times demand Trump not be elected. These tribunes of 'perpetual war' are terrified that the multi-billion-dollar business of war by which the United States maintains its dominance will be undermined if Trump does a deal with Russian president Putin, then with China’s president Xi Jinping. Their panic at the possibility of the world’s great power talking peace – however unlikely – would be the blackest farce were the issues not so dire…” > > The Democrats' panic at the threat that Trump would abandon Obama's war provocations produced Russiagate. > > They should not be rewarded for that with control of the House. > > —CGE > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss From karenaram at hotmail.com Wed May 23 02:44:18 2018 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 23 May 2018 02:44:18 +0000 Subject: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Don't send a Democrat to the House In-Reply-To: <91FF1583-CBEC-4691-BCE8-92770F1F8082@gmail.com> References: <2E07096F-06CD-48B6-B45E-DE360DD8F910@illinois.edu> <9F3A812B-271C-478D-B5D4-70DB2BD16525@illinois.edu> <2E3FCBE4-5842-4972-9228-FC990EA31661@illinois.edu> <91FF1583-CBEC-4691-BCE8-92770F1F8082@gmail.com> Message-ID: Carl, yes 33 Democrats, but 225 Republicans voted to roll back rather meager Dodd-Frank restrictions on the banking industry. > On May 22, 2018, at 19:25, C G Estabrook via Peace-discuss wrote: > > https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10156535093661518&set=a.45670806517.69941.612626517&type=3&theater > > [Jeffrey St Clair] 33 Democrats just voted to roll back rather meager Dodd-Frank restrictions on the banking industry. > > >> On May 22, 2018, at 8:44 PM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss wrote: >> >> Mort-- >> >> I have no brief for Davis. (The way to prevent abortion includes providing single-payer healthcare, child allowances, housing & education - not just unfunding it.) >> >> How do you stand on my real (not rhetorical) question: "Which is more likely to hesitate at Deep State war-mongering, a Republican House, or a Democratic one?” >> >> On war issues, I don’t think the Democratic party should be given control of the House. >> >> So I‘ll vote in the most effective way to discourage the election of a Democrat in the 13th IL CD. >> >> That means voting for the Republican candidate, rather than abstaining. —CGE >> >> >>> On May 22, 2018, at 7:59 PM, Brussel, Morton K via Peace-discuss wrote: >>> >>> Carl, >>> >>> I find your arguments for voting for Davis truly bizarre, contorted. On foreign issues Davis will take typical administration positions [e.g., on Cuba, Venezuela, Israel-Palestine, Iran, N. Korea, Ukraine, Honduras, S. America, …empire and militarism,…] , given the evidence available. On domestic social issues Davis is worse than most of the Democrats (but against abortion, a stance with which you no doubt agree! Aha!). >>> >>> Neither candidate inspires confidence (in me). >>> >>> The obvious choice is not to vote for either. >>> >>>> On May 22, 2018, at 7:28 PM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss wrote: >>>> >>>> Which is more likely to hesitate at Deep State war-mongering, a Republican House, or a Democratic one? >>>> >>>> John Pilger wrote in 2016, “The CIA, Pentagon generals, and the pro-war New York Times demand Trump not be elected. These tribunes of 'perpetual war' are terrified that the multi-billion-dollar business of war by which the United States maintains its dominance will be undermined if Trump does a deal with Russian president Putin, then with China’s president Xi Jinping. Their panic at the possibility of the world’s great power talking peace – however unlikely – would be the blackest farce were the issues not so dire…” >>>> >>>> The Democrats' panic at the threat that Trump would abandon Obama's war provocations produced Russiagate. >>>> >>>> They should not be rewarded for that with control of the House. >>>> >>>> —CGE >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Peace-discuss mailing list >>>> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net >>>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Peace-discuss mailing list >>> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net >>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Peace-discuss mailing list >> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net >> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss > > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss From daenstrom at gmail.com Wed May 23 03:43:23 2018 From: daenstrom at gmail.com (David Enstrom) Date: Tue, 22 May 2018 23:43:23 -0400 Subject: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Don't send a Democrat to the House In-Reply-To: <2E07096F-06CD-48B6-B45E-DE360DD8F910@illinois.edu> References: <2E07096F-06CD-48B6-B45E-DE360DD8F910@illinois.edu> Message-ID: Bizzare and contorted about sums this string up bery nicely. Carl I thought you and given up on electoral politics. I guess I was mistaken. On Tue, May 22, 2018 at 8:28 PM Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss < peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote: > Which is more likely to hesitate at Deep State war-mongering, a Republican > House, or a Democratic one? > > John Pilger wrote in 2016, “The CIA, Pentagon generals, and the pro-war > New York Times demand Trump not be elected. These tribunes of 'perpetual > war' are terrified that the multi-billion-dollar business of war by which > the United States maintains its dominance will be undermined if Trump does > a deal with Russian president Putin, then with China’s president Xi > Jinping. Their panic at the possibility of the world’s great power talking > peace – however unlikely – would be the blackest farce were the issues not > so dire…” > > The Democrats' panic at the threat that Trump would abandon Obama's war > provocations produced Russiagate. > > They should not be rewarded for that with control of the House. > > —CGE > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From susanroseparenti at gmail.com Wed May 23 16:43:03 2018 From: susanroseparenti at gmail.com (Susan Parenti) Date: Wed, 23 May 2018 11:43:03 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Tonight at 7pm: Solo Experimental Performance by Al Schneider! at 122 Franklin Urbana Message-ID: -- *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: alanddog sdas poster may23 copy.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 551844 bytes Desc: not available URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Fri May 25 11:46:58 2018 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Fri, 25 May 2018 11:46:58 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Socialism Conference Message-ID: |Program and Speakers|[https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/9rGO8tmt2ZGQE0drfBfMB6HGE6Ken8WtXSYpfzfCD-Fgd6vHUWbaXnIbOTD2EIc4dVZCv3B6X9beedaTDw3nQ0rJ-0T647V6EDBbOnIqGTgM8uU4_Djey7Tj6fNy_ay4lg] Midwest Socialism Conference “Shut Down Capitalism and Imperialism!” Sat., June 9, 11 am to 5 pm 3460 W. Lawrence, Chicago, IL Facebook Event ________________________________ PROGRAM 10:15 am: Registration Opens| 11 am: Opening Session| 1. 11:15 am: Solidarity Statements Black Lives Matter Women of Faith on the Struggle for Justice for Laquan McDonald; People United Against Oppression; Illinois Green Party 1. 11:35 am: Revolutionary Youth for Socialism: We Indict Capitalism! Short presentations: police brutality and violence in Chicago; a Syrian defends Syria from U.S. imperialism; fighting racism in Detroit; fighting white supremacy in Indiana; and organizing to get the lead out of Milwaukee’s water! 1. 12 pm: Main Plenary: “Building Socialism, Shutting Down Capitalism in a Time of Growing Domestic and International Turmoil” Speakers: Eugene Puryear and Gloria La Riva 1 pm: Lunch| 1:45 pm: Workshops 1| 1. What is Socialism? Is a Revolution Possible in the United States?[https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/0Hy-FB0acdKoYrqGVQYvpyLw9o1Yk5Z-OliNgD4oUhytHn4q8zQo4G_tfGiJy5nCjYvPikpbJAKeuKeTZZElXFWOTnyvDP9lA05w5C7smU8nOscKW4me1DcKDz_3LqdSqg] 2. The Struggle against Racist Police Terror, Cointelpro 2 and the Movement for Socialism and Liberation 3. The U.S. State’s Anti-Russia Witch Hunt, China and the Reorientation of U.S. imperialism 2:45 pm: Workshops 2 | [https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/5VB19xruSFHHKbbj68F2C_LSdKaE_5Hj88IXxp5hTXK38qp3fnhouJl6RwLn_xayWhoCixxHV6IbHqDOfaPPUuuF6DDF2yBLctAMDxihtvF-3sv8whgUoaCGQMj1dFyowA] 1. Imperialism 101: Understanding the Middle East 2. Venezuela, Cuba, Latin America and U.S. Imperialism 3. The Korean Struggle for Peace and Reunification 4 pm: Closing Plenary | Our urgent tasks: “Rebuilding the Socialist Movement in the U.S. and the role of the Revolutionary Party” Main Speaker: John Beacham ** 5 pm to 9 pm: Dinner, Drinks and Karaoke/Dance Party ** Speakers and Presenters Include[https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/VB5RSv6zFOWLgn1n4rbwSn8IS41XrKbZeii_VdktZcPbkyqpsDtjH-Ol0d-n0EyKS4LHU9rtQif3j6l499m3_CLMss1UVH_UHypKlv2Un_S90x-rNbVnd2UxTosSMCtS2g] Gloria La Riva, Peace and Freedom Party Candidate for Governor of California and the national coordinator of the Cuba and Venezuela Solidarity Committee [https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/CVFTXOR2Yfl45FJFIljH8tlXDXDA176CbG1YC32zvDvQHf4LTm95Y6xbCgJ0yDrCdDpZF4wR_RFqALs5TkECpDKwRGrim0svS2w-eVagfwN_xw8YpzYAcWlbuNQlZQKaLw] Eugene Puryear, Host of the radio show By Any Means Necessary and the author of the book Shackled and Chained: Mass Incarceration in Capitalist America John Beacham, ANSWER Chicago coordinator and co-host of Crashing the System podcast Carolyn Ruff and Lashawn Yvonne Littrice, Black Lives Matter Women of Faith Estevan Hernandez, Party for Socialism and Liberation Elections Campaign Coordinator Derek Ford, Assistant Professor of Education Studies at DePauw University. Ford has traveled to South Korea for multiple international peace conferences. He also organized the Korea Peace Tours to the DPRK in 2017 Ali Hasan, People United Against Oppression, a Muslim-led social justice organization Stefanie Fisher, Registered Nurse, Party for Socialism and Liberation Geoffrey Cubbage, Secretary, Illinois Green Party Ana Santoyo, ANSWER Chicago Patrick McWilliams, #NoAmazonHQ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Fri May 25 15:56:00 2018 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Fri, 25 May 2018 15:56:00 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: [unac] Left Forum and more References: Message-ID: [http://nepajac.org/UNACbanner1.jpg] Join UNAC at the Left Forum John Jay College, 899 10th Ave, New York City, June 1 - 3 [http://nepajac.org/Leftforum.jpg] UNAC is sponsoring a panel with the Black Alliance for Peace called, "Stop the Wars at Home and Abroad," on Saturday, June 2nd at 10:00 - 11:50 am, room L.76. This panel will examine the relationship between state sanctioned oppression and violence practiced domestically and U.S. government imperialism carried out abroad. Speakers: Abayomi Azikiwe, UNAC, Pan-African News Wire Ajamu Baraka, Green Party, Black Alliance for Peace Bernadette Ellorin, BAYAN, USA, UNAC Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report, Black Alliance for Peace, UNAC Efia Nwangaza, Malcolm X Center, WMXP Joe Lombardo, UNAC (moderator) For more information: https://www.leftforum.org/events/stop-wars-home-and-abroad Additionally, UNAC members and friends will be speaking on a number of other panels including: Closing Plenary, Sunday June 3rd 4:00 PM Russiagate: Muzzling the Black Left and the March to War Challenges of Peace Activism Cuba Speaks for Itself -- The Cuban Revolution and US-Cuban Relations Today South Africa: The Class Struggle Deepens Envisioning our Return: 70 Years of Displacement Are Enough! US Threats and Fake News on North Korea Combatting U.S. War and Disinformation on Iran and Yemen Socialism and The Green Party The Trump Regime’s Expanding Militarism: on-the-ground and in-the-air via drones Poetry and the Radical Imagination Black Media Matters: Trump, the De-Construction of the Administrative State, and the Rise of the Right The Left and American Politics: How to Build Independent Political Power Rebellion of The "Shithole Countries": Haiti, Africa, and The Caribbean Respond to Trump It Was Bad Before Trump: Islamophobia and Muslim Political Prosecutions Join Week 3 of the Poor People Campaign Tuesday, May 29 End Militarism and the War Economy [http://nepajac.org/PPC_Logo.jpg] Actions will take place at the capital of each state and in Washingon, DC For more information: https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/ Peace Group to hold Int’l Conference near Croughton AFB in UK Stop the Pentagon takeover of space This conference and protest is sponsored by the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space. For more information: http://www.space4peace.org/ Read the UNAC Blog, "End the Wars at Home and Abroad" https://unac.papillonweb.net/ The War at Home: Empathy, Capitulation and Resistance * Lynching, Racial Terror, and Black Liberation Theology * Peggy Rosenthal ponders the devaluation of black lives in western 'culture' * Black Support for the Police State * Margaret Kimberley is indignant over the black professional class supporting the police state against innocent (and mostly poor) black men and women * Google, drone murder and the military-intelligence-censorship complex * Andre Damon notes that employees and academics who embraced Google in the days of 'Do No Evil' now find themselves in bed with the Devil himself * How Durham, NC became the first U.S. city to ban police exchanges with Israel * Zaina Alsous & Sammy Hanf tell how Durham citizens rose up and blocked police militarization through collaboration with the Zionist entity The Great March of Return and another Israeli Massacre in Gaza * 500 Years of Nakbas * Glen Ford reminds us of the long history of genocidal Nakbas throughout the brutal expansion of western 'civilization' * Finkelstein, Truthteller for Gaza * Aaron Maté interviews Norman Finkelstein on the ongoing slaughter of Gazans and his latest book 'Gaza, an Inquest into Its Martyrdom'. Finkelstein's meticulous research combine with his deep compassion and honesty to make a very powerful statement. * UNAC Statement on Israel/U.S. War on Gaza’s Nakba Protests at Apartheid Wall * UNAC AC lays out the context for the latest slaughter in Gaza, and calls for action to end Israeli Apartheid and US support for wars of aggression * Black Alliance for Peace Condemns Slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza * Ajamu Baraka calls attention to the complicity of the 'West' in Israel's genocidal assaults on Gaza and demands action in the name of the Black Alliance for Peace. * #Nakba70: A call to action * Cassia Laham states emphatically that we must stand with the Palestinians for their salvation and our own Facing the brutality of Imperial Interventions * Scourging Yemen * Kathy Kelly Laments the lack of international support for tens of thousands of innocent civilian victims in Yemen. Who will rescue the children of Yemen. * International Solidarity With the People of Odessa! * Phil Wilayto describes the resistance of the friends and relatives of the victims of a 2014 massacre by Nazis affiliated with the Ukrainian government that occurred in Odessa, Ukraine shortly after US backed coup, and the breadth of an international movement that stands in solidarity with them. Latin America: under pressure, but not beaten * My Contra Parents Are Marching For a New ‘Old’ Nicaragua: Are We, Too? * Melissa Castillo analyzes recent protests in Nicaragua, and challenges the left to examine their values in relation to a new world of facts * Venezuela Heart of America: Maduro YES Trump NO * An expression of support for the Maduro government of Venezuela and Chavismo from the Dawn News and ALBA Movimientos Please donate to keep UNAC strong: https://www.unacpeace.org/donate.html If your organization would like to join the UNAC coalition, please click here: https://www.unacpeace.org/join.html To unsubscribe from this list, please send an email to UNAC-unsubscribe at lists.riseup.net --- To unsubscribe: List help: -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From susanroseparenti at gmail.com Fri May 25 17:46:00 2018 From: susanroseparenti at gmail.com (Susan Parenti) Date: Fri, 25 May 2018 12:46:00 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Tomorrow: Free BBQ and Arts in the Park! 12-3pm! You're invited! Message-ID: Hello friends-- I’d like to invite you and any friends/family to come to our barbecue this Saturday, May 26, 12-3pm, in the North Pavilion of Crystal Lake Park. It will be an old fashioned summer time barbecue, with free vittles, salads, drinks and cupcakes—plus there will be games and music and puppet making. In addition, snuck into the event, we’ll have a short discussion about starting an artist-in-residence program in Crystal Lake Park—what kind of arts would people like to be involved in? These arts will be for kids, teens, tweens, and adults. Imagine going to the park after work/school, to sit on a porch and write poetry(for example) with a couple of people, watching the sunset slowly descend…. So I’d love to see you there tomorrow! Warmly Susan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Free BBQ in Crystal Lake Park (single).pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 99033 bytes Desc: not available URL: From susanroseparenti at gmail.com Fri May 25 17:53:10 2018 From: susanroseparenti at gmail.com (Susan Parenti) Date: Fri, 25 May 2018 12:53:10 -0500 Subject: [Peace] WHERE is the BBQ tomorrow? Message-ID: Hi--the BBQ will be in Crystal Lake Park, North Pavillion. Here's a map: -- *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: Map to North Pavillion (Crystal Lake).png Type: image/png Size: 403321 bytes Desc: not available URL: From daenstrom at gmail.com Sat May 26 19:00:01 2018 From: daenstrom at gmail.com (David Enstrom) Date: Sat, 26 May 2018 14:00:01 -0500 Subject: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] 'Entitlements' In-Reply-To: <0EBF422C-E615-4832-A0B6-32EF55BC01E5@illinois.edu> References: <0EBF422C-E615-4832-A0B6-32EF55BC01E5@illinois.edu> Message-ID: That's on way to spin it. Have you had a statistics course, Carl? Your spinning goes along with your other magical thinking tendencies. On Sat, May 26, 2018 at 6:46 AM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss < peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote: > http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/05/25/house-is-revolting.html > > Republicans in the House ('Freedom Caucus') - not the Democrats - defeat > Ryan's wretched farm bill? If the Democrats controlled the House, that > would not happpen? > > —CGE > _______________________________________________ > Peace-discuss mailing list > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From daenstrom at gmail.com Sat May 26 19:00:17 2018 From: daenstrom at gmail.com (David Enstrom) Date: Sat, 26 May 2018 14:00:17 -0500 Subject: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] 'Entitlements' In-Reply-To: References: <0EBF422C-E615-4832-A0B6-32EF55BC01E5@illinois.edu> Message-ID: one On Sat, May 26, 2018 at 2:00 PM, David Enstrom wrote: > That's on way to spin it. Have you had a statistics course, Carl? Your > spinning goes along with your other magical thinking tendencies. > > On Sat, May 26, 2018 at 6:46 AM, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss < > peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote: > >> http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/05/25/house-is-revolting.html >> >> Republicans in the House ('Freedom Caucus') - not the Democrats - defeat >> Ryan's wretched farm bill? If the Democrats controlled the House, that >> would not happpen? >> >> —CGE >> _______________________________________________ >> Peace-discuss mailing list >> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net >> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss >> > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Sat May 26 22:30:19 2018 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sat, 26 May 2018 22:30:19 +0000 Subject: [Peace] NFN Message-ID: Good program worth watching, the whole thing. https://youtu.be/EQrW3vo0oPk From karenaram at hotmail.com Sat May 26 22:45:58 2018 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sat, 26 May 2018 22:45:58 +0000 Subject: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Don't give Democrats control of the House (1 of a series) In-Reply-To: <6F0B7CB1-00C9-44C8-BCB4-6BA3666D2639@illinois.edu> References: <6F0B7CB1-00C9-44C8-BCB4-6BA3666D2639@illinois.edu> Message-ID: A good article making it very clear that Adam Schiff, a Democrat, is in cahoots with the Republican neocons. No where does the author suggest that voting for a republican or democrat will make any difference. Perhaps when she suggests we shouldn’t let the Adam Schiff’s have their way, she is as I, suggesting a systemic change brought about by the American people utilizing civil resistance as the tool. Not electoral politics which are responsible for bringing us to the brink of collapse as we are now. On May 26, 2018, at 14:51, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss > wrote: https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2018/05/26/adam-schiff-is-an-evil-bug-eyed-fascist/ "Adam Schiff is the ranking Democrat in the House Intelligence Committee, one of the numerous federal institutions which has investigated the alleged Russian election meddling and the possibility of the Trump campaign's collusion therewith… "Adam Schiff is a virulent interventionist who has never met a war he didn't like, receives large amounts of funding from the arms industry and votes in lockstep with the American supremacist neoconservatives on all foreign policy matters. He has dedicated the last year and a half to helping to advance longstanding neocon agendas against Russia with the aim of crippling America's rivals. Adam Schiff would like nothing better than to see US soldiers goose-stepping victoriously into the capital of every nation on earth, switching out their flags, and throwing their dissident journalists into prison…" —CGE _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Sat May 26 23:35:02 2018 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sat, 26 May 2018 23:35:02 +0000 Subject: [Peace] [Prairiegreens] [Peace-discuss] Don't give Democrats control of the House (1 of a series) In-Reply-To: References: <6F0B7CB1-00C9-44C8-BCB4-6BA3666D2639@illinois.edu> Message-ID: But how does that differ from what we have had previously under the Obama or Bush Administration, as we know foreign policy continues regardless of who is in power. All of those in power are supported and beholden to the corporate funding from the elites. On May 26, 2018, at 16:27, Carl G. Estabrook > wrote: He would be chair of the House Intelligence Committee, were the Democrats to re-take the House. On May 26, 2018, at 5:45 PM, Karen Aram > wrote: A good article making it very clear that Adam Schiff, a Democrat, is in cahoots with the Republican neocons. No where does the author suggest that voting for a republican or democrat will make any difference. Perhaps when she suggests we shouldn’t let the Adam Schiff’s have their way, she is as I, suggesting a systemic change brought about by the American people utilizing civil resistance as the tool. Not electoral politics which are responsible for bringing us to the brink of collapse as we are now. On May 26, 2018, at 14:51, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss > wrote: https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2018/05/26/adam-schiff-is-an-evil-bug-eyed-fascist/ "Adam Schiff is the ranking Democrat in the House Intelligence Committee, one of the numerous federal institutions which has investigated the alleged Russian election meddling and the possibility of the Trump campaign's collusion therewith… "Adam Schiff is a virulent interventionist who has never met a war he didn't like, receives large amounts of funding from the arms industry and votes in lockstep with the American supremacist neoconservatives on all foreign policy matters. He has dedicated the last year and a half to helping to advance longstanding neocon agendas against Russia with the aim of crippling America's rivals. Adam Schiff would like nothing better than to see US soldiers goose-stepping victoriously into the capital of every nation on earth, switching out their flags, and throwing their dissident journalists into prison…" —CGE _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss _______________________________________________ Prairiegreens mailing list Prairiegreens at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/prairiegreens http://www.prairienet.org/greens/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From susanroseparenti at gmail.com Mon May 28 00:39:05 2018 From: susanroseparenti at gmail.com (Susan Parenti) Date: Sun, 27 May 2018 19:39:05 -0500 Subject: [Peace] message from Patch Adams, your neighbor! Message-ID: *Hi Friends – Patch here!* I am very excited to announce that we will be releasing a new video series! This series of 115 videos features me responding to themes related to peace, love, happiness, community and change. The first video will be on Monday May 28 in time for my 73rd birthday (Whoopee!) After that, we will be releasing videos twice a week – Tuesday and Friday. We will have these videos available on Facebook, YouTube, and on our website ( www.patchadams.org). These new videos will show how my project has evolved over the years. The last 47 years of my hospital project, Gesundheit, we have been a 'hospital without walls' while we provided care to the world. These new videos will be our most up-to-date presentation of what we've learned during this time. We're inviting you, the Gesundheit community, to watch, interact and spread the message to your friends! And our GI team will here, responding as best as we can. Your response and support will help make the free, silly, loving hospitals ‘with walls’ a reality. So, hang on to your hats, it's going to be a doozy! Our website (*www.patchadams.org/donate/* ) remains an important ‘door’ for donations. Any and all support you may give to our project would be greatly appreciated! Imagine me giving you a big sloppy kiss and a great big hug! If you have any questions, concerns, comments, input, output, or throughput, let us know. In Peace, Patch (and Derek, Mark, Caren, Susan, Sam, Rebecca) -- *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: PastedGraphic-1.tiff Type: image/tiff Size: 158134 bytes Desc: not available URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Mon May 28 03:42:38 2018 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Mon, 28 May 2018 03:42:38 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Gathering on June 2nd. to honor victims of gun violence. Message-ID: June 2nd: Wear orange and gather in Westside Park between 4 and 6 pm. to help honor victims and survivors of gun violence. Mothers Against Gun Violence. PS It’s okay if you don't wear orange, I never do. From karenaram at hotmail.com Mon May 28 19:35:58 2018 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Mon, 28 May 2018 19:35:58 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: [Marxism] Barbara Ehrenreich's Radical Critique of Wellness Culture | The New Republic References: Message-ID: In addition to my long diatribe below, I would like to suggest that baby boomers attempts to to stay young, healthy and alive also started in the sixties, the whole “Sex, drugs, rock & roll” culture” as I’ve said previously may have been creative, and yes it helped to galvanize the young at anti-war protests, nonetheless when the focus on the “self” took over, which we know Edward Bernays was involved in creating, that ended interest in the “collective” moving us into the eighties which was the “greed is good” era. So there are many young people out there, probably joyful at the thought of baby boomers demise given what they have inherited from us. PS I’m also reminded of the fact that many of the baby boomers, spent their lives in segregated communities, so it’s only natural that many still have attitudes that today reflect racism, something we are less apt to see among the younger generations. Begin forwarded message: From: Karen Aram via Peace-discuss > Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: [Marxism] Barbara Ehrenreich's Radical Critique of Wellness Culture | The New Republic Date: May 28, 2018 at 12:03:07 PDT To: "Carl G. Estabrook" > Cc: "peace-discuss at anti-war.net" > Reply-To: Karen Aram > I won’t read the article, as I don’t like the TNR either. As someone who has been working out since age 14 on a regular basis, given my Father was obsessed with working out with weights, I am not excessive but I do use make up, and slather myself in cream morning and night, not to mention staying out of the sun. None of this is to keep young but just to keep “me” an aging me, but me nonetheless, given I’ve been doing it all since an early age. Hair color more recent. Drugs no, irritating doctors, and hippy’s in the past, attempting to push…..alcohol minimal, cigarettes no. Consuming veggies not as much as I should, given I am a semi vegetarian. However, I agree with the paragraph below, assumed to be written by Barbara Ehrenreich. Keeping the brain fit, is the most important, though I will not take up crossword puzzles even though it kept my aunts brain functioning into her nineties, unlike her sister, my Mother, whose brain was gone long ago. Yes, its big business, big bucks even back in the day, sixties before Jane Fonda VDO’s hit the market, when my Father ran a health club, it was all about the money, the kick backs doctors receive from the pharmaceuticals for the prescriptions they write also go back to the sixties, I know this from experience. Some things never change and the baby boomers, those who were sure they should never listen to anyone over the age of 30, aka Mick Jagger, maybe why we have left the mess for future generations as we have. Now, please don’t send anything more that I might agree with, from that Syria war supporter Louis Proyect, who turns my stomach with his war mongering propaganda. His influence on the younger generations who believe a Marxist would also be an imperialist, is beyond nonsense. On May 28, 2018, at 07:17, Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss > wrote: Begin forwarded message: From: Louis Proyect via Marxism > Subject: [Marxism] Barbara Ehrenreich's Radical Critique of Wellness Culture | The New Republic Date: May 28, 2018 at 7:04:22 AM CDT To: "C. G. Estabrook" > Reply-To: Louis Proyect >, "Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition" > Ehrenreich contemplates with some satisfaction not just the approach of her own death but also the passing of her generation. As the boomers have aged, denial of death, she argues, has moved to the center of American culture, and a vast industrial ecosystem has bloomed to capitalize on it. Across twelve chapters, Ehrenreich surveys the health care system, the culture of old age, the world of “mindfulness,” and the interior workings of the body itself, and finds a fixation on controlling the body, encouraged by cynical and self-interested professionals in the name of “wellness.” Without opposing reasonable, routine maintenance, Ehrenreich observes that the care of the self has become a coercive and exploitative obligation: a string of endless medical tests, drugs, wellness practices, and exercise fads that threaten to become the point of life rather than its sustenance. Someone, obviously, is profiting from all this. https://newrepublic.com/article/148296/barbara-ehrenreich-radical-crtique-wellness-culture _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/galliher%40illinois.edu _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss _______________________________________________ Peace-discuss mailing list Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Tue May 29 17:00:26 2018 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Tue, 29 May 2018 17:00:26 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Drury Inn protest June 23 References: Message-ID: To members and supporters of AWARE and the Green Party, an invitation to join in the protest, detailed below: Begin forwarded message: From: Brian Dolinar > Subject: Drury Inn protest June 23 Date: May 29, 2018 at 09:37:23 PDT Hi all, We're planning a protest at the Drury Inn on Saturday, June 23 at 11am. Please put it on your calendar and tell your friends/orgs. Bend the Arc is willing to participate, and I've talked to a few other individuals. The national news keeps getting worse. Locally, a father of four was picked up by ICE on May 14 at the satellite jail in East Urbana. For those who would like to be involved, can we meet this Saturday 11am at IMC? There are some logistical details: sign making party, call Goodwill about parking, I drove around, there's a public sidewalk on west side of hotel, and at corner of Prospect, we need media spokespersons, etc. Gracias! BD -- Brian Dolinar, Ph.D. briandolinar.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ben at peartreestudio.net Tue May 29 17:19:58 2018 From: ben at peartreestudio.net (Ben Galewsky) Date: Tue, 29 May 2018 12:19:58 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Drury Inn protest June 23 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <84255F75-CFBC-408D-87E1-A29B7D786461@peartreestudio.net> Karen — Can you share some more details about the protest? > On May 29, 2018, at 12:00 PM, Karen Aram via Peace wrote: > > To members and supporters of AWARE and the Green Party, an invitation to join in the protest, detailed below: > >> Begin forwarded message: >> >> From: Brian Dolinar > >> Subject: Drury Inn protest June 23 >> Date: May 29, 2018 at 09:37:23 PDT >> >> Hi all, >> >> We're planning a protest at the Drury Inn on Saturday, June 23 at 11am. Please put it on your calendar and tell your friends/orgs. Bend the Arc is willing to participate, and I've talked to a few other individuals. The national news keeps getting worse. Locally, a father of four was picked up by ICE on May 14 at the satellite jail in East Urbana. >> >> For those who would like to be involved, can we meet this Saturday 11am at IMC? There are some logistical details: sign making party, call Goodwill about parking, I drove around, there's a public sidewalk on west side of hotel, and at corner of Prospect, we need media spokespersons, etc. >> >> Gracias! BD >> -- >> Brian Dolinar, Ph.D. >> briandolinar.com > > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Tue May 29 20:36:12 2018 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Tue, 29 May 2018 20:36:12 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Uniting across movements for justice References: <80128-ae18-5b0da465@list.350.org> Message-ID: Right now, a massive movement for racial, economic, gender and environmental justice called The Poor People’s Campaign is sweeping the country. Since May 14, thousands of people have been rallying for policies to dismantle systemic racism, poverty, the war economy, and environmental degradation through 40 days of nonviolent moral action. On June 3, the Poor People’s Campaign will launch its week of action for “The Right to Health and a Healthy Planet.” Fossil fuel billionaires can’t profit without massive pollution or worsening natural disasters, and it’s people of color and the poor who pay the price with their lives and livelihoods. Climate change is not a single-issue fight. To secure the lasting change we need, we’ll have to unite across movements for justice. Show up for the Poor People’s Campaign by signing up here to learn more about events in your area -- you don’t have to wait for June 3 to participate. [https://dbqvwi2zcv14h.cloudfront.net/images/editor-2018-05-29-4.jpg] In the past year, communities from California to Puerto Rico have been rocked by fires, floods and storms. Everywhere, the people already rendered vulnerable by poverty and racism bear the brunt of these climate-fueled disasters, and in many cases, are still recovering from the damage. The global climate crisis has become a multiplier of other injustices. The most dangerous fossil fuel projects -- refineries, pipelines and more -- are often built in historically exploited and disenfranchised communities, often communities of color. The impact on local health, politics, and everyday life are disastrous, so it’s no wonder these communities, from Standing Rock to Bayou Bridge, are also epicenters of resistance and leadership. Stand in solidarity with the Poor People’s Campaign, and fight for a world that cares for the planet and moves us away from systems of oppression that allow a few to hoard wealth while the rest struggle to survive. We’re in desperate need of a shift in the national conversation around poverty: from one of blame and shame to one that seeks solutions. A recent report found that 43% of US families can’t afford basics like rent and food1. Things will only get worse if we don’t push for changes starting now. Fossil fuel billionaires exploit the poorest and most vulnerable to prop up their destructive business model. Now we need to come together to make sure it's fossil fuel elites -- not our communities -- who bear the costs of this destruction. Sign up for the Poor People’s Campaign events in your area today. Thank you for answering the call to leadership, Natalia PS - If you’re interested in hearing more about the intersections between race, the war economy, poverty, and climate, tune in to the Poor People’s Campaign Tuesday Teach-In on June 5th, 7:30 PM Eastern Time. I will be one of the panelists. ________________________________ 1 Almost half of US families can't afford basics like rent and food - CNN Money [https://act.350.org/o.gif?akid=44568.524584.FlA__i] ________________________________ 350.org is building a global climate movement. You can connect with us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and text 350 to 83224 to get important mobile action alerts. Become a sustaining donor to keep this movement strong and growing. Looking for other ways to get involved? Check out our map to see if there's a local 350 group or event near you. You can update your contact information, location, or language here, or if you're 100% sure you never want to hear from 350.org again you can click here to unsubscribe. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From daenstrom at gmail.com Wed May 30 02:39:05 2018 From: daenstrom at gmail.com (David Enstrom) Date: Tue, 29 May 2018 21:39:05 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: [Birdnotes] Fwd: Help Protect the Middle Fork!! Attend the People's Hearing at Danville Area Community College, June 11, 5pm to 8pm In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I know this isn't a peace issue, but it is very important. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Connie Cunningham Date: Tue, May 29, 2018 at 3:17 PM Subject: [Birdnotes] Fwd: Help Protect the Middle Fork!! Attend the People's Hearing at Danville Area Community College, June 11, 5pm to 8pm To: Ecostewards at lists.communitylists.org, Birdnotes < birdnotes at lists.champaigncountyaudubon.org>, Master Naturalist < uie-masternaturalist-ecimn at aces.illinois.edu> For those of you interested in the Middle Fork River ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Pam Richart, Eco-Justice Collaborative Date: Tue, May 29, 2018 at 10:23 AM Subject: Help Protect the Middle Fork!! Attend the People's Hearing at Danville Area Community College, June 11, 5pm to 8pm To: Connie Cunningham *Come to the People’s Hearing* *On the Risks of Leaving Coal Ash on the Banks of the Middle Fork* *Monday, June 11, 2018 - 5pm to 8pm* Bremer Auditorium, Danville Area Community College 2000 East Main Street, Danville, IL *This is your opportunity to hear from experts and voice your concerns over Vistra+Dynegy’s * *proposal **to leave its coal ash In the floodplain of the Middle Fork of the Vermilion River* Extensive erosion of riverbanks next to the Old East and North Ash Pits occurred during the February 2018 storm. This photo shows (from left to right): leaching of coal ash contaminants; severe undercutting and collapse of portions of the riverbank; and destroyed riverbank armoring. *Why Attend* Now is the time, while Dynegy finalizes plans for its leaking ash pits, to voice concerns over the risks of a proposal that could leave this toxic waste forever in the floodplain of the Middle Fork. The Illinois EPA’s decision on a closure plan for three ash pits will either positively - or negatively - affect the health, recreational, scenic, and economic values of this National Scenic River. Join neighbors and friends on June 11! Together, call on the Illinois EPA and Governor to do the right thing, and require Dynegy to move its coal ash away from the river. That's the only solution that will permanently protect the Middle Fork and the people of Vermilion County. *What to Expect* This forum has been planned by Eco-Justice Collaborative with support of the Protect the Middle Fork Citizens Advocacy Group. Experts will address concerns that Dynegy’s preferred cap and leave solution - even with bank stabilization - will not stop groundwater or surface water pollution, nor protect the river, long-term, from a potential breach that could send millions of gallons of coal ash downstream. We are bringing together: - Experts who will talk about the: - Importance of the river for recreation, tourism, and the local economy. - Ecological health and diversity of this National Scenic River. - Health and environmental hazards of coal ash. - Risks of leaving coal ash on the banks of the Middle Fork (pollution, erosion, and stability of coal ash impoundments). - Residents impacted from coal ash spills in North Carolina and Tennessee who will share their experiences. - The general public who will be invited to submit oral and written comments. Visit our website for a list of confirmed speakers. Dynegy and the Illinois EPA have been invited to send a representative to speak. Comments and testimonies from this hearing will be delivered to Governor Bruce Rauner and Illinois EPA Director Alec Messina in late June or early July so they can be taken into consideration by decision-makers as plans for closing Dynegy's plans coal ash pits are reviewed and finalized. *Schedule* 4:00pm Press Conference 5:00pm Opening Remarks 5:30pm Expert Testimony 7:00pm Public Comment 8:00pm Adjournment *Questions?* Contact Pam or Lan Richart at ejc at ecojusticecollaborative.org or 773.556.3417 *Presiding Officials* Scott Bennett, Illinois State Senator Mike Marron, Vermilion County Board Chair Scott Eisenhauer, Mayor of Danville *Click for More* Middle Fork Under Siege a Second Time February Storm Elevates Concerns Photographs Post February 2018 Storm Frequently Asked Questions Forward To A Friend Eco-Justice Collaborative 919 W. University Avenue Champaign IL 61821 United States If you believe you received this message in error or wish to no longer receive email from us, please unsubscribe . -- *Connie* _______________________________________________ Birdnotes mailing list Birdnotes at lists.champaigncountyaudubon.org http://lists.champaigncountyaudubon.org/listinfo.cgi/birdnotes- champaigncountyaudubon.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Wed May 30 13:24:33 2018 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 30 May 2018 13:24:33 +0000 Subject: [Peace] [Prairiegreens] Support & critique of BDS In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Carl You’re right, he’s brilliant, he convinced me a two state solution is the only answer, plus….. I especially liked his quotation from Mao Zedong, one of my favorites which is: “He was obviously a smart guy and a shrewd political analyst and a shrewd military analyst, and he said the object of politics is to unite the many to defeat the few. You have to create as big a coalition as possible in order to isolate your enemy. And then if you want to isolate your enemy, you have to look at the place where they’re weakest, what you might call the line of least resistance.” On May 30, 2018, at 05:45, C G Estabrook > wrote: A cogent statement from a prophet without honor in his own country and elsewhere: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/bds-one-state-two-states-tactics-goals-and-resistance/ —CGE _______________________________________________ Prairiegreens mailing list Prairiegreens at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/prairiegreens http://www.prairienet.org/greens/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Thu May 31 13:15:53 2018 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Thu, 31 May 2018 13:15:53 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: [Midwest Socialism Conference - Shut Down Capitalism!] The Midwest Socialism Conference is in 9 days... References: <67195bca64d311e88a8eec0d9abf6726-4b7f9b18@4cc859204a1370665ee9e51a68ae3480a9fadb63d9f9b43d39efca13fc797c36> Message-ID: The Party for Socialism and Liberation Chicago added a photo in Midwest Socialism Conference - Shut Down Capitalism!. [https://scontent-ort2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-1/p100x100/15241826_10154034968974080_6956038282203573131_n.png?_nc_cat=0&_nc_ad=z-m&_nc_cid=1087&oh=869ca8e99afb6703fb321583d58702b2&oe=5B8BA5CF] The Party for Socialism and Liberation Chicago May 31 at 6:05am The Midwest Socialism Conference is in 9 days! Join us to hear important presentations from Eugene Puryear, Gloria La Riva, John Beacham and more! Keep spreading the word! [https://scontent-ort2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-0/s200x200/34092562_10155512815079080_8293435927062118400_n.jpg?_nc_cat=0&_nc_ad=z-m&_nc_cid=1087&oh=e22e627605ef2bee74f522894c46a4d8&oe=5B77BD74] The Midwest Socialism Conference is in 9 days! Join us to hear important presentations from Eugene P... [https://www.facebook.com/email_open_log_pic.php?mid=56d7fd76e4506G59f6997cG56d80210447d8G3f3] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Thu May 31 14:03:50 2018 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Thu, 31 May 2018 14:03:50 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: June 9: National ANSWER Leaders Speaking at Socialism Conference in Chicago! References: <5b0ff70d40b04_ffdc6f6f6c56760@worker.ami.nbuild.prd.useast1.3dna.io.mail> Message-ID: [ANSWER Coalition] [https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/answercoalition/mailings/2439/attachments/original/June9Speakers.jpg?1527772453]Midwest Socialism Conference Shutdown Capitalism and Imperialism! Sat., June 9, 11 am to 5 pm 3460 W. Lawrence Hosted by the Party for Socialism and Liberation Exciting announcement! ANSWER leaders from across the country will be speaking at June 9 Midwest Socialism Conference - Shut Down Capitalism!Join us to hear important presentations from Eugene Puryear, Gloria La Riva, John Beacham and more! 6 Things ... 1. Check out the Conference Program & Speakers and Share! 2. Please Pre-register for the conference here 3. We Really Need Your Help! Please make a donation now to help youth and students cover the travel and lodging expenses for the conference 4. Please Pre-pay registration fees for conference here 5. Please keep promoting the facebook page! 6. Don't miss the after-conference party! ________________________________ Are you ready to shut down capitalism, racism, war and all forms of bigotry and build a world of peace, justice and cooperation? Do you want the people to have real power instead of the billionaires and their politicians? If you do, you just might be a socialist. Socialists fight so the people will have real economic and political power. With that power we can solve the environmental crisis, avert World War 3, combat systemic violence, eliminate poverty and exploitation, end the era of mass incarceration and mass deportation and so much more. Join us at the Midwest Socialism Conference on June 9 for a day of speakers, discussion and workshops Guest Speakers will include Eugene Puryear, Gloria La Riva and John Beacham ** Schedule and Logistics Coming Soon! ** Registration starts at 10:15 am. $15 registration fee. $5 student/fixed income registration fee. Solidarity registration fee: $30 Snacks and refreshments included. Lunch will be $4. Free childcare is available. Following the conference there will be a dinner and party at the same location with DJ music and beer and wine for a small donation. Dinner will be a $2 to $5 suggested donation, but everyone should eat! RSVP at the facebook page and please share widely now! You can Pre-register here (optional but highly recommended) ANSWER Coalition · United States This email was sent to karenaram at hotmail.com. To stop receiving emails, click here. Created with NationBuilder, software for leaders. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Thu May 31 14:19:09 2018 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Thu, 31 May 2018 14:19:09 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: [New post] Going Rogue, Episode 82: The Real Revolution Has Nothing To Do With Donald Trump References: <139971992.4697.0@wordpress.com> Message-ID: New post on Caitlin Johnstone [https://i1.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/cropped-caitlinpic1.jpg?resize=32%2C32&ssl=1] [http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/12152988a68a6d4dae7506812444c18f?s=50&d=monsterid&r=G] Going Rogue, Episode 82: The Real Revolution Has Nothing To Do With Donald Trump by Caitlin Johnstone The real power in the United States rests with the unelected alliance of plutocrats and intelligence/defense agencies, so true revolution has nothing to do with impeaching or supporting the US president. Article: The Real Revolution Has Nothing To Do With Donald Trump Caitlin Johnstone | May 31, 2018 at 11:48 am | Tags: #Trump, MAGA, qanon, resistance, Russiagate, The Storm | Categories: podcast | URL: https://wp.me/p9tj6M-1dL Comment See all comments Unsubscribe to no longer receive posts from Caitlin Johnstone. Change your email settings at Manage Subscriptions. Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser: https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2018/05/31/going-rogue-episode-82-the-real-revolution-has-nothing-to-do-with-donald-trump/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: