From karenaram at hotmail.com Tue Sep 1 18:06:59 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2020 11:06:59 -0700 Subject: [Peace] Construction & Destruction Crystal Lake Park 2020 VDO References: <1598971839065.28739@urbanaillinois.us> Message-ID: - https://youtu.be/3gh83AuhXEQ > > ________________________________________ From naiman.uiuc at gmail.com Tue Sep 1 22:56:57 2020 From: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com (Robert Naiman) Date: Tue, 1 Sep 2020 18:56:57 -0400 Subject: [Peace] =?utf-8?q?Katrina_vanden_Heuvel=3A_Trump_hasn=E2=80=99t_?= =?utf-8?q?ended_endless_wars=2E_Congress_must_use_WPR?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/09/01/trump-hasnt-ended-endless-wars-congress-must-use-war-powers-resolution/ *Trump hasn?t ended endless wars. Congress must use the War Powers Resolution.* Opinion by Katrina vanden Heuvel Columnist September 1, 2020 at 8:00 a.m. EDT Add to list Speakers at last week?s Republican National Convention lauded President Trump as a foe of endless wars. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) praised the president for ?bringing our men and women home,? while Eric Trump claimed that his father accomplished ?peace in the Middle East. Never-ending wars were finally ended.? Just hours later, we learned of a direct clash between U.S. and Russian troops in northern Syria . Military vehicles from each country raced in an open field until a Russian vehicle collided with a U.S. vehicle, injuring four Americans, with each side claiming the other was to blame. Former administration official Brett McGurk noted that ?these incidents have been ongoing for months.? How did we arrive at a situation where the two most heavily armed nuclear powers are facing off in rural Syria without congressional authorization? In late 2018, Trump announced a full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria , then quickly backed down after receiving blistering criticism from establishment figures in both parties . Less than a year later, he renewed his call to withdraw , citing his ?heartbreaking? calls to family members left behind by fallen servicemembers. Again, he faced broadsides from the military and both parties , and again, he buckled. Instead, the president announced not only that troops would remain in Syria but that they would do so with an express aim to ?secure the oil,? which he suggested could be exploited through a ?deal with an ExxonMobil or one of our great companies.? Given long-standing accusations against the United States of waging conflicts for oil against countries like Iraq and Libya, Trump?s overt plan to seize the resource ? a war crime under international law ? was embarrassing for more tactful militarists. But the plan now seems to be reaching fruition: A U.S. company has reportedly reached a deal to develop the oil fields. In 2013, when President Barack Obama decided he wanted to strike Syria in retaliation for its use of chemical weapons, he sought authorization from Congress for military action, as is legally required under the War Powers Resolution of 1973. When it became clear neither lawmakers nor their war-weary constituents supported such a measure, Obama rightly declined to order strikes. The Trump administration, however, has been unconcerned with legal and constitutional requirements that outline Congress?s essential role in sending troops into imminent hostilities . This is the same President Trump, after all, who has continued U.S. participation in Saudi Arabia?s war in Yemen even after Congress voted to stop it and affirmed that it was unconstitutional. Trump acknowledges that his Syria policy meant that ?we may have to fight for the oil,? boasting that any other party seeking the oil would ?have a hell of a fight.? Asked to clarify whether Trump?s plan included directly opposing Russian or Syrian government forces, Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper said, ?The short answer is yes, it presently does.? The U.S. special representative for Syria, who currently oversees Trump?s plan, was even more direct: ?My job is to make [Syria] a quagmire for the Russians." The predictable results of this reckless policy are now coming to a head. Nearly seven years after Congress blocked Obama from directly engaging in military action against Russia and the Syrian government, the Trump administration is blatantly deepening U.S. involvement in the very conflict that Congress and the American people resoundingly rejected. If Congress doesn?t rein in this president now, the potential for an escalation will only increase. Thankfully, the War Powers Resolution has a remedy for this exact situation. Under the law, any member of Congress can force a debate and vote on U.S. involvement in military action abroad by introducing a privileged resolution, as was seen with the votes on ending U.S. participation in the Saudi war in Yemen last year. It is past time for those on the left and the right who defend our Constitution and truly oppose endless war to use this tool to force a debate and vote on this dangerous and unauthorized mission. The American people, and our servicemembers, deserve to see where their representatives stand on Trump?s unconstitutional mission to secure oil and confront Russia in Syria. Trump has not ended endless wars as his allies claim. But under our Constitution, members of Congress who defer to his leadership on this issue without voting to authorize it are guilty. The authors of our Constitution assigned the responsibility for the decision to go to war to the legislative branch, not the executive. Now, Congress needs to assert its powers again. Katrina vanden Heuvel Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of the Nation magazine, writes a weekly column for The Post. She has also edited or co-edited several books, including ?The Change I Believe In: Fighting for Progress in the Age of Obama? (2011) and ?Meltdown: How Greed and Corruption Shattered Our Financial System and How We Can Recover? (2009) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Wed Sep 2 13:50:15 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2020 06:50:15 -0700 Subject: [Peace] Brief VDO Kwame Ture explaining the difference between organizing and mobilizing Message-ID: Words matter, they reflect reality, and Kwame Ture explains the difference between Mobilization & Organization, and where they lead. Reform or revolution, short term and temporary, or a continuing process of change and progress. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZXePR6tBPk&fbclid=IwAR1Z54r5U50o7V0VyM9WOdO-Z8K1ZXfh6SukdF2aQqcWoPpHpIbGCzSFYlU -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From naiman.uiuc at gmail.com Wed Sep 2 14:02:47 2020 From: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com (Robert Naiman) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2020 10:02:47 -0400 Subject: [Peace] Markey defeats Pelosi by ten, doubling Khanna's prediction In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Recall: Khanna predicted that Pelosi's endorsement of Kennedy against Markey would backfire, causing Markey to win by a bigger margin: https://twitter.com/rokhanna/status/1296520774891835395 [image: image.png] Today, the NYT reports : Forging a coalition of younger and more liberal Democrats, the sort of voters who once formed the core of the Kennedy base, Mr. Markey was winning about 54 percent of the vote when Mr. Kennedy called him to concede. === Why this matters for us: because 73.2% of the problem we face in reforming the foreign policies of the Democratic Party in the direction of ending and preventing wars and ending "crippling economic sanctions," which is war by other means, lies at the confluence of two rivers: 1. Pelosi's fundraising relationship with corporatist-militarist power centers in the Democratic Party; 2. Pelosi's domination of the House Democratic Caucus. Of course, we could have tried to end-run around this problem by nominating someone for Dem POTUS who was articulating a fundamentally different vision. That door is now closed. Now we have a "war of position": house by house, block by block, alley by alley, street by street. In this war of position, we must continuously undermine Pelosi's domination of the House Democratric Caucus. We must encourage people to openly challenge her political judgment, as Khanna did here, because the excuses she routinely makes for her warhawk foreign policies are electoral-political. Why wasn't the House allowed to vote on Cicilline's Venezuela War Powers provision to prohibit the U.S. invasion of Venezuela that Bolton was gunning for? Supposedly, because Florida 2020 election. That was the claim; there was no argument; it's all about Florida, so sit down and shut up. What if that wasn't actually true? What if that was just a Pelosi story, to justify a choice she made for other reasons? We'll never know the answer to such questions, so long as there's an unjustified culture of deference among DC Democrats to Pelosi's political judgment. Just because Pelosi says something is true, doesn't make it true. Just because Pelosi says her motivation for a choice was X, doesn't mean that her motivation for the choice was X. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image.png Type: image/png Size: 139754 bytes Desc: not available URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Wed Sep 2 16:26:15 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2020 09:26:15 -0700 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Counterpunch: Take to the Streets by Paul Street References: <1134724014184.1103935397483.1591589519.0.641317JL.2002@scheduler.constantcontact.com> Message-ID: Paul Street: "Get over it, comrades: this is fascism. The notion of leaving the fascist Trump-Pence-Miller-Barr regime in power until January 20, 2021 (assuming it can or will be removed through ?normal? constitutional means then) is insane. It?s long past time for a mass and sustained rebellion to collapse the regime as soon as humanly possible. How many COVID-19 deaths by next Inauguration Day, half a million? How many more victims of racist police state, vigilante, and militia violence in the next five months? How many more environmental regulations shredded? How many more calls for racist violence from the mouth and Twitter feed of the wannabe fascist dictator Trump?? "The sooner we act the better. By election day it may be too late. Trump has no intention of leaving and anyone who thinks the Secret Service and/or U.S. military command are going to oust him as he mounts a court challenge to an outcome that doesn?t go his way is engaged in wishful and magical thinking. A sustained mass outpouring may be required before the event to create the possibility for having a reasonably fair election insofar as such a thing is possible in the deeply distorted U.S. party and elections system.? ?It?s time to get past all this ?it can?t happen here? disbelief about what this fascist presidency and its allies within and outside government are ready, willing, and able to do." > > > > > > 9-1-2020 > > > Take to the Streets > Paul Street: Trump is deliberately and willfully fanning flames. > > Trump at the RNC > Patrick Cockburn: Echoes of Saddam. > > Escalation in Portland > David Rovics: Here's the backstory of the Portland's conflict. > > COVID and the Future of Autocrats > John Feffer: Democracy in the balance. > > Fear in America > Evaggelos Vallianatos: Trump and the State. > > Basketball Outside the Bubble > Daniel Warner: Sports and protests. > > > Recent Articles > > > > > SIGN UP for the email version of CounterPunch magazine and save 37% > What is a subscription? > > CounterPunch Magazine has exclusive articles for subscribers only, plus special features you can't find on our website. As an email subscriber you get discounts on books and everything else in the CounterPunch store. > Subscribe Today! > > > > Website > Articles > Magazine > > > Mailing Address > CounterPunch > PO Box 228 > Petrolia, CA 95558 > Telephone > 1(707) 629-3683 > > About CounterPunch > > > ?? ?? ?? > CounterPunch | P.O. Box 228, Petrolia, CA 95558 > Unsubscribe karenaram at hotmail.com > Update Profile | About our service provider > Sent by counterpunch at counterpunch.org powered by > > Try email marketing for free today! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidgreen50 at gmail.com Wed Sep 2 17:07:13 2020 From: davidgreen50 at gmail.com (David Green) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2020 12:07:13 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Counterpunch: Take to the Streets by Paul Street In-Reply-To: References: <1134724014184.1103935397483.1591589519.0.641317JL.2002@scheduler.constantcontact.com> Message-ID: Gosh, this a really absurd view. Street, like Counterpunch, has devolved into lunacy. On Wed, Sep 2, 2020, 11:26 AM Karen Aram via Peace wrote: > Paul Street: "Get over it, comrades: this is fascism. The notion of > leaving the fascist Trump-Pence-Miller-Barr regime in power until January > 20, 2021 (assuming it can or will be removed through ?normal? > constitutional means then) is insane. It?s long past time for a mass and > sustained rebellion to collapse the regime as soon as humanly possible. How > many COVID-19 deaths by next Inauguration Day, half a million? How many > more victims of racist police state, vigilante, and militia violence in the > next five months? How many more environmental regulations shredded? How > many more calls for racist violence from the mouth and Twitter feed of the > wannabe fascist dictator Trump?? > > "The sooner we act the better. By election day it may be too late. Trump > has no intention of leaving and anyone who thinks the Secret Service and/or > U.S. military command are going to oust him as he mounts a court challenge > to an outcome that doesn?t go his way is engaged in wishful and magical > thinking. A sustained mass outpouring may be required before the event to > create the possibility for having a reasonably fair election insofar as > such a thing is possible in the deeply distorted U.S. party and elections > system.? > > ?It?s time to get past all this ?it can?t happen here? disbelief about > what this fascist presidency and its allies within and outside government > are ready, willing, and able to do." > > > > > > > 9-1-2020 > Take to the Streets > > Paul Street: Trump is deliberately and willfully fanning flames. > Trump at the RNC > > Patrick Cockburn: Echoes of Saddam. > Escalation in Portland > > David Rovics: Here's the backstory of the Portland's conflict. > COVID and the Future of Autocrats > > John Feffer: Democracy in the balance. > Fear in America > > Evaggelos Vallianatos: Trump and the State. > Basketball Outside the Bubble > > Daniel Warner: Sports and protests. > Recent Articles > > SIGN UP for the email version of CounterPunch magazine and save 37% > What is a subscription? > > CounterPunch Magazine has exclusive articles for subscribers only, plus > special features you can't find on our website. As an email subscriber you > get discounts on books and everything else in the CounterPunch store. > Subscribe Today! > > Website > > Articles > > Magazine > > Mailing Address > CounterPunch > PO Box 228 > Petrolia, CA 95558 > Telephone > 1(707) 629-3683 > About CounterPunch > > [image: Facebook] ? > > [image: Twitter] ? > > [image: Pinterest] ? > CounterPunch | P.O. Box 228, Petrolia, CA 95558 > Unsubscribe karenaram at hotmail.com > > Update Profile > > | About our service provider > > Sent by counterpunch at counterpunch.org powered by > [image: Trusted Email from Constant Contact - Try it FREE today.] > > Try email marketing for free today! > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 Sep 2 17:31:15 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2020 10:31:15 -0700 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Counterpunch: Take to the Streets by Paul Street In-Reply-To: References: <1134724014184.1103935397483.1591589519.0.641317JL.2002@scheduler.constantcontact.com> Message-ID: David, I?m sorry I totally disagree with your analysis. If you read the whole article which I assume you did, the lunacy is the American people thinking just casting a vote every four years and switching from one Party to the other is of value. Are the Dems., and Biden the remedy for what is taking place in the streets, and around the world, our continuing murder of Black people with impunity, US imperialism? Of course not and they aren?t even pretending, by appealing to the right. I support mass movements to over turn our system of capitalism, as the only means of saving humanity, if we aren?t ready now, then when? After Biden is elected? Will liberals go to sleep as they did during the Obama administration, or will we be passive and allow another term for Trump? My preference is non violent protest, strikes, sit downs etc., unfortunately what we?re going to get, in fact getting now, is armed militia?s supporting the police shooting protestors. Either from the continuing debacle taking place in the streets currently, the economic stress that is destroying so many and will only get worse with time, or global warming which will continue under either Party. One offering total denial which means do nothing, the other cosmetics. I frankly don?t see it happening because we have no organized vanguard. Instead we have many focused on issues which only skim the surface, bringing no real change. To ignore what is happening, and what will only get worse is to be complicit. I have to ask, what is the point of understanding class issues, then doing nothing to eliminate the inequality? > On Sep 2, 2020, at 10:07, David Green wrote: > > Gosh, this a really absurd view. Street, like Counterpunch, has devolved into lunacy. > > On Wed, Sep 2, 2020, 11:26 AM Karen Aram via Peace > wrote: > Paul Street: "Get over it, comrades: this is fascism. The notion of leaving the fascist Trump-Pence-Miller-Barr regime in power until January 20, 2021 (assuming it can or will be removed through ?normal? constitutional means then) is insane. It?s long past time for a mass and sustained rebellion to collapse the regime as soon as humanly possible. How many COVID-19 deaths by next Inauguration Day, half a million? How many more victims of racist police state, vigilante, and militia violence in the next five months? How many more environmental regulations shredded? How many more calls for racist violence from the mouth and Twitter feed of the wannabe fascist dictator Trump?? > > "The sooner we act the better. By election day it may be too late. Trump has no intention of leaving and anyone who thinks the Secret Service and/or U.S. military command are going to oust him as he mounts a court challenge to an outcome that doesn?t go his way is engaged in wishful and magical thinking. A sustained mass outpouring may be required before the event to create the possibility for having a reasonably fair election insofar as such a thing is possible in the deeply distorted U.S. party and elections system.? > > ?It?s time to get past all this ?it can?t happen here? disbelief about what this fascist presidency and its allies within and outside government are ready, willing, and able to do." > > >> >> >> >> >> >> 9-1-2020 >> >> >> Take to the Streets >> Paul Street: Trump is deliberately and willfully fanning flames. >> >> Trump at the RNC >> Patrick Cockburn: Echoes of Saddam. >> >> Escalation in Portland >> David Rovics: Here's the backstory of the Portland's conflict. >> >> COVID and the Future of Autocrats >> John Feffer: Democracy in the balance. >> >> Fear in America >> Evaggelos Vallianatos: Trump and the State. >> >> Basketball Outside the Bubble >> Daniel Warner: Sports and protests. >> >> >> Recent Articles >> >> >> >> >> SIGN UP for the email version of CounterPunch magazine and save 37% >> What is a subscription? >> >> CounterPunch Magazine has exclusive articles for subscribers only, plus special features you can't find on our website. As an email subscriber you get discounts on books and everything else in the CounterPunch store. >> Subscribe Today! >> >> >> >> Website >> Articles >> Magazine >> >> >> Mailing Address >> CounterPunch >> PO Box 228 >> Petrolia, CA 95558 >> Telephone >> 1(707) 629-3683 >> >> About CounterPunch >> >> >> ?? ?? ?? <> >> CounterPunch | P.O. Box 228, Petrolia, CA 95558 >> Unsubscribe karenaram at hotmail.com >> Update Profile | About our service provider >> Sent by counterpunch at counterpunch.org powered by >> >> Try email marketing for free today! > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidgreen50 at gmail.com Wed Sep 2 17:47:24 2020 From: davidgreen50 at gmail.com (David Green) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2020 12:47:24 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Counterpunch: Take to the Streets by Paul Street In-Reply-To: References: <1134724014184.1103935397483.1591589519.0.641317JL.2002@scheduler.constantcontact.com> Message-ID: The anarchists are neoliberals. All of these actions are being played out on bourgeois terrrain. Street just can't accept that this "uprising" has nothing to do with the working class, with an egalitarian agenda. Instead of accepting that there's no revolutionary potential here--it has all been reactionary from the get-go--he goes off the deep end. This is where the editorship of CP by Frank & St. Clair has got us, very much in contradiction to Cockburn's more reliable non-sectarian political instincts. It's become an anarchist Woke + tired Boomer rag. On Wed, Sep 2, 2020, 12:31 PM Karen Aram wrote: > David, > > I?m sorry I totally disagree with your analysis. If you read the whole > article which I assume you did, the lunacy is the American people thinking > just casting a vote every four years and switching from one Party to the > other is of value. > > Are the Dems., and Biden the remedy for what is taking place in the > streets, and around the world, our continuing murder of Black people with > impunity, US imperialism? Of course not and they aren?t even pretending, by > appealing to the right. > > I support mass movements to over turn our system of capitalism, as the > only means of saving humanity, if we aren?t ready now, then when? After > Biden is elected? Will liberals go to sleep as they did during the Obama > administration, or will we be passive and allow another term for Trump? > > My preference is non violent protest, strikes, sit downs etc., > unfortunately what we?re going to get, in fact getting now, is armed > militia?s supporting the police shooting protestors. Either from the > continuing debacle taking place in the streets currently, the economic > stress that is destroying so many and will only get worse with time, or > global warming which will continue under either Party. One offering total > denial which means do nothing, the other cosmetics. > > I frankly don?t see it happening because we have no organized vanguard. > Instead we have many focused on issues which only skim the surface, > bringing no real change. > > To ignore what is happening, and what will only get worse is to be > complicit. > > I have to ask, what is the point of understanding class issues, then doing > nothing to eliminate the inequality? > > > On Sep 2, 2020, at 10:07, David Green wrote: > > Gosh, this a really absurd view. Street, like Counterpunch, has devolved > into lunacy. > > On Wed, Sep 2, 2020, 11:26 AM Karen Aram via Peace < > peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote: > >> Paul Street: "Get over it, comrades: this is fascism. The notion of >> leaving the fascist Trump-Pence-Miller-Barr regime in power until January >> 20, 2021 (assuming it can or will be removed through ?normal? >> constitutional means then) is insane. It?s long past time for a mass and >> sustained rebellion to collapse the regime as soon as humanly possible. How >> many COVID-19 deaths by next Inauguration Day, half a million? How many >> more victims of racist police state, vigilante, and militia violence in the >> next five months? How many more environmental regulations shredded? How >> many more calls for racist violence from the mouth and Twitter feed of the >> wannabe fascist dictator Trump?? >> >> "The sooner we act the better. By election day it may be too late. Trump >> has no intention of leaving and anyone who thinks the Secret Service and/or >> U.S. military command are going to oust him as he mounts a court challenge >> to an outcome that doesn?t go his way is engaged in wishful and magical >> thinking. A sustained mass outpouring may be required before the event to >> create the possibility for having a reasonably fair election insofar as >> such a thing is possible in the deeply distorted U.S. party and elections >> system.? >> >> ?It?s time to get past all this ?it can?t happen here? disbelief about >> what this fascist presidency and its allies within and outside government >> are ready, willing, and able to do." >> >> >> >> >> >> >> 9-1-2020 >> Take to the Streets >> >> Paul Street: Trump is deliberately and willfully fanning flames. >> Trump at the RNC >> >> Patrick Cockburn: Echoes of Saddam. >> Escalation in Portland >> >> David Rovics: Here's the backstory of the Portland's conflict. >> COVID and the Future of Autocrats >> >> John Feffer: Democracy in the balance. >> Fear in America >> >> Evaggelos Vallianatos: Trump and the State. >> Basketball Outside the Bubble >> >> Daniel Warner: Sports and protests. >> Recent Articles >> >> SIGN UP for the email version of CounterPunch magazine and save 37% >> What is a subscription? >> >> CounterPunch Magazine has exclusive articles for subscribers only, plus >> special features you can't find on our website. As an email subscriber you >> get discounts on books and everything else in the CounterPunch store. >> Subscribe Today! >> >> Website >> >> Articles >> >> Magazine >> >> Mailing Address >> CounterPunch >> PO Box 228 >> Petrolia, CA 95558 >> Telephone >> 1(707) 629-3683 >> About CounterPunch >> >> [image: Facebook] ? >> >> [image: Twitter] ? >> >> [image: Pinterest] ? >> CounterPunch | P.O. Box 228, Petrolia, CA 95558 >> Unsubscribe karenaram at hotmail.com >> >> Update Profile >> >> | About our service provider >> >> Sent by counterpunch at counterpunch.org powered by >> [image: Trusted Email from Constant Contact - Try it FREE today.] >> >> Try email marketing for free today! >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 Sep 2 18:55:10 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2020 11:55:10 -0700 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Counterpunch: Take to the Streets by Paul Street In-Reply-To: References: <1134724014184.1103935397483.1591589519.0.641317JL.2002@scheduler.constantcontact.com> Message-ID: The sectarian, anarchist, neo liberals, Woke folks focus on single issues, and removal of Trump by ballot. If he?s re-elected then they will challenge, and we?ll have 4 more years of distractions, chaos, foreign interventions, with more people dying both here and abroad. Cockburn is a journalist, elderly, not a revolutionary. Is he a socialist? Does he recognize the need to end our system of capitalist exploitation? > On Sep 2, 2020, at 10:47, David Green wrote: > > The anarchists are neoliberals. All of these actions are being played out on bourgeois terrrain. Street just can't accept that this "uprising" has nothing to do with the working class, with an egalitarian agenda. Instead of accepting that there's no revolutionary potential here--it has all been reactionary from the get-go--he goes off the deep end. This is where the editorship of CP by Frank & St. Clair has got us, very much in contradiction to Cockburn's more reliable non-sectarian political instincts. It's become an anarchist Woke + tired Boomer rag. > > > On Wed, Sep 2, 2020, 12:31 PM Karen Aram > wrote: > David, > > I?m sorry I totally disagree with your analysis. If you read the whole article which I assume you did, the lunacy is the American people thinking just casting a vote every four years and switching from one Party to the other is of value. > > Are the Dems., and Biden the remedy for what is taking place in the streets, and around the world, our continuing murder of Black people with impunity, US imperialism? Of course not and they aren?t even pretending, by appealing to the right. > > I support mass movements to over turn our system of capitalism, as the only means of saving humanity, if we aren?t ready now, then when? After Biden is elected? Will liberals go to sleep as they did during the Obama administration, or will we be passive and allow another term for Trump? > > My preference is non violent protest, strikes, sit downs etc., unfortunately what we?re going to get, in fact getting now, is armed militia?s supporting the police shooting protestors. Either from the continuing debacle taking place in the streets currently, the economic stress that is destroying so many and will only get worse with time, or global warming which will continue under either Party. One offering total denial which means do nothing, the other cosmetics. > > I frankly don?t see it happening because we have no organized vanguard. Instead we have many focused on issues which only skim the surface, bringing no real change. > > To ignore what is happening, and what will only get worse is to be complicit. > > I have to ask, what is the point of understanding class issues, then doing nothing to eliminate the inequality? > > >> On Sep 2, 2020, at 10:07, David Green > wrote: >> >> Gosh, this a really absurd view. Street, like Counterpunch, has devolved into lunacy. >> >> On Wed, Sep 2, 2020, 11:26 AM Karen Aram via Peace > wrote: >> Paul Street: "Get over it, comrades: this is fascism. The notion of leaving the fascist Trump-Pence-Miller-Barr regime in power until January 20, 2021 (assuming it can or will be removed through ?normal? constitutional means then) is insane. It?s long past time for a mass and sustained rebellion to collapse the regime as soon as humanly possible. How many COVID-19 deaths by next Inauguration Day, half a million? How many more victims of racist police state, vigilante, and militia violence in the next five months? How many more environmental regulations shredded? How many more calls for racist violence from the mouth and Twitter feed of the wannabe fascist dictator Trump?? >> >> "The sooner we act the better. By election day it may be too late. Trump has no intention of leaving and anyone who thinks the Secret Service and/or U.S. military command are going to oust him as he mounts a court challenge to an outcome that doesn?t go his way is engaged in wishful and magical thinking. A sustained mass outpouring may be required before the event to create the possibility for having a reasonably fair election insofar as such a thing is possible in the deeply distorted U.S. party and elections system.? >> >> ?It?s time to get past all this ?it can?t happen here? disbelief about what this fascist presidency and its allies within and outside government are ready, willing, and able to do." >> >> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> 9-1-2020 >>> >>> >>> Take to the Streets >>> Paul Street: Trump is deliberately and willfully fanning flames. >>> >>> Trump at the RNC >>> Patrick Cockburn: Echoes of Saddam. >>> >>> Escalation in Portland >>> David Rovics: Here's the backstory of the Portland's conflict. >>> >>> COVID and the Future of Autocrats >>> John Feffer: Democracy in the balance. >>> >>> Fear in America >>> Evaggelos Vallianatos: Trump and the State. >>> >>> Basketball Outside the Bubble >>> Daniel Warner: Sports and protests. >>> >>> >>> Recent Articles >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> SIGN UP for the email version of CounterPunch magazine and save 37% >>> What is a subscription? >>> >>> CounterPunch Magazine has exclusive articles for subscribers only, plus special features you can't find on our website. As an email subscriber you get discounts on books and everything else in the CounterPunch store. >>> Subscribe Today! >>> >>> >>> >>> Website >>> Articles >>> Magazine >>> >>> >>> Mailing Address >>> CounterPunch >>> PO Box 228 >>> Petrolia, CA 95558 >>> Telephone >>> 1(707) 629-3683 >>> >>> About CounterPunch >>> >>> >>> ?? ?? ?? <> >>> CounterPunch | P.O. Box 228, Petrolia, CA 95558 >>> Unsubscribe karenaram at hotmail.com >>> Update Profile | About our service provider >>> Sent by counterpunch at counterpunch.org powered by >>> >>> Try email marketing for free today! >> _______________________________________________ >> Peace mailing list >> Peace at lists.chambana.net >> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidgreen50 at gmail.com Wed Sep 2 19:52:19 2020 From: davidgreen50 at gmail.com (David Green) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2020 14:52:19 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Counterpunch: Take to the Streets by Paul Street In-Reply-To: References: <1134724014184.1103935397483.1591589519.0.641317JL.2002@scheduler.constantcontact.com> Message-ID: I was actually referring to the late Alexander Cockburn. Anyway, insofar as the current uprising serves the interests of Dems, I agree with your statement. But insofar as the mostly white BLM supporters disdain institutions while fishing for a niche within the professional managerial class, their single issue is the perpetuation of the status quo. So these are the people that Street wants to join him by ironically subverting the election in the cause of anti-fascism. It's just beyond incoherent. He's an idiot at best, but that's been apparent for some time. But hey, he has a book! And St. Clair is promoting it. On Wed, Sep 2, 2020, 1:55 PM Karen Aram wrote: > The sectarian, anarchist, neo liberals, Woke folks focus on single > issues, and removal of Trump by ballot. If he?s re-elected then they will > challenge, and we?ll have 4 more years of distractions, chaos, foreign > interventions, with more people dying both here and abroad. > > Cockburn is a journalist, elderly, not a revolutionary. Is he a > socialist? Does he recognize the need to end our system of capitalist > exploitation? > > > On Sep 2, 2020, at 10:47, David Green wrote: > > The anarchists are neoliberals. All of these actions are being played out > on bourgeois terrrain. Street just can't accept that this "uprising" has > nothing to do with the working class, with an egalitarian agenda. Instead > of accepting that there's no revolutionary potential here--it has all been > reactionary from the get-go--he goes off the deep end. This is where the > editorship of CP by Frank & St. Clair has got us, very much in > contradiction to Cockburn's more reliable non-sectarian political > instincts. It's become an anarchist Woke + tired Boomer rag. > > > On Wed, Sep 2, 2020, 12:31 PM Karen Aram wrote: > >> David, >> >> I?m sorry I totally disagree with your analysis. If you read the whole >> article which I assume you did, the lunacy is the American people thinking >> just casting a vote every four years and switching from one Party to the >> other is of value. >> >> Are the Dems., and Biden the remedy for what is taking place in the >> streets, and around the world, our continuing murder of Black people with >> impunity, US imperialism? Of course not and they aren?t even pretending, by >> appealing to the right. >> >> I support mass movements to over turn our system of capitalism, as the >> only means of saving humanity, if we aren?t ready now, then when? After >> Biden is elected? Will liberals go to sleep as they did during the Obama >> administration, or will we be passive and allow another term for Trump? >> >> My preference is non violent protest, strikes, sit downs etc., >> unfortunately what we?re going to get, in fact getting now, is armed >> militia?s supporting the police shooting protestors. Either from the >> continuing debacle taking place in the streets currently, the economic >> stress that is destroying so many and will only get worse with time, or >> global warming which will continue under either Party. One offering total >> denial which means do nothing, the other cosmetics. >> >> I frankly don?t see it happening because we have no organized vanguard. >> Instead we have many focused on issues which only skim the surface, >> bringing no real change. >> >> To ignore what is happening, and what will only get worse is to be >> complicit. >> >> I have to ask, what is the point of understanding class issues, then >> doing nothing to eliminate the inequality? >> >> >> On Sep 2, 2020, at 10:07, David Green wrote: >> >> Gosh, this a really absurd view. Street, like Counterpunch, has devolved >> into lunacy. >> >> On Wed, Sep 2, 2020, 11:26 AM Karen Aram via Peace < >> peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote: >> >>> Paul Street: "Get over it, comrades: this is fascism. The notion of >>> leaving the fascist Trump-Pence-Miller-Barr regime in power until January >>> 20, 2021 (assuming it can or will be removed through ?normal? >>> constitutional means then) is insane. It?s long past time for a mass and >>> sustained rebellion to collapse the regime as soon as humanly possible. How >>> many COVID-19 deaths by next Inauguration Day, half a million? How many >>> more victims of racist police state, vigilante, and militia violence in the >>> next five months? How many more environmental regulations shredded? How >>> many more calls for racist violence from the mouth and Twitter feed of the >>> wannabe fascist dictator Trump?? >>> >>> "The sooner we act the better. By election day it may be too late. Trump >>> has no intention of leaving and anyone who thinks the Secret Service and/or >>> U.S. military command are going to oust him as he mounts a court challenge >>> to an outcome that doesn?t go his way is engaged in wishful and magical >>> thinking. A sustained mass outpouring may be required before the event to >>> create the possibility for having a reasonably fair election insofar as >>> such a thing is possible in the deeply distorted U.S. party and elections >>> system.? >>> >>> ?It?s time to get past all this ?it can?t happen here? disbelief about >>> what this fascist presidency and its allies within and outside government >>> are ready, willing, and able to do." >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> 9-1-2020 >>> Take to the Streets >>> >>> Paul Street: Trump is deliberately and willfully fanning flames. >>> Trump at the RNC >>> >>> Patrick Cockburn: Echoes of Saddam. >>> Escalation in Portland >>> >>> David Rovics: Here's the backstory of the Portland's conflict. >>> COVID and the Future of Autocrats >>> >>> John Feffer: Democracy in the balance. >>> Fear in America >>> >>> Evaggelos Vallianatos: Trump and the State. >>> Basketball Outside the Bubble >>> >>> Daniel Warner: Sports and protests. >>> Recent Articles >>> >>> SIGN UP for the email version of CounterPunch magazine and save 37% >>> What is a subscription? >>> >>> CounterPunch Magazine has exclusive articles for subscribers only, plus >>> special features you can't find on our website. As an email subscriber you >>> get discounts on books and everything else in the CounterPunch store. >>> Subscribe Today! >>> >>> Website >>> >>> Articles >>> >>> Magazine >>> >>> Mailing Address >>> CounterPunch >>> PO Box 228 >>> Petrolia, CA 95558 >>> Telephone >>> 1(707) 629-3683 >>> About CounterPunch >>> >>> [image: Facebook] ? >>> >>> [image: Twitter] ? >>> >>> [image: Pinterest] ? >>> CounterPunch | P.O. Box 228, Petrolia, CA 95558 >>> Unsubscribe karenaram at hotmail.com >>> >>> Update Profile >>> >>> | About our service provider >>> >>> Sent by counterpunch at counterpunch.org powered by >>> [image: Trusted Email from Constant Contact - Try it FREE today.] >>> >>> Try email marketing for free today! >>> >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Peace mailing list >>> Peace at lists.chambana.net >>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace >>> >> >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From naiman.uiuc at gmail.com Wed Sep 2 21:00:50 2020 From: naiman.uiuc at gmail.com (Robert Naiman) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2020 17:00:50 -0400 Subject: [Peace] =?utf-8?b?Rm9yIERDIOKAnFByb2dyZXNzaXZlcyzigJ0gRW5kaW5n?= =?utf-8?q?_and_Preventing_Wars_Is_Not_a_Litmus_Test_for_Speaker?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: For DC ?Progressives,? Ending and Preventing Wars Is Not a Litmus Test for Speaker Here is a key fact about Pelosi?s power to dominate ?progressives? in DC on the question of ending and preventing wars: if you ask ?progressives? in DC why there has never been a ?progressive? challenge to Pelosi for Speaker, the standard answer is: because all the plausible alternatives would be worse, would be ?less progressive? than Pelosi. If you drill into this calculation, you realize that ending and preventing wars plays no role in it, because the people who have been making this calculation on behalf of ?progressives? in DC until now don?t really care that much about ending and preventing wars. When I say that they don?t really care that much about ending and preventing wars, I am not saying that their caring about ending and preventing wars is exactly equal to zero. I am saying that they don?t care about ending and preventing wars very much. They?re in favor of ending and preventing wars if it doesn?t cost them anything personally, if it?s free. Not if they would have to sacrifice anything else for it, not if any kind of trade-off is involved where they would have to prioritize that over anything else whatsoever. This is a key distinction, because a key part of how Washington functions involves putting people in situations where they have to make such trade-offs, where they have to prioritize, where they have to think about which priorities they can save. If there?s never anybody in the meeting room for whom ending and preventing wars is a priority, then that?s never going to emerge from the meeting as a priority. This is why we didn?t end the Yemen war on the Pentagon authorization bill last year. In the endgame, there was nobody in the room for whom ending the Yemen war was a priority. Look at the race to succeed Eliot Engel as chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. There are three candidates: Brad Sherman, Greg Meeks, and Joaquin Castro. If you ask DC progressives who focus on ending and preventing wars what their minimum demand is, they will all come easily to agreement: ?No to Brad Sherman.? Brad Sherman voted for the Iraq war, but more crucially, Brad Sherman voted against Obama?s Iran nuclear deal, which most Democrats who focus on ending and preventing wars see as Obama?s signature foreign policy diplomatic achievement to prevent war. Brad Sherman voted against Obama?s Iran deal because Brad Sherman is close to AIPAC. AIPAC opposed Obama?s Iran deal because Netanyahu opposed Obama?s Iran deal, and the position of AIPAC on such questions is whatever the position of Netanyahu is. Most Democrats who focus on ending and preventing wars don?t think someone like that should be chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee in a ?Democratic-controlled House,? the top House Democratic spox on Foreign Policy. That?s why many of them didn?t think Eliot Engel should be chair of HFAC. He?s close to AIPAC, he voted for the Iraq war, he voted against the Iran deal. Just like Brad Sherman. That?s why these folks see Brad Sherman as ?Engel Two.? So of the three candidates for chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Brad Sherman is the only one who voted against Obama?s Iran deal, and that?s why all the DC progressives who focus on ending and preventing wars agree on opposing Brad Sherman for chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. But Brad Sherman is unique among the three candidates in another interesting way: he?s the only one of the three candidates who is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. So the one thing that all DC progressives who focus on ending and preventing wars agree on is no to the one candidate who is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. And what that tells us is that the ?progressive? in ?Congressional Progressive Caucus? as it exists today has nothing to do with ending and preventing wars. You can be a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus in good standing and not be as ?progressive? on ending and preventing wars as Barack Obama and Joe Biden and John Kerry and Wendy Sherman. So of course, if the Congressional Progressive Caucus has any say in whether there is a progressive challenge to Pelosi for Speaker, ending and preventing wars is not going to enter into the calculation. Why should it? The Congressional Progressive Caucus as it exists today has nothing to do with ending and preventing wars. Now consider this: the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee is the top Democratic spox on foreign policy in a ?Democratic-controlled House.? But the chair of HFAC is not the top Democratic decision-maker on foreign policy in a ?Democratic-controlled House.? The top decision-maker is the Speaker. The top decision-maker is Pelosi. When we couldn?t get a floor vote on Cicilline?s bill to prevent the U.S. invasion of Venezuela that John Bolton was trying to engineer, Cicilline?s office begged me not to go after Engel. It?s not Engel?s fault, they said. Engel is being as helpful as he can. The obstacle is not Engel. The obstacle is Pelosi. Pelosi is wielding power over foreign policy without accountability to Democrats who care about ending and preventing wars. We must change this dynamic if we want to end and prevent wars. That?s why Democrats who care about ending and preventing wars must demand that there be a progressive challenge to Pelosi as Speaker. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Wed Sep 2 21:51:02 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2020 14:51:02 -0700 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Counterpunch: Take to the Streets by Paul Street In-Reply-To: References: <1134724014184.1103935397483.1591589519.0.641317JL.2002@scheduler.constantcontact.com> Message-ID: David Streets not an idiot, though some of his work of late has been a bit disconcerting. I have to ask, if Trump wins the election should we just settle for four more years of the same? Or is that the time to ?subvert the election?? If Street was just representing the neoliberals opposing Trump I would not support his suggestion, but as he has always been an outspoken, admitted socialist I think he is opposing that which is yet to come under our system of exploitation. And, why be so dismissive of the BLM supporters, the Woke? If not them, then who? We certainly can?t expect right wingers, those organizing militia?s in support of the police and Trump, to consider any viable alternative to what we have now. > On Sep 2, 2020, at 12:52, David Green wrote: > > I was actually referring to the late Alexander Cockburn. > > Anyway, insofar as the current uprising serves the interests of Dems, I agree with your statement. But insofar as the mostly white BLM supporters disdain institutions while fishing for a niche within the professional managerial class, their single issue is the perpetuation of the status quo. > > So these are the people that Street wants to join him by ironically subverting the election in the cause of anti-fascism. It's just beyond incoherent. He's an idiot at best, but that's been apparent for some time. But hey, he has a book! And St. Clair is promoting it. > > > On Wed, Sep 2, 2020, 1:55 PM Karen Aram > wrote: > The sectarian, anarchist, neo liberals, Woke folks focus on single issues, and removal of Trump by ballot. If he?s re-elected then they will challenge, and we?ll have 4 more years of distractions, chaos, foreign interventions, with more people dying both here and abroad. > > Cockburn is a journalist, elderly, not a revolutionary. Is he a socialist? Does he recognize the need to end our system of capitalist exploitation? > >> On Sep 2, 2020, at 10:47, David Green > wrote: >> >> The anarchists are neoliberals. All of these actions are being played out on bourgeois terrrain. Street just can't accept that this "uprising" has nothing to do with the working class, with an egalitarian agenda. Instead of accepting that there's no revolutionary potential here--it has all been reactionary from the get-go--he goes off the deep end. This is where the editorship of CP by Frank & St. Clair has got us, very much in contradiction to Cockburn's more reliable non-sectarian political instincts. It's become an anarchist Woke + tired Boomer rag. >> >> >> On Wed, Sep 2, 2020, 12:31 PM Karen Aram > wrote: >> David, >> >> I?m sorry I totally disagree with your analysis. If you read the whole article which I assume you did, the lunacy is the American people thinking just casting a vote every four years and switching from one Party to the other is of value. >> >> Are the Dems., and Biden the remedy for what is taking place in the streets, and around the world, our continuing murder of Black people with impunity, US imperialism? Of course not and they aren?t even pretending, by appealing to the right. >> >> I support mass movements to over turn our system of capitalism, as the only means of saving humanity, if we aren?t ready now, then when? After Biden is elected? Will liberals go to sleep as they did during the Obama administration, or will we be passive and allow another term for Trump? >> >> My preference is non violent protest, strikes, sit downs etc., unfortunately what we?re going to get, in fact getting now, is armed militia?s supporting the police shooting protestors. Either from the continuing debacle taking place in the streets currently, the economic stress that is destroying so many and will only get worse with time, or global warming which will continue under either Party. One offering total denial which means do nothing, the other cosmetics. >> >> I frankly don?t see it happening because we have no organized vanguard. Instead we have many focused on issues which only skim the surface, bringing no real change. >> >> To ignore what is happening, and what will only get worse is to be complicit. >> >> I have to ask, what is the point of understanding class issues, then doing nothing to eliminate the inequality? >> >> >>> On Sep 2, 2020, at 10:07, David Green > wrote: >>> >>> Gosh, this a really absurd view. Street, like Counterpunch, has devolved into lunacy. >>> >>> On Wed, Sep 2, 2020, 11:26 AM Karen Aram via Peace > wrote: >>> Paul Street: "Get over it, comrades: this is fascism. The notion of leaving the fascist Trump-Pence-Miller-Barr regime in power until January 20, 2021 (assuming it can or will be removed through ?normal? constitutional means then) is insane. It?s long past time for a mass and sustained rebellion to collapse the regime as soon as humanly possible. How many COVID-19 deaths by next Inauguration Day, half a million? How many more victims of racist police state, vigilante, and militia violence in the next five months? How many more environmental regulations shredded? How many more calls for racist violence from the mouth and Twitter feed of the wannabe fascist dictator Trump?? >>> >>> "The sooner we act the better. By election day it may be too late. Trump has no intention of leaving and anyone who thinks the Secret Service and/or U.S. military command are going to oust him as he mounts a court challenge to an outcome that doesn?t go his way is engaged in wishful and magical thinking. A sustained mass outpouring may be required before the event to create the possibility for having a reasonably fair election insofar as such a thing is possible in the deeply distorted U.S. party and elections system.? >>> >>> ?It?s time to get past all this ?it can?t happen here? disbelief about what this fascist presidency and its allies within and outside government are ready, willing, and able to do." >>> >>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> 9-1-2020 >>>> >>>> >>>> Take to the Streets >>>> Paul Street: Trump is deliberately and willfully fanning flames. >>>> >>>> Trump at the RNC >>>> Patrick Cockburn: Echoes of Saddam. >>>> >>>> Escalation in Portland >>>> David Rovics: Here's the backstory of the Portland's conflict. >>>> >>>> COVID and the Future of Autocrats >>>> John Feffer: Democracy in the balance. >>>> >>>> Fear in America >>>> Evaggelos Vallianatos: Trump and the State. >>>> >>>> Basketball Outside the Bubble >>>> Daniel Warner: Sports and protests. >>>> >>>> >>>> Recent Articles >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> SIGN UP for the email version of CounterPunch magazine and save 37% >>>> What is a subscription? >>>> >>>> CounterPunch Magazine has exclusive articles for subscribers only, plus special features you can't find on our website. As an email subscriber you get discounts on books and everything else in the CounterPunch store. >>>> Subscribe Today! >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Website >>>> Articles >>>> Magazine >>>> >>>> >>>> Mailing Address >>>> CounterPunch >>>> PO Box 228 >>>> Petrolia, CA 95558 >>>> Telephone >>>> 1(707) 629-3683 >>>> >>>> About CounterPunch >>>> >>>> >>>> ?? ?? ?? <> >>>> CounterPunch | P.O. Box 228, Petrolia, CA 95558 >>>> Unsubscribe karenaram at hotmail.com >>>> Update Profile | About our service provider >>>> Sent by counterpunch at counterpunch.org powered by >>>> >>>> Try email marketing for free today! >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Peace mailing list >>> Peace at lists.chambana.net >>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davidgreen50 at gmail.com Thu Sep 3 01:16:19 2020 From: davidgreen50 at gmail.com (David Green) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2020 20:16:19 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Counterpunch: Take to the Streets by Paul Street In-Reply-To: References: <1134724014184.1103935397483.1591589519.0.641317JL.2002@scheduler.constantcontact.com> Message-ID: In this regard, I think it's important to consider Michael Lind's The New Class War, either the short book or the long article in American Affairs. We have to begin to digest the material reality that the Democrats are now the party of the elite, with it's POC base that it abuses; while the majority of the broad working class has over 5 decades migrated to the Republicans, where of course they are manipulated and lied to as well. On Wed, Sep 2, 2020, 4:51 PM Karen Aram wrote: > David > > Streets not an idiot, though some of his work of late has been a bit > disconcerting. > > I have to ask, if Trump wins the election should we just settle for four > more years of the same? Or is that the time to ?subvert the election?? If > Street was just representing the neoliberals opposing Trump I would not > support his suggestion, but as he has always been an outspoken, admitted > socialist I think he is opposing that which is yet to come under our system > of exploitation. > > And, why be so dismissive of the BLM supporters, the Woke? If not them, > then who? We certainly can?t expect right wingers, those organizing > militia?s in support of the police and Trump, to consider any viable > alternative to what we have now. > > > On Sep 2, 2020, at 12:52, David Green wrote: > > I was actually referring to the late Alexander Cockburn. > > Anyway, insofar as the current uprising serves the interests of Dems, I > agree with your statement. But insofar as the mostly white BLM supporters > disdain institutions while fishing for a niche within the professional > managerial class, their single issue is the perpetuation of the status quo. > > So these are the people that Street wants to join him by ironically > subverting the election in the cause of anti-fascism. It's just beyond > incoherent. He's an idiot at best, but that's been apparent for some time. > But hey, he has a book! And St. Clair is promoting it. > > > On Wed, Sep 2, 2020, 1:55 PM Karen Aram wrote: > >> The sectarian, anarchist, neo liberals, Woke folks focus on single >> issues, and removal of Trump by ballot. If he?s re-elected then they will >> challenge, and we?ll have 4 more years of distractions, chaos, foreign >> interventions, with more people dying both here and abroad. >> >> Cockburn is a journalist, elderly, not a revolutionary. Is he a >> socialist? Does he recognize the need to end our system of capitalist >> exploitation? >> >> >> On Sep 2, 2020, at 10:47, David Green wrote: >> >> The anarchists are neoliberals. All of these actions are being played out >> on bourgeois terrrain. Street just can't accept that this "uprising" has >> nothing to do with the working class, with an egalitarian agenda. Instead >> of accepting that there's no revolutionary potential here--it has all been >> reactionary from the get-go--he goes off the deep end. This is where the >> editorship of CP by Frank & St. Clair has got us, very much in >> contradiction to Cockburn's more reliable non-sectarian political >> instincts. It's become an anarchist Woke + tired Boomer rag. >> >> >> On Wed, Sep 2, 2020, 12:31 PM Karen Aram wrote: >> >>> David, >>> >>> I?m sorry I totally disagree with your analysis. If you read the whole >>> article which I assume you did, the lunacy is the American people thinking >>> just casting a vote every four years and switching from one Party to the >>> other is of value. >>> >>> Are the Dems., and Biden the remedy for what is taking place in the >>> streets, and around the world, our continuing murder of Black people with >>> impunity, US imperialism? Of course not and they aren?t even pretending, by >>> appealing to the right. >>> >>> I support mass movements to over turn our system of capitalism, as the >>> only means of saving humanity, if we aren?t ready now, then when? After >>> Biden is elected? Will liberals go to sleep as they did during the Obama >>> administration, or will we be passive and allow another term for Trump? >>> >>> My preference is non violent protest, strikes, sit downs etc., >>> unfortunately what we?re going to get, in fact getting now, is armed >>> militia?s supporting the police shooting protestors. Either from the >>> continuing debacle taking place in the streets currently, the economic >>> stress that is destroying so many and will only get worse with time, or >>> global warming which will continue under either Party. One offering total >>> denial which means do nothing, the other cosmetics. >>> >>> I frankly don?t see it happening because we have no organized vanguard. >>> Instead we have many focused on issues which only skim the surface, >>> bringing no real change. >>> >>> To ignore what is happening, and what will only get worse is to be >>> complicit. >>> >>> I have to ask, what is the point of understanding class issues, then >>> doing nothing to eliminate the inequality? >>> >>> >>> On Sep 2, 2020, at 10:07, David Green wrote: >>> >>> Gosh, this a really absurd view. Street, like Counterpunch, has devolved >>> into lunacy. >>> >>> On Wed, Sep 2, 2020, 11:26 AM Karen Aram via Peace < >>> peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote: >>> >>>> Paul Street: "Get over it, comrades: this is fascism. The notion of >>>> leaving the fascist Trump-Pence-Miller-Barr regime in power until January >>>> 20, 2021 (assuming it can or will be removed through ?normal? >>>> constitutional means then) is insane. It?s long past time for a mass and >>>> sustained rebellion to collapse the regime as soon as humanly possible. How >>>> many COVID-19 deaths by next Inauguration Day, half a million? How many >>>> more victims of racist police state, vigilante, and militia violence in the >>>> next five months? How many more environmental regulations shredded? How >>>> many more calls for racist violence from the mouth and Twitter feed of the >>>> wannabe fascist dictator Trump?? >>>> >>>> "The sooner we act the better. By election day it may be too late. >>>> Trump has no intention of leaving and anyone who thinks the Secret Service >>>> and/or U.S. military command are going to oust him as he mounts a court >>>> challenge to an outcome that doesn?t go his way is engaged in wishful and >>>> magical thinking. A sustained mass outpouring may be required before the >>>> event to create the possibility for having a reasonably fair election >>>> insofar as such a thing is possible in the deeply distorted U.S. party and >>>> elections system.? >>>> >>>> ?It?s time to get past all this ?it can?t happen here? disbelief about >>>> what this fascist presidency and its allies within and outside government >>>> are ready, willing, and able to do." >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> 9-1-2020 >>>> Take to the Streets >>>> >>>> Paul Street: Trump is deliberately and willfully fanning flames. >>>> Trump at the RNC >>>> >>>> Patrick Cockburn: Echoes of Saddam. >>>> Escalation in Portland >>>> >>>> David Rovics: Here's the backstory of the Portland's conflict. >>>> COVID and the Future of Autocrats >>>> >>>> John Feffer: Democracy in the balance. >>>> Fear in America >>>> >>>> Evaggelos Vallianatos: Trump and the State. >>>> Basketball Outside the Bubble >>>> >>>> Daniel Warner: Sports and protests. >>>> Recent Articles >>>> >>>> SIGN UP for the email version of CounterPunch magazine and save 37% >>>> What is a subscription? >>>> >>>> CounterPunch Magazine has exclusive articles for subscribers only, plus >>>> special features you can't find on our website. As an email subscriber you >>>> get discounts on books and everything else in the CounterPunch store. >>>> Subscribe Today! >>>> >>>> Website >>>> >>>> Articles >>>> >>>> Magazine >>>> >>>> Mailing Address >>>> CounterPunch >>>> PO Box 228 >>>> Petrolia, CA 95558 >>>> Telephone >>>> 1(707) 629-3683 >>>> About CounterPunch >>>> >>>> [image: Facebook] ? >>>> >>>> [image: Twitter] ? >>>> >>>> [image: Pinterest] ? >>>> CounterPunch | P.O. Box 228, Petrolia, CA 95558 >>>> Unsubscribe karenaram at hotmail.com >>>> >>>> Update Profile >>>> >>>> | About our service provider >>>> >>>> Sent by counterpunch at counterpunch.org powered by >>>> [image: Trusted Email from Constant Contact - Try it FREE today.] >>>> >>>> Try email marketing for free today! >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Peace mailing list >>>> Peace at lists.chambana.net >>>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace >>>> >>> >>> >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbw292002 at gmail.com Thu Sep 3 02:16:43 2020 From: jbw292002 at gmail.com (John W.) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2020 21:16:43 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Counterpunch: Take to the Streets by Paul Street In-Reply-To: References: <1134724014184.1103935397483.1591589519.0.641317JL.2002@scheduler.constantcontact.com> Message-ID: Damn, can't you intellectuals get this revolution figured out SOON??? I'm getting OLD over here!! On Wed, Sep 2, 2020 at 8:17 PM David Green via Peace < peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote: In this regard, I think it's important to consider Michael Lind's The New > Class War, either the short book or the long article in American Affairs. > We have to begin to digest the material reality that the Democrats are now > the party of the elite, with it's POC base that it abuses; while the > majority of the broad working class has over 5 decades migrated to the > Republicans, where of course they are manipulated and lied to as well. > > On Wed, Sep 2, 2020, 4:51 PM Karen Aram wrote: > >> David >> >> Streets not an idiot, though some of his work of late has been a bit >> disconcerting. >> >> I have to ask, if Trump wins the election should we just settle for four >> more years of the same? Or is that the time to ?subvert the election?? If >> Street was just representing the neoliberals opposing Trump I would not >> support his suggestion, but as he has always been an outspoken, admitted >> socialist I think he is opposing that which is yet to come under our system >> of exploitation. >> >> And, why be so dismissive of the BLM supporters, the Woke? If not them, >> then who? We certainly can?t expect right wingers, those organizing >> militia?s in support of the police and Trump, to consider any viable >> alternative to what we have now. >> >> >> On Sep 2, 2020, at 12:52, David Green wrote: >> >> I was actually referring to the late Alexander Cockburn. >> >> Anyway, insofar as the current uprising serves the interests of Dems, I >> agree with your statement. But insofar as the mostly white BLM supporters >> disdain institutions while fishing for a niche within the professional >> managerial class, their single issue is the perpetuation of the status quo. >> >> So these are the people that Street wants to join him by ironically >> subverting the election in the cause of anti-fascism. It's just beyond >> incoherent. He's an idiot at best, but that's been apparent for some time. >> But hey, he has a book! And St. Clair is promoting it. >> >> >> On Wed, Sep 2, 2020, 1:55 PM Karen Aram wrote: >> >>> The sectarian, anarchist, neo liberals, Woke folks focus on single >>> issues, and removal of Trump by ballot. If he?s re-elected then they will >>> challenge, and we?ll have 4 more years of distractions, chaos, foreign >>> interventions, with more people dying both here and abroad. >>> >>> Cockburn is a journalist, elderly, not a revolutionary. Is he a >>> socialist? Does he recognize the need to end our system of capitalist >>> exploitation? >>> >>> >>> On Sep 2, 2020, at 10:47, David Green wrote: >>> >>> The anarchists are neoliberals. All of these actions are being played >>> out on bourgeois terrrain. Street just can't accept that this "uprising" >>> has nothing to do with the working class, with an egalitarian agenda. >>> Instead of accepting that there's no revolutionary potential here--it has >>> all been reactionary from the get-go--he goes off the deep end. This is >>> where the editorship of CP by Frank & St. Clair has got us, very much in >>> contradiction to Cockburn's more reliable non-sectarian political >>> instincts. It's become an anarchist Woke + tired Boomer rag. >>> >>> >>> On Wed, Sep 2, 2020, 12:31 PM Karen Aram wrote: >>> >>>> David, >>>> >>>> I?m sorry I totally disagree with your analysis. If you read the whole >>>> article which I assume you did, the lunacy is the American people thinking >>>> just casting a vote every four years and switching from one Party to the >>>> other is of value. >>>> >>>> Are the Dems., and Biden the remedy for what is taking place in the >>>> streets, and around the world, our continuing murder of Black people with >>>> impunity, US imperialism? Of course not and they aren?t even pretending, by >>>> appealing to the right. >>>> >>>> I support mass movements to over turn our system of capitalism, as the >>>> only means of saving humanity, if we aren?t ready now, then when? After >>>> Biden is elected? Will liberals go to sleep as they did during the Obama >>>> administration, or will we be passive and allow another term for Trump? >>>> >>>> My preference is non violent protest, strikes, sit downs etc., >>>> unfortunately what we?re going to get, in fact getting now, is armed >>>> militia?s supporting the police shooting protestors. Either from the >>>> continuing debacle taking place in the streets currently, the economic >>>> stress that is destroying so many and will only get worse with time, or >>>> global warming which will continue under either Party. One offering total >>>> denial which means do nothing, the other cosmetics. >>>> >>>> I frankly don?t see it happening because we have no organized vanguard. >>>> Instead we have many focused on issues which only skim the surface, >>>> bringing no real change. >>>> >>>> To ignore what is happening, and what will only get worse is to be >>>> complicit. >>>> >>>> I have to ask, what is the point of understanding class issues, then >>>> doing nothing to eliminate the inequality? >>>> >>>> >>>> On Sep 2, 2020, at 10:07, David Green wrote: >>>> >>>> Gosh, this a really absurd view. Street, like Counterpunch, has >>>> devolved into lunacy. >>>> >>>> On Wed, Sep 2, 2020, 11:26 AM Karen Aram via Peace < >>>> peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Paul Street: "Get over it, comrades: this is fascism. The notion of >>>>> leaving the fascist Trump-Pence-Miller-Barr regime in power until January >>>>> 20, 2021 (assuming it can or will be removed through ?normal? >>>>> constitutional means then) is insane. It?s long past time for a mass and >>>>> sustained rebellion to collapse the regime as soon as humanly possible. How >>>>> many COVID-19 deaths by next Inauguration Day, half a million? How many >>>>> more victims of racist police state, vigilante, and militia violence in the >>>>> next five months? How many more environmental regulations shredded? How >>>>> many more calls for racist violence from the mouth and Twitter feed of the >>>>> wannabe fascist dictator Trump?? >>>>> >>>>> "The sooner we act the better. By election day it may be too late. >>>>> Trump has no intention of leaving and anyone who thinks the Secret Service >>>>> and/or U.S. military command are going to oust him as he mounts a court >>>>> challenge to an outcome that doesn?t go his way is engaged in wishful and >>>>> magical thinking. A sustained mass outpouring may be required before the >>>>> event to create the possibility for having a reasonably fair election >>>>> insofar as such a thing is possible in the deeply distorted U.S. party and >>>>> elections system.? >>>>> >>>>> ?It?s time to get past all this ?it can?t happen here? disbelief about >>>>> what this fascist presidency and its allies within and outside government >>>>> are ready, willing, and able to do." >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> 9-1-2020 >>>>> Take to the Streets >>>>> >>>>> Paul Street: Trump is deliberately and willfully fanning flames. >>>>> Trump at the RNC >>>>> >>>>> Patrick Cockburn: Echoes of Saddam. >>>>> Escalation in Portland >>>>> >>>>> David Rovics: Here's the backstory of the Portland's conflict. >>>>> COVID and the Future of Autocrats >>>>> >>>>> John Feffer: Democracy in the balance. >>>>> Fear in America >>>>> >>>>> Evaggelos Vallianatos: Trump and the State. >>>>> Basketball Outside the Bubble >>>>> >>>>> Daniel Warner: Sports and protests. >>>>> Recent Articles >>>>> >>>>> SIGN UP for the email version of CounterPunch magazine and save 37% >>>>> What is a subscription? >>>>> >>>>> CounterPunch Magazine has exclusive articles for subscribers only, >>>>> plus special features you can't find on our website. As an email subscriber >>>>> you get discounts on books and everything else in the CounterPunch store. >>>>> Subscribe Today! >>>>> >>>>> Website >>>>> >>>>> Articles >>>>> >>>>> Magazine >>>>> >>>>> Mailing Address >>>>> CounterPunch >>>>> PO Box 228 >>>>> Petrolia, CA 95558 >>>>> Telephone >>>>> 1(707) 629-3683 >>>>> About CounterPunch >>>>> >>>>> [image: Facebook] ? >>>>> >>>>> [image: Twitter] ? >>>>> >>>>> [image: Pinterest] ? >>>>> CounterPunch | P.O. Box 228, Petrolia, CA 95558 >>>>> Unsubscribe karenaram at hotmail.com >>>>> >>>>> Update Profile >>>>> >>>>> | About our service provider >>>>> >>>>> Sent by counterpunch at counterpunch.org powered by >>>>> [image: Trusted Email from Constant Contact - Try it FREE today.] >>>>> >>>>> Try email marketing for free today! >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> Peace mailing list >>>>> Peace at lists.chambana.net >>>>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace >>>>> >>>> >>>> >>> >> _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Thu Sep 3 03:27:25 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2020 20:27:25 -0700 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Counterpunch: Take to the Streets by Paul Street In-Reply-To: References: <1134724014184.1103935397483.1591589519.0.641317JL.2002@scheduler.constantcontact.com> Message-ID: Will look into it, thanks for the suggestion. As if my pile of to be read isn?t already piled high enough. > On Sep 2, 2020, at 18:16, David Green wrote: > > In this regard, I think it's important to consider Michael Lind's The New Class War, either the short book or the long article in American Affairs. We have to begin to digest the material reality that the Democrats are now the party of the elite, with it's POC base that it abuses; while the majority of the broad working class has over 5 decades migrated to the Republicans, where of course they are manipulated and lied to as well. > > On Wed, Sep 2, 2020, 4:51 PM Karen Aram > wrote: > David > > Streets not an idiot, though some of his work of late has been a bit disconcerting. > > I have to ask, if Trump wins the election should we just settle for four more years of the same? Or is that the time to ?subvert the election?? If Street was just representing the neoliberals opposing Trump I would not support his suggestion, but as he has always been an outspoken, admitted socialist I think he is opposing that which is yet to come under our system of exploitation. > > And, why be so dismissive of the BLM supporters, the Woke? If not them, then who? We certainly can?t expect right wingers, those organizing militia?s in support of the police and Trump, to consider any viable alternative to what we have now. > > >> On Sep 2, 2020, at 12:52, David Green > wrote: >> >> I was actually referring to the late Alexander Cockburn. >> >> Anyway, insofar as the current uprising serves the interests of Dems, I agree with your statement. But insofar as the mostly white BLM supporters disdain institutions while fishing for a niche within the professional managerial class, their single issue is the perpetuation of the status quo. >> >> So these are the people that Street wants to join him by ironically subverting the election in the cause of anti-fascism. It's just beyond incoherent. He's an idiot at best, but that's been apparent for some time. But hey, he has a book! And St. Clair is promoting it. >> >> >> On Wed, Sep 2, 2020, 1:55 PM Karen Aram > wrote: >> The sectarian, anarchist, neo liberals, Woke folks focus on single issues, and removal of Trump by ballot. If he?s re-elected then they will challenge, and we?ll have 4 more years of distractions, chaos, foreign interventions, with more people dying both here and abroad. >> >> Cockburn is a journalist, elderly, not a revolutionary. Is he a socialist? Does he recognize the need to end our system of capitalist exploitation? >> >>> On Sep 2, 2020, at 10:47, David Green > wrote: >>> >>> The anarchists are neoliberals. All of these actions are being played out on bourgeois terrrain. Street just can't accept that this "uprising" has nothing to do with the working class, with an egalitarian agenda. Instead of accepting that there's no revolutionary potential here--it has all been reactionary from the get-go--he goes off the deep end. This is where the editorship of CP by Frank & St. Clair has got us, very much in contradiction to Cockburn's more reliable non-sectarian political instincts. It's become an anarchist Woke + tired Boomer rag. >>> >>> >>> On Wed, Sep 2, 2020, 12:31 PM Karen Aram > wrote: >>> David, >>> >>> I?m sorry I totally disagree with your analysis. If you read the whole article which I assume you did, the lunacy is the American people thinking just casting a vote every four years and switching from one Party to the other is of value. >>> >>> Are the Dems., and Biden the remedy for what is taking place in the streets, and around the world, our continuing murder of Black people with impunity, US imperialism? Of course not and they aren?t even pretending, by appealing to the right. >>> >>> I support mass movements to over turn our system of capitalism, as the only means of saving humanity, if we aren?t ready now, then when? After Biden is elected? Will liberals go to sleep as they did during the Obama administration, or will we be passive and allow another term for Trump? >>> >>> My preference is non violent protest, strikes, sit downs etc., unfortunately what we?re going to get, in fact getting now, is armed militia?s supporting the police shooting protestors. Either from the continuing debacle taking place in the streets currently, the economic stress that is destroying so many and will only get worse with time, or global warming which will continue under either Party. One offering total denial which means do nothing, the other cosmetics. >>> >>> I frankly don?t see it happening because we have no organized vanguard. Instead we have many focused on issues which only skim the surface, bringing no real change. >>> >>> To ignore what is happening, and what will only get worse is to be complicit. >>> >>> I have to ask, what is the point of understanding class issues, then doing nothing to eliminate the inequality? >>> >>> >>>> On Sep 2, 2020, at 10:07, David Green > wrote: >>>> >>>> Gosh, this a really absurd view. Street, like Counterpunch, has devolved into lunacy. >>>> >>>> On Wed, Sep 2, 2020, 11:26 AM Karen Aram via Peace > wrote: >>>> Paul Street: "Get over it, comrades: this is fascism. The notion of leaving the fascist Trump-Pence-Miller-Barr regime in power until January 20, 2021 (assuming it can or will be removed through ?normal? constitutional means then) is insane. It?s long past time for a mass and sustained rebellion to collapse the regime as soon as humanly possible. How many COVID-19 deaths by next Inauguration Day, half a million? How many more victims of racist police state, vigilante, and militia violence in the next five months? How many more environmental regulations shredded? How many more calls for racist violence from the mouth and Twitter feed of the wannabe fascist dictator Trump?? >>>> >>>> "The sooner we act the better. By election day it may be too late. Trump has no intention of leaving and anyone who thinks the Secret Service and/or U.S. military command are going to oust him as he mounts a court challenge to an outcome that doesn?t go his way is engaged in wishful and magical thinking. A sustained mass outpouring may be required before the event to create the possibility for having a reasonably fair election insofar as such a thing is possible in the deeply distorted U.S. party and elections system.? >>>> >>>> ?It?s time to get past all this ?it can?t happen here? disbelief about what this fascist presidency and its allies within and outside government are ready, willing, and able to do." >>>> >>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> 9-1-2020 >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Take to the Streets >>>>> Paul Street: Trump is deliberately and willfully fanning flames. >>>>> >>>>> Trump at the RNC >>>>> Patrick Cockburn: Echoes of Saddam. >>>>> >>>>> Escalation in Portland >>>>> David Rovics: Here's the backstory of the Portland's conflict. >>>>> >>>>> COVID and the Future of Autocrats >>>>> John Feffer: Democracy in the balance. >>>>> >>>>> Fear in America >>>>> Evaggelos Vallianatos: Trump and the State. >>>>> >>>>> Basketball Outside the Bubble >>>>> Daniel Warner: Sports and protests. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Recent Articles >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> SIGN UP for the email version of CounterPunch magazine and save 37% >>>>> What is a subscription? >>>>> >>>>> CounterPunch Magazine has exclusive articles for subscribers only, plus special features you can't find on our website. As an email subscriber you get discounts on books and everything else in the CounterPunch store. >>>>> Subscribe Today! >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Website >>>>> Articles >>>>> Magazine >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Mailing Address >>>>> CounterPunch >>>>> PO Box 228 >>>>> Petrolia, CA 95558 >>>>> Telephone >>>>> 1(707) 629-3683 >>>>> >>>>> About CounterPunch >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> ?? ?? ?? <> >>>>> CounterPunch | P.O. Box 228, Petrolia, CA 95558 >>>>> Unsubscribe karenaram at hotmail.com >>>>> Update Profile | About our service provider >>>>> Sent by counterpunch at counterpunch.org powered by >>>>> >>>>> Try email marketing for free today! >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> 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 Thu Sep 3 03:28:34 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 2 Sep 2020 20:28:34 -0700 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Counterpunch: Take to the Streets by Paul Street In-Reply-To: References: <1134724014184.1103935397483.1591589519.0.641317JL.2002@scheduler.constantcontact.com> Message-ID: Good one John, LOL . > On Sep 2, 2020, at 19:16, John W. wrote: > > > Damn, can't you intellectuals get this revolution figured out SOON??? I'm getting OLD over here!! > > > > On Wed, Sep 2, 2020 at 8:17 PM David Green via Peace > wrote: > > In this regard, I think it's important to consider Michael Lind's The New Class War, either the short book or the long article in American Affairs. We have to begin to digest the material reality that the Democrats are now the party of the elite, with it's POC base that it abuses; while the majority of the broad working class has over 5 decades migrated to the Republicans, where of course they are manipulated and lied to as well. > > On Wed, Sep 2, 2020, 4:51 PM Karen Aram > wrote: > David > > Streets not an idiot, though some of his work of late has been a bit disconcerting. > > I have to ask, if Trump wins the election should we just settle for four more years of the same? Or is that the time to ?subvert the election?? If Street was just representing the neoliberals opposing Trump I would not support his suggestion, but as he has always been an outspoken, admitted socialist I think he is opposing that which is yet to come under our system of exploitation. > > And, why be so dismissive of the BLM supporters, the Woke? If not them, then who? We certainly can?t expect right wingers, those organizing militia?s in support of the police and Trump, to consider any viable alternative to what we have now. > > >> On Sep 2, 2020, at 12:52, David Green > wrote: >> >> I was actually referring to the late Alexander Cockburn. >> >> Anyway, insofar as the current uprising serves the interests of Dems, I agree with your statement. But insofar as the mostly white BLM supporters disdain institutions while fishing for a niche within the professional managerial class, their single issue is the perpetuation of the status quo. >> >> So these are the people that Street wants to join him by ironically subverting the election in the cause of anti-fascism. It's just beyond incoherent. He's an idiot at best, but that's been apparent for some time. But hey, he has a book! And St. Clair is promoting it. >> >> >> On Wed, Sep 2, 2020, 1:55 PM Karen Aram > wrote: >> The sectarian, anarchist, neo liberals, Woke folks focus on single issues, and removal of Trump by ballot. If he?s re-elected then they will challenge, and we?ll have 4 more years of distractions, chaos, foreign interventions, with more people dying both here and abroad. >> >> Cockburn is a journalist, elderly, not a revolutionary. Is he a socialist? Does he recognize the need to end our system of capitalist exploitation? >> >>> On Sep 2, 2020, at 10:47, David Green > wrote: >>> >>> The anarchists are neoliberals. All of these actions are being played out on bourgeois terrrain. Street just can't accept that this "uprising" has nothing to do with the working class, with an egalitarian agenda. Instead of accepting that there's no revolutionary potential here--it has all been reactionary from the get-go--he goes off the deep end. This is where the editorship of CP by Frank & St. Clair has got us, very much in contradiction to Cockburn's more reliable non-sectarian political instincts. It's become an anarchist Woke + tired Boomer rag. >>> >>> >>> On Wed, Sep 2, 2020, 12:31 PM Karen Aram > wrote: >>> David, >>> >>> I?m sorry I totally disagree with your analysis. If you read the whole article which I assume you did, the lunacy is the American people thinking just casting a vote every four years and switching from one Party to the other is of value. >>> >>> Are the Dems., and Biden the remedy for what is taking place in the streets, and around the world, our continuing murder of Black people with impunity, US imperialism? Of course not and they aren?t even pretending, by appealing to the right. >>> >>> I support mass movements to over turn our system of capitalism, as the only means of saving humanity, if we aren?t ready now, then when? After Biden is elected? Will liberals go to sleep as they did during the Obama administration, or will we be passive and allow another term for Trump? >>> >>> My preference is non violent protest, strikes, sit downs etc., unfortunately what we?re going to get, in fact getting now, is armed militia?s supporting the police shooting protestors. Either from the continuing debacle taking place in the streets currently, the economic stress that is destroying so many and will only get worse with time, or global warming which will continue under either Party. One offering total denial which means do nothing, the other cosmetics. >>> >>> I frankly don?t see it happening because we have no organized vanguard. Instead we have many focused on issues which only skim the surface, bringing no real change. >>> >>> To ignore what is happening, and what will only get worse is to be complicit. >>> >>> I have to ask, what is the point of understanding class issues, then doing nothing to eliminate the inequality? >>> >>> >>>> On Sep 2, 2020, at 10:07, David Green > wrote: >>>> >>>> Gosh, this a really absurd view. Street, like Counterpunch, has devolved into lunacy. >>>> >>>> On Wed, Sep 2, 2020, 11:26 AM Karen Aram via Peace > wrote: >>>> Paul Street: "Get over it, comrades: this is fascism. The notion of leaving the fascist Trump-Pence-Miller-Barr regime in power until January 20, 2021 (assuming it can or will be removed through ?normal? constitutional means then) is insane. It?s long past time for a mass and sustained rebellion to collapse the regime as soon as humanly possible. How many COVID-19 deaths by next Inauguration Day, half a million? How many more victims of racist police state, vigilante, and militia violence in the next five months? How many more environmental regulations shredded? How many more calls for racist violence from the mouth and Twitter feed of the wannabe fascist dictator Trump?? >>>> >>>> "The sooner we act the better. By election day it may be too late. Trump has no intention of leaving and anyone who thinks the Secret Service and/or U.S. military command are going to oust him as he mounts a court challenge to an outcome that doesn?t go his way is engaged in wishful and magical thinking. A sustained mass outpouring may be required before the event to create the possibility for having a reasonably fair election insofar as such a thing is possible in the deeply distorted U.S. party and elections system.? >>>> >>>> ?It?s time to get past all this ?it can?t happen here? disbelief about what this fascist presidency and its allies within and outside government are ready, willing, and able to do." >>>> >>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> 9-1-2020 >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Take to the Streets >>>>> Paul Street: Trump is deliberately and willfully fanning flames. >>>>> >>>>> Trump at the RNC >>>>> Patrick Cockburn: Echoes of Saddam. >>>>> >>>>> Escalation in Portland >>>>> David Rovics: Here's the backstory of the Portland's conflict. >>>>> >>>>> COVID and the Future of Autocrats >>>>> John Feffer: Democracy in the balance. >>>>> >>>>> Fear in America >>>>> Evaggelos Vallianatos: Trump and the State. >>>>> >>>>> Basketball Outside the Bubble >>>>> Daniel Warner: Sports and protests. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Recent Articles >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> SIGN UP for the email version of CounterPunch magazine and save 37% >>>>> What is a subscription? >>>>> >>>>> CounterPunch Magazine has exclusive articles for subscribers only, plus special features you can't find on our website. As an email subscriber you get discounts on books and everything else in the CounterPunch store. >>>>> Subscribe Today! >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Website >>>>> Articles >>>>> Magazine >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Mailing Address >>>>> CounterPunch >>>>> PO Box 228 >>>>> Petrolia, CA 95558 >>>>> Telephone >>>>> 1(707) 629-3683 >>>>> >>>>> About CounterPunch >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> ?? ?? ?? <> >>>>> CounterPunch | P.O. Box 228, Petrolia, CA 95558 >>>>> Unsubscribe karenaram at hotmail.com >>>>> Update Profile | About our service provider >>>>> Sent by counterpunch at counterpunch.org powered by >>>>> >>>>> Try email marketing for free today! >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Peace mailing list >>>> Peace at lists.chambana.net >>>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace >>> >> > > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Fri Sep 4 16:23:06 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Fri, 4 Sep 2020 09:23:06 -0700 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: The New Class War - American Affairs Journal References: Message-ID: David Your suggestion in relation to Paul Street?s call for revolution before the election, that one should read Michael Lind?s book or article related to the Managerial Class, has left me with a some random thoughts. I briefed the article last evening and posted a link to his article below my comments for anyone wishing to review. He covers well the history of the rise of the Managerial Class. It exists within the working class, and has been disconnected from the working class with high salaries, golden handshakes etc. It has grown over decades, but is this meant to refer to them as members of the ruling class having an impact on government? Most Managers, CEO?s, Managing Directors don?t even set policy within their own entity?s let alone the USG. They implement policies, and are subject to the whims of the investors, the goal being profits, often coming from Wall Street. The focus on individuals contributing to personality politics is deceptive as it prevents us from looking at systems and structures. Lind, a product of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, never refers to the powers of the Think Tanks influencing government, most especially the Council on Foreign Relations, which is known as Wall Streets Think Tank, from which Kissinger, Hillary Clinton and many others were and continue to be promoted into the State Dept., which is very influential. The CFR is probably the most influential of all advisors to the USG on not just foreign policy but domestic financial issues as a result. The U of I?s canceling of a visit recently by ?Trump?s Banker,? as he is referred to is a relief, but another case where I have argued, ?he isn?t just Donald Trump?s personal banker,? as he is referred. He is a senior member of the CFR, therefore having influence over all banking and financial issues, primarily international which impacts domestic. The State Dept., Pentagon, oil and gas industries, pharma, insurance companies etc., with the many organizations/lobbyists such as AIPAC, have influence on not just the Administration but the Senate and Congress as well. They have representative advisors within the administration. Finally, Lind?s suggestion that any revolution in the US would require outside support, as when the French supported us during the Revolutionary War, is the most ridiculous statement I?ve ever heard. The Americans at that time, were fighting an occupying force, the British, thus outside help was necessary. We are now the most powerful nation on earth, requiring outside help to fight fires in California, to fight the Covid pandemic because these are issues our government cares nothing about failing to provide social protections of any kind. But revolutions within a nation are fought by the people, by the subjugated in mass. True, we have militarized our police, broken our law/ordinance of Passe Comitatus by allowing military units, covert militias on our city streets, killing protestors with impunity. Some states now outlawing protests. How much longer are the people going to sit back and watch? Did Gandi have outside help? Did Mao have outside help? Cuba? Did Americans fighting the USG Oligarchy during the 20?s and 30?s have outside help? Did Martin Luther King or Americans resisting the Vietnam War? Many small, vulnerable nations did receive outside help from China, Russia and Cuba, because those nations were occupied and/or supported by colonialists/ imperialists. Michael Lind?s suggestion the American people require outside help to overthrow their system of capitalism or at least frighten those occupying the WH is insulting at the very least. It negates people power and contributes to russiagate and chinagate conspiracy theories. What the US needs is a vanguard, leadership, well organized with a plan. They need to foment strikes, sit downs, civil resistance, civil disobedience, block traffic, to stop business as usual. They must be organized, focused and united. I?m not referring to armed struggle, we can?t win with weapons, and mainstream Americans will not join groups with weapons. The US Empire is dying, not a bad thing, but they will take everyone, especially the most vulnerable with them. > > https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2017/05/new-class-war/ From jbn at forestfield.org Sat Sep 5 20:14:35 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2020 15:14:35 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Noam Chomsky, Alice Walker, Daniel Ellsberg discuss defending Julian Assange in a Courage Foundation talk moderated by Jimmy Dore Message-ID: <7aed106b-202c-b317-9031-e884aa712cc6@forestfield.org> https://youtube.com/watch?v=BncaMgqr2gw -- (1h 2m) Noam Chomsky, Alice Walker, Daniel Ellsberg (co-chairs of AssangeDefense.org) discuss defending Julian Assange in a Courage Foundation talk moderated by Jimmy Dore. This talk took place earlier today, about 2 hours prior to the time/date stamp on this email. Consortium News (https://youtube.com/channel/UCDZuNFwJ4BIRV_Z5IxFXVrA) has this video on their channel. I plan to include this in an upcoming new list of suggested videos for AOTA's timeslot. -J From jbn at forestfield.org Sat Sep 5 20:27:22 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2020 15:27:22 -0500 Subject: [Peace] AOTA/NFN suggested videos Message-ID: <37945615-583d-9459-8410-5035b5806001@forestfield.org> Here's the set of suggested videos I've sent to UPTV's Jason Liggett for running during the AOTA and NFN timeslots. As before, if anyone else has any other videos to run instead, I've indicated that your suggestions should be prioritized above mine. Thanks. -J Courage Foundation https://youtube.com/watch?v=BncaMgqr2gw -- (1h 2m) Noam Chomsky, Alice Walker, Daniel Ellsberg (co-chairs of AssangeDefense.org) discuss defending Julian Assange in a Courage Foundation talk moderated by Jimmy Dore. Grayzone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTWcVOHEQTo -- (32m 4s) Aaron Mate interviews Fred Weir from Christian Science Monitor about Alexi Navalny poisoning and how this should be interpreted in the context of the apparently ongoing baseless conspiracy theory known as "Russiagate". Intercept/Glenn Greenwald https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77zF_b3blpU -- (36m 22s) Glenn Greenwald on "Is the US Social Fabric Unraveling?" on the effect of the economic crisis worsened by (but not caused by) Coronavirus stay-at-home orders without Medicare for All or UBI. The companion article in The Intercept -- https://theintercept.com/2020/08/28/the-social-fabric-of-the-u-s-is-fraying-severely-if-not-unravelling/ -- says: > [...] in terms of both the depth of the social and mental health crises they > demonstrate and the pervasiveness of them. Perhaps the most illustrative study > was one released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention earlier this > month, based on an extensive mental health survey of Americans in late June. > > One question posed by researchers was whether someone has ?seriously considered > suicide in the past 30 days?? not fleetingly considered it as a momentary fantasy > nor thought about it ever in their lifetime, but seriously considered suicide at > least once in the past 30 days. The results are staggering. > > For Americans between 18-24 years old, 25.5 percent ? just over 1 out of every 4 > young Americans ? said they had. For the much larger group of Americans ages > 25-44, the percentage was somewhat lower but still extremely alarming: 16 > percent. A total of 18.6 percent of Hispanic Americans and 15 percent of African > Americans said they had seriously considered suicide in the past month. The two > groups with the largest percentage who said yes: Americans with less than a high > school degree and unpaid caregivers, both of whom have 30 percent ? or almost 1 > out of every 3 ? who answered in the affirmative. A full 10 percent of the U.S. > population generally had seriously contemplated suicide in the month of June. From karenaram at hotmail.com Sat Sep 5 21:20:27 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sat, 5 Sep 2020 14:20:27 -0700 Subject: [Peace] AOTA/NFN suggested videos In-Reply-To: <37945615-583d-9459-8410-5035b5806001@forestfield.org> References: <37945615-583d-9459-8410-5035b5806001@forestfield.org> Message-ID: J.B. Your videos are the best. And your critique of some are valuable. A couple of which, I?ve meant to comment on, as they captured my thoughts exactly. Just got caught up in other things. > On Sep 5, 2020, at 13:27, J.B. Nicholson via Peace wrote: > > Here's the set of suggested videos I've sent to UPTV's Jason Liggett for running during the AOTA and NFN timeslots. As before, if anyone else has any other videos to run instead, I've indicated that your suggestions should be prioritized above mine. > > Thanks. > -J > > > Courage Foundation > > https://youtube.com/watch?v=BncaMgqr2gw -- (1h 2m) Noam Chomsky, Alice Walker, Daniel Ellsberg (co-chairs of AssangeDefense.org) discuss defending Julian Assange in a Courage Foundation talk moderated by Jimmy Dore. > > > > > Grayzone > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTWcVOHEQTo -- (32m 4s) Aaron Mate interviews Fred Weir from Christian Science Monitor about Alexi Navalny poisoning and how this should be interpreted in the context of the apparently ongoing baseless conspiracy theory known as "Russiagate". > > > > > Intercept/Glenn Greenwald > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77zF_b3blpU -- (36m 22s) Glenn Greenwald on "Is the US Social Fabric Unraveling?" on the effect of the economic crisis worsened by (but not caused by) Coronavirus stay-at-home orders without Medicare for All or UBI. The companion article in The Intercept -- https://theintercept.com/2020/08/28/the-social-fabric-of-the-u-s-is-fraying-severely-if-not-unravelling/ -- says: > >> [...] in terms of both the depth of the social and mental health crises they demonstrate and the pervasiveness of them. Perhaps the most illustrative study >> was one released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention earlier this >> month, based on an extensive mental health survey of Americans in late June. >> One question posed by researchers was whether someone has ?seriously considered suicide in the past 30 days?? not fleetingly considered it as a momentary fantasy nor thought about it ever in their lifetime, but seriously considered suicide at least once in the past 30 days. The results are staggering. >> For Americans between 18-24 years old, 25.5 percent ? just over 1 out of every 4 young Americans ? said they had. For the much larger group of Americans ages 25-44, the percentage was somewhat lower but still extremely alarming: 16 >> percent. A total of 18.6 percent of Hispanic Americans and 15 percent of African >> Americans said they had seriously considered suicide in the past month. The two >> groups with the largest percentage who said yes: Americans with less than a high >> school degree and unpaid caregivers, both of whom have 30 percent ? or almost 1 >> out of every 3 ? who answered in the affirmative. A full 10 percent of the U.S. >> population generally had seriously contemplated suicide in the month of June. > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace From karenaram at hotmail.com Sun Sep 6 18:12:50 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2020 11:12:50 -0700 Subject: [Peace] Kevin Zeese References: Message-ID: Kevin Zeese died. > It?s a shock because he was a young man.. > > I met Kevin last Oct. when the Green Party held their annual convention at the U of I, I was asked to speak, along with Prof. Francis Boyle. Kevin was there as the guest speaker on behalf of the Green Party along with others. > > He was so gracious, and made a point of meeting up with me after everyone left, just to chat. My heart goes out to his wife Dr. Margaret Flowers. > > >> > From karenaram at hotmail.com Sun Sep 6 18:29:55 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2020 11:29:55 -0700 Subject: [Peace] Margaret Flowers....... Message-ID: Margaret Flowers Kevin Zeese 28m ? It is with a heavy heart that I announce the death of my greatest love, best friend and partner Kevin Zeese. We were so "in sync" as he used to say that we thought of ourselves as one and a dear friend referred to us as "Marvin." But the reality is that Kevin was the best man I have ever known. He cared for everyone and everything and he gave everything he had to try to help someone or change things for the better. I want you to know that he was not ill, not in the sense we knew anything was wrong. We had a wonderful day yesterday - we ate breakfast on the deck and talked about the garden and squirrels. We worked and then went for a bike ride to the park and had a picnic (something we had not actually done before in Baltimore). We joked around before we went to sleep so my last memory of him alive is laughing together. I treasure every moment I had with him and I hope that I can keep his spirit alive in some way. I am a better person for knowing Kevin and the world is a better place because he was in it. Rest in power my love. We will hold a virtual event to honor him on Sept. 19 at 3:00 pm Eastern. Details to come. I want to thank everyone who reached out to me. Your love for Kevin gives me great happiness. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Sun Sep 6 18:38:33 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2020 11:38:33 -0700 Subject: [Peace] =?utf-8?q?Fwd=3A_Kevin_Zeese_=E2=80=94_PRESENTE!?= References: <5f5529011a53c_11052ae05eb988cc852517d@ip-10-0-0-245.mail> Message-ID: > > Kevin Zeese ? PRESENTE! > > The People?s Movement Has Lost One of Its > Most Beloved and Treasured Activists > > > September 6 is a very sad day for the people?s movement in the United States. In the early hours of this day, we lost one our most beloved and treasured comrades. Kevin was not only a comrade, but a dear friend and brother to all of us. We were honored to have him as our comrade in struggle. > > No one can forget Kevin?s heroic act, along with Margaret, Adrienne and David, of refusing to leave the Embassy of the Bolivarian Government of Venezuela, at a very high price to themselves, in order to prevent the transfer of its control to the representatives of U.S. puppet, Juan Guaid?. In doing so, they became not only our heroes, but those of all anti-imperialist peoples and movements around the world, especially the revolutionary people of Venezuela. > > But Kevin?s outstanding role in the movement was not limited to his last heroic act. For years, he co-directed the Popular Resistance with Margaret Flowers ? his partner in life ? which has been one of the main sources of truly anti-imperialist information and analysis for the peace movement. As members of the National Board of the U.S. Peace Council, Executive Committee of the Coalition Against U.S. Foreign Military Bases, and Global Campaign Against US/NATO Military Bases, Kevin and Margaret played a key role organizing two extremely successful conferences against U.S. And NATO Military Bases, the first in Baltimore, Maryland in January 2018, and the second in Dublin, Ireland, in November 2018. > > Throughout these years, we have been benefiting from Kevin?s profound knowledge, wisdom and anti-imperialist commitment and vision. His absence will be felt during every step we will take from now on. But his comradely presence will be with us forever. > > Kevin Zeese ? PRESENTE! > > Executive Committee of > The U.S. Peace Council > > September 6, 2020 > > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brussel at illinois.edu Sun Sep 6 18:51:23 2020 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2020 18:51:23 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Kevin Zeese In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5AFBE3C3-BFAE-4C82-8308-D3405EA5AB56@illinois.edu> Yes, an unexpected and deep loss to the anti-empire, human rights struggle; he was consistently insightful about what has been happening here and abroad, a marvelous activist. > On Sep 6, 2020, at 1:12 PM, Karen Aram via Peace wrote: > > > Kevin Zeese died. > >> It?s a shock because he was a young man.. >> >> I met Kevin last Oct. when the Green Party held their annual convention at the U of I, I was asked to speak, along with Prof. Francis Boyle. Kevin was there as the guest speaker on behalf of the Green Party along with others. >> >> He was so gracious, and made a point of meeting up with me after everyone left, just to chat. My heart goes out to his wife Dr. Margaret Flowers. >> >> >>> >> > > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace From susanroseparenti at gmail.com Sun Sep 6 18:57:20 2020 From: susanroseparenti at gmail.com (Susan Parenti) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2020 13:57:20 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Kevin Zeese In-Reply-To: <5AFBE3C3-BFAE-4C82-8308-D3405EA5AB56@illinois.edu> References: <5AFBE3C3-BFAE-4C82-8308-D3405EA5AB56@illinois.edu> Message-ID: <51628EDB-7AF6-48A6-BB0F-ADE03FC7E2B7@gmail.com> Ah, this is so sad. Kevin and Margaret presented at our Health Care Justice gatherings several times in West Virginia, and both are/were were inspiring with their audacious critiques and actions. > On Sep 6, 2020, at 1:51 PM, Brussel, Morton K via Peace wrote: > > Yes, an unexpected and deep loss to the anti-empire, human rights struggle; he was consistently insightful about what has been happening here and abroad, a marvelous activist. > >> On Sep 6, 2020, at 1:12 PM, Karen Aram via Peace wrote: >> >> >> Kevin Zeese died. >> >>> It?s a shock because he was a young man.. >>> >>> I met Kevin last Oct. when the Green Party held their annual convention at the U of I, I was asked to speak, along with Prof. Francis Boyle. Kevin was there as the guest speaker on behalf of the Green Party along with others. >>> >>> He was so gracious, and made a point of meeting up with me after everyone left, just to chat. My heart goes out to his wife Dr. Margaret Flowers. >>> >>> >>>> >>> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Peace mailing list >> Peace at lists.chambana.net >> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace > > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace From karenaram at hotmail.com Mon Sep 7 13:28:12 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2020 06:28:12 -0700 Subject: [Peace] US enters new phase of coronavirus pandemic: Report estimates more than 400, 000 deaths by January Message-ID: US enters new phase of coronavirus pandemic: Report estimates more than 400,000 deaths by January 7 September 2020 As summer turns into fall, the United States is entering a new and even more dangerous phase of the coronavirus pandemic. Scientists and epidemiologists are concerned that as temperatures cool, people will engage in more activities indoors rather than outside, helping to spread the virus. The combination of the pandemic with the flu season, which generally begins in October in the US, could completely inundate hospitals, testing centers and health facilities. The principal factor creating the conditions for an even more horrific death toll in the coming months, however, is the ruling class? policy of ?herd immunity??that is, allowing the virus to spread without any restraint. The death toll is already staggering. The US will soon surpass a new milestone of 200,000 deaths, possibly by the end of this week. COVID-19 has already become the third leading cause of death in the country, behind only heart disease and cancer. Last week, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington released a new report estimating that 410,000 people will have died by the end of the year. More than 400,000 people! This is greater than the entire population of New Orleans, Louisiana or Cleveland, Ohio. If the IHME projections are realized, by January 1 more people will be dead from the coronavirus in the space of less than a year than American soldiers died in World War II over the course of nearly four years. More than one out of every 1,000 people living in the United States will have succumbed to the virus. The Trump administration is spearheading a policy that it knows will lead to death on a massive scale. The White House?s new pandemic adviser, Scott Atlas, has argued explicitly in favor of ending social isolation measures to allow the disease to run rampant. A focal point to this homicidal policy is the drive to open schools and get teachers back to work, as that is seen as critical to forcing workers back on the job. Many colleges and universities have already reopened, becoming centers for the transmission of the virus. In the case of one school, SUNY Oneonta, 17 percent of students tested positive less than two weeks after classes resumed, forcing the school to shut down and send everyone home. This will be replicated many times over with the reopening of K-12 schools this month. The policy implemented in the United States is being repeated, in different forms, internationally. From the UK to Spain to Brazil, governments are pushing for the reopening of schools even as the pandemic accelerates. In France, new cases have surged far above the earlier peak in May, just as 12 million students are being sent back to school. In India, the government of Narendra Modi is eliminating all remaining restraints on transportation and business operations, even as the country has surpassed Brazil for the second most coronavirus cases, trailing only the United States. As the World Socialist Web Site has explained from the beginning of the pandemic, the response of world governments has been determined not by social need and public health but by profit. It is these same social interests that are creating the conditions for a horrific expansion of the disease in the coming months ahead. Take up the fight for socialism! First Name Last Name Mobile Phone Country Zip I would like to be contacted by the Socialist Equality Party or the WSWS. I acknowledge that the WSWS uses my personal information in accordance with its privacy policy . Submit Trump is pursuing a policy dictated by Wall Street. The administration, however, has many aiders and abettors. In the media and the political establishment, the attitude that prevails to the staggering loss of life is indifference. Crocodiles have shed more tears than what is offered up by media pundits and Democratic Party politicians. The claim that is repeatedly made by Biden and the Democrats that Trump is ?an abject failure and incompetent? (as Kamala Harris put it over the weekend) is an evasion and coverup. In fact, the Trump administration has proven quite competent in the implementation of ruling class policy in relation to the pandemic which has been bipartisan. Democrats, from Biden and Harris to Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, fully endorsed the massive handout to Wall Street in March and support the homicidal policy of forcing workers back to work and students back to the classroom. The mantra is that everything must be done to ?get the economy going??that is, resume the flow of profits. The Democrats offer no program or policies to halt the pandemic. As the election enters its final stage, their central focus is on what has preoccupied them throughout the Trump administration: the demand for a more aggressive campaign against Russia. In the face of a pandemic that has killed hundreds of thousands, they are preparing a war that would kill millions. Workers cannot allow themselves to be subordinated to either faction of the ruling class in the upcoming election. The working class must intervene in this crisis with its own program and policies. There is already growing anger and opposition. Teachers have begun organizing independent committees to resist the homicidal back-to-school campaign. The scale of the social crisis, with millions of people out of work and facing poverty, eviction and hunger, is creating the conditions for a social explosion. At the same time, there are mounting protests over police violence. In Portland, protests have been held for more than 100 straight days. Over the past two weeks, demonstrations have erupted in Kenosha, Wisconsin following the shooting of Jacob Blake and in Rochester, New York after the release of video showing the police murder of Daniel Prude. Protests have been spurred on by the response of the police and the Trump administration, including the deliberate incitement of fascistic violence. The critical question is the development within the working class of a united and coordinated mass political movement for socialism. The protests against police violence cannot be isolated. They must be connected to the resistance of teachers, autoworkers, transit workers, service workers and all sections of the working class to the ruling class and the capitalist system. The Socialist Equality Party, along with our sister parties in the International Committee of the Fourth International, fights for a program that meets the needs of the working class. The back-to-work and back-to school campaigns must be halted, with all workers and parents receiving full income until the pandemic is brought under control. There must be an internationally coordinated campaign to save lives. The wealth of the billionaires must be expropriated and the trillions of dollars handed out to the banks reclaimed to meet urgent social needs, including universal health care, emergency relief for the unemployed, and the cancellation of debt, mortgage and rent payments. Consider the following: The IHME states that 200,000 people in the US could die by the end of the year. The 200 richest individuals in the country have a collective wealth of more than $2 trillion, which, if put at the disposal of society as a whole, would allow for a colossal investment in health care and public education infrastructure. It would be more than enough to ensure that everyone had a sufficient income to sustain themselves while the disease is brought under control. The implementation of such elementary measures to stop the pandemic is a revolutionary question. It is inseparable from the fight by the working class to take political power in its own hands, to restructure all of social and economic life on the basis of social need and not private profit. The ruling class and its parties are the parties of death and profit. The working class must fight for life and socialism. This is the basic issue that is posed in the months ahead. Joseph Kishore?SEP candidate for US President/ WSWS.ORG -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbn at forestfield.org Mon Sep 7 23:59:56 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2020 18:59:56 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Assange news from extradition hearing Message-ID: <241a8cb5-2bf3-67b8-d8f7-c7a90c64f179@forestfield.org> There's not a lot of coverage of Julian Assange's extradition hearing (this is not an accident, of course, this is a choice by the establishment media not to cover this incredibly important case in-depth). Here's some of the more astute recent coverage I've seen. It's not surprising that there are so few sources listed as there weren't that many reporters on the scene in London today but protestors and activists were plainly visible on the street outside the Old Bailey. RT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMNYsoFr3NA -- a brief interview with Kristinn Hrafnsson, WikiLeaks spokesperson (2010-2017) and editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks since 2018, on the importance of this hearing. Hrafnsson wasn't allowed into the hearing and is reportedly confused as to who the court allows in. Hrafnsson reportedly hopes Assange's legal team is allowed in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R03ep6-c60 -- (4m 5s) summary of recent events leading up to today, shots of those protesting Assange's continued imprisonment (exceeding his 50-week punishment for skipping bail, and the skipping bail was done for good reason). This report also fairly describes the problem of Assange's political extradition -- extradition for political trials are not supposed to happen and the government counters claiming that WikiLeaks' publications in the Afghan & Iraq war logs put lives at risk (a now long-debunked claim). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZ0pkDu6j6c -- (5h 5m 31s) Assange supporters gather outside court earlier today as proceedings begin Related shorter clips of activists doing things regarding Assange's hearing today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6GXP4ugmB8 -- Vivienne Westwood https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4xBi0eZJ_Q -- Various others https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITxG8_Vm1Js -- Stella Morris, Julian Assange's partner (and mother of their children), delivering a petition to No. 10 Downing St. and speaking on why she's petitioning the UK government to not extradite Assange to the United States. Consortium News https://consortiumnews.com/2020/09/07/day-one-of-assange-hearing-dramatic-opening-dayj-first-witness-testifies-after-judge-denies-adjournment-tol-january/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1Wlnt4It_I -- (10m 47s) Joe Lauria's report on day 1 including describing how the US has shown their hand in changing strategy. -J From karenaram at hotmail.com Tue Sep 8 00:37:28 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2020 17:37:28 -0700 Subject: [Peace] Nukes or Humanity -- This planet is not big enough for both In-Reply-To: <5f4d1b39e6d90_5e433fd786039ca4398014@ip-10-0-0-69.mail> References: <5f4d1b39e6d90_5e433fd786039ca4398014@ip-10-0-0-69.mail> Message-ID: > On Aug 31, 2020, at 08:46, David, World BEYOND War wrote: > > > We're launching an appeal from the people of the world to nine nuclear governments to each commit to a nuclear policy of no first strike, not ever, not for any reason; and to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and to collectively agree to immediately begin disarming on a schedule to completely eliminate all nuclear weapons from the earth no later than August 6, 2045. > > "This is the greatest moral crisis of our time: governments are prepared to unleash a nuclear war which would end civilization as we know it and could kill over seven billion people." > ?Daniel Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers whistleblower, and endorser of this appeal. > > ADD YOUR NAME . > > This petition has the support of the Russian analytical agency ?Strategic Stability"; the German organizations Friedensspirale, Coop Anti-War Cafe Berlin, Aktion Freiheit statt Angst; the Australian organization Refugee Action Collective Gold Coast; the Canadian organizations Canadian Council on Food Safety and Health, Les Artistes pour la Paix; the UK organizations Uniting for Peace, Movement for the Abolition of War; the Italian organization Comitato No Guerra No NATO; the U.S. organizations Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, RootsAction.org , Peaceworkers, Code Pink: Women for Peace, Grassroots Coalition for Environmental and Economic Justice, Pax Christ Illinois, On Earth Peace, Peace Justice Sustainability Now, Minnesota Peace Project, Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, U.S. Peace Council, Chicago Veterans For Peace, Monterey Peace and Justice Center, Environmentalists Against War, World BEYOND War-Central Florida Chapter, Veterans for Peace-The Villages # 136, Choose Life Abort War Podcast For Peace, World BEYOND War- California Chapter, No More Bombs, Peace Boat US, Peace Fresno , National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund; and the global organizations WILPF - Women's International League for Peace & Freedom, International Organization for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, Pressenza, World BEYOND War. > > Read the appeal in numerous languages and add your name to it . > > After signing, please use the tools on the next page to share it widely. > > Peace, > > David Swanson, World BEYOND War > > > > World BEYOND War is a global network of volunteers, activists, and allied organizations advocating for the abolition of the very institution of war. Our success is driven by a people-powered movement ? support our work for a culture of peace. > > Opt-in for important, timely mobile messages . > > > World BEYOND War 513 E Main St #1484 Charlottesville, VA 22902 USA > > Privacy policy. > Checks must be made out to "World BEYOND War / AFGJ" or we can't deposit them. > > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbn at forestfield.org Tue Sep 8 00:43:18 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Mon, 7 Sep 2020 19:43:18 -0500 Subject: [Peace] [Peace-discuss] Assange news from extradition hearing In-Reply-To: <241a8cb5-2bf3-67b8-d8f7-c7a90c64f179@forestfield.org> References: <241a8cb5-2bf3-67b8-d8f7-c7a90c64f179@forestfield.org> Message-ID: I wrote: > There's not a lot of coverage of Julian Assange's extradition hearing (this is not an > accident, of course, this is a choice by the establishment media not to cover this > incredibly important case in-depth). Here's some of the more astute recent coverage > I've seen. It's not surprising that there are so few sources listed as there weren't > that many reporters on the scene in London today but protestors and activists were > plainly visible on the street outside the Old Bailey. One more report I can now fetch (so you shouldn't have the problems I saw earlier): Shadowproof https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNiMql8gicU -- (14m 11s) Kevin Gosztola and Brian Sonenstein of Shadowproof discuss the proceedings from Gosztola's journalist-only Internet feed of the court. I'd expect that Shadowproof, RT, and Consortium News will all keep up with coverage every day there is a hearing. Check out their respective YouTube channels and websites for more: Shadowproof https://youtube.com/channel/UC_98en_oHyT3wDP8mn9DQaA https://shadowproof.com/ RT UK https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpwvZwUam-URkxB7g4USKpg/videos https://www.rt.com/uk/ Consortium News https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDZuNFwJ4BIRV_Z5IxFXVrA/videos https://consortiumnews.com/ -J From stuartnlevy at gmail.com Wed Sep 9 18:28:00 2020 From: stuartnlevy at gmail.com (Stuart Levy) Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2020 13:28:00 -0500 Subject: [Peace] We have Peace calendars ... Message-ID: <35280c56-3dd5-89d4-21b3-691f75661dfc@gmail.com> Would you like a Peace calendar??? We're not selling them at the Farmer's Market any more, but we do have calendars as in past years, from Syracuse Cultural Workers: ??? https://www.syracuseculturalworkers.com/products/2021-peace-calendar We have both their monthly wall calendars and weekly desk calendars.?? $12 for either.?? Write to me separately and we can arrange how to pick it up or whatever. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Sat Sep 12 00:15:53 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2020 17:15:53 -0700 Subject: [Peace] The fires from Tom Dispatch/the NYT's Message-ID: Honestly, this front-page New York Times piece by Thomas Fuller and Christopher Flavelle is today's must-read as far as I'm concerned. Yes, the fires, heat, smoke, the works are truly horrific on the West coast and in California in particular, but in the mainstream media they -- and their striking severity -- are seldom put in the context of climate change as clearly as here. This sort of coverage should be everyday stuff in our changing world, but isn't. Here's the first half of their piece. Tom "Multiple mega fires burning more than three million acres. Millions of residents smothered in toxic air. Rolling blackouts and triple-digit heat waves. Climate change, in the words of one scientist, is smacking California in the face. "The crisis in the nation?s most populous state is more than just an accumulation of individual catastrophes. It is also an example of something climate experts have long worried about, but which few expected to see so soon: a cascade effect, in which a series of disasters overlap, triggering or amplifying each other. ?You?re toppling dominoes in ways that Americans haven?t imagined,? said Roy Wright, who directed resilience programs for the Federal Emergency Management Agency until 2018 and grew up in Vacaville, Calif., near one of this year?s largest fires. ?It?s apocalyptic.? "The same could be said for the entire West Coast this week, to Washington and Oregon, where towns were decimated by infernos as firefighters were stretched to their limits. "California?s simultaneous crises illustrate how the ripple effect works. A scorching summer led to dry conditions never before experienced. That aridity helped make the season?s wildfires the biggest ever recorded. Six of the 20 largest wildfires in modern California history have occurred this year. "If climate change was a somewhat abstract notion a decade ago, today it is all too real for Californians. The intensely hot wildfires are not only chasing thousands of people from their homes but causing dangerous chemicals to leach into drinking water. Excessive heat warnings and suffocating smoky air have threatened the health of people already struggling during the pandemic. And the threat of more wildfires has led insurance companies to cancel homeowner policies and the state?s main utility to shut off power to tens of thousands of people pre-emptively. ?If you are in denial about climate change, come to California,? Gov. Gavin Newsom said last month. "Officials have worried about cascading disasters. They just did not think they would start so soon. ?We used to worry about one natural hazard at a time,? said Alice Hill, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who oversaw resilience planning on the National Security Council during the Obama administration. ?The acceleration of climate impacts has happened faster than even we anticipated.? "Climate scientists say the mechanism driving the wildfire crisis is straightforward: Human behavior, chiefly the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil, has released greenhouse gases that increase temperatures, desiccating forests and priming them to burn. "Mark Harvey, who was senior director for resilience at the National Security Council until January, said the government had struggled to prepare for situations like what was happening in California. ?The government does a very, very bad job looking at cascading scenarios,? Mr. Harvey said. ?Most of our systems are built to handle one problem at a time.? "In some ways, this year?s wildfires in California have been decades in the making. A prolonged drought that ended in 2017 was a major reason for the death of 163 million trees in California forests over the past decade, according to the U.S. Forest Service. One of the fastest-moving fires this year ravaged the forests that had the highest concentration of dead trees, south of Yosemite National Park. "Further north, the Bear Fire became the 10th largest in modern California history ? burning through an astonishing 230,000 acres in one 24-hour period. ?It?s really shocking to see the number of fast-moving, extremely large and destructive fires simultaneously burning,? said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist in the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at the University of California, Los Angeles. ?I?ve spoken to maybe two dozen fire and climate experts over the last 48 hours and pretty much everyone is at a loss of words. There?s certainly been nothing in living memory on this scale.? "While the state mobilizes to deal with the immediate threats, the fires will also leave California with difficult and costly longer-term problems, everything from the effects of smoke inhalation to damaged drinking water systems. "Wildfire smoke can in the worst cases be deadly, especially among older people. Studies have shown that when waves of smoke hit, the rate of hospitalizations rises, and patients experience respiratory problems, heart attacks and strokes. "The coronavirus pandemic adds a new layer of risk to an already perilous situation. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have issued statements warning that people with Covid-19 are at increased risk from wildfire smoke during the pandemic. ?The longer we have bad air in California, the more we?ll be concerned about adverse health effects,? said John Balmes, a spokesman for the American Lung Association and a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. "As for drinking water, scientists have known for years that runoff from burned homes can put harmful chemicals into ground water and reservoirs. But research in the aftermath of the 2017 wildfires in wine country north of San Francisco and the 2018 fire that destroyed the town of Paradise in the foothills of the Sierra discovered a different threat: Benzene and other dangerous contaminants were found inside water systems, possibly from heat-damaged plastics in the water infrastructure. ?Communities need to recognize this vulnerability,? said Andrew J. Whelton, a professor in environmental engineering at Purdue University, and an author of a study on water contamination in Paradise. ?Dangerous chemicals can leach from inside water systems for months after a fire.? "The Environmental Protection Agency classifies water with benzene levels above 500 parts per billion as hazardous. Some samples in Paradise after the fire were found to have 2,000 parts per billion. In Sonoma County after the wine country fires some samples had 40,000 parts per billion, Dr. Whelton said. "Before now, many Californians assumed it would be an earthquake that might knock out their power, damage their homes and render their neighborhoods uninhabitable." https://www.nytimes.com/?/climate-change-california-wildfir? If climate change was a somewhat abstract notion a decade ago, today it is all too real for Californians fleeing wildfires and smothered in a blanket of smoke, the worst year of fires on record. NYTIMES.COM A Climate Reckoning in Fire-Stricken California If climate change was a somewhat abstract notion a decade ago, today it is all too real for Californians fleeing wildfires and smothered in a blanket of smoke, the worst year of fires on record. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbn at forestfield.org Sat Sep 12 20:02:16 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Sat, 12 Sep 2020 15:02:16 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Suggested videos for AOTA/NFN timeslots Message-ID: <5de8b941-ff90-ab03-a869-27f85ec3c2bf@forestfield.org> Here's another batch of suggested videos for AWARE on the Air and News from Neptune's timeslots I just sent to UPTV's Jason Liggett. They're heavy on the Assange hearing because that was underway this week and suspended because someone on the court may have Coronavirus. I've listed some Jimmy Dore segments in case there was any time to fill during times when UPTV can run something with swearing in it. These Jimmy Dore segments raise interesting points about how the Democrats are not an oppositional party, not working in the interests of the poor and working class (on environment, war, unionized labor, and general lack of policy changes). There should be enough here for a couple of weeks, so I might not have anything new to send next week. As before, I've asked Jason to please prioritize anyone else's suggestions for these timeslots above my video suggestions. -J Consortium News and Popular Resistance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLJj_L56-YA -- (1h 24m 32s) Assange Extradition and the War on Journalism - James Goodale, Daniel Ellsberg & Chris Hedges hosted by Popular Resistance and Susan Udry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWRqT8bc8qU -- (2h 11m 25s) CN Live: Drama in the Court -- Timm, Maurizi, Gosztola, Mercouris, and Kim Dotcom. Daily Assange extradition hearing updates (in order of day of release) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1Wlnt4It_I (10m 47s) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icSXNv-dnCA (21m 05s) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye3P6DUTZJU (19m 30s) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gORwcSUwyB8 (4m 46s) RT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RW-J-zeHYx8 -- (1m 22s) interviews of blogger (see below) and former Ambassador Craig Murray & Reporters Without Borders Director of International Campaigns Rebecca Vincent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wM5M_wL0rc -- (5m 22s) George Galloway: Assange: Trial of the century https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4skx0XKAMqU -- (27m 45s) Noam Chomsky on "Going Underground". Afshin Rattansi interview Chomsky on a number of topics: climate threats, nuclear war/mishap threat, comparing Democrats and Republicans, and the importance of Assange's (then upcoming) hearing. Jimmy Dore https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js5t_loxiEw -- (15m 59s) "Democrats performative political theater will be the end of us!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9zF3za5n0M -- (10m 10s) "Why war mongers hate Trump!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPurnjICe2o -- (14m 14s) "Obama sells out the people again! Convinces NBA players to end strike!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUvLAa_KNhU -- (12m 38s) "What Biden tells Wall Street behind closed doors!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NfW9FsAtn4 (15m 20s) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtAKzd8OuGo (10m 26s) -- Jimmy Dore interview with NSA whistleblower Bill Binney From karenaram at hotmail.com Sun Sep 13 19:17:56 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2020 12:17:56 -0700 Subject: [Peace] https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/09/11/guns-land-and-chickens-wont-save-you/ Counterpunch Message-ID: ? SEPTEMBER 11, 2020 Guns, Land, and Chickens Won?t Save You by VINCENT EMANUELE ?We are condemned to be modern. We can?t escape the facts of our history or of living in an age dominated by instrumental rationality, even as we look for ways out of it? But it has become our historic responsibility to acknowledge the continuing importance of myth, at a level beyond science, in realizing a more organic, holistic relation to the world. A future social ecology would transcend both anti-Enlightenment reaction and [a] reified Enlightenment counter-reaction, which remain only fragmented polarities within bourgeois modernity.? ? David Watson, ?Beyond Bookchin: Preface for a Future Social Ecology Following the Great Recession of 2008, many of my friends started talking about ?living off the land.? At the time, I didn?t give their words much thought. After all, Obama was in the White House; Neoliberalism was on the rise; imperial wars raged abroad, and the antiwar movement was falling apart. During those dark and tumultuous years, my primary focus was building the sort of left institutions that could prevent the situation in which we now find ourselves: a nation on the brink of collapse, civil war, or some combination of the two. * * * Sometime around 2010, I started reading about the connections between climate change and the U.S. empire and militarism, which led me to research and learn more about ecological devastation and biodiversity loss. The global picture was much grimmer than I had imagined. Not only was capitalism and empire destroying human life, but it was also destroying the planet. At that point, I began to better understand my friends? urge to ?move to the countryside,? but I didn?t agree with their vision. To me, it seemed like a uniquely white and middle to upper-middle-class thing to do. It also seemed like the easy way out. I remember thinking, ?I don?t know too many black or Hispanic people who are starting small farms.? And I still don?t. That?s not because they?re not interested in doing so. Black and Hispanic Americans simply don?t have the material resources to start small farms, which require land (money), equipment (money), time (money), specialized skills (access), and various other resources (money and access). Plus, I don?t know too many black or Hispanic people who are champing at the bit to live in Southern Indiana, northern Wisconsin, or rural Montana, whereas many of my white friends wouldn?t blink an eye moving to those regions. And I sure as hell don?t know of any poor people who have the resources to do any of the above. They?re happy if they can go out to eat at a sit-down restaurant once a month. * * * If we?re genuinely interested in building multiracial coalitions of working-class people who are capable of combating capital, the military-industrial complex, corporate power, state repression, and rightwing nationalism, we can?t do it from the isolated countryside. We can?t do it from the safety of a family farm, totally detached from the day-to-day realities facing the very people, disproportionately black and Hispanic, but also poor whites, we need to build relationships with if we hope to win. Urban communities, churches, schools, workplaces, bars, social and sporting clubs, recreational centers, community centers, and neighborhoods provide fertile organizing terrain for leftists. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, roughly 80% of Americans live in urban areas. By 2050, studies suggest that 66% of the global population will live in cities. Those numbers will only grow with time. If you live in rural Iowa, you depend on people in New York City, Mexico City, and Tokyo. You?re not some sort of lone-ranger-cowboy-farmer: you?re wholly dependent upon petroleum-based products, including everything from fertilizers and fuel to equipment and cleaning products. Multinational corporations produce those goods. International banks finance production. All of this requires international agreements, governments, legal apparatuses, and the like. Global supply chains provide your equipment. And the fuel that runs your equipment is extracted, refined, shipped, and distributed on a global scale. You?re not living a ?sustainable life? ? you?re just as part of the global economic system as anyone else, hell, even more so than low-wage workers who live in cities. Whoever controls the cities and, to some degree, the suburbs, will control the nation. Cities are the lifeblood of capitalism. Capital dwells in cities, not rural areas. Lockheed Martin depends on Wall Street. BP depends on Lockheed Martin. Corporate headquarters, executives, and lenders are located in cities. The bulk of their customers reside in cities. The economic activity that takes place in cities supports the flow of capital which facilitates capitalism. Our enemies, both visible (corporations, governments, militarized police) and invisible (capital) reside in cities, not the countryside. Furthermore, think about the past 20 years of social movements and political uprisings: the ?Battle For Seattle? (urban environment); the antiwar movement (largely based in urban environments); Occupy Wall Street (cities), the pro-union occupation in Madison, Wisconsin, (urban environment/college town), Black Lives Matter uprising in Ferguson, Missouri, (urban/suburban environment), and the current wave of Black Lives Matter uprisings, occupations, marches, and the like (yes, throughout the country, but primarily based in urban environments). The only notable exception is Standing Rock. Even the teachers? strikes that swept the nation a few years ago were based in cities and suburban school districts. The same is true of insurgent socialist electoral campaigns. * * * At some point, I realized that many of the people, including my friends, who?ve moved to the countryside to start small farms aren?t interested in building political movements, fighting back against corporate and government power, or creating a better world. They?re interested in survival, yet they know nothing about survival. They didn?t grow up in the woods. They don?t live off the land. They use power tools. They use cars, and fuel, and technology, and all the rest. To the degree they?re able to ?live off the land,? it?s only because modernity has allowed them to do so with minimal risk. They believe, n?ively, that they can survive as a small family unit in a world of 7.8 billion people. They can?t even organize their family members or close friends to get on the same page, let alone function as a tribe or small community, yet they believe they?re going to live in some sort of self-sustainable fantasy land of yesteryear? It?s a joke, but it?s also dangerous. The ?back-to-the-land? movement in the U.S. has a long history. For the sake of time and courtesy, I won?t bore you by revisiting its history. In today?s context, however, the ?back-to-the-land? movement operates comfortably within the framework of Neoliberal ideology. Hyper-individualism is the religious dogma that fuels the ?back-to-the-land? movement. Only someone totally detached from the broader global community would be able to convince themselves that they can survive in this world with minimal social cooperation. The same people who talk about ?living off the land? are the same people who say things like, ?I?ve gotta look out for mine,? or ?My family is the only thing that matters.? This parochial worldview is not uncommon in the U.S., especially since the Reagan Revolution. The Cult of Individuality infects virtually every aspect of modern U.S. culture, from politics and economics to sports, film, art, and social relations. This is evident when I see pictures of my friends hiding out in their quasi-secluded countryside homes, tending to chickens and growing tomatoes, while the country and world collapse in real-time. * * * Speaking of collapse, the people who think they?re going to hide out in relative safety as the world crumbles around them are so detached from reality that it?s hard to seriously consider where they?re coming from, but I?ll try. Let?s say you live 60-120 miles outside a major city (this would apply to many of my friends in Northwest Indiana or Southwest Michigan who own property). If the economy collapses (due to any number of factors), or if the country devolves into a civil war, perhaps even a revolution, or a nuclear war, or a cataclysmic ecological disaster, you?re fucked. If cities become unlivable, you?re fucked. If suburbs become unlivable, you?re fucked. You and the family are going to hunker down at the homestead, and the hundreds of thousands or millions of people who live within a week?s walk aren?t gonna discover your property? Oh, you have guns? So what? Have you ever used them in a combat situation? How often do you and your family drill? How often do you shoot? How big is your family? Big enough to fend off hoards of people traversing the countryside in search of food, shelter, and safety? What are you going to do if we can?t stop governments (U.S., Israel, Pakistan, India) from triggering a nuclear conflict? As one Wired headline put it, ?Even a Small Nuclear War Could Trigger a Global Apocalypse .? You can?t stop nuclear wars from your chicken coup. You can?t stop nuclear wars with your daddy?s shotgun. You can?t stop nuclear wars with organic produce. And you can?t stop nuclear wars with gluten-free home-cooked bread. Only internationally coordinated political campaigns and movements can stop a potential nuclear war. What are you and your family going to do when tens of millions of Americans are migrating across the U.S. as a result of runaway climate change and rapidly changing weather patterns, ecologies, and natural landscapes? What?s your plan? To mow down thousands of people fleeing natural disasters? Is that how you want to live? Do you think they?re not going to shoot back? Do you think your property won?t, at some point, also become uninhabitable due to climate disaster? My advice to people who think they?re going to survive a collapsing society? Take a flight to Libya, Somalia, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, or Yemen, then tell me about your absurd and childlike ?collapse? fantasies. Nothing is inspiring, humane, or decent about living in a fractured and crumbling society. The glorification of violence, destruction, and death in U.S. culture is, to say the least, quite disturbing. There?s nothing cool or sexy about banditry, religious mobs, sectarian violence, terrorism, torture, or wanton violence. Americans (mostly white people who grew up in the suburbs) hoping for collapse should spend more time in places that have experienced collapse. It?s not like the movies (or your imagination). * * * In the end, there?s no hiding from what?s coming. Climate change is a global problem. Capitalism, the primary driver of climate change, is a global economic system. Each of us lives within its grips, unfortunately. The only way to stop or mitigate what?s coming is through collective action on a massive global scale . Either we make it out of this mess together, or none of us make it out alive. It?s that simple. Our collective challenges require national and international solidarity. We must build relationships, bonds, trust, and networks across geographical, ethnic, racial, and religious boundaries. Regional or local solutions won?t suffice. Regional and local solutions will contribute, but we need an international vision to address 21st-century challenges. And that international vision won?t be cultivated by those living ?off the grid.? Any international vision worth considering must prioritize large-scale (global) projects. Large-scale solutions can only be developed democratically and equitably through collective decision-making processes that incorporate diverse political movements from around the globe. I became a leftist because Marx?s and Engels?s writings, particularly those in the Communist Manifesto, resonated with me on a very deep level. Their writings didn?t encourage me to run away to the countryside and relive some sort of 18th-century ?back-to-the-land? fantasy. Their writings inspired me to build relationships and organize with working-class people around the globe in the hope that, someday, we will overthrow this terrible system (capitalism). Today, we need a vision that?s inspiring, complex, and flexible (always willing to adapt to changing circumstances), but also principled. Without a principled vision of how to proceed, we?ll continue to spin our tails resisting the latest excesses of capitalism, empire, or racism, without accomplishing much. People joined socialist and communist movements because those movements inspired poor and working-class people through ideology and action. If our vision doesn?t include those who don?t have the means to escape ?back-to-the-land,? what sort of vision is it? The left should seek to include, not exclude, people. I?m not interested in building more walls (visible or invisible), internal borders, or tribal social relationships. The right does a fine job of inciting reactionary worldviews. The left?s vision should be about more than simply surviving the coming storm. We need a vision that inspires and motivates people from around the world to join our movements, campaigns, and organizations. That can?t happen in seclusion. It can only happen through intentionally building broad, deep, and sustained social relationships with people from around the globe. Vincent Emanuele writes for teleSUR English and lives in Michigan City, Indiana. He can be reached at vincent.emanuele333 at gmail.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From susanroseparenti at gmail.com Sun Sep 13 20:19:55 2020 From: susanroseparenti at gmail.com (Susan Parenti) Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2020 15:19:55 -0500 Subject: [Peace] the Disney-fication of Crystal Lake Park Message-ID: *The Disney-fication of Crystal Lake Park ---do we buy it? were we ever asked? * By Philip Douglas Sept. 14, 2020 If you visit their website, you?ll discover that the Urbana Park District has received $8 million dollars from various sources to purportedly improve Crystal Lake Park. These improvements will include a lot of people-friendly amenities including a new boat dock, a playground and family game area. They also intend to ?restore? the lake edge and give people more access to the water, presumably with various man-made structures. But if you?ve taken a walk around the park lately, you?ll see this *construction* involves a lot of preliminary *destruction. *Several of the magnificent trees that adorned the bank have been cut down and many of the creatures that lived on or near the banks have had their homes ruined and habitats erased. For example, pileated woodpeckers, a species rarely found in urban parks, but spotted in CLP by observant birders, have disappeared from the park. More common species such as bluebirds, red-winged blackbirds, wood ducks and nesting owls previously seen in the park are being pushed out by UPD's damaging preparations. Not just birds, but small mammals such as raccoons and muskrats that folks delight in have also begun to decline. The latter are particularly affected by the destruction of the brambles on the banks of the water that they depend on. While citizens of the community should enjoy their park, they need to ask themselves a basic question: At what point does ?improvement? mean turning a natural space into Disneyland, a fabricated, artificial outdoor venue that no longer displays its true ecological identity? We might even wonder what Crystal Lake Park will mean in terms of its identity as an urban park. The neighborhoods surrounding the park are largely made up of black and brown people, many of whom grew up and have spent their whole lives in the surrounding area. Will the Park District invite them to the new, sanitized theme park they have planned? While national and state parks may offer some man-made amenities to their visitors, the guiding philosophy behind them has always been to let nature alone. When city planners of parks dismiss this vision entirely, *parks* cease to have any meaning. The UPD Board should just admit that they want a giant waterpark and playground, not a place for the community to experience nature, especially if there is no nature left. -- *Susan Parenti* *Educational Coordinator * *The School for Designing a Society *www.designingasociety.net *Like us on Facebook !* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Mon Sep 14 12:28:54 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2020 05:28:54 -0700 Subject: [Peace] The California wildfires, climate change and capitalism Message-ID: The California wildfires, climate change and capitalism 14 September 2020 The wildfires burning through the US West Coast, the largest on record in the history of California and which may become the largest in the country, have already killed 33 people and threaten to displace hundreds of thousands. Just one of these fires, the August Complex in California, has consumed more than 875,000 acres. Until yesterday afternoon, the entire city of Portland was on alert for a mass evacuation as local and state officials warned of a ?mass fatality event? if the fires reached Oregon?s largest city. In a year that has already seen massive and uncontrolled wildfires in the Amazon and in Australia, the California fires make clear the immense dangers posed to human society by climate change, and the total inability of capitalism to address the problem. The disaster is compounded by the coronavirus pandemic, particularly in California, where the number of cases is still increasing by more than 3,000 a day, with a total of more than 760,000 confirmed cases so far. Residents are now forced to either stay in place, socially distance and risk death by wildfire, or evacuate to a shelter and risk infection. The official ?COVID-19 Interim Shelter Guidance? from the office of Oregon Governor Kate Brown admits these dangers. The document warns: ?All shelter residents, even those without symptoms, may have been exposed to COVID-19 and should self-quarantine after leaving the shelter in accordance with state and local recommendations.? Scientists have long warned that climate change is intensifying wildfires. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned just last year that as global temperatures increase, damage caused by wildfires will grow proportionally. This has been noted both for regions such as the American west, but also in Australia, Brazil, central Africa, Europe and even Siberia. Further scientific warnings were raised earlier this year in conjunction with the mass wildfires in Australia and Brazil, which saw record fires in those countries. Like hurricanes on the East coast and in states on the Gulf of Mexico, the likelihood of natural disasters that form a ?perfect storm? of weather conditions increases as global warming continues unabated. Hurricanes such as Sandy, Harvey and Maria, once thought of as ?storms of the century,? are now expected to happen once every 16 years. The same is true of the infernos now raging. Take up the fight for socialism! First Name Last Name Mobile Phone Country Zip I would like to be contacted by the Socialist Equality Party or the WSWS. I acknowledge that the WSWS uses my personal information in accordance with its privacy policy . Submit The Trump administration is spearheading a frontal assault on all environmental regulations, eliminating even the most token restrictions on emissions, fracking, and offshore drilling. Trump has also rolled back controls for emissions of methane?a greenhouse gas 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide?and appointed Scott Pruitt, an attorney previously used by the oil and gas industry to sue the Environmental Protection Agency, to head that same organization. For his part, California Governor Gavin Newsom attempted to pose as a strong advocate for climate science, telling reporters, ?The debate is over, around climate change,? at a press conference outside the North Complex Fire. He added: ?This is a climate damn emergency. This is real and it?s happening.? Yet for all his rhetoric, Newsom has helped expand the fossil fuel industry in California along similar lines to Trump?s policies nationally. During his first ten months in office, Newsom approved 33 percent more new oil and gas drilling permits than his predecessor Jerry Brown. He also dropped a proposal from earlier this year to further regulate the industry after his administration received a letter from the California Independent Petroleum Association, an oil and gas lobbying group, urging him to do so. The flagship for such hypocrisy is the ?Biden Plan for a Clean Energy Revolution and Environmental Justice? put out by Joe Biden?s presidential campaign. It asserts that a ?Green New Deal is a crucial framework for meeting the climate challenges we face,? and claims that Biden will ?[e]nsure the U.S. achieves a 100% clean energy economy and reaches net-zero emissions no later than 2050.? Readers should recall the legacy of the Obama-Biden administration on environmental policy before expecting Biden to carry forth any of this platform. During their second year in office they spearheaded the efforts to conceal the full extent of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the largest oil spill to date in the Gulf of Mexico and which caused hundreds of billions of dollars in damages to the entire region. After it became impossible to hide the billions of barrels of oil being pumped in the Gulf, they worked to shield BP as much as possible from any liability while accelerating deep-sea drilling deregulation that caused the explosion in the first place. Obama spearheaded efforts to expand offshore and Arctic drilling. In 2015, he let Royal Dutch Shell resume drilling after a series of near-disasters three years prior. That same year, he opened up the Atlantic coast for drilling for the first time, despite warnings against offshore drilling issued in the aftermath of Deepwater Horizon. The Obama White house did nothing to stop the environmentally destructive hydraulic fracturing techniques that massively expanded under Obama and Biden in the search by various corporations for cheap sources of natural gas. Biden?s platform also shows that the ?Green New Deal? is a vacuous slogan that can mean anything one wants. Biden can call for a ?Green New Deal? while simultaneously declaring, ?I am not banning fracking,? referring to the practice of natural gas extraction that has poisoned much of Appalachia. When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez released the initial ?deal? proposal, she called for ?a transition to 100 percent renewable energy within 10 years, and actions to ?virtually eliminate poverty in the United States.? Essentially the only common characteristic between the two plans is the assertion that it is possible to solve the climate crisis without challenging the capitalist system and the private ownership of production. It is also significant that the demand for a ?Green New Deal? has been adopted by the Green Party. While they seek to contrast themselves from the Democrats, their program on climate change makes a call to ?Enact an emergency Green New Deal to turn the tide on climate change,? essentially verbatim from Biden?s plan. The Green Party also calls for a ?WWII-scale national mobilization to halt climate change,? modelled on the original proposal by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The wartime rhetoric only underscores the nationalist character of this approach, based on the idea that the climate crisis can be solved in a single country, or through capitalist states addressing climate change via treaty agreements. Climate change itself is a global phenomenon. As many recent scientific papers on the topic have stressed, the only real solution to halting global warming and all its ongoing and oncoming catastrophes is through a reorganization of the world?s energy production and transportation infrastructure and the development of new technologies to immediately halt carbon emissions. To seriously address climate change requires a major reorganization of economic life on a global scale. The framework of energy production has to be transitioned from one that uses fossil fuels to one that relies on renewable energy. This, in turn, requires an international effort, involving a massive influx of funding for infrastructure, the development of current technologies and the investigation of new ideas, rather than the squandering of trillions of dollars on war and the self-enrichment of the world?s billionaires. The technology exists to solve these problems, as well as for increasing the living standards and quality of life of the world?s population. Yet it is impossible to do so within the framework of the capitalist system. Any effort to genuinely tackle climate change comes into conflict with the nation-state system and the broader framework of capitalism itself. The necessary influx of funds to temper the fires and abate the climate crisis collide with the private ownership of production and the enrichment of a tiny elite at the expense of society as a whole. As long as a handful of billionaires dominate society, with every aspect of economic life geared to their personal enrichment, not a single social problem?including climate change?can be solved. This makes the solution to climate change an inherently class question and a revolutionary question. It is the working class that will suffer the brunt of the impact of global warming. It is the working class that is objectively and increasingly defining itself as an international class. It is the working class whose social interests lie in the overthrow of capitalism and the abolition of private ownership of the means of production, which will open the way to the establishment of an economic system based on the satisfaction of human need, including a safe and healthy environment. Bryan Dyne WSWS.ORG -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Mon Sep 14 21:38:17 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2020 14:38:17 -0700 Subject: [Peace] Fires Prove the Climate Catastrophe Is a Constitutional Crisis Too Message-ID: POLITICS ELECTORAL COLLEGE ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTERS Fires Prove the Climate Catastrophe Is a Constitutional Crisis Too The Electoral College and the Senate both marginalize states that are the hardest hit by climate change. By Jeet Heer TODAY 11:20 AM fb <>tw <>mail <> Hazy clouds of smoke from dozens of wildfires darken the sky to an eerie orange glow over much of the West Coast. (Jae C. Hong / AP Photo) Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! The West Coast of the continental United States is on fire, producing images of apocalyptic desolation running from California to Oregon to Washington state. An entire time zone is burning. ?Across a hellish landscape of smoke and ash, authorities in Oregon, California and Washington State battled to contain mega-wildfires on Sunday as shifting winds threatened to accelerate blazes that have burned an unimaginable swath of land across the West,? The New York Times reports . ?The arrival of the stronger winds on Sunday tested the resolve of fire crews already exhausted by weeks of combating blazes that have consumed around 5 million acres of desiccated forests, incinerated numerous communities and created what in many places was measured as the worst air quality on the planet.? The intensity and immense geographical scope of the fires are due to climate change , but the crisis is not bringing the country together to tackle the problem. President Donald Trump continues to serve up polarizing lies. In a Saturday rally in Nevada, Trump blamed the fires on ?forest management.? Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti responded by telling CNN, ?This is climate change and this is an administration that?s put its head in the sand.? Garcetti added, ?This is not about just forest management or raking. Anybody who lives here in California is insulted by that, quite frankly, and [Trump] keeps perpetrating this lie.? Top Articles Endless Summer? READ MORE READ MORE READ MORE READ MORE READ MORE READ MORE SKIP AD Trump will be visiting California on Monday, a trip that came only after much criticism of the president for neglecting the crisis. ?California and the West have been on fire, but President Donald Trump went more than three weeks without mentioning it,? Politicoreports . ?During that time, Trump tweeted, golfed, held news conferences and appeared at campaign rallies.? This abandonment of the West Coast is partially a reflection of Trump?s cynically transactional governing philosophy. Trump lavishes attention on states that voted for him while treating Democratic-leaning states as enemy territory. Trump lost the West Coast states by double digits in 2016: California by 30 percent, Oregon by nearly 11 percent, and Washington by 16 percent. MORE FROM JEET HEER BOB WOODWARD?S ACCIDENTAL SCOOP September 11, 2020 TRUMP?S FAKE ANTI-WAR POSTURING WORKS FOR HIM September 9, 2020 TRUMP?S VILE MILITARY COMMENTS ARE A WINDOW INTO HIS SOUL September 7, 2020 Author page But the abandonment of the coastal states is rooted in a structural problem that goes well beyond Trump?s personal psychology or even the Republican Party?s embrace of climate change denial. The political order created by the American Constitution makes it difficult, if not impossible, for the United States to adequately respond to climate change. Both the Electoral College and the Senate marginalize the states that are most immediately effected by climate change and give undue political weight, amounting to a veto power, to states that can delude themselves into thinking that action on climate can be delayed. As lawyer George Conway, a Never Trump Republican, tweeted on Friday, ?Were it not for the Electoral College, many people would be paying a lot more attention to the wildfires ravaging the West Coast of the United States.? The science fiction writer William Gibson once observed , ?The future is already here?it?s just not evenly distributed.? One might say the same for climate change: It is already here, but not evenly distributed. In the United States, the areas that are suffering the most immediate problems are coastal states, which are dealing with not just the fires of the West Coast but also hurricanes and rising sea levels. These coastal states tend to be Democratic or swing states. The Republican Party dominates the inland states, where climate change is a more distant problem, likely to lead to desertification over decades. This means it?s unlikely that there will be any bipartisan consensus to deal with climate for years to come, by which time action might be too late. Writing in The Washington Post in 2016, Todd Cort, faculty codirector for the Center for Business and Environment at Yale, noted , ?The electoral college, which provides for stronger voting power per person in more rural and less populated states, has elected four U.S. presidents who clearly lost the popular vote (1876, 1888, 2000 and 2016). Two of those elections have occurred during the period in which we have known about the causes and impacts of carbon dioxide emissions and climate change and in both cases, the impacts of those elections have very likely had profound impacts on our actions to address the challenge.? SUPPORT PROGRESSIVE JOURNALISM If you like this article, please give today to help fund The Nation?s work. In this century, the Electoral College has twice given the United States presidents who have been retrogressive on climate. George W. Bush pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol and rolled back regulations on coal-fired power plants. Trump abandoned the Paris Agreement, gutted Obama-era environmental regulations, and repeatedly dismissed climate change as a ?hoax.? As Cort concluded, ?The electoral college will have a lasting legacy on all of our lives through climate change. The combination of two administrations headed by presidents who lost the popular vote has and will slow our progress down, and that delay contributes to an ever worsening global climate problem.? CURRENT ISSUE View our current issue Subscribe today and Save up to $129. The Senate, in the same way, marginalizes large states. California, which has nearly 40 million residents and where climate is a pressing issue, has the same number of senators as Wyoming, where the population is roughly 575,000. Add on the necessity of getting a supermajority to beat the filibuster, and you effectively have a veto on any serious climate action. The Obama administration?s ambitious cap-and-trade bill of 2009 passed in the House of Representatives but didn?t make it to the Senate floor since it couldn?t get a filibuster-proof majority, especially since some Democratic senators also opposed it. The usual arguments against the Electoral College and the filibuster are small-d democratic in nature. These are mechanisms that block majority rule. That?s true enough. But the push against them now includes an environmental dimension. In a normal period the United States managed to survive with these anti-democratic mechanisms, but climate change is too big an existential threat to allow them to continue. Getting rid of the Electoral College and the filibuster is now a matter of survival. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From susanroseparenti at gmail.com Tue Sep 15 22:56:54 2020 From: susanroseparenti at gmail.com (Susan Parenti) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2020 17:56:54 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Take a walk w/ us in Crystal Lake Park, w/ commentary Message-ID: Video made by Karen Aram and Penny Hanna [image: image.png] -- https://youtu.be/3gh83AuhXEQ *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: image.png Type: image/png Size: 148412 bytes Desc: not available URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Tue Sep 15 23:40:26 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2020 16:40:26 -0700 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Pivot to Peace Webinar: Standing Against Racism & War - The Only Road to Peace. Sunday, 9/20 at 3pm ET/ 12pm PT References: <5f6131a2bffc2_6c29646f545597b@asgworker-qmb3-9.nbuild.prd.useast1.3dna.io.mail> Message-ID: > > > The following event is being organized by Pivot to Peace , an important initiative to stand against a new Cold War with China. > > > *NEW DATE* > Join us on September 20th, 2020 at 3pm ET/ 12pm PT > for our second live-streamed webinar titled: > Standing Against Racism & War - The Only Road to Peace > > RSVP Here > > People from all walks of life are coming together to fight another pandemic - racism. As the US prepares for confrontation and ?major power conflict? with China, millions of Asian-American people are experiencing the racial effects of a new Cold War. We, people inside the United States from a diverse range of backgrounds, are standing together to say NO to racism. > > Today, a new wave of Anti-Asian racism, persecution and discrimination is being directed against Chinese-Americans and Chinese students studying at US universities. The newest wave of anti-Asian racism inside the United States is the direct result of the reorientation of US military policy that puts our country on a ?major power conflict? with China. Now is the time for all people of conscience to stand together to say NO to racism and war, and YES to peace with China. > > Featured Speakers > > > Julie Tang is a retired judge of the San Francisco Superior Court and previously, an Assistant District Attorney in San Francisco . She helped create and presided over the first Domestic Violence Court in San Francisco in 1997. Upon retirement in 2015, Judge Tang works as a part-time mediator and a full-time peace activist. In 2017, she helped co-found the ?Comfort Women? Justice Coalition that built a ?Comfort Women? Memorial in San Francisco. Previously, she had co-founded the ?Rape of Nanjing? Redress Coalition in 1998. In 2020, she and a group of peace activists co-founded the ?Pivot to Peace? organization dedicated to advocating for world peace, in particular, peace between the US and China. > Dale Minami, besides being a top lawyer in the San Francisco Bay Area in personal litigation, is famously known for leading a legal team of pro bono attorneys in successfully reopening Korematsu v. United States, resulting in the erasure of Fred Korematsu?s criminal conviction for defying the internment of Japanese Americans. He has also been involved in many civil rights class actions suits for minorities and pushed for minorities in the judicial appointment process. Minami is a co-founder of the Asian Law Caucus, the Asian-American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area, the Asian Pacific Bar of California and the Coalition of Asian Pacific Americans. Minami dedicates his life to equality and justice for all Americans. > > > > Margaret Kimberley is a co-founder and Editor and Senior Columnist for Black Agenda Report. She is the author of the book ?Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents.? She is also a contributor to the anthologies ?In Defense of Julian Assange,? and ?Killing Trayvons: An Anthology of American Violence.? Ms. Kimberley is an Administrative Committee member of the United National Antiwar Coalition and the Coordinating Committee of Black Alliance for Peace. > > Dr. Steven Pei is an engineering professor at the University of Houston. He is a former president of the Houston 80-20 Asian-American Political Action Committee (PAC) and the founding chair of United Chinese-Americans (www.ucausa.org ). He also works with a group of volunteers to advocate for transparency, oversight, and accountability of government to ensure justice and fairness for Asian Americans, in particular, the recent investigation and prosecution of Chinese-American scientists. > > > > Sameena Rahman is an anti-war activist based in Los Angeles, and is currently a graduate student. She became interested in the anti-war and the anti-imperialist movement based on her experiences growing up in the Middle East, and experiencing Islamophobia post-9/11. > Brian Becker is a long-time activist and is the national director of the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism). > > > . > > > > Carlos Martinez is an activist and author from London, England. He runs the politics/history blog Invent the Future, and is convenor of the No Cold War campaign. His first book, 'The End of the Beginning: Lessons of the Soviet Collapse', was published by LeftWord in 2019. > Satya Vatti is an immigrant from South-East India, and an anti-war activist based in New Mexico, where she is a leading organizer of the US peace and anti-war movement. She is also a recent nursing school graduate. > > . > > > Husayn Karimi is a graduate student in Computer Science at MIT, where he also completed his Bachelor's degree. Karimi is active on campus in campaigns to fight racist discrimination and harassment. > Sheila Xiao is a research analyst at Rio Hondo Community College. She is an activist and organizer with Pivot to Peace. > > . > > Tune in on Facebook or Twitter > > > You can also keep up with ANSWER Coalition on Facebook . > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Thu Sep 17 19:46:56 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Thu, 17 Sep 2020 12:46:56 -0700 Subject: [Peace] Counterpunch: CIA Publishing Operations by David Price Message-ID: If America is the world?s living myth, then the CIA is America?s myth. ?Don DeLillo One of the alternative press?s most significant scoops of the 1960s was Sol Stern?s February 1967 Ramparts magazine?s expos? revealing that the Central Intelligence Agency had long secretly funded and controlled the National Student Association (NSA). The story was significant because it revealed the NSA was a CIA front, but its greater significance came with the many derivative investigative journalistic pieces published in the months that followed. This later wave of stories used Stern?s methods of tracing CIA funding fronts to reveal a hidden world of CIA infiltrations of organizations. Once Ramparts published the names of the funding fronts the CIA had used, others followed Stern?s methods and in the months that followed, dozens of news stories revealed CIA front operations. These ranged from the funding of labor unions, judicial organizations, professional associations, to publishers and organizations like the International Conference of the Boy Scouts Movement. The basic building blocks of Stern?s methods for tracing CIA fronts had been available to the public for three years, following revelations in 1964 when some of these CIA fronts were first accidentally exposed by Congressman Wright Patman during congressional hearings searching for communist infiltrations of American foundations. In these hearings Patman questioned an IRS employee about irregularities in several foundations, and his sworn public testimony was that the Kaplan Fund was being used by the CIA to fund projects and individuals of interest to the Agency. Patman learned from the CIA the names of eight nonprofits that funded the Kaplan Fund: The Gotham Foundation, Michigan Fund, Andrew Hamilton Fund, Borden Trust, The Price Fund, The Edsel Fund, The Beacon Fund, The Kentfield Fund. Though there was some brief news coverage of these disclosures, there was no real effort to trace what happened to the CIA funds passing through these CIA fronts and pass-throughs until Stern?s Ramparts expos?. It was during Ramparts 1967 revelatory aftermath that the world first learned that the CIA covertly funded the publication of books, when a February 1967 New York Timesstory revealed that Praeger Press had published an unidentified number of books ?at the CIA?s suggestion.? News reports soon revealed the CIA had secretly published other books with other presses. As some of the titles of Praeger books published became known, clear patterns of anti-communist works emerged, and publisher Frederick Praeger lied in his public statements concerning the extent of his press? work with the CIA, claiming to have only published 15 or 16 books dealing ?fundamentally with facts, history and analysis of events of Communist-bloc countries or of nations susceptible of a fall to Communism.? Praeger defended these books as having been vetted by academic experts before publication. Years later, when testifying before Senate hearings investigating Watergate coverups, former CIA officer E. Howard Hunt, Jr., dismissed Frederick Praeger?s claims that his press only had limited involvement with the CIA. During his years at the CIA?s Domestic Operations Division, Hunt?s base of operations was the National Press Building, using as cover credentials issued form a CIA front known as ?Continental Press.? In 1974, Hunt admitted to Seymour Hersh that the CIA ?funded much of the activities of the Frederick D. Praeger Publishing Corporation in New York City. We Funded, to a large extent, the activities of Fodor?s Travel Guide, distributed by the David McKay Corporation.? Instead of the handful of books Fred Praeger initially claimed the CIA had published, over a thousand books were published under these programs during the 1950s and 60s. But Praeger was not alone. Many other presses published books either subsidized or fully funded by the CIA, intended for both academic and popular audiences. Many of these CIA publishing operations targeted a liberal intellectual audience, funding literary writers at the Paris Review the CIA?s Congress for Cultural Freedom?s Encounter, or in Africa with Transition Magazine and in Latin America Combate, Mundo Nuevo, and Cuadernos. The CIA commissioned the John Wiley Publishing Company to publish Robert Moss? book, Chile?s Marxist Experiment, which had originally been published by ?a CIA publishing subsidiary,? Forum World Features. There were also hundreds of classic western works of fiction and nonfiction translated into foreign languages and cheaply printed and distributed throughout the underdeveloped world using publishers like Franklin Book Program. This was a key part of the CIA?s soft power myth-making campaign hoping to win the hearts and minds of those undecided about the merits of communism or capitalism. Among the known presses that published CIA subsidized books were Scribner?s Sons, Ballantine Books, and G.P. Putnam?s Sons. The CIA was not the only US agency negotiating such propagandistic publishing agreements. Fitzhugh Green discovered that United States Information Agency (USIA) staff members, Louis Fanget, Donald McNeill and William W. Warner ?would think of a book that could explain what the Soviets had done to hurt the freedom of its people; then they would offer Frederick Praeger or other publishers an advance to commission an author and publish his work for foreign markers, even if the topic would not normally sell abroad.? Through these and other maneuvers the US government secretly corrupted scholarship and warped academic freedom in ways that left the American public uninformed. These CIA operations were run by liberal anti-communists who were distrusted by conservative anti-communists like Joseph McCarthy; one reason these were covert operations was to avoid the scrutiny of congressional conservatives who would not have funded these programs. With most of these publications the CIA sought to strengthen the moderate left, bolstering liberal ideology as a way of keeping thinking people from pursuing socialism or communism. Often, the CIA?s covertly subsidized titles were works that would not have made it into print without these secret patrons. There is rich irony that the secret police of American capitalism had to covertly prop-up works that could not survive the free market that the Agency was fighting to protect. Because some of these CIA publications have been well documented in academic and popular works (e.g. that Encounter or Paris Review ran on CIA money, the CIA printed and circulated a bootleg version of Doctor Zhivago in the USSR, etc.) it might seem surprising that significant elements of this history remain undocumented. Ultimately, much of this history is intentionally unknown; certainly, the CIA knows this classified history, but no leadership in the executive, judicial or congressional branches has pursued releasing the full details of these operations. Even the groundbreaking Church and Pike congressional investigations of the mid-1970s intentionally withheld significant information they collected identifying the names of journalists and other writers they discovered had been working with the CIA. Enter Sol Chaneles I?ve written about these CIA book publishing programs in the past, and with all the fine books (like: Joel Whitney?s Finks, Francis Saunders? Cultural Cold War, Hugh Wilford?s Mighty Wurlitzer) detailing CIA efforts to manipulate arts and letters during the 1950s and 60s, I figured I understood most of the terrain covered by these programs. At least this is what I thought until five years ago, when I came across portions of an intriguing manuscript at the National Security Archives. Rutgers University criminology professor Sol Chaneles spent years during the 1980s researching and writing a book manuscript on the CIA?s covert book publishing programs of the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Chaneles? book was never published, but portions of his manuscript, working titled, CIA and the Books, survive in George Washington University?s National Security Archive. Although the fragmentary state of this manuscript leaves sizable holes in the story Chaneles pieced together, what remains shows his lost manuscript explored new ground and was a significant works on this topic. It appears that Chaneles completed his CIA and the Books manuscript, but the only known copy of the surviving document is incomplete, containing portions of the first chapters, then skipping from pages 256 to 294, with over 50 pages of detailed endnotes?indicating he completed a draft of the manuscript. After reading this partial manuscript in 2016 I contacted members of his department at Rutgers, and spent a significant effort locating surviving family members to try and locate a complete copy of the manuscript, but I failed to find the complete manuscript. It remains possible that the missing pieces of this manuscript may be located, but I?ve given up looking, and instead offer this exercise in fragmentology (the study of surviving fragments of manuscripts), as an effort to salvage shards of Chaneles? analysis of the CIA?s publishing operations. One of the strengths of Chaneles? analysis is how he connects the CIA?s covert publishing operations of the 1950s and 60s with US book publishers? domestic propaganda programs during the Second World War run by the Office of War Information (OWI) and other wartime intelligence agencies. During the war, the OWI secretly underwrote the publication of various books to boost American support for the war. These included works such as A War Atlas for Americans, published by Simon and Schuster with secret government subsidies. Using wartime agencies like the Council on Books in Wartime, the US government assisted with the publication of over 1,000 books, including both works of fiction and nonfiction, as well as books characterizing the enemy in ways designed to assist the American war effort. While most wartime subsidy operations ceased at the war?s end, Chaneles demonstrates that most of the early cold war?s covert CIA publication operations were essentially revitalizing elements of these wartime programs; and he shows how individuals like Harper and Row?s Cass Canfield?s wartime intelligence work was a model for the CIA?s cold war covert publishing operations. He traced Cass Canfield leaving Harper Brothers in 1942 (later to become Harper & Row) to contribute his book publishing skills to the US government, for the duration of the war; first at the Bureau of Economic warfare, then for the Office of War Information in France and North Africa working on psychological Warfare Campaigns. Canfield?s wartime intelligence work made him a natural contact with the CIA during the Cold War. As the CIA became interested in developing secret operations underwriting the production of books supporting CIA objectives, both domestically and internationally, Canfield became a sort of Third Man of CIA publishing operations. He served on boards of several exposed CIA fronts (such as CIA operative Lloyd Milligan?s Indonesian bookstore front, Pacific Books and Supplies), even playing an ambiguous role in the CIA?s efforts to quash publication of Alfred McCoy?s classic book The Politics of Heroin. Chaneles traced how the Department of State?s Committee on Books Abroad drew on the talents of New York?s established publishers (Harper & Row?s Canfield, Thomas Crowell?s Robert Crowell and Macmillen?s George Brett), to oversee these covert publication efforts. He documented how Marshall W. Fishwick, Wemyss Foundation Director helped channel CIA funds for publications, and he identified patterns of revolving doors between State, CIA, and the publishing industry, such as tracing Dan Lacy?s 1954 moved from coordinating the CIA and State Department?s cover book subsidy operation to organizing the National Book Committee. He tracked some of the Asia Foundation?s publishing operations; and while the surviving coverage of these Asian operations are sparce, Chaneles established that the CIA was involved in significant covert publishing operations in the United States and abroad. Two sections of the manuscript focus on a 1974 federal lawsuit, United States of America, Plaintiffs v Addison-Wesley Publishing Company (along with another twenty other named publishing companies). In this suit, the Justice Department charged ?21 major American publishing houses with conspiring to illegally divide world markets among themselves for the sale of books.? As part of this conspiracy, the US government alleged that since 1947 these publishing houses had established an agreement to ?allocate exclusive marketing territories throughout the world? and that these presses monitored and suppressed breaches of these agreements. This suit was filed during a period of aggressive anti-trust lawsuits launched by the Justice Department, coming the same month that the Department of Justice launched its anti-trust suit against AT&T. After two years of legal wrangling, all 21 publishers settled the antitrust lawsuit under a consent decree stipulating, without admitting guilt, that they would end their anticompetitive practices of underwriting agreements secretly allocating territories and markets for book sales. Chaneles argued that the legal facts at the heart of this 1974 antitrust suit should also be applied to the non-competitive behaviors the US government undertook throughout the years of the CIA?s covert book publishing operations. He reasoned that the settlement of the USA v Addison-Wesley suit provided the basis for legal action against the US Department of State and the CIA, which, he argued, were illegal non-competitive cartels. Chaneles argued that, ?it is paradoxical that the conspiracy that was shaped by the State Department, aided and abetted by the National Security Council-CIA machinery and championed by major business corporations should be terminated by a branch of the US government without any mention of the simple fact that a prime mover in the conspiracy was the government itself. The conspiracies in violation of the Sherman Act were part and parcel of the conspiracies arising from NSC covert book publishing authorizations and the plethora of laws and appropriations facilitating the continuation of the joint conspiracies. The methods of the operation among commercial publishers?all of those cited in the lawsuit were commercial publishers?were myriad.? Chaneles used the example of Random House?s 1951 publication of Reader?s Digestauthor, Leland Stowe?s book, The Story of Satellite Europe: Conquest by Terror to show how the CIA bypassed the usual market forces governing books publications to guarantee sales and distribution of a book that likely would not have found a market to support its survival. He argued that ?many thousands of copies of the book were purchased by CIA coordinated agencies for low cost and free distribution in the US and in those areas of the English-speaking world subject to the conspiracies in violation of the Sherman Act.? Chaneles rejected views of the CIA as a rogue agency. He demonstrated how these covert operations were run with the approval of the Executive Branch, through the National Security Council, and 303 Committee. These covert publishing operations were approved by presidents from Truman through Johnson, ?until 1964 NSC 10/2 and NSC 10/4 and, doubtless other ?top secret? directives still protected by the iron gloves of national security facilitated the covert allocation of billions of dollars in subsidies to American book publishers and their overseas subsidiaries and affiliates, including publishing companies wholly owned by the US government through dummy, cloaking devices. If there were members of the government with the secret publishing operations, they maintained a policy of silence. If leaks were made to journalists, publishers refused to print the accounts.? Chaneles traced a wild mix of early Cold War governmental and private committees converging in the early 1950s to facilitate the CIA?s publishing operations. There was the National Book Committee (NBC), established in 1954 by book publishing lobbyist Dan Lacy, whose previous work included liaison between the Department of State and the CIA?s book subsidy operations. Chaneles determined that ?NBC?s first board chairman was Whitney North Seymour, a conservative politician and Wall Street lawyer. At NBC?s inception Seymour was a board member of the CIA supported Freedom House and President of the New York City Bar Association.? There were organizations like the Government Advisory Committee on International Book Progress, which worked with the US Assistant Secretary of State for Cultural Affairs, and the Department of State?s psychological warfare unit?s Committee on Books Abroad (CBA), was directed by Sigurd Larmon, Members of the CBA included Cass Canfiled (Harper & Row), Robert L. Crowell (Thomas Y. Crowell) and George Brett (Macmillen). These were the sort of public-private organizations mixing publishing kingpins with government figures coming from State and CIA to spread specific messages, most generally messages stressing the dangers and shortcomings of communism, targeting both domestic and foreign readers. Chaneles argued that one of Cass Canfield?s Harper & Row authors, John Gunther was ?probably the most heavily endowed recipient of CIA Largesse for his participation in the agency?s dis-informational book program.? Chaneles showed how a strategic relationship between Book-of-the-Month-Club principle owner, Harry Scherman, Canfield, and Gunther ?could guarantee distribution of hundreds of thousands of books? with the assistance of ?long-time member of the CIA coordinated Freedom House? while ?supported by covert subsides.? Chaneles traced the roots of ?Canfield, Gunter, Sherman triangle? back to the Second World War, where they worked on wartime publishing operations over seen by Allen Dulles for the OSS. Gunther?s 1941 book, Inside Latin America, was a propagandistic summary of South American political development, which included a discussion of US efforts to expose and ?rid South America of Nazi influences.? Canfield and Scherman helped publish Gunther?s 1949 Book, Behind the Curtain, which described the 1948-49 Greek civil war while avoiding discussion of the US?s role supporting right wing royalists and fascists against Marxists, and ignoring the British colonialist roots of the uprising?Behind the Curtain became a Book of the Month Club selection. Chaneles analyzed a 1952 article Gunther wrote for Look magazine as a way of ?making the CIA better and more favorably understood to the American public and to introduce the PSB [Psychological Strategy Board] people as worthy of favorable opinion.? The article fawned over these propaganda programs, and Chaneles critiqued Gunther?s support for these CIA efforts designed to ?allay concerns? that the CIA and Psychological Strategy Board might be ?responsible for illegal ?dirty tricks? at home or abroad.? Gunther?s article was heavily supervised by CIA Assistant Director (and Air Force Colonel) C. B. Hanson. Hanson provided detailed notes on a provisional draft, urging Gunther to show how agencies like the PSB had roots in the American WWII war effort. Chaneles discovered that the final version of Gunther?s Look piece was subject to ?extensive CIA ordered revisions,? and it fit the CIA?s narrative so closely that Chaneles argued that ?it could have been a press release written by Col. Hanson.? The CIA?s selection of Praeger Press as one of the first commercial presses to commission books to personal connections established by Frederick Praeger during his World War II services as a combat intelligence officer. Chaneles argued that the topics, titles and forms of analysis of these Praeger published CIA sponsored books ?were determined by nameless bureaucrats.? The CIA first contacted Praeger around 1950 asking him to make his press available for publishing books selected by the CIA under a covert arrangement where the US government covered all costs and the CIA guaranteed it would purchase and distribute thousands of copies of books. Chaneles wrote that, ?such contracts would permit the company to overprint as many copies as it wanted and to sell them as his own product. Basically, the arrangement was little more than the establishment of illegal governmental book publishing company. From 1950 to 1967 when the first public disclosure began to appear concerning secret book subsidization via the CIA Praeger had published over one thousand covertly subsidized titles through arrangement coordinated by the CIA.? Chaneles estimated that by the mid-1950s Praeger published between 100 and 150 CIA titles a year. One of the ways that the CIA secretly channeled money to Praeger and other presses was by covertly arranging commercial bank loans to the press. The CIA arranged loans through bankers with OSS or CIA ties, or through the Schroeder Bank, which had connections to Allen Dulles and the Rockefeller Foundation predating the Second World War. Other loans were arranged by Frank Altschul, who directed Lehman banking interests and had financial ties to Allen Dulles. Some loans carried no interest, the CIA later forgave some loans, using pass-through organizations to shelter their involvement. Chaneles found instances of the CIA identifying small struggling presses to approach with financial offers designed to save the press. One example of this was the story of The Speller Company, which for decades had published books containing samples of wood, until the 1950s when they hit financial hard times and were considering closing the press when the CIA approached them, through the Free Europe Committee, with a lucrative offer for them to publish the magazine ?East Europe? and a series of run through the CIA?s covert book program. While the CIA claimed that it terminated its covert book subsidy program for English language books in the 1970s, Chaneles points out that in 1978, the language announcing the end of this program did not terminate ?contracts already in place that had to be honored,? which left open the possibility of ongoing operations, and of course did not necessarily end the production of non-English language publications. CIA Myth Makers Using these Cold War covert publishing operations, the CIA nurtured myths of American capitalism at home and abroad. These published works often glossed over realities of American unexceptionalism while disparaging the possibilities of other political and economic systems. These CIA backed narratives championed global democracy while ignoring American CIA interventions undermining democratically elected governments promising greater distribution of wealth, in placed like Iran and Guatemala. While in the first and final instances the Cold War?s global inequality the CIA policed was maintained by armed forces, these ideological battles were also significant. The world of CIA publishing Sol Chaneles mapped was filled with propaganda projects devoted to myth-making, not works expanding the understanding of the world. These surviving shards of Chaneles? work reveal him not only breaking through many of the CIA?s bureaucracies of silence, but also connecting World War Two era techniques developed to undermine fascist ideologies with the CIA?s Cold War efforts to strengthen America?s imperialist reach in the name of free-market capitalism?s global expansion. The fundamental irony he documented was how far the CIA was willing to go to undermine what might have been a free market of ideas to hard-sell propaganda claiming the necessity of free markets. But such contradictions have always been at the CIA?s existential core. Yet even though these CIA publishing operations fought on an ideological battlefield, the CIA?s Cold War was not just an ideological conflict, it was a war over relations and means of production; a global class war fought by the CIA running arms, assassinating leaders, funding insurgents and counterinsurgency operations, with these loaded books acting as one of many weapons in this global class war. In his 1967 New York Review of Books essay on ?The CIA and the Intellectuals,? Jason Epstein observed that the depth of the CIA?s intrusion into publishing went far beyond the impacts of the specific books they secretly published. In many ways it transformed the industry as this process ?was not a matter of buying off and subverting individual writers and scholars, but of setting up an arbitrary and factitious system of values by which academic personnel were advanced, magazine editors appointed, and scholars subsidized and published, not necessarily on their merits, though these were sometimes considerable, but because of their allegiances. The fault of the CIA was not that it corrupted the innocent but that it tried, in collusion with a group of insiders, to corner a free market.? One of the residual conclusions that remains with me reading the shards of Chaneles? manuscripts is that without an accounting of exactly how much of this not-so-free market was actually cornered by the CIA during this period, it is difficult to understand how far this reach extended into works whose impacts remain with us today. In the end, this remains an incomplete story. Incomplete because the CIA has no interest in revealing what happened, incomplete because congressional investigations were satisfied with generalities where specifics were needed, and incomplete because Chaneles? manuscript appears to be scattered to the wind. But even with this fragmentary understanding, we can discern the basic mythos the CIA secretly tried to disseminate at home and abroad; a mythos using lies and hidden cartels to spread stories supporting the merits of capitalism and liberal ideologies. David Price a professor of anthropology at Saint Martin?s University in Lacey, Washington. He is the author of Weaponizing Anthropology: Social Science in Service of the Militarized State published by CounterPunch Books. COLUMNS FEATURE ARTICLES CULTURE & REVIEWS CounterPunch Magazine Archive Read over 400 magazine and newsletter back issues here Support CounterPunch Make a tax-deductible monthly or one-time donation and enjoy access to our Subscriber Area. Donate Now Support our evolving Subscriber Area and enjoy access to all Subscribers content. Subscribe -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Fri Sep 18 13:58:17 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2020 06:58:17 -0700 Subject: [Peace] Record wildfires continue to rage across US West Coast Message-ID: ?Record wildfires continue to rage across US West Coast By Peter Ross WSWS.ORG 18 September 2020 The wildfires sweeping across the US West Coast have so far burned nearly 8,000 square miles?more than the land area of New Jersey?displaced tens of thousands, and cast a thick screen of smoke across the western states. At least 35 people have died in the three coastal states, and hundreds of homes and entire neighborhoods have been burned to the ground. California has seen five of the ten largest wildfires in its history this season, including the August Complex?now the largest fire in state history?and the LNU, SZU, and CZU Lightning Complexes, which are burning on all sides of the San Francisco Bay. A fire truck drives along Highway 168 while battling the Creek Fire in the Shaver Lake community of Fresno County, Calif., on Monday, Sept. 7, 2020. (AP Photo/Noah Berger) Twenty other major fires are still burning throughout the state. As of September 14, 7,718 wildfires have burned more than 3.45 million acres in California. This accounts for more than 3 percent of the state?s roughly 100 million acres of land. The town of Malden in Washington state was virtually destroyed last week as wildfires burned 80 percent of the buildings in a city of 200 people. Washington governor Jay Inslee, a Democrat, later took a trip to Malden where he offered no immediate help to town residents aside from boxes of apples picked from the grounds of the governor?s mansion. The apples were later found to have maggots inside. In Oregon, four massive fires are burning near Portland, Salem, and Eugene, the state?s three most populous cities, and officials warned last week that they were ?preparing for a mass fatality event.? Some 40,000 people have been evacuated, and 22 people were still missing in the state as of Tuesday. Until Sunday, the entire city of Portland was on alert for a mass evacuation. Five towns in Oregon have been ?substantially destroyed,? and thousands of structures have been leveled across the state. On Monday, 70 people in Detroit, Oregon were forced to evacuate along dirt roads used by the US Forest Service, and on Tuesday, fire debris blocked roads and trapped dozens of people trying to evacuate near Eugene, Oregon. A wall of smoke continues to enshroud the entire West Coast, with tens of millions from Seattle to San Diego exposed to hazardous air for successive days. Portland?s air quality has been the worst in the world since Sunday, and Los Angeles is suffering its worst smog in 26 years. Thousands of people living in temporary shelters and parking lots across the three states are being forced to contend with the dual disasters of the wildfires and the COVID-19 pandemic, which threatens to spread through shelters and evacuation sites. The official ?COVID-19 Interim Shelter Guidance? from the office of Oregon Governor Kate Brown admits these dangers. The document warns: ?All shelter residents, even those without symptoms, may have been exposed to COVID-19 and should self-quarantine after leaving the shelter in accordance with state and local recommendations.? Smoke inhalation threatens to make millions more susceptible to the virus and inundate hospitals with patients suffering from respiratory symptoms. Take up the fight for socialism! First Name Last Name Mobile Phone Country Zip I would like to be contacted by the Socialist Equality Party or the WSWS. I acknowledge that the WSWS uses my personal information in accordance with its privacy policy . Submit The wildfires have also severely disrupted public education. In California, more than 70,000 students have been impacted by halts to remote education, as students and teachers have had to evacuate. CalMatters reports that over 8,000 California students and educators have lost their homes to wildfires since 2015. ?The kids are confused because we spent three days online doing our Zoom meetings, and now that?s gone away,? kindergarten teacher Kristie Summerrill told CalMatters. ?Now, they?re staying at friends? houses or hotels. They?re not understanding why there is no school right now.? While 2020 is already a record year for wildfires, the offshore wind season?the period in autumn when the West Coast?s most destructive fires tend to take place?is just beginning, and the fire season could last into December. According to the US Forest Service, ?what was once a four-month fire season now lasts six to eight months? in some parts of the country. The length of the fire season has increased by about 75 days in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, according to Cal Fire. Even after the fires end, the return of wetter conditions in the winter will heighten the danger of post-fire flooding and mudslides. According to the National Weather Service, following wildfires, ?locations downhill and downstream from burned areas are very susceptible to flash flooding and debris flows, especially near steep terrain.? In January 2018, heavy rain on hillsides burned by the Thomas Fire caused rapid erosion and powerful mudslides resulting in catastrophic damage in the town of Montecito, California, killing 23 people and destroying 130 homes. The burn scars created by the 2020 fire season, which now span millions of acres, will remain vulnerable to erosion for years and will pose an ongoing threat to countless communities. A recent study by researchers at Arizona State University and the University of California, Los Angeles found that climate change is increasing the risk of debris flow from wildfires throughout California. In addition to hazardous air, West Coast residents may soon have to contend with toxic chemicals released by burnt electronics, cars, plastics, and industrial equipment, which can be carried into rivers and waterways by rain. Earlier this month, officials in Santa Cruz County announced that the CZU Lightning complex had melted seven miles of plastic pipeline, leeching the carcinogenic chemical benzene into the water supply. Benzene was previously found in the water supply in Santa Rosa, California following the Tubbs Fire in 2017, and in the town of Paradise, California, after that town was largely destroyed by the Camp Fire in 2018. This year?s unprecedented fire season has undoubtedly been fueled by climate change, which has brought about hotter and dryer conditions. A five-year drought from 2011 to 2016, the driest in California?s history, killed and desiccated over 100 million trees. Across the West Coast, fires are moving faster and growing larger. Doug Grafe, chief of Fire Protection at the Oregon Department of Forestry, told reporters that the extent and speed of the wildfires in Oregon was unprecedented. ?Seeing them run down the canyons the way they have?carrying tens of miles in one period of an afternoon and not slowing down in the evening? [there is] absolutely no context for that in this environment.? In the last twenty years, Oregon has experienced eleven megafires, as compared to six megafires in the entire twentieth century, according to Jim Gersbach from the Oregon Department of Forestry. Until this year, no more than two megafires had been observed in the state in a single year. There are now four megafires burning at once. Professor Michael Gollner, who leads the Berkeley Fire Research Lab, wrote that ?we?ve never seen fires of this magnitude,? and called the behavior of the fires ?unreal.? The devastation caused by the 2020 fire season, like the COVID-19 pandemic, is a direct consequence of the criminal policies pursued by the ruling class. Like the pandemic, the threat of wildfires was entirely foreseeable, yet Republican and Democratic administrations alike have cut federal funding for fire science for decades. The Trump Administration has pushed through $2 billion in cuts from the US Forest Service budget, while threatening to cut off federal aid for California wildfires. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party, which politically dominates California, Oregon, and Washington, has refused for decades to take any substantial action to mitigate the danger of wildfires, and has systematically defunded social infrastructure and cut firefighter staffing. Vast social resources exist to stop the unfolding environmental catastrophe and protect human life, but this can only be achieved by mobilizing the working class to reorganize economic and political life to satisfy social need rather than private profit. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Sat Sep 19 13:57:55 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sat, 19 Sep 2020 06:57:55 -0700 Subject: [Peace] REST IN POWER, A tribute to political activist Kevin Zeese Message-ID: Register here to attend: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_hT6K5AxaTu-yuLmxItgZVg Simultaneous translation in Spanish and English will be provided. The Zoom can accommodate 500 people. The tribute will also be livestreamed on Facebook.com/PopularResistanceOrg and YouTube.com/PopularResistanceOrg . Kevin Zeese, a father, public interest attorney and activist, died suddenly on September 6, 2020. Due to the pandemic, the family is organizing an online tribute to him. Please join us to hear from some of Kevin's friends, family and mentors and to share your thoughts about Kevin. Featuring Ajamu Baraka, Chris Hedges, and more. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Sat Sep 19 14:02:53 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sat, 19 Sep 2020 07:02:53 -0700 Subject: [Peace] Recent deaths Message-ID: Many have noted the deaths of Prof. David Graeber recently, author of ?Debt.? Kevin Zeese, political activist, a giant of our times. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Supreme Court Justice. Last but not least last evening Prof. Stephen Cohen, Russian expert who showed courage speaking out against the USG propaganda machine in relation to Russia. From karenaram at hotmail.com Sat Sep 19 14:07:45 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sat, 19 Sep 2020 07:07:45 -0700 Subject: [Peace] Stephen Cohen, Remember His Urgent Warnings ....... Message-ID: New post on Caitlin Johnstone Stephen Cohen Has Died. Remember His Urgent Warnings Against The New Cold?War. by Caitlin Johnstone Stephen F Cohen, the renowned American scholar on Russia and leading authority on US-Russian relations, has died of lung cancer at the age of 81. As one of the precious few western voices of sanity on the subject of Russia while everyone else has been frantically flushing their brains down the toilet, this is a real loss. I myself have cited Cohen's expert analysis many times in my own work, and his perspective has played a formative role in my understanding of what's really going on with the monolithic cross-partisan manufacturing of consent for increased western aggressions against Moscow. In a world that is increasingly confusing and awash with propaganda, Cohen's death is a blow to humanity's desperate quest for clarity and understanding. Very sad. A huge loss. America?s leading expert on Russia, Stephen Cohen, has died, aged 81. Stephen was subjected to a horrible smear campaign when he questioned US-policy towards Moscow after the 2014 estrangement. Condolences to @KatrinaNation https://t.co/3PNLdl758f ? Bryan MacDonald (@27khv) September 19, 2020 I don't know how long Cohen had cancer. I don't know how long he was aware that he might not have much time left on this earth. What I do know is he spent much of his energy in his final years urgently trying to warn the world about the rapidly escalating danger of nuclear war, which in our strange new reality he saw as in many ways completely unprecedented. The last of the many books Cohen authored was 2019's War with Russia? , detailing his ideas on how the complex multi-front nature of the post-2016 cold war escalations against Moscow combines with Russiagate and other factors to make it in some ways more dangerous even than the most dangerous point of the previous cold war. "You know it?s easy to joke about this, except that we?re at maybe the most dangerous moment in US-Russian relations in my lifetime, and maybe ever," Cohen told?The Young Turks in 2017. "And the reason is that we?re in a new cold war, by whatever name. We have three cold war fronts that are fraught with the possibility of hot war, in the Baltic region where NATO is carrying out an unprecedented military buildup on Russia?s border, in Ukraine where there is a civil and proxy war between Russia and the west, and of course in Syria, where Russian aircraft and American warplanes are flying in the same territory. Anything could happen.? Cohen repeatedly points to the most likely cause of a future nuclear war: not one that is planned but one which erupts in tense, complex situations where "anything could happen" in the chaos and confusion as a result of misfire, miscommunication or technical malfunction, as nearly happened many times during the last cold war. ?I think this is the most dangerous moment in American-Russian relations, at least since the Cuban missile crisis,? Cohen told?Democracy Now in 2017. ?And arguably, it?s more dangerous, because it?s more complex. Therefore, we?and then, meanwhile, we have in Washington these?and, in my judgment, factless accusations that Trump has somehow been compromised by the Kremlin. So, at this worst moment in American-Russian relations, we have an American president who?s being politically crippled by the worst imaginable?it?s unprecedented. Let?s stop and think. No American president has ever been accused, essentially, of treason. This is what we?re talking about here, or that his associates have committed treason.? ?Imagine, for example, John Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis,? Cohen added. ?Imagine if Kennedy had been accused of being a secret Soviet Kremlin agent. He would have been crippled. And the only way he could have proved he wasn?t was to have launched a war against the Soviet Union. And at that time, the option was nuclear war.? "A recurring theme of my recently published book War with Russia? is that the new Cold War is more dangerous, more fraught with hot war, than the one we survived," Cohen wrote last year . "Histories of the 40-year US-Soviet Cold War tell us that both sides came to understand their mutual responsibility for the conflict, a recognition that created political space for the constant peace-keeping negotiations, including nuclear arms control agreements, often known as d?tente. But as I also chronicle in the book, today?s American Cold Warriors blame only Russia, specifically 'Putin?s Russia,' leaving no room or incentive for rethinking any US policy toward post-Soviet Russia since 1991." "Finally, there continues to be no effective, organized American opposition to the new Cold War," Cohen added. "This too is a major theme of my book and another reason why this Cold War is more dangerous than was its predecessor. In the 1970s and 1980s, advocates of d?tente were well-organized, well-funded, and well-represented, from grassroots politics and universities to think tanks, mainstream media, Congress, the State Department, and even the White House. Today there is no such opposition anywhere." "A major factor is, of course, 'Russiagate'," Cohen continued. "As evidenced in the sources I cite above, much of the extreme American Cold War advocacy we witness today is a mindless response to President Trump?s pledge to find ways to 'cooperate with Russia' and to the still-unproven allegations generated by it. Certainly, the Democratic Party is not an opposition party in regard to the new Cold War." "D?tente with Russia has always been a fiercely opposed, crisis-ridden policy pursuit, but one manifestly in the interests of the United States and the world," Cohen wrote in another essay last year. "No American president can achieve it without substantial bipartisan support at home, which Trump manifestly lacks. What kind of catastrophe will it take?in Ukraine, the Baltic region, Syria, or somewhere on Russia?s electric grid?to shock US Democrats and others out of what has been called, not unreasonably, their Trump Derangement Syndrome, particularly in the realm of American national security? Meanwhile, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has recently reset its Doomsday Clock to two minutes before midnight." And now Stephen Cohen is dead, and that clock is inching ever closer to midnight. The Russiagate psyop that he predicted would pressure Trump to advance dangerous cold war escalations with no opposition from the supposed opposition party has indeed done exactly that with nary a peep of criticism from either partisan faction of the political/media class. Cohen has for years been correctly predicting this chilling scenario which now threatens the life of every organism on earth, even while his own life was nearing its end. And now the complex cold war escalations he kept urgently warning us about have become even more complex with the addition of nuclear-armed China to the multiple fronts the US-centralized empire has been plate-spinning its brinkmanship upon, and it is clear from the ramping up of anti-China propaganda since last year that we are being prepped for those aggressions to continue to increase. We should heed the dire warnings that Cohen spent his last breaths issuing. We should demand a walk-back of these insane imperialist aggressions which benefit nobody and call for d?tente with Russia and China. We should begin creating an opposition to this world-threatening flirtation with armageddon before it is too late. Every life on this planet may well depend on our doing so. Stephen Cohen is dead, and we are marching toward the death of everything. God help us all. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Sat Sep 19 16:58:56 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sat, 19 Sep 2020 09:58:56 -0700 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Colorado police conduct militarized arrests of Party for Socialism and Liberation members References: Message-ID: > Colorado police conduct militarized arrests of Party for Socialism and Liberation members > By Jacob Crosse > 19 September 2020 > In an alarming escalation of state retaliation against opponents of unending police violence and murder, at least six protesters, four of whom are members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), were arrested by police and SWAT officers with the Aurora, Colorado police department on Thursday. > As part of an attempted frame-up, the protesters were arrested and jailed in a series of coordinated militarized raids while they were out in public or at home. Those arrested face a plethora of charges, which, if they are convicted, could mean decades in prison for their alleged roles in four protests and vigils against police violence that took place over the summer. > All those arrested have either organized or taken part in demonstrations in Denver?s largest suburb. The protests in Aurora are part of the global wave of multiracial and multiethnic protests by youth, students and workers following the release of video depicting the Memorial Day murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers. Nine months prior to Floyd?s murder, Aurora police were facing widespread anger for their role in the killing of black 23-year-old Elijah McClain last year . > Everyone who was arrested in Thursday?s raids?Joel Northam, Terrance Roberts, Lillian House, Whitney Lucero, John Ruch and Trey Quinn?faces felony charges connected to four separate demonstrations held in Aurora on June 27, July 3, July 12 and July 25. A statement from PSL confirms that Ruch, Northam, Lucero and House are members of the party, while Roberts, according to the Denver Post, is the co-founder of the Front Line Party for Revolutionary Action. > A statement released by the PSL claims that Ruch was the first to be arrested while sitting in the parking lot of Home Depot. Later that same morning, five police cars surrounded and arrested Lillian House while she was driving. In the afternoon, Northam reports his home was invaded by SWAT teams and a Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) military vehicle, designed to withstand improvised explosive device (IED) attacks. In a PSL Facebook event discussing the arrest, members claimed that Northam was never shown a warrant. Lucero was also arrested Thursday afternoon. > As of this writing only one person has been released. The PSL is organizing a rally and march outside the Colorado state capitol in Denver today demanding that all the charges be dropped and their remaining comrades released. > The PSL has been among the groups organizing protests in the Denver metropolitan area throughout the summer, demanding justice for McClain. While the official sequence of events that led to McClain?s death might never be known?police purposefully shielded and removed their body cameras during the interaction?it is undisputed that McClain, who never committed a crime, was rendered unconscious after police applied a ?carotid hold? to his neck. > Once paramedics arrived, the police lied about the sequence and character of events. McClain, who at this time was already handcuffed and had vomited after being choked out, was then injected with 500 milligrams of ketamine, a powerful sedative, by a paramedic with Aurora Fire Rescue. The dosage, nearly double the recommended amount for someone of his diminutive stature, caused McClain?s pulse and breathing to stop before he went into cardiac arrest. Three days later, after being declared brain-dead, McClain passed. > Afterwards, a cover-up ensued with an ?independent investigation? finding no fault on the part of the officers or paramedics. An inconclusive autopsy report, which failed to determine the exact cause of death, conveniently left the state blameless. > Protests ignited in June after it was discovered that the ?independent? city investigation into McClain?s murder was being led by attorney Eric Daigle, a former police officer in Connecticut who advertised himself on his website as someone experienced in ?defending municipalities, police chiefs and individual officers from law enforcement liability claims.? > After over two million people signed a petition demanding a reopening of the investigation, Democratic Governor Jared Polis announced that his administration would reexamine the case. There are currently five separate investigations in McClain?s murder by various state and federal agencies. Millions of dollars and thousands of hours are being spent to give the appearance of ?justice,? while at the same time Aurora police continue to assault, intimidate, maim and jail protesters, and McClain?s murderers have yet to spend a single hour behind bars. > In contrast to the police who killed McClain, the protesters who were arrested remain in jail after district attorneys stacked up to a dozen charges per person, a clear act of intimidation by the ruling class against all those determined to put an end to police violence and racism. > The charges are being spearheaded jointly by the 17th judicial district attorney, Dave Young (Democrat) and the 18th judicial district attorney, George Brauchler (Republican). The most serious and ludicrous were levied by Young against Northam, Lucero, and House, for their alleged role in ?kidnapping? police officers outside the Aurora District One police station on July 3. > That day, hundreds of protesters had gathered outside the police station demanding the arrest of officers Nathan Woodyard, Jason Rosenblatt, and Randy Roedema. The protests were sparked after a photo was publicly released that showed three Aurora cops, Erica Maerrero, Jaron Jones and Kyle Dittrich, grinning and laughing as they reenacted choking McClain. The photo was sent to Rosenblatt who responded to the disgusting image with a text that read: ?ha ha.? > The demonstration outside the police station went into the evening before riot police cleared the roughly 600 protesters with impact and chemical munitions. Attorney Young in his statement alleges that because protesters had surrounded the building, preventing police from leaving ?for seven hours,? Northam, Lucero and House are responsible for attempting to commit first-degree kidnapping, a class 3 felony that carries with it a minimum 1-3 year prison sentence if found guilty. > While neither attorney has yet to file an affidavit, in a short statement, Young alleges that the three, ?unlawfully and feloniously attempted to imprison or forcibly secrete 18 officers with the intent to force them or another person to make a concession to insecure their release.? > District Attorney Brauchler has also charged House with inciting a riot, conspiracy to commit inciting a riot, theft from a person, conspiracy to commit theft from a person, engaging in a riot, conspiracy to commit engaging in a riot, obstructing a highway or other passageway and conspiracy to commit obstructing a highway or other passageway. > Northam has been charged with inciting a riot, conspiracy to incite a riot, theft, conspiracy to commit theft, engaging in a riot, conspiracy to engage in a riot, obstructing a highway or passageway, conspiracy to obstruct highway or passageway, attempted first-degree kidnapping, and obstructing government operations. > Lucero was charged with: attempted first-degree kidnapping, inciting a riot, engaging in a riot, obstructing government operations. Quinn is facing riot charges, false imprisonment and obstructing government operations, while Ruch is charged with theft and conspiracy to commit theft. > Finally, Roberts is facing riot charges, obstructing, and conspiracy to obstruct a highway as well as obstructing government operations. All told the six protesters face 33 felony counts and 34 misdemeanor charges. > In addition to the ?stacking of charges? against the protesters, the manner in which they were arrested represents an escalation of the police-state tactics carried out by federal paramilitaries in cities such as Portland , Oregon, Spokane , Washington, Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania, New York and Kenosha, Wisconsin. These fascistic maneuvers, directed by President Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr, are being dutifully carried out by police departments and federal agencies throughout the country, demonstrating the bipartisan attitude of the ruling class towards those who stand up to police terror. > However, those who think that a Democratic presidency under a Joe Biden administration would be any less vicious in their persecution of the working class would be sorely mistaken. Throughout the summer, Biden has condemned ?anarchist,? ?violent protesters? and ?rioters? while remaining silent on the state assassination of Portland protester Michael Reinoehl. Biden, like Bernie Sanders, advocates increasing funding to murderous police departments while state budgets are being slashed across the country. > While a disproportionate number of minorities, particularly Native American and African-Americans, are victims of police violence, the determining factor if one is going to be a victim of police terror is that they are working class or poor. The police are the enforcers of the capitalist system. They defend the property rights and interests of the ruling class against all threats. > In the end, appeals to the capitalist state for reform or justice are less than helpful. Youth, students and all who oppose unending police murder must orient themselves to the social force which creates all of society?s wealth?the working class?in an international struggle for the abolition of the capitalist system and its replacement with a socialist society. > WSWS.ORG -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Sat Sep 19 20:07:41 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sat, 19 Sep 2020 13:07:41 -0700 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: TOMORROW! September 20th Webinar: Standing Against Racism & War - The Only Road to Peace References: <1134774918563.1134260918491.1893705606.0.590800JL.2002@scheduler.constantcontact.com> Message-ID: > > > > > > > > Tune in on Facebook , Twitter or YouTube > *TOMORROW* > Join us on September 20th, 2020 at 3pm ET/ 12pm PT for our second live-streamed webinar titled: > Standing Against Racism & War - The Only Road to Peace > ? > People from all walks of life are coming together to fight another pandemic - racism. As the US prepares for confrontation and ?major power conflict? with China, millions of Asian-American people are experiencing the racial effects of a new Cold War. We, people inside the United States from a diverse range of backgrounds, are standing together to say NO to racism. > > Today, a new wave of Anti-Asian racism, persecution and discrimination is being directed against Chinese-Americans and Chinese students studying at US universities. The newest wave of anti-Asian racism inside the United States is the direct result of the reorientation of US military policy that puts our country on a ?major power conflict? with China. Now is the time for all people of conscience to stand together to say NO to racism and war, and YES to peace with China. > > Featured Speakers > > > Julie Tang is a retired judge of the San Francisco Superior Court and previously, an Assistant District Attorney in San Francisco . She helped create and presided over the first Domestic Violence Court in San Francisco in 1997. Upon retirement in 2015, Judge Tang works as a part-time mediator and a full-time peace activist. In 2017, she helped co-found the ?Comfort Women? Justice Coalition that built a ?Comfort Women? Memorial in San Francisco. Previously, she had co-founded the ?Rape of Nanjing? Redress Coalition in 1998. In 2020, she and a group of peace activists co-founded the ?Pivot to Peace? organization dedicated to advocating for world peace, in particular, peace between the US and China. > > Dale Minami, besides being a top lawyer in the San Francisco Bay Area in personal litigation, is famously known for leading a legal team of pro bono attorneys in successfully reopening Korematsu v. United States, resulting in the erasure of Fred Korematsu?s criminal conviction for defying the internment of Japanese Americans. He has also been involved in many civil rights class actions suits for minorities and pushed for minorities in the judicial appointment process. > Minami is a co-founder of the Asian Law Caucus, the Asian-American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area, the Asian Pacific Bar of California and the Coalition of Asian Pacific Americans. Minami dedicates his life to equality and justice for all Americans. > > Margaret Kimberley is a co-founder and Editor and Senior Columnist for Black Agenda Report. She is the author of the book ?Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents.? She is also a contributor to the anthologies ?In Defense of Julian Assange,? and ?Killing Trayvons: An Anthology of American Violence.? Ms. Kimberley is an Administrative Committee member of the United National Antiwar Coalition and the Coordinating Committee of Black Alliance for Peace. > > > > Dr. Steven Pei is an engineering professor at the University of Houston. He is a former president of the Houston 80-20 Asian-American Political Action Committee (PAC) and the founding chair of United Chinese-Americans (www.ucausa.org ). He also works with a group of volunteers to advocate for transparency, oversight, and accountability of government to ensure justice and fairness for Asian Americans, in particular, the recent investigation and prosecution of Chinese-American scientists. > > Sameena Rahman is an anti-war activist based in Los Angeles, and is currently a graduate student. She became interested in the anti-war and the anti-imperialist movement based on her experiences growing up in the Middle East, and experiencing Islamophobia post-9/11. > > > > Brian Becker is a long-time activist and is the national director of the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism). > > Carlos Martinez is an activist and author from London, England. He runs the politics/history blog Invent the Future, and is convenor of the No Cold War campaign. His first book, 'The End of the Beginning: Lessons of the Soviet Collapse', was published by LeftWord in 2019. > > Satya Vatti is an immigrant from South-East India, and an anti-war activist based in New Mexico, where she is a leading organizer of the US peace and anti-war movement. She is also a recent nursing school graduate. > > Husayn Karimi is a graduate student in Computer Science at MIT, where he also completed his Bachelor's degree. Karimi is active on campus in campaigns to fight racist discrimination and harassment. > > Sheila Xiao is a research analyst at Rio Hondo Community College. She is an activist and organizer with Pivot to Peace. > We are saddened by the recent passing of peace activist, lawyer and co-director of Popular Resistance, Kevin Zeese. Kevin was a staunch fighter against U.S. imperialism, injustice, and was a beloved member of the progressive community. He was also one of the initial signers of the Pivot to Peace mission statement and advocated for our work on his website, PopularResistance.org. We in Pivot to Peace wish his family and loved ones our condolences during this difficult time. > > Kevin?s memorial is taking place on September 19th at 12pm PT/3pm ET. For this reason, we moved our webinar, Standing Against Racism & War - the Only Road to Peace from September 19th to Sunday, September 20th at 12pm PT/3pm ET. > > Tune in on Facebook , Twitter or YouTube > > Consider donating to Pivot to Peace > Pivot to Peace | Mission Statement | Articles > ?? ?? ?? > Pivot to Peace | 617 Florida Ave NW, Lower Level, Washington, DC 20001 > Unsubscribe karenaram at hotmail.com > Update Profile | About our service provider > Sent by info at peacepivot.org powered by > > Try email marketing for free today! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brussel at illinois.edu Sun Sep 20 00:29:38 2020 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2020 00:29:38 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Colorado police conduct militarized arrests of Party for Socialism and Liberation members In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6F84428E-BB2B-4275-AFE7-73DA00F39CC9@illinois.edu> What is the writer?s source that Sanders wants to increase funding to police departments? [" Biden, like Bernie Sanders, advocates increasing funding to murderous police departments while state budgets are being slashed across the country.?] On Sep 19, 2020, at 11:58 AM, Karen Aram via Peace > wrote: Colorado police conduct militarized arrests of Party for Socialism and Liberation members By Jacob Crosse 19 September 2020 In an alarming escalation of state retaliation against opponents of unending police violence and murder, at least six protesters, four of whom are members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), were arrested by police and SWAT officers with the Aurora, Colorado police department on Thursday. As part of an attempted frame-up, the protesters were arrested and jailed in a series of coordinated militarized raids while they were out in public or at home. Those arrested face a plethora of charges, which, if they are convicted, could mean decades in prison for their alleged roles in four protests and vigils against police violence that took place over the summer. All those arrested have either organized or taken part in demonstrations in Denver?s largest suburb. The protests in Aurora are part of the global wave of multiracial and multiethnic protests by youth, students and workers following the release of video depicting the Memorial Day murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers. Nine months prior to Floyd?s murder, Aurora police were facing widespread anger for their role in the killing of black 23-year-old Elijah McClain last year. Everyone who was arrested in Thursday?s raids?Joel Northam, Terrance Roberts, Lillian House, Whitney Lucero, John Ruch and Trey Quinn?faces felony charges connected to four separate demonstrations held in Aurora on June 27, July 3, July 12 and July 25. A statement from PSL confirms that Ruch, Northam, Lucero and House are members of the party, while Roberts, according to the Denver Post, is the co-founder of the Front Line Party for Revolutionary Action. A statement released by the PSL claims that Ruch was the first to be arrested while sitting in the parking lot of Home Depot. Later that same morning, five police cars surrounded and arrested Lillian House while she was driving. In the afternoon, Northam reports his home was invaded by SWAT teams and a Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) military vehicle, designed to withstand improvised explosive device (IED) attacks. In a PSL Facebook event discussing the arrest, members claimed that Northam was never shown a warrant. Lucero was also arrested Thursday afternoon. As of this writing only one person has been released. The PSL is organizing a rally and march outside the Colorado state capitol in Denver today demanding that all the charges be dropped and their remaining comrades released. The PSL has been among the groups organizing protests in the Denver metropolitan area throughout the summer, demanding justice for McClain. While the official sequence of events that led to McClain?s death might never be known?police purposefully shielded and removed their body cameras during the interaction?it is undisputed that McClain, who never committed a crime, was rendered unconscious after police applied a ?carotid hold? to his neck. Once paramedics arrived, the police lied about the sequence and character of events. McClain, who at this time was already handcuffed and had vomited after being choked out, was then injected with 500 milligrams of ketamine, a powerful sedative, by a paramedic with Aurora Fire Rescue. The dosage, nearly double the recommended amount for someone of his diminutive stature, caused McClain?s pulse and breathing to stop before he went into cardiac arrest. Three days later, after being declared brain-dead, McClain passed. Afterwards, a cover-up ensued with an ?independent investigation? finding no fault on the part of the officers or paramedics. An inconclusive autopsy report, which failed to determine the exact cause of death, conveniently left the state blameless. Protests ignited in June after it was discovered that the ?independent? city investigation into McClain?s murder was being led by attorney Eric Daigle, a former police officer in Connecticut who advertised himself on his website as someone experienced in ?defending municipalities, police chiefs and individual officers from law enforcement liability claims.? After over two million people signed a petition demanding a reopening of the investigation, Democratic Governor Jared Polis announced that his administration would reexamine the case. There are currently five separate investigations in McClain?s murder by various state and federal agencies. Millions of dollars and thousands of hours are being spent to give the appearance of ?justice,? while at the same time Aurora police continue to assault, intimidate, maim and jail protesters, and McClain?s murderers have yet to spend a single hour behind bars. In contrast to the police who killed McClain, the protesters who were arrested remain in jail after district attorneys stacked up to a dozen charges per person, a clear act of intimidation by the ruling class against all those determined to put an end to police violence and racism. The charges are being spearheaded jointly by the 17th judicial district attorney, Dave Young (Democrat) and the 18th judicial district attorney, George Brauchler (Republican). The most serious and ludicrous were levied by Young against Northam, Lucero, and House, for their alleged role in ?kidnapping? police officers outside the Aurora District One police station on July 3. That day, hundreds of protesters had gathered outside the police station demanding the arrest of officers Nathan Woodyard, Jason Rosenblatt, and Randy Roedema. The protests were sparked after a photo was publicly released that showed three Aurora cops, Erica Maerrero, Jaron Jones and Kyle Dittrich, grinning and laughing as they reenacted choking McClain. The photo was sent to Rosenblatt who responded to the disgusting image with a text that read: ?ha ha.? The demonstration outside the police station went into the evening before riot police cleared the roughly 600 protesters with impact and chemical munitions. Attorney Young in his statement alleges that because protesters had surrounded the building, preventing police from leaving ?for seven hours,? Northam, Lucero and House are responsible for attempting to commit first-degree kidnapping, a class 3 felony that carries with it a minimum 1-3 year prison sentence if found guilty. While neither attorney has yet to file an affidavit, in a short statement, Young alleges that the three, ?unlawfully and feloniously attempted to imprison or forcibly secrete 18 officers with the intent to force them or another person to make a concession to insecure their release.? District Attorney Brauchler has also charged House with inciting a riot, conspiracy to commit inciting a riot, theft from a person, conspiracy to commit theft from a person, engaging in a riot, conspiracy to commit engaging in a riot, obstructing a highway or other passageway and conspiracy to commit obstructing a highway or other passageway. Northam has been charged with inciting a riot, conspiracy to incite a riot, theft, conspiracy to commit theft, engaging in a riot, conspiracy to engage in a riot, obstructing a highway or passageway, conspiracy to obstruct highway or passageway, attempted first-degree kidnapping, and obstructing government operations. Lucero was charged with: attempted first-degree kidnapping, inciting a riot, engaging in a riot, obstructing government operations. Quinn is facing riot charges, false imprisonment and obstructing government operations, while Ruch is charged with theft and conspiracy to commit theft. Finally, Roberts is facing riot charges, obstructing, and conspiracy to obstruct a highway as well as obstructing government operations. All told the six protesters face 33 felony counts and 34 misdemeanor charges. In addition to the ?stacking of charges? against the protesters, the manner in which they were arrested represents an escalation of the police-state tactics carried out by federal paramilitaries in cities such as Portland, Oregon, Spokane, Washington, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, New York and Kenosha, Wisconsin. These fascistic maneuvers, directed by President Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr, are being dutifully carried out by police departments and federal agencies throughout the country, demonstrating the bipartisan attitude of the ruling class towards those who stand up to police terror. However, those who think that a Democratic presidency under a Joe Biden administration would be any less vicious in their persecution of the working class would be sorely mistaken. Throughout the summer, Biden has condemned ?anarchist,? ?violent protesters? and ?rioters? while remaining silent on the state assassination of Portland protester Michael Reinoehl. Biden, like Bernie Sanders, advocates increasing funding to murderous police departments while state budgets are being slashed across the country. While a disproportionate number of minorities, particularly Native American and African-Americans, are victims of police violence, the determining factor if one is going to be a victim of police terror is that they are working class or poor. The police are the enforcers of the capitalist system. They defend the property rights and interests of the ruling class against all threats. In the end, appeals to the capitalist state for reform or justice are less than helpful. Youth, students and all who oppose unending police murder must orient themselves to the social force which creates all of society?s wealth?the working class?in an international struggle for the abolition of the capitalist system and its replacement with a socialist society. WSWS.ORG _______________________________________________ Peace mailing list Peace at lists.chambana.net https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Sun Sep 20 12:14:28 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2020 05:14:28 -0700 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Colorado police conduct militarized arrests of Party for Socialism and Liberation members References: Message-ID: > > Good question, I?ll see if I can acquire an answer, because I don?t recall Bernie ever suggesting or advocating increasing funding for police. > >> On Sep 19, 2020, at 17:29, Brussel, Morton K > wrote: >> >> What is the writer?s source that Sanders wants to increase funding to police departments? [" Biden, like Bernie Sanders, advocates increasing funding to murderous police departments while state budgets are being slashed across the country.?] >> >>> On Sep 19, 2020, at 11:58 AM, Karen Aram via Peace > wrote: >>> >>> >>>> Colorado police conduct militarized arrests of Party for Socialism and Liberation members >>>> By Jacob Crosse >>>> 19 September 2020 >>>> In an alarming escalation of state retaliation against opponents of unending police violence and murder, at least six protesters, four of whom are members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), were arrested by police and SWAT officers with the Aurora, Colorado police department on Thursday. >>>> As part of an attempted frame-up, the protesters were arrested and jailed in a series of coordinated militarized raids while they were out in public or at home. Those arrested face a plethora of charges, which, if they are convicted, could mean decades in prison for their alleged roles in four protests and vigils against police violence that took place over the summer. >>>> All those arrested have either organized or taken part in demonstrations in Denver?s largest suburb. The protests in Aurora are part of the global wave of multiracial and multiethnic protests by youth, students and workers following the release of video depicting the Memorial Day murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers. Nine months prior to Floyd?s murder, Aurora police were facing widespread anger for their role in the killing of black 23-year-old Elijah McClain last year . >>>> Everyone who was arrested in Thursday?s raids?Joel Northam, Terrance Roberts, Lillian House, Whitney Lucero, John Ruch and Trey Quinn?faces felony charges connected to four separate demonstrations held in Aurora on June 27, July 3, July 12 and July 25. A statement from PSL confirms that Ruch, Northam, Lucero and House are members of the party, while Roberts, according to the Denver Post, is the co-founder of the Front Line Party for Revolutionary Action. >>>> A statement released by the PSL claims that Ruch was the first to be arrested while sitting in the parking lot of Home Depot. Later that same morning, five police cars surrounded and arrested Lillian House while she was driving. In the afternoon, Northam reports his home was invaded by SWAT teams and a Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) military vehicle, designed to withstand improvised explosive device (IED) attacks. In a PSL Facebook event discussing the arrest, members claimed that Northam was never shown a warrant. Lucero was also arrested Thursday afternoon. >>>> As of this writing only one person has been released. The PSL is organizing a rally and march outside the Colorado state capitol in Denver today demanding that all the charges be dropped and their remaining comrades released. >>>> The PSL has been among the groups organizing protests in the Denver metropolitan area throughout the summer, demanding justice for McClain. While the official sequence of events that led to McClain?s death might never be known?police purposefully shielded and removed their body cameras during the interaction?it is undisputed that McClain, who never committed a crime, was rendered unconscious after police applied a ?carotid hold? to his neck. >>>> Once paramedics arrived, the police lied about the sequence and character of events. McClain, who at this time was already handcuffed and had vomited after being choked out, was then injected with 500 milligrams of ketamine, a powerful sedative, by a paramedic with Aurora Fire Rescue. The dosage, nearly double the recommended amount for someone of his diminutive stature, caused McClain?s pulse and breathing to stop before he went into cardiac arrest. Three days later, after being declared brain-dead, McClain passed. >>>> Afterwards, a cover-up ensued with an ?independent investigation? finding no fault on the part of the officers or paramedics. An inconclusive autopsy report, which failed to determine the exact cause of death, conveniently left the state blameless. >>>> Protests ignited in June after it was discovered that the ?independent? city investigation into McClain?s murder was being led by attorney Eric Daigle, a former police officer in Connecticut who advertised himself on his website as someone experienced in ?defending municipalities, police chiefs and individual officers from law enforcement liability claims.? >>>> After over two million people signed a petition demanding a reopening of the investigation, Democratic Governor Jared Polis announced that his administration would reexamine the case. There are currently five separate investigations in McClain?s murder by various state and federal agencies. Millions of dollars and thousands of hours are being spent to give the appearance of ?justice,? while at the same time Aurora police continue to assault, intimidate, maim and jail protesters, and McClain?s murderers have yet to spend a single hour behind bars. >>>> In contrast to the police who killed McClain, the protesters who were arrested remain in jail after district attorneys stacked up to a dozen charges per person, a clear act of intimidation by the ruling class against all those determined to put an end to police violence and racism. >>>> The charges are being spearheaded jointly by the 17th judicial district attorney, Dave Young (Democrat) and the 18th judicial district attorney, George Brauchler (Republican). The most serious and ludicrous were levied by Young against Northam, Lucero, and House, for their alleged role in ?kidnapping? police officers outside the Aurora District One police station on July 3. >>>> That day, hundreds of protesters had gathered outside the police station demanding the arrest of officers Nathan Woodyard, Jason Rosenblatt, and Randy Roedema. The protests were sparked after a photo was publicly released that showed three Aurora cops, Erica Maerrero, Jaron Jones and Kyle Dittrich, grinning and laughing as they reenacted choking McClain. The photo was sent to Rosenblatt who responded to the disgusting image with a text that read: ?ha ha.? >>>> The demonstration outside the police station went into the evening before riot police cleared the roughly 600 protesters with impact and chemical munitions. Attorney Young in his statement alleges that because protesters had surrounded the building, preventing police from leaving ?for seven hours,? Northam, Lucero and House are responsible for attempting to commit first-degree kidnapping, a class 3 felony that carries with it a minimum 1-3 year prison sentence if found guilty. >>>> While neither attorney has yet to file an affidavit, in a short statement, Young alleges that the three, ?unlawfully and feloniously attempted to imprison or forcibly secrete 18 officers with the intent to force them or another person to make a concession to insecure their release.? >>>> District Attorney Brauchler has also charged House with inciting a riot, conspiracy to commit inciting a riot, theft from a person, conspiracy to commit theft from a person, engaging in a riot, conspiracy to commit engaging in a riot, obstructing a highway or other passageway and conspiracy to commit obstructing a highway or other passageway. >>>> Northam has been charged with inciting a riot, conspiracy to incite a riot, theft, conspiracy to commit theft, engaging in a riot, conspiracy to engage in a riot, obstructing a highway or passageway, conspiracy to obstruct highway or passageway, attempted first-degree kidnapping, and obstructing government operations. >>>> Lucero was charged with: attempted first-degree kidnapping, inciting a riot, engaging in a riot, obstructing government operations. Quinn is facing riot charges, false imprisonment and obstructing government operations, while Ruch is charged with theft and conspiracy to commit theft. >>>> Finally, Roberts is facing riot charges, obstructing, and conspiracy to obstruct a highway as well as obstructing government operations. All told the six protesters face 33 felony counts and 34 misdemeanor charges. >>>> In addition to the ?stacking of charges? against the protesters, the manner in which they were arrested represents an escalation of the police-state tactics carried out by federal paramilitaries in cities such as Portland , Oregon, Spokane , Washington, Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania, New York and Kenosha, Wisconsin. These fascistic maneuvers, directed by President Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr, are being dutifully carried out by police departments and federal agencies throughout the country, demonstrating the bipartisan attitude of the ruling class towards those who stand up to police terror. >>>> However, those who think that a Democratic presidency under a Joe Biden administration would be any less vicious in their persecution of the working class would be sorely mistaken. Throughout the summer, Biden has condemned ?anarchist,? ?violent protesters? and ?rioters? while remaining silent on the state assassination of Portland protester Michael Reinoehl. Biden, like Bernie Sanders, advocates increasing funding to murderous police departments while state budgets are being slashed across the country. >>>> While a disproportionate number of minorities, particularly Native American and African-Americans, are victims of police violence, the determining factor if one is going to be a victim of police terror is that they are working class or poor. The police are the enforcers of the capitalist system. They defend the property rights and interests of the ruling class against all threats. >>>> In the end, appeals to the capitalist state for reform or justice are less than helpful. Youth, students and all who oppose unending police murder must orient themselves to the social force which creates all of society?s wealth?the working class?in an international struggle for the abolition of the capitalist system and its replacement with a socialist society. >>>> WSWS.ORG >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Peace mailing list >>> Peace at lists.chambana.net >>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Sun Sep 20 12:14:28 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2020 05:14:28 -0700 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Colorado police conduct militarized arrests of Party for Socialism and Liberation members References: Message-ID: > > Good question, I?ll see if I can acquire an answer, because I don?t recall Bernie ever suggesting or advocating increasing funding for police. > >> On Sep 19, 2020, at 17:29, Brussel, Morton K > wrote: >> >> What is the writer?s source that Sanders wants to increase funding to police departments? [" Biden, like Bernie Sanders, advocates increasing funding to murderous police departments while state budgets are being slashed across the country.?] >> >>> On Sep 19, 2020, at 11:58 AM, Karen Aram via Peace > wrote: >>> >>> >>>> Colorado police conduct militarized arrests of Party for Socialism and Liberation members >>>> By Jacob Crosse >>>> 19 September 2020 >>>> In an alarming escalation of state retaliation against opponents of unending police violence and murder, at least six protesters, four of whom are members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), were arrested by police and SWAT officers with the Aurora, Colorado police department on Thursday. >>>> As part of an attempted frame-up, the protesters were arrested and jailed in a series of coordinated militarized raids while they were out in public or at home. Those arrested face a plethora of charges, which, if they are convicted, could mean decades in prison for their alleged roles in four protests and vigils against police violence that took place over the summer. >>>> All those arrested have either organized or taken part in demonstrations in Denver?s largest suburb. The protests in Aurora are part of the global wave of multiracial and multiethnic protests by youth, students and workers following the release of video depicting the Memorial Day murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers. Nine months prior to Floyd?s murder, Aurora police were facing widespread anger for their role in the killing of black 23-year-old Elijah McClain last year . >>>> Everyone who was arrested in Thursday?s raids?Joel Northam, Terrance Roberts, Lillian House, Whitney Lucero, John Ruch and Trey Quinn?faces felony charges connected to four separate demonstrations held in Aurora on June 27, July 3, July 12 and July 25. A statement from PSL confirms that Ruch, Northam, Lucero and House are members of the party, while Roberts, according to the Denver Post, is the co-founder of the Front Line Party for Revolutionary Action. >>>> A statement released by the PSL claims that Ruch was the first to be arrested while sitting in the parking lot of Home Depot. Later that same morning, five police cars surrounded and arrested Lillian House while she was driving. In the afternoon, Northam reports his home was invaded by SWAT teams and a Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) military vehicle, designed to withstand improvised explosive device (IED) attacks. In a PSL Facebook event discussing the arrest, members claimed that Northam was never shown a warrant. Lucero was also arrested Thursday afternoon. >>>> As of this writing only one person has been released. The PSL is organizing a rally and march outside the Colorado state capitol in Denver today demanding that all the charges be dropped and their remaining comrades released. >>>> The PSL has been among the groups organizing protests in the Denver metropolitan area throughout the summer, demanding justice for McClain. While the official sequence of events that led to McClain?s death might never be known?police purposefully shielded and removed their body cameras during the interaction?it is undisputed that McClain, who never committed a crime, was rendered unconscious after police applied a ?carotid hold? to his neck. >>>> Once paramedics arrived, the police lied about the sequence and character of events. McClain, who at this time was already handcuffed and had vomited after being choked out, was then injected with 500 milligrams of ketamine, a powerful sedative, by a paramedic with Aurora Fire Rescue. The dosage, nearly double the recommended amount for someone of his diminutive stature, caused McClain?s pulse and breathing to stop before he went into cardiac arrest. Three days later, after being declared brain-dead, McClain passed. >>>> Afterwards, a cover-up ensued with an ?independent investigation? finding no fault on the part of the officers or paramedics. An inconclusive autopsy report, which failed to determine the exact cause of death, conveniently left the state blameless. >>>> Protests ignited in June after it was discovered that the ?independent? city investigation into McClain?s murder was being led by attorney Eric Daigle, a former police officer in Connecticut who advertised himself on his website as someone experienced in ?defending municipalities, police chiefs and individual officers from law enforcement liability claims.? >>>> After over two million people signed a petition demanding a reopening of the investigation, Democratic Governor Jared Polis announced that his administration would reexamine the case. There are currently five separate investigations in McClain?s murder by various state and federal agencies. Millions of dollars and thousands of hours are being spent to give the appearance of ?justice,? while at the same time Aurora police continue to assault, intimidate, maim and jail protesters, and McClain?s murderers have yet to spend a single hour behind bars. >>>> In contrast to the police who killed McClain, the protesters who were arrested remain in jail after district attorneys stacked up to a dozen charges per person, a clear act of intimidation by the ruling class against all those determined to put an end to police violence and racism. >>>> The charges are being spearheaded jointly by the 17th judicial district attorney, Dave Young (Democrat) and the 18th judicial district attorney, George Brauchler (Republican). The most serious and ludicrous were levied by Young against Northam, Lucero, and House, for their alleged role in ?kidnapping? police officers outside the Aurora District One police station on July 3. >>>> That day, hundreds of protesters had gathered outside the police station demanding the arrest of officers Nathan Woodyard, Jason Rosenblatt, and Randy Roedema. The protests were sparked after a photo was publicly released that showed three Aurora cops, Erica Maerrero, Jaron Jones and Kyle Dittrich, grinning and laughing as they reenacted choking McClain. The photo was sent to Rosenblatt who responded to the disgusting image with a text that read: ?ha ha.? >>>> The demonstration outside the police station went into the evening before riot police cleared the roughly 600 protesters with impact and chemical munitions. Attorney Young in his statement alleges that because protesters had surrounded the building, preventing police from leaving ?for seven hours,? Northam, Lucero and House are responsible for attempting to commit first-degree kidnapping, a class 3 felony that carries with it a minimum 1-3 year prison sentence if found guilty. >>>> While neither attorney has yet to file an affidavit, in a short statement, Young alleges that the three, ?unlawfully and feloniously attempted to imprison or forcibly secrete 18 officers with the intent to force them or another person to make a concession to insecure their release.? >>>> District Attorney Brauchler has also charged House with inciting a riot, conspiracy to commit inciting a riot, theft from a person, conspiracy to commit theft from a person, engaging in a riot, conspiracy to commit engaging in a riot, obstructing a highway or other passageway and conspiracy to commit obstructing a highway or other passageway. >>>> Northam has been charged with inciting a riot, conspiracy to incite a riot, theft, conspiracy to commit theft, engaging in a riot, conspiracy to engage in a riot, obstructing a highway or passageway, conspiracy to obstruct highway or passageway, attempted first-degree kidnapping, and obstructing government operations. >>>> Lucero was charged with: attempted first-degree kidnapping, inciting a riot, engaging in a riot, obstructing government operations. Quinn is facing riot charges, false imprisonment and obstructing government operations, while Ruch is charged with theft and conspiracy to commit theft. >>>> Finally, Roberts is facing riot charges, obstructing, and conspiracy to obstruct a highway as well as obstructing government operations. All told the six protesters face 33 felony counts and 34 misdemeanor charges. >>>> In addition to the ?stacking of charges? against the protesters, the manner in which they were arrested represents an escalation of the police-state tactics carried out by federal paramilitaries in cities such as Portland , Oregon, Spokane , Washington, Pittsburgh , Pennsylvania, New York and Kenosha, Wisconsin. These fascistic maneuvers, directed by President Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr, are being dutifully carried out by police departments and federal agencies throughout the country, demonstrating the bipartisan attitude of the ruling class towards those who stand up to police terror. >>>> However, those who think that a Democratic presidency under a Joe Biden administration would be any less vicious in their persecution of the working class would be sorely mistaken. Throughout the summer, Biden has condemned ?anarchist,? ?violent protesters? and ?rioters? while remaining silent on the state assassination of Portland protester Michael Reinoehl. Biden, like Bernie Sanders, advocates increasing funding to murderous police departments while state budgets are being slashed across the country. >>>> While a disproportionate number of minorities, particularly Native American and African-Americans, are victims of police violence, the determining factor if one is going to be a victim of police terror is that they are working class or poor. The police are the enforcers of the capitalist system. They defend the property rights and interests of the ruling class against all threats. >>>> In the end, appeals to the capitalist state for reform or justice are less than helpful. Youth, students and all who oppose unending police murder must orient themselves to the social force which creates all of society?s wealth?the working class?in an international struggle for the abolition of the capitalist system and its replacement with a socialist society. >>>> WSWS.ORG >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Peace mailing list >>> Peace at lists.chambana.net >>> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Sun Sep 20 14:11:46 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2020 07:11:46 -0700 Subject: [Peace] Bernie, the police, and round up of protestors. Message-ID: Mort, please see below one article, referencing another in the New Yorker, in respect to Bernie?s opposition to ?defunding police.? Let me be clear as to my own position: defunding or abolishing police is too simplistic a solution which likely would result in mercenaries being hired by the affluent. Vigilantes roaming the streets with weapons is also an unattractive result. Why do we have so many armed militia groups now? Unemployment is a likely answer. We had an example when the US disarmed Sadam?s military in Iraq, they joined ISIS. Many of the militants joined ISIS as the only jobs available. Without reading the full context of Bernie?s letter we don?t know if he called for the de-militarization of the police, which would be a form of defunding, as well as a major change in training, no more Israeli?s training US police depts. Or as I have pointed out to some locals, Portland solved their problem of police abuse in the 80?s by installing trained volunteers, non police, non weaponed personnel to handle many calls that require merely persuasion, counseling, medical assistance, etc., it has been effective in reducing police crime there for over 30 years. The previous article I submitted, related to the militarized round up and incarceration of peaceful protestors, on trumped charges should send a chill down the spine of every American, given this is the way it begins. Round up of Communists, along murder with impunity of those most vulnerable, being the poor and people of color, in the US African Americans. In response to protests over police violence Sanders opposes ?defunding? police, calls for increased pay for cops By Genevieve Leigh 13 June 2020 Last week, Senator Bernie Sanders wrote a letter to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer politely requesting ?far-reaching reforms? to address the issue of police brutality. Amid nationwide calls against police violence, Sanders? proposals include multiple appeals to increase the funding for police departments and to give police officers a pay raise. The letter states that in order to ?modernize and humanize police departments we need to enhance the recruitment pool by ensuring that the resources are available to pay wages that will attract the top tier officers we need to do the difficult work of policing.? With regard to the epidemic of police murder, Sanders merely calls for the establishment of ?independent police conduct review boards? that would have the authority to refer police violence to federal authorities for investigation. ?Clearly,? he states, ?we need to enhance federal funding for such investigations.? Sanders and Biden In a lengthy interview with the New Yorker magazine released on Wednesday, Sanders was asked about his proposal to increase police department funding. In his response, he denied calling for an increase in funding but doubled down on his call for pay raises for police officers: ?I didn?t call for more money for police departments. I called for police departments that have well-educated, well-trained, well-paid professionals.? Sanders told the New Yorker, ?I think we want to redefine what police departments do.? He concluded by stating that ?anyone who thinks that we should abolish all police departments in America, I don?t agree.? It is difficult to state Sanders? position more plainly than he does himself. Beyond the police officer pay raises, the mild reformist measures that Sanders proposes to ?transform? or ?redefine? the police department broadly fall into one of two categories: either they would never be passed by Congress or, if passed, they would amount to nothing more than ?lipstick on a pig,? as the saying goes. The real significance of Sanders? proposals is that he is openly defending the police against those who are calling for its ?defunding? or abolition. There is nothing that distinguishes Sanders? proposals from any other Democratic Party politician. Under the Obama administration, police killings raged in the US unabated. Obama responded to the killing of Eric Garner in 2014, a police murder that bears a striking resemblance to the killing of George Floyd, by making similar calls for ?patience and persistence.? At the time Obama proclaimed that ?this was the time? to ?start a conversation.? The Obama administration proposed various commissions and bodies supposedly tasked with addressing police violence. Obama went on, however, to continue funneling military equipment to police departments and defending cops whenever cases of police abuse came before the Supreme Court. Sanders? position boils down to an absolute defense of the police, which are an instrument of class rule. Police violence and police repression of mass protests against this violence express this essential role. Sanders? attitude to the police, moreover, is inextricably connected to his defense of the state and in particular the Democratic Party, one of the twin parties of the ruling class. In the 2020 elections, Sanders is attempting to reprise his role in 2016 by channeling opposition behind the Democratic Party. In response to a question on his efforts to support Clinton in the 2016 election, Sanders told the New Yorker, ?I did everything that I could in 2016 to move the Democratic Party in a more progressive way and to see that Hillary Clinton was elected. I worked very, very hard in trying to do that.? Sanders? then argued that ?the difference now? is that he has ?a better relationship? with Biden then he had with Clinton. He added: ?Biden has been much more receptive to sitting down and talking with me and other progressives than we have seen in the past.? Sanders must take his former supporters to be fools. Is one supposed to believe that Biden will be convinced to implement progressive reform based on Sanders? friendly relationship to ?his good friend Joe?? Support for Joe Biden means support for the social interests that he represents and the program that he is advancing. Biden has spent nearly five decades as a faithful servant of the ruling class. He has an extensive record of support for war, austerity, capital punishment and mass incarceration. Furthermore, Biden has made clear that he plans to run a right-wing campaign that includes a major escalation of military tensions with Russia and China. As in 2016, Sanders is insisting that everything must be done to ?defeat Trump.? However, the Trump administration is a product of the capitalist system. It is acting at the behest of the financial oligarchy, which the Democrats represent as well. Moreover, the channeling of social anger behind the right-wing Clinton campaign in 2016 was what allowed Trump to posture as an opponent of the status quo and created the conditions for his victory. Since Trump came to power, the Democrats have worked hand over fist to suppress popular opposition to his administration and have instead elevated the most right-wing military figures as the ?official? opposition. The Democrats?Sanders included?have said nothing about Trump?s efforts to overturn the Constitution and establish military rule. Instead, they have relied on the military as the arbiter of politics in the United States. It is notable that in Sanders? interview with the New Yorker he made a point of praising General James Mattis?s condemnation of Trump?s response to the protests, saying that he was ?very impressed? by the general?s statement. Mattis earned the nickname ?Mad Dog? for leading the bloody US campaign to retake the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004 and boasted to his troops during his command of US forces in Afghanistan that ?it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot? Afghans. Sanders has proven again and again his commitment to upholding the interests of the American ruling class abroad through his consistent votes for the military budget, his support for the war in Afghanistan, his calls for drones??all of that and more??and his statement just this year that ?some wars are necessary.? It should come as no surprise that he supports the defense of these same interests at home. While Sanders is attempting to play the same role that he did in 2016, he is doing so under incredibly explosive conditions in which the class antagonisms within the US are bursting at the seams. In response to the coronavirus pandemic, the corporate and financial oligarchy, after doing nothing to protect the population, moved quickly to transfer trillions of dollars into the coffers of corporations, big business and Wall Street. All of these policies have been unanimously endorsed by the Democratic and Republican politicians alike, including Sanders himself. Whatever their tactical differences, the entire political establishment, Democratic and Republican, defends the police forces of the state and is preparing to use them against growing social opposition in the working class. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Sun Sep 20 14:11:46 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2020 07:11:46 -0700 Subject: [Peace] Bernie, the police, and round up of protestors. Message-ID: Mort, please see below one article, referencing another in the New Yorker, in respect to Bernie?s opposition to ?defunding police.? Let me be clear as to my own position: defunding or abolishing police is too simplistic a solution which likely would result in mercenaries being hired by the affluent. Vigilantes roaming the streets with weapons is also an unattractive result. Why do we have so many armed militia groups now? Unemployment is a likely answer. We had an example when the US disarmed Sadam?s military in Iraq, they joined ISIS. Many of the militants joined ISIS as the only jobs available. Without reading the full context of Bernie?s letter we don?t know if he called for the de-militarization of the police, which would be a form of defunding, as well as a major change in training, no more Israeli?s training US police depts. Or as I have pointed out to some locals, Portland solved their problem of police abuse in the 80?s by installing trained volunteers, non police, non weaponed personnel to handle many calls that require merely persuasion, counseling, medical assistance, etc., it has been effective in reducing police crime there for over 30 years. The previous article I submitted, related to the militarized round up and incarceration of peaceful protestors, on trumped charges should send a chill down the spine of every American, given this is the way it begins. Round up of Communists, along murder with impunity of those most vulnerable, being the poor and people of color, in the US African Americans. In response to protests over police violence Sanders opposes ?defunding? police, calls for increased pay for cops By Genevieve Leigh 13 June 2020 Last week, Senator Bernie Sanders wrote a letter to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer politely requesting ?far-reaching reforms? to address the issue of police brutality. Amid nationwide calls against police violence, Sanders? proposals include multiple appeals to increase the funding for police departments and to give police officers a pay raise. The letter states that in order to ?modernize and humanize police departments we need to enhance the recruitment pool by ensuring that the resources are available to pay wages that will attract the top tier officers we need to do the difficult work of policing.? With regard to the epidemic of police murder, Sanders merely calls for the establishment of ?independent police conduct review boards? that would have the authority to refer police violence to federal authorities for investigation. ?Clearly,? he states, ?we need to enhance federal funding for such investigations.? Sanders and Biden In a lengthy interview with the New Yorker magazine released on Wednesday, Sanders was asked about his proposal to increase police department funding. In his response, he denied calling for an increase in funding but doubled down on his call for pay raises for police officers: ?I didn?t call for more money for police departments. I called for police departments that have well-educated, well-trained, well-paid professionals.? Sanders told the New Yorker, ?I think we want to redefine what police departments do.? He concluded by stating that ?anyone who thinks that we should abolish all police departments in America, I don?t agree.? It is difficult to state Sanders? position more plainly than he does himself. Beyond the police officer pay raises, the mild reformist measures that Sanders proposes to ?transform? or ?redefine? the police department broadly fall into one of two categories: either they would never be passed by Congress or, if passed, they would amount to nothing more than ?lipstick on a pig,? as the saying goes. The real significance of Sanders? proposals is that he is openly defending the police against those who are calling for its ?defunding? or abolition. There is nothing that distinguishes Sanders? proposals from any other Democratic Party politician. Under the Obama administration, police killings raged in the US unabated. Obama responded to the killing of Eric Garner in 2014, a police murder that bears a striking resemblance to the killing of George Floyd, by making similar calls for ?patience and persistence.? At the time Obama proclaimed that ?this was the time? to ?start a conversation.? The Obama administration proposed various commissions and bodies supposedly tasked with addressing police violence. Obama went on, however, to continue funneling military equipment to police departments and defending cops whenever cases of police abuse came before the Supreme Court. Sanders? position boils down to an absolute defense of the police, which are an instrument of class rule. Police violence and police repression of mass protests against this violence express this essential role. Sanders? attitude to the police, moreover, is inextricably connected to his defense of the state and in particular the Democratic Party, one of the twin parties of the ruling class. In the 2020 elections, Sanders is attempting to reprise his role in 2016 by channeling opposition behind the Democratic Party. In response to a question on his efforts to support Clinton in the 2016 election, Sanders told the New Yorker, ?I did everything that I could in 2016 to move the Democratic Party in a more progressive way and to see that Hillary Clinton was elected. I worked very, very hard in trying to do that.? Sanders? then argued that ?the difference now? is that he has ?a better relationship? with Biden then he had with Clinton. He added: ?Biden has been much more receptive to sitting down and talking with me and other progressives than we have seen in the past.? Sanders must take his former supporters to be fools. Is one supposed to believe that Biden will be convinced to implement progressive reform based on Sanders? friendly relationship to ?his good friend Joe?? Support for Joe Biden means support for the social interests that he represents and the program that he is advancing. Biden has spent nearly five decades as a faithful servant of the ruling class. He has an extensive record of support for war, austerity, capital punishment and mass incarceration. Furthermore, Biden has made clear that he plans to run a right-wing campaign that includes a major escalation of military tensions with Russia and China. As in 2016, Sanders is insisting that everything must be done to ?defeat Trump.? However, the Trump administration is a product of the capitalist system. It is acting at the behest of the financial oligarchy, which the Democrats represent as well. Moreover, the channeling of social anger behind the right-wing Clinton campaign in 2016 was what allowed Trump to posture as an opponent of the status quo and created the conditions for his victory. Since Trump came to power, the Democrats have worked hand over fist to suppress popular opposition to his administration and have instead elevated the most right-wing military figures as the ?official? opposition. The Democrats?Sanders included?have said nothing about Trump?s efforts to overturn the Constitution and establish military rule. Instead, they have relied on the military as the arbiter of politics in the United States. It is notable that in Sanders? interview with the New Yorker he made a point of praising General James Mattis?s condemnation of Trump?s response to the protests, saying that he was ?very impressed? by the general?s statement. Mattis earned the nickname ?Mad Dog? for leading the bloody US campaign to retake the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004 and boasted to his troops during his command of US forces in Afghanistan that ?it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot? Afghans. Sanders has proven again and again his commitment to upholding the interests of the American ruling class abroad through his consistent votes for the military budget, his support for the war in Afghanistan, his calls for drones??all of that and more??and his statement just this year that ?some wars are necessary.? It should come as no surprise that he supports the defense of these same interests at home. While Sanders is attempting to play the same role that he did in 2016, he is doing so under incredibly explosive conditions in which the class antagonisms within the US are bursting at the seams. In response to the coronavirus pandemic, the corporate and financial oligarchy, after doing nothing to protect the population, moved quickly to transfer trillions of dollars into the coffers of corporations, big business and Wall Street. All of these policies have been unanimously endorsed by the Democratic and Republican politicians alike, including Sanders himself. Whatever their tactical differences, the entire political establishment, Democratic and Republican, defends the police forces of the state and is preparing to use them against growing social opposition in the working class. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Sun Sep 20 15:42:51 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2020 08:42:51 -0700 Subject: [Peace] Incredibly important Message-ID: Break Through News reporting on the thousands demonstrating in Denver against the police killing of another young AfroAmerican with impunity, and the recent round up and arrests of Socialist/Communist protest leaders https://www.facebook.com/BTnewsroom From karenaram at hotmail.com Sun Sep 20 15:42:51 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2020 08:42:51 -0700 Subject: [Peace] Incredibly important Message-ID: Break Through News reporting on the thousands demonstrating in Denver against the police killing of another young AfroAmerican with impunity, and the recent round up and arrests of Socialist/Communist protest leaders https://www.facebook.com/BTnewsroom From brussel at illinois.edu Mon Sep 21 03:51:03 2020 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2020 03:51:03 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Bernie, the police, and round up of protestors. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8BB085E0-809F-43D6-B0BF-14DC6B903D2B@illinois.edu> Reading all this leaves me with the notion that ideology of both the right and the left tends to obscure reality. There?s more to the develpment of society than just economics and class. Culture and mores are not totally encompassed by economic arguments in my opinion. The attack on Sanders and his statements about the police, and the author?s claim that Sanders is simply a lapdog for the Dems is trite, simplistic. He?s more complicated than that. Police do obviously have a positive societal function relative to obvious civic criminality as defined by just law, helping old people crossing streets, directing traffic, etc., and just how that function is put into play is vitally important, but their other more malign function is to protect the status quo, a repressive function, especially when the "status quo" is the realm of those who govern, usually the wealthy, ?lite, the corrupt and powerful who are pitted against those who struggle for greater equality, opportunity, ?justice?, and societal resources. I don?t think one needs to argue about the obvious fantasyland occupied by right wing totalitarianism, corporatism, neoliberalism, the rule of those who are willing to ruin the earth for their selfish inhumane interests. I?m wandering?, but have in mind that Sanders? statements regarding police funding involves the issues cited above. It should be said that I am not a full fledged admirer of Sanders, especially on foreigh policy, and military and national security. Thanks Karen for your thoughts and reference on this issue. On Sep 20, 2020, at 9:11 AM, Karen Aram > wrote: Mort, please see below one article, referencing another in the New Yorker, in respect to Bernie?s opposition to ?defunding police.? Let me be clear as to my own position: defunding or abolishing police is too simplistic a solution which likely would result in mercenaries being hired by the affluent. Vigilantes roaming the streets with weapons is also an unattractive result. Why do we have so many armed militia groups now? Unemployment is a likely answer. We had an example when the US disarmed Sadam?s military in Iraq, they joined ISIS. Many of the militants joined ISIS as the only jobs available. Without reading the full context of Bernie?s letter we don?t know if he called for the de-militarization of the police, which would be a form of defunding, as well as a major change in training, no more Israeli?s training US police depts. Or as I have pointed out to some locals, Portland solved their problem of police abuse in the 80?s by installing trained volunteers, non police, non weaponed personnel to handle many calls that require merely persuasion, counseling, medical assistance, etc., it has been effective in reducing police crime there for over 30 years. The previous article I submitted, related to the militarized round up and incarceration of peaceful protestors, on trumped charges should send a chill down the spine of every American, given this is the way it begins. Round up of Communists, along murder with impunity of those most vulnerable, being the poor and people of color, in the US African Americans. In response to protests over police violence Sanders opposes ?defunding? police, calls for increased pay for cops By Genevieve Leigh 13 June 2020 Last week, Senator Bernie Sanders wrote a letter to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer politely requesting ?far-reaching reforms? to address the issue of police brutality. Amid nationwide calls against police violence, Sanders? proposals include multiple appeals to increase the funding for police departments and to give police officers a pay raise. The letter states that in order to ?modernize and humanize police departments we need to enhance the recruitment pool by ensuring that the resources are available to pay wages that will attract the top tier officers we need to do the difficult work of policing.? With regard to the epidemic of police murder, Sanders merely calls for the establishment of ?independent police conduct review boards? that would have the authority to refer police violence to federal authorities for investigation. ?Clearly,? he states, ?we need to enhance federal funding for such investigations.? [https://www.wsws.org/asset/02c94738-78e2-4d6f-9c71-748d622eb02I/image.jpg?rendition=image480]Sanders and Biden In a lengthy interview with the New Yorker magazine released on Wednesday, Sanders was asked about his proposal to increase police department funding. In his response, he denied calling for an increase in funding but doubled down on his call for pay raises for police officers: ?I didn?t call for more money for police departments. I called for police departments that have well-educated, well-trained, well-paid professionals.? Sanders told the New Yorker, ?I think we want to redefine what police departments do.? He concluded by stating that ?anyone who thinks that we should abolish all police departments in America, I don?t agree.? It is difficult to state Sanders? position more plainly than he does himself. Beyond the police officer pay raises, the mild reformist measures that Sanders proposes to ?transform? or ?redefine? the police department broadly fall into one of two categories: either they would never be passed by Congress or, if passed, they would amount to nothing more than ?lipstick on a pig,? as the saying goes. The real significance of Sanders? proposals is that he is openly defending the police against those who are calling for its ?defunding? or abolition. There is nothing that distinguishes Sanders? proposals from any other Democratic Party politician. Under the Obama administration, police killings raged in the US unabated. Obama responded to the killing of Eric Garner in 2014, a police murder that bears a striking resemblance to the killing of George Floyd, by making similar calls for ?patience and persistence.? At the time Obama proclaimed that ?this was the time? to ?start a conversation.? The Obama administration proposed various commissions and bodies supposedly tasked with addressing police violence. Obama went on, however, to continue funneling military equipment to police departments and defending cops whenever cases of police abuse came before the Supreme Court. Sanders? position boils down to an absolute defense of the police, which are an instrument of class rule. Police violence and police repression of mass protests against this violence express this essential role. Sanders? attitude to the police, moreover, is inextricably connected to his defense of the state and in particular the Democratic Party, one of the twin parties of the ruling class. In the 2020 elections, Sanders is attempting to reprise his role in 2016 by channeling opposition behind the Democratic Party. In response to a question on his efforts to support Clinton in the 2016 election, Sanders told the New Yorker, ?I did everything that I could in 2016 to move the Democratic Party in a more progressive way and to see that Hillary Clinton was elected. I worked very, very hard in trying to do that.? Sanders? then argued that ?the difference now? is that he has ?a better relationship? with Biden then he had with Clinton. He added: ?Biden has been much more receptive to sitting down and talking with me and other progressives than we have seen in the past.? Sanders must take his former supporters to be fools. Is one supposed to believe that Biden will be convinced to implement progressive reform based on Sanders? friendly relationship to ?his good friend Joe?? Support for Joe Biden means support for the social interests that he represents and the program that he is advancing. Biden has spent nearly five decades as a faithful servant of the ruling class. He has an extensive record of support for war, austerity, capital punishment and mass incarceration. Furthermore, Biden has made clear that he plans to run a right-wing campaign that includes a major escalation of military tensions with Russia and China. As in 2016, Sanders is insisting that everything must be done to ?defeat Trump.? However, the Trump administration is a product of the capitalist system. It is acting at the behest of the financial oligarchy, which the Democrats represent as well. Moreover, the channeling of social anger behind the right-wing Clinton campaign in 2016 was what allowed Trump to posture as an opponent of the status quo and created the conditions for his victory. Since Trump came to power, the Democrats have worked hand over fist to suppress popular opposition to his administration and have instead elevated the most right-wing military figures as the ?official? opposition. The Democrats?Sanders included?have said nothing about Trump?s efforts to overturn the Constitution and establish military rule. Instead, they have relied on the military as the arbiter of politics in the United States. It is notable that in Sanders? interview with the New Yorker he made a point of praising General James Mattis?s condemnation of Trump?s response to the protests, saying that he was ?very impressed? by the general?s statement. Mattis earned the nickname ?Mad Dog? for leading the bloody US campaign to retake the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004 and boasted to his troops during his command of US forces in Afghanistan that ?it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot? Afghans. Sanders has proven again and again his commitment to upholding the interests of the American ruling class abroad through his consistent votes for the military budget, his support for the war in Afghanistan, his calls for drones??all of that and more??and his statement just this year that ?some wars are necessary.? It should come as no surprise that he supports the defense of these same interests at home. While Sanders is attempting to play the same role that he did in 2016, he is doing so under incredibly explosive conditions in which the class antagonisms within the US are bursting at the seams. In response to the coronavirus pandemic, the corporate and financial oligarchy, after doing nothing to protect the population, moved quickly to transfer trillions of dollars into the coffers of corporations, big business and Wall Street. All of these policies have been unanimously endorsed by the Democratic and Republican politicians alike, including Sanders himself. Whatever their tactical differences, the entire political establishment, Democratic and Republican, defends the police forces of the state and is preparing to use them against growing social opposition in the working class. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brussel at illinois.edu Mon Sep 21 03:51:03 2020 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2020 03:51:03 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Bernie, the police, and round up of protestors. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8BB085E0-809F-43D6-B0BF-14DC6B903D2B@illinois.edu> Reading all this leaves me with the notion that ideology of both the right and the left tends to obscure reality. There?s more to the develpment of society than just economics and class. Culture and mores are not totally encompassed by economic arguments in my opinion. The attack on Sanders and his statements about the police, and the author?s claim that Sanders is simply a lapdog for the Dems is trite, simplistic. He?s more complicated than that. Police do obviously have a positive societal function relative to obvious civic criminality as defined by just law, helping old people crossing streets, directing traffic, etc., and just how that function is put into play is vitally important, but their other more malign function is to protect the status quo, a repressive function, especially when the "status quo" is the realm of those who govern, usually the wealthy, ?lite, the corrupt and powerful who are pitted against those who struggle for greater equality, opportunity, ?justice?, and societal resources. I don?t think one needs to argue about the obvious fantasyland occupied by right wing totalitarianism, corporatism, neoliberalism, the rule of those who are willing to ruin the earth for their selfish inhumane interests. I?m wandering?, but have in mind that Sanders? statements regarding police funding involves the issues cited above. It should be said that I am not a full fledged admirer of Sanders, especially on foreigh policy, and military and national security. Thanks Karen for your thoughts and reference on this issue. On Sep 20, 2020, at 9:11 AM, Karen Aram > wrote: Mort, please see below one article, referencing another in the New Yorker, in respect to Bernie?s opposition to ?defunding police.? Let me be clear as to my own position: defunding or abolishing police is too simplistic a solution which likely would result in mercenaries being hired by the affluent. Vigilantes roaming the streets with weapons is also an unattractive result. Why do we have so many armed militia groups now? Unemployment is a likely answer. We had an example when the US disarmed Sadam?s military in Iraq, they joined ISIS. Many of the militants joined ISIS as the only jobs available. Without reading the full context of Bernie?s letter we don?t know if he called for the de-militarization of the police, which would be a form of defunding, as well as a major change in training, no more Israeli?s training US police depts. Or as I have pointed out to some locals, Portland solved their problem of police abuse in the 80?s by installing trained volunteers, non police, non weaponed personnel to handle many calls that require merely persuasion, counseling, medical assistance, etc., it has been effective in reducing police crime there for over 30 years. The previous article I submitted, related to the militarized round up and incarceration of peaceful protestors, on trumped charges should send a chill down the spine of every American, given this is the way it begins. Round up of Communists, along murder with impunity of those most vulnerable, being the poor and people of color, in the US African Americans. In response to protests over police violence Sanders opposes ?defunding? police, calls for increased pay for cops By Genevieve Leigh 13 June 2020 Last week, Senator Bernie Sanders wrote a letter to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer politely requesting ?far-reaching reforms? to address the issue of police brutality. Amid nationwide calls against police violence, Sanders? proposals include multiple appeals to increase the funding for police departments and to give police officers a pay raise. The letter states that in order to ?modernize and humanize police departments we need to enhance the recruitment pool by ensuring that the resources are available to pay wages that will attract the top tier officers we need to do the difficult work of policing.? With regard to the epidemic of police murder, Sanders merely calls for the establishment of ?independent police conduct review boards? that would have the authority to refer police violence to federal authorities for investigation. ?Clearly,? he states, ?we need to enhance federal funding for such investigations.? [https://www.wsws.org/asset/02c94738-78e2-4d6f-9c71-748d622eb02I/image.jpg?rendition=image480]Sanders and Biden In a lengthy interview with the New Yorker magazine released on Wednesday, Sanders was asked about his proposal to increase police department funding. In his response, he denied calling for an increase in funding but doubled down on his call for pay raises for police officers: ?I didn?t call for more money for police departments. I called for police departments that have well-educated, well-trained, well-paid professionals.? Sanders told the New Yorker, ?I think we want to redefine what police departments do.? He concluded by stating that ?anyone who thinks that we should abolish all police departments in America, I don?t agree.? It is difficult to state Sanders? position more plainly than he does himself. Beyond the police officer pay raises, the mild reformist measures that Sanders proposes to ?transform? or ?redefine? the police department broadly fall into one of two categories: either they would never be passed by Congress or, if passed, they would amount to nothing more than ?lipstick on a pig,? as the saying goes. The real significance of Sanders? proposals is that he is openly defending the police against those who are calling for its ?defunding? or abolition. There is nothing that distinguishes Sanders? proposals from any other Democratic Party politician. Under the Obama administration, police killings raged in the US unabated. Obama responded to the killing of Eric Garner in 2014, a police murder that bears a striking resemblance to the killing of George Floyd, by making similar calls for ?patience and persistence.? At the time Obama proclaimed that ?this was the time? to ?start a conversation.? The Obama administration proposed various commissions and bodies supposedly tasked with addressing police violence. Obama went on, however, to continue funneling military equipment to police departments and defending cops whenever cases of police abuse came before the Supreme Court. Sanders? position boils down to an absolute defense of the police, which are an instrument of class rule. Police violence and police repression of mass protests against this violence express this essential role. Sanders? attitude to the police, moreover, is inextricably connected to his defense of the state and in particular the Democratic Party, one of the twin parties of the ruling class. In the 2020 elections, Sanders is attempting to reprise his role in 2016 by channeling opposition behind the Democratic Party. In response to a question on his efforts to support Clinton in the 2016 election, Sanders told the New Yorker, ?I did everything that I could in 2016 to move the Democratic Party in a more progressive way and to see that Hillary Clinton was elected. I worked very, very hard in trying to do that.? Sanders? then argued that ?the difference now? is that he has ?a better relationship? with Biden then he had with Clinton. He added: ?Biden has been much more receptive to sitting down and talking with me and other progressives than we have seen in the past.? Sanders must take his former supporters to be fools. Is one supposed to believe that Biden will be convinced to implement progressive reform based on Sanders? friendly relationship to ?his good friend Joe?? Support for Joe Biden means support for the social interests that he represents and the program that he is advancing. Biden has spent nearly five decades as a faithful servant of the ruling class. He has an extensive record of support for war, austerity, capital punishment and mass incarceration. Furthermore, Biden has made clear that he plans to run a right-wing campaign that includes a major escalation of military tensions with Russia and China. As in 2016, Sanders is insisting that everything must be done to ?defeat Trump.? However, the Trump administration is a product of the capitalist system. It is acting at the behest of the financial oligarchy, which the Democrats represent as well. Moreover, the channeling of social anger behind the right-wing Clinton campaign in 2016 was what allowed Trump to posture as an opponent of the status quo and created the conditions for his victory. Since Trump came to power, the Democrats have worked hand over fist to suppress popular opposition to his administration and have instead elevated the most right-wing military figures as the ?official? opposition. The Democrats?Sanders included?have said nothing about Trump?s efforts to overturn the Constitution and establish military rule. Instead, they have relied on the military as the arbiter of politics in the United States. It is notable that in Sanders? interview with the New Yorker he made a point of praising General James Mattis?s condemnation of Trump?s response to the protests, saying that he was ?very impressed? by the general?s statement. Mattis earned the nickname ?Mad Dog? for leading the bloody US campaign to retake the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004 and boasted to his troops during his command of US forces in Afghanistan that ?it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot? Afghans. Sanders has proven again and again his commitment to upholding the interests of the American ruling class abroad through his consistent votes for the military budget, his support for the war in Afghanistan, his calls for drones??all of that and more??and his statement just this year that ?some wars are necessary.? It should come as no surprise that he supports the defense of these same interests at home. While Sanders is attempting to play the same role that he did in 2016, he is doing so under incredibly explosive conditions in which the class antagonisms within the US are bursting at the seams. In response to the coronavirus pandemic, the corporate and financial oligarchy, after doing nothing to protect the population, moved quickly to transfer trillions of dollars into the coffers of corporations, big business and Wall Street. All of these policies have been unanimously endorsed by the Democratic and Republican politicians alike, including Sanders himself. Whatever their tactical differences, the entire political establishment, Democratic and Republican, defends the police forces of the state and is preparing to use them against growing social opposition in the working class. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbn at forestfield.org Mon Sep 21 04:56:50 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2020 23:56:50 -0500 Subject: [Peace] AOTA/NFN recommended videos Message-ID: <03597ff13d5471bd5d7b04a82fc3990de87af0ff.camel@forestfield.org> Here's another batch of recommended videos for AWARE on the Air and News from Neptune timeslots. As before, any other AWARE/NFN people's videos should be prioritized before my suggestions. This should be enough to cover a couple of weeks. Thanks to Jason Liggett for playing these videos on UPTV for us. -J RT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ8aW58JCnA -- (28m 02s) Chris Hedges interviews Rick Wolff on "USA political and economic collapse" including some critical examination of the CARES Act which gets far too little coverage (and certainly very few people highlighting how those in Congress who rail against it and call themselves "progressive" voted for it anyhow). Wolff said how important and good it was for the NBA to strike. Since this interview was recorded, former Pres. Obama spoke with the NBA and convinced the NBA to end their worker-focused strike. Obama's siding with the 1% again hasn't received a lot of press and not much overdue criticism. Jimmy Dore covered Obama's talk properly in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPurnjICe2o Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ8aW58JCnA -- (28m 2s) Chris Hedges interviews Richard Wolff about US economic collapse Transcript: https://www.rt.com/shows/on-contact/500592-economic-political-collapse-usa/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dm_gZGrGx0I -- (5m 41s) "What really happened to Navalny?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19H60U-LJ8Q -- (26m 46s) Chris Hedges interviews Mobolaji Olambiwonnu, director and producer of the new film "Ferguson Rises" ( https://www.gofundme.com/f/ferguson-rises-racial-healing-documentary) about the rise of the new black militancy RedFish https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q30EN4vbouU -- (25m 5s) Joe Glenton's documentary: "Journalism on Trial: The UK & Press Freedom" about Assange's extradition and its importance to journalism and press freedom worldwide. Includes interviews with John Shipton, Assange's father, media scholars, and journalists. The Grayzone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-Rc-FZrdAo -- (54m 50s) Venezuela captures "US spy" allegedly plotting to sabotage oil refineries; Anya Parampil interviews Diego Sequera, columnist for Misi?n Verdad ( https://medium.com/@misionverdad2012) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suD9VCrSCZI -- (33m 14s) Trump's "Patriot Education" (from the "1776 Commission") whitewashes racist, imperialist history; Aaron Mat? interviews Gerald Horne, historian. This includes (starting at 14m20s) Horne's response to criticism of the 1619 Project from the World Socialist website (specifically https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/09/06/1619-s06.html). The 1619 Project has received criticism from News from Neptune as well (see previously posted show notes for links). From karenaram at hotmail.com Mon Sep 21 14:57:12 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2020 07:57:12 -0700 Subject: [Peace] Bernie, the police, and round up of protestors. In-Reply-To: <8BB085E0-809F-43D6-B0BF-14DC6B903D2B@illinois.edu> References: <8BB085E0-809F-43D6-B0BF-14DC6B903D2B@illinois.edu> Message-ID: I?m sorry that this discussion has turned into another ?he said, she said,? focus on the individual. To quote Chomsky: ?The world is at the most dangerous moment in history.? "The US professor warns that the climate crisis, the threat of nuclear war and rising authoritarianism mean the risk of human extinction has never been greater.? He is spot on when we consider the recent fires throughout the west coast, the military on the streets of Portland, melting glaciers and rising sea levels, as well as the recent abrogation of the US/China ?One China Policy,? agreement, as we sell more weapons to Taiwan. The Pentagon has just moved more troops and weapons into Syria to counteract Russia. I do see economics, or the ?material conditions,? as the base for policies of racism, and discrimination, whether here or abroad. Capitalism thrives on war and interventions, it needs imperialism to survive. Racist policies were necessary to contain and maintain slavery and continuing exploitation. Today the killing of AfroAmerican?s by police with impunity is nothing new and blatant as we continue to eliminate those we see as expendable, beginning with people of color, but to include all poor. As to culture, yes it certainly does matter, Gramsci focused on it: ?In his essay ?The Intellectuals,? written between 1929 and 1935, Gramsci described the power of ideology to reproduce the social structure through institutions such as religion and education.? Wikipedia. Today I?m sure, Gramsci would be crediting the media, which includes the entertainment industry. As well as the ?Mindfulness,? focus which began during the sixties by the CIA, influenced by Edward Bernaise with their Cointelprogram under the ?Congress of Cultural Freedom,? focused on creating a culture of individualism in order to prevent the type of collectivism the unions, communists and socialists of the past, used to influence FDR that brought about the 8 hour working day, the New Deal plus other marks of civilization for which the US became known, but no longer exist. The original article I posted by the WSWS was not hyperbolic, in reference to the round up of socialists and communists. When one considers thousands of people have been protesting in the Denver area over the murder of a young AfroAmerican, by police with impunity, per usual. Then we have police going to the homes of some leaders, primarily socialists of the ?Party for Socialism and Liberation," a growing organization of young people across the US, to arrest and incarcerate on absurd allegations. This act to deter protests, is historical in its focus on those who threaten power. Please see BreakThroughNews, which goes into detail: https://www.facebook.com/BTnewsroom/?__tn__=kCH-R&eid=ARA8bCChXYVocai9aWSM5XZQ_ebM1HHzcrZ9ZMv-rAzuHTdlTZ_y-GaGH75aWHOrZvqh. > On Sep 20, 2020, at 20:51, Brussel, Morton K wrote: > > Reading all this leaves me with the notion that ideology of both the right and the left tends to obscure reality. There?s more to the develpment of society than just economics and class. Culture and mores are not totally encompassed by economic arguments in my opinion. > > The attack on Sanders and his statements about the police, and the author?s claim that Sanders is simply a lapdog for the Dems is trite, simplistic. He?s more complicated than that. > > Police do obviously have a positive societal function relative to obvious civic criminality as defined by just law, helping old people crossing streets, directing traffic, etc., and just how that function is put into play is vitally important, but their other more malign function is to protect the status quo, a repressive function, especially when the "status quo" is the realm of those who govern, usually the wealthy, ?lite, the corrupt and powerful who are pitted against those who struggle for greater equality, opportunity, ?justice?, and societal resources. I don?t think one needs to argue about the obvious fantasyland occupied by right wing totalitarianism, corporatism, neoliberalism, the rule of those who are willing to ruin the earth for their selfish inhumane interests. > > I?m wandering?, but have in mind that Sanders? statements regarding police funding involves the issues cited above. > It should be said that I am not a full fledged admirer of Sanders, especially on foreigh policy, and military and national security. > > Thanks Karen for your thoughts and reference on this issue. > >> On Sep 20, 2020, at 9:11 AM, Karen Aram > wrote: >> >> Mort, please see below one article, referencing another in the New Yorker, in respect to Bernie?s opposition to ?defunding police.? >> >> Let me be clear as to my own position: defunding or abolishing police is too simplistic a solution which likely would result in mercenaries being hired by the affluent. Vigilantes roaming the streets with weapons is also an unattractive result. Why do we have so many armed militia groups now? Unemployment is a likely answer. We had an example when the US disarmed Sadam?s military in Iraq, they joined ISIS. Many of the militants joined ISIS as the only jobs available. >> >> Without reading the full context of Bernie?s letter we don?t know if he called for the de-militarization of the police, which would be a form of defunding, as well as a major change in training, no more Israeli?s training US police depts. Or as I have pointed out to some locals, Portland solved their problem of police abuse in the 80?s by installing trained volunteers, non police, non weaponed personnel to handle many calls that require merely persuasion, counseling, medical assistance, etc., it has been effective in reducing police crime there for over 30 years. >> >> The previous article I submitted, related to the militarized round up and incarceration of peaceful protestors, on trumped charges should send a chill down the spine of every American, given this is the way it begins. Round up of Communists, along murder with impunity of those most vulnerable, being the poor and people of color, in the US African Americans. >> In response to protests over police violence >> Sanders opposes ?defunding? police, calls for increased pay for cops >> By Genevieve Leigh >> 13 June 2020 >> Last week, Senator Bernie Sanders wrote a letter to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer politely requesting ?far-reaching reforms? to address the issue of police brutality. Amid nationwide calls against police violence, Sanders? proposals include multiple appeals to increase the funding for police departments and to give police officers a pay raise. >> The letter states that in order to ?modernize and humanize police departments we need to enhance the recruitment pool by ensuring that the resources are available to pay wages that will attract the top tier officers we need to do the difficult work of policing.? >> With regard to the epidemic of police murder, Sanders merely calls for the establishment of ?independent police conduct review boards? that would have the authority to refer police violence to federal authorities for investigation. ?Clearly,? he states, ?we need to enhance federal funding for such investigations.? >> >> Sanders and Biden >> In a lengthy interview with the New Yorker magazine released on Wednesday, Sanders was asked about his proposal to increase police department funding. In his response, he denied calling for an increase in funding but doubled down on his call for pay raises for police officers: ?I didn?t call for more money for police departments. I called for police departments that have well-educated, well-trained, well-paid professionals.? >> Sanders told the New Yorker, ?I think we want to redefine what police departments do.? >> He concluded by stating that ?anyone who thinks that we should abolish all police departments in America, I don?t agree.? >> It is difficult to state Sanders? position more plainly than he does himself. >> Beyond the police officer pay raises, the mild reformist measures that Sanders proposes to ?transform? or ?redefine? the police department broadly fall into one of two categories: either they would never be passed by Congress or, if passed, they would amount to nothing more than ?lipstick on a pig,? as the saying goes. >> The real significance of Sanders? proposals is that he is openly defending the police against those who are calling for its ?defunding? or abolition. >> There is nothing that distinguishes Sanders? proposals from any other Democratic Party politician. Under the Obama administration, police killings raged in the US unabated. Obama responded to the killing of Eric Garner in 2014, a police murder that bears a striking resemblance to the killing of George Floyd, by making similar calls for ?patience and persistence.? At the time Obama proclaimed that ?this was the time? to ?start a conversation.? >> The Obama administration proposed various commissions and bodies supposedly tasked with addressing police violence. Obama went on, however, to continue funneling military equipment to police departments and defending cops whenever cases of police abuse came before the Supreme Court. >> Sanders? position boils down to an absolute defense of the police, which are an instrument of class rule. Police violence and police repression of mass protests against this violence express this essential role. >> Sanders? attitude to the police, moreover, is inextricably connected to his defense of the state and in particular the Democratic Party, one of the twin parties of the ruling class. >> In the 2020 elections, Sanders is attempting to reprise his role in 2016 by channeling opposition behind the Democratic Party. In response to a question on his efforts to support Clinton in the 2016 election, Sanders told the New Yorker, ?I did everything that I could in 2016 to move the Democratic Party in a more progressive way and to see that Hillary Clinton was elected. I worked very, very hard in trying to do that.? >> Sanders? then argued that ?the difference now? is that he has ?a better relationship? with Biden then he had with Clinton. He added: ?Biden has been much more receptive to sitting down and talking with me and other progressives than we have seen in the past.? >> Sanders must take his former supporters to be fools. Is one supposed to believe that Biden will be convinced to implement progressive reform based on Sanders? friendly relationship to ?his good friend Joe?? >> Support for Joe Biden means support for the social interests that he represents and the program that he is advancing. Biden has spent nearly five decades as a faithful servant of the ruling class. He has an extensive record of support for war, austerity, capital punishment and mass incarceration. Furthermore, Biden has made clear that he plans to run a right-wing campaign that includes a major escalation of military tensions with Russia and China. >> As in 2016, Sanders is insisting that everything must be done to ?defeat Trump.? However, the Trump administration is a product of the capitalist system. It is acting at the behest of the financial oligarchy, which the Democrats represent as well. Moreover, the channeling of social anger behind the right-wing Clinton campaign in 2016 was what allowed Trump to posture as an opponent of the status quo and created the conditions for his victory. >> Since Trump came to power, the Democrats have worked hand over fist to suppress popular opposition to his administration and have instead elevated the most right-wing military figures as the ?official? opposition. >> The Democrats?Sanders included?have said nothing about Trump?s efforts to overturn the Constitution and establish military rule. Instead, they have relied on the military as the arbiter of politics in the United States. >> It is notable that in Sanders? interview with the New Yorker he made a point of praising General James Mattis?s condemnation of Trump?s response to the protests, saying that he was ?very impressed? by the general?s statement. Mattis earned the nickname ?Mad Dog? for leading the bloody US campaign to retake the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004 and boasted to his troops during his command of US forces in Afghanistan that ?it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot? Afghans. >> Sanders has proven again and again his commitment to upholding the interests of the American ruling class abroad through his consistent votes for the military budget, his support for the war in Afghanistan, his calls for drones??all of that and more??and his statement just this year that ?some wars are necessary.? It should come as no surprise that he supports the defense of these same interests at home. >> While Sanders is attempting to play the same role that he did in 2016, he is doing so under incredibly explosive conditions in which the class antagonisms within the US are bursting at the seams. >> In response to the coronavirus pandemic, the corporate and financial oligarchy, after doing nothing to protect the population, moved quickly to transfer trillions of dollars into the coffers of corporations, big business and Wall Street. All of these policies have been unanimously endorsed by the Democratic and Republican politicians alike, including Sanders himself. >> Whatever their tactical differences, the entire political establishment, Democratic and Republican, defends the police forces of the state and is preparing to use them against growing social opposition in the working class. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Mon Sep 21 14:57:12 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2020 07:57:12 -0700 Subject: [Peace] Bernie, the police, and round up of protestors. In-Reply-To: <8BB085E0-809F-43D6-B0BF-14DC6B903D2B@illinois.edu> References: <8BB085E0-809F-43D6-B0BF-14DC6B903D2B@illinois.edu> Message-ID: I?m sorry that this discussion has turned into another ?he said, she said,? focus on the individual. To quote Chomsky: ?The world is at the most dangerous moment in history.? "The US professor warns that the climate crisis, the threat of nuclear war and rising authoritarianism mean the risk of human extinction has never been greater.? He is spot on when we consider the recent fires throughout the west coast, the military on the streets of Portland, melting glaciers and rising sea levels, as well as the recent abrogation of the US/China ?One China Policy,? agreement, as we sell more weapons to Taiwan. The Pentagon has just moved more troops and weapons into Syria to counteract Russia. I do see economics, or the ?material conditions,? as the base for policies of racism, and discrimination, whether here or abroad. Capitalism thrives on war and interventions, it needs imperialism to survive. Racist policies were necessary to contain and maintain slavery and continuing exploitation. Today the killing of AfroAmerican?s by police with impunity is nothing new and blatant as we continue to eliminate those we see as expendable, beginning with people of color, but to include all poor. As to culture, yes it certainly does matter, Gramsci focused on it: ?In his essay ?The Intellectuals,? written between 1929 and 1935, Gramsci described the power of ideology to reproduce the social structure through institutions such as religion and education.? Wikipedia. Today I?m sure, Gramsci would be crediting the media, which includes the entertainment industry. As well as the ?Mindfulness,? focus which began during the sixties by the CIA, influenced by Edward Bernaise with their Cointelprogram under the ?Congress of Cultural Freedom,? focused on creating a culture of individualism in order to prevent the type of collectivism the unions, communists and socialists of the past, used to influence FDR that brought about the 8 hour working day, the New Deal plus other marks of civilization for which the US became known, but no longer exist. The original article I posted by the WSWS was not hyperbolic, in reference to the round up of socialists and communists. When one considers thousands of people have been protesting in the Denver area over the murder of a young AfroAmerican, by police with impunity, per usual. Then we have police going to the homes of some leaders, primarily socialists of the ?Party for Socialism and Liberation," a growing organization of young people across the US, to arrest and incarcerate on absurd allegations. This act to deter protests, is historical in its focus on those who threaten power. Please see BreakThroughNews, which goes into detail: https://www.facebook.com/BTnewsroom/?__tn__=kCH-R&eid=ARA8bCChXYVocai9aWSM5XZQ_ebM1HHzcrZ9ZMv-rAzuHTdlTZ_y-GaGH75aWHOrZvqh. > On Sep 20, 2020, at 20:51, Brussel, Morton K wrote: > > Reading all this leaves me with the notion that ideology of both the right and the left tends to obscure reality. There?s more to the develpment of society than just economics and class. Culture and mores are not totally encompassed by economic arguments in my opinion. > > The attack on Sanders and his statements about the police, and the author?s claim that Sanders is simply a lapdog for the Dems is trite, simplistic. He?s more complicated than that. > > Police do obviously have a positive societal function relative to obvious civic criminality as defined by just law, helping old people crossing streets, directing traffic, etc., and just how that function is put into play is vitally important, but their other more malign function is to protect the status quo, a repressive function, especially when the "status quo" is the realm of those who govern, usually the wealthy, ?lite, the corrupt and powerful who are pitted against those who struggle for greater equality, opportunity, ?justice?, and societal resources. I don?t think one needs to argue about the obvious fantasyland occupied by right wing totalitarianism, corporatism, neoliberalism, the rule of those who are willing to ruin the earth for their selfish inhumane interests. > > I?m wandering?, but have in mind that Sanders? statements regarding police funding involves the issues cited above. > It should be said that I am not a full fledged admirer of Sanders, especially on foreigh policy, and military and national security. > > Thanks Karen for your thoughts and reference on this issue. > >> On Sep 20, 2020, at 9:11 AM, Karen Aram > wrote: >> >> Mort, please see below one article, referencing another in the New Yorker, in respect to Bernie?s opposition to ?defunding police.? >> >> Let me be clear as to my own position: defunding or abolishing police is too simplistic a solution which likely would result in mercenaries being hired by the affluent. Vigilantes roaming the streets with weapons is also an unattractive result. Why do we have so many armed militia groups now? Unemployment is a likely answer. We had an example when the US disarmed Sadam?s military in Iraq, they joined ISIS. Many of the militants joined ISIS as the only jobs available. >> >> Without reading the full context of Bernie?s letter we don?t know if he called for the de-militarization of the police, which would be a form of defunding, as well as a major change in training, no more Israeli?s training US police depts. Or as I have pointed out to some locals, Portland solved their problem of police abuse in the 80?s by installing trained volunteers, non police, non weaponed personnel to handle many calls that require merely persuasion, counseling, medical assistance, etc., it has been effective in reducing police crime there for over 30 years. >> >> The previous article I submitted, related to the militarized round up and incarceration of peaceful protestors, on trumped charges should send a chill down the spine of every American, given this is the way it begins. Round up of Communists, along murder with impunity of those most vulnerable, being the poor and people of color, in the US African Americans. >> In response to protests over police violence >> Sanders opposes ?defunding? police, calls for increased pay for cops >> By Genevieve Leigh >> 13 June 2020 >> Last week, Senator Bernie Sanders wrote a letter to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer politely requesting ?far-reaching reforms? to address the issue of police brutality. Amid nationwide calls against police violence, Sanders? proposals include multiple appeals to increase the funding for police departments and to give police officers a pay raise. >> The letter states that in order to ?modernize and humanize police departments we need to enhance the recruitment pool by ensuring that the resources are available to pay wages that will attract the top tier officers we need to do the difficult work of policing.? >> With regard to the epidemic of police murder, Sanders merely calls for the establishment of ?independent police conduct review boards? that would have the authority to refer police violence to federal authorities for investigation. ?Clearly,? he states, ?we need to enhance federal funding for such investigations.? >> >> Sanders and Biden >> In a lengthy interview with the New Yorker magazine released on Wednesday, Sanders was asked about his proposal to increase police department funding. In his response, he denied calling for an increase in funding but doubled down on his call for pay raises for police officers: ?I didn?t call for more money for police departments. I called for police departments that have well-educated, well-trained, well-paid professionals.? >> Sanders told the New Yorker, ?I think we want to redefine what police departments do.? >> He concluded by stating that ?anyone who thinks that we should abolish all police departments in America, I don?t agree.? >> It is difficult to state Sanders? position more plainly than he does himself. >> Beyond the police officer pay raises, the mild reformist measures that Sanders proposes to ?transform? or ?redefine? the police department broadly fall into one of two categories: either they would never be passed by Congress or, if passed, they would amount to nothing more than ?lipstick on a pig,? as the saying goes. >> The real significance of Sanders? proposals is that he is openly defending the police against those who are calling for its ?defunding? or abolition. >> There is nothing that distinguishes Sanders? proposals from any other Democratic Party politician. Under the Obama administration, police killings raged in the US unabated. Obama responded to the killing of Eric Garner in 2014, a police murder that bears a striking resemblance to the killing of George Floyd, by making similar calls for ?patience and persistence.? At the time Obama proclaimed that ?this was the time? to ?start a conversation.? >> The Obama administration proposed various commissions and bodies supposedly tasked with addressing police violence. Obama went on, however, to continue funneling military equipment to police departments and defending cops whenever cases of police abuse came before the Supreme Court. >> Sanders? position boils down to an absolute defense of the police, which are an instrument of class rule. Police violence and police repression of mass protests against this violence express this essential role. >> Sanders? attitude to the police, moreover, is inextricably connected to his defense of the state and in particular the Democratic Party, one of the twin parties of the ruling class. >> In the 2020 elections, Sanders is attempting to reprise his role in 2016 by channeling opposition behind the Democratic Party. In response to a question on his efforts to support Clinton in the 2016 election, Sanders told the New Yorker, ?I did everything that I could in 2016 to move the Democratic Party in a more progressive way and to see that Hillary Clinton was elected. I worked very, very hard in trying to do that.? >> Sanders? then argued that ?the difference now? is that he has ?a better relationship? with Biden then he had with Clinton. He added: ?Biden has been much more receptive to sitting down and talking with me and other progressives than we have seen in the past.? >> Sanders must take his former supporters to be fools. Is one supposed to believe that Biden will be convinced to implement progressive reform based on Sanders? friendly relationship to ?his good friend Joe?? >> Support for Joe Biden means support for the social interests that he represents and the program that he is advancing. Biden has spent nearly five decades as a faithful servant of the ruling class. He has an extensive record of support for war, austerity, capital punishment and mass incarceration. Furthermore, Biden has made clear that he plans to run a right-wing campaign that includes a major escalation of military tensions with Russia and China. >> As in 2016, Sanders is insisting that everything must be done to ?defeat Trump.? However, the Trump administration is a product of the capitalist system. It is acting at the behest of the financial oligarchy, which the Democrats represent as well. Moreover, the channeling of social anger behind the right-wing Clinton campaign in 2016 was what allowed Trump to posture as an opponent of the status quo and created the conditions for his victory. >> Since Trump came to power, the Democrats have worked hand over fist to suppress popular opposition to his administration and have instead elevated the most right-wing military figures as the ?official? opposition. >> The Democrats?Sanders included?have said nothing about Trump?s efforts to overturn the Constitution and establish military rule. Instead, they have relied on the military as the arbiter of politics in the United States. >> It is notable that in Sanders? interview with the New Yorker he made a point of praising General James Mattis?s condemnation of Trump?s response to the protests, saying that he was ?very impressed? by the general?s statement. Mattis earned the nickname ?Mad Dog? for leading the bloody US campaign to retake the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004 and boasted to his troops during his command of US forces in Afghanistan that ?it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot? Afghans. >> Sanders has proven again and again his commitment to upholding the interests of the American ruling class abroad through his consistent votes for the military budget, his support for the war in Afghanistan, his calls for drones??all of that and more??and his statement just this year that ?some wars are necessary.? It should come as no surprise that he supports the defense of these same interests at home. >> While Sanders is attempting to play the same role that he did in 2016, he is doing so under incredibly explosive conditions in which the class antagonisms within the US are bursting at the seams. >> In response to the coronavirus pandemic, the corporate and financial oligarchy, after doing nothing to protect the population, moved quickly to transfer trillions of dollars into the coffers of corporations, big business and Wall Street. All of these policies have been unanimously endorsed by the Democratic and Republican politicians alike, including Sanders himself. >> Whatever their tactical differences, the entire political establishment, Democratic and Republican, defends the police forces of the state and is preparing to use them against growing social opposition in the working class. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Mon Sep 21 19:39:52 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2020 12:39:52 -0700 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Supreme Court: After Ginsberg -- Barrett? References: Message-ID: > From: Institute for Public Accuracy > > Sent: Monday, September 21, 2020 8:08 AM > > > Supreme Court: After Ginsberg -- Barrett? > > On Saturday The Guardian reported: "Francis Boyle, a law professor at the University of Illinois, said: 'From [Republicans?] perspective, this is the chance of a lifetime to turn the court to the right. > > ?'If you have a look at the opinions coming down this term, several of them were five to four, waffling on both sides of the issue, but now you?re definitely going to have six to three. So I don?t I think the Republicans will pass this opportunity.'" > > NBC reports: "Amy Coney Barrett, a federal appellate court judge, has emerged as one of the front-runners to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, three sources told NBC News." > > FRANCIS BOYLE, fboyle at illinois.edu > The New York Times in "To Conservatives, Barrett Has ?Perfect Combination? of Attributes for Supreme Court " quotes Barrett mentor Judge Patrick J. Schiltz: ?The question of what we believe as a religious matter has nothing to do with what we believe a written document says.? > > Said Boyle: "That's rubbish. It's like John Roberts saying that he was just going to be calling balls and strikes. And she was at Notre Dame Law School. When I interviewed with them in the late 1970s, I was told by the dean that law professors took a required pledge that they had to conduct themselves consistent with 'Catholic values,' which I took to mean I would not teach, write or advocate in favor of abortion rights. Has Barrett taken any kind of pledge that's relevant to her being on the Court? She is being positioned for the Supreme Court to do a job and overturning Roe v. Wade will be part of it." > > Barrett is a member of the rightwing Federalist Society and Boyle has been a longtime critic of the group (see "Hijacking Justice " from 1999 in Emerge magazine), which is now widely acknowledged as being remarkably influential in shaping the Federal judiciary. > > Since the Kavanaugh nomination , Boyle has advocated that when the Democrats obtain control of the presidency and both Houses of Congress, they should increase the number of members of the Supreme Court, an idea that has recently gained wider attention, see recent episode of "The Katie Halper Show ." > > Boyle added: "Biden has come out against packing the Supreme Court. No surprise there. This is not a symmetrical situation. The Republicans have always played hard-ball on judicial appointments. They have been packing the Federal courts with Federalist Society members since Ronald Reagan and his White House Counsel and then Attorney General Edwin Meese, a leader of the Federalist Society. Establishment Democrats don?t care all that much despite what they say." > > Boyle was the lawyer for the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war and genocide against them before the International Court of Justice. In that capacity, he represented the 40,000 raped women of Bosnia, argued their case for genocide before the World Court, and won two World Court Orders protecting them. > > For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy: > Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167 > > September 21, 2020 > > Institute for Public Accuracy > 980 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045 > accuracy.org * ipa at accuracy.org > @accuracy * ipaccuracy > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Mon Sep 21 19:39:52 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2020 12:39:52 -0700 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Supreme Court: After Ginsberg -- Barrett? References: Message-ID: > From: Institute for Public Accuracy > > Sent: Monday, September 21, 2020 8:08 AM > > > Supreme Court: After Ginsberg -- Barrett? > > On Saturday The Guardian reported: "Francis Boyle, a law professor at the University of Illinois, said: 'From [Republicans?] perspective, this is the chance of a lifetime to turn the court to the right. > > ?'If you have a look at the opinions coming down this term, several of them were five to four, waffling on both sides of the issue, but now you?re definitely going to have six to three. So I don?t I think the Republicans will pass this opportunity.'" > > NBC reports: "Amy Coney Barrett, a federal appellate court judge, has emerged as one of the front-runners to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, three sources told NBC News." > > FRANCIS BOYLE, fboyle at illinois.edu > The New York Times in "To Conservatives, Barrett Has ?Perfect Combination? of Attributes for Supreme Court " quotes Barrett mentor Judge Patrick J. Schiltz: ?The question of what we believe as a religious matter has nothing to do with what we believe a written document says.? > > Said Boyle: "That's rubbish. It's like John Roberts saying that he was just going to be calling balls and strikes. And she was at Notre Dame Law School. When I interviewed with them in the late 1970s, I was told by the dean that law professors took a required pledge that they had to conduct themselves consistent with 'Catholic values,' which I took to mean I would not teach, write or advocate in favor of abortion rights. Has Barrett taken any kind of pledge that's relevant to her being on the Court? She is being positioned for the Supreme Court to do a job and overturning Roe v. Wade will be part of it." > > Barrett is a member of the rightwing Federalist Society and Boyle has been a longtime critic of the group (see "Hijacking Justice " from 1999 in Emerge magazine), which is now widely acknowledged as being remarkably influential in shaping the Federal judiciary. > > Since the Kavanaugh nomination , Boyle has advocated that when the Democrats obtain control of the presidency and both Houses of Congress, they should increase the number of members of the Supreme Court, an idea that has recently gained wider attention, see recent episode of "The Katie Halper Show ." > > Boyle added: "Biden has come out against packing the Supreme Court. No surprise there. This is not a symmetrical situation. The Republicans have always played hard-ball on judicial appointments. They have been packing the Federal courts with Federalist Society members since Ronald Reagan and his White House Counsel and then Attorney General Edwin Meese, a leader of the Federalist Society. Establishment Democrats don?t care all that much despite what they say." > > Boyle was the lawyer for the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war and genocide against them before the International Court of Justice. In that capacity, he represented the 40,000 raped women of Bosnia, argued their case for genocide before the World Court, and won two World Court Orders protecting them. > > For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy: > Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167 > > September 21, 2020 > > Institute for Public Accuracy > 980 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045 > accuracy.org * ipa at accuracy.org > @accuracy * ipaccuracy > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Tue Sep 22 11:54:48 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2020 04:54:48 -0700 Subject: [Peace] Andre Vltchek died. Message-ID: Another loss to humanity........along with political activist Kevin Zeese, Prof. Stephen Cohen, Prof. David Graeber, Andre Vltchek all within a few weeks. Rebecca Chan 1h Andre Vltchek found dead in Istanbul ????? ISTANBUL-Anadolu Agency American journalist found dead in Istanbul A Russian-born American documentary film maker and investigate journalist has been found dead in a car in Istanbul?s Karak?y neighborhood. The 57-year old journalist Andre Vltchek and his wife, Indira Vltchek, rented a car to travel to Istanbul from the Black Sea province of Samsun, where the Vltcheks spent some days. Two drivers also accompanied them during the trip. When they arrived at a hotel in Karak?y at 5:30 a:m, where the couple was planning to stay, Indira Vltchek tried to wake him up. But the journalist did not respond. His wife and the drivers called the emergency services for help. The medical team, which arrived at the scene, pronounced Andre Vltchek dead. The police sealed off the street where the incident occurred while a crime scene investigation team searched the area. The police recorded the case as ?suspicious death? and launched an investigation into the demise of the American journalist. The car was towed to a parking lot of the police station for further investigation and his body was moved to a forensic morgue. The wife and the two drivers are expected to give their statements regarding the incident. https://andrevltchek.weebly.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Tue Sep 22 11:54:48 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2020 04:54:48 -0700 Subject: [Peace] Andre Vltchek died. Message-ID: Another loss to humanity........along with political activist Kevin Zeese, Prof. Stephen Cohen, Prof. David Graeber, Andre Vltchek all within a few weeks. Rebecca Chan 1h Andre Vltchek found dead in Istanbul ????? ISTANBUL-Anadolu Agency American journalist found dead in Istanbul A Russian-born American documentary film maker and investigate journalist has been found dead in a car in Istanbul?s Karak?y neighborhood. The 57-year old journalist Andre Vltchek and his wife, Indira Vltchek, rented a car to travel to Istanbul from the Black Sea province of Samsun, where the Vltcheks spent some days. Two drivers also accompanied them during the trip. When they arrived at a hotel in Karak?y at 5:30 a:m, where the couple was planning to stay, Indira Vltchek tried to wake him up. But the journalist did not respond. His wife and the drivers called the emergency services for help. The medical team, which arrived at the scene, pronounced Andre Vltchek dead. The police sealed off the street where the incident occurred while a crime scene investigation team searched the area. The police recorded the case as ?suspicious death? and launched an investigation into the demise of the American journalist. The car was towed to a parking lot of the police station for further investigation and his body was moved to a forensic morgue. The wife and the two drivers are expected to give their statements regarding the incident. https://andrevltchek.weebly.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Tue Sep 22 14:37:10 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2020 07:37:10 -0700 Subject: [Peace] nexamp community solar energy Message-ID: Does anyone have experience with nexamp, which is making a ?too good to be true, offer?? https://illinois.nexamp.com/?utm_campaign=Illinois&utm_source=GOOGLE-AMEREN&utm_medium=BRAND-EXACT&utm_content=RSA&gclid=CjwKCAj From brussel at illinois.edu Tue Sep 22 16:34:41 2020 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2020 16:34:41 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Andre Vltchek died. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2A3CB86C-F827-4743-AC2E-549324A1A489@illinois.edu> Sad. And fishy. More information needed?including an autopsy? On Sep 22, 2020, at 6:54 AM, Karen Aram via Peace > wrote: Another loss to humanity........along with political activist Kevin Zeese, Prof. Stephen Cohen, Prof. David Graeber, Andre Vltchek all within a few weeks. Rebecca Chan 1h Andre Vltchek found dead in Istanbul ????? ISTANBUL-Anadolu Agency American journalist found dead in Istanbul A Russian-born American documentary film maker and investigate journalist has been found dead in a car in Istanbul?s Karak?y neighborhood. The 57-year old journalist Andre Vltchek and his wife, Indira Vltchek, rented a car to travel to Istanbul from the Black Sea province of Samsun, where the Vltcheks spent some days. Two drivers also accompanied them during the trip. When they arrived at a hotel in Karak?y at 5:30 a:m, where the couple was planning to stay, Indira Vltchek tried to wake him up. But the journalist did not respond. His wife and the drivers called the emergency services for help. The medical team, which arrived at the scene, pronounced Andre Vltchek dead. The police sealed off the street where the incident occurred while a crime scene investigation team searched the area. The police recorded the case as ?suspicious death? and launched an investigation into the demise of the American journalist. The car was towed to a parking lot of the police station for further investigation and his body was moved to a forensic morgue. The wife and the two drivers are expected to give their statements regarding the incident. https://andrevltchek.weebly.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 brussel at illinois.edu Tue Sep 22 16:34:41 2020 From: brussel at illinois.edu (Brussel, Morton K) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2020 16:34:41 +0000 Subject: [Peace] Andre Vltchek died. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2A3CB86C-F827-4743-AC2E-549324A1A489@illinois.edu> Sad. And fishy. More information needed?including an autopsy? On Sep 22, 2020, at 6:54 AM, Karen Aram via Peace > wrote: Another loss to humanity........along with political activist Kevin Zeese, Prof. Stephen Cohen, Prof. David Graeber, Andre Vltchek all within a few weeks. Rebecca Chan 1h Andre Vltchek found dead in Istanbul ????? ISTANBUL-Anadolu Agency American journalist found dead in Istanbul A Russian-born American documentary film maker and investigate journalist has been found dead in a car in Istanbul?s Karak?y neighborhood. The 57-year old journalist Andre Vltchek and his wife, Indira Vltchek, rented a car to travel to Istanbul from the Black Sea province of Samsun, where the Vltcheks spent some days. Two drivers also accompanied them during the trip. When they arrived at a hotel in Karak?y at 5:30 a:m, where the couple was planning to stay, Indira Vltchek tried to wake him up. But the journalist did not respond. His wife and the drivers called the emergency services for help. The medical team, which arrived at the scene, pronounced Andre Vltchek dead. The police sealed off the street where the incident occurred while a crime scene investigation team searched the area. The police recorded the case as ?suspicious death? and launched an investigation into the demise of the American journalist. The car was towed to a parking lot of the police station for further investigation and his body was moved to a forensic morgue. The wife and the two drivers are expected to give their statements regarding the incident. https://andrevltchek.weebly.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 jbw292002 at gmail.com Tue Sep 22 18:59:38 2020 From: jbw292002 at gmail.com (John W.) Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2020 13:59:38 -0500 Subject: [Peace] nexamp community solar energy In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I too would be interested. I've been getting their ads/e-mails for some time. I'm not aware of any local "solar farms" that serve residential customers, but of course I could be wrong. I watched the video and read the fine print, and still don't really understand it. John Wason On Tue, Sep 22, 2020 at 9:37 AM Karen Aram via Peace < peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote: Does anyone have experience with nexamp, which is making a ?too good to be > true, offer?? > > > https://illinois.nexamp.com/?utm_campaign=Illinois&utm_source=GOOGLE-AMEREN&utm_medium=BRAND-EXACT&utm_content=RSA&gclid=CjwKCAj > _______________________________________________ > 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 Sep 23 22:56:50 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2020 15:56:50 -0700 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Sign on to the public statement: Drop the charges on Denver anti-racist organizers! References: <5f6bc576178a2_66b91084f5c939d@asgworker-qmb3-10.nbuild.prd.useast1.3dna.io.mail> Message-ID: > > > Add your name: Drop the bogus felony charges on Denver anti-racist organizers! > > Add your name to the solidarity statement here > Donate to the legal and political defense fund > > This is an Outrage! Six days after their unjust arrest, three anti-racist organizers in Denver are still in jail and still have not even been brought before a judge. This is clearly a punitive detention and a gross violation of their legal rights. The conditions inside the jail are terrible and unsafe. This is a purely political case -- state repression against the leaders of peaceful protests demanding justice for Elijah McClain. > > After six days, three of the organizers still On Sept. 17, police agencies in the Denver area arrested several leading anti-racist organizers in a coordinated assault. People were arrested in a Home Depot parking lot, at their home by SWAT teams and pulled over while driving. The arrests targeted the movement to demand justice for Elijah McClain, who was brutally murdered by the Aurora Police Department. They are facing multiple felony charges and years in prison in an obvious frame-up aimed at stopping the movement for justice for Elijah McClain. > > The same District Attorney, Dave Young, who has refused to charge the police officers who murdered Elijah McClain, directed these felony arrests of the organizers who have been protesting against him including four members of the PSL. He is engaged in a corrupt abuse of his authority to silence his critics and the demands for racial justice, a declaration of war against the First Amendment. > > To defeat this outrageous attack, the targeted organizers need the greatest number of individuals and organizations possible to show their support. Sign on to the solidarity statement today! > The organizers now face over thirty bogus charges including ?kidnapping? and ?inciting a riot.? A mass campaign has been launched to win their freedom and drop these absurd and outrageous charges. > > Much is at stake. The movement of the people has grown to one of the largest in U.S. history in the last few months since the murder of George Floyd set off a detonator in the fight against police violence and racism. But the forces of the Trump administration and supporters of the status quo at every level of government are trying to destroy and intimidate the Black Lives Matter movement with trumped up charges and retaliation against leaders, street repression, the denial of civil liberties and false propaganda to demonize this just movement. > > > ANSWER Coalition ? United States > You can also keep up with ANSWER Coalition on Facebook . > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Thu Sep 24 00:43:00 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2020 17:43:00 -0700 Subject: [Peace] AOTA/NFN recommended videos In-Reply-To: <03597ff13d5471bd5d7b04a82fc3990de87af0ff.camel@forestfield.org> References: <03597ff13d5471bd5d7b04a82fc3990de87af0ff.camel@forestfield.org> Message-ID: You?ve outdone yourself this time J.B., good stuff here. > On Sep 20, 2020, at 21:56, J.B. Nicholson via Peace wrote: > > Here's another batch of recommended videos for AWARE on the Air and > News from Neptune timeslots. As before, any other AWARE/NFN people's > videos should be prioritized before my suggestions. This should be > enough to cover a couple of weeks. > > Thanks to Jason Liggett for playing these videos on UPTV for us. > > -J > > > > RT > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ8aW58JCnA -- (28m 02s) Chris Hedges > interviews Rick Wolff on "USA political and economic collapse" including some critical examination of the CARES Act which gets far too little coverage (and certainly very few people highlighting how those in Congress who rail against it and call themselves "progressive" voted for it anyhow). > > Wolff said how important and good it was for the NBA to strike. Since > this interview was recorded, former Pres. Obama spoke with the NBA and convinced the NBA to end their worker-focused strike. Obama's siding with the 1% again hasn't received a lot of press and not much overdue criticism. Jimmy Dore covered Obama's talk properly in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPurnjICe2o > > Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ8aW58JCnA -- (28m 2s) Chris > Hedges interviews Richard Wolff about US economic collapse > Transcript: > https://www.rt.com/shows/on-contact/500592-economic-political-collapse-usa/ > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dm_gZGrGx0I -- (5m 41s) "What really > happened to Navalny?" > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19H60U-LJ8Q -- (26m 46s) Chris Hedges > interviews Mobolaji Olambiwonnu, director and producer of the new film > "Ferguson Rises" ( > https://www.gofundme.com/f/ferguson-rises-racial-healing-documentary) > about the rise of the new black militancy > > > > RedFish > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q30EN4vbouU -- (25m 5s) Joe Glenton's > documentary: "Journalism on Trial: The UK & Press Freedom" about > Assange's extradition and its importance to journalism and press > freedom worldwide. Includes interviews with John Shipton, Assange's > father, media scholars, and journalists. > > > > The Grayzone > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-Rc-FZrdAo -- (54m 50s) Venezuela > captures "US spy" allegedly plotting to sabotage oil refineries; Anya > Parampil interviews Diego Sequera, columnist for Misi?n Verdad ( > https://medium.com/@misionverdad2012) > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suD9VCrSCZI -- (33m 14s) Trump's > "Patriot Education" (from the "1776 Commission") whitewashes racist, > imperialist history; Aaron Mat? interviews Gerald Horne, historian. > This includes (starting at 14m20s) Horne's response to criticism of the > 1619 Project from the World Socialist website (specifically > https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/09/06/1619-s06.html). The 1619 > Project has received criticism from News from Neptune as well (see > previously posted show notes for links). > > _______________________________________________ > Peace mailing list > Peace at lists.chambana.net > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace From karenaram at hotmail.com Thu Sep 24 02:13:13 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2020 19:13:13 -0700 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Last chance to make a difference ...Coal ash rulemaking References: <12ea730e465c405d8539d4f48780b5e2@ecojusticecollaborative.org> Message-ID: > > From: "Pam Richart, Eco-Justice Collaborative" > Subject: Last chance to make a difference ...Coal ash rulemaking > > > > > Coal ash along the Middle Fork of the Vermilion River. Will Vistra Do What's?Right? Photo by Jeff Lucas. > > Your Voice Now Will Make The > Difference for Future Generations > The Coal Ash Pollution Prevention Act, passed in 2019 was just the first step in bringing about regulations that will protect Illinois residents from the effects of toxic coal ash pollution. Over 80 coal ash storage sites throughout Illinois are threatening the health and safety of our residents. Now the Illinois EPA and the Illinois Pollution Control Board must develop the detailed rules that will govern coal ash management and disposal in the coming years. > > The IPCB is ready to hold a second round of virtual public hearings on September 30th and October 1st. A huge thank you to those who already submitted written comments or made oral comments in August. But if you didn't ... This is another opportunity for YOU to make your voice heard. And we intend to make it easy. > > You can participate in three ways: > Watch and Listen - We want as many people as possible to connect remotely to show the IPCB how much the public supports strong coal ash rules. You may use either your phone or WebEx video conferencing. > Read a short statement into the record - Tell the IPCB about the risks of coal ash pollution near you and why you want strong rules to make sure that your community and the environment are safe. These statements should be no longer than 2 to 3 minutes and can be pre-written. You will not have to answer any questions. > > Send the IPCB your written comments via email - These may be longer and will carry equal weight to spoken comments. > > Here is the Schedule for the Public: > Wednesday, September 30th from Noon to 1:30pm. > Thursday, October 1st from 5:30 to 7:00pm. > > Dan River Clean Up after coal ash spill. 2014. Photo by U.S. Fish and Wildlife. > > To Participate: > Sign up here to say that you are attending at least a portion of the hearings and/or making a comment. Indicate that you are participating as a supporter of EJC. > Click here to view a guidance document that will give you talking points and more detailed instructions on how to participate in the hearing, including how to call in or connect remotely to the State?s WebEx video conferencing service. > > Register here to attend a virtual comment writing party this coming Sunday, September 20 at 2pm. You can ask questions, share your thoughts, and hear what others are thinking. Can?t make that day or time? Here are two other opportunities.: > > Tuesday, September 22nd at 6pm. Register here . > Thursday, September 24th at 3pm. Register here . > Call in on September 30th or October 1st and let the IPCB know how you feel. > > We have come very far in the campaign to protect Illinois residents from toxic coal ash. As we head into the final rulemaking process, we need to hear your voice one more time. If you have any questions, call Lan Richart at 773.556.3417. > > > DONATE > > Eco-Justice Collaborative > 919 W. University Avenue > Champaign IL 61821 United States > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From susanroseparenti at gmail.com Thu Sep 24 21:20:31 2020 From: susanroseparenti at gmail.com (Susan Parenti) Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2020 16:20:31 -0500 Subject: [Peace] On the eve of the Global Climate Change Strike, we have GLAD news. Message-ID: Dear friend, I hope you are as well as can be. We have good news?those of us who attempted to save the 175 Canada geese in our park in June?and failed to do so?are turning that experience into a new organization: a community non profit we're calling F.O.G. (Friends of Geese!) Its mission is to support and protect the Grand Canada Geese by educating and involving people in the community to learn how?in a hands-on way?to do so. We invite you to celebrate with us, in our ribbon-cutting event, on Saturday, Oct. 3, 2-3pm. Can you attend? It will be both a Zoom event, as well as 'come-in-person-to a safe-and-fun-outdoor-commemoration' at my house at 122 Franklin Street. There will be speeches (here here!) and geese music (hear hear!), the unveiling of a commemorative plaque (huh?) , as well as the introduction of two F.O.G.ers (humans) who have agreed to run for Urbana Park District's Board of Commissioners in March (yipes!). Please save the date. And let us know if you can attend. [image: images.jpg] *In another email we will invite you to sign up for our 'Geese-Herders 101' educational classes in October and November, which will be free and in both hands-on and virtual form. * *We'll be glad to work with a Geese-Herding Kids group for those youngsters who want to interact with, and cherish, wild-life beings. * The wild geese call to us! Glad tidings! Susan Parenti 217-344-1439 -- *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: images.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 8874 bytes Desc: not available URL: From jbn at forestfield.org Sat Sep 26 02:58:06 2020 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2020 21:58:06 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Suggested videos for AOTA/NFN timeslots Message-ID: Here's another batch of suggested videos for AWARE on the Air and News from Neptune's timeslots. As before, I've asked UPTV's Jason Liggett to prioritize anyone else's suggestions for these timeslots above my video suggestions. -J RT Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ8aW58JCnA -- (28m 2s) Chris Hedges interviews Richard Wolff about US economic collapse Transcript: https://www.rt.com/shows/on-contact/500592-economic-political-collapse-usa/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dm_gZGrGx0I -- (5m 41s) "What really happened to Navalny?" The Grayzone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ow9-w8nvJM -- (1h 23m) "Moderate Rebels" where Norton and Max Blumenthal interview Bryan Macdonald (a comedy piece runs in this too) on Russian politics and the Navalny poisoning. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOvDyl1UDRs -- (58m 43s) Aaron Mate interviews Norman Finkelstein on Israel and Palestinian politics. Thanks to David Green for pointing this video out. David Green describes this interview: "This interview was about to end after 30 minutes, but continued on an interesting tangent for another 30 minutes in which Finkelstein asserted, in contradiction to Mate, his disdain for Hanan Ashrawi. Norman proceeded with some fascinating and revealing (at least to me) comments on Edward Said, whom he knew somewhat. Finkelstein approaches criticism of the Woke pro-Palestine movement in this country, and BDS, but stops short of where I thought he might go." Consortium News https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dmay2CZuHg -- (44m 59s) "Former & Current Heads of State Speak Out for Assange" Shadowproof https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlMwTwf8Oh0 -- (46m 44s) "Kevin Gosztola interviews Pentagon Papers Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg On Assange Extradition Trial" From karenaram at hotmail.com Mon Sep 28 20:08:38 2020 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2020 13:08:38 -0700 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: This week--Animal Bill of Rights Week of Action-- References: Message-ID: >> >> The purpose is to urge city government to commit to an animal bill of rights, close slaughterhouses, and transition to a plant-based food system. >> >> The week of action starts on Sunday (September 27) and ends on Friday (October 2). It is in Chicago, but I could help with transportation if people need that. People do not need to attend every event. Even just going to one event would be a huge help. A flier with details is attached. Please ask them to reach out to me at ilir.sulej at gmail.com if they are interested. >> >> >> >> >> Ilir Sulejmani > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: IMG_4265.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 205158 bytes Desc: not available URL: From susanroseparenti at gmail.com Mon Sep 28 20:43:22 2020 From: susanroseparenti at gmail.com (Susan Parenti) Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2020 15:43:22 -0500 Subject: [Peace] This week in Chicago: Animal Rights Bill of ACtion Message-ID: [image: 0.jpg] -- *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: 0.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 135978 bytes Desc: not available URL: From susanroseparenti at gmail.com Mon Sep 28 21:32:39 2020 From: susanroseparenti at gmail.com (Susan Parenti) Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2020 16:32:39 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Tuesday, Sept. 29, 7-8pm Central: Strategies to Present Goose Massacres 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: noname.odt Type: application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text Size: 29727 bytes Desc: not available URL: From susanroseparenti at gmail.com Mon Sep 28 21:51:42 2020 From: susanroseparenti at gmail.com (Susan Parenti) Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2020 16:51:42 -0500 Subject: [Peace] When Agitators Become Educators: Celebrate 'Friends of Geese', this Sat, . 2-3pm Message-ID: Dear friends---I hope you are super duper. We have good news?those of us who attempted to save the 175 Canada geese in our park in June?and failed to do so?are turning that experience into a new organization: a community non profit we're calling F.O.G. (Friends of Geese!) Its mission is to support and protect the Grand Canada Geese by educating and involving people in the community to learn how?in a hands-on- way?to do so. We invite you to celebrate with us, in our ribbon-cutting event, on Saturday, Oct. 3, 2-3pm. Can you attend? It will be both a Zoom event, as well as 'come-in-person-to a safe-and-fun-outdoor-commemoration' at my house at 122 Franklin Street. There will be speeches (here here!) and geese music (hear hear!),and the unveiling of a commemorative plaque (huh?) / Please save the date! Let us know if you can attend. [image: image.png] *In another email we will invite you to sign up for our 'Geese-Herders 101' educational classes in October and November, which will be free and in both hands-on and virtual form. * The wild geese call to us! Glad tidings! Please spread the word. Susan Parenti 217-344-1439 *Educational Coordinator* -- *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: image.png Type: image/png Size: 148412 bytes Desc: not available URL: From susanroseparenti at gmail.com Tue Sep 29 20:45:42 2020 From: susanroseparenti at gmail.com (Susan Parenti) Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2020 15:45:42 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Can we stop the massacre of Canada Geese? Or is it hopeless? Tonight, 7-8pm, free, just register! 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: noname.odt Type: application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text Size: 29727 bytes Desc: not available URL: From susanroseparenti at gmail.com Wed Sep 30 21:55:28 2020 From: susanroseparenti at gmail.com (Susan Parenti) Date: Wed, 30 Sep 2020 16:55:28 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Are We Silly Geese to Care About the Geese? Message-ID: [image: IMG_2516.JPG] We have good news?those of us who attempted to save the 175 Canada geese in our park in June?and failed to do so?are turning that experience into a new organization: a community non profit we're calling F.O.G. (Friends of Geese!) Its mission is to support and protect the Grand Canada Geese by educating and involving people in the community to learn how?in a hands-on- way?to do so. That means YOU! We invite you to celebrate with us in our ribbon-cutting event on *Saturday, Oct. 3, 2-3pm.* You can celebrate with us via Zoom, OR else physically be present in- a safe-and-fun-outdoor-commemoration at our *School for Designing a *Society *at 122 Franklin Street, Urbana. T*here will be speeches (here here!) and geese music (hear hear!),and the unveiling of a commemorative plaque in honor of the Crystal Lake Park geese (wow!) Write us if you would like the ZOOM link. We will send it the day of. susanroseparenti at gmail.com Or come by (with mask and social distancing) at 2pm at 122 Franklin Street in Urbana! Warmly The Sooz -- *Susan Parenti* *Educational Coordinator * *The School for Designing a Society *www.designingasociety.net *Like us on Facebook !* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: IMG_2516.JPG Type: image/jpeg Size: 2704418 bytes Desc: not available URL: