From karenaram at hotmail.com Mon Mar 1 02:04:10 2021 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2021 20:04:10 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Biden bombs Syria -- Demand U.S. out of the Middle East! References: <603b0f658738e_12919e6f6012121@asgworker-qmb3-17.nbuild.prd.useast1.3dna.io.mail> Message-ID: > > > > Biden bombs Syria > Demand U.S. out of the Middle East! > > > > In what is now a rite of passage for a new U.S. President, Joe Biden ordered a military assault on Syria on Feb. 25, just over a month after assuming the presidency. U.S. missiles struck Syrian facilities in Boukamal, just over the Iraqi border. Reports indicate that anywhere from five to 22 people were killed in the assault. > > The Pentagon and mainstream media allege the strikes targeted ?Iranian-backed militias? in Syria in retaliation for a rocket attack against U.S. occupation forces in Iraq earlier in the month. The U.S. government and corporate-owned media routinely use the same deceptive branding when it targets Syrians who want to oust the U.S. from the illegal occupation of their country. > > The Pentagon?s spokesman John Kirby said the attack signals that ?President Biden will act to protect American and coalition personnel.? The idea that the U.S. can bomb Syria -- a sovereign country -- in self-defense while it occupies the country as well as neighboring Iraq flies in the face of all logic. Yet it is the same justification the Trump administration used for its Ja. 4, 2020 assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani when he landed at Baghdad International Airport on a mission to ease tensions in the region. > > The real message the United States is trying to send is that the people of the Middle East must sit idly by while it occupies and wages endless war against their homelands, and that Biden will -- like his predecessors -- defend U.S. imperialist interests in the region. This includes continuing the campaign of military action against Iran, Iraq, Syria, and any country that dares to stand in the way of the Pentagon war makers. > > The only path to peace is the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. troops from the region. U.S. troops out NOW! > > > Share this statement on social media > > > Donate to support our work > ANSWER Coalition ? United States > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From susanroseparenti at gmail.com Mon Mar 1 23:45:29 2021 From: susanroseparenti at gmail.com (Susan Parenti) Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2021 17:45:29 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Lend a wheelchair this Friday? Message-ID: Could anyone lend us a wheelchair--just the plain old mechanical-style one--for this upcoming Friday? We'll be picking up a friend who will have had foot replacement surgery, and taking him home. Thanks -- *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 Tue Mar 2 14:02:33 2021 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2021 08:02:33 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Jimmy Dore on how "Joe Biden is the terrorist in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, the Sudan, Venezuela. We are the terrorists. FYI." In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: J.B. Here is another Jimmy Dore program with Max Blumenthal discussing Dr. Cornel West, and the "real reason Harvard won?t give him tenure.? I didn?t note any profanity so perhaps it can be used by UPTV? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cq8-xpLxpIg > On Feb 28, 2021, at 13:31, Karen Aram via Peace wrote: > > Thanks J.B., these VDO?s may not be played on UPTV, but they can be posted on FB. :) > > > >> On Feb 28, 2021, at 13:10, J.B. Nicholson via Peace wrote: >> >> Recent Jimmy Dore videos worth your time: >> >> "CAUGHT: BBC/Reuters Paid To Do Government Propaganda" >> https://youtube.com/watch?v=eJ8mycEVgGQ >> >> "Biden Betrays Working People Again -- Backtracks $15 Minimum Wage" >> https://youtube.com/watch?v=SRP6xPqPWGA >> >> "Twitter Censoring Foreign Policy Criticism w/Max Blumenthal" >> https://youtube.com/watch?v=yI4AuWlO9iA >> >> "Biden Does Air Strikes Before Relief Checks!" >> https://youtube.com/watch?v=10w4MhIEr7Q >> >> >> From this last link: Even after the Syrian air strikes which killed "at least 22 people" (according to the BBC) and Secretary of War (oops, "Defense") Lloyd J. Austin (our man from the Board of Directors at Raytheon where he still is and just got paid $1.7 million from Raytheon) told us: "we're confident in the target we went after, we know what we hit We're confident that target was being used by the same Shia militia that conducted the strikes" and these strikes were "very deliberate". >> >> Jen Psaki (Pres. Joe Biden's current press secretary) questioned the 2017 Syrian strikes under Trump asking "Also what is the legal authority for strikes?", doesn't challenge the recent anti-Syrian strikes. Commentator David French comparably claimed Trump's Syrian strikes were "Unconstitutional and imprudent. Trump's Syria policy is a dangerous mess." but Biden's Syrian strikes are "Good. Targeting out troops should carry a consequence.". Lying at the behest of the establishment carries no punishments. >> >> Sadly, none of these videos can be played on UPTV because of some 'foul' language not killing innocents abroad in Syria and denying people $2,000 COVID "relief" checks despite promises to the contrary, or denying a federal minimum wage hike. >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 carl at newsfromneptune.com Wed Mar 3 01:58:29 2021 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2021 19:58:29 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Biden's Protection of Murderous Saudi Despots Shows the Hidden Reality of U.S. Foreign Policy References: <20210302225111.1.7282ebfee302a8cb81fb2020021b6fe3@mg2.substack.com> Message-ID: > Begin forwarded message: > > From: Glenn Greenwald > Subject: Biden's Protection of Murderous Saudi Despots Shows the Hidden Reality of U.S. Foreign Policy > Date: March 2, 2021 at 4:52:33 PM CST > To: cgestabrook at gmail.com > Reply-To: "Glenn Greenwald" > > > Biden's Protection of Murderous Saudi Despots Shows the Hidden Reality of U.S. Foreign Policy > That the U.S. opposes tyranny is a glaring myth. Yet it is not only believed but often used to justify wars, bombing campaigns, sanctions, and protracted conflict. > > Glenn Greenwald > Mar 2 > > Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal (2nd R) welcomes then-US Vice President Joe Biden (C) at the Riyadh airbase on October 27, 2011 (Photo: AFP via Getty Images) > A staple of mainstream U.S. discourse is that the United States opposes tyranny and despotism and supports freedom and democracy around the world. Embracing murderous despots is something only Donald Trump did, but not normal, upstanding American Presidents. This belief about the U.S. role in the world permeates virtually every mainstream foreign policy discussion. > > When the U.S. wants to start a new war ? with Iraq, with Libya, with Syria, etc. ? it accomplishes this by claiming that it is, at least in part, motivated by horror over the tyranny of the country?s leaders. When it wants to engineer regime change or support anti-democratic coups ? in Venezuela, in Iran, in Bolivia, in Honduras ? it uses the same justification. When the U.S. Government and its media partners want to increase the hostility and fear that Americans harbor for adversarial countries ? for Russia, for China, for Cuba, For North Korea ? it hauls out the same script: we are deeply disturbed by the human rights violations of that country?s government. > > Subscribe now > Yet it is hard to conjure a claim that is more obviously and laughably false than this one. The U.S. does not dislike autocratic and repressive governments. It loves them, and it has for decades. Installing and propping up despotic regimes has been the foundation of U.S. foreign policy since at least the end of World War II, and that approach continues to this day to be its primary instrument for advancing what it regards as its interests around the world. The U.S. for decades has counted among its closest allies and partners the world?s most barbaric autocrats, and that is still true. > > Indeed, all other things being equal, when it comes to countries with important resources or geo-strategic value, the U.S. prefers autocracy to democracy because democracy is unpredictable and even dangerous, particularly in the many places around the world where anti-American sentiment among the population is high (often because of sustained U.S. interference in those countries, including propping up their dictators). There is no way for a rational person to acquire even the most minimal knowledge of U.S. history and current foreign policy and still believe the claim that the U.S. acts against other countries because it is angry or offended at human rights abuses perpetrated by those other governments. > > What the U.S. hates and will act decisively and violently against is not dictatorship but disobedience. The formula is no more complex than this: any government that submits to U.S. decrees will be its ally and partner and will receive its support no matter how repressive, barbaric or despotic it is with its own population. Conversely, any government that defies U.S. decrees will be its adversary and enemy no matter how democratic it was in its ascension to power and in its governance. > > In sum, human rights abuses are never the reason the U.S. acts against another country. Human rights abuses are the pretext the U.S. uses ? the propagandistic script ? to pretend that its brute force retaliation against noncompliant governments are in fact noble efforts to protect people. > > The examples proving this to be true are far too long to chronicle in any one article. Entire books have been written demonstrating this. In May, journalist Vincent Bevins released an outstanding book entitled The Jakarta Method. As I wrote in my review of it, accompanied by an interview with the author: > > The book primarily documents the indescribably horrific campaigns of mass murder and genocide the CIA sponsored in Indonesia as an instrument for destroying a nonaligned movement of nations who would be loyal to neither Washington nor Moscow. Critically, Bevins documents how the chilling success of that morally grotesque campaign led to its being barely discussed in U.S. discourse, but then also serving as the foundation and model for clandestine CIA interference campaigns in multiple other countries from Guatemala, Chile, and Brazil to the Philippines, Vietnam, and Central America: the Jakarta Method. > > When people who want to believe in the core goodness of the U.S. role in the world are confronted with those facts, they often dismiss them by insisting that this was a relic of the Cold War, a necessary evil to stop the spread of Communism which no longer applies. But the fall of the Soviet Union did not even minimally retard this tactic of propping up and embracing the world?s worst despots. It remains the strategy of choice of the permanent bipartisan Washington class known as the U.S. Foreign Policy Community. > > And nothing makes that point clearer than the long-standing and ongoing support the U.S. provides to the Saudi regime, one of the most savage and despotic tyrannies on the planet. As the Biden administration is now demonstrating, not even murdering a journalist with a large U.S. newspaper who resided in the U.S. can ruin or even weaken the tight, loyal friendship between the U.S. government and the Saudi monarchy, to say nothing of the brutal repression which Saudi monarchs have imposed on its own population for decades. > > An intelligence report released by the U.S. Government on Friday claims what many have long assumed: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman personally and directly approved the gruesome murder in Turkey of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the subsequent carving up of his corpse with a buzzsaw for removal to Saudi Arabia. The Saudis continue to deny this allegation, but it is nonetheless the official and definitive conclusion of the U.S. Government. > > But beyond a few trivial and inconsequential gestures (sanctioning a few Saudis and imposing a visa ban on a few dozen others), the Biden administration made clear that it intends to undertake no real retaliation. That is because, said The New York Times, ?a consensus emerged inside the White House that the cost of such a breach, in terms of Saudi cooperation on counterterrorism and in confronting Iran, was simply too high.? Biden officials were also concerned, they claimed, that punishing the Saudis would push them closer to China. > > Not only is the Biden administration not meaningfully punishing the Saudis, but they are actively protecting them. Without explanation, the U.S. withdrew its original report that contained the name of twenty-one Saudis it alleged had ?participated in, ordered, or were otherwise complicit in or responsible for the death of Jamal Khashoggi" and replaced it with a different version of the report that only named eighteen ? seemingly protecting the identity of three Saudi operative it believes to have participated in a horrific murder. > > Even worse, the White House is concealing the names of the seventy-six Saudi operatives to whom they are applying visa bans for participating in Khashoggi?s assassination, absurdly citing ?privacy? concerns ? as though those who savagely murder and dismember a journalist are entitled to have their identities hidden. > > Worse still, the U.S. is not imposing any sanctions on bin Salman himself, the person most responsible for Khashoggi?s death. When pressed on this refusal to sanction the Saudi leader on Sunday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki claimed ? falsely ? that ?there have not been sanctions put in place for the leaders of foreign governments where we have diplomatic relations and even where we don't have diplomatic relations.? As the foreign policy analyst Daniel Larison quickly noted , that is blatantly untrue: the U.S. has previously sanctioned multiple foreign leaders including Venezuela?s Nicolas Maduro , currently targeted personally with multiple sanctions, as well as North Korea?s Kim Jong Un , Iran?s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei , and the now-deceased Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe . > > Share > It cannot be disputed that Biden has quickly and radically violated his campaign pledge: ?I would make it very clear we were not going to, in fact, sell more weapons to them, we were going to, in fact, make them pay the price and make them the pariah that they are." As even CNN noted : ?It was a far cry from a comment in November 2019, in which Biden promised to punish senior Saudi leaders in a way former President Donald Trump wouldn't.? Even the new administration?s early announcement that they would cease helping the Saudis wage war in Yemen was accompanied by a vow to continue furnishing the Saudi regime with ?defensive? weapons. > > It is in instances such as now ? when U.S. propaganda becomes so unsustainable because the government?s actions diverge so glaringly from the mythology, such that the contradictions cannot elude even the most partisan and gullible citizens ? that White House officials are forced to be candid about how they really think and behave. When they see the Biden administration protecting one of the most despicable regimes on the planet, they are left with no choice: nobody will believe the standard fictions they typically spout, so they have to defend their real mentality to justify their behavior. > > And so that is exactly what Psaki did on Monday when confronted with the glaring disparities between Biden?s campaign vows and their current reality of coddling the Saudi murderous despots. She admitted that the U.S. is willing to tolerate and support even the most barbaric tyrants. ?There are areas where we have an important relationship with Saudi Arabia? and Biden, in refusing to harshly punish the Saudis, is ?acting in the national interest of the United States.? > > Now, there are some who believe that the U.S. should be indifferent to the human rights practices of other governments and should simply align and partner and even install and prop up whatever dictators are willing to serve U.S. interests, regardless of how tyrannical and repressive they are (what constitutes ?U.S. interests,? and who typically benefits from their promotion, is an entirely separate question). In the past, many have advocated this view explicitly. Jeane Kirkpatrick catapulted to Cold War-era fame when she insisted that the U.S. should support pro-U.S. right-wing autocrats because they are preferable to left-wing ones. Henry Kissinger?s entire career as an academic and foreign policy official was based on his ?realist? philosophy which was explicitly welcoming of despotic regimes that were of use to ?U.S. interests? as defined by the ruling class. > > At least if there is that sort of candor, the real scheme of motives can be engaged. But the laughably false conceit that the U.S. is motivated by a genuine and profound concern for the freedom and human rights of others around the world and that this noble sentiment is what animates its choices about who to attack, isolate and sanction, or befriend, support and arm, is so blatantly propagandistic that it is truly stunning that anyone continues to believe it. > > And yet not only do they believe it, it is the predominant view in the mainstream press. It is the script that is non-ironically hauled out every time the U.S. wants to go to war with or bomb a new country and we are told that nobody can oppose this because the leaders being targeted are so very bad and tyrannical and the U.S. stands opposed to such evils. > > Biden?s protection of bin Salman is not, to put it mildly, the first post-Cold-War example of the U.S. lavishing praise, support and protection on the world?s worst tyrants. President Obama sold the Saudis a record amount of weapons, and even cut short his state visit to India ? the world?s largest democracy ? to fly to Saudi Arabia along with top officials in both political parties to pay his respects to King Abdullah upon his death. Our Snowden reporting in 2014 revealed that the Obama-era NSA ?significantly expanded its cooperative relationship with the Saudi Ministry of Interior, one of the world?s most repressive and abusive government agencies,? with one top secret memo heralding ?a period of rejuvenation? for the NSA?s relationship with the Saudi Ministry of Defense. > > > When she was Obama?s Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton notoriously gushed about her close friendship with the brutal Egyptian strongman supported for 30 years by the U.S.: ?I really consider President and Mrs. [Hosni] Mubarak to be friends of my family. So I hope to see him often here in Egypt and in the United States.? As Mona Eltahawy noted in? TheNew York Times : ?Five American administrations, Democratic and Republican, supported the Mubarak regime.? > > Both the Bush and Obama administrations took extraordinary steps to conceal what was known about Saudi involvement in the 9/11 attack. Indeed, one grand irony of the still-ongoing War on Terror is that the U.S. has bombed close to ten countries in its name ? including ones with no conceivable relationship to that attack ? yet continued to hug closer and closer the one country, Saudi Arabia, which even many D.C. elites believed had the closest proximity to it. > > When President Trump hosted Egyptian dictator Gen. Abdul el-Sisi in the White House in 2017, and then did the same for the Bahraini autocrat (to whom Obama authorized arms sales as he was brutally crushing a domestic uprising), a huge outpouring of contrived indignation spewed forth from the media and various foreign policy analysts, as if it were some radical, heinous aberration from U.S. tradition, rather than a perfect expression of decades-old U.S. policy to embrace dictators. As I wrote at the time of Sisi?s Washington visit: > > In the case of Egypt and Bahrain, the only new aspect of Trump?s conduct is that it?s more candid and revealing: rather than deceitfully feign concern for human rights while arming and propping up the world?s worst tyrants ? as Obama and his predecessors did ? Trump is dispensing with the pretense. The reason so many D.C. mavens are so upset with Trump isn?t because they hate his policies but rather despise his inability and/or unwillingness to prettify what the U.S. does in the world. > > And all of this is to say nothing of the U.S.?s own despotic practices. The U.S. has instituted policies of torture, kidnapping, mass warrantless surveillance, and due-process-free floating prisons in the middle of the ocean where people remain in a cage for almost 20 years despite having never been charged with a crime. The Biden Justice Department is currently trying to imprison Julian Assange for life for the crime of publishing documents that revealed grave crimes by the U.S. government and its allies, and is attempting to do the same to Edward Snowden. One need not look toward the barbarism of U.S. allies to see what propagandistic dreck is the claim that the U.S. stands steadfastly opposed to authoritarianism in the world: just look at the U.S. Government itself. > > And yet, somehow, not only do large numbers of Americans and most corporate journalists believe that mythology, they are well-trained to divert their attention away from the abuses of their own government and its allies ? which they could do something about ? and instead obsess over repression by governments adversarial to the U.S. (which they can do nothing to change). That?s what explains the U.S. media obsession with denouncing Putin and Maduro and Assad and Iran while devoting far less attention to the equal and often-more-severe abuses of their own government and its ?allies and partners.? Nobody captured this dynamic and the motives behind it better than Noam Chomsky, when asked why he devotes so much time to the crimes of the U.S. and its allies rather than those of Russia and Venezuela and Iran and other U.S. adversaries: > > My own concern is primarily the terror and violence carried out by my own state, for two reasons. For one thing, because it happens to be the larger component of international violence. But also for a much more important reason than that: namely, I can do something about it. So even if the US was responsible for 2% of the violence in the world instead of the majority of it, it would be that 2% I would be primarily responsible for. And that is a simple ethical judgment. > > That is, the ethical value of one's actions depends on their anticipated and predictable consequences. It is very easy to denounce the atrocities of someone else. That has about as much ethical value as denouncing atrocities that took place in the 18th century. > > But this propagandistic mythology that holds that the U.S. only embraces democrats and not despots is too valuable to renounce ? even when, as Biden is doing now with the Saudis, the glaring falsity of it is rubbed in people?s faces. It remains a key ingredient to: > > justify wars and bombings (how can you oppose our bombing of Syria when Assad is such a monster or why would you object to our war in Libya given all the bad things Gaddafi does?); > keep people satisfied with protracted and dangerous conflict with chosen adversaries (of course Russia is our enemy: look at what Putin does to journalists and dissidents); > allow citizens to feel good and righteous about the U.S. Government (sure, we?re not perfect, but we don?t hang gays from cranes like they do in Iran); and, most importantly of all, > distract Americans? attention away from the crimes of their own ruling class (I?m too busy reading about what?s being done to Nalvany ? by a government over which I exercise no influence ? to care about the civil liberties abuses by the U.S. Government and those government with whom it aligns and supports). > What?s most remarkable and alarming about all this is not how dangerous it is ? though it is dangerous ? but what it reveals about how easily propagandized the U.S. media class is. They can watch Biden hug and protect Mohammed bin Salman one minute, send General Sisi massive amounts of arms and money the next, announce that his DOJ will continue to pursue Assange?s imprisonment, and then somehow, after seeing all that, say and believe that we have to go to war with or bomb or sanction some other country because it?s the role of the U.S. to protect and defend freedom and human rights in the world. If the U.S. Government can get people to actually believe that, what can?t they get them to believe? > > Subscribe now > > ? 2021 Glenn Greenwald Unsubscribe > 548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From carl at newsfromneptune.com Wed Mar 3 04:55:40 2021 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2021 22:55:40 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Biden's Protection of Murderous Saudi Despots Shows the Hidden Reality of U.S. Foreign Policy References: <20210302225111.1.7282ebfee302a8cb81fb2020021b6fe3@mg2.substack.com> Message-ID: <5143BF13-1EE3-4221-BE49-319B5A5F9D88@newsfromneptune.com> > Begin forwarded message: > > From: Glenn Greenwald > Subject: Biden's Protection of Murderous Saudi Despots Shows the Hidden Reality of U.S. Foreign Policy > Date: March 2, 2021 at 4:52:33 PM CST > To: cgestabrook at gmail.com > Reply-To: "Glenn Greenwald" > > > Biden's Protection of Murderous Saudi Despots Shows the Hidden Reality of U.S. Foreign Policy > That the U.S. opposes tyranny is a glaring myth. Yet it is not only believed but often used to justify wars, bombing campaigns, sanctions, and protracted conflict. > > Glenn Greenwald > Mar 2 > > Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal (2nd R) welcomes then-US Vice President Joe Biden (C) at the Riyadh airbase on October 27, 2011 (Photo: AFP via Getty Images) > A staple of mainstream U.S. discourse is that the United States opposes tyranny and despotism and supports freedom and democracy around the world. Embracing murderous despots is something only Donald Trump did, but not normal, upstanding American Presidents. This belief about the U.S. role in the world permeates virtually every mainstream foreign policy discussion. > > When the U.S. wants to start a new war ? with Iraq, with Libya, with Syria, etc. ? it accomplishes this by claiming that it is, at least in part, motivated by horror over the tyranny of the country?s leaders. When it wants to engineer regime change or support anti-democratic coups ? in Venezuela, in Iran, in Bolivia, in Honduras ? it uses the same justification. When the U.S. Government and its media partners want to increase the hostility and fear that Americans harbor for adversarial countries ? for Russia, for China, for Cuba, For North Korea ? it hauls out the same script: we are deeply disturbed by the human rights violations of that country?s government. > > Subscribe now > Yet it is hard to conjure a claim that is more obviously and laughably false than this one. The U.S. does not dislike autocratic and repressive governments. It loves them, and it has for decades. Installing and propping up despotic regimes has been the foundation of U.S. foreign policy since at least the end of World War II, and that approach continues to this day to be its primary instrument for advancing what it regards as its interests around the world. The U.S. for decades has counted among its closest allies and partners the world?s most barbaric autocrats, and that is still true. > > Indeed, all other things being equal, when it comes to countries with important resources or geo-strategic value, the U.S. prefers autocracy to democracy because democracy is unpredictable and even dangerous, particularly in the many places around the world where anti-American sentiment among the population is high (often because of sustained U.S. interference in those countries, including propping up their dictators). There is no way for a rational person to acquire even the most minimal knowledge of U.S. history and current foreign policy and still believe the claim that the U.S. acts against other countries because it is angry or offended at human rights abuses perpetrated by those other governments. > > What the U.S. hates and will act decisively and violently against is not dictatorship but disobedience. The formula is no more complex than this: any government that submits to U.S. decrees will be its ally and partner and will receive its support no matter how repressive, barbaric or despotic it is with its own population. Conversely, any government that defies U.S. decrees will be its adversary and enemy no matter how democratic it was in its ascension to power and in its governance. > > In sum, human rights abuses are never the reason the U.S. acts against another country. Human rights abuses are the pretext the U.S. uses ? the propagandistic script ? to pretend that its brute force retaliation against noncompliant governments are in fact noble efforts to protect people. > > The examples proving this to be true are far too long to chronicle in any one article. Entire books have been written demonstrating this. In May, journalist Vincent Bevins released an outstanding book entitled The Jakarta Method. As I wrote in my review of it, accompanied by an interview with the author: > > The book primarily documents the indescribably horrific campaigns of mass murder and genocide the CIA sponsored in Indonesia as an instrument for destroying a nonaligned movement of nations who would be loyal to neither Washington nor Moscow. Critically, Bevins documents how the chilling success of that morally grotesque campaign led to its being barely discussed in U.S. discourse, but then also serving as the foundation and model for clandestine CIA interference campaigns in multiple other countries from Guatemala, Chile, and Brazil to the Philippines, Vietnam, and Central America: the Jakarta Method. > > When people who want to believe in the core goodness of the U.S. role in the world are confronted with those facts, they often dismiss them by insisting that this was a relic of the Cold War, a necessary evil to stop the spread of Communism which no longer applies. But the fall of the Soviet Union did not even minimally retard this tactic of propping up and embracing the world?s worst despots. It remains the strategy of choice of the permanent bipartisan Washington class known as the U.S. Foreign Policy Community. > > And nothing makes that point clearer than the long-standing and ongoing support the U.S. provides to the Saudi regime, one of the most savage and despotic tyrannies on the planet. As the Biden administration is now demonstrating, not even murdering a journalist with a large U.S. newspaper who resided in the U.S. can ruin or even weaken the tight, loyal friendship between the U.S. government and the Saudi monarchy, to say nothing of the brutal repression which Saudi monarchs have imposed on its own population for decades. > > An intelligence report released by the U.S. Government on Friday claims what many have long assumed: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman personally and directly approved the gruesome murder in Turkey of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the subsequent carving up of his corpse with a buzzsaw for removal to Saudi Arabia. The Saudis continue to deny this allegation, but it is nonetheless the official and definitive conclusion of the U.S. Government. > > But beyond a few trivial and inconsequential gestures (sanctioning a few Saudis and imposing a visa ban on a few dozen others), the Biden administration made clear that it intends to undertake no real retaliation. That is because, said The New York Times, ?a consensus emerged inside the White House that the cost of such a breach, in terms of Saudi cooperation on counterterrorism and in confronting Iran, was simply too high.? Biden officials were also concerned, they claimed, that punishing the Saudis would push them closer to China. > > Not only is the Biden administration not meaningfully punishing the Saudis, but they are actively protecting them. Without explanation, the U.S. withdrew its original report that contained the name of twenty-one Saudis it alleged had ?participated in, ordered, or were otherwise complicit in or responsible for the death of Jamal Khashoggi" and replaced it with a different version of the report that only named eighteen ? seemingly protecting the identity of three Saudi operative it believes to have participated in a horrific murder. > > Even worse, the White House is concealing the names of the seventy-six Saudi operatives to whom they are applying visa bans for participating in Khashoggi?s assassination, absurdly citing ?privacy? concerns ? as though those who savagely murder and dismember a journalist are entitled to have their identities hidden. > > Worse still, the U.S. is not imposing any sanctions on bin Salman himself, the person most responsible for Khashoggi?s death. When pressed on this refusal to sanction the Saudi leader on Sunday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki claimed ? falsely ? that ?there have not been sanctions put in place for the leaders of foreign governments where we have diplomatic relations and even where we don't have diplomatic relations.? As the foreign policy analyst Daniel Larison quickly noted , that is blatantly untrue: the U.S. has previously sanctioned multiple foreign leaders including Venezuela?s Nicolas Maduro , currently targeted personally with multiple sanctions, as well as North Korea?s Kim Jong Un , Iran?s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei , and the now-deceased Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe . > > Share > It cannot be disputed that Biden has quickly and radically violated his campaign pledge: ?I would make it very clear we were not going to, in fact, sell more weapons to them, we were going to, in fact, make them pay the price and make them the pariah that they are." As even CNN noted : ?It was a far cry from a comment in November 2019, in which Biden promised to punish senior Saudi leaders in a way former President Donald Trump wouldn't.? Even the new administration?s early announcement that they would cease helping the Saudis wage war in Yemen was accompanied by a vow to continue furnishing the Saudi regime with ?defensive? weapons. > > It is in instances such as now ? when U.S. propaganda becomes so unsustainable because the government?s actions diverge so glaringly from the mythology, such that the contradictions cannot elude even the most partisan and gullible citizens ? that White House officials are forced to be candid about how they really think and behave. When they see the Biden administration protecting one of the most despicable regimes on the planet, they are left with no choice: nobody will believe the standard fictions they typically spout, so they have to defend their real mentality to justify their behavior. > > And so that is exactly what Psaki did on Monday when confronted with the glaring disparities between Biden?s campaign vows and their current reality of coddling the Saudi murderous despots. She admitted that the U.S. is willing to tolerate and support even the most barbaric tyrants. ?There are areas where we have an important relationship with Saudi Arabia? and Biden, in refusing to harshly punish the Saudis, is ?acting in the national interest of the United States.? > > Now, there are some who believe that the U.S. should be indifferent to the human rights practices of other governments and should simply align and partner and even install and prop up whatever dictators are willing to serve U.S. interests, regardless of how tyrannical and repressive they are (what constitutes ?U.S. interests,? and who typically benefits from their promotion, is an entirely separate question). In the past, many have advocated this view explicitly. Jeane Kirkpatrick catapulted to Cold War-era fame when she insisted that the U.S. should support pro-U.S. right-wing autocrats because they are preferable to left-wing ones. Henry Kissinger?s entire career as an academic and foreign policy official was based on his ?realist? philosophy which was explicitly welcoming of despotic regimes that were of use to ?U.S. interests? as defined by the ruling class. > > At least if there is that sort of candor, the real scheme of motives can be engaged. But the laughably false conceit that the U.S. is motivated by a genuine and profound concern for the freedom and human rights of others around the world and that this noble sentiment is what animates its choices about who to attack, isolate and sanction, or befriend, support and arm, is so blatantly propagandistic that it is truly stunning that anyone continues to believe it. > > And yet not only do they believe it, it is the predominant view in the mainstream press. It is the script that is non-ironically hauled out every time the U.S. wants to go to war with or bomb a new country and we are told that nobody can oppose this because the leaders being targeted are so very bad and tyrannical and the U.S. stands opposed to such evils. > > Biden?s protection of bin Salman is not, to put it mildly, the first post-Cold-War example of the U.S. lavishing praise, support and protection on the world?s worst tyrants. President Obama sold the Saudis a record amount of weapons, and even cut short his state visit to India ? the world?s largest democracy ? to fly to Saudi Arabia along with top officials in both political parties to pay his respects to King Abdullah upon his death. Our Snowden reporting in 2014 revealed that the Obama-era NSA ?significantly expanded its cooperative relationship with the Saudi Ministry of Interior, one of the world?s most repressive and abusive government agencies,? with one top secret memo heralding ?a period of rejuvenation? for the NSA?s relationship with the Saudi Ministry of Defense. > > > When she was Obama?s Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton notoriously gushed about her close friendship with the brutal Egyptian strongman supported for 30 years by the U.S.: ?I really consider President and Mrs. [Hosni] Mubarak to be friends of my family. So I hope to see him often here in Egypt and in the United States.? As Mona Eltahawy noted in? TheNew York Times : ?Five American administrations, Democratic and Republican, supported the Mubarak regime.? > > Both the Bush and Obama administrations took extraordinary steps to conceal what was known about Saudi involvement in the 9/11 attack. Indeed, one grand irony of the still-ongoing War on Terror is that the U.S. has bombed close to ten countries in its name ? including ones with no conceivable relationship to that attack ? yet continued to hug closer and closer the one country, Saudi Arabia, which even many D.C. elites believed had the closest proximity to it. > > When President Trump hosted Egyptian dictator Gen. Abdul el-Sisi in the White House in 2017, and then did the same for the Bahraini autocrat (to whom Obama authorized arms sales as he was brutally crushing a domestic uprising), a huge outpouring of contrived indignation spewed forth from the media and various foreign policy analysts, as if it were some radical, heinous aberration from U.S. tradition, rather than a perfect expression of decades-old U.S. policy to embrace dictators. As I wrote at the time of Sisi?s Washington visit: > > In the case of Egypt and Bahrain, the only new aspect of Trump?s conduct is that it?s more candid and revealing: rather than deceitfully feign concern for human rights while arming and propping up the world?s worst tyrants ? as Obama and his predecessors did ? Trump is dispensing with the pretense. The reason so many D.C. mavens are so upset with Trump isn?t because they hate his policies but rather despise his inability and/or unwillingness to prettify what the U.S. does in the world. > > And all of this is to say nothing of the U.S.?s own despotic practices. The U.S. has instituted policies of torture, kidnapping, mass warrantless surveillance, and due-process-free floating prisons in the middle of the ocean where people remain in a cage for almost 20 years despite having never been charged with a crime. The Biden Justice Department is currently trying to imprison Julian Assange for life for the crime of publishing documents that revealed grave crimes by the U.S. government and its allies, and is attempting to do the same to Edward Snowden. One need not look toward the barbarism of U.S. allies to see what propagandistic dreck is the claim that the U.S. stands steadfastly opposed to authoritarianism in the world: just look at the U.S. Government itself. > > And yet, somehow, not only do large numbers of Americans and most corporate journalists believe that mythology, they are well-trained to divert their attention away from the abuses of their own government and its allies ? which they could do something about ? and instead obsess over repression by governments adversarial to the U.S. (which they can do nothing to change). That?s what explains the U.S. media obsession with denouncing Putin and Maduro and Assad and Iran while devoting far less attention to the equal and often-more-severe abuses of their own government and its ?allies and partners.? Nobody captured this dynamic and the motives behind it better than Noam Chomsky, when asked why he devotes so much time to the crimes of the U.S. and its allies rather than those of Russia and Venezuela and Iran and other U.S. adversaries: > > My own concern is primarily the terror and violence carried out by my own state, for two reasons. For one thing, because it happens to be the larger component of international violence. But also for a much more important reason than that: namely, I can do something about it. So even if the US was responsible for 2% of the violence in the world instead of the majority of it, it would be that 2% I would be primarily responsible for. And that is a simple ethical judgment. > > That is, the ethical value of one's actions depends on their anticipated and predictable consequences. It is very easy to denounce the atrocities of someone else. That has about as much ethical value as denouncing atrocities that took place in the 18th century. > > But this propagandistic mythology that holds that the U.S. only embraces democrats and not despots is too valuable to renounce ? even when, as Biden is doing now with the Saudis, the glaring falsity of it is rubbed in people?s faces. It remains a key ingredient to: > > justify wars and bombings (how can you oppose our bombing of Syria when Assad is such a monster or why would you object to our war in Libya given all the bad things Gaddafi does?); > keep people satisfied with protracted and dangerous conflict with chosen adversaries (of course Russia is our enemy: look at what Putin does to journalists and dissidents); > allow citizens to feel good and righteous about the U.S. Government (sure, we?re not perfect, but we don?t hang gays from cranes like they do in Iran); and, most importantly of all, > distract Americans? attention away from the crimes of their own ruling class (I?m too busy reading about what?s being done to Nalvany ? by a government over which I exercise no influence ? to care about the civil liberties abuses by the U.S. Government and those government with whom it aligns and supports). > What?s most remarkable and alarming about all this is not how dangerous it is ? though it is dangerous ? but what it reveals about how easily propagandized the U.S. media class is. They can watch Biden hug and protect Mohammed bin Salman one minute, send General Sisi massive amounts of arms and money the next, announce that his DOJ will continue to pursue Assange?s imprisonment, and then somehow, after seeing all that, say and believe that we have to go to war with or bomb or sanction some other country because it?s the role of the U.S. to protect and defend freedom and human rights in the world. If the U.S. Government can get people to actually believe that, what can?t they get them to believe? > > Subscribe now > > ? 2021 Glenn Greenwald Unsubscribe > 548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From carl at newsfromneptune.com Sat Mar 6 18:28:38 2021 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2021 12:28:38 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Post-birth abortion? References: <70.B0.17086.B73C3406@emsmta17> Message-ID: <20F52ED2-CC45-42DE-ACD8-8B2F8BDDDD63@newsfromneptune.com> > Begin forwarded message: > > From: "Martin Fox" > Subject: Post-birth abortion? > Date: March 6, 2021 at 12:01:15 PM CST > To: CARL ESTABROOK > Reply-To: martin.fox at prolifealliance.org > > > > Dear CARL, > > Two years ago, you no doubt heard Virginia's Democrat Governor Ralph Northam talking about "post-birth abortion." > > But this is nothing new. > > The fact is that long before the Governor?s comments, the so-called Journal of Medical Ethics, based in London, published a study advocating "post-birth abortion." > > I'm not making this up. > > These self-proclaimed "ethicists" (who I should point out have all already survived the womb themselves) actually argue that parents should be given a kind of "trial period" of unspecified time in which to change their mind and eliminate their baby. > > Now not surprisingly, a huge outcry of protest arose against this wholly barbaric proposal. > > Do you know how the authors defended their arguments? > > They simply applied the Planned Parenthood / "National Abortion Rights Action League" (NARAL) mantra. > > They argued that if you accept the abortionists' claim that what they do is ethical under any circumstance, then nothing really changes right after a baby is born. > > And you know . . . intellectually, they're right. > > If it really is OK to kill a child the month before his birth, or three months before birth, or by partial birth abortion, how do they make a distinction? Why is there any difference in killing one right AFTER birth? > > Killing is killing. > > Of course, given the obvious horror, I don't think it's necessary to argue why the advocates of "post-birth abortion" are wrong. > > But that is why it is vital that you and I do all we can to force Congress to vote on, and ultimately pass, the Life at Conception Act to reverse Roe v. Wade and ultimately end abortion-on-demand. > > For Life, > > Martin Fox, President > National Pro-Life Alliance > > P.S. If you have a few minutes, I think you'll be inspired by the story of one of those people that the post-birth abortionists would do away with. > > Also, please consider chipping in with a contribution by clicking here . Your National Pro-Life Alliance is entirely dependent on voluntary contributions to keep our vital programs running. We receive no government funding. > > > > > To help NPLA grow, please consider forwarding this message to a friend . > > The National Pro-Life Alliance's address is 5211 Port Royal Road Suite 500 Springfield, VA 22151. > > Not produced or e-mailed at taxpayer expense. > > Because of NPLA's tax-exempt status under IRC Sec. 501(c)(4) and its state and federal legislative activities, contributions are not tax-deductible as charitable contributions (IRC ? 170) or as business deductions (IRC ? 162(e)(1)). Privacy Policy . > > This message was intended for: carl at newsfromneptune.com > You were added to the system February 8, 2021. For more information > click here . > Update your preferences | Remove your email from the mailing list. > > > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stuartnlevy at gmail.com Mon Mar 8 19:30:26 2021 From: stuartnlevy at gmail.com (Stuart Levy) Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2021 13:30:26 -0600 Subject: [Peace] Witness slips to oppose two bad IL bills ... Fwd: Take action to protect your privacy In-Reply-To: <20210308120521.23145136.48378@sailthru.com> References: <20210308120521.23145136.48378@sailthru.com> Message-ID: ACLU of Champaign County is suggesting that people file witness slips to OPPOSE two bills that would erode privacy protections for personal information - HB 559 and HB 560.?? I did.?? Details below. ================================== Dear ACLU ?of Champaign County supporters and members, WE NEED YOUR HELP NOW! More than 10 years ago, the ACLU led the effort in Illinois to pass the pioneering Biometric Privacy Information Act (BIPA) in our state.? The law ? one of the most far-reaching in the country ? assures that your most private information ? including your face print, fingerprints and DNA ? could *not* be collected and used by a private company without providing the consumer notice that the information was being collected and giving consent for sharing and using the data. In the past few years, a number of companies ? including large social media companies ? have been held accountable in court for violating the rights of Illinois residents under BIPA.? ? ? ??????????????? Rather than simply comply with the law, these companies are now working to gut BIPA and reduce privacy protections for Illinois residents.? On Tuesday afternoon, March 9^th , the Illinois House Judiciary ? Civil Committee will hear two bills that gut these protections.?? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?We are asking you to file 2 witness slips for your?*SELF* as an individual?*OPPONENT*?of House Bill 559 and House Bill 560. At the bottom, click *RECORD OF APPEARANCE ONLY*.? *You can find directions and links to do this*?here .? ??????????????? Our Advocacy team is working tirelessly to defeat these ? and other measures ? to weaken BIPA.?? Your voice would contribute mightily to this effort.? Thanks so much and please feel free to reach out if you have any questions! CHAMPAIGN COUNTY ACLU info at aclu-cu.org image.jpeg -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: oehfglkgcclnieoa.png Type: image/png Size: 43800 bytes Desc: not available URL: From stuartnlevy at gmail.com Tue Mar 16 04:13:50 2021 From: stuartnlevy at gmail.com (Stuart Levy) Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2021 23:13:50 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Join the "Cold War Truth Commission" online this Sunday - Kathy Kelly, Medea Benjamin, Daniel Ellsberg and many others In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7408ec14-0609-502e-93bc-601fc902ea04@gmail.com> *"Cold War Truth Commission" *online presentation *this Sunday, 3/21, 3pm - 10pm Central time,* with many speakers whose names are familiar to readers of this list, including Kathy Kelly, Norman Solomon, Medea Benjamin, David Swanson, Bruce Gagnon, Daniel Ellsberg, Matthew Hoh, Ann Wright ... On line via Zoom.?? Register here:?? *https://www.codepink.org/03212021 ** * -------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: Join the "Cold War Truth Commission" online this Sunday - Kathy Kelly, Medea Benjamin, Daniel Ellsberg and many others Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2021 02:03:53 +0000 From: To End All Wars Reply-To: kathy.vcnv at gmail.com To: stuartnlevy at gmail.com Join the "Cold War Truth Commission" online this Sunday - Kathy Kelly, Medea Benjamin, Daniel Ellsberg and many others On Zoom - 3-10pm Central Standard Time. /Kathy will give one of the testimonies at Sunday's Cold War Truth Commission along with a lineup of magnificent speakers.? The schedule below is Pacific Daylight Time! - Kathy Kelly, Sarah Ball, and Sean Reynolds/ *Witness For Peace Southwest, CODEPINK & Addicted To War *invite you to join: *THE COLD WAR TRUTH COMMISSION * A Day of Education, Testimonials & Action Come spend the day with us while we put the COLD WAR on TRIAL! This Sunday, March 21st 3-10p CT (1-8p PT, 4-11p ET) FREE EVENT ON ZOOM Register Here:***www.codepink.org/03212021* ** *For More Information Contact Rachel: **sojournerrb at yahoo.com* *? 310-971-8280 or Frank at: **frank.dorrel at gmail.com* *? 310-838-8131* ? *1pm PDT* ? Rachel Bruhnke and Frank Dorrel *Opening Remarks* Part I: *_Roots of U.S. Anti-Communism and Cold War_* Blase Bonpane (written testimony) *The Cold War* Ramsey Clark (Film clip) *Plutocracy: Wealth Runs This Country* Jim Lafferty *Why We Need This Truth Commission to Expose ?Cold War? Lies* Peter Kuznick *Henry Wallace and the Cold War?s beginning* Oliver Stone (Film clip) *The Untold History of the United States * Daniel Ellsberg *The Role of the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex in Starting and Maintaining the Cold War* Franklin Delano Roosevelt (written testimony) *Excerpt From ?The Second Bill of Rights? State of the Union Speech 1944* *2pm PDT (approx) * ? Rossana Cambron *Anti-Communism As a Weapon Against Progress* Gerald Horne (written testimony) *The U.S. Cold War As a Self-Inflicted Wound* Carol Frances Likens (recorded testimony) *The Red-baiting of Abolitionists in 1850!* Rick Fellows *The Pro-Fascist Nature of U.S. Anti-Communism* Mike Feinstein *Is the Fear of ?Communists? a Big Deal in Europe? A Green?s Perspective* Jeremy Kuzmarov *A Sequence of Lies, The U.S Cold War, and Today* *3pm PDT (approx) * ? Michael Novick *The White Supremacist Nature of The U.S. Cold War* Alice Slater *Historical and Current U.S. Cold War Against Russia* Norman Solomon *Why So Many Progressives Bought Into the ?Russiagate? Frenzy* Gil Scott Heron (music video) *Work For Peace (Military & The Monetary) * Part II:*_The Domestic U.S. Cold War_* Mumia Abul-Jamal & Stephen Vittoria (written testimony) *Citizens? Commission to Investigate the FBI* Julia Scoville (recorded testimony) *McCarthyism, Employment Fears, and the Vilification of Solidarity* Susan Gossman (recorded testimony) *What HUAC Did to My Father* Gregory Godels *McCarthyism?s Effect on American workers. Case Study: Pittsburgh, PA* Richard Moser (recorded testimony) *How The American People Lost The Cold War: U.S. Empire and the Decline of American Democracy* Mickey Huff *Censoring of The Truth During The U.S. Cold War to Today* *4pm PDT (approx) * ? Chris Venn *The Housing Crisis, Land Accumulation and Cold War Ideology* Carley Towne *The Cost of U.S. Militarism in The U.S. Cold War to Today* Bruce Gagnon *Weaponizing Space in The U.S. Cold War to Today* David Vine *There Was Nothing ?COLD? About The Cold War* Kathy Kelly *War Resistance In the 1980?s As Foundation for 1991 Iraq War Resistance* David Swanson *Combatting The Lies of The U.S. Cold War Today* Jeff Cohen *U.S. News Media: The Enduring Cold War Legacy* Ed Rampell (recorded testimony) *HUAC, the Hollywood Blacklist and McCarthyism: Cold War Cancel Culture* Peter McLaren *The U.S. Cold War Against Liberation Theology and The Ascendance Of The Religious Right* *5pm PDT (approx) * ? Rev. Steve Wilson *The Red-Baiting of Progressive Religious Values In the U.S. Cold War* John Hankey (recorded testimony) *The U.S. Cold War and The Murder of ?Communal? Values* Gerry Condon *Resist War! A Message to Today?s Youth* YOUTH VOICES ? Emily Dorrel (Tic Toc video) *A Warning on American Hypocrisy* Mary Miller *My Generation* Alma Bruhnke *The Pledge of Allegiance, ?God? and The U.S. Cold War* Open Mic for Youth (2-minute testimonies) ? Marcy Winograd (recorded testimony) *The Cold War in the U.S. Classroom* *6pm PDT (approx) * ? Eric Mann *Combatting Anti-Communism in The 1960?s* Carl Boggs *The Environmental Catastrophe of Militarism and The U.S. Cold War* Sara Thomkksen (music video *Is it for Freedom? * Part III: *_The U.S. Global Cold War, Then and Now_* Roy Bourgeois Film Clip *School of Assassins: Resistance to Cold War Training at Fort. Benning, GA* Barbara Trent Film Links *Cover-Up: Behind The Iran-Contra Affair? and ?The Panama Deception* Medea Benjamin *The U.S. Cold War vs. African Liberation Struggles* Danny Sjursen, Ret. Maj. Army *Cold War In The Heartland: Patriotic Dissent In The Cold War* *7pm PDT (approx) * Nuri Ronaghy *Origins of U.S.-Iranian Tension: The 1953 CIA-Orchestrated Coup Against Iran* Peter Phillips *The NSA and CIA Protects Concentrated Global Capitalism* Gail Walker *Lucius Walker: The Legacy of a Visionary Pastor for Peace* Matthew Hoh *Afghanistan as a Pawn in the U.S. Cold War* Ann Wright *Inside and Outside the Military Industrial Complex* Jodie Evans *Historical and Current U.S. Cold War Against China* *8pm PDT (approx) ?* John Parker *The Cold War and Continued Conflict With Syria* Miguel Angel *The Ongoing U.S. Cold War Against Honduras: Perspective From An Exile* Alicia Rivera *The U.S. Cold War Against El Salvador and Its Aftermath* Alicia Jrapko (written testimony) *The Dirty War in Argentina, Operation Condor and the U.S. Cold War* S. Brian Willson (written testimony) *U.S. Involvement in Creating and Sustaining the Cold War Against Korea* Joel Andreas (recorded testimony) *The Rise of Aerial Bombardment Throughout the Cold War* Nadya Williams (recorded testimony) *CIA Intrigue, the 1965 Coup Against Indonesia and Its Aftermath* Rachel Bruhnke and Frank Dorrel *Closing Remarks* *INVITATION TO WATCH: ?What I?ve Learned About U.S. Foreign Policy: The War against the Third World ? - Frank Dorrel ?* *Public Open Mic and Chat Testimonies* *Scholars & Citizen Testimonials Will Help Us Learn The History of The Cold War & Its Relevance To U.S. Political Corruption & To Today?s Global Chaos.* *IN-PERSON or PRE-RECORDED TESTIMONY on: CIA-backed Global Interventions of The Cold War; McCarthyism and the crushing of labor and the left in the U.S.; the Cold War Nuclear Legacy; Hollywood and the Blacklist; the ?Red Scare? of the 1930?s; and the red-baiting of social activists as far back as 1850!* *?I think it?s a great idea! Ideologically, it's right on?.**? Oliver Stone on The Cold War Truth Commission* *Hosted **by**Rachel Bruhnke **of**Witness For Peace Southwest **and**Frank Dorrel **of**ADDICTED To WAR* *Endorsed by**: CODEPINK, WORLD BEYOND WAR, ROOTSACTION, KPFK 90.7 FM Radio, Veterans For Peace, CovertAction Magazine, Media Freedom Foundation, Project Censored, PeaceWorkers, Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power In Space, School of The Americas Watch, Harriet Tubman Center For Social Justice, Anti-Racist Action, COVID-19 Global Solidarity Coalition * *and ADDICTED To WAR * *ZOOM Tech Support from Mary Miller and Emily Dorrel - Both of CODEPINK* *If You Are on Facebook, Please Visit and Consider Joining Our Group**: **www.facebook.com/groups/235245374885960* Email Twitter -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbn at forestfield.org Tue Mar 16 17:23:23 2021 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2021 12:23:23 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Recommended videos for AWARE on the Air, News from Neptune, and Labor's World View TV Message-ID: <8cf6fba2-5e07-17c2-3dc3-907a603392d4@forestfield.org> Here are the videos I recommended to run during AWARE on the Air, News from Neptune, and Labor's World View TV. Shadowproof https://youtube.com/watch?v=P_y75MJ1NPY -- (43m 39s) "Dissenter Weekly: Congolese Whistleblowers Face Death Sentences In Attack On Freedom Of Expression" RT https://youtube.com/watch?v=T3I-zvH6u84 -- (4m 23s) "Surprise, surprise | trust in media at all-time low in UK & U.S." https://youtube.com/watch?v=D-ofDw0ZkRc -- (4m 49s) "US health dept ADMITS lobbying Brazil to REJECT Russia?s Sputnik V vaccine" Grayzone https://youtube.com/watch?v=olLcUxnDZ2o -- (24m 59s) "5 former OPCW officials join prominent voices to call out Syria cover-up" https://youtube.com/watch?v=36C3gmE3fWY -- (22m 25s) "State Dept. official who fled UK after fatal crash is US spy, attorney admits" Empire Files https://youtube.com/watch?v=_HEs2CnVQUs -- (54m) "A Guide to US Empire in Africa: Neocolonial Order & AFRICOM" Democracy at Work https://youtube.com/watch?v=ULmC17PPO7I -- (11m 30s) "AskProfWolff: Why Use the word "Socialism"" https://youtube.com/watch?v=EsNTVmh_3Fg -- (3m 12s) "Capitalism rewards profit while people go hungry - Dr. Fraad & Julianna Forlano" https://youtube.com/watch?v=-dXVH9heO-I -- (3m 57s) "How capitalism hit home in freezing Texas - Dr. Harriet Fraad & Julianna Forlano" https://youtube.com/watch?v=lzZ2N6stTE4 -- (19m 22s) "Anti-Capitalist Chronicles: China's Economic Rise - Part 1" https://youtube.com/watch?v=3CEkvjzDtz4 -- (20m 13s) "Anti-Capitalist Chronicles: China's Economic Rise - Part 2" From karenaram at hotmail.com Tue Mar 16 17:59:21 2021 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2021 12:59:21 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Democracy Now with Vijay Prasad on China Message-ID: https://www.democracynow.org/2021/3/16/vijay_prashad_us_china_rivalry From karenaram at hotmail.com Wed Mar 17 20:14:44 2021 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2021 15:14:44 -0500 Subject: [Peace] An in-depth examination of what is taking place in Xinjiang. The Moderate Rebels plus Message-ID: On YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=en_yLpQek3U -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Thu Mar 18 13:28:04 2021 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2021 08:28:04 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix/Caitlin Johnstone nails it time & time again References: <139971992.9645.0@wordpress.com> Message-ID: > > New post on Caitlin Johnstone > > > A Nation That?s Always At War Has No Moral Authority: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative?Matrix by Caitlin Johnstone > A nation that has constantly been at war throughout its entire history has no moral authority to tell other nations how to be. This should be extremely obvious to literally everyone. > > ? > > Liberals are much, much more comfortable thinking about the spike in anti-Asian hate crimes as a rise in white supremacism caused by Donald Trump than as the inevitable consequence of an aggressive imperialist propaganda campaign against China. > > Talking about the spike in anti-Asian hate crimes as just the result of white supremacism and not imperialist propaganda against China facilitated by white supremacism is a service to white supremacism. It's like pretending the spike in hate crimes against Muslim Americans as the propaganda engines for Bush's wars were fanning the flames of Islamophobia was just the result of a random spontaneous increase in white supremacism. It's irresponsible, and it serves white supremacism. > > ? > > Tucker Carlson is to China as Rachel Maddow is to Russia. He has some good guests and is occasionally correct on foreign policy, but watching him regularly will make you stupid. > > ? > > It's absolutely stunning how many people think "But China is really bad tho" is an awesome and insightful comment to post on the internet. > > ? > > The US-centralized power alliance is the most powerful institution in the world. Helping it advance its narratives on the world stage (like smearing targeted governments) is as servile and power-worshipping as prostrating yourself before Joe Biden and calling him "Your Highness". > > ? > > It's not that class is the only important issue and that race is unimportant. It's that the imperial narrative managers consistently force the conversation into being about race instead of class because the race conversation can happen without costing the ruling class anything. > > ? > > Imagine if France were bombing Spain every few days and the mainstream news barely reported it. https://t.co/LDf4w0hCVQ > ? Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) March 17, 2021 > ? > > The strategy of incrementalism (pursuing change in small, gradual increments over time) absolutely is effective. The problem is that when plutocrats control the government and media, the only incremental changes which actually occur are those which benefit the plutocracy. As long as the plutocratic class controls the political/media class, incremental change will only ever go one way. Politicians advocating incremental change for the benefit of the working class are actually advocating no change whatsoever, because that's what they'll deliver. > > Incrementalism is all you're ever seeing when, for example, the minimum wage doesn't keep up with inflation. Or when public programs are slowly privatized. Or when more and more money is allowed to influence politics. Or when industries become more and more deregulated. Things are fucked right now exactly because the ruling class has been using the strategy of incrementalism to slowly chip away at the working class for its own benefit. Incrementalism works. It just only ever goes one way, and always will until there is revolutionary change. > > Don't say incrementalism doesn't work. It does work. It works all the time. It just never works for you. > > ? > > I don't know who needs to hear this, but you will never, ever, ever succeed in converting me to capitalism or right-wing ideology. Trying to do this will only lead to frustration. You are free to frustrate yourself in this way as much as you like, it just looks uncomfortable. > > ? > > If humanity miraculously survives the existential hurdles it has placed before itself as a species, future generations will scarce believe we used to actively stockpile armageddon weapons on purpose. > > ? > > You can tell how sincere someone's politics are based on how much time they spend up-punching versus how much time they spend down-punching or left-punching. If they're in it for healthy reasons they'll focus on the former. If they're in it for ego and/or profit their emphasis will be on the latter. > > ? > > Every insane thing humans have done has been the result of some dumb narrative that they believed in their minds. Some recognize this and help free humanity from its enslavement to mental narrative. Others recognize this and use this weakness to enslave humans to themselves. > > ? > > You are pure beauty > swimming in a yawning abyss > of pure beauty. > > Only the mind obscures this. > > It is not hidden. > > It is not hidden. > > I love you. > > __________________________ > > Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack , which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported , so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook , following my antics on Twitter , or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi , Patreon or Paypal . If you want to read more you can buy my new book Poems For Rebels (you can also download a PDF for five bucks ) or my old book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers . For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I?m trying to do with this platform, click here . Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I?ve written) in any way they like free of charge. > > > Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2 > > Caitlin Johnstone | March 18, 2021 at 2:48 am | Tags: china , incrementalism , narrative matrix , propaganda , war | Categories: Article | URL: https://wp.me/p9tj6M-2vz > Comment See all comments > Unsubscribe to no longer receive posts from Caitlin Johnstone. > Change your email settings at Manage Subscriptions . > > Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser: > https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/03/18/a-nation-thats-always-at-war-has-no-moral-authority-notes-from-the-edge-of-the-narrative-matrix/ > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From carl at newsfromneptune.com Thu Mar 18 20:12:44 2021 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2021 15:12:44 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Live Action News Daily Digest: March 18th References: <1616090782521.e53c03ff-8d8f-490d-bea4-0f949e5b273f@bf10x.hubspotemail.net> Message-ID: <792785F1-B23B-44CD-94D1-DE4584B614E0@newsfromneptune.com> > Begin forwarded message: > > From: Live Action News > Subject: Live Action News Daily Digest: March 18th > Date: March 18, 2021 at 1:09:01 PM CDT > To: cgestabrook at gmail.com > Reply-To: info at liveaction.org > > > > Hi Mr. Estabrook, > > Happy Thursday! > > Check out our most recent news articles and stories for you: > > Mom Refused to Abort Daughter With Down Syndrome: ?I Wouldn?t Change Her for the World? > Sadly, parents of preborn children with disabilities are often put under great pressure by doctors to abort. Shannon Wemys? story is just one example. Read more > Spreading Across the State: Latexo Becomes 23rd Texas City to Outlaw Abortion > As a result of the majority vote, no unborn child will be able to be murdered by abortion within the city limits of Latexo, Texas. Read more > Nike Spotlights Pregnant Athletes in Powerful Maternity Ad. but for Some, it?s Too Little, Too Late. > A new maternity ad from athletic powerhouse Nike is being hailed as inspirational ? but others are saying Nike should still be held accountable for its past actions. Read more > > Thanks for joining us! > > For the preborn, > > The Live Action News Team > > Live Action is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Gifts are tax-deductible in the United States. > No goods or services are offered or given in exchange for contributions. > > Make your gift here: give.liveaction.org > > Live Action 2200 Wilson Blvd. Suite 102 PMB 111, Arlington, VA 22201 > > You received this message because you are subscribed to LAN Daily Digest Emails from Live Action. > If you would rather not receive this type of email, you can update your email preferences here or unsubscribe from all future emails. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From carl at newsfromneptune.com Thu Mar 18 20:14:28 2021 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2021 15:14:28 -0500 Subject: [Peace] =?utf-8?q?Fwd=3A_=5Bmarxmail=5D_Documentary_=E2=80=98The?= =?utf-8?q?_Boys_Who_Said_No!=E2=80=99_recalls_anti-draft=2C_anti-war_move?= =?utf-8?q?ment?= References: Message-ID: <04DD2BC5-7FD2-4DF2-AD8E-E314AD50897C@newsfromneptune.com> > Begin forwarded message: > > From: "Alan Ginsberg" > Subject: [marxmail] Documentary ?The Boys Who Said No!? recalls anti-draft, anti-war movement > Date: March 18, 2021 at 3:13:18 PM CDT > To: marxmail at groups.io > Reply-To: marxmail at groups.io > > People's World > > March 17, 2021 > By Eric A. Gordon > > > > > > A highly effective and moving new documentary about the young American men who refused to be sucked into the maw of the Selective Service System during the Vietnam War has just appeared. The Boys Who Said No!: Draft Resistance and the Vietnam War is featured in the Socially Relevant Film Festival online and is available for free viewing now but only until March 21 at 8:59 p.m. (I assume that?s in whatever time zone you?re in, but to be on the safe side, I advise you not to wait that long!) > > Oscar-nominated filmmaker Judith Ehrlich directs this story of a growing mass movement of war resisters who choose conscience (and their own lives!) over killing peasants halfway around the globe who never did them any harm. By attempting to halt the war machine?and not only to save their own skins?they were also hoping to spare any other American death, danger and disability, and to allow the peoples of the former French Indo-China in today?s Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, the freedom to determine their own national destinies. > > Even without having developed, in many cases, a sophisticated analysis of U.S. global interests and the way the U.S. sought to take over from the dying French and British empires, these resisters implicitly recognized an imperialist war when they saw one. > > At first, the movement was small and isolated. The filmmakers take pains to associate it with the conscience acquired in the Civil Rights movement. Throughout, they make the connection between the deprivation of human and voting rights in the U.S. and the moral and political stances activists Black and white people assumed once the Vietnam War started heating up, especially after Lyndon B. Johnson became president in late 1963. > > Among those whose voices are heard here are the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., who was not the first to make public his understanding of the linkages between the domestic and the global struggles. In fact, his story is part of the larger one the film develops, showing how slow and gradual, how depressingly incremental was the growing support for the Resistance. MLK visits Joan Baez in Santa Rita Prison and ties the racial justice and peace movements in an impassioned speech. It is this phase of King?s activism, as well as his support for the labor movement, that is generally left out of the sanitized picture of the saintly preacher who talked about the long arc of justice. > > The film chronicles a youth-led movement of draft resisters who ended the draft and helped end the brutal war. These events, taking place in the latter half of the 1960s and into the early 1970s, are practically ancient history now for most of the world?s population that is, after all, under the age of 60 and has no active memory of the period. > > Viewers will be introduced to a host of prominent individuals who stood with the draft resisters, such as Dr. Benjamin Spock, Stokely Carmichael, Daniel Ellsberg, Father Dan Berrigan, as well as a roster of resisters themselves, now in their 70s. If there is one featured resister in the film, that would have to be David Harris, who wound up getting sentenced to three years in federal prison (he served 20 months). Remarkable film footage survives of many of his speeches, which not only attracted thousands to join him in resisting the draft, but also impressed folksinger Joan Baez. The two married, and had a son together, though life together after prison did not work out successfully and they separated. Film footage includes secretly recorded scenes inside federal prisons. > > Another resister who graces the film off and on is boxer Muhammad Ali. The face of the anti-war and anti-draft movement has come down to the present day as Caucasian, as if it were only privileged white college students who got ?woke? to the peril that faced then. But this was not the case at the time, and the documentary establishes the larger truth that many young Black men and their families also burned or tore up their draft cards, or later on, as the SSS started collapsing administratively, just stopped showing up at pre-induction physicals, as other young men also did. > > Interviewees recall the militant public actions they took to oppose the war and refuse any part in it. These were not, as they were called, ?draft dodgers,? and they did not pay off doctors to find phony disqualifying ?bone spurs.? They were beaten mercilessly as they sat in, blocked induction entrances, leafletted the young men entering, marched and sang. They demonstrated a courage to defend human rights, including their own, that was fully the equal of others who were drafted and sent overseas to fight. They knew they would be physically harmed, arrested, tried, sent to prison, and subjected to possibly years of punishment and long retribution for their conscience, yet stayed the course and took the risks. An estimated 570,000 men resisted the draft in one form or another. > > Other Americans, not susceptible to the draft themselves, supported the anti-war movement in a myriad of ways, some quite dramatic, such as raiding SSS offices and destroying files. In time, some college chaplains and ministers of religion came to see the immortality of the war and joined the movement. Women played an important role as family members, draft counselors, people who helped run anti-war coffeehouses and attended trials, as well as demonstrated. > > The crafty Richard Nixon makes a number of appearances in the film. Those of short memory may not recall that in 1968 he actually ran as a peace candidate! We are reminded here of the long, slow slog toward the final d?nouement as he gradually withdrew some American troops and turned Vietnam into more of an air war. Eventually, under Nixon, the draft was abolished in 1973. > > That was not the only success of the anti-war movement. Though the war proceeded mercilessly, at various points it could easily have gotten much worse, but the growing disaffection with it prevented further and more brutal escalation. After 1968, a majority of American public opinion had turned against the war. If the U.S. government in the end wound the war down?in 1973 turning it over almost entirely to South Vietnamese puppet forces?it?s not because anyone in the White House had concluded it was wrong, but only unwinnable. Any further escalation, such as the 1970 invasion of Cambodia, would only result in the further disheveling of the American social fabric. > > Let it never be claimed that the anti-war movement did no good. Over time, the courts started listening to the resisters, taken by the depth of their sincerity, willing, as they were, to go to jail rather than compromise their souls. Up to 90% of those indicted were not convicted. > > Ideologically, The Boys Who Said No! takes a strong nonviolent position. Acts of violence and destruction did take place on the part of some who after years and years became frustrated with the continuing progress of the war, but the futility of it became apparent. The way to win over the great masses of the American people simply had to be nonviolent in the spirit of Gandhi, Dr. King, Joan Baez, and other leaders. Columbia University student activist Mark Rudd, who later spent years in the Weather Underground, makes a brief appearance here, reflecting on how ?gullible? and out of touch he was at the time. > > As one who was personally active in the anti-draft, anti-war movement at that time (and did a little jail time myself), I noticed some things rather pointedly left out. In the filmmaker?s zeal to remind viewers of the Civil Rights inspiration to the first wave of anti-war protesters, she brings in a number of references to the Southern Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). I have no problem with that, and it was a positive contribution. But on the big college campuses where the movement really took off, the main organizing was led by Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), which goes unmentioned. > > This is not the place to recount my own experience, but I have done so in an essay, ?My SDS Activist Years in New Orleans? in You Say You Want a Revolution: SDS, PL, and Adventures in Building a Worker-Student Alliance (San Francisco: 1741 Press, 2019). It felt a little weird to see myself and the entire organization I thought was so critical to the anti-war movement submerged in the turbulent stream of history, but I guess it?s time to start getting used to the feeling of erasure! Or was this part of the ?cancel culture?? > > Also slighted are the investigative trips made to Hanoi under wartime conditions by American peace activists (Jane Fonda is still remembered not so fondly in many super-patriotic quarters, but there were others as well, including Herbert Aptheker from the CPUSA with Tom Hayden and Staughton Lynd). Another response from the young men subjected to the draft was to emigrate?to Canada, Scandinavia or other places?some of them permanently. > > Left out, too, was Jimmy Carter?s amnesty. On the first full day of his presidency, Jan. 21, 1977, Carter granted unconditional pardons to the hundreds of thousands who had evaded the draft, either by leaving the country or by refusing to cooperate with SSS. The best-known American to serve in Vietnam and then turn against the war upon his return was, of course, John Kerry, but he does not appear in the film either. > > These are in the end small observations and not meant to detract from the necessity of this film now while so many of the principals in the movement are still with us. The ending is beautiful, tying the spirit of resistance which had become so internalized in us to the movements of today. > > To see the film go here . Remember: Only until March 21 at 8:59 p.m. The trailer can be seen at that same site. > > Eric A. Gordon is the author of a biography of radical American composer Marc Blitzstein, co-author of composer Earl Robinson?s autobiography, and the translator (from Portuguese) of a memoir by Brazilian author Hadasa Cytrynowicz. He holds a doctorate in history from Tulane University. He chaired the Southern California chapter of the National Writers Union, Local 1981 UAW (AFL-CIO) for two terms and is director emeritus of The Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring Southern California District. In 2015 he produced ?City of the Future,? a CD of Soviet Yiddish songs by Samuel Polonski. He received the Better Lemons "Up Late" Critic Award for 2019, awarded to the most prolific critic. His latest project is translating the fiction of Manuel Tiago (pseudonym for ?lvaro Cunhal) from Portuguese. The first two books, "Five Days, Five Nights" and "The Six-Pointed Star," are available from International Publishers NY. > > https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/documentary-the-boys-who-said-no-recalls-anti-draft-anti-war-movement/ > > Share > > > _._,_._,_ > Groups.io Links: > You receive all messages sent to this group. > > View/Reply Online (#7375) | Reply To Group | Reply To Sender | Mute This Topic | New Topic > POSTING RULES & NOTES > #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. > #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. > Your Subscription | Contact Group Owner | Unsubscribe [carl at newsfromneptune.com] > _._,_._,_ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbn at forestfield.org Fri Mar 19 00:34:25 2021 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2021 19:34:25 -0500 Subject: [Peace] US-backed Bolivian coupsters are being arrested, tried Message-ID: The US-backed Bolivian coupsters are being arrested -- TeleSUR English reports in https://youtube.com/watch?v=bxlfkSWI2Y4 that Jeanine ??ez was arrested and more recently sentenced to 4 months pre-trial detention. The report also says: > Also arrested on Saturday was ??ez's former Energy Minister Rodrigo Guzman and > Justice Minister Alvaro Coimbra. On Sunday, a far-right civilian activist, Yasir > Molina, who the government said led a group participating in the 2019 protests > leading the coup against Evo Morales were also arrested. https://youtube.com/watch?v=xJ-3MsawN7k also carries the same report. From karenaram at hotmail.com Fri Mar 19 21:51:42 2021 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2021 16:51:42 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Stand Up to Anti-Asian Violence March 27: New Cities and Organizations Participating! References: <60550c9ff1cb6_582691cf58839e9@asgworker-qmb3-15.nbuild.prd.useast1.3dna.io.mail> Message-ID: > > > Announcing New Participating Cities & Endorsers! > > National Day of Action March 27: Stop Anti-Asian Violence, Stop China-Bashing! > > Endorse the national day of action here > Organize an event in your city -- register your event here > > Find local actions in your city: > > San Francisco, CA > 1 PM > "Comfort Women" Column Of Strength Statue |St. Mary?s Square > 651 California St > > Atlanta, GA > 1 PM > City Farmers Market in Chamblee > 5000 Buford Hwy NE, Chamblee, GA 30341 > (Near intersection of Buford Highway & Chamblee Tucker Rd) > > Los Angeles, CA > 12 PM > City Hall | 200 N. Spring Street > Spread the word on Facebook > Sacramento, CA > 11 AM > Southside Park | 2115 6th St > Spread the word on Facebook > Seattle, WA > Time & Location TBD > > New York City, NY > 1 PM > Queens Public Library at Flushing | 41-17 Main St > *speak outs will be organized in Manhattan, the Bronx, and New Jersey; details TBD > > Washington DC > 2 PM > Chinatown gate | 7th & H St. NW > > Denver, CO > 2 PM > 200 E. Colfax Ave > > Chicago, IL > Time & Location TBD > > Philadelphia, PA > Time & Location TBD > > Greensburg, PA > 12 PM > 2 N Main Street > > Columbia, SC > 12 PM > Location TBD > > Indianapolis, IN > 12 PM > 1 Monument Circle > > Springfield, MO > Friday, March 26: 12 PM > Battlefield & Glenstone > > Initial endorsing organizations and individuals > > ANSWER Coalition > Pivot to Peace > Comfort Women Justice Coalition > Veterans For Peace, San Francisco chapter #69 > CODEPINK > Empire Files > Qiao Collective > Jim Lafferty, National Lawyers Guild > Alliance for Global Justice > Labor Against Racism and War > Prof. Eric Mar, Asian American Studies, San Francisco State University > Prof. Kenneth Hammond, New Mexico State University > U.S. Support Committee for Korean Prisoners of Conscience > March and Rally LA > Ground Game LA > Eth-Noh-Tec > Wnc4 Peace > Green Party of Monmouth County NJ > Harold Welton, Black August Los Angeles > Carol Lang, PSC Adjunct Professor > Ina Martinez, UPWARD (Uniting Peace With Actions Respect and Dignity) > The ANSWER Coalition stands in solidarity with the Asian community in the midst of the horrific, racist and misogynist massacre that took place in Atlanta on March 16th. Six Asian women were among the eight shot to death at point blank range. > > The alarming rise in hate crimes over the past year correlates to an increasingly hostile U.S. foreign policy towards China. The opportunistic scapegoating of China during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with the intensity by which China is deemed the enemy and adversary of the United States, has driven a widespread Sinophobic sentiment nationally. The Asian American community suffers the brunt of the hatred fomented as a weapon of war. To date, there have been 3,800 self-reported hate crimes against Asian Americans. > > The mainstream media?s failure to label the Atlanta shooting as a hate crime demonstrates the gross disregard and injustice that our communities are facing. Racism is a sick symptom of a system that profits from war and violence. And to put insult to injury, the cop handling the case was found to be promoting anti-China paraphernalia. > > Join us on March 27th for a national day of action demanding an end to anti-Asian racist violence, an end to violence against women and and end to white supremacy now! > > Endorse the national day of action here > Organize an event in your city -- register your event here > Please make an urgently needed donation to the antiwar movement today. We can only carry on this crucial work with contributions from supporters like you. > > ANSWER Coalition ? United States > You can also keep up with ANSWER Coalition on Facebook . > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From carl at newsfromneptune.com Sat Mar 20 18:50:43 2021 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2021 13:50:43 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Pelosi, Clyburn, Hoyer don't support Medicare for All. References: <131991-41d3-6056273b@list.justicedemocrats.com> Message-ID: > Begin forwarded message: > > From: "JusticeDemocrats.com " > > Subject: Pelosi, Clyburn, Hoyer don't support Medicare for All. > Date: March 20, 2021 at 11:48:09 AM CDT > To: "Carl Estabrook" > > Reply-To: us at justicedemocrats.com > > > > > > Carl, we got a list of House Democrats co-sponsoring Medicare for All. There are some really encouraging things in this list (more than half the Democratic caucus supports it!) but also some troubling things. > > The top 3 Democrats in the House ? Representatives Pelosi, Clyburn, and Hoyer ? don?t support Medicare for All. > > This is disappointing and, frankly, unacceptable. Medicare for All is the one bill in Congress to guarantee that everyone gets the health care they need without worrying about medical bills. It?s the humane, ethical, public solution to our broken, deadly, for-profit health system. So why doesn?t the entire Democratic caucus support M4A? > > > We?re partnering with organizations across the country to pressure Democrats to support quality health care for EVERYONE. Fuel our fight for a just, equal health care system for all people with a $3 contribution to our movement right now. > Contribute $3 > > > It?s really shocking, Carl. The for-profit health system in this country was already killing people before this pandemic ? a Yale study estimated that a single-payer health care system like Medicare for All would save 68,000 lives a year. During the pandemic, a recent study by Public Citizen found that one-third of COVID-19 deaths in America were tied to a lack of health insurance. > > No one should lose their ability to get care because they lose their job. No one should have to choose between crushing medical bills and going to the doctor or getting their insulin. And no one should die because they don?t have health insurance. > > It?s troubling that top Democrats like Speaker Pelosi don?t support the one single-payer health care bill in Congress when it would save so many lives. So, we will keep fighting to get every Democrat to co-sponsor Medicare for All. Are you with us? > > Donate now to support our movement to transform the Democratic Party and ensure critical, transformative legislation like Medicare for All becomes law. Every dollar you give funds our grassroots fight for change. > In solidarity, > > Justice Democrats > > > > > > > > > Do not worry if you cannot afford to make a contribution ? we understand that this is a difficult time. If you?re struggling, you can find a food bank here. We appreciate everything you do to keep our movement strong. > > Please stay informed and follow the most up-to-date recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and your state public health department. > > > > > > > > > Donate > > > Not authorized by any candidate or candidate?s committee. > JusticeDemocrats.com > P.O. Box 910 Knoxville, TN 37901 > Email us: us at justicedemocrats.com > > This email was sent to carl at newsfromneptune.com . If your inbox is slammed, click here to receive fewer emails . If you need to remove yourself from our email list, click here to unsubscribe . > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From carl at newsfromneptune.com Sat Mar 20 18:49:27 2021 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2021 13:49:27 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Pelosi, Clyburn, Hoyer don't support Medicare for All. References: <131991-41d3-6056273b@list.justicedemocrats.com> Message-ID: <9EE8FF29-9A95-4214-9BE8-653782C8880E@newsfromneptune.com> > Begin forwarded message: > > From: "JusticeDemocrats.com " > > Subject: Pelosi, Clyburn, Hoyer don't support Medicare for All. > Date: March 20, 2021 at 11:48:09 AM CDT > To: "Carl Estabrook" > > Reply-To: us at justicedemocrats.com > > > > > > Carl, we got a list of House Democrats co-sponsoring Medicare for All. There are some really encouraging things in this list (more than half the Democratic caucus supports it!) but also some troubling things. > > The top 3 Democrats in the House ? Representatives Pelosi, Clyburn, and Hoyer ? don?t support Medicare for All. > > This is disappointing and, frankly, unacceptable. Medicare for All is the one bill in Congress to guarantee that everyone gets the health care they need without worrying about medical bills. It?s the humane, ethical, public solution to our broken, deadly, for-profit health system. So why doesn?t the entire Democratic caucus support M4A? > > > We?re partnering with organizations across the country to pressure Democrats to support quality health care for EVERYONE. Fuel our fight for a just, equal health care system for all people with a $3 contribution to our movement right now. > Contribute $3 > > > It?s really shocking, Carl. The for-profit health system in this country was already killing people before this pandemic ? a Yale study estimated that a single-payer health care system like Medicare for All would save 68,000 lives a year. During the pandemic, a recent study by Public Citizen found that one-third of COVID-19 deaths in America were tied to a lack of health insurance. > > No one should lose their ability to get care because they lose their job. No one should have to choose between crushing medical bills and going to the doctor or getting their insulin. And no one should die because they don?t have health insurance. > > It?s troubling that top Democrats like Speaker Pelosi don?t support the one single-payer health care bill in Congress when it would save so many lives. So, we will keep fighting to get every Democrat to co-sponsor Medicare for All. Are you with us? > > Donate now to support our movement to transform the Democratic Party and ensure critical, transformative legislation like Medicare for All becomes law. Every dollar you give funds our grassroots fight for change. > In solidarity, > > Justice Democrats > > > > > > > > > Do not worry if you cannot afford to make a contribution ? we understand that this is a difficult time. If you?re struggling, you can find a food bank here. We appreciate everything you do to keep our movement strong. > > Please stay informed and follow the most up-to-date recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and your state public health department. > > > > > > > > > Donate > > > Not authorized by any candidate or candidate?s committee. > JusticeDemocrats.com > P.O. Box 910 Knoxville, TN 37901 > Email us: us at justicedemocrats.com > > This email was sent to carl at newsfromneptune.com . If your inbox is slammed, click here to receive fewer emails . If you need to remove yourself from our email list, click here to unsubscribe . > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From carl at newsfromneptune.com Sat Mar 20 18:49:53 2021 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Sat, 20 Mar 2021 13:49:53 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: [marxmail] Leading rabbi condemns ethnic cleansing, apartheid and state-sponsored religion for an hour -- everywhere but Israel! References: Message-ID: <49D923AF-6525-497A-9011-E2F1968DDABE@newsfromneptune.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Mon Mar 22 23:46:20 2021 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2021 18:46:20 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Day of Action/Stop the Violence Against Asians Message-ID: SATURDAY the 27th at 2 PM CDT Day of Action: Stop Anti-Asian Violence! Alma Mater Event by Answer Coalition Champaign-Urbana U of I Alma Mater Public ? Anyone on or off Facebook Join the ANSWER Coalition on Saturday to demand an end to anti-Asian and sinophobic racism. We will be rallying at Alma Mater at 2pm to protest the narrative that the tragic murders that occurred in Atlanta were isolated events. These murders were hate crimes, and must be treated and protested as such. Being just the most recent example of the rise of anti-Asian hatred in this country, join us to encourage solidarity and to demand the respect that our Asian community has long deserved. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbn at forestfield.org Thu Mar 25 00:35:57 2021 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2021 19:35:57 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Recommended videos for AWARE on the Air, News from Neptune, and Labor's World View TV Message-ID: Here are the videos I recommended to run during AWARE on the Air, News from Neptune, and Labor's World View TV. laborvideo Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMIgEJUyBXsO4ckVj3dYasw https://youtube.com/watch?v=PTuawY8Qnz8 -- (2h 3m 21s) "Noam Chomsky on the State-Corporate Complex: A Threat to Freedom and Survival" https://youtube.com/watch?v=ctm4c_OnRYU -- (26m 46s) "The AFL-CIO, Privatization, Ukraine, NED & Imperialism" -- there's not enough coverage on the National Endowment for Democracy (NED; a US imperialist cut-out) and this talk explicitly urges you to connect international imperialism with what's going on to workers at home. https://youtube.com/watch?v=rvHNktE-kAA -- (26m 54s) "US Privatization Of Ukraine, Puerto Rico, PG&E & The Natalie Jeresko Ana Montosantos Connections" https://youtube.com/watch?v=ilaiwLrziyM -- (31m 9s) "US Capitalism, The Ukraine & Imperialism With George Wright" https://youtube.com/watch?v=WzUsLrlie_Q -- (57m 55s) "Kim Scipes on The AFL-CIO's Secret War against Developing Country Workers - Solidarity or Sabotage?" MintPressNews Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UCc9UUSOBWC6VCkJUqnh-CLw https://youtube.com/watch?v=ecTS1N49UZI -- (32m 36s) "Biden's 1.7 Ton Bombs Dropped on Sryria Amid Pandemic with Vanessa Beeley" RT Channels: https://youtube.com/channel/UCpwvZwUam-URkxB7g4USKpg https://youtube.com/channel/UCczrL-2b-gYK3l4yDld4XlQ https://youtube.com/channel/UC_ab7FFA2ACk2yTHgNan8lQ https://youtube.com/watch?v=WcyahFNYqxg -- (27m 10s) Chris Hedges interviews David Talbot on "America's Secret Government" https://youtube.com/watch?v=8mZ_VirIoAE -- (34m) "Code Pink & Why Peace Can Never Break Out (w/ Medea Benjamin)" https://youtube.com/watch?v=pCWs5B_HKoI -- (24m 31s) "The Horrors of Cyber Warfare & The Economics of the Covid-19 Stimulus" World Socialist Web Site Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UCwQKTzuzDIazT37whnR0lqQ https://youtube.com/watch?v=6J2_Gb8Xvvk -- (2h 12m 16s) "150 Years since the birth of Rosa Luxemburg" Democracy at Work Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UCK-6FjMu9OI8i0Fo6bkW0VA https://youtube.com/watch?v=6q72Q7Y2xJY -- (44m 28s) "All Things Co-op - Taking on Rosa Luxemburg's Critique of Co-ops" https://youtube.com/watch?v=oeEAhiARNPs -- (8m 07s) "AskProfWolff: Why A Worker Co-op Economy Would be Less Unstable" https://youtube.com/watch?v=mPjTyGiLEw8 -- (9m 33s) "AskProfWolff: Corporate Threats to Leave are Empty" https://youtube.com/watch?v=y9MbNk9jTtA -- (9m 46s) "AskProfWolff: Profiteering Electric Companies" Grayzone Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UCEXR8pRTkE2vFeJePNe9UcQ https://youtube.com/watch?v=lNzVRiN_ga8 -- (28m 11s) "UN expert details crushing human toll of US sanctions on Venezuela" https://youtube.com/watch?v=Y5uFYLIp2CI -- (46m 21s) "'No to Dictatorship': Why Haitians are protesting US-backed Mo?se" From jbn at forestfield.org Thu Mar 25 01:16:38 2021 From: jbn at forestfield.org (J.B. Nicholson) Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2021 20:16:38 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Saudi Arabia and the UAE are bombing Yemen with US backing again Message-ID: <91b82ba6-fab2-7abc-c0ab-0d42efabc550@forestfield.org> Sarah Abdallah (@sahouraxo on twitter.com) from https://twitter.com/sahouraxo/status/1374092264364929025 on March 22, 2021: > BREAKING: Saudi Arabia and the UAE are bombing #Yemen?s Sanaa International > Airport right now, marking the 3rd straight day of attacks on the Yemeni capital. > > This is a war crime. > > And it is 100% backed by the administration of Joe Biden. From carl at newsfromneptune.com Thu Mar 25 18:43:57 2021 From: carl at newsfromneptune.com (C. G. Estabrook) Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2021 13:43:57 -0500 Subject: [Peace] =?utf-8?q?Fwd=3A_This_chart_shows_the_basic_problem_?= =?utf-8?b?4oCUIEplZmY=?= References: Message-ID: Quite correct. > Begin forwarded message: > > From: Jeffrey Lang > Subject: This chart shows the basic problem ? Jeff > Date: March 25, 2021 at 8:14:24 AM CDT > To: Carl Estabrook > > https://americanprospect.imgus11.com/public//3565db6cd4a46385bda2c9e4e65b0c26.png?r=1435448719 > > > Sent from my iPad -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From karenaram at hotmail.com Thu Mar 25 19:17:13 2021 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2021 14:17:13 -0500 Subject: [Peace] Fwd: Who Rules America-postwar foreign policy. References: Message-ID: > > https://whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/power/postwar_foreign_policy.html?fbclid=IwAR0fDnSBgv6cNyWoqpKtusu9jV-fdvVpwUXkbX_gtZiHZyVv5qOtm6_MMW From karenaram at hotmail.com Sat Mar 27 15:18:34 2021 From: karenaram at hotmail.com (Karen Aram) Date: Sat, 27 Mar 2021 10:18:34 -0500 Subject: [Peace] "China and Russia are not our enemies" Counterpunch Message-ID: Someone needs to say this, and it looks like it?s gotta be me: China and Russia are not our enemies. Somehow, the opinion-makers in the media, the bloated military brass with all their ribbons and stars and with little to do but worry about how to keep their massively overbuilt operation afloat with ever more taxpayer money, and the members of Congress who like to gin up fears among the voters so they?ll keep voting for them have gotten everyone thinking that Russia is still hell bent on world communist takeover and that China it trying to replace the US as global hegemon. Nothing could be farther from the truth. First let?s talk military forces: The US has an army of 2.5 million ? 1.5 million active duty and one million reservists and National Guard units, Russia?s army numbers 2.9 million but only 900,000 of those are active duty, with two million being reservists. China has 2.8 million active duty troops, but that number is deceptive. 800,000 of them are so-called armed police, the Wu Jing, and their job is keeping a restive population in check. They are not for fighting wars, but for controlling the people of the country. Now let?s talk military budgets: The US will spend, if we want to be purists, $716 billion on the military. It?s actually a lot more because the National Security Agency is part of the military, and the CIA to all intents and purposes is military in nature and between them their secret budgets top more than the $50 billion that was leaked in a Congressional hearing eight years ago, and could be double that now since so much more US military activity is now handled by Special Forces acting under the direction of the CIA, but for sake of argument let?s just leave it at $716 billion. Russia?s military budget is $65 billion, and even if you tripled that to account for how much more expensive everything is in the US from soldiers? pay to weapons systems would represent less than a third of what the US spends. China?s military budget is $183 billion, and again, you could double that if you like to account for different costs and it would still be less than half of the US military budget. That is to say, even if you put the Chinese and Russian militaries together, their budgets would be significantly smaller than the US military budget. On top of that there?s the matter of where those three militaries are. The US has 800 bases in 70 countries and at least the last time the White House reported on the subject, in a 2018 report to Congress, it had troops fighting in seven countries. Russia, according to a report in Izvestia, has 21 military bases operating outside of the country, many of them in states that were formerly part of the Soviet Union until 1990, like Tajikistan, Armenia and Belarus. The only place it has soldiers fighting is in Syria. China has four overseas basis ? one in Djibouti, one in Tajikistan, and two signal facilities in Myanmar and at the southern tip of Argentina. Finally, and this is important, the US has nine operational aircraft carrier battle groups, eight based in the US and one in Japan, all available for force projection anywhere in the world, and carrying more planes than almost any of the world?s other air forces not counting Russia and China. The US carriers are all nuclear powered and can remain away from home port indefinitely. US carriers have frequently been posted for operational use off the coast of Afghanistan, in the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf and in the Mediterranean. One was even sent into the Arctic Ocean a few years back. Russia has one oil-powered aircraft carrier. It rarely leaves port. China has two aircraft carriers, which stay close to home. In terms of nuclear weaponry, the US and Russia each have 1600 actively deployed nuclear warheads, limited by a treaty that is currently in fragile shape. They each have a total of over 6000 nuclear warheads, with over 4500 of them in each country in storage. China has 380 nuclear warheads, more than double what India has. As far as delivery systems for those nukes, the US has 405 Minuteman III missiles, each capable of carrying three independently targetable and highly accurate warheads. It also has 14 Trident missile-firing nuclear submarines each capable of carrying 24 Trident missiles with up to 8 independently targetable warheads, though these subs are currently limited to carrying just eight missiles and four or five warheads on each, for a total of 40 nukes per submarine. Russia in 202 claimed to have 517 land-based missile launchers on its territory to carry those warheads to targets. It also has 11 missile launching subs each capable of carrying 16 missiles with multiple warheads. China is estimated to have 100 nuclear capable missiles of various ranges. Not all could reach the US. It has six nuclear missile carrying submarines. While even one nuclear weapon striking a country ? even a country as large as are Russia, China and the US ? it is clear from all these figures that the US has by far the most dominant military in the world. Russia or China would be crazy to take on the US militarily, and in fact, there is no indication that either country is even considering doing such a thing. Indeed, where the US engages its military at will all over the globe, China and Russia have consistently limited their military activities to areas near their home countries. The Pentagon and its backers in the US media and in Congress, have to strain like a person with severe constipation in order to produce anything resembling a threat from either country, as when Russia a few years ago flew one of its aging long-range bombers over the pole and landed with some supplies to donate to Venezuela, and the US press was filled with alarms that the jet was ?capable of carrying nuclear weapons, as I Russia might decide to drop one on Miami of Boston on the return flight home. If readers could get past the heavy breathing of the reporters they might have recalled that the US sends it?s nuclear capable bombers, both B-52 Stratofortresses and the much more ominous B-2 Stealth bombers, half way around the world, to actively bomb other countries (with conventional ordnance) or to ?send a signal? just by flying near a country like Iran. The real threat posed by Russia and China is commercial. The US acts as though a Russian pipeline called Nordstream, being built under the North Sea to bring cheap Russian natural gas to Western Europe is a virtual act of war. And China, with its huge ?belt and road? project to link eastern China to Europe with high-speed rail and all-weather highways to facilitate trade between Europe and Asia is some kind of devious military maneuver. Let?s get real. The US military is the biggest threat to the future of the United States. It?s ravenous appetite for ever more money, which Congress obliges year after year, is gobbling up almost the entire discretionary budget of the federal government ? an amount which, even if you just count the official numbers represents half of the total tax collection of the government each year. A great example of this is the F-35 nuclear-capable fighter bomber, a $1.7-trillion dollar boondoggle which now, mid-way through its production process, the Pentagon admits is a complete failure as an aircraft, unreliable, incapable of flying at supersonic speed as it destroys its ?stealth? coating, too heavy to engage other planes in aerial dogfights, and a danger to pilots because of avionics that are unreliable. It is likely to end up in a very expensive scrap heap and nobody is being blamed for this epic waste. If we were actually concerned about national security, we would slash the US military by 90 percent and its budget by the same amount, bring all the ships and troops home from those 800 overseas bases, get out of all the conflicts into which the government injects our military ? usually illegally?and start taking care of this country, which is, from the stand point of education, environment, health care, infrastructure, economy, and democratic governance in pretty sad shape. Anyone who has traveled to Europe or Asia can attest that in many countries one feels like a visitor from the Third World. The US has abilities ? like the landing of the Perseverance Rover on Mars ? but meanwhile Japanese and Chinese people whisk between cities on smooth-as-glass high-speed trains while Europeans get their health care delivered free at point of service, mostly covered by taxes paid by all, get six or more weeks of paid vacation and retire without a suffering plunge in living standard. Lets us US citizens smarten up and start figuring out who our real enemies are. Guess what? They?re right here at home, not in Beijing or Moscow, and the biggest one is a big five-sided building across the Potomac River from the Lincoln monument. Back in October 1967, Abbie Hoffman led a group of protesters during a huge antiwar demonstration outside the Pentagon in a mock attempt to levitate the monstrous building constructed during World War II. Maybe it would be better to just raze it, use eminent domain to evice Trump?s hotel from the old Washington Post Office building so it can house a much smaller and appropriately re-named War Department bureaucracy, and then force them tne new tenant to share the space with a new Department of Peace. We and the peoples of the world would all be better off for the change. Dave Lindorff is a founding member of ThisCantBeHappening! , an online newspaper collective, and is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: