War decides who is left

Bertrand Russell- War does not decide who is right- war decides who is leftI’m learning of a vulnerable schism among pacifists. There are pacifists like Gandhi and MLK, known as pragmatic pacifists, and principled pacifists emerged from the socialist school.
 
Pacifists up against the usual suspects need to ally, but their ideological differences are easily exploited by agents who would divide their efforts. One side has Jesus and a belief somewhat parallel to the one which dictates that none can be right except through Him. The other carries the baggage that religion has always messed up common man’s self determination, but beggars can’t be choosers.

Whose war?! OUR war!

United For Peace and Justice Iraq Moratorium November 16 Acacia Park Colorado Springs
At the demonstration last week to mark UFPJ’s Iraq Moratorium we marched from City Hall to the IVAW guard tower installation in Acacia Park. On the way we chanted a call: “WHOSE WAR?!” with the response: “BUSH’S WAR!” It was not the time to quibble between protesters, but should it really not have been “YOUR war?”

It is OUR war now isn’t it? We are engaged in it, the Democrats in congress are funding it, we support the troops who are fighting it. It’s OUR war. We might prefer to say it belongs to the idiots among us, but now they’re pointing the finger back at us. It’s our war, YOUR and MY war unless you have an alibi.

It seems to me the antiwar effort can no longer even be about THE war, nor just about Iraq or Afghanistan. The objective now is to resist empire. Repudiate imperialism.

It’s no longer about extracting our boys to bring them home. We’re over there for keeps, to share the fate of the victims of the destabilized hell we have unleashed. Now the antiwar pacifist message has become defeatist, by imperialist standards. We must ask our soldiers now to take their fingers off their joy sticks, quit playing the conquering occupiers, become a repentant reconstruction force, and serve their time working to pay off our nation’s war debt.

Somalia- a US-made genocide in the making, tying it all in together

Even as the US spreads its intentional genocide into Somalia, there are naive US liberals vocally demanding that the US intervene yet more into Africa, to supposedly stop genocide, they say!

Somalia’s main market for the whole country just burned down yesterday, a direct result of the war that the US unleashed on the country by its bombings of the country and then using Ethiopian troops as the US proxy army. Fire engulfs main Somali market US military contractors the Ethiopians are, so to speak. It is a made-by-the-US genocide that is slowly unfolding in that country.

Cry for the Somali people which the UN itself has says is now has the worst humanitarian crisis at this time in Africa. I have yet to see many (if any?) US pacifist antiwar activists demanding that the US get its butt out of Africa. What the hell are they waiting for?

We need to stop now with all our confusion and mobilize. It seems that the national, state, and local antiwar coalitions are led by folk addicted to solely staring at their own navels. At times, they appear to have entirely forgotten that the US is waging a total planetary war and just seem to be on Cloud Nine with their religous dogmas.

WE… CAPITAL LETTERS… are the problem, not the Bush gang all by itself. I have sat through 2 excruciatingly silly soul trips by local followers of this creed in the last few days about the importance of using only non violence. Religious paralysis and delusions that we have a democratic system where voting matters at this point gives people the excuse to do so little. Just get out of the house and talk to your neighbors and get them to make up some signs and do something together. It’s nonviolent! Then do it, please.

US Out of Africa Now! US citizens out of their king-super-boxes now! And please stop all this nonstop drivel about peaceful non-violence all the meanwhile sitting on your collective asses! Non-violence hardly worked in Myanmar, but at least the Buddhist monks got out and tried.

The US pacifists still are in church though. LITERALLY. Or in little group get togethers talking about much of nothing except the importance of being non-violent. Meanwhile, their opponents are entirely too violent yet the pacifists are out to lunch giving out hugs and love to them. Or ignoring their pro-war opponents’ activities altogether.

President Ahmadinejad meets Jewish rabbis in New York

President Ahmadinejad meets Jewish rabbis in New York. Did you miss seeing this article in The Gazette and/or on the national network news? Here it is on World Network News if you follow the link and scroll down a notch. He also met with Pacifist Christian leaders from The Friends, Mennonites, and other denominations, too.

Here is the text of the coverage…

President Ahmadinejad meets Jewish rabbis in New York
PRESIDENT – Thu, 27 Sep 07

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Monday afternoon met with a group of Jewish rabbis who gave him a silver grail as a sign of friendship.

The president is currently in New York to address the United Nations General Assembly.

The rabbis carried a placard which read, “I am Jewish not a Zionist.”

A senior rabbi of the group said that they considered the visit to New York of President Ahmadinejad as an exceptional opportunity and would never forget it.

He referred to the Iranian president as a person who made a distinction between Jews and Zionists.

“You understand us and make a distinction between the violent behavior of Zionists and the religious beliefs of Jews,” said the senior rabbi who called President Ahmadinejad “a pious man who is seeking to restore peace in the world and has humanitarian plans.” Appreciating the rabbis for their gift, President Ahmadinejad said he was happy to visit them.

“All people in the world have now understood that Judaism is different from Zionism,” said the president.

He added, “Zionists are a political group looking for taking advantage of the opportunities while Jews are the followers of the Moses who promoted peace and friendship.”

President Ahmadinejad stressed that there was no disagreement between the followers of Judaism, Christianity and Islam as they all pray the same God and are brothers.

The president said the future belongs to the monotheist faiths and that liars would be eliminated.

He stressed that all followers of divine faiths were responsible to promote monotheism and defend peace, justice and brotherhood.

From http://www.SpideredNews.com

International Peace Day -reminders

There’s a vigil scheduled for Friday September 21st, the International Day of Peace, on Nevada Avenue and Kiowa Street downtown, from 12noon to 1pm. Bring things that say “peace.”
Give Peace a DanceThe next evening everyone is invited to GIVE PEACE A DANCE. At the Paragon Ballroom at Filmore and Sinton Road on the downtown’s north side.

Student Zionist group, Hillel, and Darfur

Hillel, the US’s most prominent student Zionist group, is actively pushing for US intervention against and into Sudan. On their web site which passes itself off as progressive and green, you will not find any concern for the people of Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, Somalia, or Afghanistan. All these being countries currently being torn apart by US interventions into their affairs.

Instead, Hillel is all into encouraging the notion that US and British imperialism is a benign humanitarian thing for the peoples of Sudan to experience, just as so many other colonized and semi-colonized peoples have. Onward Christian and Jewish soldiers, I guess?

One local activist who is often times connected with the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission through his work at Springs Action Alliance, is now celebrating Hillel’s work over at the University of Colorado in Boulder. There some students have erected a ‘shanty town’ to ‘call attention to Darfur’. Some of these folk were Hillel sutdents for sure.

The Springs Action Alliance’s most recent newsletter called our attention to this ‘shanty town’ constructed by a few students over at the UC at Boulder. This activist is concerned about Darfur. Good. He wanted us to know about this ‘shanty town’ build for us to try to get our support for intervention into Sudan.

I guess though that this individual has forgotten about the segregated shanty towns of White Apartheid South Africa that Zionist groups like Hillel enouraged Israel and the US to accept for decades? He, and other local liberal Darfur fetishists seemingly are blind to the allies they sometimes keep, it seems. They focus on Darfur alongside at many times a rather mixed crowd, Zionists included. These Zionists of today want us to forget about Apartheid shanty towns, and to think that Muslims are putting people into shanty towns instead of Christian Whites, or Jews.

These liberals that push us to become more concerned about Darfur don’t seem to understand that we already are concerned about the violence there. We don’t need Hillel to ‘inform’ us of the problem. We don’t need the Carter Center folk either. We, too, are concerned with all the dying that is going on in that region of Sudan.

We don’t need Zionist backed construction of fake ‘shanty towns’ at UC-Boulder to prompt our interest. We are against the continued bloodshed in that sad region of Sudan, Darfur, with or without Zionists and Israel pushing the issue.

Unlike the Zionists, both Jewish and Christian in the US, we don’t primarily hold the mainly Muslim government of Sudan to be alone responsible for the killing that has occurred there. We also don’t think that an increase in US-British govenrment directed intervention is the solution to what decades of British colonialism in the region has brought about.

More Imperial directed colonialism is not the solution to problems accruing from several centuries of European colonialism, even if it comes disguised as UN or African Union intervention instead of directly Brit and American.

Hillel and Darfur? How sweet their concern for Africa certainly is. It’s just not very sincere though. Instead, it’s little more than a propaganda tool they hope to use to gain support for more Israeli ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians off more of the Palestinian’s land.

Who are they really going to fool long term here? Their concern about any killing going on in Sudan is nothing more than a distracting device, to help keep people’s attention away from Israel’s own crimes committed with the help of the US government. If they want to worry about shanty towns, then worry some about those refugee camps both Israel and the US have created all over the Middle East. Until then, their concern about shanty towns in Sudan rings a little too false to me.

Why I don’t like ‘Ike’

Many in the Colorado Springs Justice and Peace Commission seem enamored with Eisenhower, and even wear caps with ‘I Like Ike’ on them, and carry banners highlighting his one speech supposedly warning about the Military-Industrial complex.

Far from warning us of the dangers of this beast though, Eisenhower brought the beast home to bite America big. I cannot bring myself to ‘like Ike’ as they seem to do.

One aspect of ‘Ike’ was how he was the master of the witch hunt. Most know that Joe McCarthy rose and fell during Eisenhower’s time in office, but too many believe that it was ‘Ike’ that stopped him, and deny that ‘Ike’ made the McCarthy Era happen. If you read the wikipedia info on McCarthy, one will even discover that Robert Kennedy was an employee of Joe McCarthy. The Kennedy’s were in bed with this sick maniac, and so was Eisenhower.

Eisenhower finally had to make some distance from McCarthy, but in no way did he distance himself from witch hunting, red baiting, and homo baiting. Similarly, he gave one speech supposedly distancing himself from the Military-Industrial complex, but his entire career was based on feeding that machine, and enlarging it. To hold this one speech by him high up as being an important and defining one is insane. Will one day some liberal folk focus on some speech by George Dubya talking about the need for compassionate conservatism and enshrine that speech in myth, too? Let’s hope not.

During ‘Ike”s presidency, the US almost started a nuclear bombing and invasion of China, and these years were the coldest of the Cold War. Put simply, I don’t like Ike and there is little reason for any even moderately liberal person in the US to like him either. It’s time to put in their graves these two mistaken J&P banners quoting Eisenhower on one, and Henry Ford on another. Henry Ford, too, was an American fascist thug of a previous era like Ike. It is sad to see proPeace activists carrying quotes from these two Right Wingers.

These two banners should be thrown in the garbage can and never again be used here in Colorado Springs. If not done soon, I think I will make up some banner quoting Joseph Stalin on the need for Peace (Yes, he certainly spoke to that many a time) and carry it side by side with the ‘Ike’ and Ford ones. Maybe then????? these nice pacifist liberals might get the message about how dismaying their choice of wording on these two banners really appears? Who knows?

The Godzilla Mac

Want to see the evolution of the Big Mac into The Japanese Mega Mac into the Chici Mac?

Actually, I think that burger should actually be named The Godzilla Mac instead… But that would imply that you might be eating too many calories, I guess? Is this Mega Mac- Chici Mac going to be made out of Kobe beef? And how many yen will we have to pay for one of these monsters? Be sure to scroll down at the site for the actual evolutionary pictures of these future Japanese Godzilla burgers.

Just last week, too, our editorial clowns at The Gazette here in Colorado Springs, themselves devolved back into the Newt Gringich/ Ronald Reagan dinosaur reigning era with a cartoon they printed once again making fun of America’s working poor and lower middle classes. It was the usual picture of starving poor in the Third World with a side by side picture of the overweight poor at home.

Ha-ha-ha… The pro-capitalist pigs of the Right Wing just love to laugh about how their junk food chains, 24/7 mega-stressed worker/servant schedules, and impoverished factory food supplies are causing working people to grow out like balloons, which of course leads to death by chronic disease instead of kwashkior. They got such a great sense of humor, these elitist fucks. Capitalism is such a great success! See?!!!

Not being a passifist I sometimes get the urge to go out and club these social Neanderthals with some of their own stupid golf clubs. Don’t worry though. I am making great progress in my anger control classes. Plus, I will be attending a 3 day forum this month about how to take up non-violence and become all Jesus-like. There, I will be hugging cops (CS police Boss Liars Meyers) and throwing flowers onto their police stun guns to the sound of meditationary-relaxation-Buddhist music and passifist Anababtist encantations.

Undeclared pacifism: No War On Bush

Non violent pacifists by nature passivists
Bush counts on the Democrats to toe the line. He counts on the peace movement to take his actions lying down.
 
They’re passivists but won’t admit it. And the smirking chimp rolls on. Into Iran, Africa, Asia. While the peace-talking pacifiers quiet your outrage. Be Gandhi, be Jesus, be lambs to the slaughter, the non-violence disciples cry. You’ll die in good conscience. Don’t rock the boat, you’ll disturb our meditation. I call it slumber.
 
In Colorado Springs we live in the belly of the beast. Don’t upset it. Pass the cookies.

We are the Little Folk, we

I like to think of the “Little Folk” of Rudyard Kipling’s A Pict Song
as non-violent insurgents, more Fifth-Column than pacifist. Bluster and indignation will not push back the imperial armies. But quiet, steady non-conformity will subvert their dominion.
Rudyard Kipling A PICT SONG
Rome never looks where she treads.
    Always her heavy hooves fall
On our stomachs, our hearts or our heads;
    And Rome never heeds when we bawl.
Her sentries pass on — that is all,
    And we gather behind them in hordes,
And plot to reconquer the Wall,
    With only our tongues for our swords.

We are the Little Folk — we!
    Too little to love or to hate.
Leave us alone and you’ll see
    How we can drag down the State!
We are the worm in the wood!
    We are the rot at the root!
We are the taint in the blood!
    We are the thorn in the foot!

Mistletoe killing an oak —
    Rats gnawing cables in two —
Moths making holes in a cloak —
    How they must love what they do!
Yes — and we Little Folk too,
    We are busy as they —
Working our works out of view —
    Watch, and you’ll see it some day!

No indeed! We are not strong,
    But we know Peoples that are.
Yes, and we’ll guide them along
    To smash and destroy you in War!
We shall be slaves just the same?
    Yes, we have always been slaves,
But you — you will die of the shame,
    And then we shall dance on your graves!

    We are the Little Folk, we…

Signed, R. Kipling

Non-violence dictum and more blather

A pious colleague asks: “Must nonviolence be effective to be significant?” To be fair, he explains “How do we honor our nonviolent lifestyles and principles when we are faced with the choice to accept or reject available strategies and tactics.” (Punctuation his!)

May I say: If a tree falls in the forest, and no one hears it, stop knocking the trees over. How many do you have to spare? Please don’t tax others for your pledge to be insignificant and ineffective.

If you want to light a candle for peace in the privacy of your living room, you don’t need an organization to mobilize your effort. Don’t judge another’s pacifism, lest they judge your passivism. Please don’t restrain those of us who want to light a candle where all can share it.

Cowards

ACLU PR problemI approached my fellow board members at the ACLU to add their organization’s name to the list of cosponsors of the upcoming PPJPC social event: Give Peace a Dance. They turned it down.
 
Do I bite my thumb at them?

The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado Springs stands only for the civil liberties of Americans. Yes, this would exclude non-citizens, guest workers or refugees, not to mention world citizens. Where does this leave populations under American occupation, whose welfare is our responsibility according to the Geneva Conventions?

(Actually, the Bill of Rights applies to anyone on American soil, citizens and non-citizens. And laws of war dictate that such protections are also owed to people under occupation. I don’t care if you are not concerned about your fellow human beings, you’re bound by law to care for the victims of our war. Do you have any particular affinity for the principles of the ACLU in the first place?)

My colleagues’ rationale? The ACLU should not dilute their focus, nor offend their conservative base, by speaking up against war, in this casethe deprivation of rights of millions which illegal US actions have wrought.

If the Justice and Peace were to have any allies, to my mind the ACLU would be a likely candidate. Unfortunately the peace movement in Colorado Springs is not gathering momentum through the coordinate efforts of organizations. This city is still vastly overpopulated with people who may know the right thing to do, but who aren’t up to the task of doing it.

They are cowards. There will always be an excuse, won’t there? It’s hard to argue with a man who wants to run from the lion, but this isn’t about our own self-preservation is it? The only way to stop this lion is to keep marching. That is our only hope that it might someday stop attacking others. I don’t think it takes any courage to do the right thing. To do the wrong thing, for lack even of knowing what to do, is cowardice.

My efforts to persuade the ACLU were heavy handed and condescending, I wish I could have spoken otherwise. I called their excuses morally bankrupt. So why stop now? These do-gooders may be wrapped in the fog of Bush’s war, but they’re not stupid. They’re cowards.

Talk is the walk

A fellow advocate of peace thinks it’s time to walk the walk. Be the peace you hope to inspire in others. “There’s been enough talk about peace, now walk the walk.” I find this a less than refreshing contortion of the catch-phrase. It’s one thing to speak peaceably, quite another to speak up in support of peace. Policemen are not going to disturb your being peaceful. Keeping peace with yourself does not disrupt their bosses’ war mongering and profiteering. But speak up for peace, and the war industry has a problem with you.

Am I advocating rubbing policemen the wrong way? Not for its own sake. But are you trying challenge authority and stop a war?

I’m all for people walking the walk, paying more than lip-service, or putting their money where their mouth is. But don’t pervert that to mean a peacemaker’s mouth should be kept assiduously quiet. The effort to end war and injustice means speaking up for those who cannot. If I insist it means fighting for what you believe, I do not mean fighting in an other than non-violent sense, I mean putting forth effort. If you are not talking, you’re just walking.

Sisters speak out about all US war zones

Loretto CommunityThey come together from different states, Benedictines, Dominicans, the Loretto Community, the Sisters of Charity, the Sisters of Mercy, the Sisters of St Francis, Pox Christi, the Christian Peacemakers, even a nun visiting from Guatemala, to pray a silent vigil at the gates of Peterson AFB in remembrance of the two greatest war crimes ever perpetrated, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Not only against the use of nuclear weapons, but all weapons, and not just to sit idly by in prayer. The sisters asked for inspiration and guidance to address the violence our country is directing in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Latin American and Colombia.

The heaviest words were for Iraq. Here is the latter part of the prayer ceremony:

We ask forgiveness for our complicity
in the violence now unleashed in the world
and we repent of the violence in our hearts.

Forgive us, we pray

For initiating war         Forgive us, we pray
For believin in untruths         Forgive us, we pray
For resorting to torture         Forgive us, we pray
For wasting resources         Forgive us, we pray
For shattering innocence         Forgive us, we pray

For trampling diplomacy         Forgive us, we pray
For the death of US military in Iraq         Forgive us, we pray
For the Iraqi civilians killed         Forgive us, we pray
For trusting in weapons         Forgive us, we pray
For exporting arms         Forgive us, we pray

For needing to dominate         Forgive us, we pray
For failing to trust         Forgive us, we pray
For failing to act         Forgive us, we pray
For valuing oil over life         Forgive us, we pray

For failing to love         Forgive us, we pray
For our arrogance         Forgive us, we pray
For our pride         Forgive us, we pray
For our silence         Forgive us, we pray

Change our hearts

That we learn compassion         Change our hearts
That we practice mercy         Change our hearts
That we embrace nonviolence         Change our hearts

That we may act in justice         Change our hearts
That we love tenderly         Change our hearts
That we do your will         Change our hearts
That we will be peace         Change our hearts

Don’t say we didn’t warn you

TO THE JAPANESE PEOPLE:
America asks that you take immediate heed of what we say on this leaflet.
 
We are in possession of the most destructive explosive ever devised by man. A single one of our newly developed atomic bombs is actually the equivalent in explosive power to what 2000 of our giant B-29s can carry on a single mission. This awful fact is one for you to ponder and we solemnly assure you it is grimly accurate.

 
We have just begun to use this weapon against your homeland. If you still have any doubt, make inquiry as to what happened to Hiroshima when just one atomic bomb fell on that city.
 
Before using this bomb to destroy every resource of the military by which they are prolonging this useless war, we ask that you now petition the Emperor to end the war. Our president has outlined for you the thirteen consequences of an honorable surrender. We urge that you accept these consequences and begin the work of building a new, better and peace-loving Japan.
 
You should take steps now to cease military resistance. Otherwise, we shall resolutely employ this bomb and all our other superior weapons to promptly and forcefully end the war.

Not Tehran Not Nagasaki Not Hiroshima

No more Hiroshimas and Nagasakis
Today is the anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945. We’ve hung a banner at Toons to commemorate the week. It reads NO MORE HIROSHIMAS -AND NAGASAKIS (Don’t run over to see it right now, I had to take it down in the rain, it’s hand sewn.) Nagasaki was bombed August 9. The Sisters Witness Against War vigil at Peterson AFB serves as an annual reminder of those bombings.
 
Who could have envisioned that today we’d be begging our government not to use a nuclear bomb for a punitive expedition against Iran?

The protest against nuclear arms has always been theoretical to my mind, about their proliferation and use in strategic power plays. I would never have conceived that the half-century-old pacifist movement to curb the nuclear buildup would find itself on the front line of the present anti-war movement. Do not bomb Iran.

Whether or not nuclear weapons are involved hardly matters. Back in 1945, more Japanese civilians died during the infamous fire-bombings of Tokyo than from the atomic bombs. This protest appeals to the minds at the Air Force who are prepared to sanction the remote mass destruction of fellow human beings.

March on Washington Sept 15

Answer Coalition MARCH ON WASHINGTON Sept 15 2007A broad spectrum of national groups have united to mobilize for a massive fall anti-war mobilization called the Days of Action. Sept 15-21 will be a major showdown in Washington DC at the very moment that the Petraeus Report is released and Congress takes up spending over $100 billion to prolong the war. Led by veterans who have returned from Iraq, there will be seven days of actions to send a shockwave through Washington and the nation with the reverberating demand: End the War Now!

Sponsors of the march include:
The ANSWER Coalition; Ramsey Clark; Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation; USLAW; Mounzer Sleiman, Vice Chair, National Council of Arab Americans; Cindy Sheehan; Cynthia McKinney; Veterans for Peace (National); Garett Reppenhagen, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Chair of Board of Directors; Tina Richards, CEO of Grassroots America; Rev. Lenox Yearwood, CEO of Hip Hop Caucus; Code Pink; Father Roy Bourgeois and Eric LeCompte, School of Americas Watch; Kevin Zeese, Democracy Rising; Navy Petty Officer Jonathan Hutto, co-founder Appeal for Redress; Liam Madden, Pres., Boston Chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War and co-founder of Appeal for Redress; Malik Rahim, founder of Common Ground Collective, New Orleans; Howard Zinn, Author and Historian; Carlos & Melida Arredondo, Gold Star Families for Peace; Rev. Graylan Hagler, Ministers for Racial, Social and Economic Justice; Latino Movement USA; Hermandad Mexicana Nacional; Ron Kovic, Vietnam Veteran, author, Born on the 4th of July; Leonard Weinglass, Cuban 5 attorney; Michael Berg; National Lawyers Guild; Father Luis Barrios, Iglesia de San Romero de las Americas – UCC; World Can’t Wait; Frank Velgara, ProLibertad Freedom Campaign; Pam Africa, International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal

Missile silo protest doubled county pop.

Uproot dont upgrade nuclear missile in our backyard 2007 protest action commemorating Trinity Atom Bomb test
Though the contingent from Colorado Springs was small, this year’s nuclear disarmament protest drew 50 activists to remote Weld County, home of N-8, one of 49 missile silos in the state of Colorado. Activists joined in from Denver, Fort Collins and Boulder, and drew the interest of a local Fox-TV Affiliate. See the M.A.D. Mutually Assured Destruction Minuteman III Mockups in Loring’s pictures at CSACTION.ORG.