Tag Archives: Peace Community

The History of Violent Protest in Colorado Springs, in a Nutshell.

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JesusGET THIS. I heard a reverend-person yesterday lecturing newish activists about their need for nonviolence training, which she was volunteering to lead. She was also offering rubber wristbands for her graduates to wear at demonstrations, so that police could differentiate between protesters. She told us she’d ask officers to scrutinize those not wearing bands as being the potential troublemakers. This, she assured everyone, would make it more difficult for outside groups to waylay the action. I kid you not. And she’s a church leader praised locally as something of an activist! HA! That’s a RAT!

I recognized the Springs “outsider” buggaboo so I thought I’d relate where it came from in a little piece I’ll call The History of Violent Protest in Colorado Springs. Ready? It won’t take long.

So what violence have I seen in my fairly full-time participation over a dozen years, multiple wars and as many elections? ZERO. That’s right. I’ve seen a lot of brutal handling by police, but by the hands of protesters? Nothing.

Yep. The History of Violent Protest in Colorado Springs. The End.

For as much as local church leaders harp on nonviolence training, which includes, by the way, nonviolence bounderies that forbid even confrontational speech, you’d think they’d seen a need for it. They haven’t. For EVERY preacher and or disciple regurgitating nonviolence edicts, I’ve never seen ONE counterpart advocate for, nor commit, violence. It’s almost a laugh, if the practice wasn’t so damaging to public demonstrations. Colorado Springs street protests have been defanged to nothing, police needn’t bother to show up and they don’t. As a result, neither do protesters.

And it isn’t just that nonviolence dogma declaws the public beast. Religifying activism alienates intellectuals and atheists who woud prefer not to suffer the foolish god-justified claptrap. Monotheism is the engine which has always perpetuated privilege, enslavement, colonization and capitalism. Wtf.

Not satisfied to deputize citizens with the equivalent of TSA pre-boarding approval, clergy want to deprive their charges of the element of surprise. The Springs antiwar community keeps direct contact with law enforcement. I’m guessing protestations, if any, are now simply phoned in.

I JUST WANT TO PUNCH these nonviolence religion freaks for mutilating the impetus of budding activists. A newcomer’s anger is what drew them to protest in the first place. Of course as ministers that is their function. Social injustice is job security to church employees. They are about as likely to remedy inequity as the Pope. Sermons aim to temper their sheep’s natural anger at injustice. But enough about those assholes.

No matter the issue, antiwar, the environment, racism, homelessness, in Colorado Springs I’ve seen absolutely no public demonstration escalate to violence. Why then the ready queue of spiritual nuts so eager to innoculate every next wave of concerned citizen before they can even take to the street? It goes back to something that happened at an antiwar demonstration in 2003, although the lesson being drawn is not based on what really happened. That’s the bugaboo.

Palmer Park, 2003
In 2003 George W. Bush was about to initiate an illegal war against Iraq and public demonstrations were coordinated across the globe. In Colorado Springs nearly 2,000 people assembled in Palmer Park along Academy Boulevard. The Springs rally looked to eclipse the antiwar events planned in Denver, so some people came from Denver, or so it’s believed. In reality, the Springs antiwar community had an average age of 75 and hadn’t seen new faces for decades. The sight of younger participants led many to believe they were from elsewhere. Plus some of the younger protesters wore black, so word spread they were Anarchists. Scary.

For the usual reasons, the CSPD decided to close Academy Boulevard. When rally-goers realized their protest wasn’t being seen because motorists were no longer driving by, some decided to lead the crowds southward toward an intersection where traffic was still passing. Being that Academy Boulevard was cleared of cars, the most obvious route was on the street. There was no sidewalk and the park was congested with the parked cars of the attendees. No matter. The police formed a line and ordered the marchers back.

The police began to spray tear gas as the protesters retreated. Clouds of gas enveloped the crowds as they dispersed and struggled to get in their cars. The cars were gased with families and small children inside them, unable to drive away.

Across the globe that day, only two cities used tear gas against their antiwar protests: Athens and Colorado Springs. That’s how old timers like to tell the story. They’ll add that the police crackdown was prompted by unruly outsiders being violent with police. By which they mean, refusing to get off the street. Being assertive of one’s rights somehow became translated to mean impermissively violent.

Had these Emily Posts ever seen the footage of Selma?! These nonviolence sticklers are MLK idolators, yet just like Selma’s whites, they blame the victim.


Palmer Park, 2003

Protests in Colorado Springs immediately diminished in popularity and never again drew large numbers. Apparently when organizers called their members the apprehension was always “will it be safe?”

And so from that day, nuns and other clergy met regularly with Colorado Springs police to talk to them about protest plans, lest CSPD be surprised and overreact. That hasn’t stopped police from dragging us across streets or assaulting us in parking lots or on sidewalks. Oh to have merited it even once!

NOTE: I have omitted a couple of insider details about the 2003 rally because I wanted to relate the experience of the average participant. Yes, the event was advertized statewide and drew opponents of Bush’s war from along the Front Range. And yes, there was a strategy among frontline protesters to try to block an intersection. Most attendees didn’t know either of these facts. The local peace community was so insular that all new faces were looked upon as interlopers. But my point remains, there was no violence. Our freedom to assemble, wherever two thousand people need to go, is not abriged by congress nor by traffic laws. Rebuffing law enforcement’s attempt to disrespect civil liberties by standing, walking, sitting, or shouting, is not violence.

St Patricks Day, 2007

Nonviolently submitting to state violence is supposed to move onlookers to empathy. In 2007, was the Colorado Springs public moved by the police brutalization of nonviolent 70-yr-old Elizabeth Fineron, who later died of complications of her injuries? No, they cheered the police.

Sacrificing yourself may work in democracies with an empowered populace, but against fascism, as against the Mongols or Manifest Destiny, it’s abrogation of responsibility and suicide.

Nonviolence
Incorporating the dogma of “nonviolence” into what would otherwise be straightforward protest becomes problematic when nonviolence folks want to differentiate themselves. Those who are “othered” are then presumed to be planning violence. That’s a very serious charge. Inciting a riot is a crime. Plotting to overthrow a democracy is sedition.

Non-nonviolence does not equal intending-violence. For example, I do not advocate violence, I advocate solidarity.

I do not oppose people asking for NV training, or undertaking it, though I would prefer that nonviolence wasn’t marketed to newcomers who wouldn’t have thought to have needed it.

Why should “nonviolence” even have to come up, for example, at a discussion about a SIT-IN? Agreeing to sit is already a gesture which has capitulated the option to resist. A crowd can’t charge from the seated position. You can’t even defend yourself. The nonviolence is inherent.

Religious NV training is really about nonviolent communication, a whole other can of rotten worms. There is no evidence that Gandhi, MLK or the Flint factory sit-ins practiced that aberration.

If the challenge is to show public opposition to the sit-lie ordinance because it further oppresses the homeless, public energies need not be exhausted by habitually passive religious leaders and their idea of what direct action needs to be.

Yes, the anticipation of the supremacy of nonviolence over state violence is a religious expectation. Against fascism you’re asking for a miracle.

If preachers were activists they would lead their flocks into the street. Circulating among activists, those church leaders are opportunistic missionaries, looking for recruits among the disenchanted.

To be earnestly inclusive of faiths and non-faiths, leave you diety at home. Show respect for the “others” who don’t need the voodoo rationalizations you require to muster moral courage.

Je Suis a Goddamn Neoliberal Meme… Je Suis Charlie, Neda, Kony, Save Dafur

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40 world leaders march for Charlie Hebdo
A million people mobilized in Paris, including 40 WORLD LEADERS!? How long have their limousines been queued? I usually brag that our corporate foes can’t manufacture consent in the streets, except when they do.

I AM NEDA, KONY 2012, SAVE DARFUR, now JE SUIS CHARLIE are purely neoliberal consolidations of public support. They’re televised Nurenburg rallies masked as spontaneous demonstrations. Add “I AM ___” to “______ Spring” and colored revolutions as dead giveaways of psy-op inspired counterrevolution.

With NYPD turning their backs on their mayor and Westboro Baptists making the protest of soldiers look unreasonable, the choices are narrowing for activists who want to define their struggle with tactics not splooged upon by the lumpen knee jerk Fascists.

A woman approached me yesterday at an anti police brutality demonstration in solidarity with Ferguson. She agreed with the cause, but wanted to know why we weren’t also speaking out for abused children, for example those thrown off bridges by deranged parents. While child abuse has its systemic causes, the answer highlights what differentiates insurgent demonstrations from the false. People take to the streets to challenge power, not to gang up with power to further its oppressive agendas.

Duh. Except the lure of popular causes seems to be irresistable to social justice types normally starved for public support. I saw the “Save Darfur” project twist and fracture my local peace community. Obama Lincoln 2008 had the same effect, another socially engineered bandwagon.

I’m not galled by the hypocracy of world leaders “marching” in Paris, pretending to stand for press freedoms. I’m upset my the millions of Frenchmen duped into attending their photo-op. Those millions of Frenchmen in the same street should have trampled the World Bank kapos underfoot, instead of pretending the corporate cabal were people too.


(Remember when I AM NEDA protests failed to tie a viral snuff vid to false accusations of election fraud in Iran?)

Tony, David Barsamian says hello

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The local Pikes Peak Justice & Peace Commission found a little more between the lines than they may have counted on from visiting scholar/lecturer David Barsamian. Although he preached the habitual Gandhian nonviolent civil disobedience, and putting faith in reforming electoral politics, some heresy emerged from the mix. Asked how he could cite 1984 with the authority of scripture, three times, but overlook how Orwell derided nonviolence as a tool of totalitarian control, Barsamian reminded the audience that Orwell joined the Spanish Civil War against Franco, believing that Fascist threat justified armed struggle. Barsamian then clarified that neither of the sainted NV Big 3, Gandhi, Mandela or MLK, completely eschewed violent resistance.

The PPJPC audience may be too far gone to appreciate the distinction. This was demonstrated by a rambling question/interjection by a PPJPC member luminary. Not only is the PPJPC nonviolent, it sanctions only nonviolent communication, to elaborate further, non-protest, and even non-talking about negative things. While she was thankful for David Barsamian informing his audiences, she felt what he was doing served to defeat the positive outlook necessary to float a new consciousness. There’s a growing world movement, apparently. What’s required, said she, was a concentrated focus on the positive. I paraphrase, but I lack the parochial school vocabulary.

Fortunately, Barsamian politely pooh-pooed that notion, though not with the ridicule I would have liked. Barsamian’s theme was about historical illiteracy, and while he could fault education and media for the sad state of US critical aptitude, he could offer just the usual intra-capitalism strategies of consumer boycotts and hope for turning our legislators around. For Barsamian, our task as activists is to spread understanding to the oligarchs. The corporate bosses have children too, how could they fail to recognize that the destruction of our planet will be their doom as well?

Barsamian could have found the answer in a parable he recited while illustrating another point. He asked the audience if we’d heard the story of the scorpion and the camel, a parable circulating in popular culture to vilify Islam.

The tale recounts a scorpion who asked a camel to ferry him across the river. The camel declined, certain the scorpion would sting him. After much pleading from the scorpion, the camel eventually decided to offer the benefit of the doubt, hoping his good deed would overcome the scorpion’s reputation. In the middle of the river, “Oy vay” Barsamian lampooned, the scorpion struck. Asked why he betrayed the camel, the scorpion replied “Welcome to the Middle East.”

Yes, it’s a despicable slander of the Arab, and by intentional extension, the Muslim character. Especially as you consider the original version of this tale, an ancient Sanskrit parable, which the Zionist propagandists are not foolish enough to quote in the original. When you pretend a universal truth damns an entire people, the racism is too obvious.

Originally the scorpion’s victim was a turtle, and the argument which won the turtle over was: why would the scorpion sting him in the middle of the river, were both would surely drown? After the backstabbing, the explanation given to the turtle was a moral that has enlightened mankind since ancient times, I’m certain everyone in the audience knew it. Quoth the scorpion: it is my nature.

You knew I was a scorpion when you took me on your back.

Who are the turtles today, thinking that corporations and capitalism can be turned by our altruism?

A last question came from an audience member who expressed their faltering hopefulness. In reply, Barsamian pointed to other milestones in history when dramatic relief was also more than the average person could have foreseen. 1958 in Cuba, 1788 in France and 1775 in the American Colonies. YES, thank you David Barsamian!

I’m guessing I’m going to regret not having yelled out to put the exclamation mark on where Barsamian puts his faith. Each of the events which he tenders to offer hope, was a VIOLENT REVOLUTION!

As to the cryptic title of this post. On every visit to the Springs, the indefatigable Barsamian witnesses a further disintegration of our local peace community. Not long ago, Tony caused an uproar with his boisterous complaints of the PPJPC’s misplaced piety. Perhaps David witnesses such fractures everywhere in the movement these days, the bristling tension growing between activists and the elders ascended into their delusions. Into such atmospheres Barsamian does not hold himself above the fray. To even the divisive Tony, for example he wished to convey his warmest regards.

Did Obama hear you on election day?

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Here’s a quarter-page size flier you can use to spread the word about tonight’s event. Obama’s announcement will be momentous, no matter which course of action he decides. It will be either the first sign of delivering on his promise of change, or a hopeful public betrayed.
hopeless escalation flier

And thousands more Afghan dead. Let’s not forget who suffers the most from America’s reckless decisions.

Come to Acacia Park tonight at 5pm. Let him hear your voice!

Below is the Coloradans For Peace December 1 press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Colorado Springs peace community urges President Obama to chose withdrawal from Afghanistan over escalation

COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO, 12/1/09 — Coloradans For Peace (CFP) will gather with area community activists on Tuesday, December 1, at 5pm, in Acacia Park downtown, to urge President Barack Obama: NO ESCALATION OF THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN.

The nonviolent assembly in Acacia Park will be part of nationwide peace demonstrations in response to President Barack Obama’s forthcoming announcement about a new US strategy in Afghanistan. National organizers include CODE PINK, UNITED FOR PEACE & JUSTICE, WORLD CAN’T WAIT, ACT NOW TO STOP WAR AND END RACISM (ANSWER), and many others.

Speculation has been rising that our president intends to increase US troop levels in Afghanistan, but CFP remains hopeful that President Obama will make a decision in the spirit of his presidential campaign. We will assemble in Acacia Park in advance of the televised presidential address, in unison with other US cities, to remind the president of the electorate’s call for an end to our nation’s military conflicts.

The CFP believes the unprecedented turnout for the 2008 election was strongly motivated by the American public’s alarm over the ongoing foreign wars. We believe President Obama would be ignoring a profound mandate given him by his voters if he decided to expand the conflict in Afghanistan instead of bring it to a close.

In urging an end to America’s foreign occupations, citizens can show their true support for the troops. More than ever before, soldiers are contacting antiwar organizations to say that they support the peace efforts to bring them home.

# # #

This Israel public relations jig is up

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Colorado College lecture in Gaylord HallCOLORADO COLLEGE- The news from the ISRAEL TODAY lecture is all good. If you’d been there, you might wonder how my takeaway from such a bilious gathering could be upbeat. I’ll tell you. The Palestinian voice was well represented, Israel’s presentation was Old Testament, and the writing on the wall grows ever more clear. And I got a few nice pics.

The Audience
To begin, I would certainly have preferred everyone had acted with more decorum. That is, if there had been impressionable attendees there. As it was, the seats were only half occupied. Except for the young men with “JEW CREW” on their backs, or girls with Hebrew script across their pullovers, there were almost no CC students. The audience was one third voices for Palestine, and two thirds vitriolic Jew, amazingly indignant to disruption of their world view. No one was there to listen, except to cheer for what they already believed. But I’m certain it was an eye opener for all.

My friends and I were sure to supplement the speaker’s pauses with color to augment his heavily loaded statements. For example, when Gil Artzyeli described the objective and feat of Israel’s 2006 incursion into Lebanon “to silence them,” and did that not prove effective? Who could refrain from adding “you killed them.” The 2/3 supporters grew more and more angry. But the speaker had an inopportune manner of posing rhetorical questions, which we couldn’t resist answering.

It almost got us kicked out. I spent the duration with security guards poised right behind me, ready to escort me out of the room. I learned it would be more prudent to avoid the back row at opportunities like this, because you can be pulled out of your chair, or distracted into involuntary conversation with security personnel more readily than if you were well ensconced among the other attendees.

Those voicing support for Palestinians were made to wait until question and answer portion to voice their objections. Even then, the pro-Israel audience would cut them off. It became impossible to ask a complex question without interruptions of “What is your question? State your question!” They hounded everyone who wasn’t setting the speaker up for a softy. It was a ruthless crowd with the civility of Tea Partiers. When the pro-Israel attendees took their turn posing questions, no one interrupted. When it was a detractor, their time suddenly became too valuable to entrust to us. Even a CC student from Gaza, who hasn’t been permitted to visit his family in two years, was not given a hearing.

I’m positive that as these rude people think on how the event transpired, they will not be able to help feeling ashamed. Our interactions were spirited and engaging, addressed to a speaker with the hubris to take us on. We interrupted the speaker, but never tried to drown him out. Our adversaries on the other hand tried to flat out shut their fellow audience members up.

That crowd is immovable. I’ve no optimism for influencing their resolve. On the other hand, their rigidity was laughable. Their logic will not sway anyone new. They were positively shrill about their speaker being permitted to deliver his message as abridged. “Let him speak!” they shouted, as if their attention was rapt by information they’d never heard before, a preposterous notion. I’m neither Palestinian nor American Jew, but this was Israel Foundation Myth for Dummies. I can only think that this crowd sat tightly clenched, thrilled that the others among the audience were forced to listen to their dogma.

The Presentation
Old school. Palestinians offered their own statehood, but rejected it. Israel is pretext for Arab countries to oppress their peoples. No such thing as a Palestinian, Jewish presence in Judea has been continuous, Palestinians teach their children to hate, Israelis teach love, etc, etc. The old greenhouses of Gaza story was the example given to show that Palestinians don’t want to help themselves. Arab neighbor states are blamed for not resettling the Palestinians. Gaza is free, it is not occupied.

Would you believe Israel justifies the force it used in Lebanon and Gaza based on what NATO was permitted to do in Bosnia? Those were war crimes too! Israel accuses its critics of anti-Semitism because they don’t take other militaries to task for their crimes. But really Israel gives itself the latitude to commit crimes commensurate with the worst.

And here’s a wild gem! Israel owes its enormously successful economy (no mention of US foreign aid or direct sponsorship by Jewish American interests) to, among progressive business practices, the fact that all Israelis, both men and women, have to serve compulsory military service. It gives them the skills and discipline to excel in business and strengthen Israel. Mr. Artzyeli showed a video clip taken from CNBC, recommending that such a policy in American would certainly greatly improve its prospects for an economic recovery!

A word about the delivery of the presentation. Though impeccably dressed Gil Artzyeli affected the presence of someone wearing a Tony Soprano tracksuit. He sat back on his heels, his eyes directed to the ceiling as he dismissed his questioners. When a Palestinian girl raised a specific instance of an IDF strategy deployed in Lebanon, wondering how it was not a war crime. Artzyeli ignored it completely, making an aside to someone up front that the he wasn’t about to dignify that accusation with a response.

It’s kinda the problem Israel is having, isn’t it?

The Jig is Up
Over the last weeks I’ve had a chance to participate in three presentation by Israeli officials. The sum experience has fortified me with hope. With world opinion against them, and now the Goldstone Report, Israel is on the run.

The first lecture by Uzi Landau was on the offensive, directed toward Iran. It went over poorly. The Q&A revealed that Landau hadn’t connected the dots at all. The audience he had hoped to rally became only more concerned about Israeli nukes than Iran’s.

The second presentation delivered by Nir Barkat was an encouragement to the Denver Jewish community to support Jerusalem, with donations, travel, and by encouraging emigration. There the audience was equally smug and oblivious to the notion that increased settlements constituted violations of international law. But Israel’s continuous push for Jewish immigrants provides the clue to what Barkat inadvertently confirmed. Jews are leaving Jerusalem. The balance of the population is shifting toward the non-Jew.

This third event with the Deputy Consul General took the rhetoric down to basics, a demonstration of how far Israel is slipping. The dogma behind Zionism’s right to its own state, and their right to defend themselves, used to go without saying. Today Gil Artzyeli was forced to defend the most basic assumptions. The Jewish diaspora, their right to return, the expanding borders, the wall, the military retaliation. I was thrilled to see arguments slip back past the basics.

The Jewish American communities may still be a resolute, but their numbers are not large. It appears to me that the compatriots they’ve recruited, from the Christian right and the neoliberal conservatives are receding quickly.

The image of the much-oppressed Jew is becoming eclipsed by the militant arrogant Zionist, earning no one’s sympathy.

A few pictures from the event:
Deputy Consul General Gil Artzyeli lecture November 12, 2009
Castigated for raising his voice, Ed Nace insisted on standing for the duration of the lecture, to lend omniscience to his objection.

Deputy Consul General Gil Artzyeli lecture November 12, 2009
Colorado College Poli-Sci professor, and Middle East specialist Bob Lee rose several times to forbid the impromptu participation by the audience. Here he calls for security to remove Ed.

Deputy Consul General Gil Artzyeli lecture November 12, 2009
Security reconsidered asking Ed Nace to leave as he informed them in his booming voice that he was a Colorado College alum.

Deputy Consul General Gil Artzyeli lecture November 12, 2009
Would you believe Mr. Artzyeli trotted out the old Farfur the Mouse clip, depicting Muslim children being taught to admire suicide bombers. It’s a favorite example whose relevant context was long ago dismissed.

Footnote
One lamentable observation I had regarded a member of the chaplain’s office at CC, who is also a peace community activist. She was not at liberty to take sides on the Palestinian – Israel discussions for fear of alienating the Jewish students. I do not personally doubt her motives, nor her sympathies for the victims of injustice in Palestine.

However, when our 85 year-old Ed Nace raised his voice, or stood angrily, the chaplain’s assistant moved to calm him down. She may have thought he needed assistance, but in reality his stubborn act was working. His offense at the slanders against Palestinians, his incredulity that such a one-sided presentation was being allowed, and his indignation at the ferocity with which he was being silenced, expressed itself as a hard-of-hearing old man who was not about to be bullied. His performance, even inadvertent, worked to disrupt the lecture and temper the smug untruths being passed as academic fact. But Ed’s act was not made any easier by a colleague trying to calm him down. To his credit, Ed persevered and was able to put a human emotional context to Mr. Artzyeli’s slick propaganda.

The chaplain is no doubt schooled in nonviolent communication. She needs to bone up on effective nonviolent theater. Non-confrontational communication isn’t going to bring racist bullies like Artzyeli to heel. Zionist Apartheid is going to fall when it is condemned and pilloried.

Silly warmongers, space is for kids

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Broadmoor Space Symposium
Once again the Colorado Springs peace community has the unique opportunity to protest the annual Space Symposium hosted at the Broadmoor. First, the event provides unparalleled access to the upper echelons of the US military industrial for-profit killing machine. And this year, their war-in-space theme is not even disguised: “Space as a Contested Environment.” Think they’re talking about Sputnik?

Leave space to NASA, not to baby killers

You can banner in front of weapons industry office buildings, you can have your progress blocked at their parking lots, but at the opening ceremonies of the Broadmoor Space Symposium, you can put your message directly in the faces of the war criminal bosses themselves.

Details to follow.

Springs peace community still kicking

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Sixth Anniversary of Iraq War
COLORADO SPRINGS- I received reports that some participants felt ostracized, while others were directly requested to curb their enthusiasm. Fortunately the infighting was kept from public sight, on Armstrong Quad at CC, while school was on break, on a Saturday when downtown was vacant.

Onward Christian Cowards

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St. Patricks Day Parade 2009
You can hold forums attended by the faithful, or beat your breast where only the choir can hear, but when there’s a crowd, you’re a regular shrinking violet. The meek don’t inherit the earth, they inherit the dirt. Last Saturday the Colorado Springs PPJPC didn’t tell its members about the opportunity to participate in the city’s biggest parade. And it declined to lend Coloradans For Peace the green flags with which it had marched the year before. What exactly are local citizens supposed to think is happening in the local peace community?

Coloradans For Peace and Freedom: in Ireland and occupied lands everywhere

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shamrock-exclamationUPDATE FROM COLORADANS FOR PEACE
about March 14 St Patrick’s Day Parade: Drummers, Hats, Flags, Kazoos, and a great St Patrick’s theme! Come wave international flags for PEACE and FREEDOM!

Join COLORADANS FOR PEACE to represent the local peace community in this year’s St Patrick’s Day Parade. Saturday, March 14, on Tejon Avenue downtown. The parade starts at 12noon, and staging begins at 10am.

Peace participants are welcome to park in the TOONS parking lot, at 802 N. Nevada Ave, at the intersection of Nevada and Dale St. We’ll have food and drink as early as 9am for those who want to come early. We’ll have a canopy there where parade accessories will be distributed.

Bring your green peace shirts, if you have them. We’ll have fresh shirts available too. The green peace flags from last year are welcome as well.

No need to bring any other banners or posters, as parade signs are being limited. Our single, unified message will be pre-vetted. This year’s peace theme will tie into the St. Patrick’s celebration of Irish independence.

Irish Americans celebrate no longer being occupied by Great Britain. Given the current direction of US policy, COLORADANS FOR PEACE want to take this opportunity to call for a stop to all ongoing occupations, in which the US is complicit.

Our message is the national DC protest theme marking the 6th year of the Iraq War : OCCUPATION IS A CRIME.

More specifically:
(FROM IRELAND) TO IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN AND PALESTINE,
OCCUPATION IS A CRIME!

Behind our main banner, marchers will wave the flags of these four nations. PLUS, as a reminder to parade watchers, of America’s own struggle against British occupation, we will also feature the American Revolutionary War era flags which read “Don’t Tread On Me!”

This year our parade entry will be spearheaded by the superlative Manitou Drummers. The drummers have percussion instruments to share with any participant who wants to accompany them. We will also have a multitude of green kazoos and pipes. The kazoos are decorated with peace symbols.

Kevin Johnson of Elope Hats has donated a marching-band-sized portion of super tall leprechaun hats, which will be emblazoned with peace symbols. These hats will be worn by all the musical participants.

Other marchers are requested to wear the green peace shirts, or to wave the matching green peace flags.

International flag wavers will wear their traditional national costumes. Please contact us if you can lend any suitable apparel.

Wearing Kuffiyeh scarves would certainly be appropriate. White bandanas can do in a pinch. These will also be available beforehand.

We are also interested in any and all participants who would like to ride their bikes, or walk beside them. Bringing bikes serves as a not unsubtle ecological reminder, to counter the parade’s usual multitude of fossil-fuel guzzling vehicles.

For the latest updates, please check coloradansforpeace.org

A look at the American ‘Peace’crat friends of the people of Zimbabwe

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In an open letter to Barack Obama erroneously titled an Open Letter to the People of Zimbabwe, primarily members and close circles of the Workers World Party and some Black Democrats, too, have signed onto a letter that correctly spells out what economic sanctions promoted by Washington and London have actually done…

‘These cruel sanctions for almost a decade have caused massive unemployment, malnourishment, hyperinflation, deeper poverty, lack of health care and fuel, the deterioration of the infrastructure and much more. A recent cholera epidemic that has claimed the lives of thousands could have been prevented if water purification chemicals had not been banned under the sanctions.’ They go on to spell out that they are in fact war crimes and a form of slow genocide against the Zimbabwean Black population.

Right on! However there is more to this petition than just meets the eye, and Glen Ford takes a look at that in his own challenge to the very signers of ‘The Open Letter’ mentioned above. A Challenge to ‘Radical’ and ‘Pan-Africanist’ Obamites who signed ‘The Open Letter’.

In it he discusses the character flaws of one section of the ‘Peace’crats, the Black Community ones. We here in Colorado Springs see these exact same flaws in the local White Community ‘Peace’crat people. Check out Glen Ford’s commentary and see just exactly what I mean?

Meeting Senator-to-be Michael Bennet

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penrose-carnegie-bennet.jpg
COLORADO SPRINGS- Governor Bill Ritter introduced his appointment to the US Senate, political novice Michael Bennet, to an audience of Springs Democrats today. Judging just by Bennet’s own words, this development is about as disappointing as it gets. Full report after this note:

Both men spoke predominantly about education, considering Michael Bennet current position as Superintendent of Denver Public Schools.

Before we contemplate Michael Bennet’s qualifications for the US Senate, let’s broaden the scope. Even though he lacks the experience of an elected office, his resumé reflects someone well connected in Washington DC and Denver. What appears to be a comforting pedigree could also cause skeptics to fear he’s a Beltway insider. Bennet’s previous work experience was as a lawyer, a mayor’s chief of staff, and a counsel to corporate investment raiders. It might be informative for us to wonder what qualifications did Bennet have in the first place, to be appointed to lead Denver Public Schools?

If that assignment smacked of a political payoff, for Bennet serving as aid to Denver Mayor Hinckenlooper during his ascendency, can we wonder if a similar incongruous motive was behind his startling promotion to the US Senate?
penrose-carnegie-bennet
Okay, okay, so get this: Bennet described his legacy with the Anschutz Corp. thus: they were turn-around specialists! He explained that Anschutz took businesses which had been gutted or neglected by unscrupulous owners, and rehabbed them to provide jobs for thousands. Is that rather at odds with what asset strippers actually do? But this wasn’t a business savvy Republican crowd. This was an assembly of earnest Democrats who wanted to believe in honest politicians.

penrose-carnegie-eric
Despite having to cross the protesters outside, and having to face our placards at the meeting, neither speaker addressed the crisis in Gaza. The nearest either came was Bennet’s answer to a question about national security, in which he explained the need to draw troops down in Iraq and refocus our energies in Afghanistan.

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Though we had hands raised hoping to be called upon, we otherwise kept silent and held our posters in full confidence that many among the assembled were in full agreement with our cause.

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After their public addresses, Ritter and Bennet gave media interviews behind doors guarded by a short grey haired gentleman who kept his eyes on me. But this is an understatement. Throughout the public meeting, and afterward, this man maintained a steely confrontational gaze directly into my eyes, from across the room, or right beneath my nose. It’s a technique I recognized from Secret Service agents, except they don’t usually betray an angry scowl. This person was trying very hard to project an intimidating presence.

A few minutes after this photograph was taken, when the governor and his charge were about to emerge, this fellow walked straight up to me and began directing me to move out of the way. I assured him I was blocking no one’s path, but he simply repeated himself with amplified belligerence. I chided him about this being a PUBLIC library, and that I had no responsibility to him, and would certainly not be ordered around. Instead of negotiating, he reasserted his bossy authority. Ultimately, laughing him off turned out to be effective. Just as suddenly, he stepped back and let me be.

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Jonathan was able to take these pictures of both Ritter and Bennet as they passed our signs: issues which they refused to address.

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Here, Governor Ritter was accosted by Phyllis. I have no idea how he was eventually able to pull away.

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Meanwhile, Tony had grown a spontaneous gathering outside, where we waived banners and posters to the appreciative honks of passing cars, and thank-yous from the Democrats leaving the meeting.

Our new friends, many of whom were homeless and victims of recurring incarceration, were thrilled to participate with us and beckon support from the passersby. A number of our allies were quite conversant on the issues and offered fantastic retorts to the occasional detractors. Not infrequently, to my continued surprise, we were accosted with pedestrians, inside the library and out, who would point to our signs and declare that every last vermin/scum/Palestinian needed to be eradicated before there would be peace in the Middle East.

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Plans for a better turnout for this action suffered from the usual obstacle of being unable to reach the bulk of Colorado Springs’ peace activists. Many are still being kept deliberately out of the loop by the religious PPJPC passivists who’ve infected the local peace community.

Not surprisingly, the current PPJPC chairman did appear for the meeting, but not for the protest. He was attending as a Democratic Party member, and left when he couldn’t find a seat. Though publicly vocal about Palestinian issues, his support did not extend to putting the message before the US Senator about to represent us in DC.

UN Ambassador speaks of the hidden genocide against the Somali people

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The UN envoy to Somalia, Ahmedou Ould Abdallah, has said there is a “hidden genocide” taking place in the country. Left unsaid is that it is the United States of America that is responsible for this genocide, but at least the reality of the massacre was broadcast to the world so that hopefully some action might be taken, Somalia facing ‘hidden genocide’ What does it say about the character of the American people what they have done to Somalia?

Here in Colorado Springs, there is a group of pacifist liberal voters for the Democratic Party organized in the so-called Pikes Peak Justice and Peace commission. They have agitated through public rallies for more US military intervention into Africa despite being nominally a ‘Peace’ organization. They have done this saying that more US intervention into Africa was necessary to stop genocide from taking place! So one asks what have they said about this genocide against the people in Somalia where their own US government has been responsible for? What have they done to stop it? The answer to both these questions is that they have totally ignored what was going on. It has been of no interest to them.

Something very similar to this has taken place on the national level at the United for Peace and Justice ‘Peace’crat group, and all their local affiliates. What does that say about the character of the American liberal community? It really says to the general public that their supposed ‘protestations’ for ‘Peace’ should be taken with a big grain of salt. It also says that when these same people get onto the band wagon talking about genocide in regions of Sudan where the US government is itching to get further involved for multiple reasons all having absolutely nothing to do with stopping any sort of mayhem, that one should also weigh their inaction about not caring the least about people in Congo and Somalia, not to mention the continent of Africa as a whole. After all, the US government has been responsible for the destruction that is now causing this genocide in Somalia, but the liberal ‘Peace’crat voice is on MUTE.

The best we in the US can do to stop world genocides from taking place, is simply to understand the negative role ALL Us government intervention plays in creating world war zones. Their is not a positive role the US military has to play as long as we have a government run by the military-industrial-government complex. To call on this complex to do nice and decent things is just absolutely the worst thing to do. The call should be to eliminate this monstrous danger to the world, not advocate for its use somewhere or other.

UN Ambassador Abdallah’s voice will be ignored by the Powers that caused the hidden and silent genocide to occur in the first place unless other voices rise up and speak out. You won’t win many friends at the ‘Peace’crat groups for doing so, but doing so is a necessity. The US government is responsible for multiple genocides around the world taking place and we must move against the ‘Peace’ groups that barricade action from forming against these policies of Pentagon slaughtering. It’s time to get to work and demand better than what the liberal Democrats will ever have to offer.

A quick look at the Pretend for Peace Donkeys- Barack, Jimmy, Al, and Dennis

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kucinich-2008The Republicans love war and that is all there is to it. But what about the Democratic Party crowd and their Pretend for Peace Donkeys? They got the US population snookered most of the time so what are they really doing to end the US government wars? Let’s go visit the Carter Center and other sites of these donkeys and see what they have to say about the War Against the Iraqi people, which has been going on now for YES, some 17 years or so! Kind of a relevant issue one might think?

Barack, perhaps the greatest Pretend for Peace donkey of them all, is setting up for continuing all the wars (and starting a few new ones, too), and all his Pretend for Peace donkey fans are temporarily tongue tied. ’nuff said. Let’s move on (pun intended) now.

Al Gore can’t work the Pretend for Peace angle too well, since he helped kill off hundreds of thousands of Iraqis as VP while Slick Willie was being sucked off on. Shame on you Tip! So he’s turned into Mr. Methane Gas Man instead. You won’t hear a bleep out of this ‘Man of Peace’ about Iraq. No Sir..eee Al Gore Action Center

That leaves us with the ‘Far Left’ of the donkey ‘Peace’rats, Jimmy and Dennis. Surely they got something to say now on their websites about how opposed they are to this US government war of 17+ and counting years aginst the Iraqi people? After all, the result has been millions killed, millions turned into refugees, and a country that is now squashed like a bug. I bet they’re calling for demonstrations to oppose this war?!!!!! After all, these folk are noted for their Peace activism! (sad joke it is, too)

So let’s head to the Carter Center that claims on its website that it is a place ‘Waging Peace’! I bet you’re getting excited now, after all this man has a rep of being so much a better donkey out of office than when he was in? What’s the Grand Dame of Pretend for Peace Donkeys have to say in his issues by country section there at the Carter Center? I bet he has really highlighted the US occupation of Iraq and the need to leave now? After all, Jimmy, haven’t ‘we’ (meaning you and your other donkey comrades) done enough yet? Carter Center Activities by Country United States

Wasn’t that impressive! Jimmy is really ‘Waging Peace’ here inside the country he is ex-President of! I mean isn’t he? You saw all that about Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia? He is just ever so deeply involved…NOT. So why does this prick always get such respect in ‘Peace’crat circles? Might it be that the ‘Peace’crat groups are not doing much anything to help get the US out of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia, either?

They just Yap, Yap, Yap away about Peace in the abstract, yet have hardly done an action to mention of about Iraq or any of the other battered by the US countries out there. Afghanistan is off the radar screen almost entirely for them. They, the ‘Peace’crats, are a big sham, and the Born Again Jimmy is their American super idol! The ‘Peace’crats always grumble that demonstrations don’t accomplish anything so they don’t demonstrate. Go, Jimmy! You don’t demonstrate either.

OK? Well! we do have one last hope amongst the Pretend for Peace donkeys it seems? Hold the applause! I’m talking Dennis now. The guy is practically a Jesus even! What’s he doing? Walking on water for his Believers? Surely he is out there fighting to free Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia from the US government? Let’s check out The Dennis the Menace issues page You see it there? Iraq! Iraq? Afghanistan! Afghanistan? Dennis is a real fighter for ‘Peace’! He is one strong donkey almighty!

I hope that this roundup and quick look at the Pretend for Peace Donkeys has been educational? You do want an education, don’t you? These Pretend for Peace donkeys are something else! I mean aren’t they?

US corporations foist religious pacifism on Palestinians and not on Israelis

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pacifist bombsThe US corporate community does big business annually with the Jewish Israeli military-industrial armaments crew to the tune of billions per year, but then turns around and funds religious pacifist values off onto the oppressed Palestinians! U.S. steers young Palestinians to pacifism by Karin Laub, Associated Press Now doesn’t that just take the cake? You can bet, too, that the US ‘Peace’crats just lap this stuff up, just like many do with their often playing along with the military’s ‘We’re Green Campaign’.

There is a long tradition of the rich and powerful funding religion and therefore religious pacifism off and onto the oppressed. Throw on a heavy dose of the salt of sanctimonious babble, ala the Pope, and you get a pacified community if the recipe is cooked right. Voila! Fait Accompli now being served!

The United Nations pushes war and starvation onto the peoples of Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Congo, and Haiti

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haitiAid workers: Hungry kids dying in Haiti- At least 26 malnourished children have perished; scores others treated You saw that picture of the starving young girl in Haiti in the US media last week as they reported the rise of starvation inside Haiti post this year’s hurricane season. They didn’t mention though that the United Nations is overseeing this starvation on behalf of the United States government.

This is more than a tragedy that somehow just fell out of the sky and the Haitians themselves are certainly not to blame. You can thank the United States government, the United Nations, and YES, you can thank the lazy, lazy, not-so-liberal ‘Peace’crats here in the US, who think that the United Nations is the cure all of all problems instead of a major instrument of the US government’s imperialism for sitting by and letting this happen. These ‘Peace’crats are the folk to blame for helping let the United Nations rule over the peoples of these multiple countries through these US pushed ‘UN mandates’ and letting them starve to death.

Yes, billions of dollars go into using United Nations troops and the people are starving in these countries. Why in the world are sincere, good hearted young people wanting the United Nations to intervene yet more? Can’t they see what this US government directed, United Nations intervention leads to? Apparently not…

It’s time to call for the US and the UN to get out of all these countries once and for all. The UN does not bring in the economic support these people need, but instead are no more a Pentagon back up squad. The US antiwar movement needs to stop pretending that the UN is up to some good, since despite all the blather about world ‘peace’, the UN merely assists the US in spreading war and starvation across the planet.

‘Peace’crats refuse to be ‘United for Peace and Justice’

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United for Peace and Justice is the national group that pretends to be the leadership for ‘Peace’ inside the US, yet they cannot even bring themself to speak out against the US war upon the people of Afghanistan! I call them ‘Peace’crats because they talk about PEACE in the abstract all the time, yet remain totally tied to the Democratic Party and do not actively oppose the war of US occupation of Afghanistan or speak out forcefully against it! They don’t want to embarrass Barack Obama and the Democratic Party and that is important to them above all else.

Go to the UFPJ website and see what I am talking about? Didn’t see the mention of Afghanistan there, did you? Go to their ‘Ongoing Campaigns’ link and then link again and check out their mealy mouthed, non-opposition to withdrawal from the US War waged against Afghanistan. Is this what you call an antiwar position? Peace? I call it their UFPJ Democratic Party apologist line of crap. On it, you will read this sort of BS…

What is the US responsibility to Afghanistan? How have US interest over the past few decades, including support for the Taliban, contributed to the destabilization of Afghanistan? How do we best fulfill our obligations to the Afghan people? What is the role of the US peace movement in advocating US tax-dollars to be used in ways that promote peace, stability, and international cooperation? What nonmilitary solutions can we offer?’ YES, and blah, blah, blah. No call for US withdrawal from Afghanistan here! Barack Obama is against it, that’s why.

Here on the local Colorado Springs scene the local ‘Peace’crats are even worse. Most of them play so dumb they would not admit to being able to find Afghanistan on a map and be proud about that, too! Their folk do have the local police telephone # handy, in case anybody would like to bring the subject up? That would be trespassing! And at the national fan club for the ‘Peace’crats, a website called ‘CommonDreams’, well they just target your computers ISP address and keep you from reading their comments, or commenting on what they are pushing. Afghanistan is best kept off the list of hot topics to discuss these days now that Barack Obama’s Democratic Party team is in the process of taking over fighting the US War on Afghanistan away from the Dubya crowd.

YES, the ‘Peace’crats refuse to be ‘United for Peace and Justice’. They’re only united for the Democratic War Party when push comes to shove. Afghanistan? Please don’t mention it!

Local Dem candidate faces 3 obstacles

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COLORADO SPRINGS- How’s this for polling place trouble, and it happened to our own Dennis Apuan. The peace community’s own Apuan, Filipino-American and Democratic candidate for state House District 17, (1) hadn’t receive his absentee ballot in the mail, so (2) was given a provisional ballot on election day. When he discovered HIS NAME WASN’T ON THE BALLOT, election workers eventually noticed (3) they were using ballots for District 19.

PPJPC office now only hoping for peace

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old PPJPC officeCOLORADO SPRINGS- They couldn’t endorse Obama as the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission, so the leadership closed their office and let the Obama campaign move in. The proverbial jury can now only pin its hope that the Democrats will promise peace, but the PPJPC office is no longer in the business. The staff and board have abandoned its membership, who represented a profound core of the local peace community.

Springs Dems rally downtown in force

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COLORADO SPRINGS- A street party atmosphere prevailed downtown as local Dems formed a line over five blocks long to see the presumptive next First Lady. El Paso County may want to be conservative, but this afternoon the police had to treat the Democrats like VIPs.

LaylaWe stood to the West of the City Auditorium with our antiwar banners, keeping our distance from the anti-abortion and pro-Palin sad puppies.

Once again Colorado Obama supporters voiced their agreement with our slogan to stop funding the war. As per usual, Tony raised his voice about the less obvious antiwar theaters of Afghanistan, Somalia, Haiti, etc. With Layla in tow to reinforce the KIDS NOT BOMBS mantra. Still without upsetting most.

campaign workerEventually, one campaign official and then another approached us politely to inform us that we had to leave their sidewalk. Naturally we declined since we were not obstructing the public right of way. The second more animated worker went to confer with CSPD officers, who must have advised her to let us be.

No really. I remember hearing about GOP handlers in 2004, pretending to speak with the authority of the Secret Service, telling activists who could or couldn’t participate. I didn’t think I’d have a chance to laugh off that kind of self-important condescension from slickly dresses Democrats too.

Soon enough however, a city utility truck was stopped adjacent to where we were standing, his engine idling as if to test our determination with his exhaust. Most unfortunately, he blocked the visibility of our banner.

We stood our ground though because we could see that TV cameras were mobilizing around us for upcoming developments. It turned out we were ideally situated, perhaps less ideally for the organizers, to greet Mrs. Obama as she visited the outdoor crowd.

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Michelle Obama spent a good deal of time shaking hands and listening to personal encouragements. Let’s just admit that she was as gracious and eloquent as her husband.

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Tony gave a lengthy interview to Hungarian reporters touring with the Obama campaign. They assumed he was a McCain-leaning counter demonstrator, and so were pleasantly surprised to hear we were actually Green Party Cynthia McKinney advocates. Andy stopped by before rejoining the queue to enter the auditorium. A number of the Springs quasi-extant peace community were in line for the Obama rally, sadly minus any peace paraphernalia to give them –or it– away. Gobama! (Hope for Peace?!)

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Next we decided to have a little fun with the anti-abortion contingent who’d occupied the center of the street. We were in general agreement that there are issues more important than the price of gasoline.

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But they weren’t interested in our expanded message of saving the already-born too, and moved to block our signs.

PPJPC exits stage left, lily-livered left

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COLORADO SPRINGS- Oh How Sad! After a long and storied legacy, the Pikes Peak Justice & Peace Commission is closing its doors. Why now –a time of rising injustice and vanishing peace on every continent?! Technically they’ve only announced divestment of their goods in order to move into a tiny office, but the PPJPC is also postponing all activity until after the election. The next event planned is a victory celebration of “regime change” even though the presumptive new regime has promised escalations of war in Asia, Africa and South America, and continued economic class war at home. And it gets worse.

The bastards, literally bastards not by coincidence I’m sure, have gutted the famed peace organization of its activities, of its participants, of its reputation, legacy and potential and now they’re selling off its possessions.

These include the group’s “memorabilia,” as if PPJPC’s aims weren’t still outgoing. Wouldn’t you think the causes still cry out for those materials? All the tools and equipment gathered over the years are now being demobilized. The posters, banners, puppets, flags, props, costumes, made by activists, for the good fight. Are you kidding me?!

And the PPJPC library, an extensive collection of books about social justice and nonviolence are being scattered to the wind of the same garage sale. These books, painstakingly assembled for the cause and donated by so many members so that the PPJPC office would have a permanent reference library are now being sold to defray the costs of moving. And keeping the staff.

For what? Administrating the liquidation? Have PPJPC members been asked to contribute more and more, chiefly so that the organization can be dismantled and slipped into a coma? To keep the staff paid? When the PPJPC membership at large figure out that they’ve been subsidizing their own deliberately paralyzing iv-drip, they are going to invent their own choice words for these soft-spoken traitors.

I’D SUGGEST someone attending the going-out-of-the-peace-making-business-sale if only to rescue the materials we’ll need to keep up the fight. If it didn’t mean giving more money to the usurpers! That’s extortion, taking our money to reclaim what we donated already! What unmitigated passive aggressive violence.

These paid staff manipulated the tendency of all small groups to take the road most traveled. Specifically, to hush up in the perceived interest of self-preservation. This manifests itself among a minority in the PPJPC who follow a cultish spiritual belief that the only way to stop a wayward wagon is to throw yourself under the wheel. Eventually it’s hoped the driver will stop out of pangs of conscience. Other concerned passengers, who might want to gesticulate or address the driver, are scolded for not giving the sacrificial sheep the opportunity to incubate their guilt bomb in peace.

These self-appointed arbiters of “pacifism” take the “peace” in J&P to mean a quiet, undisturbed, reverential, leave-me-in-peace, peace. It’s the “nonviolent” dogma that has been used to defuse slave uprisings for millennia. It’s the traditional disservice which religion deals in its role to make the oppressed accept their mistreatment at the hands of their oppressors. While we might concentrate on religion’s role in starting wars, we overlook their constant undermining of justice.

Do I have something personal at stake in this unraveling development? I most certainly do! Over the past years, I joined a number of energetic activists in raising the visibility of the local peace movement. We gave it a public signature and a heretofore elusive acclaim, which was bringing in much more public participation. What became of the green peace campaign? Jettisoned. Abandoned. Cast off by the staff and select members who didn’t want an expanded interest in their activities. What are we left to conclude about people who espouse a concern to invite community, but shun populist appeal? Hypocrites is the most polite I can muster.

I’m so sorry to have left the organization to such vultures. I owe my fellow members quite an apology.

The US spreads its aggression from the Balkans to the Caucasus region

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South OssetiaTskhinvali, capital of South Ossetia.
 
The attack of the Georgian military, allied with the US and NATO, against Russian supported South Ossetia has widened the US military encirclement of Russia to another level and another region. The US Antiwar Movement has slept in the years since the ex-Soviet Union fell from the blows of the Cold War and ignored the continued US belligerence towards a now capitalist Russia.

Much of this ‘Peace’ Movement consists of liberals immersed in a reactionary campaign against China, another nation that the Pentagon and US government are waging a world war against, though the fighting between these 2 countries now is mainly at the level of propaganda wars. In regards to China, the liberal ‘Peacenics’ find themselves allied more with the Pentagon than they do with their beloved abstract ‘nonviolence’ religion. And they definitely are allied with voting for the Democratic Party, a pro-war party of the corporations.

Most of the liberal US and European Left actively supported the US-NATO bombardment of Yugoslavia, so they are even more poorly placed to understand the inter relationship between the previous fighting in the Balkans, and the now hot eruption of war in South Ossetia and Georgia. In short, they are in a total fog of complete ignorance about how the bipartisan US government has promoted policies of aggression towards Russia that has led up to this new fighting.

The liberals that make up the ‘Peace Community’ don’t like to come to grips with the realities of US society at all. They want to think that if they just tinker a little that the whole nation will begin to see how righteous they are. They are on Cloud Nine when it comes to understanding basic US geopolitics around the Globe, and their idea of a ‘Peace’ Rapture is totally void of reality. This is a hard fight and they are only into offering a choreographed film of ‘resistance’, not roughing it out to build an Antiwar Movement any larger than their small liberal church followings.

We can expect a surge of international propaganda pushed by the US government and its allies where they promote themselves though the media as being goodhearted and completely disinterested observers of this fighting from afar. Far from that, the US and its allies are flat smack dab in the middle of the responsibility for this Georgian attack on South Ossetia, and Russia is unlikely to back off and allow the US con game much room for maneuver.

Russia tried to warn the US and its allies that making Kosovo an independent country would provoke this sort of new fighting where their country would be directly involved and utterly resistant to being forced to surrender their own national interests before the onslaught of US aggression. But the hawks in the US government, both DP and RP hawks, would have none of it and today we are where we are now with this new war breaking out. The timing of this war’s beginning comes just several months after the US-NATO broke Kosovo off of Yugoslavia, and that is no coincidence.

This is a dangerous game the US ruling corporate class is playing with all our lives. We must build a Movement that will stop them, and that means we must expand the Antiwar Movement from being just a tiny group of religious pacifist fools, like what is currently the case. These are nice enough people alright and they have the best of intentions, it is simply that their theology is not the building block necessary to build a larger response amongst the US population to US militarism in today’s world.

The US military buildup is colossal and it must be braked and dismantled for the world to ever live in any peace.

Betrayed by the at-peace community

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With “malice,” is the word the CS Indy chose. Oh boy. For our out-of-town readers, the PPJPC dirty laundry has reached the printed news. It certainly is embarrassing, but probably too, about time. I’ve spent the last two years playing politely, leaving unresolved issues behind closed doors, painting optimistic pictures reflecting where I hoped the PPJPC could be. After the latest unfortunate escalation, I listened to entreaties to keep the developments between ourselves. Now why would it fall to me to keep a lid on somebody else’s indiscretions, without so much as an apology or expression of consideration from colleagues? No, thank you.

In fact, the response has been to try to impugn my integrity. Bring that one on.

I was sent into the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission with a mission, to discover why it appeared so dysfunctional. Participation was slacking and the office appeared to be dropping the ball. Why? I discovered a staff very determined to subvert all activities, period. In the guise of handy excuses. I’ve written plenty about outright insubordination, about refusal to rally membership, about foot-dragging with publishing, websites and fund-raising. To someone experienced with effective organizations it was obvious, to others steeped in social affinity groups, perhaps not so.

What I didn’t observe was that a cadre of members are quite satisfied to leave it that way. Now, from some of the more active people, I have become dismayed to discover the PPJPC doesn’t represent the Colorado Springs peace community, it represents the at-peace community.

Since my participation in Crawford Texas with Cindy Sheehan, through our Camp Casey encampment here, I saw that the PPJPC would not fully support the growing popularity of antiwar sentiment. The group takes credit for whatever happens, but won’t provide assistance. Now they’re actually hurting other efforts by playing the nonviolence card, implying that everyone else is not nonviolent enough. I defy anyone to tell me that I am not nonviolent. I’ll knock their metaphysical block right off their sagging shoulders!

Indeed, anger is considered violent, speech is considered violent. In a silent monastery I’d agree. And I underestimated the contemplative garden this group has commissioned for itself with the PPJPC. However, they are prepared to use every violent means of untruth, manipulation, shaming, and emotional extortion to protect their private prayer club.

I’m happy to leave it to them. I won’t fall again for pleas that their efforts need more and younger blood. They’re not prepared to open the doors to energetic people with higher expectations.

They claim to be the only game in town when it comes to standing up against war. That’s how they solicit donations. I think they ought to confess their game is spectator solitaire. Then there will be enough said.

America’s liberal ‘Peace Community’ remains apathetically pro-war

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Peace peopleAmerica’s liberal ‘Peace Community’ remains apathetically pro-war, which explains why most are planning to vote for Pro-war candidate, Barack Obama. Far from being non-mainstream Americans ‘liberals’, are just as pro-war as their Republican counterparts are despite some occassional bleatings about ‘Peace’ in the abstract, and temper tantrums that the US has not won the invasion and occupation of Iraq just quite yet.

Doubt this analysis? Then ask yourself why hardly any of these liberals turned out the last 2 weeks for the many US regional demonstrations to demand a stop to threatening a war against Iran? These demonstrations were national in scope and called by 2 separate coalitions, but nobody showed up! In Colorado Springs, the local yokel misleaders didn’t even bother doing a local action, but that won’t stop them from responding that they are committed to non-violence and yada yada yada.

This week will find the ‘Peace Community’ going through the motions and holding candle light vigils in memory of the atomic bomb victims of Japan in 1945, but you won’t find them demanding that the US and NATO get out of Afghanistan. That’s because many of them plan to vote for a pro-war candidate that wants to fight that Afghan war forever if it takes that long to ‘win’ it? Or at least until some folk get mad about it… which most won’t because they don’t seem to care that much.

Locally, this Friday we will find the liberal ‘Peace Community ritually going out to Fort Peterson Air Base for their annual quick show ‘picnic’ there. What you will not see is any sign of a demand that the base actually be closed down. You will see many signs though with their abstract new age religious belief that war and violence are bad stuff! It is kind of a game they play… …and almost all of these ‘peacenics’ will vote for the pro-war candidate, Barack, almost all of them.

The thing liberals most fear is being considered somehow outside the mainstream American community which is still quite solidly pro-military and pro-war. Like the greater community at large, liberal ‘Peace Community’ folk mainly are angry because George W. Bush did not give the country a quick and easy victory in Iraq, so they are angry at him for it. Other than that, they are not that pissed off though. Afghanistan? What? Don’t bother us!

Why is the liberal ‘Peace Community’ so pro-war, even as they talk ‘Peace’? It’s because their conservatized neighbors are also very pro-war and they don’t want to appear too oppositional or unfriendly to these people. They don’t want to stand out and in fact never do (at least they never do in large vigils or protests against war and torture and inequality, etc. They often say it doesn’t’ work to participate in public actions!)

The liberal ‘Peace Community’ is committed to national patriotism and in America that means the military. But they are also committed to their idea of the Holy Ghost Jesus, Man of Peace. They try to fuse the 2 ideas together, but what remains is only to remain apathetically pro-war just like The Others they say they always oppose.

The liberal ‘Peace Community’ doesn’t want to really end war except in the abstract, but principally wants to agree that the US wars fought be juster wars with a kinder military than the world norm. Massage them and you have their vote. They really don’t care if their Democratic Party candidates are liars and manipulators. Just sound good.

The liberal ‘Peace Community’ doesn’t like being called antiwar, and in fact is not that at all. Antiwar to them sounds way too ‘anti-‘! Instead, they like to be seen as FOR the troops. They remain apathetically pro-war, and unfortunately so does the rest of the population.

Victory to the Afghan people! Victory to the Somali people! Victory to the Iraqi people! Victory to the Palestinians! And, Americans, get your heads out of your rear ends and screw them on straight.

Liberal Americans, that goes double! Stop being pro-war! You are, you know? Despite your constant chatter for ‘Peace’ which is mainly a cover for you to hide from yourself the fact that you’re as pro-war as your neighbors most of the time.

Peace community impostors

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impostor and saboteurWhether by willful incompetence or by sabotage, the damage is the same.
 
ACCUSED: meeting in secret with Police, un-publicizing events, un-coordinating the volunteers, stymieing meetings, neglecting a website, and stopping others from addressing such tasks; paying themselves 130% of the budget; insubordination and interfering with the board of directors to avoid oversight; hindering, thwarting or otherwise prohibiting successful planning and execution of activities.