You don't care what our neighborhood Pikes Peak Justice & Peace Commission has gotten its leash tangled around --I shouldn't-- but the latest is just too funny. FIRST, in November they sponsored an Israel-BDS protest to boycott a local Ahava outlet and promptly got two participants arrested. Wrongly of course, but the police were awaiting them with a letter fashioned for the occasion by the City Attorney giving the CSPD authority to drive the activists from the private property. Although planning had been kept on the QT, do you think the reception might have been due to monthly confabs which the PPJPC executive director keeps with city law enforcement? Later in debriefing, the director pronounced his incredulity that the "new policy" hadn't been spelled out to him at the last meeting. So what kinds of things do the PPJPC & CSPD discuss? SECOND, just as the PPJPC fell for the Save Darfur intervention-as-peacemaking faketivism, then zipped it for Obama's false hopetivism, now the pitiful dupes call their Muslim-Jewish-Christian "Evening in Jerusalem" gathering a THREE CUPS OF TEA PARTY! Would this be in deference to Greg Mortenson's Western Empire [school] building enterprise? That puts the PPJPC in the company
Tag: Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission
Tony, David Barsamian says hello
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. 19917
Religious nonviolence is a death cult
Reading about the media/police snap to judgment on the Palmdale CA, Queen Marisol Girls prayer picnic, I had to wonder what behavior defines a "death cult." Trotting off to the park to chant prayers and submit to a rapture sounds exactly like the nonviolence zealots I know. Pray fast and furious, but for God's sake, don't stay the sword!
Protest at discreet AFB for drones
COLORADO SPRINGS- Local non-confrontational peace activists held a protest today where they knew no one would see them, and to be doubly sure, they timed it so that no commuter traffic would be passing either. Schriever AFB administrates world GPS systems, critical for military drone attacks. Local protesters feel the drones are immoral, but shhh, don’t tell anybody!? ?The action was the latest of the PPJPC antiwar pacification agenda to ensnare well intentioned students and exasperated members. The program, which holds civil disobedience at a reverential arms-length, comprises regular tutoring by liberation theologists, martyr eulogists, CIA-sewn “democracy movements” and AIPAC-directed “humanitarian campaigns.”
David Barsamian and a Vet For Peace
Activist scholar David Barsamian visited Colorado Springs yesterday to speak on Afghanistan and raise money for the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission. Barsamian was his usual gracious and erudite self but the PPJPC can't even embarrass themselves. At one point in his presentation, Barsamian talked of encountering a Vets For Peace participant, who'd been an active PPJPC member. "You remember Brian?" He asked the group, as if relating a greeting from an old friend. Blank stares all around. Barsamian scanned the room until his eyes reached Tony and I, demonstrably nodding our heads. "Of course you do" chided Barsamian, as he moved on. What a pathetic lot.
Activists have so far failed to construct a real American Antiwar Movement
Despite the grass roots sentiment against all the bloodshed that Bush and now Barack Obama are engaged in, activists in the US have ever failed to construct a real Antiwar Movement. Do you consider that to be a harsh judgment on my part? Then please consider the fact that the US is moving towards the end of what will a decade long occupation of Afghanistan, and yet there has not been one antiwar demonstration, on even a local yet alone a national level, that has focused on opposing this! 7805
Summer Peace Camp versus a Colombian Caribbean Vacation?
As usual, with summer coming up, my little girl wanted to know just how mad at her about her ...uh... behaviors over the Winter I really was? She knows that if I had got really upset at her, I would be planning on sending her off to Vacation Bible School, otherwise known in our weird circles as the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission Summer Peace Camp. There she could learn about the cleansing effects of 'non-violence' as taught to her by some PPJPC version of 'Mother Angelica'. 7345
Springs peace community still kicking
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
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?
Ft Carson is Burnt Acres not Green Acres
For several years now Colorado Springs has watched in incredulous dismay as the Pentagon has tried to represent its local terrorism training center, Fort Carson, as being some sort of Green Acres to Coloradans. Incredibly, the local group of Democrats at the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission have done their part in playing part of the game with the military in this regard, as they held joint meetings with the military and even printed up some of their propaganda about being 'Green' in their quarterly newsletter. 6774
When you don’t pay ‘war taxes,’ is it ‘peaceful nonviolence’ or more like smug self-righteous religious complacency?
Monday night I got asked out of the clear blue sky at a meeting of self described 'Peace' advocates if I paid taxes? I was kind of drowsy from shift work I had just finished doing, and didn't really consider the fact that Jesus was asked just about the same question in his time, but by those he considered to be spies of the Roman Empire. I was being asked the question though from a self righteous and complacent 'Quaker' woman who was in the process of giving me her idea of a litmus test, for whether I would be allowed by her and her husband to be in one local antiwar grouplet here in Colorado Springs called the PPJPC? 6179
Indian elephants fail to apply Gandhi’s theories of peaceful resistance
OK, this is a gratuitous commentary but don't blame me for it, since I've merely overdosed on the religion from the Colorado Springs Justice and Peace Commission, a group supposedly dedicated to fighting US war making and not just for going to some sort of New Age Church on off days of the week. Wild elephants kill 3 in northeast India 6127
They wanted to ‘Save Darfur’ but are promoting using White Phosphorous on Gaza instead!
It seems that many of those who wanted to 'Save Darfur' are now actually out there supporting Israel and its daily bombardment of Gaza's civilian population with thousands of half-ton explosives, cluster bomblets, and White Phosphorus shells, many if not most, made in the USA! What a puzzle? 6033
Nonviolent vigils will be death of Gazans
GAZA PROTESTS PROLIFERATE! Demonstrators are occupying Israeli consulates, storming embassies, harassing pro-Israeli rallies, and spilling blood on Zionist memorials. Not that anything is working so far. Meanwhile, in non-stories for the press, the usual non-confrontational passivists are lighting candles in memory of the slain. Are they anticipating, in their non-violent wisdom, the eminent extinction of the Palestinians of Gaza? Pacifists seem more comfortable to commemorate the ideological sacrifice of martyrs sooner than advocate for the survival of the endangered. 6016
Meeting Senator-to-be Michael Bennet
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: 6003
Arab dictator allies of US line up in support of Israeli terrorism against Gaza
Silence. Or worse yet even, efforts to blame Hamas instead of Israel for the new slaughter in Gaza. That's what the US allied Arab dictatorships imposed on the Arab world offer their people. Complicity. Many of these Sunni Arab elites (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, et cetera) are eager for the US to hammer the Shiite led Iranians, and have no solidarity at all with their own poor let alone the Palestinian poor of Gaza.... or Palestinians elsewhere for that matter. This is the opening battle of the war to bring about regime change in Iran for the Washington, D.C. rat class, and the Arab dictatorships controlled by the US government are fully behind the effort. 5862
UN Ambassador speaks of the hidden genocide against the Somali people
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? 5821
US and Britain are starving Zimbabwe to death
The so-called US government's ZIMBABWE DEMOCRACY AND ECONOMIC RECOVERY ACT passed in 2001, began the US/ British efforts to starve Zimbabwe to death in a form of war called "Economic Sanctions." This was a process similar to how the Clinton Administration began to kill off Iraq with economic sanctions that served to soften that country up for the Bush Administration invasion and subsequent occupation of that country, now to be managed once again by a Democratic Party presidency under Barack Obama. 5653
‘Peace’crats refuse to be ‘United for Peace and Justice’
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. 5610
See Ann Wright in action or at the PPJPC
COLORADO SPRINGS- The PPJPC is collecting money to bring noted antiwar activist Ann Wright to Colorado Springs. They're hoping to have her speak for a fundraiser. I've had a chance to meet the retired colonel/diplomat in person a number of times. You can too, with no fund-raising necessary. Go to an action. 5562
What Joe Lieberman says about Obama’s ‘new’ regime?
Obama Wants Lieberman To Remain In Democratic Caucus The Huffington Post frames their thoughts along the lines of whether to have Lieberman 'punished' or not? But that is wrong. The real question is whether the 2 parties will have any differences between them at all, and Obama is answering that clearly by saying that it is not necessary? 5524
Christian Love Video
Monks brawl at Jerusalem shrine. This reminds me of when some of our local liberal Christian 'Peace' monks called the police on us for trying to meet to plan antiwar activities at their Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission Shrine in downtown Colorado Springs. I wonder now how their new smaller shrine will be doing now that it has reopened. Barack Obama HQ moved into their previous larger shrine. It certainly figures....
PPJPC office now only hoping for peace
COLORADO 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.
PPJPC exits stage left, lily-livered left
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. 5124
American death squads and torture in Somalia
Why are Americans so uninterested in what their government does in their name in Somalia? We certainly have shit loads of good liberal folk running around in circles demanding that the US government intervene militarily in Sudan, do we not? But we have a virtually total silence about what the US is doing to the Somali people. More blowback from the war on terror Why is that? 4970