Holiday Greetings to All Friends
of Dorchester People for Peace! Holiday Greetings to All Friends
of Dorchester People for Peace!
Best Wishes from DPP to those observing the holidays – or simply enjoying the spirit of the season. . .
Best Wishes from DPP to those observing the holidays – or simply enjoying the spirit of the season. . .
And a PEACEFUL NEW YEAR!
We have posted these videos many times before during the Holidays. Watch them for the first time if you haven’t seen them before; watch them again and you won’t be disappointed.
CHRISTMAS IN THE TRENCHES -- 1914
In December, 1914, after months of slaughter during the First World War (it was supposed to be “The War to End all Wars”!), British and German soldiers declared an informal and spontaneous truce. The story of their fraternization and holiday celebration is told in detail here and here.
The event has been immortalized in a song by folksinger John McCutcheon, which you can hear and watch along with contemporary illustrations and a moving introduction by the performer.
The song ends with this stanza:
My name is Francis Tolliver, in Liverpool I dwell
Each Christmas come since World War I, I've learned its lessons well
That the ones who call the shots won't be among the dead and lame
And on each end of the rifle we're the same.
Each Christmas come since World War I, I've learned its lessons well
That the ones who call the shots won't be among the dead and lame
And on each end of the rifle we're the same.
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John Lennon
(killed on December 8, 1980)
VIDEO: “All we are saying is give peace a chance” (1969)
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VIDEO: John Lennon – HAPPY CHRISTMAS (The War is Over)
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Yusuf Ibrahim (aka Cat Stevens)
VIDEO: “Peace Train”
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TRUMP DOES SOMETHING RIGHT ON SYRIA
– Rep and 
Dem Elites Freak Out
Dem Elites Freak Out
Amid all the horrors of Trump’ campaign and presidency, one of the few positive glimmers was his sometimes-expressed but rarely enacted reluctance to continue never-ending wars in the Middle East. Now that he has belatedly announced the withdrawal of an estimated 4-5000 US military personnel from Syria there has been near unanimity among Republican Neocons and Liberal Democratic interventionists. Yes, we don’t like Trump, but he is right here, even if the supposed wind-down of US intervention in Suria may in fact be far from over. And should progressive actually wring their hands over the resignation of War Hawk Gen James Mattis as Defense Secretary be a cause for panic among Liberals?
Trump’s Syria troop withdrawal shows how hard it is to end US military intervention
To hear the outcry over President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw all US troops from Syria, one would think he’d just made the greatest strategic blunder in American history… Trump, who has been very vocal at times about his skepticism of American military intervention abroad, still found himself increasing America’s troop presence in Afghanistan and in September authorizing the indefinite deployment of US armed forces in Syria — a decision he just reversed… But now even staunch Trump allies can’t stomach the withdrawal… In other words, Trump — as Obama before him — will never please the Washington commentariat or any political party by withdrawing US troops from wars. In fact, it appears he could suffer politically for doing so. More
Why Trump Is Right to Withdraw Troops
Donald Trump has announced that he is bringing home America’s troops from Syria just two years after he was elected president. His plan to end one of America’s many wars prompted a mob to gather outside the White House, pitchforks at the ready. The mob wasn’t made up of angry farmers or workers. Instead, the feverish crowd constituted Washington’s war party: ivory tower think-tankers, editorialists promoting perpetual war, wannabe commanders-in-chief eager to launch their next democracy crusade, and politicians who collected draft deferments when their lives were on the line—but who now see the need for the United States to “exercise leadership.” The cacophonous criticism of the president’s decision within the Beltway may be the best evidence of his wisdom. More
MATTIS RESIGNS: SKY WILL NOT FALL
There still are plenty of legitimate reasons to worry about Trump and foreign policy. But even a broken clock is correct twice a day. And the decision about military withdrawal from Syria was the right one, for the sorts of reasons that Doug Bandow has ably explained. The biggest clue that the U.S. military expedition in Syria has become misguided is the confusion over its purpose. It originally was supposed to be all about combating the so-called Islamic State or ISIS, but then the Trump administration started talking more about getting the Iranians out or standing up to the Russians, which are completely different objectives. And if we are concerned about the absence of a proper process, consider that U.S. troops in Syria are now in a foreign war for purposes for which there has been no Congressional authorization at all… ISIS still poses a threat—as an ideology, an instigator of hate, and a perpetrator of political violence—but it is not a threat that will be managed through military combat over Syrian real estate. More
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WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME
Trump proposes cutting food stamps for over 700,000 people just before Christmas
The United States Department of Agriculture is proposing that states should only be allowed to waive a current food stamps requirement — namely, that adults without dependents must work or participate in a job-training program for at least 20 hours each week if they wish to collect food stamps for more than three months in a three-year period — on the condition that those adults live in areas where unemployment is above 7 percent, according to The Washington Post. Currently the USDA regulations permit states to waive that requirement if an adult lives in an area where the unemployment rate is at least 20 percent greater than the national rate. In effect, this means that roughly 755,000 Americans would potentially lose their waivers that permit them to receive food stamps. More
Bonuses are up $0.02 since the GOP tax cuts passed
The new data allows us to examine nonproduction bonuses in the first three quarters of 2018 to assess the trends in bonuses in absolute dollars and as a share of compensation. The bottom line is that there has been very little increase in private sector compensation or W-2 wages since the end of 2017. The $0.02 per hour (inflation-adjusted) bump in bonuses between December 2017 and September 2018 is very small. Nonproduction bonuses as a share of total compensation grew from 2.73 percent in December 2017 to 2.78 percent in September 2018, an imperceptible growth…. An examination of overall wage and compensation growth does not provide much in the way of bragging rights for tax cutters, especially given the expectation of rising wages and compensation amidst low unemployment. More
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