Click on the headline to link to the Smedley Butler Brigade VFP Facebook page.
Memorial Day for Peace
May 28, 2012, 1:00 - 3:00 pm
Christopher Columbus Park
Boston, Massachusetts
Please join us
Please join Veterans For Peace, Smedley Butler Brigade, Chapter 9 and Samantha Smith, Chapter 45, Military Families Speak Out, Mass Peace Action, United for Justice with Peace as we commemorate Memorial Day on Monday May 28, 2012
There will be no parade, no marching band, no military equipment, no guns and drums, no Air Force fly-overs.
There will be veterans and supporters who have lost friends and loved ones. Veterans who know the horrors of war and the pain and anguish of loss. There will be friends and families of soldiers, remembering their loved ones. There will be Iraqi Refugees who have suffered terrible losses and will join with us as we remember and show respect for their loss.
There will be flowers dropped into the harbor for each fallen U.S. soldier from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Flowers will also be also be dropped into the harbor remembering the loss of Iraqi family and friends.
Additional information will follow
as the program is finalized
Showing posts with label immediate unconditional withdrawal from Afghanistan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label immediate unconditional withdrawal from Afghanistan. Show all posts
Friday, May 25, 2012
Sunday, May 20, 2012
From The Smedley Butler Brigade-Veterans For Peace- In Boston- Memorial Day for Peace-May 28, 2012, 1:00 - 3:00 pm
Click on the headline to link to the Smedley Butler Brigade VFP Facebook page.
Memorial Day for Peace
May 28, 2012, 1:00 - 3:00 pm
Christopher Columbus Park
Boston, Massachusetts
Please join us
Please join Veterans For Peace, Smedley Butler Brigade, Chapter 9 and Samantha Smith, Chapter 45, Military Families Speak Out, Mass Peace Action, United for Justice with Peace as we commemorate Memorial Day on Monday May 28, 2012
There will be no parade, no marching band, no military equipment, no guns and drums, no Air Force fly-overs.
There will be veterans and supporters who have lost friends and loved ones. Veterans who know the horrors of war and the pain and anguish of loss. There will be friends and families of soldiers, remembering their loved ones. There will be Iraqi Refugees who have suffered terrible losses and will join with us as we remember and show respect for their loss.
There will be flowers dropped into the harbor for each fallen U.S. soldier from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Flowers will also be also be dropped into the harbor remembering the loss of Iraqi family and friends.
Additional information will follow
as the program is finalized
Memorial Day for Peace
May 28, 2012, 1:00 - 3:00 pm
Christopher Columbus Park
Boston, Massachusetts
Please join us
Please join Veterans For Peace, Smedley Butler Brigade, Chapter 9 and Samantha Smith, Chapter 45, Military Families Speak Out, Mass Peace Action, United for Justice with Peace as we commemorate Memorial Day on Monday May 28, 2012
There will be no parade, no marching band, no military equipment, no guns and drums, no Air Force fly-overs.
There will be veterans and supporters who have lost friends and loved ones. Veterans who know the horrors of war and the pain and anguish of loss. There will be friends and families of soldiers, remembering their loved ones. There will be Iraqi Refugees who have suffered terrible losses and will join with us as we remember and show respect for their loss.
There will be flowers dropped into the harbor for each fallen U.S. soldier from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Flowers will also be also be dropped into the harbor remembering the loss of Iraqi family and friends.
Additional information will follow
as the program is finalized
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
The Latest From The United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) Website- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops, Mercenaries, Contractors, Etc, From Afghanistan! Hands Off Iran! -Mawrch On Chicago May 20th
Click on the headline to link to the United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) Website for more information about various anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist actions around the country.
March and Rally
Chicago May 20, 2012
Markin comment:
Every once in a while it is necessary, if for not other reason than to proclaim from the public square that we are alive, and fighting, to show “the colors,” our anti-war colors. While, as I have mentioned many times in this space, endless marches are not going to end any war the street opposition to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as protests against other imperialist adventures has been under the radar of late. It is time for anti-warriors to get back where we belong in the struggle against Obama’s wars. The UNAC appears to be the umbrella clearing house these days for many anti-war, anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist actions. Not all the demands of this coalition are ones that I would raise but the key one is enough to take to the streets. Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops, Mercenaries, Contractors, Etc, From Afghanistan! Hands Off Iran!
BostonUNAC.org | 781-285-8622 | BostonUNAC(S)gmail.com
March and Rally
Chicago May 20, 2012
Markin comment:
Every once in a while it is necessary, if for not other reason than to proclaim from the public square that we are alive, and fighting, to show “the colors,” our anti-war colors. While, as I have mentioned many times in this space, endless marches are not going to end any war the street opposition to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as protests against other imperialist adventures has been under the radar of late. It is time for anti-warriors to get back where we belong in the struggle against Obama’s wars. The UNAC appears to be the umbrella clearing house these days for many anti-war, anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist actions. Not all the demands of this coalition are ones that I would raise but the key one is enough to take to the streets. Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops, Mercenaries, Contractors, Etc, From Afghanistan! Hands Off Iran!
BostonUNAC.org | 781-285-8622 | BostonUNAC(S)gmail.com
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Let’s Redouble Our Efforts To Save Private Bradley Manning-Make Every Town Square A Bradley Manning Square From Boston To Berkeley
Click on the headline to link to a the Private Bradley Manning Petition website page.
Markin comment:
The Private Bradley Manning case is headed toward a fall trial. Those of us who support his cause should redouble our efforts to secure his freedom. For the past several months there has been a weekly vigil in Greater Boston across from the Davis Square Redline MBTA stop (renamed Bradley Manning Square for the vigil’s duration) in Somerville from 1:00-2:00 PM on Fridays. This vigil has, to say the least, been very sparsely attended. We need to build it up with more supporters present. Please join us when you can. Or better yet if you can’t join us start a Support Bradley Manning weekly vigil in some location in your town whether it is in the Boston area or Berkeley. And please sign the petition for his release. I have placed links to the Manning Network and Manning Square website below.
Bradley Manning Support Network
http://www.bradleymanning.org/
Manning Square website
http://freemanz.com/2012/01/20/somerville_paper_photo-bradmanningsquare/bradleymanningsquare-2011_01_13/
The following are remarks that I have been focusing on of late to build support for Bradley Manning’s cause.
Veterans for Peace proudly stands in solidarity with, and defense of, Private Bradley Manning.
We of the anti-war movement were not able to do much to affect the Bush- Obama Iraq War timetable but we can save the one hero of that war, Bradley Manning.
I stand in solidarity with the alleged actions of Private Bradley Manning in bringing to light, just a little light, some of the nefarious war-related doings of this government, under Bush and Obama. If he did such acts they are no crime. No crime at all in my eyes or in the eyes of the vast majority of people who know of the case and of its importance as an individual act of resistance to the unjust and barbaric American-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I sleep just a shade bit easier these days knowing that Private Manning may have exposed what we all knew, or should have known- the Iraq war and the Afghan war justifications rested on a house of cards. American imperialism’s gun-toting house of cards, but cards nevertheless.
I am standing in solidarity with Private Bradley Manning because I am outraged by the treatment meted out to Private Manning, presumably an innocent man, by a government who alleges itself to be some “beacon” of the civilized world. Bradley Manning had been held in solidarity at Quantico and other locales for over 500 days, and has been held without trial for much longer, as the government and its military try to glue a case together. The military, and its henchmen in the Justice Department, have gotten more devious although not smarter since I was a soldier in their crosshairs over forty years ago.
These are more than sufficient reasons to stand in solidarity with Private Manning and will be until the day he is freed by his jailers. And I will continue to stand in proud solidarity with Private Manning until that great day.
Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal of All U.S./Allied Troops And Mercenaries From Afghanistan! Hands Off Iran! Free Bradley Manning Now!
************
"God knows what happens now. Hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms...
I want people to see the truth... because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public."
—online chat attributed to Army RFC Bradley Manning
Accused Wikileaks Whistleblower Bradley Manning,
a 23-year-old US Army intelligence analyst, is accused of sharing a video of the killing of civilians— including two Reuters journalists—by a US helicopter in Baghdad, Iraq with the Wikileaks website.
He is also charged with blowing the whistle on the Afghan War Diary, the Iraq War Logs, and revealing US diplomatic cables. In short, he's been charged with telling us the truth.
The video and documents have illuminated the true number and cause of civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, human rights abuses by U.S.-funded contractors and foreign militaries, and the role that spying and brines play in international diplomacy.
Half of every edition of The New York Times has cited one or more of these documents during the past year. The leaks have caused Amnesty International to hail Wikileaks for catalyzing the democratic middle eastern revolutions and changing journalism forever.
What happens now is up to YOU!
Never before in U.S. history has someone been charged with "Aiding the enemy through indirect means" by making information public.
A massive; popular outpouring of support for Bradley Manning is needed to save his life.
We are at a turning point in our nation's history. Will we as a public demand greater transparency and accountability from pur elected leaders? Will we be governed by fear and secrecy? Will we accept endless war fought with our tax dollars? Or, will we demand the right to know the truth—the real foundation of democracy.
Here are some actions you should take now to support Bradley:
» Visitwww.standwithbrad.org to sign the petition. Then join our photo petition at iam.bradleymanning.org
» Join our facebook page, savebradley,
to receive campaign updates, and follow SaveBradley on twitter
» Visitwww.bradleymanning.org and
download our Organizer Toolkit to learn howyou can educate community members, gain media attention, and donate toward Bradley's defense.
The People Have the Right to Know...
Visit wvwv.braclleymaiiniiig.org to learn howyou can take action!
************
What did WikiLeaks reveal?
.
"In no case shall information be classified... in order to: conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error; prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency... or prevent or delay the release of information that does not require protection in the interest of the national security."
—Executive Order 13526, Sec. 7.7. Classification Prohibitions and Limitations
"Is this embarrassing? Yes. Is this awkward? Yes. Consequences for U.S. foreign policy? I think fairly modest."
—Robert Gates, Unites States Secretary of Defense
PFC Bradley Manning is a US Army intelligence specialist who is accused of releasing classified information to WikiLeaks, an organization that he allegedly understood would release portions of the information to news organizations and ultimately to the public.
Was the information that PFC Manning is accused of leaking classified for our protection and national security, as government officials contend? Or do the revelations provide the American public with information that we should have had access to in the first place? Just
what are these revelations? Below are some key facts that PFC Manning is accused of making public.
There is an official policy to ignore torture in Iraq.
The "Iraq War Logs" published by WikiLeaks revealed that thousands of reports of prisoner abuse and torture had been filed against the Iraqi Security Forces. Medical evidence detailed how prisoners had been whipped with heavy cables across the feet, hung from ceiling hooks, suffered holes being bored into their legs with electric drills, urinated upon, and sexually assaulted. These logs also revealed the existence of "Frago 242,"an order implemented in 2004 not to investigate allegations of abuse against the. Iraqi government This order is a direct violation of the UN Convention Against Torture, which was ratified by the United States in 1994. The Convention prohibits the Armed Forces from transferring a detainee to other countries "where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture." According to the State Department's own reports, the U.S. government was already aware that the Iraqi Security Forces engaged in torture (1).
U.S. officials were told to cover up evidence of child abuse by contractors in Afghanistan.
U.S. defense contractors were brought under much tighter supervision after leaked diplomatic cables revealed that they had been complicit in child trafficking activities. DynCorp — a powerful defense contracting firm that claims almost $2 billion per year in revenue from U.S. tax dollars — threw a party for Afghan security recruits featuring boys purchased from child traffickers for entertainment. DynCorp had already faced human trafficking charges before this incident took place. According to the cables, Afghan Interior minister HanifAtmar urged the assistant US ambassadorto"quash"the story.These revelations have been a driving factor behind recent calls for the removal of all U.S. defense contractors from Afghanistan (2).
Guantanamo prison has held mostly innocent people and low-level operatives.
The Guantanamo Files describe how detainees were arrested based on what the New York Times referred to as highly subjective evidence. For example, some poor farmers were captured after they were found wearing a common watch or a jacket that was the same as those also worn by Al Queda operatives. How quickly innocent prisoners were released was heavily dependent on their country of origin. Because the evidence collected against Guantanamo prisoners is not permissible in U.S. courts, the U.S. State Department has offered millions of dollars to other countries to take and try our prisoners. According to a U.S. diplomatic cable written on April 17, 2009, the Association for the Dignity of Spanish Prisoners requested that the National Court indict six former U.S. officials for creating a legal framework that allegedly permitted torture against five Spanish prisoners. However,"Senator Mel Martinez... met Acting FM [Foreign Minister] AngelLossada... on April 15. Martinez... -underscored that the prosecutions would not be understood or accepted in the U.S. and would have an enormous impact on the bilateral relationship"(3).
There is an official tally of civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Even though the Bush and Obama Administrations maintained publicly that there was no official count of civilian casualties, the Iraq and Afghanistan War Logs showed that this claim was false. Between 2004 and 2009, the U.S. government counted a total of 109,000 deaths in Iraq, with 66,081 classified as non-combatants. This means that for every Iraqi death that is classified as a combatant, two innocent men, women or children are also killed (4),
FOOTNOTES:
(1)Alex Spillius, "Wikileaks: Iraq War Logs show US ignored torture allega-
tions,"Telegraph, October 22,2010. http://www.telegrapti.co.uk/news/
woridnews/middleeast/iraq/8082223/WiMleab-lraq-War-Logs-show-US-
ignored-torture-allegations.html.
(2)foreign contractors hired Afghan 'dancing boys; WikiLeaks cable
reveals'guanJian.co.uk, December 2,2010, http://www.guardian.co.tik/
world/2010/dec/02/foreign-contractors-hired-dancing-boys
(3) Scott Shane and Benjamin Weiser.The Guatanamo Files: Judging Detainees'Risk, Often With Rawed Evidence'New York Times, April 24,2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/2S/world/guantanamo-files-flawed-evidence-for-assessing-risk.html;'US embassy cables: Don't pursue Guantanamo criminal case, says Spanish attorney general'guardian.co.uk, December 1,2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/202776.
(4) Iraq War Logs Reveal 15,000 Previously Unlisted Civilian Deaths,' guard-ian.co.uk, October 22,2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/won'd/2010/ oct/22/true-civilian-body-count-iraq
Markin comment:
The Private Bradley Manning case is headed toward a fall trial. Those of us who support his cause should redouble our efforts to secure his freedom. For the past several months there has been a weekly vigil in Greater Boston across from the Davis Square Redline MBTA stop (renamed Bradley Manning Square for the vigil’s duration) in Somerville from 1:00-2:00 PM on Fridays. This vigil has, to say the least, been very sparsely attended. We need to build it up with more supporters present. Please join us when you can. Or better yet if you can’t join us start a Support Bradley Manning weekly vigil in some location in your town whether it is in the Boston area or Berkeley. And please sign the petition for his release. I have placed links to the Manning Network and Manning Square website below.
Bradley Manning Support Network
http://www.bradleymanning.org/
Manning Square website
http://freemanz.com/2012/01/20/somerville_paper_photo-bradmanningsquare/bradleymanningsquare-2011_01_13/
The following are remarks that I have been focusing on of late to build support for Bradley Manning’s cause.
Veterans for Peace proudly stands in solidarity with, and defense of, Private Bradley Manning.
We of the anti-war movement were not able to do much to affect the Bush- Obama Iraq War timetable but we can save the one hero of that war, Bradley Manning.
I stand in solidarity with the alleged actions of Private Bradley Manning in bringing to light, just a little light, some of the nefarious war-related doings of this government, under Bush and Obama. If he did such acts they are no crime. No crime at all in my eyes or in the eyes of the vast majority of people who know of the case and of its importance as an individual act of resistance to the unjust and barbaric American-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I sleep just a shade bit easier these days knowing that Private Manning may have exposed what we all knew, or should have known- the Iraq war and the Afghan war justifications rested on a house of cards. American imperialism’s gun-toting house of cards, but cards nevertheless.
I am standing in solidarity with Private Bradley Manning because I am outraged by the treatment meted out to Private Manning, presumably an innocent man, by a government who alleges itself to be some “beacon” of the civilized world. Bradley Manning had been held in solidarity at Quantico and other locales for over 500 days, and has been held without trial for much longer, as the government and its military try to glue a case together. The military, and its henchmen in the Justice Department, have gotten more devious although not smarter since I was a soldier in their crosshairs over forty years ago.
These are more than sufficient reasons to stand in solidarity with Private Manning and will be until the day he is freed by his jailers. And I will continue to stand in proud solidarity with Private Manning until that great day.
Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal of All U.S./Allied Troops And Mercenaries From Afghanistan! Hands Off Iran! Free Bradley Manning Now!
************
"God knows what happens now. Hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms...
I want people to see the truth... because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public."
—online chat attributed to Army RFC Bradley Manning
Accused Wikileaks Whistleblower Bradley Manning,
a 23-year-old US Army intelligence analyst, is accused of sharing a video of the killing of civilians— including two Reuters journalists—by a US helicopter in Baghdad, Iraq with the Wikileaks website.
He is also charged with blowing the whistle on the Afghan War Diary, the Iraq War Logs, and revealing US diplomatic cables. In short, he's been charged with telling us the truth.
The video and documents have illuminated the true number and cause of civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, human rights abuses by U.S.-funded contractors and foreign militaries, and the role that spying and brines play in international diplomacy.
Half of every edition of The New York Times has cited one or more of these documents during the past year. The leaks have caused Amnesty International to hail Wikileaks for catalyzing the democratic middle eastern revolutions and changing journalism forever.
What happens now is up to YOU!
Never before in U.S. history has someone been charged with "Aiding the enemy through indirect means" by making information public.
A massive; popular outpouring of support for Bradley Manning is needed to save his life.
We are at a turning point in our nation's history. Will we as a public demand greater transparency and accountability from pur elected leaders? Will we be governed by fear and secrecy? Will we accept endless war fought with our tax dollars? Or, will we demand the right to know the truth—the real foundation of democracy.
Here are some actions you should take now to support Bradley:
» Visitwww.standwithbrad.org to sign the petition. Then join our photo petition at iam.bradleymanning.org
» Join our facebook page, savebradley,
to receive campaign updates, and follow SaveBradley on twitter
» Visitwww.bradleymanning.org and
download our Organizer Toolkit to learn howyou can educate community members, gain media attention, and donate toward Bradley's defense.
The People Have the Right to Know...
Visit wvwv.braclleymaiiniiig.org to learn howyou can take action!
************
What did WikiLeaks reveal?
.
"In no case shall information be classified... in order to: conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error; prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency... or prevent or delay the release of information that does not require protection in the interest of the national security."
—Executive Order 13526, Sec. 7.7. Classification Prohibitions and Limitations
"Is this embarrassing? Yes. Is this awkward? Yes. Consequences for U.S. foreign policy? I think fairly modest."
—Robert Gates, Unites States Secretary of Defense
PFC Bradley Manning is a US Army intelligence specialist who is accused of releasing classified information to WikiLeaks, an organization that he allegedly understood would release portions of the information to news organizations and ultimately to the public.
Was the information that PFC Manning is accused of leaking classified for our protection and national security, as government officials contend? Or do the revelations provide the American public with information that we should have had access to in the first place? Just
what are these revelations? Below are some key facts that PFC Manning is accused of making public.
There is an official policy to ignore torture in Iraq.
The "Iraq War Logs" published by WikiLeaks revealed that thousands of reports of prisoner abuse and torture had been filed against the Iraqi Security Forces. Medical evidence detailed how prisoners had been whipped with heavy cables across the feet, hung from ceiling hooks, suffered holes being bored into their legs with electric drills, urinated upon, and sexually assaulted. These logs also revealed the existence of "Frago 242,"an order implemented in 2004 not to investigate allegations of abuse against the. Iraqi government This order is a direct violation of the UN Convention Against Torture, which was ratified by the United States in 1994. The Convention prohibits the Armed Forces from transferring a detainee to other countries "where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture." According to the State Department's own reports, the U.S. government was already aware that the Iraqi Security Forces engaged in torture (1).
U.S. officials were told to cover up evidence of child abuse by contractors in Afghanistan.
U.S. defense contractors were brought under much tighter supervision after leaked diplomatic cables revealed that they had been complicit in child trafficking activities. DynCorp — a powerful defense contracting firm that claims almost $2 billion per year in revenue from U.S. tax dollars — threw a party for Afghan security recruits featuring boys purchased from child traffickers for entertainment. DynCorp had already faced human trafficking charges before this incident took place. According to the cables, Afghan Interior minister HanifAtmar urged the assistant US ambassadorto"quash"the story.These revelations have been a driving factor behind recent calls for the removal of all U.S. defense contractors from Afghanistan (2).
Guantanamo prison has held mostly innocent people and low-level operatives.
The Guantanamo Files describe how detainees were arrested based on what the New York Times referred to as highly subjective evidence. For example, some poor farmers were captured after they were found wearing a common watch or a jacket that was the same as those also worn by Al Queda operatives. How quickly innocent prisoners were released was heavily dependent on their country of origin. Because the evidence collected against Guantanamo prisoners is not permissible in U.S. courts, the U.S. State Department has offered millions of dollars to other countries to take and try our prisoners. According to a U.S. diplomatic cable written on April 17, 2009, the Association for the Dignity of Spanish Prisoners requested that the National Court indict six former U.S. officials for creating a legal framework that allegedly permitted torture against five Spanish prisoners. However,"Senator Mel Martinez... met Acting FM [Foreign Minister] AngelLossada... on April 15. Martinez... -underscored that the prosecutions would not be understood or accepted in the U.S. and would have an enormous impact on the bilateral relationship"(3).
There is an official tally of civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Even though the Bush and Obama Administrations maintained publicly that there was no official count of civilian casualties, the Iraq and Afghanistan War Logs showed that this claim was false. Between 2004 and 2009, the U.S. government counted a total of 109,000 deaths in Iraq, with 66,081 classified as non-combatants. This means that for every Iraqi death that is classified as a combatant, two innocent men, women or children are also killed (4),
FOOTNOTES:
(1)Alex Spillius, "Wikileaks: Iraq War Logs show US ignored torture allega-
tions,"Telegraph, October 22,2010. http://www.telegrapti.co.uk/news/
woridnews/middleeast/iraq/8082223/WiMleab-lraq-War-Logs-show-US-
ignored-torture-allegations.html.
(2)foreign contractors hired Afghan 'dancing boys; WikiLeaks cable
reveals'guanJian.co.uk, December 2,2010, http://www.guardian.co.tik/
world/2010/dec/02/foreign-contractors-hired-dancing-boys
(3) Scott Shane and Benjamin Weiser.The Guatanamo Files: Judging Detainees'Risk, Often With Rawed Evidence'New York Times, April 24,2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/2S/world/guantanamo-files-flawed-evidence-for-assessing-risk.html;'US embassy cables: Don't pursue Guantanamo criminal case, says Spanish attorney general'guardian.co.uk, December 1,2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/202776.
(4) Iraq War Logs Reveal 15,000 Previously Unlisted Civilian Deaths,' guard-ian.co.uk, October 22,2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/won'd/2010/ oct/22/true-civilian-body-count-iraq
From The Smedley Butler Brigade-Veterans For Peace- In Boston- Memorial Day for Peace-May 28, 2012, 1:00 - 3:00 pm
Click on the headline to link to the Smedley Butler Brigade VFP Facebook page.
Memorial Day for Peace
May 28, 2012, 1:00 - 3:00 pm
Christopher Columbus Park
Boston, Massachusetts
Please join us
Please join Veterans For Peace, Smedley Butler Brigade, Chapter 9 and Samantha Smith, Chapter 45, Military Families Speak Out, Mass Peace Action, United for Justice with Peace as we commemorate Memorial Day on Monday May 28, 2012
There will be no parade, no marching band, no military equipment, no guns and drums, no Air Force fly-overs.
There will be veterans and supporters who have lost friends and loved ones. Veterans who know the horrors of war and the pain and anguish of loss. There will be friends and families of soldiers, remembering their loved ones. There will be Iraqi Refugees who have suffered terrible losses and will join with us as we remember and show respect for their loss.
There will be flowers dropped into the harbor for each fallen U.S. soldier from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Flowers will also be also be dropped into the harbor remembering the loss of Iraqi family and friends.
Additional information will follow
as the program is finalized
Memorial Day for Peace
May 28, 2012, 1:00 - 3:00 pm
Christopher Columbus Park
Boston, Massachusetts
Please join us
Please join Veterans For Peace, Smedley Butler Brigade, Chapter 9 and Samantha Smith, Chapter 45, Military Families Speak Out, Mass Peace Action, United for Justice with Peace as we commemorate Memorial Day on Monday May 28, 2012
There will be no parade, no marching band, no military equipment, no guns and drums, no Air Force fly-overs.
There will be veterans and supporters who have lost friends and loved ones. Veterans who know the horrors of war and the pain and anguish of loss. There will be friends and families of soldiers, remembering their loved ones. There will be Iraqi Refugees who have suffered terrible losses and will join with us as we remember and show respect for their loss.
There will be flowers dropped into the harbor for each fallen U.S. soldier from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Flowers will also be also be dropped into the harbor remembering the loss of Iraqi family and friends.
Additional information will follow
as the program is finalized
Monday, April 16, 2012
From "Divest From War"-U.S./Allies Hands Off Iran!
Help Stop the Next WAR
Are you worried about an Israeli attack on Iran dragging the US and the entire Middle East into yet another war?
Do you feel helpless in the face of our so-called elected officials' unwillingness to stand up to the Israeli government?
What Can We Do?
The Israeli government is not worried about the US Congress or any western government. However, they are worried about grassroots boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movements that are challenging their impunity. We can use this concern to help raise the cost of an attack on Iran, and thereby help prevent the next war in the Middle East.
By signing the Divest From War Pledge, you commit to boycotting Israeli products and divesting from Israeli government bonds if Israel initiates a preemptive attack on Iran.
After you sign the pledge, be sure to spread the word nationally and internationally.
We can stop the next war, but only if we mobilize large numbers.
Some helpful new sites:
National Iranian American Council: www.niacouncil.org
Al Jazeera English: www.aliazeera.com
Interesting article on results of Pentagon Iran "war games" simulation: http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun ol am/2012/03/20/iran-war-game-predicts-dire-consequences-for-u-s-forces-after-israeli-attack/
Are you worried about an Israeli attack on Iran dragging the US and the entire Middle East into yet another war?
Do you feel helpless in the face of our so-called elected officials' unwillingness to stand up to the Israeli government?
What Can We Do?
The Israeli government is not worried about the US Congress or any western government. However, they are worried about grassroots boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movements that are challenging their impunity. We can use this concern to help raise the cost of an attack on Iran, and thereby help prevent the next war in the Middle East.
By signing the Divest From War Pledge, you commit to boycotting Israeli products and divesting from Israeli government bonds if Israel initiates a preemptive attack on Iran.
After you sign the pledge, be sure to spread the word nationally and internationally.
We can stop the next war, but only if we mobilize large numbers.
Some helpful new sites:
National Iranian American Council: www.niacouncil.org
Al Jazeera English: www.aliazeera.com
Interesting article on results of Pentagon Iran "war games" simulation: http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun ol am/2012/03/20/iran-war-game-predicts-dire-consequences-for-u-s-forces-after-israeli-attack/
Sunday, April 08, 2012
From Veterans For Peace- The VFP President Calls Things By Their Right Name-End The Endless Wars
Click on the headline to link to a Veterans For Peace presentation against the endless wars confronting those who are knee deep in sponsoring them.
Markin comment:
The video speaks for itself-End the endless wars!
Markin comment:
The video speaks for itself-End the endless wars!
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
From The United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC)- March 23-25 Conference Opening Remarks
Click on the headline to link to the United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) website.
Markin comment:
Although the conference has passed (March 23-25), in keeping with one of the aims of this blog, this UNAC pre-conference material and other resources are presented for archival purposes. The actual passed resolutions will be placed here as soon as they become available.
**********
Conference Opening Remarks - Marilyn Levin
UNAC NATIONAL CONFERENCE 2012
INTRO REMARKS, MARILYN LEVIN, CO-COORDINATOR, 3/24/12
When I started preparing for this talk, I thought back to July, 2010, when UNAC began and where we are today. It is astounding how much has changed over the past year and a half, although many of the challenges we face are the same.
We experience an Empire that is losing ground, and, in its desperation to control world resources and maintain its power, engages in expanding brutal wars, draconian measures to cut spending on social needs, increases assaults on the environment, and institutes police state measures to scapegoat vulnerable populations and stifle dissent.
But just think of what has happened for the good – when our side, in the millions -- has fought back. There were the uprisings against despots, backed by the United States, in North Africa --- that inspired the fight back by workers in the U.S., in Madison, WI, Greece, and around the world, against austerity measures imposed by the rich. That, in turn, triggered the Occupy movement, directed at Wall Street, that spread like wildfire across the country, and brought a new vocabulary to the movement – Mic Check!
The Muslim and Arab communities have taken the lead in organizing to stand up to Islamophobia and the intensified repression of the War of Terror, raining down on us all. The Palestinians have inspired us by their unflagging determination to end over 60 years of ethnic cleansing and U.S.-backed Israeli oppression.
How has UNAC and the broader movement fared?
Our first conference was the largest movement conference held since 9/11. Glen Ford summed it up in the Black Agenda Report this way in a report titled: An Anti-War Movement That Won’t Cave to Obama or Israel.
He wrote:
“A renewed anti-war movement is under construction, one that breaks decisively from the Cult of Obama, demands an end to all U.S. aid to the Israeli “apartheid regime,” and calls for “immediate, total and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. troops, mercenaries and contractors from Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, and the immediate closing of all U.S. bases in those countries.”
A highlight of the conference was a focus on Islamophobia and the targeting of Muslims and Arabs culminating in a march to a local mosque. This was the first time that an alliance was forged between antiwar and Muslim activists. From that, the Muslim Peace Coalition was organized and a new civil liberties group – the National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms – was formed, and leaders and members of those organizations are here with us today.
Before the conference, there hadn’t been national mass actions for a long period, and as a result, the antiwar movement was considered half dead. We, in UNAC, believe that, along with other types of actions, periodic, visible, mass actions in the streets are critical to building a powerful and inclusive movement. Mass actions bring new people into political action, demonstrate our power, and give heart to people around the globe that there is a movement demanding change in the United States. We called for bicoastal demonstrations on April 9th & 10th. 13,000 people marched last year in New York and San Francisco, and, for the first time, there was a significant contingent of Muslims.
Today, UNAC is a well-established force on the left, the largest and most visible coalition in the country. We see our role as making the connections between the issues we all deal with as coming from the same source – the profit-making demands of the 1%. We are proud of what we have accomplished and we are confident about our ability to build unity with all sectors of the antiwar, social justice, environmental, and international solidarity movements in united front actions that will truly challenge imperialist power. Egypt taught us that things can change on a dime when the time is right and the mighty can fall.
This is an election year, when the lesser evil Democrats tell us to leave the streets and campaign for the Democrats, or the evil Republicans will bring fascism down upon us. There is not a shred of evidence that this is true. The expanding wars and drone attacks, cuts in services, gifts to the obscenely wealthy, the trampling of our rights, assassinations of American citizens, and attempts to crush the fledgling Occupy movements, are horrendous bi-partisan acts, happily led by the present big honcho Democrat in the White House. Historically, the liberals, when in office, have been more dangerous, because many movement leaders mute their protests when Democrats are in power. When the powers-that-be hold the movement in their back pockets, they can readily move to the right without strong opposition.
Well, this year, we got a gift by the Administration. They decided to bring the world’s economic and military rulers here, to plot their diabolical schemes. UNAC took the lead in June, 2011, in calling for national demonstrations in Chicago in May, 2012, and helped to initiate CANG8, the Chicago-based coalition, doing a terrific job in leading the fight with the City and Homeland Security for our constitutional right to protest. Some movement leaders, warned us not to demonstrate – now is not the time – it’s an election year you know. Rahm Emmanuel and Obama cockily thought they could intimidate us from demonstrating, but our organizing efforts and civil liberties campaigns for the right to protest, gave them second thoughts, and we chased the G-8 out of Chicago to Camp David. We will continue to demand our right to protest “within sight and sound” of the Summit, and we will win! Thousands of us will be in Chicago to say No to the NATO/G-8 Agendas of War, Poverty, and Repression. And we’ll be seeing the U.S. leaders again in August and September at the Democratic and Republican Conventions.
At this gathering of a broad and diverse movement, we have an incredible program for you to enjoy. There are 50 amazing workshops reflecting all sectors of activism and analysis. The panels of leading thinkers and activists reflect the major concerns we face today. Last night, we set the stage by taking stock of the changing strategies of the 1%. We need to “Know thy Enemy” and what’s really motivating their actions, and as we heard, it ain’t freedom and democracy. This morning’s panel deals with our response to their military and economic plans.
Our lunchtime panel features the War at Home on the Black Community, the most oppressed group in the country, and the most antiwar -- and usually overlooked by the majority white left. We see the blatant racism that killed Trayvon Martin and the spontaneous response of sorrow and anger. We see the new Jim Crow of mass incarceration of Black youth, police brutality and surveillance, where over 40% of all prison inmates are African-American and one-third of Black males born in 2001 will spend time in prison. We see the crushing economic deprivation of a Black official unemployment rate of 13.6%, and a real rate that includes people who have given up is much, much higher. These conditions, in my opinion, will inevitably trigger a new civil rights struggle, and we all need to be part of it and stand together in solidarity and be counted.
Tonight’s panel will focus on the domestic repression targeting Muslims, the Bill of Rights, and the ceaseless war on workers and the organizations that represent their interests. Tomorrow, we will hear firsthand about the victims of repression, recognizing once again, that an attack on one is an attack on all.
Our lunch panel tomorrow features very different keynoters – Environmentalist/activist Bill McKibben by SKYPE, foreign affairs analyst Vijay Prashad, and economist Richard Wolff. We finish tomorrow afternoon with a NATO/G-8 protest organizing session to hear about the plans for Chicago.
The other thing that makes UNAC unique and vital is that we discuss and debate major issues, vote democratically on our public positions, and decide on a program of actions that will take us through the next year. We believe in the united front. While we may have differences on some issues, even some hot button ones, where emotions run high, we can calmly have a high level discussion, debate the issues, and then, unite around the principled demands and actions we can all agree with, while maintaining our different positions through our individual organizations. This is what allows us to grow and makes us strong.
We invite all of you whose organizations are not yet affiliated with UNAC to join us. We urge you to be an active partner in carrying out the mandates of this conference. We have application forms for organizations who want to join and be part of the organizing and decision-making process at the UNAC table. We want and need to have a leadership body – our coordinating committee – that is representative, politically broad, and diverse and reflects the composition of the movements that make up the coalition.
Make your travel plans now for Chicago and don’t miss the major mass demonstration of 2012!
Markin comment:
Although the conference has passed (March 23-25), in keeping with one of the aims of this blog, this UNAC pre-conference material and other resources are presented for archival purposes. The actual passed resolutions will be placed here as soon as they become available.
**********
Conference Opening Remarks - Marilyn Levin
UNAC NATIONAL CONFERENCE 2012
INTRO REMARKS, MARILYN LEVIN, CO-COORDINATOR, 3/24/12
When I started preparing for this talk, I thought back to July, 2010, when UNAC began and where we are today. It is astounding how much has changed over the past year and a half, although many of the challenges we face are the same.
We experience an Empire that is losing ground, and, in its desperation to control world resources and maintain its power, engages in expanding brutal wars, draconian measures to cut spending on social needs, increases assaults on the environment, and institutes police state measures to scapegoat vulnerable populations and stifle dissent.
But just think of what has happened for the good – when our side, in the millions -- has fought back. There were the uprisings against despots, backed by the United States, in North Africa --- that inspired the fight back by workers in the U.S., in Madison, WI, Greece, and around the world, against austerity measures imposed by the rich. That, in turn, triggered the Occupy movement, directed at Wall Street, that spread like wildfire across the country, and brought a new vocabulary to the movement – Mic Check!
The Muslim and Arab communities have taken the lead in organizing to stand up to Islamophobia and the intensified repression of the War of Terror, raining down on us all. The Palestinians have inspired us by their unflagging determination to end over 60 years of ethnic cleansing and U.S.-backed Israeli oppression.
How has UNAC and the broader movement fared?
Our first conference was the largest movement conference held since 9/11. Glen Ford summed it up in the Black Agenda Report this way in a report titled: An Anti-War Movement That Won’t Cave to Obama or Israel.
He wrote:
“A renewed anti-war movement is under construction, one that breaks decisively from the Cult of Obama, demands an end to all U.S. aid to the Israeli “apartheid regime,” and calls for “immediate, total and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. troops, mercenaries and contractors from Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, and the immediate closing of all U.S. bases in those countries.”
A highlight of the conference was a focus on Islamophobia and the targeting of Muslims and Arabs culminating in a march to a local mosque. This was the first time that an alliance was forged between antiwar and Muslim activists. From that, the Muslim Peace Coalition was organized and a new civil liberties group – the National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms – was formed, and leaders and members of those organizations are here with us today.
Before the conference, there hadn’t been national mass actions for a long period, and as a result, the antiwar movement was considered half dead. We, in UNAC, believe that, along with other types of actions, periodic, visible, mass actions in the streets are critical to building a powerful and inclusive movement. Mass actions bring new people into political action, demonstrate our power, and give heart to people around the globe that there is a movement demanding change in the United States. We called for bicoastal demonstrations on April 9th & 10th. 13,000 people marched last year in New York and San Francisco, and, for the first time, there was a significant contingent of Muslims.
Today, UNAC is a well-established force on the left, the largest and most visible coalition in the country. We see our role as making the connections between the issues we all deal with as coming from the same source – the profit-making demands of the 1%. We are proud of what we have accomplished and we are confident about our ability to build unity with all sectors of the antiwar, social justice, environmental, and international solidarity movements in united front actions that will truly challenge imperialist power. Egypt taught us that things can change on a dime when the time is right and the mighty can fall.
This is an election year, when the lesser evil Democrats tell us to leave the streets and campaign for the Democrats, or the evil Republicans will bring fascism down upon us. There is not a shred of evidence that this is true. The expanding wars and drone attacks, cuts in services, gifts to the obscenely wealthy, the trampling of our rights, assassinations of American citizens, and attempts to crush the fledgling Occupy movements, are horrendous bi-partisan acts, happily led by the present big honcho Democrat in the White House. Historically, the liberals, when in office, have been more dangerous, because many movement leaders mute their protests when Democrats are in power. When the powers-that-be hold the movement in their back pockets, they can readily move to the right without strong opposition.
Well, this year, we got a gift by the Administration. They decided to bring the world’s economic and military rulers here, to plot their diabolical schemes. UNAC took the lead in June, 2011, in calling for national demonstrations in Chicago in May, 2012, and helped to initiate CANG8, the Chicago-based coalition, doing a terrific job in leading the fight with the City and Homeland Security for our constitutional right to protest. Some movement leaders, warned us not to demonstrate – now is not the time – it’s an election year you know. Rahm Emmanuel and Obama cockily thought they could intimidate us from demonstrating, but our organizing efforts and civil liberties campaigns for the right to protest, gave them second thoughts, and we chased the G-8 out of Chicago to Camp David. We will continue to demand our right to protest “within sight and sound” of the Summit, and we will win! Thousands of us will be in Chicago to say No to the NATO/G-8 Agendas of War, Poverty, and Repression. And we’ll be seeing the U.S. leaders again in August and September at the Democratic and Republican Conventions.
At this gathering of a broad and diverse movement, we have an incredible program for you to enjoy. There are 50 amazing workshops reflecting all sectors of activism and analysis. The panels of leading thinkers and activists reflect the major concerns we face today. Last night, we set the stage by taking stock of the changing strategies of the 1%. We need to “Know thy Enemy” and what’s really motivating their actions, and as we heard, it ain’t freedom and democracy. This morning’s panel deals with our response to their military and economic plans.
Our lunchtime panel features the War at Home on the Black Community, the most oppressed group in the country, and the most antiwar -- and usually overlooked by the majority white left. We see the blatant racism that killed Trayvon Martin and the spontaneous response of sorrow and anger. We see the new Jim Crow of mass incarceration of Black youth, police brutality and surveillance, where over 40% of all prison inmates are African-American and one-third of Black males born in 2001 will spend time in prison. We see the crushing economic deprivation of a Black official unemployment rate of 13.6%, and a real rate that includes people who have given up is much, much higher. These conditions, in my opinion, will inevitably trigger a new civil rights struggle, and we all need to be part of it and stand together in solidarity and be counted.
Tonight’s panel will focus on the domestic repression targeting Muslims, the Bill of Rights, and the ceaseless war on workers and the organizations that represent their interests. Tomorrow, we will hear firsthand about the victims of repression, recognizing once again, that an attack on one is an attack on all.
Our lunch panel tomorrow features very different keynoters – Environmentalist/activist Bill McKibben by SKYPE, foreign affairs analyst Vijay Prashad, and economist Richard Wolff. We finish tomorrow afternoon with a NATO/G-8 protest organizing session to hear about the plans for Chicago.
The other thing that makes UNAC unique and vital is that we discuss and debate major issues, vote democratically on our public positions, and decide on a program of actions that will take us through the next year. We believe in the united front. While we may have differences on some issues, even some hot button ones, where emotions run high, we can calmly have a high level discussion, debate the issues, and then, unite around the principled demands and actions we can all agree with, while maintaining our different positions through our individual organizations. This is what allows us to grow and makes us strong.
We invite all of you whose organizations are not yet affiliated with UNAC to join us. We urge you to be an active partner in carrying out the mandates of this conference. We have application forms for organizations who want to join and be part of the organizing and decision-making process at the UNAC table. We want and need to have a leadership body – our coordinating committee – that is representative, politically broad, and diverse and reflects the composition of the movements that make up the coalition.
Make your travel plans now for Chicago and don’t miss the major mass demonstration of 2012!
From The United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC)- Proposals For Action At The March 23-25 Conference
Click on the headline to link to the United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) website.
Markin comment:
Although the conference has passed (March 23-25), in keeping with one of the aims of this blog, this UNAC pre-conference material is presented for archival purposes. The actual passed resolutions will be placed here as soon as they become available.
***********
PROPOSED AMENDMENTS RE: BRADLEY MANNING
Under the following section:
ACTION PROGRAM PART I
WE, THE NINETY-NINE PERCENT, AFFIRM THAT:
We, the 99 percent, demand an end to government cover-ups of its heinous and criminal deeds!
I propose adding the following:
- Free accused WikiLeaks whistle-blower PFC Bradley Manning! According to
journalists, the release of improperly classified documents helped fuel the
democratic Arab Spring movements, shed light on secret corporate influence
on our foreign policies, and most recently contributed to the Obama
Administration reluctantly agreeing to withdraw most U.S. troops from Iraq.
Now PFC Manning is facing life in prison for 22 charges for nothing more
than sharing the truth. We demand that military and government officials
acknowledge PFC Manning as a whistle-blower and drop the charges against
him.
Under the following section:
ACTION PROGRAM: PART II
We, the United National Antiwar Coalition, will:
I propose adding:
-Promote and participate in actions supporting PFC Bradley Manning, the most
important whistle-blower of the “War on Terror” era. Specifically, we will
endorse and participate in public events in support of Bradley during the
court martial proceedings against him.
Emma Cape
Campaign Organizer
www.bradleymanning.org
Join our facebook page: savebradley !
Media Freedom Foundation/Project Censored Position Statement on the Necessity of an Open and Transparent National Peace Movement
Inside the US/NATO Military Industrial Media Complex there is a deliberate news management effort that undermines the freedom of information on the powerful military/corporate elites though overt censorship, mass distractions and artificial news—stories timed for release to influence public opinion.
New research in the journal American Behavioral Scientist (Sage publications, February 2010) addresses the concept of “State Crimes Against Democracy” (SCADs). Professor Lance deHaven-Smith from Florida State University writes that SCADs involve high- level government officials, often in combination with private interests, that engage in covert activities for political advantages and power. Proven SCADs since World War II include McCarthyism (fabrication of evidence of a communist infiltration), Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (President Johnson and Robert McNamara falsely claimed North Vietnam attacked a US ship), burglary of the office of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist in effort to discredit Ellsberg, the Watergate break-in, Iran-Contra, Florida’s 2000 Election (felon disenfranchisement program), and fixed intelligence on WMDs to justify the Iraq War.
Other suspected SCADs include the assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald, the
shooting of George Wallace, the October Surprise near the end of the Carter presidency,military grade anthrax mailed to Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy, Martin Luther King’s assassination, widespread covert torture by US forces, and the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 on September 11, 2001. The proven SCADs have a long trail of congressional hearings, public records, and academic research establishing the truth of the activities. The suspected SCADs listed above have substantial evidence of covert actions with some countervailing deniability that tends to leave the facts in dispute.
All of these subjects deserve the attention of the American public. No matter where one stands on these topics, these studies should be part of a vibrant dialogue within peace movements in any democratic society. Anything less is simply a matter of censorship.
Resolution for No Censorship
National Peace Assembly Albany, NY July 2010
Resolve: The National Peace Movement demands the immediate and total withdrawal of U.S. military forces, mercenaries and contractors from Afghanistan and Iraq, and the end to drone attacks on Pakistan, Afghanistan, and other countries and calls for self-determination for the people of all countries. In this demand is the necessity for full truth and transparency regarding all US/NATO actions and an expanded development of independent news sources for broad public knowledge of the state of the wars and occupations. We demand an end to censorship of news topics and full democratic access to freedom of information within the US NATO Military Industrial Media Empire.
Further Resolve: that the National Peace Movement supports full and open public discussion and investigation of all State Crimes Against Democracy and corporate malfeasances.
From Project Censored
Proposal from the Rhode Island Mobilization Committee to amend/add to
to draft proposal demands:
1. Stop attacks, repression and discrimination directed against
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered and Transsexual individuals and
communities everywhere;
2. Stop all attacks on Women's Reproductive Rights; No to
patriarchal misogyny in all its forms;
3. Free the Cuban Five!
Two proposals from the Middle East Crisis Center
Fight Imperialism, Fight All Oppression
Imperialist wars are clearly the #1 threat to humanity. These criminal actions have created millions of victims. NATO is a criminal organization.
However, that doesn't mean that we blindly support all the regimes or movements that are in the bad graces of the imperialists. Because a nation has been savagely treated by imperialists or fascists does not give its ruling groups cover from all criticism.
UNAC opposes all governments which violently suppress opinions, employ torture, execute prisoners and deny basic worker and human rights, which bomb civilians and which suppress national or religious minorities.
While we oppose any attacks, interventions, low intensity wars by the UN or the imperialist powers or their subservient allies, we oppose all oppression and agree with the Arab street, "Down with the regimes"
We say, "No to Imperialism, No Support for Dictatorships or Theocracy, For the People Always"
*******************************
Gaza
In response to the March killing spree in Gaza, the Egyptian Parliament has demanded the recall of the Israeli ambassador, the "freezing" of its peace with Israel and the furnishing of "all kinds of support" to the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank
We applaud all efforts to help the Palestinian people and urge revival of the plans talked about in Egypt last May to stage a massive peaceful march to completely open the Rafah Gaza border to free passage and trade.
Break the siege of Gaza and bring thousands of truckloads of food, construction material and all the necessities and good things of life to the Gaza Strip.
PALESTINE SOLIDARITY CANG8 MARCH CONTINGENT DRAFT RESOLUTION WITH AMENDMENT FOR ACTION PROGRAM
PROTEST THE 2012 CHICAGO NATO/G8 SUMMITS: FREE PALESTINE, END THE OCCUPATION
Background
The so-called “leaders” and bankers of the eight richest countries as well as the military heads of 28 members of NATO – dominated by the U.S. are meeting in Chicago in May 2012 at the NATO/G8 Summits. Military leaders, strategists, and defense contractors round out this cast of oppressive world “leaders” who are key in promoting continued war and occupation among the developing countries of the world, especially in the Middle East . The only group shut out of these meetings and their war and poverty agenda are ordinary people affected by their decisions.
The leading countries in NATO and the G8 are all former or current colonial nations. As part of the legacy of colonialism, there is still close cooperation between the occupying army and the bankers who exploit the occupied economy. It should come as no surprise that both NATO’s and the G8's position toward Israel and Palestine reflects this colonialist perspective.
NATO and Israel engage in joint military exercises and sharing of intelligence including studying Israeli military tactics in the occupied areas. Without Palestinian input, NATO has secured close ties to the Israeli Army despite Israel’s military committing numerous human rights violations while maintaining an illegal occupation.
NATO and the G8 consistently support the Israeli position. During the 2006 Israeli invasion of Lebanon they blamed Hezbollah and Hamas for the conflict, affirming Israel’s right to “defend itself.” They refuse to condemn Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip and continue to politically and financially support Israel’s illegal, collective punishment of the people of Gaza. At every opportunity, they urge the Palestinians to return to peace talks, while failing to stop the establishment of new, and the expansion of existing, Israeli settlements.
The G8 and it's implementation arms - the IMF and World Bank - exploit the economy of Palestine as well as all the countries involved in the Arab Spring. Economic plans developed for Palestine, Tunisia, Libya, or Egypt encourage cuts in social services; reduce food and fuel subsidies; "reform" labor market policies; cut public employment; and open local markets for foreign investment (especially by members of the G8). The G8 will support and invest in Palestine and other Arab countries as long as they move toward western-style democracy (as defined by the G8) and become markets for the G8’s global corporations and the IMF/World Bank economic policies.
NATO and the G8 support the policies of the Israeli state; actively fund its apartheid practices including the occupation of Palestine; and engage in joint military exercises and the sharing of intelligence with the state of Israel. The G8 and it's implementation arms - the IMF and World Bank – actively exploit the economy of Palestine as well as the countries involved in the Arab Spring.
Amendment to Draft Action Program:
For these reasons, the United National Antiwar Committee calls for all Palestine solidarity groups and activists who support an end to the occupation; granting full equality to Palestinian-Arab citizens of Israel; and guaranteeing the Right of Return to join the Palestine solidarity contingent of the NATO/G8 protest march on May 20, 2012. Occupy the streets, not Palestine!
We, the 99 percent, demand the end of privatization of public functions:
No to the privatization of public functions such as military operations, prisons, schools, and postal service!
No to the sale of public property to private entities and of below-market leases of mineral, grazing and logging right on public land for private profit!
Guaranteed public employment at living wages to citizens who can find no private sector work in order to address unmet infrastructure and human service needs as well as cultural enhancements satisfying to workers and audiences, such as provided through the Works Progress Administration and the Farm Security Administration.
From Michael Rice, Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace.
Resolution to the United National Antiwar Coalition: Support the Mobilizations at the Republican and Democratic National Conventions
Submitted jointly by the Coalition to March on the RNC and the Coalition to Protest at the DNC
This fall, the two corporate parties will hold their nominating conventions. The Republicans will meet from August 27-30 in Tampa, Florida, and the Democrats will meet the following week from September 3-6 in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Broad coalitions have formed -- uniting labor, civil rights, immigrants rights, students, anti-war, women's and LGBTQ groups, and more -- to challenge the pro-Wall Street, pro-war agendas of the two parties. There will be marches, demonstrations, and other actions to raise peoples' demands for jobs, justice, and freedom during the conventions.
Our communities have been devastated by the policies of the Republicans and Democrats. The economic crisis continues to deepen with mass unemployment and underemployment, home foreclosures and evictions, utility shutoffs, and punishing austerity programs that are wiping out public education, health programs and all social services. Both parties broker deal after deal that benefit the banks and corporations at the expense of the great majority of people in this country. Raids and deportations of immigrants continue to increase, and racism, xenophobia, and bigotry are being whipped up to sow divisions among the 99%.
U.S. wars abroad have expanded. The brutal occupation of Afghanistan has surpassed the 10 year mark and continues on, and U.S./NATO bombs rained down last year on Libya. The U.S. sent more than 100 troops into Uganda and has continued to expand AFRICOM, targeting the entire continent of Africa. Everyday, the war drums beat louder and louder against Iran and Syria. Hundreds of billions of dollars continued to be poured into imperial U.S. adventures abroad that visit terror upon the world's peoples, while people are suffering here at home.
It's clear that both the Republicans and Democrats serve and protect the interests of the 1%, not the 99%. We need a powerful movement from below to raise peoples' demands and challenge the banks, corporations, and political parties that represent their interests. We call on the progressive, social justice, and anti-war movements in the U.S. to join thousands in the streets of Tampa and Charlotte this fall. The Occupy Movement, and the history of all peoples' movements for justice, has shown that we can't rely on the political establishment to make progress -- it's up to us to stand up, speak out, and fight back to demand the world that we deserve.
___________________________________________________
Call to March on the RNC
Tampa Florida, August 27-30, 2012
·Demand Good Jobs, Healthcare, Affordable Education, Equality and Peace
·Say NO to the Republican Agenda
·Money for human needs, not for corporate greed
On August 27, 2012, while the Republican National Convention selects a candidate for president, we will be marching in the streets of Tampa, Florida demanding jobs, healthcare, education, equality and peace. We will let the entire world know, “We have had enough of the endless attacks on the rights of working people and our standard of living!” We will defend Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. We will defend ourselves against union busting. We will defend our children's right to an affordable, quality education. We want money spent on human needs, not on wars overseas and corporate greed.
In Congress and in states across the country, the Republicans and their Tea Party allies have unleashed a war on the people of this country. While the Republicans bailed out Wall Street, many of us lost our homes. While they push tax cuts for the rich, they are destroying working families and our way of life by cutting programs that serve us. The Republicans are trying to break our unions and take away our right to bargain collectively. They are spearheading attacks on immigrants and promoting an agenda of racism and hatred.
For too long, too many politicians in both political parties have ignored our needs, while serving the interests of the rich and powerful. We need to take things into our own hands and make them understand the consequences of their actions. Monday, August 27, 2012, is the time to advance the cause of justice and make our voices heard. Tampa, Florida is the place for all of us to raise our demands. Whether you are working to defend reproductive rights, standing up against attacks on immigrants and racist discrimination, resisting attacks on working people, or saying no to government cutbacks, we can come together from across the country to let our voices be heard. From California, to Illinois, to New York, we can join our brothers and sisters in the South in mobilizing and building a united protest with a clear message, “No to the Republicans! We demand good jobs, healthcare, affordable education, equality and peace!”
On Monday, August 27, 2012, the attention of the entire world will be focused on Tampa, Florida. The Republican National Convention brings together some of the worst politicians that this country has to offer. We're calling on all those ready to fight back against the attacks launched by the Republican Party and their corporate masters to take to the streets and demand a better future for our families, our communities and our children.
___________________________________________________
September 2012: Join the Coalition to Protest at the DNC in Charlotte, NC
We Demand:
· Good jobs for all! Economic justice now — Make the banks and corporations pay for their crisis!
· Money for education, health care, housing and all human needs, not for war and incarceration
· Justice for immigrants and all oppressed peoples! Stop the raids and deportations!
In September of 2012, the social justice movements of the United States have an opportunity and obligation to use the spectacle of the Democratic National Convention as a platform to raise people’s demands for justice on the world stage.
Progressives from around the state, from across the South and from all over the country will converge in Charlotte to oppose policies of the Democratic Party and their banking cronies. Charlotte is the “Wall Street of the South.” With the world headquarters of Bank of America and the East Coast headquarters of Wells Fargo, it is the second largest concentration of finance capital in the U.S., after New York City.
We need a people’s movement for justice for the 99%.
Economic crises at home and abroad intensify while jobs and vital services have been cut at municipal, state and federal levels. The Democrats and Republicans are pushing austerity programs while simultaneously brokering deals that bail out and benefit banks and large corporations.
Public workers in North Carolina and Virginia are denied their right to collectively bargain, and workers elsewhere across the country are seeing this right under attack. Under the Democratic Party, the reach of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) expanded and deportations skyrocketed. U.S. wars abroad have extended and the US continues to spend billions in Afghanistan and Iraq. U.S. war drones fly over the Middle East and Africa. Antiwar and international solidarity activists are targeted in FBI raids and Grand Jury witch hunts while we continue to fight for freedom for long-incarcerated U.S. political prisoners like Leonard Peltier and Mumia Abu-Jamal. We have seen a rise in bigotry and political targeting of Muslim and Arab people. We want to see justice and equality for Black, Native, Latina/o peoples, for women and for LGBTQ peoples. We must call for a moratorium on foreclosures and evictions! We oppose the attack on our planet by big corporations; we must continue the fight for environmental justice and demand our right to a healthy air, land, and water.
Now more than ever we need a powerful mass movement that can challenge the pro-war, pro-Wall Street agendas of the two corporate parties. We see the seeds of this movement all around us.
Join the Coalition to Protest at the DNC to plan actions and events that will take place during the convention. Read through our Principles of Unity (adapted from the St. Paul Principles & Chicago Principles). Then begin working with us to develop plans for Charlotte, as we come together in resistance to the economic crisis, the banks, the wars and all the attacks on working people!
OCCUPY THE DNC!
OCCUPY WALL ST SOUTH!
Resolved that UNAC adopt the following point of unity:
We oppose war and sanctions against the Iranian people and stand in solidarity with their struggle against state repression and all forms of outside intervention.
Presented by Havaar: Iranian Initiative Against War, Sanctions, and State Repression
Raha Iranian Feminist Collective is part of Havaar: Iranian Initiative Against War, Sanctions, and State Repression. A member of Havaar, who is attending the conference on both days, will be present Sunday to put this forward. Thank you.
Resolved that UNAC adopt the following point of unity:
We oppose war and sanctions against the Iranian people and stand in solidarity with their struggle against state repression and all forms of outside intervention.
Resolution to Expose the Censorship that Represses the 99 Percent
In line with the foundations of UNACpeace.org , which are “1) unity in the movement, 2) independence from political parties, 3) democratic decision-making, 4) U.S. Out Now from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan (and now Libya), and 5) a commitment to mass action as the major strategy for building a powerful and inclusive movement, while endorsing other kinds of actions as well to build a movement capable of bringing about fundamental change”, we supporters of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth are in solidarity with the 99 percent of humanity “who want peace, a healthy planet and a society that prioritizes human needs, democracy and civil liberties for all”[1]. No social movement can succeed for long without an understanding of the forces that are arrayed against them. That is why we call attention to the tactics of the 1 percent. “They go after truth tellers and whistle blowers.”[2] They use the complicit corporate media. “They make speaking out and protesting a crime, claiming this gives material support to terrorists.”[3]
Therefore, we call on the United National Anti-war Conference (UNAC) to oppose these repressive tactics by uniting with us to expose the most injurious, dangerous instance of disinformation, which the 1 percent have used as the main pretext for their imperial, global warmaking. We resolve that the UNAC adopt the evidence endorsed by over 1600 certified Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth as the basis for ending the censorship that facilitates the repression of the 99 percent and justifies the 1 percent’s disastrous “War on [of] Terror”.
Respectively submitted,
Connecticut 911Truth
CONDEMN J STREET
For years the lobby “ J Street” has advertised itself as a “progressive” Jewish alternative to the infamous AIPAC. It was never true. For instance in October 2009 J-Street proudly published a letter to it of congratulations from Tzipi Livni who had been Israeli Foreign Minister during the Gaza Massacre (2008-2009).
Now it has outdone itself. At its upcoming conference, its “Gala” will be keynoted by Ehud Olmert, the former Israeli Prime Minister. It was Olmert who launched war against Lebanon in which over 1,000 Lebanese died and Israel fired over a million cluster munitions, most after the ceasefire had been worked out. He was also responsible for the Gaza Massacre in which over 1,400 Palestinians were killed.
Incidentally, he left office under a cloud of corruption and is under indictment for “obtaining by fraud under aggravating circumstances, fraud, breach of trust, falsifying corporate documents, and tax evasion”
Btselem USA (whose parent group does great work in documenting Palestinian oppression) is a cosponsor of the conference. The great folk singer Theodore Bikel is inexplicably master of ceremonies of the Gala
UNAC condemns J Street for inviting this war criminal Olmert to its conference and calls on Btselem USA, Theodore Bikel and anyone else participating or supporting this event to cancel and to apologize.
Submitted by Stanley Heller, Connecticut
Amendment to the Draft Action Proposal of the United National Antiwar Coalition National Conference by the Greater Hartford Coalition on Cuba, March 19, 2012
[to be inserted as the fourth bullet in the first “We, the 99 percent, demand” section]
End the 50-plus year U.S. economic war on the Cuban people and their Revolution! Stop the illegal support and use of U.S. territory by rightwing Cuban terrorists in violent attacks on the people and elected officials of Cuba! Close the U.S. military base at Guantanamo and return the occupied territory to Cuba! Lift all travel restrictions on U.S. citizens to visit Cuba!
[to be inserted in the last bullet of the last “We, the 99 percent, demand” section]
Free the Cuban Five antiterrorists – Fernando González, Antonio Guerrero, RamÏŒn Labañino, Gerardo Hernández, and René González – held in U.S. prisons for over 13 years on frame-up charges of conspiracy to commit espionage and murder!
On behalf of the Greater Hartford Coalition on Cuba,
Tim Craine, Coordinator and Alex A. Koskinas, Treasurer
P.O. Box 330161 West Hartford, CT 06133-0161
(860) 930-5615 (Alex) (860) 794-7384 (Tim)
In the spirit of wanting important issues to be discussed with full mutual respect and without weakening our collective wisdom and resolve, WE PROPOSE:
That JMAXCSI911.org be supported by UNAC to join with those of varying opinions to hold, as appropriate and possible, mutually respectful discussions here at this conference, and to organize at least an hour long panel at the next UNAC gathering or conference, to debate whether or not 9/11 was a false flag operation, with no other presentation occurring simultaneously. Our blog spot is here: http://jmacsi911dotorg.blogspot.com/
Jews and Muslims Asking for a
Credible Scientific Investigation of 9/11
Sunday presentation to be done by Orthodox Jew Yehuda Littmann
Saturday presentation to be done by David Slesinger
Resolution to Endorse Global March to Jerusalem March 30:
The Global March to Jerusalem (GMJ) is a groundbreaking new initiative that is organizing non-violent civil resistance on 30th March 2012, which is Palestinian Land Day. The march will unite the efforts of Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, Christians, Jews, and all citizens of conscience in the world to put an end to Israel’s disregard for international law through the continuing occupation of Jerusalem and the rest of Palestinian land. Our plan is to organize massive peaceful marches towards Jerusalem, or to the nearest point possible according to the circumstances of each country, in Palestine (the 1948 seizures, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) and the four neighboring countries: Jordan, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon. Internationals will participate in land caravans traveling through Asia or fly directly to one of the main sites for the march. Around the world solidarity actions will also take place to support the demands of the GMJ: an to end the Zionist policies of apartheid, ethnic cleansing and Judaisation. Global participation in the march will confirm to the world that these racist policies and practices of the state of Israel against Jerusalem and its people are a crime not only against Palestinians but against all humanity.
Resolved: that UNAC endorses the Global March to Jerusalem on March 30, 2012, and encourages its affiliates, where possible, to organize and support solidarity actions within the USA on that day.
In solidarity, Ken Stone
RESOLUTION:
We recognize that for at least two decades international opinion has supported the “two-state solution” to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. However, we view this solution as neither democratic nor viable in the face of international law, material conditions and the “facts on the ground” that now exist in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), particularly the fact that the West Bank (WB) has been integrated into Israel demographically, economically as well as territorially. Thus, the "two-state solution" is a chimera, at best meant only to end Israeli military occupation in parts of the West Bank. As such, it is unsustainable, offering neither justice nor peace because 1) it is premised on legitimizing permanent inequality between Israeli Jews and Palestinians and 2) it does not address the heart of the conflict: the ongoing dispossession of Christian and Muslim Palestinians within Israel and in the OPT because they are not Jews and Israel’s refusal to allow Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.
In light of this reality and the fact that Israel-Palestine is and always has been a multicultural land, we support the creation of one democratic state for Palestinians and Israelis on the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the River Jordan as the homeland of both peoples, with equality before the law for all.
Justine McCabe
Co-Chair, International Committee
Green Party of the United States
U.S./NATO Troops Out Now! No to Imperialist Wars, Occupations, Sanctions, Embargoes!
Self-determination for All Oppressed People!
The United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) was founded on the principle of self-determination for all oppressed nations and peoples. We demand the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S./NATO troops, mercenaries and drones from Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Libya. We have every confidence that, free from imperialist intervention of every type, the oppressed nations and peoples of the world are fully capable of building societies that represent their interests as opposed to the imperial exploiters, neo-colonialists and would-be subjugators.
We have seen the horrific consequences of U.S. wars, "humanitarian" interventions, starvation sanctions, crippling embargoes and targeted assassinations. All have been employed to justify renewed imperialist conquest.
It is our task and obligation as antiwar and social justice activists within the United States to prevent the U.S./NATO's enormous military, economic and media power from imposing its will on the oppressed of the world in order to benefit the interest of the U.S. power elite – the 1%. UNAC opposes any form of U.S. military or economic intervention, sanctions, sabotage and assassinations in Iran and Syria, in Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador and Haiti, and in all other countries where the Pentagon, the CIA, the State Department or their allies seek to impose their will.
Submitted by UNAC Administrative Committee
The People’s Congress proposes the following amendment to the draft action proposal of UNAC
Amendment on the People’s Congress
UNAC recognizes The People’s Congress as a means to organize Americans to end war, social injustice and the tyranny of our current government.
UNAC agrees to support and to participate in the Inaugural National General Assembly of the People’s Congress, July 25 - 29, 2012.
UNAC endorses the Mission of the People’s Congress as expressed herein:
“We ordain and establish the People’s Congress to represent ourselves, as Americans, as one people to enable us to alter our government to these end:
- To design its Bylaws to form itself as a legitimate First Amendment Deliberative Assembly of the American people
- To exercise the self-evident sovereignty of the American people over our government and our Constitution
- To alter our national government’s structure and dynamics to make a more perfect union so the public policies of our national government come to match the public opinion of our citizens
- To bring about the rule of law in fairly enforcing domestic, electoral and foreign policies
- And to enable the democratic majority of the American people to end the tyranny of the illegitimate rule of wealthy plutocrats and despotic corporations
PROPOSALS ON 9/11 TRUTH
First Proposal:
In the spirit of wanting important issues to be discussed with full mutual respect and without weakening our collective wisdom and resolve, WE PROPOSE:
That JMAXCSI911.org be supported by UNAC to join with those of varying opinions to hold, as appropriate and possible, mutually respectful discussions here at this conference, and to organize at least an hour long panel at the next UNAC gathering or conference, to debate whether or not 9/11 was a false flag operation, with no other presentation occurring simultaneously. Our blog spot is here: http://jmacsi911dotorg.blogspot.com/
Jews and Muslims Asking for a
Credible Scientific Investigation of 9/11
Sunday presentation to be done by Orthodox Jew Yehuda Littmann
Saturday presentation to be done by David Slesinger
Second Proposal
Since almost no 911truth group is democratic and the movement as a whole is more atomized that hierarchical, we hereby agree that Ed Ciaccio, a regular writer for Dandelion Salad, be authorized to join the UNAC board or to designate a replacement who has equal dedication to collegiality and support for progressive values. This is designed to encourage more pleasant communication rather than as a guarantee that any given proposal from the truth movement be adopted by UNAC.
To be presented by David Slesinger or his designee
PROPOSAL TO CHANGE 99% LANGUAGE
99% language is opportunistic as a peace organization since even the occupiers don't have a strong anti-war message, so my suggestion is to change the "99%" references to "We the people"...
nothing major, but the change does close the door of opportunism.
Peace, Mark D. Stansbery
Markin comment:
Although the conference has passed (March 23-25), in keeping with one of the aims of this blog, this UNAC pre-conference material is presented for archival purposes. The actual passed resolutions will be placed here as soon as they become available.
***********
PROPOSED AMENDMENTS RE: BRADLEY MANNING
Under the following section:
ACTION PROGRAM PART I
WE, THE NINETY-NINE PERCENT, AFFIRM THAT:
We, the 99 percent, demand an end to government cover-ups of its heinous and criminal deeds!
I propose adding the following:
- Free accused WikiLeaks whistle-blower PFC Bradley Manning! According to
journalists, the release of improperly classified documents helped fuel the
democratic Arab Spring movements, shed light on secret corporate influence
on our foreign policies, and most recently contributed to the Obama
Administration reluctantly agreeing to withdraw most U.S. troops from Iraq.
Now PFC Manning is facing life in prison for 22 charges for nothing more
than sharing the truth. We demand that military and government officials
acknowledge PFC Manning as a whistle-blower and drop the charges against
him.
Under the following section:
ACTION PROGRAM: PART II
We, the United National Antiwar Coalition, will:
I propose adding:
-Promote and participate in actions supporting PFC Bradley Manning, the most
important whistle-blower of the “War on Terror” era. Specifically, we will
endorse and participate in public events in support of Bradley during the
court martial proceedings against him.
Emma Cape
Campaign Organizer
www.bradleymanning.org
Join our facebook page: savebradley !
Media Freedom Foundation/Project Censored Position Statement on the Necessity of an Open and Transparent National Peace Movement
Inside the US/NATO Military Industrial Media Complex there is a deliberate news management effort that undermines the freedom of information on the powerful military/corporate elites though overt censorship, mass distractions and artificial news—stories timed for release to influence public opinion.
New research in the journal American Behavioral Scientist (Sage publications, February 2010) addresses the concept of “State Crimes Against Democracy” (SCADs). Professor Lance deHaven-Smith from Florida State University writes that SCADs involve high- level government officials, often in combination with private interests, that engage in covert activities for political advantages and power. Proven SCADs since World War II include McCarthyism (fabrication of evidence of a communist infiltration), Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (President Johnson and Robert McNamara falsely claimed North Vietnam attacked a US ship), burglary of the office of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist in effort to discredit Ellsberg, the Watergate break-in, Iran-Contra, Florida’s 2000 Election (felon disenfranchisement program), and fixed intelligence on WMDs to justify the Iraq War.
Other suspected SCADs include the assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald, the
shooting of George Wallace, the October Surprise near the end of the Carter presidency,military grade anthrax mailed to Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy, Martin Luther King’s assassination, widespread covert torture by US forces, and the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 on September 11, 2001. The proven SCADs have a long trail of congressional hearings, public records, and academic research establishing the truth of the activities. The suspected SCADs listed above have substantial evidence of covert actions with some countervailing deniability that tends to leave the facts in dispute.
All of these subjects deserve the attention of the American public. No matter where one stands on these topics, these studies should be part of a vibrant dialogue within peace movements in any democratic society. Anything less is simply a matter of censorship.
Resolution for No Censorship
National Peace Assembly Albany, NY July 2010
Resolve: The National Peace Movement demands the immediate and total withdrawal of U.S. military forces, mercenaries and contractors from Afghanistan and Iraq, and the end to drone attacks on Pakistan, Afghanistan, and other countries and calls for self-determination for the people of all countries. In this demand is the necessity for full truth and transparency regarding all US/NATO actions and an expanded development of independent news sources for broad public knowledge of the state of the wars and occupations. We demand an end to censorship of news topics and full democratic access to freedom of information within the US NATO Military Industrial Media Empire.
Further Resolve: that the National Peace Movement supports full and open public discussion and investigation of all State Crimes Against Democracy and corporate malfeasances.
From Project Censored
Proposal from the Rhode Island Mobilization Committee to amend/add to
to draft proposal demands:
1. Stop attacks, repression and discrimination directed against
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered and Transsexual individuals and
communities everywhere;
2. Stop all attacks on Women's Reproductive Rights; No to
patriarchal misogyny in all its forms;
3. Free the Cuban Five!
Two proposals from the Middle East Crisis Center
Fight Imperialism, Fight All Oppression
Imperialist wars are clearly the #1 threat to humanity. These criminal actions have created millions of victims. NATO is a criminal organization.
However, that doesn't mean that we blindly support all the regimes or movements that are in the bad graces of the imperialists. Because a nation has been savagely treated by imperialists or fascists does not give its ruling groups cover from all criticism.
UNAC opposes all governments which violently suppress opinions, employ torture, execute prisoners and deny basic worker and human rights, which bomb civilians and which suppress national or religious minorities.
While we oppose any attacks, interventions, low intensity wars by the UN or the imperialist powers or their subservient allies, we oppose all oppression and agree with the Arab street, "Down with the regimes"
We say, "No to Imperialism, No Support for Dictatorships or Theocracy, For the People Always"
*******************************
Gaza
In response to the March killing spree in Gaza, the Egyptian Parliament has demanded the recall of the Israeli ambassador, the "freezing" of its peace with Israel and the furnishing of "all kinds of support" to the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank
We applaud all efforts to help the Palestinian people and urge revival of the plans talked about in Egypt last May to stage a massive peaceful march to completely open the Rafah Gaza border to free passage and trade.
Break the siege of Gaza and bring thousands of truckloads of food, construction material and all the necessities and good things of life to the Gaza Strip.
PALESTINE SOLIDARITY CANG8 MARCH CONTINGENT DRAFT RESOLUTION WITH AMENDMENT FOR ACTION PROGRAM
PROTEST THE 2012 CHICAGO NATO/G8 SUMMITS: FREE PALESTINE, END THE OCCUPATION
Background
The so-called “leaders” and bankers of the eight richest countries as well as the military heads of 28 members of NATO – dominated by the U.S. are meeting in Chicago in May 2012 at the NATO/G8 Summits. Military leaders, strategists, and defense contractors round out this cast of oppressive world “leaders” who are key in promoting continued war and occupation among the developing countries of the world, especially in the Middle East . The only group shut out of these meetings and their war and poverty agenda are ordinary people affected by their decisions.
The leading countries in NATO and the G8 are all former or current colonial nations. As part of the legacy of colonialism, there is still close cooperation between the occupying army and the bankers who exploit the occupied economy. It should come as no surprise that both NATO’s and the G8's position toward Israel and Palestine reflects this colonialist perspective.
NATO and Israel engage in joint military exercises and sharing of intelligence including studying Israeli military tactics in the occupied areas. Without Palestinian input, NATO has secured close ties to the Israeli Army despite Israel’s military committing numerous human rights violations while maintaining an illegal occupation.
NATO and the G8 consistently support the Israeli position. During the 2006 Israeli invasion of Lebanon they blamed Hezbollah and Hamas for the conflict, affirming Israel’s right to “defend itself.” They refuse to condemn Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip and continue to politically and financially support Israel’s illegal, collective punishment of the people of Gaza. At every opportunity, they urge the Palestinians to return to peace talks, while failing to stop the establishment of new, and the expansion of existing, Israeli settlements.
The G8 and it's implementation arms - the IMF and World Bank - exploit the economy of Palestine as well as all the countries involved in the Arab Spring. Economic plans developed for Palestine, Tunisia, Libya, or Egypt encourage cuts in social services; reduce food and fuel subsidies; "reform" labor market policies; cut public employment; and open local markets for foreign investment (especially by members of the G8). The G8 will support and invest in Palestine and other Arab countries as long as they move toward western-style democracy (as defined by the G8) and become markets for the G8’s global corporations and the IMF/World Bank economic policies.
NATO and the G8 support the policies of the Israeli state; actively fund its apartheid practices including the occupation of Palestine; and engage in joint military exercises and the sharing of intelligence with the state of Israel. The G8 and it's implementation arms - the IMF and World Bank – actively exploit the economy of Palestine as well as the countries involved in the Arab Spring.
Amendment to Draft Action Program:
For these reasons, the United National Antiwar Committee calls for all Palestine solidarity groups and activists who support an end to the occupation; granting full equality to Palestinian-Arab citizens of Israel; and guaranteeing the Right of Return to join the Palestine solidarity contingent of the NATO/G8 protest march on May 20, 2012. Occupy the streets, not Palestine!
We, the 99 percent, demand the end of privatization of public functions:
No to the privatization of public functions such as military operations, prisons, schools, and postal service!
No to the sale of public property to private entities and of below-market leases of mineral, grazing and logging right on public land for private profit!
Guaranteed public employment at living wages to citizens who can find no private sector work in order to address unmet infrastructure and human service needs as well as cultural enhancements satisfying to workers and audiences, such as provided through the Works Progress Administration and the Farm Security Administration.
From Michael Rice, Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace.
Resolution to the United National Antiwar Coalition: Support the Mobilizations at the Republican and Democratic National Conventions
Submitted jointly by the Coalition to March on the RNC and the Coalition to Protest at the DNC
This fall, the two corporate parties will hold their nominating conventions. The Republicans will meet from August 27-30 in Tampa, Florida, and the Democrats will meet the following week from September 3-6 in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Broad coalitions have formed -- uniting labor, civil rights, immigrants rights, students, anti-war, women's and LGBTQ groups, and more -- to challenge the pro-Wall Street, pro-war agendas of the two parties. There will be marches, demonstrations, and other actions to raise peoples' demands for jobs, justice, and freedom during the conventions.
Our communities have been devastated by the policies of the Republicans and Democrats. The economic crisis continues to deepen with mass unemployment and underemployment, home foreclosures and evictions, utility shutoffs, and punishing austerity programs that are wiping out public education, health programs and all social services. Both parties broker deal after deal that benefit the banks and corporations at the expense of the great majority of people in this country. Raids and deportations of immigrants continue to increase, and racism, xenophobia, and bigotry are being whipped up to sow divisions among the 99%.
U.S. wars abroad have expanded. The brutal occupation of Afghanistan has surpassed the 10 year mark and continues on, and U.S./NATO bombs rained down last year on Libya. The U.S. sent more than 100 troops into Uganda and has continued to expand AFRICOM, targeting the entire continent of Africa. Everyday, the war drums beat louder and louder against Iran and Syria. Hundreds of billions of dollars continued to be poured into imperial U.S. adventures abroad that visit terror upon the world's peoples, while people are suffering here at home.
It's clear that both the Republicans and Democrats serve and protect the interests of the 1%, not the 99%. We need a powerful movement from below to raise peoples' demands and challenge the banks, corporations, and political parties that represent their interests. We call on the progressive, social justice, and anti-war movements in the U.S. to join thousands in the streets of Tampa and Charlotte this fall. The Occupy Movement, and the history of all peoples' movements for justice, has shown that we can't rely on the political establishment to make progress -- it's up to us to stand up, speak out, and fight back to demand the world that we deserve.
___________________________________________________
Call to March on the RNC
Tampa Florida, August 27-30, 2012
·Demand Good Jobs, Healthcare, Affordable Education, Equality and Peace
·Say NO to the Republican Agenda
·Money for human needs, not for corporate greed
On August 27, 2012, while the Republican National Convention selects a candidate for president, we will be marching in the streets of Tampa, Florida demanding jobs, healthcare, education, equality and peace. We will let the entire world know, “We have had enough of the endless attacks on the rights of working people and our standard of living!” We will defend Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. We will defend ourselves against union busting. We will defend our children's right to an affordable, quality education. We want money spent on human needs, not on wars overseas and corporate greed.
In Congress and in states across the country, the Republicans and their Tea Party allies have unleashed a war on the people of this country. While the Republicans bailed out Wall Street, many of us lost our homes. While they push tax cuts for the rich, they are destroying working families and our way of life by cutting programs that serve us. The Republicans are trying to break our unions and take away our right to bargain collectively. They are spearheading attacks on immigrants and promoting an agenda of racism and hatred.
For too long, too many politicians in both political parties have ignored our needs, while serving the interests of the rich and powerful. We need to take things into our own hands and make them understand the consequences of their actions. Monday, August 27, 2012, is the time to advance the cause of justice and make our voices heard. Tampa, Florida is the place for all of us to raise our demands. Whether you are working to defend reproductive rights, standing up against attacks on immigrants and racist discrimination, resisting attacks on working people, or saying no to government cutbacks, we can come together from across the country to let our voices be heard. From California, to Illinois, to New York, we can join our brothers and sisters in the South in mobilizing and building a united protest with a clear message, “No to the Republicans! We demand good jobs, healthcare, affordable education, equality and peace!”
On Monday, August 27, 2012, the attention of the entire world will be focused on Tampa, Florida. The Republican National Convention brings together some of the worst politicians that this country has to offer. We're calling on all those ready to fight back against the attacks launched by the Republican Party and their corporate masters to take to the streets and demand a better future for our families, our communities and our children.
___________________________________________________
September 2012: Join the Coalition to Protest at the DNC in Charlotte, NC
We Demand:
· Good jobs for all! Economic justice now — Make the banks and corporations pay for their crisis!
· Money for education, health care, housing and all human needs, not for war and incarceration
· Justice for immigrants and all oppressed peoples! Stop the raids and deportations!
In September of 2012, the social justice movements of the United States have an opportunity and obligation to use the spectacle of the Democratic National Convention as a platform to raise people’s demands for justice on the world stage.
Progressives from around the state, from across the South and from all over the country will converge in Charlotte to oppose policies of the Democratic Party and their banking cronies. Charlotte is the “Wall Street of the South.” With the world headquarters of Bank of America and the East Coast headquarters of Wells Fargo, it is the second largest concentration of finance capital in the U.S., after New York City.
We need a people’s movement for justice for the 99%.
Economic crises at home and abroad intensify while jobs and vital services have been cut at municipal, state and federal levels. The Democrats and Republicans are pushing austerity programs while simultaneously brokering deals that bail out and benefit banks and large corporations.
Public workers in North Carolina and Virginia are denied their right to collectively bargain, and workers elsewhere across the country are seeing this right under attack. Under the Democratic Party, the reach of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) expanded and deportations skyrocketed. U.S. wars abroad have extended and the US continues to spend billions in Afghanistan and Iraq. U.S. war drones fly over the Middle East and Africa. Antiwar and international solidarity activists are targeted in FBI raids and Grand Jury witch hunts while we continue to fight for freedom for long-incarcerated U.S. political prisoners like Leonard Peltier and Mumia Abu-Jamal. We have seen a rise in bigotry and political targeting of Muslim and Arab people. We want to see justice and equality for Black, Native, Latina/o peoples, for women and for LGBTQ peoples. We must call for a moratorium on foreclosures and evictions! We oppose the attack on our planet by big corporations; we must continue the fight for environmental justice and demand our right to a healthy air, land, and water.
Now more than ever we need a powerful mass movement that can challenge the pro-war, pro-Wall Street agendas of the two corporate parties. We see the seeds of this movement all around us.
Join the Coalition to Protest at the DNC to plan actions and events that will take place during the convention. Read through our Principles of Unity (adapted from the St. Paul Principles & Chicago Principles). Then begin working with us to develop plans for Charlotte, as we come together in resistance to the economic crisis, the banks, the wars and all the attacks on working people!
OCCUPY THE DNC!
OCCUPY WALL ST SOUTH!
Resolved that UNAC adopt the following point of unity:
We oppose war and sanctions against the Iranian people and stand in solidarity with their struggle against state repression and all forms of outside intervention.
Presented by Havaar: Iranian Initiative Against War, Sanctions, and State Repression
Raha Iranian Feminist Collective is part of Havaar: Iranian Initiative Against War, Sanctions, and State Repression. A member of Havaar, who is attending the conference on both days, will be present Sunday to put this forward. Thank you.
Resolved that UNAC adopt the following point of unity:
We oppose war and sanctions against the Iranian people and stand in solidarity with their struggle against state repression and all forms of outside intervention.
Resolution to Expose the Censorship that Represses the 99 Percent
In line with the foundations of UNACpeace.org , which are “1) unity in the movement, 2) independence from political parties, 3) democratic decision-making, 4) U.S. Out Now from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan (and now Libya), and 5) a commitment to mass action as the major strategy for building a powerful and inclusive movement, while endorsing other kinds of actions as well to build a movement capable of bringing about fundamental change”, we supporters of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth are in solidarity with the 99 percent of humanity “who want peace, a healthy planet and a society that prioritizes human needs, democracy and civil liberties for all”[1]. No social movement can succeed for long without an understanding of the forces that are arrayed against them. That is why we call attention to the tactics of the 1 percent. “They go after truth tellers and whistle blowers.”[2] They use the complicit corporate media. “They make speaking out and protesting a crime, claiming this gives material support to terrorists.”[3]
Therefore, we call on the United National Anti-war Conference (UNAC) to oppose these repressive tactics by uniting with us to expose the most injurious, dangerous instance of disinformation, which the 1 percent have used as the main pretext for their imperial, global warmaking. We resolve that the UNAC adopt the evidence endorsed by over 1600 certified Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth as the basis for ending the censorship that facilitates the repression of the 99 percent and justifies the 1 percent’s disastrous “War on [of] Terror”.
Respectively submitted,
Connecticut 911Truth
CONDEMN J STREET
For years the lobby “ J Street” has advertised itself as a “progressive” Jewish alternative to the infamous AIPAC. It was never true. For instance in October 2009 J-Street proudly published a letter to it of congratulations from Tzipi Livni who had been Israeli Foreign Minister during the Gaza Massacre (2008-2009).
Now it has outdone itself. At its upcoming conference, its “Gala” will be keynoted by Ehud Olmert, the former Israeli Prime Minister. It was Olmert who launched war against Lebanon in which over 1,000 Lebanese died and Israel fired over a million cluster munitions, most after the ceasefire had been worked out. He was also responsible for the Gaza Massacre in which over 1,400 Palestinians were killed.
Incidentally, he left office under a cloud of corruption and is under indictment for “obtaining by fraud under aggravating circumstances, fraud, breach of trust, falsifying corporate documents, and tax evasion”
Btselem USA (whose parent group does great work in documenting Palestinian oppression) is a cosponsor of the conference. The great folk singer Theodore Bikel is inexplicably master of ceremonies of the Gala
UNAC condemns J Street for inviting this war criminal Olmert to its conference and calls on Btselem USA, Theodore Bikel and anyone else participating or supporting this event to cancel and to apologize.
Submitted by Stanley Heller, Connecticut
Amendment to the Draft Action Proposal of the United National Antiwar Coalition National Conference by the Greater Hartford Coalition on Cuba, March 19, 2012
[to be inserted as the fourth bullet in the first “We, the 99 percent, demand” section]
End the 50-plus year U.S. economic war on the Cuban people and their Revolution! Stop the illegal support and use of U.S. territory by rightwing Cuban terrorists in violent attacks on the people and elected officials of Cuba! Close the U.S. military base at Guantanamo and return the occupied territory to Cuba! Lift all travel restrictions on U.S. citizens to visit Cuba!
[to be inserted in the last bullet of the last “We, the 99 percent, demand” section]
Free the Cuban Five antiterrorists – Fernando González, Antonio Guerrero, RamÏŒn Labañino, Gerardo Hernández, and René González – held in U.S. prisons for over 13 years on frame-up charges of conspiracy to commit espionage and murder!
On behalf of the Greater Hartford Coalition on Cuba,
Tim Craine, Coordinator and Alex A. Koskinas, Treasurer
P.O. Box 330161 West Hartford, CT 06133-0161
(860) 930-5615 (Alex) (860) 794-7384 (Tim)
In the spirit of wanting important issues to be discussed with full mutual respect and without weakening our collective wisdom and resolve, WE PROPOSE:
That JMAXCSI911.org be supported by UNAC to join with those of varying opinions to hold, as appropriate and possible, mutually respectful discussions here at this conference, and to organize at least an hour long panel at the next UNAC gathering or conference, to debate whether or not 9/11 was a false flag operation, with no other presentation occurring simultaneously. Our blog spot is here: http://jmacsi911dotorg.blogspot.com/
Jews and Muslims Asking for a
Credible Scientific Investigation of 9/11
Sunday presentation to be done by Orthodox Jew Yehuda Littmann
Saturday presentation to be done by David Slesinger
Resolution to Endorse Global March to Jerusalem March 30:
The Global March to Jerusalem (GMJ) is a groundbreaking new initiative that is organizing non-violent civil resistance on 30th March 2012, which is Palestinian Land Day. The march will unite the efforts of Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, Christians, Jews, and all citizens of conscience in the world to put an end to Israel’s disregard for international law through the continuing occupation of Jerusalem and the rest of Palestinian land. Our plan is to organize massive peaceful marches towards Jerusalem, or to the nearest point possible according to the circumstances of each country, in Palestine (the 1948 seizures, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) and the four neighboring countries: Jordan, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon. Internationals will participate in land caravans traveling through Asia or fly directly to one of the main sites for the march. Around the world solidarity actions will also take place to support the demands of the GMJ: an to end the Zionist policies of apartheid, ethnic cleansing and Judaisation. Global participation in the march will confirm to the world that these racist policies and practices of the state of Israel against Jerusalem and its people are a crime not only against Palestinians but against all humanity.
Resolved: that UNAC endorses the Global March to Jerusalem on March 30, 2012, and encourages its affiliates, where possible, to organize and support solidarity actions within the USA on that day.
In solidarity, Ken Stone
RESOLUTION:
We recognize that for at least two decades international opinion has supported the “two-state solution” to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. However, we view this solution as neither democratic nor viable in the face of international law, material conditions and the “facts on the ground” that now exist in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), particularly the fact that the West Bank (WB) has been integrated into Israel demographically, economically as well as territorially. Thus, the "two-state solution" is a chimera, at best meant only to end Israeli military occupation in parts of the West Bank. As such, it is unsustainable, offering neither justice nor peace because 1) it is premised on legitimizing permanent inequality between Israeli Jews and Palestinians and 2) it does not address the heart of the conflict: the ongoing dispossession of Christian and Muslim Palestinians within Israel and in the OPT because they are not Jews and Israel’s refusal to allow Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.
In light of this reality and the fact that Israel-Palestine is and always has been a multicultural land, we support the creation of one democratic state for Palestinians and Israelis on the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the River Jordan as the homeland of both peoples, with equality before the law for all.
Justine McCabe
Co-Chair, International Committee
Green Party of the United States
U.S./NATO Troops Out Now! No to Imperialist Wars, Occupations, Sanctions, Embargoes!
Self-determination for All Oppressed People!
The United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) was founded on the principle of self-determination for all oppressed nations and peoples. We demand the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S./NATO troops, mercenaries and drones from Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Libya. We have every confidence that, free from imperialist intervention of every type, the oppressed nations and peoples of the world are fully capable of building societies that represent their interests as opposed to the imperial exploiters, neo-colonialists and would-be subjugators.
We have seen the horrific consequences of U.S. wars, "humanitarian" interventions, starvation sanctions, crippling embargoes and targeted assassinations. All have been employed to justify renewed imperialist conquest.
It is our task and obligation as antiwar and social justice activists within the United States to prevent the U.S./NATO's enormous military, economic and media power from imposing its will on the oppressed of the world in order to benefit the interest of the U.S. power elite – the 1%. UNAC opposes any form of U.S. military or economic intervention, sanctions, sabotage and assassinations in Iran and Syria, in Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador and Haiti, and in all other countries where the Pentagon, the CIA, the State Department or their allies seek to impose their will.
Submitted by UNAC Administrative Committee
The People’s Congress proposes the following amendment to the draft action proposal of UNAC
Amendment on the People’s Congress
UNAC recognizes The People’s Congress as a means to organize Americans to end war, social injustice and the tyranny of our current government.
UNAC agrees to support and to participate in the Inaugural National General Assembly of the People’s Congress, July 25 - 29, 2012.
UNAC endorses the Mission of the People’s Congress as expressed herein:
“We ordain and establish the People’s Congress to represent ourselves, as Americans, as one people to enable us to alter our government to these end:
- To design its Bylaws to form itself as a legitimate First Amendment Deliberative Assembly of the American people
- To exercise the self-evident sovereignty of the American people over our government and our Constitution
- To alter our national government’s structure and dynamics to make a more perfect union so the public policies of our national government come to match the public opinion of our citizens
- To bring about the rule of law in fairly enforcing domestic, electoral and foreign policies
- And to enable the democratic majority of the American people to end the tyranny of the illegitimate rule of wealthy plutocrats and despotic corporations
PROPOSALS ON 9/11 TRUTH
First Proposal:
In the spirit of wanting important issues to be discussed with full mutual respect and without weakening our collective wisdom and resolve, WE PROPOSE:
That JMAXCSI911.org be supported by UNAC to join with those of varying opinions to hold, as appropriate and possible, mutually respectful discussions here at this conference, and to organize at least an hour long panel at the next UNAC gathering or conference, to debate whether or not 9/11 was a false flag operation, with no other presentation occurring simultaneously. Our blog spot is here: http://jmacsi911dotorg.blogspot.com/
Jews and Muslims Asking for a
Credible Scientific Investigation of 9/11
Sunday presentation to be done by Orthodox Jew Yehuda Littmann
Saturday presentation to be done by David Slesinger
Second Proposal
Since almost no 911truth group is democratic and the movement as a whole is more atomized that hierarchical, we hereby agree that Ed Ciaccio, a regular writer for Dandelion Salad, be authorized to join the UNAC board or to designate a replacement who has equal dedication to collegiality and support for progressive values. This is designed to encourage more pleasant communication rather than as a guarantee that any given proposal from the truth movement be adopted by UNAC.
To be presented by David Slesinger or his designee
PROPOSAL TO CHANGE 99% LANGUAGE
99% language is opportunistic as a peace organization since even the occupiers don't have a strong anti-war message, so my suggestion is to change the "99%" references to "We the people"...
nothing major, but the change does close the door of opportunism.
Peace, Mark D. Stansbery
Friday, March 23, 2012
From The Pages Of "Workers Vanguard"-U.S./NATO Troops Out Now!-Afghanistan: Women Under Imperialist Occupation
Click on the headline to link to the International Communist League website.
Markin comment:
Sometimes it is possible to learn a thing or two in politics, especially if you are not hidebound to ossified “truth”. The truth is that we of the left should have been supporting, holding our noses if necessary, the Soviet Union’s efforts back in 1979 to militarily assist the PDPA government. That reflexive anti-Sovietism came back to haunt us in more than one way. The additional lesson to be learned the enemy (mujahedeen) of your enemy (Soviet Union for the American government and those who supported its aid to the rebels) is not always your friend. And to put paid to that point –Obama –Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops and Mercenaries From Afghanistan!
************
Workers Vanguard No. 998
16 March 2012
U.S./NATO Troops Out Now!-Afghanistan: Women Under Imperialist Occupation
We Said: Hail Red Army in Afghanistan!
On March 6, two days before International Women’s Day, Washington’s Afghan puppet president Hamid Karzai announced that he had approved a new “code of conduct” issued by the Ulema Council of senior Muslim clerics. This edict legally confines women to their homes, barring them from going out without a male guardian or mingling with men in schools, offices or markets. It also officially condones wife-beating. “Men are fundamental and women are secondary,” said the statement, which Karzai saluted as “the sharia law of all Muslims and all Afghans.”
Throughout the past ten years of U.S. occupation, Afghanistan has been a living hell for women. To sell their predatory war in retribution for the September 11 attacks, the U.S. and its NATO allies pointed to the crimes against women under the then-ruling Taliban, pledging that an American-led takeover would bring liberation. After U.S. forces seized control of the country in 2002, George W. Bush proclaimed that “today, women are free.” In reality, the U.S. rulers merely handed power to another wing of the anti-woman fundamentalist forces that they had backed against the Soviet Union and the leftist regime of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) from the late 1970s to the early ’90s.
In Afghanistan today, women are forced to wear the suffocating head-to-toe burqa almost everywhere. The sight of women begging for money to feed their starving families is commonplace on the streets of Kabul, the capital city. To survive or pay off debts, families sell their daughters in marriage or to the many brothels servicing U.S. troops and contractors. More than half of all girls are forced into marriage before the age of 16.
There is a saying in Afghanistan that a woman belongs either to her husband’s house or to her grave. Half of the inmates at the Badam Bagh women’s prison in Kabul have been imprisoned for years for refusing to marry or for fleeing abusive husbands. Returned runaways are often shot or stabbed by family members in “honor killings.” Other women are jailed for being victims of rape or assault. For a woman in Afghanistan, any sex outside marriage is considered a crime—including when she is raped. The rapist, meanwhile, almost always goes unpunished.
Barely a quarter of Afghan girls go to school. Religious fanatics attack those who do, including by spraying acid in their faces, as happened at a school in Kandahar in 2008. The following year, the education ministry reported that nearly 500 schools, mostly schools for girls, had been destroyed, damaged or forced to close. Between March and October 2010, at least 126 students and teachers were killed. The literacy rate for women is 12 percent, while their average life expectancy is 44, some 24 years below the world average. To escape their unbearable lives, many women turn to suicide. Even according to official Afghan statistics, some 2,300 women and girls kill themselves every year—more than six each day. The most common method is self-immolation with cooking oil.
The atrocities endured by Afghan women are not in the main the actions of rogue elements breaking the law. In 2004, the U.S. overseers brokered a constitution that enshrined Islamic sharia law. Despite the token presence of women in the constituent assembly and a claim that women have “equal rights,” the constitution states that “no law can be contrary to the beliefs and provisions of the sacred religion of Islam.” In 2006, Karzai’s cabinet reestablished the Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which was notorious under the Taliban for its brutal imposition of sharia, including stoning to death women who defied its edicts.
Calling Afghanistan “the good war,” in 2009 the Obama administration reinforced the U.S. occupation with another 30,000 troops. The imperialist troops, full of racist contempt, continue to massacre untold numbers of civilians. American soldiers have murdered Afghans for sport, cut off their fingers as trophies and urinated on their dead bodies. Marine snipers have posed for photos with a flag bearing the Nazi SS insignia. Soldiers regularly stage night raids in which they go after suspected opponents of the Afghan regime at private homes and shoot dead whoever opens the door. The explosion of anger that followed the revelation that the U.S. military had burned copies of the Koran last month shows the depth of resentment that has built up among the Afghan peoples.
In the latest atrocity, a U.S. Army staff sergeant went door-to-door in a village in southern Afghanistan overnight on March 11, gunning down at least 16 civilians, including nine children. This outrage provoked an immediate condemnation from the Karzai government and vows for vengeance from the Taliban, further complicating the U.S. rulers’ efforts to extricate themselves from the Afghanistan quagmire.
After repeated instances of Afghan forces turning their guns on American soldiers, the Obama administration announced last month that it was moving up the timetable for ending U.S. troops’ “combat role” to some time next year and withdrawing them in 2014. The U.S. is looking to open negotiations with the Taliban, which continues to control large parts of the country, in order to somehow cobble together a “political solution” that would create a modicum of stability after U.S. troops are withdrawn. Karzai’s approval of the clerics’ woman-hating “code of conduct” is widely seen to be an overture to the Taliban on the part of his regime.
As Marxists, our starting point in opposing the U.S. occupation is proletarian class opposition to America’s capitalist rulers and their imperialist predations. In the lead-up to the 2001 invasion, we called for the military defense of Afghanistan against the U.S. and allied forces without giving any support to the Taliban reactionaries. In the face of the ongoing occupation, we emphasize that every blow struck against the blood-soaked U.S. ruling class is a blow against the chief enemy of working people and the oppressed around the world. All U.S./NATO troops out of Afghanistan now!
Afghanistan: Front Line of the Anti-Soviet War Drive
In their drive for world domination, the U.S. imperialists have never had any compunction about siding with the most retrograde social forces. It is impossible to comprehend the current plight of Afghan women without examining Washington’s role in backing the forces of Islamic reaction against the Soviet Union and its PDPA allies starting in 1978.
Many of the modernizing left nationalists who led the PDPA were educated and trained in the Soviet Union, which they rightly saw as a source of social progress. The Soviet Union was a workers state that embodied key social gains of the October 1917 Russian Revolution, centrally a planned economy and collectivized property, despite its subsequent degeneration under a nationalist Stalinist bureaucracy. Progressive-minded activists in Afghanistan in the 1970s looked at the example of Soviet Central Asia, just across the border, which was a modern society where women went unveiled, were educated and participated in public life and where everyone had access to free education and health care.
On coming to power in April 1978, the PDPA began to implement serious reforms favoring women and poor peasants, such as redistributing the land, lowering the bride price, educating women and freeing them from the burqa. In the context of this cruelly backward country, which had far more mullahs than industrial workers, such reforms had an explosive impact. They fueled a revolt by reactionary traditionalists who sought to maintain the old society, including its all-encompassing degradation of women. When the Muslim insurgency threatened the PDPA’s hold on power, the government made repeated requests for Soviet assistance, until the Soviets finally dispatched tens of thousands of troops to Afghanistan in December 1979.
This was the only war in modern history fought centrally over women’s rights. From the start, the U.S. imperialists, determined to strike a blow against the Soviet Union, took the side of benighted reaction. Democratic president Jimmy Carter and his successor, Republican Ronald Reagan, backed the mujahedin holy warriors to the hilt in the biggest covert CIA operation in history. Billions of dollars in aid went to an array of Islamist groups based in Peshawar, Pakistan, and to that country’s ISI intelligence service. The CIA used the ISI and the Egyptian and Saudi intelligence services to create, train, finance and arm a network of 70,000 Islamists (including Osama bin Laden) from more than 50 countries to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, giving a huge boost to Muslim fundamentalist movements the world over.
We wrote at the time of the Soviet intervention: “For revolutionary socialists there is nothing tricky, nothing ambiguous about the war in Afghanistan. The Soviet Army and its left-nationalist allies are fighting an anti-communist, anti-democratic mélange of landlords, money lenders, tribal chiefs and mullahs committed to mass illiteracy.... The gut-level response of every radical leftist should be fullest solidarity with the Soviet Red Army” (Spartacist [English-language edition] No. 29, Summer 1980). The threat of a CIA-backed Islamic takeover on the USSR’s southern flank posed directly the need for unconditional military defense of the Soviet Union. Moreover, the extended Soviet presence opened the possibility of social liberation for the Afghan masses, particularly women. We proclaimed: Hail Red Army! Extend social gains of the October Revolution to the Afghan peoples!
In contrast, the bulk of the left internationally, with few exceptions, eagerly joined the imperialist chorus against the Soviet Union and whitewashed the mujahedin. The International Socialist Organization and its then ally in Britain, Tony Cliff’s Socialist Workers Party (SWP), stood foursquare with the imperialists. The 12 January 1980 issue of the SWP’s Socialist Worker blared, “Troops Out of Afghanistan!” In 1981, the then fake-Trotskyist United Secretariat of Ernest Mandel called for “stopping Soviet occupation in Afghanistan.” In howling with the imperialist wolves against the Soviet intervention, these groups made common cause with the worst enemies of the rights of women and all the oppressed.
Huge Gains for Afghan Women Under Soviet Presence
Freeing Afghan women from purdah (seclusion) and giving land to the peasants required ending the domination of the mullahs and tribal khans and overturning the country’s entire social structure. But the popular base of support for such moves within Afghanistan was very narrow. The country utterly lacked a proletariat with any social weight. Its tiny manufacturing workforce of some 35,000 was dwarfed by the quarter million Islamic clerics. Those elements in the cities aspiring to progress were surrounded by a sea of nomadic herdsmen and landless peasants beholden to the khans and the landlords. Thus, the presence of the Red Army, together with substantial Soviet aid, was essential to social progress.
Afghan women made unprecedented gains under the Soviet umbrella. While the 1964 constitution had declared women equal to men, equality largely remained on paper except for a few women in the upper strata of urban society. A thin layer of women had taken off the burqa and obtained education and employment outside the home, but even in Kabul, the main urban center, half of all women still wore the full veil in the late 1970s. Throughout the country, 98 percent of women were totally illiterate. In the 1980s, in contrast, there were vast opportunities for women to escape at least the strictest restraints of purdah. Many thousands became university students, workers, professionals and leftist activists.
Suraya Parlika, a founder of the PDPA-affiliated Democratic Women’s Organization, recounted some of these accomplishments in the 2007 documentary Afghan Women: A History of Struggle: “Women worked very hard to get their rights. They formed childcare centers in their workplaces to make it easier for women to work. Maternity leave was extended to three months from six weeks and they were still getting their salary.” The Afghan government also began mass literacy campaigns and provided free medical care.
By the late 1980s, women made up 40 percent of the country’s doctors (women doctors were in high demand, especially in rural areas, where women were still strictly secluded and barred from consulting male doctors). Sixty percent of the instructors at Kabul University and 65 percent of the student body were women. Family courts, in some cases presided over by female judges, had replaced the mullahs’ sharia courts. The number of working women increased 50-fold. By 1987, there were an estimated 245,000 women working in fields ranging from construction, printing and food processing to radio and TV journalism and especially teaching, where they made up 70 percent of the workforce.
In a 1994 PhD thesis, Educated Afghan Women in Search of Their Identities, the Afghan-born academic Sharifa Sharif reported on her 1987 interviews with 30 women workers in Kabul, undertaken as part of a survey for the United Nations Development Program. The sharp increase in women’s participation in economic life was partly due to the war, which had taken away many men and brought women from the countryside into Kabul. But it was also the result of greater legal rights, supportive government policies and economic development, including the construction of new homes, factories, schools and hospitals.
The transformation of these women from backward traditionalist areas into skilled workers gives a glimpse of what might have been achieved if Afghanistan had been able to continue its Soviet-assisted development. While initially encountering fierce resistance from their families, women workers were exposed to technology, education and literacy. They took pride in acquiring job skills and becoming ustad (expert masters) in their fields. Some were sent for training to the Soviet Union. At a construction site, Sharif interviewed a 23-year-old widow and mother of two children, who was one of three female crane operators, a job never before done by a woman in Afghanistan.
Many women took up arms against the mujahedin threat. Four of seven military commanders appointed in 1986 were women. By 1989, the regime reported having armed some 15,000 women. The same year, all female members of the PDPA received military training and arms. The arming of unveiled women with Kalashnikovs symbolized the social transformation then under way in Afghanistan. As early as 1984, Indian journalist Patricia Sethi reported encountering 15-year-old girls carrying rifles who were members of a civilian brigade in a village near Kabul: “They spoke fervently and passionately about their revolution and what it meant for young women in Afghanistan: it meant ‘an education, freedom from the veil, freedom from feudalists who want to keep us down,’ said Khalida. ‘We do not want to become the fourth wife of a 60-year-old man, existing solely for his whim and pleasure’” (India Today, 31 July 1984).
Soviet Withdrawal Betrayed Afghan Women
The Soviet military presence posed the possibility not only of defeating the U.S.-backed Islamists but also of incorporating Afghanistan into the Soviet system. In the 1920s, Soviet Central Asia looked remarkably like Afghanistan in the 1970s—a miserably backward and desolate place where women were bought and sold. Every step toward emancipation taken by the Soviet regime was met with fierce resistance from the khans, mullahs and their armed gangs of basmachi (the mujahedin of the time), including the wholesale murder of Communist agitators and women who rejected the veil.
The imposition of Soviet power under the umbrella of the Red Army created the conditions for dismantling centuries-old tribal/clerical domination and developing the region’s vast natural resources. Once the Soviet Army got the upper hand against the basmachi in 1922, Bolshevik women activists were sent in to work among the horribly oppressed women, who stood to benefit most from the extension of the gains of the October Revolution. Under Lenin’s guidance, they set out to gradually undermine the power and authority of the khans’ and mullahs’ institutions through legal and administrative measures, demonstrating that the Communists were the foremost fighters for the oppressed.
Beginning with the Stalinist political counterrevolution in 1923-24, the USSR underwent a qualitative bureaucratic degeneration in which the working class was deprived of political power. Even after this, however, the necessities of industrialization and economic planning continued to produce particularly huge benefits for Central Asia. As the USSR was transformed from a largely peasant country into an industrial power starting in the late 1920s and early ’30s, Soviet women were increasingly mobilized to work in industry. In Central Asia, women entered the industrial workforce in large numbers during World War II, when many Soviet factories were relocated to the region away from the front lines of the war.
Had the Soviet leadership been determined to see the war in Afghanistan through to victory, the country could have undergone similarly immense social progress through the construction of a modern infrastructure, the creation of a significant urban proletariat and the institution of economic planning. But the Stalinist bureaucrats in the Kremlin did not pursue this course. Instead, the regime of Mikhail Gorbachev withdrew the Red Army in 1988-89.
This was not because it faced military defeat; to the end, the Soviet Army had the upper hand militarily. The Soviet withdrawal was a political decision by the Stalinist bureaucracy in Moscow carried out with the fatuous aim of appeasing U.S. imperialism. It was a betrayal of the Afghan masses, especially women, that helped pave the way for capitalist counterrevolution in the Soviet Union itself in 1991-92.
The Stalinist bureaucracy was a contradictory caste whose nationalist outlook subordinated the interests of the world proletariat to the defense of its own privileged position as a parasitic layer resting on the collectivized economy. The 1979 Red Army intervention was a decent and progressive act, even if it was carried out by the corrupt and conservative regime of Leonid Brezhnev, that cut against the grain of the Stalinist dogma of “socialism in one country.” However, we warned from the outset that the bureaucracy might cut a deal at the expense of the Afghan peoples as part of its quest for “peaceful coexistence” with Washington. We fought for a proletarian political revolution to oust the treacherous Stalinist bureaucracy and return the Soviet Union to the Bolshevik internationalism of Lenin and Trotsky.
After the Soviet withdrawal, the Afghan government fought on valiantly for three years. The Partisan Defense Committee—a class-struggle legal and social defense organization associated with the Spartacist League—wrote to the PDPA government in 1989 offering to organize an international brigade to help fight the forces of Islamic reaction. When that offer was turned down, the PDC, at the request of the Afghan government, launched an international fund drive to aid civilian victims of the mujahedin siege of the city of Jalalabad, raising over $44,000. The Afghan forces were able to repel this attack.
When the mujahedin finally took Kabul in 1992, re-enslaving Afghan women, the various tribally-based militias carried out a vengeful war of mass murder, torture and rape of rival ethnic populations, which left at least 50,000 people dead in Kabul alone. This led to four years of horror under the rule of various warring fundamentalist factions which brought the city to the point of famine and total devastation.
A recent New York Times article (“In Afghanistan, a Soviet Past Lies in Ruins,” 11 February) captured some of the destruction wrought by these U.S.-backed cutthroats. The article notes that in the Soviet House of Science and Culture during the 1980s, “Soviets and Afghans gathered for lectures, films and the propagation of modernizing ideas that for a while refashioned Kabul, including a time when women could work outside the home in Western clothing.” It continued:
“But during the civil war of 1992-96, the House of Science and Culture was occupied by one faction and wrecked as another lobbed shells down from a nearby hill. Today, the auditoriums are littered with rubble; cold air comes in through rocket holes; and once-bold Soviet murals of men and women, Afghans and Russians, are hidden in the squalid darkness near cartoon images depicting a Taliban fighter instructing children to become suicide bombers.”
Eventually the Taliban, recruiting from the historically dominant Pashtun ethnic population, emerged as the strongest of the mujahedin factions. Backed by Pakistan and supported by the U.S., it came to power in 1996. A year later, an American diplomat declared: “The Taliban will probably develop like the Saudis did. There will be Aramco, pipelines, an emir, no parliament and lots of Sharia law. We can live with that” (quoted in Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia [2000]). Only when the U.S. rulers realized that there would be no Aramco (or any other oil company) and no pipelines did they start talking about the Taliban’s barbaric treatment of women.
Many of the CIA-financed fundamentalists who fought the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s turned against their former paymasters over the following decade. This was the case with the September 11, 2001 attacks carried out by Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network, which led in turn to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. After ousting the Taliban, the Bush administration installed a regime based largely on the same mujahedin warlords who devastated the country from 1992-96.
The Impact of Counterrevolution in the USSR
The counterrevolutionary destruction of the Soviet Union has fed the bonfires of social reaction on a global scale. In many countries, women’s rights and social progress in general have been thrown back by generations. For working people in the ex-Soviet Union and the former deformed workers states of East and Central Europe, the return of capitalism has been a calamity measured in unemployment, homelessness, collapsing life expectancy and intercommunal violence.
In ex-Soviet Central Asia, while the effects of more than seven decades of socialized economic development did not permit a quick and easy victory for the Islamic fundamentalists, millions of women have found themselves again trapped under veils and classified as second-class citizens. Fewer and fewer girls attend secondary schools. In much of the region, women can no longer initiate a divorce. The resurgence of nationalism has led to interethnic strife, as in Tajikistan in 1992-97 and more recently in Kyrgyzstan. The region remains a powder keg, where ethnic clashes continue to rage.
The horrors produced by U.S. imperialism’s “holy war” against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, as well as its present occupation of the country, underline how the capitalist system is a barrier to social progress and a breeding ground for reaction. As in Afghanistan, U.S. occupation forces devastated Iraq during their occupation of that country, fueling sectarian massacres and throwing back the rights of women and other oppressed.
Through its “war on terror,” U.S. imperialism aims to impose its will on oppressed peoples around the world. The despotic bourgeoisies of the neocolonies subjugate and plunder their “own” people for their own profit and that of the imperialists to whom they are beholden. There is plenty of hatred among the masses for these parasites and their overlords, however the aspirations of the downtrodden have increasingly been channeled into religious reaction. Islamist forces continue to grow in influence throughout North Africa and the Near East, from Egypt to Gaza to Turkey and beyond.
The only way forward is the struggle for an internationalist revolutionary leadership dedicated to the fight for workers revolutions in both the neocolonies and the heartlands of world imperialism. While this may seem a distant prospect in this very reactionary political period, the bitter truth is that no other road can put an end to ethnic and national oppression, the oppression of women and the exploitation of working people.
The domestic complement of the murderous occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan is an escalating war on the U.S. working class, black people and immigrants. While a handful of wealthy capitalists accrue massive profits, the rest of the population is faced with increasing assaults on its living standards or utter poverty. Moreover, anti-woman religious fundamentalism is also rampant on the home front, as bourgeois politics is saturated with God and the right to abortion and even contraception is under siege.
The purpose of the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist), of which the Spartacist League is the U.S. section, is to forge revolutionary Marxist parties modeled after Lenin and Trotsky’s Bolshevik Party that led the October Revolution. Only the working class has the social power and objective interest to sweep away the deeply irrational and inhumane capitalist system through socialist revolution, replacing it with a planned economy in which production is based on the human needs of all, rather than profits for the few.
Particularly in the neocolonial world, where women’s oppression is so acute, women workers will be in the front ranks of such parties. The overthrow of the imperialist-dominated world order will lay a material basis to free women from age-old family servitude and reorganize society in the interest of all. The social functions of the family—housework, child rearing, preparation of food, etc.—will be replaced by collectivized institutions. When the bloody rule of capital is swept away by the workers of the world, the veil, the bride price, purdah, “honor killings” and the social degradation of women in all its forms will become but bitter memories of a barbaric past.
Markin comment:
Sometimes it is possible to learn a thing or two in politics, especially if you are not hidebound to ossified “truth”. The truth is that we of the left should have been supporting, holding our noses if necessary, the Soviet Union’s efforts back in 1979 to militarily assist the PDPA government. That reflexive anti-Sovietism came back to haunt us in more than one way. The additional lesson to be learned the enemy (mujahedeen) of your enemy (Soviet Union for the American government and those who supported its aid to the rebels) is not always your friend. And to put paid to that point –Obama –Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops and Mercenaries From Afghanistan!
************
Workers Vanguard No. 998
16 March 2012
U.S./NATO Troops Out Now!-Afghanistan: Women Under Imperialist Occupation
We Said: Hail Red Army in Afghanistan!
On March 6, two days before International Women’s Day, Washington’s Afghan puppet president Hamid Karzai announced that he had approved a new “code of conduct” issued by the Ulema Council of senior Muslim clerics. This edict legally confines women to their homes, barring them from going out without a male guardian or mingling with men in schools, offices or markets. It also officially condones wife-beating. “Men are fundamental and women are secondary,” said the statement, which Karzai saluted as “the sharia law of all Muslims and all Afghans.”
Throughout the past ten years of U.S. occupation, Afghanistan has been a living hell for women. To sell their predatory war in retribution for the September 11 attacks, the U.S. and its NATO allies pointed to the crimes against women under the then-ruling Taliban, pledging that an American-led takeover would bring liberation. After U.S. forces seized control of the country in 2002, George W. Bush proclaimed that “today, women are free.” In reality, the U.S. rulers merely handed power to another wing of the anti-woman fundamentalist forces that they had backed against the Soviet Union and the leftist regime of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) from the late 1970s to the early ’90s.
In Afghanistan today, women are forced to wear the suffocating head-to-toe burqa almost everywhere. The sight of women begging for money to feed their starving families is commonplace on the streets of Kabul, the capital city. To survive or pay off debts, families sell their daughters in marriage or to the many brothels servicing U.S. troops and contractors. More than half of all girls are forced into marriage before the age of 16.
There is a saying in Afghanistan that a woman belongs either to her husband’s house or to her grave. Half of the inmates at the Badam Bagh women’s prison in Kabul have been imprisoned for years for refusing to marry or for fleeing abusive husbands. Returned runaways are often shot or stabbed by family members in “honor killings.” Other women are jailed for being victims of rape or assault. For a woman in Afghanistan, any sex outside marriage is considered a crime—including when she is raped. The rapist, meanwhile, almost always goes unpunished.
Barely a quarter of Afghan girls go to school. Religious fanatics attack those who do, including by spraying acid in their faces, as happened at a school in Kandahar in 2008. The following year, the education ministry reported that nearly 500 schools, mostly schools for girls, had been destroyed, damaged or forced to close. Between March and October 2010, at least 126 students and teachers were killed. The literacy rate for women is 12 percent, while their average life expectancy is 44, some 24 years below the world average. To escape their unbearable lives, many women turn to suicide. Even according to official Afghan statistics, some 2,300 women and girls kill themselves every year—more than six each day. The most common method is self-immolation with cooking oil.
The atrocities endured by Afghan women are not in the main the actions of rogue elements breaking the law. In 2004, the U.S. overseers brokered a constitution that enshrined Islamic sharia law. Despite the token presence of women in the constituent assembly and a claim that women have “equal rights,” the constitution states that “no law can be contrary to the beliefs and provisions of the sacred religion of Islam.” In 2006, Karzai’s cabinet reestablished the Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which was notorious under the Taliban for its brutal imposition of sharia, including stoning to death women who defied its edicts.
Calling Afghanistan “the good war,” in 2009 the Obama administration reinforced the U.S. occupation with another 30,000 troops. The imperialist troops, full of racist contempt, continue to massacre untold numbers of civilians. American soldiers have murdered Afghans for sport, cut off their fingers as trophies and urinated on their dead bodies. Marine snipers have posed for photos with a flag bearing the Nazi SS insignia. Soldiers regularly stage night raids in which they go after suspected opponents of the Afghan regime at private homes and shoot dead whoever opens the door. The explosion of anger that followed the revelation that the U.S. military had burned copies of the Koran last month shows the depth of resentment that has built up among the Afghan peoples.
In the latest atrocity, a U.S. Army staff sergeant went door-to-door in a village in southern Afghanistan overnight on March 11, gunning down at least 16 civilians, including nine children. This outrage provoked an immediate condemnation from the Karzai government and vows for vengeance from the Taliban, further complicating the U.S. rulers’ efforts to extricate themselves from the Afghanistan quagmire.
After repeated instances of Afghan forces turning their guns on American soldiers, the Obama administration announced last month that it was moving up the timetable for ending U.S. troops’ “combat role” to some time next year and withdrawing them in 2014. The U.S. is looking to open negotiations with the Taliban, which continues to control large parts of the country, in order to somehow cobble together a “political solution” that would create a modicum of stability after U.S. troops are withdrawn. Karzai’s approval of the clerics’ woman-hating “code of conduct” is widely seen to be an overture to the Taliban on the part of his regime.
As Marxists, our starting point in opposing the U.S. occupation is proletarian class opposition to America’s capitalist rulers and their imperialist predations. In the lead-up to the 2001 invasion, we called for the military defense of Afghanistan against the U.S. and allied forces without giving any support to the Taliban reactionaries. In the face of the ongoing occupation, we emphasize that every blow struck against the blood-soaked U.S. ruling class is a blow against the chief enemy of working people and the oppressed around the world. All U.S./NATO troops out of Afghanistan now!
Afghanistan: Front Line of the Anti-Soviet War Drive
In their drive for world domination, the U.S. imperialists have never had any compunction about siding with the most retrograde social forces. It is impossible to comprehend the current plight of Afghan women without examining Washington’s role in backing the forces of Islamic reaction against the Soviet Union and its PDPA allies starting in 1978.
Many of the modernizing left nationalists who led the PDPA were educated and trained in the Soviet Union, which they rightly saw as a source of social progress. The Soviet Union was a workers state that embodied key social gains of the October 1917 Russian Revolution, centrally a planned economy and collectivized property, despite its subsequent degeneration under a nationalist Stalinist bureaucracy. Progressive-minded activists in Afghanistan in the 1970s looked at the example of Soviet Central Asia, just across the border, which was a modern society where women went unveiled, were educated and participated in public life and where everyone had access to free education and health care.
On coming to power in April 1978, the PDPA began to implement serious reforms favoring women and poor peasants, such as redistributing the land, lowering the bride price, educating women and freeing them from the burqa. In the context of this cruelly backward country, which had far more mullahs than industrial workers, such reforms had an explosive impact. They fueled a revolt by reactionary traditionalists who sought to maintain the old society, including its all-encompassing degradation of women. When the Muslim insurgency threatened the PDPA’s hold on power, the government made repeated requests for Soviet assistance, until the Soviets finally dispatched tens of thousands of troops to Afghanistan in December 1979.
This was the only war in modern history fought centrally over women’s rights. From the start, the U.S. imperialists, determined to strike a blow against the Soviet Union, took the side of benighted reaction. Democratic president Jimmy Carter and his successor, Republican Ronald Reagan, backed the mujahedin holy warriors to the hilt in the biggest covert CIA operation in history. Billions of dollars in aid went to an array of Islamist groups based in Peshawar, Pakistan, and to that country’s ISI intelligence service. The CIA used the ISI and the Egyptian and Saudi intelligence services to create, train, finance and arm a network of 70,000 Islamists (including Osama bin Laden) from more than 50 countries to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, giving a huge boost to Muslim fundamentalist movements the world over.
We wrote at the time of the Soviet intervention: “For revolutionary socialists there is nothing tricky, nothing ambiguous about the war in Afghanistan. The Soviet Army and its left-nationalist allies are fighting an anti-communist, anti-democratic mélange of landlords, money lenders, tribal chiefs and mullahs committed to mass illiteracy.... The gut-level response of every radical leftist should be fullest solidarity with the Soviet Red Army” (Spartacist [English-language edition] No. 29, Summer 1980). The threat of a CIA-backed Islamic takeover on the USSR’s southern flank posed directly the need for unconditional military defense of the Soviet Union. Moreover, the extended Soviet presence opened the possibility of social liberation for the Afghan masses, particularly women. We proclaimed: Hail Red Army! Extend social gains of the October Revolution to the Afghan peoples!
In contrast, the bulk of the left internationally, with few exceptions, eagerly joined the imperialist chorus against the Soviet Union and whitewashed the mujahedin. The International Socialist Organization and its then ally in Britain, Tony Cliff’s Socialist Workers Party (SWP), stood foursquare with the imperialists. The 12 January 1980 issue of the SWP’s Socialist Worker blared, “Troops Out of Afghanistan!” In 1981, the then fake-Trotskyist United Secretariat of Ernest Mandel called for “stopping Soviet occupation in Afghanistan.” In howling with the imperialist wolves against the Soviet intervention, these groups made common cause with the worst enemies of the rights of women and all the oppressed.
Huge Gains for Afghan Women Under Soviet Presence
Freeing Afghan women from purdah (seclusion) and giving land to the peasants required ending the domination of the mullahs and tribal khans and overturning the country’s entire social structure. But the popular base of support for such moves within Afghanistan was very narrow. The country utterly lacked a proletariat with any social weight. Its tiny manufacturing workforce of some 35,000 was dwarfed by the quarter million Islamic clerics. Those elements in the cities aspiring to progress were surrounded by a sea of nomadic herdsmen and landless peasants beholden to the khans and the landlords. Thus, the presence of the Red Army, together with substantial Soviet aid, was essential to social progress.
Afghan women made unprecedented gains under the Soviet umbrella. While the 1964 constitution had declared women equal to men, equality largely remained on paper except for a few women in the upper strata of urban society. A thin layer of women had taken off the burqa and obtained education and employment outside the home, but even in Kabul, the main urban center, half of all women still wore the full veil in the late 1970s. Throughout the country, 98 percent of women were totally illiterate. In the 1980s, in contrast, there were vast opportunities for women to escape at least the strictest restraints of purdah. Many thousands became university students, workers, professionals and leftist activists.
Suraya Parlika, a founder of the PDPA-affiliated Democratic Women’s Organization, recounted some of these accomplishments in the 2007 documentary Afghan Women: A History of Struggle: “Women worked very hard to get their rights. They formed childcare centers in their workplaces to make it easier for women to work. Maternity leave was extended to three months from six weeks and they were still getting their salary.” The Afghan government also began mass literacy campaigns and provided free medical care.
By the late 1980s, women made up 40 percent of the country’s doctors (women doctors were in high demand, especially in rural areas, where women were still strictly secluded and barred from consulting male doctors). Sixty percent of the instructors at Kabul University and 65 percent of the student body were women. Family courts, in some cases presided over by female judges, had replaced the mullahs’ sharia courts. The number of working women increased 50-fold. By 1987, there were an estimated 245,000 women working in fields ranging from construction, printing and food processing to radio and TV journalism and especially teaching, where they made up 70 percent of the workforce.
In a 1994 PhD thesis, Educated Afghan Women in Search of Their Identities, the Afghan-born academic Sharifa Sharif reported on her 1987 interviews with 30 women workers in Kabul, undertaken as part of a survey for the United Nations Development Program. The sharp increase in women’s participation in economic life was partly due to the war, which had taken away many men and brought women from the countryside into Kabul. But it was also the result of greater legal rights, supportive government policies and economic development, including the construction of new homes, factories, schools and hospitals.
The transformation of these women from backward traditionalist areas into skilled workers gives a glimpse of what might have been achieved if Afghanistan had been able to continue its Soviet-assisted development. While initially encountering fierce resistance from their families, women workers were exposed to technology, education and literacy. They took pride in acquiring job skills and becoming ustad (expert masters) in their fields. Some were sent for training to the Soviet Union. At a construction site, Sharif interviewed a 23-year-old widow and mother of two children, who was one of three female crane operators, a job never before done by a woman in Afghanistan.
Many women took up arms against the mujahedin threat. Four of seven military commanders appointed in 1986 were women. By 1989, the regime reported having armed some 15,000 women. The same year, all female members of the PDPA received military training and arms. The arming of unveiled women with Kalashnikovs symbolized the social transformation then under way in Afghanistan. As early as 1984, Indian journalist Patricia Sethi reported encountering 15-year-old girls carrying rifles who were members of a civilian brigade in a village near Kabul: “They spoke fervently and passionately about their revolution and what it meant for young women in Afghanistan: it meant ‘an education, freedom from the veil, freedom from feudalists who want to keep us down,’ said Khalida. ‘We do not want to become the fourth wife of a 60-year-old man, existing solely for his whim and pleasure’” (India Today, 31 July 1984).
Soviet Withdrawal Betrayed Afghan Women
The Soviet military presence posed the possibility not only of defeating the U.S.-backed Islamists but also of incorporating Afghanistan into the Soviet system. In the 1920s, Soviet Central Asia looked remarkably like Afghanistan in the 1970s—a miserably backward and desolate place where women were bought and sold. Every step toward emancipation taken by the Soviet regime was met with fierce resistance from the khans, mullahs and their armed gangs of basmachi (the mujahedin of the time), including the wholesale murder of Communist agitators and women who rejected the veil.
The imposition of Soviet power under the umbrella of the Red Army created the conditions for dismantling centuries-old tribal/clerical domination and developing the region’s vast natural resources. Once the Soviet Army got the upper hand against the basmachi in 1922, Bolshevik women activists were sent in to work among the horribly oppressed women, who stood to benefit most from the extension of the gains of the October Revolution. Under Lenin’s guidance, they set out to gradually undermine the power and authority of the khans’ and mullahs’ institutions through legal and administrative measures, demonstrating that the Communists were the foremost fighters for the oppressed.
Beginning with the Stalinist political counterrevolution in 1923-24, the USSR underwent a qualitative bureaucratic degeneration in which the working class was deprived of political power. Even after this, however, the necessities of industrialization and economic planning continued to produce particularly huge benefits for Central Asia. As the USSR was transformed from a largely peasant country into an industrial power starting in the late 1920s and early ’30s, Soviet women were increasingly mobilized to work in industry. In Central Asia, women entered the industrial workforce in large numbers during World War II, when many Soviet factories were relocated to the region away from the front lines of the war.
Had the Soviet leadership been determined to see the war in Afghanistan through to victory, the country could have undergone similarly immense social progress through the construction of a modern infrastructure, the creation of a significant urban proletariat and the institution of economic planning. But the Stalinist bureaucrats in the Kremlin did not pursue this course. Instead, the regime of Mikhail Gorbachev withdrew the Red Army in 1988-89.
This was not because it faced military defeat; to the end, the Soviet Army had the upper hand militarily. The Soviet withdrawal was a political decision by the Stalinist bureaucracy in Moscow carried out with the fatuous aim of appeasing U.S. imperialism. It was a betrayal of the Afghan masses, especially women, that helped pave the way for capitalist counterrevolution in the Soviet Union itself in 1991-92.
The Stalinist bureaucracy was a contradictory caste whose nationalist outlook subordinated the interests of the world proletariat to the defense of its own privileged position as a parasitic layer resting on the collectivized economy. The 1979 Red Army intervention was a decent and progressive act, even if it was carried out by the corrupt and conservative regime of Leonid Brezhnev, that cut against the grain of the Stalinist dogma of “socialism in one country.” However, we warned from the outset that the bureaucracy might cut a deal at the expense of the Afghan peoples as part of its quest for “peaceful coexistence” with Washington. We fought for a proletarian political revolution to oust the treacherous Stalinist bureaucracy and return the Soviet Union to the Bolshevik internationalism of Lenin and Trotsky.
After the Soviet withdrawal, the Afghan government fought on valiantly for three years. The Partisan Defense Committee—a class-struggle legal and social defense organization associated with the Spartacist League—wrote to the PDPA government in 1989 offering to organize an international brigade to help fight the forces of Islamic reaction. When that offer was turned down, the PDC, at the request of the Afghan government, launched an international fund drive to aid civilian victims of the mujahedin siege of the city of Jalalabad, raising over $44,000. The Afghan forces were able to repel this attack.
When the mujahedin finally took Kabul in 1992, re-enslaving Afghan women, the various tribally-based militias carried out a vengeful war of mass murder, torture and rape of rival ethnic populations, which left at least 50,000 people dead in Kabul alone. This led to four years of horror under the rule of various warring fundamentalist factions which brought the city to the point of famine and total devastation.
A recent New York Times article (“In Afghanistan, a Soviet Past Lies in Ruins,” 11 February) captured some of the destruction wrought by these U.S.-backed cutthroats. The article notes that in the Soviet House of Science and Culture during the 1980s, “Soviets and Afghans gathered for lectures, films and the propagation of modernizing ideas that for a while refashioned Kabul, including a time when women could work outside the home in Western clothing.” It continued:
“But during the civil war of 1992-96, the House of Science and Culture was occupied by one faction and wrecked as another lobbed shells down from a nearby hill. Today, the auditoriums are littered with rubble; cold air comes in through rocket holes; and once-bold Soviet murals of men and women, Afghans and Russians, are hidden in the squalid darkness near cartoon images depicting a Taliban fighter instructing children to become suicide bombers.”
Eventually the Taliban, recruiting from the historically dominant Pashtun ethnic population, emerged as the strongest of the mujahedin factions. Backed by Pakistan and supported by the U.S., it came to power in 1996. A year later, an American diplomat declared: “The Taliban will probably develop like the Saudis did. There will be Aramco, pipelines, an emir, no parliament and lots of Sharia law. We can live with that” (quoted in Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia [2000]). Only when the U.S. rulers realized that there would be no Aramco (or any other oil company) and no pipelines did they start talking about the Taliban’s barbaric treatment of women.
Many of the CIA-financed fundamentalists who fought the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s turned against their former paymasters over the following decade. This was the case with the September 11, 2001 attacks carried out by Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network, which led in turn to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. After ousting the Taliban, the Bush administration installed a regime based largely on the same mujahedin warlords who devastated the country from 1992-96.
The Impact of Counterrevolution in the USSR
The counterrevolutionary destruction of the Soviet Union has fed the bonfires of social reaction on a global scale. In many countries, women’s rights and social progress in general have been thrown back by generations. For working people in the ex-Soviet Union and the former deformed workers states of East and Central Europe, the return of capitalism has been a calamity measured in unemployment, homelessness, collapsing life expectancy and intercommunal violence.
In ex-Soviet Central Asia, while the effects of more than seven decades of socialized economic development did not permit a quick and easy victory for the Islamic fundamentalists, millions of women have found themselves again trapped under veils and classified as second-class citizens. Fewer and fewer girls attend secondary schools. In much of the region, women can no longer initiate a divorce. The resurgence of nationalism has led to interethnic strife, as in Tajikistan in 1992-97 and more recently in Kyrgyzstan. The region remains a powder keg, where ethnic clashes continue to rage.
The horrors produced by U.S. imperialism’s “holy war” against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, as well as its present occupation of the country, underline how the capitalist system is a barrier to social progress and a breeding ground for reaction. As in Afghanistan, U.S. occupation forces devastated Iraq during their occupation of that country, fueling sectarian massacres and throwing back the rights of women and other oppressed.
Through its “war on terror,” U.S. imperialism aims to impose its will on oppressed peoples around the world. The despotic bourgeoisies of the neocolonies subjugate and plunder their “own” people for their own profit and that of the imperialists to whom they are beholden. There is plenty of hatred among the masses for these parasites and their overlords, however the aspirations of the downtrodden have increasingly been channeled into religious reaction. Islamist forces continue to grow in influence throughout North Africa and the Near East, from Egypt to Gaza to Turkey and beyond.
The only way forward is the struggle for an internationalist revolutionary leadership dedicated to the fight for workers revolutions in both the neocolonies and the heartlands of world imperialism. While this may seem a distant prospect in this very reactionary political period, the bitter truth is that no other road can put an end to ethnic and national oppression, the oppression of women and the exploitation of working people.
The domestic complement of the murderous occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan is an escalating war on the U.S. working class, black people and immigrants. While a handful of wealthy capitalists accrue massive profits, the rest of the population is faced with increasing assaults on its living standards or utter poverty. Moreover, anti-woman religious fundamentalism is also rampant on the home front, as bourgeois politics is saturated with God and the right to abortion and even contraception is under siege.
The purpose of the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist), of which the Spartacist League is the U.S. section, is to forge revolutionary Marxist parties modeled after Lenin and Trotsky’s Bolshevik Party that led the October Revolution. Only the working class has the social power and objective interest to sweep away the deeply irrational and inhumane capitalist system through socialist revolution, replacing it with a planned economy in which production is based on the human needs of all, rather than profits for the few.
Particularly in the neocolonial world, where women’s oppression is so acute, women workers will be in the front ranks of such parties. The overthrow of the imperialist-dominated world order will lay a material basis to free women from age-old family servitude and reorganize society in the interest of all. The social functions of the family—housework, child rearing, preparation of food, etc.—will be replaced by collectivized institutions. When the bloody rule of capital is swept away by the workers of the world, the veil, the bride price, purdah, “honor killings” and the social degradation of women in all its forms will become but bitter memories of a barbaric past.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Vai "Boston Indy Media"- Boston Protest Of The War In Afghanistan- March 17, 2012-Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops And Mercenaries From Afghanistan! -Enough- Get The Troop Transports Ready Now!
Click on the headline to link to the Boston IndyMedia entry listed above.
Markin comment:
I will echo the sentiments of one of the speaker at this protest:
Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops And Mercenaries From Afghanistan! Get The Troop Transports Ready Now!
Markin comment:
I will echo the sentiments of one of the speaker at this protest:
Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops And Mercenaries From Afghanistan! Get The Troop Transports Ready Now!
Friday, December 05, 2008
"Food, Housing And Peace"- Programmatic Notes For The Anti-Capitalist Left Opposition in Obamian Times
Click on title to link to the Lenin Internet Archive's copy of his 1917 article, "Banks And Ministers".
Commentary
In a recent entry in this space I pointed out that it was both necessary and desirable for the anti-capitalist left opposition to begin formulating our alternative program NOW for the forthcoming political struggle during the Obamiad. In that entry entitled "Bread, Land and Peace"-Fighting Slogans For Obamian Times, dated November 30, 2008, I made comparisons with the slogans that animated the working masses in the Russian Revolution in 1917 and today's concerns, all historical proportions guarded. Here, upon further thought, I would only change those slogans slightly to reflect more correctly today's immediate concerns. Thus from here on in I, for one, will fight under the banner of Food, Housing and Peace. Still, not so different from 1917, wouldn't you agree? That said, here's today's entry
*******
These are hard times for militant leftists for we have just come through an election period where all the political air, including that of our extra-parliamentary leftist turf, was sucked out by the effects of the Obama avalanche. Moreover, just now, we are between bourgeois capitalist administrations, the infamous “lame duck” period. We no longer effectively have the Cheney-Rove-Bush trifecta as a target. And although he has made some disturbing appointments, which have the liberals muttering among themselves in horror, to fill out his administration Obama is in a “grace” period. That period should, given the wasteland of the past eight years, last for some time barring unforeseen developments. Nevertheless, we can usefully spend formulating the anti-capitalist left opposition program that we need to propagandize for and expand over the coming period. Especially concerning those systematic problems with the capitalist system that, at this point, may well be beyond Obama’s team’s capacity to correct other than to apply bandages. We wait in the wings. But here are a couple of points until then.
In a few previous commentaries in this space I have attempted to begin to articulate some programmatic points that militant leftists are going to have fight around as we face the Obamiad. The shorthand for these programmatic points – the “three whales of anti-capitalist militancy” to use an old leftist expression- is indicated by the headline to this entry above- “Food, Housing And Peace”. The last part of the slogan, which I addressed previously in this space in the entry mentioned above, forms the first axis of intervention and the one most likely to prove an opening for us in the coming escalation of troop levels in the Afghanistan quagmire. Obama has signaled his intention to escalate troop levels, most prominently by his selection as key National Security Adviser of ex-Marine General James Jones. We now fight under the slogan “Obama- Immediate Unconditional U. S. Troop Withdrawal From Afghanistan And Iraq!”. That, my friends is a “no-brainer” and is merely the beginning of wisdom.
While I have not mentioned previously, other than in passing, the food issue- the increasingly desperate worldwide struggle for bread, I will not deal with that question today because I am still thinking through an appropriate approach to the question that does not sound like one befitting a charitable relief agency . I do however want to mention this second point about homes. I have already mentioned that a moratorium on foreclosures for a prolonged period is in order. I have also noted that precious little time or energy is being spent by any of these major players in articulating a program to “bail out” individual homeowners who are up against the wall. That is the axis I want to fight around today.
Over the past couple of months there have been several rounds of financial, credit and corporate governmental bailouts for those whose greed and need to expand profit margins beyond even the expansive capitalist norms of rationality turned this capitalist system on its head. As a reaction, and justifiably so, there has been something of a populist outpouring against those bailouts, from lower- level bourgeois politicians who are getting irate messages from constituents to those average citizens who are ticked off that these corporate wizards and financials mavens aren’t hanging from trees somewhere.
The recently electorally defeated Republican Party, now that it will be in the bourgeois political wilderness, is beginning to make noises in that direction as well since they are not in power in order to tap into this anger. Fellow leftists this, by right, is our issue and we best fight around a program that fights for the interests of working people who are our political base or the right-wingers will surely reap the benefits. That is, in the final analysis, the problem with getting a handle on vaguely articulated populist stirrings- they can go left or right. American history is replete with such movements, like that of George Wallace in the 1960’s and early 1970’s, that get fired up by right-wing demagogues. Let’s fight to make it a left turn. No To Corporate, Credit Or Financial Market Bailouts! Stop Individual Homeowner Foreclosures! Jobs For All! It is also time to dust off that old slogan from the 1930’s- “30 hour work for 40 hours pay” to really “redistribute the wealth” in this time of high unemployment. That slogan, by the way, is the one right-wingers will not touch. Enough said.
Commentary
In a recent entry in this space I pointed out that it was both necessary and desirable for the anti-capitalist left opposition to begin formulating our alternative program NOW for the forthcoming political struggle during the Obamiad. In that entry entitled "Bread, Land and Peace"-Fighting Slogans For Obamian Times, dated November 30, 2008, I made comparisons with the slogans that animated the working masses in the Russian Revolution in 1917 and today's concerns, all historical proportions guarded. Here, upon further thought, I would only change those slogans slightly to reflect more correctly today's immediate concerns. Thus from here on in I, for one, will fight under the banner of Food, Housing and Peace. Still, not so different from 1917, wouldn't you agree? That said, here's today's entry
*******
These are hard times for militant leftists for we have just come through an election period where all the political air, including that of our extra-parliamentary leftist turf, was sucked out by the effects of the Obama avalanche. Moreover, just now, we are between bourgeois capitalist administrations, the infamous “lame duck” period. We no longer effectively have the Cheney-Rove-Bush trifecta as a target. And although he has made some disturbing appointments, which have the liberals muttering among themselves in horror, to fill out his administration Obama is in a “grace” period. That period should, given the wasteland of the past eight years, last for some time barring unforeseen developments. Nevertheless, we can usefully spend formulating the anti-capitalist left opposition program that we need to propagandize for and expand over the coming period. Especially concerning those systematic problems with the capitalist system that, at this point, may well be beyond Obama’s team’s capacity to correct other than to apply bandages. We wait in the wings. But here are a couple of points until then.
In a few previous commentaries in this space I have attempted to begin to articulate some programmatic points that militant leftists are going to have fight around as we face the Obamiad. The shorthand for these programmatic points – the “three whales of anti-capitalist militancy” to use an old leftist expression- is indicated by the headline to this entry above- “Food, Housing And Peace”. The last part of the slogan, which I addressed previously in this space in the entry mentioned above, forms the first axis of intervention and the one most likely to prove an opening for us in the coming escalation of troop levels in the Afghanistan quagmire. Obama has signaled his intention to escalate troop levels, most prominently by his selection as key National Security Adviser of ex-Marine General James Jones. We now fight under the slogan “Obama- Immediate Unconditional U. S. Troop Withdrawal From Afghanistan And Iraq!”. That, my friends is a “no-brainer” and is merely the beginning of wisdom.
While I have not mentioned previously, other than in passing, the food issue- the increasingly desperate worldwide struggle for bread, I will not deal with that question today because I am still thinking through an appropriate approach to the question that does not sound like one befitting a charitable relief agency . I do however want to mention this second point about homes. I have already mentioned that a moratorium on foreclosures for a prolonged period is in order. I have also noted that precious little time or energy is being spent by any of these major players in articulating a program to “bail out” individual homeowners who are up against the wall. That is the axis I want to fight around today.
Over the past couple of months there have been several rounds of financial, credit and corporate governmental bailouts for those whose greed and need to expand profit margins beyond even the expansive capitalist norms of rationality turned this capitalist system on its head. As a reaction, and justifiably so, there has been something of a populist outpouring against those bailouts, from lower- level bourgeois politicians who are getting irate messages from constituents to those average citizens who are ticked off that these corporate wizards and financials mavens aren’t hanging from trees somewhere.
The recently electorally defeated Republican Party, now that it will be in the bourgeois political wilderness, is beginning to make noises in that direction as well since they are not in power in order to tap into this anger. Fellow leftists this, by right, is our issue and we best fight around a program that fights for the interests of working people who are our political base or the right-wingers will surely reap the benefits. That is, in the final analysis, the problem with getting a handle on vaguely articulated populist stirrings- they can go left or right. American history is replete with such movements, like that of George Wallace in the 1960’s and early 1970’s, that get fired up by right-wing demagogues. Let’s fight to make it a left turn. No To Corporate, Credit Or Financial Market Bailouts! Stop Individual Homeowner Foreclosures! Jobs For All! It is also time to dust off that old slogan from the 1930’s- “30 hour work for 40 hours pay” to really “redistribute the wealth” in this time of high unemployment. That slogan, by the way, is the one right-wingers will not touch. Enough said.
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