Tuesday, May 20, 2014

From The Struggle Against War

National Call for Emergency Antiwar Actions on Ukraine

 When: Friday, May 9, 2014, 10:00 am to Monday, May 26, 2014, 10:00 am
UNAC
National Call for Emergency Antiwar Actions on Ukraine – May 9 to May 26 (endorser list follows the call)
US/NATO war moves in Eastern Europe, the Black Sea, and the Baltic Sea – the borders of Russia – are a danger to the whole world. Positioning destroyers and missiles, scheduling war games, and imposing sanctions (an act of war) risk wider war.
We are deeply disturbed by the expansion of the U.S.-commanded NATO military alliance and U.S. recognition and speedy grant of billions in loans to a right-wing coup government in Ukraine, which overthrew the elected government. This illegal government has used fascist violence against all forms of peoples’ resistance in Ukraine.
By more than 2 to 1, the population in the U.S. is against another war and opposed to US military moves or aid to the coup government in Ukraine (4-28-14 Pew/USA Today poll).
We must make our voices heard.
The time to act is now!
We need jobs, health care and social services, not another war.
We urge nationally coordinated antiwar actions across the U.S. and internationally - protests, vigils, teach-ins, antiwar resolutions and visits to offices of elected officials.
From May 9 to May 26 let us act together, in unity, as a powerful voice against the threat of another war.
Ukraine National Actions May. 9-26 endorsements (list in formation):
National and International groups:
United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC)
International Action Center
Code Pink
ANSWER Coalition
U.S. Peace Council
Veterans For Peace
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF)
Alliance for Global Justice,
BAYAN, USA
Black Agenda Report
International League for Peoples Struggles,
Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamel
May 1 Worker & Immigrant Rights Coalition,
Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
Colectivo Honduras USA Resistencia,
Pakistan USA Freedom Forum,
Fight Imperialism Stand Together - FIST,
People's Power Assembly
People's Organization for Progress
WarIsACrime.org
The Move Organization
International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamel
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox
Swedish Peace Council
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
Jeannette Rankin Peace Center
US Friends of the Soviet People
Coop Antiwar Café, Berlin, Germany
Contempoeranity & Objective thought, Karkov, Ukraine
Labor Art and Mural Project
Solidarity
AAW France (Americans Against the War)
Middle East Crisis Response
Emergency Labor Network
Granny Peace Brigade
Mobilization Against War and Occupation (MAWO), Vancouver, Canada
Labor Fightback Network
Ukrainian National Committee for Freedom of the Cuban Five Heroes
German Freethinkers Association
American Iranian Friendship Committee
Ohio Labor Party
Folkebevægelsen mod Nazisme FMN (The Peoples Movement Aganst Nazism of Denmark)

Individual signers:
Ramsey Clark
Medea Benjamin
David  Swanson
Ray McGovern
Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report
Cindy Sheehan
Suren Moodliar, Massachusetts Global Action & Green shadow Cabinet
Bishop Filipe Teixeira – OFSJC – CCA
Steve Gillis – Vice Pres. USW local 8751 Boston school Bus Union
Leila Zand, Fellowship of Reconciliation
Joel Kovel
Bruce Gagnon
Kevin Zeese
Prof. Bertell Ollman
Phil Wilayto, Editor, The Virginia Defender
Sandy Fessler, Rochester Against War
Ohio State Labor Party


Local Groups:
Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace (Albany)
Chicago Anti-War Committee
MN Anti-War Committee,
Women Against Military Madness - WAMM,
Minnesota Peace Action Coalition,
Jersey City Peace Movement,
Philly Against War
Peace Action – Manhattan
Michigan Emergency Coalition Against War & Injustice (MECAWI)
Chelsea Coalition on Housing
Women’s fightback Network – Boston
Rochester Against War
US Friends of The Soviet People (Minnesota Chapter)
Mayday Bookstore
Veterans for Peace (Twin Cities chapter 27)
Massachusetts Global Action
Northhampton committee to Stop Wars
Worcester Unemployment Action Group
Los Angeles Peace Council
union of Maine visual artists
8th Day Center for Justice, Chicago
Veterans For Peace Chapter, Chapter 72
Ann Arbor Coalition against the War
Veterans for Peace, Chapter 147, Saratoga, NY
Veterans for Peace, Chapter 87
Good Friday Coalition
Code Pink, Taos
Peace Action, Staten Island, NY
Neighbors 4 Peace
Columbus Campaign for Arms Control
Nicaragua Center for Community Action
Salem Peace Committee
Dutchess for Peace
Dutchess Greens
Genesee Valley Citizens for Peace
Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality – Virginia
Northeast Philly for Peace and Justice
Peace Action of San Mateo County
Defenders' Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project
Peace Action, Staten Island
Western New York Peace Center
Left Forum of Grand Rapids
United for Justice with Peace Coalition, Mass.

United for Justice with Peace is a coalition of peace and justice organizations and community peace groups in the Greater Boston region. The UJP Coalition, formed after September 11th, seeks global peace through social and economic justice.
Help us continue to do this critical work! Make a donation to UJP today.
info@justicewithpeace.org
 617-383-4857 www.justicewithpeace.org
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From The Class Struggle ....

 
If you've already contacted your Representative - thank you!  I am resending this alert because of a glitch that caused an error message to appear and in some cases prevented this letter from reaching Congress.  It's been fixed.
So, if you are one of those who experienced this problem or have not yet sent this important communication to your Representative, I hope you will do so now, and then forward this email to your friends. 
Humbly for peace,
Kevin
**************

Dear Al,
Every year Congress has two chances to reduce Pentagon waste through the appropriations and authorization bills.  Next week the House will vote on its version of the National Defense Authorization Act.

Email your Representative now to reduce Pentagon spending.

As it stands, the bill would authorize $521.3 billion plus approximately  $80 billion for the Afghanistan War and other unrelated Pentagon expenditures that are funded in a separate Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) account.  Next week, your Representative may offer or support amendments that will cut wasteful Pentagon pork.

There will only be a short time next week when we will know exactly what amendments the Republican leadership will allow to be voted on so please write your Representative today.

We expect amendments that will:

*End the Afghanistan War as soon as possible — it’s time to bring all troops and contractors home and to not leave any behind after this year.
*Cut the OCO slush fund — Last year it funded some $30 billion of unrelated items.
*Cut the F-35 — the most expensive plane and Pentagon project in history.
*Audit the Pentagon — The Pentagon is the only part of the Government that cannot pass an audit.
*Cut the Littoral Combat Ship — experts say it will cost over three times the original estimate.
*Reduce General's Pensions — currently they are allowed to make MORE in retirement than when working.
*Cut the M1 Abrams Tank — the Pentagon doesn’t even want it.
*Reduce the Nuclear Triad — Without the Cold War we cannot afford to upgrade all the nuclear weapon delivery systems while we significantly reduce our stockpile.
*Cut overseas military bases and support a Base Realignment and Closure Commission — There are over 1,000 U.S. military bases abroad including those in countries who can afford their own security.  Within the U.S. there are bases that the Pentagon doesn’t want.

Again please take time NOW towrite your Representative to cut the Pentagon budget so we can afford other priorities like job creation, education and infrastructure.

Humbly for Peace,
Paul Kawika Martin
Political Director
Peace Action
PS: Please forward this email to your friends!

Take Action


Email Your Rep Now to Cut Pentagon Spending

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Glenn Greenwald at Socialism!

We are proud to announce that independent journalist Glenn Greenwald will be speaking in person at this year’s Socialism 2014 conference. Greenwald was the journalist who broke Edward Snowden's NSA spy program story last year, which revealed that the U.S. government had built a vast system of surveillance infrastructure designed to, in Greenwald’s words, “end all individual privacy” both within the United States and around the world. Glenn Greenwald is the author of the new book, No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State.
Greenwald's talk will be held at 7pm on June 26th, the first day of the conference. The session will be one of nearly 150 talks, panels, discussions, and radical film screenings that you can attend at the conference. The conference will be held June 26-29, at the Crowne Plaza Hotel O'Hare, Chicago, IL. Please register today for Socialism 2014 by visiting SocialismConference.org!
 
Visit WeAreMany.org to view the video of Glenn Greenwald's talk at Socialism 2013 on Edward Snowden's revelations of the crimes of the NSA and the national security state.
REGISTER today! The discounted "early bird" rate is available through May 23rd. The conference will have childcare services available for attendees who request it by May 31st.
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Crisis in the Ukraine: Cold War? Civil War? Roots of the Conflict

When: Wednesday, May 28, 2014, 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Where: First Parish Unitarian Church • 3 Church St • Harvard T • Cambridge
Ukraine in 2013; Crimea is now part of the Russian Federation
speakers:
  • Mark Solomon, professor of history (emeritus), Simmons College
  • Gary Leupp, professor of history, Tufts University
President Obama in his April visit to Japan commented, "Mr. Putin has had an increasing tendency to see the world through a Cold War prism."  But there are many questions:
  • is the US/NATO push into Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union  the real source of tension with Russia?  
  • Did the US government spend five billion dollars for democracy or regime change?
  • Who are the fascists in the new Kiev government?  
  • Will sanctions isolate Russia?
  • What is behind the conflict in Odessa and Eastern Ukraine and will it lead to civil war?
How should the peace movement respond to rising tensions between the two biggest nuclear powers and the US shift towards covert war?   The UJP forum will examine these issues and possible action items.
$5 donation requested
sponsored by United for Justice with Peace
617 383 4857 or info@justicewithpeace.org 

United for Justice with Peace is a coalition of peace and justice organizations and community peace groups in the Greater Boston region. The UJP Coalition, formed after September 11th, seeks global peace through social and economic justice.
Help us continue to do this critical work! Make a donation to UJP today.
info@justicewithpeace.org
 617-383-4857 www.justicewithpeace.org
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JOIN SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE AND KSHAMA SAWANT AT 
LEFT FORUM 2014
May 30th to June 1st
 
From May 30th to June 1st, activists, socialists and progressives from around the country will gather in New York City for the 2014 Left Forum.
This year's Left Forum will likely be one of the biggest yet. Events over the past few years have radicalized thousands of workers, youth and students who have lived through the betrayals of the Obama administration, the dysfunction of the Congress, and the domination of big business while the economy sinks deeper into recession. This year is different because this radicalization is combined with both the lessons of past defeats and the energy of recent victories.
In 2013, we saw socialist ideas storm back onto the scene of US politics when Socialist Alternative ran candidates in cities across the country. We saw Ty Moore come within a few hundred votes of winning local office in Minneapolis, and Kshama Sawant defeat a 16 year incumbent for her seat on the Seattle City Council. In Seattle, we successfully transformed our campaign for local office into a mass movement to win a $15/hr minimum wage.
Just a few weeks ago, we saw the first major step towards victory in this campaign. On May 1st the Mayor of Seattle, buckling under the weight of this movement, moved a bill for $15/hr to the city council for a vote, the first of its kind in the nation. Though Socialist Alternative has some sharp criticisms of the Mayor's bill, what is undeniable is that this turn of events has shattered the idea that bold working class demands are unwinnable. The fight for 15 in Seattle has shown that working class and socialist politics are not only effective, but vital.
The discussions that will be taking place at this year's Left Forum reflect this turning point. The theme of this year's Left Forum is "Reform and/or Revolution". In their conference theme statement,Leftforum.org says, "As the system fails so many so badly, activists for democracy, sustainability, equality, and the abolition of oppression and exploitation increasingly grasp their shared demand for basic social justice. Fifty years of anti-communism, anti-radicalism, hesitant social criticism, and activists' mutual suspicions are fading into irrelevance." The theme of this year's Left Forum echoes the burning desire of workers and youth to see a determined and independent mass force for social and economic justice enter into the fray.

Recommended Sessions

Socialist Alternative's presence will be bigger than ever at the 2014 Left Forum. We are leading and co-sponsoring numerous panels that reflect the scope and diversity of our work.
Kshama Sawant, Socialist Alternative City Councilmember in Seattle, will be speaking at two plenary sessions over the weekend. Kshama will speak on Saturday alongside Chris Hedges, and she will close the Left Forum on Sunday with Amy Goodman from Democracy Now!
Jess Spear and Phillip Locker, Socialist Alternative members from Seattle and leading organizers with the 15 Now campaign, will be leading the discussion on the Fight for 15 in Seattle and Beyond.
Beyond the wage issue, Socialist Alternative will be holding panels on issues of gender and race.Eljeer Hawkins, Socialist Alternative member in New York who's been active in campaigns to end stop-and-frisk policy, will be leading a panel along with Glenn Ford, Chief Editor of Black Agenda Report, on the Program for a New Black Freedom Movement. Socialist Alternative members in New York will be leading the panel on Abortion Rights, Race and Class.
Workers today face a struggle for basic rights all across the country. Marty Harrison and Seamus Whelan, SA members and activists in nurses' unions, will be discussing the fight for quality healthcare and union rights in their panel on Nursing, Unions, Healthcare and Socialism. Albert Terry and Grace McGee, SA members from Alabama, will be leading the panel on Fighting for Socialism in the Deep South.
The panels we are leading at Left Forum demonstrate the international character of our work as well. Alan Akrivos, SA member from New York and leading member of Occupy Astoria, will be discussing the struggle in Greece and the work of our sister organization Xekinima in our panel onFighting Fascism and Austerity in Greece. Eljeer Hawkins will be discussing the recent election in South Africa and the events leading up to it in a panel about South Africa.
In the past year, our organization has seen the tremendous excitement that our campaign in Seattle has generated among working people who are hungry for an alternative. But we have also seen that big business is ready to fight back against any gains for working people. Join us at Left Forum, take part in the discussions, and find out how you can get involved in Socialist Alternative. Help us fight for an alternative to capitalism and a socialist future.
 

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From The Struggle Against The American War Budget 

Thursday: Budget for All Lobby Day! Join us!


Thursday, May 22, 11am-2pm
*** Start time changed to 11 am! *** 
Massachusetts State House
Meet in 4th floor cafeteria

Supported by 75% of voters in 91 cities and towns across the state, the Budget for All reso­lutions, S.1750 and H.3211, are pending before the Massa­chusetts House and Senate’s committees on Ways and Means.
Can you help?  With over 50 legislators to visit, we need YOU on May 22 to make sure all of them know about the Budget for All!
No lobbying experience needed!  We will start with updates and background information on the Budget for All, then divide up into groups.   Each group will visit 8-10 offices during the day.   
Please let us know you're coming! Sign up online, call 617-354-2169, or email info@budget4allmass.org.
Stop the Cuts · Invest in Jobs · End Corporate Tax Breaks · Reduce Military Spending
 Budget for All!  
11 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138

United for Justice with Peace is a coalition of peace and justice organizations and community peace groups in the Greater Boston region. The UJP Coalition, formed after September 11th, seeks global peace through social and economic justice.
Help us continue to do this critical work! Make a donation to UJP today.
info@justicewithpeace.org
 617-383-4857 www.justicewithpeace.org

Upcoming Events: 
 
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From The Struggle Against War
 
The Teachers of Norway: An Oratorio
Severyn Bruyn
 
(The libretto is based on Gene Sharp’s interviews with Norway Teachers and official reports.)
Libretto
Oh. Here's my husband He was sent to a concentration camp. (Oh) The police knocked on my door in March nineteen forty two. He was shocked. (Oh) We did not know what to do. One thousand teachers were arrested in Norway. They defied Quisling. They refused to join the Nazis. Oh! What to do!
Quisling said: "All teachers in Norway must sign an Oath to obey the Nazi State You must sign an Oath of loyalty to us!!
"Obey!" Who are we? Will we stand here like trolls? No! No! Hail, Hail to Norway. We cannot let them do this! The king and his family must escape. All Jews must leave this country now. Hitler says we are part of the Aryan race. (My God) He will save us from the British and from the Jews. He's mad He's insane. We will not (No) talk with Germans. Not at all! We will not talk to Germans. Do not speak German. I am not a pacifist. No, No!
Norway is controlled by the Nazis. We refuse to speak. Norway is based on terror. We must go underground. Norway is becoming destroyed. What can we do? Oh. Some of us are terrified. Others filled with rage.
Let's organize and go underground. No! No! No! No! NO! NO! We do not want a dictatorship based on fear and force. We will not obey! We will fight! We will fight them! We will wage war. We'll resist. We're going to fight
The Nazis try to control us. Quisling forced all citizens to give up their radios to the government. Radios were seized. We hide them. We hide them. We wore badges to identify ourselves. Then... Quisling then banned all badges of resistance. We hide them. We hide them. Resistance.
We talked of revolution. Dangerous. What could we do? We hold meetings. I was the “contact man” for our school district. Quisling said: "Obey or go to prison." We want our freedom. We want to be free again. Quisling created a Nazi union for teachers. He ordered his portrait hung in each school. We said "No"! We said No! He made plans for a Nazi Youth Movement. We said: No. No. We said No. This is our country. Here we live or die.
We organized. We put together our own movement underground. We wrote underground letters to each other. My job is to support teachers who resisted. We fought Quisling through our movement for freedom. (We will not join the Nazi movement.) We will not teach Nazi textbooks.
I will not teach. I will not teach. I will not teach. I will not teach. We will not teach. We will not teach. We will not teach Nazi texts. We refuse. We will fight all Nazis. We fight by not obeying them.
Ten thousand teachers fought the German state. Ten thousand said NO. They said NO! NO! NO! NO! We will not teach. We refuse to teach. Not us. It is a matter of Conscience. It's our conscience. We will not teach. Resistance grows.
We Bishops say "No." We parents say no! "No" Clergy resign. No. Professors quit. Quisling does not know what to do. What could this dictator do? He can do nothing. What will Quisling do?
Quisling shut down all schools. He made it official. Oh. We live in a total state. Yes! Quisling struck back and shut down all schools. Parents wrote thousands of letters. Dangerous. (Angrily.) They took the risk of their lives in this step. Woe to Quisling. We will stop him. “Open up our schools!" Or we will teach without your schools. We will teach our children how to fight Nazis. We teach now in private homes secretly in our own homes. Stop the Nazis. Quisling threatens parents with prison. One thousand teachers are arrested today. What can we (Oh) do now? We are helpless before Quisling.
I was among the thousand that were taken. They took me too. I was among the thousand that were taken to prison. Six hundred of us are sent to a concentration camp (where they suffered). Some were tortured, and beaten to death. My friend died. Oh God!
Children watched as we moved in cattle cars. So a long the way... Children came to sing songs to them at train stations. We were overwhelmed. They loved their teachers. Germans stood in charge. I became the translator as they began to starve us. In the morning, What? We got coffee that is all. In the afternoon we got some hot water soup. Dinner was small slices of bread. No mattress to sleep upon. Hard floors were for sleep and for collapsing. Each morning we do "torture gymnastics." Guards would tie our hands behind our backs tightly and make us crawl in deep snow. We were suffocating each day.
They are above the Arctic Circle, It is freezing there and we are worried that they will die there and no one will know what happened to them. Some are being tortured. (They are being tortured and they may be killed at any time. I know they are suf-'fring. What can we do? What can we do to help them? We know they are freezing there in the Arctic.
We are freezing here. Death is near. Some of us caught pneumonia and blacked out for days. (They will die,) Thirty-two of us gave up but six hundred and eighty of us stayed and lived through the wretchedness. (They lived through it. They lived to tell the story of these camps of torture, pain, and torment.) We stayed. (Thank God. They endured. They stayed to tell us the story. Some were maimed for life.) Some experienced emotional breakdowns. Ten died from torture, others lived in agony. (Tell us what happened!)
Torture and breakdowns. It was cold. It was freezing. Cold. It was very cold, cold, cold. (We worried. You would all die from the cold and be tortured to death,) Friends lost their eyes in hard labor, Oh. We worked night and day for Germans. (Were friends killed?) Yes, a friend of mine was killed loading supplies. (Torture?) My friend broke his arms and one leg carrying loads. Straining, pulling, carrying, laboring hard. We did not feel like heroes. We worked night and day in the Arctic cold and darkness. We sang songs and gave lectures in some spare time. We wrote our own songs and we strategized.
Some of us were put in fox cages. Forty prisoners slept in a row so close, so tight; so fixed that no one could turn without disturbing all. Contagious diseases swept the camp Men became deadly sick. This was the "dark time" in the Arctic. No sun. Just night all day and night; blackness (darkness). It was black cold. Pitch cold.
And with you?
The government tried to test our stamina at home. We stood the test. (Good for you.) Quisling tried to open the schools and then tried to make us members of the state union. We refused Quisling knew not to take strong measures. We were organized. Quisling stormed and raged. He came to our school and arrested me. (What?) We said the Nazis should arrest us all. All of us. (All of you?) Put us all in jail. The Nazis were powerless at home. Did we help?
Four hundred of us were released. The Nazis lost. Oh. We won. Now we can come home to stay. Yes, we won. What more can we say for others to know what happened? We stayed together and built a "fund" for all those families left behind without fathers. What did you do? What did we do?
(Singers all in counterpoint.)
Well, We kept track of the Nazis. They wanted to replace our Parliament with a total state. (I tore out the pages of textbooks that were based on Nazi propaganda.) What did you do? What did we do? Well, We all pledged to stay independent of them and hid all our money and put away our treasures from view. Quisling wanted to get control over all Norway in the eyes of the world. Well, Quisling wanted us in high school to dress in uniforms like the Nazis but we said we would wear our own clothes. You cannot stop us from wearing our own clothes in school. We would not allow Nazification in our public schools. (My father was arrested.)
The Nazis said to me to me “Let’s have a Sports Day for all young people to join in a cross-country ski race. But, we said “No!” No! No!” We will sing patriotic songs to them and they could nothing to stop us from singing. The Red Cross tried to give food to prisoners but the Nazis stole it. Oh. My father took notes on all that happened and so I know I’m telling the truth about events in awful times. Professors were arrested; Bishops dismissed. People were fired but we kept on protesting everyday. Yes, to the end of those awful days before we got back our freedom.
Quisling admitted his defeat.
Now we can dance. Now we can dance and sing together once again and celebrate our win over Quisling. Quisling admitted his defeat and so now we can dance and sing together about our victory. We won with the strength and power of our people to fight and stand against the demands of a dictator who depends on us. We would not obey him and this requires a faith. Yes, a lot of faith in our selves and with courage to risk all lives for freedom and democracy for all our citizens. It requires courage to die for your country. Thank God we also had faith in our selves and that is how we won the war.
Here is our new Anthem. We defeated our invaders without killing them. We suffered but carried on to win a nonviolent war. We won back our freedom. We’re proud of our work. We saved a lot of lives by civilian defense. We have a lot more to learn but let us teach our children and all future generations.

 
 




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