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!

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 Syria! No New War In Iraq- Stop The Bombings-Stop The Arms Shipments To The Kurds And Shia-Stay Out Of The Civil War! No Intervention In Ukraine! Defend The Palestinians! No U.S. Aid To Israel! No One Penny, Not One Person For Obama’s War Machine!

 

Click below for 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.

https://unacpeace.org.

 

Sam Eaton thought it was funny that every time that he and his old time comrade from the anti-war struggles here in America, Ralph Morris, seemed to run out of steam the government would, under both Democratic and Republican Presidents, force them to dust off the old “Stop The War” you fill in the blank which war banners, write up some new leaflet denouncing the latest government rationale for blowing people in other countries to smithereens or raise dough from their circle of ex-radical and left liberal friends guilty about having left the struggle to send people to D.C. or New York to once against voice their opposition. Sam had thought it funny just then as the President had just authorized another escalation (you fill in the President and the country) because the pair had been doing this kind of fairly lonesome work for a long time although they too had had some fairly long periods of inactivity for personal reasons like raising kids and the like.

They had thought, and had talked about the matter several times when they would get together for a few drinks when Ralph was in town and to talk about the old days, that they would be able to “retire” from the anti-war fights once they had reached occupation retirement age. But that was not to be, not the way they were built. See they had met down in Washington, D.C. on May Day 1971 when a lot of radicals, revolutionaries and just plain thoughtful liberals who were totally fed up with the seemingly never-ending Vietnam War (fed up about other issues too, but that was the burning one) and decided to take matters into their own hands by trying to shut down the government if the government did not shut down the war. Now the idea of civil disobedience has a long and proud history and if any situation required civil disobedience to try and stop the madness it was that damn war but the whole scheme was as Ralph called it at the time “utopian” since the anti-war forces were totally inadequate for the array of forces the government had sent out to stop them in their tracks that day. So for their efforts Sam, Ralph and many thousands of others wound up in the bastinado, would up in their case spending about four days in detention inside the Robert F. Kennedy football stadium that on autumn Sundays was the home field of the Washington Redskins before they just walked out of a side exit and nobody stopped them.

They had met in the stadium after Ralph had been picked off by the police around Massachusetts Avenue and Sam on his way up Pennsylvania Avenue headed to the White House. Ralph had noticed that Sam was wearing the button of a supporter of Vietnam Veterans Against The War (VVAW) and had asked Sam if he was a veteran. Sam answered no but that a close friend had been killed there and that had triggered something inside him to oppose the war after he had been rather indifferent about it previously. He told Ralph he felt most comfortable with VVAWers once he told them his motivation for supporting their efforts and they had welcomed him. So one the things that drew them together was that they had similar motives for being in Washington at that time. Sam from Carver (the cranberry bog capital of the world) a working class town about thirty miles south of Boston and Ralph from General Electric-dominated working class Troy in upstate New York had had very personal reasons at the time. Sam like he had said had lost a close hang around guy from high school, Jeff Mullins, out in some jungle outpost in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. Although he was exempted from the drat as the sole support of his mother and four younger sisters after his father had passed away from a heart attack in 1965 that lost affected him deeply, at the time more deeply than any intellectual argument anybody could have presented. Those arguments would come later. Ralph had served in Vietnam (1967-1969) and although he survived what he had seen there led him to total opposition to the war once he got back. So the unlikely pair struck up a friendship that has lasted ever since.

What both Ralph and Sam did not figure on was that they would still be at it with some breaks over forty years later. At a point sometime in the mid-1970s they both had figured out that the big wave of the 1960s had ebbed and so they slipped away from the movement, or at least their 24/7 devotion to it to go back to “normalcy,” Sam to restart his print shop that he had left behind after he got “religion” on the war question and raise a family and Ralph to take over his father’s electrical shop when he retires and raise a family. They would stay in contact, periodically as their kids got older would have shared vacations together in the Adirondacks and sniff around whatever struggles needed a little help like the opposition to the American government in Central America, the fight against apartheid in South Africa and the fast over first Iraq War in 1991. Nothing big but they had a profile.     

Then all hell broke loose after 9/11 when with the same kind of governmental hubris that Sam and Ralph were very familiar with from Vietnam War days began to rear its head in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, particularly Iraq. In late 2002 when the drums of war were being beaten savagely by the Bush administration they met at Jack Higgin’s Grille in Boston, Sam’s in-town watering hole and vowed now that they again had some time that they would wage “peace” as Sam called it until the American troops left the Middle East. Knowing that such efforts requires some kind of organizational affiliation Ralph as a member and Sam as a supporter joined Veterans for Peace a group Sam had heard about in Boston at an anti-war march. And they have been involved as best they can ever since, although Ralph has had some medical issues of late.     

Along the way, especially after the furor over the Iraq War faded once that war actually started (that faded something both men could not understand having witnessed the rise of the opposition to the Vietnam War go in the other direction as that war escalated and dragged on), the would run into and join the dwindling other groups and individuals who wanted to oppose the permanent war policies of the American government. Around 2010 or so in the “dog days” of the anti-war opposition when Barack Obama was riding high they would attend meetings of the United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) which was trying to unite all the various, mostly small, groupings under one umbrella. Sam, a little better at writing stuff than Ralph, after their most recent discussion about how long they had been at the struggle against war, wrote something to try to make sense of what they were doing. Here is what he had to say and see if that helps at all:      

“A while back, maybe last year [Fall, 2014] as things seemed to be winding down in the Middle East, or at least the American presence was scheduled to decrease in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, and before Ukraine, Syria, Gaza and a number of other flash points erupted I mentioned that every once in a while it is necessary, if for no other reason than to proclaim from the public square that we are alive, and fighting, to show “the colors,” our anti-war colors. I also mentioned at the time that while endless marches are not going to end any war the imperialists decide to provoke the street opposition to the war in what appeared then to be the fading American presence in Afghanistan or whatever else the Obama/Kerry cabal has lined up for the military to do in the Middle East, Ukraine or the China seas as well as protests against other imperialist adventures had been under the radar of late.

Over the summer there had been a small uptick in street protest over the Zionist massacre in Gaza (a situation now in “cease-fire” mode but who knows how long that will last) and the threat of yet a third American war in Iraq with the increasing bombing campaign and escalating troop levels now expanded to Syria. Although not nearly enough. As I mentioned at that earlier time it is time, way beyond time, for anti-warriors, even his liberal backers, to get back where we belong on the streets in the struggle against Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama’s seemingly endless wars. And his surreptitious “drone strategy” to "sanitize" war when he is not very publicly busy revving up the bombers and fighter jets in Iraq, Syria and wherever else he feels needs the soft touch of American “shock and awe, part two.”

The UNAC for a while now, particularly since the collapse of the mass peace movement that hit the streets for a few minutes before the second Iraq war in 2003, appears to be the umbrella clearing house these days for many anti-war, anti-drone, anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist actions. Not all the demands of this coalition are ones that I would raise, or support but the key ones of late are enough to take to the streets. More than enough to whet the appetite of even the most jaded anti-warrior.

So as the Nobel Peace Prize Winner, U.S. President Barack Obama, abetted by the usual suspects in the House and Senate as well as internationally, orders more air bombing strikes in the north and in Syria,  sends more “advisers” to “protect” American outposts in Iraq, and sends arms shipments to the Kurds, supplies arms to the moderate Syrian opposition if it can be found to give weapons to, guys who served in the American military during the Vietnam War and who, like my friend Ralph Morris who has kept the faith, belatedly, got “religion” on the war issue as a kneejerk way to resolve the conflicts in this wicked old world might very well be excused for disbelief when the White House keeps pounding out the propaganda that these actions are limited when all signs point to the slippery slope of escalation. And all the time saying the familiar (Vietnam era familiar updated for the present)-“we seek no wider war”-meaning no American combat troops.

 Well if you start bombing places back to the Stone Age, cannot rely on the Iraqi troops who have already shown what they are made of and cannot rely on a now non-existent “Syrian Free Army” which you are willing to get whatever they want and will still come up short what do you think the next step will be? Now not every event in history gets exactly repeated but given the recent United States Government’s history in Iraq those old time vets might be on to something. In any case dust off the old banners, placards, and buttons and get your voices in shape- just in case. No New War In Iraq –Stop The Bombings- Hands Off Syria! 

Here is something to think about:  

Workers and the oppressed have no interest in a victory by one combatant or the other in the reactionary Sunni-Shi’ite civil war. However, the international working class definitely has a side in opposing imperialist intervention in Iraq and demanding the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops and mercenaries. It is U.S. imperialism that constitutes the greatest danger to the world’s working people and downtrodden. 

 [Whatever unknown sister or brother put that idea together sure has it right] ”




Here’s a plug for UNAC
Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops, Mercenaries, Contractors, Etc. From Afghanistan! Hands Off Syria! No New War In Iraq- Stop The Bombings-Stop The Arms Shipments To The Kurds And Shia-Stay Out Of The Civil War! No Intervention In Ukraine! Defend The Palestinians! No U.S. Aid To Israel! Not One Penny, Not One Person For Obama’s War Machine!

BostonUNAC.org | 781-285-8622 | BostonUNAC(S)gmail.com

Okay, Rosalie Sorrels Have You Seen Starlight On The Rails?

Okay, Rosalie Sorrels Have You Seen Starlight On The Rails?

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Every hobo, tramp, and bum and there are social distinctions with the hobo, “the kings and queens of the transient peoples,” merely a migrant or walking through the land rucksack on the back day laborer-type worker, what Oswald Spengler and Jack Kerouac called the fellahin, the outcasts, who has not forgotten the dignity of labor, just not for him (or occasionally her) the nine to five grind and such brethren can be found out back in many a restaurant through the land especially diners and truck shop eateries “diving for pearls” as dishwashers. Every hobo has some problem, usually some Phoebe Snow problem, a woman problem, that forced him or her on the road (I don’t know what it would be for the distaff side so call him Jack Snow, any other sexual combination more acceptable today although definitely not unknown in the male-heavy “jungle camps” along the transcontinental railroad lines). But fear of work is not what drove the person out on to the roads.

See that royalty, the hobo, and his or her ability to work is why the Industrial Worker of the World (IWW, Wobblies, moniker origin unknown so Wobblies) went into the jungle camps (and gin mills too) in order to recruit labor fighters against the bosses when the deal went down, particularly in the West (although more famously in the great Lawrence, Massachusetts “Bread and Roses” textile strike of 1912. Of course that transient work habit was also the down side when it came to defending the unions over the long hauler. As for the other two, the tramp who only worked when forced to like on some thirty day county jailhouse for vagrancy gig or some Salvation Army work program to keep the body and soul together for a few days and the bum, Jesus, the bum wouldn’t work if he was Rockefeller himself, the dregs, winos, the crippled up, and the dumb to put the matter plainly in the old- fashioned parlance.   

Now that you are all caught up on the differences, the “class differences,” between each cohort recognized among themselves, oh how recognized, and subject to fierce dispute including some faux fists, if not quite so definitely by rump sociologists who lump them all together but that is a story for another day. What they do have in common since they are out in the great outdoors more than the rest of us gentile folk is that they to a person have seen starlight on the rails. Yeah, had their fill of train smoke and dreams. Now all these sullen subtle distinctions among the brethren I probably would have not been able to draw in my youth when I would have lumped the lot together as collective losers and riff-raff, before I hit the hitchhike road heading west at one time in search of the blue-pink great American West out there somewhere. I had on one more than one occasion along with the late Peter Paul Markin who led the way among the North Adamsville corner boys on that trail been forced to stop along a railroad trestle “jungle camp,” under a cardboard city bridge, or out in the arroyos if you got far enough west to live for a few days and rest up for the road further west.

The hobos of the “jungle” were princes among men (there was no room for women then in such a male-dominated society, not along the jungle although at the missions and Sallys, Salvation Army Harbor-lights, that might be a different story) as long as you did not ask too many damn questions. Shared olio stews, cigarettes, cheap rotgut wine, Thunderbird or Ripple whichever was cheapest after cadging the day’s collective pennies together. Later, after the big dream American West busted me up when my “wanting habits” (getting many worldly goods off easy street paid for by working the drug trade down south of the border along with Markin before he became the late Markin face down in some dusty Mexican bracero fellahin town when a drug deal he was trying to finagle caught him short, two slugs to the head short) built up from the edges of that sullen youth got the better of me and my addictions placed me out in that same “jungle” for keeps for a while that distinction got re-enforced.  

But hobo, bum or tramp each had found him or herself (mainly hims though like I said out on the “jungle” roads) flat up against some railroad siding at midnight having exhausted every civilized way to spent the night. Having let their, our, collective wanting habits get the best of them, us. Maybe penniless, maybe thrown out of some flophouse in arrears and found that nobody bothers, or did bother you out along the steel rails when the train lost its luster to the automobile and plane and rusted and abandoned railroads gone belly up for lack of use provided safe haven from the vagaries of civilization. So sure I too have seen with the brethren the stars out where the spots are darkest and the brilliance of the sparkle makes one think of heaven for those so inclined, think of the void for the heathen among them. Has dreamed penitent dreams of shelter against life’s storms, had dreamed while living for the moment trying to get washed clean after the failure of the new dispensation to do the job (hell, what did they/Markin/me think just because the drugs or alcohol flowed freely once, just because the fixer man fixed, fixed fine, that that was the Garden of Eden, that was Nirvana, hell, those ancient forebears all after they had been expelled from the earthly paradise saw that same starlight as they/he did).   

Maybe this will explain it better. An old man, or at least he has the marks of old age, although among the iterant travelling peoples, the hoboes, tramps, and bum, who have weathered many of life’s storms bottle or needle in hand, panhandled a million quarters now lost, old age, or their marks wear a soul down early so a guy who has been on the road enough years if he is say thirty looks about fifty by the time the train smoke and the busted dreams have broken his will, white beard, unkempt, longish hair, also unkempt, a river of lines in his face, deep crow’s feet setting off his vacant eyes, a second-hand soiled hat atop his head, a third-hand miner’s jacket “clipped” off some other lonesome traveler (“clipped- stolen for clueless or those who lead sheltered childhood and did not in order to satisfy some youthful wanting habit stakeout a jewelry store say and grab a few trinkets while the salesperson was looking the other way), shredded at the cuffs chino pants of indeterminate hand, and busted up shoes, soles worn, heels at forty-five degree angles from crooked walks on crooked miles and game legs is getting ready to unroll his bedroll, ground cloth a tablecloth stolen from Jimmy Jack’s Diner’s somewhere, a blanket stolen from a Sally [Salvation Army] Harbor Light house in salad days, rolled newspapers now for a mattress for the hundredth, hundredth time against the edge of the railroad trestle just outside Gallup, New Mexico. Do not ask him, if you have the nerve to approach him, and that is an iffy proposition just ask a guy going under the moniker of Denver Shorty how he got that deep scar across his face, where he is going or where he has come from because just that moment, having scratched a few coins in the town together for a jug of Thunderbird he is ready to sleep his sleep against the cold-hearted steel of the Southern Pacific railroad tracks just ten yards from where he stands.      

And this night, this starlit brown, about eight colors of brown, desert night he hopes that he will not dream, not dream of that Phoebe Snow whom he left behind in Toledo when he had no beard, no longish unkempt hair, and no rivers of lines on his misbegotten face. (Why the brethren called every long gone sweetheart Phoebe Snow, why they would get misty over the dying campfire after some younger traveler stopped by and told his tale of leaving some young thing behind is unknown except, according to some old wizened geezer who might have just made the story up, in the old, old day when the railroads finally figured out how to keep people from being blackened by the train smoke every trip they took they started advertising this the fact with this white-dressed  virginal young woman who went under the name Phoebe Snow. That’s probably as good an explanation as any since whatever the name, or the young woman almost every guy in camp would in his sorrows get weepy about that situation.) Dream as he always did about whatever madness made him run from all the things he had created, all the things that drove him west like a million other guys who needed to put space between himself and civilization.

Dream too about the days when he could ride the rails in the first-class cars (having not only left Phoebe Snow behind but a growing specialty printing business started from scratch before the alcohol, and later the dope although now back to cheapjack alcohol got the better of him), and about the lure of the rails once he got unhinged from civilization. About how the train pace had been chastised by fast cars and faster planes when a the speed of a train fitted a man’s movements, about the days when they first built the transcontinental, this line that he was about to lie his head down beside, about the million Chinks, Hunkies, Russkies, Hibernians, hell, Micks, Dagos who sweated to drive the steel in unforgiving ground, many who laid down their heads down to their final rest along these roads, and later guys he knew on the endless road like Butte Bobby, Silver Jones, Ding-dong Kelly, who did not wake up the next morning and were carried out to the carcass vulture desert having left no way to get a hold of kin. Almost all guys had left no forwarding address, no real one anyway, no back address, for fear of the repo man or some other dunning, an angry wife or about ten thousand other reasons. So the desert was good enough as a potter’s field as any other place.

As he settled in to sleep the wine’s effect settling down too he noticed the bright half- moon out that night reflecting off the trestle, and the arroyos edges, and thought about what a guy, an old wizard like himself told him about the rails one time when he was laid up Salt Lake City, in the days when he tried to sober up. The guy, a guy who had music in his soul or something said to him that it was the starlight on the rails that had driven him, rumble, stumble, tumble him to keep on the road, to keep moving away from himself, to forget who he was. And here he was on a starlit night listening down the line for the rumble of the freight that would come passing by before the night was over. But as he shut his eyes, he began to dream again of Phoebe Snow, always of Phoebe Snow.         

But not everybody has the ability to sing to those starlit heavens (or to the void if that is what chances to happen as the universe expands quicker than we can think, bang- bang or get smaller into dust if that is the deal once the philosopher-king physicists figure out the new best theory) about the hard night of starlight on the rails and that is where Rosalie Sorrels, a woman of the American West out in the Idahos, out where, as is said in the introduction to the song by the same name ripping some wisdom from literary man Thomas Wolfe who knew from whence he spoke, the states are square (and at one time the people, travelling west people and so inured to hardship, played it square, or else), sings old crusty Utah Phillips’ song to those hobo, tramp, bum heavens. Did it while old Utah was alive to teach the song (and the story behind the song) to her and later after he passed on in a singular tribute album to his life’s work as singer/songwriter/story-teller/ troubadour.         

Now, for a fact, I do not know if Rosalie in her time, her early struggling time when she was trying to make a living singing and telling Western childhood stories had ever along with her brood of kids been reduced by circumstances to wind up against that endless steel highway but I do know that she had her share of hard times. Know that through her friendship with Utah she wound up bus-ridden to Saratoga Springs up in the un-squared state of New York where she performed and got taken under the wing of Lena from the legendary Café Lena during some trying times. And so she flourished, flourished as well as any folk-singer could once the folk minute burst it bubble and places like Café Lena, Club Passim (formerly Club 47), a few places in the Village in New York City and Frisco town became safe havens to flower and grow some songs, grow songs from the American folk songbooks and from her own expansive political commentator songbook. And some covers too as her rendition of Starlight on the Rails attests to as she worked her way across the continent.

Worked her way to a big sold out night at Saunders Theater at Harvard too when she called the road quits a decade or so ago. Sang some nice stuff speaking about the west, about the Brazos, about the great Utah desert which formed Utah Phillips a little too, formed him like his old friend Ammon Hennessey, the old saint Catholic Worker brother who sobered some guys up, made them take some pledges, made them get off the railroad steel road. Sobered me up too, got me off that railroad track too, but damn if I didn’t see that starlight too. So listen up, okay.    

From Veterans For Peace In Massachusetts-Stop The Damn Endless Wars-Revelations

From Veterans For Peace In Massachusetts-Stop The Damn Endless Wars-Revelations

What VFP Stands For - 

 

 

 

 

 

Revelations-From The Sam Eaton-Ralph Morris Series

From The Pen Of Bart Webber

Ralph Morris had always considered himself a straight-up guy. Straight up when he dealt with customers in his high-precision electrical shop in Troy, New York inherited from his father after he retired before he himself recently retired and turned it over to his youngest son, James, who would bring the operation into the 21^st century with the high tech equipment precision electrical work needs nowadays. Straight up when he confronted the trials and tribulations of parenthood and told the kids that due to his political obligations (of which more in a minute) he would be away and perhaps seem somewhat pre-occupied at times he would answer any questions they had about anything as best he could (and the kids in turn when characterizing their father to me, told me that he was hard-working, distant but had been straight up with them although those sentiments said in a wistful, wondering, wishing more manner like there was something missing in the whole exchange and Ralph agreed when I mentioned that feeling to him that I was probably right but that he did the best he could). Straight up after sowing his wild oats along with Sam Eaton, Pete Markin, Frankie Riley and a bunch of other guys from the working class corners who dived into that 1960s counter-cultural moment and hit the roads, for a short time after the stress of eighteen months in the bush in Vietnam. Meaning sleeping with any young woman who would have him in those care-free days when we were all experimenting with new ways to deal with that fretting sexual issue and getting only slightly less confused that when we got all that god-awful and usually wrong information in the streets where most of us, for good or evil learned to separate our Ps and Qs. After which he promised his high school sweetheart, Lara Peters, who had waited for him to settle down to be her forever man. And straight up with what concerns us here his attitude toward his military service in the Army during the height of the Vietnam War where he did his time, did not cause waves while in the service but raised, and is still raising seven kinds of holy hell, once he became totally disillusioned with the war, with the military brass and with the American government (no “our government” his way of saying it not mine) who did nothing but make thoughtless animals out of him and his buddies.             

Giving this “straight up” character business is important here because Ralph several years ago along with Sam Eaton, a non-Vietnam veteran having been exempted from military duty due to being the sole support of his mother and four younger sisters after his ne’er-do-well father died of a massive heart attack in 1965, joined a peace organization, Veterans For Peace (VFP), in order to work with others doing the same kind of work (Ralph as a  full member, Sam an associate member in the way membership works in that organization although both have full right to participate and discuss the aims and projects going forward) once they decided to push hard against the endless wars of the American government (both Ralph and Sam’s way of putting the matter). Without going into great detail Sam and Ralph had met down in Washington, D.C. on May Day 1971 when they with their respective groups (Sam with a radical collective from Cambridge and Ralph with Vietnam Veterans Against the War) attempted to as the slogan went-“shut down the government if it did not shut down the war.” Unfortunately they failed but the several days they spent together in detention in RFK Stadium then being used as the main detention area cemented a life-time friendship, and a life-time commitment to work for peace. (Sam’s impetus the loss of his best corner boy high school friend, Jeff Mullins, in the Central Highlands of Vietnam in 1968 who begged him to tell everybody what was really going on with war if he did not make it back to tell them himself.)        

That brings us to the Ralph straight up part. He and Sam had worked closely with or been member of for several years in the 1970s VVAW and other organizations to promote peace. But as the decade ended and the energy of the 1960s faded and ebbed they like many others went on with their lives, build up their businesses, had their families to consider and generally prospered. Oh sure, when warm bodies were needed for this or that good old cause they were there but until the fall of 2002 their actions were helter-skelter and of an ad hoc nature. Patch work they called it. Of course the hell-broth of the senseless, futile and about six other negative descriptions of that 2003 Iraq war disaster, disaster not so much for the American government (Sam and Ralph’s now familiar term) as for the Iraqi people and others under the cross-fires of the American military juggernaut (my term). So they, having fewer family and work responsibilities were getting the old time anti-war “religion” fires stoked in their brains once again to give one more big push against the machine before they passed on. They started working with VFP in various marches, vigils, civil disobedience actions and whatever other projects the organization was about (more recently the case of getting a presidential pardon and freedom for the heroic Wiki-leaks whistle –blower soldier Chelsea Manning sentenced to a thirty-five year sentence at Fort Leavenworth for telling the truth about American atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan). Did that for a couple of years before they joined. And here is really where that straight up business comes into play. See they both had been around peace organizations enough to know that membership means certain obligation beyond paying dues and reading whatever materials an organization puts out-they did not want to be, had never been mere “paper members” So after that couple of years of working with VFP in about 2008 they joined up, joined up and have been active members ever since.        

Now that would be neither here nor there but Ralph had recently been thinking about stepping up his commitment even further by running for the Executive Committee of his local Mohawk Valley  chapter, the Kenny Johnson Chapter. (Sam as an associate member of his local chapter, the James Jencks Brigade is precluded as a non-veterans from holding such offices the only distinction between the two types of membership.) He ran and won a seat on the committee. But straight up again since he was committed to helping lead the organization locally and perhaps take another step up at some point he decided this year to go to the National Convention in San Diego (the geographic location of that site a definitive draw) and learn more about the overall workings of the organization and those most dedicated to its success.

So Ralph went and immersed himself in the details of what is going on with the organization. More importantly he got to hear the details of how guys (and it is mostly guys reflecting the origins of the organization in 1985 a time when women were not encouraged to go into the service), mostly guys from his Vietnam War generation as the older World War II and Korea vets pass on and the Iraq and Afghan war vets are still finding their “voice” came to join the organization. What amazed him was how many of the stories centered on various objections that his fellow members had developed while in whatever branch of the military they were in. See Ralph had kept his “nose clean” despite his growing disenchantment with the war while serving his eighteen months in country. He had been by no means a gung-ho soldier although he had imbibed all the social and political attitudes of his working class background that he had been exposed to concerning doing service, fighting evil commies and crushing anything that got in the way of the American government. He certainly was not a model soldier either but he went along, got along by getting along. These other guys didn’t.

One story stood out not because it was all that unusual in the organization but because Ralph had never run up against anything like it during his time of service from 1967-1970. Not in basic training AIT, not in Vietnam although he had heard stuff about disaffected soldiers toward the end of his enlistment. This guy, Frank Jefferson, he had met at one of the workshops on military resisters had told Ralph when he asked that he had served a year in an Army stockade for refusing to wear the uniform, refusing to do Army work of any kind. At least voluntarily. The rough details of Frank’s story went like this. He had been drafted in late 1968 and was inducted into the Army in early 1969 having had no particular reason not to go in since while he was vaguely anti-war like most college students he was not a conscientious objector (and still doesn’t since he believes wars of national liberation and the like are just and supportable, especially those who are facing down the barrel of American imperialism, was not interested in going to jail like some guys, some draft resisters, from his generation who refused to be inducted an did not even think about the option of Canada or some such exile. Moreover the ethos of his town, his family, his whole social circle was not one that would have welcomed resistance, would not have been understood as a sincere if different way of looking at the world. Add to that two guys had been killed in Vietnam from his neighborhood and the social pressure to conform was too great to buck even if he had had stronger convictions then. 

Three days, maybe less after Frank was deposited at Fort Jackson in South Carolina in January, 1969 for basic training he knew he had made a great mistake, had had stronger anti-war feelings, maybe better anti-military feelings than he suspected and was heading for a fall. This was a period when draftees, those fewer and fewer men who were allowing themselves to be drafted, were being channeled toward the infantry, the “grunts,” the cannon-fodder (words he learned later but not known as he came in) and that was his fate. He was trained as an 11 Bravo, killer soldier. Eventually he got orders to report to Fort Lewis in Washington for transport to Vietnam. On a short leave before he was requested to report Frank went back to Cambridge where he grew up and checked in with the Quakers which somebody had told him to do if he was going to challenge his fate in any way. The counsellor there advised him to put in a CO application at Fort Devens nearby. He did so, was turned down because as a Catholic objector he did not qualify under the doctrine of that church. (And he still held to his “just war” position mentioned above). He tried to appeal that decision through military then civilian channels with help from a lawyer provided by the Quakers (really their American Friends Service Committee) although that was dicey at best. Then, despite some counsel against such actions Frank had an epiphany, a day of reckoning, a day when he decided that enough was enough and showed up at parade field for the Monday morning report in civilian clothes carrying a “Bring The Troops Home” sign. Pandemonium ensued, he was man-handled by two beefy lifer-sergeants and was thrown in the stockade. Eventually he was tried and sentenced to six month under a special court-martial for disobeying orders which he served. He got out after during that stretch and continued to refuse to wear the uniform or do work. So back to the stockade and re-trial getting another six months, again for disobeying lawful orders. Fortunately that civilian lawyer had brought the CO denial case to the Federal Court in Boston on a writ of habeas corpus and the judge ruled that the Army had acted wrongly in denying the application. A few weeks later he was released. Frank said otherwise he still might forty plus years later be doing yet another six month sentence. So that was his story and there were probably others like that during that turbulent time when the Army was near mutiny.

Ralph said to himself after hearing the Jefferson story, yeah, these are the brethren I can work with, guys like Jefferson really won’t fold under pressure. Yeah, that’s right.           

Veterans For Peace 30th Anniversary Slideshow

On Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_rfiHcbVDo&feature=em-subs_digest

WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME

WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME

 

CAMPAIGN ZERO: Black Lives Matter activists' new, comprehensive policy platform

…with the launch of Campaign Zero. The website details several proposals to limit police use of force, particularly shootings against black people who are disproportionately likely to die at the hands of police. The proposals aren't particularly surprising for anyone who's closely followed the Black Lives Matter movement, but it's the most comprehensive set of ideas ever released by advocates… Campaign Zero, launched by We the Protesters, has a single — but ambitious — goal: Reduce all police violence in the US to zero. To do this, the campaign laid out several policy proposals that it says were "informed by the demands of protesters nationwide, the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing, recommendations from research organizations, and comprehensive data on the causes and impact of police violence." … According to the Washington Post's database, police have shot and killed 624 people so far in 2015. Nearly 22 percent of those shot and killed didn't have a deadly weapon, nearly 10 percent were completely unarmed, and more than 26 percent exhibited signs of mental illness. Historically, these types of police killings have been racially

 

KATRINA PLUS TEN: Climate Justice in Action

It is hard to believe it has already been ten years since Hurricane Katrina made devastating landfall on the Gulf Coast. When Katrina hit and devastated the region, New Orleans’ poorly maintained levees broke and flooded the city. The privileged few were able to flee the disaster while thousands more were left in flooded streets and on the rooftops of their homes… Hurricane Katrina was a critical time in the development of climate justice. It was an environmental and human disaster, but also became an occasion to offer no compromise solutions to the power and influence that carbon spewing corporations hold over our lives. It was a series of events that gave birth to new energy around climate and social justice.  More

 

For an account of the catastrophe and the Bush administration’s racist response, see here.

 

Do the Rich Rule the United States?

As of this summer, over half of all donations to Republican super PACs came from just 130 wealthy families and their businesses. Democratic candidates had a wider base of small contributors, but also plenty of big-money donors of their own.  We're now living through the billionaire primary. Six months before a single vote is cast in New Hampshire, the field of candidates is being selected and winnowed by billionaire donors.  Indeed, it seems like a presidential hopeful must have at least one billionaire backer - and ideally several - to be considered a credible candidate. Roofing billionaire Diane Hendricks gave $5 million to the Scott Walker campaign. Houston billionaire Toby Neugebauer gave a $10 million boost to Ted Cruz. Oracle CEO and billionaire Larry Ellison gave $3 million to Marco Rubio.

This political patronage system effectively disenfranchises ordinary voters.   More

 

The Spectacle of American Violence and the Cure for Donald Trump

The cure for Donald Trump is to recognize that he represents a poison in society that has to be expunged. We have to begin to talk about a society that is now ruled by a number of fundamentalisms that I think he symbolizes: a market fundamentalism, one that seems to suggest that all aspects of life should be governed by the rules of the market; a religious fundamentalism, one that seems to suggest that dogmatism around religion can be used to justify almost any vile, virus-like social relationship; an educational fundamentalism in which we can say anything that’s stupid and nonsensical and believe that the more stupid we are, the more relevant it becomes—one that is so anti-intellectual that it dissipates the very foundation of what it means to educate people to be active citizens; and a political fundamentalism in which what we find is that politics has now disappeared—because politics is based on what I call the collective thoughtfulness of a population willing to participate in shaping power in ways that are suitable to the visions that it has for a better life. That doesn’t exist anymore.   More

 

US Military Spending compared to the rest of the World (in $billions)

 

 

Do America's Military Bases Abroad Help Or Hinder Global Security?

The U.S. has around 800 military bases outside of the nation's borders. They're home to hundreds of thousands of troops and family members, and, in many cases, they're a cause of controversy… Largely, people of course don't like their land occupied by foreign troops — and I think it's worth thinking, for American audiences, to think about how it would feel to have foreign troops living next door, occupying your land with tanks. ... There have also been a number of harms that these bases have inflicted on local communities — there have been accidents, crimes committed by U.S. personnel, environmental damage — a whole range of damage that people were quite upset about.  More

 

Watch 4-Min VIDEO: Why does the US have 800 military bases around the world?

 

*   *   *   *

NEW WARS / OLD WARS – What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

 

The War on Syria

The popular narrative in the United States, promoted by the US State Department, is one in which a people in the face of state repression turned to violence only when they had to. But that is not quite true. Violence and militarization from the opposition on the ground began quite early — during the first month of the uprising…  Normally to bring forward such facts is to invite the suggestion that one is offering apologetics for the government of Bashar al-Assad. In fact, that has been a consistent leitmotif of Western and Arab debate over the conflict. As a result, that debate has gone forward without the necessary information to understand what exactly has been going on in Syria over the past four years… In other words, the United States launched a full-scale war against Syria, and few Americans actually noticed… The popular narrative of the People versus the Dictator… elides the reality of varying classes and sects with various social roles and politics… In the United States, our main focus must be struggling against the intervention of our own government, drawing links between its actions in Syria and its broader agenda elsewhere.   More

 

The Wars In Syria And Iraq Are Also Water Wars

Turkey has built many, many dams throughout the country to provide electricity but also for farming… The water newly provided to farmers in Turkey used to flow down the Euphrates and Tigris to Syria and Iraq. Three drought years in Syria, 2006-2009, induced many farmers to leave their dry field and to move to cities where they found little work… The situation is Iraq is similar if not worse. Major regions have lost the basis for their agriculture and the farmers ask for solutions and more support… The lack of water is not the only reason for the wars in Syria and Iraq. But it made these countries prone to inner conflicts and vulnerable to outside meddling.  More

 

I wrote about this here: “The Way the Wind Blows in Syria (and Beyond)”

 

Syrian rebels: Turkey tipped al Qaida group to U.S.-trained fighters

The kidnapping of a group of U.S.-trained moderate Syrians moments after they entered Syria last month to confront the Islamic State was orchestrated by Turkish intelligence, multiple rebel sources have told McClatchy. The rebels say that the tipoff to al Qaida’s Nusra Front enabled Nusra to snatch many of the 54 graduates of the $500 million program on July 29 as soon as they entered Syria, dealing a humiliating blow to the Obama administration’s plans for confronting the Islamic State.Rebels familiar with the events said they believe the arrival plans were leaked because Turkish officials were worried that while the group’s intended target was the Islamic State, the U.S.-trained Syrians would form a vanguard for attacking Islamist fighters that Turkey is close to, including Nusra and another major Islamist force, Ahrar al Sham.   More

 

US Shows its Real Face in Choosing Turkey over the Kurds

If the U.S. was serious about fighting IS, it would not only have been providing full support – both in deed and in word – to the YPG and YPJ and its sister organization, the PKK, but it would also confront Turkey on the mountains of evidence that they have in fact been supporting IS, demand that the borders with the Kurdish regions in Syria would be opened, request that the bombing campaign against PKK positions and the terror campaign against Kurdish civilians be ceased immediately, and most importantly, take the PKK of the terror list. Unfortunately, the U.S.’s actions have shown that it is interested in no such thing. Rather than defeating IS, its objective is the preservation and expansion of its influence in the region. For this, Turkey is a much more valuable partner than either the YPG and YPJ or the PKK. Action speaks louder than words, and in choosing its allies the US has shown clearly where its priorities really lie: power over democracy, influence over honesty and war over peace.   More

 

Screwy Mideast Strategy of Empowering Saudi Arabia

You’d think that perhaps someone like Sanders would say that we have to break our decades-long backing of the corrupt Saudi regime — but no, he wants to dramatically expand it… The Saudis have pushed the teachings of the fundamentalist Wahabbism sect that’s been deforming Islam for decades. This extremism helped give rise to Al Qaeda and now ISIS. In other words, the Saudi royals have already been “getting their hands dirty.” It’s a bit like someone saying the Koch Brothers need to get more involved in U.S. politics by “getting their hands dirty.” … If the U.S. further subcontracts control of the Mideast to the Saudi regime, the setbacks and disappointments for peace and justice in the region during the Obama years will be small potatoes by comparison. If Sanders’s plan is implemented – making the Saudi royals and other oil-rich monarchs the enforcers of order in the Mideast – the likelihood is for open-ended warfare.  More

 

Saudis turn a blind eye as Qaeda gains ground in Yemen

Supported by a Saudi-led military coalition, forces loyal to Yemen's exiled government retook Aden last month from Iran-backed Huthi rebels who have seized large parts of the country including the capital Sanaa.  As authorities work to reassert control over Aden, the capital of formerly independent South Yemen, Al-Qaeda has moved into the gap.  The jihadist group's militants, already in control of other parts of southern Yemen, are reported to have taken up positions in several strategic parts of the city… "I don't think Saudi Arabia's main priority in Yemen is Al-Qaeda... The Huthis are more of a high priority," said Ibrahim Fraihat, a senior fellow at the Brookings Doha Center.   More

 

U.N. Official Says Human Suffering in Yemen ‘Almost Incomprehensible’

With a staggering four in five Yemenis now in need of immediate humanitarian aid, 1.5 million people displaced and a death toll that has surpassed 4,000 in just five months, a United Nations official told the Security Council Wednesday that the scale of human suffering is “almost incomprehensible”.  Briefing the 15-member body upon his return from the embattled Arab nation on Aug. 19, Under-Secretary-General for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Stephen O’Brien stressed that the civilian population is bearing the brunt of the conflict and warned that unless warring parties came to the negotiating table there would soon be “nothing left to fight for”.  More

 

The Civilian Toll From the War Against ISIS Is Huge. Why Isn’t the Press Covering It?

As of this month, the US-led coalition has been bombing Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria for one year. So far, it has carried out over 5,900 strikes. In that time, the Pentagon has admitted to only two civilian deaths, continually insisting that its precision weapons have minimized civilian fatalities to a remarkable level—too remarkable to be believed. In June, Lt. Gen. John Hesterman, former combined forces air component commander, called the current air war against ISIS “the most precise and disciplined in the history of aerial warfare.”

However, in a report published this month, a monitoring group called Airwars has documented at least 459 civilian deaths that it says were likely the result of the coalition bombing campaign—a far cry from the two deaths that have so far been admitted.   More

 

The Myth of a Russian 'Threat'

Containment of Russia – via the expansion of the EU and NATO — has always been a work in progress because the geopolitical imperative has always been the same; as Dr. Zbigniew “The Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski never tired of stressing, it was always about preventing the – threatening — emergence of a Eurasian power capable of challenging the US.  Ultimately, the notion of “containment” can be stretched out towards the dismantling of Russia itself. It also carries the inbuilt paradox that NATO’s infinite expansion eastwards has made Eastern Europe less, not more, safe… The Pentagon’s rhetorical games also serve to mask a real high-stakes process; essentially an energy war – centering on the control of oil, natural gas and mineral resources of Russia and Central Asia. Will this wealth be controlled by oligarch frontmen “supervised” by their masters in New York and London, or by Russia and its Central Asian partners? Thus the relentless propaganda war.  More

 

UN report: Israeli weapons fueling South Sudan civil war

South Sudan has been in the midst of a civil war for the past 18 months, and the United Nations has reported in the past on extensive human rights violations there during the fighting, including the drafting of child-soldiers and the burning of villages. According to the current report, the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army has been implementing a scorched-earth policy, and has been involved in indiscriminate killing, rape, pillaging, destruction of infrastructure and uprooting of civilians from their homes.  The panel of experts noted that at least some of the weapons were given to the local national security service before the outbreak of the war, but now the Israeli weapons are in use by what are basically all the security bodies in the country – the SPLA, the local police, the national security service and the bodyguards of senior officers.   More

 

*    *    *    *

ISRAEL, PALESTINE AND THE US

 

RECOLONISING INTERNATIONAL LAW: Israel’s naval blockade against Gaza

Legal experts have decried the unlawfulness of Israel’s blockade under international humanitarian law (the technical term for the laws of war): because it violates the restriction on blockades with the purpose or effect of civilian starvation; because it violates the prohibition on collective punishment of civilian populations during war; because it violates Israel’s obligation as an occupying power to ensure adequate supply of food and medicine to the occupied. (Israel denies that it occupies Gaza, because it formally withdrew from the territory in 2005. However, due to Israel’s continued exertion of multiple forms of power in the Gaza Strip—including control of the territory’s land crossings, territorial waters, airspace, telecommunications, and electricity; deployment of military incursions, rocket attacks, and sonic booms; management of the Palestinian Population Registry; and regular exercise of its capacity to invade Gaza, and arrest and prosecute its residents—multiple authorities have concluded that Gaza is still occupied.)  But beyond the question of legality or illegality, Israel’s appeal to international law to justify the naval blockade disturbingly, but tellingly, resembles European colonial powers’ use of international law in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: to legitimise the violence of the colonisers, and delegitimise the resistance of the colonised.  More

 

From The Modern Traveller, Hilaire Beloc, 1898

Blood thought he knew the native mind;He said you must be firm, but kind.
A mutiny resulted.I shall never forget the way
That Blood stood upon this awful day
Preserved us all from death.
He stood upon a little mound
Cast his lethargic eyes around,
And said beneath his breath:
'Whatever happens, we have got
The Maxim Gun, and they have not.'

 

“Concentration Camp” would be a better analogy, but that is not allowed in US discourse. . .

Gaza, Gulag on the Mediterranean

Everyone expects Israel to be back for another “trim,” or to “mow the grass,” or whatever deadly euphemism is in vogue the next time Israel deems it time to show us who really controls Gaza.  Our children grow up not in neighborhoods, but in ruins, as Israel continues to block sufficient reconstruction materials from entering Gaza. According to the United Nations, 9,161 Palestinian refugee houses were classified as destroyed and 5,066 others severely harmed. Another 4,085 homes were judged to have suffered major damage, with another 124,782 that had sustained minor damage. Palestinians in Gaza need economic development. Talk to most young people and they will describe circumscribed options and a limited ability to save and plan for marriage and a family. The sense of Gaza as a gulag on the Mediterranean only increases political frustration among Gazan youth, fueling their determination to resist oppression and demand access to the outside world.   More

 

No Exit? Gaza & Israel Between Wars

A solution to Gaza’s problems is unlikely to be found in Cairo or Ramallah. Both view Hamas, or its parent organisation, the Muslim Brotherhood, as an existential threat. They do not want to rescue Hamas or help Israel in its years-long policy of severing ties between Gaza and the West Bank. Instead both are content to ignore Gaza and watch Hamas drown in its mounting financial problems. If a new war erupts, they calculate, it will be Israel and Hamas that pay the price… Short of renewed fighting or using large carrots and sticks to push a weakened PA into taking responsibility for Gaza, Israel’s main options are either to improve conditions there unilaterally, so the Hamas-run administration can govern sustainably, thereby giving Hamas greater incentive to continue enforcing the current ceasefire, or to reach a more robust, extended ceasefire with Hamas…  Whatever options Hamas and Israel choose will not resolve the underlying conflict. But allowing Gazans to export goods, tax themselves and freely exit and enter the territory would at least offer Israelis and Palestinians the possibility of less bloodshed, while other possibilities, including unblocking the diplomatic impasse, are explored.     More

 

Petition pushes for end to Israel's Gaza blockade

One year after a ceasefire agreement ended Gaza's 51-day war, hundreds of thousands of people have signed a petition urging world leaders to pressure Israel to lift its blockade of the Palestinian territory. The petition - launched by the online activist group Avaaz and supported by dozens of other organisations, including World Vision International and Medical Aid for Palestinians - notes that 100,000 Palestinians in Gaza remain homeless and calls for "urgent action" to allow more construction materials to enter the besieged coastal enclave. "For a whole year the Israeli government has restricted basic and essential construction materials from entering Gaza. Not one of the 19,000 homes that were bombed and destroyed has been fully rebuilt," notes the petition, released on Wednesday.  More

 

US congresswoman calls for sanctions on Israeli unit behind killing of teens

Released on 18 August by Democratic Congresswoman Betty McCollum of Minnesota, the letter calls for sanctions on the Israeli border police unit responsible for killing Palestinian teenagers Nadim Nuwara and Muhammad Abu al-Thahir on 15 May 2014. The boys were shot at a Nakba Day protest near the Ofer military prison in the occupied West Bank village of Beitunia. In June, McCollum penned a letter, co-signed by 18 other members of congress, slamming Israel’s “cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of Palestinian children” in military detention as “an anomaly in the world” that demands US action.   More

 

US passports scoffed at by Israel; US stands by

In the past year Israel has continued to demonstrate that it has no intention of ending their practice of discriminating against persons of Arab descent… George is a professor and a deacon of his church from San Francisco. Habib is a pharmacist and respected community leader from Brooklyn. Both are American citizens of Palestinian descent. George was traveling to the Holy Land on a pilgrimage. Habib was on his way to attend a family wedding in the West Bank. Neither had been back to Israel/Palestine in more than 20 years. And neither was able to complete their journey.  While no American should be subjected to such treatment, the most disturbing element of these cases is the reason they were denied entry and deported. Because both men were of Palestinian descent, Israel would not honor their U.S. passports or recognize the men as American citizens. Both were told they had to acquire Palestinian IDs and then, as Palestinians, enter the West Bank through Jordan…  When George Khoury's daughter wrote a letter of complaint to the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, she received a response saying "Unfortunately, the US government cannot assist US citizens in gaining entry into Israel...Should your father wish to travel again in the future, we advise him to contact the nearest Israeli Embassy or Consulate for guidance."   More

 

60,000 American Jews live in the West Bank, new study reveals

Roughly 60,000 American Jews live in West Bank settlements, where they account for 15 percent of the settler population, according to figures revealed Thursday by an Oxford University scholar and expert on this population… In her quest to make sense of the inherent contradiction between liberal American values and the “illiberal” settlement project, Hirschhorn said she reached the following conclusion about this group of immigrants: “They’re not only compelled by some biblical imperative to live in the Holy Land of Israel and hasten the coming of the messiah, but also deeply inspired by an American vision of pioneering and building new suburbanized utopian communities in the occupied territories.  More

 

Photo Op- Undocumented Workers Refuse To Learn Local Language

 

​
​ 

Working on the Maine Peace Walk

Working on the Maine Peace Walk

• The more I learn about climate change the more I can't help but look at the dramatic impact the Pentagon's endless war machine makes on our Mother Earth.  The connection is inescapable.

• The Kyoto Protocol is an international treaty, which extends the 1992 UN Convention on Climate Change that commits State Parties to reduce greenhouse gases emissions, based on the premise that (a) global warming exists and (b) man-made CO2 emissions have caused it. The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on December 11, 1997 and entered into force on February 16, 2005. There are currently 192 Parties (Canada withdrew effective December 2012) to the Protocol. The US refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol unless the massive carbon boot print caused by the Pentagon was exempted.  Washington got its way and thus there is no requirement for the Pentagon to 'officially' monitor their impact on the climate.  But the collective evidence is substantial enough to show that in fact the US military (and all the rest of the war machines around the planet) are the top contributors to our rapidly decaying satellite Earth.
  
  
• I've spent all day working on our up-coming Maine Peace Walk that will be learning about and sharing these important war-environmental links, particularly as they relate to the oceans.  We want to share this important story with Mainers as we walk south on US coastal Hwy 1 from Ellsworth in the north to Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

• Now that we are just beyond Labor Day people are starting to contact us about joining the walk.  I've heard from five new walkers just since yesterday so that is very exciting.  Our sweatshirt with the walk logo created by artist Russell Wray is being printed now.  Russell is with the group Citizens Opposing Active Sonar Threats (COAST) and brings to us the deep concern about Navy sonar affects on sea mammals.  He is working on a banner to be hung on our walk bus and a life-sized dolphin that will apparently ride on top of the bus as well.  So we are making a big effort to increase our visual outreach on this walk.

• Other exciting developments this year is the very active participation of the Boston-area Veterans for Peace Smedley Butler chapter.  They've been involved in the planning committee, have donated funds, and have taken responsibility to house and feed the walkers when we hit York Beach in southern Maine near the end of the walk.  The chapter is also organizing their members to come walk during the latter part of the peace walk as well.

• Our biggest need right now is to find a covered pick-up truck, a cargo van, or a station wagon to help us haul the gear of those walking during this event.  We've yet to find something for that important task.  Please let us know if you have any ideas.

 

Bruce K. Gagnon
Coordinator
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 652
Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 443-9502
http://www.space4peace.org 
http://space4peace.blogspot.com  (blog)

Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth. - Henry David Thoreau

Elvis Presley - Good Rockin Tonight

James Brown-Please, Please, Please

Gene Vincent - Be-Bop-A-Lula

Howlin' Wolf - Smoke Stack Lightning

Johnny Burnette - Rock-a-billy Boogie

Chuck Willis---C.C. Rider

Smiley Lewis - I Hear You Knockin'

Buddy Holly - Rock Around With Ollie Vee (Rockin' Verison) 1956

Ray Charles - I Got A Woman