AMERICAN LEFT HISTORY

This space is dedicated to the proposition that we need to know the history of the struggles on the left and of earlier progressive movements here and world-wide. If we can learn from the mistakes made in the past (as well as what went right) we can move forward in the future to create a more just and equitable society. We will be reviewing books, CDs, and movies we believe everyone needs to read, hear and look at as well as making commentary from time to time. Greg Green, site manager

Friday, February 23, 2018

A Mea Culpa… Of Sorts-Down With The Trump Government!- Build The Resistance

A while back, last year, during the American presidential election campaign of 2016 at a point where the two major contenders, now President Donald Trump and now failed contender Hillary Clinton had been nominated by their respective organizations, I was under constant and hard-core pressure from personal friends and political associates to let up on my opposition of support to the candidate of either of the major parties. I had planned, and had made my stance clear early on to one and all, that I planned to cast a protest vote for Green Party candidate once socialist Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’ campaign went down in disgraceful flames (disgraceful because of the horrible way he was treated by the Democratic Party establishment which went out of its way, way out of its way, to favor weak-kneed leading candidate Clinton). On November 8^th I did just that here in Massachusetts whose Electoral College votes were overwhelming won by Mrs. Clinton.

The gist of my opposition to the two major party candidates was that I could discern no qualitative difference between war-hawk Clinton and war-hawk Trump, the issues around war and peace being the central reason that I have steadfastly opposed both major parties since my military service during the Vietnam War. A war whose long duration like the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were started by one party’s president (Johnson in the case of Vietnam and avidly pursued by another before the fall of Saigon, Nixon/Ford). While I was not, and have not been, agnostic on my differences on other social and personal liberty issues that war and peace issue has always anchored my politic perspectives since the old days. And those personal friends and political associates have known that as well. Yet as the general election campaign progressed, if that is the right word for the down and dirty slug-fest between both candidates which nobody could rightly accept as reasonable political discourse, they continued their drumbeat. Something in that hard sell twisted me to become more adamant in my opposition-in my seeing that there was as the late great American novelist Gore Vidal no stranger to mainstream politics only “one ruling party in America with two branches-Democratic and Republican.”

I wrote a number of blogs and other commentaries as a result all along this line which not only included my opposition to the two parties but my fervent desire to get on with the real business of people with my brand of politics-organize against the endless wars and home and abroad. Here is a sample of my thinking at the time:

“Now several years ago, maybe late 2007, early 2008 when one Barack Obama made his presence felt on the American national political stage and sought to slay the dragon, to slay what we would come to find out was the dragon lady but who just then was in the first blush of her endless drive to win the Oval Office I noted that the Hillary-Obama race for the Democratic Party nomination looked like a breath of fresh air and although I would not have voted for either for love nor money I decided to try to chronicle the beginning storms of the campaign that year. (In the interest of full disclosure I voted for Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney of the Green Party that year a natural choice as a black and woman with a political past which she need not be ashamed of and who had at least a passing acquaintance with the truth-a big plus that year after all the bullshit was cleared away)

“Early on though somewhere around the aftermath of the New Hampshire primary (which Hillary had won late by a hair and kept her campaign alive) in 2008 I gave up the enterprise as so much blather and as so much hot air and realized that the “promise” of 2007 had turned to ashes as neither candidate could give the approximate location of the truth in a time when all hell was breaking loose in the economy and working people, the working poor were being beaten down mercilessly by what would be called the Great Recession of 2008. And as we witness in 2016 working people, hard-working working people of all ethnic, racial and gender identifications have been taking it on the chin lo these many years. Taken it on the chin so they have in some cases fervently listened as one Dump the Trump (sorry I could not resist that slam, not the worst thing that will ever happen to that ill-bred bastard) lulls them to sleep with his balderdash, with his contempt for those who have so fervently supported him despite any good sense. We will find no truth coming from anywhere in that precinct. Worse this year milady Hillary has lost all her slight girlish charms from 2008 and is frothing at the mouth in anticipation of next week’s coronation as war-monger-in-chief.

“Here is the hard truth, the truth neither billionaire Donald nor Wall Street Hillary have a clue about. For working people, for the hard-working people of this country who have been put up against the wall and blindfolded for a while now there is no salvation this side of capitalism, this side of that defunct system that has had its day and had long ago lost any progressive content that it had in its golden age. “Speak the truth no matter how bitter” and that is the bitter truth as we will, once again learn over the next dreary four years. Yeah, Leon Trotsky, one of his books the place where I first read the truth of that “bitter” phrase, would have said it himself if he was not beyond the pale. You heard it here-think about it okay.”

I was almost as surprised as everybody else come the morning of November 9^th to find one Donald “Dump The Trump” (no apology for that now) had been an upset winner of the 2016 American election. Although maybe not as surprised as most as I kept hearing a small drumbeat from working class guys and gals too whom I would meet in my work, or somebody would tell me about that there something underground in the political world, something down at the base was happening for Trump. Hell I even heard stuff when I played golf with guys on public golf courses (not Donald’s private ones) in places like Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire that Trump was their guy for jobs, for keeping black and Latinos down, keeping the fucking immigrants out and making America an armed fortress.

Then as the transition began its awful cycle on the turnover Trump daily almost shocked me, and everybody else like me, with his choices for who would aid him in his government. This is where the “mea culpa” of the title of this piece comes in. I now am ready to concede that there is some qualitative difference between a Trump government and what Hillary’s would have looked like- if only because she would leave us alone. I still stand by my vote of “no confidence” and am still glad, very glad, that I cast my protest vote for Jill Stein but we are in a mess for the next four years no question. Practically speaking though I was down in Washington on January 20^th to express my opposition, no, my resistance to the Trump government on day one.

Down with the Trump government!-Build The Resistance

The Other Thin Man-Ginger Rogers And William Powell’s “Star Of Midnight” (1935)-A Film Review

The Other Thin Man-Ginger Rogers And William Powell’s “Star Of Midnight” (1935)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Film Emeritus Sam Lowell

[Although Sam is formally retired he has expressed a desire to help out when we have several films to review and not enough hands to do the task. Since he is very familiar with The Thin Man series which also starred William Powell (and Myrna Loy) he was the natural choice to cover this film. Thanks, Sam-Pete Markin-This review was in the pipeline before the recent change of management and is posted under an agreement between new management and the coven of young and old writers about ending the public dispute that has rattled this publication for the past few months-Greg Green]

Star of Midnight, starring Ginger Rogers, William Powell, 1935

One of the problems a few actors have had is to be type-cast into a certain cinematic persona. That was generally the case with William Powell, the male lead in the film under review, Star of Midnight where he plays a smart, sophisticated urban (New York City of course) man about town very similar to the role that he played in The Thin Man the year before this film was released (and would go on to star with Myrna Loy in six sequels, ouch) except here he is a high-priced lawyer, Dal, and not an ex-cop private dick Nick Charles.

The play is the same though although the romantic interest is Donna a young smitten, smitten by Dal, played by Ginger Rogers who is not his boon companion as Myra Loy as Nora Charles was. Here a friend of Dal’s is looking for him to find his missing paramour who blew Chic town (okay, Chicago) a year before without leaving a forwarding address. (Forget it buddy, move on, and that isn’t even high-priced legal advice.) The plot thickens when the three of them attend a play and nobody but a masked girlfriend is on the stage. The guy yells out Alice. Bad move though since she is on the lam from somebody trying to silence her after she witnessed a murder in, ah, Chicago. Somebody has reason to silence her to cover up his own dastardly deeds so he let out that he was looking for Alice too. Don’t worry even though Dal was accused of killing a source killed in his own apartment he was left by the coppers to figure the whole thing out. And you know just like Nick (and Nora) he does. By the way Dal won’t be lonesome anymore. Donna snagged him. The killer: well grab the film and check it out. It could have been one of several people as usual.

A View From The Left-WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME

WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME

Where’s the Beef Stroganoff? Eight Sacrilegious Reflections on Russiagate

Neo-McCarthyite liberals and other dismal Democrats are clucking about how Robert Mueller’s indictment of 13 untouchable Russians for “defrauding” the U.S. by buying some Facebook ads and employing some Internet trolls to “say horrible things” (imagine!) about Hillary Clinton (a horrifically bad politician who was accurately described as a “lying neoliberal warmonger” by a leading U.S. left intellectual trying to get leftists to hold their noses and vote “for” her as the lesser evil) “proves” that Russia engaged in relevant meddling to undermine U.S. “democracy” on Donald Trump’s behalf during the 2016 U.S. presidential election… Some political scientists have argued that regular elections that generate competitive contests for citizens’ votes are all that is required for a nation to be a democracy. But “elections alone,” Page and Gilens note, “do not guarantee democracy” in a nation where the electoral and policy processes run in grooves made and greased to serve an unelected dictatorship of concentrated wealth. Russia didn’t “undermine American democracy” in 2016. There was no real system of popular self-rule in place to subvert. This is, and has long been, a corporate and financial oligarchy. More

Trump's FY2019 Budget Request Has Massive Cuts for Nearly Everything But the Military

President Trump released his second presidential budget request, and it looks much like the first. His priorities are clear: ever-increasing funds for the Pentagon, nuclear weapons and Homeland Security, and massive cuts to almost everything else. The budget deal Congress passed last week puts 54 percent of the discretionary budget into the Pentagon and nuclear weapons. The budget proposal President Trump released today would increase that to 61 percent in 2019… Compared to the budget deal Congress just passed, the president's vision for military spending is right in line, with a less than one percent, or $3 billion, difference. But the president would cut more than $120 billion from nonmilitary programs compared to what Congress negotiated. More

What is “Discretionary Spending”? Discretionary spending is government spending implemented through anappropriations bill. This spending is an optional part of fiscal policy, in contrast to entitlement programs for which funding is mandatory and determined by the number of eligible recipients. Most of non-discretuionary funding comes out of separate taxes for Social Security and Medicare, which do not contribute in any way to budget deficits. Until the Vietnam War, non-discretionary spending was accounted separately from the regular annual budget, but were combined to disguise the ballooning expenditures for the war.

The Democrats Keep Capitulating on Defense Spending

Since earlier this month, when Congress passed a budget deal that massively boosts both defense and non-defense spending, liberal commentators—and even some Republican politicians—have accused the GOP of hypocrisy. Republicans, they noted, are supposed to loathe debt. They’re supposed to loathe government spending. Yet, in large numbers, they voted for much more of both. Fair enough. But what about the Democrats? If Republicans are supposed to worry about the United States bankrupting itself with social-welfare spending, aren’t Democrats supposed to worry about the United States bankrupting itself with military spending? Not anymore. In the run-up to the deal, Nancy Pelosi’s office fired off an email to House Democrats proclaiming that, “In our negotiations, Congressional Democrats have been fighting for increases in funding for defense.” Chuck Schumer’s office announced that, “We fully support President Trump’s Defense Department’s request.” More

How Trump Plans to Evict Poor Families From Public Housing

When President Donald Trump released his first budget proposal last year, it called for the deepest cuts to the Department of Housing and Urban Development since the early 1980s. This time around, the White House budget calls for a $6.8 billion cut to HUD in fiscal year 2019, or a 14 percent reduction, which is even deeper than what Trump demanded last year and. According to experts, it would be the most radical attack on federal housing aid since the US Housing Act became law in 1937. If enacted, the Trump budget would be a vicious eviction notice to millions of low-income families… With drastic budget cuts of 9 percent in a single year, when a person stopped using a voucher, the state and local housing agencies would be forced to simply not reissue a new one in order to stay on budget… Moreover, some people would have their vouchers canceled outright—CBPP estimates this would happen to 200,000 people nationwide. These families would immediately face extreme financial hardship and, quite likely, eviction. More

The Military’s ‘Readiness’ Scam Worked Again

The Donald Trump administration’s defense budget request for fiscal year 2019 is out, less than a week after Congress cut an overall deal on spending levels for 2018 and 2019. Unlike the domestic spending part of the administration’s budget request, the defense numbers aren’t dead on arrival — in fact, the military can count on getting every cent. The congressional deal set new levels for defense, agreeing to $700 billion for national defense in 2018 and $716 billion in 2019. That’s nearly $165 billion more than the military had anticipated prior to this year. The United States is back to defense spending, in constant dollars, that is higher than the peak spending levels under Ronald Reagan. Only in 2010, at the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, was defense spending higher… The reason the Pentagon’s budget is now on a long-term upswing is because the military has spent years loudly lobbying for such an increase while complaining about an alleged “readiness crisis.” More

BUTTERING UP THE PENTAGON

Think of it as the chicken-or-the-egg question for the ages: Do very real threats to the United States inadvertently benefit the military-industrial complex or does the national security state, by its very nature, conjure up inflated threats to feed that defense machine?

Back in 2008, some of us placed our faith, naively enough, in the hands of mainstream Democrats -- specifically, those of a young senator named Barack Obama. He would reverse the war policies of George W. Bush, deescalate the unbridled Global War on Terror, and right the ship of state. How’d that turn out? In retrospect, though couched in a far more sophisticated and peaceable rhetoric than Bush’s, his moves would prove largely cosmetic when it came to this country’s forever wars: a significant reduction in the use of conventional ground troops, but more drones, more commandos, and yet more acts of ill-advisedregime change… As Americans experience acute income inequality, the rising cost of a college education, and ongoingdeindustrialization in the heartland, the country’s runaway spending continues to rise precipitously. The planned 2019 Pentagon budget is now expected to hit a staggering $716 billion -- more than much of the rest of the world’s defense spending combined. The battle between “guns and butter” is still raging in the United States and, if the new NDS is any indicator, the guns are winning. More

Lockheed Martin got $35.2 billion from taxpayers last year, more than many federal agencies

Of Lockheed Martin’s $51 billion in sales last year, nearly 70 percent, or $35.2 billion, came from sales to the U.S. government. It’s a colossal figure, hard to comprehend. So think of it this way: Lockheed’s government sales are nearly what the Trump administration proposed for the State Department next year in its recently released spending plan. Or $15 billion more than all of NASA. Or about the gross domestic product of Bolivia. With a White House proposal to spend a massive amount on defense next year in what one consultant called an “eye-watering” budget for the defense industry, Lockheed, the world’s largest defense contractor, could get even more. Over the past decade, Bethesda-based Lockheed, which employs 100,000 people across the globe, has averaged about $38 billion a year in federal sales, a reign during which, year after year, Lockheed has received more federal money than any other corporation. More

The NRA Donated $10,000 to Help Train the Parkland Shooting Suspect to Use a Rifle

Nikolas Cruz, the 19-year-old who charged with murdering 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, honed his marksmanship skills in a school program supported by the NRA. Cruz was, according to the Associated Press, a member of the school’s four-person varsity marksmanship team, which received a $10,000 grant from the NRA in 2016. The marksmanship team was part of the schools’ JROTC program. On the team, Cruz trained with “air rifles special-made for target shooting, typically on indoor ranges at targets the size of a coin.” Cruz discussed his AR-15 with other team members and was given the nickname “Wolf.” Another member of the team described him as “a very good shot.” The NRA declined to comment on the donation. In 2015, the NRA Foundation gave $2.2 million in similar grants promoting gun use to schools around the country. This includes grants “to elementary and middle schools.” More

The "Alt-Right" Has Killed Far More People Than You Likely Are Aware of

A new study from the Southern Poverty Law Center finds there have been more than "100 people killed or injured by alleged perpetrators influenced by the so-called 'alt-right' -- a movement that continues to access the mainstream and reach young recruits." The SPLC report tracks the rise in alt-right related violence beginning in 2014, when 22-year-old Elliot Rodger murdered six people and injured 14 others in Isla Vista, California. Like many alt-right adherents, Rodger's radicalization began in men's rights forums, which helped stoke his racism, misogyny and self-loathing. The study identifies 13 killers who have collectively killed 43 people and injured 67 others. "While some certainly displayed signs of mental illness," the media tendency to depict these violent right-wing extremists as troubled loners is conveniently misguided. More

* * * *

NEW WARS / OLD WARS – What Could Possibly Go Wrong

SYRIA PROPAGANDA WAR

The brutal war in Syria continues, with civilians suffering from violence at every side. But, as in the government campaign to retake rebel-occupied Eastern Aleppo, a massive propaganda campaign focuses exclusively on and exaggerates atrocities only allegedly committed by the Syrian government. With a possibly impending government attempt to retake the opposition held eastern suburbs of Damascus, the shrill mainstream news is again ramping up about civilians “massacres.” Completely invisible are the armed jihadist groups occupying the area or the fact that the Syrian government has repeatedly offered to allow civilian to evacuate. As in East Aleppo, they are prevented from leaving by the extremists. (In Aleppo, the majority of civilians chose to stay after the government re-occupied the opposition-held neighborhoods.) Meanwhile, the daily victims of rebel rocket and mortar fire against Damascus neighborhoods from the rebel-held zone are absent from reporting. Since November, at least 116 civilians in Damascus have been killed in these attacks. Also missing is any consistent reporting about the much greater toll from US, Israel and NATO memberTurkey’s interventions in Syria – absolutely illegal according to both international and US law.

Selective Outrage Undermines Human Rights in Syria

Few things threaten the legitimacy of human rights advocacy more than partisans invoking it selectively to promote one side in a violent conflict. That’s why people with genuine concern over the plight of war victims should be disturbed by the latest pumped-up campaign of selective outrage over the Syrian government’s bombing of Eastern Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus... But the recent situation in Eastern Ghouta is unfortunately not as unique as recent media accounts suggest. Just last month, the respected, independent monitoring group Airwars reminded us that U.S.-led Coalition air strikes on the Syrian city of Raqqa created many more victims with the same destructive tactics of “siege, bomb and evacuate.” In just one incident in March 2017, Coalition bombers killed as many as 400 civilians at a school near Raqqa, where hundreds of women and children were taking shelter from the war. “By the time Raqqa was liberated on October 20th,” Airwars estimated, “more than 1,450 civilians had likely been killed by the Coalition since the start of June. More

Trump Sets Deadly Precedent by Hiding Rationale for Bombing Syria

In response to an April 2017 inquiry by Kaine and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California), the administration said the 2017 missile strike in Syria was not based on the 2001 or 2002 authorizations for use of military force (AUMF), which related to Afghanistan and Iraq, respectively. Rather, the administration has cited the president's authority as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive under Article II of the Constitution "to defend important U.S. national interests." But Article II does not give the president the power to mount a military attack in this instance. Article II states, "The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States." Article I, however, says only Congress has the power to declare war. Taken together, Articles I and II mean that the president commands the armed forces once Congress has authorized war. In fact, Trump's attack on Syria violated both US and international law. More

Trump's Aimless War in Afghanistan Expands, Again

President Trump’s Surge 5.0—which amounts to no more than a few thousand extra troops and loosened bombing restrictions—is really nothing new. These are old tactics masquerading as “new” strategy. U.S. commanders tout the “new authorities” bestowed upon them by President Trump last August, as though more bombs and more delegation of authority can substitute for an utter dearth of strategy in Afghanistan. Maj. Gen. James Hecker, commander of coalition air elements in country, eagerly told the Post, “With the current uplift in resources, we can decimate Taliban command-and-control nodes.” Leaving aside the overly sanguine, bellicose rhetoric, the general offers little in the way of evidence as to why this bombing—as compared to, say, the last 16 years’ worth—will have a positive strategic outcome… As it stands, the United States military is fighting just about everyone in Afghanistan: the Taliban, ISIS, Chinese separatists, and…reality. More

“INVISIBLE” MASSACRES IN CONGO

Ahead of his first state visit to Africa in March, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson should rethink Washington’s longstanding support for some of Africa’s more tyrannical regimes, particularly those of Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Paul Kagame of Rwanda, whose security forces continue to prey on their vast, mineral-rich neighbor Congo. Beneath Congo’s soil lies an estimated (at 2011 prices)$24 trillion in natural resources, including rich supplies of oil, gold, diamonds, the coltan used in computer chips, the cobalt and nickel used in jet engines and car batteries, the copper for bathroom pipes, the uranium for bombs and power plants, the iron for nearly everything. This wealth is the source of untold suffering. Today, more Congolese are displaced from their homes than Iraqis, Yemenis, or Rohingyas. Yet their miseries are all but invisible, in part because the identities and aims of Congo’s myriad combatants are mystified by layers of rumor and misinformation, which serve the interests of those profiting from the mayhem… The only way out of this mess is to deliver Congo back to the Congolese. A century and a half of malign interference—first imperialist plunder, then CIA puppet dictatorship, and now Western-backed regional power-play—is enough. More

Boston! Get on the bus to NYC!-Protest Wendys' With The Farmworkers

Join farmworker women, men and allies as they call on Wendy's to end sexual violence in its supply chain!

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) is gearing up for what is sure to be another memorable action in the Wendy's boycott.

Farmworkers from Immokalee, together with their consumer allies, are launching the five-day Freedom Fast outside the Manhattan hedge fund offices of Nelson Peltz, Wendy’s largest shareholder and Chair of its Board of Directors. The Fast will demand that Wendy’s join the rest of the fast-food industry in supporting the Fair Food Program’s groundbreaking worker protections, and will protest the ongoing human rights abuses faced by workers in Mexico’s produce industry where Wendy’s currently buys its tomatoes.

The Freedom Fast will then culminate with a massive march on March 15 in the heart of Manhattan.

Interested in coming to NYC to support? Register for the bus coming to the action from Boston!

Some quick details:

The Boston bus will be leaving Wednesday, March 14 at 11:00am.
We'll be returning to Boston late at night the same day.

Click here for other registration forms if you're no longer in Boston.

With 14 multinational corporations on board with the Fair Food Program, we know that allies like people of faith and student have played a critical role supporting farmworkers in their struggle. Now is the time -- we need you there with us.

For years now, Wendy’s has turned a deaf ear to workers’ and consumers’ calls to join the Fair Food Program. Worse yet, in response to pressure to join the FFP, Wendy’s abandoned its longtime Florida tomato suppliers altogether and shifted its purchases instead to Mexico, where sexual harassment and assault in the fields are endemic and farmworker women are intimidated into silence by a culture of fear, violence, and corruption.

The time is up for corporate leaders, like Mr. Peltz, who have the power to end sexual violence against women in their supply chains and yet, do nothing. For market giants like Wendy’s, refusing to take meaningful action to end sexual violence in the supply chain — when a proven solution is right at their fingertips — is no longer an option.

If you're unsure of any logistical details, go ahead and register and we will followup quickly to clarify further logistics.

See you in New York City!

PS, if you're no longer in Boston, whoops! Here's a page with all the buses: Ann Arbor, Columbus, Boston, Providence, New Haven, Washington DC, Chapel Hill NC, Miami, Ft Meyers, Naples, Tampa, Gainesville, Sarasota!

Additionally, if none of these places are where you are, but you want to organize a caravan, contact us at organize@allianceforfairfood.org

Billboards Opposing Drone Wars Are Going Up

---------- Original Message ----------
From: David Swanson, World Beyond War via WorldBeyondWar.org
To: deh43@comcast.net
Date: February 23, 2018 at 10:16 AM
Subject: Billboards Opposing Drone Wars Are Going Up

Billboards Opposing Drone Wars Are Going Up All Over Syracuse, New York

World Beyond War has been raising funds for and renting billboards in opposition to war. We’ve run into censorship from numerous billboard companies but persevered, and more billboards are on their way.

First we put this message up here in Charlottesville, Va., and then in Baltimore, Md. (see explanation of the 3% calculation here):

Now we’re putting these two images up on billboards in Syracuse, NY, where drone pilots participate in U.S. wars from Hancock Air Base:

For 8 hours a day for 16 days in March, these two images will be on either side of a billboard truck driving around downtown Syracuse and the University of Syracuse. Then, from April 2 to May 27 each image will be on two of the four stationary billboards located at 115 South Street, 700 East Washington Street, 1430 Erie Boulevard East, and 1201-1208 South Salina at Raynor Street. Then, from May 28 to July 22, one image will be on two and the other on one of three billboards at 700 East Washington Street, 909 East Genesee Street, and 1758 Erie Boulevard East.

Why Syracuse?

The Syracuse area hosts Hancock Air National Guard base where the Guard’s 174th Attack Wing conducts drone assassination and target identification missions using MQ-9 Reaper drones in Afghanistan and probably elsewhere. It has been announced that the numbers of drone operators being trained at Hancock will be doubled.

The billboard ads are being undertaken in the context of what amounts to a whiteout of information on drone and other air operations in Afghanistan. Pentagon reports on drone and other air attacks in other nations are inadequate at best, and these reports when they come have been inaccurate and have grossly under-reported casualties. The U.S. government has made no reports and taken no responsibility for the emotional devastation of drone attacks on children as well as adults, as documented by the Al Karama Foundation’s “Traumatising Skies.”

Syracuse is home to a creative and courageous group of activists who have done a great deal of public education already and who are continuing those efforts.

Overcoming Censorship

Some companies have refused to rent space for billboards opposing drone wars. No company has questioned the facts of the messages, apart from one company asking us to say that drone wars “may” make us less safe, adding the word “may.”

It is hardly disputable that drones make orphans, or that they kill innocent children. That drone wars make us less safe ought to be obvious after what the “successful” drone war has done to Yemen, following the April 23, 2013, testimony of Farea al-Muslimi before the U.S. Congress that drone strikes were building support for terrorists. But don’t take it from him or me, when a leaked CIA document admits that the drone program is “counterproductive,” and numerous recently retired top U.S. officials agree.

For the most part companies have given no explanation for refusals to display these graphics. In some cases, they have said the graphics made them “uncomfortable,” or they’ve asked that we stick to “positive-oriented messaging.” Those companies that have written policies that I’ve seen for what they accept have in no case had a policy that explained their refusal, other than their declaration of their right to refuse for any reason whatsoever.

While some companies in Syracuse said no, and others yes, every company in Forth Smith, Arkansas has, thus far, said no, without any explanation. These include:

RAM Outdoor Advertising: 1-479-806-7735
Ashby Street Outdoor: 1-479-221-9827
Billboard Source: 1-940-383-3500

Feel free to ask them to explain. Remember that politeness is most effective. RAM Outdoor Advertising did say: “Thanks for sharing your potential creative. I’ve shared it with the owners and they have decided that your creative will violate our lease agreements. We will have to decline your ads.” I requested to see the “lease agreements” and received no reply.

Fort Smith is the home of the 188th Wing of the Arkansas Air National Guard at Ebbing Air National Guard base, which controls Reaper drones for assassination and target identification. It appears drone operations will expandthere also.

Freedom of Speech

World Beyond War billboards are funded entirely by contributions made by supporters of ending war who want to help put up more billboards. We will continue to solicit such contributions and to work to overcome censorship.

One of the more common, if ludicrous, defenses of war making is that it somehow defends one’s rights. Yet, freedom of speech and of press is routinely restricted in the name of protecting the war making.

Following the recent school shooting in Florida, we pointed out that the shooter had been trained by the U.S. military in a JROTC program funded by the NRA, and that this information was publicly available and not disputed. Major media outlets chose to avoid that story in order to focus, instead, on the undocumented (and, as it happens, false) claim that the shooter had worked with right-wing groups.

Google, Facebook, and other big forces on the internet are working hard to steer ever more traffic toward big corporate outlets and away from voices of dissent. Congress has eliminated net neutrality.

Whistleblowers are now up against the risk of prison time.

Protesters at inauguration parades face felony charges.

In my town in Virginia, Charlottesville, we are still forbidden to take down any war monuments, and still have no public peace monuments, but the local government has just made it a crime to hold a public demonstration without a permit obtained 30 days ahead.

In some airports and perhaps other locations, this story that you are reading will be blocked by internet services on the grounds that it constitutes “advocacy.”

Is this the “freedom” for which the wars endanger and impoverish and indebt us?

What you can do

1. Politely phone the companies above and ask them to explain their censorship.

2. Send us ideas for good locations for billboards anywhere in the world.

3. Send us donations with which to put up more billboards.

##

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