In Boston    

 

DAYS OF ACTION AGAINST THE NEW US WARS IN THE MIDDLE EAST!

Tuesday, November 11 12:00 pm Park Street Station Boston Rally followed by the Armistice Day Parade of Veterans for Peace

Saturday, November 15 1:00 pm Park Street Station Boston Rally and march to Downtown Crossing with a mock drone and die-in

Stop the Bombing in Syria and Iraq

Bring the troops home now

Stop sending weapons into the region which are leading to so much bloodshed

Support humanitarian aid, through neutral institutions, for victims of the conflict

Support self-determination and the demilitarization of the area

 

Tuesday, November 11

ARMISTICE / VETERANS DAY PARADE AND VIGIL

We will gather between 12:00 pm (noon) and 12:30 pm on the corner of Charles and Beacon Streets.
1st Parade steps off at 1:00 pm – our parade will follow the same route then we will continue to Faneuil Hall for our Armistice / Veterans Day for Peace Event.

Parade at noon; rally 3:00 pm

Faneuil Hall • Boston

Attention Veterans & Peace Activists

Please Join Veterans For Peace and The Leftist Marching Band for
Armistice / Veterans Day Peace Parade and Peace Event

 Houses of Worship throughout Massachusetts will Ring Bells for Peace at 11:00 am, November 11th

Armistice Day / Veterans Parade for Peace & Faneuil Hall Peace Event

Veterans for Peace will proudly walk behind the first parade on Armistice / Veterans Day in Boston. We honor and celebrate the original intention for Armistice Day – a Day of Peace. 

Veterans from different eras will recite original works of Poetry, Prose and Song

 

*   *   *   *

DORCHESTER VOTERS SEND A MESSAGE:

“Get Big Money Out of Politics”

Big Money in the elections also has its effects – on both parties, as I wrote a few years ago in the Dorchester Reporter.  Large donors bolster the Republican Party while keeping the Democrats on a short, Neo-Liberal leash. That’s why modern “Liberalism” is mostly defined by supporting individual rights but avoids (with a few exceptions like Elizabeth Warren) populist economic themes. Voters understand the role of money in politics, but have few means of expressing their opinion or effecting change. An exception was the advisory question that was placed on the ballot in part of Dorchester by the work of DPP in collaboration with “MOVE TO AMEND”:

We the People, Not We the Corporations

The ballot question called for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to saying that corporations are not people and money is not a form of speech – it must be regulated in political campaigns.

Two-thirds of voters agreed!

 

QUESTION 5-12th Suffolk

 Total  Number of Precincts 15

  Total Votes 6779

 Number of Uncast Votes (blanks) 3541

 YES 4604 67.92%

 NO   2175 32.08%

 

*   *   *   *

ELECTION 2014: Two Americas, Two States of Massachusetts

You’ve all been watching and reading about “The Republican Landslide” in this election, but few commentators note how unreal this is as any kind of broad democratic (small “d”!) expression.  For one thing, any political shift is magnified by our winner-take-all electoral system, where the winning side takes office – and the losing side, no matter how small the margin, gets nothing.   This effect has become even more lopsided in recent years as Republican state legislatures – building on demographic trends --  have distorted the electoral maps to concentrate the Democratic electorate into fewer districts, allowing for more safe, majority conservative Congressional seats.  In 2012, Democratic Congressional candidates actually got more votes nationwide, even as the Republican solidified their majority in the House of Representatives.

 

Then there is the intentionally unrepresentative system of two Senate seats for every state, regardless of population.  The states that “turned over” this year to produce a Republican majority – North Caroline, Iowa, Montana, Colorado, Arkansas, South Dakota and West Virginia – have 14 Senators representing a combined population of 24 million;  California alone has 38 million residents, but only two Senators.  This is no accident.  The framers of the US Constitution were at pains to limit popular sovereignty and to protect the control of elites in the various states, along with their undue influence on the Federal government.  It was also a means to offer protection and guarantees for the continuation of slavery.

 

Meanwhile, the Democrats, especially in the contested states, ran tepid, relatively conservative campaigns that did little to stir enthusiasm among the voters and allowed the Republican message about the economy to resonate without serious challenge. The Right mobilized its base with a barely-disguised undercurrent of racism and a well-funded, relentless campaign of fear-mongering over “terror,” Ebola and supposed “threats to the border.” At the same time, Republican legislatures have also enacted voting regulations aimed at suppressing the natural Democratic-leaning vote. As a result, the electorate across the country this year was much whiter and older than in 2012 – and more Republican-leaning. The overall turnout was just 37%.

 

However, when there was a clear-cut populist option, such as raising the minimum wage or voting for paid sick leave, these measures all passed.  A look at the Massachusetts electoral result for Question 4 (Earned Sick Leave) also shows a clear geographic, racial and class map: the measure passed handily in the cities and towns of the eastern and western parts of the state, losing in the wealthier suburbs and mostly white rural towns.

 

So in short, we have two separate Americas voting every two years. We have one that is more representative, that includes about 60 percent of voting age adults. Then we have one where we can barely get a third of voting age adults to turn out, and is much whiter and older than the country. And Democrats can win easily with the one, and Republicans can win easily with the other.  More

 

A Big Night For Minimum Wage Increases

Voters in five states endorsed minimum wage increases Tuesday. Significantly, minimum wage initiatives carried the day even in states where Republicans won statewide offices. In Arkansas, for example, Republican Tom Cotton won a hard-fought victory over incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor. Yet a ballot initiative to raise the state’s minimum wage to $7.50 won the support of nearly two-thirds of voters. Similarly, voters in Nebraska and South Dakota approved minimum wage hikes even as they elected or re-elected Republicans in Senate and gubernatorial races.  More

 

Beyond Mid-Election Babble: What's the Alternative?

The right-wing Republican sweep of Congress testifies to a massive memory and educational deficit among the US public and a failure among progressives and the left regarding how to think about politics outside of the established boundaries of liberal reform. The educative nature of politics has never been more crucial than it is now and testifies to the need for a new politics in which culture and education are as important as economic forces in shaping individual and social agency, if not resistance itself… The biggest challenge facing those who believe in social justice is to provide an alternative discourse, educational apparatuses, vision and modes of identification that can convince the US public that a real democracy is worth fighting for, and that such struggles need to begin immediately before the elected oligarchs and the financial interests they serve close down any hope of a future in which matters of justice and equality prevail.  More

 

*   *   *   *

The Wars Abroad, the Wars at Home

 

Martin Luther King: “The bombs that are falling [overseas] are exploding in our cities”

 

BPD Petitions - Please Sign & Share!

Many of you have already signed the ACLU petition to the BPD calling for three key reforms. The petition is now online here: End Racially Discriminatory Police Practices in Boston (for residents of Boston) and Support the Movement to End Racially Discriminatory Police Practices in Boston (for people who aren’t residents of Boston).  We encourage you to sign one of these two petitions and share widely among friends and supporters!

 

*   *   *   *

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

 

Concerned About ISIS, but Also About Endless War? Back Limits on the Use of Force

In response to the US bombing of Islamic State (ISIS) fighters in Iraq and Syria, which Congress has never explicitly approved, members of Congress long concerned about presidents and Congresses skirting the constitutional role of Congress in deciding when the United States will use military force have introduced H. Con. Res. 114, "Urging Congress to debate and vote on a statutory authorization for any sustained United States combat role in Iraq or Syria."  When Congress returns from recess after the election in November, it will still not have debated and voted on a sustained US combat role in Iraq or Syria, even though a "sustained combat role" is obviously what the Pentagon is doing and plans to do. Polls have shown that the majority of Americans think that Congress should debate and vote. Members of Congress can show that they back the public's desire for a Congressional debate and vote by supporting H. Con. Res. 114.  More

 

Please strongly encourage your Congressional Reps to sign on to proposed House Resolution 114.

THREE MA REPS are co-sponsors: CLARK, MCGOVERN & TSONGAS!  

thanks for your continued advocacy!  SIGN PETITION

 

Obama to seek new war powers from Congress

President Barack Obama said Wednesday he would work with Congress on new war powers to fight Islamic State militants and expressed cautious optimism about whether the international face-off over Iran's nuclear program will be resolved — two issues that could prove harder for the White House to maneuver with Republicans in charge on Capitol Hill.  More

THE PRESSURE TO ESCALATE

From the beginning, the president had repeatedly and insistently taken one thing off that famed “table” in Washington on which all “options” reputedly sit: the possibility that there would ever be American “boots on the ground” in Iraq -- that is, military personnel sent directly into combat.  This, in effect, represented what was left of Obama’s previous proud claim that he had gotten us out of Iraq never to return.  Assumedly, it also represented a bedrock formulation in a situation that otherwise seemed to be in a constant state of flux.  In a way that has been rare in the history of American civilian-military relations, Dempsey and others in the Pentagon simply refused to accept this.  No matter what the commander-in-chief’s bottom line may have been, they evidently saw the future quite differently and didn’t hesitate to say so. …Under the pressure of a powerful national security state (and the various complexes that have grown to gigantic proportions around it), in a Washington in which beating the drums for war has become a reflexive act and Republican hawks may well rule the roost.  More

 

How Many Muslim Countries Has the U.S. Bombed Or Occupied Since 1980?

Barack Obama, in his post-election press conference yesterday, announced that he would seek an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) from the new Congress, one that would authorize Obama’s bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria—the one he began three months ago. If one were being generous, one could say that seeking congressional authorization for a war that commenced months ago is at least better than fighting a war even after Congress explicitly rejected its authorization, as Obama lawlessly did in the now-collapsed country of Libya. When Obama began bombing targets inside Syria in September, I noted that it was the seventh predominantly Muslim country that had been bombed by the U.S. during his presidency (that did not count Obama’s bombing of the Muslim minority in the Philippines). I also previously noted that this new bombing campaign meant that Obama had become the fourth consecutive U.S. President to order bombs dropped on Iraq.   More

 

DRONE-STRIKE FEMINISM

Of all the justifications the Obama administration has employed to sanctify yet another war on Iraq, none have been more disingenuous than the portrayal of the latest US bombing campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS, aka ISIL) as a feminist rescue mission… But if airstrikes are warranted because ISIS is engaged in sexual violence, then the governments of the nations the US has appointed to spearhead its anti-ISIS coalition may need to be bombed as well—namely, the Iraqi, Egyptian and Saudi regimes… The voices of women-led Iraqi civil society groups are completely absent from the establishment media. You won't see any mention in the corporate press of the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), which, along with its sister organization MADRE, strongly opposes US airstrikes and holds the US responsible for creating and perpetuations the sectarian violence that fueled ISIS's rise to power.  More

 

The Middle East’s Unholy Alliance

They’ve been referred to as “moderates” and even the “Axis of Reason”. Now, America’s friends in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates are in talks to form a joint military force to intervene throughout the Middle East and “deal with extremists in the region.” … For its purposes, the United States is today closely aligned with the reactionaries of our time. In the face of free and fair electoral victories by groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, the U.S. has tended to rationalize their decision to side with the ancien régime as being in defense of liberal values… Rather than relying upon an old order which is both brutal, corrupt, and unlikely to survive in the long term, the United States should take the farsighted and principled position of committing itself to democracy in the region – even if it doesn’t always like who wins.  More

 

But fighting them in Syria!

Obama Coordinating With Iran In Islamic State Fight, Growing Evidence Suggests

Adding to mounting evidence that President Barack Obama's administration sees Iran as something of a partner in its fight against the Islamic State, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Obama wrote to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last month about the campaign against the Islamic State.  The WSJ reported last week that the U.S. had assured Iran that it would not be targeting the forces of its ally, Syrian President Bashar Assad, as it began striking targets in Syria.Like that news, the latest revelation will likely stir consternation among many of Obama's current partners in this campaign. From Arab nations that have launched their own strikes against the militant group to moderate U.S.-backed Syrian rebels who are presently besieged by Iranian forces aiding the Syrian regime, key Obama allies see collaborating with Iran as unacceptable because of the country's unwavering support for Assad.    More

 

Obama Wrote Secret Letter to Iran’s Khamenei About Fighting Islamic State

President Barack Obama secretly wrote to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the middle of last month and described a shared interest in fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, according to people briefed on the correspondence. The letter appeared aimed both at buttressing the campaign against Islamic State and nudging Iran’s religious leader closer to a nuclear deal. Mr. Obama stressed to Mr. Khamenei that any cooperation on Islamic State was largely contingent on Iran reaching a comprehensive agreement with global powers on the future of Tehran’s nuclear program by a Nov. 24 diplomatic deadline, the same people say.   More

 

Syrian rebels armed and trained by US surrender to al-Qaeda

Two of the main rebel groups receiving weapons from the United States to fight both the regime and jihadist groups in Syria have surrendered to al-Qaeda. The US and its allies were relying on Harakat Hazm and the Syrian Revolutionary Front to become part of a ground force that would attack the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil). For the last six months the Hazm movement, and the SRF through them, had been receiving heavy weapons from the US-led coalition, including GRAD rockets and TOW anti-tank missiles. But on Saturday night Harakat Hazm surrendered military bases and weapons supplies to Jabhat al-Nusra, when the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria stormed villages they controlled in northern Idlib province. The development came a day after Jabhat al-Nusra dealt a final blow to the SRF, storming and capturing Deir Sinbal, home town of the group's leader Jamal Marouf.   More

 

A Syrian Speaks Out. . .

Why arming the rebels will fuel Syria's inferno

Aleppo is a microcosm of Syria. The suffering here is just as real and horrible as it is everywhere else. It does not distinguish friend from foe or regime loyalist from opposition supporter. It affects us all. Ironically, this shared suffering might be the only thing that unites Syrians now, but I believe they are also united by an urgent desire to stop the suffering and end the war and killing that is causing it… Those who justify the continuation of our death and suffering either do so on the premise of liberating our lives from tyranny or on the premise of protecting it from extremism. Both are lies, of course, but they do have one truth in common as we jokingly note here: They all want to “liberate” our lives from this earthly world… Arming the rebels is de facto arming the extremists, period.  More

 

*   *   *   *

 Diplomacy with Iran More Necessary than Ever

 

If Nuclear Negotiations With Iran Fail, US Will Be to Blame

Nuclear negotiations between Iran and P5+1 – the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany – have entered their critical stage. The original Geneva interim agreement expired last July, but both sides agreed to extend the deadline for reaching a comprehensive agreement to November 24. Much progress has been made, but some difficult issues have remained unresolved… At a symposium in Washington on October 23, Wendy Sherman, Under Secretary of State who leads the US negotiation team with Iran, asserted that, "We hope the leaders in Tehran will agree to the steps necessary to assure the world that this program will be exclusively peaceful. If that does not happen, the responsibility will be seen by all to rest with Iran." Given all the concessions that Iran has made, given US excessive demands on Iran, and given the fact that, in effect, the US is trying to impose a new and illegal interpretation of Iran’s obligations under the NPT and its SG Agreement and the meaning of "peaceful nuclear program," it will be the US that will be blamed for the failure of the negotiations, not Iran.  More

 

Let Diplomacy Work with Iran!

One month from now, we could be celebrating a historic nuclear deal with Iran. This is our chance to solve one of America’s greatest security concerns without dropping a single bomb. But that's not stopping some in Congress from trying to kill the deal before its even finalized. A deal with Iran is within reach, but time is short. Take Action!
Please urge your Members of Congress to support this historic opportunity.

 

Israel, Iran, and the Republican Victory

The Republicans’ Senate victory offers Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu new hope for outmaneuvering President Barack Obama on Iran; in the coming weeks, he could use a Republican-led Congress to sabotage negotiations with the Islamic Republic on its nuclear program. But the victory would be short lived. By scuttling the talks, Netanyahu could empower Iran’s hardliners… With Republicans now in control of Congress, Israel’s concerns will fall on more receptive ears. But that could spell more trouble than Israel expects. If the P5+1 (the permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany) and Iran reach an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program by the November 24 deadline, any continued effort to oppose the agreement would no longer be just toughness on Iran. It would also be directly against the United States.  More

 

Israeli policy on Iran is threat to its 'special relationship' with America

American interests are far more threatened by Netanyahu’s Iran positions than by his reluctance to make peace with the Palestinians: the direct costs to America of Israeli settlement expansion and peace process intransigence over the past six years pale in comparison to the potential costs of a hot American war with another Middle Eastern country (especially a country whose regional power outstrips by orders of magnitude any actor the US has fought over the past decade).  For example, an eminent bi-partisan panel of experts from the Iran Project warned last year that the “unintended consequences” of an American attack on Iran could lead to the US being bogged down in an “all-out regional war”.

More