Activism

by Debra Sweet, Director, World Can't Wait           Today, at Ft.

Check out to see if there any actions against these war criminals in your area.  If not, you might think of planning one. Contact us if you need our assisstance.  Please post a note and some photos of you protest on our Facebook.  There are reproducible flyers and posters on our website in the resources box on the left.  Click on Downloadable Material and then on Flyers and Posters.

George Bush

The following is an update (to my earlier post here): 

by Debra Sweet                            It’s a good thing that tens of thousands of people, many young, braved the cold Sunday and marched around the White House demanding that Barack Obama turn against the Keystone Pipeline.  The pipeline is already a disaster for Canada, and for the ultimate recipients of the oil, whether that’s the U.S.

Between April 4 and July 3, the entire country (and the other 96% of humanity too) is invited to join in a bicycle ride from California to Washington, D.C.  You can join as a bicycler or as a sponsor.

This won't be a ride to raise awareness about cruelty to animals, but it will raise awareness about war -- by many measures the greatest destroyer of the natural environment we have, as well as consisting first and foremost of the mass killing of that peculiar animal we're all rather fond of: the homo sapiens. 

This won't be a ride to raise money for cancer research, but it will raise money for the campaign to abolish war -- a carcinogen if the people of Fallujah ever saw one.

This paragraph is exclusively for supporters of President Obama.  If that's not you, please skip to the following paragraph right now.  With Republicans out of the White House and no election this year, there is no need to fund election campaigns or to work against particular wars.  This is a moment in which our time and our resources are freed up to support long-term structure building so that the plague of war never returns.  Remember all those promises to engage in policy-based activism once the most important election of our lives was over?  This is the time to get in better physical shape before phone banking season.  Pump up your tires and polish your handlebars!  Stop reading and get riding right now.

With presidential war powers expanding rapidly and war gaining widespread acceptance among liberals there is an urgent need for an educational and organizing effort that pedals under, over, and around the barricades of the corporate media.  U.S. forces are in more nations than ever before, the military budget is still rising and will still be rising even if the sequester "cuts" go through, the CIA has been handed war making powers, the president has claimed the power to spy without warrants, imprison without trial, and murder at will.  Wars are launched on nations like Libya in defiance of Congress and the United Nations, with blowback spreading rapidly.  Pentagon friendly dictatorships like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain are backed against their people's nonviolent movements for democracy, while violence is encouraged in Syria and Iran.  Palestinians are left to their fate, while a new kind of war launched from flying robots slaughters men, women, and children, traumatizes populations, and generates refugee crises, engulfing nations in boiling hatred of the United States of America. 

When MSNBC assigns David Axelrod (who refused to deny that President Obama maintains the power to torture anyone as he sees fit) to analyze and punditrify John Brennan's refusal to deny that President Obama maintains the power to murder U.S. citizens within the United States (never mind anyone at all outside the United States or 96% of humanity within it), the triumph of freemarket journalism will have reached a pinnacle unsurpassed in history, putting the Soviet Union's efforts to shame and finally concluding the Cold War, unless nobody notices.

You know who just might wake some people up to what's staring them in the face?

Cindy Sheehan.  Cindy has proposed the Tour de Peace.  She's been lining up events and participants along the route.  She's ready to ride, and to me she is an inspiration.  Cindy's appeal, both before and after the corporate media made her a story in Crawford Texas seven-and-a-half years ago, was her uncensored honesty.  She's still got it.  I've seen a lot of people dump their heart and soul into the peace movement over the past decade and burn out and quit.  I appreciate their efforts.  We need sprinters, just as the Tour de Peace needs short-distance riders. 

But when I see someone become even more aware of the evil that has swallowed up our government, and continually find new ways to confront it, I see a model others should follow.  Cindy's gone at it as hard as anyone.  She's taken nasty blows from the right and the so-called left.  She's burned out and quit, too, but never for more than a day or so.  She just keeps coming.  Cindy has quit paying her taxes because of the wars they fund.  She's been arrested for nonviolent resistance countless times.  She's traveled endlessly, speaking and inspiring.  She's written a stack of important books.  She's hosted a radio show, blogged, and run for Congress and the Vice Presidency.  And in this age in which pundits openly say they'd oppose the president's abuses if he were a Republican, Cindy goes ahead and opposed them anyway, with plenty of opposition left over for the Congress, the courts, the funders, the weapons makers, the lobbyists, and the White House Press Corpse.

Creating a mass of people in the streets for peace or justice usually requires money and staff, bus rentals and leg work, coalition building and compromising.  Two moments stand out in my mind when none of that was needed.  One was when Cindy went to Crawford.  The other was when Occupy went to Wall Street.  Both were moments of brilliant principled and courageous activism.  Neither would have ever been heard of by most who heard of them if not for the corporate media.  I've seen Cindy attempt to recreate Crawford countless times since (not to mention before), without the same success.  She does so fully aware of the forces at work.  She does so with every effort to create our own media and bypass the corporate censors.  And she does so knowing that the only way to guarantee failure is to not try.

What if we were to create a movement capable of thinking of itself as real and national or international even outside of our television sets?  One of the side effects would be its inevitable infiltration into our television sets.  But the primary effect would be the beginning of hope and change as something more than perverse slogans of star-gazing servitude.

When the Tour de Peace leaves Casey Sheehan's grave in Vacaville, Calif., on the ninth anniversary of his death in Iraq and the 45^th of Dr. King's in Memphis, it will follow the mother road, Route 66, to Chicago, and other highways and byways from there to D.C.  The tour will conclude on July 3, 2013, with a ride from Arlington National Cemetery to the White House.

This August will mark 8 years since Sheehan began her widely reported protest at then-President George W. Bush's "ranch".  She was demanding to know what the "noble cause" was for which Bush claimed Americans were dying in Iraq.  Neither Bush nor Obama has yet offered a justification for a global war now in its 12^th year.  The Tour de Peace will carry with it these demands:

To end wars,

To end immunity for U.S. war crimes,

To end suppression of our civil rights,

To end the use of fossil fuels,

To end persecution of whistleblowers,

To end partisan apathy and inaction.

as well as the names of everyone who signs on in support.

Watch the trailer here.

They were the largest climate protests in U.S. history, with over 50,000 marching in Washington D.C. and tens of thousands more taking part in protests across the country. Yesterday, Jill Stein joined a large Green Party contingent from across the country, sending a clear message at the protests that ending climate change requires political change and systems change.

To drive that message home, Jill Stein has launched the Climate Voter Power Pledge, a pledge to not to vote for any candidate who supports a climate-killing "All of the Above" approach to energy production. Got that, White House?

Please sign the Climate Voter Power Pledge and tell everyone you know about it. Marching and rallying is one way to show power. But the power of the vote, and of denying the vote, is another way we can redirect our politics and our economy away from the climate cliff. 

Read, sign, and share the Climate Voter Power Pledge by clicking here: http://www.jillstein.org/climate

"You elected this president. You reelected this president. . . . Stop being chumps!" --Van Jones

Going in, I was of mixed views regarding Sunday's rally in Washington, D.C., to save the earth's climate from the tar sands pipeline.  I still am.

Why on a Sunday when there's no government around to protest, shut down, or interfere with? 

And why all the pro-Obama rhetoric?  Robert Kennedy, Jr., was among the celebrities getting arrested at the White House in the days leading up, and his comment to the media was typical.  Obama won't allow the tar sands pipeline, he said, because Obama has "a strong moral core" and doesn't do really evil things.

As a belief, that's of course delusional.  This is the same president who sorts through a list of men, women, and children to have executed every other Tuesday, and who jokes about it.  This is the guy who's derailed international climate protection efforts for years.  This is the guy who refused the demand to oppose the tar sands pipeline before last year's election.  If he had been compelled to take a stand as a candidate there would be no need for this effort to bring him around as a lame duck.

As a tactic, rather than a belief, the approach of the organizers of Sunday's rally is at least worth questioning.  For one thing, people are going to hear such comments and take them for beliefs.  People are going to believe that the president would never do anything really evil.  In which case, why bother to turn out and rally in protest of what he's doing?  Or if we do turn out, why communicate any serious threat of inconvenience to the president?  On the contrary, why not make the protest into a campaign rally for the president through which we try, post-election, to alter the platform on which the actual candidate campaigned?

The advantage to the expect-the-best-and-the-facts-be-damned approach is clear.  Lots of people like it.  You can't have a mass rally without lots of people.  The organizers of this event are not primarily to blame for how the U.S. public thinks and behaves.  But, then again, if you're trying to maximize your crowd at all costs, hadn't you better really truly maximize it?  Sunday's rally probably suffered from being held on a bitterly cold day, but I suspect that most people who planned to come did come; and I've seen more people on the Mall in the summer for no reason at all, and many times more people on the Mall in the winter for an inauguration (which, in terms of policy based activism, is also nothing at all). 

What if the celebrities generating the news with arrests at the White House were to speak the truth?  What if they committed to nonviolently interfering with the operations of a government destroying the climate?  What if they committed to opposing the Democratic and Republican parties as long as this is their agenda?  What if they said honestly and accurately that the personality of a president matters less than the pressures applied to him, that this president can do good or evil, and that it is our job to compel him to do good?

Sunday's rally, MC'd by former anti-Republican-war activist Lennox Yearwood, looked like an Obama rally.  The posters and banners displayed a modified Obama campaign logo, modified to read "Forward on Climate."  One of the speakers on the stage, Van Jones, declared, "I had the honor of working for this president."  He addressed his remarks to the president and appealed to his morality and supposed good works: "President Obama, all the good that you have done . . . will be wiped out" if you allow the tar sands pipeline.

The pretense in these speeches, including one by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, was consistently that Obama has not already approved part of the pipeline, that he is guilty of inaction, that the government is failing to act, that what's needed is action -- as if our government were not actively promoting the use of, and using vast quantities of fossil fuels, not to mention fighting wars to control the stuff.

Van Jones ended his remarks by addressing himself to "the next generation."  And this is what he had to say: "Stop being chumps! You elected this president. You reelected this president.  You gave him the chance to make history. He needs to give you the chance to have a future. Stop being chumps!  Stop being chumps and fight for your future, thank you very much."

Reading these words, one would imagine that the obvious meaning they carry is "Stop electing people like this who work for parties like this and serve financial interests like these."  What could be a more obvious interpretation?  You elected this guy twice.  He's a lame duck now.  You've lost your leverage.  Stop being such chumps! 

Nothing could be further, I think, from what Van Jones meant or what that crowd on Sunday believed he meant.  This was a speaker who had, just moments before, expressed his pride in having worked in Obama's White House.  The fact that this crowd of Obama-branded "activists" had elected him twice was not mentioned in relation to their chumpiness but as grounds for establishing their right to insist that he not destroy the planet's atmosphere.  They would be chumps if they didn't hold more rallies like this one.

Wait, you might ask, doesn't everyone have the right to insist that powerful governments not destroy the earth's atmosphere? 

Well, maybe, but in Van Jones' thinking, those who committed to voting for Obama twice, no matter what he did, and who have committed to voting for another Democrat no matter what he or she will do, deserve particular attention when they make demands.  Paradoxically, those who can be counted on regardless, who demand nothing and therefore offer nothing, should be the ones who especially get to make demands and have them heard and honored. 

Needless to say, it doesn't actually work that way.

Our celebrity emperors attract a great deal of personal affection or hatred, so when I suggest an alternative to packaging a rally for the climate as a belated campaign event, it may be heard as a suggestion to burn Obama in effigy.  What if there were a third option, namely that of simply demanding the protection of our climate? 

We might lose some of those who enjoyed burning Bush in effigy and some of those who enjoy depicting themselves as friends of the Obama family.  But would we really lose that many?  If the celebrities and organizers took such an honest policy-based approach, if the organizations put in the same money and hired the same busses, etc., how much smaller would Sunday's unimpressive rally have really been?

(And couldn't such a crowd be enlarged enough to more than compensate for any loss, by the simple tactic of promising ahead of time to keep the speeches to a half-hour total and to begin the march on time?  I'd pay money to go to that rally.)

The problem, of course, is that the celebrities and organizers themselves tend to think like Obama campaign workers.  It's not an act.  It's not a tactic aimed at maximizing turnout.  And it's not their fault that they, and so many others, think that way. 

But imagine a realistic, policy-based approach that began to build an independent movement around principled demands.  It would have the potential to grow.  It would have the potential to threaten massive non-cooperation with evil.  It would have the energy of Occupy.  It would have the potential to make a glorious declaration out of what now appears to be self-mockery when oversmall crowds of hungover campaign workers shout "This is what democracy looks like!" as they plod along a permitted parade route.

No.  It really isn't.

Bradley Manning has been in jail awaiting trial for nearly 1,000 days for exposing war crimes, corruption, and widespread abuse. Demonstrations have been organized internationally.

When he returns to court in Fort Meade, MD, for a pretrial hearing from February 26 to March 1, Judge Denise Lind will rule on the defense’s motion to dismiss charges for lack of a speedy trial. Defense lawyer David Coombs has laid out the ways in which the government has violated the 5th and 6th Constitutional Amendments, Rule for Court Martial 707, and Uniform Code of Military Justice Article 10 in taking this long to try Bradley Manning. Prosecutors were supposed to arraign Manning within 120 days but took well over 600. They’re also supposed to remain actively diligent throughout the proceedings, but Coombs has showed substantial periods of their inactivity and needless delay. Bradley’s due process rights have been clearly violated, and the only legal remedy is to dismiss charges.

Find an event in your area, or host your own!

Write Bradley Manning for Valentine's Day!

A little known fact about Valentine's Day is that it originated not as a romantic holiday, but as a way to honor a crusader for social equality.

Show heart! Write a letter of support to Bradley!

We think that Valentine's Day is a fitting time to send Bradley a message of support. You can send cards and letters to the following address:

Commander, HHC USAG
Attn: PFC Bradley Manning
239 Sheridan Ave, Bldg 417
JBM-HH, VA 22211

You can also submit a picture of yourself with a message of support holding a sign that reads "I Am Bradley Manning" to http//iam.bradleymanning.org.

Bradley's attorney David Coombs has said, "the best evidence for me that I am not standing alone when I stand for Brad is a website called 'I Am Bradley Manning'. I personally have to tell you, I go to this site at least once a day. I go to this site when I need to recharge my batteries after working a long day on the case, and I just peruse the photographs – people with a simple statement in front of their face, “I am Bradley Manning.” The power of those simple words is amazing."

We agree. Thank you for supporting Bradley Manning!

By Robert C. Koehler

You’re young and prone to trouble. You get triggered quickly. Someone tells you that you’ve screwed up and you’re about to lash back. Then, instead, you think:

1. Look at the other person.

2. Say “OK.”

3. Stay calm.

This is what you do. And nothing happens, except that the moment passes and life goes on. Got it?

This beautiful video created by Jim T in San Diego.  We were both part of the protest in So Cal on this day 10 years ago.  Jim has supplied a sound track and included photos from every major city on the planet from that day.

It seems about a century ago that I was in St. Louis where Don Yellowman and Fern Benally of Black Mesa, Arizona tried to deliver a letter on behalf of elders of Black Mesa/Big Mountain to Peabody CEO, Greg H. Boyce. The letter spoke to the devastation caused by Peabody's 46 years of strip mining coal on the Navajo reservation.

On February 15, 2003, the world protested a long-announced pending war of aggression by the United States against Iraq.  The protest was the largest in world history, and we haven't topped it since.  It persuaded many nations of the world and the United Nations to oppose the war.  It built an international movement that went on to limit, reduce, and prevent wars, including thus far a fullscale war on Iran, as well as to educate a new generation about the evils of war.  This movement helped to delegitimize warmaking, a process still not complete.

by Chicago Chapter World Can't Wait                  Haven't we all felt outraged and frustrated when we read another horror story about the devastating impact of climate chaos on life around the planet? Yet decades of international conferences and non-binding 'agreements' have done nothing to moderate the spreading destruction.

Instead, our government has sabotaged those talks and passed draconian laws to brand environmental activists as "terrorists." We must and can come together to consider this situation, deeply, and dedicate ourselves to reversing it  - because humanity and the planet come first. And we're doing that, here in Chicago, at the Climate Crisis Conference on February 16!

2/17/13 -12-4PM (Arrive at 11:30am)-Rally at the National Mall and March to the White House. The climate crisis is creating weather patterns that aren't just extreme -- they're downright freaky. Our leaders can't sit around and twiddle their thumbs anymore, and it's up to activists like you to make sure they get the memo.

The climate crisis is creating weather patterns that aren't just extreme -- they're downright freaky. Our leaders can't sit around and twiddle their thumbs anymore, and it's up to activists like you to make sure they get the memo.

By Mike Ferner

On that day, for thefirst time in human history, people of every nation on earth said “NO” to a war before it began.

By the 10’s of millions, starting in New Zealand and Australia and sweeping westward over the globe for 24 hours, peoplepoured into streets and public places to shout with one voice, “NO WAR ON IRAQ!”

In the face of this overwhelming, universal cry for peace, the US and UK repeatedly lied  and invaded Iraq, which says all that needs saying about the supposed “democracies” we live in.  Even the staid New York Times was moved to admit that “there may still be two superpowers on the planet: the United States and world public opinion.”

Before you read the news release, however, about the planned upcoming rally in response, please read John "End War" Walsh's insightful background exposing "US Goading Japan into Confrontation With China: Will Japan Take the Bait?" published a few days ago at Anti-war.com, Counterpunch, Information Clearing House and several other anti-war sites.  With all the imperial wars that have been launched and are being launched by the US in the Mid-east, we often forget about the US-announced "China Pivot" occuring on the other side of the world.  Please help spread the information of the underlying issues as well as notice about this upcoming rally in NYC on Feb 19th, a real chance to demonstrate against the emerging militarism of Japan's Prime Minister Abe.  If your peace group wants to join the rally and/or endorse their effort, plea

by World Can't Wait, Hawai'i Chapter                 Friday night was the first night of the Chinese New Year Celebrations in Chinatown. Lions danced in the streets. Drumming bounced off the walls of surrounding buildings, and tens of thousands of firecrackers created constant noise. Thousands of residents, tourists and GI's filled the streets. Our huge grey drone replica hovered over the celebration - a sober reminder of U.S. warfare in 2013.

As the preparations for the 2nd anniversary of the 14th February Revolution get underway, the field activities have warmed up extensively. At the same time supportive actions by the friends of Bahrain have risen sharply and are expected to become more widespread. In several cities around the world the pro-democracy activists have line up programmes of actions to express support to the Revolution that the Anglo-American alliance continues to target with various political and security means. The enmity of this alliance to the aspirations of Bahrain has been laid open especially the British Government dispatched several teams and personnel to help the Alkhalifa hereditary dictatorship repress the people. Despite the claims by some British officials to the contrary, Bahrainis continue to suffer repression in the form of torture, and collective punishment.

By Linn Washington, Jr.

Many millions around the world are convinced they know imprisoned journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal from closely examining the ‘whodunit’ contentions surrounding his contentious conviction for the December 9, 1981 slaying of a Philadelphia policeman.

By Norman Solomon

A lot of what we say and do becomes habit-forming. Groundhog Day 2013 could serve as a reminder that some political habits should be kicked. Here are a few:

**  “Defense budget”

No, it’s not a defense budget. It’s a military budget.

But countless people and organizations keep saying they want to cut “the defense budget” or reduce “defense spending.”

Anyone who wants to challenge the warfare state should dispense with this misnomer. We don’t object to “defense” -- what we do oppose, vehemently, is military spending that has nothing to do with real defense and everything to do with killing people, enforcing geopolitical control and making vast profits for military contractors. And no, they’re not “defense contractors.”

President Eisenhower’s farewell address didn’t warn against a “defense-industrial complex.”

U.S. war criminals are speaking and promoting their latest books in various cities around the country in January and Feb. 2013. Check this out to see if any are in your area. We will help and publicize your protest. Reproducible leaflets and posters are available on:  http://warcriminalswatch.org/index.php/downloadable-materials