Activism

If you want to nonviolently shut down Congress next year, you'll more than likely find Congress not at home, unless you plan ahead.  Here's their "work" schedule:
http://www.democraticwhip.gov/sites/default/files/2013Calendar.pdf

You could have knocked me over with a feather that the major media was talking about the Bradley Manning trial at all, after years of being confined to the progressive Internet, but although it is important for Manning's treatment in virtual isolation be a focus, the real  story is being ignored.  One of the reasons Bradley Manning is where he is in the first place, is because he was reporting a war crime.

No matter what Manning's treatment, many Americans, not always the most big-hearted people, will believe Manning deserved every bit of it unless context is provided.  The CNN reports on the trial which have run so far delve no deeper than his complaints about being forced to stand naked, not being allowed to sleep, and being harassed under a bogus "suicide watch" by being asked every five minutes "are you okay?"

A Solution-Oriented Policy Think Tank

Effective strategies for Israel-Palestine, Iran, Afghanistan, The Americas, The Koreas

Friday, November 30, 2012    11 :00 AM  – 5:00 PM

Search for Common Ground 4^th floor 1601 Connecticut Ave., NW, Dupont Metro North Exit

11:00 – 1:30 Israel-Palestine, Gaza, Six State Solution - lunch included  $50/Students $40

2:00 – 5:00 Afghanistan, Iran, The Americas, The Koreas $40/Students $30

Full Day $75 Students/$50

Coffee, light vegetarian lunch, snacks included

Valuable for congressional staff, policy analysts, conflict analysis professionals, press

  & students

* Learn the Transcend Method, a solution-oriented approach to analysis of conflict dynamism

* Explore strategies for reducing tension and reversing cycles of violence and retaliation

* Develop constructive approaches to addressing basic human needs, legitimate goals, and just grievances

* Explore creative, outside-the-box strategies to break deadlocks and transform protracted conflicts

* Dialogue about ways of integrating these productive approaches into the current think tank culture

* Consider possibilities for Obama’s second term, with new congress and new political culture

* Apply knowledge to current conflicts 

* Learn about Galtung’s proposal for a Six State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, modeled after the European Community, and an OSCME – Organization for Security and Cooperation in the Middle East

* Understand paradoxical nature of coercive policies, Galtung’s “naïve theory of sanctions”

* Design policies capable of producing stability and enduring security

Dr. Johan Galtung is a pioneer and principal founder of the field of Peace and Conflict Transformation research.  He is the founder and co-director of Transcend, an International Peace, Development, Environment Network, http://www.transcend.org/. He is the originator of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, consultant and advisor to many world leaders and organizations, and helped resolve the 8-year conflict between Peru and Ecuador. He has published more than 1000 articles and over 100 books and has received many awards, including the Alternative Nobel Peace Prize in 1987.

Diane Perlman, PhD is a US convener of Transcend, a clinical and political psychologist, Visiting Scholar, School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, GMU, a member of Mediators Beyond Borders, and Psychologists for Social Responsibility.

RSVP Contact Diane Perlman, PhD by email or phone, dianeperlman@gmail.com, 202 775 0777. Name, email, phone # affiliation. Pay at door.  Checks or cash only (no credit cards) Transcend University Press Books by Dr. Galtung with be available for purchase and signing http://www.transcend.org/

Liberal groups have been organizing protests of the looming "grand bargain" (a bargain between two political parties aimed at saving us from the fictional "fiscal cliff" by giving more of our money to the super-rich and the war machine).  But they've been doing so only in Republican Congressional districts and with messages placing all the blame on "the Republicans," thus telegraphing the message that all shall be tolerated if labeled "Democratic." 

We're supposed to be against a bargain, but only against one of the two partners to the bargain.  Any bets on how well that'll work?

Meanwhile Obama's senior advisor David Plouffe hypes the danger of the "fiscal cliff," calls for lower corporate taxes and cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, but says not one word about military spending. He also claims to want to end tax cuts for the wealthy but is much more passionate about the danger of ending those cuts across the board, suggesting -- as did Obama's statements and silences at his first post-election press conference -- that the White House will not in the end refuse to extend the "Bush" tax cuts for everyone, including the multi-billionaires -- just as it's done before.  At the same press conference, Obama volunteered that we need "deficit reduction that includes entitlement changes."

Liberal groups have written to the president politely suggesting what they'd like, but with nothing in the way of consequences if they don't get it.  And what they'd like is slightly higher taxes on the super-rich, and no cuts to Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid.  Or else . . . or else . . . they'll be sadly loyal until death do them part. 

Neither Plouffe nor Obama nor any liberal activist group mentions that half of discretionary spending goes into war preparations.  None proposes to raise corporate taxes, restore the estate tax, remove the cap on Social Security taxes, tax financial transactions and capital gains, tax carbon emissions, massively and urgently invest in green energy jobs, or cut the $1.3 trillion war preparations budget in half.

We are not broke.  We are being robbed.

I get emails every day now on the "This isn't what we voted for" theme.  "TPP is not what we voted for."  "Drone kills are not what we voted for."  As if you can ignore the candidate's platform and vote for your own fantasy under his name, and then "pressure" him to become what you fantasized even while swearing your allegiance to his party come hell or high water or hurricanes.  Well, guess what, the Grand Bargain is what Democrats and Republicans voted for.  But that doesn't mean we have to stand for it.  Having voted against it wouldn't have stopped it.  Only getting out of our houses and nonviolently resisting it now will stop it.

The peace movement is ready to take to the streets and the suites, but worried that it doesn't have the size to do the job.  Of course it does have the size to start something big if it merely finds the determination.  But imagine what could happen if Tahrir Square inspired us all again and more seriously, and with four years rather than two years to work with before the next debilitation by the latest "Most Important Election of Your Lifetime."  Imagine if liberal organizations and labor unions openly recognized where all the public money is (in the war machine) and demanded it for useful purposes. 

The peace movement is in favor of everything they're in favor of: the right to organize, civil liberties, an end to for-profit prisons and drug wars and racism, affordable housing, a living wage, education, healthcare, and a sustainable environment.  The enemy of these things is the military industrial complex, and if it remains beyond challenge, a just society will remain unachievable.  When Dr. King opposed "racism, extreme materialism, and militarism," he didn't mean for us to ignore the third one.  He didn't mean for us to imagine that the three were separable and that we could oppose one or two of them effectively without opposing the combination.

Let's stop obediently opposing the worst bits of a Grand Catastrophe and begin denouncing and resisting the whole charade, replacing it with a grand vision of our own devising.  RootsAction.org, created just last year, is already approaching 200,000 active members, and has been flooding Congress and the President with this message:

"Here's a grand bargain we want: expand Medicare and Social Security, invest in green energy, raise taxes on the rich and corporations, and cut military spending back to the level of 12 years ago."

The message is editable, meaning that you can and should add your own comments.  I encourage everyone to do so, to ask friends to do so, and to be preparing for serious nonviolent action.

by Debra Sweet, Director World Cant Wait                                                                                         Where do you turn when the Commander in Chief keeps a “kill list;” orders drone strikes on several continents, shredding lives and the concept of national sovereignty; supports indefinite detention without trial, vastly expanded domestic surveillance and the suspension of core civil liberties?

By Michael Caddell

… [Dr. Ann Kristin] Neuhaus wishes that she'd skipped the hearing.
 

From Allen Ruff's show "A Public Affair" on WORT fm in Madison, Wisc., at http://www.wortfm.org/archives

LISTEN (mp3).

Still Waitin’

A short film produced by

The Vietnam War Commemoration CORRECTION Project

To see the film, please go to:  www.ThisCantBeHappening.net

November 9, 4:15 p.m., Stanford
Omar Shaki, Medea Benjamin, Robert Crews, Shahzad Bashir
"Lives Under Drones"
Building 200, room 205, Stanford
Visit antiwar.stanford.edu for more info.
Co-sponsored by Muslim Students Awareness Network, Stanford NAACP, Stanford STAND, CDDRL Program on Human Rights, Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies, Stanford Asian American Activism Committee, Pakistanis at Stanford, and the Peninsula Peace and Justice Center.

November 10, 2:00 p.m., Walnut Creek
David Swanson
Mt. Diablo Peace Center, 55 Eckley Lane, Walnut Creek, CA 94596 - (925) 933-7850 - http://mtdpc.org
Free and open to the public.

Drone Warfare Protest and Golden Gate Bridge March

Sunday, November 11, 10 a.m. Die-in at Senator Dianne Feinstein's mansion in Pacific Heights (Vallejo & Lyon Street) then caravan to monthly march across the Golden Gate Bridge. Noon: March begins!


Armistice Day
Sunday, November 11, 11 a.m.
Corner of Fourth & Santa Clara Street
San Jose, CA
Veterans for Peace chapters across the nation are meeting on street corners in major cities to celebrate the original ARMISTICE DAY by ringing bells 11 times at 11:00 on November 11 as as was done at the end of World War I, when the world came together in realization that war is so horrible we must end it now. Veterans for Peace Chapter 101 invites those with a personal or organizational commitment to peace to join us in the ringing of bells on the morning of November 11 to focus on the desire to end the horror of war rather than celebrate it. This event is co-sponsored by the San Jose Peace and Justice Center, Woman's International League for Peace and Freedom, Code Pink, Move to Amend.

Sunday, November 11, 1:30-4:30 p.m. San Francisco
Medea Benjamin, Cindy Sheehan, and David Swanson
On the traditional Armistice Day, the War and Law League (WALL), http://warandlaw.org, presents a forum on the theme, "U.S. Wars -- Are They Lawful?" Admission is free. The forum, highlighting WALL's biennial general meeting, is endorsed by the S.F. American Friends Service Committee and East Bay Peace Action. Main Public Library, Koret Auditorium, 100 Larkin Street at Grove Street, San Francisco, CA, near Civic Center BART/Muni station.

November 11, 7:00 p.m. Marin County
Medea Benjamin and David Swanson
"Stopping War: The Next One?  Forever? -- An Armistice Day Instead of Veterans Day Event"
Sponsor: Marin Peace & Justice Coalition.  Co-sponsors: Social Justice Center of Marin and Community Media Center of Marin.
Olney Hall, College of Marin, 835 College Ave, Kentfield, CA
Admission $10 (No one turned away for lack of funds).

****

About the speakers at these events:

David Swanson will sign books including "When the World Outlawed War." Swanson blogs at http://davidswanson.org and http://warisacrime.org and works as Campaign Coordinator for the online activist organization http://rootsaction.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio.

Medea Benjamin is Co-Founder of Code Pink and Global Exchange and author of "Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control."

Cindy Sheehan is a gold star mother, peace activist, host of Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox, and author of "Revolution: A Love Story."

Omar Shakir is a 3rd year Stanford Law student and co-author of the Stanford Law School report "Living Under Drones: Death, Injury, and Trauma to Civilians from Drone Practices in Pakistan."

Robert Crews is a Stanford History Professor and co-editor of Under the Drones: Modern Lives in the Afghanistan-Pakistan Borderlands.

Shahzad Bashir is a Stanford Religious Studies Professor and co-editor of Under the Drones: Modern Lives in the Afghanistan-Pakistan Borderlands.

By Dave Lindorff

Okay, the etch-a-sketch vulture capitalist who would have given us four years of that smarmy missionionary-at-your-door smile, was thankfully sent packing by the voters, and Barack Obama gets four more years in the White House.

From November 16-18, 2012, thousands of human rights activists, torture survivors, anti-war veterans, students, families, union workers, artists, and others will converge at Fort Benning, Georgia, to call for an end to U.S. militarization and the closure of the SOA! For more info visit http://SOAW.org Here's a list of some of the featured speakers and musicians:

Father Melo
Father Melo, a Jesuit priest, radio host and contributor to Envío magazine, condemned the SOA graduate-led military coup against the democratically elected Honduran government in 2009 from the start. As a result, his radio station was occupied by the military following the coup and he began receiving death threats.

Adriana Portillo-Bartow
Adriana is a life-long advocate for human rights and a survivor of the war in Guatemala. After Guatemalan security forces killed one of her brothers and disappeared six members of her family, among them her father, her 10 and 9 year old daughters, and her 18-month old sister, Adriana and her two surviving daughters fled their native country and arrived in the US in 1985.

Father Roy Bourgeois, Father Bourgeois has been a priest for 38 years. Father Roy founded SOA Watch in 1990 after witnessing the killings of thousands in Central America in the 1980's. Father Bourgeois has been a priest for 38 years and is best known for his work with the School of the Americas Watch (SOA Watch), a non-violent organization that exposes the U.S.-based school, once called School of the Americas, and its role in training Latin American soldiers in repressive tactics and deploying them throughout the region.

Theresa Cusimano and Ed Kinane, former SOA Watch Prisoners of Conscience
300 SOA Watch activists have been sentenced to prison and probation for nonviolent resistance actions to expose the horrors of the SOA and to express solidarity with our sisters and brothers in Latin America.

Joe Jenks
Joe Jencks is an international touring performer, songwriter, entertainer, and educator, based in Chicago, Illinois. From venues like Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York, to coffee houses, festivals, spiritual communities, and schools, Joe Jencks has spent the last 12 years touring full time.

Colonel Ann Wright
Ann Wright is a former United States Army colonel and retired official of the U.S. State Department, known for her outspoken opposition to the Iraq War. She received the State Department Award for Heroism in 1997, after helping to evacuate several thousand people during the civil war in Sierra Leone. She is most noted for having been one of three State Department officials to publicly resign in direct protest of the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.

U.S. military veterans are on the forefront of the struggle to close the School of the Americas/WHINSEC. Veterans have fasted, organized, marched, hung uniforms and other military items on the fence, crossed the line to carry the protest onto the Fort Benning military base, and served jail time.

Maria Victoria Batista
Maria will address the situation of U.S. militarization in the Dominican Republic, especially in regards to the Saona Island, where the U.S. Southern Command is planning to build a naval base.

Omari Fox, New Danger Collective - the New Danger Movement is a play on the historical identification of the perceived "threat" that artists, thinkers, and change agents pose to the system.

Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a community-based worker organization whose members are largely Latino, Haitian, and Mayan Indian immigrants working in low-wage jobs throughout Florida.

Charlie King
Charlie is a musical storyteller and political satirist, who sings and writes about the extraordinary lives of ordinary people.

Medea Benjamin
Medea Benjamin is a cofounder of both CODEPINK and the international human rights organization Global Exchange. She has been an advocate for social justice for more than 30 years. Benjamin is the author of the book Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control, and she has been campaigning to get lethal drones out of the hands of the CIA. Predator drones from the war in Afghanistan are being transferred to the control of the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) for use in its operations in Latin America. As Fort Benning is scheduled to become a drone base, organizing against drones is picking up around the country.

Brother Domingo Solis is a Franciscan friar and currently the director of the Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation (JPIC) in El Salvador. JPIC is an organization of Franciscans whose mission is to care for the poor and marginalized, advocate for human rights, be peacemakers and respect and care for all of creation. In El Salvador, JPIC is an active member of the National Roundtable against Metallic Mining (the Mesa) and has supported the struggle for a complete ban on all metallic mining in the country. As part of the Mesa, Brother Domingo has helped organize protests of thousands of people demanding stricter domestic environmental regulations, has educated parishes and communities around the dangers of mining, and has demanded the respect for the human rights of environmental activists.

Sarab Shada
Sarab Shada is a student from Iraq, who is currently studying at Loyola University Chicago through the Iraqi Student Project.

Representative McGovern (D-MA), our champion in Congress, is going to introduce legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives to suspend operations at the SOA/ WHINSEC and to investigate the links between U.S. foreign military training and human rights abuses in Latin America.

Yolanda Oquelí
Yolanda Oquelí is an anti-mining activist, community leader, and human rights defender in Guatemala. She has been at the forefront of a nonviolent resistance to mining operations in the farming communities of San Jose del Golfo and San Pedro Ayampuc. On June 30th she survived an assassination attempt, and to this day carries a bullet lodged near her spine.

SOA Watch Labor Caucus - Union organizers are among the primary targets of SOA violence in Latin America. SOA graduates have been directly responsible for the slaying of striking workers and the killing of union organizers. The SOA torture manuals identified union organizers as potential subversives and targets. Union solidarity means for the labor caucus that we need to speak up and stop the killing.

Jon Fromer and Francisco Herrera
Francisco's songs capture the vitality of the immigrant experience, stories of faith, love and struggle.
Jon Fromer is an award-winning singer/songwriter whose music is a special blend of folk, blues and country.

Movimiento Estudiantil Chican@ de Aztlan (MEChA)
MEChA is a student organization that promotes higher education, cultura, and historia. MEChA was founded on the principles of self-determination for the liberation of our people. We believe that political involvement and education is the avenue for change in our society.

Francia Marquez
Francia Marquez is a leader from the Afro-Colombian gold-mining community of La Toma in southwestern Colombia. Home to 1,052 families, La Toma was founded by runaway slaves in 1636, and since then the community has struggled against political, economic and armed forces looking to control their lands and resources. Francia makes up part of this struggle. Through her work as a community leader and as part of Procesos de Comunidades Negras (PCN), she has striven to protect La Toma's ancestral lands from plunder, violence and dispossession, despite being identified as military target by paramilitary groups and receiving death threats that seek to drive her off this land.

Son del Centro
Son del Centro is a group of companeros and camaradas who are students, musicians, activists, dancers, friends and organizers from various parts of Santa Ana, California. The group was formed to create a space for youth to explore their traditions, creativity and consciousness, through son jarocho music.

Edward DuBose, president of the Georgia National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The NAACP passed a national resolution in 1998, calling for the closure of the SOA.

emma's revolution
emma's revolution is the duo of award-winning, activist musicians, Pat Humphries & Sandy O.

Luis Roberto Zamora Bolaños is a young Costa Rican attorney who has brought a law suit to the Costa Rican government, challenging the decision of President Arias of authorizing military training for Costa Rican civilian police to study at the School of the Americas (WHINSEC); the case is pending at the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court. Previously, he challenged president Pacheco's decision of supporting the US-UK led aggression on Iraq.

Son Altepee
Son Altepee is a traditional string band from Veracruz, Mexico. Son Altepee make their own instruments, repair instruments, teach string music, contribute to traditional community celebrations, build community with elders and youth in several communities throughout southern Veracruz, and they support several struggles for liberation and self-determination in Veracruz and throughout Mexico.

Martin Almada
Martin Almada is a Paraguayan educator who was imprisoned under the regime of Alfredo Stroessner. His wife died of a heart attack after being forced to hear through a telephone her husband's cries as he was tortured. After a campaign by Amnesty International, Almada was released. He later uncovered the Terror Archives, a set of file describing the fates of thousands of Latin Americans who had been secretly kidnapped, tortured, and killed by the security services of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay, under Operation Condor.

Mario Venegas
Mario represents the Illinois Coalition Against Torture (ICAT). He is a torture survivor from Chile, tortured by two officers from the Chilean Army, who were trained at the SOA.

Rebel Diaz
Rebel Diaz is a political hip hop duo out of the Bronx, New York and Chicago, IL consisting of the Chilean brothers Rodrigo Venegas (known as RodStarz) and Gonzalo Venegas (known as G1). Rebel Diaz uses their music as an organizing tool and to spread knowledge about injustice.

Aly Wane and Jonathan Perez
Undocumented activist from New York and California. In the past two years, undocumented students and their allies have organized some of the largest mass gatherings in the country. There has been a preponderance of undocumented students "coming out," announcing that they are "undocumented and unafraid." Some have taken an even greater risk by engaging in acts of civil resistance.

Belen Asuncion
Belen was the youngest of 55 family members of victims of Mexico's drug war on the Mexican Caravan for Peace and Justice. The caravan brought these courageous voices to over 30 US cities this summer, sharing the tragic consequences of a drug war that starts in the US, and that must also be stopped from the US. Belen's brother disappeared while driving from Mexico to the border, while conversing on his cell phone with his mother in Los Angeles. On the last visit of the Caravan to Washington, Belen shared: "Fear is the oldest weapon that has been used by government to control you, but when someone is taken from you who you didn't realize meant so much to you, your consciousness is elevated. ...We don't want you to feel sorry for us, ...You, who are looking from the other side, I was once there. I hope that you join us."

Juan Carlos Trujillo Herrera and Rafael Trujillo Herrera
Juan Carlos and Rafael are survivors of the U.S. sponsored and SOA fueled "Drug War" in Mexico.

Colleen Kattau and Elise Witt
Elise is a singer who was born in Switzerland, raised in North Carolina and since 1977 has made her home in Atlanta, Georgia. Colleen performs progressive folk rock colored w/ south of the border beats and socio-enviro-fem conscious compositions.

Pageant with the Puppetistas
Artists are a tremendously important part of the movement to close the School of the Americas. The creatively minded inspire the campaign. Art and activism is an effective combination that is able to reach people on a different level and moves them to take action.

Xochitl Espinosa, National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities (NALACC)
The National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities (NALACC) seeks to improve the quality of life for Latinos and Latino immigrants in their communities both in the United States and in countries of origin. NALACC seeks to build transnational leadership capacity and increase immigrant civic participation, so that immigrants can advocate effectively for public policies that address the root causes of migration, as well as addressing the challenges faced by immigrants in the United States. NALACC aspires to become an entity recognized for its ability to articulate the challenges faced by transnational immigrant communities, as well as viable solutions to those challenges.

Nuns at the Gates
Every hour of each day, Catholic Sisters stand in solidarity with all who face repression and violence, and we confront injustice and systems that cause suffering.

Silvia Brandon Pérez
Silvia is a singer and a member of the SOA Watch Bilingual Space Working Group

Poem by Langston Hughes, the American poet and social activist, who was one of the earliest innovators of the literary art form jazz poetry. The poem will be read by Pedro-Jesus Romero-Menendez

Mike Stout
Mike is a socially conscious singer song-writer and community leader. He leads crusades against local and global economic injustice, rallying people with his music to take action. His sound and lyrics are influenced by his musical heroes Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, Jackson Browne and Bruce Cockburn.

Dan Dale
Dan is currently a minister at Wellington Avenue UCC in Chicago. During the 1980´s, Rev. Dale and his family served as missionaries in El Salvador during that country´s civil war. Working with the Chicago Religious Task Force on Central America, Rev. Dale played a central role in creating the National Sanctuary Movement for refugees fleeing the U.S.-sponsored wars against the poor in Central America.

The US Military and the Central Intelligence Agency are killing innocent people, committing extrajudicial executions, and violating international law with the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, DRONES, that are destroying the lives of people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Iraq. The use of killer drones is increasing and spreading to other countries. We must hold our government accountable for these acts of terror. Come out and oppose these aerial death squads. Please make a banner so that all our citizens can begin to understand what is being wrought in our names.

Join us outside CIA HQ:

900 block, Dolly Madison Boulevard, McLean, Virginia

10AM to 1130AM, Saturday, November 10, 2012

Organized by Pax Christi, Pentagon Area,& Northern Virginians for Peace and Justice

contact: Jack McHale of Pax Christi at 703 772 0635 or jackmchale51@gmail.com for more info.

Videos of Enough is Enough - Peaceful to Police Violence, Pepper Spray - Chanting No Justice No Peace, Fuck the Police

You Tubes 11 3 12 by D Shea one Vimeo by Peter Parks

Jim Cook

Dave Rovics

Mic Crenshaw

MC -Prep for march Enough is Enough Nov 3rd 2012

MC -Liberation Is, Revolution Is, Peoples Power Is

MC -We Are Heroes

Marching Band

Bob Goss

Peaceful March & a little dancing to the Music

Then the Cop Violence Begins

Pepper Sprayed Street Medics lend a hand

No KKK No Cops Chant begins

more

Cop Pulls on VFP Flag you can’t see it but you hear me say hey, hey

No Justice No Peace, Fuck the Police

Vimeo by Peter Parks

Battle of Lloyd Center Nov 3rd 2012

The Rally was peaceful speakers from Labor, Occupy, and Activists all in solidarity in opposing austerity measures - Teachers, Letter Carriers, Musicians & Groups against Foreclosures help put people back in their homes

The March was non-violent until march leaders attempted to make a left turn - police blocked path, front group pushed into police line
- police push back and a back and forth against the line when more police came running to the line, pepper sprayed a number of marchers. One person Arrested

Police held the line and things calmed down as we continued to march onward

Peace

Daniel Shea
Board of Directors
Veterans For Peace
www.veteransforpeace.org

By Debra Sweet, National Director World Can't Wait.                          Thanks to all who have messaged those of us in the northeast to check how we're doing. We know many of you have been affected, and are not even able to read this, or follow the news. The scale of the disaster in the US is unprecedented, and still remains to be grasped, as tens of millions are affected. A reminder, given how seriously people in NYC/NJ are affected... proportionately, the poor countries who got the storms brunt first, especially Haiti, suffered more loss. People in Haiti's slums who have nothing — a situation fostered by centuries of U.S. actions — were washed away, and survivors face cholera. This is an international problem, and we can't get all "Ah-MUR-i-can" as the politicians do.

Choose any book below and have it signed by the author to you or to a person you plan to give it to.  It will be signed and mailed to you right away.

Here's our list of War Criminals appearances and protest for November. Let us know if you'd want to have a demonstration in your area and we'll aid you in planning and publicizing your event.

 Madeline Albright  11/12/12 - Naples FL

Veterans for Peace chapters across the nation are meeting in major cities to celebrate the original Armistice Day as was done at the end of World War I, when the world came together in realization that war is so horrible we must end it now.  

Specific topics for November 4^th  Economics of War and Peaceinclude waging peace, land and resource wars, financial domination, US foreign policy, ecocide, shifting from “full spectrum dominance” to full spectrum sharing, resource rent for public revenue, geo-confederation for conflict zones, earth rights democracy.

By John Heuer

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 10TH, 2012
3:00 - 5:00 PM

DEMILITARIZE OUR SCHOOLS - PEACE EDUCATION *and* COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT

St. Stephen's Church Rectory, 16th & Newton Sts., NW
(near Columbia Hts Metro stop, Green/Yellow lines;
S2, S4, H8, 42 bus lines)

- Don't you wish someone had talked to you or your family member before they joined the military and went into combat?
- Why does DC spend $2 million on ROTC programs and its mandatory enrollment?
- Why do military recruiters have unfettered access to our schools?
- What are your privacy rights as a student?

A panel discussion with educators, veterans and activists about the militarization of our schools, restoring student privacy and teaching peace, not war!

Moderated by Norberto Martinez & The Latino Media Collective

Speakers include:

- Pat Elder, National Coalition to Protect Student Privacy;
- Bill Galvin, Center on Conscience & War;
- John Judge, Committee for High School Options & Information on Careers, Education & Self-Improvement;
- Langston Tingling-Clemmons, DC Teacher.

Co-sponsors/Endorsers:
- Center on Conscience & War, http://www.centeronconscience.org;
- Committee for High School Options & Information on Careers, Education & Self-Improvement;
- The National Coalition to Protect Student Privacy http://studentprivacy.org;
- Washington Peace Center, http://washingtonpeacecenter.net;
- Veterans for Peace, IVAW,
- DC Metro Science for the People, http://ww.dcmetrosftp.org.

Refreshments will be provided!

Remembering Russell Means

by Stephen Lendman

Over a year ago, he knew he had inoperable esophageal cancer. It spread to his tongue, lymph nodes and lungs. It was just a matter of time. On October 22, it took him. His journey to the spirit world began. 

In August 2011, he said:

Dear Friends who have traveled with Voices delegations to Afghanistan,

Hello from Chicago.  Returning back here three days ago from Kabul, I felt like I was between homes, wanting very much to be connected and rooted in both, and yet 'thanking my lucky stars" for the chance to have been with friends in Kabul since late September. 

In past trips, Voices delegates have written about Kabul women we’ve grown to know who, when we first met them, told us they thought they were going mad, becoming actually mentally unstable, from the stresses of inability to feed their children.  The Afghan Peace Volunteers had invited these women to form a seamstress class at the APV home which now meets there every morning at 8:00 a.m.

We were a bit stymied, when Jody Tiller and I first arrived this past month, as to how they might sell their goods, avoiding exploitation by middlemen, to make a profit.  Local merchants give them only a pittance for very hard work, a small fraction of the price their goods actually fetch at the bazaar. 

We think a suggestion from Hakim is now becoming an exceptionally sensible solution.  

When David Smith-Ferri and I left Kabul, these women were full tilt into plans for making comforters, - duvets as they’re sometimes called – which would be given free of charge to needy Afghan families.  A harsh winter is on its way following last year's January that killed over 100 small Afghan children, 26 of them in Kabul's overflowing refugee camps. Assuredly, families most vulnerable to the terrible cold will need warm blankets to cover them all as they sleep. 

The seamstress collective told us that women across Afghanistan, including themselves, know how to make “duvets,” -- large comforters stuffed with wool or cotton.  They estimated the cost of producing one, factoring in a meager income to the seamstresses themselves, would be about $20 USD.  If we can supply the money to get the project going, they can begin working to make duvets for donation to poor Afghans ...one woman likely completing two duvets a day with help from family she can now feed.  The Afghan Peace Volunteers would help sew, and then store and distribute the duvets, as gifts, to needy families.

Voices co-coordinator Buddy Bell will leave for a three-week visit to Kabul on Tuesday of next week, carrying contributions from several donors eager to assist with the project.

We’ll be pleased to expand the duvet-making project as more funds become available. 

If you’d like to help with outreach and fundraising, welcome aboard! Checks can be made payable to Voices for Creative Nonviolence, with “duvet project” written in the Memo section and sent to Voices at VCNV, 1249 West Argyle, Chicago, IL 60640.  

Hakim coined the phrase: "Why not warmth?"  Please feel free to adapt this letter if you’d like to send it out under auspices other than VCNV.  What matters most is that we help distribute the heavy comforters before snow blankets Kabul. 

With all good wishes,

Kathy Kelly

Amy Goodman's Democracy Now captures a surreal scene.  Stein contention  is that there should be a return to League of Women Voters criteria that "anyone who does the work to be on the ballot in enough states to win electoral vote" should be allowed to debate.  As the arrest is taking place, the arresting officer can be heard professing concern for the flag Dr. Stein and her VP Cheryl Honkala are holding, and that no one step on it by accident.

This video clearly shows that Jill Stein is one gutsy and classy lady.