Opposing Star Wars–World Day of Action June 22; Petition

(from an email i received June 2, 2009)

HUNGER STRIKERS MESSAGE FROM PRAGUE

Day 10 of my solidarity hunger strike

We heard from the Czech Republic today that Jan Tamas and Jan Bednar will end their hunger strike tonight. Others in their country and around the world will then join the strike in their place. In their statement from Prague today they concluded, “We call on all the people who disagree with this plan [U.S. radar deployment] to show their disagreement, not to stay silent, and to start being active. Because ‘democracy’ is not just a word, putting a vote into a ballot box once every four years, democracy is about the active participation of every individual. “

In Brunswick, Maine today we had 14 folks on the street to once again hold signs and hand out leaflets to the public. I will continue on the hunger strike until June 7 and at that time Mary Beth Sullivan will take my place. Global Network member Sung-Hee Choi, who began the hunger strike on May 24 in New York City, will also continue until June 7. We are now hearing from other leaders in the Global Network who will also be joining the strike in their communities.

Recognizing that the U.S. is determined to twist the arm of the Czech government into submission to accept the deployment of the provocative “missile defense” radar, Jan Tamas and Jan Bednar are urging others around the world to help expand this effort.

They say, “Today at midnight we will suspend our hunger strike, however, a chain hunger strike will start in our country at the same time, when various people covering the whole social spectrum will be symbolically fasting for 24 hours. Tomorrow, a dissident, former Charter 77 and Independent Movement Activist, Peter Uhl will strike for us. In the following days the relay will be taken over by, among others, the sociologist Jan Keller, artist Anna Geislerova, Senator Alena Gajduskova, member of the Czech Academy of Science Petr Pokorny, Member of Parliament Olga Zubova, journalist Jakub Patocka, artist Lenka Vlasakova, radio editor Jeronym Janicek, and many others. “

“On an international level, for example Dennis Kucinich, member of the U.S. House of Representatives, continues fighting, as well as the U.S. Green Party presidential candidate, Cynthia McKinney. Here in the EU we have a meeting on this topic with the vice-president of the European Parliament, Luisa Morgantini next Thursday, who has promised to open a discussion on this topic in the European parliament. Today, Giorgio Schultze, the spokesperson for New Humanism in Europe, who is starting an open-ended hunger strike with the aim of getting a clear EU statement on this U.S. plan, takes the relay baton from us into Europe. Apart from this, hunger strikes to support our struggle are on going in Australia, the USA, Italy, Spain, Germany and Austria.”

“All of you, who agree with our protest, can help us to spread it further and join the 22nd June one-day worldwide hunger strike against the Star Wars system, part of which is the planned base in the Czech Republic. This protest is the reaction to our hunger strike, and it is its strong follow-up on a world-wide level. It is already clear that people from all continents will participate.”

So our Czech friends are challenging all of us to step up. It is obvious that instead of winding down, this effort against the radar is expanding and each of us can now play a role by joining the hunger strike for one day or more and by helping to spread the word to our organizations and personal networks.

Last Sunday here in Bath, Maine the Rev. Bill Bliss spoke about the hunger strike as the theme of his sermon at his United Church of Christ. Others have been urging people to sign the on-line petition at http://www.nonviolence.cz/ Still others are writing letters to the editor of their newspaper and planning to hold public vigils.

In the coming days the U.S. government will once again be debating their annual Pentagon spending appropriations. The military budget will be well over $600 billion in the coming year and the largest single project is for Star Wars “research and development.” Now is the time for those who live in the U.S. to be calling on Congress to defund Star Wars.

This campaign is growing daily as people worldwide learn more about U.S. plans to move the arms race into space.

The aerospace industry often brags that Star Wars will be the largest industrial project in the history of the planet. But in order to make it so they must first drag other countries like the Czech Republic, Poland, Japan, South Korea, Britain, Italy, Canada, Australia, and others into the program.

The resistance we are now seeing from the Czech Republic must be matched with similar efforts all over if we hope to have the resources to effectively deal with climate change and maintain social progress in our communities.

We must join the fight now to keep space for peace.

Bruce K. Gagnon

Coordinator Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space

PO Box 652 Brunswick, ME 04011 (207) 443-9502

http://www.space4peace.org

globalnet@mindspring.com

http://space4peace.blogspot.com (Blog)

May 2008 thoughts on steps forward in an election cycle

WFPI MAY 27, 2008

Assumption: Our activities against war, torture, use of National Guard, etc., will be viewed by many mainstream folks as irrelevant until either day after election (if McCain wins) or till at least next Memorial Day if someone else does. Given that: What are best ways to use this time for us; how do we get the most leverage?

1. Reading Groups, for ideas, inspiration, increased knowledge to use later, etc.

2. Fun social things (picnic) to keep connected to each other; also maybe use blog to connect.

3. Show movies we want to watch with each other, see who else might come (or house parties).

4. Visibility: Involvement in parades, giving to local clinics, etc., street-corner vigils.

5. Write letters to editor that identify needs of our nation and world for transformations that need our attention now and go beyond the election, whatever its outcome.

6. Long-term planning of wfpi events for 2009.

7. Counter-recruiting!!!

8. Protests at campaign events of presidential candidates and their surrogates, Loebsack, Harkin and their opponents: street theater with mourners carrying “bloody children;” demands to pledge to limit warfare, honor treaties, refuse and/or renounce voting to fund war, etc. (Use media.)

–> Things we might demand that candidates for national office pledge to do:

· accept/keep no contributions from companies that produce weapons or tools of war.

· oppose (not initiate, not fund) any war not fought strictly in self-defense if it isn’t authorized by the UN Security Council and also declared by Congress.

· renounce any previous vote to fund any portion of the Iraq war or to provide a bloated budget to the Pentagon.

· cut the budget of the Department of Defense by 15% or more.

· create of a Department of Peace charged to reduce the likelihood of wars through diplomacy, aid and development, climate and energy policies.

· never employ these means within the prosecution of a war (or ever):

Making first use of nuclear weapons, depleted uranium weapons, white phosphorus as a weapon, napalm weapons, cluster bombs.
Targeting civilians, journalists, hospitals or ambulances.
Torturing prisoners or detaining them with no legal process.
Spying in violation of the law and the Bill of Rights.
Punishing whistle-blowers.

· uphold these treaties:

The International Criminal Court, the United Nations Charter; The Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the Landmine Ban Treaty, the Biological Weapons Convention, the Chemical Weapons Convention; The Kyoto Treaty on Global Climate Change, the Biodiversity Treaty, and the Forest Protection Treaty.

Our regular meetings–please join us

You are most welcome to join in each or any of these as frequently or infrequently as fits your busy life!

Our General Membership meetings are 7-9 pm on the fourth Tuesday of each month, except July and December.  As of Spring 2008 we have been having these in the Busse Library on the Mount Mercy College campus in the Viewing Room on the lower level.  To verify the place of the meeting (or ask about anything else here), email chmartin@mtmercy.edu.

Our Education and Action Committee meets every month, 7-9 pm on the second Tuesday of each month, also in Mount Mercy’s Busse Library, in Study Room #1.  We plan upcoming events designed to educate the public or stir our leaders into more responsive and responsible governing.

Every Saturday at noon some of us stand for an hour on the corner of First Avenue and Collins Road (SE corner).  Bring your own sign urging passersby to be for peace, or use one of our many extras.

Another option is the join Knitters for Peace: Supporting the peaceful arts of knitting and crocheting. This group meets monthly on the second Tuesday, 9:30-11:30 am at Prairiewoods, 120 E Boyson Rd, Hiawatha, and on fourth Tuesdays each month at Marion Public Library, 7-8:30 pm., Marion.  For more information call 377-3252.

UI Black Student Union Calls Allies to Join May 2 March against Discrimination

On Friday, May 2 at 1:30pm the BSU is marching from the African-American Cultural Center to the Pentacrest.

They are marching against discrimination and have sent out an open call and invitation for all allies to march with them.

It is my sense that a prime or the prime trigger for this is the acquittal of those 3 cops who had pumped 50 bullets into an unarmed young black man, Sean Bell, in NYC on his wedding day.  I have a strong desire to participate supportively in this event, so I’m also appealing to any of you who could car pool with me to let me know.  Thanks.

Talking points for you to write to Gazette about banning Torture

Talking Points From Human Rights First

• It has been four years since we learned of the torture at Abu Ghraib and our government still has not acted to restore America’s honor by unequivocally banning torture and other forms of cruel treatment.
• Now we’ve even learned that some very senior Bush administration officials were meeting to approve “enhanced” interrogation techniques for the CIA from inside the White House
• Thanks to President Bush, the CIA’s “enhanced” interrogation program continues.
• It’s up to the next president to restore America’s moral authority. The next president must swear off the use of torture by any and all U.S. agencies.

What You Need to Know about “Military Keynesianism”–Must-Read Article

http://www.alternet.org/story/83555/

The Pentagon Strangles Our Economy: Why the U.S. Has Gone Broke

By Chalmers Johnson, Le Monde diplomatique. Posted April 26, 2008.

Even if this article were only about Military Keynesianism, I’d urge you all to read it, but that interesting dynamic is just one important component of the destructiveness of our egregiously excessive military spending.  Military Keynesianism takes the make-work approach of Keynes that FDR used to get the US out of the Depression and says we can be perpetually rich by pumping make-work bucks into the military-industrial complex; the other side of this policy-driving ideology is the widespread believe among Americans that the US economy would crash if we trimmed our military spending.  That’s the myth.  The truth is that this spending pattern just assures that virtually all the best technological minds become unavailable to the industries that make things real people buy (cars, electronics, etc.).  Have you heard of the trade deficit?  It’s another outcome of the Pentagon’s bloated budget.  I can’t do this stuff justice, but you really need to read it!

Speaker discussing Iran May 4th, 2008

SUNDAY, MAY 4, 2008
COE COLLEGE
HICKOCK HALL 2:30 PM

Dr. Fatemeh Keshavarz, Prof. & Chair of Asian & Near
Eastern Lang. & Lit. Washington University

WILL SPEAK AT COE COLLEGE
“THE IRAN THAT SMILES”

She is an award winning poet & novelist and will sign
her latest book “Jasmine & Stars: Reading More than
Lolita in Tehran”. She was invited to speak at the UN
General Assembly in 2007 & is interested in the
broader implication of cultural education for World
Peace.

As an added bonus, 2 local artists will display their
artwork, the Persian Tileist Jafar Mogadam and
Dr.Abdul Sinno’s “Treasures of the Mississippi”
Panoramas & Poetic Reflections.

Draft of a letter for the Gazette–give me feedback, please!

An enormous 71 per cent of Americans in an early April poll expressed a belief that their country is going in the wrong direction.  And no wonder.

But what are we doing about it?  If people imagine we’ll get some stunning transformation from electing any of three senators seeking the presidency, I’d like to suggest another approach.  I can’t guarantee immediate results, but almost everything has to be better than counting on someone who has the blessing of either of the two major parties.  Just look at the way both Democrats are manipulating this issue of the disenfranchised primary voters in Florida–not to mention the shocking inability of McCain to see the profound differences between Iraq and South Korea.

Counting on a new President from either major party is a recipe for certain disappointment.  Instead, I invite you to try a new option.  Get involved.

Get involved in a group that is working locally on an issue.  No one can do everything, but that’s no reason for doing nothing.

Choose an issue that fires you up, and find some people in your area (this is why there’s Google, folks) who are working on that issue.  Believe me, they want you to join in!  Chances are they are people who, even if a bit idiosyncratic, have more good ideas than they have enough helpers to carry out in any given year.  Give them a chance.

I can’t promise immediate results, but I can promise instant satisfaction.  There’s no joy that compares with knowing that, instead of just shaking your head and wasting your money on yet another means of temporary distraction, you are actually trying to change what you don’t like.  Make yourself part of what will de facto be a growing movement of people who are actually taking their country’s direction into their own hands through participation in a local issue-oriented community of doers (aka “activists”).  The one best thing you can do for your personal happiness is to give yourself this gift: Walk the Talk.

Top Ten Signs We Finally Have an Anti-Torture President

(I got this in an email from Human Rights First.)

Top Ten Signs We Finally Have an Anti-Torture President

10)  The President goes waterskiing instead of waterboarding.

—Jill – Redding, Connecticut

9)   Grand opening of the “Sandals Guantanamo Bay Beach Resort”.

—James – South Orange, New Jersey

8)  ”Stress Positions” are only for Corporate CEOs, and the phrase “torture memo” refers only to long, painfully boring email sent by superiors.

—Janis – Sunland, California and Megan – Rohnert Park, California

7)  ”Enhanced interrogation techniques” now defined as ordinary techniques filmed in HD.

—Megan – Rohnert Park, California

6)  The phrase “Extraordinary Rendition” now used to describe American Idol performances.

—Joseph – San Diego, California

5)  Jack Bauer starts acting more like his brother, Eddie.

—Travis and Benjamin – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

4)  ”Secret detention” means not telling your parents you had detention.

—James – South Orange, New Jersey

3)  Calling Geneva Conventions “quaint” now seen as quaint.

—Megan – Rohnert Park, California

2)  ”I can finally stop wearing my ‘Who Would Jesus Torture?’ bracelet.”

—Sarah – New York, New York

1)  Superman no longer having to fight for truth, justice and the Canadian way.

—Edward – Los Angeles, California

How Cure Apathy?

I have recently had a couple of experiences that have left and lingering but not a very happy impression. One was in one of my courses at Mount Mercy, the other was tonight after a Linn Co. Greens viewing and discussion of Naomi Klein talking about the ideas in her book “Shock Doctrine.” There wasn’t a lot of overlap to the content of the conversations, but both conversations left me musing over the question, why do people not take action?

That was one of the themes of the Greens discussion, with none of the theories I heard satisfying my curiosity about the question. The way my course got me thinking about this was that my 8 students took me by surprise Wednesday night in their very blunt willingness to assert that there is no such thing as a responsibility to take action aimed at subverting one or more of the structures that divert resources from the poor to the rich. I wouldn’t have been so surprised if it weren’t the case that we have been reading literature asserting (with good arguments) the opposite view for fully two months now–some 400-500 pages of material that included Letter from Birmingham Jail and resounded similar themes again and again, complete with lots of facts and figures. One impact that all this good literature has had is that two of the students have undergone a complete conversion from shopping a lot at Walmart to becoming Walmart-free, and one of these is very actively evangelizing her friends and family about the good news of life beyond Walmart. I pointed out, after our discussion had gone on for a while without much encouraging being said, that their change of how they vote with their consumer dollars, and especially their willingness to spread the word, was an example of an action aimed at subverting such an unjust structure. That helped a little, but not enough for me to be able to stop feeling haunted by what these young and not so young people, who have now read hugely more than the average American about key economic and social structures of our world, were saying about social responsibility.

Basically the theme of their remarks was that different people are called to different things, and so for that reason it would be improper to propose that everyone has a responsibility to act in one way or another to oppose some injustice or another.

To me this sounds like a claim that some people are called to be truthful when they speak and other people are called to obey traffic laws when they drive, but some people aren’t called to these things. In other words, it sounds perfectly ridiculous to propose that some people may not be called to be part of making society more just. Particularly after having read Letter from Birmingham Jail!!

My musings on this, intensified after the Greens discussion, have left me with two hypotheses about what those folks are assuming that leads them to such a different conclusion than mine.

One hypothesis is that, even after all kinds of arguments in great literature to the contrary, these students see themselves as not participating in society’s structures, so the question of a responsibility to act for justice sounds to them like entering into something that might not be their “business” or their “concern.” King wrote: “We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.” We are part of what is going on, like it or not; we are either contributing to the problem or contributing to the solution. My students know enough to acknowledge this when they hear it, but they are also willing to refuse to believe it too. In that latter bit they are like most of the people around us, the difference being how much more they have read that contradicts their self-deception as to their complicity.

My other hypothesis is perhaps closely related. But it feels to me like my students think their are entitled to their social apathy. Trying to bring about more justice is someone else’s job, and as long as they faithfully do their own thing, all is well. I find this notion incredible, and yet it is as close as I think I can get to understanding what their logic is. It isn’t their job. Someone has to do it, they realize, just not them. And they really deserve not to have anyone bothering them about their own role in relation to issues of justice.

We talk in our society sometimes about how we seem to have created a generation or two with a strangely enormous sense of entitlement. What I’m trying to get after is that I think that’s involved in our current problem. People are not just apathetic but are willing to be pretty self-righteous about it. They are comfortable defending their passivity. They have every right to it, they believe. They think themselves entitled and free to regard social responsibility as one of a number of possible hobbies from which they can choose, and they think it fairly audacious that anyone would suggest otherwise.

They fancy themselves as entitled to their apathy as they are entitled to listen to whatever style of music they prefer.

So we find ourselves in a country at war, with as much as 70% of population reporting their disapproval of the Iraq conflict. But their voices never really rise, other than when they are answering an opinion poll, I guess.

How do we counteract this? How do we stir in people an awareness of their responsibility, their duty?

(At this point there are fairly large cross-sections of world-wide Christianity that would propose praying for a revival. This is not my style of Christianity, but I haven’t much else to fall back on.)

One option would be to try to urge people to embrace social responsibility on the grounds of an enlightened self-interest: on the grounds that all the other things that they want to pursue (to “do their own thing”) will be less and less available to them as more and more of the wealth of our world is transferred to the uber-rich. Is self-interest enough of a tipping point into responsibility? If that’s their only possible motive, isn’t it just as likely they’ll approve the next George Bush’s proposal to kill or otherwise harm other people as a means sustain the opportunities we hope these folks will exert themselves morally to preserve? Appeals to their self-interest from us might just backfire and make them even more vulnerable to being manipulated to support the next fascist scapegoating routine. The effort to gain leverage with their sense of entitlement may well be destined only to reinforce that sense.

I’d prefer to try almost anything else (including praying for revival, frankly!).

I wonder if there is any way to show people that we find a greater joy in trying to make a difference than pretty much anything they have ever known. This is another variation on appeal to enlightened self-interest, I suppose. But the difference is that the other way makes seeking justice a means to preserving other treasured rights and opportunities, which people might be seduced into thinking can be attained more easily through even greater injustices. This way makes seeking justice something that brings a fulfillment all its own–the very seeking, quite apart from success.

I don’t know if there’s anything to that. I’d sure like to gather some insights that others might propose in response to my meandering contemplations here.