MORE CIVILIANS KILLED IN AFGHANISTAN

When will the Democrats pull the plug on this war? When will the Democrats stop wasting our war $$$?

Will the base of the Democrats stay home in the next election figuring that they have been betrayed by Obama and those war mongers who control the Congress?

How can anyone claim that the Democrats have been much different from the Republicans on endless wars? Or on off-shore oil drilling.....or corporate health care bills.....or continuing endless detentions in Guantanamo or assassinations overseas......or expanding U.S. military bases in Italy, Guam, South Korea, Okinawa........or increasing military spending to record levels......

CORPORATE MINING CEO ALSO TEABAGGER FUNDER

Meet Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy Company. Blankenship is also on the Board of Directors of the US Chamber of Commerce. In this speech above, he denies climate change and says that “the greeniacs are taking over the world.”

Massey Energy Company, Blankenship’s highly successful strip-mining and mountaintop removal operation is the parent company of Performance Coal Co, where a tragic explosion occurred on April 5th. As of this writing, 25 miners have died and 4 more are still missing.

Here’s something else about Don Blankenship and Massey Energy Company: Blankenship spent over $1 million dollars along with other US Chamber buddies like Verizon to sponsor last year’s Labor Day Tea Party, also known as the “Friends of America Rally.”

On Monday, 25 miners were killed and left four others trapped underground at the Upper Big Branch Mine. It is the worst mining disaster in the United States since 1984 and, if the four trapped miners are not rescued, would become the worst since 1970. The Washington Post reports, “[t]he cause of Monday’s explosion has not been determined, but a buildup of methane or coal dust was considered the likeliest culprit.”

The Upper Big Branch mine received 39 violations in 2009 citing a failure to plan for ventilation to extract methane and other chemicals. Fifteen of these were considered “significant and substantial.” In July of 2009, the mine received its largest monetary fine of the year ($66,142) for allowing the accumulation of combustible materials in working spaces. Upper Big Branch received 34 similar violations citing accumulation of combustible materials, 20 of which were determined to be “significant and substantial.”

Massey Energy has contested nearly all major citations issued against the Upper Big Branch Mine in 2009 and has paid less than 20% of the fines levied against them. Of the top 100 fines levied against the Upper Big Branch Mine in 2009, Massey Energy has contested or are delinquent in paying 85% of them. Upper Big Branch was also cited for 202 violations that were considered “significant and substantial.” Seventy-six percent of those have either been contested or Massey Energy is delinquent in paying them.

- Reprinted in part from article called CEO of Mine Where 25 Workers Were Killed Is a Teabagger

ON HEARING BECK

On the way back to Maine today we listened to a couple of hours of Glenn Beck on the radio spewing his lies and deception. Beck was complaining about several groups (Jewish, Christian, and unions) who are calling for boycotts of his show and its sponsors. As usual he was name-calling anyone who disagrees with him - Marxists and Communists and the like.

He denied ever having said that people should go to their church web site and if they saw the words "social justice" they should run away fast from that church. MB and I had a good laugh over that one because we had both heard him on TV make that very statement on several occasions. It is obvious that when people stand up to Mr. Beck he squirms like a worm.

Last night we met peace walkers who had just arrived in North Andover, Massachusetts. We joined them for a pot luck supper and then afterward I spoke to the folks who had gathered. It was really a great chance for me to link with activists in that community. The weapons corporation Raytheon has a production facility nearby where the Patriot (PAC-3) "missile defense" system is built. I told them about the peace movement efforts in Japan and South Korea to protest against the PAC-3 deployments there that are being aimed at China.

Obama has recently approved a deal where Raytheon will sell Taiwan these same PAC-3 missile defense systems. It's a Cuban Missile Crisis in reverse as the U.S. continues to arm Taiwan and to essentially use that country as our own military base right off the Chinese mainland. If Obama was truly serious about reducing nuclear stockpiles he would not be selling Taiwan weapon systems that are integral to the U.S. first-strike attack program. China has only one possible response to the U.S.-Taiwan deployments of PAC-3 in their backyard - build more nuclear weapons as the real job of PAC-3 is to take out China's nuclear retaliatory capability after a U.S. first-strike attack.

PORTLAND CITY COUNCIL PASSES WAR $$ HOME RESOLUTION

Last evening the Portland (Maine) City Council voted 7-1 to pass the Bring Our War $$ Home resolution. Portland is the biggest city in Maine.


CITY OF PORTLAND

IN THE CITY COUNCIL

RESOLUTION ASKING THE U.S. CONGRESS TO END THE EXPENDITURE OF OUR CITIZENS’ TAX DOLLARS FOR EXCESSIVE AND UNAFFORDABLE WAR FUNDING


WHEREAS, the financial resources available for use by governments at the local, county, state and federal levels in the United States are and must be limited; and

WHEREAS, the people of Portland, Maine are collectively paying or becoming indebted for approximately 15 million dollars per year of their limited financial resources for warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan; and

WHEREAS, such expenditure is inordinate to the identified public benefits to Maine and the nation; and

WHEREAS, this warfare too often creates great and unnecessary harm to U.S. military personnel and their families, and to the people of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan; and

WHEREAS, essential public services such as education, infrastructure repair, family and small-business financing, and community policing in Portland and throughout the State of Maine have been substantially reduced while an excessive portion of available financial resources is diverted from the constructive economy to largely unnecessary warfare.

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED:

THAT the City of Portland, Maine respectfully requests that the U.S. Representative from the First Maine Congressional District and both of Maine's U.S. Senators oppose all legislation brought before the 111th U.S. Congress that provides further funding of the U.S. warfare and U.S. military occupations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan; and that the City of Portland, Maine also urges these members of Congress to take strong and forceful action to influence the U.S. Congress to terminate funding of these military operations.

LICENSE TO KILL

Our collective American heart is cold as we allow this murder and then repeatedly call the soldiers who do these things "brave heroes" which only gives them further license to keep killing.

It's been happening by the U.S. military since the Native American carnage. And it continues today in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

When will it end? Only when the American people come alive and speak out in utter outrage against this murder of innocent human beings.

MLK'S OWN WORDS ON WAR

MLK was killed, I believe, because he had crossed the line to speak out against U.S. imperial wars. He was also rumored to be considering at the time running for president with Dr. Benjamin Spock (a key leader of the peace movement) as his vice-presidential running mate.

A King-Spock team would have united the black and white activist movements that were so strong during the late 60's. It was then that the decision was made to take King out.

I highly recommend the book called Orders to Kill: The Truth Behind the Murder of Martin Luther King, Jr by William Pepper. I read it some years ago and it was a life-changer for me.

See it here

I am convinced that in America the oligarchy lets you speak out (it helps maintain the illusion of democracy) until you become a real threat to their power. In the case of MLK, the decision was made that he was going to seriously challenge the power of those who run the show.

ON THE CAPE

MB and I are on Cape Cod in Massachusetts for a few days. Her brother has a condo here on the bay and gave us the key to the place. We both need a rest after months of a feverish pace. On Tuesday we will head to North Andover (north of Boston) where I will speak at a supper program for the walkers who I have just left.

The sun is shining here and we are in the Provincetown library checking our emails. Last night we went out for dinner and then watched the Tavis Smiley show on PBS as he took the big step forward and did a program about Martin Luther King Jr.'s courageous 1967 anti-war speech at Riverside Church in New York City. Smiley explored the severe criticism that King took for stepping outside his "civil rights box" when he leaped into the debate over the Vietnam War. King make the link between funding the imperial Asian war with cutbacks in the poverty programs at that time. He asked if America's soul was dead.

Dr. Vincent Harding, who is co-credited with writing the "Beyond Vietnam" speech, tells Smiley that King's inner circle worried about the ramifications of the speech, both before and after he gave it.

"We were concerned, he was concerned, but he had really come to the point, as the speech is trying to say, where if he was to be a man of conscience, a man of compassion, he had to speak," said Dr. Harding.

He added, "But it was precisely one year to the day after this speech that that bullet which had been chasing him for a long time finally caught up with him. And I am convinced that that bullet had something to do with that speech."

Smiley then boldly showed bits of Obama's recent Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech where he tried to justify his war in Afghanistan by saying that non-violence had its place but that he as president had the responsibility to protect against "terrorism".

Smiley asked Harry Belafonte (who was a close friend and confidant to MLK) about this and Belafonte blistered Obama's thinking as did Cornel West who called Obama an agent of Pharaoh.

This was a very significant show because it opened the door for the black leadership class to begin to publicly critique Obama in ways that prior to now have been verboten.

You could sense that Smiley was himself struggling with how much to begin challenging Obama but it was crystal clear that the example of MLK was the model that he and others were using to guide them on road to truth.

The good folks at Black Agenda Report have not been timid to take on Obama and have been pressuring the likes of Smiley and West to become more vocal. It appears now that they have done so.

They are now free of the chains that can bind conscience.

You can watch the show here

WE ARE THE PEOPLE OF GANGJEONG

Four hundred years ago, our ancestors founded their place here where water is clean and the landscape is beautiful.

The sea is the indigo blue as to make my eyes cool.

The row stone walls are that I depended upon when I learned my first walking

The alleys are where I played with my friends not knowing the sun’s already setting.

On the way to school, I used to see the Beom Island beyond the row walls. And my grandfather's tomb.

Until the day becomes dark, I used to rise on the bank and played with my younger brother, waited for my father’s fishing boat returning back.

During the day of hot sun-rays, my mother used to work in the farms.

I can not forget the shining sun-rays on my mother's back whenever she returned home.
Unnoticed, I grew up and met my lover.

Became to have the children whom I will not feel the pain even though I put in my two yeses.

I raised them with love, here in Gangjeong.

We are the Gangjeong people.

We have never sold Gangjeong. We have never given up Gangjeong.

Until the hot blood in our bodies become cold, we cannot stop fighting.

We are the Gangjeong people.

ACTION NEEDED: If you have not yet called or emailed to support the villagers of Gangjeong who are fighting against the building of the Navy base, please do so right away. Call the South Korean Embassy at 202-939-5692 (Admiral Choi) or 202-939-5600 or email at consular_usa@mofat.go.kr

WALK OVER FOR ME BUT MEMORIES REMAIN

This is a photo from last Friday when we walked from Lewiston to Brunswick and had lunch at Graziano's Italian restaurant in Lisbon.

I am home and my legs are sore. I almost fell asleep driving back from Kennebunk. It was sad to say good-bye to my fellow walkers who are continuing on to New York City for the big May 2 international anti-nuclear peace rally. I'll see them there and have been invited to re-join them on April 6 in Andover, Mass. to speak about space issues at their evening program and will be happy to see them all again.

We had a great send-off lunch today in Kennebunk as we completed the Maine portion of the Walk for a Nuclear-Free Future. Our friend Hana Maris, who lives there, hosted us along with a few other peace folks. A local Thai restaurant donated the lunch for us and we had a birthday cake with a peace sign on it to celebrate Maggie Finch's 89th birthday later this month.

As we were walking southward this morning on U.S. Highway 1 I was thinking of the walks I organized in Florida years ago that went from Cape Canaveral up to the Kings Bay nuclear submarine base just over the Florida-Georgia line. We walked that route in both direction on two different occasions and each time we followed U.S. Hwy 1 - so I was thinking of that long stretch of road and what it has meant to me over the years.

Another thing I was thinking about today as we walked that last 9.8 miles to Kennebunk was the different kind of facial and hand signals people buzzing by in cars gave to me as I was holding my sign that read "Human Needs Not Endless War". Thousands of people got to read my sign as I walked thru Maine. Some would give me a thumbs up, others thumbs down. Some the middle "missile launcher" finger, others a dismissive wave of their hand. Some, with their hands on the car steering wheel would just lift their hand a bit in a mini-wave and others would give a full wave of the hand. Most, as you can imagine, would just stare blindly ahead not wanting to give any clue that they had even noticed our bright crew of peace folks walking down the highway.

Obama came to Portland, Maine today and it appears that several thousand folks turned out to cheer him after the corporate health insurance bill became law. Two of the youngest people on our walk stood in line the other day in the rain to get tickets. So a couple of the walkers were going to go hear his speech today after we finished. They wanted to give him information about the purpose of the walk. While standing in line they met our Congresswoman Chellie Pingree and talked to her about our Bring Our War $$ Home campaign. Pingree told them she had heard of it.

I heard just a couple minutes of Obama's speech on the car radio on my way home. He was saying that it is a "middle of the road" bill, not socialism, and spelled out some of the things in the bill. I don't know why he chose to come to Maine - we are not a swing state. It will be interesting to see what else he talked about in his speech.

This morning we walked from Saco over the river to the working class (former mill town) called Biddeford. There it had been arranged by our host Tom Kircher that we would meet with the mayor of Biddeford Joanne Twomey who is a renegade Democrat. She served in the Maine House of Representatives for eight years and refused to be a party follower. Today she greeted us and said she had no interest in seeing Obama. Twomey told us she was furious about the corporate health care bill (she has no health care even though she is mayor) and fears getting cancer, which killed her husband. She said she really appreciated Tom recently bringing the war $$ home message to their local school board meeting and was blown-away by what their city taxpayers had paid toward the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ($67.1 million) since 2001. She said not to expect much from our two Maine members of Congress (Pingree and Mike Michaud) when it comes to leadership on this issue. Sadly I know she is right.

I told the mayor that we need people like her, local elected officials, to speak out more and make the connections between war spending and cut backs in jobs and local services.

For me the walk was a great opportunity to bring our message about the war $$ home campaign to lots of new people in communities we rarely work with across the state. So in the end the sore legs and mindless tiredness I feel was all worth it. The new friendships and working with old friends, who served as our local hosts during the journey, was a real gift.

I often tell people that we need to get outside our normal organizing boxes and find ways to reach out to new folks. This walk proved to be just such a vehicle.