UP TO 19 KILLED BY ISRAEL FOR DELIVERING HUMANITARIAN AID

Israel is out of control, arrogantly thinking they can attack humanitarian aid shipments and activists who were under a white flag in international waters. U.S. taxpayers heavily subsidize the Israeli military and their deadly operations like this tragic event.

Why is carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza a crime? What gives the Israeli regime the right to attack peaceful people? What gives Israel the right to kill innocent people in Gaza or on the high seas?

This is an outrage. The U.S. Congress must cut all military aid to Israel immediately in response to this criminal act of violence.

Watch live streaming video from insaniyardim at livestream.com

If any other country besides Israel did this (say Iran or North Korea) there would be hell to pay. Let's see what the U.N. and the U.S. do now.

JEJU VILLAGERS CONNECT THE DOTS TO MILITARISM

Gangjeong Village People’s Council, Demands the Navy Base Reappraisal to President Lee

Translation by Sung-Hee Choi (Inchon, South Korea)

While President Lee Myung-Bak, and representatives from Japan and China, visited Jeju Island to be present in the 3rd ROK-Japan-China Summit meeting, the Gangjeong village people’s council announced its position on the whole reappraisal of the Jeju naval base.

The Gangjeong Village People’s Council saying in the press release called The Gangjeong Village People’s Council’s Position on the ROK-Japan-China that, “There is an expectation that the three countries could have a diplomacy with the principal of co-respect and reciprocity. Therefore we could not but be concerned that the Jeju naval base would influence into the diplomacy of three countries of Korea-Japan-China in some degree.”

The Gangjeong village people’s council pointed out that “Originally the Jeju naval base is the business aimed at the protection of the southern trade sea-lane as the 1st purpose and it should be kept in mind that our sea-lane is under the geographical condition that our sea-lane cannot but pass by the territorial waters of China and Japan.”

“Far from that constructing the naval base in the Jeju would help the easing of the tensions in the northeast Asia, there are enough possibilities that it would be seen as part of arms race. For the Jeju to be born again, the plan of the naval base construction should be re-considered.”

The Gangjeong village people’s council announced that, “We request the President to have the meeting with the newly-elected [Jeju Island] governor and review the issue of the Jeju naval base construction from the principal and make a wise decision.”

Following that, “Since the naval base is the strategic business, the [base] candidate area should be chosen after enough study and review considered with the strategic, effective and economic points and its business should be practiced after all the villagers’ agreement procedures such as the public poll and prior environmental review are processed transparently and perfectly."

DESTRUCTION OF IRAQ STILL ONGOING

* Just in case you have forgotten about Iraq the above video should cure your memory loss. It's a perfect example of how corporate globalization is working to destroy every country on the Earth by turning them into slaves of the international banking system.

* Not good news either from the Gulf of Mexico where BP announces their latest "fix" didn't work. How long does the government sit in the front row and watch BP destroy the world's oceans? I heard a report on the radio the other day that oil is traveling via an undersea current to Key West in Florida....this stuff is going global while BP keeps screwing up. Time for some grown-ups to intervene.

* I spent most of yesterday working in our yard on the garden and stacking firewood. Our garden is now mostly all planted with sunflowers, squash, tomatoes, cukes, lettuce, spinach, beets, green beans, carrots, peas, peppers, chard, kale, leeks, and basil. Today I will continue on the wood stacking. It's nice to do something where you can see immediate results.

* I got an email from Denis Delestrac yesterday. He is the Director of Pax Americana and the Weaponization of Space. He said he just signed contracts to have the film shown in Spain, Chile, Uruguay, and Argentina during our October 2-9 Keep Space for Peace Week. This will be a great step forward for us as we have had little success in outreach to Spanish speaking countries over the years. He feels confidant that we will have the film available on DVD in October as well.

FLASHBACKS

TAKE A HOLIDAY TRIP TO YORKSHIRE

Fylingdales in North Yorkshire
Menwith Hill in Yorkshire

Yorkshire in England is where the U.S. has built the Menwith Hill satellite spy base. Our friends there have been protesting for years to stop the expansion of the base and its upgrading to participate in the U.S. Star Wars program.

Not far from Menwith Hill is a second U.S. Star Wars facility called Fylingdales which sits in the middle of the moors, the national park surrounded by fields of beautiful heather. Fylingdales is a Ballistic Missile Early Warning System radar. On June 6 the Yorkshire Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) will hold a protest at Fylingdales.

The people in this part of the world don't want these U.S. bases on their lands. They don't want their countryside to be used to help the U.S. "control and dominate" space and the planet below on behalf of corporate globalization. They don't want to be targets in U.S. created global instability.

We could save lots of money if we shut these bases down and brought our war $$ home.

PLENTY OF $$ FOR MORE WAR

The Democrats control the Senate but yesterday they joined the Republicans in a big way to pass the $33.5 billion war supplemental bill for the remainder of 2010. The vote was 67-28. (Only two Democrats in the Senate voted no - Russ Feingold and Ron Wyden.) Doesn't say much for the party that got into power by running against Bush's wars.

Next it goes to the House for a vote sometime in early June.

Our local Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (under severe pressure throughout the 1st District in Maine to vote against more war $$) sent a letter to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi asking her to allow a clean vote on the war spending bill instead of fattening it with Haiti aid funds and other pork. Pelosi is not likely to respond. So the question is what will Pingree do next? Her letter to Pelosi did not say that she was going to vote against war $$ no matter what Pelosi does.

My guess is that Pingree sent the letter to cover her back side here in Maine and will then turn around and vote for the war supplemental telling us that she had to because it was loaded with all this other good stuff that she had to support.

I notice that she has not posted her letter to Pelosi on her web site homepage. Instead she has a link to a bunch of stories about her fighting to get funding for Pratt-Whitney in Maine to make the jet engines for the F-35 fighter plane. She's in a dog fight with General Electric and Rolls Royce who are trying to keep an “alternative engine” program alive. What about scrapping the whole damn F-35 fighter program anyway? What do we need them for? Jobs in Maine, Pingree responds. Why not convert the weapons plant and make mass transit systems instead? Not on Pingree's agenda - far too controversial for her kind of "go along-get along" brand of politics.

I was told by a mayor of a major Maine city that Pingree would never stand and fight on the war $$ issue and I'm afraid the mayor was right.

But I could be reading this all wrong - we shall she which way she goes in the next week or so. But first the House will come home for the holiday and Pingree will be in Maine raising funds for her reelection bid in November. Rumor has it that a write-in candidate will be running against her on the war $$ issue.

GO HELEN GO!!!

Helen Thomas is one of the few White House reporters with any guts!

U.S. A "FAILED STATE" - SAVE US FROM THE CORPORATE PIRATES!

* Like most of you, I can't stop thinking about the sea life in the Gulf of Mexico. It is just a matter of time before massive amounts of fish and mammals begin washing up on the oily shore. What happens if they can't plug this oil hole for another week, or month, or several months? Why isn't the government suspending its global military operations and putting every researcher, every government scientist, and the rest of their brain power to work on this case?

* Peter Woodruff and I did half of our weekly radio show at Bowdoin College's WBOR station last night on the oil disaster. We played one of Mumia Abu-Jamal's Prison Radio news bits on the subject as well as one from Jim Hightower. The second half of our show was dedicated to war spending and Obama's call for a commission to take down the "entitlement programs" - Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

* Most activists in South Korea have been, and remain, suspicious about the official story surrounding the sinking of their Navy ship. At the time of the incident the U.S. and South Korea were having one of their annual provocative war games where they practice an invasion of North Korea. One has to remember that the U.S. has a modus operandi when it comes to using sunk boats to justify war - "Remember the Maine" that was the prelude to the Spanish-American War and the more contemporary Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that was the kick-off to the Vietnam War. Some are already speculating that the South Korean sinking was timed before their June 2 elections and/or timed to ensure that Japan's new government reneges on its promise to close a U.S. military base in Okinawa. I'm sure there are other good theories on this as well.

Latest News: It appears the ship sunk due to grounding in rough waters. A South Korean maritime expert seems to have solved the case and is trying to get Hillary Clinton and Obama to pay attention. See the whole story here

* Hillary Clinton is proving to be a real war hawk as she runs around beating the war drum against North Korea and Iran. One activist living in Japan wrote last night that most non-Americans are not listening to her but instead are focused on the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and thinking that the U.S. is a "failed state."

* Maybe some country needs to do a humanitarian intervention of the U.S. and help us get rid of the "corporate pirates" who have taken control of our democracy. Maybe they could stuff a bunch of the corporate executives into the oil blow hole in the Gulf. God knows there are enough of the fat cats on Wall Street and in Washington DC to plug up the hole good and tight.

GETTING SICK IN THE GULF

WEAPONS CORPORATIONS ALL GONE INTERNATIONAL - WE MUST AS WELL

I had an email from a Global Network board member in Japan this morning responding to my recent blog about the need to build mass transit systems in the U.S. since we don't make them here anymore.

Here is Makiko Sato's reply:

Japan's national railway system, which is now called JR, was privatized many years ago by the then Prime Minister Nakasone (maybe complying to the U.S. demand).

The old system and management were divided into 4 JR (private)companies, and maybe additionally (I didn't know till recently), two private companies were established for managing its technologies.

Those two are U.S.-Japan High Speed Rail (currently led by Richard Lawless) and U.S.-Japan MAGLEV.LLC (currently led by Torkel Patterson, the former CEO of Raytheon International before taking the current post).

So, the technologies developed during long time by our tax money are now completely under control of these U.S.-Japan companies with American CEOs, thanks to Nakasone.

By the way, it is known to citizens here that many former PMs of Japan were under the clout of CIA.

Now, JR Central wants to sell its technology of bullet train (N700-1 Bullet) along with its SCMAGLEV (super conduction Magnetic levitation transport system) technology to the USA.

JRC expects there are several candidate cities in the U.S. for introduction of the former, and
for the latter, from Baltimore to Washington DC, and other areas.

The head of JRC says that the percentage of technology fee in the sale it expects should be 2-3%, and JRC would invest money in the U.S. projects if Japan's technologies are to be adopted.

And this man, Torkel Patterson, the former CEO Raytheon, has some interest in the planned new base development now designated in Henoko, Okinawa. And also Raytheon as well. (This info was brought to us by a famous editor and analyst.)

Both are among the less-than-20 contractors in that development plan. That is why I assume Henoko is probably going to be used for the new deployment of land-based SM3 [interceptor missiles].

The total cost of development of the planned new base in Okinawa, which is thoroughly by our tax, is $4.4 billion. We will pay $6 billion for the Guam base as well, while the rest of $4 billion for the Guam base is from the U.S. tax money.

So all in all, it is beyond our imagination how much money Patterson (and Raytheon) will get from these two big projects ―a military base construction in Okinawa (and in Guam, maybe)
and the new rail way construction in the U.S.

I circulated this info. Some were surprised, but others showed little interest. Maybe they think that it is good for JR technologies to be sold to the U.S. But is Japan really selling the technologies at their proper values, even irrespective of the sacrifice of Okinawans? I don't know. These two should not be bartered, in our sense.

One sure thing is that Japanese citizens have been robbed of our tax-invested rail technologies, by a U.S. weapons company and its top sales agent through the process of privatization.

CALL CONGRESS TODAY - NO MORE WAR $$

THE NEW UNCLE SAM - YOU PICK THE WINNER

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Vote for best new Uncle Sam. Place a vote for the best, and your second choice, by leaving a comment here or sending me an email at globalnet@mindspring.com (Only one vote person - you know the democratic way.)

I'll give it a couple days and will announce two winners - first and second prize. Both of them will get a copy of my book Come Together Right Now: Organizing Stories from a Fading Empire.

Got some good choices here so let me know what you think.

THE NEW AMERICAN REVOLUTION

We had about 25 people from around Maine (along with two organizers from the Boston area) meet at the Addams-Melman House yesterday to discuss our campaign to bring our war $$ home. (After the meeting we held a birthday party for Mary Beth Sullivan.)

We started with a review and evaluation of the campaign that began on Martin Luther King holiday last January and officially ran up until Tax day in mid-April. In truth though, the campaign has been humming right along since then.

One of the comments that stayed with me the most was from a woman from Belfast, Maine who said their local group really appreciated having an on-going campaign that they could tap into and that connected them with the peace movement across the state. I think this was a very significant statement as it reflects the desire of most local groups that they want to be a part of something larger and with a focus rather than just plodding along from one activity to another without connection or clear purpose.

A whole calendar of new events related to the war $$ issue are emerging in Maine during the coming months including several more town hall meetings in various communities where our resolution will be presented.

Our friends from Boston talked about how the war $$ home message will be spreading nationally via workshops at the coming U.S. Social Forum in late June in Detroit and the planned national anti-war conference on July 23-25 in Albany, New York. Nationally librarians are picking up on the war $$ home theme as well.

Much was said about the war $$ home message and how it seems to really stick with folks. Our banner has been in such demand that we decided to make two more - one of them will be paid for by CodePink Maine and the other by a person who was at yesterday's meeting. This would give us the ability to move three banners around different regions of the state with much greater ease.

The expected votes in coming days on the $33 billion war supplemental for 2010 and the 2011 Pentagon appropriation of $159 billion for more war were extensively discussed and it was agreed that we must urge everyone to contact our congressional delegations ASAP to express our outrage over these continual war funding bills.

Beyond that though it was also eloquently expressed that we must recognize that in the end the politicians are not going to end the wars - that it must come from the public so our greatest work must be to diversify and expand our movement. One meeting participant asked the question: Are we expanding our leadership base on this campaign? Another responded that we must go to where other people are rather than to wait for them to come to us.

In the end we also recognized that we are facing the reality of corporate domination of politics in the U.S. today. Our members of Congress ultimately do not represent the people - in fact they represent the corporate interests. In this case they represent the interests of the military industrial complex. In order to break their hold on American politics we must do more to help the public connect all the dots to the real sources of power. Once we do that, and begin to take those sources of power on, we will have begun a real new American revolution.

VOTE EXPECTED TUESDAY FOR MORE WAR $$$

PINGREE PUNKING OUT ON WAR $$ VOTES

Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME) taking the Iraq war tour

By David Swanson

Even Congress members who voted against the war supplemental in June 2009 are refusing to say they'll vote against an escalation supplemental in the coming days. Some of them, in fact, such as Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Chellie Pingree (D-ME) have told me that they will vote No if it's a stand-alone vote, but might very well vote yes if lots of other stuff is packed into the same bill.

Morally, this is like a cop telling you that murder will be allowed if you also do some good community service.

Strategically, this is like playing poker with your hand turned around to display all your cards.

Pingree says the war makes us all less safe, but she won't commit to not voting to fund it.

Here's what Pingree's office just sent me: "Congresswoman Pingree has urged leadership to give Members a clean vote on a supplemental---and in that situation she would definitely vote against additional funding for the war in Afghanistan."

Here's her statement of regret upon voting YES this week for a massive military and war bill in the Armed Services Committee (a standard bill, not the supplemental which is separate):

HON. CHELLIE PINGREE
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
1st District of Maine

Statement for the Record, National Defense Authorization Act of Fiscal Year 2011, HR 5136

Mr. Chairman, thank you for your continued efforts to provide the members of our armed forces with the resources and equipment they need to defend the country. The important work of this committee cannot be overstated, it is essential to the national security of the United States.

As long as the men and women in the armed forces are in harms way, we have an obligation to provide them with every protection and all the equipment and technology necessary to protect themselves and the United States. I am encouraged that this legislation goes a long way in accomplishing that goal. However, I am extremely disappointed that the committee chose to authorize an additional $33.1 billion for the President’s FY10 budget request for the surge in Afghanistan as well as $159.3 billion for FY11 overseas contingency operations, the majority of which will no doubt be spent in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The escalation of the war in Afghanistan has not improved the situation there, and is in fact making matters much worse by providing a recruiting tool for those who seek to do our military harm. The people of Afghanistan view the U.S. Military as an occupying force, which makes them more sympathetic to the Taliban and its goals of killing American troops. President Obama’s decision, with this committee’s support of continued military operations and additional U.S. forces in Afghanistan can only lead to the loss of more American lives. We are pursuing a failed strategy at a tremendous cost to the American people. The loss of one American serviceman or woman is simply too high a cost for a mission that does not strengthen our national security.

Beyond the enormous costs of the loss of human life, I must also stress the skyrocketing financial costs associated with continuing this war. Maine’s taxpayers alone have contributed more than $2.5 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. During these difficult economic times, and with a total cost of $1.05 trillion and counting for both wars, our priorities must be reducing the deficit and investing in job creation -- not fighting a war that puts the lives of our young men and women on the line and does nothing to make us safer here at home or abroad.

The men and women of the military have performed selflessly and heroically in Iraq and Afghanistan. They have done everything we have asked of them and more. I will continue to advocate for the equipment and resources they need to protect this country. After nine years and two wars, it is time to truly support our troops and bring them home, safely and quickly from both Afghanistan and Iraq. We should not be spending money on military operations that in the long run do not strengthen our national security.

Oh, if only talk were expensive and actions spoke more quietly than words!

MY TAKE: Rep. Pingree is just another politician who says one thing and does another. She is talking anti-war but finding ways over and over again to vote for more war. Last December she voted for the 2010 Pentagon appropriation bill that funded the Iraq and Afghanistan war and brought billions to Maine to build Aegis destroyers at Bath Iron Works. Her vote today in the House Armed Services Committee for $159 billion more for war in 2011 belies her words against war spending.

OUR HEARTS ARE BREAKING

MASSIVE BLACK UNEMPLOYMENT

Unless black leadership quickly calls for an end to war spending and an end to corporate bailouts there will be little chance for any real change for the growing numbers of unemployed in their communities.

Still there is far too little critique of Obama's administration in the black community. Cornell West campaigned for Obama but is now beginning to speak out. More of this is needed by black activist leadership.

As the great Abolitionist movement leader Frederick Douglass said, "Power concedes nothing without a demand." Black leadership in America must make strong sustained demands on the president and Congress.

White activists must echo these demands as well since we must create a more connected broad movement to save the nation from control by the oligarchy. The road to feudalism is right in front of us and only a determined and powerful multi-issue movement can save us.

A DAY IN CONSUMER CULTURE

The line outside the closed textile mill of folks waiting in 2009 for the "Give and Go" sale

Today I volunteered for three-hours on behalf of our local peace group Peaceworks in Brunswick to help set up for the annual "Give and Go" sale. (I do another three-hour shift again next week as well.)

Each year students at nearby Bowdoin College bag up things they don't want as they prepare to leave for the summer vacation. These items (clothes, food, sports equipment, school supplies, furniture, etc) are then sorted by volunteers from local community groups and then in June a big public sale is held. Last year $42,000 was made from the sale and profits from the sale are distributed to participating non-profits based on the number of hours they have volunteered to work at the event.

It is truly a fascinating experience to see some of the stuff these students get rid of. Bowdoin is generally known as a rich kids school and many of the bags of clothes that I emptied today indicated that to be true. Brand new shoes, new clothes with price tags still on them, bed linens still in their original plastic wrappings, and other assorted items all indicating an excess of possessions - likely gifts from parents back home that were never wanted or needed.

It is indeed a good thing that all this stuff does not just end up in the garbage. I imagine some years ago that is just what happened. Many working class and poor people in the community get in line before dawn on the day the public sale is held in order to get first crack at all the riches. Some good shopping deals will be made on that day next month.

I learned today that they used to call it "Dump & Run" at Bowdoin College but likely changed the name to "Give & Go" because the former was just a bit too elitist sounding. You know like "dump your shit on the poor folks".......

But in another way it is a sad commentary on our "modern" lives that we consume so much stuff that we don't need or even really want. People give us gifts of junk because they think they must or we buy things we know we don't really need because we have been taught to be shoppers and consumers.

So today I was in the middle of this sociological swirl and had mixed feelings about the whole experience.

And for me that is about the way it goes these days - few things are black and white for me anymore.

OKINAWA BASE PROTEST UPDATE

YOUR WAR $$ AT WORK - TIME TO BOYCOTT DEMOCRATS

Here is an example of your hard earned tax $$$ at work in Afghanistan. This is being done with your money and in your name.

How will the Democrats in Congress vote on Obama's war supplemental? How will your member of Congress vote at the very time when teachers are being laid off and libraries are being closed all over the country?

Isn't it time we began talking about boycotting the Democrats? If this is what the Democrats have to offer, shouldn't we say no thanks?

$33 BILLION MORE FOR WAR - VOTE COMING SOON

SURVEY SAYS

* I spent a couple of hours last night beginning to compile the large stack of surveys we have been receiving from all over Maine in response to our call for folks to take the Bring Our War $$ Home survey out to their neighbors. In the mail yesterday we got a package with 183 completed surveys from Belfast, Maine where the Waldo County Peace & Justice group and the Raging Grannies spent several days on the street collecting responses. We have a planning meeting on May 22 here at the Addams-Melman House to review the survey results and to brainstorm our next steps in the campaign. You can see the survey here

Once I am finished tabulating all the surveys I will post the final results on the blog. I am actually quite amazed by the responses to several of the questions.

* The Portland Press Herald (under new conservative ownership and becoming a really bad newspaper) reported the other day that Obama's Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood was in Japan to ride on their high-speed rail as the U.S. is now getting ready to award $8.5 billion in contracts for 13 regional mass transit rail projects. The U.S. will be taking bids from Japanese, German and French rail manufacturers. The absolutely sad part of the story is that there is virtually no expertise in the U.S. when it comes to building rail systems. Why can't we convert weapons manufacturing sites into rail production facilities? Why is the Congress not demanding that we do this conversion to rail? Instead of doing that Congress is getting ready to hand Obama another $33 billion for more war in Iraq and Afghanistan which is now costing us $12 billion per month. Think about that number for a moment - we spend more on war each month than we will spend ($8.5 billion) to build 13 regional rail systems across the U.S. (which will take many years to complete). Absolutely disgusting!

* The New York Times reported yesterday that the Aegis destroyer based "missile defense" interceptor program has not been performing as claimed by the Pentagon. The Navy had been suggesting that the testing program of the SM-3 interceptors was going quite well (they said that 84% of the tests hit their targets), and in 2008 we know they fired one of the missiles into space to knock out a failed satellite proving that the system had "anti-satellite" (ASAT) weapons capability. But new studies by scientists Ted Postol (MIT) and George Lewis (Cornell) "finds only one or two successful intercepts — for a success rate of 10 to 20 percent."

The Times report continues, " Most of the approaching warheads, they say, would have been knocked off course but not destroyed. While that might work against a conventionally armed missile, it suggests that a nuclear warhead might still detonate. At issue is whether the SM-3 needs to strike and destroy the warhead of a missile — as the Pentagon says on its Web site.

"The political implications of the critique are potentially large. Democrats, traditional critics of missile defense, have been largely silent about Mr. Obama’s enthusiasm for this new generation, which for the moment is aimed only at shorter- and mid-range missiles, rather than ones that fly between continents."

BIG STORY: I think this is a huge story because the Pentagon had been fooling everyone until this Postol-Lewis study came to light. The Democrats, who love this new program of SM-3 interceptors being promoted by Obama for deployment throughout the Asian-Pacific and the Baltic Sea as a way to surround China and Russia, will now have to back track on their cherished program. It also throws serious doubt upon the Navy's plan to build more expensive Aegis destroyers in Bath, Maine if the interceptors on-board are not working!

SOAKING UP THE OIL

TWO OF MY FAVORITE TEXANS

I've been meaning to put this on the blog for some time but hadn't gotten around to it. A very good discussion about populist organizing in the past and the need for more of it in the future if we are to whup corporate power.

I love the line by Hightower when he calls the Democrats, "Weaker than Canadian hot sauce."

We are going to miss Bill Moyers once his show is gone.

PROTESTING BP - MY SENTIMENTS EXACTLY

Protesting BP in Baltimore, MD from William Hughes on Vimeo.

KARL GROSSMAN ON THE BP DISASTER AND WHAT WE NEED TO DO

ODDS & ENDS

* Denis Delestrac gave me a DVD of his new award-winning film Pax Americana and the Weaponization of Space while we were in New York City. He told me not to put it on the Internet. But for the first time I was able to watch it all the way through and it is indeed a very good film. The voices of the pro-weaponization of space crowd are also featured in the film which is part of what makes it so effective at telling the story and helps make the case that we are in big trouble. My favorite scene is Loring Wirbel driving through Colorado Springs showing Denis all the big new weapons corporations/bases that now provide jobs for 1/3 of the people in that city. We just have to hope Denis finds a U.S. distribution deal soon.

* I have started work on our next newsletter, Space Alert, which is long overdue. I had been waiting for Obama to release his new space policy, and the U.S.-Russia START Treaty to be finalized, and for the NPT Review Conference to happen. By now I have stacks of articles to wade through which is always intimidating but once I get passed the emotional blockage of that I whip through it pretty quick. My favorite part of the newsletter process is finding small bits of items that I put in a section called Odds & Ends (toilet reading I like to call it). Last night I was picking out the photos and cartoons that will be added and writing the captions. Deadline is May 31 if you would like to send me anything.

* We are now in spring here in Maine so gardening time has come. We have our garlic, peas, potatoes, beets, carrots and some squash in the ground. Going to wait a few more days to add more things. Nights are still a bit too cool for tomatoes.

* Our artist friend Maureen Block found the house in the woods she has been dreaming of so she moved out last weekend and yesterday Amanda Hoag and her three-year old daughter Amelia moved into our Addams-Melman House. Amanda has been a community member of the house since we moved in more than three years ago so she feels right at home. Maureen organized the "All Species Day Parade" in Brunswick last week and the police say about 1,000 people showed up - mostly kids in costumes of different animals. Our house members went and carried the ocean and were surrounded by fish (felt right to do that as the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster -more than a spill - is heavy on my heart.) The intention of the parade is to get young people to become more connected to nature. Was a beautiful event.

* Back to the oil disaster - how many people will go to jail over this? If this is not the epitome of corporate malfeasance then I don't know what is. Why did Obama keep the video of the undersea pipeline gushing oil from the public for so long? Why is the government not pressuring BP stronger than it has been? Why is Congress moving to limit the amount that oil corporations can be held liable for in such disasters? Does anyone now doubt that our government is controlled by these greedy, dirty, self-serving corporations? Is evil the right word to describe these corporations that are literally killing our Mother Earth? Of course we should be boycotting BP, but shouldn't we all be looking hard at how we use oil?

PROTESTS GROWING AROUND GLOBE

We don't want protests to turn violent here. But we certainly need protests to oppose more bank bailouts and coming cuts in Social Security and Medicare and the destruction of remaining social programs.

You want to cut the budget deficit? Then cut military spending!!!! The Pentagon now spends more on the military than the rest of the world combined!

The oligarchy will step up their efforts to pit the people against each other like they are now doing in Arizona where they are turning the working class white population against the Hispanic population over the "immigration" issue.

Folks need to wake up and smell the coffee and realize they are being manipulated to take their eyes off the ball. The real "enemy" of the poor and the working class is the rich fat-cats who are rolling in the dough and pointing their fingers at you and me trying to get us to beat each other into submission while they enjoy the spectacle and rake in the cash.

CYNICAL POLITICS OF EMPIRE

Afghanistan War $$ hidden in Democratic Party bill

The ruling Democratic Party, so afraid of its war in Afghanistan's rising unpopularity with the American people, has chosen to create a war funding supplemental bill that sugar coats the $33 billion more for the Central Asian quagmire in layers of hard to pass up frosting.

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/sites/afterdowningstreet.org/files/crsescalation.pdf

The Administration has requested $63 billion in FY2010 supplemental appropriations:

• $33 billion for the Department of Defense (DOD) primarily for deploying 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan;

• $4.5 billion in war-related foreign aid to Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan;

• $5.1 billion to replenish the U.S. Disaster Relief Fund administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA);

• $2.8 billion for Haiti reconstruction and foreign aid in the wake of the earthquake;

• $13.4 billion to compensate veterans exposed to Agent Orange;

• $3.4 billion to settle land trust claims of American Indians in the long-standing Cobell case; and

• $1.2 billion to settle the discrimination claims of 70,000 black farmers in the Pigford II case.

U.S. INVASION TO FOLLOW DRONES IN PAKISTAN?

EXECUTIONS UNDER OBAMA'S COMMAND

More from Seymour Hersh, award-winning journalist from The New Yorker magazine

BOYCOTT THE BAD HOTELS

TRANSCRIPT OF SPEECH AT GN MEETING IN NEW YORK

U.S. Military Strategy on the Korean Peninsula and Missile Defense in Northeast Asia

By Ko Young Dae
Solidarity for Peace and Reunification of Korea (SPARK)

U.S. Military Strategy on the Korean Peninsula

In the 2010 U.S. Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), the Obama administration named North Korea along with Iran as a potential target for nuclear preemptive attack, making the Korean peninsula, as it was during the Bush administration, one of the most dangerous regions in the world. This is a violation of the “Agreed Framework between the DPRK and the United States” (October 1994) in which the United States pledged negative security assurance for North Korea, as well as the “Joint Statement” of the fourth Six Party Talks (September 2005). In response to the Obama administration’s new NPR, North Korea declared, “As long as the nuclear threat against us persists, we will continue to develop various nuclear weapons as deterrence and seek to modernize our nuclear weapons.”

Based on the NPR, the US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) takes command of U.S. nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula. Following “CONPLAN 8022” and “OPLAN 8044,” the US STRATCOM designed a new “OPLAN 8010” based on the “New Triad” concept. “OPLAN 8010” uses both high-tech conventional and nuclear war capabilities, including various strategic attacks against North Korea, such as pinpoint attack, bombing of underground military facilities, and cyber wars to paralyze missile and anti-aircraft defense networks. The US STRATCOM’s nuclear war plan on the Korean Peninsula also includes “CONPLAN 8099” in which the Center for Combating WMD takes command. The primary aim of “CONPLAN 8099” is to occupy North Korean nuclear facilities and seize its nuclear weapons. The Center for Combating WMD is the command that leads the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) against North Korea.

The United States also has plans to carry out a war on the Korean Peninsula by executing “OPLAN 5027,” 5026, 5028, 5029, 5030, which are all under the command of the US Pacific Command, the ROK-US Combined Forces Command (CFC), and United Nations Command (UNC). “OPLAN 5027” was developed in 1974 to prepare for nuclear war and “OPLAN 5027-98” adopted the strategy of preemptive strike for the first time. “OPLAN 5027-04” includes the construction of Missile Defense and “OPLAN 5027-06” outlines the strategy of preemptive strike against North Korea’s nuclear and missile facilities.

In anticipation of the transfer of wartime operational control from the United States to South Korea, the two states are currently developing “OPLAN 5012” in place of “OPLAN 5027.” “OPLAN 5012” is a much more offensive plan for nuclear war. “CONPLAN 5029,” which faced opposition from the former Korean government, has now been elevated to an OPLAN. “OPLAN 5029” envisions a military intervention in North Korea in times of internal turmoil, including a natural disaster; such an outrageous plan is in violation of international law. The main goal of “OPLAN 5029” lies in the U.S. desire to seize North Korea’s nuclear facilities and materials for itself, as opposed to by South Korea. “OPLAN 5026” was initiated in December 2002 and completed in July 2003. Its main goal is to execute pinpoint attacks on approximately 700 North Korean targets including nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons facilities, and command and control facilities. In this way, “OPLAN 5026” and “OPLAN 5029” under the command of the US Pacific Command and the Combined Forces Command, are designed to complement “OPLAN 8010” of the US STRATCOM.

The US MD in Northeast Asia

1) The US MD system in the Pacific Ocean

The MD system that the United States deploys in the Pacific Ocean is aimed at China’s MD and North Korea’s missile system. The Early Warning Radar system which includes the DSP satellite, SBIRS satellite, Cobra Dane Early Warning Radar, SBX (Sea-based X-band) Radar, Aegis BMD Radar, FBX, etc, centers on detecting and tracking long-range missiles or ICBMs aimed at the main land of the United States. In June 2009, to prepare for the event of a long range missile launch from North Korea, the United States ordered the forward deployment of the SBX Radar and the THAAD (Theater High Altitude Air Defense) system in the vicinity of Hawaii. The US Pacific Command also ordered the forward deployment of the Aegis ship, equipped with Standard Missile 3 (SM-3).

2) Japan’s MD system

The United States regards Japan as its most significant international BMD partner. Japan’s MD system is part of the US MD system. Japan’s MD system is being constructed through technical and operative cooperation with the United States. Japan has deployed the US FBX(Forward-based X band) Radar, and has interfaced its 28 ground radar networks with U.S. spy satellites. The principal weapons systems of Japan’s MD are the Aegis BMD system and the PAC-3 system. In January 2008, Japan operationally deployed SM-3 block IA, capable of intercepting long-range missiles. Currently Japan is developing SM-3 block IIA, capable of intercepting ICBMs, and scheduled to debut in 2015. Reversing its previous policy of non-deployment of THAAD, Japan intends to introduce THAAD as a higher tier defense system than a PAC-3. Japan has also deployed its self-developed FPS-XX (L Band) Radar. The FPS-XX Radar is known to have succeeded in detecting and tracking Russian long-range missiles launched from the Sea of Okhotsk.

3) South Korea’s MD system

In its 2010 Ballistic Missile Defense Review (BMDR), the United States named South Korea an “important partner.” The BMDR also stated that the United States has been working together with South Korea to “define possible future BMD requirements.” In other words, the United States takes for granted South Korea’s participation in the US MD system. Although the Lee Myung Bak government initially refused to participate in the US MD system, now it has changed its position. This reverses the position maintained by the former Kim Dae Jung and Roh Moo Hyun administrations, which opposed South Korea’s participation in the US MD system for reasons related to South Korea’s technical, financial, and diplomatic relations with Russia and China. The current South Korean government is in the midst of constructing the so-called “South Korean-style MD System” based on PAC-2 Lower Tier Defense and the SM-2 Aegis system.

Further, the South Korean government plans to upgrade PAC-2 to the level of PAC-3 and SM-2 to SM-6, construct K-THAAD by improving Cheolmae-2, construct Early Warning System by importing Green Pine Block-B (whose detection range is 500 km) and AWACS, construct AMD Cell, and thus complete the construction of the so-called South Korean-style MD system. But it is evident that the South Korean-style MD system will be incorporated into and subordinate under the US MD system.

With the planned transfer of wartime operational control from the United States to South Korea, South Korea and the United States plan to interface both of their Armed Force’s C4I through the “Allied Korea Joint Command Control System (AKJCCS)” and integrate and operate both ROK and US Armed Force’s Air and Missile Defense (AMD) Cell. This means that the US MD system and its operations will be at the center of the MD system on the Korean Peninsula.

Through the interface of both ROK and U.S. Armed Forces’ C4I, USAFK’s Theater Missile Defense Warning System (TMDWS) will provide the ROK MD system with a range of information, such as TMD’s launching position, launched missile, track, estimated drop area, drop time, etc., which is essential to the operation of the ROK MD. The Joint Tactical Ground Station (JTAGS) of the USFK provides accurate data about DPRK’s ICBMs.

That both South Korea and the United States incorporate and operate Air and Missile Defense (AMD) Cell means that the ROK MD will interface with the US 14th Air Force’s Joint Space Operation Center (JSPOC). In lieu of US STRACOM, the US 14th Air Force will plan and execute the US Air Force’s space operations. In such a scenario, the South Korean MD’s interface with the US 14th Air Force’s JSPOC means that it will be fully subordinate to the US MD system (DSP, SBIRS, Early Warning Radar, etc). In other words, the South Korean MD will become nothing but one part of the US MD.

For instance, if the South Korean MD intends to defend against an intermediate-range missile from China or Russia, it will need to depend on the US MD system, especially for its early warning system.

US MD in Northeast Asia Increases the Possibility of Nuclear War in Northeast Asia

Part of the New Triad axis, MD is a means of preemptive nuclear strike. The United States sees MD as part of its extended deterrence. China is the only nation among the nuclear weapons states that has officially declared adoption of NSA and No First Use (NFU) policies. Due to its concern regarding the US construction of MD, China opposes the start of the Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty (FMCT). If the United States strengthens its MD in the Northeast Asian region in order to debilitate China’s nuclear capability, it may encourage China to abandon its NSA and NFU policies and engage in a nuclear arms race.

North Korea has declared that it is willing to give up its nuclear programs and facilities, and even its nuclear weapons. North Korea takes a fundamentally different position from that of other nuclear weapons states. If the preconditions that North Korea outlined are met– namely a Peace Treaty, and the abolishment of the ROK-US alliance and the US nuclear umbrella in South Korea - North Korea’s nuclear weapons can be abolished. But if the US’ MD, with its doctrine of preemptive strike, is aimed at incapacitating North Korea’s missile capability, North Korea will turn to increase its reliance on nuclear weapons, resulting in North Korea’s continued strengthening of its nuclear power and eventually leading to a domino phenomenon of more states going nuclear in Northeast Asia.

The U.S. construction of MD increases the possibility of nuclear first strike and all-out nuclear war and radically shatters international security and prosperity. Let us not forget that the Northeast Asian region includes Japan, which the United States attacked with nuclear weapons not too long ago, North Korea, the Taiwan Strait, and Vietnam, which in the past the United States threatened with nuclear attack. It is only when the US MD system is abolished that we can prevent this world from nuclear preemptive strikes and nuclear war, and the Pacific Ocean can become true to its name.

TALKING KILLER DRONES ON CORPORATE TV

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

MSNBC TV show called "Morning Joe" is hosted by Mika Brzezinski (daughter of Zbigniew) and Joe Scarborough (former Republican Congressman from conservative North Florida).

Notice the "conflicted" feelings about killing innocent civilians.

My take: The U.S. is getting bad press and making new enemies and the powers that be are in a quandary about what to do. Polls are showing the American people are increasingly opposed to the war.

Bottom line: They will keep killing people. Notice how Leslie Stahl (from 60 Minutes) slips in the "Pakistan has the bomb" bit at the end as the clincher.

OBAMA'S REAL "SECRET PLAN"

Obama's real job as president is to do what Bush could never get away with - cut the "entitlement programs" which are officially defined as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and what is left of the welfare program after Bill Clinton got through with it.

Some years ago the industry publication Space News ran an editorial saying they realized they have to come up with a "dedicated funding source" for the expensive space technology programs. And they have they said. They reported they were sending their lobbyists to Washington DC to secure the "entitlement programs."

Obama was made president to lead the destruction of social progress in America. The oligarchy knew that Obama would be able to quiet the left, keep them under wraps, while he dismantled the key social programs that matter most.

Those "liberals" out there who told us to be patient, that Obama had a secret plan, were right. He has a secret plan to destroy the gains of the poor and the middle class. Obama's plan, as the first black president, is to help the oligarchy return us to the days of feudalism.

MY ANNUAL GLOBAL NETWORK REPORT

Posing with striking tugboat workers in Busan, South Korea last year

May 9, 2010
Church Center
New York City

The past year, 2009, represented a change of course for the Global Network (GN). The bulk of my travel for organizing and speaking for the first time ever was more focused outside of the U.S.

The past year could be characterized in the U.S. as one of waiting. Waiting for Obama to negotiate his nuclear weapons treaty with Russia. Waiting for an Obama space policy to develop. Waiting for the peace movement, and progressive movement in general, to begin to respond to Obama.

The fact that I spoke in fewer states in the U.S. in 2009 than at any other time since 1998 is a clear indication that the peace movement across the country has in many respects ground to a slow crawl. Thus rather than wait for Godot to come, I shifted gears and increased my organizing activity in my home state of Maine, where there was a receptive audience, and made more international trips than ever before.

The year began with my participation in helping to organize the national No Bases Conference that was held in Washington DC in February. There Tim Rinne and I held a space issues workshop and made links with key organizers from around the world who attended the event.

Also during early 2009 I was regularly meeting with Maine activists to organize a town hall meeting on the Afghanistan war in hopes to kick-start more organizing in our state and beyond. We held the successful event in April and it then led us in late 2009 to come together again to begin pulling together a statewide coalition called the Maine Campaign to Bring Our War $$ Home. This effort, essentially staffed by the GN, has created a vibrant campaign across our state that has drawn attention and interest nationally. A good side benefit of this campaign has been to increase the exposure of the GN in our state and increase our membership base throughout Maine, which has been steadily growing.

Our 2009 annual space organizing conference was held in Seoul, South Korea in April and very ably coordinated by two of our board members Sung-Hee Choi and Wooksik Cheong. They both were instrumental in putting together a Korean Organizing Committee, comprised of 10 groups; they collectively did a wonderful job of hosting the large international delegation that came from about 25 countries. They arranged several trips for us to meet people who were struggling against U.S. military base expansion and we visited the DMZ as well.

In July and August I returned to Asia for a month long trip to Japan and South Korea. The trip happened because Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba from Hiroshima invited me to be the keynote speaker at the International Symposium for Peace that his city hosted on August 1 and then again on August 8 in Nagasaki at the General Conference of Mayors for Peace that he chairs. (I was to later learn that Mayor Akiba had watched our Arsenal of Hypocrisy video and agreed that it was time to bring the space issue to his organizations.)

Using this opportunity our GN Japanese board members (Atsushi Fujioka, Makiko Sato, Koji Sugihara, and Hibiki Yamaguchi) set out to organize a six-city speaking tour for me that would last for three weeks across their country. From there I traveled to Seoul, South Korea where again GN board members (Wooksik Cheong and Sung-Hee Choi) prepared a busy weeklong schedule for me.

(Just as I was writing this report I got a message from Atsushi Fujioka that he had translated my speech from the Mayors for Peace conference in Nagasaki and that it was going to be published in Sekai magazine, a leading progressive publication in Japan.)

In Brunswick, Maine the Naval air station is slated for closure in 2011 and some state politicians and aerospace industry representatives have been pushing the idea of using the base airfield for a drone flight test center. Since drone warfare was the theme of the GN’s Keep Space for Peace Week in 2009 I helped organize a series of events in our area to create public opposition to this bad idea. It appears that our efforts have helped to hold off any further plans for the drone test center at this time but we are keeping our eyes on the ball.

In October, during our annual space week, I went back to South Korea for a third time and did a three-week speaking tour throughout the country. Once again Sung-Hee Choi organized a hectic and impressive schedule for me. The trip culminated in a two-day visit to Jeju Island where I met with the struggling villagers of Gangjeong who are fighting hard to save their community from a Navy base that would host Aegis destroyers that would be outfitted with “missile defense” systems and be used to help surround China’s coast.

As a result of that trip I have followed through on my promise to the villagers of Gangjeong and done everything I could to promote their efforts nationally and internationally by organizing people to voice their support for them by signing petitions and contacting the South Korean embassy in their country. It was during these calls to the South Korean embassy in Washington DC that several GN supporters were told that it was the U.S. that is pushing the Navy base onto the South Korean government. This was the first time this serious accusation had ever been reported. Efforts have since been made to get those statements reported by South Korean media.

In recent weeks GN board member Sung-Hee Choi has been living in the village and continuing to report on the Navy plans to build the base despite growing island opposition. She has done an excellent job of helping to expand international consciousness about the base and the missile defense program planned for there.

Our list of local actions during Keep Space for Peace Week in 2009 was down to about 50 events in our usual dozen countries. Particularly in the U.S., the Obama factor of demobilizing the peace movement was evident in the lower than normal list of actions.

Soon after returning from South Korea in October I made my way west to Oregon for a talk in Hood River, which is in the center of a huge fight over the manufacturing of drones by Boeing. The use of UAV’s has dramatically surged as the Obama administration is using them in record numbers in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Throughout the year our board member MacGregor Eddy in California continued her Herculean efforts to keep protest vigils going at Vandenberg AFB during launches of military satellites and missile tests. Facing severe treatment and arrests from the base security these protests have helped to reveal to people around the world the tremendous hypocrisy of the U.S. as we lecture certain countries about the evils of nuclear weapons and continue to develop our own new technologies via space.

As has been the case in the past year I continue to do many radio interviews on stations throughout the country. Several times a month I get contacted by alternative media sources, that I keep posted about our work via email, for interviews. This helps keep a steady stream of traffic visiting our web site.

I have increased the use of my blog as I now find that more than 200 people a day are reading it. The blog serves as sort of a public organizing journal where I can log the many stories about my day-to-day work as well as share important stories about other issues that I am following. I have also become a heavy user of My Space and Facebook and find them to be valuable tools to help spread word about our GN work.

During the latter part of 2009 we saw the public negotiations that took place between the Obama administration and Russia over a new nuclear weapons reduction treaty. Throughout this process Russia made the case that NATO expansion eastward, and U.S. missile defense deployments into its neighborhood would make it difficult to agree upon any treaty.

During 2009 Obama had made the announcement that his Pentagon would be deploying Patriot (PAC-3) missile defense systems into Poland, just 35 miles from the Russian border. In addition his administration made public their plans to increase deployments of Aegis destroyers (outfitted with SM-3 missile defense interceptors) in the Baltic Sea and since this variety of “missile defense” systems were having success in the testing program they would be put on ground-based mobile launchers and also be deployed in areas surrounding Russia.

Try as Russia did, they were not successful in getting Obama to link missile defense deployments to the nuclear arms reduction treaty that was signed by the two countries on April 8, 2010 in Prague. But since we have learned that Russia has stipulated that if the U.S. expands missile defense deployments beyond current locations they reserve the right to walk away from the treaty. Thus the U.S. desire to saturate NATO bases throughout Eastern Europe with missile defense systems is still likely to be problematic.

REPORT ON NEW YORK MEETINGS

I am at Penn Station in New York City waiting for my train back north. I will get off in Southern Maine and stay the night with Herb Hoffman who will then drive us both to Boston on Tuesday morning for an exciting meeting of key leaders from many progressive movements in the greater Boston area. The idea of the meeting will be to explore how we might build more unified movements during this time of corporate domination of U.S. and global politics.

Right now though I want to post a few notes from the two meetings I attended during this past weekend here in NYC.

On Saturday I went to the Abolition 2000 annual general meeting. Nearly 100 people were there from around the world. These folks are attending the UN''s Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) meetings that will last nearly the entire month of May.

There are serious questions about what the NPT meetings will come up with. The nuclear powers (led by the U.S.) want to hang onto their nuclear weapons but don't want countries like North Korea or Iran to have them. This brand of double-standard does not create the climate for serious negotiations. At the same time the U.S. is pushing the use of nuclear power for energy production to countries like India who are also building more nuclear weapons - with U.S. help.

During this meeting I was given five minutes to update folks on the work of the Global Network and I made the case that as long as the U.S. is pushing so-called "missile defense," and new Prompt Global Strike weapons, then countries like Russia and China (and others) are not likely to be willing to dramatically reduce their nuclear forces.

The Abolition 2000 (A2000) network is very diverse with many different agendas and strategies represented. But fundamentally everyone wants to get rid of nuclear weapons. My observation though is that despite their great work to bring about nuclear disarmament, many A2000 groups are so fixed on their deep concern about nukes that they are not able to recognize the wider forces that are having direct impact on their hopes for abolition. Without these key linkages - to "missile offense" and new space technologies - then their work will be severely hampered.

One issue that came up (and one that I need to write more about here) is the competition between Russia and the U.S. (and its NATO allies) over control of the Arctic region as global warming makes it possible to explore that region for oil. A call was made at the A2000 meeting for a nuclear-free Arctic campaign.

On Sunday we had the annual membership meeting of the Global Network at the Church Center which is just across the street from the U.N. About 50 people attended throughout the day.

We spent considerable time talking about the theme for our 2010 Keep Space for Peace Week (October 2-9). Last year's theme (and poster) was on the use of drones and people felt it was a great success in communicating the links between Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV's) and the larger space technology issue. We came up with a good list of possible ideas for the 2010 theme that included:

• Obama's new "missile offense" deployment plan of Patriot (PAC-3) and Aegis destroyer based (SM-3) interceptors in Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Taiwan, Japan, Australia, and South Korea that are being used to surround Russia and China.


• NATO expansion into a global military offensive alliance under U.S. control


• Prompt Global Strike systems (to give the U.S. the ability to hit targets on the other side of the world in first-strike attack in less than one hour.)


• No U.S. bases worldwide


• Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS) Treaty at the U.N.


• Alternatives to endless war (conversion of the military industrial complex) and creation of green jobs by cutting military spending.


• Global warming

This was a great brainstorming session and the list above is all important and timely. It was ultimately decided that we would center our space week theme around the first item of U.S. "missile offense" deployments to surround Russia and China. The other items will be extensively featured in our next newsletter and in on-going work of the Global Network.

We had a partial showing of the new documentary film Pax Americana and the Weaponization of Space. You can see the film's web site here The filmmaker, Denis Delestrac, came from Barcelona, Spain to be with us for the meeting and answered the many questions about the film and the distribution plan.

Pax Americana is now showing throughout Europe (already seen by 3 million people) and Canada. But sadly Delestrac has yet to be able to get the film into any film festivals in the U.S. (even though it won Best Documentary award at a festival in Vancouver) nor has he been able to find a U.S. theatre distribution deal.

We talked extensively about using the film during our October 2-9 Keep Space for Peace Week and Delestrac promised to find a way to have it available for us in DVD form by then. His problem is that it cost him one million dollars to make this fine film and he must first try to recoup some of those funds through theatrical showings. People loved the film (they wanted to see the whole thing but time did not allow it) and they loved Delestrac as well.

Other important items for discussion at the meeting included:

• U.S. efforts to draw India into the space warfare program as a way to further encircle China.


• Pentagon efforts to expand the use of 'cyber warfare" to gain space domination and control.


• Beginning to talk about a "moratorium" on science as they are now out of control and the people of the world cannot keep up with new technological developments in areas like nano-technology and robotics.


• U.S. militarization of the Asian-Pacific region, particularly the deployments of "missile offense" in South Korea and Japan and expansion of U.S. bases in that region.


• Obama's recent announcement of Mars missions that will use nuclear power. (Journalist Karl Grossman was at the meeting and reminded us that NASA is also calling for nuclear power to be used in "near Earth commercial missions.")

The Global Network will hold its 18th annual space organizing conference in Nagpur, India on October 9-12. Many of our key leaders will be attending as we recognize the urgency to expand organizing on the Indian continent if we hope to stop the U.S. effort to spread a new space arms race to that part of the world. Please let us know if you are interested in joining with us in India.

CITIZEN ACTION PAYS OFF

Portland, Maine City Council recently voted 7-1 on a resolution addressed to Congress demanding they Bring Our War $$ Home.

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll has found that the war in Afghanistan is once again opposed by a majority of Americans. Fifty-two percent of respondents said the war is not worth fighting, which means the bump in support for the war that followed Obama's announcing his new Afghanistan strategy in December has disappeared.

Congress will soon vote on another war supplemental in the amount of $33 billion. Now is the time to contact your representative in the House of Representatives and say NO more war funding. Bring Our War $$ Home.

Call your member of Congress at 202-225-3121

The peace movement needs to show that it is not in the pocket of the Democratic Party by speaking out loudly against this new war supplemental.

Movement loyalty trumps party loyalty.

SEYMOUR HERSH ON MILITARY CONTROLING OBAMA

Hersh is the award winning journalist from The New Yorker magazine.

REMEMBERING KENT STATE

LISTENING TO MOM

CAN'T ARGUE WITH PHYSICS

I was in the dentist chair in Gainesville, Florida when 9-11 happened. I never believed the "official story" and early on agreed to speak at conferences held in San Francisco and Toronto organized by the emerging 9-11 truth movement.

For two years after 9-11, at every talk I did anywhere in the U.S., people would ask what I thought about 9-11 during the question and answer period. It was clear to me that many people also had grave doubts about the "official line" about the 9-11 attacks, even if they were reluctant to say so in public.

Last night I went to Portland to listen to Dr. David Ray Griffin speak to nearly 100 people about the links between 9-11 and the war in Afghanistan. Griffin has written nine books on the subject and is a former professor at the Claremont (California) School of Theology.

Griffin began with a detailed review of the illegality of the U.S. attacks on Afghanistan following 9-11. He acknowledged that most American people are still unaware of the illegality of this war. And, he said, "Obama has taken over the Bush-Cheney account of 9-11" as witnessed in his West Point speech some time ago.

Griffin reminded us that the Bush administration was "prepared to bomb Afghanistan two months prior to 9-11." This was after the pipeline deal between Unocal and the Taliban had broken down. In July of 2001, in Berlin, the Bush team demanded that the Taliban agree to allow construction of pipelines to move Caspian Sea oil and natural gas through their country. They were told they could have either a "carpet of gold or a carpet of bombs."

Next Griffin reviewed the 9-11 Commission Report that admitted they had no success in gaining any evidence of Osama Bin-Ladin's involvement in 9-11." The FBI also acknowledged it had "no hard evidence" of his role either.

Griffin maintained that 9-11 was a "false flag operation" in order to create the political support for expanding U.S. bases in the Middle East and Central Asia, massive increases in military spending, and development of new war fighting technologies.

He spent considerable time documenting the controlled collapse of Building 7 which was not hit by planes on 9-11. Bldg 7 was 47 stories tall and only had fires on six floors. FEMA, Griffin said, has acknowledged it had no explanation for the collapse of Bldg 7.

In order for such a controlled collapse of Bldg 7, 82 steel columns had to fail simultaneously for such an implosion to occur. This was only possible with the use of explosives such as nano-thermite which is not commonly available. In order for iron to melt, the temperatures would have to reach at least 2,800 degrees and normal office fires at most reach 1,800 degrees.

Government reports suggested that "fires of office furniture" inside Bldg 7 caused the implosion. This is obviously ridiculous.

The organization Architects & Engineers for 9-11 Truth, made up of about 1,200 professionals, has done much work to debunk the mythology surrounding 9-11. They have repeatedly shown that steel frame buildings worldwide have never collapsed due to fires and that Bldg 7 could have only been brought down by high explosives. "Who would have the kind of access to these three buildings for such an operation?", Griffin asked the audience.

"Millions of people have died because of the big lie of 9-11," Griffin concluded. Sixty percent of the 9-11 responders (fire, police, rescue squads) have serious illnesses today from the toxic dust they inhaled. More will die from the rescue and clean-up operation than on 9-11 itself, he stated.

"Democrats have been as bad as Republicans for centuries" when it comes to American imperialism, Griffin said, as he recounted past examples of U.S. government false flag operations.

One question from the audience was, "What do we do?" Griffin acknowledged that it was the most difficult question to answer but said that in the end we must be able to say that we stood up and raised questions and organized when many feared doing so.

Europeans are increasingly becoming more critical of the official story Griffin reported, including media there now willing to openly discuss 9-11.

In the end, he concluded, "We don't give up."

"Physical laws contradict official theory," Griffin said several times throughout his talk. You can't argue with the science that absolutely proves that the collapse of Bldg 7 was a premeditated operation that was beyond the capabilities of Osama Bin-Ladin. There are so many holes in the official story that it looks like Swiss cheese.

To activists like me, who have seen the expansion of endless war and massive funding for military space technology since 9-11, I feel a moral and ethical responsibility to fix my glare on the reality of the collapsing buildings and destroyed lives and ask the basic and fundamental questions - why and who?

I Forgot To Say: Griffin called for a new investigation of 9-11 suggesting the $11 million official one was a complete bust. He reminded us that the space shuttle Challenger investigation some years ago cost $50 million.