Fucking A - the 'peace movement' divide

 

On May 2, 2014 hundreds of Nazis were sent into Odessa, Ukraine and set fire to the Trades Union Hall killing scores of Russian-ethnic activists who were gathering signatures calling for a 'federated' Ukraine where people in the Donbass region could speak Russian and have local autonomy still within the Ukrainian state. This petition effort was not acceptable to the new US imposed puppet regime in Kiev.

 

 

I started work in the 'peace movement' in 1982.

Over the years I've watched many different peace groups - national and local - come and go. I've also noted how some groups follow the Democratic Party line and some are more independent. Some of the reasons for these differences are the funding sources of the particular group. Some of the groups get funding from Dem party-aligned sources - wealthy donors and foundations dressed up to funnel corporate oligarch money and establish control over movement messaging and activities.

Years ago anti-nuclear activist Greg Mello in New Mexico told the story about the Ploughshares Fund based in California. They had sent a memo to potential grantees declaring that the word 'disarmament' would not longer fly. In the future 'arms control' would be the acceptable message. And so disarmament largely died across America. The Dems in Congress (due to their subservience to military industrial donors) wanted to get the pressure off their backs. So they had their funding operations switch the tune so to speak. Today the Congress refuses to support the nuclear ban treaty.

The former president of the Ploughshares Fund, Joseph Cirincione, unsurprisingly recently was quoted in the mainstream media bashing Russia and declaring his support for the US-NATO war using  Ukraine as a hammer. The puzzle all fits together if we just look at reality.  

A  more contemporary example of message control is centered around the war in Ukraine. Some 'leading' groups call for negotiations between the US, Russia and Ukraine. One knowledgeable friend writes: "We need peace talks now. More than that, we need NO more US weapons or military to Ukraine - a central demand of the [mainstream Peace in Ukraine] Coalition that is being forgotten. Has the [Democrat] Progressive Caucus won, with our demands being reduced to theirs, that is, negotiations alone?  US out of Ukraine NOW".

I'd even go so far by saying that many peace groups, nationally and even sometimes locally, are infested with corporate spies and provocateurs. I've had direct experience for years with this - especially when I lived and worked in Florida. The Martin Marietta weapons plant in Orlando was building the Pershing II nuclear missile that Washington deployed in Germany - aimed at the former Soviet Union. This was 1983. Martin Marietta called the local Orange County sheriff's surveillance agency and had them infiltrate our local group that was organizing protests outside the production facility.   

We later learned (from the lawyer who worked for the county spy agency and called me to warn that their infiltration of our group was illegal) that for several years the agency ran different spies thru our group. One of them once tried to sell me drugs, hoping for a sting that would destroy our credibility across the state.

 

 

What we have going on across the US today is a color revolution. Call it the 'Pink color rev'. Blacks are being pitted against whites. Urban vs rural. Men against women. Straight against gay. Environment vs growth. And it is being enabled and directed by the oligarchs through their funding of most social movements.

I recall one leading peace group in America in 2016 receiving a couple hundred thousand dollars from the George Soros foundation. Their task in return for the money? Go protest at Donald Trump rallies which ensured some level of conflict with the people participating in Trump's political event. Grow the divide. 

I closely followed the color revolution in Ukraine 2013-2014. I studied it afterward and say the fingerprints of CIA, USAID, National Endowment for Democracy, and multiple US-EU 'progressive' foundations that funded the training, hiring, and directing of 'activists' in the Maidan Square in Kiev. I learned how some professors at academic institutions across the west were also funded to write about and teach the US-EU line on Ukraine. So-called 'Alternative media' was often funded as well to spit out the western messages. It was an extensive operation.

So it is no surprise now for me to witness the deep divisions over 'messaging' across the western 'peace movements'. A few folks are understanding the correct (fact based) story as to what is truly going on in Ukraine. Some others, long used to the largess bestowed upon them for loyalty to the Dem party line, are either suspiciously silent at the very moment when nuclear war could be triggered in a flash or they are playing the 'middle road' in order to appear studious and impartial. Go along to get along. They are essentially agents in my mind.

Some of these people I've known for years. Some of them I have successfully worked with on occasion. But money and/or social standing talk. 

I saw one comment in social media that I could relate to - it read:  "The Democrats ARE right now the leading Party of war, and it is a good thing that those for peace recognize that fact. No votes in November for those who voted for weapons to Ukraine - no matter the Party".

This is a sad bit for me to write about. Forty years of good faith organizing with anyone willing to work together in a respectful manner are now shot all to hell. It breaks my heart. But being socially accepted for many so-called activists trumps real talk.

But I also feel liberated to share this sordid story. It is a big part of the daily frustration and depression that I carry around. Maybe by naming it the weight will not be so heavy.

Some might also claim that philosophical issues around non-violence make it difficult to reach operational unity. My primary response to that point is to ask a direct question: Where were you since the US orchestrated coup in 2014 in Kiev? Where have you been during these last nine years of Nazi death squads being sent to eastern Ukraine to kill Russian-ethnics who live there? More than 14,000 killed and more than 34,000 wounded. Where was your non-violent concern then? 

Not a whimper of real truth from some of these so-called leaders. Fucking A.

Bruce