BAN ASSAULT WEAPONS IN SPACE

Citizens for Peace In Space and other groups protest the opening banquet of the annual Space Symposium at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs on April 8, 2013.

The protest was to counter the message of the military industrial complex's annual celebration of greed and secrecy and this year highlighted America's favorite weapons system, the killer Drones.

Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop, General Dynamics and Raytheon lead the way but a host of other smaller companies who feed at the pork barrel banquet were there.

Organizer, Bill Sulzman said, "This is the epitome of business as usual. These are the major players who lobby for and then get the lions share of the $800 billion Pentagon annual budget. There will be a lot of civilian space stuff on display also. It's the spoon full of sugar that helps the medicine go down. In this sense it is a rip off of bona fide space enthusiasts."

This event and others like it set the priorities for our future military policy. This is the continuation of a wrongheaded policy which is sending us off the cliff of overreach.

And all those Pentagon dollars coming our way will not lead to a better tax base for our local and state governments. Tax exemptions for local military bases take a big bite out of public revenue. This includes the thousands of "civilian" personnel who work in tax free government buildings at bases such as Peterson and Schriever.

The symposium bills itself as a look into a better future. It's just more of the same.

In 2009 a Brookings Institution study estimated that for every "militant" killed by these unmanned drones, there were 10 civilian casualties. Each of them will have 10 grieving relatives who will become "militants", combatants or enemies.

The New America Foundation estimates between 261 and 305 civilians have been killed in Pakistan. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism says 475 - 891.

Last weekend a NATO air strike killed 20 people in eastern Afghanistan, including at least one woman and 10 children ages 1 to 12. The attacks came at the end of one of the bloodiest weeks of the entire US occupation, which began in 2001. NATO claims 2 combatants were killed in the strike.

LATEST EDITION OF THIS ISSUE

The latest edition of This Issue features my interview with Richard Rhames from Biddeford.  He has been a public access TV activist in Maine for well over 20 years and presently serves on the Biddeford City Council.  

Richard is a vegetable farmer and offers his views on agriculture, public education, Iraq, cuts in social programs, drones and more.

MY LETTER TO MAINE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE

Maine's Attorney General Janet Mills (Democrat) is now formally opposing our bill to require warrants for police before they can do surveillance of the public with drones.

She says: "The Legislature finds that evolving technology regarding unmanned aerial vehicles ('drones') presents a potential economic driver for the State of Maine, an opportunity for research and development, a very real benefit for security and search and rescue efforts and for disaster prevention and relief, a potential aid to the investigation of crime, as well as potential privacy threats from private use and a potential threat to the privacy of Maine citizens if widely used by law enforcement in the conduct of criminal investigations without appropriate guidelines and supervision."

I will go to our state capital on Thursday to attend the Joint Judiciary Committee work session on the drone bill which is being shepherded by the Maine ACLU.

Here is a letter that I just sent to Judiciary Committee members:

Dear Judiciary Committee Members:
    
Today we learned that Maine's Attorney General Janet Mills intends to offer an amendment to LD236 - the drone bill.

Likely under pressure from the drone industry and law enforcement AG Mills appears to be putting the civil liberties of Maine citizens much further down the priority list.

We can't go along with that.

The ACLU contends that, "The heart of the [AG's] amendment seems to be a moratorium until agencies develop their own policies in line with minimum standards set by the Board of Trustees of the Maine Criminal Justice Academy and the AG regarding drone use.  We are not convinced that we’re going to like the minimum standards these law enforcement agencies come up with.  Standards developed by law enforcement could be so broad as to be meaningless.  Similarly, under their bill, they’re supposed to come up with data retention limits.  They could decide they want to keep everything – even incidentally collected data on innocent people – for 5 years and datamine it (that’s what NJ’s AG has decided to do with ALPR data)."

We concur with the concerns expressed by the ACLU. We fear that without serious requirements written into law, mandating that police agencies must obtain warrants before undertaking surveillance of citizens, the people of Maine will be exposed to violations of our civil rights.  This will lead to political unrest, litigation, and general distrust of government and police - none of which is a good thing for our state.

 The Judiciary Committee should first represent the public and the constitution of Maine.  The interests of drone manufacturers and police should not trump civil rights.

In recent weeks many people and groups around Maine have been spreading word about LD 236 and urging the public to take heed of this important bill.  Hundreds of Mainers have signed a petition in support of the requirement that police must have a warrant before they do drone surveillance of citizens.
    
We urge you to do the right thing and support the ACLU version of LD 236.
    
Thank you for your attention to this serious matter.
    
Bruce K. Gagnon
Secretary
Maine Veterans For Peace
Bath
443-9502

TWO HUMAN CATASTROPHES CLASHING WITH EACH OTHER

Amira Hass, the only Jewish-Israeli journalist to have spent almost 20 years living in and reporting from Gaza and the West Bank, recently suffered a torrent of hate mail and calls for her prosecution after she wrote an article defending the right of Palestinians to resist violent occupation.

In the article, Hass defended the throwing of stones by Palestinian youth at Israeli soldiers, calling it "the birthright and duty of anyone subject to foreign rule." Hass said Israelis remain in denial about "how much violence is used on a daily basis against Palestinians. They don’t like to be told that someone has the right to resist their violence."

Hass joins Democracy Now to discuss the reaction to her piece and her response to the latest regional visit by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. Despite vows to revive peace talks and free up the Palestinian economy, Hass says the Obama administration wants to preserve the status-quo of occupation.

A FAIR BUDGET FOR ALL

• I had a very busy day yesterday.  I spent hours working on the drone bill now pending in Augusta.  Tomorrow is the Judiciary Committee work session on the bill so I sent a news release out about our concern with drones snooping on us in Maine.  I also sent the drone petition with all the names we've gathered to each member of the Maine House of Representatives and many members of the Senate.  (It was interesting to find that Maine Senate Republicans had their emails available while Democrats require you to fill out a form to reach them which didn't allow for the petition with all the names to be transmitted.)

• In the afternoon four boxes full of 10,000 door hangers arrived at the house. In the coming days folks in about 20 communities will spread these door hangers across the state which give information about the ever expanding military budget and urge people to take action to demand a fair budget for all.  They look really great and I can't wait to get started taking them door-to-door in Bath.  I spent several hours dividing them into stacks of 100 and then packaging them up to put in the mail today.

• Last Sunday there was a fantastic Teach-In called "A Budget For All -- Why Not?" at the University of Maine-Orono that was organized by the Peace & Justice Center in Bangor.  More than 120 turned out from all over the state to hear great keynote speeches by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers.  They were followed by an outstanding panel of Maine activists - one of the best talks was by Lisa Savage from CodePink Maine and our co-leader of the Maine Campaign to Bring Our War $$ Home.  You can read her speech here. Two workshop sessions were also held and I facilitated one of them on the theme of Bring Our War $$ Home.  Because the event was on Sunday Mary Beth was able to attend - her new schedule at work has her working every Saturday so she's been missing many activist events on those days. 
• In latest news from Jeju island, Gangjeong villagers held a vote to oppose the military residence building project.  In addition to destroying the rocky coastline the Navy has announced they want other parts of the village for housing for military personnel at the base. Among 118 voters present, opposition to the project was 114, in favor of the project was 3 and there was one abstention. There can be no doubt that the Navy will try to take most of the village before all this is over.
• Last night the Santa Monica, California City Council voted for final passage of a Sustainability Bill of Rights Ordinance by the margin of 7-0.  The law is the first in the nation that protects the rights of nature and community rights as fundamental and interdependent.  Natural community and residents rights supersede corporate interests under the law.  See the ordinance here
  

DON'T CRY

A series of short videos from Gangjeong village on Jeju Island where yesterday people blocked the Navy base construction gates. 

The polluted water from the construction site is now moving further off-shore into the area where the UNESCO recognized endangered soft coral reefs are located.  The South Korean government once called this entire place a "Special Preservation Area" but this designation has been washed away by the US demand for the Navy base that will be used as part of Obama's pivot into the Asia-Pacific to control China.

A couple of days ago a retired US Navy man was identified in Gangjeong village and told a witness that he now "lives" there.  Why would an American and former Navy man be living in this tiny fishing and farming community?  He is most likely working as a consultant on behalf of the Navy to help direct the base construction project.  For years the US has vigorously denied that they have anything to do with the Navy base.

FERTILIZING WITH OIL

THE WAR EFFECTS STILL REMAIN.......

Nao Rozi is a former soldier and lives and struggles with the Afghan Peace Volunteers, seeking a better life, seeking a better world.

He is a very beautiful human being.

SUNDAY SONG

IT'S ALL ABOUT CORPORATE MINING

Obama is promising $100 million (as he goes after Social Security and Medicare) to launch a mission that is aimed at helping scientists capture asteroids. This mission is really about testing the technologies to fly to an asteroid and prepare to mine them.  The taxpayers are paying for this research and development phase and when it becomes technically possible to carry out the missions the process will be privatized.  Thus the public finances the aerospace industry start-up costs and gets very little in return.

I've noticed Al Jazeera is increasingly more conservative by touting the US line on issues.  During the past couple of years I've cut back on using their news reports as they are becoming captives of the corporate agenda.  The slant on this video is just one illustration.

CASTRO ON KOREA

The Duty to Avoid a War in Korea

"A few days ago I mentioned the great challenges humanity is currently facing. Intelligent life emerged on our planet approximately 200,000 years ago, although new discoveries demonstrate something else.

This is not to confuse intelligent life with the existence of life which, from its elemental forms in our solar system, emerged millions of years ago.

A virtually infinite number of life forms exist. In the sophisticated work of the world’s most eminent scientists the idea has already been conceived of reproducing the sounds which followed the Big Bang, the great explosion which took place more than 13.7 billion years ago.

This introduction would be too extensive if it was not to explain the gravity of an event as unbelievable and absurd as the situation created in the Korean Peninsula, within a geographic area containing close to five billion of the seven billion persons currently inhabiting the planet.

This is about one of the most serious dangers of nuclear war since the October Crisis around Cuba in 1962, 50 years ago.

In 1950, a war was unleashed there [the Korean Peninsula] which cost millions of lives. It came barely five years after two atomic bombs were exploded over the defenseless cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which, in a matter of seconds, killed and irradiated hundreds of thousands of people.

General Douglas MacArthur wanted to utilize atomic weapons against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Not even Harry Truman allowed that.

It has been affirmed that the People’s Republic of China lost one million valiant soldiers in order to prevent the installation of an enemy army on that country’s border with its homeland. For its part, the Soviet army provided weapons, air support, technological and economic aid.

I had the honor of meeting Kim Il Sung, a historic figure, notably courageous and revolutionary.

If war breaks out there, the peoples of both parts of the Peninsula will be terribly sacrificed, without benefit to all or either of them. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was always friendly with Cuba, as Cuba has always been and will continue to be with her.

Now that the country has demonstrated its technical and scientific achievements, we remind her of her duties to the countries which have been her great friends, and it would be unjust to forget that such a war would particularly affect more than 70% of the population of the planet.

If a conflict of that nature should break out there, the government of Barack Obama in his second mandate would be buried in a deluge of images which would present him as the most sinister character in the history of the United States. The duty of avoiding war is also his and that of the people of the United States."

Fidel Castro Ruz
4 April 2013

TIME OUT - BIG START FOR ORIOLES

The Baltimore Orioles, my favorite baseball team, are off to a great start.  They are 3-1 to begin the season but the best story is first baseman Chris Davis.

Davis drove in a career-high five runs yesterday, giving him 16 RBIs this season, the most of any player through his team's first four games since RBIs became an official stat in 1920, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

Davis also became just the fourth player in major league history to homer in his team's first four games — joining Willie Mays (1971), Mark McGwire (1998) and Nelson Cruz (2011).

I was born in Maryland but since I grew up in a military family we moved all over the place - I never really had a home town.  The Orioles became my home town - they were my touchstone.

I'm enjoying this run so far.

FIRST THEY CAME FOR.......AND THEN THEY CAME FOR ME

Where are the activists as austerity bites? They have been beaten back

Protesters face violence, arrest and serious charges. Only the brave dare face this savage suppression

By Laurie Penny
Guardian (UK)

First they came for the students. This week, 12 van loads of police arrived at Sussex University, in collaboration with management, to evict students who had been occupying a room on campus for eight weeks. They had been taking a stand against privatisation of services at their university, creating a militant "pop-up union" and attracting support from all over the country: they had to be got rid of. Photographs from the day show police in antiseptic yellow uniforms swarming in as if to disinfect a wound in the body politic where the rage was bleeding through.

The suppression of student protest by the British state has been savage and efficient over the past three years. The students of Sussex were brave even to make the attempt. They knew all too well that they were risking arrest, serious criminal charges and physical violence from police and hired security, and that is what happened. It's what always happens when a government uses force to suppress radicalism.

Right now, as millions of people stare down the barrel of job losses, benefits sanctions, destitution and desperation and the rich are given tax cuts, I hear a lot of people asking why there isn't more resistance going on. Well, here's why. There was resistance, and it was brutally and systematically put down. The students, the street-organising anti-cuts campaigners, the Occupy movement. When people speak about the Occupy camps and anti-austerity protests of 2010-12, it is with a tone of regret, as if somehow those grassroots movements just fizzled out because those involved didn't know what they were doing. On the contrary: they were cleared out, arrested and beaten back by police, just like the students at Sussex.

In Tory Britain, as the cuts kick in, even the most peaceful protests are put down as a warning to the rest of us. Last November, Bethan Tichborne, a 28-year-old teaching assistant, appeared at a public event in Oxfordshire and calmly told David Cameron that he had "blood on his hands". She was referring to the prime minister's decision to take away vital social support from people with disabilities, a policy that has already cost lives.

Tichborne was grabbed, tackled to the ground and restrained during her arrest, as Cameron continued to speak: "The police officers on top of me either couldn't or wouldn't hear me," she wrote on her blog. "I was crying and bleeding, I couldn't properly breathe.". Two weeks ago she was convicted of causing "harassment, alarm and distress" and fined more than a month's wages. The message is clear: whether or not a protest is peaceful and legal is entirely up to the police and judiciary to decide, so if you want to play it safe, stay at home and sign a petition.

Last month, two of the students involved in the Parliament Square protests of December 2010, Alfie Meadows and Zak King, were acquitted of violent disorder. This is a charge used almost exclusively against political protesters that carries a sentence of five years in prison. Meadows, King and their friends spent two years fighting to overturn the charges, prevented from speaking out by the courts process.

It seems a curious coincidence that the police singled out Meadows for scapegoating as a violent extremist, given that on the protest in question, as the police attacked students in Parliament Square, he received a blow to the head that required emergency brain surgery. He still has a hand-length scar across his skull. Even now, I am obliged to say that it's not been proved in court that Meadows' near-fatal brain bleed was caused by a police baton, because if I didn't I might get sued.

Sadly, many of the liberal-minded folk now wondering aloud where all the anger on the streets has gone were the same people who condemned the students and anti-cuts protesters for being just a bit too noisy, too rowdy, too "violent". As soon as the frustrated kids of Britain and their allies started smashing up bus stops and lighting bonfires outside Tory HQ, that was too much: throw the selfish brats in prison, teach them to mind their manners. First they came for the students. Now they've come for the rest of us, who will speak out?

Any government trying to push through austerity against the will of a large proportion of the population is going to have to rely on force to deal with dissent. That's exactly what this government, which had the support of just one in seven of the population even before it started tearing up the welfare state, has done. New movements to resist austerity must expect to meet the same wall of state violence as soon as they become effective, because that's how the Tories operate. It's how they've always operated. And shame on us, even in these cowardly times, if we don't support those with the courage to take a stand.

THE HISTORY TELLS THE STORY

US B-2 bombers seen over Korean peninsula last week simulating nuclear attack on North Korea

US presidents like to use the phrase "All options are on the table".  The phrase is likely listed on page one of the well worn US Presidential Manual that they are handed by the CIA soon after the swearing in ceremony.

•1950 Truman threatens Chinese over Chosin Reservoir, Korea.
•1951 Truman approves military request to attack Manchuria.
•1953 “Operation Big Stick” Eisenhower threatens China to force end to Korean War
•1954 Secretary of State Dulles offers French three tactical nuclear weapons to break Dienbienphu siege
•1958 Eisenhower orders JCS to prepare nuclear attack vs. China during Quemoy
•1967 Johnson's nuclear threats against Vietnam to break siege at Khe Shan.
•1968 Johnson threatens nuclear attack against North Korea USS Pueblo seizure
•1969 Nixon’s “November Ultimatum” against Vietnam.
•1973 Nixon pledges to South Vietnamese President Thieu that he will respond with nuclear attacks or bombing North Vietnam’s dikes if it violates Paris Peace Accords
•1975 Sec. of Defense Schlesinger threatens N. Korea with nuclear retaliation if it attacks S. Korea
•1976 Ax Incident, President Ford dispatches nuclear armed B-52 from Guam toward N. Korea
•1993 Clinton threatens N. Korea.
•1994 Clinton again threatens N.Korea
•2003 Bush dispatches 24 nuclear capable bombers to Guam during crisis with N. Korea.
•2013 Obama simulated B-52 & B-2 attacks against N.Korea

DON'T WORRY THE PIPELINES ARE SAFE

• The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has imposed an indefinite no-fly zone over the area in Arkansas recently affected by a broken pipeline oil spill. It's sparked concern that the Exxon Mobil oil company may be trying to keep the TV cameras away from the scene.

• More than one thousand protesters snaked though the mansion-lined streets of San Francisco's Pacific Heights neighborhood yesterday in an attempt to convince Barack Obama, in town for a Democratic party campaign fundraiser at the home of Ann and Gordon Getty, to block the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.

• Ironically Gordon Getty joined the oil business with his father, oil tycoon J. Paul Getty, and eventually sold the family's Getty Oil to Texaco in 1986 for $10 billion.  He is one of the richest men in America.

• You might remember recently when there was a huge climate change protest at the White House except Obama was not in town.  He was down in Florida playing golf with oil men.  The magician seems to like to hang out with oil big wigs.

MONTH OF DRONE ACTIONS NATIONWIDE

Washington's overseas drone strikes and their surveillance use at home has long attracted the attention of activists. Groups across the U.S. political spectrum say the strikes breach American law and hurt the country's international standing. Now a month-long anti-drone campaign has kicked off, with a protest in Manhattan.

Here in Maine our drone effort is focused on trying to get the state government to pass a bill to require law enforcement agencies to obtain a legal warrant before using drones for domestic surveillance.  Even this will be an uphill struggle for us because the Maine Attorney General does not want to limit the state police.  Additionally a small company in Maine, wanting to make drones, promises those golden words - jobs - and thus some politicians in Augusta are against any serious restrictions against drone use across the state.

BANGING THE WAR DRUMS

The media is talking war with North Korea and slapping China around a bit as well.  The American people are frozen in fear and depression and most won't be able to respond.

The mass of the people are economic basket cases and have yet to verbally connect the US military empire's endless wars to their local financial ruin.

Many are worried about losing their guns to the feds, but they don't seem to notice that they've already lost their tongues - and the precious right to speak out and demand real change.  If people wait just to use their guns then it will be much too late.

PENTAGON TURNS SCREWS ON ASIA-PACIFIC

• Navy Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III, Commander of Pacific Command, recently told the Boston Globe that the biggest long-term security threat in the Pacific region is climate change. “The ice is melting and sea is getting higher,” Locklear said, noting that 80% of the world’s population lives within 200 miles of the coast. “I’m into the consequence management side of it. I’m not a scientist, but the island of Tarawa in Kiribati, they’re contemplating moving their entire population to another country because [it] is not going to exist anymore. We have interjected into our multilateral dialogue – even with China and India – the imperative to kind of get military capabilities aligned [for] when the effects of climate change start to impact these massive populations,” he said. “If it goes bad, you could have hundreds of thousands or millions of people displaced and then security will start to crumble pretty quickly.’’

• You can hear in Locklear's words how the Pentagon is viewing the coming reality of climate change from a military or "security" standpoint.  Obviously, despite all the denials from the corporations about climate change, the military industrial complex understands the problem.  Instead of showing leadership though to help move us toward rail systems, wind power, solar, home weatherization and other positive steps, the military will use climate change to ask for even more $$$ so they can bring "security and stability" to the impacted populations.

• Another example of the weapons industry never missing an opportunity to sell more "product" is the Pentagon announcement today that the Army's Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) "missile defense" system will be deployed to the island of Guam in "protection of the American territory's citizens and all of the US military forces deployed there from North Korea's ballistic missile threat". North Korea is not going to launch an attack on the US, nor on Guam, nor on Japan, or South Korea because it knows it would be pulverized in a retaliatory response by the US-South Korean forces.  The only way the shooting will start is if the US keeps tightening the noose around the neck of North Korea - which is entirely possible as Obama's pivot of 60% of US naval forces are moved into the Asia-Pacific region.  THAAD is built by Lockheed Martin and has an estimated range of about 120 miles and was designed as one element in an integrated system that includes the Navy Aegis interceptor missiles for longer-range targets and the short-range Patriot missile.

A CONFLICT INSPIRED FROM ABROAD

North Korea has suspended South Korean access to a joint industrial zone - the latest move in the ongoing conflict with Washington and Seoul. Pyongyang also says it will restart a nuclear reactor to beef up its arsenal - after Washington moved its military closer to the Korean peninsula during recent US-South Korea war excercises.

North Korea earlier claimed its missile units are combat-ready and warned of a possible pre-emptive strike on the U.S. and Seoul. Tim Shorrock has written extensively about US foreign policy and East Asian politics - and believes both sides should know they are playing a dangerous game.

REMEMBERING APRIL 3 MASSACRE ON JEJU ISLAND

Uni Park writes from South Korea:

Collective amnesia. Collective trauma. On picturesque Jeju Island, its quite easy to forget that Jeju was one big mass grave. So many deaths and unknown remains. I imagine the numerous golf courses and sprawling hillside resorts built above the dead. Today, April 3rd, marks the 65th anniversary of the 1948 civilian uprising and massacre where it is estimated 1/5 [up to 80,000] of the population on Jeju Island were brutally killed for associating or participating in people's committees or had refused to vote in a puppet election recognizing a divided Korea, all labeled communists. [These operations were directed by the US Army.]

These simple-minded farming, fishing communities wiped out. 230 villages disappeared, 40,000 homes destroyed or burned down. Someone once told me that there are very few old trees on Jeju because they were all burned down in search for those who tried to hide in the mountains.

Arthouse documentary film, 'Jeju Prayer' connects the governments bloody suppression of the 4.3 uprising and the Gangjeong village struggle against the naval base. A special pre-screening with the director and producer for Gangjeong villagers was held on Monday. Visually stunning, well edited, moving. Opening in theaters this week.