Short film by Bill Park

 

 

A taste of Florida and space politics in this original short film by artist and late friend Bill Park.

He wrote and directed the production and put an advert in the Central Florida Actors newsletter seeking volunteers to act and shoot this film.  Folks signed up and he made this great piece about a woman invited to a Global Network peace in space protest. 

She faces multiple obstacles.....

For many years Bill was hired by the American Bar Association to design the cover of their prestigious monthly magazine. 

In his early years Bill often got his cartoons into The New Yorker magazine but by the 1990's many of these mainstream opportunities for his art work dried up. He then turned to the creation of a syndicated cartoon series called 'Off the leash' which ran for a few years but his increasingly political views on issues caught up with him and that project faded as well.  

It was sometime in the early 2000's that Bill told me, "You are the only one using any of my art anymore." I of course told him that I would always be ready to use anything he sent me.  

Often times if I had a particular need for an image we'd talk about a design idea and then we'd go back and forth until we were both happy with it.

Bill was the consummate pro.

God, am I ever going to miss this man....rest in peace dear friend.

Bruce

Zoom event: The U.S. plan to control and dominate space

 

Bruce Gagnon (Global Network) makes a visual presentation on Zoom about the US plan to control and dominate space.  

The event was organized by five peace groups in Maine.

Intro by Rosie Paul from PeaceWorks. 

Event organized by Martha Spiess from Peace Action Maine.

One of the best is gone.....

 

 

Will (Bill) Park has died.  He grew up in beautiful, rural, conservative and racist central Florida.  Bill was a Presbyterian but sort of gave up on religion.  He was a great artist and loved to talk politics - and knew his way around the issues quite well.  

I loved him like an older brother - that I never had - I grew up with 5 sisters. We became close in the early 1980's and he began coming to local peace events in Orlando.  Bill illustrated much of my work since then and his vision still lasts today, as relevant as ever.

His wife Evie called me today to pass on the sad news.  They were married 59 years - Bill (as I most liked to call him) loved his family so much.

We'd meet at various local BBQ joints in the greater Orlando area for a lunch quite regularly.  Living in that reactionary region gave us much to talk about during the days of the Cold War and US's military expansion into space.  Bill made many great images about space issues. We were roommates on a trip to Cuba together that I organized while working at the Florida Coalition for Peace & Justice.

So here are a few of my favorites to remember a great human being. 

Bill Park Presente!

Love you brother,

Bruce

(Click on any of the graphics for a better view)

 

 

5G Satellite Protest Rally March 19 at SpaceX in California

 

A number of Safe Technology, Pro-Health and Environmental organizations have come together to plan a national protest rally at the headquarters of SpaceX in Hawthorne, CA on Friday, March 19th, 2021. This event will “kick off” the next 5G Global Protest Day, scheduled for the following day, March 20th.

Protestors are calling for an immediate halt to SpaceX and other 5G satellite approvals due to inadequate assessment of the impacts of launching tens of thousands of satellites into the earth’s atmosphere.

5G is currently being rolled out around the world at breakneck speed. An “all things connected” world will wirelessly connect every “thing”, “event”, and place on the planet to the internet. To do so will entail a huge increase in radio frequency exposure, energy consumption, environmental degradation, and greenhouse gas emissions from the manufacturing, use, and disposal of trillions of IoT “things”, devices and accompanying infrastructure. More and more people are questioning the harms to health, wildlife, climate, human rights, privacy and cyber security.

SpaceX and other companies are deploying thousands of low orbit satellites (potentially 100,000 or more) and complementary earth base stations, none of which have been tested for environmental safety. Dangers include depletion of the ozone layer, pollution from rocket launches and from “dead” satellites burning up in the atmosphere, radiation levels that exceed even the FCC and ICNIRP’s antiquated maximum exposure limits, permanent compromise of the night sky, space debris accumulation and likely satellite collisions, interference with astronomical research and weather forecasting, effects on wildlife and humans, and 5G is not cost effective, and is just not needed.

Unfortunately, SpaceX is not the only company launching satellites. One Web, Telesat, Amazon, Facebook and Lynk all have plans to join the global 5G race. Many other countries also have their own satellite programs.

Wired technology such as fiber or coaxial cable is safer, faster and far more reliable and cyber secure than wireless. Wired connections should be used for the vast majority of all internet and telecommunications technology, reserving wireless for emergency use, and recognizing that the cultivated demand for always-on wireless data harvesting, under the guise of connectivity, is unnecessary, unsustainable and a breach of privacy.

Collaborating organizations include Stop 5G International, the International Appeal to Stop 5G on Earth and in Space, Environmental Health Trust, Americans for Responsible Technology, Children’s Health Defense, Moms Across America, Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, and 5G Free California

For questions contact David Goldberg, 5G Colorado Action at dgoldberg36@gmail.com

For more information, visit https://stop5ginternational.org/5g-spacex-satellite-protest-march-19-2021/
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/groups/548912049259423/
Twitter – https://twitter.com/Stop_5G_Intl
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/stop5ginternational/

US-Britain-France accused of lies about Syria

 

 

By Aaron Maté

Prominent signatories and five former OPCW officials are calling on the chemical watchdog to address the cover-up of its chemical weapons investigation in the Syrian city of Douma, and to hear out the dissenting scientists whose findings were censored.

Five former officials from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons have joined a group of prominent signatories to urge the OPCW to address the controversy surrounding its investigation of an alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma, Syria in April 2018.

Leaks from inside the OPCW show that key scientific findings that cast doubt on claims of Syrian government guilt were censored, and that the original investigators were removed from the probe. Since the cover-up became public, the OPCW has shunned accountability and publicly attacked the two whistleblowers who challenged it from inside.

The “Statement of Concern” is signed by five former OPCW officials, including the organization’s founding leader, José Bustani, and others including Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Tulsi Gabbard, John Pilger, Lord West of Spithead, as well two former senior UN officials, Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck.

“The issue at hand threatens to severely damage the reputation and credibility of the OPCW and undermine its vital role in the pursuit of international peace and security,” the statement says. “It is simply not tenable for a scientific organization such as the OPCW to refuse to respond openly to the criticisms and concerns of its own scientists whilst being associated with attempts to discredit and smear those scientists.”  

For more on Syria see this article:  The U.S. Role in Plundering Syria’s Oil: Depriving the Syrians of the Wealth of Their Own Country

Brand on space privatization

 

Billionaires wealth has grown by a trillion dollars in the pandemic, and as the majority of the ideas about tomorrow are now conceived by a tiny minority of ultra-wealthy individuals and private-sector companies - are tech billionaires colonizing our future?

Elites are taking over!

Space Force webinar with Bruce Gagnon

 

 

Topic: The Space Force: Who cares about an arms race in Space? 

 

Speaker: Bruce Gagnon (Global Network) 

 

Time: Mar 17, 2021 12:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada) 

 

Zoominar Registration link: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcodeigpzsiGNVvPTrLoX1QM9jJWSESE1Pm 

 

Sponsored by PeaceWorks, Peace Action Maine, Maine Veterans for Peace, WILPF-Maine and Maine Natural Guard.

Mr. Big is looking for total control

 

 

Dr. Vandana Shiva sat in a press conference to discuss the topics of climate change being the cause of refugees and terrorism. 

She also references the Bill Gates jargon being fed through the media and how we can protect ourselves from their language and answer back with ours.

More workers support conversion of BIW

 

• Thirteen of us were at Bath Iron Works yesterday for the weekly Lenten season vigil. Maureen Ostensen, one of the key organizers, shared during the closing circle a story about a young worker who took one of her flyers as he was leaving the shipyard.  He said, "You know I really appreciate that you are here.  I'd rather be building something different but need this job.  Others inside feel the same way."  Maureen told him that we respect him as well and understand his need for work.  She reminded him that we are doing these vigils as a way to challenge the company and the community to do more to convert BIW from building destroyers to making products that help us deal with climate crisis. (Photos above taken by retired BIW worker Peter Woodruff)
  

• One of the places that Bath-built Aegis destroyers have been increasingly sent in recent months is into the Black Sea.  The US is continually sending warships, fighter planes, and bombers right up to the Russian borders. Couple that with US-NATO moves to get the Ukrainian military to do more provocative shelling of their own citizens living in the Donbass (eastern Ukraine) right along the Russian border. Many fear that a full US-NATO directed assault could happen any day. This will put Moscow in a tough position - do they defend the people just on the other side of the border? It must be remembered that Joe Biden (during the Obama administration) was in charge of the 2014 US directed coup that installed a neo-Nazi regime in Kiev.  Since then it has been a non-stop war against their own Russian speaking population in Ukraine. Read more about the past & current situation here.

• I will be doing a webinar Zoom talk on March 17 (Wednesday) at 1:00 pm EST.  I will speak about the new Space Force and other current space issues.  You can register for it here.

Bruce

Today (Sunday) at 7:00 EST

 

 

COLD WAR TRUTH COMMISSION

A Day of Education, Testimonials & Action

Approximate Time - 4:00 PM PST (7:00 EST)

Chris Venn,            “The Housing Crisis, Land Accumulation and Cold War Ideology”              
Carley Towne,         “The Co$t of U.S. Militarism in The U.S. Cold War to Today”            
Bruce Gagnon,                 "Weaponizing Space in The U.S. Cold War to Today"                      
David Vine,                    “There Was Nothing “COLD” about The Cold War”                     
Kathy Kelly,           “War Resistance in the 1980’s as Foundation for 1991 Iraq War Resistance”   
David Swanson,                "Combatting The Lies of The U.S. Cold War Today"                    
Jeff Cohen,                   “U.S. News Media: The Enduring Cold War Legacy                
Ed Rampell,           “HUAC, The Hollywood Blacklist and McCarthyism: Cold War Cancel Culture”    
Peter McLaren,       “The U.S. Cold War against Liberation Theology and the Ascendance of the Religious Right”                

Get the Zoom code by registering here: https://www.codepink.org/03212021 

I think it’s a great idea! Ideologically, it's right on.”
–Oliver Stone on the Cold War Truth Commission 

Sunday song

 

Appeal from Russia: 'A little bit of trust'

 

 

Vladimir Kozin, special advisor to the Russian Presidential Administration on nuclear treaties, nuclear weapons and space technology. A sobering interview, but ever hopeful that sanity will return to the USA. 

Kozin has spoken at Global Network meetings twice before - the first time in Sweden and then in Moscow.  He is a fine, direct and honest man.

Video by Regis Tremblay 

Further evidence that US-NATO are planning something in Ukraine see this article which is from a pro-Ukrainian (US puppet government) website:  Delegation of NATO Allied Land Command arrives in Ukraine

A great new film

 

 

We watched this new film last night via YouTube (had to pay to play). It is a really excellent movie and I highly recommend it.

It's a true story based on the book by a man from Mauritania who was held in Guantanamo, Cuba by the US for about 14 years - never charged, but continually tortured to get a 'confession'.

His legal team stuck with him until he was finally released.

And still today the US holds 40 innocent people in that damn prison. Talk about human rights abuses for the past 19 years at Guantanamo!

It's interesting how the US is always so critical of other nations for abusing human rights but has no shame continuing to lead the world in war making and massive violations of human rights.

This film is a clear picture of the US's fascist ways.

Bruce

The story few ever heard....

 

By S Brian Willson

In 1866, one year after the 13th Amendment was ratified (the amendment that ended slavery), Alabama, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Florida, Tennessee, and South Carolina began to lease out convicts for labor (peonage). This made the business of arresting Blacks very lucrative, which is why hundreds of White men were hired by these states as police officers. Their primary responsibility was to search out and arrest Blacks who were in violation of Black Codes. Once arrested, these men, women and children would be leased to plantations where they would harvest cotton, tobacco, sugar cane. Or they would be leased to work at coal mines, or railroad companies. The owners of these businesses would pay the state for every prisoner who worked for them; prison labor.

It is believed that after the passing of the 13th Amendment, more than 800,000 Blacks were part of the system of peonage, or re-enslavement through the prison system. Peonage didn’t end until after World War II began, around 1940.  

This is how it happened.  The 13th Amendment declared that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." (Ratified in 1865)

Did you catch that? It says, “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude could occur except as a punishment for a crime". Lawmakers used this phrase to make petty offenses crimes. When Blacks were found guilty of committing these crimes, they were imprisoned and then leased out to the same businesses that lost slaves after the passing of the 13th Amendment. This system of convict labor is called peonage.  

The majority of White Southern farmers and business owners hated the 13th Amendment because it took away slave labor. As a way to appease them, the federal government turned a blind eye when southern states used this clause in the 13th Amendment to establish laws called Black Codes. Here are some examples of Black Codes:

*In Louisiana, it was illegal for a Black man to preach to Black congregations without special permission in writing from the president of the police. If caught, he could be arrested and fined. If he could not pay the fines, which were unbelievably high, he would be forced to work for an individual, or go to jail or prison where he would work until his debt was paid off. 

*If a Black person did not have a job, he or she could be arrested and imprisoned on the charge of vagrancy or loitering.  

*This next Black Code will make you cringe. In South Carolina, if the parent of a Black child was considered vagrant, the judicial system allowed the police and/or other government agencies to “apprentice” the child to an "employer". Males could be held until the age of 21, and females could be held until they were 18. Their owner had the legal right to inflict punishment on the child for disobedience, and to recapture them if they ran away. 

This (peonage) is an example of systemic racism - Racism established and perpetuated by government systems. Slavery was made legal by the U.S. Government. Segregation, Black Codes, Jim Crow and peonage were all made legal by the government, and upheld by the judicial system. 

These acts of racism were built into the system, which is where the term “Systemic Racism” is derived. This is the part of "Black History" that most of us were never told about. 

Book report: Stories from inside a revolution

 

Sid Engst and Joan Hinton in their early days working on dairy farm in China. As a scientist Joan specialized in helping to develop various technologies to make farm production more efficient while Sid usually directed the dairy operation since he was raised on a dairy farm in upstate New York.

I've just finished what I consider one of the top five most interesting books I've ever read.  I wrote a bit here about the book awhile ago and wanted to share some more.  The book is called Silage Choppers & Snake Spirits: The Lives & Struggles of Two Americans in Modern China.  

It is the story about Joan Hinton (Nuclear physicist who worked on the secret Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb) and her husband Sid Engst (dairy farmer).  The book is so well written, the author did a great job of story telling about the Chinese revolution, Mao, the Cultural Revolution in the mid-1960's and the eventual counter-revolution under Deng Xiaoping who turned China back toward capitalism. So this story (told thru the lives of these two fascinating Americans) for me was a real page turner. It makes me want to learn even more.  

I start from the fact that virtually everything we know about China (and that period of time) is filtered through US propaganda.  I am always one who wants to cut through the clouds and see the real picture.

So I'm going to share just a couple items from the book - things that moved me and helped me understand China policy a bit better. Joan tells one story about life on the state farm where the workers met in small groups each morning to learn more about politics and also to do 'self criticism' that included being honest and telling about your own mistakes while also criticizing leadership (local and national) with the thought of seeking positive reflection and change.  Here is her memory of one meeting where the farm director led such a discussion:

"I'm glad to have the opportunity to meet with you dairy workers today," he said, opening the meeting. "I don't think I've ever been in a meeting with you people alone. The result has been that your specific problems have always been swallowed up by the many problems of the more numerous farm workers.  My idea for today's meeting would be, if you all agree, for each of you to say whatever it is that's on your mind, so that I and all of us for that matter, can become more familiar with your work and your problems, what specific problems each one of you has, and what if anything is troubling you. In particular, I would suggest you take this opportunity to bring out any suggestions or ideas you may have about the leadership. I would like to add that I hope no one will be bashful.  Only if we bring things out in the open, will they get a chance to be cleared up.  Keeping troubles to ourselves and not letting others know only prevents us from having even the hope of solving it. We should have faith that many minds working together always have more power than a single one alone. Who will be the first to speak?"

Imagine that happening at workplaces across America.  Not likely in most places.  Joan was particularly impressed by the process and went on to share some of Mao's reasoning behind instituting this program to increase the confidence, the power and the local democracy for those who had lived in poverty as virtual slaves to wealthy land owners prior to the revolution. She said this:

I kept thinking of Chairman Mao's teaching: when someone criticizes you, don't try to look for all that is wrong with what they are saying, look for what is right. Even if 90% is wrong, look carefully for that 10% that's right. Analyze it. Think about it. Make it become part of you. Only in this way can you expect to improve.

 

Joan, Sid and their three children, all who were born in China

Certainly that is very good advice that I intend to follow. Another story from the book that really stuck out for me (again reflecting how little we actually know about Chinese history) is the story about Tibet and the Dalai Lama. Joan shared:

[In 1959] the elite CIA-trained Tibetans surrounding the Dalai Lama in the northwestern province of Tibet staged an unsuccessful revolt. India did its part on the advice of the Soviet Union by opening up its doors to the fleeing Tibetans. Zhou Enlai [China's foreign minister] made a trip in the middle of the negotiations to talk to the Dalai Lama himself, to try to convince him to stay and work things out.  He assured the young Lama that the Central government had no intentions of destroying Tibetan culture - but that practices of feudal oppression, slave ownership and serfdom [ in Tibet] had to be abolished. The Dalai Lama developed a respect for Zhou Enlai that he would talk about candidly in the following years, but in the end took the advice of his inner circle and went into exile in India. 

 

Joan and Sid were deeply troubled by the turn of events that led to the demise of socialism in China.  Mao had seen the writing on the wall when he created the Cultural Revolution in his later years to help re-focus the people on the purposes and gains of the revolution.  But by then he was quite ill and near death so the 'capitalist roaders' like Deng Xiaoping did all they could to distract the people and divide them to ensure their own rise to power.  

In 1979 Deng went to Washington to meet with Jimmy Carter (with a stop in Texas where he was given a big cowboy hat) and upon his return to China he famously stated, "Poverty is not socialism. To be rich is glorious!" Joan remarked about this period:

The Cultural Revolution failed because of the ability of the capitalist roaders to whip up factionalism among the people. And in fact, the people are so easily whipped into factionalism. It's the petit bourgeois ideology, which is so strong in all of us: our Achilles' heel. We can't join together to fight the main enemy, because of our own petit bourgeois tendency to become factional. To me, if we can't get over this, it's the one thing that's gonna keep ordinary people from every being able to develop socialism...

In the US it's against the foreign born, it's whites against blacks and so on - all done to divide the working people. The working people fall for it all the time, because we do not have proletarian ideology. We don't think that the working people are one family; we just look at somebody from the other village and think, "they're not our village..." There's no reason on earth for them to hate each other.  All working people get their living from working.

 

Speaking of Deng, Sid put it this way:

I don't think Joan and I ever had any illusions about the "Reform," because as the saying goes, if you know its past and you can understand its present, you know its past and its present and you can predict its future; that's true of Deng...

For me I see so many similarities with what is happening today right here in the USA and around the world where US-NATO (essentially representing western capitalism) do all they can to divide the people in order to keep in control and extract wealth from the public. 

I love to learn, I love history, and most of all I love stories about the lives of others who take extraordinary steps to make much needed changes in our world.  Thus this book was a treasure for me. I learned so much.

Bruce

US-NATO preparing war on Russian border

US-NATO directed and supplied Ukrainian government is moving heavy military hardware into Mariupol closer to the Russian western border near the Donbass region (Donetsk and Lugansk). 

Informed speculation is that the Biden administration is planning multiple location attacks. Russia will be forced to respond and then will be further demonized and encircled by a NATO that is the tip-of-the-spear for more war. 

US-NATO playing with fire. Imagine if Russia was doing this along the US's Canadian or Mexican borders.

You won't find any reporting about this on BBC, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, NY Times or Washington Post. I wonder why?

Bruce

Public discourse is dominated by corporate think-tanks

 

 

Journalist Chris Hedges often quotes Dr. Sheldon Wolin.

Wolin speaks about Totalitarian America, in Willits, California at the Willits Methodist Church. 

Wolin was an American political theorist and writer on contemporary politics. Wolin became Professor of Politics, Emeritus, at Princeton University, where he taught from 1973 to 1987.

During a 50-year teaching career Wolin also taught at the University of California, Berkeley, University of California, Santa Cruz, Oberlin College, Oxford University, Cornell University, and University of California, Los Angeles. 

a sense of history, a sense of outrage

 

Washington
is not backing off
its evil,
illegal, immoral
and very costly war$
(Biden is soon
to be gone
as the oligarchy
consolidates power,
his usefulness now over)
 
America has little
legitimacy
around the world
thus Mr. Big's use
of the hammer
to enforce empire

Back home
things rapidly
coming apart
at the seams
(human and
infrastructure collapse
right on schedule,
the masses no longer
needed in the coming age of
robotics and AI)

Public
is distracted
by infotainment,
party politics,
divide and conquer,
depression and
resignation,
which always

plays a huge part

in public demobilization.

(But don't misunderstand,

the people

do hear the

train coming....)

 
The mob
(Wall Street/CIA)
runs Dems
and Repubs

Mr. Big
fears
the American people
and terrorizes them
to keep
in control.
 
US-Israel,
Saudi Arabia,
UK,
and often Turkey,
endlessly rampaging
with NATO tagging along,
in utter
subservience

Iran, Russia
and China
are the primary
targets,
while Iraq, Syria, Yemen,
Venezuela, North Korea,
Cuba, Nicaragua
and others remain
on Washington's
shit list
for continual destabilization
and regime change
 
Quite enough
to keep the war machine
churning,
profit$ high,
and greater global instability,
which always breeds
more war.
The vicious cycle
 
It's a sick
and criminal
imperial strategy.
Most American's
sadly plod along,
it is so easy
to do
 
Our predicament,
one hopes,
is obvious,
if we don't stop
this madness
soon
then WW III
will be upon us

You've got to have
a sense of history,
a sense of outrage
and struggle,
and a sense of humor
to get by.

Bruce 

German journalist on Russia & Navalny

 

Dirk Pohlmann is a well-known German journalist, author and former documentary filmmaker of the public TV channels ARD/ZDF and ARTE. 

In the first part of the interview he is answering the question, if it is likely that the Russian government stands behind the attempted murders of Alexei Navalny and Skripal. 

He explains the background story of the agent Novichok, and of Navalny himself, who received special education in the US together with the German Member of the European Parliament Sergey Lagodinsky of the Green party.  

English subtitles are available.

Digging deeper into the Syria issue

 

Pushback on Syria with Aaron Maté who does a deep-dive into the issue.  

He's one of the finest 'alternative' journalists out there today.  You should follow him. 

Read even more alternative thinking about Iraq-Syria here

This is just a short taste of the article:

It’s been almost 10 years since the war in Syria began, and 18 years since the war in Iraq began, and still there seems to be no peace in sight for any of the Arab countries. Biden has been in office in less than two months, but in my opinion, the next four years seem to be rather clear in terms of Washington’s policies towards the West Asia region- the long wars will continue and more blood is to be expected. Bush bombed Iraq, Obama bombed Iraq, Trump bombed Iraq, and now Biden bombs Iraq. For our people, it never matters who or what occupies the White House, the bombings and wars will continue. Iraq has a rather young population, more than 60 percent of the population is under 25 years of age. This means that most Iraqis have known nothing else except the US imposed wars on their homeland. It is a tragedy and a shameful moment in human history where most people in the totally “advanced, civilized, democratic, morally superior” West don’t care about what their despicable governments are doing in Iraq or Syria, because they are stupid Muslim terrorists anyway. This is why Iraq cannot and should not rely on Western public opinion. Resistance is the only way, and the US Empire must be kicked out with force in order for Iraqis to finally have some peace.