We are America's bitch!

The British, Australian, Ecuadorian and US Governments have made an ad about Julian Assange’s arrest and it’s surprisingly honest and informative!

On the street today in Brunswick

I was out on the sidewalk in downtown Brunswick today for an hour handing out 'Tax day' flyers.  Local PeaceWorks member Rosie Paul made a nice two-sided card with an attractive color illustration of the military chewing up our national budget.

It was wet and cold out and I had not worn enough layers.  But what made up for it were some interesting conversations.

Everyone declares that they know where their tax dollars are going.  One woman asked me, "Do you mind that you are preaching to the choir?"  I replied, "But some in the choir don't know this song and the choir needs to sing it - publicly."  She smiled.

Several people (from young to old) asked me this fundamental question:  "What can we do about it?"  Most of them (especially the older ones) have become cynical, hopeless, resigned to our lot in life, and one woman claimed that she was just waiting to meet Jesus in heaven.

The Jesus lady blew me off when I offered her a flyer before she walked into a shop.  Later she approached me and said she was sorry for being rude.  I guess Christian conscience is still alive in some.  We had a long talk and at the end she wanted to shake my hand.

One well-to-do man, told me he was an investor, talked about how the national debt was a bigger problem than military spending.  I asked him if a strong percentage of the debt was due to our endless war$.  He thought for a moment and said - yes.

So in the end this sampling of people I spoke too (I handed out 46 flyers while other PeaceWorks members stood in front of the post office doing the same) convinced me that our biggest problem in the US is not so much the lack of education or awareness about the cost of war - but is instead that so many people have given up.  They don't believe anything is going to change.  They see nothing or no one in sight that is going to make things better.  Thus they are choosing to live a life of relative isolation and hopelessness.

One man asked me why I keep doing this.  He's seen me over the years on the street and follows local politics.  He also asked if my time in the military (I was wearing a VFP hat) had put me on this direction of lifelong opposition to the war machine.

I told him I have to do it - even if I am the only one (which I am not) - but that I can't live with myself if I surrender.  It's not in my makeup.  The tide comes in and the tide goes out.  Sometimes the people are with us and sometimes they are not.  But we should always keep doing the good work.

I told him my step-dad, from Rumford, Maine who married my mom when I was three years old, taught me by his rebellious and independent spirit.  He was in the Air Force and was known for telling generals what he thought of them when he saw fit.

There is no more important work for me to do on this wonderful planet.  I could never imagine giving up. My soul is connected to all life on Earth.  

Bruce

Carter's words on regime change wars

Soon after getting out of the Air Force in 1974 I was attending a community college in Orlando, Florida.  One day Jimmy Carter came to speak at our campus - very early on in his run for president in the 1976 election. I came away impressed and over time did some volunteer work in his campaign.

One thing he often said that resonated with me were these words: "The arms race is a disgrace to the human race."  After he became president he built the Kings Bay Submarine base in Georgia where the subs are loaded with Trident II nuclear missiles.

I saw Carter swing to the right trying to win reelection in 1980 - Ronald Reagan beat him.  During the campaign Carter called for dramatically increasing the military budget.  Russia was the big enemy then too.

Years later I'd learn how Carter was recruited to run for president by Zbigniew Brzezinski who was then executive director of David Rockefeller's 'Trilateral Commision'.  Carter made Brzezinski his national security adviser who went on to arm the Taliban in Afghanistan that has morphed into regime change wars throughout the Middle East and Central Asia.

Bruce

Jimmy Carter Took Call About China From Concerned Donald Trump: 'China Has Not Wasted a Single Penny on War'

Newsweek

Former President Jimmy Carter told a church congregation this weekend that he had spoken with President Donald Trump about China on Saturday, and said the commander in chief was worried that Beijing had outpaced its global rivals.

According to Emma Hurt, a reporter for NPR affiliate WABE, Carter spoke of the call during his regular Sunday School lesson at Maranatha Baptist Church in his hometown of Plains, Georgia.
Carter, 94, said Trump was worried that “China is getting ahead of us,” and suggested the president was right to be concerned.

He told the congregation that Trump feared China's growing economic strength. Economic modeling indicated that China would overtake the U.S. as the world’s strongest economy by  2030, and many experts have said that we were already living in what has been dubbed the “Chinese Century.”

Carter said he did not “really fear that time, but it bothers President Trump and I don’t know why. I’m not criticizing him this morning,” he added, to laughs from fellow churchgoers.

Carter—who normalized diplomatic relations between Washington and Beijing in 1979—suggested that China’s breakneck growth had been facilitated by sensible investment and buoyed by peace.

“Since 1979, do you know how many times China has been at war with anybody?” Carter asked. “None. And we have stayed at war.” The U.S., he noted, has only enjoyed 16 years of peace in its 242-year history, making the country “the most warlike nation in the history of the world,” Carter said. This is, he said, because of America’s tendency to force other nations to “adopt our American principles.”

In China, meanwhile, the economic benefits of peace were clear to the eye. “How many miles of high-speed railroad do we have in this country?” he asked. While China has some 18,000 miles of high-speed rail, the U.S. has “wasted, I think, $3 trillion” on military spending. “It’s more than you can imagine. China has not wasted a single penny on war, and that’s why they’re ahead of us. In almost every way.”

“And I think the difference is if you take $3 trillion and put it in American infrastructure you’d probably have $2 trillion leftover. We’d have high-speed railroad. We’d have bridges that aren’t collapsing, we’d have roads that are maintained properly. Our education system would be as good as that of say South Korea or Hong Kong,” Carter told the congregation.

Before he left the pulpit, Carter noted, “I wasn’t comparing my country adversely to China. I was just pointing that out because I happened to get a phone call last night.”

Meanwhile, military tensions remain over Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea and its continued insistence that the independent island nation of Taiwan will eventually fall back under Beijing’s control.

Tax Day: The Robber Barons

The following is a list of the country’s largest publicly-held profitable corporations that paid no federal income taxes in 2018 on billions in U.S. income, according to ITEP analysis of 560 companies. ITEP reports U.S. income before federal taxes, and takes into consideration paid state and local taxes, which could reduce or increase U.S. income.  The report does not look at total tax provision, a number that could include foreign taxes and deferred taxes. All figures, except for tax rate, are in millions.

Company	U.S. Income	Federal Tax	Effective Tax Rate
Amazon.com	$10,835	–129	–1%
Delta Air Lines	$5,073	–187	–4%
Chevron	$4,547	–181	–4%
General Motors	$4,320	–104	–2%
EOG Resources	$4,067	–304	–7%
Occidental Petroleum	$3,379	–23	–1%
Honeywell International	$2,830	–21	–1%
Deere	$2,152	–268	–12%
American Electric Power	$1,943	–32	–2%
Principal Financial	$1,641	–49	–3%
FirstEnergy	$1,495	–16	–1%
Prudential Financial	$1,440	–346	–24%
Xcel Energy	$1,434	–34	–2%
Devon Energy	$1,297	–14	–1%
DTE Energy	$1,215	–17	–1%
Halliburton	$1,082	–19	–2%
Netflix	$856	–22	–3%
Whirlpool	$717	–70	–10%
Eli Lilly	$598	–54	–9%
IBM	$500	–342	–68%
Goodyear Tire & Rubber	$440	–15	–3%
Penske Automotive Group	$393	–16	–4%
Aramark	$315	–48	–15%
AECOM Technology	$238	–122	–51%
Tech Data	$203	–10	–5%
Performance Food Group	$192	–9	–4%
Arrow Electronics	$167	–12	–7%
Source: Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy

The controversial Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, signed by President Donald Trump in December 2017, lowered the corporate tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent, among other cuts. That’s partly to blame for giving corporations an easier way out of paying taxes, said Matthew Gardner, an ITEP senior fellow and lead author of the report. The new corporate tax rate “lowers the bar for the amount of tax avoidance it takes to get you down to zero,” he said.

“The specter of big corporations avoiding all income taxes on billions in profits sends a strong and corrosive signal to Americans: that the tax system is stacked against them, in favor of corporations and the wealthiest Americans,” Gardner wrote in the report.

Lenten vigil at BIW

Twenty-two folks gathered yesterday for the weekly Lenten vigil at Bath Iron Works (BIW).

We broke out a new banner that was made by Veterans For Peace members Tarak Kauff (Woodstock, NY) and Ellen Davidson (NYC) for the upcoming April 27 'christening' of the Zumwalt destroyer to be named after former president Lyndon Johnson (LBJ) who was driven from office by the anti-Vietnam war movement.

(The Vietnamese people called it the 'American war' which it truly was.  LBJ escalated the war and a favorite chant of the young people opposing the war was 'Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?'  LBJ sat in the White House from 1963-1969.  While there he represented the interests of the Texas oil industry and the military industrial complex.) 

The new banner acknowledges the labor union and desire of the workers at the shipyard to be paid fairly and treated with respect.  We want to pass on the message that we are not against the workers but just want to see a different product made at the shipyard.

Most workers want to believe in what they are doing at BIW.  They want to feel good about their warships.  But the growing reality of climate disruption is causing many of the workers to think more deeply about their jobs.

In the last 2-3 years there has been a huge generational shift at BIW.  Many skilled workers have retired and a new crop of younger workers are taking their places.  Alot of these younger workers learned about climate change and sustainability in their public schools.  So when we stand outside the gates with signs reflecting the climate issue many of them understand our point.

There is of course pressure inside the shipyard to 'man up' and declare that peace is only maintained by 'superior firepower'.  But during my 37-day hunger strike last year I spoke to quite a few workers at the shipyard and learned that there is a strong core of respect for our call for conversion of BIW to sustainable production.

It should be remembered that before the vote last year in the State Legislature on the General Dynamics Corp. request for a $60 million tax cut, the largest union (Machinist) at BIW took a vote on the bill at a general meeting and the vote count was 50-50.  They couldn't make an endorsement decision so the union sat it out.  This, a big local story, was never mentioned in the local newspaper.  But that was no surprise because the paper did everything they could to ignore or undermine our campaign.

In the end the legislature approved the bill but did cut it to $45 million.  So our collective effort helped save Maine taxpayers $15 million - something we should all feel proud about, especially in our very poor state.  We had 100 letters to the editor printed in more than 25 papers across the state.  So it was a great campaign.

Now our goal is to continue to build education and energy around the conversion of BIW issue.  How can we effectively deal with climate catastrophe unless and until we take this wasted money from the war machine and use it for life giving purposes?

Bruce

Photos by Peter Woodruff

Sunday song

What was the book Assange was holding?

Wikileaks released Chelsea Manning’s leaked documents and exposed multiple crimes committed by the U.S. government and armed forces.

Paul Jay says this is getting lost in the corporate media coverage of Assange’s arrest.  When he was arrested, Assange carried a copy of TRNN’s book “Gore Vidal on the History of the National Security State” which was based on a series of interviews conducted by Paul Jay between 2005 to 2007.

The premise of the book is the American state and its loyal media use patriotism to lie to the American people about U.S. foreign policy and militarism.

Where do your tax $$$ go?

It's a black hole of waste and corruption - I'm talking about the Pentagon budget.

When you add up all the various pots of gold where military money is hidden the total US military budget tops $1 trillion per year.

And what goes for wanting?

Health care, education, infrastructure repair, mental health programs, housing, environmental care, sustainable technology development and much more.

It's your money.

We've become a militarized economy where the only real government job creation in our local communities is weapons production and endless war.  American is addicted to war like a drunk sitting at the bar.

The Pentagon calls it 'security export'.  They mean that the US's role under corporate globalization will be endless war and regime change operations that only benefit Wall Street and the resource extraction corporations.

In Brunswick, Maine we will gather at the downtown post office between 11:00 - 1:00 pm on Monday (April 15) to hand out the above flyers to people as they drop their tax returns in the mail.

We've got to do all we can to get the public to think about where their hard-earned $$$$ is going and to encourage organizing to make life possible for the future generations.

It's not the poor and immigrants who are causing our national fiscal crisis.  It is war, greed and corporate domination of our political system and economy.

Bruce

John Pilger on Assange arrest

The Assange arrest is a warning from history

By John Pilger

The glimpse of Julian Assange being dragged from the Ecuadorean embassy in London is an emblem of the times. Might against right. Muscle against the law. Indecency against courage. Six policemen manhandled a sick journalist, his eyes wincing against his first natural light in almost seven years.

That this outrage happened in the heart of London, in the land of Magna Carta, ought to shame and anger all who fear for "democratic" societies. Assange is a political refugee protected by international law, the recipient of asylum under a strict covenant to which Britain is a signatory. The United Nations made this clear in the legal ruling of its Working Party on Arbitrary Detention.

But to hell with that. Let the thugs go in. Directed by the quasi fascists in Trump's Washington, in league with Ecuador's Lenin Moreno, a Latin American Judas and liar seeking to disguise his rancid regime, the British elite abandoned its last imperial myth: that of fairness and justice.

Imagine Tony Blair dragged from his multi-million pound Georgian home in Connaught Square, London, in handcuffs, for onward dispatch to the dock in The Hague. By the standard of Nuremberg, Blair's "paramount crime" is the deaths of a million Iraqis. Assange's crime is journalism: holding the rapacious to account, exposing their lies and empowering people all over the world with truth.

The shocking arrest of Assange carries a warning for all who, as Oscar Wilde wrote, "sew the seeds of discontent [without which] there would be no advance towards civilisation". The warning is explicit towards journalists. What happened to the founder and editor of WikiLeaks can happen to you on a newspaper, you in a TV studio, you on radio, you running a podcast.

Assange's principal media tormentor, the Guardian, a collaborator with the secret state, displayed its nervousness this week with an editorial that scaled new weasel heights. The Guardian has exploited the work of Assange and WikiLeaks in what its previous editor called "the greatest scoop of the last 30 years". The paper creamed off WikiLeaks' revelations and claimed the accolades and riches that came with them.

With not a penny going to Julian Assange or to WikiLeaks, a hyped Guardian book led to a lucrative Hollywood movie. The book's authors, Luke Harding and David Leigh, turned on their source, abused him and disclosed the secret password Assange had given the paper in confidence, which was designed to protect a digital file containing leaked US embassy cables.

With Assange now trapped in the Ecuadorean embassy, Harding joined the police outside and gloated on his blog that "Scotland Yard may get the last laugh". The Guardian has since published a series of falsehoods about Assange, not least a discredited claim that a group of Russians and Trump's man, Paul Manafort, had visited Assange in the embassy. The meetings never happened; it was fake.

But the tone has now changed. "The Assange case is a morally tangled web," the paper opined. "He (Assange) believes in publishing things that should not be published .... But he has always shone a light on things that should never have been hidden."

These "things" are the truth about the homicidal way America conducts its colonial wars, the lies of the British Foreign Office in its denial of rights to vulnerable people, such as the Chagos Islanders, the expose of Hillary Clinton as a backer and beneficiary of jihadism in the Middle East, the detailed description of American ambassadors of how the governments in Syria and Venezuela might be overthrown, and much more. It all available on the WikiLeaks site.

The Guardian is understandably nervous. Secret policemen have already visited the newspaper and demanded and got the ritual destruction of a hard drive.  On this, the paper has form. In 1983, a Foreign Office clerk, Sarah Tisdall, leaked British Government documents showing when American cruise nuclear weapons would arrive in Europe. The Guardian was showered with praise.

When a court order demanded to know the source, instead of the editor going to prison on a fundamental principle of protecting a source, Tisdall was betrayed, prosecuted and served six months.

If Assange is extradited to America for publishing what the Guardian calls truthful "things", what is to stop the current editor, Katherine Viner, following him, or the previous editor, Alan Rusbridger, or the prolific propagandist Luke Harding?

What is to stop the editors of the New York Times and the Washington Post, who also published morsels of the truth that originated with WikiLeaks, and the editor of El Pais in Spain, and Der Spiegel in Germany and the Sydney Morning Herald in Australia. The list is long.

David McCraw, lead lawyer of the New York Times, wrote: "I think the prosecution [of Assange] would be a very, very bad precedent for publishers ... from everything I know, he's sort of in a classic publisher's position and the law would have a very hard time distinguishing between the New York Times and WilLeaks."

Even if journalists who published WikiLeaks' leaks are not summoned by an American grand jury, the intimidation of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning will be enough. Real journalism is being criminalised by thugs in plain sight. Dissent has become an indulgence.

In Australia, the current America-besotted government is prosecuting two whistle-blowers who revealed that Canberra's spooks bugged the cabinet meetings of the new government of East Timor for the express purpose of cheating the tiny, impoverished nation out of its proper share of the oil and gas resources in the Timor Sea. Their trial will be held in secret. The Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, is infamous for his part in setting up concentration camps for refugees on the Pacific islands of Nauru and Manus, where children self harm and suicide. In 2014, Morrison proposed mass detention camps for 30,000 people.

Real journalism is the enemy of these disgraces. A decade ago, the Ministry of Defence in London produced a secret document which described the "principal threats" to public order as threefold: terrorists, Russian spies and investigative journalists. The latter was designated the major threat.

The document was duly leaked to WikiLeaks, which published it. "We had no choice," Assange told me. "It's very simple. People have a right to know and a right to question and challenge power. That's true democracy."

What if Assange and Manning and others in their wake -- if there are others -- are silenced and "the right to know and question and challenge" is taken away?

In the 1970s, I met Leni Reifenstahl, close friend of Adolf Hitler, whose films helped cast the Nazi spell over Germany.

She told me that the message in her films, the propaganda, was dependent not on "orders from above" but on what she called the "submissive void" of the public.

"Did this submissive void include the liberal, educated bourgeoisie?" I asked her.

"Of course," she said, "especially the intelligentsia .... When people no longer ask serious questions, they are submissive and malleable. Anything can happen."

And did.

The rest, she might have added, is history.

www.johnpilger.com 

On the way to Jeju Island....

Watch this video on The Scene.

What Went Wrong in the Sewol Ferry Disaster?

Political backlash ensued after the tragic sinking of MV Sewol, which claimed the lives of over three-hundred passengers, most of whom were students, five years ago on its journey to Jeju Island, South Korea.

Sung-Hee Choi writes from Gangjeong village on Jeju Island:

It was 2016 when there was a new finding that there was about 405 tons of steel rods for the Jeju navy base construction. It added to the overweight of the Sewol ferry.... http://www.jejuweekly.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=5180. The investigation on the Sewol ferry accident has not been brought with a clear result yet. One thing: the ship was owned by the NIS (National Intelligence Service). Why was the captain rescued early? It is told that he and his crews were forced not to talk something after their being rescued. We do not really know what happened on the day. Still there are many suspicions.

This Issue on next Zumwalt destroyer at BIW

On my latest public access TV show I interview John Morris from New Gloucester, Maine.

John is a member of Veterans For Peace and discusses the next boondoggle Zumwalt ‘stealth’ destroyer that will be ‘christened’ in Bath on April 27.

The warship cost $7 billion to build.

A protest will be held on Washington Street in Bath starting at 8:30 am.

John is a retired math teacher and a member of Veterans For Peace.

He's also one hell of a country singer.  See him in action here....



And one more of John's country compositions here

Handing out flyers at BIW today

Peter Morgan and I during a recent Lenten vigil at BIW

Peter Morgan (VFP) and I went to Bath Iron Works today and from 11:00 am to noon handed out 50 of the new conversion flyers made by folks up in Blue Hill peninsula.

We ran out after one hour.  We didn’t bring enough.

I stood along Washington St. with a sign that said ‘Build Wind Turbines’ and handed out maybe a half-dozen flyers.  I had a great conversation with a union official who said he agreed with us and understood they’d get more jobs by building something other than weapons.

Peter went along the northern most part of the shipyard where workers head into downtown Bath for lunch.  He was handing out flyers like they were free cheeseburgers.

We are going back again next Thursday, April 18 at 11:00 am.  Let us know if you’d like to join us.

Bruce

More on Assange snatching.....

Shortly before Assange’s arrest in London Thursday morning, TRNN speaks to former National Lawyers Guild president Marjorie Cohn about Manning’s refusal to testify against Assange and the precarious situation Assange is in.

Outrageous!

Sputnik reports:

WikiLeaks Founder Assange Arrested in London as Ecuador Withdraws Political Asylum

The arrest comes some 24 hours after WikiLeaks claimed that Assange had been subject to a sophisticated spying operation, with the obtained data presumably being transferred to US authorities.

The US Department of Justice vowed to soon announce official charges against the WikiLeaks' founder, arrested earlier in the day in London, and request his extradition.

Julian Assange has reportedly been taken from the central police station and brought to the Westminster Magistrates court. WikiLeaks Twitter earlier reported that Assange, who was arrested in the Ecuadorian embassy in London today, will be brought to Westminster Magistrates court "this afternoon".



It stated that his detention under the US extradition request comes in light of the case about "conspiracy with Chelsea Manning" to publish Iraq War logs, State Department cables and Afghan War logs. The country's interior ministry has accused Assange and WikiLeaks of interfering in Ecuador's affairs.

As Assange arrived at the Westminster Magistrates court, UK Prime Minister Theresa May welcomed the arrest of the WikiLeaks' founder and expressed hope that the House of Commons would do the same. She added that in the UK "no one is above the law".

Ecuador's foreign minister announced the suspension of Julian Assange's citizenship, citing "various irregularities found in his paperwork". The country's interior ministry has accused Assange and WikiLeaks of interfering in Ecuador's affairs. The ministry also claims that it suspects two Russian hackers, allegedly linked to Assange, of the same misconduct.

At the same time, Australia vowed to continue providing consular support to the arrested whistleblower and stated that its diplomats will seek to visit him in custody. The country approved releasing a new passport for Assange in September 2018, after halting the process for some time due to his issues with British authorities.

Protest at BIW - NO LBJ destroyer - convert the shipyard

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

    CONTACT: Lisa Savage
    207-399-7623
    lsavage3@gmail.com   

BATH IRON WORKS WARSHIP LAUNCH TO HEAR, “LBJ, LBJ, HOW MANY KIDS DID YOU KILL TODAY?”

Statewide peace groups will gather to protest the “christening”[sic] of a Zumwalt class warship at General Dynamics’ Bath Iron Works (BIW) shipyard on the morning of Saturday, April 27 at 8:30 am. The ship will be named for President Lyndon B. Johnson, who was driven from office by anti-war protesters over his bombing of civilians during the Vietnam War.

Naming the warship after LBJ supports the Pentagon’s attempt at revisionist history around America’s most unpopular war. Veterans for Peace (VFP), which was founded in Maine by Vietnam War veterans, maintains a website called Vietnam Full Disclosure    (https://www.vietnamfulldisclosure.org) to counter the Pentagon’s efforts to whitewash that war. Several VFP members from around the U.S. are expected at the April 27 protest.

Bruce Gagnon of Brunswick, a member of VFP who became an activist while in the Air Force during the Vietnam era, said, “Our real security needs as a nation are to urgently address climate change and plan for sea level rise that is already underway. How will this affect BIW’s shipyard in Bath? Continuing to build expensive, provocative and polluting weapon systems like Zumwalt destroyers ignores climate change as the biggest threat to our collective safety.” Gagnon has helped organize protests at BIW for the past several years. In 2018 he fasted for 37 days to oppose a tax giveaway by the state of Maine to General Dynamics.

“Making warships at BIW is not even a good jobs policy. Researchers have consistently found that investment of the same resources in sustainable energy solutions like commuter rail or wind turbines would produce many more jobs,” said Mary Beth Sullivan of PeaceWorks of greater Brunswick. “We need conversion of the BIW shipyard now.” Sullivan referenced the UMass Amherst study in 2011, “The U.S. Employment Effects of Military and Domestic Spending Priorities: 2011 Update” by Robert Pollin and Heidi Garrett-Peltier (https://www.peri.umass.edu/publication/item/449-the-u-s-employment-effects-of-military-and-domestic-spending-priorities-2011-update).

 

Another PeaceWorks member has spent the past year gathering names of people willing to engage in civil resistance on April 27. Karen Wainberg of Brunswick says she had more than 50 names on her list at this time.

Mark Roman of Solon plans to be there representing the Maine Natural Guard, an organization dedicated to pointing out the Pentagon’s enormous carbon footprint. “I cannot stand by and watch lawmakers waste our tax dollars on warships that are huge polluters when that money could be spent on climate change solutions, or on housing and food for the 43,000 children in Maine living in poverty,” he said. Roman has been active in the Bring Our War Dollars Home campaign at BIW
since 2009.

Organizations sponsoring the April 27 protests and resistance include Americans Who Tell the Truth, Citizens Opposing Active Sonar Threats (COAST), Durham Quaker Meeting, Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, Island Peace & Justice, Maine Natural Guard, Maine Veterans for Peace, Midcoast Peace & Justice Group, Pax Christi Maine, Peace Action Maine, Peace & Justice Center of Eastern Maine, Peace & Justice Group of Waldo County, PeaceWorks of Greater Brunswick, and Peninsula Peace & Justice.

    ## 

Understanding the Trump Iran policy

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization on Monday, upping the economic war against Iran, the rift with Europe and China, and preparing conditions for a “military option”

Col. Larry Wilkerson joins Paul Jay to untangle the Trump moves that are intended to force regime change in Iran on behalf of Saudi Arabia and Israel. 

Yes Trump has become an agent of a foreign government - but it is not Russia.  It's Israel and the Saudis. 

Meet the plowshares

A group of peace activists have been jailed for over a year before trial for entering the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base in Georgia last April to protest U.S. nuclear weapons. The action took place on April 4, 2018—the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination. 

Armed with hammers, crime scene tape and baby bottles containing their own blood, seven anti-nuclear activists secretly entered Kings Bay—one of the largest nuclear submarine bases in the world—under the cover of night. Their goal was to symbolically disarm the six nuclear ballistic missile submarines kept there. 

Each submarine carries 20 Trident thermonuclear weapons. 

One year after this historic action, three of the Plowshares activists remain jailed in Georgia. The other four are out on $50,000 bond with electronic ankle monitors. All seven face up to 25 years in prison for their actions. 

On Thursday, global leaders, activists and scholars, including Nobel Peace Prize-winning South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Daniel Ellsberg and Noam Chomsky, released a petition addressed to U.S. Attorney General William Barr demanding all charges against the Kings Bay 7 be dropped immediately. 

Democracy Now! recently spoke with the four Plowshares activists who are out on bond: Martha Hennessy, Carmen Trotta, Patrick O’Neill and Clare Grady.

News Release: Peace Building trip to Russia

Peace Activists to Visit Russia on Bridge Building Mission

More than 20 peace activists from Sweden, England, Nepal, Canada and the US will journey to Russia on April 25-May 10 for a study tour intended to build a peace bridge between the people of their nations.

The trip is being organized by the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space (GN).

Dave Webb, chair of the UK’s Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (and also board convener of the GN) said, “We are deeply concerned about NATO expansion and US ‘missile defense’ deployments ringing Russian borders.  We feel that citizen diplomacy is needed now more than ever between Russia and the west.

“We want to see and hear for ourselves what Russia is really like.  We want to meet with Russian citizens, teachers, students, political leaders, journalists and others in order to listen and to ask questions so we can get unfiltered information.”

This Russia study tour will have three components.

• Moscow: Arrive on April 25
• Crimea:  On April 30 the group will fly to Crimea
• St Petersburg:  On May 5 the group will fly to St Petersburg

Members of the GN and Veterans For Peace will make up the bulk of those going on the trip.

“As tensions grow between the US and Russia and Washington pulls out of the ABM Treaty, the INF Treaty and the Iran Nuclear Deal, we believe it is time for more contact and greater understanding between all our nations. The demonization of Russia has been non-stop in recent years all across the west.  US is twisting the arms of Sweden and Finland to get us to join an ever expanding NATO and allow war games and bases aimed at Russia onto our lands,” said GN board member Agneta Norberg (Swedish Peace Council).

Not since the height of the Cold War in the 1980’s have tensions been so great between Russia and the US.  Washington now regularly blames Russia for nearly every ill in the world.

The US military budget is $1 trillion per year (when you add up all the various military pots of gold) while Russia spends about $66 billion per year on their military.  (Moscow has cut their military budget the last two years claiming they wanted to invest more in national development projects and dealing with poverty.)

“When Trump made his recent announcement calling for the ‘Space Force’ he indicated that the US must ‘control and dominate’ space and deny Russia and China access to space during times of hostility.  That is a provocative declaration that will drive a new expensive and destabilizing arms race,” said Bruce Gagnon, Coordinator of the Global Network.

“The US refuses to renounce its first-strike policy. We are in more danger of nuclear war than ever as recent US construction of ‘missile defense’ launch bases in Romania and Poland reduce the flight times to reach Moscow to 10-12 minutes.  We’ve got to do all we can to break down these walls being erected between the west and Moscow. Instead we need to build peace bridges between our countries.”

Five years of attacks on Donbass

Today is the fifth anniversary of the Donetsk People's Republic in eastern Ukraine near the Russian border. The young state appeared in response to the coup in Kiev, Ukraine and the military aggression by the unbridled nationalists (Nazi) supported by US-NATO.

Donbass paid a terrible price for its freedom and the right to speak its native Russian language: 10,000 civilians dead, ruined cities, destroyed infrastructure.

The claim is that Russia invaded Ukraine but that did not happen.  You can hear one old woman in the video (with subtitles) saying she wished Moscow had invaded.

But it is the reverse which has happened.  The Nazi death squads, sent from western Ukraine, invade the eastern part of the country where they shell schools, hospitals, churches, day care centers, airports, rail stations, water supply and electrical stations, shops, apartment blocks and rural farm homes.

The US-NATO arms, trains and directs these Nazis and sends them eastward to the Donbass to do their killing work.

If you don't believe it just watch this video of Obama's Ambassador of Ukraine going to a US Army Special Forces training base in western Ukraine where the Nazis were brought into a newly created 'National Guard', dressed up in new uniforms, trained and dispatched to the east.  See the video here.

Bruce

Russia demonization good for weapons industry profits

Chris Hedges, host of “On Contact,” joins Rick Sanchez to discuss the role of the Democratic establishment in the “Russiagate” media frenzy.

He argues that it was an unsustainable narrative given the actions of the White House but that the Democratic elite are unable to face their own role in the economic and social crises for which they are in large part to blame.

They also discuss NATO’s expansionary tendencies and how profitable it is for US defense contractors.

Some important historical and current moves to sell war$

This is a very important show by Jimmy Dore.

He shares the lies and deception by the George H. W. Bush administration (Daddy Bush) in order to sell the Persian Gulf War in 1991.  Compares those lies to the current deceptive campaign to sell the CIA directed coup in Venezuela today.

Worth a watch.

More space issues coverage

Listen to "War in space could create so much “junk” that exploration becomes impossible" on Spreaker.

A regular Thursday segment deals with the ongoing militarization of space. As the US continues to withdraw from international arms treaties, will the weaponization and militarization of space bring the world closer to catastrophe?

Sputnik speaks with Prof. Karl Grossman, a full professor of journalism at the State University of New York, College at Old Westbury and the host of a nationally-aired television program focused on environmental, energy, and space issues, and with Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space and a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus.

coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space and a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus.

Sunday song

Biden role in engineering coup in Ukraine

The Duran’s Alex Christoforou and Editor-in-Chief Alexander Mercouris examine how former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden may have leveraged the Maidan coup and war in East Ukraine to strike lucrative oil fracking deals in East Ukraine, along with a John Kerry family friend.

Limassol, Cyprus based energy firm Burisma Holdings, collected large energy contracts in the East of Ukraine, with Hunter Biden, Devon Archer and oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi, closely tied to the energy production company, which pushed for fracking exploration on land owned by East Ukrainian residents. 

Joe Biden was largely in charge of the 2014 coup in Ukraine orchestrated by the Obama administration.  After the 'successful' take down of the elected government in Kiev, Biden made sure that his son profited from the illegal US intervention in Ukraine's sovereignty. 

No to NATO - No to War Witness at the MLK Memorial

On this solemnity of Rev. MLK's martyrdom, as well as NATO's 70th anniversary commemoration in WDC, there was a protest early this morning [April 4] at the State Dept. where NATO Foreign Ministers were meeting. This was followed by a spirited March to the MLK Memorial and a program. I offered an abbreviated version of this below reflection at the MLK Memorial. As I was speaking early in the program, group organizers were informed by police that because they did not have a permit the group would have to move away from the King Memorial to the street. As some creative negotiating took place, speakers were asked to modify their remarks. The group persisted and were able to get through a somewhat altered program without further police interference. I ended my reflection with a reading of the King's Bay Plowshares solidarity statement. In these difficult times, let us continue to do all we can to heed Dr. King's exemplary nonviolent ethic as we nonviolently resist the US/NATO war making alliance and  strive to create a disarmed world and the Beloved Community. With gratitude,  Art

No to NATO - No to War Witness at the MLK Memorial--April 4, 2019 

Reflection by Art Laffin (Dorothy Day Catholic Worker House, Washington DC)

My friends, as we gather here today on this sacred land, which originally belonged to the Piscataway Indians that was stolen, we call into our presence all the holy cloud of witnesses, all the peace and justice makers throughout history, as well all the victims of U.S. empire who have gone before us.

Today we remember and honor one of the greatest prophets of justice the world has ever seen--the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.-- on this the 52nd anniversary of his extraordinary "Beyond Vietnam--A Time to Break the Silence" speech and the 51st anniversary of his assassination. We also are here to renounce and resist the evils of militarism and war as NATO foreign ministers gather for NATO's 70th Anniversary. Twenty years ago I joined with others to resist NATO's 50th Anniversary Summit here in D.C. I am honored to be with all of you great peace and justice makers who are continuing that resistance and saying NO to NATO--NO to War!

The powers that be would like to keep Dr. King's life-giving witness set in stone, confined to a memorial monument. They want us to embrace a sanitized version of Dr. King and not face the fact that he named the U.S. government as the greatest purveyor of violence in the world. The powers, don't want us to confront the sins of white supremacy, systemic racism and inequality, or work to bring about nonviolent change as Dr King did.

The powers also want us to believe that Dr. King was killed by a lone assassin. They do not want us to come to terms with the fact that after four weeks of testimony from over 70 witnesses in a civil trial in Memphis, Tennessee, twelve jurors reached a unanimous verdict on 

December 8, 1999  that Dr. King was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. Coretta Scott King welcomed the verdict saying, “There is abundant evidence of a major high level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband...And the civil court’s unanimous verdict has validated our belief. The King family stands firmly behind the civil trial verdict!"

My friends, those forces who conspired to kill Dr. King thought that by doing so they could silence his message. To the contrary, Dr. King’s spirit is very much alive and his mandate for racial and economic justice, nonviolence and peace is just as relevant and urgent now as it was 51 years ago. No matter what the powers do to distort and manipulate the life, message and even death of Dr. King, his life stands as an eternal testament of truth, courage and hope in resistance to the forces of evil and death.

In his Beyond Vietnam speech, Dr. King declared: "I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values...A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, “This way of settling differences is not just...A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

Dr. King's words aptly describe our current national plight. We, who are here today, along with countless others, decry the policies, exorbitant expenditures and war profiteering that drive the U.S. and NATO war machine. We denounce every aspect of the U.S. war machine, including the 2020 U.S. military budget which is now approaching $1 trillion; the over $1 trillion that has been earmarked over the next twenty years to upgrade the U.S. nuclear arsenal; the killer drone program; the new U.S. Space Force and deployment of missile defense systems encircling Russia and China! We denounce U.S. intervention around the world, including its continued support for the Saudi regime's brutal war in Yemen and it's illegal efforts to overthrow the Venezuela government. We decry the U.S. commitment to maintain some 800 foreign military bases and spend over $225 million this year on its AFRICOM military intervention operations in Africa.

With decry, too, NATO’s expanding war machine as evidenced by its $1.5 billion budget.   

These gross expenditures are about one thing: to assure global military domination of earth and space and control strategic resources. This criminal looting of public treasuries, while vital social programs continue to be cut, constitutes a direct theft from the poor of our society and world. Here in the U.S., the new Poor Peoples Campaign-A National Call for Revival, has brought to light this horrific reality. An estimated 140 million Americans are poor and low income.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist has turned its Doomsday Clock to two minutes before midnight due to the climate crisis and the nuclear threat. This threat has been exacerbated by the provocative actions of a reckless U.S. president and his advisers. We implore Mr. Trump and the entire political, military and corporate establishment to listen to and heed what Dr. King proclaimed: "Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men...This is where we are. (Human)Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to (human)mankind... It  is no longer a choice... between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence." Now is the time for all the nuclear nations, beginning with the U.S., to join with the 22 countries who have to date ratified the UN Treaty to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons.

My friends, now more than ever, we need to continue to exorcise and resist what Dr. King called “the tragic death wish possessing our nation” and actively promote his prescription for revolutionary change! Imagine for a moment how different our nation would be if every person in government and in every sector of society, read and acted on Dr. King's Beyond Vietnam speech. Instead of being the greatest purveyor of violence in the world, we call on the U.S. government and corporate power structure to truly embrace Dr. King's nonviolent ethic, renounce empire and violence, make reparations to its victims and become the world's greatest purveyor of nonviolence and force for racial, economic and environmental justice. And we implore NATO to do the same and follow the example of nonviolent resisters in Germany and other European countries who are acting to remove U.S. nuclear weapons from their soil. 

History has shown that social change occurs when people make great sacrifices in order to bring it about. Seven friends, known as the Kings Bay Plowshares (KBP), have made such sacrifices. On this day last year they carried out a plowshares disarmament action at the King’s Bay Naval Base in St. Mary, Georgia. Carrying hammers and small baby bottles containing their own blood, they sought to symbolically disarm weapons of mass murder. The base is the Navy’s Atlantic Ocean port for six Trident submarines which have the capacity to cause the devastation of 3,600 Hiroshima-scale attacks. 

They are currently being charged with two felony counts and a misdemeanor and are awaiting trial. Liz McAlister and Fr. Steve Kelley have been jailed for one year now. Mark Colville has also been jailed most of the last year while the other four, Carmen Trotta, Clare Grady, Martha Hennessy, (Dorothy Day's granddaughter) and Patrick O'Neill are out on bail and ordered to wear ankle bracelets. They face long prison sentences if convicted.

I would like to share a solidarity statement that the KBP have sent to us titled: We Withdraw Consent from NATO’s Seventy-Year Death Grip on the Planet

"On April 4th, 2018, the fiftieth anniversary of the state killing of Rev. Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. seven Catholic peacemakers walked onto the Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Georgia, to expose the epitome of Dr. King’s “triple evils” of racism, materialism, and militarism. We remember his words in the speech he delivered, “Beyond Vietnam”, a year before his assassination. We continue to say no to NATO, “the greatest purveyor of violence” in the hands of the United States military. We continue in the tradition of nonviolent, direct action to support true democracy and the rule of law for all peoples on Earth. We want the massive cost of the weapons industry to be converted for human and environmental needs. We are grateful for the voice of the people that is being raised to end this endless war making."

Please keep the KBP in your thoughts and prayers and check out their web site: KingsBayplowshares7.org for updated info.

My friends, through God's amazing grace, I once had the opportunity to be on a Trident sub. On Labor Day, 1989, I, along with six other friends, carried out a plowshares action in New London, CT directed at the 10th Trident submarine. After hammering and pouring our own blood on the sub, three of us, myself included, were able to beach our canoe and climb aboard. There, in full view of armed security who were on a nearby pier, we prayed and read from Scripture, before being arrested and jailed. While atop of the Trident, I realized I was participating in a sacred act that was nothing short of a miracle. We were truly enfleshing God's dream for the human family to beat swords into plowshares. True disarmament was occurring. I believe now, as I did then, that if we have the faith to believe that a disarmed, nonviolent world is possible, and act on that belief, miracles can happen. Just as the Berlin Wall came down so, too, can the oppressive walls from Palestine to the U.S./Mexico border! The Pentagon, the military-industrial complex and NATO can be abolished and transformed into life-giving enterprises. All the swords (weapons) of our time can be turned into plowshares. War can be forever abolished! 

In closing, Dr. King said: "We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. We still have a choice today, nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation... Far from being the pious injunction of a Utopian dreamer, the command to love one's enemy is an absolute necessity for our survival. Love even for enemies is the key to the solution of the problem of our world...Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism and militarism!" And now we must add environmental destruction. My friends, let us recommit ourselves today to live and act in this hope as we seek to create the Beloved Community!

Thank You!

Photo by Susan Crane

Courageous words from RFK that got him in trouble.....

Sen. Robert K. Kennedy showing support for striking farm workers in California led by Cesar Chavez.

Robert F. Kennedy, from a speech. “I don’t know whether you're going to like what I’m going to say today," Kennedy warned students at the University of Kansas before delivering this speech in March 1968, early in his presidential campaign. Three months later he won the California primary and was soon after shot and killed at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Vice President Hubert Humphrey became the Democratic Party nominee in August and lost in the general election to Richard Nixon.
 

1968: Lawrence, Kansas

Exchange Value

Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product now is over $800 billion a year, but that GNP — if we should judge America by that — counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts Whitman’s rifle and Speck’s knife, and the television programs that glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.

Yet the GNP does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans. 

Notes from No to NATO events in Washington

I was in Washington DC five days at various No to NATO events.

The photo above is from a rally and march through the city to protest the NATO foreign ministers meeting in DC this week.

I attended two different No to NATO conferences. Sadly it was not possible for some groups to work together and put on one big event.  While I was invited to speak at both conferences (I try to work with everyone as long as it is a principled relationship) I'd still rather have seen one big event instead of two smaller ones.

The reasons competing groups don't always work well together are complicated but these points stand out:

• Egos and internal power dynamics.  (Keep in mind all these groups are comparatively weak in comparison to what is needed to stop these endless wars and violence.) Some will say 'why can't the left get along' but I think it is more about human frailty.  Notice how many churches are in most communities.  People on the right-wing don't all get along either.  It's hard to unite people.

• Different interpretations about what non-violence means.  Some groups support struggles in places where they are defending themselves from attacks by US agents and allies.  (For example in the Donbass in Ukraine, Syria, Venezuela, etc.  The UN charter says it is legal to defend your nation when it is under attack - like it was in the former Soviet Union during WW II when Hitler's German Army killed 28 million Soviet citizens during that invasion.)  As a result some groups are reluctant to work with organizations 'that refuse to renounce violence' when all they are actually doing is supporting liberation struggles that are defending themselves.  One obvious historical example is Nelson Mandela and the ANC in South Africa when they were struggling - sometimes violently - against the apartheid government.  Or the Palestinian people today - armed with slingshots, rocks and make-shift rockets.
• Alliances to particular political parties - such as organizations/individuals who are in some ways linked to the Democrats or are funded by foundations that are tied to the Democratic Party.  These groups often don't really like to work with Socialist or Communist affiliated organizations and vice versa.
• Competition for funding, media or volunteers.

While in DC I also took part in a protest outside of the Organization of American States (OAS) which is trying (under US orchestration) to kick Venezuela out of the OAS.  Actually Venezuela quit the OAS but it won't be official for a couple more weeks so Washington wants the OAS to kick Caracas out now just to make a public relations point.

While in the city I also did the RT interview on space issues that is posted here.

Here are a few items from my notes during my time in DC:

• The US military is the world's largest single generator of climate changing emissions.
• The manufacturing of weapons burns up over $300 billion worth of oil annually.
• A planned $1.7 trillion upgrade (approved during Obama) of nuclear weapons makes them more likely to be used.
• The profiteering US war budget is an attack on the health and security of everyone - especially our fragile planet.
• Trump proposes to spend $13 billion on the 'Space Force' in the next five years.  This must be approved by the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives.  Let them hear from you.
• Pentagon deployments of 'missile defense' launch platforms in Romania and Poland will allow the US to reach Moscow with missiles in 10-12 minutes.  Imagine if the reverse was happening with Moscow putting missile launch bases in Canada or Mexico.  Washington would go ballistic!
• 1999 was the last time NATO 'celebrated' an anniversary in DC.  It was then that Bill Clinton directed US-NATO attacks on Yugoslavia that used depleted uranium bombs and shells.  Significant parts of Serbia are now contaminated with radioactivity for thousands of years and severe cases of cancer are breaking out in these areas. US-NATO also bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade and said, "Oops, sorry, that was a mistake.  We used an old map."  Sure...
• 2.5 million housing units have been built for the poor in Venezuela by the Chavez/Maduro governments which helps explain why the US wants regime change there - along of course with their massive oil deposits - the largest in the world.
• NATO is the finger that pulls the trigger on behalf of corporate capitalism.
• The US Air Force announced that B-52 bombers conducted flights from a base at Fairford, England, to Poland and the Netherlands on April 1.  The objective was to point a loaded gun at Russia's head.
• 41 million people in the US go to bed hungry every night - more than the entire population of Venezuela.  Should someone invade the US to protect our food deprived and homeless populations?
• Trump has rescinded an executive order that required the intelligence community to disclose information about drone strikes outside of declared war zones.  It's a secret privatized war.
• US-NATO wanted Crimea as a NATO base in the Black Sea region - thus another reason for the non-stop anti-Russian demonization in the west these days.
• Russian people view their nation's nuclear weapons as valuable for national defense against an ever expanding US-NATO war machine.
• The US refuses to renounce the 'first use' of nuclear weapons while Russia and China have done so.
• US sanctions against other nations are an act of war designed to foment an uprising of the people in a particular nation (Venezuela, Iran, Russia, Syria, etc) against their government.  Washington calls this 'soft power'.

I could go on much longer but you get the drift I am sure.

The US is an outlaw regime - violating international norms.  The US is building NATO into an international alliance in order to circumvent the United Nations and international law.  The only law that NATO is pledged to uphold is the law of the gun.

You can sign a petition calling on the US Senate to oppose NATO expansion here

Bruce

Zumwalt arrives in Hawaii - protest next one at BIW April 27

This is one of the three new Zumwalt 'stealth' destroyers made at Bath Iron Works (BIW) in Maine.  The ships cost $7 billion each.

The 3rd Zumwalt, to be named after former president LBJ, will be 'christened' in Bath, Maine on April 27. A protest will be held at the shipyard starting at 8:30 am.

How could the billion$ wasted on these warships been better used? Wouldn't it be a great idea to build commuter rail systems, tidal power and offshore wind turbines instead of these boondoggle war ships?

The Gulf of Maine has more wind capacity than any other place in the US.  Thus building wind turbines for the Gulf of Maine would dramatically help us reduce the coming hard impacts from climate change.

Our #1 enemy is not China, Russia, Iran or Venezuela.  It is global warming.

Help us demand the conversion of BIW to build sustainable technologies that will help give the future generations a chance to live on our Mother Earth.

Write a letter to the editor of your local paper demanding the conversion of BIW.  Write to our congressional representatives making the same demands.

Come and stand with us at BIW on April 27.  Let others know as well.

Bruce

Marine Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler's book against war

LibriVox recording of War Is a Racket by Smedley Butler.

Read in English by John Greenman (Orland, Maine)

Marine Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler's expose of American Corporate Imperialism.

Butler said, “I served in all commissioned ranks from second lieutenant to Major General. And during that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street, and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism. I suspected I was just part of the racket all the time. Now I am sure of it.”

- Summary by John Greenman and https://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org/portraits/major-general-smedley-butler

Gagnon talking space issues on RT

The Trump administration and previous ones have long been interested in exploring the possibilities of weaponizing space.

To discuss this topic, RT America’s Ashlee Banks is joined by Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space.

Bring this war to an end....

Film Clip #10 “BWSN 3min Tease” from Boys Who Said NO! on Vimeo.

While the war in Vietnam raged on, one of the largest and most successful nonviolent resistance movements in American history was growing at home.
 Hundreds of thousands of young men opposed to the war said NO to being drafted into the military, risking up to five years in prison. Their actions helped end the draft and an unjust and immoral war.

Directed by Oscar nominated filmmaker Judith Ehrlich, The Boys Who Said NO! will tell for the first time the inspiring story and impact of the Vietnam War draft resistance movement.

See more here