How the MSM Lies Even When Telling the Truth

Quote: “It is a fact that far more news media energy is going into one trivial aspect of an impeachment agenda that will with absolute certainty fail to remove Trump from office than there is for the known fact that the US government fought to suppress indisputable proof that American officials have been consistently lying about an 18-year military occupation which continues to this day. This fact should, by itself, be sufficient to completely discredit the mainstream press. This one tiny piece of information, that there’s vastly more buzz about an irrelevant impeachment sideshow than there is over the Afghanistan Papers, should in and of itself cause everyone to regard the entire establishment media complex with the same amount of respect as it gives the Flat Earth Society.” - Caitlin Johnston

The rest of the article is here.

All Wars Start With Lies

Quote: “There have been many US military interventions that were based on lies. This is not a conspiracy theory. It is not some kooky blogger’s opinion. It is an extensively documented and indisputable fact.

Nothing has ever been done to address this extensively documented and indisputable fact. No laws were ever changed. No war crimes tribunals were ever held. No policies or procedures were ever revised. No one was ever even fired. No changes were implemented to prevent the Iraq deception from happening again, and, when it happened again, no changes were implemented to prevent the Libya deception from happening again.

When you make a mistake, you take measures afterward to ensure that you never make the same mistake again. When you do something on purpose, and you intend on doing it again, you do not take any such measures.

There is a large and growing body of evidence that we have been lied to about Syria to an extent and to a level of sophistication that may be historically unprecedented. One particular aspect of the US-centralized empire’s military involvement in that nation, the 2018 airstrikes by the US/UK/France alliance and the alleged chemical weapons incident which preceded it, has been subject to intense scrutiny ever since it took place. And with good reason: there are many pieces of evidence indicating that the Douma incident was staged to falsely implicate the Syrian government.”

The rest of the article is here.

And so this is Christmas - and what have you (USA) done?

From Veterans for Peace in the UK

Fenya - Christmas Truce from Veterans For Peace UK on Vimeo.

Free Assange!

From the Black Panther Party

Having a black panther as a representative to your political party is far cooler than having an elephant or a donkey.

Veterans Demand Accountability

Veterans Demand Accountability for Revelations in Afghanistan Papers The release of the Afghanistan Papers this week has laid out in clear detail the failed policy and the catastrophic level of malfeasance that reach the highest levels of the U.S. government. Every level of government bears responsibility for misleading the American public and for creating the conditions in which an unchecked military operates without accountability.  The Afghanistan Papers are filled with over 300 people detailing the systematic failure of the military to take any responsibility and blaming the “corruption” of the Afghanistan government, all the while revealing the massive corruption and lies that the U.S. is perpetuating. While military commanders bemoaned Afghan leaders enriching themselves off American tax dollars, those self same commanders were climbing government ranks, earning promotions for promoting endless war.  Soldiers, contractors, and Veterans were routinely marginalized or persecuted in order to maintain the status quo in Afghanistan, up to and including the prosecution of Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning for their efforts. The integrity of those heroes were questioned while the lies were glorified as truth by a complicit media and government agencies.  Last year the U.S. war on Afghanistan killed more civilians than any previous year. Every single lie detailed in the #AfghanistanPapers and every single year this went on meant overwhelming consequences for families and individuals in Afghanistan, many who are already living in devastating poverty. The U.S. military has destroyed countless villages and continues to create an atmosphere of fear and hatred with covert drone operations that kill thousands of innocent people.

Furthermore, three days after these documents were released, proving three different administrations lied to the public and spent years covering up mismanagement, abuse and massive waste, Congress voted to pass the largest National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in history, funneling $733 billion to an already bloated military budget.   As veterans who have served in these wars and past wars, we are exasperated by leaders that lie to us and lack the moral courage to do anything about it even when there is proof. We demand accountability in real and tangible ways. We are tired of seeing headlines that only result in a Congressional member’s outraged tweet, statements on the campaign trail and slick tv spots, while nothing changes.

We demand real accountability: Immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops  The military IMMEDIATELY release all three hundred names of those quoted in the Afghanistan Papers  Congressional hearings that include perjury trials for all those officials who knowingly lied in official Congressional testimony, including closed door session of the Armed Forces Committee  A special Congressional committee to investigate fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement for the war in Afghanistan  A Congressional tribunal allowing Afghanistan veterans to testify about their experience.  Repeal of the AUMF -- which includes any subsequent AUMF to have a sunset clause.  Recognition of Moral Injury as a legitimate diagnosis   Reparations to each Afghanistan family who have lost a family member

Liberals love the military

FROM THE BLACK AGENDA REPORT:

Freedom Rider: Liberals Love the Military

Margaret Kimberley, BAR editor and senior columnist 

Self-styled liberals believe they are a better class of people than Trump, but are bigger supporters of unjust wars than the so-called “deplorables.”

“Liberals eagerly wait for a war they can believe in.”

The trauma of Donald Trump’s presidency has created continued insanity for American liberals. They were never very trustworthy, due to their abiding belief in United States exceptionalism and an imagined right for it to intervene in the rest of the world as it pleased. Liberals could be counted on to protest wars which killed Americans in Vietnam or in Iraq. But by and large they trust in imperialist dictates if someone they like is in charge and who doesn’t allow too many of their countrymen to get hurt.

Hence their dilemma with Donald Trump. Trump is their anti-Christ, a bad mannered, proudly stupid, racist who expresses the id of the great unwashed deplorable white masses. There are many reasons to oppose him but liberals generally attack from the right. The same people who remember that the surveillance state lied about the WMD threat from Iraq now parrot every word from the same people if they are anti-Trump. Their earlier opposition to war propaganda was more a result of their anti-Bush, anti-Republican stance than anything else. They didn’t really oppose U.S. interventions or stand up for peace. Instead they eagerly wait for a war they can believe in if the rationale is to their liking. 

Now this group which labels itself the resistance say nothing about U.S. sanctions that kill Venezuelans and Iranians by depriving their governments of the ability to conduct transactions needed to secure food and medicines. When their favorite news outlets proclaim Evo Morales to be a “strongman” and make the case for the coup that ousted him they go right along and make the case for imperialism carried out by the president they allegedly dislike so much.

………..

Now their derangement is so complete they will even support military rule or some other effort to take what is left of our rights. The “resistance” are a clear and present danger to us all. 

The rest of the article is here.

Sanctions Kill

FROM U.S. PEACE COUNCIL:

Call to Action for International Days of Action Against  Sanctions and Economic War – March 13 – 15, 2020

Sanctions Kill! 

Sanctions are War! 

End Sanctions Now!

Sanctions are imposed by the United States and its junior partners against countries that resist their agendas. They are a weapon of Economic War, resulting in chronic shortages of basic necessities, economic dislocation, chaotic hyperinflation, artificial famines, disease, and poverty. In every country, the poorest and the weakest – infants, children, the chronically ill and the elderly – suffer the worst impact of sanctions.US imposed sanctions, violate international law and are a tool of regime change. They impact a third of humanity in 39 countries. They are a crime against humanity used, like military intervention, to topple popular governments and movements.

They provide economic and military support to pro-US right-wing forces.The US economic dominance and its +800 military bases worldwide demands all other countries participate in acts of economic strangulation. They must end all normal trade relations, otherwise they risk having Wall Street’s guns pointed at them. The banks and financial institutions that are responsible for the devastation of our communities at home drive the plunder of countries abroad.

Many organizations have been fighting Sanctions and Economic War for some time. NOW is an opportunity to combine efforts to raise consciousness on this crucial issue.

This broad campaign will include protests and demonstrations, lobbying, petition drives and all forms of educational efforts.

As an initial step for this campaign we encourage mobilizations and educational efforts to be organized for the International Days of Action against US imposed Sanctions and Economic War on March 13-15.

Please add your endorsement and help spread the word:

https://sanctionskill.org

Our Children........

The date to publish this photo was chosen at random. Yet, I fear, there will be another mass shooting at a school this month inside the USA. We have a serious problem, and we need to abolish the second amendment.

War criminals need to be held to account

This movie is well worth watching. And we have yet to hold the politicians who started this evil war of aggression on Iraq based on a pack of lies to account.

Lessons

Lessons in Moral Courage

by Mona Shaw

Without Thomas Paine, there would have been no American Revolution. Until Paine’s pamphlet, “Common Sense,” the drive for independence was not a popular one. Originally titled, “Plain Truth,” Paine’s treatise made a case for how independence would benefit the common people. He attacked the monarchy in terms far harsher and damning than Jefferson. He spoke of human rights as not the province of birthright or property but as an innate entitlement.

His words were so compelling and convincing that John Adams allowed, “Without the pen of the author of ‘Common Sense,’ the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain.”

Thomas Paine was a staunch abolitionist, and a strong advocate for workers’ rights. He proposed a system in which workers had ownership in their labor. He was a loud supporter of the French Revolution because that revolution was led by the common people, while our Founding Fathers were suspicious of it for the same reason.

While the heralded of our founding fathers were happy to exploit the outcome of Paine’s text, they were equally loathsome to adopt many of the ideas within it.  They were quick to condemn Paine and any suggestion that common people should have rights equal to those of the landed gentry. The promotion of abolitionism was particularly taboo and regarded as political poison. Even Benjamin Franklin, who had come to abolitionism late, refused to argue for it during the founding of the nation. These founding fathers were among the elite, and they envisioned a nation ruled by the elite. Citizenship and codified rights for anyone who was not rich, and male, would come slowly in the new nation and only through the sweat and blood of those affected by this slight.

Paine persisted in his call and wrote many subsequent works that outlined the notion that “all are created equal.” He became ignominious for this and was slandered and persecuted by the same founders who had momentarily praised him.  He was so reviled that he died in poverty. Only six people attended his funeral. Three of them were Black. The other three was a woman and her two sons that he had saved from persecution in England. Our Founders would describe him as a man who did a little good, but much more harm to the nation. Even his remains were treated with commensurate disrespect. It was impossible to find a cemetery in which he could be buried. And his bones were exhumed so passed around so many times, they were eventually lost.

Ironically, it is Paine’s vision that prevails as the myth of the Founding of America, when it was anything but.

Paine understood that advancing human rights involved two essential things: Education and Agitation. He was an unthwartable practitioner of that truth. He gave his life and everything he had.

Education and Agitation are equally essential. No progress toward human rights has been realized without both.  Still, and even today, it can be difficult to find those who realize this.  Most people don’t want to do anything. They want to be consumer citizens who shop the ideas of others and opine or vote for the ones the like best, or, in modern times, for the things they hate the least.

The few who are willing to act tend to fall into two camps. Those who want to agitate and those who want to educate. The Educators tend to believe we can do this nicely and win through reason alone. The Agitators just want to shake things up and believe the populace will understand what they’re doing through osmosis or something.

I’ve witnessed this in my own puny efforts for justice. Those few who find reason to praise me often look to the times I’ve been in the streets or in handcuffs. They don’t see me sleeping less than four hours a night for years while I was up writing pamphlets for our cause. They don’t see me passing a hat and spending money I didn’t have to get them printed or the hours I spent on street corners and in government buildings distributing them. I have memorized for all time the click a windshield wiper makes when you stuff propaganda beneath it and pray the rain holds off until the driver returns to that car.  I’ve spent far more time submitting op ed columns and letters to the editor than I have at demonstrations. And, yes, there are some who praise my prose while condemning my disrupting public events.

The people never mobilize until they know the reason to mobilize. They must be told those reasons again and again and again.  Concurrently, the people will never mobilize until the see others putting their bodies on the line for that cause in public again and again and again.

People remember King for being in jail and giving eloquent speeches. (Speeches primarily written by a gay man few remember.) They don’t remember the countless teaching sessions held in countless churches and homes of those affected by racism. King could only be in one place at a time. Thousands of visionaries gave their all in all the others.

And there is something else. There is no glory in this work. You don’t get a community award for telling truths people don’t want to hear or stirring some pot. It’s hard and dirty and more apt to leave you in poverty and reviled or even killed. It will leave your body exhausted and your spirit wounded.  King knew this. Paine knew this. Every single soul who has ever gotten traction for justice knows this. None were revered until they were dead. And, most not even then. Their living bodies were subjected to death threats and public condemnation.

My working-class father often said to me, “You’re going to get yourself killed one of these days.”

I would say, “Oh, God, Dad, if only what I do or say ever has that much influence.  I’m pretty your daughter is safe.”

I’m an anonymous barely perceptible cog in the wheel with a lot of other cogs who will never be remembered at all. We are fine with this. The struggle for justice is not a do-gooder activity.  It is a call. Those who have this call know what I’m talking about. Those who don’t just don’t.  Those called are flawed and common human beings, usually broken in some way. Justice is not won by those we coddle or praise into it. It’s won by those you can’t talk out of it. We can’t even talk ourselves out of it. It’s like breathing. It’s a reflex, even in your darkest moments, something will speak to your soul and before you even think, you’ll find yourself going after that something.

May we honor the ghost of Thomas Paine and continue to educate and agitate.

Some history of anti-war protests

How anti-Vietnam War protests thwarted Nixon’s plans and saved lives

Fifty years ago, the antiwar movement overcame internal disarray to mount the epic Moratorium and Mobilization demonstrations, foiling Nixon's escalation plans.

Robert Levering November 12, 2019

“Demonstrations don’t work.” Next time you hear someone (or yourself) say that, you might consider the Moratorium and Mobilization demonstrations in the fall of 1969 — both commemorating their 50th anniversaries this year.

On Oct.15, 1969, more than two million citizens took part in the Moratorium — a one-day national strike against the war. In hundreds of cities, towns and campuses throughout the country, people from all walks of life took the day off to march, rally, vigil or engage in teach-ins. Until the Women’s March of 2017, the Moratorium held the title as the biggest nationwide demonstration in American history.

Exactly a month later, on Nov. 15, more than a half-million war opponents flooded the nation’s capital for the Mobilization. That was more than double the number of marchers who participated in the famous 1963 March on Washington led by Martin Luther King, Jr. More than 100,000 rallied in a simultaneous antiwar demonstration in San Francisco.

It’s not just the enormous size of these antiwar protests that make them worth recalling. I was on the staff of the coalition that organized the Mobilization action. Though none of us involved knew it then, these demonstrations foiled Richard Nixon’s plans to dramatically escalate the war.

At the time, I was delighted with the massive turnouts. I’d been working full-time as an antiwar organizer for the previous two years and would continue doing so for four more. I believed the antiwar movement was making progress as more and more people from an ever-broadening cross-section of the public were joining the actions. It seemed the tide of public opinion was shifting in our favor.

………

The Mobilization called for major rallies in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco for Nov. 15. To set a peaceful tone, they added a solemn two-day March Against Death immediately prior to the mass rally in Washington. The plan was to march from Arlington Cemetery to the Capitol via the White House with marchers holding placards with the name of a U.S. soldier who’d been killed in the war or the name of a Vietnamese village that had been destroyed.

………

Nixon then had the Pentagon and his National Security Council led by Kissinger draw up plans to deliver a “savage, decisive blow” against North Vietnam because, in Kissinger’s words, “I refuse to believe that a little fourth-rate power like North Vietnam doesn’t have a breaking point.” Plans included bombing the country’s dikes — which could have killed tens of thousands of civilians — as well as dropping so-called tactical nuclear bombs near the Chinese border, which could have provoked the nuclear-armed Chinese or Soviets to retaliate.

Unfortunately for Nixon, his ultimatum date of Nov. 1 was sandwiched between the dates for two antiwar demonstrations. When Nixon learned from CIA infiltrators that the Moratorium was “shaping up to be the most widely-supported public action in American history,” he saw trouble ahead. As Nixon later wrote, he saw that “the only chance for my ultimatum to succeed was to convince the Communists that I could depend on solid support at home if they decided to call my bluff.”

“Solid support at home” was not forthcoming. The size and breadth of both the October and November protests surpassed the organizers’ most grandiose expectations. Reading the names of the war dead was used extensively during the Moratorium protests. And the March Against Death drew more than 45,000 protesters who walked single file along the four-mile route with their candles and placards for 36 hours.

……….

Sadly, few of us who were involved in American’s largest nonviolent struggle knew then or know today that we had such power. At the time, we knew opposing the Vietnam War was the right thing to do. But it sure helps to realize that it made a real difference to have marched and rallied, petitioned and lobbied, sat through countless meetings and engaged in civil disobedience.

Hopefully, those involved in today’s struggles will find some helpful lessons from our experiences.

The whole article is at this link.

Helping Refugees

CRP is one of my favorite charities.

Statement on Bolivia

U.S. Peace Council Statement

Mobilize to Stop the Imperialistic Coup and Intervention

in Bolivia and the Latin America!

The U.S. Peace Council (USPC) strongly condemns the U.S.-backed military coup against the democratically elected president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, and stands in solidarity with Bolivia’s first indigenous president and the people of Bolivia. The violence unleashed by the military and members of the right-wing opposition forced the resignation of Evo Morales and his vice-president in the hope of putting an end to the foreign-induced violence and destruction in their country.

This is a coup against a president who has lifted three million Bolivians out of poverty (42% drop in the poverty rate and 60% drop in the extreme poverty rate). He had also dared to close U.S. military bases in Bolivia and had paid to combat fires in the Amazon, actions which have undoubtedly angered the U.S. ruling circles.

This action in Bolivia is in keeping with U.S. efforts to destabilize democratically elected governments in Central and South America — Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and now Bolivia — and brutalizing and suppressing people’s movements in countries like Colombia. The orchestrated protests and violent acts of reactionary forces in the city of La Paz; the threats and attacks on politicians, the media and social movements; and the threats against embassies of Venezuela, Cuba and Mexico in La Paz, are further evidence for the true intentions of the U.S.-backed coup plotters. Since 2001, the USAID has been financing the right-wing opposition to Evo Morales and the U.S. Government has been working closely with them.

It is clear that the U.S. government is deeply concerned with the rise of the left and independent popular movements and governments in Latin America. It has been using every weapon in its arsenal — sabotages, political subversions, imposing trade blockades and killer economic sanctions, expanding the NATO presence in Latin America, and establishing new military bases — to stem the tide. The coup attempt in Bolivia is just the last imperialistic attempt in this direction.

The U.S. Peace Council vehemently opposes the U.S. imperialism’s efforts to re-establish its hegemonic domination of the Latin America. We call for an end to NATO presence and closure of all U.S. military bases in Latin America, an end to the unilaterally imposed sanctions on Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, U.S. commitment to the Colombian Peace Accords and an end to U.S. regime change efforts in Latin America and throughout the world.

We call upon all peace-loving people of the United States to condemn these imperialist acts of the U.S. Government and mobilize mass protests against the coup in Bolivia and all other U.S. efforts to undermine the national sovereignty of the peoples of Latin America and the world.

Executive Committee of the U.S. Peace Council 

November 11, 2019

Holiday Parade in Asheville

The local chapter of Veterans for Peace participated in the very wet parade in Asheville on November 23, 2019. Photo by Gerry Werhan.

Water

For Banks and Corporations

And now, they are trying to impeach a president for threatening to stop giving weapons to Ukraine to use on it's eastern border (next to Russia) and digging up political dirt on a opposition candidate.

While the fact that he joined the presidents above in murdering innocent people means nothing to the opposition party in power.

Ironically, Obama had a permanent ban on selling the some weapons to Ukraine. But he was a Democrat so the Democrats did not care. Obama did the correct thing in this case. More weapons to Ukraine mean more dead innocent people.

How do we elect such trash over and over and over and over?

Yes, just ordinary people

And today, it is ordinary people herding people into concentration camps and separating children from their parents. And ordinary people who allow this to happen on our southern border.

They are really monsters.

Armistice Day

Celebrate Armistice Day, Not Veterans Day

By David Swanson for The Humanist

Do not celebrate Veterans Day. Celebrate Armistice Day instead.

Do not celebrate Veterans Day — because of what it has become, and even more so because of what it replaced and erased from U.S. culture.

Former American Humanist Association President Kurt Vonnegut once wrote: “Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans’ Day is not. So I will throw Veterans’ Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don’t want to throw away any sacred things.” Vonnegut meant by “sacred” wonderful, valuable, worth treasuring. He listed Romeo and Juliet and music as “sacred” things.

Exactly at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, in 1918, 100 years ago this coming November 11th, people across Europe suddenly stopped shooting guns at each other. Up until that moment, they were killing and taking bullets, falling and screaming, moaning and dying, from bullets and from poison gas. And then they stopped, at 11:00 in the morning, one century ago. They stopped, on schedule. It wasn’t that they’d gotten tired or come to their senses. Both before and after 11 o’clock they were simply following orders. The Armistice agreement that ended World War I had set 11 o’clock as quitting time, a decision that allowed 11,000 more men to be killed in the 6 hours between the agreement and the appointed hour.

But that hour in subsequent years, that moment of an ending of a war that was supposed to end all war, that moment that had kicked off a world-wide celebration of joy and of the restoration of some semblance of sanity, became a time of silence, of bell ringing, of remembering, and of dedicating oneself to actually ending all war. That was what Armistice Day was. It was not a celebration of war or of those who participate in war, but of the moment a war had ended.

Congress passed an Armistice Day resolution in 1926 calling for “exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding … inviting the people of the United States to observe the day in schools and churches with appropriate ceremonies of friendly relations with all other peoples.” Later, Congress added that November 11th was to be “a day dedicated to the cause of world peace.”

The rest of the article is here.