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POPSCluster Bomb Olympics With White House Backdrop (No, not the Onion)
Why: To generate public awareness of cluster bombs just two days prior to the negotiation of a global cluster bomb ban treaty in Dublin, Ireland on May 19. More than half the world’s nations will attend, but the U.S. government has refused to participate. Who: Organized by the US Campaign to Ban Landmines and co-sponsored by Amnesty International, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, CIVIC, Democracy in Action, Friends Committee on National Legislation (Quakers), Jewish Voice for Peace, Network of Spiritual Progressives, and Veterans for Peace. The event is open to participation by all ages. Those in attendance can sign a petition urging the Pentagon to stop using cluster bombs, which cause unacceptable harm to civilians. The U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines (USCBL) is a coalition of approximately 500 U.S.-based human rights, humanitarian, faith-based, children's, peace, disability, veterans', medical, development, academic, and environmental organizations dedicated to a
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POPSPalestine: A Letter to the Peace Movement Thousands of Palestinians are imprisoned in Israeli detention centers where there is reported use of torture. People die at Israeli checkpoints because they cannot get to medical facilities. Palestinians are being denied water, food and medical supplies. Palestinians have to endure continual attacks by jets, helicopters and drones used for assassinations (which are illegal by international law) that also kill many civilians. According to Chris Hedges (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19127.htm), since 2000, 1033 Israelis have died and 4,437 Palestinian have died from this conflict. 119 of these deaths were Israeli children and 971 have been Palestinian children. All these deaths are a waste of life, but these numbers also show that the fault is not equal between the Israelis and Palestinians. The fault lies with the aggressor and the occupier. When people live under a brutal occupation, have their lands stolen, their houses destroyed, orchards wiped out by bulldozers
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POPSA Special Report: The Right's America-Hating Preacher Once his plan to “swallow entire America” is complete, Moon told his followers in one sermon, there will be “some individuals who complain inside your stomach. However, they will be digested.” But Moon’s hatred of America is not deemed news, in part, because Moon has financed the Washington Times since 1982 to the tune of more than $3 billion, according to former newspaper insider George Archibald. Moon also has lavished many millions of dollars more to pay for conservative conferences and to bail out key right-wing figures when they have found themselves in financial distress, including Republican direct-mail guru Richard Viguerie and the late Jerry Falwell. Plus, Moon has paid large speaking fees to former President George H.W. Bush – estimated in the millions of dollars – and has feted President George W. Bush’s brother Neil at recent events for the Moon-sponsored Universal Peace Federation. In 2004, thankful Republicans even gave Moon use of a room in the Senate Dirksen
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POPSCarter's Hamas Talks Could Aid Exodus to Peace In a larger sense, the view of Hamas as a party so evil that no one may even talk with it keeps many Jews in a state of spiritual slavery. It reinforces their long-standing habit of defining Jewish identity primarily in terms of radical vulnerability, as if the only meaningful way to be Jewish were to stand firm against an enemy and always be ready to shoot at that enemy. This slavery is especially tragic because it is self-imposed. It arises not from objective perception of facts imposed from outside, but from choices that Jews themselves make, choices that Jimmy Carter calls them to reconsider. So this Baptist leader, more than anyone else, can now claim the title of a modern-day Moses, willing to lead the Jews from slavery to freedom. Carter stands as a fine example of what the ancient rabbis called "a righteous gentile." A growing number of Jews, in Israel and the U.S., publicly agree with Carter that Israel must reach a peace agreement with a Palestinian government represent
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POPSSheehan challenges Pelosi for House seat Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said that Pelosi, too, is frustrated with the ongoing war in Iraq but believes that impeachment would be divisive and distract Congress from improving the lives of working families. WTF? If we had impeached the frigggin' criminals, the war could be over!
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POPSA Writer's Damaged Sword Arm in New Orleans An excellent story by an excellent writer--she goes on (but read all): Every other house is either empty or boarded up, and ongoing reconstruction seems either non-existent or delayed. Potholes and uneven surfaces threaten to peel off her car’s exhaust system. A few residents are valiantly planting spring flowers in muddy yards, and the riot of color draws the eyes away from the wrecked buildings. Every block or so, there are one or two homes that are miraculously restored, or appear to have escaped the wrath of Poseidon. This street is one of those that had boats going door to door in the aftermath of Katrina’s flood, and the flat the writer is renting has no furniture because the owner lost almost everything to the filthy water. The furniture that is left has been destroyed by a contractor who neglected to cover it while he was working. The writer feels narcissistic, wanting to complain about having nothing except a musty mattress on the floor. There are tens of thousands here
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POPSStand with Tibet - Support the Dalai Lama See site for petirtion... Having met the Dalai Lama when he visited Hawaii, I can attest to his aura of peace and support the Tibetan people. China is like the BORG--gobbling up whatever they thinks is under there communist wing....where they can get away with it.
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POPSThe Costs of Freedom Mrs. Benderman continues her touching account: I know well what freedom costs, and I am willing to pay. In the years before the war I lived a different life – not a military life, but one in which I learned just how little the veterans who served this country really did receive in the way of valid support for what they had given in the name of justice and civic responsibility. People criticized them for having served and others praised them. But few people ever seemed to make the real effort to support the sacrifice the veterans had made to help move us all closer to peace; a peace the veterans stood on the frontlines for, so that those behind the scenes might be able to do the work needed to see that the roots of that peace took hold. I worked to facilitate the care of veterans, World War II, Korea, even those from Viet Nam – I listened to their stories and those of their families. I saw war from the outside looking in. In the last five years, I have come to see the real cost
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POPSNews from Tibet/Chinese Propaganda When someone vilifies a man of peace like the Dalai Lama (i've met him) ya gotta take their rhetoric with deep scorn. The Chinese are in danger of huge blowback (i hope) at the Olympics.
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POPSUS Police Crack Down on Iraq Rallies It should be 200,000 or 2 million---Where the hell are the people who claim to be against the war? Oh, yeah...too busy to notice there is still a war on. Shame on you who sit by and do nothing. I was out there and I'm half crippled with arthritis and a back that is in constant pain.
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POPS Beyond Peace Now it's time for those of us in the peace-and-justice movement in the First World, especially in the United States, to take the next step: We must recognize that there can be no justice over the long term without sustainability, and creating a sustainable world will require not only radical change in systems and structures of power but also a radical change in the way we in affluent societies live. It's time to recognize that if we are serious about the values of equality that we claim to be the core of our politics, we must scale back the level at which we live. In other words: No reduction in First World consumption, no justice; and no justice, no peace. Put simply: One cannot be a serious peace activist without putting peace in the context of justice and sustainability, and the high-energy/high-tech lifestyle of the First World is not sustainable and not compatible with the demands of justice. Meaningful peace requires real justice, which means we must learn to live with less
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POPSYou Don't Need a Weatherman By 1969, SDS was falling apart, and something called the Weatherman was forming. This was a top-down antidemocratic cult-like organization that quickly focused on the tactic of exploding bombs in symbolic locations in the United States. In 1970 Wilkerson went into hiding, and the organization became the Weather Underground after bombs accidentally exploded in her stepfather's house in Manhattan killing three members of Weatherman and making big headlines. Wilkerson believes that this clumsy accident actually communicated the anger of those involved better than a successful explosion at a military base would have done, because the reaction to that would have been dominated by anger at those responsible. Yet Wilkerson would clearly unexplode those bombs and bring her friends back to life in an instant if she were able.
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POPSmessage: We can't save them from themselves. The U.S. is currently spending hundreds of millions of dollars to pay the monthly salaries of some 600,000 armed fighters in the three rival ethnic camps in Iraq. These fighters -- Shiite, Kurd and Sunni Arab -- are not only antagonistic but deeply unreliable allies. The Sunni Arab militias have replaced central government officials, including police, and taken over local administration and security in the pockets of Iraq under their control. They have no loyalty outside of their own ethnic community. Once the money runs out, or once they feel strong enough to make a thrust for power, the civil war in Iraq will accelerate with deadly speed. The tactic of money-for-peace failed in Afghanistan. The U.S. doled out funds and weapons to tribal groups in Afghanistan to buy their loyalty, but when the payments and weapons shipments ceased, the tribal groups headed back into the embrace of the Taliban.
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POPS"Shallow Throat" Sizes Up the Dem/GOP Candidates Shallow Throat laughed. "Well, of course Obama or Clinton would be better than who my party is likely to put up. But we're talking about the need for a MASSIVE overhaul in all areas of post-Cheney/Bush politics, and re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic that is Iraq is not my idea of anything major happening. The mindset that allows for war in that region of the world will not alter all that much. But, you're right, the Dems would change the tone and priorities a bit and maybe that's all we can hope for at this stage." "That's what I'm saying!"I nearly shouted. "Maybe these are not the candidates you or I would have chosen as the Democratic Party's nominee, but they are infinitely better than the rabid warhawk McCain, who knows honor and duty and 'patriotic' warfare and stay-the-course but not much about diplomacy and peace and when enough is enough. He's still fighting the Vietnam War in his head and the 'Islamofascist extremists' are, to him, the 'gooks' (his terms) of the 2
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POPSMore Gestapo--big $$$$ Pentagon documents released by the ACLU show that the DOD monitored the activities of a wide range of peace groups, including Veterans for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Military Families Speak Out, Code Pink, the American Friends Service Committee, the War Resisters League, and United for Peace and Justice. The organization said the Pentagon’s misuse of the TALON database is just one example of increased government surveillance of innocent Americans. “It cannot be an accident or coincidence that nearly 200 anti-war protests ended up in a Pentagon threat database,” said Ann Beeson, the ACLU’s Associate Legal Director. “This unchecked surveillance is part of a broad pattern of the Bush administration using ‘national security’ as an excuse to run roughshod over the privacy and free speech rights of Americans.”
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POPSObama, Clinton Will Keep Huge Military Indeed, Obama, who is often described in the corporate media as the anti-war candidate, went further and said: “I would call for an increase in our force structure, particularly around the Army and the Marines.” In fact, he wants the largest, most expensive military in the world expanded by 100,000 troops Dennis Kucinich who was excluded from the debate by MSNBC – which is owned by one of the largest weapons makers in the world, General Electric – was given a chance to respond by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! the next day. He said: “What you’ve heard here is a bunch of nuancing. They’re all saying the same thing, that they will keep troops in Iraq. The troops will be kept there to protect an embassy. The troops will be kept there for counterinsurgency and for training the Iraqi military.
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