Wednesday, February 12, 2003




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TOP TEN REASONS BUSH'S AMERIKA RESEMBLES HITLER'S GERMANY


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Increasing restrictions on civil rights in the name of security

Unprecedented military buildup

Populace under sway of massive propaganda machine

Lebensraum!    Conquer (i.e. Militarize) Space!

Undermining of court system and constitution

Cabinet of corporate criminals and thugs

Right-wing religious fanatics and wackos in places of power

Roundup and detention of minority religous ethnic group

Grief over destruction of national symbol used to inflame jingoistic war fever against Evil Enemy (Riechstag - WTC)

Criminally psychotic, schizoid national leader (baby kisser or executioner? nice guy or world conqueror? hopeless schlub or vindictive megalomaniac?)


Corrections, additions, revisions? Make your own list!


Wednesday, September 18, 2002

Tuesday, September 17, 2002

Saturday, September 07, 2002

Thursday, August 29, 2002

I've been very busy with the Peace Action web site. Most new information is there. However I'm going to post links here as I come across them Here's a great one:
TRUE MAJORITY: http://www.truemajority.com/

Tuesday, August 13, 2002

Sunday, August 11
Forum and Meeting at Unitarian Church

Jonathan Schell
FROM HIROSHIMA TO BAGHDAD
57 Years On the Nuclear Brink

Nuclear Abolition or Nuclear Anarchy

    Over 50 people attended this forum and meeting. The speacker was best-selling Pulitzer Prize nominee and leading nuclear abolition advocate Jonathan Schell. Schell began by saying that the dynamic of the nuclear problem has changed dramatically in the last decade. In the Cold War era, the struggle was between nuclear abolition and the nuclear arms race -Mutual Assured Destruction and the balance of detente. With the end of the Cold War, that balanced stalemate completely broke down.
     During the 1990's, the great powers missed an important opportunity to abolish their own arsenals and lead the world to an era of peace. Instead, the US has taken a position that it alone shall possess nuclear weapons. But when a nation is threatened by nuclear weapons, it inexorably moves to possessing them itself. As a result, we now face a new and more dangerous era of worldwide nuclear proliferation. According to the State Department's count, 44 countries or groups now have the potential to develop nuclear weapons. Our struggle is now between nuclear abolition and nuclear anarchy. Unless the world chooses nuclear abolition, it will get nuclear anarchy.That is in fact the road we are now on.

Peace Is War

    The dynamic has changed so much that the Bush administration is actually espousing the cause of non-proliferation - but, of course, only for other nations. Ironically, the means proposed to accomplish this Pax Americana is Unending War On Evil - complete with a unworkable and destablizing national missile defense system and an offensive first-strike policy. At a speech at West Point, Bush emphasized that the U.S. will remain second to no country. The U.S. will becomes so dominant that the other countries will not need nuclear weapons. The battle is no longer between "idealists" in the peace movement and "realists" like Henry Kissinger. Peace activists now face ultra-right-wing hawks who envision the U.S. as the supreme global power. In their minds, the cause of peace has become synonymous with war.

Tthe Only Solution: Abolition

    But this military "solution" - for the U.S. to gain complete dominance of the world - is simply not feasible in the long run. "We need to arrest the drift towards empire," said Schell. We have to convince people that there is a "whole other way to go"-a way of cooperation and abolition of weapons of mass destruction for all countries and groups. Abolition is asking a lot. The challenge to the peace movement today is to show our leaders a detailed, active, positive abolition plan as the a more effective answer than the current agenda of full-scale militarization and world dominance. Unless we offer a clear answer, we will be on weak ground in debating this issue.

The Urgent Call

     Schell, David Cortright and Randy Forsberg,the author of the Nuclear Freeze, have lalunched UrgentCall.org, a new initiative to engage and educate a broad public about the growing danger that nuclear weapons will be used, and about practical steps to reduce that danger.
On June 11, Rep. Ed Markey introduced a House resolution, H.J. Res. 97, based on the Urgent Call. He invited us to go to the website and sign up in support of this initiative and lobby our Congressional representative to support the resolution. (Two New York representatives, Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney and Maurice D. Hinchey, have signed.) We have to act through local efforts taken across the country to influence our elected officials. Our efforts to persuade people to support abolition will not bear fruit all at once, but "people know that war is awful."

Meeting

    After the forum, Peace Action of Staten Island held a general membership meeting to discuss next steps in organizing against the war in Iraq. After short President's and Treasurer's reports, the Speakers Bureau reported excellent progress on a number of approaches to informing the local public about the issues. Invited speaker Henry Williamson of Voices in Wilderness, a group based in Chicago, spoke about his visit to Iraq, the devastating effect of the US sanctions, and the current 40-day fast being held by the group in front of the United Nations in protest of the sanctions against Iraq, gave a presentation. A planning meeting for a major rally against the attack on Iraq, to be held in Central Park on October 6, sponsored by the Not In Our Name Coaltion, will take place this Thursday at Judson Memorial Church in Manhattan. Waterfront Festival tabling will continue on Saturday August 24 and September 14.. A publicist was found, and a phone tree was started. The next meeting of the group will be September 15th

Friday, August 09, 2002

Sunday, August 11
Unitarian Church, 312 Fillmore, 1 block east of Snug Harbor
11:00 AM:Forum / 12:00 Noon:Lunch / 12:30 PM:Meeting

Jonathan Schell
FROM HIROSHIMA TO BAGHDAD
57 Years On the Nuclear Brink

The speaker, be best-selling author and leading nuclear disarmament expert Jonathan Schell, is a former Newsday columnist. Schell also wrote for 20 years for The New Yorker, which first serialized many of his ten published books, including The Fate of the Earth (1982) and The Gift of Time (1998.) Three of these earned nominations for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and the National Critics Award. His recent work on the nuclear issues has appeared in Harper's, Foreign Affairs, and The Nation. His upcoming book on the nuclear questions, Arms and The Man, will be published this fall. Schell is currently the Harold Willens Peace Fellow at The Nation Institute. Beginning this fall, he will also teach at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
As at our first meeting, there will be a gourmet lunch break between the forum and the meeting. For latest infomation on the Forum see the Forum web page.