Tag: Civil Disobedience

Today In History…….1773

As always I try to give my readers more insight into the America that we all know and love but some of the information has been clouded with bullsh*t.

Take the Boston Tea Party which was carried out on this day in 1773…..there are a butch of myths that surround that fateful day….so let’s dis-spell a couple……

Myth #1

The Tea Act imposed a tax on American colonists (which is why tax protestors often revere the Boston Tea Party).

BUSTED:

The Tea Act did no such thing; instead the actual law gave the East India Company a tax break on tea shipped to the American colonies, along with special new privileges for shipping tea directly to consignees in America, both of which would have reduced the price of tea for Americans.  On the other hand, Americans were already paying a tax of three pennies per pound on legally imported tea under the Revenue Act of 1767, which (unlike the other “Townshend duties”) was still on the books after 1770.  This combination of an existing tax on Americans and a new tax break for the East India Company concerned the Sons of Liberty, who worried that cheaper tea would seduce Americans into paying a tax passed by Parliament, where Americans weren’t represented.[i]

https://allthingsliberty.com/2013/11/7-myths-boston-tea-party/

More on the events that began with Tea Party……

At the time, the event that took place in Boston on the night of December 16, 1773 was not called the “Tea Party.” For more than 50 years, if it was mentioned at all in print, it was usually as “the destruction of the tea.” Bostonians never celebrated it as they did their triumphs over other British measures. Patriot leaders cited the Indian disguises worn by some in the boarding parties in order to deny responsibility for the affair and claim it was the work of outsiders.

http://bostonreview.net/alfred-f-young-boston-tea-party

The weekend is a good time to expand your knowledge.

Learn Stuff!

Class Dismissed!

Closing Thought–11Dec18

Does anyone remember the name of BUNDY?

They began their rise with a stand off about some cattle in a wildlife refuge….it then escalated later onto a bird sanctuary and a confrontation with Federal agents….now the son of the elder Bundy has decided that the militia movement is bogus…..in solidarity with the so-called “caravan”…….

Ammon Bundy is best known as a leading light of the American militia movement (a motley coalition of various different flavors of firearms enthusiasts who hate the federal government). He’s famous for getting into armed standoffs with federal agents and violently occupying bird sanctuaries. His friends are the kind of folks who co-chair pro-Trump veterans groups; his father is the kind of man who says, “I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro” — and proceeds to explain why black people were “better off as slaves.”

So, this being 2018, Bundy naturally just disavowed the militia movement in solidarity with the migrant caravan, suggested that nationalism is actually the opposite of patriotism, and said that Trump’s America resembles nothing so much as 1930s Germany.

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/ammon-bundy-quits-militia-movement-defends-migrant-caravan.html

Now I want to hear the retort from the alt-Right that held the Bundys up as the saviors of America…..

Is This Our Darkest Hour?

Hey is it not time to actually have a conversation on climate change?  Or is the term global warming?  Matters not for something is on the horizon and we are sticking our heads in the sand and hoping it will all go away…..

Hint:  IT WON’T!

The word is out and it does not look too promising…..

“The planet warmed more than we thought. It was hidden from us just because we didn’t sample it right. But it was there. It was in the ocean already.”

Offering a stark warning that humanity may have even less time to drastically cut carbon emissions than the United Nations suggested in its latest alarming report on the climate crisis, new research (pdf) published in the journal Nature on Wednesday shows that Earth’s oceans have retained 60 percent more heat each year over the past 25 years than scientists previously believed.

“We thought that we got away with not a lot of warming in both the ocean and the atmosphere for the amount of CO2 that we emitted. But we were wrong,” Laure Resplandy, a geoscientist at Princeton University who led the new study, told the Washington Post. “The planet warmed more than we thought. It was hidden from us just because we didn’t sample it right. But it was there. It was in the ocean already.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/10/31/we-have-less-time-we-thought-alarming-new-study-shows-oceans-have-retained-far-more

Don’t believe a word of the new study!  But instead take the word of some jack wad that gets his money from the industries causing the world’s problems for we would not want these greed turds to lose any money now do we?

The so-called “Doom and Gloom” continues (maybe it is time to listen)…..https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10/26/eco-crises-doom-gloom-truth-consequences/

The biggest threat is the threat of drought……these seem to be expanding yearly…..a bad drought will expand the hunger and the famines……

The most hazardous global warming risk for society at large is widespread loss of grain production because of a synchronized worldwide drought. It would be a colossal killer. It’s happened before, known as The Great Drought 142 years ago.

Unmistakably, droughts feed off global warming and world temps are heading up, not down. Thus, droughts are intensified by temperature increases. If the same conditions as the drought of 1876 recurs, it would likely be a nightmarish scenario.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10/26/the-great-drought/

For a couple of decades the world’s population has looked the other way when the subject of climate change is mentioned…..America’s are some of the worse…

Finally the population has decided that they cannot sleep there way to a cleaner safer world…..civil disobedience, environmental disobedience will return to the world stage……appears the UK may well lead the world in this new found empowerment…..a Declaration Of Rebellion (has a nice ring to it)…..

To underscore the planetary emergency and denounce the U.K. government’s inaction on the climate crisis, a new group calling itself Extinction Rebellion rallied over 1,000 people to block Parliament Square in London on Wednesday. The direct action marks the launch of a mass civil disobedience campaign, with the group issuing a “Declaration of Rebellion” against the government because the activists “refuse to bequeath a dying planet to future generations by failing to act now.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/10/31/our-darkest-hour-declaration-rebellion-new-group-vows-mass-civil-disobedience-save

May we finally have some progress on saving this world before we go out looking for another one to screw up.

QAPLA!

After writing this draft I read another silly theory……

Brazil’s president-elect Jair Bolsonaro has chosen a new foreign minister who believes climate change is part of a plot by “cultural Marxists” to stifle western economies and promote the growth of China.

Ernesto Araujo – until now a mid-ranking official who blogs about the “criminalisation” of red meat, oil and heterosexual sex – will become the top diplomat of South America’s biggest nation, representing 200 million people and the greatest and most biodiverse forest on Earth, the Amazon.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/15/brazil-foreign-minister-ernesto-araujo-climate-change-marxist-plot

I cannot wait to see how long it takes for the dullards on the Right, the Trumpian Right, to get on board with this silliness.

Any bets?

When Women Step Up

You would think that this close to the end of Midterm voting I would be talking about female candidates….well you would be mistaken…..

Throughout history women have stepped up when they were needed to…..they are the protesters that many listen to for they have the weight of family as well as society on their shoulders.

Countries like France, Russia, South Africa, etc….women have taken to the streets….least we forget the Women’s March on DC in January 2017……

On Saturday, 150,000 people are expected to take to the streets for the Women’s March on Washington. The progressive demonstration is expected to be the largest of inauguration weekend as well as one of the largest in US history, and sister marches will be held in cities across the country and around the world.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/21/womens-march-protests-history-suffragettes-iceland-poland

One of the biggest protest were anti-war and in Russia in 1917……some say the beginning of the Russian Revolution…..

The first day of the Russian Revolution – 8 March (23 February in the old Russian calendar) – was International Women’s Day, an important day in the socialist calendar. By midday of that day in 1917 there were tens of thousands of mainly women congregating on the Nevsky Prospekt, the principal avenue in the centre of the Russian capital, Petrograd, and banners started to appear.

The slogans on the banners were patriotic but also made forceful demands for change: “Feed the children of the defenders of the motherland,” read one; another said: “Supplement the ration of soldiers’ families, defenders of freedom and the people’s peace.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/08/womens-protest-sparked-russian-revolution-international-womens-day

What made me think about women and protests was an article I read the other day…..

About 1,500 women and allied men marched on the Pentagon on Sunday to demand an end to perpetual war and the funding of education, health care and other social needs instead.

Stopping U.S. military involvement in Syria and Yemen and closing U.S. military bases around the world were among the demands voiced by the protestors who set out from Pentagon City and marched to the seat of American military power along a one-mile route.

With the Pentagon in the background, the protestors shouted slogans and waved signs calling for, “No More War.”

https://theantimedia.com/women-march-on-the-pentagon-no-more-war/

Finally!  Someone has stepped up and protested the constant wars that are draining this country of blood and treasure….and it was women that stepped up and showed courage something that most men seem to lack.

Plus there are several antiwar protests that the media has ignored for whatever reason……but I can help the memory of those protests…..

 A friend told me yesterday that he hadn’t seen an antiwar protest in America in ten years. It was a sincere comment; he genuinely hadn’t seen any coverage on any peace activism in his country during that time. And of course he hadn’t; it is mainstream media’s job to distort public narratives in favor of the war-hungry plutocratic class which owns the media outlets. But I’ve actually been noticing a lot of antiwar activism lately which, while often far from the spotlight of mass media attention, has given me much hope for the future.

https://theantimedia.com/antiwar-protests/

And now for the musical interlude……..

Keep in mind if anyone has a RIGHT to protest war it is the people that fight them……Period!

Veterans were especially outspoken in their opposition. Retired generals and admirals feared such a demonstration would embarrass the U.S., placing the nation in the company of small-time authoritarian regimes that regularly parade their tanks and missiles as demonstrations of their military might. And some veterans’ organizations opposed the parade because they saw it as a celebration of militarism and war.

Veterans of past wars, as I document in my book “Guys Like Me: Five Wars, Five Veterans for Peace” have long been at the forefront of peace advocacy in the United States.

https://www.militarytimes.com/opinion/commentary/2018/11/10/veterans-have-fought-in-wars-and-fought-against-them/

Just think how much better this country could have been if the war bill of $5.6 trillion (post forthcoming) had been spent on infrastructure or other programs?

Use your voice!

Sneakers Are Burning

I guess this is my second Closing Thought–07Sep18

Now if you have been smart and stayed away from the TV then you may not know what I am going on about…..the truth is I was not going to take part in this story for I believe it is just a diversion from more important stuff.  But after all that was happening around the story I felt the need for comment.

Nike has taken its own advice to “Just Do It”—with the “It” being “Get involved in the NFL national anthem controversy.” The company, days before the start of the new football season, has signed up former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick as the face of the 30th anniversary of the “Just Do It” campaign, CNN reports. Kaepernick, who has been unable to get a new NFL contract since taking a knee for the anthem in the 2016 season to protest racial injustice, tweeted a photo from the campaign with the caption: “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.” A roundup of coverage:

  • “Top bracket.” Kaepernick’s existing deal with Nike had been about to expire when it was renegotiated for the new campaign; a source tells the AP that Kaepernick’s compensation will be similar to that of the top bracket of NFL players on Nike’s books—and the deal also includes a Kaepernick apparel line and donations to his charity, Know Your Rights.
  • The backlash begins. Not every Nike wearer was thrilled about the move, with some so outraged that they filmed themselves destroying their Nike gear, Metro reports. Twitter user Sean Clancy posted a video of himself incinerating his Nike shoes, complaining that the company had forced him “to choose between my favorite shoes and my country.” The hashtags #BoycottNike and #JustBurnIt started trending Monday.
  • Cutting swooshes. Country singer John Rich tweeted a picture of his soundman, a former Marine who had “just cut the Nike swoosh off his socks.” “Get ready to multiply that by the millions,” Rich warned.
  • Worth it? Nike, which has been battling Adidas to sign top players, is gambling that signing Kaepernick will be worth a backlash that is expected to include the president, Bloomberg reports. “The long-term relationship and a contract that benefits both parties over the next 10 years will likely outweigh any current controversy,” says Bloomberg analyst Chen Grazutis.
  • Athletes side with Kaepernick. Numerous fellow athletes and other celebrity spoke out in support of Kaepernick on Monday, reports Al Jazeera. #IMWITHKAP,” tweeted Miami Dolphins wide receiver Kenney Stills.
  • Ahmadinejad, Cruz get involved. In what WFAA describes as a “new height of bizarreness” in the controversy, former Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tweeted Monday that it was a shame Kaepernick, “one of the best Quarterbacks in the league,” didn’t have a playing contract. Sen. Ted Cruz then tweeted that the agreement of Ahmadinejad suggested that the NFL, Nike, and Beto O’Rourke, his Democratic challenger, “are all on the wrong side of the American people.”
  • Tillman, too. Pat Tillman, the former Arizona Cardinal killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan in 2004, was cited by conservative commentators including Fox’s Stephen Miller as somebody who would have been a better face for the campaign, WBIR reports. Critics said Tillman would have supported players’ right to protest, or suggested he be left out of the debate instead of “weaponized.”

You Tube blew up with idiots setting their Nikes on fire…..goes to show that most Americans have more  money than brains.  They are destroying a $100+ shoe because of something an orange idiot had to say.

Personally I think if you had to protest why not give your Nikes to someone who needed shoes like a homeless veteran?……but wait that action would not give one that You Tube moment that they desire.

If they do not agree with what this man did, Kaepernick, then protests like this school in Arkansas……

Nike uniforms are vestimenta non grata at the College of the Ozarks after the company’s Colin Kaepernick ad campaign. The private Christian college in Missouri announced Thursday that its athletic teams will no longer buy Nike uniforms and any it has now will be removed, the Kansas City Star reports. In a statement, college president Jerry C. Davis accused Nike execs of “promoting an attitude of division and disrespect toward America” with the Kaepernick campaign. “If Nike is ashamed of America, we are ashamed of them,” Davis said. “We also believe that those who know what sacrifice is all about are more likely to be wearing a military uniform than an athletic uniform.”

Nike, which aired a Kaepernick-narrated ad during the NFL season opener, is “free to campaign as it sees fit,” just as the college is free “to ensure that it respects our country and those who truly served and sacrificed,” says Marci Linson, the school’s vice-president for patriotic activities. President Trump also criticized Nike and NFL anthem protests Thursday. “I don’t like what Nike did. I don’t think it’s appropriate what they did,” he said before a rally in Montana. The AP reports that there were no “clear-cut protests” during the season opener, in which the Philadelphia Eagles beat the Atlanta Falcons 18-12. Sources say Kaepernick watched the ad’s premiere from Nike headquarters in Oregon.

They chose to not use Nike products…..an excellent protest.

This whole thing is silly….Nike is getting all the free publicity they can use….and Our Dear Leader is helping their sales “yugely”……

Burning Nikes is about as moronic as the old days of pouring French wine down the drain because of something they did or said…..or to a lesser extent re-naming French Fries as “Freedom Fries”.

All in all a stupid knee jerk reaction to something that needs no response.

A few closing thoughts…….

“I am patient with stupidity but not those that are proud of it”

“Nothing worse than aggressive stupidity”

“Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance”

“It is a shame that stupidity is not more painful”

“Do not cater to stupidity”

I must shut down the mind for the day…..I dearly wish everyone have a great evening.  chuq

50 Years Ago

Closing Thought–27Aug18

50 years ago this August history was being made the Dem Convention and the riots that followed…..the drama had everything needed to be a blockbuster…..love-hate, war-peace, old-new, etc…..

We’re taking another look back at the year 1968 this morning, remembering the political earthquake that was the Democratic National Convention. Chicago-born Scott Simon, of NPR, is our guide:

Worlds collided at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago: young and old, war and peace, law and order.

“The whole world is watching, the whole world is watching…”

“You can’t take that week in isolation,” said Bill Daley. “’68, one of the most dramatic and traumatic years in the nation’s history. And it kind of all rolled to Chicago, and you could feel it coming.”

Daley, who would become President Obama’s chief of staff, was a college student in 1968, and spent the convention at the side of his father, Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/remembering-1968-chicagos-bloody-democratic-convention/

In 1968 I missed these protests for I was a bit preoccupied in Vietnam…..if I had been stateside I would have been there…

This for you younguns……

If you would like a more detailed account of those bloody days in American political history……

Our young needs to know these history of how a people took to the street to make a difference…yes it turned violent and it is a matter of opinion on who started the trouble…..

Drifting Away (From Peace)

As I typed the title my mind went back to my youth and the song……but those were happier times….in this case I am talking about peace…..my regulars know that while I study war I am an antiwar person and have been for 45 years….and in the process of research I read an article that did not necessarily surprise me……

With the Cold War ending in the early 1990s, some Western scholars predicted a more peaceful world with liberal democracy the only game in town. The findings of the Global Peace Index suggest otherwise.

The twelfth edition of the Global Peace Index (GPI) reports that the global level of peace deteriorated by 0.27 per cent last year. Europe and United States, the world’s most peaceful regions, recorded a decline in peacefulness for the third straight year. This is not merely a one-year decline. Rather, it’s part of a decade-long trend: global peacefulness has deteriorated by 2.38 per cent since 2008.

The Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), a non-partisan think tank headquartered in Sydney, has been publishing yearly editions of GPI for the last 13 years. Covering 99.7 per cent of the world population, the index ranks 163 independent states and territories in three domains – safety and security in the society, involvement in ongoing conflicts, and militarization – according to 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators.

https://original.antiwar.com/Sajjad_Hussain/2018/08/07/drifting-away-from-peace/

The sad thing about our children growing up is that they are staring at another generation of war……and we should make goddamn sure that they do not have to travel the world looking for a fight……

On September 11 of this year, those who weren’t yet born at the time of the 9/11 attacks will finally be old enough to fight in the war on terror. In 2012, U.S. Marines killed Osama bin Laden, the man responsible for the 9/11 attacks, yet American soldiers are still losing their lives overseas in the name of preventing terrorism against the United States—despite the fact that there hasn’t been another major attack on U.S. soil.

Now a new generation is set to join the conflict, even though the presence of our brave troops has actually increased the power and influence of terrorist groups—the very threat they meant to eradicate. It is time to rethink what has become the longest war in American history. We need to prevent the War on Terror from continuing forever so my generation doesn’t have to pay an even higher price.

https://theantimedia.com/young-people-fight-war-on-terror/

I ask myself how this country could allow a war/wars go on for 17 years with NO end in sight?  What happened to the antiwar movement that I was a part of for most of the 1970’s and into the 80’s?

Well there is one possible answer to my questions…..

It is time for a re-birth of the anti war mentality and only the young can do this…us old farts no longer have a part other than helping in direction for our wars are done and soon forgotten…the young will be facing these wars for another generation if they do not learn to speak up and demand and end.

The sad part is the number of  “war memorials” in our nation’s capital…..we take time to remember war but we learn nothing from those wars…..

Two articles in different weekend magazines have me thinking about America’s many wars. David Montgomery in last weekend’s Washington Post pondered the proliferation of war memorials in our nation’s capital. The second, an excerpt from C.J. Chivers’s new book in the latest New York Times magazine, details the experiences of an Army unit in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley.

Some of those killed in that desolate distant place will be remembered, indirectly at least, in a new Global War on Terrorism Memorial. Montgomery reports that President Donald Trump “signed legislation waiving the statutory 10-year post-war waiting period so planning could begin.” He continues:

https://warontherocks.com/2018/08/remembrance-of-war-as-warning/

David McReynolds–R.I.P.

The passing of a great American that most have never heard of…but if you participated in the antiwar movement like I did then his name is synonymous with protests……

In my years as an antiwar activist I made many friends and acquaintances……people like Angela Davis, but my most memorable meeting was that of a fellow antiwar protester, David McReynolds.  A person that I liked and even worked for his presidential bid in 1980…..I was not able to work on his 2000 presidential bid.

The sad news has finally made it to me……

Longtime pacifist and socialist David McReynolds died Friday at the age of 88. Known to historian Howard Zinn and many others as a “hero of the antiwar movement,” McReynolds was a staff member with the War Resisters League from 1960 to 1999. There, he focused on counter-recruitment and helped organize one of the first draft card burnings. He went on to play a key role in some of major demonstrations against the Vietnam War and campaign for nuclear disarmament. McReynolds ran for president in 1980 and 2000 as an openly gay man. For more, we speak with two of his close friends. Ed Hedemann worked with McReynolds for decades at the War Resisters League. Jeremy Scahill is an investigative journalist and co-founder of The Intercept.

His work with the War Resisters League was a true American story…..and below is a show from Democracy Now featuring McReynolds……

https://www.democracynow.org/2018/8/20/in_memoriam_david_mcreynolds_the_gay

He was a fine individual that dedicated his life to the attempt to end all wars….unfortunately he was not successful….but the movement is better from his involvement……

My proudest moment was when he gave me my official certificate that named me an “Agitator”….it is framed in my office displayed next to my diplomas……

I wish to extend my sympathies to his friends and family…..his voice will be sorely missed.

David McReynolds–R.I.P.

Further Reading:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_McReynolds

https://www.warresisters.org/

Let The Revolution Begin

Is there anyone old enough to know what the SDS was?  Or who was Hayden, Hoffman, Rubin?

The year was 1968 and the university protest at Columbia…..this is where most of the turbulence of the 60’s and 70’s began….or so say some…..

The Columbia University Struggle of 1968, 50 years ago, was in fact a Struggle against Columbia University—as a ruling class slumlord, a racist gentrifier against the people of Harlem and Morningside Heights, and a genocidal war criminal carrying out weapons research against the People of Vietnam. It was one of the great miracles of the times that students who had been recruited to support The System turned against it and sided with the Black community and the people of Vietnam.

The Struggle against Columbia was carried out by The Movement—a Black United Front in Harlem including Harlem Tenants Association, Morningsiders United and Harlem CORE, the Students’ Afro-American Society and Black Students of Hamilton Hall, Students for a Democratic Society at Columbia, and national groups like Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, SDS, with support from the national civil rights and anti-war movements.

https://www.laprogressive.com/historic-1968-struggle-against-columbia-university/

Fifty years ago and this is what lit the fire of rebellion under my ass……I was in the military at the time but the need to help end the war I was fighting was deep felt.

We need students to step forward……there is a small beginning now with the high school students from Florida……we need for it to expand…..and soon.

But those were the days of an independent press that had to scratch for news not like today with the corporate control of the media…..the days of the SDS may be gone but they are not forgotten by hard core radicals like myself.

Kid’s Crusade

A Saturday and a big day…….the grand kids of Boomers will take to the streets….

Today is the day that the children have decided to protests the gun deaths……the March on DC by thousands of kids that are fed up with their peers being targets for a/holes with a gun…and the adults doing nothing.

Kinda reminds me of my days in protests during the Vietnam War….Bill Murray agrees…..

The students in Florida pushing for an end to gun violence after the Parkland mass shooting remind Bill Murray of the students who pushed for an end to the Vietnam War half a century ago. “It really was the students that began the end of the Vietnam War,” the actor writes in an NBC op-ed. “It was the students who made all the news, and that noise started, and then the movement wouldn’t stop. I think, maybe, this noise that those students in Florida are making—here, today—will do something of the same nature.” “For students to be worried about what could happen to them at school, that makes for a horrible moment,” Murray says. “It’s just a horrible place for us to be at.”

Murray praises the idealism of students like the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School survivors, who joined gun control protests within days of the shooting that killed 17 staff and students. “The thing that’s so powerful about students is that, when you haven’t had your idealism broken yet, you’re able to speak from a place that has no confusion, where there is a clear set of values,” he says, though he believes that idealism survives in everybody’s conscience. “Sometimes it’s just a whisper, but, in some people, it’s a shout,” he says. Click for the full column. Murray is one of many celebrities supporting Saturday’s March for Our Lives anti-gun violence event, CNN reports. The protest, led by Parkland survivors, will involve a rally in Washington, DC, and sister protests in hundreds of other cities.

These kids are still protesting and talking….39 days on from the last big school massacre…..I do not think the they will go away the way politicians are hoping…..

Thoughts on this protests from comedian Lewis Black…I think his political commentary is spot on…..

May you enjoy your day….I will be back tomorrow…… I will return with stuff….chuq