Author: ali redford
I love dogs and people. I want living creatures to thrive. I love to cook, and share the food, but ya gotta get in line in front of the dog.
Peace & Justice History for 9/29:
| September 29, 1923 Great Britain began to govern the formerly Turkish province of Palestine under a League of Nations mandate to create a Jewish national home. The British Mandate For Palestine established at the San Remo Conference, 1920 (Note from A: I searched this link; the one Peace History had was no longer present on the site.) |
| September 29, 1943 Six conscientious objectors, imprisoned at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, for refusing to serve in World War II, began a hunger strike against censorship of mail and reading material by federal prison authorities. |
| September 29, 1983 The municipal council of Woensdrecht, a southern Dutch town, voted against cooperating in the possible siting of 48 U.S. nuclear-tipped cruise missiles at the nearby air base. The council voted Tuesday by 9 to 4 not to cooperate with the national government, and to stop any activities that might lead to the missiles being sited at the base. |
September 29, 2002 A London crowd – estimated between 200,000 and 500,000 – protested British and U.S. plans for a “preemptive” (that is, without provocation) invasion of Iraq. |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryseptember.htm#september29
Effortless skill, mixed salads and a certain impatience with life: Michael Palin remembers Maggie Smith
Smith’s costar in two 80s comedies shares his memories of an actor blessed with an instinctive grasp of her craft
(I’ve been an admirer and fan of Maggie Smith since the first time I watched “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.” It was on TV when I was 11, and she [well, Jean Brodie,] was who I wanted to be. I still feel the same way, and Michael Palin’s closing sentence fits perfectly.)
‘Some of the happiest times of my life’… Smith and Palin in A Very Private Function. Photograph: Handmade Films/Allstar
To work with Maggie Smith, as I did in The Missionary and A Private Function, was to be in the presence of pure acting gold. Maggie was so skilful and intuitive. She could portray the maximum of emotion with the minimum of effort. Nothing was ever wasted with Maggie.
The slightest glance could contain so much information, the smallest gesture be loaded with such significance that you had to be absolutely on your toes to stay with her. The two films we made together were comedies, and Maggie’s impeccable comic timing was an absolute joy to watch and a privilege to be part of.
Her wit was sharp and always icily well-targeted. I remember having a meal with her and Alan Bennett at a rather smart Yorkshire restaurant during the filming of A Private Function, when I discovered a piece of glass in my mixed salad. No great fuss was made. To the manager, Maggie simply described it as “a very mixed salad”.
Maggie made it look so easy and yet I always felt that there was something else there. Something held back. An impatience with life. To be blessed with such an instinctive, effortless understanding of what acting was all about made her dismissive of anything she saw as dull and uninspired. She didn’t suffer fools.
She always maintained that the part of the process she liked most was the rehearsal. The working out of how to make the whole thing the best it could be. Once you’d got that right, then the rest of it was easy and, as she intimated, rather less fun.
I rate our work together as some of the happiest times of my life. I shall mourn her passing most sadly, but remember her most gladly.
Peace & Justice History for 9/28:
| September 28, 1836 Cherokee Chief John Ross wrote a letter to both houses of the U.S. Congress stating that the Treaty of New Echota was not negotiated by any legitimate representatives of his nation. Its terms required the Cherokees to relinquish all lands east of the Mississippi River for a payment of $5 million. Ross was the democratically chosen leader of a nation with its own language, its own newspaper, a bi-cameral legislature and a republican form of government.  Cherokee Chief John RossThe Cherokee Nation celebrated its own arts and sports, and produced a wide variety of agricultural and commercial goods. I had twelve political units ranging from northern Alabama to western North Carolina.Writing from north Georgia, Ross said: “The makers of it [the treaty] sustain no office nor appointment in our Nation, under the designation of Chiefs, Head men, or any other title, by which they hold, or could acquire, authority to assume the reins of Government, and to make bargain and sale of our rights, our possessions, and our common country . . . . “ We are despoiled of our private possessions, the indefeasible property of individuals. We are stripped of every attribute of freedom and eligibility for legal self-defence. Our property may be plundered before our eyes; violence may be committed on our persons; even our lives may be taken away, and there is none to regard our complaints. We are denationalized; we are disfranchised. We are deprived of membership in the human family!” Full text of the letter |
| September 28, 1917 166 people who were (or had been) active in the I.W.W. (Industrial Workers of the World, whose members were also known as Wobblies) were indicted for protesting World War I.They were accused of trying to “cause insubordination, disloyalty, and refusal of duty in the military and naval forces” in violation of the Espionage Act. One hundred and one defendants were found guilty, and received prison sentences ranging from days to twenty years, with accompanying fines of $10,000-$20,000. This was part of a successful U.S. government campaign to cripple the radical union movement.  The I.W.W. – A Brief History (U.S.) I.W.W. home |
| September 28, 1943 In Denmark, underground anti-Nazi activists began systematic smuggling of Jews to Sweden. In just three weeks, all but 481 of Denmark’s 8000 Jews had been moved to safety.  Kim Malthe-Bruun, a 21-year-old Danish resistance fighter. Unfortunately one of the ones who did not make it. A Danish Jewish family ready to go Read more about Kim |
| September 28, 2005 The lawyer who wrote the original legal complaint in the case of Brown v. Board of Education, Constance Baker Motley, died in New York City. She had led a remarkable career which began at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) where she was their first female attorney. The first black woman to argue before the Supreme Court, she was successful in nine of her ten cases. Motley went on to achieve three more firsts as an African American woman: being elected to the New York State Senate and shortly thereafter to the Manhattan Borough presidency. Finally, Pres. Lyndon Johnson appointed her to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in 1966 where she served until her passing. |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryseptember.htm#september28
I learned a new term-
“Egg crack.” More good info within, too.
I Love Leslie Jones
I watched this late in the evening yesterday (it was a hard day,) and it was just what I needed while I was watching. I hope everyone enjoys it, too.
Neo-Nazi Telegram Users Panic Amid Crackdown and Arrest of Alleged Leaders of Online Extremist Group
An analysis by ProPublica and FRONTLINE shows a surge in activity on Telegram channels aligned with the Terrorgram Collective, as allies tried to rally support for their comrades in custody and sought to oust users they believed to be federal agents.
It’s a worthy read. Also, if you prefer to listen, click through to listen.
Snippets:
The recent crackdown on the social media platform Telegram has triggered waves of panic among the neo-Nazis who have made the app their headquarters for posting hate and planning violence.
“Shut It Down,” one person posted in a white supremacist chat on Tuesday, hours after Telegram founder Pavel Durov announced he would begin sharing some users’ identifying information with law enforcement.
With over 900 million users around the globe, Telegram has been both revered and reviled for its hands-off approach to moderating posted content. The platform made headlines this summer when French authorities arrested Durov, seeking to hold him responsible for illegal activity that has been conducted or facilitated on the platform — including organized drug trafficking, child pornography and fraud.
Durov has called the charges “misguided.” But he acknowledged that criminals have abused the platform and promised in a Telegram post to “significantly improve things in this regard.” Durov’s announcement marked a considerable policy shift: He said Telegram will now share the IP addresses and phone numbers of users who violate the platform’s rules with authorities “in response to valid legal requests.”
This was the second time in weeks that extremists had called on their brethren to abandon Telegram. The first flurry of panic followed indictments by the Justice Department of two alleged leaders of the Terrorgram Collective, a group of white supremacists accused of inciting others on the platform to commit racist killings. (snip)
An analysis by ProPublica and FRONTLINE, however, shows that despite the wave of early panic, users didn’t initially leave the platform. Instead there was a surge in activity on Terrorgram-aligned channels and chats, as allies of the group tried to rally support for their comrades in custody, railed against the government’s actions and sought to oust users they believed to be federal agents.
Federal prosecutors in the U.S. have charged Dallas Humber and Matthew Allison, two alleged leaders of the Terrorgram Collective, with a slew of felonies including soliciting the murder of government officials on Telegram.
Humber has pleaded (sic) not guilty. She made a brief appearance in federal court in Sacramento, California, on Sept. 13, during which she was denied bail. Humber, shackled and clad in orange-and-white jail garb, said nothing. Allison, who has not yet entered a plea, was arrested in Idaho but will face trial in California.
Attorneys for Humber and Allison did not respond to separate requests for comment.
The two are alleged Accelerationists, a subset of white supremacists intent on accelerating the collapse of today’s liberal democracies and replacing them with all-white ethno-states, according to the indictment.
Through a constellation of linked Telegram channels, the collective distributes books, audio recordings, videos, posters and calendars celebrating white supremacist mass murderers, such as Brenton Tarrant, who in early 2019 stormed two mosques in New Zealand and shot to death 51 Muslim worshippers.
The group explicitly aims to inspire similar attacks, offering would-be terrorists tips and tools for carrying out spectacular acts of violence and sabotage. A now-defunct channel allegedly run by Humber, for example, featured instructions on how to make a vast array of potent explosives. After their arrests, channels allegedly run by Humber and Allison went silent.
But within days of the indictments, an anonymous Telegram user had set up a new channel “dedicated to updates about their situation.” (snip)
Matthew Kriner, managing director of the Accelerationism Research Consortium, said the Terrorgram Collective had already been badly weakened by a string of arrests in the U.S., Europe and Canada over the past two years. “Overall, the arrests of Humber and Allison are likely the final blow to the Terrorgram Collective,” Kriner said.
In the U.S., federal agents this year have arrested at least two individuals who were allegedly inspired by the group. The first was Alexander Lightner, a 26-year-old construction worker who was apprehended in January during a raid on his Florida home. In a series of Telegram posts, Lightner said he planned to commit a racially or ethnically motivated mass killing, according to prosecutors. Court records show that agents found a manual produced by the Terrorgram Collective and a copy of “Mein Kampf” in Lightner’s home.
Lightner has pleaded (sic) not guilty to charges of making online threats and possessing an illegal handgun silencer. His attorney declined to comment. (snip)
In extremist circles, there was more discussion about fleeing Telegram after Durov’s announcement this week. “Time is running out on this sinking ship,” wrote one user. “So we’re ditching Telegram?” asked another.
“Every time we have a success against one of them, they learn, they adapt, they modify,” said Don Robinson, who as an FBI agent conducted infiltration operations against white supremacists. “Extremists can simply pick up and move to a new platform once they are de-platformed for content abuses. This leaves law enforcement and intelligence agencies playing an endless game of Whac-a-Mole to identify where the next threat may be coming from.”
Peace & Justice History for 9/27:
| September 27, 1962 Rachel Carson’s book indicting the pesticide industry, Silent Spring, was published.  The scientist (17 years with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) and writer demonstrated the connection between the excessive and ubiquitous use of DDT and its long-term effect on plants and animals.  Rachel Carson at work c. 1936 The impact of her book proved seminal to a new ecological awareness. But even 30 years later, Carson was denounced for “preservationist hysteria” and “bad science.” But she had said when the book was published: “We do not ask that all chemicals be abandoned. We ask moderation. We ask the use of other methods less harmful to our environment.“ Rachel Carson, her Silent Spring and its impact |
| September 27, 1967 An advertisement headed “A Call To Resist Illegitimate Authority,” signed by over 320 influential people (professors, writers, ministers, and other professional people), appeared in the New Republic and the New York Review of Books, asking for funds to help youths resist the draft. |
| September 27, 1990 The last U.S. Pershing II tactical nuclear missiles were removed from Germany, fewer than ten years after their installation provoked a massive anti-nuclear movement across Europe.The range and accuracy of the Pershing II pushed the Soviet Union to negotiate the Treaty on Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) which completely eliminated all nuclear-armed ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers (about 300 to 3400 miles) and their infrastructure. The INF Treaty was the first nuclear arms control agreement to actually reduce nuclear arms, and the signatories destroyed almost 2700 nuclear weapons (including 234 Pershing II) by May of 1991. |
| September 27, 1991 President George H.W. Bush announced a major unilateral withdrawal of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons: “I am . . . directing that the United States eliminate its entire worldwide inventory of ground-launched short-range, that is, theater, nuclear weapons. We will bring home and destroy all of our nuclear artillery shells and short-range ballistic missile warheads. We will, of course, insure that we preserve an effective air-delivered nuclear capability in Europe. “In turn, I have asked the Soviets . . . to destroy their entire inventory of ground-launched theater nuclear weapons . . . . “Recognizing further the major changes in the international military landscape, the United States will withdraw all tactical nuclear weapons from its surface ships, attack submarines, as well as those nuclear weapons associated with our land-based naval aircraft. This means removing all nuclear Tomahawk cruise missiles from U.S. ships and submarines, as well as nuclear bombs aboard aircraft carriers.” |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryseptember.htm#september27
Well, this is a big deal-
Former Sen. Kassebaum-Baker made one brief statement about the changing Republican and political climate when she retired; that’s pretty much what she said: that it was changing. She retired, as did Bob Dole, with the first wave of Tea Partiers (though a couple of years apart.) Since then, she’s been even more discreet, mostly concentrating on land and habitat conservation. This endorsement is a Big Deal. (I’ll copy it in here so you don’t have to take your computer to the carwash to get the stupid off.)
EXCLUSIVE: Three more Republicans are crossing the aisle to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for the White House.
Former U.S. Sen. Nancy Kassebaum, R-Kan., former Kansas state senator and Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger and Deanell Reece Tacha, a retired federal judge, condemned the current state of the GOP in a statement shared with Fox News Digital Thursday.
“This election presents a stark choice that is not easy for any of us. The Republican Party of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Bob Dole, Frank Carlson, Jan Meyers, and generations of Kansas leaders does not exist within the current Republican Party,” the former officials wrote.
“But, it requires Republicans speaking out and putting country over party when those values are at stake.”
They added that the race between Harris and former President Trump presented a “stark choice,” but not an easy one.
“No candidate is perfect, and we do not pretend that we subscribe to all the policy positions taken either by the national parties or any individual candidates,” they wrote.
“However, we fervently believe that we must do our part to try to build a brighter future, which is why we will be voting for Kamala Harris and [Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz] in this election. We believe they most closely align with the aspirations of Kansans and reflect our rich history of working together ‘to the stars through difficulty.’”
All three have backed Democrats in recent elections, however.
Kassebaum, who now goes by Nancy Kassebaum Baker, served in the U.S. Senate from December 1978 through January 1997.
She was the first woman elected to represent Kansas in the chamber, and her career included a stint as chair of the Senate Labor Committee.
Tacha was nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit by former President Reagan in 1985 and served as chief judge from 2001 until 2008.
Praeger served as the Kansas Insurance commissioner from 2003 to 2015.
Harris’ campaign has made a point of courting Republicans in a bid to widen her appeal and cast Trump as an extreme and polarizing choice.
A majority of Republicans, particularly those still in elected office, do support Trump.
The vice president has scored support from several notable GOP figures, however. Former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Trump administration aides Stephanie Grisham and Olivia Troye have all publicly stated support for Harris.
Troye is one of several people who headlined a Republicans for Harris event Thursday alongside former representatives Barbara Comstock, R-Va., and Denver Riggleman, R-Va.
A new Marist College poll found Harris and Trump neck and neck in three critical states.
(Snip-skipping blah-blah race tied crap to the final graf, which is satisfying:)
The Trump campaign said of the Harris endorsement, “Nobody knows who these people are, and nobody cares.”
Peace & Justice History for 9/26:
September 26, 1909 International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union (ILGWU Local 25) began a strike against the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. In November their strike would become part of the “Uprising of the 20,000,” during which 339 of 352 firms would be struck and reach agreements with the union over the following five months but Triangle was not one of them. The strike ended after thirteen weeks that saw over 700 striking workers arrested. More info Chronology =========================== September 26, 1945 OSS (Office of Strategic Services, the precursor of the CIA) officer Lieutenant Colonel A. Peter Dewey became the first American to die in Vietnam. During unrest in Saigon, he was killed by Viet Minh guerrillas who mistook him for a French officer. Before his death, Dewey had filed a report on the deepening crisis in Vietnam, stating his opinion that the U.S. “ought to clear out of Southeast Asia.” ==================== September 26, 1957  The Buffalo Nuclear Test, Maralinga Despite international protests, the United Kingdom began a series of atmospheric nuclear bomb tests beginning with Operation Buffalo on aboriginal land at Maralinga, South Australia. The series of tests included dropping a bomb from a height of 30,000 feet. This was the first launching of a British atomic weapon from an aircraft. ================= September 26, 1983 Five members of Puget Sound Women’s Peace Camp entered Boeing’s cruise missile production plant in Seattle, Washington, to leaflet the workers and were arrested. In November of 1980 and 1981 the Women’s Pentagon Actions, where hundreds of women came together to challenge patriarchy and militarism, took place.A movement grew that found ways to use direct action to put pressure on the military establishment and to show positive examples of life-affirming ways to live together. This movement spawned women’s peace camps at military bases around the world from Greenham Common, England, to the Puget Sound Peace Camp, as well as camps in Japan and Italy, among others.  ======================= September 26, 1988 President Ronald Reagan urged the United Nations General Assembly to call a conference about the use of chemical weapons. Though the U.S. and other nations had signed the Geneva Protocol banning chemical (as well as bacteriological) arms, such weapons had been used repeatedly by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in its war against Iran. Background on the treaty and the issue |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryseptember.htm#september261909
Scottie's Playtime 