nazi Germany Invades Poland, Fast For Life On The U.S. Capitol Steps, International Day Of War Tax Resistance, & More, in Peace & Justice History for 9/1

September 1, 1939
Nazi Germany invaded Poland, overwhelming the Polish Army with 58 German divisions and air cover from the German air force, the Luftwaffe. This action started the second world war, prompting England and France to declare war on Germany two days later.
September 1, 1945

The Emperor of Japan surrendered unconditionally to the U.S. and its allies in a ceremony on the deck of the battleship U.S.S. Missouri, ending the second world war.
September 1, 1986
Angelo (Charlie) Liteky & George Mizo, both Vietnam veterans, began an open-ended Fast For Life on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. They were calling attention to their opposition to U.S. support of the Nicaraguan contras and repressive regimes in El Salvador and Guatemala.

Charles Liteky
“our expression of a deeply felt desire to do everything and anything we can . . . to stop the war with Nicaragua.”

George Mizo
Liteky was a Catholic chaplain in the Vietnam War and had received the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Charles Liteky and his subsequent peace efforts 
September 1, 1987
During a nonviolent protest at the Concord (California) Naval Weapons Station, a Navy munitions train ran over Brian Willson.
An Air Force and Vietnam veteran, Willson and the other protesters were attempting to stop shipment of weapons to Nicaragua and El Salvador.


Brian Willson bird-watching California, 1997.
They considered U.S. policy in Central America a violation of the Nuremberg Principles. (Here is a link to those principles.)
Willson lost both legs and suffered other injuries but has remained an active and articulate leader in the anti-military movement.


Ron Kovic (author ‘Born on the Fourth of July’) and Brian Willson (also born on the Fourth of July)
Willson’s testimony before the U.S. House Armed Services Subcommittee on Investigations
September 1, 1989
White House staffers decided to purchase some crack cocaine so President George H.W. Bush could hold the illegal drug in his hands during a national address. On the first attempt, the drug dealer didn’t show up. On the second try, an undercover drug agent’s body microphone didn’t work. Trying for the third time, Bush’s team managed to purchase the crack, but the camera operator videotaping the deal missed the action as a homeless person assaulted him.
September 1, 1997
Kurdish and British activists blockaded an arms trade exhibition outside London. 89 members of Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT)were arrested for protesting the presence of Turkish, Chinese and Indonesian government representatives in Britain to purchase weapons. The Labour government had pledged “[We will] not permit the sale of arms to regimes that could use them for internal repression or external aggression . . . .” Great Britain is the world’s second largest arms manufacturer (by dollar volume) after the U.S..
Campaign Against the Arms Trade home 
September 1 – International Day of War Tax Resistance.

“Refusing to pay taxes for war is probably as old as the first taxes levied for warfare…”
War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryseptember.htm#september1

Catching Up With Clay Jones & Open Windows

We were out for a while yesterday, so I didn’t get as much done here. I have a trove, and here it is:

Dear Leader’s cabinet meeting by Ann Telnaes

A three hour marathon of flattery and groveling Read on Substack

I didn’t think the outright ass-kissing could get any worse than his first term’s cabinet meetings

====================

Your Favorite Dictator by Clay Jones

Trump engages in dictator talk…again Read on Substack

Why would Donald Trump talk about becoming an American dictator…again?

NBC News reporter: Before signing a series of executive orders aimed at reducing crime in D.C. and across the nation, Trump referred to his critics bashing him for sending the National Guard to D.C., claiming that some people think they might “like a dictator.”

Referring to militarizing our cities, Trump said, “They say, ‘We don’t need him, freedom freedom. He’s a dictator. He’s a dictator.’ A lot of people are saying, ‘Maybe we like a dictator’…You send in troops, and instead of being praised they’re saying you’re trying to take over the republic. These people are sick.”

Before the election, Trump talked about “deleting” parts of the Constitution he doesn’t like. Then, he talked about becoming a dictator for one day. Now, he says some people in this country want a dictator, but to whom is he referring to that would be that dictator? I think we all know the answer. The dictator talk is so disturbing that everyone missed that part where he whines that he’s not being praised. (snip-MORE; go read it!)

Mass Mass Shooting by Clay Jones

And another school shooting Read on Substack

(The money graf: “Even the shooter offered “thoughts and prayers” to the intended victims. So, quite frankly, every single Republican’s answer to this isn’t any better than the shooter’s solution.”)

Another mass shooting and another opportunity for Republicans to give us empty thoughts and prayers instead of real solutions. You can’t find a solution when you can’t even identify the problem.

Today’s mass shooting just so happened to take place during a Mass.

An 8-year-old and a 10-year-old were killed while sitting in pews during a Mass at the Annunciation Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. At least 17 people have been injured. The students were from the adjacent Annunciation Catholic School.

Robin Westman, a 23-year-old, has been identified as the shooter and shot through the windows from outside the church. Westman identified as a woman and had changed her name from Robert to Robin. The right-wing fucknuts are going to love this, but they’ll ignore the parts about the mental issues and racism.

The shooter left a manifesto that called for the destruction of Israel and included racist slurs. Westman flashed a white supremacy sign in a video that showed the shooter’s massive gun collection. The shooter admired those responsible for the massacres at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, and the mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, among others. (snip-MORE, and it’s good info)

Assault Sandwich Ban by Clay Jones

Anything to avoid the truth. Read on Substack

There’s a saying in the legal system that a good prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. It’s a criticism of the prosecutorial system because a prosecutor has near-total control of the evidence presented to a grand jury, the defense is not present, and the jury only has to be convinced a crime was committed without a real burden of proof, and on the flimsiest charges.

On Tuesday, a grand jury in Washington, DC, refused to indict Sean Charles Dunn, who is accused of throwing a Subway sandwich at a Border Patrol agent. This is a huge loss for US Attorney Jeanine Pirro, who was hired only because Donald Trump liked the way she looked on Fox News. She’s very hateful and always outraged. This is also a failure for Attorney General Pam Bondi, who declared the sandwich attack was part of the “deep state.

I don’t think we have to worry about a “deep state” if the worst they can do is throw sandwiches at cops.

Anyone charged with a federal felony must be indicted by a grand jury. The problem for Trump’s regime is that the voters in Washington, DC, are some of the most intelligent, most educated, and most aware of the issues. These are not West Virginia voters. You would think that if you wanted to indict someone with a felony, you wouldn’t call a grand jury while the city is occupied by the military.

You would think that with the government’s reaction to the sandwich attack, the accused had used one of the weapons used to murder children at a Catholic Church in Minneapolis this week. The Trump regime and Republicans have more outrage over an assault by a sandwich than outrage over a school shooting. (snip-MORE if you can handle it)

Israeli Politician Calls Gaza A “Holocaust”

Israeli politician Ofair Kasif has publicly condemned the situation in Gaza as an “absolute apocalypse, a holocaust.” Kasif’s brave statement, the starvation of Palestinians, and the ongoing destruction in Gaza is why this lone voice from within the Israeli establishment is so vital, and how his blunt assessment of “no war, only a holocaust” challenges conventional narratives.

A school shooting.

Dispatch From Gaza’s Nasser Hospital | Dr. Tarek Loubani | TMR

How American Aid Sites in Gaza are Killing Palestinians

For me this was the hardest to watch.  I have had to go without food while others ate.  I was hospitalized and suffered clinical death due to malnutrition.  At the table if I was allowed the meals could turn quickly for me from possible danger to happening harm.  I spent a lot of time diving under the table to doge something thrown at me or in dodging the blows aimed at me.  Being kicked under the table was common and if I yelped or complained I was the one punished.    I learned to eat without looking at my food always looking around out the sides of my eyes because to look scared brought more violence. I was told I ruined their meals.   I often could only choke a few bites out of fear and anxiety.   I basically ate one meal a day which was at school and mostly was two hot dogs and a serving of french fries, and when school was out I would take a sandwich and stay away from the house.  The only place I could eat freely and in peace was my grandparent’s home I went to on the weekends.   What these people are going through is a war crime and a crime against humanity that the government of Israel and the military people must answer for.  Never again applies to more than Jewish people.   Hugs

 

‘Gates of Hell’: Chris Smalls Describes Israeli Military’s Brutal, Racist Treatment

Israel’s Latest War Crime Caught On Camera

Women’s Equality Day, Samantha Smith, & So Very Much More, in Peace & Justice History for 8/26

August 26, 1789
The French National Assembly agreed to document known as the “Declaration of the Rights of Man.” It was a set of principles for gauging the legitimacy of any governing system, and included (in summary):
• “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights”
“ Those rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression”
“ Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else”
• “The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man”

Declaration des Droits de L’Homme et du Citoyen (Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen)
• Law can only prohibit such actions as are hurtful to society and law is the expression of the general will. “ Every citizen has a right to participate personally, or through his representative, in its foundation.”
• No person shall be accused, arrested, or imprisoned except when in violation of a public law, all persons are held “innocent until they shall have been declared guilty,” and receive punishments “only as are strictly and obviously necessary”
• The security of the rights of man and of the citizen requires public military forces, and a “common contribution” is essential for the maintenance of the public forces and for the cost of administration, and that public servants are obliged to account for use of those funds
• Property is an “inviolable and sacred right,” and no one shall be deprived thereof

The complete text: 
August 26, 1839
The Amistad (“Friendship”), a Spanish slave ship seized by the 54 Africans who had been carried as cargo on board, landed on Long Island, New York.
The leader of the mutiny was Joseph Cinque, a Mende, from the part of Africa that is now Sierra Leone.

Cinque-one of the revolt leaders

The Amistad 
More on the story of the Amistad
August 26, 1920

The 19th Amendment, guaranteeing women the right to vote, officially became part of the U.S. Constitution: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”
This day has been known since 1971 as Women’s Equality Day.

More on Women’s Equality Day
The document itself, from the National Archives (And it is still there.)
August 26-29, 1968
Police and anti-war demonstrators clashed in the streets of Chicago as the Democratic National Convention nominated Vice President Hubert Humphrey for president inside the Amphitheater.
Club-swinging Chicago police indiscriminately tear-gassed, kicked and beat anti-war demonstrators, delegates, reporters and innocent bystanders outside, arresting 500. 11,900 Chicago police, 7500 Army troops, 7500 Illinois National Guardsmen and 1000 Secret Service agents were ultimately involved.
Protesting what was later officially designated a police riot, members of the Democrats’ Wisconsin delegation attempted to march to the convention hall, but police turned them back.
When Senator Abraham Ribicoff (D-Connecticut) delivered his nominating speech, he infuriated Mayor Richard Daley by saying, 
“with George McGovern as President of the United States, we wouldn’t have Gestapo tactics in the streets of Chicago.”

Julian Bond, the first black member of the previously all-white Georgia state legislature, seconded the nomination of anti-war presidential candidate Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy. Bond added that he had seen such police behavior before, but only in segregationist Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia.
a narrative account
Arthur Miller on the Convention
August 26, 1970
Betty Friedan leads a nationwide protest called the Women’s Strike for Equality in New York City on the fiftieth anniversary of women’s suffrage.
August 26, 1971
Six thousand turned out for a National Organization for Women-organized Women March for Equality in New York City. They were calling for equal rights, including the demand “51 percent of everything,” reflecting women’s proportion of the U.S. population.
This first “Women’s Equality Day,” instituted by Bella Abzug, was established by Presidential Proclamation and reaffirmed annually.
August 26, 1985
Samantha Smith, a 10-year-old from Manchester, Maine, was invited to visit the Soviet Union by its Premier, Yuri Andropov.

Statue of Samantha Smith at the Maine State Library, Augusta, Maine
She had written him a letter asking if the Soviet Union intended to attack the United States. She visited him in the U.S.S.R. and became a young ambassador for peace. She died in an airplane crash at age 13 on this day returning home with her father from a peace mission.

Grade school student, peace activist 1972-1985 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryaugust.htm#august26

The Fangataufa Test, & UFW Leaders Cesar Chaves, Dolores Huerta in Peace & Justice History for 8/24

August 24, 1968 
France became the world’s fifth thermonuclear power when it exploded a hydrogen bomb at the Fangataufa Atoll in the South Pacific. It had a yield of 2.6 megatons (the equivalent of more than two-and-a-half million tons of TNT) and heavily contaminated the atoll, leaving it off-limits to humans for six years.

Fangataufa test
Atmospheric and underwater nuclear weapons testing continued there for nearly thirty more years.
August 24, 1970
United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC) leaders Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta called for a consumer boycott of lettuce to support the strike against lettuce growers who would not negotiate contracts with the farm workers for decent wages and working conditions.

United Farm Workers show their support for the lettuce strike and boycott at a rally in Salinas, California.
U.F.W. history

Farm Labor leader Cesar Chavez, pictured at a rally in Salinas, California
The United Farm Workers today
 Farmworker Movement Documentation Project

Susan Due Pearcy
 
Boycott Posters and buttons

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryaugust.htm#august24