I love Ethel who is a grand young woman. I have watched her transition from an awkward teenager online who did not understand how to express what she felt inside and watched her blossom as she realized and started living openly as who she was. She is a wonderful resource for how to combat trans hate and misinformation. If she gives a stat or makes a claim you can take it to the bank that it is correct as she not only does meticulous research she also documents it all for others to see and read for themselves. Trans women are simply women, and trans men are simply men. I look forward to the day we can all drop the word trans, just we need to stop saying same sex marriage and simply say marriage. Hugs and loves.
Category: Death
Peace & Justice History for 1/31
| January 31, 1865 The U.S. House of Representatives passed (119-56) the 13th constitutional amendment which abolished slavery, and sent it to the states for ratification (three-quarters of the states would do so by the end of the year). The Kentucky legislature didn’t vote to ratify until 1976. Mississippi’s legislature finally ratified it in 1995 but failed to submit the paperwork to the federal government until 2013. Text of the amendment: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” More about the 13th Amendment |
January 31, 1876 Sitting Bull: One of several chiefs who refused to comply. The U.S. government ordered that all Native Americans had to move to reservations by this date or be declared hostile. Most Sioux did not even hear of the ultimatum until after the deadline. |
January 31, 1945 Eddie Slovik Private Eddie Slovik became the first American soldier since the Civil War to be executed for desertion, and the only one who suffered such a fate during World War II.Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered Slovik’s execution be carried out, he said, to avoid further desertions in the late stages of the war.  Eisenhower |
| January 31, 1950 U.S. President Harry S. Truman publicly announced his decision to support the development of the hydrogen (fusion) bomb, a weapon theorized to be hundreds of times more powerful than the atomic (fission) bombs dropped on Japan at the end of World War II.  |
| January 31, 1971 The Winter Soldier Hearings began in a Howard Johnson’s motel in Detroit. Sponsored by Vietnam Veterans Against the War, the three days of hearings were an attempt by soldiers who had served in Vietnam to inform the public of the realities of U.S. conduct in the war. The veterans testified that the My Lai massacre was not an isolated incident, and that some American troops had committed atrocities.   Among those who spoke about aspects of their service in Vietnam was John Kerry, a former Navy lieutenant and future senator and presidential candidate. More than 100 veterans testified to sometimes brutal acts. Oregon Senator Mark Hatfield later entered the transcript of the Winter Soldier hearings into the Congressional Record but, otherwise, the proceedings captured little attention.  The term “winter soldier” is a play on words of Thomas Paine in 1776. He spoke of the “sunshine patriot and summertime soldiers” who deserted at Valley Forge because the going was rough. Winter Soldier film watch the trailer (appox 4 minutes) watch the entire movie (1:35) VVAW/Winter Soldier Organization |
| January 31, 1993 300,000 Berliners rallied to protest attacks on immigrants, and against racism and renewed support for Nazism on the 60th anniversary of Adolf Hitler’s rise to power. During the previous year there had been 2,285 racially motivated attacks, including 77 against Jewish sites, and the death of two young Turkish girls in an arson attack. |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjanuary.htm#january31
Peace & Justice History for 1/30
Longest. January. Ever. But it’s also Fred Korematsu Day-Woot!
| January 30, 1948 Mohandas K. Gandhi was killed in Delhi by an assassin, a fellow Hindu, who fired three shots from a pistol at a range of three feet. An American reporter who saw it happen |
| January 30, 1956 As Martin Luther King, Jr. stood at the pulpit, leading a mass meeting during the Montgomery, Alab ama, bus boycott, his home was bombed. King’s wife and 10-week-old baby escaped unharmed. Later in the evening, as thousands of angry African Americans assembled on King’s lawn, he appeared on his front porch, and told them: “If you have weapons, take them home . . . We cannot solve this problem through retaliatory violence . . . We must love our white brothers, no matter what they do to us.”  Martin Luther King, Jr. and wife Coretta Scott, 1960 |
| January 30, 1968 The Tet (lunar new year) Offensive began as North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces launched surprise attacks against major cities, provincial and district capitals in South Vietnam. Though an attack had been anticipated, half of the South’s ARVN troops (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) were on leave because of the holiday. There were attacks in Saigon (the South’s capital) on the Independence Palace (the residence of the president), the radio station, the ARVN’s joint General Staff Compound, Tan Son Nhut airfield, and the United States embassy, causing considerable damage and throwing the city into turmoil. |
| January 30, 1972 In Londonderry (aka Derry), Northern Ireland, unarmed civil rights demonstrators were shot dead by British Army paratroopers in an event that became known as “Bloody Sunday.” The protesters, all Catholics, had been marching in protest of the British policy of internment without trial of suspected Irish nationalists. British authorities had ordered the march banned, and sent troops to confront the demonstrators when it went ahead. The soldiers fired indiscriminately into the crowd of protesters, ultimately killing 14 and wounding 17. By the end of the year 323 civilians and 144 military and paramilitary personnel would be dead.   Mural: Bloody Sunday martyrs Eyewitness accounts |
January 30, 2010 Thousands of protesters from across Japan marched in central Tokyo to protest the U.S. military presence on Okinawa. Some 47,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Japan, with more than half on the southern island of Okinawa. Residents have complained for years about noise, pollution and crime around the bases. News about the protest (This link is to the 2016 protest; P&J’s link for the 2010 protest links to Not Found.) |
January 30, since 2011 Fred Korematsu Day Fred Korematsu Fred Korematsu, was born in Oakland, California, to a Japanese-American family. When World War II broke out Japanese-American citizens were subject to curfews and, following an executive order from Pres. Roosevelt, were sent to internment camps. Fred Korematsu refused to go and was convicted and sent to a camp. He challenged the constitutionality of Executive Order 9066 all the way to the Supreme Court. In 1944 the Supreme court ruled against him. Finally in 1983, a Federal court in San Francisco overturned the original conviction. In 1988 Congress passed legislation apologizing for the internments and awarded each survivor $20,000. The “Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution” is observed every January 30th and in an increasing number of states. “Protest, but not with violence. Don’t be afraid to speak up. One person can make a difference, even if it takes 40 years…” – Fred Korematsu More about Fred Korematsu |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjanuary.htm#january30
Some The Majority Report from this last week. You should check out their YouTube channel and if you want to see the fun half free I can explain how. Hugs
Music in the A.M.
Have You Heard of Kris Kross? These 90s Teen Hip-Hop Stars Endured Fame and Tragedy
The teen hip-hop duo known for wearing their clothing backwards had everyone jumping in the early 1990s.
If you were around in the 1990s, you’ve probably heard of Kris Kross, the pint-sized rap group that had everyone wearing their clothes backwards and moving to their mega hit “Jump.”
With the help of producer Jermaine Dupri, friends Chris “Mac Daddy” Kelly and Chris “Daddy Mac” Smith started a cultural phenomenon. But it wasn’t long before issues with their image and battles with drug addiction brought their success to a screeching halt. We wanted to take a look back at the careers of these talented teens and the impact they made during their time in the spotlight.
This is the story of Kris Kross. (snip-click through; there’s a slide show with captions. Ah, youth! And we were all younger, too.)
‘Ghoulish’: Trump Expands Federal Death Penalty
https://www.commondreams.org/news/donald-trump-death-penalty
Declaring that “the death penalty is unjust and cruel,” the ACLU warned that Trump’s order not only directs an expansion of its use at the federal level but also encourages states to do the same.
Specifically, the order says that “in addition to pursuing the death penalty where possible,” the attorney general shall seek it “regardless of other factors” for federal cases involving the murder of a law enforcement officer or a capital crime committed by an undocumented immigrant—and shall “encourage state attorneys general and district attorneys to bring state capital charges for all capital crimes with special attention to” those circumstances, “regardless of whether the federal trial results in a capital sentence.”
The order further directs the head of the U.S. Department of Justice to “seek the overruling of Supreme Court precedents that limit the authority of state and federal governments to impose” the death penalty and “ensure that each state that allows capital punishment has a sufficient supply of drugs needed to carry out lethal injection.”
Last week, outgoing U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland “withdrew the Justice Department’s protocol for federal executions that allowed for single-drug lethal injections with pentobarbital, after a government review raised concerns about the potential for ‘unnecessary pain and suffering,'” The Associated Pressreported. “The protocol could be imposed by Trump’s new acting Attorney General James McHenry III, or his pick to lead the Justice Department, Pam Bondi, once she’s confirmed by the Senate.”
Though Trump’s order doesn’t name Garland, it explicitly takes aim at former President Joe Biden for his moratorium as well as his attempt to prevent another GOP killing spree like the one that occurred at the end of the Republican’s first term, accusing the Democrat of commuting the sentences of “37 of the 40 most vile and sadistic rapists, child molesters, and murderers on federal death row: remorseless criminals who brutalized young children, strangled and drowned their victims, and hunted strangers for sport.”
Biden said last month that “in good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.” He left Charleston church gunman Dylann Roof, Pittsburgh synagogue shooter Robert Bowers, and Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on death row. The others now face life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Trump cannot reverse Biden’s commutations, but he directed the attorney general to “evaluate the places of imprisonment and conditions of confinement for each” of those 37 men and “take all lawful and appropriate action to ensure that these offenders are imprisoned in conditions consistent with the monstrosity of their crimes and the threats they pose.”
The president also said that the attorney general “shall further evaluate whether these offenders can be charged with state capital crimes and shall recommend appropriate action to state and local authorities.”
Death Penalty Action executive director Abraham Bonowitz said in a Monday statement:
President Trump’s executive order demanding capital charges for the murder of law enforcement officers or capital crimes by illegal aliens is unnecessary bluster, because the death penalty already exists for such crimes. But Trump can’t help himself. Donald Trump’s Agenda2025 articulated his plan to drastically increase executions, and we all know this is one promise he can’t wait to keep.
We are also dismayed at President Biden’s cynical compromise that commuted 37 federal death sentences while leaving seven prisoners on federal and military death rows. While expressing both his personal opposition to the death penalty and his desire to maintain the moratorium on executions he imposed in 2021, Biden has nevertheless primed the pump for Donald Trump to resume his execution spree.Social media users also slammed Trump’s order, with one saying that “this is extremely disturbing” and another calling it “one of the most ghoulish things I’ve ever fucking read.” Many critics highlighted that the president issued the measure while pardoning over 1,500 insurrectionists who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, which led to the deaths of multiple police officers.
James Goodwin, policy director at the Center for Progressive Reform, noted that it “is straight out of Project 2025,” the sweeping Heritage Foundation-led playbook from which Trump unsuccessfully tried to distance himself during the campaign.
Trump has a long history of supporting capital punishment. As journalist Prem Thakker put it, “On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the man who bought [a] full-page [newspaper] ad calling for the execution of the Central Park Five—five Black and Latino teens wrongfully convicted of rape—makes one of his first acts as president to restore and prioritize the death penalty.”
Jon Stewart DISMANTLES Right Wing Grifter On His Show | Hasanabi reacts
Peace & Justice History for 1/18
An example of actual “cancel culture” within, plus more.
| January 18, 1919 The peace conference to negotiate the end of the Great War (now know as World War I) opened in Paris, France. President Woodrow Wilson spent several months in Europe personally negotiating details of what became the Treaty of Versailles with heads of the allied powers or their foreign ministers. |
| January 18, 1962 The U.S. began spraying herbicides on foliage in Vietnam to eliminate jungle canopy cover for Viet Cong guerrillas (a policy known as “territory denial”).The U.S. ultimately dropped more than 20 million gallons of such defoliants, sparking charges the United States was violating international treaties against using chemical weapons. Many of the herbicides, particularly Agent Orange, manufactured by Dow Chemical, Monsanto and others, were later found to cause birth defects and rare forms of cancer in humans.  Agent Orange: An Ongoing Atrocity |
| January 18, 1968 Invited to a Women Doers luncheon at the Johnson White House, Eartha Kitt, singer and actor, spoke out about the effect of the Vietnam War on America’s youth. Lady Bird Johnson had convened 50 whites and Negroes to discuss President Lyndon Johnson’s anti-crime proposals. Ms. Kitt first asked the President, “what do you do about delinquent parents, those who have to work and are too busy to look after their children?” He said that there was Social Security money for day care, and the group should discuss such issues. Later, she told the women that young Americans were “angry because their parents are angry . . . because there is a war going on that they don’t understand . . . You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed. They rebel in the street. They will take pot . . . and they will get high. They don’t want to go to school because they’re going to be snatched off from their mothers to be shot in Vietnam.”  Eartha Kitt and Lady Bird Johnson Eartha Kitt’s career took a severe downturn after this; for years afterward, Kitt performed almost exclusively overseas, while being investigated by several federal agencies. “The thing that hurts, that became anger, was when I realized that if you tell the truth – in a country that says you’re entitled to tell the truth – you get your face slapped and you get put out of work,” Kitt told Essence magazine two decades later. |
| January 18, 1971 In a televised speech, Senator George S. McGovern (D-South Dakota) began his anti-war campaign for the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination. He vowed to bring home all U.S. soldiers from Vietnam if elected. McGovern had served in the Army Air Corps during World War II, earning the Silver Star and the Distinguished Flying Cross.  George McGovern “. . . we must have the courage to admit that however sincere our motives, we made a dreadful mistake in trying to settle the affairs of the Vietnamese people with American troops and bombers . . . . “ But while our problems are great, certain steps can be taken to recover the confidence of the nation. The greatness of our nation is not confined to the past, but beckons us to the future. |
| January 18, 1985 Though a member of the World Court since 1946, the United States walked out during a case. The Court had charged the U.S. was in violation of international law through its support of paramilitary (Contra) activities against the Nicaraguan government. Efforts to undermine the Sandinista government in Nicaragua had been a keystone of Pres. Reagan’s anti-communist foreign policy from its inception. Congressman Michael Barnes (D-Maryland) said he was “shocked and saddened that the Reagan Administration had so little confidence in its own policies that it chose not even to defend them [in the World Court].” The Court still heard Nicaragua’s case and decided against the United States, and ordered it to pay reparations to Nicaragua in June 1986. |
| January 18, 1996 The Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) and the Mexican government reached an agreement in San Andres to recognize and guarantee the constitutional, political, social, cultural, and economic rights of indigenous peoples in Mexico. Treated as second-class citizens since the first colonial entry into their country, the document guaranteed the autonomy and right to self-determination of native communities within the pluricultural Mexican nation. The Zapatistas took their name from Emilano Zapata who played a major role in the Mexican Revolution early in the 20th century.When they began their revolt in Chiapas state on New Year’s Day of 1994, They wrote: “We have nothing to lose, absolutely nothing, no decent roof over our heads, no land, no work, poor health, no food, no education, no right to freely and democratically choose our leaders, no independence from foreign interests, and no justice for ourselves or our children. But we say enough is enough! We are the descendants of those who truly built this nation, we are millions of dispossessed, and we call upon all our brethren to join our crusade, the only option to avoid dying of starvation!” The Mexican government, despite their signature on the agreement, refused later to implement it.  More background on the Zapatistas |
January 18, 2003 In frigid temperatures, 500,000 converged on Washington, D.C. There were also joined by many more elsewhere around the world to oppose the threatened U.S. war on Iraq.  Anti-war protesters march past the U.S. Capitol during the start of an anti-war protest that will culminate by a march to the Washington Naval Yard.Egyptian riot police and anti-war demonstrators face off in Cairo, Egypt. Banners at top read, ” Iraq . . . Another war for oil and American supremacy. “This was the largest U.S. peace demonstration since the Vietnam era.   < Pakistani peace activists hold a rally in Karachi. > Crowds estimated at 80,000 fill the civic center of San Francisco, California |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjanuary.htm#january18
Peace & Justice History for 1/15
January 15, 1929 Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia. The son of a Baptist pastor, he followed in his father’s footsteps, then went on to lead the American civil rights movement in the 1950s and ’60s, and to speak out against the Vietnam war. In 1955 Dr. King organized the first major protest of the civil rights movement: the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott. Influenced by Mohandas Gandhi, he advocated nonviolent civil disobedience to end racial segregation. The peaceful protests he led throughout the American South were often met with violence and arrest, but King and his followers persisted. His inspiration, leadership and eloquence helped tens of millions claim the fundamental rights of citizenship, and changed the face of a nation. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. biographical sketch Since 1986, the third Monday in January has been designated a federal holiday honoring the greatness and sacrifice of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. A chronology: April 4, 1968 Dr. King was assassinated. Shortly thereafter, U.S. Representative John Conyers (D-Michigan) introduced legislation to create a federal holiday to commemorate Dr. King’s life and work. January, 1973 Illinois became the first state to adopt MLK Day as a state holiday. January, 1983 Rep. Conyers’s law was passed after 15 years January, 1986 The United States first officially observed the federal King Day holiday. January, 1987 Arizona Governor Evan Mecham rescinded state recognition of MLK Day as his first act in office, setting off a national boycott of the state. January, 1993 Martin Luther King Day holiday was observed in all 50 states for the first time. Brief biography of Dr. King The greatest MLK speeches you may have never heard |
| January 15, 1968 The Jeanette Rankin Brigade marched on Washington to protest the war in Vietnam.It was led by 87-year-old Rankin herself, the first U.S. Congresswoman (R-Montana), and the only member of Congress to vote against U.S. entry to both world wars. After the march’s arrival in Washington, D.C. the New York Radical Women staged a “Burial of Traditional Womanhood.”  Jeanette Rankin More on Jeanette Rankin Documents from the New York Radical Women including Funeral Oration for the Burial of Traditional Womanhood by Kathy Amatniek (who coined “Sisterhood is Powerful”) (a .pdf) |
January 15, 1969 Janet McCloud Janet McCloud, her husband Don and four others from the Tulalip Indian tribe were tried for one of their “fish-ins” on the Nisqually River in Washington state. The Nisqually empties into Puget sound on the Tulalip reservation. Despite century-old treaties granting them half the salmon catch in their ancestral waters, state game officials harassed and arrested Indian fishermen. However, all were found not guilty. In a decision not reached for five years, U.S. District Judge George Boldt ruled in favor of 14 treaty tribes, including the Tulalip, upholding the language of their treaties. |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjanuary.htm#january15
Peace & Justice History for 1/14
| January 14, 1601 Roman Catholic church authorities burned sacred Hebrew books in Rome during the papacy of Clement VIII. He had forbidden Jews from reading the Talmud (a collection of centuries of interpretation of Jewish law). He had confirmed Pope Paul III’s relegation of Jews to a Roman ghetto (a walled-in portion of the city), and their banning from residence in papal-controlled states by Pope Pius V. Other papal enemies of Jewish books included Innocent IV (1243-1254), Clement IV (1256-1268), John XXII (1316-1334), Paul IV (1555-1559), and Pius V (1566-1572). |
| January 14, 1784 The Confederation Congress, meeting in Annapolis, Maryland, ratified the Treaty of Paris with England, ending the Revolutionary War .  Signing the Treaty of Paris By its terms, “His Britannic Majesty” was bound to withdraw his armies without “carrying away any Negroes or other property of American inhabitants.” The treaty was negotiated by John Adams, John Jay and Benjamin Franklin for the colonies, and David Hartley representing the King of England, George III. |
| January 14, 1918 The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the selective service law, affirming all criminal charges arising from non-compliance with the draft during World War I. In Arver v. United States, the Court found that a draft does not violate the 13th Amendment’s prohibition of involuntary servitude. |
| January 14, 1941 A. Philip Randolph, president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters union, and widely considered de facto chief spokesperson for the African-American working class, called for a march on Washington, demanding racial integration of the military and equal access to defense-industry jobs.   Detail from painting by Betsy G. Reyneau, Asa Philip Randolph “On to Washington, ten thousand black Americans!” Randolph urged. He said in the fight to “stop discrimination in National Defense . . . While conferences have merit, they won’t get desired results by themselves.” |
| January 14, 1942 President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Presidential Proclamation No. 2537, which required aliens from World War II enemy countries – Italy, Germany and Japan – to register with the United States Department of Justice. Registered persons received a “Certificate of Identification for Aliens of Enemy Nationality.” This proclamation facilitated the beginning of large-scale internment of Japanese Americans the following month.  |
| January 14, 1963 George Wallace was sworn in as Governor of Alabama. In his inaugural address he called for “segregation now; segregation tomorrow; segregation forever!” “The true brotherhood of America, of respecting the separateness of others — and uniting in effort — has been so twisted and distorted from its original concept that there is a small wonder that communism is winning the world. We invite the negro citizens of Alabama to work with us from his separate racial station — as we will work with him — to develop, to grow in individual freedom and enrichment. We want jobs and a good future for BOTH races — the tubercular and the infirm. This is the basic heritage of my religion, of which I make full practice — for we are all the handiwork of God.” The entire speech: |
January 14, 1966 A march in Atlanta was held to protest the ouster of Julian Bond, an African American, from the Georgia House of Representatives. Members of the General Assembly considered him unfit to serve after he endorsed a statement critical of U.S. involvement in Vietnam issued by the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). |
| January 14, 1994 An agreement was signed for Russia and the U.S. to assist newly independent Ukraine in ridding itself of nuclear weapons.Following the break-up of the Soviet Union, Ukraine’s leader Leonid Kravchuk found his country with the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal, including multiple-warhead long-range missiles and bombers, and 3000 tactical (battlefield or short-range) nuclear weapons.  former Ukranian missile silo  Leonid Kravchuk Kravchuk and his government had decided to eliminate all nuclear weapons from Ukrainian territory. Ukraine was the first country to go non-nuclear. |
| January 14, 1996 Sixteen protesters were arrested in a winter blockade of the rural Wisconsin site (in the Chequamegon National Forest) of the U.S. Navy’s ELF (Extremely Low Frequency) transmitter, which communicated (one-way) with deeply submerged U.S. submarines. Nearly 400 were arrested in 24 actions opposing ELF between 1991 and 1996. |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjanuary.htm#january14
Scottie's Playtime 