Peace & Justice History for 2/22

February 22, 1943
Sophie Scholl, a 22-year-old White Rose (Weisse Rose) activist at Munich University, was executed after being convicted of urging students to rise up and overthrow the Nazi government.

There are many memorials in Bavaria and Germany to Sophie and her group, the White Rose, but little is known outside of Germany. They were medical students who organized nonviolent resistance to Hitler, and were arrested for printing and distributing anti-Nazi flyers.
Sophie, her brother Hans, a former member of Hitler Youth who started White Rose, and Christof Probst, the three young people in the photo, were executed. Few White Rose members survived the war which is why the story is not well known.

Film made about Sophie Scholl’s courage &
watch the trailer 
Traute Lafrenz, Last Survivor Of Anti-Nazi Resistance Group, Dead At 103 
February 22, 1967
Indonesian President Sukarno (born Kusno Sosrodihardjo) surrendered all executive authority to military chief-of-staff General Suharto, remaining president in title only. Sukarno had begun the movement for Indonesian independence from Dutch colonial control in 1927. They were supplanted by the Japanese during World War II, but independence was realized following Japan’s defeat. Sukarno was elected president but had declared himself president for life in 1963.
Following a failed communist-led coup within the military, Suharto launched a purge of Indonesian communists that resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths. In 1967 he assumed full power, and in 1968 was elected president and remained in power for 32 years. He was also responsible for Indonesia’s 1975 invasion of East Timor, which left an estimated 100,000 Timorese dead from famine, disease and warfare.
See The Year of Living Dangerously for an excellent dramatic re-creation of the time.(trailer)
More on Suharto 
And more on Sukarno
February 22, 1974
Farmer Sam Lovejoy toppled the weather tower for a proposed nuclear power plant in Montague, Massachusetts. This was the first act of civil disobedience against the dangers of nuclear power in the U.S. Lovejoy turned himself in to the police, was tried but not convicted.

Sam Lovejoy
The full story of Sam Lovejoy’s action 
Ballad of Sam Lovejoy by Rob Skelton 
February 22, 1997
Nearly 35,000 marched in Paris against a new anti-immigration bill. Many of the demonstrators chanted “First, second or third generation, we are all children of immigrants.” Another 5,000 movie directors, writers, painters, actors, translators, journalists and teachers signed petitions pledging civil disobedience.

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryfebruary.htm#february22

I know it is too late to change the vote, but we can make their vote hang on them and drag them down. They depend on us forgetting what they did.

They Don’t Care …

Thank you Ten Bears for posting this video.  I wish more people could have seen it and stuff like it … before the vote.   Hugs

I am in southern Florida and I am so tired of these deep temperature drops. If I wanted to live in cold I would have kept my home in New England. Thank you Ten Bears for the post

Weather Report …

The Art of The Deal

Trump, The Great Negotiator, sells out Ukraine – and the UK’s favourite grifter is behind him every step of the way.

How to Know You Are In A Cult (1953)

Just a note with the video.  I won’t be around much this morning.  Neither of us slept much we were both up needing food for crashing blood sugar in early morning hours.  I never slept until after three, Ron said he was more towards four.  But we got up at 6 am, got coffee, cleaned all the counters, put away the clean dishes Ron washed before he came to bed, and then we washed Odie’s feet from the cat litter he gets packed in them and his butt / belly because he is too lazy to lift himself up when he pees so he ends up laying / walking in the wet pee litter.  Then I showered, Ron is showering so we can go shopping today.  It is bitter cold, feels like 40 degrees.   Great for you northern types, the frozen Arctic for us in southern Florida.  Ron and I are both in not so great health and we find it is better if we do the shopping as a team, watching out for each other.   See you all after if I can still function.  Hugs

In this newly found film from the 1950s we learn how one can determine whether or not they are in a cult. Does any of this sound like you?

Some Info To Use When Lobbying Our Congresscritters (and people in the grocery line, too!) Regarding Social Security

Setting the Record Straight on Social Security

by Kathleen Romig Director of Social Security and Disability Policy February 20, 2025

Social Security has broad support across party lines, income levels, and generations. After 90 years, Social Security remains one of the nation’s most successful, effective, and popular programs.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) has strict controls over who receives a Social Security number (SSN) and what documentation is required to prove identity, U.S. citizenship, and immigration status. The agency assigns a unique Social Security number to each eligible individual, and it pays a single Social Security benefit to each qualifying individual with a Social Security number. Only U.S. citizens and some lawfully present non-citizens may receive Social Security benefits. Social Security’s payment accuracy rate is very high — well over 99 percent — and it has many safeguards against improper payments, including rigorous protocols to stop paying benefits to people who have died.

Misinformation and false statements from President Trump and “Department of Government Efficiency” head Elon Musk claiming otherwise are causing confusion and risk undermining a trusted program that is rigorously administered, and which 69 million people currently rely on and nearly everyone will eventually use.

Here are the facts.

Social Security Number: What Is it and Who Is Eligible?

  • The Social Security Administration only provides new or replacement Social Security cards to people who meet strict authentication requirements. Applicants must fill out an application for a Social Security card (SS-5) and take or mail original documents to a local Social Security office for processing. Applicants must provide at least two documents that prove age, identity, and U.S. citizenship or lawful immigration status. Almost all U.S. citizens are assigned Social Security numbers at birth through SSA’s enumeration at birth program.
  • Some non-citizens with lawful immigration statuses may receive Social Security numbers. To receive a work-authorized SSN, non-citizen applicants must prove that they have a current, lawful work-authorized immigration status (such as lawful permanent resident status, also known as having a green card). Social Security cards issued to non-citizens with temporary work authorization are labeled “VALID FOR WORK ONLY WITH DHS AUTHORIZATION.” To receive a non-work SSN, applicants must prove they are lawfully present in the U.S. (for example, on a student visa) and provide the valid, non-work reason for which they need an SSN. Social Security cards issued to non-citizens without work authorization are labeled “NOT VALID FOR EMPLOYMENT.” People who are without lawful immigration status are not eligible for an SSN.
  • The Social Security number is a unique identifier, meaning that one number is assigned to one individual. It was designed this way to keep track of each worker’s earnings so that SSA could determine eligibility for Social Security and the benefit amount, which is based on a worker’s earnings.

Social Security Benefits: Who Gets Them and How Are They Calculated? 

  • Social Security has a payment accuracy rate of over 99 percent. Only 0.3 percent of Social Security benefits are improper payments, which are typically caused by mistakes or delays.
  • SSA has many safeguards to ensure accurate payments, including strict documentation and eligibility requirements, quality reviews, and regular reviews of medical eligibility for disability beneficiaries and financial eligibility for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients. SSA works with its Office of Inspector General (OIG) to root out rare cases of outright fraud, in which applicants or beneficiaries deliberately falsify information to get or keep undeserved benefits. SSA and OIG team with state and local authorities in Cooperative Disability Investigations to investigate suspected fraud and to prosecute violations of the law.
  • Only U.S. citizens and some lawfully present non-citizens may receive Social Security benefits. Social Security benefits are based on the earnings on which people pay Social Security payroll taxes. As of 2004, non-citizens must have had work authorization for their earnings to count toward Social Security eligibility and benefits. In addition, the Social Security Act has prohibited the payment of benefits to non-citizens who are not “lawfully present” in the U.S. since 1996.
  • SSA only pays one Social Security benefit to each qualifying Social Security number holder. A person may receive a Social Security benefit based on their own work history or based on their relationship to a worker — for example, the surviving spouse of a deceased worker. Beneficiaries who are eligible in multiple ways (for example, as both a worker and a surviving spouse) only receive one benefit that is reduced under the “dual entitlement rule,” which caps the total benefit amount at the highest single benefit for which the person qualifies. In no case does the same individual receive multiple Social Security benefits, nor does SSA pay Social Security benefits to people without SSNs.
  • SSA has rigorous protocols to stop payments to beneficiaries who have died. State vital statistics agencies report deaths to SSA via the Electronic Death Registration system, typically within days. SSA also collects death data from funeral home directors, family members, and financial institutions. Across all sources, the agency receives nearly 3 million death reports each year, preventing over $50 million in improper payments each month. To catch any deaths that may have escaped reporting, SSA regularly checks to be sure its oldest beneficiaries are using their Medicare benefits — if not, they verify that the beneficiary is still alive. And in the extremely rare cases where benefits are paid to people over 100 years old, SSA has a policy to stop payments by age 115.
  • Only 0.1 percent of Social Security benefits are paid to people over 100 years old. DOGE head Elon Musk has been circulating a table he claims shows Social Security beneficiaries at very old ages, but he is grossly mischaracterizing its contents. These numbers appear to be drawn from SSA’s Numident database, a record of every Social Security number application since the program started. The Numident typically does not contain death dates for people born before 1920 — before Social Security was established and long before electronic records were kept. A 2023 OIG report explains that “almost none” of the people born before 1920 in this dataset are being paid benefits. As a result, SSA explained that adding death dates to these very old records would be “costly to implement [and] would be of little benefit.”

https://www.cbpp.org/blog/setting-the-record-straight-on-social-security

Peace & Justice History for 2/21

February 21, 1848
“The Communist Manifesto,” written by 29-year-old Karl Marx with the assistance of Friedrich Engels, was published in London (in German) by a group of German-born revolutionary socialists known as the Communist League.

Friedrich Engels Karl Marx
The political pamphlet — arguably one of the most influential in history — proclaimed that “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles,” and that the inevitable victory of the proletariat, or working class, would put an end to class society forever.
Read the Manifesto 
February 21, 1965
Malcolm X, an African-American nationalist and religious leader, was shot and killed in New York City by Black Muslims with whom he had broken the year before, as he began to address his Organization of Afro-American Unity at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City’s Washington Heights. His home had been firebombed just a few days earlier. He was 39.

Radio story on the late Manning Marable’s biography, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention 
More on on Malcolm’s assassination
MalcolmX.com 
“In 1964, after his break with Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad, and following his trips to Africa and to Mecca, Malcolm was seriously questioning black nationalism. He was also beginning to recognize that MLK’s non-violent methods, far from being passive, were actually creating more change than the separatism of the Nation of Islam.
In this same period MLK was beginning to recognize that Malcolm was advocating self-defense, not violence.
In March Malcolm and Martin encountered one another by chance at a news conference in Washington, D.C. Subsequently Malcolm spoke at several rallies in support of the civil rights movement, and in February 1965, two weeks before his assassination, he went to Selma to meet with King.” –Grace Lee Boggs

” You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.”–“Prospects for Freedom in 1965,” speech, January 7 1965.
February 21, 1972
The trial began for Father Philip Berrigan and six other activists (the “Harrisburg Seven”) in Pennsylvania. They were charged with conspiring in an alleged plot to kidnap Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
Proceedings later ended in a mistrial.

Daniel Berrigan, above, and his brother Philip in the documentary, “Investigation of a Flame.” The film focuses on the Catonsville action.
Remembering Fr. Philip Berrigan 
February 21, 1975
Former Attorney General John N. Mitchell, Mitchell aide Robert Mardian, and former White House aides H.R. Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman were sentenced to 21⁄2 to 8 years in prison for their roles in the Watergate cover-up. They were variously convicted of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, fraud, and perjury.
See the new film, Frost/Nixon, for perspective on some of
the issues behind Watergate
 Charlie Rose interview with Peter Morgan, the screenwriter (and author of what was originally a play) and Michael Sheen and Frank Langella, the lead actors
February 21, 2011
Two Libyan Air Force fighter pilots defected to the Mediterranean island of Malta rather than carry out orders they had received to bomb civilian countrymen. Two helicopters with seven others landed in Malta to escape the violence. Colonel Muammar Qadaffi had ordered the attacks in attempt to quell the growing protests against his 42-year dictatorship.
Libya’s ambassadors to China, India, Indonesia and Poland, as well as Libya’s representative to the Arab League and most, if not all, of its mission at the United Nations resigned the same day.

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryfebruary.htm#february21

An Oklahoma Senator Introduces Legislation to Ban All Porn and Imprison Content Creators

https://www.them.us/story/oklahoma-porn-ban

What is it with these religious bigots who think their god gives them the right to force everyone to believe / live as they claim to do.  They are the first to demand their rights to worship / live as they wish.  What gives them the idea the rest of us don’t want the same right. They were the first to attack the Taliban for forcing everyone in the country to worship / live by their version of Islam.  Yet now they demand to be the US Christian Taliban.  I do not understand their hate.   They pick one or a few passages in the OT to clobber others while ignoring all the rest.  They don’t stone their rebellious children, they don’t follow the other things in Leviticus and they do not follow anything Jesus said about caring for others.  Hate, dominance, and vengeance is all they care about.  The Old Testament god gives them that. And pleae notice the bill is titled Increasing Penalties for Child Pornography …   it goes against all porn.  Just like innocent drag queen story hours were attacked to protect the children from seeing people in costumes reading stories.   Hugs

Alongside SB593, Deevers, who is also a pastor at Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Elgin, Oklahoma, introduced legislation to abolish abortion, prohibit drag performances in front of minors, ban divorce on the grounds of incompatibility, and provide tax credits to couples who opt into “covenant marriages” or have multiple children within the bounds of marriage — just to name some highlights.

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

SB 593, introduced by Senator Dusty Deevers, is part of a slate of eight bills by the legislator to “restore moral sanity” to the state.
By Mathew Rodriguez
Image may contain Computer Electronics Laptop Pc Computer Hardware Computer Keyboard Hardware Body Part and Finger
Gender Spectrum Collection

An Oklahoma state senator has introduced legislation that would ban all pornography, with criminal penalties of up to 10 years in prison for the “production, distribution or possession” of any pornography, according to a press release from the Oklahoma Senate. SB 593, proposed by Senator Dusty Deevers on January 21, is part of a slate of eight bills by the legislator to “restore moral sanity” to the state of Oklahoma.

The bill, entitled “Increasing Penalties for Child Pornography and Prohibiting Pornography in Oklahoma,” goes far beyond the scope suggested in its title. While it does advocate for raising the penalty for the possession, distribution, or production of child pornography from 0-20 years up to 10-30 years, the bill has gone so far as to prohibit pornography entirely.

Deevers’ description of pornography as a “highly addictive drug” directly echoes the words of the authors of Project 2025, who, in the foreword to the over 900-page blueprint for a very different America, linked pornography to both child abuse and trans identity.

“Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation, and child welfare,” the foreword to the document reads. “It has no claim to First Amendment protection. Its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women. Their product is as addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive as any crime. Pornography should be outlawed.”

Alongside SB593, Deevers, who is also a pastor at Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Elgin, Oklahoma, introduced legislation to abolish abortion, prohibit drag performances in front of minors, ban divorce on the grounds of incompatibility, and provide tax credits to couples who opt into “covenant marriages” or have multiple children within the bounds of marriage — just to name some highlights.

Mike Stabile, the director of public policy at the Free Speech Coalition, said the proposed bill was really an attempt to encroach on free speech in a statement to USA Today.

 

“Porn is the canary in the coal mine of free speech, and the trial balloon used by governments to pass laws that can censor speech more broadly,” he told the outlet. “No matter how people feel about adult content, we should all be concerned about the proposed government crackdown on speech.”

Deevers’ attack on pornography comes less than a month after age verification laws effectively made porn inaccessible in 16 U.S. states, mostly in the regional South.

At the time that many of these bans went into effect, Aylo, the parent company to PornHub, told Mashable that it has “publicly supported age verification of users for years” but that the kind required by these bills is “ineffective, haphazard, and dangerous,” as well as a threat to users’ security.

PornHub
Pornhub Is Now Inaccessible in Almost the Entire U.S. South
A contributor to Project 2025 was recorded last year stating that age-verification laws are a “back door” to broader porn bans.

Legislators in several states have introduced similarly bizarre bills criminalizing sexual freedom in the short time since Donald Trump’s ascent to the presidency for the second time. Last week, Mississippi state senator Bradford Blackmon introduced the “Contraception Begins at Erection Act,” which would make it illegal for a person to “discharge genetic material without the intent to fertilize an embryo.” The bill suggested a fine of $1,000 for a first offense, $5,000 for a second offense, and $10,000 thereafter. In a statement to local affiliate WLBT, Blackmon said the bill was meant to act as a counterpart to contraception and abortion bills.

“All across the country, especially here in Mississippi, the vast majority of bills relating to contraception and/or abortion focus on the woman’s role when men are fifty percent of the equation,” he told WLBT. “This bill highlights that fact and brings the man’s role into the conversation. People can get up in arms and call it absurd but I can’t say that bothers me.”

Get the best of what’s queer. Sign up for Them’s weekly newsletter here.

Mathew Rodriguez is the former senior news editor at Them. In the past, he has been a senior culture editor at The Atlantic, as well as a staff writer at Out Magazine, INTO, and Mic. His writing has been featured in Slate, Teen Vogue, The Village Voice, MEL Magazine, and more. He … Read more

Me, Too!

Savage Chickens by Doug Savage for February 20, 2025

Savage Chickens Comic Strip for February 20, 2025

Americans aren’t happy with the country’s treatment of queer folks, says new survey

https://www.intomore.com/impact/politics/americans-arent-happy-with-the-countrys-treatment-of-queer-folks-says-new-survey/

It is nice to know that despite the religious right hate media which includes Fox Entertainment, that people are not buying the current demonization of the LGBTQ+ community.  But if we don’t get loud and vocal and our democratic leaders don’t develop a spine and support the LGBTQ+ community our acceptance levels will keep sinking.   Hugs

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

By Jude Cramer

 

February 6, 2025

It’s no secret that queer rights are on a backslide in the United States — and American citizens aren’t happy.

In an annual survey by Gallup conducted just before Donald Trump took office, Americans were asked about their satisfaction with various aspects of the country’s culture and politics. That included “the acceptance of gay and lesbian people in the nation,” which only 51% of respondents said they were “very satisfied” or “somewhat satisfied” with. That’s the lowest satisfaction rating in that area since 2013, and an 8 percentage point drop from 2017 at the start of Trump’s first term.

Respondents were also asked about their satisfaction with “the acceptance of transgender people in the nation.” To that, only 38% of respondents said they were “very satisfied” or “somewhat satisfied.”

Notably, the satisfaction varied by political party. Republicans reported that they were largely satisfied with the country’s treatment of gays and lesbians (55%) while Democrats reported dissatisfaction (44%). Both parties expressed dissatisfaction with America’s treatment of transgender people (though potentially for different reasons), with only 42% of Republicans and 31% of Democrats satisfied.

Beyond queer issues, Americans’ overall satisfaction is sitting at 38%, a record low that’s been maintained since 2022. 

Meanwhile, Trump continues his crusade against queer people and specifically trans folks. That’s included signing executive orders banning trans women from sports, making gender-affirming care illegal for people under 19 years old, and erasing trans and nonbinary people from the government’s definition of sex.