Tag: Human Rights

Peace & Justice History for 11/2:

November 2, 1920

Socialist Party candidate Eugene V. Debs received nearly one million votes for President though he was serving a prison sentence at the time for his criticism of World War I and his encouraging resistance to the draft.
More on Debs  
November 2, 1982
Voters in nine general elections passed statewide referenda supporting a freeze on testing of nuclear weapons. Only Arizona turned it down.

Dr. Randall Forsberg, a key person behind the Freeze movement
Dr. Randall Forsberg
November 2, 1983

A bill designating a federal holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (to be observed on the third Monday of January) was signed by President Ronald Reagan.
King was born in Atlanta in 1929, the son of a Baptist minister. He received a doctorate degree in theology and in 1955 organized the first major protest of the civil rights movement: the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott. Influenced by Mohandas Gandhi, he advocated nonviolent civil disobedience of the laws that enforced racial segregation. 
The history of Martin Luther King Day   (pdf)

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorynovember.htm#november2

‘I had to get out’: the US military officers filing for conscientious objector status over Gaza

Disillusioned members of the US military have turned to Vietnam war-era policy to terminate their service because of religious or moral convictions

For Joy Metzler, a second lieutenant in the US air force, joining the military had felt like answering a calling. An adoptee from China who was raised in a conservative Christian family, she believed she owed a debt to the United States.

But the Hamas attacks in Israel last year, and Israel’s war that followed, rocked Metzler’s convictions. Within months, she filed for conscientious objector status, one of a small number of US military personnel seeking to end their service because of their moral opposition to US support for Israel.

“I didn’t know Palestine was a place before October 7,” Metzler told the Guardian.

“All of a sudden it felt like a light clicking on for me.”

As the war in Gaza enters a second year, some disillusioned members of the US military have turned to the Vietnam war-era conscientious objector policy to terminate their military service because of religious or moral convictions.

There are few avenues to express dissent in the army. Earlier this year, Harrison Mann, an army officer assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency resigned in protest of US support for Israel. In a far more extreme gesture, 25-year-old US airman Aaron Bushnell died after setting himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington in February.

The conscientious objector route is a seldom-invoked alternative that few service members are aware of – though some advocates say there has been an uptick in interest in the last year.

The defense department referred questions about the number of conscientious objectors to each branch of the military. A spokesperson for the air force said that it has received 42 applications since 2021 and granted 36. Applications since 7 October “are on trend with pre-conflict averages”, the spokesperson added. (The army, navy, and Marine Corps did not respond to requests for comment.)

But while the numbers remain relatively low, the war in Gaza is top of mind for those service members who have considered conscientious objector status this year, said Bill Galvin, a Vietnam-era objector and director of counseling at the Center on Conscience and War, one of a handful of groups that helps military members navigate the complex bureaucratic process.

Galvin said his group helps roughly 50 to 70 applicants a year, across military branches, and that there’s been more interest than usual this year.

The US has subsidized Israel’s war in Gaza to the tune of nearly $18bn over the last year, and is growing more deeply entangled as the conflict spills into the broader region. The Biden administration recently announced the deployment of 100 troops to Israel to man a missile defense system in anticipation of an escalation against Iran.

“Almost everyone that I’ve talked to has at least cited what’s happening in Gaza as a factor in causing them to rethink what they’re doing,” Galvin said. “Some have actually said: ‘I know that the airplane that I’m doing maintenance on is delivering weaponry to Israel and so I feel complicit.’” (snip-MORE)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/01/military-officers-conscientious-objector-status-gaza?CMP=share_btn_url

Lots of links here;

I’ve read 5 of them. One I clicked in particular is most excellent, and easy to read. Link below; there are fine pieces on Ten Bears’s page.

Fey Fickle Today …

https://www.popsci.com/america-before-epa-photos/

Go For It!

Mental health self-care is vital.

It Works … !

Taking Filosofa’s Advice, and

and reblogging this one from Keith. I hate giving the Don any time at all, but the bottom line of this is that the young people are seeing this, some for the first time, as they were in middle and high school in 2016.

Access Hollywood tape of Trump bragging on serial sexual assault resurfaces

Peace & Justice History for 11/1:

November 1, 1872

Susan B. Anthony and her three sisters entered a voter registration office set up in a barbershop.  They were part of a group of fifty women Anthony had organized to register in her home town of Rochester.  Anthony walked directly to the election inspectors and, as one of the inspectors would later testify, “demanded that we register them as voters.”
The election inspectors refused, but she persisted, quoting the Fourteenth Amendment’s citizenship provision and the article from the New York Constitution pertaining to voting, which contained no sex qualification. She persisted: “If you refuse us our rights as citizens, I will bring charges against you in Criminal Court and I will sue each of you personally for large, exemplary damages!”
The inspectors sought the advice of the Supervisor of elections: “Young men,” he said, “do you know the penalty of law if you refuse to register these names?” Registering the women, the registrars were advised, “would put the entire onus of the affair on them.” The inspectors voted to allow Anthony and her three sisters to register.   In all, fourteen Rochester women successfully registered that day. But the Rochester Union and Advertiser editorialized: “Citizenship no more carries the right to vote that it carries the power to fly to the moon . . . if these women in the Eighth Ward offer to vote, they should be challenged, and if they take the oaths and the Inspectors receive and deposit their ballots, they should all be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
November 1, 1929
Australia abolished peace-time compulsory military training.
November 1, 1954
A war of independence to end French colonial rule over the north African nation of Algeria began when 60 bombs were set off on this day in Algiers, the capital. Over the next eight years 1.5 million Algerians would die, along with about 30,000 French. The French had dominated the country since 1830.

French troops clash with Algerian civilians 
Read more 
November 1, 1954
The U.S. produced the biggest ever man-made explosion in the Pacific archipelago of Bikini, part of the Marshall Islands. The hydrogen bomb, equivalent of 20 million tons of TNT was up to 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.
It overwhelmed the measuring instruments, indicating that the bomb was much more powerful than scientists had anticipated. One of the atolls was totally vaporized, disappearing into a gigantic mushroom cloud that spread at least 100 miles wide, dropping back to the sea in the form of radioactive fallout.
November 1, 1961
50,000-100,000 women joined protests against the resumption of atmospheric nuclear tests by both the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The demonstrations, in at least 60 U.S. cities, led to the founding of Women Strike for Peace. Their slogan: “End the Arms Race – Not the Human Race.”
See Photos from Swarthmore College Peace Collection 
 
“Women’s Strike for Peace” storming the Pentagon in a 1967 protest against the war in Vietnam.

Bella Abzug demonstrating with WSP
photo: Dorothy Marder
November 1, 1970
Detroit’s Common Council voted for immediate withdrawal of U.S. armed forces from Vietnam.
November 1, 1983
A senior State Department official, Jonathan T. Howe, told Secretary of State George P. Shultz about intelligence reports that showed Iraqi troops resorting to “almost daily use of CW [chemical weapons]” against the Iranians.

Saddam Hussein had invaded Iran in 1980.

But the Reagan administration had already committed itself to a large-scale diplomatic and political overture to Baghdad, culminating in several visits by the president’s recently appointed special envoy to the Middle East, Donald H. Rumsfeld.
November 1, 1990
As part of the adoption of the International Law of the Sea, forty-three nations agreed to ban dumping industrial wastes at sea by 1995. Neither the U.S. nor Canada (along with Albania, Burundi, Ethiopia, Uzbekistan and San Marino) have ever ratified the treaty which thus lacks the force of U.S. federal law.
More on the Law of the Sea 
November 1, 2003
The Tel Aviv memorial for Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin, slain eight years previously, was transformed into a peace rally with over 100,000 protesting the military policies of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.”Yitzhak was right, and his path just,” said Shimon Peres, the former prime minister and architect of the Oslo peace accords with Mr Rabin. “His views today are clear and enduring. There will be no retreat; we will continue.”

Read more

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorynovember.htm#november1

hecatedemeter’s Samhain Prayer

This Is a Prayer for Samhain. This Is a Prayer for Resistance.

Peace & Justice History for 10/31:

October 31, 1929
George Henry Evans, an English-born printer and journalist, published the first issue of the Working Man’s Advocate, “edited by a Mechanic” for the “useful and industrious classes” of New York City. Evan covered the Workingmen’s Party (which he helped found) and the early trade union movement.
In his Prospectus, Evans focused on the inequities between the “portion of society living in luxury and idleness” and those “groaning under the oppressions and miseries imposed on them.” He advocated “a system of education which shall be equally open to all, as in a real republic it should be” and opposed “every thing which savors of a union of church and state.”
Evans became a U.S. citizen one week later.
October 31, 1950

Earl Lloyd became the first of three African Americans who began to play in the National Basketball Association (NBA) when he started with the Washington Capitols. He and Jim Tucker went on to become the first African Americans to play on a championship team in 1955 as members of the Syracuse Nationals, which is now the Philadelphia 76ers.

After retiring as a player, Lloyd was a Detroit Pistons assistant coach for two seasons, and a scout for five.
October 31, 1952
The U.S. successfully detonated “Mike,” the world’s first hydrogen (or fusion) bomb, in the atmosphere at the Eniwetok Proving Grounds on the Elugelab Atoll, part of the Marshall Islands in the southern Pacific.
The 10.4-megaton device was the first thermonuclear device built upon the Teller-Ulam principles of staged radiation implosion.
Mike’s Mushroom cloud

The incredible explosive force of Mike was apparent from the sheer magnitude of its mushroom cloud – within 90 seconds the mushroom cloud climbed to 57,000 feet and entered the stratosphere at a rate of 400 mph. One minute later it reached 108,000 feet, eventually stabilizing at a ceiling of 120,000 feet. Half an hour after the test, the mushroom stretched sixty miles across, with the base of the head joining the stem at 45,000 feet.The explosion wiped Elugelab off the face of the planet, leaving a crater more than 50 meters (175 feet) deep, and destroyed life on the surrounding islands.
The details and the results 
Early U.S.nuclear tests 
October 31, 1958
The U.S., the U.S.S.R. (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics aka Soviet Union) and Great Britain began negotiations in Geneva on whether to let the nuclear testing moratorium become a permanent test ban. General Secretary Nikita Kruschev had unilaterally declared a moratorium on Soviet testing earlier in the year, President Dwight Eisenhower and Prime Minister Harold MacMillan following suit in August.
There had been growing concern over the health effects of radioactive fallout in the atmosphere from the nuclear explosions. Nonetheless, all three nations did further last-minute tests before the moratorium took effect.
October 31, 1972
20-POINT POSITION PAPER

PREAMBLE
AN INDIAN MANIFESTO FOR RESTITUTION, REPARATIONS, RESTORATION OF LANDS FOR A RECONSTRUCTION OF AN INDIAN FUTURE IN AMERICA
THE TRAIL OF BROKEN TREATIES:

“We need not give another recitation of past complaints nor engage in redundant dialogue of discontent.  Our conditions and their cause for being should perhaps be best known by those who have written the record of America’s action against Indian people.  In 1832, Black Hawk correctly observed: You know the cause of our making war. It is known to all white men. They ought to be ashamed of it.
The government of the United States knows the reasons for our going to its capital city.  Unfortunately, they don’t know how to greet us. We go because America has been only too ready to express shame, and suffer none from the expression – while remaining wholly unwilling to change to allow life for Indian people.
We seek a new American majority – a majority that is not content merely to confirm itself by superiority in numbers, but which by conscience is committed toward prevailing upon the public will in ceasing wrongs and in doing right.  For our part, in words and deeds of coming days, we propose to produce a rational, reasoned manifesto for construction of an Indian future in America.  If America has maintained faith with its original spirit, or may recognize it now, we should not be denied.”
October 31, 1978
30,000 Iranian oil workers went on strike against the repressive rule of the U.S.-installed Shah and for democracy, civil and human rights.
Striking Iranian oil workers. Photo: December 1978 issue of Resistance. A publication of the Iranian Students Association in the U.S. (ISAUS)
Read more 
October 31, 1984
Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was shot to death by two Sikh members of her own security guard while walking in the garden of her New Delhi home. Gandhi’s son, Rajiv, a member of parliament and a leader in the Congress-I Party, was sworn in as Prime Minister following the assassination.

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryoctober.htm#october31

Peace & Justice History for 10/30:

October 30, 1967
Martin Luther King, Jr. and seven other clergymen were jailed for four days in Birmingham, Alabama. They were serving sentences on contempt-of-court charges stemming from Easter 1963 demonstrations they had led against discrimination.
The U.S. Supreme Court had upheld their convictions for violating a court order enjoining them from marching [Walker v. Birmingham]. Public Safety Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor had twice denied them a parade permit. The law Connor used was declared unconstitutional two years later [Shuttlesworth v. City of Birmingham].
The constitutional issues
October 30, 1995

Over 80 people were arrested at Sugarloaf Mountain in southern Oregon during a massive direct action to prevent clear-cutting of old-growth forests on public land by private timber companies.
Sugarloaf protest 
October 30, 2000
George Mizo of the United States, Rosi Hohn-Mizo of Germany (his wife) and Georges Doussin of France were awarded Vietnam’s first-ever State Medal of Friendship by the President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam for their work in building the Vietnam Friendship Village.

The Vietnam Friendship Village after five years; the medical clinic is in the foreground, other buildings are residences.

Mizo and the Vietnam Veterans Association built a residential facility for orphan children and elderly or disabled adults. George Mizo was a veteran of both the Vietnam War and the struggle to end U.S. support of the contra insurgency in Nicaragua, and repressive regimes elsewhere in Central America [see September 15, 1986].
General Vo Nguyen Giap, Vietnam’s senior military commander during both the French and American wars advised the Mizo’s 12-year-old son, Michael, “Never go to war.”
About the Vietnam Friendship Village Project 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryoctober.htm#october30

An Ask for Facebook Users

I’m not on Facebook; never have been. I do order from Penzey’s, and because of that, I get their emails, which are awesome. Here is the body of today’s email with links, and another shout-out to any Facebook users who are called to help out with this. And, I think anyone in a position to share in some fashion is welcome to do so!

(Here should be a photo of a veteran who may be the subject of this. I’m sorry it won’t post.)
 
 This really isn’t a standard email, it’s a Facebook post sent by email. But with one week to go and everything seemingly all tied up, sharing a glimpse of our past that’s at risk of becoming our future seems right. Please read and share.Thanks.

October 25, 2024 George Mullins voted. June 6, 1944 George came ashore in Normandy. He voted by mail. He insisted that the ballot needed to be taken to the post office and handed directly to the postal worker. “Can’t take any chances in these times.”

It was LST #311 that brought him 100 yards from the shore of Utah Beach on D-Day. The water was cold and up to his neck. He kept an eye on the shorter soldiers to make sure their heavy packs would not drag them under. Together they all made it ashore. So many of those George went ashore with never made it home.

George Mullins lived through the unfathomable violence it took to face down fascism. He made it home but left so much behind. Forever since he has had to carry a hurt and a loss that thankfully most of us have never known.

His experience has left him with thoughts on this election and about those who would once again intentionally unleash the unspeakable horrors he had hoped were forever in the past.

Two weeks ago George posted his thoughts on his Facebook page for the book he wrote of his WWII experience, Foxhole.

Buy his book, I highly recommend it.

As is the nature of Facebook, and social media, and the times we live in, one of the most valuable pieces that will ever be written about this election now sits there with just 72 likes.

George’s daughter and longtime Penzeys customer, Sheila, wrote hinting that maybe I could bring more attention to his words. Yes. A very big Yes. Coincidentally enough (if there are coincidences) his were exactly the words I was then searching for.

Not eight hours before Sheila’s email arrived I had just finished rewatching Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan. I’m convinced it is in the unspeakable sacrifice of so many Americans eighty years ago where the key to understanding just how much is at stake on 11.5.24 lives or dies.

But where to find the words? I looked to Saving Private Ryan because Spielberg has good words, and there are good words there but his, like mine, are of an outsider looking in. Where could I find the words I needed? And as fate would have it they arrived all tied neatly with a bow and accompanied by a breathtaking photo.

And I won’t give away all George Mullins’s words, please read all of them for yourself. But in short, today he is deeply troubled by the direction he sees our country heading.

“I didn’t fight in World War II, standing on the front lines of history, so that we could one day find our country on the brink of dictatorship or authoritarian rule. The freedoms I defended, and believe in, the sacrifices my comrades and I made, were for the preservation of democracy—of freedom, fairness, and the right to live without fear of tyranny.”

There’s so much we take for granted, but all that George and those he fought alongside achieved came at a terrible cost. And as much as we know words like fascism, and Nazi, and even freedom, how much do we really understand this is about the difference between living free and having to live in fear of your government?

By 1944 everyone understood, but today it’s something we’ve forgotten, something we take for granted. George Mullins went ashore shoulder to shoulder with men like him willing to give their lives so that others may live free. Let that sink in.

And now the leaders of the Republican party are not only throwing that sacrifice away, they are forcing our children to relive it. Why? Because they don’t have the strength to stand up to Donald Trump’s never-ending need for ever greater power. We must do better. We must share George Mullins’s warning. (snip; an offer I’m not sure is appropriate to include here, but I can put it in comments if someone’s interested. I’m trying to stay on topic, without appearing to advertise, though advertisement is not the author’s intent. -A)

And two outstanding Steven Spielberg words. I’ve seen Saving Private Ryan several times since its release. Each time I’ve seen something new in it. This time I was struck by Tom Hanks’s Captain Miller’s words to Matt Damon’s Ryan. “Earn this.”

This time against the backdrop of this election it hit home more than before that these two words weren’t between two people but between all those who gave so much and all of us who have lived our lives with the gifts their terrible sacrifice brought. Earn this. We truly do owe them that much.

And I did ask George’s daughter Sheila about what was going through his mind as he cast his vote in this election. She asked him over dinner. He told her this:
“When I voted I felt happy to place my signature on a ballot against the Dictator. I was hoping more people wake up and check the right box.”

That one of those white men struggling ashore on the 6th of June so many years ago should live to vote for America’s first Black woman President is a testament to this country and to all who serve.

And I admit that at first I felt uncomfortable with George’s word Dictator. It felt over the top. But then it set in that he is the one who knows, not me.

He is the one with the knowledge, and the experience, and the words we all must learn if we are to go through what his generation went through and re-emerge once again as America on the other side.

So much to earn. So much at stake. Please help us help George Mullins’s message reach everyone while it can still make a difference.

And please visit George’s Facebook page and share a like, a hug, or even a heart. He has already earned it and so much more. What a life.

Time for us to be worthy,
Bill
bill@penzeys.com