Tag: Peace

Today is International Conscientious Objector Day, and More in Peace & Justice History for 5/15

May 15, 1870

Julia Ward Howe
Julia Ward Howe, suffragist, abolitionist and author of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” proposed Mother’s Day as a peace holiday.
She had seen firsthand some of the worst effects of war during the American Civil War—the death and disease which killed and maimed, and the widows and orphans left behind on both sides and realized that the effects of the war go beyond the killing of soldiers in battle. Mother’s Day did not become a national holiday until declared by President Woodrow Wilson in 1914.
“… Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.”

Read about her Mother’s Day Proclamation 
May 15, 1935
The National Labor Relations Act was passed, recognizing workers’ rights to organize unions and bargain collectively with their employers. 
Read more  
May 15, 1957
Britain tested its first hydrogen bomb over Christmas Island in the South Pacific, after just two years of development. 

Mushroom cloud over Christmas Island
May 15, 1965
A National teach-in to oppose the Vietnam War was held in Washington, D.C.
May 15, 1966
The American Friends Service Committee, SANE (The Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy), and Women March for Peace, along with four other organizations, sponsored a 10,000+ person anti-war picket at the White House and a 60,000+ rally at the Washington Monument to oppose the Vietnam War.
. . . elsewhere the same day . . .
Buddhist altars were placed in streets to impede troops arresting dissidents in South Vietnam.
May 15, 1969
Governor Ronald Reagan sent in the National Guard to reclaim People’s Park from 6,000 protesters in Berkeley, California, who had occupied the space
and created the park.
Police gunfire killed a bystander, James Rector, blinded another, and injured dozens.

People’s Park March, Friday May 30, 1969, at the intersection of Haste Street and Telegraph Avenue, in Berkeley
May 15, 1970
In response to the U.S. invasion of Cambodia (an expansion of the Vietnam War) and the killings at Kent State and Jackson State Universities, several million U.S. students held campus strikes to oppose the Vietnam War.
May 15, 1970
The Native American Rights Fund filed suit on behalf of the Hopi tribe to prevent strip-mining on sacred Black Mesa in Arizona.
May 15 (since the 1980’s)
International Conscientious Objectors Day, established to honor those who leave or refuse to enter their country’s armed forces for reasons of principle.
Conscientious Objector Day history

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymay.htm#may15

Peace & Justice History for 5/14

May 14, 1941
The first groups of WWII conscientious objectors (COs) were ordered to report to camp at Patapsco, Maryland.  They and others formed the Civilian Public Service (CPS) during the war. They performed various duties, among others being trained as smoke jumpers dealing with forest fires.

World War II COs
Conscientious objection in America ACLU
More on the CPS 
========================================
May 14, 1954
In the “Yankee” nuclear weapons test in the atmosphere above the South Pacific, a single detonation, expected to yield 9.5 megatons of force, actually yielded 13.5 megatons (equivalent to thirteen and a half million tons of TNT), the second largest ever by the U.S. The resultant mushroom cloud extended 25 miles up and spread 100 miles across.

“Yankee”
========================================
May 14, 1970

Phillip Lafayette Gibbs 
Two African-American students were shot to death and 30 others wounded by local police and state troopers and national guardsmen at primarily black Jackson State University in Mississippi. The two were watching demonstrators protesting the invasion of Cambodia and racial discrimination from a nearby dormitory tower.
James EarlGreen
This happened shortly after the shooting of students at Kent State University in Ohio. Two days of riots ensued in Jackson resulting in curfews and sealing off of the city.
Read more about Jackson State   

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymay.htm#may14

Restrained Emotions

Good Evening, Playtime Folks! I’ve been a bit over-busy these past many days and out of town on the days I wasn’t busy. Makes for a difficult time writing. But, I’d like to share some thoughts with you, if you don’t mind. See, I try to have a positive outlook, but I also try to be a realist, and sometimes I just feel like ‘what’s the damn point’. I just try to keep it to myself for a bit, go one with the day, and so I’m often slow with a response to a news item. Other times I realize, despite my unwillingness to open myself to the wrongness of the event, I have to speak on it if for no more reason than to keep myself sane – ish.

I love music. There have been times in my life where all I had was the comfort that a favorite song could bring me. I’ve never been much for making music. I can’t sing, and you truly don’t want me to prove that, but when no one can hear me I try to let out the hurt, the loneliness, to feel the sunshine and the aural hug. To hear the sorrow, the joy, the heart-bared vulnerability and intimacy that music can share and can bring out of us occasionally overwhelms me.

When dummkopf drumpf made himself chair of the Kennedy Center, when he turned an organization dedicated to performances of art and poetry, of creation and majesty, he did more than tarnish, he cheapened it. The Kennedy Honors are meant to magnify great devotion to craft, to exemplify great performances, to be about the best things of us as a species – and now it is cheapened. That has made me sadder than I know how to express.

“We Want Beer” and More, in Peace & Justice History for 5/13

May 13, 1888
Brazil, which had imported more African slaves than any other country (nearly 40% of the 11 million Africans shipped to the western hemisphere), abolished slavery.
May 13, 1932
“We Want Beer” marches were held in cities all over America, with 15,000 unionized workers demonstrating in Detroit. Prohibition (the 18th amendment to the U.S. Constitution barring “the manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors”) was repealed the following year.
May 13, 1954
Natives of the Marshall Islands pleaded for an end to atmospheric H-Bomb testing in the south Pacific.
A ground zero forgotten  The Washington Post
May 13, 1958
During a goodwill trip through Latin America, Vice President Richard Nixon’s limousine was attacked with rocks and bottles by an angry crowd and nearly overturned while traveling through Caracas, Venezuela. The crowd was angered by U.S. Cold War policies and their effect on Latin America. Five days earlier in the trip, the Vice President had been shoved, stoned, booed, and spat upon by protesters in Peru.
May 13, 1967
250 Chicano students from Los Angeles colleges & universities met to form the United Mexican American Students (UMAS).
May 13, 1968

“We are the power”
Workers joined Paris students’ protest in a one-day general strike calling for the fall of the government and protesting police brutality. The protest by French students included occupation of The Sorbonne; by the end of the month over 10,000,000 French citizens had been involved in school and workplace occupations.
View and read about the great poster art from Paris ‘68 
May 13, 1970
The Movement for a New Congress—to elect peace candidates—was founded at Princeton University.
May 1968, month of intense protest and political organizing around the country 
May 13, 1992
Ecuador’s government granted 148 native communities legal title to more than three million acres (slightly less than the size of the state of Washington) in the Amazon Basin.

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymay.htm#may13

The Poor People’s Campaign in Peace & Justice History for 5/12

May 12, 1968
The Poor People’s Campaign, organized by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) began when contingents of the poor, mainly from the south, began pitching tents in a “Resurrection City” near the Lincoln Memorial. It was dismantled by police on June 24.
Aerial view of Resurrection City, next to the Lincoln Memorial
How a Photographer Illuminated the Plight of the ‘Invisible Poor’ 
The Poor People’s Campaign Today!

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymay.htm#may12

Peace & Justice History for 5/11

May 11, 1973
Charges against former Pentagon analyst Daniel Ellsberg (including conspiracy, espionage and larceny) for his role in the release of The Pentagon Papers (a comprehensive classified study of the origins and conduct of the Vietnam War) were dismissed.
Judge William M. Byrne cited government misconduct, including attempts to bribe him with an appointment as FBI Director, and previously undisclosed wiretaps of Ellsberg. His compatriot, Tony Russo, a former RAND Corporation analyst, was also released.

Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers a book review
 Daniel Ellsberg’s website 
May 11, 1975
80,000 turned out in New York City’s Central Park to celebrate the end of the Vietnam War.

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymay.htm#may11

Unity

Clay Jones Def Deserves His Pizza

(Cubbies fan here. I’m not Catholic, so it matters not to me which team the Pope prefers.)

Chicago Pope by Clay Jones

The Pope is a Sox fan Read on Substack

I apologize for the lateness of today’s blog, but I had three deadlines today. I’ll explain further in a future blog.

We have the first American pope, and to add to that, he’s from Chicago. How cool is that? I think Chicago all by itself spites Trump, but a pope who’s criticized the administration for its policies on immigration is a nice plus. Also, Pope Leo XIV is against the death penalty, racism (Trump is a racist), and understands that Climate Change is a real thing and not a “hoax” created by China.

One of the first things I was curious about with our Chicago pope was if he is a Cubs fan. The Chicago Cubs posted on their famous marquee above Addison Street at Wrigley Field that Pope Leo is a Cubs fan. They got it wrong. So did some cartoonists.

Henry Payne is already an idiot. That’s not new news. Randy Bish rushed to judgment.

But it didn’t matter to him because he just made a simple swap when he found out he was wrong.

Sorry, Randy, but this is generic cartooning. Plus, nobody should listen to you about Chicago. You’re from Pittsburgh.

What else is from Pittsburgh is this shit.

The Digital Research Library of Illinois History Journal™ : "Chicago Dog Sauce," a new condiment, was introduced by the Kraft Heinz Company in 2017.

What is it? It’s ketchup. There’s nothing special about this ketchup. It’s just regular shitty Heinz ketchup, but the company was trying to trick Chicagoans to fuck up their hot dogs with it. It didn’t work, and Eater.com let them know it.

I’m sure the Pope would agree that it’s sacrilege to put ketchup on a hot dog, but since he’s the Pope, he would probably forgive you, but I won’t. How dare you put ketchup on a hot dog? What are you? Five?

I used to have a theory that people who love ketchup had mothers who couldn’t cook. I developed this theory because my ex-wife LOVED ketchup, and her mother could not cook. I hope she doesn’t read this because she’s very nice and my son’s grandmother. My father-in-law, may he rest in peace, made the best fried pork chops I’ve ever had.

I think there are only four acceptable reasons for using ketchup, and they are, for crinkle-cut fries, very bad fries, meatloaf, and if you’re five. I kid, I kid. I know some of you love your ketchup, and none of us is perfect. For example, Donald Trump LOVES ketchup. Let that sink in.

What I learned about Chicago pizza is that most Chicagoans eat more tavern-style than deep dish. Chicagoans like deep dish, but it’s more for special occasions and when they have visitors. Deep dish is more for tourists. I don’t really get deep dish, and I don’t even think it should be considered a pizza.

Do you remember Pizza Rat’s first trip to Chicago last year? He tried the deep dish.

Not a fan.

Today’s cartoon put me in the mood for tavern-style tonight, and Pizza Hut has it as a special. When I picked it up, the manager apologized because they had accidentally cut it into triangles instead of squares. A lot of Chicagoans would not stand for that, but I’m tolerant. I thought of Pope Leo, and I forgave them…this time.

Shout-out and dedication: I dedicate this cartoon to Greg Zaborniak, who introduced me to Old Style beer and tavern-style Chicago pizza last year during the Democratic convention. Thank you again, Greg.

Creative note: I didn’t know what I was going to draw today, and I also had a deadline for the Advance. And then, one of my clients contacted me wanting a cartoon on a local issue, and they wanted it today. So, I was facing three deadlines with zero ideas. But they came to me, one by one, and I knocked ‘em all down.

I deserved that pizza.

There’s a version of this cartoon without Pizza Rat. I didn’t include him because not everyone who will see this cartoon will be a regular reader of mine, and they might think the rat is an aspersion on Catholicism. So I sent it to my clients without Peezy. But then, a reader changed my mind because he thought it was a bigger sin to include a pizza without Pizza Rat. I figured I was going to hear more howls about missing Peezy than I’d hear from angry Catholics. The version at GoComics may not feature Peezy because sometimes a new file won’t override the existing file. I did resend the Peezy version to my clients, but they’ll use the one they want, and maybe not even care.

Drawn in 30 seconds: (snip-go see it!)

Peace & Justice History for 5/10

May 10, 1857
The Sepoy Rebellion was triggered in Meerut, India, when native troops (known as Sepoys, which also designated a rank equivalent to private) turned on their British officers.It was the first instance of armed resistance against colonial rule. Indians constituted 96% of the 300,000-man British Army. Loading the Lee-Enfield Rifled Musket assigned to the Sepoys involved biting the end of a cartridge greased in a combination of pig fat and beef tallow.

“Attack of the Mutineers,” a British illustration of the Sepoy Rebellion
The former is haraam (forbidden) under Islamic law, the latter offensive to Hindus who consider the cow as aghanya (that which may not be slaughtered). When the Sepoys, including both Hindu and Muslim Indians, became aware of this, some refused to load their weapons. Mangal Pandey, a soldier in the Army shot his commander for forcing the Indian troops to use the controversial rifles. When others were charged with mutiny for refusing, Sepoys turned on their officers and released the imprisoned soldiers.
The rebellion is now considered the first Indian war for independence.
More on the rebellion 
May 10, 1967
Army Captain Howard Levy, a physician, was imprisoned three years for refusing to train U.S. Special Forces soldiers for Vietnam. He refused an order to perform the training as he considered it a violation of his medical ethics.
“The United States is wrong in being involved in the Viet Nam War. I would refuse to go to Viet Nam if ordered to do so. I don’t see why any colored soldier would go to Viet Nam: they should refuse to go to Viet Nam and if sent should refuse to fight because they are discriminated against and denied their freedom in the United States, and they are sacrificed and discriminated against in Viet Nam by being given all the hazardous duty and they are suffering the majority of casualties.”
– From the Supreme Court case, Parker, Warden, et al. v. Levy.
May 10, 1968

Peace talks began in Paris between the U.S. and North Vietnam with businessman, former New York governor, ambassador and cabinet secretary W. Averell Harriman representing the United States. Former Foreign Minister Xuan Thuy, heading the North Vietnamese delegation, immediately demanded cessation of U.S. bombing.
May 10, 1972
Jane Briggs Hart, the wife of Senator Philip A. Hart (D-Michigan), informed the Internal Revenue Service that she wouldn’t pay some of her taxes; instead, she deposited her quarterly estimated tax of $6,200 in a special bank account.
She wrote: “I cannot contribute one more dollar toward the purchase of more bombs and bullets.”

Jane Briggs Hart
More about Jane Briggs Hart 
May 10, 1980

The National Organization for Women (NOW) organized 85,000 people to march in Chicago in support of Illinois’s ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

A chronology of the Equal Rights Amendment, 1923-1996 
Visit the NOW Foundation 
May 10, 1980

A federal judge in Salt Lake City, Utah, found the U.S. government negligent for its above-ground testing of nuclear weapons in Nevada from 1951 to 1962.
The land of the Nevada Test Site is scarred with craters from nuclear testing.
May 10, 1994

Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as South Africa’s first black president. He had won the country’s first election in which all South Africans could vote, regardless of race. Mandela had spent nearly three decades imprisoned for his part in the struggle to attain political and civil rights for black and colored citizens. This ended more than three centuries of white rule, beginning with the Dutch in 1652.
Biography of Nelson Mandela 
South African chronology 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymay.htm#may10

Muhammad Ali Refuses, and More in Peace & Justice History for 5/9

May 9, 1967
In April, World Heavyweight Boxing Champion Muhammad Ali had refused induction into the U.S. Army based on his religious convictions.He claimed, “I ain’t got no quarrel with those Vietcong.” On this day, following his indictment by 24 hours, he was stripped of his title and his license to fight by the World Boxing Association.
In June, a court found him guilty of draft evasion, fined him $10,000, and sentenced him to five years in prison. He remained free, pending numerous appeals, but was still barred from fighting for three years.
Muhammad Ali refuses Army induction 
Remembering Muhammad Ali’s act of defiance 
May 9, 1969
The New York Times revealed the United States had been secretly bombing Cambodia—officially a noncombatant, neutral country—during the Vietnam War.
May 9, 1970
Five days after the Kent State killings [see May 4, 1970], 100,000 marched in Washington, D.C. against the Vietnam War. On the same day, about 600 Canadian protesters defaced the Peace Arch at the U.S.-Canadian border in Blaine, Washington.
May 9, 1979
At least 18 demonstrators were killed and many wounded after police opened fire on anti-government protesters outside the Metropolitan Cathedral in San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador.

CBS reporter: “The police continued to fire as bodies piled up on the cathedral steps”
More (including graphic video) on the cathedral bloodbath 
May 9, 1996
In San Salvador six soldiers were arrested in the slaying of Catholic church workers from the U.S.

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymay.htm#may9