| December 29, 1890 The U.S. Army killed approximately 300 Miniconju Sioux (another of the Teton Sioux tribes). They had fled after the murder of Sitting Bull and sought refuge on the Oglala reservation of Pine Ridge at Wounded Knee, in the new state of South Dakota. The 7th Cavalry (Custer’s old command) fired their artillery amidst mostly unarmed women, children, and fleeing men. The Wounded Knee Massacre was the final major military battle in the genocide against Native Americans. 18 soldiers received Congressional Medals of Honor for their “bravery.” Encroaching white settlement after gold was found in 1874 on Sioux lands led to conflicts.  The Great Sioux Agreement of 1889 established reservations for the native inhabitants and encouraged further white settlement on Indian land. |
| December 29, 1996 War-weary guerrilla and government leaders in Guatemala signed an accord ending 36 years of civil conflict. What was the conflict all about? |
Tag: Peace
Beautiful.
The “Mighty Mite”
Peace & Justice History for 12/26
| December 26, 1862 38 members of the Santee Sioux tribe were hanged in a public mass execution in Minnesota. 300 members of the band had been convicted of participating the the Minnesota Uprising and ordered to hang. However, all sentences except the 38 had been commuted by President Abraham Lincoln. For decades white settlers had been encroaching on Santee Sioux territory, and they had been victimized by corrupt federal Indian agents on the reservations.In July agents and contractors had withheld food when their demands for kickbacks had been refused. The Indians eventually struck back, killing Anglo settlers and taking some hostages. In two battles with the U.S. Army, they killed or wounded dozens of soldiers, but ultimately lost and were put on trial.  America’s only legal mass execution =========================================== December 26, 1966 The first Kwanzaa was celebrated in Los Angeles, California. It was conceived and organized in the wake of the Watts riots by Dr. Maulana (Ron) Karenga, a professor and chairman of Black Studies at California State University at Long Beach. Kwanzaa is a non-religious African-American holiday focusing on family, community, and culture.The name Kwanzaa is derived from the phrase “matunda ya kwanza,” which means “first fruits” in Swahili. The celebrations are expressed through song, dance, drumming, storytelling, poetry and the lighting of candles in a Kinara, all followed by a large traditional meal. The holiday is observed for seven days, each representing a different principle:  a Kwanzaa Kinara • Umoja (oo-MO-jah) Unity • Kujichagulia (koo-gee-cha-goo-LEE-yah) Self-Determination • Ujima (oo-GEE-mah) Collective Work and Responsibility • Ujamaa (oo-JAH-mah) Cooperative economics • Nia (NEE-yah) Purpose • Kuumba (koo-OOM-bah) Creativity • Imani (ee-MAH-nee) Faith  Ron Karenga lighting the Kinara History, Principles, and Symbols of Kwanzaa ============================================ December 26, 1971  Two dozen members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War “liberated” the Statue of Liberty with a sit-in to protest resumed U.S. aerial bombings in Vietnam. They flew an inverted U.S. flag from the crown as a signal of distress. ============================================= December 26, 1992  photo: Simran Sachdev Belgrade, 7.2009 Women In Black began campaign against rape during war, Belgrade, Serbia.  WIB website Women in Black is a world-wide network of women committed to peace with justice and actively opposed to injustice, war, militarism and other forms of violence. ================================================ December 26, 1999 Alfonso Portillo Cabrera scored a resounding victory (nearly 70% of the vote in the second round) in Guatemala’s first peacetime presidential elections following a 36-year civil war.  Alfonso Portillo Cabrera after his election Some perspective |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorydecember.htm#december26
“Bilderberg Group changes itself for the modern world – and return of Trump”
(I wasn’t going to post any news today, but in my interest of world peace, and everyone’s interest in things that are happening, this story is important, and it’s not likely to be in the commercial breaks of the game or whatever. If it comes up again, and/or where regular people see it in regular fashion, something will have already happened. Right now, it strikes me as something of which to be aware. Save reading it till tomorrow, if you like. I just want it here for the record. -A)
The former head of Nato, Jens Stoltenberg, has been named the new co-chair of the influential Bilderberg Group, which convenes a yearly transatlantic policy conference and has long been the subject of conspiracy theories around the extent of its power to shape global events.and/or
After a turbulent decade at the helm of the alliance’s military, Stoltenberg now takes over at its pre-eminent discussion forum: a fiercely private four-day event frequented by prime minsters, EU commissioners, bank bosses, corporate CEOs and intelligence chiefs.
Stoltenberg’s first Bilderberg was back in 2002, a few years before his second tenure as Norway’s prime minister. His decade as secretary general of Nato saw further visits, and he even gave the keynote speech at the group’s Saturday night banquet in Turin in 2018. His appointment as Bilderberg’s co-chair cements the group’s role at the heart of transatlantic strategy.
In February, Stoltenberg will also take over as chair of the Munich Security Conference, another important defence and diplomacy symposium. With a fellow Bilderberg veteran, the former Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte, replacing Stoltenberg at Nato, it marks a concentration of control at the top of the Atlantic alliance at a critical time.
Stoltenberg’s tenure at Nato was dominated by the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which had begun in earnest not long before he took office in 2014. Stoltenberg oversaw what he recently described as “the largest reinforcement of our collective defence in a generation”, noting proudly that “defence spending is on an upward trajectory across the alliance”.
A number of his new colleagues at Bilderberg have been benefiting from this uptick.
Several of the group’s 31-member steering committee have senior roles in the defence industry. The billionaire former Google boss, Eric Schmidt, chaired the recent National Security Commission on AI, and is now busy launching a kamikaze drone company aimed at the lucrative Ukraine market. Meanwhile, the hugely wealthy Swedish industrialist Marcus Wallenberg is chair of defense manufacturer Saab, which enjoyed a 71% boost in orders in the first nine months of 2024, largely due to the war with Russia.
The tech luminary and Donald Trump insider Peter Thiel founded the fast-growing robotics company Anduril and the booming surveillance and AI giant Palantir. His loyal lieutenant Alex Karp, the CEO of Palantir, was voted on to the board of Bilderberg a few years ago. Karp, who claims his company is “responsible for most of the targeting in Ukraine”, recently told the New York Times that the US will “very likely” soon be fighting a three-front war with China, Russia and Iran.
In some respects, the geopolitical mood today is not so different from how it was in the 1950s, when Bilderberg was born. (snip-MORE)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/25/jens-stoltenberg-bilderberg-group-trump-presidency
Science For Peace, or Peace For Science!
Lard’s World Peace Tips by Keith Tutt and Daniel Saunders for December 25, 2024
Peace & Justice History for 12/25
December 25, 1914 German officer in the trenches with British soldier Just after midnight on Christmas morning, German troops at the front in World War I ceased firing their guns and artillery, and began to sing Christmas carols. At the first light of dawn, many of the German soldiers emerged from their trenches and approached the Allied lines across no man’s land, calling out “Merry Christmas” in their enemies’ native tongues.At first the Allied soldiers suspected it to be a trick, but they soon climbed out of their trenches and shook hands with the German soldiers. The men exchanged presents of cigarettes and plum puddings; the fighting didn’t resume in earnest for several days, and then only at the insistence of the generals.  German and British soldiers fraternize What happened that night A Film | Joyeux Noel: The Christmas Truce Of 1914 watch & listen ========================================= December 25, 1921 President Harding announced the release of Socialist Party leader Eugene V. Debs from prison, unconditionally commuting his 10-year sentence to time served. Debs’s full rights as a citizen, however, were not restored. He had been imprisoned for his vocal opposition to U.S. participation in World War I. Following a meeting with the president and attorney general, Debs commented, “. . . a convict for his principles is always a citizen in good standing. He is a citizen by his own inherent, God-given integrity. The only man who loses his citizenship is the man who renounces his principles and abdicates his manhood.” =============================================== December 25, 1946 The first Christmas demonstration at the White House was held by those seeking amnesty for conscientious objectors convicted of refusing to fight in World War II. =============================================== December 25, 1992 The special prosecutor responsible for investigating crimes committed in the Iran-Contra Affair, Lawrence E. Walsh, denounced the pardons granted the day before by President George H.W. Bush. Mr. Walsh charged that “the Iran-contra cover-up, which has continued for more than six years, has now been completed.” Walsh said, “evidence of a conspiracy among the highest ranking Reagan Administration officials to lie to Congress and the American public” was central to his case against Weinberger. President Bush had been vice president at the time of the arms sales to Iran for hostages, and illegal aid to the insurgent Contras in Nicaragua. Those Bush pardoned: Caspar Weinberger, former Secretary of Defense, soon to go on trial for lying to Congress; Clair E. George, the former head of the Central Intelligence Agency’s clandestine services, who had been convicted twice of perjury; two other CIA officials, Duane Clarridge and Alan D. Fiers Jr.; Robert C. McFarlane, the former national security adviser, and Elliott Abrams, the former assistant Secretary of State for Central America, both of whom had pled guilty to withholding information from Congress. |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorydecember.htm#december25
Here’s To A Comfortable and Peaceful Tuesday and Wednesday to You, However You May Observe Them!
I’ve been looking, between chores and getting other stuff done, for some sort of “card” to post to Scottie’s Playtime. I just got this Substack from Nancy Beiman, who is far more concise than I am, and says all I want to say. I appreciate everyone who reads and posts here!
Out with the Old by Nancy Beiman
and in with the new year Read on Substack
Hello everyone,
I wish you all a merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2025. I don’t usually send ‘year end letters’ but this year’s Canada Post strike meant that I could only send digital cards, and I mailed no original cards for the first time in 43 years.
Thees letters customarily describe what happened to the sender during the past year. 2024 was a year of sorrow for me and many of my friends.
Rather than put a damper on your own celebrations, I will instead list what I wish for all of us in 2025.
This wish list doesn’t need a magical being or genie to make them happen. People will have to change their behaviour. That is a wish that can only be granted by humans.
It’s a very tall order but wishes sometimes are granted.
Here goes:
I wish for:
1. Tolerance of people with different views and ways of living.
2. The restoration of civil discourse in private and public life. An end to toxicity.
3. The ending of all current wars and a joining of nations together in common cause to save our planet. Monies currently wasted on war will be used to build housing, repair infrastructure, feed the hungry, restore damaged areas of the natural world and preserve it.
4. Recognition that non human beings share the planet with us and that we are totally dependent on them. They provide air, food, and clean water.
5. The end of money worship. Money may talk, but it doesn’t think. No person or nation may be ‘first’ in everything.
It seems as if we are revisiting many of the negative events from the last century. So my last wish will be that humanity actually learns something from past mistakes.
I can dream, can’t I?
Happy 2025,
Nancy Beiman
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Peace & Justice History for 12/24
| December 24, 1865 Months after the fall of the Confederacy and the end of slavery, several veterans of the Confederate Army formed a private social club in Pulaski, Tennessee, called the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Its first priority, declared in its creed, was “to protect the weak, the innocent, and the defenseless from the indignities, wrongs, and outrages of the lawless, the violent, and the brutal.” In fact, the Klan terrorized and killed former slaves, sympathetic whites and immigrants.  Three Ku Klux Klan members, September 1871. The building where it happened still stands with a bronze plaque reading, “Ku Klux Klan organized in this, the law office of Judge Thomas M. Jones, Dec. 24, 1865.” When the building was purchased in 1990, the new owner, Don Massey, instead of removing the plaque, simply reversed it, showing the smooth back side. More on the Klan |
December 24, 1924 Costa Rica indicated its intention to withdraw from The League of Nations to protest lack of progress on regional issues, particularly U.S. dominance of the hemisphere. The Monroe Doctrine, declared by President James Monroe in 1823, established the U.S. sphere of influence encompassed the entirety of North and South America, as well as the Caribbean island nations. Read more |
| December 24, 1947 President Truman pardoned 1,523 of the 15,805 World War II draft resisters who had been convicted and served time in prison for their offense. Five years later on the same day, shortly before leaving office, he granted full pardon and restoration of civil and political rights to former convicts who had served in the peacetime army or who had not been covered by his earlier pardon, as well as all convicted peacetime deserters. Read more |
| December 24, 1991 Parents of reservists from Grocka protested at Army headquarters in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, worried their sons would be caught up in the war threatened by Serbian nationalist expansionism. |
| December 24, 1992 President George Herbert Walker Bush pardoned six Reagan administration appointees in the Iran-Contra case, among them former Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger, and Robert McFarlane, the President’s former national security advisor.He did so with less than one month to go in his presidency, and one week before Weinberger’s trial on four felony charges was to begin. These people and others were responsible for selling arms to the revolutionary government of Iran in hope of the release of hostages held in Lebanon, despite then-President Ronald Reagan’s repeated pledge not to negotiate with hostage-takers. The Iran-Contra Boys  Otto Reich /Elliott Abrams /John Poindexter/Edwin Meese George H.W. Bush/Casper Weinberger/Oliver North/Robert McFarlane The money raised through the arms sales was used to fund the Contra insurgents in Nicaragua, who were violently trying to overthrow the government. This support was in violation of an explicit legal ban on such activities under the Boland Amendment [see December 21, 1982]. Text of Bush’s Grant of Executive Clemency U.S. presidential pardon history: More about presidential pardons: |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorydecember.htm#december24
Scottie's Playtime 