Tag: War / War On The Public / War Against Citizens

Peace & Justice History for 8/14

It’s a busy date, but 3 cheers for Social Security!

August 14, 1935
President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law, creating unemployment compensation, old-age benefits and aid to dependent children.“We can never insure one hundred percent of the population against one hundred percent of the hazards and vicissitudes of life, but we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age.”
President Roosevelt signing Social Security Act of 1935 in the Cabinet Room of the White House.
Library of Congress photo
A comprehensive history: https://www.ssa.gov/history/
August 14, 1941
In the German Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz, a group of prisoners had been chosen by the camp’s commander for death by starvation. Roman Catholic Fr. Maximilian Maria Kolbe offered himself for death instead of one of the condemned because the man had a family he needed to be alive to support. Fr. Kolbe was put to death on this day by lethal injection following two weeks of starvation.
Pope John Paul II declared him a Saint in 1982.
August 14, 1945
President Harry Truman announced that Japan, one week following the atomic bomb attacks on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, had surrendered unconditionally, ending World War II.
August 14, 1959
The U.S.-launched Explorer VI satellite recorded the first photograph of Earth taken from space, at an altitude of 17,000 miles (27,400 km)
.
Read more: https://www.spaceanswers.com/solar-system/the-earth-from-afar-ten-incredible-images-of-our-planet-from-space/
August 14, 1966
Twenty people were arrested for trying to attend services at the white First Baptist Church in Grenada, Mississippi. They were charged with “disturbing divine worship.” Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) field staff member Jim Bulloch was arrested and his car fire-bombed while he was in jail.
August 14, 1968
400 anti-apartheid students occupied the university in Cape Town, South Africa, to protest its refusal to hire a black professor.
August 14, 1976
Majella O’Hare, a young Catholic girl, was shot dead by British soldiers while walking with other children to confession near her home in Ballymoyer, Whitecross, County Armagh.The soldiers, initially denying they had fired any weapons, claimed that the patrol had been fired upon by an unidentified gunman. But there were serious doubts about the army’s claim. Eyewitness reports failed to confirm it and, unofficially, police investigating the case referred to the army’s “phantom gunman.”
The same day 10,000 Northern Irish gathered at a demonstration in Andersontown, organized by the Women’s Peace Movement (later known as Peace People).Majella O’Hare
How it happened from people who were there: https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/events/other/1976/murray76.htm
August 14, 1980

After months of labor turmoil, more than 16,000 Polish workers seized control of the Lenin Shipyards in Gdansk. They helped form Solidarnos´c´ (Solidarity), the first independent labor union anywhere in the Soviet bloc, as the Warsaw Pact nations were known. Under the leadership of Lech Valensa [lek va wen´suh] and others, it helped unite the broad political, social and religious opposition to the Communist government. Long-range look at Solidarity: https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/21746

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryaugust.htm#august141935

Good Sense

Armistice Sonnet | Abhijit Naskar | World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets

“Armistice Sonnet

Ceasefire is a diplomatic gimmick,
They cease only to hit back harder.
Demilitarization is what we need,
We got no use for one more ceasefire.

Ceasefire only postpones war,
disarmament instills peace.
Armistice empowers armament,
demilitarization plants peace.

Tyrants don’t call truce to allow aid,
but only to rearm themselves,
so they can call in more ammunition,
from their apely imperialist friends.

One more ceasefire we could do without,
World is wailing for the final ceasefire.
Disown every statesman who prides military,
Builders of military are merchants of murder.”
― Abhijit Naskar, World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets

Airstrike at Gaza mosque kills at least 80, Palestinian officials say

I don’t care if there was an entire army hold up there, there are rules to war that Israel has violated each one.   They are willing and wantonly killing civilians.  Plus they are trying to sabotage the peace plans.  I am very glad Biden is not running because he is allowing Israel to get away with this.   Hugs.  Scottie

Peace & Justice History 8/9

The subject of South African pass laws makes me think of the GOP’s Agenda 47, and Project 2025…

August 9, 1943

Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian conscientious objector who reported for induction but refused to serve in the army of the Third Reich, was executed by guillotine at
Brandenburg-Gorden prison. An American, Gordon Zahn, wrote about Jägerstätter while researching the subject of German Roman Catholics’ response to Hitler.
Zahn’s book, In Solitary Witness, influenced Daniel Ellsberg’s decision to stand against the Vietnam War by bringing the previously secret Pentagon Papers to public attention. Against the Stream by Erna Putz, the story of the courage of Franz Jägerstätter: https://www.c3.hu/~bocs/jager-a.htm

August 9, 1945
The second atomic bomb, “Fatman,” was dropped on the arms-manufacturing and key port city of Nagasaki. The plan to drop a second bomb was to test a different design rather than one of military necessity. The Hiroshima weapon was a gun type, the Nagasaki weapon an implosion type, and the War Department wanted to know which was the more effective design.Responsibility for the timing of the second bombing had been delegated by President Harry Truman before the Hiroshima attack to Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, the commander of the 509th Composite Group on Tinian, one of the Northern Mariana Islands in the western Pacific.

Scheduled for August 11 against Kokura, the raid was moved forward to avoid a five-day period of bad weather forecast to begin on August 10. English translation of leaflet air-dropped over Japan after the first bomb [excerpt]: “We are in possession of the most destructive explosive ever devised by man. A single one of our newly developed atomic bombs is actually the equivalent in explosive power to what 2000 of our giant B-29s can carry on a single mission. This awful fact is one for you to ponder and we solemnly assure you it is grimly accurate.”Of the 195,000 population of the city (many of its children had been evacuated due to bombing in the days just prior), 39,000 died and 25,000 were injured, and 40% of all residences were damaged or destroyed.“What on earth has happened?” said my mother, holding her baby tightly in her arms. “Is it the end of the world?”
Sachiko Yamaguchi (nine years old at the time of the bombing).Hear an eyewitness account of this terrrible event  Photographic exhibit of the aftermath

August 9, 1956

20,000 women demonstrated against the pass laws in Pretoria, South Africa. Pass laws required that Africans carry identity documents with them at all times. These books had to contain stamps providing official proof the person in question had permission to be in a particular town at a given time. Initially, only men were forced to carry these books, but soon the law also compelled women to carry the documents.

August 9, 1966
Two hundred people sat in at the New York City offices of Dow Chemical Company to protest the widespread use in Vietnam of Dow’s flammable defoliant Napalm.
Napalm in use in Vietnam
Read more about Dow Chemical and the use of napalm: https://thevietnamwar.info/napalm-vietnam-war/

August 9, 1987
Hundreds were arrested in an all-day blockade of the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant in Golden, Colorado. Protests at Rocky Flats had been going on for some years.

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryaugust.htm#august91943

Rafah’s health crisis

rawgod brought this up, also, and I’m running with it here, because the Don is dominating the news (it’s all he can dominate) and there’s no reason to cover him these days. Anyway, here is some info from 2 sources regarding the spiralling health catastrophe in Rafah.

Rafah water facility demolition raises health risks in Gaza, UN says

July 30, 2024 1:10 PM By Lisa Schlein

GENEVA — 

U.N. agencies warn that the demolition of a critical water facility in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip increases the risk of infectious diseases as people are forced to drink unsafe water while sanitary conditions continue to deteriorate.

“Until recently, that reservoir served thousands and thousands of internally displaced people who had sought refuge in Rafah in the area,” James Elder, UNICEF spokesperson, told journalists at a briefing in Geneva on Tuesday.

“Now without it, vulnerable children and families are likely to be forced again increasingly to resort to unsafe water, so putting them again at all those risks that we see time after time, day after day in Gaza — dehydration, malnutrition, diseases,” he said.

The Israeli daily Haaretz reported Monday that the troops blew up the central reservoir “on the orders of the brigade commanders” but without receiving permission from the senior level of the Southern Command. It added that the incident was being investigated by Israel’s Military Police as “a suspected violation of international law.”

Infections spreading

Elder said the destruction of the Canada Well reservoir “is yet another grim reminder of the assaults on families who already are in desperate need of water.”

“We have seen spikes in diarrhea, in skin infections — all due to a lack of access to hygiene and a lack of access to water,” he said, noting that people in emergencies require a minimum of 15 liters (almost 4 gallons) of water per person per day.

Now, the range of water availability in Gaza has been reduced to between 2 and 9 liters per person, per day, and some people are getting just a fraction of that, Elder said.

“Somehow, people are holding on, but of course, we are now in that deathly cycle whereby children are very malnourished. There is immense heat. There is [a] lack of water. There is a horrendous lack of sanitation, and that is the cycle,” he said.

The World Health Organization reports a surge in infectious diseases in the Gaza Strip. As of July 7, it has recorded nearly 1 million cases of acute respiratory infections, 577,000 cases of acute watery diarrhea, 107,000 of acute jaundice syndrome and 12,000 of bloody diarrhea. It also has recorded nearly 200,000 cases of scabies, lice, skin rashes, chicken pox and other illnesses.

Polio threat

The recent identification of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 in Gaza’s sewage system is of particular concern. Under prevailing conditions in Gaza, there is a high risk of spread of this paralytic, deadly disease within the Palestinian enclave and across borders.

“Having a vaccine-derived polio virus in the sewage very likely means that it is out there somewhere in people,” WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier said. “It most likely is in the population, but that does not necessarily mean that we see an outbreak of cases.

“But of course, we need to be prepared. We need to be utterly prepared. And we need vaccinations, and we need vaccination campaigns,” he said. (snip-More)

Inside Rafah’s Deteriorating Health Crisis

Health conditions are rapidly deteriorating in Rafah as a possible ground offensive nears. Project HOPE reports that 1 in 5 children under age two showed signs of malnutrition in an underserved displacement camp in Rafah.

This week, the Israeli Government announced plans to move forward with a ground offensive in Rafah despite concerns from the international community about the severe impact it would have on civilian lives. As the threat of forced evacuation or an escalation of violence looms, the health of people living in Rafah is rapidly deteriorating. Inhumane and crowded living conditions, limited access to clean water and food, and inadequate hygiene facilities have led to an increase in cases of hepatitis A, upper respiratory tract infections, tonsillitis, and urinary tract infections.

Malnutrition rates are on the rise due to limited availability, loss of income, and soaring food prices linked to the destruction of Gaza’s food system. At Project HOPE’s clinic in Jaafar Al-Tayyar, an underserved displacement camp in Rafah, 1 in 5 children under the age of two exhibited signs of malnutrition over the last month. The camp has turned into a breeding ground for disease and illness. Over 100,000 people are crammed into one area. Project HOPE’s team reports that it is common for 20-30 people to live in just one tent and hundreds share access to one toilet and shower, which not only creates serious hygiene and disease concerns but poses protection risks for women, children, and others.

Rafah was home to 280,000 people before the war. Today, over one million people seek refuge in the small city. Families live in overcrowded tents, homes, and makeshift shelters with limited access to the necessities to survive. Project HOPE calls upon all parties involved to implement an immediate and sustained ceasefire to prevent the loss of more innocent lives.

Dr. Nour Al-Din Khaled Alamassi, Physician for Project HOPE, said:
“Everywhere around me, people are hungry. It is inevitable here, especially for children, pregnant women, and people with chronic illnesses. In our clinic, we constantly see people who are sick, uncomfortable, and hungry. Children’s bodies are deteriorating. Food is way too expensive and fresh foods like chicken or vegetables are impossible to find. We cannot rely on aid shipments for regular meals.

I recently met Nafisa Al-Dakakheneh, a 67-year-old, who moved from Gaza City to Rafah. She told me, ‘We had no food, no water, nothing – we’re tired. We were starving so we had no choice but to leave our home and come to Rafah.’ Nafisha has no home in Rafah. She sleeps on the hard ground under blankets hanging in the air as cover because she can’t afford a tent. Her grandchild tragically died in the hands of his mother due to lack of food and severe dehydration. Nafisa is terrified of dying. I resonated with her words, ‘We really need to feel like we’re human again.’

Naifsa’s story is not unique. If we do not die from violence, we could die from disease or hunger. More violence in Rafah would be devastating. The last safe haven in Gaza would be destroyed. Every day, I fear what might happen. I worry about having to be displaced constantly. We are living in a nightmare.” (snip-More)

-yours Ukrainian.

This is linked in a Substack I read. In and on its own merit, I’m bringing it here for people to take a look. I think it’ll be worthwhile. I wish that people in Yemen and refugees from Gaza and people in all troubled places had this opportunity, but there it is; we have this. Anyway, take a look, subscribe if you like, or pass it along, and send a good thought into the universe on behalf of parents and children and stopping war.

Becoming a mother amid war in Ukraine by Anastasiia Lapatina

Two days after the birth of my daughter, Russia launched one of its largest air attacks on Kyiv. It was terrifying, but also entirely expected, and that’s the worst part. Read on Substack

Adidas apologises to Bella Hadid after she appeared in campaign criticised by Israel

Sportswear company issues statement after accusations it was conflating Palestinian identity with terrorism

Ellie Violet Bramley Wed 24 Jul 2024 10.38 EDT

Adidas has apologised to the model Bella Hadid after pulling adverts in which she was promoting a sport shoe first launched to coincide with the 1972 Munich Olympics.

Adidas last week said it was “revising” its campaign after criticism from Israel over Hadid’s involvement in the campaign for the retro SL72 trainers. Hadid is an American whose family has roots in Palestine.

The apology, issued on Instagram, said: “Connections continue to be made to the terrible tragedy that occurred at the Munich Olympics due to our recent SL72 campaign,” referring to the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre when Israeli athletes were taken hostage by the Black September Organization, a Palestinian militant group. Eleven Israelis, a German police officer and five of the attackers died.

The statement continued: “These connections are not meant, and we apologise for any upset or distress caused to communities around the world. We made an unintentional mistake. We also apologise to our partners, Bella Hadid, ASAP Nast, Jules Koundé, and others, for any negative impact on them and we are revising the campaign.”

On Friday, the German-based company had said in a statement it was “revising the remainder of the campaign” after criticism over Hadid’s involvement by Israel on X. “Guess who the face of their campaign is?” read a post on Israel’s official account. “Bella Hadid, a model who has a history of spreading antisemitism and calling for violence against Israelis and Jews.”

Hadid had previously been criticised by Israel for allegedly chanting: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” on a march in 2021.

Adidas was condemned by some Jewish organisations, with the American Jewish Committee labelling its decision as either a “massive oversight or intentionally inflammatory”. Others came out in support of Hadid. One fellow Adidas ambassador, the Palestinian-American author and activist Amani al-Khatahtbeh, posted an email she sent to Adidas on X, in which she said: “Bella Hadid is a model of Palestinian origin that has been a much-needed outspoken advocate for human right.” She added: “Adidas’s disappointing response conflates our Palestinian identity with terrorism.”

Hadid, 27, whose father is the Palestinian businessman Mohamed Hadid, has been vocal in her support for Palestine. In May she expressed her solidarity by wearing a dress crafted out of red and white keffiyehs during the film festival in Cannes. In 2023 she denounced the far-right Israeli national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir for saying Jewish settlers had more rights than Palestinians in occupied territories.

When she appeared on the cover of Vogue magazine in 2021, she said on Instagram: “A Palestinian girl on the cover of Vogue. The joy it brings me to say that … I won’t stop talking about the systematic oppression, pain and humility that Palestinians face on a regular basis.”

Hadid, who recently launched her own wellness brand, has faced death threats for her outspoken support.

The apology to Hadid and her fellow Adidas partners comes amid reports that she is speaking to lawyers about her options.

A trend-setter across fashion, Hadid is perhaps particularly influential in the trainer space – she was a driver of the widespread popularity of the Adidas It-trainer, the Samba, which has been ubiquitous in recent years. She started wearing the SL72s, which are part of a campaign by Adidas to revive a series of its classic trainer models, earlier this year.

https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/article/2024/jul/24/adidas-apologises-bella-hadid-campaign-criticism-israel

Peace and Justice History for 7/27:

July 27, 1919
A riot began in Chicago when police refused to arrest a white man who was responsible for the death of a young black man, Eugene Williams. The 29th Street Beach on Lake Michigan was used by both black and white Chicagoans. But the man had been throwing stones at the black boys swimming there before hitting Williams.
The Coroner’s report on the riot described the events as follows: “Five days of terrible hate and passion let loose, cost the people of Chicago 38 lives (15 white and 23 colored), wounded and maimed several hundred, destroyed property of untold value, filled thousands with fear, blemished the city and left in its wake fear and apprehension for the future . . . .”
The city’s booming economy, especially jobs in the stockyards, had drawn many blacks during the Great Migration from the South, more than doubling their population in just three years. Only one policeman died in the chaos, Patrolman John Simpson, 31, an African American working out of the Wabash Avenue Station. (Read more: https://www.newhistorian.com/2015/07/29/chicago-race-riot-1919/
July 27, 1953
After three years of bloody and frustrating war leading to stalemate, the United States, the People’s Republic of China and North Korea agreed to a truce, bringing the Korean War—and America’s first experiment with the Cold War concept of “limited war”—to an end (South Korean President Syngman Rhee opposed the truce and refused to sign). U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower had taken office six months earlier, and Soviet leader Josef Stalin had died that March.
Korean War Memorialphoto: Heather StanfieldThe armistice signed this day ended hostilities and created the 4000-meter-wide (2.5 miles) demilitarized zone (DMZ), a buffer between North and South Korean forces, but was not a permanent peace treaty. It also set up a system for exchanging prisoners of war: 12,000 held by the North, 75,000 by South Korea, the U.S. and the U.N. allied forces.
There were four million military and civilian casualties, including 16,000 from countries which were part of the U.N.-allied forces; 415,000 South and 520,000 North Koreans died.There were also an estimated 900,000 Chinese casualties. 36,516 died out of the nearly 1.8 million Americans who served in the conflict.
July 27, 1954
The democratically elected Guatemalan government of Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, after receiving 65% of the vote, was overthrown by CIA-paid and -trained mercenaries. There followed a series of military dictatorships that waged a genocidal war against the indigenous Mayan Indians and against political opponents into the ’90s. Nearly 200,000 citizens died over the nearly four decades of civil war.
“They have used the pretext of anti-communism. The truth is very different. The truth is to be found in the financial interests of the fruit company [United Fruit, which controlled more land than any other individual or group in the country. It also owned the railway, the electric utilities, telegraph, and the country’s only port at Puerto Barrios on the Atlantic coast.] and the other U.S. monopolies which have invested great amounts of money in Latin America and fear that the example of Guatemala would be followed by other Latin countries . . . I took over the presidency with great faith in the democratic system, in liberty and the possibility of achieving economic independence for Guatemala.”Jacobo Arbenz
More about Arbenz  https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKarbenz.htmThe real coup story through official U.S. documents  https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB4/
July 27, 1996
Known as the “Weep for Children Plowshares,” four women were arrested for pouring their own blood on weaponry at the Naval Submarine Base at Groton, Connecticut, on the morning of the launch of the last-built Ohio-class submarine, the U.S.S. Louisiana. The 18 such submarines carry about half of the U.S. nuclear deterrent – 24 Trident I & II missiles with a range of 7400 km (4600 miles), each with several warheads known as MIRVs (multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles).
Trident sub being loadedDetails of the action  https://www.jonahhouse.org/archive/weep.htm

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjuly.htm#july27

Nearly 5,000 workers evacuated from Russian-occupied nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia, minister says

https://kyivindependent.com/nearly-5-000-workers-were-evacuated-from-russian-occupied-nuclear-power-plant-in-zaporizhzhia-minister-says/

by Kateryna Hodunova andThe Kyiv Independent news deskJuly 19, 2024 8:14 PM

Illustrative purposes only: The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant as seen from the streets of Nikopol, the city in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, on July 6, 2023. (Amadeusz Swierk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Around 5,000 workers were rescued from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said on July 19 during a press conference.

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Europe’s largest nuclear power station, has been under Russian occupation since March 2022. Its position near the front line has led to heightened nuclear safety risks throughout Russia’s full-scale war.

All evacuated employees were the workers of Ukraine’s nuclear energy agency, Energoatom, according to Halushchenko.

Halushchenko also brought up that since February 2024, Russian forces have banned access to the plant for those employees who remained in the occupied territory.

“This is the personnel that we plan to attract to complete the construction of Khmelnytskyi Nuclear Power Plant units,” he added.

In April, Energoatom started building reactor units 5 and 6 at the Khmelnytskyi Nuclear Power Plant using U.S. technology that would help prevent power outages in case of Russian attacks.

After the reactor units 5 and 6 are built and units 3 and 4 are put into operation, the Khmelnytskyi Nuclear Power Plant’s power generating capacity will exceed the one of the Zaporizhzhia plant, according to Energoatom

The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution on July 11 demanding that Russia withdraw from the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and restore full control of the facility to Ukraine.

The resolution also condemns Russia for failing to implement safety protocols set out by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and calls on Moscow to allow IAEA inspectors full access to the plant’s facilities. (snip)