Protest Reports

Featuring heavy hitters from the realms of cable news and punditry, Politicon - which is to Politics what Comic Con is to superheroes and comic books - took place July 29-30 at the Pasadena Convention Center. This “politi-palooza” attracted prominent speakers, performers and audiences from across the liberal and conservative ends of the spectrum. Highlights of the chattering classes’ chitchat at Politicon included:

“Po-Crazy”

The first panel I attended at what was dubbed “Independence Hall” was entitled “Trump: Genius or Lunatic?” Sally Kohn, an openly gay reliably lefty commentator who has opinionated on Fox News and CNN, moderated the discussion with pro and anti Trump participants. Referring to the president and his state of mind (or lack of), Kohn set the stage for the weekend talkfest by paraphrasing the old Gershwin Brothers’ song “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off”, quipping: “You say potato, I say ‘po-crazy’.”

Coulter Interruptus: Ersatz Nazis, Real Reds

One week before the

When a small number of heavily armed Ku Klux Klanners from North Carolina are given vast amounts of media attention for holding a rally here in Charlottesville, Va., on July 8th, I believe people opposed to violence and racism should go nowhere near them but in no way ignore them.

Wisconsin Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars has held monthly vigils against drones at the gates of Volk Field for over five years. This Wisconsin Air National Guard Base is a critical component of the whole drone warfare program being conducted by the US government in a number of countries in the Middle East and Africa.   At Volk Field personnel are trained to operate the RQ-7 Shadow Drone, which has been used for reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition. However, now there is the likelihood that the RQ-7 is also weaponized.

Remarks at United National Antiwar Coalition in Richmond, Virginia, June 17, 2017

Did you hear about Trump calling up the mayor of Tangier Island in the Chesapeake Bay and telling him that, contrary to all appearances, his island is not sinking? I want to focus on one element of this story, namely that the guy believed what he was told, rather than what he saw.

Did you hear about Secretary of War Mattis telling Congress that for the 16th year in a row he would produce a plan for “winning” a war on Afghanistan? Congress either believed it or has been paid to act as if it believes it. Congress members Jones and Garamendi have a bill to defund this endless act of mass-murder. We need a movement that can nonviolently shut down Congressional offices until they do so.

Dear Mr. Bezos,

You have recently received some radioactive junk mail promoting the idea that your company, Amazon, should financially support Perry and Davis-Besse, the two financially dead atomic reactors in northern Ohio. It was a letter from “pro-nuke environmentalists,” the ultimate oxymoron in a world moving toward safe renewables, a transition embraced by your company’s wise commitment to go 100 percent renewable.

At the climate rally in Chicago last week, people started drumming in the rain.

Pardon me while I walk uncertain ground here, looking for clues and connections in a smattering of unlikely places. The world is in a fragile, dangerous place. We need to create peace, fairness and sustainability. We need to create a world that doesn’t yet exist, but this is only possible if we look at the world we have with awareness that transcends the limits of our knowing. I don’t know how to do this, but I’m going to try.

And so I listen again to the native drums beating in the rain, in the bitter wind, in the company of several thousand people huddled next to each other in the city’s Federal Plaza, many of them bearing signs that expressed fragments of hope and alarm:

“Defend Our Mother.”

“We are the Earth, rising up to defend herself.”

“Save Our Planet. I don’t want to move!”

“Give kids a future.”

Most countries on earth have the U.S. military in them.

Most countries on earth burn less fossil fuel than does the U.S. military.

And that's without even calculating how much worse for the climate jet fuel is than other fossil fuels.

And it's without even considering the fossil fuel consumption of the world's leading weapons makers, or the pollution caused by the use of those weapons all over the world.

The U.S. is the top weapons dealer to the world, and has weapons on multiple sides of most wars.

The U.S. military created 69% of super fund environmental disaster sites and is the third leading polluter of U.S. waterways.

When the British first developed an obsession with the Middle East, passed along to the United States, the desire was to fuel the British Navy.

What came first? The wars or the oil? It was the wars.

Wars and the preparations for more wars consume a huge amount of oil.

When a group of Ohio State University students interrupted an OSU Board of Trustees meeting on April 7, the timing was perfect for causing maximum embarrassment to the university’s administration.

While 22 members of the of the Student/Farmworker Alliance and Real Food OSU waited in the back of the conference room at the Longaberger Alumni House,  board members and students gave glowing reports of OSU’s philanthropic programs. The College of Dentistry gives free care to underserved communities with the Ohio Project. The Buckeye Civic Engagement Connection provides tutoring for student athletes at East High School.

Then university president Michael Drake gave his annual report to the board, waxing eloquent about OSU’s service to the community and connecting it to swelling enrollment in recent years. But before he finished, PhD student Henry Anton Peller interrupted him.

The attack on Syria by the United States while illegal per international
law (not sanctioned by the UN Security Council and opposed by Russia and
China) comes to remind as all of four basic facts of geopolitics:

1-US Presidents no matter how “unconventional” must always obey the rules
set for them. Trump came to office opposing intervention in Syria and is
now directly siding with the “rebels” and has accepted the 1990s neocon
strategy of regime changes across Western Asia that are supposed to benefit
"Israel".

2-As Henry Kissinger said: “all foreign policy is domestic policy”. With a
strong Zionist lobby in the US and absence of any counter lobby that
watches over US (let alone world) interests, we have a push for wars
supposed to help apartheid Israel whether in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, or Syria.

3-Modern warfare kills far more civilians than military (the ratio now is
>10 to 1). War is immoral, illogical, and criminal and has no “good side”
or “bad side”. The only positive thing now is that countries that use wars