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Veterans For Peace, an organization that speaks truth to war like nobody else, is attempting to reclaim Armistice Day, the Nov. 11 holiday that was flipped on its head 65 years ago when it was renamed Veterans Day — and became a celebration not of the end of war but of its perpetuity.

The name change occurred in 1954. The Korean War had recently “ended,” the Cold War and the nuclear arms race were seriously revving up and, of course, that other world war, nine years past, was still vividly a part of everyone’s consciousness. There was near-infinite cynicism about the whole idea of “the war to end all wars” . . . yeah, sure, what a joke. That’ll never happen.

It’s impossible in U.S. society not to frequently encounter the demand to vote, no matter what, no matter for whom, as a basic civic duty. Voting is supremely important, we’re told, a right, a responsibility, a moral requirement, something people died for which if you don’t use (even if it’s useless) you will effectively be pissing on their graves. I saw a bumper sticker the other day that said “If everyone would vote, it wouldn’t matter what the billionaires wanted.”

Let’s accept all of that at face value for the sake of argument. Let’s suppose it is our primary duty as members of society to vote. Personally, I always do, and it takes about 5 minutes out of my year. Sometimes I even promote candidates, and one might ask why that isn’t a supreme duty too, since it can impact how and whether numerous other people exercise their sacred duty to vote. Or we could extend that line of thinking further and ask why it isn’t the duty of each of us to work to change our culture so that only better candidates can get nominated, since that seems relevant to our duty to vote for some of those candidates. But I want to ask a different question at the moment.

y withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement, the US is effectively saying the global climate crisis is not our problem. This is American exceptionalism run amok. The US acts as if it can opt-out of the only planet we have because, well, because we’re special. This is not logical, this is not practical, this is not moral, and this is not possible. This is delusional. This is a crime against humanity. And yet the House Democrats remain obsessed with the low-level intrigues of Ukraine, Trumps, Bidens, and other clowns while turning away from the growing global catastrophe. Yes, there’s some evidence of minor-league failed chicanery on several sides of the Ukraine mashup. But the case is a joke compared to the climate crisis, and our Democratic leadership chooses to focus on the picayune over the universally tragic.

The date 11 November is well known and commemorated in many parts of the world because it marks the Armistice ending World War I – ‘the Great War’ – in 1918.

In the evocative words used by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., an atheist humanist, in his novel Breakfast of Champions, the day is remembered thus:

‘When I was a boy … all the people of all the nations which fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month. It was at that minute in nineteen-hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields at that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.’

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Suspected Muslim separatists attacked poorly
defended road checkpoints killing at least 15 people, including five
women, in the most deadly assault in several years in southern
Thailand where more than 7,000 have died on all sides since 2004.

Authorities fear a new generation of minority ethnic Thai-Malay Muslim
guerrillas have emerged more efficient in deadly tactics and
frustrated with years of pointless negotiations amid allegations of
torture and extrajudicial killings by both sides.

The Islamists' hit-and-run attack during the night on November 5
included the use of improvised explosives and comes after the recent
failure of peace talks between the rebels and Thailand's U.S.-trained
military.

"It is a cruel, barbarian and inhumane act of 'deep south' insurgents
who hurled hand grenades and shot at civilians," said Defense Ministry
spokesman Lt. Gen. Kongcheap Tantrawanit on November 6, according to
BenarNews media which is affiliated with the U.S. government's Radio
Free Asia.

"This is one of the biggest attack in recent times," Col. Pramote

The extremely rich Americans who are now frantically trying to figure out how to intervene in the Democratic presidential campaign make me wonder how different they are from the animated character who loved frolicking in money and kissing dollar bills while counting them. If Uncle Scrooge existed as a billionaire in human form today, it’s easy to picture him aligned with fellow plutocrats against the “threat” of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

The exceedingly wealthy are usually content to stay in the shadows while their combined financial leverage and media power keep top government officials more or less in line. But the grassroots strengths of the Warren and Sanders campaigns have jolted some key oligarchs into overt action.

y withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement, the US is effectively saying the global climate crisis is not our problem. This is American exceptionalism run amok. The US acts as if it can opt-out of the only planet we have because, well, because we’re special. This is not logical, this is not practical, this is not moral, and this is not possible. This is delusional. This is a crime against humanity. And yet the House Democrats remain obsessed with the low-level intrigues of Ukraine, Trumps, Bidens, and other clowns while turning away from the growing global catastrophe. Yes, there’s some evidence of minor-league failed chicanery on several sides of the Ukraine mashup. But the case is a joke compared to the climate crisis, and our Democratic leadership chooses to focus on the picayune over the universally tragic.

 At last night's Free Press Second Saturday Salon; lifelong activist Harvey Wasserman presented an alarming trend of bribery attempts, harassment, and even physical assaults on Ohio Senate Bill HB-6 ("Nuke Bailout") referendum Petition Gatherers in Ohio. Joe DeMare and Rebecca Calhoun shared their first-hand experiences being confronted by paid "blockers" while attempting to exercise their civic right of informing the public of a referendum and gathering petition signatures.

So the state of Virginia is going to be run (House, Senate, and Governorship) by members of the Democratic Party for the first time in decades.

This means either that the go-to excuse of elected Democrats is going to become something other than “It’s the Republicans’ fault,” or that change is actually upon us.

Why not take this opportunity to consider what a changed government might look like?

The state of Virginia could, if it chose, take any number of progressive steps. It could create single-payer healthcare, tax wealth, make college free, make the minimum wage a living wage, end the death penalty, ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, pass the national popular vote bill, replace three-quarters of the mandatory testing in schools with actual teaching, abolish the pledge of allegiance, pay teachers better, enforce the right to unionize, and so on.