Hold Your Own Nation Accountable For Its Wars, Or Include Other Nations? That Is The Question

Ken Mayers and Tarak Kauff outside court in Dublin Photo credit: Ellen Davidson

The formal entry of Russia into Ukraine's civil war has propelled peace advocacy organizations in the U.S. into spirited discussions. Organizations like Veterans for Peace grew themselves on opposition to U.S. militarism and have frequently done outreach to the victims, beginning with the people of Vietnam and often expanding to the U.S. border with Mexico. 

How best to now respond to a U.S./NATO sponsored war conducted behind the scenes? 

Deep confusion has resulted from years of the Russiagate misinformation campaign plus the chronic dearth of useful information on foreign affairs delivered by the corporate press.

Perhaps the actions of two leaders in VFP who called out Ireland on its covert participation in U.S. wars will be helpful to examine. 

I believe they shed light on the essential question: 

What is our responsibility toward the warmaking of other nations when we are citizens of the most violent empire ever to bestride the planet?

Meet Ken Mayers and Tarak Kauff. Many of you already know them. Ken does a lot of work supporting migrants at the border, and Tarak publishes Peace & Planet News in partnership with Ellen Davidson, another VFP member.

The most recent issue was sent out with this editorial note:

A Special edition on Ukraine

The administration and corporate media have been flooding the public with extremely slanted information, misinformation, and outright lies about the war in Ukraine. Censorship of differing viewpoints has been pervasive. The staff at Peace & Planet News has worked hard to present something the public has been denied – a balanced and accurate assessment of the situation, placing it in historical context and focusing in particular on the role of our own government as an obstacle to peace. You will find different viewpoints in this 16-page special edition but there is an underlying emphasis on truth, accuracy, and good clear writing in everything we have presented.

Cut to Dublin where Ken and Tarak are on trial for charges related to cutting a fence at Shannon Airport and attempting to inspect planes they believe were carrying U.S. troops to combat in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan.

Photo credit: Ellen Davidson  Ken & Tarak at Shannon Airport, March 17, 2019

The two activists were jailed and then not allowed to leave Ireland for 8 months after their arrests. International pressure helped them get their passports back. In December, 2019 they returned to the U.S. to await trial for entirely non-violent actions bringing attention to the uber violence of the U.S. war machine in collusion with allegedly neutral Ireland.

Full reporting on the actions, arrests, and trial can be found here at Stop The Wars. Here are some excerpts I found interesting from the reporting on Day 1:

On the opening day of the trial, jury selection was interrupted for nearly half an hour when one juror asserted his right to take the oath in Gaelige (Ireland is officially a bilingual nation), and the court officer could not find the appropriate text. After much searching online and elsewhere, a scruffy book was produced that had the required text, and Judge Patricia struggled through the pronunciation to administer the oath.

...

Kauff and Mayers have a different view of what the trial should be about. “The purpose is to, in our own way, put the government and the U.S. military on trial for killing people and animals, destroying the environment, and betraying the Irish people’s concept of their own neutrality,” said Kauff. “U.S. warmaking is literally destroying this planet, and I don’t want to be silent about it.”

...

When Kauff and Mayers returned to Ireland April 21, the immigration officer noted that “when you here the last time you caused some trouble, is there going to be any trouble this time?” The only trouble I’ve ever known these two to get into is “good trouble.” Let’s hope they continue that tradition. 

Were the two men right in bringing the discussion to a nation not accountable to them as taxpayers or citizens?

Should U.S. activists concern themselves with, say, Saudi Arabia's long and gruesome war on the people of Yemen? Does the U.S. supplying and supporting that war make it a fair target?

Should U.S. activists concern themselves with Ukraine which has received $1 billion in weapons from the Biden administration, is allied with neo-Nazi militias who receive many of the weapons, and has killed thousands of Russian-speaking people in the Donbass region?

Should U.S. activists hold Russia accountable or the CIA coup-installed U.S. aligned government in Kyiv?

These are significant questions and worthy of debate. Silencing them will do nothing to further peace in our time.  

Setting Ourselves On Fire

I've lived my entire life with the spectre of thermonuclear fire consuming the world. It hovered over us as we contemplated the future of what we'd started in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and, sometimes, joked about it -- dark humor, laughing in the face of annihilation. 

When I say my entire life, I'm not exaggerating. My father was in college when I was born and he had a post-nuclear apocalypse poem published in a UMaine literary journal. My parents also had vinyl of the Kingston Trio playing "The Merry Minuet" at iconic NYC nightclub the hungry i. (With apologies for the typical white supremacist perspective that the continent of Africa is  analogous to nation-states.)

...Italians hate Yugoslavs. South Africans hate the Dutch.
And I don't like anybody very much!

But we can be tranquil and thankful and proud
For man's been endowed with a mushroom shaped cloud.

And we know for certain that some lovely day
Someone will set the spark off and we will all be blown away.

They're rioting in Africa. There's strife in Iran.
What nature doesn't do to us will be done by our fellow man.

After listening to that on repeat for several years, is it any wonder I flinched every time a plane flew overhead? Such was my childhood. 

Then there were the racial assassinations of the 60's. James Baldwin's prophetic book The Fire Next Time was on our shelves. It's a metaphor, it's Biblical, and it also coexisted with the arson that accompanied many riots. Cue Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. whose famous quote on that deserves its full context:

And I would be the first to say that I am still committed to militant, powerful, massive, non­-violence as the most potent weapon in grappling with the problem from a direct action point of view. I'm absolutely convinced that a riot merely intensifies the fears of the white community while relieving the guilt. And I feel that we must always work with an effective, powerful weapon and method that brings about tangible results. But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity. [emphasis mine]

(Do I need to point out how much worse things have gotten for Black people in incarceration nation since MLK said that?)

So I've worried about inequality and injustice, and I've worried about U.S. wars with their destruction and self-inflicted moral injuries. 

Photo by Malcolm Browne for Associated Press

Back when the corporate press showed more of the news, we watched as a Buddhist monk in Vietnam died by self-immolation. Widely perceived as a protest against the war,  Thích Quang Duc's act called attention to persecution of Buddhists by the puppet government of South Vietnam in 1963.

Many years and many U.S. puppet governments later, it slowly became apparent that we should all be more aware of global warming and climate change ending us. And that wars and, more broadly, militarism are a big part of that.

A long preamble leading up to this news: 

a Buddhist burned himself to death in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on Earth Day 2022 to call attention to extreme climate crisis.

This image from an unknown videographer appears to be a still from a video allegedly of Wynn Bruce's self-immolation, and an emergency responder trying to put the fire out.

But under the 21st century's corporate information control regime, hardly anybody heard about it.

Image source: UK Daily Mail "Pictured: Climate activist, 50, who died after lighting himself ablaze in front of the Supreme Court on Earth Day wrote '4/22/2022' and a fire emoji in a Facebook post from 2020"

In fact the first few stories about Bruce's act in the U.S. corporate press neglected to include...climate change. This is consistent with their focus on profits over life and is a major contributing factor to the increased threat of climate chaos.

The same is true of their chronic neglect of the military elephant in the climate change room. To know the facts about that, you'd need to turn to alternative media, or search out collections like this one.

Nonstop coverage of atrocities allegedly committed on behalf of the villain du jour pushes out useful, actionable information.

Today, as the world gallops toward nuclear confrontation in the proxy war between the U.S./NATO and Russia, U.S. taxpayers recently sent $1 billion in weapons to Ukraine's puppet government while the corporate press applauded and ice shelves collapsed.

Leading intellectuals wonder not if but how we will set ourselves on fire unto death. Will it be long painful years of heat, floods, drought, and sea level rise? Or a relatively brief nuclear war being inexplicably promoted by the talking heads employed to manufacture consent? Stay tuned.

Who Profits From Narrative Management & Eliminating Dissent?

Original collage by James Fangboner (left image), modified by me (see "Hating On ____ Is What Gives Life Meaning")

When the Pentagon summons the heads of eight weapons manufacturing corporations to a classified meeting about "aid" to Ukraine, you can be sure that a whole lot more Ukranians will be dying in their civil war on steroids.

This type of aid is in reality U.S. taxpayer-funded corporate welfare for the likes of Lockheed and Raytheon, whose former board member is our current Secretary of "Defense." The aid has been flowing so thick and fast since Russia intervened in the CIA-sponsored war on its doorstep that it's hard to add it all up quickly enough. One tally this week put the total at $1.7 billion!

Also, why limit these already wealthy corporate entities to feeding from just the U.S. trough? Zero Hedge reports: "Besides replenishing stockpiles sent to Ukraine, the companies stand to gain from European countries increasing military spending in the wake of Russia’s invasion."

I believe this cash bonanza explains the barrage of propaganda that liberals have fallen for hook, line, and sinker.

You would think that those who value free speech would be alarmed by the burgeoning online censorship that many independent journalists have noted. 

Consider the case of Michael J. Brenner, "Professor Emeritus of International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh and a Fellow of the Center for Transatlantic Relations at SAIS/Johns Hopkins, as well as former Director of the International Relations & Global Studies Program at the University of Texas" according to an interview in scheerpost:

From the vantage point of decades of experience and studies, the intellectual regularly shared his thoughts on topics of interest through a mailing list sent to thousands of readers—that is until the response to his Ukraine analysis made him question why he bothered in the first place. 

In an email with the subject line “Quittin’ Time,” Brenner recently declared that, aside from having already said his piece on Ukraine, one of the main reasons he sees for giving up on expressing his opinions on the subject is that “it is manifestly obvious that 

our society is not capable of conducting an honest, logical, reasonably informed discourse on matters of consequence. Instead, we experience fantasy, fabrication, fatuousness and fulmination.” He goes on to decry President Joe Biden’s alarming comments in Poland when he all but revealed that the U.S. is—and perhaps has always been—interested in a Russian regime change [emphasis mine]. 

Or how about Scott Ritter, a former UN weapons inspector who sifts through the foggy "facts" of war to discern some truth, who had his Twitter account suspended twice in one week. Based on what he knows about the grisly details of bodies left to rot in the street, he doubted that Russian soldiers could have committed the crimes before their exit from Bucha and speculated that Ukranian militias were the only ones in the area at the time of the massacre.

Cue liberals insisting that Twitter is not the government and therefore can censor anything it likes without violating the 1st amendment. Do they not know that Twitter, Facebook/Meta, Google/YouTube, and other platforms work hand in glove with the federal government to manage the narrative or, when that fails, to eliminate dissenting views? 

Are they fooled by mainstream media like the Washington Post, now owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, ironically sporting the tagline "Democracy Dies in Darkness"? 

Or do they know and not care because they're more interested in the former president and other right-wingers being denied platforms for their views than they are interested in actual free speech?

From media watcher Caitlin Johnstone:

what exactly is the argument for censoring wrongthink about the Ukraine war? Even if we pretend that everything they're saying is 100% false and completely immoral, so what? What harm is being done? Does a Ukrainian drop dead every time someone says they don't believe Russia committed war crimes in Bucha or Mariupol? Does Putin get magic murder powers if enough social media users say they support his war? Do liberal faces melt off their skulls if they accidentally see an RT headline?

Political action and the players behind it -- at every level -- becomes more murky by the day. Forgive this boomer for saying, back in the day we thought a free press was foundational to reign in the excesses of the wealthy and powerful, by shining a light into their dark doings. 

But late stage capitalism demands fealty to profits above all else. Even, or maybe especially, when the leader of the "free world" is busy shooting himself and his cronies in the foot.

Who Needs Consent Of The Governed When There Are Profits To Be Made? Maine's Rocket Launch Bill

Rocket launch site built at public expense in Kodiak, Alaska.

A local law with far reaching consequences snuck across the finish line this week in my state. The bill created a Maine Space Corporation, defined as a public-private partnership to facilitate establishing rocket launch sites in Vacationland. It was passed under the gavel i.e. without a roll call vote in the House, and will undoubtedly receive the governor's signature as Janet Mills, a neoliberal Democrat, is a consistent cheerleader for corporate looting of public resources.

Why Maine? Most types of orbit require launch sites nearer the equator, but polar orbits need launching nearer the poles. A local space watcher theorizes that the Pentagon is promoting the construction of many "private" launch sites at the expense of others, hoping to drive down the cost of paying to use them for military launches by creating competition. 

Certainly, rocket launch sites are proliferating all over the planet.

A group of us collaborated to ferret out the details of a bill that was rushed through the public hearing process of the IDEA legislative committee. That event was successfully managed to hear from those who plan to profit from the bill but a dismal failure at hearing from actual Maine taxpayers ("no one testified against the bill!" gloated supporters). Considering not a single article or television news story on the bill appeared until after the public hearing, those of us who would have testified about objections didn't know about it. We did of course then submit written testimony detailing our objections (which testimony you can read here).

During work sessions in committee, the bill received no fiscal note i.e. identification of expected costs to the public. One committee member reported the group was told that they would have to pass the bill to learn the eventual costs, another that the price tag would likely be $90 million.

 Two competing amendments further muddied the water as the bill passed out of committee with a divided report, two members voting no on any version and some voting "ought to pass" contingent upon one or the other of the amendments.

The amendment that was eventually adopted contains this gem of wholesale looting of public resources for private profits, couched of course in the impentrable language of bureaucratic fascism:

"removes the prohibition of public officials, members of the board of directors or employees of the corporation from acquiring or holding a direct or indirect financial or personal interest in a corporation activity, a corporation property or a contract or proposed contract in connection with a corporation activity."

My husband called to leave a message with our senator on the morning we had heard that the bill would be taken up after passing with no roll call vote in the House. According to the Senate office in Augusta, it had already passed the previous night.

In an email our senator, Brad Farrin, (one of 7 who voted no) commented:

I agree with your assessment of LD 1923 as many bills during this “emergency “ session are being rushed through without proper hearings and debate.

In addition to our website NoToxicRockets4ME, here is the one-pager we prepared for citizen lobbying efforts in advance of its passage:

"Explosion rocks SpaceX test launch site in Florida during test""

You might think that the state's big environmental organizations would have opposed this bill, but you would need to ask yourself first if they take money from the Democratic Party. You might also ask yourself why these organizations nationally have been so ineffectual in halting the extraction activities that are hastening us to climate chaos whether D's or R's are in control of the White House and Congress. (Hint: if it involves pushing back on the military, fugedaboudit.)

The only group successful at opposing the plan for rocket launches from the Maine coast was the lobster fishing community of tiny Jonesport. They rallied around and got a moratorium in place as one of the originators of the bill made plans to launch from an island smack dab in the middle of their fishing grounds. The rocket profiteer eventually dropped plans saying the public were misinformed but so stubborn that he'll look for a site in Florida instead.

Is the consent of the governed needed to put a good appearance on things? 

NIMBY efforts would lead us to say so, but the way LD 1923 was bum rushed through the legislative process suggests otherwise. This year Maine's governor has vetoed a slew of bills strongly supported by the people who voted for her, but she'll no doubt sign this one at the behest of her corporate sponsors.

She's counting on the fact that most in Maine will vote for her anyway, because the Republican is so awful.

Democrats may continue misconstruing that as "having the people's support," but my reading of history tends to suggest otherwise.

A staggering inflation rate for food and fuel, and no universal healthcare despite a ongoing pandemic, is what national Democratic leadership is offering up. 

Maybe the ruling class needs to keep building weapons while children go to bed hungry because they actually do know what happened to regimes that lost the consent of those they governed?

Tears For Suffering In Ukraine

Source: "Anna Netrebko, Russian Soprano with Putin Ties, Is Out at the Met Opera" Town & Country   Photo by Jack Vartoogian/Getty Images

TTY IMAGES

I've been criticized recently due to the perception that I am insufficiently moved by the suffering of people in Ukraine. By this my critics actually mean "the suffering of people in Ukraine since February when Russia invaded." They do not mean the suffering of people in Ukraine during the 8 year long civil war that has seen 14,000 deaths (a combined total that includes thousands of civilians plus soldiers on both sides). 

Those consuming corporate media in the U.S. tend to know very little about what led up to (insert several perjorative terms here) Putin launching military operations and are unable to determine whether those are actually war crimes or would be considered legitimate pre-emptive actions by the United Nations.  In the face of impending attacks that the Ukranian government and its militias were  preparing to launch against Russian ethnic populations in the Donbass region, and the published plans for regime change in Russia using exactly those tactics, the UN might not come down on the side of U.S. liberals.

These people look with approval at events like the Metropolitan Opera in New York cancelling a Russian diva and replacing her with a Ukranian soprano. I, on the other hand, laugh out loud at the absurdity. A singer pressured to essentially sign a disloyalty oath will not be allowed to perform.

Yes, by all means let's cancel the performing artists of every nationality if their nation wages war against others. (That huge whooshing sound was the careers of innumerable U.S. singers and other artists being flushed down the toilet.)

Since opposing wars waged by my own nation using my taxdollars, I've often considered whether or how much to share gruesome pictures of people suffering.

On the one hand seeing the corpses of little children burned up in their beds by U.S. drone strikes might galvanize my fellow Americans into knowing, caring, and taking action.

On the other hand, there is my aversion to so-called "war porn" or the vicarious pleasure to be had by viewing the suffering of others. Susan Sontag's book Regarding The Pain Of Others made a great impression on me. If you're a long time reader of my blog, you could probably pinpoint right around when I read that book by the declining frequency of my sharing photos or videos of people suffering in wars or as refugees.

The fog of war makes it very difficult to determine which reports of atrocities and war crimes are false flags, or doctored evidence, and which are authentic.

This is true for all sides in all conflicts, but the 21st century seems to have accelerated the process of manufacturing consent by media manipulations. Game changers like digital video that is so easily created and shared are having their effect and it's difficult to know whether they're bringing more truth or more fiction.

For example, this reporting seems authentic to me although of course I can't know for sure: "Exclusive: Ukrainian Refugees in Moldova Spare No Words on Zelensky Gov't." It was shared by a source I trust, the United National Antiwar Coalition. Conversely, am I inclined to trust war reporting that is a) cookie cutter and b) shared by corporate news outlets that have repeatedly lied us into wars with fabricated claims of war crimes and other atrocities? Not so much.

I am opposed to all wars, and I focus on holding my own nation accountable. 

The U.S. and its posse NATO are largely responsible for the current phase of the war in Ukraine (and the vast majority of wars raging on the planet right now). 

Map showing refugee movement from Ukraine. Credit: United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees’ Operational Data Portal

No doubt there is suffering in Ukraine and among Ukrainian refugees. 

My solution: disband NATO, cut the Pentagon budget by 90%, and close the 800 military bases the U.S. operates in other countries.

Not only would this reduce suffering in Ukraine, it would reduce the threat of climate collapse as the Pentagon is the biggest institutional emitter of greenhouse gasses on the planet. By a mile. 

And, it would significantly reduce the threat of nuclear war. Sabre rattling of nukes on both sides is alarming and makes me wonder if these folks read the same articles as I do, the ones that remind us that contemporary nuclear weapons are far more destructive than those dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki.