Went 2 the Bridge: neo-Nazis

Showing posts with label neo-Nazis. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 18, 2023

Thursday, April 13, 2023

Can You Support Nazis Over There But Fight Them Over Here?

Video source: NewsCenterMaine

Portland, Maine's largest city, is in turmoil about the lack of response from the city and its police force to a neo Nazi group attacking counter protestors on April 1. This occurred on the steps of City Hall and was amply documented and reported in mainstream media here, here, and here.

The police showed up but allowed the masked group to maintain their anonymity and to disperse without being questioned or having charges filed.

I should explain that Portland is not my home but it's where several people I love call home. Some of them are little kids who attend the public schools alongside students of many ethnicities and races. They tell me they don't like people "being mean" to (i.e. threatening the physical safety of) the Black city councilor who represents their part of Portland. So, I have a stake in the safety of Portland.

My husband and I at an anti-racist rally in February. Source: Southern Maine for Racial Justice tweet

The safety of people of color, along with LGBTQ+ people and people of the Jewish and Muslim faiths, are at risk when neo Nazis show up shouting the racist N word, the homophobic F word, and knocking to the pavement people holding a gay pride banner.

From coverage by the Portland Phoenix:

..Leo Hilton, a Portland resident who said he was one of four people who were attacked by Neo-Nazis outside City Hall on April 1.
As Hilton and others at the event described, police officers let the bad actors go without even asking for identification. A spokesperson for the police department said that none of the members of the group were identified on scene, and “none have officially been identified at this point.”..
According to Hilton, the assault occurred on April 1 when he and three others held up a pride flag, and the protesters — who were all masked — tried to tear the flag out of their hands. One member of Hilton’s group was then punched, and Hilton was thrown to the ground.
“They knew they could hit us and get away with it,” Hilton said.

I host a monthly community tv show with Portland City Councilors Victoria Pelletier and Roberto Rodriguez. How the institutions of local government uphold white supremacy is a topic we've addressed a few times, most recently in February which show you can view here or listen to as a podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

Since that show, recruiting for neo Nazi and other white rights groups has popped up all over town. Several public demonstrations about white victimhood have been organized, drawing their own counter demonstrations. And Monday night's city council meeting drew at least a hundred protesters demanding that the city and the police walk the walk rather than just talk the talk of making Portland safe for everyone.

(I've been trying to listen to the whole meeting as a zoom recording but the playback is so choppy I gave up. Any readers with tech hints on how I can solve this problem, please post in the comments. Here's a link to the page listing the recording of the April 10 city council meeting with two hours of testimony from the public.)

I'm starting to think that my most useful contribution to political conversations is examining the conundrum of false dichotomy thinking.

The inherent contradiction of U.S.ians who want to fight neo Nazis over here but support neo Nazis over there is emerging in the state I call home.

To have this discussion we need to address the question: How could Ukraine be run by neo Nazis if its president is Jewish? Investigative journalist Aaron Maté (also Jewish, for what it's worth) addressed this when he wrote last year about the threats and intimidation President Zelensky received to prevent his implementing the peace platform he ran on.

The U.S. government has forced taxpayers to send over $100 billion to Ukraine's neo Nazi aligned government and for the most part both Democrats and Republicans have supported this. But Democrats would be the first to denounce hate crimes like attacking people for being openly gay.

Then there are the fragile white rights folks in Maine who say they oppose the war but also say they oppose the city providing services to Black asylum seekers rather than services to white homeless people. They also publicly oppose the notion that Black Lives Matter, countering it with the message "It's OK to be white." Councilor Pelletier drew threats of violence back in February when she responded on social media, "When has it not been ok to be white in this country?"

One of the white rights activists posted this mini-manifesto to explain:

This same activist retweets videos glorifying violence, for example, hitting "commies" in the head with a frying pan.

All the false dichotomy ideologies aside, there are economic facts. White people own the vast majority of the wealth in the U.S. by any measure, while neo Nazis in Ukraine become wealthy on hundred of billions provided with no accountability for how it is spent.

The reason that Democrats in the U.S. have become so confused at this point in history is that they fell for the falsehood that the Russia's President Putin is "Hitler." This was a natural outgrowth of their conflation of our 45th president and his outspoken white supremacist beliefs with Putin, a descendant of those who literally defeated Hitler in WWII. Many Dems still cling the belief that Russia interfered in 2016 to get Trump elected, even though this has by now been thoroughly debunked by investigative journalists. And when Democrats stay in the echo chamber of corporate media that serves government interests, they don't have enough real information to draw useful conclusions.

If you agree with me that neo Nazis cross a legal line shouting insults that are followed by assault, it may be time to abandon false dichotomy thinking. I've criticized Democrats here, but that doesn't make me a Republican. I've also criticized Ukraine here, but that doesn't make me a spokesperson for Putin despite being accused of this almost constantly over the past year.

Protest organized by a statewide coalition on March 18 in Westbrook that drew 50 people (photo credit: Mary Beth Sullivan)

I'll be out again this Saturday April 15, "tax day." People from many political parties and tendencies will be with me in Topsham at the corner of Routes 196 and 201 from 1:30pm. Join us to uphold our coalition demands:

Peace in Ukraine - No weapons, no money for the Ukraine War
Abolish NATO – End U.S. militarism & sanctions!
Fund people’s needs, not the war machine!
No war with China!
Protect Earth's environment from the deadly insult of war!
End U.S. aid to racist apartheid Israel!
Fight racism & bigotry not war!
U.S. hands off Haiti!
End AFRICOM!

Tuesday, July 24, 2018

Violent, Dehumanizing Language Is For Fascists -- Don't Be A Fascist

Standing up to neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, Virginia in August, 2017 took a lot of courage. Unite the Right will be back, this time in front of the White House, on August 11, 2018 in case you missed your chance last year.

It's been coming on for a while now, this pressure in my head about the proliferation of slogans on punching Nazis, and of the even more common practice of dehumanizing name-calling e.g. piece of shit, idiot, and so on.

I'm no philosopher, but here are some of the many reasons I disagree with these tactics.

1) They are not effective because they appeal mostly to people that already agree with the user. We're not trying to win over the people who already get it -- we're trying to win over the confused ones on the fence. Aren't we?

2) They are not effective because they make the user sound belligerent rather than intelligent. Belligerence is highly correlated with not being smart enough to understand the complexities of fake news and celebrity spokesman-style corporate government masking the realities that lie beneath. Do you really want to sound like the tweeter in chief?

3) They are not effective because violence is not a good tactic when winning hearts and minds is your goal. Which program did the Black Panthers consider their most important (and the white supremacists of their day considered the biggest threat?). Yup, free breakfasts for children.

4) They are not effective because they do nothing to withdraw support from the systems of violent oppression we're all living under. A women's strike would much more effectively halt the machinery of the white supremacist military-police state. Did you know that the Montgomery, Alabama bus strike was only planned to last for one day? Once the boycotters' power was demonstrated, though, the bandwagon effect was enormous.

How come the Nazi rocket scientists were not on trial in Nuremberg?

5) They are not effective because they tend to perpetuate a simplistic either-or model of understanding social trends or historical events. The U.S. military did not defeat the Nazis, the Russians did. (Our allies in WWII, remember?) The U.S. government turned away boatloads of Jewish refugees who died in concentration camps, knew about the Holocaust but allowed it to proceed anyway, and after tardily "liberating" the camps ran show trials at Nuremberg while quietly bringing Nazi rocket scientists to the USA.

The U.S. government also never tried Japanese war criminals for their heinous crimes against occupied people using sophisticated (at the time) biological weapons they had developed. Want to guess why not?

6) They are not effective because we are always in danger of becoming the thing that we love to hate. Or put another way, they focus our attention on unproductive emotions and drain off energy for devising or recognizing creative solutions to the mess we're in.

7) They are not effective because they're not educational. There are millions of people who have sworn by an ideology at one point in their lives and then changed their minds. Most members of Veterans for Peace, for example, would fall into this category. VFP members I know often cite a conversation or a message as having opened the door of their closed mind and started the questioning process that led them to new understanding. Hearing "You are a piece of shit" is never cited as the catalyst for their transformation.

I know lots of people will disagree with me and use ad hominem attack words like "keeping your hands clean" or whatever.

I've been arrested standing up for my beliefs, and I've been in trouble at work many times for speaking political truths. No, I have never punched a Nazi and it's unlikely that I ever will; I'm a writer, not a fighter. With my low pain threshold and aging body, practically anyone could beat me in a fight. But that's not the actual reason that I sincerely believe the pen is more powerful than the sword.

The Nazis didn't win over the German people by violence. They won them over with sophisticated propaganda, and by making sure they could feed their children. They scapegoated the Jews, Roma, homosexuals and people with disabilities to give the humiliated and broke German workers something to feel good about.

Yes, I know that the antifa forces in Charlottesville last summer saved the clergy, according to several who were defended and lived to tell the tale.

Self-defense is another category of violence that has different moral implications than premeditated assault, and I'm glad the antifa did what they did.

Would I use a weapon in self-defense or to protect a child or other innocent target? Yes, I think I would. There are all kinds of subversive acts I'd be willing to take against fascists if I had the opportunity. There's a huge arena for action between cowering in fear/appeasement on the one hand, and threatening to punch Nazis in the balls on the other.

It's been my experience that most people in the U.S. are too scared to even speak up in the face of racism or other forms of violence, much less punch anybody. People I work with quiver in fear at the thought of sending a letter to the editor and that's the truth.

I admire a family member who plans to be in Washington DC next month to film the Unite the Right rally as a citizen journalist. I respect groups like Unicorn Riot that use the power of media and information sharing "dedicated to exposing root causes of dynamic social and environmental issues through amplifying stories and exploring sustainable alternatives in today’s globalized world."

Let's all do what we can as best we understand it, and let's keep this conversation going.

Thursday, June 1, 2017

A Country Run By And For Neo-Nazis Is Not Worth Living In

Micah Smith reads a poem on the train for Memorial Day, 2016 Source: Common Dreams

The Portland, Oregon stabbing of a trio of unrelated men determined to protect two young women from a white nationalist with a knife has been on my mind this week. A steady stream of hate language, threats of violence and violent assaults have marked the era of the demagogue with bad hair; statistics indicate that all are rising as our society descends ever more rapidly into chaos.

I can't help thinking about the hijabi and her friend, Destinee Magnum, Black teenagers attacked by an angry white dude, seeing two of their defenders stabbed to death on the train. According to the Seattle Times, Magnum describing the run up to the knife attack, "'He told us to go back to Saudi Arabia, and he told us we shouldn’t be here, to get out of his country."

"He was just telling us that we basically weren’t anything and that we should kill ourselves.” My reaction: just like teenage cyberbullies commonly do.

The survivor's guilt and residual fear of the two girls must be profound.

Micah Fletcher, the young man with autism who survived Jeremy Christian's attack with a stab wound to the neck, told journalists of the two girls, "They got hurt, too" and also, more poetically:

I want you to imagine that for a second, being the little girl on that MAX. This man is screaming at you — his face is a pile of knives. His body is a gun. Everything about him is cocked, loaded and ready to kill you.

Perhaps it is image of the melting pot boiling over that stays with me, like a tragic one act play with an especially diverse cast: middle aged Catholic Army veteran Rick Best; recent college graduate Taliesin Mryddin Namkai Meche who was a spiritual seeker among many traditions; award winning poet Micah Fletcher who is just 21; and a 35 year old neo-Nazi who brought a baseball bat to a white supremacist rally earlier this year.

My white privilege allowed me to believe for years that the future of the U.S.A. lay in the direction of tolerance, meritocracy and justice for all. That dream has been slowly dying for a while now.

There are also the victims to be found among the families of the two men who died.

Photo source: Best family

Ricky Best was married to an Asian woman and he was the father of five bi-racial children. The irony of his not dying in Iraq or Afghanistan during 23 years in the military but on a commuter train in Oregon is a theme that haunts me. If I were his wife or child or sister I would be proud of his heroism and also very, very angry. I imagine that I would berate him mentally for stepping into the path of deadly force instead of popping in earbuds and turning away from trouble like most commuters do.

Photo: Beth Nakamura

Talieisin Meche's mother wrote an open letter to the demagogue with bad hair, the man who many see as uniquely responsible for the flood of openly racial hatred polluting the airwaves. On Memorial Day she wrote of her son and the other two heroes he never had a chance to know:

They recognized the truth: we are more alike than we are different.

To ride the train home without being assaulted because of the color of your skin or your religious beliefs, is an inalienable right.

In her letter Asa Deliverance appealed to the demagogue's "leadership" and implored him to condemn hate speech and hate crimes. Personally, I wonder why she bothered. Probably writing the letter and signing it "With Peace in My Heart" was an act of healing. A grieving mother is uniquely qualified to interpret her son's death thus: "he, along with the other two men, has changed the world, when in the face of hate he did not hesitate to act with love."

Unfortunately, hate can and does change the world, too.

The murderer gives every indication of being not only fueled by racial hatred but mentally ill as well. His ranting recorded in police custody included the ill-advised wish that everyone who he stabbed would die. His ranting recorded in the commuter train was a laundry list of the type of thing you can hear on right wing radio any day of the week: "This is what liberalism gets you" and "Go home, we need Americans here" and "Pay taxes!"

Then there are the unsung heroes, the other passengers who chased after the ironically named Christian, who called 911 and made sure he was apprehended.

I suppose that is the part of the narrative that has grabbed ahold of me and won't let go. In the darkest of times, upstanders act without planning to do so. They may have internalized, as I have, the infamous Holocaust warning:

Because what causes people not to speak out is, of course, fear. Fear that they will be the one bleeding out on the floor after the stormtroopers have come and gone. Fear that their children will be orphaned, or that their mother will live out her days with a hole in her heart for the beloved child she lost.

But when the fear of living in the kind of society where thousands (millions?) of unemployed Jeremy Christians are armed and pumped up on hate messages ("cut down the tall trees") outweighs the fear of drawing violence on our own self, people like Micah Fletcher act.

They didn't set out like suicide bombers do to become martyrs that day. They may even, like Fletcher, critique the "white savior complex" they perceive in liberal Portland.

When they jump in front of the knife, they're not just defending the teenagers; they're defending their vision of how life ought to be.

Maybe in some way they're expressing that a country run by and for the Jeremy Christians is not one worth living in. Amen to that.

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Odessa Massacre By Neo-Nazis 2nd Anniversary Statement of Solidarity With Victims

Photo sourced from Organizing Notes "The U.S.-NATO Created Mess in Ukraine"

‘Statement of Solidarity’ with 2nd anniversary May 2 memorial in Odessa delivered to Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, D.C., followed by press conference

Report by the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC)

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 25

Today Ana Edwards, representing the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC), and Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst and now prominent peace activist, delivered a Statement of Solidarity with Odessa to the Embassy of Ukraine in Washington, D.C.

The statement calls on the governments of Ukraine, the United States and the city of Odessa to ensure the civic rights of the people of Odessa to hold a memorial program this coming May 2 to mark the second anniversary of the massacre of 46 pro-federation activists in that city at the hands of rightwing extremists. The memorial is being organized by the Mothers' Committee for May 2, comprised of family members, friends and supporters of the murdered activists.

Photos sourced from Organizing Notes Some of the 46 who were burned alive inside the Odessa Trade Union hall

The Solidarity Statement, signed by 139 human rights organizations and activists from 20 countries in North America, Europe, Africa and Asia, also supports the Mothers' Committee public call for the United Nations Human Rights Committee to arrange an impartial investigation into the events of May 2, 2014. Although the attack was videoed by numerous participants and passersby, to date not one of the perpetrators has been brought to justice.

Photo source: Organizing Notes
Neo-Nazis burning the Trades Hall in Odessa, Ukraine on May 2, 2014.
The massacre killed well over 50 people.

The Solidarity Statement also announced that UNAC is sending a delegation of U.S. human rights activists to monitor the May 2 memorial program in Odessa. Other delegations will be present from France, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Poland, Bulgaria, Italy, Spain, Israel and Sweden.

The Solidarity Statement was received by an embassy staff member on behalf of the Ukrainian ambassador.

Immediately after, Edwards and McGovern held a press conference outside the embassy at which they read the solidarity statement and answered questions from reporters. Media present included Tass News Agency of Russia, RT (Russia Today) America, Channel One Russian TV and RTRTV, a Russian language television station whose audience includes 50,000 subscribers in the New York City area. The Russian language is spoken by an estimated 171 million people in 17 countries.

While no major Western media were present, it is expected that the broad news coverage by major Russian media will put pressure on other media outlets to cover the story of the May 2 memorial, the international solidarity campaign and the international delegations that will be in Odessa on May 2 to monitor the memorial program.

Ana Edwards is a founding member of UNAC and chairs the Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project of the Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality in Richmond, Va.

Ray McGovern is a former analyst with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), a prominent member of Veterans for Peace and Cofounder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
The United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) is a broad alliance of U.S. justice and peace organizations founded in 2010. www.UNACpeace.org

For more information, contact UNAC CoCoordinator Joe Lombardo at:UNACpeace@gmail.com or 518-227-6947.

To add your name/organization to the statement please click on https://www.unacpeace.org/ukrainepetition.html

Statement of Solidarity Endorsers

as of 4/24/16

U.S.

Ramsey Clark - Former U.S. Attorney General; Human Rights Activist

Bernadette Ellorin - Chairperson, Bayan USA

Rep. Jeffrey Evangelos - Maine House of Representatives

Bruce Gagnon - International Coordinator, Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space

Margaret Kimberley - Editor and Senior Columnist, Black Agenda Report

Cynthia McKinney, Ph.D - Former Member, U.S. Congress; 2008 Green Party U.S. Presidential Candidate

Ray McGovern - Former CIA Analyst; Co-Founder, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

Joe Lombardo and Marilyn Levin, UNAC Co-coordinators

International Action Center

U.S. Peace Council

United National Antiwar Coalition

Beth Adams - Hancock Drone Resisters, San Francisco, California

Elliott Adams - Veterans For Peace, Sharon Springs, New York

Abayomi Azikiwe - Editor, Pan-African News Wire; Organizer, MECAWI, Detroit, Michigan

Roger Batchelder - OPENER, San Diego, California *

Mike Beilstein - City Councilor, Corvallis, Oregon

Judith Bello - Founding Member, Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones & End the Wars, New York

Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace - New York

Judy Collins & Jim Allen - Vine & Fig Tree, Lanett, Alabama

Paul Cunningham - South Portland, Maine

William Crain - Peace and Justice *, Billings, Montana

Bob Dale - Veterans for Peace, Brunswick, Maine

George Dardess - Rochester Peace Action & Education *

Nicolas J.S. Davies - Author, “Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq”

Jacqui Deveneau - Maine Green Independent Party, Portland, Maine

Catherine Donaghy - Western Mass TroopsOutNow! Coalition, Massachusetts *

Chantal Dothey, MD - Cleveland, Ohio

Tim Duda - American Federation of Teachers, San Antonio, Texas

Nancy Eberg - Greater New Haven Peace Council *

Ana Edwards - Chair, Virginia Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project, Richmond, Virginia

Anthony Ehrlich - West Volusians for Peace & Justice, Barberville, Florida

Kristna Evans - Vintage Quaker Books, Friends Community of New England, Bath, Maine

Sara Flounders - Co-Director, International Action Center, New York, New York

Freedom Road Socialist Organization

Roberta Frye - Faith in Action, Unitarian Universalists of Santa Monica *, Culver City, California

Ronald Fujiyoshi - Ohara Ho'opakele, Hilo, Hawaii

Terry & Tom Fusco - Maine Progressive Party, Brunswick, Maine

Genesee Valley Citizens for Peace - Geneseo, New York

Starr C. Gilmartin - Peace & Justice of Eastern Maine, Trenton, Maine

Ellen Grady - Ithaca Catholic Worker, Ithaca, New York

Peter Gunther - Progressive Archivists

Joseph F. Hancock - Los Angeles Peace Council, Los Angeles, California

David Hartsough - PEACEWORKERS, San Francisco, California

Marilyn Hoff - Peace Action, New Mexico

Herbert J. Hoffman, Ph.D. - Albuquerque Veterans For Peace, Albuquerque, New Mexico

Connie Jenkins - Pax Christi, Maine, Orono, Maine

Mack Johnson - Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, Silverdale, Washington

Ann Joseph - United Church of Christ, Chicago, Illinois *

Matt Kelly - Petersburgh, New York

Mick Kelly - Editor, Fight Back!

Ed Kinane - Upstate Drone Action, New York

Bob Kinsey - Colorado Coalition for the Prevention of Nuclear War *

Heather Koponen - Alaska Peace Center, Veterans for Peace, Fairbanks, Alaska

David Laibman - Editor, Science & Society, Brooklyn, New York

Barbara Laxon - Miramar, Florida

Mickie Lynn - Women Against War *, Delmar, New York

Jeff Mackler - Director, Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, Oakland, California

Kevin Martin - Executive Director, Peace Action, Silver Spring, Maryland

Natasha Mayers - Union of Maine Visual Artists, Whitefield, Maine

Rob Mulford - Veterans For Peace, Fairbanks, Alaska

Meryl Nass MD - Ellsworth Maine

Doug Noble - Metro Justice *, Rochester

Jon Olsen - Green Party, Jefferson, Maine

Tatyana Olson - Diplomatic School, Washington D.C.

Dr. Lewis E. Patrie - Western N.N. Physicians for Social Responsibility, Asheville, North Carolina

Rosalie Paul - Greater Brunswick PeaceWorks, Maine

Patricia Patterson - Retired International Mission Executive, United Methodist Church, Claremont, California

Tina Phillips - Brunswick, Maine

Charles R. Powell - President, Veterans For Peace, Albuquerque, New Mexico

Brian Noyes Pulling, M.Div. - Minister, Social Worker,Peace & Social Justice Organizer, South Carolina

Megan Rice SHCJ - Transform Now Plowshares, Washington, D.C.

Coleen Rowley - Retired FBI agent, former Legal Counsel, Minneapolis Division, Minnesota

Lisa Savage - Maine Natural Guard, Solon, Maine

Adria Scharf - Richmond Peace Education Center, Richmond, Virginia

Richard D. Seifert - Fairbanks Peace Center, Fairbanks, Alaska

Diane Shammas, Ph.D - Shammas Group, Laguna Beach, California

Ruth Sheridan - Anchorage, Alaska

Alice Slater - Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, New York, New York

Gar Smith - Co-founder, Environmentalists Against War; Director, Academic Publishing, California

Jean Sommer - Peace Action, Cleveland, Ohio

J. Michael Springmann - "Visas for Al Qaeda: CIA Handouts That Rocked The World *, “Washington, D.C.

Mary Beth Sullivan - Greater Brunswick PeaceWorks, Bath, Maine

David Swanson - Director, WorldBeyondWar.org; Author, "War Is A Lie," Charlottesville, Virginia

Wil Van Natta - Reality News Radio, Riviera Beach, Florida

Virginia People’s Assembly for Jobs, Peace & Justice - Virginia

Steve Wagner - Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace *, Oakland, California

Karen Wainberg - Great Brunswick PeaceWorks, Maine

William H. Warrick III, MD - Veterans for Peace, Gainesville, Florida

Dave Welsh - Delegate, San Francisco Labor Council, San Francisco, California

Phil Wilayto - Editor, The Virginia Defender, Richmond, Virginia

Mike Wisniewski - Los Angeles Catholic Worker, California

Rowan Wolf - Uncommon Thought Journal, Portland, Oregon

Kristina Wolff - Veterans for Peace, Maine

Women Against Military Madness (WAMM) - Minneapolis, Minnesota

Russell Wray - Citizens Opposing Active Sonar Threats (COAST), Hancock, Maine

Sandra Yeager - Millersville University *, Lancaster, Pennsylvania

AUSTRIA

Christl Meyer - Amnesty International *, Vienna

CANADA

Tamara Lorincz - Canadian Voice of Women for Peace, Saanichton, British Columbia

Hamilton Coalition To Stop The War - Hamilton

Roza Husseini - Student of PACE at University of Winnipeg, Manitoba

Rev. Wm. J. Hutton - Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Amir M. Maasoumi - Palestinians & Jews United for Peace & Against Occupation (PAJU), Montreal, Quebec

Mobilization Against War & Occupation (MAWO) - Vancouver, British Columbia

Nicolas Royer-Artuso - Laval University *, Montreal, Quebec

Marguerite Warner - Peace Alliance Winnipeg, Manitoba

CZECH REPUBLIC

Vaclav Exner - KSČM, Alterantiva zdola, Praha

FINLAND

Ernst Mecke, Ph.D. - Helsinki, Finland

FRANCE

Csizmazia Alexis - Université Paris Est Creteil, Paris

Arlette Cavillon - Mouvement de la Paix *

Oranus Ravar - Aix-en-Provence

Guenter Schenk - CJACP, Strasbourg

GERMANY

Judith Dellheim - Zukunftskonvent, Berlin

Dr. Henry Stahl - Bund für Soziale Verteidigung, Eschwege, Hessen

INDIA

J. Narayana Rao - All India Peace & Solidarity Organization, Nagpur

IRELAND

John Kelly - Mullingar, County Westmeath

June Kelly - County Westmeath

ITALY

Arrigo Colombo - Movimento per la società di giustizia, Lecce, Puglia

U.S. Citizens Against War - Florence

JAPAN

Yasuaki - Matsumoto *, Japan

Akira Asada - Takarzuka, Hyougo, Japan

MEXICO

Ethelia Ruiz Medrano - National Institute of Anthropology and History, Mexico *, Mexico

NETHERLANDS

Khalid Ahmed Chaudry - Ambassador & Deputy Chairman, Supreme Council of the International Human Rights Commission *, The Hague

SOUTH AFRICA

Dewald Wilhelm Scholtz - Pretoria, Gauteng Province

SOUTH KOREA

Choi Sung-Hee - Gangjeong Village International Team, Jeju Island

Regina Pyon Yeon-shik - Korean House for International Solidarity, Seoul

SWITZERLAND

Oriane Peschoux - UN, Geneva

NEW ZEALAND

Julie Webb-Pullman - Independent Journalist and Activist

Kay Weir - Editor, Pacific Ecologist, Pacific Institute of Resource Management, Wellington

Wellington Zapatista Support Group

RUSSIA

Alexander Ionov & Anastasia Promskaya - The Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia

SWEDEN

Agneta Norberg - Swedish Peace Council, Stockholm

Einar Schlereth - Retired Journalist / Translator / Writer, Klavreström, Kronoberg

Aaron Tovish - Executive Adviser, Mayors for Peace, Stockholm

UNITED KINGDOM

Allen L. Jasson - RightOfChoice.com, Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire

John Pilger - Two-time winner of Britain's Journalist of the Year Award

Angie Zelter - Reforest the Earth

*Organizations listed for identification purposes only