Raging Against The War Machine In Maine

Yesterday's gatherings to rage against the war machine in Maine were among the most interesting I've organized. Not only did we get a bunch of new people to fill in the ranks of those missing because they only oppose wars when a Republican is in the White House, but our participants were from a broad range of political parties and tendencies: Green Independent Party of Maine, Communist Party of Maine, Libertarian Party of Maine, and independents were all represented.

Two people said they were Republicans, while two others told me (separately) that they were registered Democrats but did not feel like the party represented their interests and were planning to unenroll.

One person came from New Hampshire to join us, while two others had come up from NYC as one of them has ties to Waterville, Maine.

Professors from the Maine College of Art in Portland and Colby College in Waterville were with us, plus someone who works at the University of New England.

Our messaging was varied and most signs or banners played on one of the nine demands we were organized around for raging on February 19:

Not One More Penny for War in Ukraine

Negotiate Peace

Stop the War Inflation

Disband NATO

Global Nuclear De-escalation

Slash the Pentagon Budget

Abolish War and Empire

Restore Civil Liberties

Free Julian Assange

In addition we had a sign made the night before at my house calling out the Biden administration on revelations by investigative reporter Sy Hersh that the Nordstream pipelines were bombed by U.S. and NATO nations working together under cover of so-called "war games."

I saw another good sign on this theme in the coverage of the Rage event in Washington DC.

Estimates of that crowd range from 3,000-5,000 (crowds are notoriously hard to count). We had 20 in Bath and 15 in Westbrook, with some overlap. Many of the groups represented said their members had traveled to DC for the bigger rally. Honestly, as an anti-war organizer in Maine, I'm please when we have attendance in the double digits.

We also received coverage from Maine Public Radio and I just finished a follow-up radio interview this morning with the Ric Tyler/George Perry Show. Those two media outlets in Maine are as far apart ideologically as our group was. However, since the corporate media ignores us in these days of draconian narrative control, I'm willing to spread our message on whichever platforms are available. (Just to be clear, I don't align politically with either of those media outlets.)

What's next? March 18 is the date we agreed to meet again in Westbrook, where response was positive from many of the hundreds of cars that drove by in an hour.

Want to join us next time? Leave your email address in the comments and we'll be in touch. Because we don't have to agree on everything to stand together against the real possibility of a nuclear World War 3.

Best News In A Week Of Bad News: No One Wants To Join The Army

For a presentation by military veterans willing to share their truth, high school and middle school teachers can contact: wearenotyoursoldiers@worldcantwait.net. I have done this and my students loved it!

In a week of horrendously bad news  mostly not covered by the corporate press -- a train wreck in Ohio with a catastrophic chemical spill, and earthquake relief efforts hampered by U.S. sanctions on Syria -- there was a little ray of light. 

Young people in the U.S. do not want to join the Army. 

Like, REALLY don't want to.

Reporting on marketing-type research, Associated Press said that alleged "wokeness" bandied about in Congress as a reason has almost nothing to do with young people shunning enlistment.

The top reasons not to enlist were, in this order:

Fear of dying

Fear of PTSD

Not willing to leave friends and family

Not willing to put their life "on hold"

And 13% said they expected that women and people of color would experience discrimination in the Army. 

Furthermore,

Many young people do not know anyone in the Army and are unfamiliar with the jobs or benefits it offers. [Maj. Gen. Alex Fink, head of Army marketing] said trust in government institutions, including the military, has declined, particularly among this group.

“They just don’t perceive the Army as being in touch with the modern, everyday culture that they’re used to,” he said.

Fink said about 10% in the surveys say they do not trust military leadership, based on the way recent events or missions have been handled. That could include the Afghanistan withdrawal or use of the military during racial unrest and protests in the United States.

These surveys were conducted before the Super Bowl ran a misleading video about former NFL player Pat Tillman and his death in Afghanistan. Killed by friendly fire after he turned against the war? Oops, they forgot to mention that.

With WW3 against China and Russia at the same time gathering clouds on the horizon, it's an inconvenient time for truth. 

So Seymour Hersh's article detailing the who, what, where, when, and why of the NordStream pipeline sabotage was either ignored or ridiculed by the corporate press. Except when the weasly spokesman for the U.S. State Department was directly challenged about it at a press conference. 

Honestly, I'm surprised that Ned Price's nose did not grow right on camera for these whoppers.

UK journalist Craig Murray commented on the silencing of the most accomplished investigative reporter of his generation in "Sy Hersh: The Way We Live Now":

I learnt something very important about how the Big Lie works.

The secret is not that people genuinely believe an outrageous claim. The secret is that people do genuinely believe that they are in a battle of good against evil, and it is necessary to accept the narrative being promoted, in the interests of fighting evil.

Don’t question, just follow. If you do question, you are promoting evil.

I am sure that is how it works.

State and corporate stenographer journalists are actually intelligent individuals. If they thought about it, they would realise that the narrative that Russia blew up its own pipeline is obvious nonsense.

But they are convinced it is morally wrong to think about it.

Then a little more truth leaked out, this time over the Russiagate deception, in an article by reporter Jeff Gerth in a pretty mainstream publication, the Columbia Journalism Review. An excerpt:

it’s notable that Gerth got Bob Woodward, journalism’s original movie star, to go on record castigating the business over its Trump-Russia reporting. Woodward told Gerth he believed the coverage “wasn’t handled well,” and “urged newsrooms to ‘walk down the painful road of introspection.’” He also described to Gerth how he tried to warn “people who covered this” in the Washington Post newsroom away from certain stories, only to be met with shrugs. “To be honest, there was a lack of curiosity..

the legacy press is still mostly trying to ignore the CJR article. To be fair, dealing with its implications would require a cleanup/retraction process on a scale the business has probably never seen.

Bottom line: propagandists and former journalists can dick around all day telling half truths or denying real truths while still raking in big paychecks.

But young people asked to put their life on the line for the U.S. war machine are not easily fooled. And that is good news, indeed.