Halt American Genocidal Wars

February 25th, 2010 Jay Posted in Environment, Human Rights, Peace 3 Comments »

America’s Genocidal History

In his many books, scholar/activist Ward Churchill documented genocide in America. In “A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas 1492 to the Present,” he wrote:

“After four centuries of systematic slaughter from 1492 – 1892, the US Census Bureau concluded that there were fewer than a quarter-million indigenous people surviving in America, reduced to at most 3% of their original numbers.”

Slavery is part of the 500 years of African holocaust. The United States of America created one of the largest markets for slaves in history, perhaps 50 million dying during the horrific Middle Passage to America out of 100 million or more human beings sold like cattle.

Deaths were higher in Africa itself due to the process of capturing and transporting people to the ships. Survivors faced life as American slaves.

Howard Zinn called American slavery

“the most cruel form in history: the frenzy for limitless profit that comes from capitalistic agriculture; the reduction of the slave to less than human status by the use of racial hatred, with that relentless clarity based on color, where white was master, black was slave.”

Zinn described “a complex web of historical threads to ensnare blacks for slavery in America:”

  • poor settlers needing labor
  • the profit motive
  • racism
  • status and
  • human exploitation to get them

elements still affecting wage slaves and others, today, in

  • agriculture
  • domestic service
  • restaurant and hotel work
  • sweatshop factories
  • prostitution and sex services
  • and on US offshore military bases employing forced labor under horrific conditions.

President Cleveland called for an investigation into the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawai’i in 1893 which was supported by the landing of U.S. Marines. This investigation was conducted by former Congressman James Henderson Blount.

Blount concluded in his report on July 17, 1893,

“United States diplomatic and military representatives had abused their authority and were responsible for the change in government.”

President Cleveland stated,

“Substantial wrong has thus been done which a due regard for our national character as well as the rights of the injured people requires we should endeavor to repair the monarchy.”

Cleveland further stated in his 1893 State of the Union Address that,

“Upon the facts developed it seemed to me the only honorable course for our Government to pursue was to undo the wrong that had been done by those representing us and to restore as far as practicable the status existing at the time of our forcible intervention.”

One hundred years later, the U.S. Congress passed Public Law 103-150, otherwise known as the Apology Resolution, signed by President Bill Clinton on November 23, 1993. The resolution apologized for the U.S. Government’s role in supporting the 1893 overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii.

Native Hawaiian population last stood at 80,137 during the latest census, which is about 6.6% of the population. Only 5 years after the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii, in 1898, President William McKinley

  • created a pretext for war with Spain
  • forced the Spanish government to cede the Philippines
  • occupied the Philippines
  • fought a dirty war
  • slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Filipinos.

Theodore Roosevelt succeeded him, continued the carnage, and won a Nobel Peace Prize.

WW II Terror Bombings

Geneva and other international laws prohibit terror bombings that target civilians. The Laws of War: Laws and Customs of War on Land (1907 Hague IV Convention’s Article 25 states:

“The attack or bombardment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings, or building which are undefended is prohibited.”

The Fourth Geneva Convention protects civilians in time of war, prohibiting violence of any type against them and requiring treatment for the sick and wounded. The 1945 Nuremberg Principles forbid “crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity.” These include

  • “inhumane acts committed against any civilian population,
  • before or during the war,”
  • including indiscriminate killing and
  • “wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages
  • devastation not justified by military necessity.”

For example, consider America and Britain’s carpet-fire-bombing of Dresden. In less than 14 hours Allied Forces dropped 700,000 phosphorous bombs on 1.2 million people, killing as many as 100,000.

City center temperatures reached 1,600 degrees centigrade.

Dresden had no military importance. Destroying it was morally indefensible, as was fire-bombing Tokyo.

WWII was effectively over, Japan was trying to surrender but the United States refused to listen. On February 24, 1945, one square mile of Tokyo was destroyed before the major March 6 attack demolishing 16 square miles, killing around 100,000 in the firestorm, injuring many more, and leaving over a million homeless.

Five dozen other Japanese cities were also firebombed at a time most of the country’s structures were wooden and easily consumed.

The United States dropped the nuclear weaponLittle Boy” on the city of Hiroshima on Monday, August 6, 1945, followed by the detonation of “Fat Man” over Nagasaki on August 9.

By December, their combined death tolls topped 200,000, but they rose in succeeding months, years and decades.

Millions of North Korean and Southeast Asian civilians were slaughtered in unprovoked US acts of war to install client regimes.

Korean expert Bruce Cumings explained

“the extraordinary destructiveness of the United States air campaigns against North Korea, from the widespread and continuous use of firebombing, to threats to use nuclear and chemical weapons, and the destruction of huge North Korean dams in the final states of war. (The) air war leveled North Korea and killed millions of civilians. (There was no escape, and by) 1952 just about everything in northern and central Korea has been completely leveled. What was left of the population survived in caves.”

Of the North Korea’s 22 major cities, 18 were half or more obliterated with the large industrial ones 75 – 100% destroyed and villages reduced to

“low, wide mounds of violent ashes.”

Like Korea, bombings of Vietnam were excessive and indiscriminate, dropping eight million tons from 1965 – 1973, threefold WW II’s tonnage, amounting to 300 tons for every Vietnamese man, woman and child.

As in Korea, napalm and other incendiary devices were used, plus terror weapons like anti-personnel cluster bombs that spew thousands of metal pellets, indiscriminately hitting everyone in their path.

From 1961 – 1971, dioxin-containing defoliant Agent Orange was used, mainly in South Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Millions of gallons were sprayed.

Dioxin is:

  • one of the most toxic known substances
  • a potent carcinogenic
  • human immune system suppressant
  • accumulates in adipose tissue and the liver
  • alters living cell genetic structures
  • causes congenital disorders
  • birth defects and contributes to the diseases
  • cancer and
  • type two diabetes.

In 1970, Operation Tailwind used sarin nerve gas in Laos, causing many unnecessary deaths. In 1998, former Joint Chiefs Chairman, Admiral Thomas Moorer, confirmed its use on CNN.

The war also included Cambodia and Laos, killing around 600,000 civilians and destroying dozens of towns, villages and hamlets with secret bombings and terror weapons.

It was genocide by any definition.

Operation Desert Storm began on January 17, 1991, a criminal, gratuitous mass slaughter and destruction of essential to life facilities, including:

  • power plants and dams;
  • water purification facilities;
  • sewage treatment and disposal systems;
  • telephone and other communications;
  • hospitals;
  • schools and mosques;
  • around 20,000 homes, apartments and other dwellings;
  • irrigation sites;
  • food processing, storage and distribution facilities;
  • hotels and retail establishments;
  • transportation infrastructure;
  • oil wells, pipelines, refineries and storage tanks;
  • chemical plants, factories and other commercial operations;
  • government buildings and historical sites; and
  • civilian shelters targeting of innocent men, women and children.

As many as 200,000 were killed according to independent estimates. Twelve years of genocidal sanctions followed, killing as many as 1.7 million, two-thirds of them children under age five.

(From 2003 – 2009, another 2.5 million or more died.)

For two and a half months, about 3,000 sorties dropped thousands of tons of ordnance plus hundreds of ground-launched cruise missiles on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia – Serbia-Kosovo. As in the Gulf War

  • virtually all vital infrastructure was targeted as well as
  • factories,
  • other businesses, commercial and government buildings
  • schools
  • hospitals
  • churches and
  • historical landmarks.

All were destroyed or heavily damaged.

As in Korea, Southeast Asia, and Iraq, it was genocide as defined under the terms of the Geneva Convention. After revisiting Iraq, Afghanistan was next.

Marjah is the latest Afghan offensive, a PR stunt to save face for absolute failure, except for the human death toll. From 2001 – 2007, UN Population Division data estimated 3.2 million deaths, including 700,000 children under age five.

Through 2009, around 4.5 million have died in Afghanistan from causes including

  • deprivation
  • disease
  • starvation
  • neglect

with no end of war in sight.

The United States of America Afghan genocide adds to the genocide in Korea, Southeast Asia, Yugoslavia and Iraq.

Join us in a call for an end to American Genocidal Wars.

President Obama, your election represented our hope in a new direction for the United States of America. Please fulfill the promises of the first United States President of color, the most powerful public person on the planet and end all United States involvement in foreign wars.

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Hunger in America 2010

February 22nd, 2010 Jay Posted in Health, Human Rights, Peace No Comments »

indiana-large

For 1 in 8 Americans, hunger is a reality.

Right now, millions of Americans are struggling with hunger. We all know and are in contact with people affected by hunger, even though we might not be aware of it.

These are often hard-working adults, children and seniors who simply cannot make ends meet and are forced to go without food for several meals, or even days. Most of us simply have no idea.

It’s time to educate ourselves about America’s hunger problem.

HUNGER FACT SHEETS

Hunger in America is a big issue. Feeding America researched and compiled sources for more information on specific areas of study below.

In January 2010, Feeding America (FA, formerly America’s Second Harvest) released its disturbing new report on growing hunger titled, “Hunger in America 2010.”

Hunger In America 2010 Key Findings

  • The 37 million Americans served annually by Feeding America include nearly 14 million children and nearly 3 million seniors.
  • Each week, approximately 5.7 million people receive emergency food assistance from an agency served by a Feeding America member. This is a 27 percent increase over numbers reported in Hunger in America 2006, which reported that 4.5 million people were served each week.
  • These numbers are based on surveys conducted at emergency feeding centers, such as soup kitchens and food pantries, but do not factor in many individuals also served at non-emergency locations, such as Kids Cafe programs and senior centers.

Client Households

  • 76 percent (10 million) of client households served are food insecure, meaning they do not always know where they will find their next meal.
  • 36 percent of these client households are experiencing food insecurity with hunger, meaning they are sometimes completely without a source of food.
  • 79 percent (11 million) of households with children served are also food insecure.
  • Of the 37 million people the Feeding America  network serves:
      • 70 percent of households have incomes below the federal poverty line.
      • The average monthly income for client households is $940.
      • 36 percent of households have one or more adults who is working.
      • 10 percent of client households are homeless.

Tough Choices

Many of the client households served by Feeding America food banks report that their household incomes are inadequate to cover their basic household expenses.

  • 46 percent of client households served report having to choose between paying for utilities or heating fuel and food.
  • 39 percent of client households said they had to choose between paying for rent or a mortgage and food.
  • 34 percent of client households report having to choose between paying for medical bills and food.
  • 35 percent of client households must choose between transportation and food.

One in four client households (24 percent) do not have health insurance and nearly half of our adult clients report that they have unpaid medical and hospital bills.

Thirty percent of households report having at least one member of their household in poor health.

from Wikipedia:

Feeding America is a United States-based non-profit organization. It consists of a nation-wide network of more than 200 food banks and food rescue organizations that serve virtually every county in the United States as well as Puerto Rico.

It is the nation’s leading hunger-relief charity, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The current president and CEO is Vicki B. Escarra. Feeding America was known as America’s Second Harvest until August 31, 2008.

In the late 1960s, John van Hengel, a retired businessman in Phoenix, Arizona began volunteering at a local soup kitchen, and began soliciting food donations for the kitchen. He ended up with far more food than the kitchen could use in its operations.

Around this time, he spoke with one of the clients, who told him that she regularly fed her family with discarded items from the grocery store’s garbage bins. She told him that the food quality was fine, but that there should be a place where unwanted food could be stored and later accessed by people who needed it, similar to how banks store money.

Van Hengel began to actively solicit this unwanted food from grocery stores, local gardens, and nearby produce farms. His effort led to the creation of St. Mary’s Food Bank in Phoenix, the nation’s first food bank.

In 1975, St. Mary’s was given a federal grant to assist in developing food banks across the nation. This effort was formally incorporated into a separate non-profit organization in 1976.

In 2001, America’s Second Harvest merged with Foodchain, at that time the nation’s largest food-rescue organization.

In May 2007, it was featured on American Idol, named as a charity in the Idol Gives Back charity program.

In September 2008, the organization name was changed to Feeding America. The new name conveys the mission—providing food to Americans living with hunger—and will be supported through expansive public outreach campaigns that will raise awareness of domestic hunger and Feeding America’s work.

Feeding America has an “A” rating at charitywatch.org.

In August 2009, Columbia Records announced that all U.S. royalties from Bob Dylan’s album ‘Christmas in the Heart’ would be donated to Feeding America, in perpetuity.

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Medical Marijuana Affordable Medicine

February 18th, 2010 Jay Posted in Health, Human Rights, Peace 3 Comments »

The many medical benefits of marijuana…

click image for full size
click for larger image

…cannot be denied by anyone any longer.

Over and over and over again independent contemporary medical researchers add to the ancient medical knowledge of Cannabis Hemp Marijuana. Without a doubt a great deal of human pain and suffering can be stopped now with simple decriminalization of Cannabis Hemp Marijuana.

Who and What does it serve
to continue Cannabis Hemp Marijuana criminalization?

Certainly this question must be asked in a time when Presidential candidates lend lip service to Cannabis Hemp Marijuana decriminalization (even if in fact they continue the unjust persecution of this plant when elected). The time is overdue to examine both those who continue to demonize the plant and those who arrest and jail people who use it.

The following issues have been widely examined and publicly debated:

  1. Cannabis the multipurpose industrial Raw Material
  2. Hemp the versatile food source
  3. Marijuana the comprehensive medicine

and in all cases the plant has been more than vindicated, its usefulness and value far exceeding its risks and liabilities to either society or its individuals.

Yet Cannabis Hemp Marijuana criminalization continues.

>>> Why? <<<

As the United States of America, once home of the brave and land of the free, becomes history’s largest jailer of its own citizens on the back of Cannabis Hemp Marijuana prohibition, the bottom line of mass incarceration cannot be ignored.

It appears the object of Cannabis Hemp Marijuana oppression serves the ends of inducing the understandable fear of real persecution, violent arrest, vigorous prosecution and cruel and unusual punishment. Of course, impoverishment and public humiliation for the whole family goes along with this almost without mention.

It seems the government of the United States of America, once held high as the prime example of a representational government, finds Cannabis Hemp Marijuana criminalization useful in inducing fear based control of the population.

Otherwise, what reason exists for continued criminalization?

The fraud perpetrated by high government leaders, powerful industrialists and financiers to criminalize Cannabis Hemp Marijuana in the first place has been public record since the beginning, if any bothered to read it.

Now that its damage spans generations, and the guilty escaped prosecution with the assistance of time and death, it seems timely to reverse this miscarriage of justice.

Now that the value and usefulness of Cannabis Hemp Marijuana can no longer be concealed, certainly the powers that be will right this obvious wrong, ASAP.

And yet Cannabis Hemp Marijuana criminalization continues.

How does this make you feel about your government?

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Help Send Cuban Trained US Doctors To Haiti

January 29th, 2010 Liz Posted in Health, Human Rights, Peace No Comments »

Send Cuban Trained US Doctors To Haiti

IFCO / Pastors for Peace
January 21, 2010

Dear Friends:

We are writing to you with a special appeal for Haiti — asking you to help us right away to send a group of young physicians to provide desperately-needed emergency medical services in Haiti.

A group of the recent US graduates of the Latin American School of Medicine is ready to go and provide vitally needed medical attention to victims of the earthquake.

More than 300 Cuban doctors have been in Haiti for more than ten years now working in areas of Haiti that have no other access to healthcare. In addition, Cuba has also trained 400 young Haitian doctors who are now on the ground responding to this crisis.

Since the earthquake, the Cuban doctors have been working around the clock. They have set up three operating rooms that are in service 24/7, performing hundreds of surgeries per day.

The US graduates of the Latin American School of Medicine are eager to do whatever they can to help in Haiti. They are prepared to spend several weeks working alongside the Cuban medical team saving lives.

These dedicated and skilled young doctors are ready to serve. They received their MD degrees in Cuba, and they are uniquely prepared for the multiple challenges of this urgent mission. We will send them with backpacks full of medicines and supplies.

We just have to raise the funds to get them there. Can you help us to do that? You can make a contribution yourself, or take up a collection in your community.

ANY AMOUNT you send will help.

You can make a credit card donation by calling IFCO at 212-926-5757 or by clicking on the purpledonate now” button on our home page – write in IFCO/Haiti Medical Service Project in the space for “on behalf of”.

You can also mail a check to:
IFCO/Haiti Medical Service Project
418 West 145th Street
New York NY 10031

We are asking for your support for this extraordinary example of international cooperation and solidarity.

We desperately hope that you will help support this unprecedented opportunity for four nations —the US, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti — to work together in solidarity with the Haitian people.

You are a valuable and indispensable part of this work.

Please send your generous donation today!

The need for medical assistance in Haiti is critical right now. Our partners in Haiti and the Dominican Republic stand ready to deliver medical aid and the doctors into Haiti as soon as they arrive. They know how dire the situation is because they have been traveling over the border since the earthquake to deliver what they can.

Your contribution will be carried on the backs of young doctors prepared to heal the sick and wounded in Haiti. Your gift will make a huge difference in alleviating the pain and suffering of thousands of Haitian people.

Sincerely,
Rev. Lucius Walker, Jr.

p.s. Please see the enclosed list of specialized medicines and medical supplies which will be essential for the direct service our doctors will be giving to the Haitian people.

Please consider transferring your frequent flier miles for volunteers travel!

MEDICINES
Acedimedifin
Albendazol
Amoxicillin
Antacids
Anti allergy medication
Anti diarrhea medication
Anti flu medication
Anti Malarial (Malaron)
Anti Tetanus
Cipro
Diclofenac
Doxycycline
Dramamine
Dual lotion
Furosemide
Ibuprofen
Mebendazol
Metronidazol
Pediatric Neomycin cream
Penicillin and Procaine
Rehydration solutions
Topical antibiotics

MEDICAL SUPPLIES
Ace bandages
Alcohol wipes
Anti bacterial gels
Anti fungal cream
Aspirators for babies
Bandages
Bandaids
Butterfly needles
Catheters
Eyedrops/eyewash
Flashlights
Gauze
Cotton
Gloves
Neosporin
Saline/irrigation solution
Scalpels
Scissors
Sheets
Suture equipment
Sutures
Syringes
Tape

GENERAL NEEDS
Bars of soap
Blood pressure cuffs
Disposable head caps
Facemasks
Gloves
Heavy duty boots
Notebooks
Pens and pencils
Scrubs
Stethoscopes
Tea Light candles & quality batteries (AA&D)
Tents
Thermometers

Brand new under wear -adult (small & med.) and children sizes
Sanitary napkins
Toothpaste and tooth brushes

John Waller
Cuba Caravan Coordinator
IFCO-Pastors for Peace
Cell 831-512-6688
email: cucaravan@igc.org
www.pastorsforpeace.org
418 W 145th Street
New York, NY, 10031

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The People Speak Howard Zinn On Moyers Journal

January 27th, 2010 Jay Posted in Arts, Human Rights, Peace 7 Comments »

Howard Zinn gave one of his last public interviews with Bill Moyers on December 11, 2009. He died today, January 27, 2010, of a heart attack at the age of 87 while traveling in Santa Monica, California.

The single question that plagued him most of his adult life, the same that plagued me most of mine, seemed to be

Why Do People Put Up With So Much Abuse
From Their Government?

While the most famous of his more than 20 books, The People’s History Of The United States, appears to be a concise introduction to his thoughts, his other works get into the nitty-gritty of government abuse of the people until they rise up and stop it.

Howard Zinn hoped to reach out and influence people into demanding a more democratic, if not a truly democratic. government. He hoped, as I hope, that people will change things once they understand that it is in their power to do so.

We do not need to
put up with a government
doing things in our name
that we do not agree with.

Howard Zinn dedicated his adult working life to proving this point and educating others as to its truth. He realized that once enough people woke up to the truth then the entire political-economic environment can change over night.

We can have a peaceful world. I am sad that Howard Zinn did not live to see it.

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