Peace and War

Progressive Democracy South Jersey

WHEN: Saturday, February 2nd at 6:00 p.m.,

WHERE: Unitarian Church of Cherry Hill, N.J.
401 North Kings Highway
Cherry Hill, NJ 08034
http://www.uucinch.org

“No End in Sight” examines the manner in which the principal errors of U.S. policy – insufficient troop levels, allowing the looting of Baghdad, purging professionals from the Iraqi government, and the disbanding of the Iraqi military – largely created the chaos that engulfs Iraq today.

After read more

By David Swanson

Check out this letter I just received by Email:

The lurch was first mentioned in Dante’s “Purgatorio,” and I had always wanted to go there. What can I say? I’m an adventurer. That’s one reason I joined the military in the first place. Well, that and all the lies about money and college and not having to serve in Iraq. When I’d completed my third tour in Iraq and they stop-lossed me, it felt at least as bad as a ticket to purgatory. How could read more

By David Swanson

Congress has the power to bring all troops, mercenaries, and contractors home safely this year. The cost of bringing them home is minimal and already covered by funds appropriated for wars and for a military budget that eats up over half of every tax dollar. We cannot afford another year of damaged world relations, of dead bodies, and of enormous financial expense. Representatives can commit to voting No on any appropriations bill that would give another dime to the occupation read more

By David Swanson

What should the peace movement do in 2008 to speed the end of the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, bring home the troops and mercenaries and contractors, and stop draining trillions of dollars out of Americans’ pockets for an expense that most of us do not want? And what should all organizations do whose domestic missions are devastated by the occupations’ drain on the national treasury?

Of course, we should continue to work on public education, and on counter recruitment. read more

By David Swanson, based on report from Malachy Kilbride

Mike Ferner was found guilty today in District of Columbia Superior Court. He has just been sentenced.

Ferner was originally sentenced to 5 days incarceration suspended and 6 months unsupervised probation including a $100 fine and $50 to the victims compensation fund.

He told the judge that he would not pay the fine and that his highest civic duty was to protest as the Germans should have done against Hitler. “Today we must speak out against read more

Numerous peace and justice organizations, including student groups taking advantage of Spring Break, are making plans for a week of actions from March 12th to 19th to mark the end of the fifth year of U.S. occupation in Iraq. Events will culminate in a national day of actions on March 19th, the fifth anniversary of the invasion. Congress members will be home on break, and activists hope to organize nonviolent civil disobedience actions in all 435 congressional districts, as well as nonviolent read more

Di David Swanson

Voglio ringraziare il Presidio permanente e il movimento No Dal Molin per avermi invitato, insieme a Desiree, a Vicenza. Vicenza per me è speciale per vari motivi. 20 anni fa sono venuto qui come studente a Bassano del Grappa, ho vissuto a Marostica e venivo spesso a Vicenza. Ho fatto amicizia con persone che ora per me sono come una famiglia, sono tornato diverse volte a trovarli e sono venuti loro negli Stati uniti. E, a proposito, 20 anni fa, quando dicevi di essere statunitense, read more

By David Swanson

You are beautiful. We are all Vicentini.

L’ambasciata americana ha chiesto a me ed a tutti gli americani di non venire qua in questi tre giorni. Ma il presidio permanente ci ha invitato. Tra il nazionalismo e la giustizia e’ stato molto facile sciegliere.

Voglio ringraziare il Presidio permanente e il movimento No Dal Molin per avermi incluso, insieme a Desiree Fairooz e Eve Tetaz, in questa bellissima mobilitazione. Siete un’ispirazione per tutti noi che viviamo read more

By David Swanson

The people of the northern Italian city of Vicenza, with help from activists around Italy, the rest of Europe, and even in the United States, are continuing to block the proposed construction of a new U.S. military base on their soil. When a company laid underground fiber-optic cables at the site of the proposed base, activists fill a junction box with cement. When another company tried to begin the work of removing World War II era U.S. bombs from the site, activists camped out read more

By David Swanson

In the face of a new NIE that shatters his and Cheney’s lies about Iranian nukes, Bush is now claiming that just knowing how to make a bomb is a danger to the world that could justify an illegal war and even the USE of the bomb. This insanity fits perfectly with the bill now making its way through the Senate that would make the promotion of belief systems that could lead to “violence read more

By David Swanson

“A very few serve the state with their consciences, and so necessarily resist it.” -Henry David Thoreau

“We should never forget that everything Adolph Hitler did in Germany was legal and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was illegal.” -Martin Luther King Jr.

“A real cynic isn’t going to blow the whistle. And a real radical probably won’t be in a position to do it. It takes someone who believes in the system far more read more