tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37106764636596283252024-03-13T23:19:13.809-04:00Peace in Our Times - VFP PublicationA Veterans For Peace publication exposing the causes and enormous costs of war.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger46125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3710676463659628325.post-57097778614638724192019-08-14T17:58:00.001-04:002019-08-14T17:59:16.211-04:00Peace & Planet News<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3710676463659628325.post-26008828420543349192019-07-11T10:26:00.003-04:002019-07-11T10:28:27.935-04:00From the Intercept: Rainforest On Fire<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3710676463659628325.post-41582175056238578802019-06-07T22:47:00.003-04:002019-06-07T22:47:39.765-04:00Summer 2019 Issue<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3710676463659628325.post-66807341641171327332019-05-31T10:04:00.001-04:002019-05-31T10:10:46.153-04:00Key American Allies in the Middle East Are the Real Tyrants<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Opinion - Key American Allies in the Middle East Are the Real Tyrants</h1>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="" style="max-width: 100%;">May 30, 2019 "</span><a class="" href="http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;"><span class="" style="max-width: 100%;">Information Clearing House</span></a><span class="" style="max-width: 100%;">" -</span><em class="" style="max-width: 100%;"> </em>American foreign policy can be so retro, not to mention absurd. Despite being bogged down in more military interventions than it can reasonably handle, the Trump team recently picked a new fight -- in Latin America. That’s right! Uncle Sam kicked off a sequel to the Cold War with some of our southern neighbors, while resuscitating the boogeyman of socialism. In the process, National Security Advisor John Bolton treated us all to a new phrase, no less laughable than Bush the younger’s 2002 "<a class="" href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/29/bush-axis-of-evil-2002-1127725" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">axis of evil</a>” (Iran, Iraq, and North Korea). He labeled Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua a "<a class="" href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/21/opinions/trump-weekly-briefing-bolton-regime-changes-vinograd/index.html" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">troika of tyranny</a>."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Alliteration no less! The only problem is that the phrase ridiculously overestimates both the degree of collaboration among those three states and the dangers they pose to their hegemonic neighbor to the north. Bottom line: in no imaginable fashion do those little tin-pot tyrannies offer either an existential or even a serious threat to the United States. Evidently, however, the phrase was meant to conjure up enough ill will and fear to justify the Trump team’s desire for sweeping regime change in Latin America. Think of it as a micro-version of Cold War 2.0.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Odds are that Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, both unrepentant neocons, are the ones driving this Latin American Cold War reboot, even as, halfway across the planet, they’ve been <a class="" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/13/world/middleeast/us-military-plans-iran.html" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">pushing for war</a> with Iran. Meanwhile, it’s increasingly clear that Donald Trump gets his own kick out of being a “war president” and the unique form of <a class="" href="https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2019-05-20/trump-threatens-iran-with-official-end" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">threat production</a> that goes with it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Since it’s a recipe for disaster, strap yourself in for a bumpy ride. After all, the demonization of Latin American “socialists” and an ill-advised war in the Persian Gulf have already been part of our lived experience. Under the circumstances, remember your <a class="" href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/ch01.htm" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">Karl Marx</a>: history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">And add this irony to the grim farce to come: you need only look to the Middle East to see a genuine all-American troika of tyranny. I’m thinking about the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the military junta in Egypt, and the colonizing state of Israel -- all countries that eschew real democracy and are working together to rain chaos on an already unstable region.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">If you weren’t an American, this might already be clear to you. With that in mind, let’s try on a pair of non-American shoes and take a brief tour of a real troika of tyranny on this planet, a threesome that just happen to be President Trump’s best buddies in the Middle East.</span></div>
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<strong class="" style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">America’s Favorite Kingdom</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The Saudi royals are among the worst despots around. Yet Washington has long given them a pass. Sure, they possess oodles of oil, black gold upon which the U.S. was once but no longer is heavily dependent. American support for those royals reaches back to World War II, when President Franklin Roosevelt took a detour after the Yalta Conference to <a class="" href="https://www.history.com/news/fdr-saudi-arabia-king-oil" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">meet</a> King Ibn Saud and first struck the devilish deal that, in the decades to come, would keep the oil flowing. In return, Washington would provide ample backing to the kingdom and turn a blind eye to its extensive human rights abuses.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Ultimately, this bargain proved as counterproductive as it was immoral. Sometimes the Saudis didn't even live up to their end of the bargain. For example, they <a class="" href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/opec-enacts-oil-embargo" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">shut</a> the oil spigot during the 1973 Yom Kippur War to express collective Arab frustration with Washington’s favoritism toward Israel. Worse still, the royals used their continual oil windfall to <a class="" href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saudi/analyses/wahhabism.html" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">build</a> religious schools and mosques throughout the Muslim world in order to spread the regime’s intolerant Wahhabi faith. From there, it was a relatively short road to the 9/11 attacks in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals (and not one was an Iranian).</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">More recently, in the Syrian civil war, Saudi Arabia even <a class="" href="https://harvardpolitics.com/columns-old/iran-saudi-arabia-and-the-failure-of-americas-middle-east-policy/" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">backed</a> the al-Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda franchise. That’s right, an American partner funded an offshoot of the very organization that took down the twin towers and damaged the Pentagon. For this there have been no consequences.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">In other words, Washington stands shoulder to shoulder with a truly abhorrent regime, while simultaneously complaining bitterly about the despotism and tyranny of nations of which it’s less fond. The hypocrisy should be (but generally isn’t) considered staggering here. We’re talking about a Saudi government that only recently <a class="" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-women-drive.html" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">allowed</a> women to drive automobiles and still<a class="" href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-16150381" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">beheads</a> them for “witchcraft and sorcery.” Indeed, mass execution is a staple of the regime. Recently, the kingdom executed 37 men in a single day. (One of them was even reportedly<a class="" href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-48028518" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">crucified</a>.) Most were not the “terrorists” they were made out to be, but dissidents from Saudi Arabia’s Shia minority convicted, as Amnesty International <a class="" href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/04/saudi-arabia-37-put-to-death-in-shocking-execution-spree/" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">put it</a>, “after sham trials that... relied on confessions extracted through torture.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">During the Arab Spring of 2011, the Saudi royals certainly proved anything but friends to the budding democratic movements brewing across the region. Indeed, its military even <a class="" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/world/middleeast/15bahrain.html" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">invaded</a> a tiny neighbor to the east, Bahrain, to suppress civil-rights protests by that country’s embattled Shia majority. (A Sunni royal family runs the show there.) In Yemen, the Saudis continue to <a class="" href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/complicit-americas-non-war-crimes-yemen/" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">terror bomb</a>civilians in its war against Houthi militias. Tens of thousands have died -- the exact number isn't known -- under a brutal bombing campaign and at least 85,000 Yemeni children have already<a class="" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/21/world/middleeast/yemen-famine-children.html" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">starved</a> to death thanks to the war and a Saudi blockade of what was already the Arab world’s poorest country. The hell unleashed on Yemen has been dubbed the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. It has already <a class="" href="https://www.unrefugees.org/emergencies/yemen/" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">produced</a> millions of refugees and, at present, the world’s worst cholera epidemic.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Through it all, Washington stood by its royals time and again, with The Donald far more gleefully pro-Saudi than his predecessors. His first foreign excursion, after all, was to that kingdom’s capital, Riyadh, where the president seemed to relish <a class="" href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/20/politics/trump-saudi-arabia-dance/index.html" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">joining</a> the martial pageantry of a Saudi “sword dance.” He also let it be known that the cash would keep flowing from the kingdom into military-industrial coffers in this country, <a class="" href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/12/politics/trump-khashoggi-saudi-arabia-arms-deal-sanctions/index.html" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">announcing</a> a supposedly record $110 billion set of arms deals (<a class="" href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176372/tomgram:_william_d._hartung,_2018_looks_like_an_arms_bonanza/" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">including</a> a number closed by the Obama administration and ones that may never come to fruition). Son-in-law Jared Kushner even continues to maintain a <a class="" href="https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/5-key-moments-in-the-bromance-between-kushner-and-the-saudi-crown-prince-1.6552209" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">bromance</a> with the ambitious and brutal ruling Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">In other words, with fulsome support from Washington, sophisticated American weapons, and a boatload of American cash, Saudi Arabia continues to unleash terror at home and abroad. This much is certain: if you’re looking for a troika of tyrants, that country should top your list.</span></div>
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<strong class="" style="max-width: 100%;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">America’s Favorite Military Autocracy</span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The U.S. also backs -- and Trump seems to <a class="" href="https://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFKCN1RL2B2" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">love</a> -- Egypt’s military ruler Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. At a press conference at the White House in September 2017, the president leaned toward the general and <a class="" href="https://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFKCN1RL2B2" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">announced</a> that he was “doing a great job.” Hardly anyone inside the Beltway, in the media, or even on Main Street batted an eye. Washington has, of course, long supported Egypt’s various tyrants, including the brutal Hosni Mubarak who was overthrown early in the Arab Spring. Cairo remains the <a class="" href="https://www.cnn.com/2015/11/11/politics/us-foreign-aid-report/index.html" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">second largest</a> annual recipient of American military aid at $1.3 billion annually. In fact, 75% of such aid goes to just two countries, the other being Israel. In a sense, Washington simply bribes both states not to fight each other. Now, that’s diplomacy for you!</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">So, how’s Egypt’s military using all the guns and butter the U.S. sends its way? Brutally, of course. After Mubarak was overthrown in 2011, Mohammed Morsi won a free and fair election. Less than two years later, the military, which abhors his Muslim Brotherhood organization, <a class="" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/world/middleeast/egypt.html" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">seized power</a> in a coup. Enter General al-Sisi. And when Morsi supporters rallied to protest the putsch, the general, who had appointed himself president, promptly <a class="" href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/egypt-rabaa-massacre-cairo-muslim-brotherhood-abdel-fattah-al-sisi-ibrahim-halawa-a8491821.html" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">ordered</a> his troops to open fire. At least 900 protesters were killed in what came to be known as the 2013 Rabaa Massacre. Since then, Sisi has ruled with an iron fist, <a class="" href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/15/sisi-rule-could-extend-to-2030-after-sweeping-constitutional-reforms" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">extending </a>his personal power, winning a sham reelection with 97.8% of the vote, and <a class="" href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/15/sisi-rule-could-extend-to-2030-after-sweeping-constitutional-reforms" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">pushing through</a> major constitutional changes that will allow the generalissimo to stay in power until at least 2030. Washington, of course, remained silent.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Sisi has run a veritable police state, replete with human rights abuses and mass incarceration. Last year, he even had a <a class="" href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/08/egypt-sentences-75-to-death-in-rabaa-massacre-mass-trial" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">show trial</a> of 739 Muslim Brotherhood-associated defendants, 75 of whom were sentenced to death in a single day. He also <a class="" href="https://www.hrw.org/middle-east/n-africa/egypt" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">uses</a> “emergency” counterterrorism laws to jail peaceful dissidents. Thousands of them have gone before military courts. In addition, in U.S.-backed Egypt most forms of independent organization and peaceful assembly remain<a class="" href="https://www.hrw.org/middle-east/n-africa/egypt" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">banned</a>. Cairo even collaborates with its old enemy Israel to <a class="" href="https://www.hrw.org/middle-east/n-africa/egypt" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">maintain</a> a stranglehold of a blockade on the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, which the <a class="" href="https://www.hrw.org/middle-east/n-africa/egypt" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">United Nations</a> has termed “inhumane.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Yet Egypt gets a hall pass from the Trump administration. It matters not at all that few places on the planet suppress free speech as effectively as Egypt now does -- not since it buys American weaponry and generally does as Washington wants in the region. In other words, a diplomatic state of marital (and martial) bliss protects the second member of the real troika of tyranny.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Some will be surprised, even offended, that I include Israel in this imaginary troika. Certainly, on the surface, Israel’s democracy bears no relation to the political worlds of Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Still, scratch below the gilded surface of Israeli life and you’ll soon <a class="" href="https://original.antiwar.com/danny_sjursen/2018/12/17/back-to-realism-the-conservative-case-for-palestine/" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">unearth</a> staggering civil liberties abuses and a penchant for institutional oppression. After all, so extreme have been the abuses of ever more right-wing Israeli governments against the stateless Palestinians that even some mainstream foreign leaders and scholars now <a class="" href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7004473" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">compare</a> that country to apartheid South Africa.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">And the label is justified. Palestinians are essentially isolated in the equivalent of open-air prisons in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip -- not unlike the <a class="" href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Bantustan" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">bantustans</a> of South Africa in the years when that country was white-ruled. In the impoverished, refugee-camp atmosphere of these state-lets, Palestinians lack anything resembling civil rights. They can’t even vote for the Israeli prime ministers who lord it over them. What’s more, the Palestinian citizens of Israel (some 20% of the population), despite technically possessing the franchise, are systematically <a class="" href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-what-it-s-like-to-be-a-palestinian-citizen-in-israel-1.6878243" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">repressed</a> in a variety of ways.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Evidence of an apartheid-style state is everywhere apparent in the Palestinian territories. In violation of <a class="" href="https://www.ipsc.ie/israels-violations-of-international-law-a-brief-introduction" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">countless</a> international norms and U.N. resolutions, Israel imposes its own version of a police state -- functionally, a military occupation of land legally possessed by Arabs. It has begun a de facto <a class="" href="https://original.antiwar.com/danny_sjursen/2018/12/17/back-to-realism-the-conservative-case-for-palestine/" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">annexation</a> of Palestinian land by building a “security wall” through Palestinian villages. Its military constructs special “Jewish only” roads in the West Bank linking illegal Israeli settlements, while further fracturing the fiction of Palestinian contiguity. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not only refused to withdraw those settlements or halt the colonization of Palestinian territory by Jewish Israelis, but during the recent Israeli election promised to <a class="" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/06/world/middleeast/netanyahu-annex-west-bank.html" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">begin</a> the actual annexation of the West Bank in his new term.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Israeli military actions are regularly direct violations of the principles of <a class="" href="https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199796953/obo-9780199796953-0147.xml" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">proportionality</a> in warfare, which means that the ratio of Israeli to Palestinian casualties is invariably absurdly disproportionate. <a class="" href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/israels-war-on-protesting-children-and-other-civilians/" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">Since last spring</a>, at least 175 Palestinians (almost all unarmed) have been shot to death by Israeli soldiers along the Gaza Strip fence line, while 5,884 others were wounded by live ammunition. Ninety-four of those had to have a limb amputated. A staggering 948 of the wounded were minors. In that period, just one Israeli died and 11 were wounded in those same clashes.</span> </div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Life in blockaded Gaza is almost unimaginably awful. So stringent are the sanctions imposed that one prominent official in a leaked diplomatic cable <a class="" href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/wikileaks" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">admitted</a> that Israeli policy was to "keep Gaza's economy on the brink of collapse.” In fact, back in 2012, one of that country’s military spokesmen even <a class="" href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/17/israeli-military-calorie-limit-gaza" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">indicated</a> that food was being allowed into the blockaded strip on a 2,300 calories a day count per Gazan -- just enough, that is, to avoid starvation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Through it all, with President Trump at the wheel, Netanyahu can feel utterly assured of the near limitless backing of the United States. The Trump team has essentially sanctioned all Israeli behavior, thereby legitimizing the present state of Palestinian life. Trump has <a class="" href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/u-s-to-open-jerusalem-embassy-in-may-white-house-official-says-1.5845868" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">moved</a> the U.S. embassy to contested Jerusalem -- admitting once and for all that Washington sees the holy city as the sole property of the Jewish state -- <a class="" href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/golan-heights-whats-stake-trumps-recognition" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">recognized</a> the illegal Israeli annexation of the conquered Syrian Golan Heights, and <a class="" href="https://truthout.org/articles/the-arms-trade-is-intensifying-under-trump/" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">increased</a> the flow of military aid and arms to Israel, already the number-one recipient of such American largesse.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Sometimes, in the age of Trump, it almost seems as if “Bibi” Netanyahu were the one guiding American policy throughout the Middle East. No wonder Israel rounds out that troika of tyranny.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Beyond their wretched human rights records and undemocratic tendencies, that troika has another particularly relevant commonality as the U.S. <a class="" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/13/world/middleeast/us-military-plans-iran.html" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">reportedly</a> prepares for a possible war with Iran. Two of those countries -- Israel and Saudi Arabia -- desperately desire that the American military take on their Iranian nemesis. The third, Egypt, will go along with just about anything as long as Uncle Sam keeps the military aid flowing to Cairo. Think of it as potentially the ultimate “<a class="" href="https://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/wag+the+dog.html" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">wag the dog</a>” scenario, with Washington taking on the role of the dog.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">This alone should make Washington officials cautious. After all, war with Iran would surely prove <a class="" href="https://original.antiwar.com/Danny_Sjursen/2019/05/14/the-united-states-of-aggression-war-with-iran-would-spell-the-end-of-the-republic/" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">disastrous</a> (whatever damage was done to that country). If you don’t think so, you haven’t been living through the last 17-plus years of this country’s forever wars. Unfortunately, no one should count on such caution from John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, or even Donald Trump.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">So settle into your seats folks and prepare to watch the empire swallow the republic whole.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><em class="" style="max-width: 100%;">Danny Sjursen, a </em><a class="" href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176511/tomgram%25253A_danny_sjursen%25252C_ringing_in_a_new_year_of_war" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">TomDispatch<em class="" style="max-width: 100%;"> regular</em></a><em class="" style="max-width: 100%;">, is a retired U.S. Army major and former history instructor at West Point. He served tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has written a memoir of the Iraq War, </em><a class="" href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1611687810/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">Ghost Riders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge</a>.<em class="" style="max-width: 100%;">He lives in Lawrence, Kansas. Follow him on Twitter at </em><a class="" href="https://twitter.com/SkepticalVet" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">@SkepticalVet</a><em class="" style="max-width: 100%;"> and check out his podcast “</em><a class="" href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/fortress-on-a-hill-podcast/id1330015680?mt=2" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%;" target="_blank">Fortress on a Hill</a><em class="" style="max-width: 100%;">,” co-hosted with fellow vet Chris ‘Henri’ Henriksen.</em></span></div>
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<span class="" style="font-size: x-small;">Copyright 2019 Danny Sjursen</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3710676463659628325.post-67732089670765668242019-03-19T20:29:00.001-04:002019-03-19T20:35:01.689-04:00Veterans for Peace Held in Ireland<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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U.S. Veterans for Peace Held in Ireland After Protest at Military Base</h1>
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And two U.S. veterans for peace are being held in Ireland after protesting U.S. warplanes refueling there. Military planes regularly refuel at Shannon Airport before continuing on to U.S. wars in the Middle East. Veterans for Peace members Ken Mayers and Tarak Kauff, currently in Limerick Prison, could be held for up to two years pre-trial after entering the airfield carrying a large banner that said: “U.S. Veterans Say Respect Irish Neutrality. U.S. War Machine Out of Shannon Airport. Veterans for Peace.”<br /><br />Ed Horgan, coordinator of Irish Veterans for Peace, said, “This process is a clear attempt to punish the two VFP activists before any trial takes place. We are calling on all peace and human rights activists in Ireland and internationally to campaign not only on behalf of Ken Mayers and Tarak Kauff, but, more important, on behalf of all the innocent people being killed and injured by U.S. illegal wars.”<div style="max-width: 100%;">
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2019/3/19/headlines/us_veterans_for_peace_held_in_ireland_after_protest_at_military_base">https://www.democracynow.org/2019/3/19/headlines/us_veterans_for_peace_held_in_ireland_after_protest_at_military_base</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-weight: normal;">For updates about Tarak and Ken, go to <a href="http://stopthesewars.org/kenandtarak">stopthesewars.org/kenandtarak</a></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3710676463659628325.post-10902361238761535082019-03-13T12:09:00.000-04:002019-03-13T12:11:22.272-04:00Spring 2019 Issue<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://www.classwars.org/PeaceTimesSpring2019.pdf" target="_blank">Download Spring 2019 Issue</a></h2>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3710676463659628325.post-26698348238210683702019-01-07T20:30:00.000-05:002019-01-07T20:30:51.945-05:00Winter 2019 Issue<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3710676463659628325.post-80793800257511781902018-11-14T22:19:00.000-05:002018-11-14T22:19:24.212-05:00Special Edition: Reclaim Armistice Day<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3710676463659628325.post-66841460831533623892018-10-12T12:36:00.001-04:002018-10-12T12:36:23.988-04:00Fall 2018 Issue<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3710676463659628325.post-12366254792456241192018-07-14T20:03:00.001-04:002018-07-14T20:04:35.310-04:00Summer 2018 Issue<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3710676463659628325.post-2102980505878019622018-04-19T09:00:00.000-04:002018-04-19T09:00:06.641-04:00Spring 2018 Issue<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3710676463659628325.post-65544233450516658882018-01-05T15:23:00.002-05:002018-01-05T15:25:19.506-05:00Winter 2018 Issue<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3710676463659628325.post-37179313050675196772017-11-16T11:38:00.002-05:002017-11-16T11:39:10.435-05:00Fall 2017 Issue<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3710676463659628325.post-90628475685029728732017-07-15T09:48:00.002-04:002018-01-05T15:17:36.036-05:00Summer 2017 Issue<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3710676463659628325.post-59690262446380919232017-05-17T10:30:00.002-04:002017-05-17T10:30:22.843-04:00Spring 2017 Issue<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3710676463659628325.post-43289229388327304212017-05-04T12:47:00.002-04:002017-05-04T12:47:16.175-04:00Dahr Jamail on Standing Rock<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Settler State Repression: Standing Rock Battles Continue in the Courts</h1>
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<a class="byline" href="safari-reader://www.truth-out.org/author/itemlist/user/44706" style="color: var(--body-font-color); display: inline !important; font-size: 1em !important; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; text-decoration: none;">Dahr Jamail</a></div>
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<span style="font-weight: bold; max-width: 100%;"><img alt="Indigenous rights activists at a tipi camp set up to protest the Dakota Access pipeline, on the National Mall in Washington, DC, on March 9, 2017. (Photo: Al Drago / The New York Times)" class="" src="http://www.truth-out.org/images/Images_2015_01/2017_0503dahr.jpg" style="display: block; height: auto; margin: 0.5em auto; max-width: 100%;" width="640" /><span style="max-width: 100%;">Indigenous rights activists at a tipi camp set up to protest the Dakota Access pipeline, on the National Mall in Washington, DC, on March 9, 2017. (Photo: Al Drago / The New York Times)</span></span></div>
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As a means of making bombing, sanctioning or invading other countries palatable to the general population, the US government has consistently used the actions of other governments against their own people as an excuse.</div>
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Those actions have included the use of chemical weapons, torture, setting dogs against people, beatings, surveillance, forcibly removing people from their land, jailing them unjustly, holding staged trials, and issuing verbal and physical threats, among many others.</div>
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Yet, these same actions have been carried out by the US government, state governments and private security forces working on behalf of a private pipeline company (with the full backing of the US government) against Native people at Standing Rock.</div>
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This story is not new.</div>
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"The settler state arrives as an armed white man intent on staying," said Nick Estes, who is Kul Wicasa from the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe and is a doctoral candidate in American Studies at the University of New Mexico, in an interview with Truthout. "Second amendment rights were intended to arm the white man. The police and military have always been the arm of the state to facilitate Indigenous dispossession and normalize it."</div>
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Estes, who studies colonialism and decolonization, border town violence, police violence, Indigenous internationalism, Lakota treaties and history, and the history and politics of the Oceti Sakowin, also cofounded <a href="https://therednation.org/" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">The Red Nation</a>, a Native-led coalition dedicated to Native liberation.</div>
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<span style="font-weight: bold; max-width: 100%;"><img alt="Nick Estes of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe is a doctoral candidate in American studies at the University of New Mexico; he studies colonialism and decolonization and cofounded The Red Nation. (Photo: Courtesy of Nick Estes)" class="" src="http://www.truth-out.org/images/images_2017_05/2017_0503dahr2.jpg" style="display: block; height: auto; margin: 0.5em auto; max-width: 100%;" width="640" /><span style="max-width: 100%;">Nick Estes of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe is a doctoral candidate in American studies at the University of New Mexico; he studies colonialism and decolonization and cofounded The Red Nation. (Photo: Courtesy of Nick Estes)</span></span></div>
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What has happened at Standing Rock highlights the fact that the land through which Energy Transfer Partners, the Dallas-based energy company in which Trump has a financial interest, has constructed the Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL) in contested territory.</div>
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"That land is not under North Dakota's control [since it is Native land] so they [the state] have to deploy themselves and a host of private security firms and resort to violent means, to secure its aim, which also reveals its fragility," Estes said.</div>
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And events at Standing Rock are far from over. Hundreds of court cases against Water Protectors continue. All of them underscore how the state and federal courts in North Dakota are functioning as little more than an adjunct to the repressive machine geared toward punishing those who peacefully stood up and spoke out against an illegal land grab.</div>
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<strong style="max-width: 100%;">Law Enforcement's Repression of Water Protectors</strong></div>
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Rachel Lederman, a civil rights lawyer on the board of the Indigenous-led <a href="https://waterprotectorlegal.org/" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Water Protector Legal Collective</a>, is leading a civil suit geared towards obtaining an injunction against the use of nonlethal weaponry like rubber bullets and exploding grenades against peaceful Water Protectors. She is thus coordinating the civil response around what she described to Truthout as "the law enforcement repression of the Water Protectors."</div>
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In her interview with Truthout, Lederman said that as the presence of Water Protectors at Standing Rock grew, "the repressive tactics by private security and law enforcement escalated steadily."</div>
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When Lederman arrived at Standing Rock, September 3, 2016, private security hired by DAPL "used attack dogs, mace, and drove trucks into Water Protectors who were simply on a prayer march and were surprised to find DAPL bulldozing through sacred sites."</div>
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She was eyewitness to the incident and described DAPL's private security as having "brutalized" Water Protectors while law enforcement "stood by and watched." After this was publicized, law enforcement took over, but Lederman said that she witnessed the pipeline's private security forces mixed in with them during their activities.</div>
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As events continued, law enforcement began making more frequent mass arrests, including one on October 22 when Water Protectors were told, at gunpoint, to get on their knees. During that event, roughly 125 Water Protectors, including two attorneys who were present as legal observers, were arrested.</div>
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At that point, law enforcement's response became "increasingly militarized," according to Lederman, and North Dakota's Morton County Sheriff's Department called in mutual aid from all over the state and surrounding states, as the governor declared a state of emergency.</div>
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Lederman, who is also the president of the <a href="http://www.nlgsf.org/" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">National Lawyers Guild, S.F. Bay Area Chapter</a>, is representing <a href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-standing-rock-wounded-20161222-story.html" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Vanessa Dundon</a>, who was struck in the eye by a police-fired flaming tear-gas canister. Shortly after Dundon, who will likely lose her eye, was injured, 21-year-old Sophia Wilansky was struck by an explosive device that nearly blew her arm off.</div>
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"People have been held in fenced-in areas similar to dog kennels in Morton County Jail, elders have been strip searched and held overnight on cold concrete floors, not fed for long periods of time, shipped around to jails all over the state before being released, often many hours away from Standing Rock," Lederman said, explaining several of the brutal and repressive tactics used by the state to protect the oil company's interests. "Phone calls have been denied, and there has been a lot of abuse while in custody."</div>
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After October 22, the militarism continued to escalate with the use of sound cannons, chemical agents and impact munitions. The well-known incident of November 20 on Backwater Bridge included the use of high power water hoses on Water Protectors at night when temperatures were in the 20s, and the shooting of impact munitions, explosive grenades and tear gas canisters indiscriminately into the crowd. </div>
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"They were shooting at the medics in the back of the crowd, and hundreds of people were injured that night," Lederman said. "There were numerous serious injuries from impact grenades. That was the night Vanessa was shot in the eye. It was like a battle zone scene."</div>
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Immediately after this, Lederman became lead attorney in the filing of a class action civil rights lawsuit in federal court against the sheriff of Morton County. It was there that she and other lawyers asked the court to cease the use of what are referred to as "less-lethal weapons."</div>
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In that filing, Lederman and her colleagues presented more than 50 witness declarations, including one from Thomas Frazier, the former police chief in Baltimore, saying that at no point were law enforcement ever overrun by Protectors, and there was never a reason to justify such a high level of force. But the judge, who in a series of rulings has supported the pipeline company and its security forces (including the police), had other ideas.</div>
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"Judge Hovland, the presiding judge of the US District Court in North Dakota, denied our request for a preliminary injunction," Lederman said. "The case seeks both the injunction and damages, so we've filed an appeal to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals."</div>
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Lederman's outlook for repression, regarding demonstrations at Standing Rock, is grim.</div>
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"The reason there are less protests now is a direct result of the law enforcement violence," she said. "We believe there is an ongoing chilling of free speech to express both political and religious beliefs in opposition to the pipeline due to the district court basically sanctioning the excessive force of law enforcement."</div>
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Nevertheless, she expects their appeal to move forward, and added, "I think it is fairly important to continue to challenge what we see is a blatantly unlawful use of indiscriminant force."</div>
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She notes that the level of repression has been "frightening," including the infliction of serious injuries.</div>
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"Attorneys in allied groups will continue to fight for people's right to protest -- because Trump or no Trump, it is unconstitutional to shoot people without reason, or to arrest people who are not breaking the law," she concluded. "So we, as Water Protector Legal Collective and other allied legal groups, will continue to challenge these repressive tactics by law enforcement."</div>
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In a glimmer of hope, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals on April 24th denied law enforcement's motion to dismiss the Water Protector's appeal from the denial of the injunction.</div>
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<strong style="max-width: 100%;">The Judge Must Go</strong></div>
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Jeffrey Haas has been a criminal defense and civil rights attorney for nearly half a century. A member of the <a href="https://waterprotectorlegal.org/" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Water Protector Legal Collective</a>, he has previously <a href="http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/39243-missile-launchers-at-standing-rock-weaponized-law-in-action" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">spoken with Truthout at length</a> about the legal issues at Standing Rock.</div>
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Haas and cocounsel Bruce Nestor of Minneapolis represent Brennon Nastacio in federal court, where Nastacio is charged under a statute passed in 1968 to allow federal prosecution of mass protests. Charged with "impeding law enforcement" during a "civil disorder," Nastacio faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years if convicted. Nestor says this rarely-used federal statute "sets a dangerous precedent, allowing federal prosecution of any mass protest where law enforcement makes claims that it constituted 'civil disorder.'" Haas and Nestor have filed a request for Judge Hovland to recuse himself from presiding over Nastacio's federal criminal case. In support of the Motion for Recusal, they have cited several instances of Judge Hovland making statements clearly depicting Water Protectors and their motives in very negative ways.</div>
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One of the defendants, Red Fawn Fallis, also <a href="http://truthoutdocs.cloudaccess.net/documents/2017_0423dj/RFFAffidavit_041917.pdf" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">filed an affidavit requesting</a> that Hovland recuse himself, and the Water Protector Legal Collective <a href="http://truthoutdocs.cloudaccess.net/documents/2017_0423dj/RFF_Recusal_PressRelease_042417.pdf" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">recently released a press release</a> on this as well.</div>
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<span class="auxiliary" style="clear: both; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65098); display: block; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 0.75em; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.4em; margin-bottom: 1.15em; max-width: 100%; width: 674.59375px;"><img alt="Jeffrey Haas is a member of the Water Protectors Legal Collective and author of The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther. (Photo: Courtesy of Jeffrey Haas)" class="" src="http://www.truth-out.org/images/images_2017_05/2017_0503dahr3.jpg" style="-webkit-margin-start: 0px; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%;" width="400" /></span><span class="auxiliary" style="clear: both; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65098); display: block; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 0.75em; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.4em; margin-bottom: 1.15em; max-width: 100%; width: 674.59375px;"><br /><span style="-webkit-margin-start: 0px; display: block; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.5em; max-width: 100%;">Jeffrey Haas is a member of the Water Protectors Legal Collective and author of <em style="margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.5em; max-width: 100%;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Assassination-Fred-Hampton-Chicago-Murdered/dp/1522601287" style="color: #416ed2; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.5em; max-width: 100%; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther.</a></em>(Photo: Courtesy of Jeffrey Haas)</span></span>Haas told Truthout recently that Hovland's public statements and judicial rulings have put him in a position where he cannot appear to be acting in an unbiased fashion on any of the Standing Rock cases before him. Speaking to Lederman's comments on Judge Hovland's denial of her motion for a preliminary injunction, Haas illustrated Hovland's continuing support for law enforcement.</div>
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"Not only did Judge Hovland deny the motion for preliminary injunction, he did so without a hearing," Haas explained. "That means he accepted the sheriff and other law enforcement's affidavits as truthful, despite the fact they were challenged by contrary affidavits submitted by plaintiff's witnesses and experts."</div>
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In a case like this, with a disputed set of facts, it should be clear that a hearing is necessary, according to Haas.</div>
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Hovland, before he was on the bench, worked for the law firm that was hired to defend all the law enforcement agencies, cities and counties in North Dakota. One of the families in that same firm owns a large oil company in North Dakota.</div>
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In another example of Judge Hovland's rulings favoring law enforcement and the government, in the pending federal criminal case against Red Fawn Fallis, a federal magistrate judge allowed Fallis -- who was charged in a NoDAPL-related incident -- to be released from detention. The government appealed that ruling. "Before her attorney Bruce Ellison even had an opportunity to respond, the judge overruled the magistrate, accepted the government's position and continued the detention of Red Fawn until her trial," Haas said. "So he has a history of not only ruling for the government, but doing so without a hearing -- or in this instance, [without] even giving the defendant an opportunity to respond.</div>
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According to Haas, with regard to the state criminal cases, there have been many instances of overcharging Water Protectors, or mischarging them with things they didn't do.</div>
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Dozens of criminal trespass and riot charges have simply been dismissed. For instance, a group of Water Protectors was charged with riot and trespass for an incident on October 10. Defendants came to court from many miles away, ready for trial. Their lawyers filed motions stating the state could not prove the individuals had been given notice of trespass, nor had it shown any of the defendants had been in a riot.</div>
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"The judge said he would dismiss the cases due to the lack of evidence, so instead, the prosecutor dismissed those cases and then filed new charges of interfering with a public officer in his duties, and put out warrants for the same people -- who were then forced to choose between coming back in six months for a new trial with new charges, or entering a plea and getting a deferred sentence, which many of them have done," Haas said.</div>
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Many Water Protectors have been forced to take plea deals in cases where charges against codefendants were dismissed, in order to avoid the significant costs and time needed for travel, according to Nestor.</div>
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Haas explained what that scenario looks like for Water Protectors who have been charged: "You've come 1,000 miles. It's the day before trial and it's clear the state can't prove their case. So they dismiss that case and bring a new charge. So you have to post a new bond, plus there is a warrant out for your arrest until you post that bond. Then you have to come back in six months to face a trial on that new charge. So there is a lot of pressure on you just to get it over, without having to do time, or to not have a record, so a number of people have accepted the deal."</div>
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<strong style="max-width: 100%;">Who Is the Terrorist?</strong></div>
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Haas and Nestor are also representing Brennon Nastacio, a Water Protector from San Felipe Pueblo in New Mexico, in state court on charges related to an incident when he de-escalated a situation involving a DAPL security contractor, Kyle Thompson, who was carrying an assault rifle and pistol as he attempted to enter the resistance camps on October 27. At a point when Thompson was facing Water Protectors with a loaded AR-15 assault rifle, Nastacio resolved the situation by having him hand over the gun and himself to the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA).</div>
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The BIA then turned Thompson over to the FBI, who transported him to the Morton County Sheriff, who released him. Shortly thereafter, Nastacio was <a href="http://nativenewsonline.net/currents/hero-issued-warrant-saving-lives-standing-rock/" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">charged with a Class C Felony</a> for allegedly terrorizing Kyle Thompson despite the fact that ample video evidence -- including <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYxYs03csm4" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">this video</a> of the entire incident -- backs up Nastacio's account of the events.</div>
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Nastacio told Truthout he was truly shocked to find out over Facebook that he was on the Morton County Sherriff's most-wanted list.</div>
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"I kept wanting to wake up and find this all not to be true, but I've not woken up yet to that," he said. "I couldn't believe it. I came upon a tense and fearful situation that day, and acted in a manner thinking I was saving a lot of people's lives, including the guy with the rifle. I have family in law enforcement, and they were all amazed. They tell me I did nothing wrong."</div>
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Nastacio is now back in Colorado working at his home remodeling business in Denver, awaiting his trial.</div>
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He is demoralized by what has happened to him.</div>
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"Being Native American, we've dealt with racism, but after being at Standing Rock and witnessing what Natives go through on a daily basis for hundreds of years, it's disheartening," he said. "I've seen a lot of injustice."</div>
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<strong style="max-width: 100%;">Every Sitting President Is a "Town Destroyer"</strong></div>
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In addition to all of these strategies, Haas outlined numerous repressive tactics used by the State against the Water Protectors. These included mass arrests as an attempt to deter protests, incarceration and the setting of high bonds, police in riot gear, massive shows of force and federal charges against people perceived as leaders of the protests. Additionally there was a major increase in federal involvement by the BIA, FBI and ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.)</div>
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Despite this widespread repression of people nonviolently attempting to keep their water from being polluted, and intensifying criminalization of dissent of any kind, Estes sees Standing Rock as a touchstone of resistance going forward.</div>
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"It's evolved into a more widespread movement and it's raised the consciousness of people," he said. "There are more political possibilities now for the movement than there were a year ago."</div>
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And with <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-energy-idUSKBN17P0JC" style="color: #416ed2; max-width: 100%; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Trump poised to sign</a> an order that will cause even more pipelines to be built, the stage is set for broader confrontation.</div>
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Estes cautions against those who think Trump is acting in a truly exceptional way.</div>
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"The Haudenosaunee [Iroquois], who fought George Washington ... call every sitting president 'town destroyer,'" he said. "I think that is apt."</div>
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Estes sees the state violence at Standing Rock as a continuation of state brutality against Indigenous people across the US, which runs alongside tactics like naming cruise missiles "Tomahawks" and helicopters "Blackhawks."</div>
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"These all come from 19th century Indian wars," he said. "Standing Rock is a continuation of these wars. Since the 1787 Northwest Ordinance, which spelled out the use of 'just war' against Indigenous, the message has been, 'Acquiesce to us, or face the consequences' -- which means negotiate land cessions and concede to the US government or war will be waged against you. And that is exactly what happened at Standing Rock."</div>
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Moreover, Estes believes that during this historical moment, when we are talking about Indigenous decolonization, we need to also be discussing what is happening regarding budget cuts to schools, healthcare and social services.</div>
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"All these issues are deeply connected, and Standing Rock was a moment of a larger movement," he concluded. "The settler state uses police violence for their aims, and out of that, you can violently secure the trespass of a pipeline to continue dispossessing Indigenous land and water. But you cannot dispossess us of our experience of Standing Rock, as that will reverberate far into the future."</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3710676463659628325.post-18003246249048118892017-02-11T18:28:00.003-05:002017-02-11T18:28:48.284-05:00Still serving America<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Army veterans return to Standing</span><br /><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Rock to form a human shield</span><br /><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">against police</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">A growing group of military veterans are willing to put their bodies between Native American activists and the police trying to remove them</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">“We have the experience of standing in the face of adverse conditions – militarization, hostility, intimidation,” said Julius Page, a 61-year-old veteran staying at the vets camp."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #fefdfa; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Full story: </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/11/standing-rock-army-veterans-camp" style="color: #7d181e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none;">https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/11/standing-rock-army-veterans-camp</a><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3710676463659628325.post-68186080461365373422017-02-01T08:16:00.003-05:002017-02-01T08:22:53.370-05:00Winter 2017 Issue<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://www.classwars.org/PeaceTimesWinter2017.pdf">Download Winter 2017 Issue</a></h2>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3710676463659628325.post-31623110924425877962016-11-09T11:08:00.002-05:002016-11-09T11:08:26.348-05:00Standing Rock is the Longest Running War for the United States<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3710676463659628325.post-15940266473261580492016-10-13T08:56:00.000-04:002016-10-13T08:56:16.058-04:00Fall 2016 Issue<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://www.classwars.org/PeaceTimesFall2016.pdf">Download Fall 2016 Issue</a></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3710676463659628325.post-79287496580445832752016-08-16T08:20:00.001-04:002016-08-16T08:20:38.443-04:002016 Peace Prize to VFP<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://www.uspeacememorial.org/" style="color: blue;" target="_blank"><img align="left" height="186" src="https://gallery.mailchimp.com/61d517c59e38337407cacd004/images/1b23fc0e-fcf8-4227-aff0-2e5aa558e5a2.png" style="float: left; height: 186px; margin: 0px; width: 184px;" width="184" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-size: 34px;"><span style="font-family: "lucida sans unicode" , "lucida grande" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif;"><strong><span style="color: firebrick;">Veterans For Peace</span></strong></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 36px;"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: mediumblue;"><strong>Awarded</strong></span></span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "lucida sans unicode" , "lucida grande" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: mediumblue;"><strong>2016 Peace Prize</strong></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The US Peace Memorial Foundation has awarded its <a href="http://www.uspeacememorial.org/PEACEPRIZE.htm" style="color: blue;" target="_blank">2016 Peace Prize</a> to Veterans For Peace “In recognition of heroic efforts to expose the causes and costs of war and to prevent and end armed conflict.”<br /><br />Michael Knox, Chair of the Foundation, presented the award on August 13 at the Veterans For Peace national convention banquet, held at the University of California, Berkeley. In his remarks, Knox said, “Thank you, Veterans For Peace, for your tireless antiwar work, creativity, and leadership. Your organization is an inspiration to peace loving people throughout the world.”<br /><br />The Peace Prize was accepted by Michael McPherson, Veterans For Peace Executive Director; Barry Ladendorf, President of the Board of Directors; and by Doug Rawlings, a VFP Founder, to loud applause from an audience of about 400.<br /><br />President Ladendorf commented, “For 31 years, Veterans For Peace has been the only veterans organization that has consistently led the peace movement in an effort to abolish war, eventually eliminate nuclear weapons, expose the real costs of war, stand in solidarity with veterans and victims of war, and to keep our nation from interfering overtly and covertly into the affairs of other nations. This award is a great honor for Veterans For Peace and is a testament to the foresight, wisdom and dedication of our founders and to the thousands of VFP members worldwide who have led us in our non-violent struggle for a peaceful world. We are indeed grateful and honored to receive the 2016 US Peace Memorial Foundation Peace Prize.”<br /><br /><strong>See photos and full details at: <a href="http://www.uspeacememorial.org/PEACEPRIZE.htm" style="color: blue; font-weight: normal;" target="_blank">www.uspeacememorial.org/PEACEPRIZE.htm</a>.</strong><br /><br />In addition to receiving our highest honor, the 2016 Peace Prize, Veterans For Peace has been designated a </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><a href="http://www.uspeacememorial.org/Donors.htm" style="color: blue;" target="_blank">Founding Member</a></span></span><span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> of the US Peace Memorial Foundation. They join previous Peace Prize recipients Kathy F. Kelly, CODEPINK Women for Peace, Chelsea Manning, Medea Benjamin, Noam Chomsky, Dennis Kucinich, and Cindy Sheehan.<br /><br />Distinguished Americans and nationally prominent U.S. organizations that were also nominated and considered for the award this year include Center for Global Nonkilling, Lynn M. Elling, Colman McCarthy, and Psychologists for Social Responsibility. You can read about the antiwar/peace activities of all recipients and nominees in our publication, the <strong><em><a href="http://www.uspeacememorial.org/Registry.htm" style="color: blue; font-weight: normal;">US Peace Registry</a>.</em></strong><br /><br />The US Peace Memorial Foundation directs a nationwide effort to honor Americans who stand for peace by publishing the <strong><em><a href="http://www.uspeacememorial.org/Registry.htm" style="color: blue; font-weight: normal;">US Peace Registry</a></em></strong>, awarding an annual Peace Prize, and planning for the US Peace Memorial in Washington, DC. These projects help move the United States toward a culture of peace by honoring the millions of thoughtful and courageous Americans and U.S. organizations that have taken a public stand against one or more U.S. wars or who have devoted their time, energy, and other resources to finding peaceful solutions to international conflicts. <strong>We celebrate these role models to inspire other Americans to speak out against war and to work for peace.</strong><br /><br />Please help us continue this important work. </span></span>Have your name permanently associated with peace by joining the list of individuals, organizations, and Peace Prize recipients who are <a href="http://www.uspeacememorial.org/Donors.htm" style="color: blue;" target="_blank">Founding Members</a>.<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Founding Members are listed on our website, in our publication the <strong><em><a href="http://www.uspeacememorial.org/Registry.htm" style="color: blue; font-weight: normal;">US Peace Registry</a></em></strong>, and eventually at the <a href="http://www.uspeacememorial.org/Design" style="color: blue;" target="_blank">US Peace Memorial</a>.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If you haven't yet become a <a href="http://www.uspeacememorial.org/Donors.htm" style="color: blue;" target="_blank">Founding Member</a> or made your <a href="http://www.uspeacememorial.org/Donate.htm" style="color: blue;" target="_blank">2016 contribution</a>, please do so today! Thank you very much for your support.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><br /><span style="font-family: "comic sans ms" , "marker felt-thin" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><em>Lucy, Charlie, Jolyon, and Michael</em></span><br /><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Board of Directors</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "baskerville" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.6em; text-align: center;">The IRS has determined that US Peace Memorial Foundation, Inc. is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) public charity.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "baskerville" , "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">Donations are tax deductible to the extent provided by U.S. law. A receipt will be provided.</span></span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3710676463659628325.post-31303470019221587112016-07-30T17:19:00.000-04:002016-07-30T17:24:37.480-04:00Summer 2016 Issue<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://www.classwars.org/PeaceTimesSummer2016.pdf" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;">Download Summer 2016 Issue</a></h3>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3710676463659628325.post-46582188919406310892016-03-27T22:45:00.002-04:002016-05-21T08:45:28.294-04:00Special 2016 Issue<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><a href="http://www.classwars.org/PeaceTimesSpring2016.pdf">Download Special 2016 Issue</a></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3710676463659628325.post-82585718299794456092016-02-11T09:26:00.000-05:002016-02-11T09:26:16.288-05:00The Role of Legitimacy in Social Change<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The Role of Legitimacy in Social Change</div>
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By Fred Nagel</div>
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The Bernie Sanders campaign is a welcome respite from the perpetual quandary facing the Left in the United States. His run for the Democratic nomination allows us to come together and cheer for social, economic and racial justice without making the difficult choices about where to put our efforts for progressive change.</div>
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Without a political campaign, it's hard to tell whether to protest the drones flying overhead or the fracking fluid being injected deep beneath the ground. Should the Left be resisting the "New Jim Crow" incarceration of African Americans, the indefinite detention of innocent "enemy combatants" in Guantanamo or the arrest and torture of Palestinian children by the US supported Israeli Defense Force?</div>
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As political activists in separate American communities, we make our choices as best we can. We attend small rallies and meetings. We write letters to the editor. We stand by the side of the street holding signs about peace, about the environment, about the big banks, about campaign finance reform, about cuts in Social Security. We blame the media consolidation, the lack of campaign finance reform, or the repeal of Glass–Steagall Act. We call attention to the blowback from six decades of imperial warfare, the "Cross of Iron" that the last real general we had as president warned us was at hand.</div>
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Articles in the progressive media reinforce the separation of one issue from the next. Each story begins with an historical analysis, usually involving systemic collusion between business interests and greedy elected officials. Then comes an examination of the present day mess, with innocent people suffering and no end in sight. Finally, each piece includes a couple of paragraphs about resistance: petition drives, strikes, and civil disobedience. That's it, and we are on to the next story. </div>
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The overwhelming number of issues presented leads activists to concentrate on one where we can "really make a difference." If a determined enough movement can stop the XL Pipeline, they reason, progressives can start the process of fundamental change in the US. One decisive victory is all that's needed for a new day.</div>
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That new day, however, never really comes as our present rulers quickly learn another way to exploit workers, poison the environment, or speculate wildly with everyone else's money. In the real world, each travesty of justice is inexorably linked to other corrupt forces that make it possible. </div>
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In fact, systems of oppression are like living organisms. Having evolved into highly resistant power structures, they are too complex for simple solutions. America in the Twenty First Century might be the most sophisticated system of control and exploitation the world has ever seen. Under its banner of freedom and democracy, there is no place on earth entirely free from America's high tech weaponry or its intricate web of corporate pillage. </div>
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We have to look back to the 1930's to see any dramatic improvement in the way our society is organized. And the last remaining victory of that period, our Social Security, has been on the chopping block for years, seemingly defenseless against the onslaught of Wall Street, the corporate controlled media, and both political parties. </div>
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What made the 1930's such a productive era for progressive social change? Often overlooked in the compelling narrative of FDR's life is the underlying role that questioning the state's legitimacy had to play. Even early in Roosevelt's first term, most people believed that the system was no longer functioning. And it wasn't just the working class that felt that way. It wasn't functioning for anyone, even the very wealthy. </div>
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To restore the system's legitimacy, Roosevelt began experimenting with the country's laws and structures, trying to create something new that people could once again trust. For anything can happen when enough citizens doubt the basic legitimacy of their government.The police and the military can stop defending a system they no longer believe in, and the door opens to the possibility of real change. </div>
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That is why Occupy presented such a danger to the entrenched oligopoly in the US. Occupy wasn't offering solutions like writing elected representatives, or voting for Democrats. The overall consensus was that the system didn't work and something new was needed. Most of Occupy's energy went into grassroots decision making, free food distribution, and political consciousness raising. The starting point was always the same, the system was corrupt and dangerous. It had stopped working for the 99%, and was no longer legitimate. </div>
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As millions across the country started absorbing the lessons of Occupy, our national security state, working hand in hand with corporate America, used force to dismantle the encampments. At the same time, the Democratic Party started its own "99% Spring" to funnel discontent back into the voting booths. Ever the populist huckster when he needed to be, Obama promised to end the wars, control the big banks, tax the rich, and support economic fairness for working people. Once Obama was reelected, he went back to appointing the nation's highest paid CEO's to draft economic policies for his second term. </div>
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Occupy was first smashed by our police state and then co-opted by the type of publicity campaign that has come to replace genuine electoral choice in America. Despite these reverses, the Occupy movement represents one of the most serious challenges to the state's legitimacy since the 1930's. "Why don't they offer any solutions?" lamented the establishment media, reflecting the fear of the elite that the encampments targeted the entire political system. </div>
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The monied establishment has been almost as upset about Bernie Sanders and his insurgent run for the Democratic nomination. Sanders seems always on the verge of characterizing our governing structures as hopelessly broken, yet stops short by affirming that our two party system can indeed fix the mess. Moreover, if his populist candidacy is ultimately drowned out by hostile corporate media and billionaire funded super PACs, he plans on supporting the elites' choice for the White House, Hillary Clinton. Back to the zero sum game of supporting the lesser of two evils. </div>
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More importantly, Sanders can't really talk about the American empire and its sixty some years of military expansion and world devastation. Our two party, corporate funded political system is incapable of even identifying where all our money has gone, much less articulating an alternative to the empire's reckless war making. The same is true for a discussion of our imperial colony, Israel, whose racism and war crimes are but reflections of our own. </div>
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Sanders has certainly moved the debate on economic justice and corporate control. But his followers will soon want much more, a real democracy that allows all its citizens to have a say in the direction of their country. He said in Iowa, "given the enormous crises facing our country, it is just too late for establishment politics and establishment economics.” Yet Sanders is part of that system, and pledges to remain so by promising allegiance to the Democratic Party. Like Occupy, before it, the Sanders campaign has broadened the national debate. But even were Sanders elected, would he be able to accomplish the types of changes that America really needs?</div>
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The drive to expose our government's current lack of legitimacy must never take a back seat to short term fixes that don't really change the entrenched power structure. Our Declaration of Independence shocked the world by defining a government's legitimacy as based on its ability and willingness to grant fundamental rights to its people. Moreover, it states that the people themselves will decide when a government has lost its legitimacy, claiming the moral authority to "alter or abolish" ruling systems that don't meet their inalienable rights. </div>
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Progressive campaigns in the Twenty First Century must similarly challenge the state's legitimacy. The American Empire, with its invasions, torture and assassinations abroad, and its destruction of workers' lives at home, is an abysmal failure when it comes to meeting even our most basic needs. The environmental apocalypse slowly coming over the horizon adds another dimension altogether. We are faced with an existential crisis, a fight for our very survival that will eventually sweep all pretensions of our present system's legitimacy before it.</div>
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That is why political campaigns like Hillary Clinton's may be viewed as our country's last bit of lunacy before actual change becomes possible. Backed by all the corporate behemoths, the energy polluters, the weapons makers, the financial speculators, and the media, her campaign of hope and change can be best understood as a clever but apocryphal assertion that our system can correct itself without being dissolved and replaced by something that is actually of the people, by the people, and for the people.</div>
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"Few of us," Arthur Miller wrote, "can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that the state has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied."</div>
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It is time for the Left to end our denial. We must turn our efforts to exposing the American Empire and our current political system for what they have become, intransigent and malignant threats to the very future of life on earth.</div>
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-Fred Nagel is a US veteran and political activist whose articles have appeared in CounterPunch, Global Exchange, Mondoweiss, War Crimes Times (Veterans For Peace publication) and Z Magazine. He also hosts a show on Vassar College Radio, WVKR (classwars.org).</div>
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