Ron Paul and the antiwar movement don't mix

The Ron Paul campaign has come up a couple times in meetings, so I wanted to pass this article along, which expands the arguments I was making about why the antiwar movement shouldn't embrace his campaign. As we move deeper into election season this Spring, it'll be interesting to see if Paul continues to attract to support on campus, and we should be prepared to argue with genuine antiwar folks that are attracted to his campaign that it's not a good way to build the antiwar movement. I imagine most people on campus who are looking to Paul as antiwar solution aren't familiar with his really noxious positions on a wide range of issues, and we should take it upon ourselves to argue with folks that getting involved in BSTW is a far better way to build the antiwar movement.

Resistance Forum!

In preparation for our event next week, post/add to comments/label anything you find relating to Iraqi, student, or military resistance!

Turkey Forum!

Post/Comment/Label any info on the developments in Turkey/Iraq!

Pakistan Forum!

Post/Comment/Label any info on the developments in Pakistan!

Upcoming Event: Berkeley Teach-In Against America's Wars

America's Current and Impending Wars:

From Campus to the Middle East

Thursday, December 6, 2007 at 7 PM

155 Dwinelle Hall, UC Berkeley Campus

Shahram Aghamir, KPFA, Co-Producer of "Voices of the Middle East and North Africa"

Wendy Brown, Professor of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley

Samera Esmeir, Professor of Rhetoric, University of California, Berkeley

Dahr Jamail, Independent Reporter and Author of "Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq"

Last year, a group of UC Berkeley students and faculty members organized a teach-in about Israel's war on Lebanon. Attended by hundreds of students, faculty, and community members, the event was an opportunity to challenge assumptions and consensuses. The teach-in on December 6 is a follow-up event to last year's, stemming from our concern about the direction of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and increasing campaigns against critics on U.S. campuses.

The teach-in focuses on the continuing occupations of Iraq and Palestine, on the threats of American wars against Syria and Iran, and on the intimidation crusades of lobbies and pressure groups against members of the academic community who have voiced criticism. We think these issues are linked and need to be publicly debated. Our teach-in features four experts who will provide informed and critical perspectives.

Organized by a UC Berkeley Faculty and Students Collective: Berkeley Teach-In Against America’s Wars http://www.btiaw.org/. For the list of co-sponsors and for more information, visit our website, email us at info@btiaw.org or visit our facebook site: http://berkeley.facebook.com/event.php?eid=7153556003. Developed by the student movements of the 1960s and the opposition to the Vietnam war, teach-ins are forums for controversial discussions and have a proud history in the civil rights and anti-war movements.

This event is free, open to the public, and wheelchair accessible.

Another reason we're not too fond of the military...

Another appalling development:

Pentagon Demands Wounded Soldier Return Re-enlistment Bonus
By Spencer Ackerman - November 20, 2007

Just in time for the holidays, there's a special place in Hell just waiting to be filled by some as-yet-unknown Pentagon bureaucrat. Apparently, thousands of wounded soldiers who served in Iraq are being asked to return part of their enlistment bonuses -- because their injuries prevented them from completing their tours. From Pittsburgh's KDKA:

One of them is Jordan Fox, a young soldier from the South Hills.

He finds solace in the hundreds of boxes he loads onto a truck in Carnegie. In each box is a care package that will be sent to a man or woman serving in Iraq. It was in his name Operation Pittsburgh Pride was started.

Fox was seriously injured when a roadside bomb blew up his vehicle. He was knocked unconscious. His back was injured and lost all vision in his right eye.

A few months later Fox was sent home. His injuries prohibited him from fulfilling three months of his commitment. A few days ago, he received a letter from the military demanding nearly $3,000 of his signing bonus back.

"I tried to do my best and serve my country. I was unfortunately hurt in the process. Now they're telling me they want their money back," he explained.

Perversely, President Bush phoned Fox's mother to ask after Fox in May. Now his administration is taking money out of the pockets of wounded veterans like him.

Back in October, Rep. Jason Altmire (D-PA) introduced a bill, the Veterans Guaranteed Bonus Act, that would require the Pentagon to pay bonuses to wounded vets in full within 30 days after discharge for combat-related wounds. Back then, the Pentagon's flack vaguely assured The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "We are going to give our wounded warriors and their families what they need to recover and return to duty or private life." But apparently the policy has yet to change. It seems that the enlistment contract that at least some troops sign (whether it's service-specific is unclear) allows for withholding some of the signing bonus if a tour isn't completed.

Thanks to TPM Reader DB

In case anyone forgot...

Please please PLEASE do not sign anything without reading through it first! One would think this is obvious, but...

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Possible *Ballot Petition* Fraud in California: Electoral Vote Initiative
by Vikingkingq, Wed Nov 14, 2007

First, I should explain that I'm a graduate student at the University of California Santa Barbara.

Today I witnessed what I think is an incidence of ballot petition fraud relating to the electoral vote apportionment initiative - the proposal to apportion California's electoral votes by congressional district, unilaterally giving 19 of California's electoral votes to the Republicans in 2008.


Outside the UCEN (student center plus bookstore plus food court) at UC Santa Barbara, there were a number of people with cardboard clipboards soliciting people to sign ballot petitions for a proposal to spend $1 billion on cancer hospitals for kids. If you agree to sign, they tell you "you need to sign 4 times." What they do not tell you is that the three pages after the ballot initiative on cancer hospitals are different ballot initiatives: the second proposes to abolish eminent domain, the third proposals to abolish rent control, and the fourth is the proposal to apportion California's electoral votes by district (the so-called Dirty Tricks Initiative).

I should note that the clipboard is arranged such that a rubber band holding the petitions to the cardboard is positioned on the top of the page, across the actual ballot language in question - thus, partially hiding the text of the ballot initiatives on pages 2-4 unless you actually stop and pull down the top of the page.

I agreed to sign the cancer initiative, but the comment about signing four times raised a red flag, because I'm familiar with the structure of ballot petitions, so I paused before signing and looked at the other initiatives. However, I'm absolutely sure that most of the people signing, young college students on a rush to get their lunches and off to class, did not take this step.

What they are doing is getting people to sign for ballot initiatives without their knowledge or informed consent, using young peoples' desire to do a good thing and their lack of familiarity with the legal paperwork of initiative petitions. If this is not illegal it is certainly deeply unethical. The moment I realized what was going on, I told the petitioners that they shouldn't be telling people to sign for ballot initiatives they're not aware of. Immediately after, I called the school newspaper, the Daily Nexus, the Courage Campaign, the Santa Barbara Democratic Central Committee, and the California Democratic Party.

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This is the Dirty Tricks Initiative I've been ranting about for a while. Sure enough, it's come back to life, and college students are prime targets for signature gathering because either they don't care or they don't take the time to try. These people are in Berkeley--it's been reported that they're doing the same thing here. More info

Protesting the war!

Here's a link to the Daily Cal article about the protest from Saturday. A friend of mine, Hossam al-Hamalawy took some great pictures of the protest that you can find here. Also check out his blog if you get a chance.

BSTW's very own Jeff E was interviewed by a news crew during the protest -- check out his biting indictment of the war in Iraq.

How DARE these people parade as anti-fascists?!

The National Project to Defend Dissent and Critical Thinking in Academia


Anyone familiar with Horowitz and his allies can only respond with outrage to their claim of being opponents of fascism, intolerance, and bigotry.

How dare David Horowitz talk about the "right of all people to live in freedom and dignity"?!

"What about the debt that blacks owe to America--to white America--for liberating them from slavery? This may not seem like a serious question to some, but that only reveals their ignorance of the history of slavery and its fate."

"Guns don't kill people, other blacks do."

How DARE Rick Santorum parade himself as a defender of the rights of women and gays?!

"And if the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual [gay] sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything. Does that undermine the fabric of our society? I would argue yes, it does..."

How DARE Ann Coulter masquerade as an opponent of "all forms of religious supremacism, violence, and intimidation"?!

"We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war."

Michael Ledeen:

"One can only hope that we turn the region into a cauldron, and faster, please. If ever there were a region that richly deserved being cauldronized, it is the Middle East today. If we wage the war effectively, we will bring down the terror regimes in Iraq, Iran, and Syria...That's our mission in the war against terror."


IFAW cannot be allowed to go down unchallenged. It needs to be thoroughly exposed, repudiated and politically defeated. Visit TerrorismAwareness for Horowitz's plans and the list of schools targeted--and visit DefendCriticalThinking for analysis and resources for combating Horowitz and his dangerous allies.

Peace Not Prejudice

The Daily Cal has recently published a few editorials on Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week. The more recent one defends the week as confirmation of American values in the face of a violent and intimidating Islamic Jihad, written by Andrew Quinio, project chairman for Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week at UC Berkeley (also a prominent member of the BCR). The first likens Horowitz' minions to McCarthy and his Red Scare, feeding American fear of the unknown. It criticizes the week as a manipulation (desecration?) of the 1st Amendment because it uses the Bill of Rights to justify the establishment of a binary, alienating, hate-fueled environment. Apparently, Horowitz has cited the article as a statement of support from UC Berkeley for his expression of free speech. I have heard multiple groups on campus call for a more inflammatory condemnation by the Daily Cal.

I imagine that my reaction is quite similar to all of yours. Quinio writes that "the real danger comes not from single words, but from those who find single words to be frightening." I find it interesting that he can criticize the Daily Cal for being overly sensitive to the term "Islamo-Fascism" while he capitalizes on the fear which such a term can instill. Peter Wilby (via The Guardian) put it nicely when he wrote, "I wish the press would debate a little more vigorously the views...of those who flirt with the boundaries of racism and not simply pillory those who question them."

It is important to remember that the "Islamo-Fascism Awareness" movement will not die after this week. Just a few weeks ago, Senator Rick Santorum urged President B-sh to depict the war in Iraq as a battle against Islamo-Fascism in an effort to rouse dwindling public support (because this provides "a clear message and a clear understanding of what we are up against") In the coming months we should watch for this new shift in rhetoric.

If anyone is interested, NRCAT has published a Statement Against Torture which everyone is welcome and encouraged to endorse. Personally, I do not encourage anyone to endorse David Horowitz' Petition (though it is quite an interesting read), which has been likened to the Great Loyalty Oath from Catch-22.

Tomorrow, during the BCR event at noon on Sproul, there will be protesters reading statements, waving signs, etc. If anyone would like to read a statement or participate, please come! Meet up a little before noon on Upper Sproul. I hope to see you all there! Wear green!

Announcements! Announcements!

Hello everyone! I hope you're all looking forward to a nice relaxing weekend! Lots of important info here, so don't stop reading!

Here's a little recap from the meeting:

Oct 27th:

We will meet at BART at 10:00. Jon B has created a flier to be put around campus. Please copy out a few (or get them from the table on Sproul) and post them. Hand them out in class. Tape 'em up in the bathrooms. Anything.

The CAN Speakout will be at the Library at 11. Everyone should be prepared to speak. It may help to prepare something in advance...

When we arrive at the park, it's "CAN Intervention" time! We'll split into two groups. One will table, one will canvas the crowd to distribute info.

To prepare for all this, many people have volunteered to help in a variety of exciting ways:

-Jeff E and Emily will purchase materials for the massive banner.

-Fliers for the CAN packets will be printed, copied, and sorted by Zoe, Chelsea, and Palmer.

-Jeff M will find the horn thingymabob.

-Jeff E will contact the Daily Cal and harass some poor kid into covering the event.

-EVERYONE will make classroom announcements and advertise BSTW and the protest to friends, family, classes, dorms, DCs, coops, professors, bums, email lists, Facebook groups, etc, etc, etc.

On Thursday, Oct 25th, we'll be making the massive banner for the march. Show up on Sproul at 4--there'll be rallies for the Peace Not Prejudice Week going on...should be exciting.

That night, we will meet as normal, then travel up to Stebbins House for some post-meeting fun time.

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Speaking of Peace Not Prejudice Week, there's lots of stuff to do! The Coalition for Peace Not Prejudice is hosting a variety of events all week. Look for info on Facebook (http://berkeley.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5686322531):

*Monday, 10/22: Screening "Ghosts of Abu Ghraib", Alumni House, 7 pm--"Ghosts of Abu Ghraib," an 80-minute HBO film, features the familiar and very disturbing pictures at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and raises questions about U.S. government policy.

*Tuesday, 10/23: Unity Through Diversity Open Mic Poetry Slam, Naia Lounge, 8:30 pm-- Open mic poetry night promoting religious tolerance and unity. Enjoy gelato and performances by a diverse group of poets.

*Wednesday, 10/24: The Common Thread: Similarities in the Abrahamic Religions, 101 Morgan, 7 pm-- Knowledgeable scholars discuss the similarities and differences between the three monotheistic religions during this educational event.

*Thursday, 10/25: (THIS IS THE BIG ONE!!!!) Peace Rally, Upper Sproul, 5 pm-- Come out to see a multitude of diverse guest and student speakers including Rabbi Michael Lerner (Tikkun) and Basim Elkarra (CAIR) united in their call for peace, not prejudice. Free concert by hip-hop group Himalayan Project!


Be sure to wear green! MSA will be handing out shirts on Sproul on Monday.

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Our Granny friends and Code Pink will be protesting the new recruiting station near Berkeley High on Wednesday from 11:30-4:30. This will happen every week until the station shuts down (or so they say). The Berkeley College Republicans will stage a counter protest every week until "those people quit" (or so they say).

Finally, if anyone is interested in learning more about Cal Disorientation, here's a link to their site: http://caldisorientation.org/2007.


See you all this week!

-Palmer

Stark Stands Up, Dems Sit Down

Perhaps this isn't the most important news story of the day, but it is a little funny to follow:

On Thursday, Congress discussed overriding Bush's veto to the health care bill. Rep. Pete Stark (D- CA) had the following comments to make:

First of all, I'm just amazed they can't figure out, the Republicans are worried we can't pay for insuring an additional 10 million children. They sure don't care about finding $200 billion to fight the illegal war in Iraq. Where ya gonna get that money? You going to tell us lies like you're telling us today? Is that how you're going to fund the war? You don't have money to fund the war or children. But you're going to spend it to blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the President's amusement. This bill would provide healthcare for 10 million children and unlike the President's own kids, these children can't see a doctor or receive necessary care. [...]

But President Bush's statements about children's health shouldn't be taken any more seriously than his lies about the war in Iraq. The truth is that Bush just likes to blow things up. In Iraq, in the United States and in Congress.

Yay for Stark's "colorful way of expressing himself" !!!! Outraged (and hypocritical) Republicans demand an apology for this flagrant attack in George II. Stark has kind of refused. It's interesting, especially since Republicans have always been so warm and fuzzy. Here's a photo of Rep. Steve King (R- IA) expressing his opinion of the bill. JC Watts later called Stark a "small person with a withered soul."

Does the attention Stark has received indicate anything? DISTRACTION, GOoPer style? And who's feeding into it? Our friend Pelosi, among others. No need to draw attention to more worthy issues (funding the war with $200 billion per year? reinstituting habeus corpus? Blackwater? providing health care for 10 million kids?)...

Occupation and resistance in Iraq

This is pretty amazing: a six-minute 'video op-ed' posted on the New York Times website about the Iraqi resistance. It includes interviews and statistics that show that it is the American occupation itself, rather than sectarian strife or 'terrorism,' which is causing the vast majority of the obscene violence in Iraq. Ordinary Iraqis are understandably incensed by the presence of the American military, and it is this fact which is causing them to fight--which accounts for most of the attacks in the country (74% of all violent acts in Iraq are aimed at the American military, as opposed to other Iraqis, according to the US Department of Defense). Definitely worth watching.

Nancy, Nancy, You Can't Hide!

Video of the Campus Antiwar Network protest at Nancy Pelosi's office, which BSTW, along with other campus antiwar groups in the Bay Area, organized:

Statement on anti-Muslim "satire" at GWU

* * For Immediate Release: Friday, 12 October 2007 * *
Statement on anti-Muslim "satire" at GWU
Press Contacts:
Rayyan Ghuma (Univ. of Maryland): 410-530-6078
Chris Schwartz (Univ. of Northern Iowa): 319-230-5677
Chris Dols (Univ. of Wisconsin): 608-215-7035

On October 8, 2007 at George Washington University, anti-Muslim posters were plastered all over campus, saying “Hate Muslims? So do we!!!” This poster claimed to be in the name of the conservative students on campus, but in fact, it seems that some misguided anti-war activists issued the posters as “satire.” The Campus Antiwar Network condemns this action in the strongest possible terms. We do not believe the posters were an “anti-war action.” Instead, they played into the racist atmosphere that Muslim and Arab students and people in general suffer today.

No doubt, the racist right-wing and the police will use these events to try to clamp down on genuine anti-war and anti-racist actions at George Washington as well as on other campuses across the country. We oppose all attacks on free speech on the part of the university and police authorities.

We call on all anti-war activists and anti-racist people to condemn the actions that took place at George Washington University. Despite this terrible action, we continue to believe that the organizers of the so-called “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” are themselves stoking the racist hysteria against Muslims and Arabs.

CAN will continue to organize in solidarity with Arab and Muslim people against the Islamophobia that George Bush is using to justify his war in Iraq. We believe that the continued occupation of Iraq is a crime against humanity and we demand that we bring all the troops home now.

passed by CAN chapters at the following schools
Kent State University
University of Maryland--College Park
San Francisco State University
Northeastern Illinois University
Rochester Institute of Technology
University of California--Berkeley
City College San Francisco
University of Wisconsin--Madison
University of Illinois--Chicago
University of Illinois--Champaign-Urbana
City College New York

Workshop on Vietnam

Perhaps over the next week anyone who finds information contributing to the Jeffs' discussion on Vietnam could post it for all to see and learn!

Simply add a comment to this message to contribute to the conversation.

October 27th -- protest the war in San Francisco

The October 27th protest against the war in Iraq is just around the corner. We're hoping for a good showing of people from UC Berkeley. The Campus Antiwar Network is sponsoring a student contingent and everyone is more than welcome to join us.

Protesting the war has in recent years been considered a little passe (partly because people feel they don't do anything and partly because people feel that they are a kind of ritualized political theater of the left). But it has always seemed to me that this conclusion was based on people's raised expectations about protesting the war Iraq, namely, that protests were ALL that it would take to stop the war.

Protests have never been sufficient to stop any war. In the 1960s, there were of course substantial demonstrations, but a) they were happening all over the country, and not just in a few places every 6 months and b) they were only part of the resistance to the war time effort (which included, domestically, draft-dodging, counter-recruitment, sit-ins, etc. and internationally, importantly included the successful military tactics of the Vietnamese NLF).

But protests are necessary. They not only give people a chance to see what the anti-war movement looks like, they get to see what it is that the antiwar movement wants. We get an opportunity to meet and talk to other activists who have their own experiences of organizing successes and failures and we get to learn from them. And perhaps most importantly, they can definitely be a boost for morale in some trying times.

Stand Up! Speak Out!

STAND UP! SPEAK OUT!

Against poverty and for the millenium development goals

Wednesday, Oct 17th San Fran Civic Center

www.standupsanfrancisco.org

Keeping an eye on random stuff...educational interest...nothing in particular but a few interesting tidbits...

The "Dirty Tricks" campaign may still be alive and kicking despite outrage over Republican (damn you, Giuliani) ploys to fix the elections again. Just something to keep an eye on. I guess we'll know in a week or two whether they're still going to pursue the initiative without Hiltachk's sponsorship, but if they do it's something we should all be aware of.

I don't know if any of you have noted the Iran buildup over the last few months (here's a little recap). Last week the Senate (76-22) took steps to support General Petraeus in condemning Iranian leadership as a "terrorist organization" through passing the Kyl-Lieberman motion. I particularly liked the part where it states "it should be the policy of the United States to combat, contain, and roll back the violent activities and destabilizing influence of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its foreign facilitators such as Lebanese Hezbollah, and its indigenous Iraqi proxies." (hahaha...Iran's parliament took a similar step against the CIA and US Army.)

Meanwhile, what's going on in Afghanistan? If Hamid Karzai has lost hope in his ability to maintain peace, what will it take for us to recognise our own failures? I was surprised I read that "Several former members of the Taliban government serve in Parliament, and a few more hold positions in provincial governments. Prominent members of Mr. Hekmatyar’s party have been given government positions and have taken part in parliamentary elections" (NYT, 9/29/07). People repeatedly write, and it's interesting to consider, How close is Afghanistan to a 9/10/01 state?

Well, maybe that's all nonsense...feel free to delete/complain/comment/add to it.

Off to jeer Hilary...See you all soon!

-Palmer

Bombing for peace is like fucking for virginity.