Meet with Mark Pocan’s staff Dane Varese, Visit Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway’s office and War Abolition Walk at 4pm. Join us for as much or little as you want.
“After the People Over Pentagon Act was re-introduced by Representatives Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and Mark Pocan (D-Wisc.), CODEPINK and other allies dropped a banner inside the House of Representatives Cannon Building rotunda that reads, FUND COMMUNITIES, NOT WAR.”
The bill introduced would cut $100 billion from the well-over three-quarters-of-a-trillion dollar Pentagon budget, reducing waste and redirecting this funding to other priorities. The agency’s budget in Fiscal Year 2023 is a whopping $858 billion. Despite never passing an audit, the Pentagon often receives tens of billions of additional dollars from Congress in each budget cycle…”
Madison Action Alert from Physicians for Social Responsibility:
3 easy steps to contact your Alder (Madison residents) on abolishing nuclear weapons and #BackFromtheBrink Campaign;
1. Find your City Alder and their contact information by clicking here.
2. Customize this linked letter to send to your alder by mail or email.
3. You can also use this letter to help you make a call to your alder.
If you like, let PSR WI info@psrwisconsin.org know which Alder you reached and their response. This helps PSR track Alders contacted along with their stance. If you are not in Madison, please consider letting your legislators know your thoughts on abolishing nuclear weapons.
VFP Madison endorses the Cease Fire Campaign calling for calling for the immediate implementation of safer alternatives to open air burning, detonation and incineration/combustion of military munitions. About the Campaign | CSWAB
Veteran for Peace Danny Sjursen, veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, taught at West Point. The video is an interview from 2021. Danny Discusses his book “A True History of the US, ” which in some ways takes off from Howard Zinn left off but focused on the US military machine. I would love to have him come to Madison as a guest sometime.
Sat Feb 25, 12 noon – 1 pm Peace Action Weekly Stand for Peace. Meet at 92nd and North, Wauwatosa. Each week, a different vigil site in the Milwaukee area. Bring your signs for peace! Questions? Contact Peace Action WI – info@peaceactionwi.org or see https://www.peaceactionwi.org/
We are working together to abolish nuclear weapons and advocating for common sense nuclear weapons policies to secure a safer, more just future. (PSR) Talk to people. Write a letter. Ask your local organizations and friends to endorse the campaign.
“The threat of nuclear war is real and growing, yet many people are unaware of the danger, or the harmful here-and-now impacts of developing and maintaining our nuclear arsenal. Others may be concerned but don’t feel as if they have any say on the issue or a meaningful way to get involved and make a difference. As a result, policymakers don’t hear concerns about nuclear weapons from their constituents and feel no pressure to act.”
The people of Ukraine deserve their human rights and the nation its sovereignty. But the US is not the policeman to the world. It’s the weapons dealer and sometimes narcotics distributor and leader for corporate rule.
We allow the bullies to rule. We need democratic institutions that represent all nations, not just the interests of the few that pull the strings.
Enforce the laws.
That should be a priority. We should have a system that works objectively and democratically represents all nations.
#Freedom
#Accountability
#Transparency
“The monthly Balance & Accuracy in Journalism program in Chapel Hill. With an awareness spanning the many issues affected by the proxy war in #Ukraine, Medea Benjamin equipped us to press for a negotiated end to the conflict. “
Journalist Peter Hitchens and comedian Konstantin Kisin debate the causes, consequences and future of the Ukraine war at The Ukraine Debate, hosted in the UnHerd Club and recorded Thursday 23rd February 2023.
“The CIA is overseeing a secret intensive training program in the U.S. for elite Ukrainian special operations forces and other intelligence personnel, according to five former intelligence and national security officials familiar with the initiative. The program, which started in 2015, is based at an undisclosed facility in the Southern U.S., according to some of those officials.”
We need to learn again some of the lessons of the Age of Reason. What is up. What is down. What rights humans have, like the right to not be bombed. We have the right to govern ourselves, and not be controlled by politicians who are owned by big money like that of the war profiteers: Raytheon, Boeing, Northrup, Lockheed and contractors connected to the military, fossil fuels and the owners of the biggest banks.
Somehow Americans should teach the use of critical thought that allows us to understand the propaganda that is all around us. The big money manipulates us and divides us.
Veterans for Peace Members and Chapters across the country have been taking action to protest the U.S. role in escalating the extremely dangerous tensions with Russia over Ukraine.
In a contest between Ukrainian & Russian ultranationalists, we do not need to pick sides. We can defend peace, democratic rights and all minorities, without contributing to the polarization and strengthening the rise of fascism. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
– Zoltan Grossman paraphrase
“As Russia’s attack on Ukraine wages on, and Ukrainian civilians die daily, the fog of war has seemingly been clouding more nuanced analysis in the United States, argues “Scheer Intelligence” host Robert Scheer. To get more perspective on the historical context of the current conflict, Scheer invites former CIA analyst Ray McGovern to discuss the role the U.S. and NATO have played in Ukraine. McGovern has long been an outspoken critic of what he’s coined as the American Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank (MICIMATT) for leading the world ever closer to a nuclear war.
McGovern spent 27 years as a CIA analyst, during which time he led the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch and prepared The President’s Daily Brief for three U.S. presidents. Months before the Iraq War, the former intelligence analyst joined a group of his peers to ward against the “insanity” of war, creating the group Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). Now, as news of the war in Ukraine fills American media, McGovern has attempted to call for sanity once more.
The CIA veteran sees the conflict, which he argues is as a direct result of what he calls a Western-orchestrated coup against Vladimir Putin’s ally, former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, as global brinkmanship at its most dangerous given the nuclear arsenal that both Russia and the U.S. possess. Scheer pushes back on McGovern’s use of the term “coup” as well as his assessment of Russian attacks on Ukraine, which the “Scheer Intelligence” host—who covered the Soviet Union and later Russia, as well as Ukraine, as a foreign correspondent—has condemned as a war crime.
The two ultimately consider how NATO’s expansion past eastern Germany may have baited Putin into his current position, indefensible as it may be. The former CIA analyst, who played a critical role in drafting The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) signed by George W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991, also warns listeners about the dangers of the U.S. allowing nuclear treaties to expire that, for 30 years, have kept us from annihilation. Listen to the full discussion between McGovern and Scheer as they offer differing but critical perspectives on the Ukraine conflict absent in most Western media.”
The situation in Ukraine has much to do with who controls fossil fuels profits and pipelines.
We need to get bribery under control, conflicts of interest must be regulated more effectively, and there must be transparency. We cannot have representative government by the people with SECRET government manipulation. We cannot be represented properly when we do not know what is going on, or when we are lied to.
It is public knowledge that the CIA has been supporting troops near the Russian border in Ukraine since at least as far back as 2014 when the last Ukrainian coup took place, likely much longer. Around the time of the last coup in 2014, the US Vice President’s son ended up being appointed to a top position in the largest gas company in Ukraine. Funny how that works. I’d say that is a pretty obvious sign of corruption and conflicts of interest, Hunter Biden making all that big money with almost no experience.
“A month before Hunter Biden joined Burisma’s board, his father traveled to Ukraine as vice president and announced an aid package designed to enable Ukraine to boost its energy production….”
September 28, 2019 – Washington Post
Gangsters and oligarchs, purchased politicians making deals that benefit them and not us. Conflicts of interest matter, they should be exposed, no matter what party is involved. Sadly, Americans are distracted and entertained and taught to work for party and nationalism over truth and accountability. This lack of integrity is a recipe for corruption which eats at the heart of democracy, much like fascism tries to.
Donald Trump pulled out of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty on Feb 2, 2019 and new weapons began to magically appear almost instantly. They were preparing for that for years, but the US mainstream media Inc blamed Russia of course. Look deeper.
“America’s primary interest is to help ensure that no single power comes to control this geopolitical space [Central Asia]… Eurasia accounts for 60% of the world’s GNP and three-fourths of the world’s known energy resources.”
– Zbigniew Brzezinski, Council on Foreign Relations study 1997
I’ve learned much about the Ukrainian situation from [background] Ray McGovern a former CIA analyst who did the morning briefings for Reagan and daddy Bush, then there’s historian Alfred McCoy and Allen Ruff.
“…Esty Dinur discusses the latest developments in NATO–Russia relations and the historical context with David Gibbs, professor of history at the University of Arizona Department of History, and Will Griffin from the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space.
They talk about the history and future of NATO, Biden’s failed promise of a new era of American diplomacy, Russia’s nuclear capability, and much more.
“The supreme issue, involving all others, is the encroachment of the powerful few on the rights of the many…
Shall we, with statesmanship and constructive legislation, meet these problems,
or shall we pass them on with all the possibilities of conflict and chaos, to future generations?”
“Victoria Nuland has promoted a foreign policy of intervention through coups, proxy wars, aggression, and ongoing occupations. The policy has been implemented with bloody and disastrous results in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine…”
During a press briefing, Lee asked Price, former CIA, to furnish proof of the accusation, that Russia is plotting a false flag attack involving a “propaganda video… depicting corpses, crisis actors as mourners, and images of destroyed locations or military equipment.
Lies, bullying, humiliation, the destruction of Ukraine, no act is too low for those who want to control Russia. on Stop the Wars At Home and Abroad
“…In this sense, Ukraine is simply a tool to reach this goal. This can be done in different ways: by drawing us into some armed conflict, or compelling its allies in Europe to impose tough sanctions on us like the US is talking about today.”
Take a step forward, learn something new or disprove something because you can.
“…Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denied that a Russian invasion was imminent and asked NATO to dial down its war rhetoric.
…The US National Security Council (NSC) initially denied this account. “Anonymous sources are leaking falsehoods,” said NSC spokeswoman Emily Horne. “President Biden said that there is a distinct possibility that the Russians could invade Ukraine in February. He has said this publicly and we have been warning about this for months. Reports of anything more or different than that are completely false.”
Zelensky then gave a press conference, however, publicly reiterating statements Horne had denied he had made to Biden. Zelensky was urging NATO heads of state to stop inciting panic with talk of an imminent NATO war with Russia over Ukraine, he said. “I started talking to the leaders of the countries and to explain to them that we need to stabilize the economy,” Zelensky told the press. “They are saying ‘tomorrow is the war.’ This means panic.”
“In Western military circles, it’s common to refer to the “balance of forces”—the lineup of tanks, planes, ships, missiles, and battle formations on the opposing sides of any conflict. If one has twice as many combat assets as its opponent and the leadership abilities on each side are approximately equal, it should win. Based on this reasoning, most Western analysts assumed that the Russian army—with a seemingly overwhelming advantage in numbers and equipment—would quickly overpower Ukrainian forces. Of course, things haven’t exactly turned out that way. The Ukrainian military has, in fact, fought the Russians to a near-standstill. The reasons for that will undoubtedly be debated among military theorists for years to come. When they do so, they might begin with Moscow’s surprising failure to pay attention to a different military equation—the “correlation of forces”—originally developed in the former Soviet Union.
That notion differs from the “balance of forces” by placing greater weight on intangible factors. It stipulates that the weaker of two belligerents, measured in conventional terms, can still prevail over the stronger if its military possesses higher morale, stronger support at home, and the backing of important allies. Such a calculation, if conducted in early February, would have concluded that Ukraine’s prospects were nowhere near as bad as either Russian or Western analysts generally assumed, while Russia’s were far worse. And that should remind us of just how crucial an understanding of the correlation of forces is in such situations, if gross miscalculations and tragedies are to be avoided.
THE CONCEPT IN PRACTICE BEFORE UKRAINE
The notion of the correlation of forces has a long history in military and strategic thinking. Something like it, for example, can be found in the epilogue to Leo Tolstoy’s epic novel, War and Peace. Writing about Napoleon’s disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812, Tolstoy observed that wars are won not by the superior generalship of charismatic leaders but through the fighting spirit of common soldiers taking up arms against a loathsome enemy…”
Madison community members came together for an event… Stop War over Ukraine
learn more
[Note: Gather information and question and challenge what you know. Challenge what we say and claim to know. Don’t believe us and don’t believe the US corporate media, lapdogs of the war profiteers. Dig. Seek. See what you believe. There are multiple factors that brought us here: Russian crimes, US corporate rulers, US war machine, CIA arming military forces, consolidated power of oligarchs. ]
Rally at the Wisconsin State Capitol and picket outside Senator Tammy Baldwin’s Office to
protest her support of aggressive war policies. We recognize the fact that our other Senator Ron Johnson has always voted for the war profiteers and against justice.
“Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy appealed to his American counterpart to dial back his appraisals of the threat Russia poses to the former Soviet state, also criticizing President Joe Biden for his dramatic decision to remove the families of U.S. diplomats from Kyiv this month.”
– US News By Paul D. Shinkman Jan. 28, 2022
“We’ve been here before. For the past couple of months street protests in Ukraine have been played out through the western media according to a well-rehearsed script. Pro-democracy campaigners are battling an authoritarian government. The demonstrators are demanding the right to be part of the European Union. But Russia’s president Vladimir Putin has vetoed their chance of freedom and prosperity.
It’s a story we’ve heard in one form or another again and again – not least in Ukraine’s western-backed Orange revolution a decade ago. But it bears only the sketchiest relationship to reality. EU membership has never been – and very likely never will be – on offer to Ukraine. As in Egypt last year, the president that the protesters want to force out was elected in a poll judged fair by international observers. And many of those on the streets aren’t very keen on democracy at all.
“The degradation of mainstream American press coverage of Russia, a country still vital to US national security, has been under way for many years. If the recent tsunami of shamefully unprofessional and politically inflammatory articles in leading newspapers and magazines—particularly about the Sochi Olympics, Ukraine and, unfailingly, President Vladimir Putin—is an indication, this media malpractice is now pervasive and the new norm.
There are notable exceptions, but a general pattern has developed. Even in the venerable New York Times and Washington Post, news reports, editorials and commentaries no longer adhere rigorously to traditional journalistic standards, often failing to provide essential facts and context; to make a clear distinction between reporting and analysis; to require at least two different political or “expert” views on major developments; or to publish opposing opinions on their op-ed pages. As a result, American media on Russia today are less objective, less balanced, more conformist and scarcely less ideological than when they covered Soviet Russia during the Cold War.
Letter to to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin specifically mentions South Burlington and Winooski
#CancelTheF35
“Sign on to the brilliant letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin put out nationally by Code Pink today, January 29, calling “for a cancellation of the F-35 program, an end to F-35 training in residential areas like South Burlington, Vermont and Madison, Wisconsin, and a reinvestment of the project’s funds to life affirming programs.”
The Code Pink letter also notes that Winooski is within the F-35 noise target zone and is “a working-class city, the most densely populated in Vermont, with the state’s most ethnic diversity.”
“The letter will also be hand delivered to members of Congress.
As Code Pink says in its email announcing the letter,
F-35 fighter jet production was halted pending an investigation into the crash where the pilot was ejected from the aircraft. [See video and analysis of the F-35 crash in Fort Worth last month]. Now the Dept. of Defense is delaying full-rate production, potentially for another YEAR. This is a win for the people and the planet and bad news for the war profiteers at Lockheed Martin.
Putin into his current position, indefensible as it may be. The former CIA analyst, who played a critical role in drafting The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) signed by George W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991, also warns listeners about the dangers of the U.S. allowing nuclear treaties to expire that, for 30 years, have kept us from annihilation. Listen to the full discussion between McGovern and Scheer as they offer differing but critical perspectives on the Ukraine conflict absent in most Western media.”
