Changing

In-Person Rally - Sat. Sept 18 from 2-4

People of Color are Especially the Victims of Collapsing Climates

End environmental racism. That's the theme of this climate rally. The stage is at the "Performance Pavilion" in Hartford's Bushnell Park, off Asylum Avenue opposite the Union (train) station. Parking along the park perimeter is free on weekends.

Speakers and Entertainers are all People of Color:

Nekita Waller, State Troubadour;

Sharon Lewis, CT Coalition for Environmental Justice;

Sara Bronin, Desegregate CT;

Mixashawn, Indigenous artist;

Alycia Jenkins, spoken word poet, Sierra Club CT;

Rhonda Wishart, NAACP Windham/Willimantic;

Alex Rodriguez, Save the Sound;

Angel Serrano, CCAG;

Pedro Espinoza, ULA;

Deacon Art Miller, IREJN.

Organizers: Sierra Club CT, NAACP Windham/Willimantic Branch, Unidad Latina en Acción, Connecticut Climate Crisis Mobilization (C3M), No More Dirty Power in Killingly, Quiet Corner Shouts, and Community Action Works (CAW). Sponsors: Save The Sound, Connecticut Citizen Action Group (CCAG), Collaborative Center for Justice (CCFJ), Interreligious Eco-Justice Network (IREJN), Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) Eco-Socialist Group of CT, Windham Region Interfaith Working Group, Green Party of CT, and Greater New Haven NAACP

Call to Action from RAWA

Wed. Sept 1

Flash Social Media Hour online

4 p.m. Eastern, Wednesday, September 1

Three 5 minute speakers on Afghanistan, Syria and Palestine

Spend 45 minutes tweeting, and sending other social media posts

Plenty of suggestions on our site and from the speakers

For more go to https://rpm.world

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August 29, 2021

CALL FOR ACTIONS in support of AFGHAN WOMEN

Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan - RAWA

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While RAWA sincerely thank V-day and One Billion Rising for generous support in the very tragic moments for the Afghan women, we call upon all justice-loving, progressive and like-minded friends around the world to take part in two distinct actions for rising their voice for Afghanistan and its suppressed women: on Wednesday, 1st Sep 2021 Online on Social Media, and in the streets on Saturday, 25 September.

The online action of 1st Sep. is especially important to carry out successfully the action in the Streets on Saturday, 25 September.

The messages for these actions are:

Women of the world and our allies stand with the women - and all vulnerable groups of Afghanistan against imperialism, militarism, fundamentalism and fascism. None of us are free until the women of Afghanistan are free.

Women Of The World And All Our Allies Rise, Roar And Rage For The Women In Afghanistan.

A Global Solidarity Action In Your City, Town, School. Everywhere. RISE in the streets, stage creative political protests and artistic risings. Invite everyone, reach out to activists, students, artists, social justice groups, and more.

We follow the lead of Afghan women on the ground. We urgently call upon governments, the UN Security Council and regional entities to:

• Refuse to recognize a Taliban government, which has no legitimacy beyond the brutal force it commands and which terrorizes the people of Afghanistan, girls and women in particular.

• Stop all forms of support to the Taliban, including funding, providing of arms and technical knowhow.

• End imperialism, militarism, fascism and religious fundamentalism. Stop and prevent manipulating women’s rights for commercial and other interests.

• Support the women’s resistance to the Taliban inside Afghanistan. Respect and support Afghan women and people’s exercise of their democratic and human rights, including their right to self-determination.

• Evacuate women and men, human rights defenders, journalists, police officers, public employees, athletes, and LGBTI+ who wish to leave the country and ensure their safe passage.

• Create an independent body of observers, made up with a majority of women, who have a track record of promoting women’s human rights to monitor the situation in Afghanistan.

• Welcome refugees, with the US and their allies assuming the responsibility of financing the cost of resettling displaced people from Afghanistan.

• Immediately open humanitarian corridors to support the people of Afghanistan.

• Stop arms trade policies and the military industrial complex, which profits from the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and elsewhere the world.

The link for signing in for both actions is:

https://docs.google.com/.../1FAIpQLSddIYETv2vetV.../viewform

You may email the organizers on: creative@vday.org

RAWA highly appreciates your solidarity in action.

After the Fall of The U.S. created Neo-Liberal Afghanistan

Time to Rethink

Back in the days right after 9/11 a number of us went to demonstrations with signs saying "Stern Justice, but No War". We argued Bin Laden and his gang could be pursued and destroyed without invasion of Afghanistan. Our message was drowned out by the anger and war fever. Bush and the Republicans and Democrats united to conquer Afghanistan and to reorganize it as an ally government. It would be a shining example of neoliberalism and supposed democracy. For 20 years the fiction was maintained that this plan was working. Not any more. Perhaps now people will understand there was an alternative in 2001 and more importantly there was an alternative to the whole Western strategy of conquest and domination.

The events in Afghanistan are a catastrophe, proof of the total failure of militarist strategy outlined in the “The New American Century (1997)” and other visions of U.S. empire.

We need to take long look at US involvement in Afghanistan, well before 9/11, all the way back to Carter and Brzezinski arming of mujahedeen

There was a alternative back in 2011, stern justice, but not war. Recall that in the end Bin Laden was killed by a special force, not in Afghanistan, but in Pakistan.

There was an alternative after the U.S. invaded in October 2001 and defeated the Taliban main forces. See this segment on Democracy Now from August 20.

Tasks for Today

For all its terrible bombings from Afghanistan to Palestine to northern Syria, the US has a moral obligation to take in hundreds of thousands of refugees. (It did just that after Vietnam.)

The U.S. should take in the women and children and the poor, not just the people who collaborated with the U.S. war machine.

It’s time to close up many US bases abroad, to stop the ability of U.S. militarists to meddle and attack foreign countries.

In 1933 Congress had a special commission to investigate the influence of weapons makers and high finance on the U.S. entry into the Great War (World War I). There should be a Congressional investigation now to document: a) How the military-industrial complex pushes for war b)How the corporate media glamorizes war and gives soapboxes to retired military figures c) How billions in weapons the U.S. military handed over to the Taliban in Afghanistan

A fine archive of articles about Afghanistan can be found on "The Struggle" site by clicking here that will include this statement by RAWA, the revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan.

Click here for an article about Jawad, an Afghan refugee to the United States and his difficult experiences.

The vigil for mubarak Soulemane

Two Elected Officials Spoke

State representative Robyn Porter and member of the City Council of Hamden, Justin Farmer denounced the killing of black youth. The first speaker was Mubarak's sister, Mariyann.

See video of the Rally on June 27

On June 26 on the Black Lives Matter Instagram channel over 26,000 watched Mariyann Soulemane speak about her brother and his shooting (1/15/20) after he was entirely surrounded by CT Trooper and West Haven police cars. There have been no indictments, no firings and no reports.

Come to the vigil that takes place 3 days after Mubarak would have been 21 years old at the corner of Campbell Avenue and Hall Sts. in West Haven. (820 Campbell Avenue) More about the case: WestHavenCall.com

Sponsors: Justice for Mubarak, Black Lives Matter (national), Promoting Enduring Peace, Jewish Voice for Peace (New Haven), Black Alliance for Just Immigration, West Haven Black Coalition, Justice for Jayson, Justice for Steven Barrier, Democratic Socialists of America AfroSocialists & Socialist of Color Caucus

Are we on a path to nuclear war with China?

Listen to Daniel Ellsberg

Daniel Ellsberg was given our Gandhi Peace Award in 1976 for his bravery in issuing the Pentagon Papers. In 2107 he wrote The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner in which he told of his years in the nuclear war making department of the Kennedy Administration. There he learned that the strategy of our military for any war with the Soviet Union was to launch a full military strike with expected hundreds of millions dead.

He leaked a document this year (2021) that showed that in the '50's the U.S. military wanted to use nuclear weapons to defend Quemoy and Matsu, two "rocks" off the coast of Taiwan.

The event will be moderated by Joseph Gerson, president of the Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security , and a peacenews columnist.

Click here for link to register for the Mass Peace Action program

Protest Israeli Police Inaction

Weeks Go By, No One Arrested

It was a brazen attack on April 7, 2021. A masked man attacked 2011 Gandhi Peace Award winner Rabbi Arik Ascherman with a stick. Ascherman was in a private Palestinian field belonging to shepherds. He was trying to foil the newest settler tactic, "guard and secure". Settlers bring their flocks to Palestinian fields. If Palestinians object they are driven off. Eventually the claim is that this is the settler's land. See the video of the attack here.

See our April 27 press release here. Send a complaint to the Israeli Ministry of Public Security. Their email is applications@mops.gov.il Please BCC us a copy at office@pepeace.org You could simply write, "I've seen the video of the latest attack on Rabbi Ascherman that happened on April 7. Why have there been no arrests? What is the state of the investigation? If the suspects had been Palestinians would the weeks drag on without any reports?"

Read NYT columnist Nick Kristof's tribute to Ascherman in 2010.