By Chip Gibbons

  The Culture Project in New York is currently putting on Rebel Voices, a new play based on Howard Zinn’s Voices of A People’s History of America.    Not living in New York myself I miss out on a lot of exciting things. However, I recently happened to have the privilege of seeing a preview of the play the night before it opened (thanks to good timing and luck I happened to be in the city on that night)

      America has a rich history of dissent, one that is often ignored by mainstream versions of history. Zinn, on the other hand, has made a career of documenting American’s tradition of protest and nowhere is this history captured with more spirit than in Rebel Voices. The play consists of a permanent cast of six and a revolving cast of guest, including Danny Glover, Staceyann Chin, and Zinn himself, reading famous speeches, petitions, letters, etc. If one has ever thumbed through Voices of A People’s History he/she knows how the pieces Zinn selected are not only well-written, but both inspiring and informative. Each of the actors dix an incredible job at bringing to life the selections which include works by Frederick Douglas, Malcolm X, Sojourner Truth, Eugene Debs, and more.. However, if one is expecting an elaborate stage set and props, I must warn you the stage itself is very minimalist consisting only of the actors and stools, however, the actors do move around a bit. This setting does not in anyone take anything away from the play, as it is the readings that are the focus..

     The play contains many antiwar speeches, including Eugene Debs’ infamous Canton, Ohio speech. For those of you not familiar with your history, during Word War I the Espionage and Sedition Acts made it illegal to speak out against the war, as President Woodrow Wilson believed “dissent, in time of war, was a significant threat to morale.”

     A wide-ranged of people were prosecuted under this act from anarchist Emma Goldman to members of the radical labor union Industrial Workers of the World, but the group that was hit the hardest was the Socialist Party of America, America’s largest third party at the time.

     On June 16, 1918 the party’s forbearer and perennial Presidential candidate, Eugene Debs, was in Canton, Ohio to visit three Socialist who had been imprisoned for speaking out against World War I. After his visit, Debs went across the street where he gave on of the greatest antiwar speeches of all-times, one that would earn him a 10-year prison sentence (he would later have his sentence commuted and invited to the White House for lunch—by a Republican president).

     What terrible thing did Eugene Debs say? It went a something like this:

Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder. In the Middle Ages when the feudal lords who inhabited the castles whose towers may still be seen along the Rhine concluded to enlarge their domains, to increase their power, their prestige and their wealth they declared war upon one another. But they themselves did not go to war any more than the modern feudal lords, the barons of Wall Street go to war. [Applause.] The feudal barons of the Middle Ages, the economic predecessors of the capitalists of our day, declared all wars. And their miserable serfs fought all the battles. The poor, ignorant serfs had been taught to revere their masters; to believe that when their masters declared war upon one another, it was their patriotic duty to fall upon one another and to cut one another’s throats for the profit and glory of the lords and barons who held them in contempt. And that is war in a nutshell. The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose–especially their lives.

Another great historical commentary on war comes from the North Star, the paper of escaped slave turned abolitionist Frederick Douglas. In 1848 the North Star, in reponse the Mexican-American war, stated that people of peace had no party, as one party (the Democrats) had started the war and another party (the Whigs) funded it. The more things change…

The North Star and Debs are joined by contemporary peace activist, such as Cindy Sheehan and Camilo Mejia. The performance also includes a soldiers testimony about the My Lai Massacre as well as a first hand account of the bombing of Hiroshima intermingled with a US Government Report on the bombing (which stated that it was most likely that Japan would of surrendered regardless of the use of atomic weaponry).

Voices against war are not the only historical acts of protest included in the play, as voices from the abolitionist, civil rights, women’s rights, labor, and gay rights movements are also heard. Although the subject mater of their speeches can often be weighty and depressing, their victories are inspiring.

Whenever one becomes weary about the future of American, just remember at one point we had slavery, segregation and women (or even those who did not own property) could not vote. That’s no longer the case, because of activist who worked tirelessly against seemingly impossible odds. We still have a long way to go, but we’ve also come along way.

 Click Here for More Info 

The Ploughshares Foundation will be sponsoring a “peace primary” with 12 organizations. Individuals can vote for an organization by donating to them through their peace primary page. Each dollar donated counts as one vote. The minimum an individual can donate is $10 (ten votes) and the maximum is $1,000 (one thousand votes). In addition to getting to keep the money raised through “voting,” the organization with the most votes will receive a $100,000 grant from the Ploughshares Foundation. Voting does not begin until September 1, 2007 so if you are interested in supporting Peace Action in the Peace Primary more information on how to vote will be posted shortly.

From Democracynow.org

U.S. War Czar: Return of Military Draft Is Worth Considering

Here in this country, the White House’s new war czar Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute has said it is worth considering returning to a military draft.

Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute: “I think it makes sense to certainly consider it, and I can tell you, this has always been an option on the table, but ultimately, this is a policy matter between meeting the demands for the nation’s security by one means or another.”

Lt. General Lute made the comments in an interview with National Public Radio. President Bush picked Lute in mid-May as a deputy national security adviser with responsibility for ensuring efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan are coordinated with policymakers in Washington.

This fall there will be several major antiwar actions.

On September 15, General Petreaus will be briefing the United States Congress on the success of the “surge.” ANSWER, along with several other groups including Iraq Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace, Code Pink, and the Muslim-American Freedom Society will be hosting a mass march from the White House to the Capitol. After the march Iraq Veterans Against the War will hold a die-in of over 4,000 people and are looking for volunteers to participate. The die-in is an act of civil disobedience and participants may risk arrest. For those unable to risk arrest there will be a permitted rally on the West Lawn of the Capitol. For more info click here

September 23 and every subsequent third Friday of the month marks the Iraq Moratorium a day where participants pledge to due something different from their day-to-day routine in protest of the Iraq War. It can be as something as simple as wearing a black armband or not buying gas. For more info click here
The Troops Out Now Coalition will also be having a mass march on Washington D.C. September 29. The march will follow a week long encampment (22-29) in front of the Capitol demanding funding for the war be cut off. For more info click here
The United For Peace and Justice Coalition, of which SPAN is a member, is calling for 8 massive regional demonstrations on October 27. Currently there are no other details, but as soon as more information becomes available it will posted on the SPAN blog.

By Chip Gibbons, Student Peace Action Network

A US District Court Judge has ordered that the District of Columbia must pay a million dollars to 120 antiwar protesters illegally arrested. Each defendant will receive at least $6,000.

The protesters were attempting to participate in a Sunday, September 29, 2002 antiwar march of an estimated 4,000 people when they where surrounded by police on Constitution Ave and arrested.

The march was part of a weekend of actions called “Protests for Global Justice” aimed at opposing the policies of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund as well the impending invasion of Iraq.

The demonstrations were marked by mass arrests and allegations of police misconduct. On the first day alone, 649 people were arrested including not just protesters, but bystanders and members of the press, such as Colin Powell’s personal photographer.

The ACLU reached a $425,000 settlement for seven protesters and bystanders illegally arrested as part of an earlier demonstration in Pershing Park. A larger class-action lawsuit filed by the Partnership for Civil Justice and National Lawyers Guild is still pending.

The DC City Council has since passed a resolution affirming the right to parade without a permit.

Peace Marchers of the Loneliest Kind

Published on Monday, July 9, 2007 by the Chicago Tribune
by Colleen Mastony

LOVELAND, Colo. — Against the majestic backdrop of the Rocky Mountains, in the far eastern corner of Colorado where the land begins to flatten into a vast golden prairie, two teenagers trudge along the weed-bitten edge of an isolated highway. Blistered and sunburned, they endure wind, rain and searing heat. But still, they slog forward in what has become a quixotic journey across the country in an effort to end the Iraq war.

Ashley Casale, 19, and Michael Israel, 18, are walking 3,000 miles from San Francisco to Washington in a trek they once had hoped would rally the nation and lead thousands to join them in their epic March for Peace. But, nearly halfway through their trip, the teens remain alone, wandering the vast landscape of America, where few have paid them any attention.

“It seems like the country is asleep,” said Israel, a rail-thin young man with deep-set blue eyes, walking the roadside on a recent morning, his voice sometimes drowned out by the roar of huge trucks zooming past. “A lot of people we meet are against the war. But it doesn’t seem like many people are doing anything about it.”

Sometimes cattle grazing in a nearby field are their only audience, the chirping of crickets their only encouragement. They are the loneliest peace marchers, sleeping in parks or behind abandoned businesses, surviving on granola bars and peanut butter, hoping that more people will hear of their protest and join them.

Their youthful idealism comes in stark contrast to a sense of complacency in America, where polls indicate that a majority of Americans oppose the war but relatively few of them have taken to the streets in active protest. Even Cindy Sheehan, the longtime face of the anti-war movement, has abandoned her quest, saying she feared her efforts had been in vain. “I shudder to think what it is going to take, after everything that has happened in this country during the Bush administration, to get the country to rise up,” she said.

With the Bush administration resisting the tide of public opinion turning against the war, “there’s a sense that simply carrying a sign to show opposition isn’t very useful today,” said Lawrence Wittner, a history professor at the State University of New York at Albany and author of the book “Peace Action.”

“College-age youth are very cynical these days, which is not to say they like the status quo — they may mock it and tell cynical jokes. But they have very little sense that the world can be dramatically transformed,” Wittner said.

Stark contrast with 1960s

The nature of the war in Iraq also has helped avert the outrage that led to the large-scale demonstrations of the 1960s, experts say. Today, there is no draft.

The roughly 160,000 soldiers stationed in Iraq and the 3,605 who have died are dwarfed by the statistics of Vietnam, with 543,000 troops deployed at the war’s height and 58,000 dead by war’s end.

“I think a major reason people aren’t out on the streets like they were in the ’60s is that people don’t have anything personally at stake in the war,” Sheehan said.

Against this backdrop, the two teenagers have decided to walk. Their packs leave bruises on their backs, and their shoes have worn holes. Their skin has darkened to a chestnut hue and their bodies have grown lean. Over seven weeks they have traversed four states, more than 1,400 miles.

They make an unlikely pair. Israel is quiet and soft-spoken, and wears a floppy fishing hat. Casale is vivacious and outgoing, wearing outlandish orange sunglasses and carrying a cell phone that constantly rings with calls from activists and family checking the marchers’ progress. They had not met in person before the march began.

As they travel the highways, they have glimpsed the nation’s conflicting and complex feelings on the war. One woman working on a road crew in Colorado choked back emotion as she told them her son was shipping out to Iraq. “I don’t like war either,” she said before handing them her last few dollar bills. A Vietnam veteran selling produce at a roadside stand offered the travelers a free bag of cherries. “The government is sending those boys to die just like they did in Vietnam,” he said.

But the marchers also have faced the nation’s anger. An Army recruiter said American soldiers were making the real “march for peace” over in Iraq. And a farmer who initially had agreed to let them stay on his land abruptly asked them to leave after they told him they were protesting. At the entrance of Rocky Mountain National Park, rangers refused to let the pair enter until they put away the signs that read “March for Peace.” And on July 4, a driver in a passing car yelled: “Bunch of hippies! Bomb Iraq!”

A idealist’s idea

The idea for the march came to Casale last autumn. A freshman at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., she had attended war protests but thought that a cross-country march could attract more attention. She established a Web site, www.marchforpeace.info, sent out hundreds of fliers to other college campuses and contacted peace groups around the country. Israel, about to graduate a home-school high school program in Jackson, Calif., spotted a notice online. Though dozens of people showed interest, in the end, only Israel and another woman agreed to walk.

They set off from San Francisco on May 21, carrying 40-pound packs. By the end of the first week, the third marcher dropped out. Another activist told them they would never make it to Washington by their target date, Sept. 11. But they pressed on, crossing into Nevada and making their way across the desert in two weeks. Then on to Utah and Colorado.

Their determination has endeared them to many. After seeing the holes in Casale’s shoes, a man in Sacramento bought her a new pair of sandals. An elderly man in Colorado drove their packs ahead for two days and called his friends who lived along the route to arrange for shelter.

“I read about them in the paper yesterday and thought, ‘Oh my God, we have to help them,’” said Bobbi Benson, 48, of Boulder, who helped drive the packs forward through Colorado. “They just have such courage.”

‘This is the whole point’

On July 4, Casale and Israel walked the 20 miles from Loveland to Greeley, two towns in a solidly Republican corner of Colorado. As they trudged along the roadside, the Rocky Mountains dominated the horizon behind them. And before them, fields of wheat and corn stretched for miles.

“People who see us today might see us as un-American or unpatriotic,” said Casale, about to dart across an expressway ramp. “But I think this is the whole point of this country and July 4: People taking an active role, and speaking out.”

They walked for hours under the hot sun. When they finally made it to Greeley, someone yelled an obscenity out a car window. A few minutes later, a man in a Cadillac waved dismissively at them. But others honked support, signaling with a thumbs up or a peace sign.

And when they ducked inside a restaurant, one customer, Carla DeVries, 51, cheered them on. With perfectly coiffed blond hair and wearing a bright pink sweater, DeVries said she is a Republican and supports the war but said, “It’s refreshing to see anyone do anything that takes adversity.” She smiled at Casale and said: “You stick to your guns.”

Twelve hours after they began walking, the sun going down on Greeley and the rat-a-tat-tat of celebratory firecrackers echoing in the distance, the two marchers arrived at a beige split-level house, where someone had offered them a place to sleep. A gray-haired woman rushed to the screen door. “Welcome! Welcome!” called Jean Taylor-Smith, 74, embracing them on the doorstep. “We didn’t think you’d ever make it!”

Nearly halfway to goal

The two marchers were exhausted, but they also were nearly halfway to Washington. On Sunday they were near Gothenburg, Neb. A peace group has arranged a rally in Omaha, where they hope to draw large crowds.

“If I could have it my way, I would have hundreds of people out here. The more people the better. But I still don’t believe it’s insignificant that two people are marching,” said Casale, sitting on a couch drinking a tall glass of ice water, her list of contacts spread on her lap. “What we’re doing can be significant on a national level. But it’s also the individuals we meet. Everywhere we go, there’s someone we can meet and talk to.”

Taylor-Smith, standing in the kitchen, beamed with pride.

“One person can change the world,” she said, rushing to fill everyone’s water glasses, asking what the marchers wanted to eat. “These two will plant the seeds, and the movement will grow.”

Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune

Go to www.marchforpeace.info for updates and to make donations.

by Rhea Cutillo

Eli Israel, US Soldier, declines to further participate in the occupation.

Declaring that “we [USA] are now violating the people of this country [Iraq] in ways that we would never accept on our own soil”, Eli Israel told his commanding officer that he would no longer play a ‘combat role’ in this conflict or ‘protect corporate representatives.’ That same day [June 19, 2007] Eli wrote a letter to a friend saying that they have taken his decision as ‘violating a direct order’ and has asked that friend to tell everyone about his situation for fear that he might ‘disappear’.

You can read the story here: http://www.ivaw.org/node/1040

As well as from other various sources googled.

Eli will most likely be court-martialed (to be tried for an offense by a military court). The support for this is that he is breaking military law by disobeying direct orders.   However, the tacit agreement that one makes with the government in joining the army – whether volunteer or conscription - is that our country will not be careless with a soldier’s life by sending him off on ill-conceived, poorly-planned, and unnecessary military adventures. Even so, it is impossible to write a law determining when the military has engaged wrongfully as this will always be an opinion. So one can only act according to what he or she thinks is right, so be it if there are consequences. Eli became morally opposed to the war after he had seen what the United States were doing in and to Iraq. He took a courageous step, in not only defying his commanding officer, but to recognize what he was participating in and to want no part in it. Millions are against this war. But a soldier openly rejecting it is something that the government can not ignore. They will try to silence this story. We cannot let them. We can also not allow illegal mistreatment of this soldier, Eli Israel. Spread the word. Contact his Senator, Mitch McConnell (link to his info is in the aforementioned site), and encourage him to fend for this soldiers rights against any illegal retaliation.

‘What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.” – On the Duty of Civil Disobedience – Henry David Thoreau

For more up to date information on Eli’s situation, click here

Above are Peace Action and SPAN [we didn't bring the water-soluble SPAN banner for fear of rain, note: don't make banners with washable paint] activists last week at the World Says NO to Israeli Occupation rally and march in DC. Click on the picture above from more photos of the event from our Massachusetts Peace Action folks who were there.

Over 5,000 people turned out, despite the ominous looking rain clouds early in the afternoon, making it the largest event in support of Palestinian rights ever. The crowd was upbeat and hopeful, the speakers were amazing and young people made up much of the gathering.

That we live in a world where events calling for respect of international law and human rights as necessary to achieving peace attract counter-protesters is disturbing and a sign of the great polarization about the Israeli-Palestine conflict. The counter-protesters were small in number, and it seemed that many of them had missed the memo that the purpose was not to demand an end to the Israeli state, and a number of peaceful and nonviolent conversations were had between those in the march and the counter-protesters.

We have a long way to go on this issue, but the only way to peace is to start with all sides recognizing and respecting human rights and international law. As a country we must also  challenge the role of our government in furthering the conflict by giving $3 billion in aid to Israel each year, a chunk of which is military aid that comes right back to U.S. weapons and vehicle manufacturers as corporate welfare.

No Child Left Behind, one of many cases of absurd doublespeak in a long line of brutal blunders. What does that have to do with war, or peace, for that matter? Because section 9528 of No Child Left Behind is a recruitment clause, stating that military recruiters must have equal (equal, not privileged) access to high schools as other recruiters, and that schools must turn over student contact information or risk losing their federal funding. Students can opt-out, but many places don’t give students the option, bury the information in the stacks of forms at the beginning of the schoolyear or in the student handbook, and turn over their phone numbers and addresses ensuring a long year of recruiter harassment as recruiters try to meet their quotas for enlistment as the war drags on.

Berkeley High, in California, is one of the few schools in the country refusing to take away student rights to privacy by turning over their information without their consent. Now the government is threatening to sue, or actually cut off their federal funding, because the school is insisting on students making a conscious choice.

Around the country the counter-recruitment movement has been growing for years, with opt-out education one of the largest efforts. Fighting the militarism of our schools and our youth to fuel the war machine is crucial to ending the cycle of violence both here and abroad. Groups like CAMS, the Coalition Against Militarism in our Schools has been educating their community on opt-out, while working toward a policy of opt-in similar to that used at Berkeley High.

Our folks in New Jersey have been pushing Governor Corzine to create a uniform statewide policy for students to be able to opt-out. You can sign their petition to the Governor here.

No Child Left Behind is up for reauthorization this year. Of the many things that need to be addressed and changed within this Act, we must push for a reversal of opt-out to opt-in. In the House, Congressman Mike Honda has introduced the Student Privacy Protection Act and will hopefully be able to add the bill to the reauthorization of NCLB. We must put pressure on the Senate committee to include opt-in language in their version of the bill, send an email to the committee to protect student privacy.

Let’s take back our halls for learning rather than recruitment. We are not your soldiers!

The Military Commissions Act continues to face a variety of obstacles in its attempts to violate human and civil rights. Last week 2 judges appointed by the Bush Administration in separate cases ruled that they weren’t complying with their own fairly random system and that prosecution could not be carried out until the process was in compliance with the act. Yesterday it was determined that even with a Presidential order, declaring civilians enemy combatants for fun crosses the line from democracy to police state by defying the Constitution; so civilians must be held and tried under the civil court system rather than by the military.

Also, in relation to the Military Commissions Act, it’s Torture Awareness Month. Check out the Torture Abolition and Survival Support Coalition (TASSC) for info on events and actions.