Tag: Ukraine

Both Hayes and DeLauro Go Back on Pocan Letter And Vote Billions for Israeli Military

by Stanley Heller, Middle East Crisis Committee

[U.S. Representatives Rosa DeLauro and Jahana Hayes were among 56 members of Congress who signed Rep. Mark Pocan’s letter, calling on Pres. Biden to withhold offensive arms transfers to Israel. On April 20, when the bill went to the House of Representatives, they voted in favor of giving Israel $26 billion, of which $4 billion is for Israel’s missile defense system and additional weapon purchases.]

The bill H.R. 8034 throws the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) under the bus. In Sec. 308, none of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act and prior Acts making appropriations for the Department of State, foreign operations, and related programs may be made available for a contribution, grant, or other payment to UNRWA, notwithstanding any other provision of law.

“Gaza” is mentioned 11 times, demanding reports to see if any money was diverted to Hamas or “other terrorists.”

$9 billion is appropriated to the President for “vulnerable populations and communities.” It could be for Ukraine or Gaza or Israel or whatever. By my reading he doesn’t have to give a nickel to Gaza. It’s all up to President Biden.

Why Hiroshima/Nagasaki Vigils Again This Year? 

by Henry Lowendorf, Greater New Haven Peace Council

Why is it important to commemorate the sudden slaughter of 200,000 mostly civilians in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, actions taken 78 years ago? Why do the U.S. government and corporate media generally ignore or downplay the consequences of decisions made three-quarters of a century ago?

Today, a brutal war is devastating Ukraine in central and eastern Europe, where four participating states, the U.S., Britain, France, and Russia, hold nuclear weapons arsenals on high alert, ready to throw into the fray.

Their leaders have the ability to incinerate every city around the planet and wave civilization goodbye.

At 90 seconds to midnight, the probability of nuclear cataclysm represented by the Atomic Clock is now set at its closest since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. This threat is not what the U.S. government or its corporate media megaphones want to advertise.

Consequences of the current war in Europe, in addition to wanton death and destruction, include seismic changes in the supply of energy and food, which will have an impact on much of the world.

Citizens of poor and wealthy countries impacted by someone else’s war are unable to afford fuel and food. Giant economies are in recession as industries shut down.

The only winners in this war are the Merchants of Death—Lockheed and Raytheon, among others—and the U.S. fossil fuel industry.

We have been told that only one state caused this war. The vigils on August 6 and 9 remind us, however, that ultimately we must engineer its end, not through a Pyrrhic victory, but by demanding diplomacy and negotiations as all wars end.

The anniversary vigils on August 6 and 9 offered a variety of short presentations–history, the political moment, poetry, peace songs. New Haven Mayor Elicker spoke against the giant nuclear budget. Atomic soldier Hank Bolden, on whom the U.S. military tested the effects of nuclear radiation, told us that he was sworn to secrecy until the 1990s, unable to explain even to his family his many cancers and other illnesses associated with radiation poisoning.

Channel 8 WTNH ran a story on the Hiroshima vigil that you can find here: https://tinyurl.com/HiroshimaNewHaven23. More photos and video here: https://www.facebook.com/NewHavenPeaceCommission

Over $1,000 Raised for Ukrainian Union at New Haven Event

by Dan Piper and Stanley Heller. Promoting Enduring Peace

Union members and supporters met on February 25 in a fundraiser for a branch of the Independent Trade Union of Ukrainian Miners. Despite New Haven’s first snow of the year, they gathered and heard over Zoom from Yuri Samoilov, the president of the Kriviy Rih City Branch of the miners’ union. He had to be translated from Ukrainian to Spanish and from Spanish to English, but it was done swiftly and without a hitch.

Frank Panzarella, a former president of a Connecticut Machinists local and professional singer, entertained with a verse he wrote to the tune of Neil Young’s song “Rockin’ in the Free World” and later sang the traditional labor hymn “Solidarity Forever.” Over Zoom we also heard from Pavel Polska, who was in Mexico and Fabio Bosco, a unionist from Brazil. Rachel Lonchar, a member of Teamsters Local
1150, gave her analysis combining support for the miners’ union and Ukraine’s resistance, but explaining that U.S. government support is being given to weaken Russia in a battle of empires, and warning that U.S. officials would like to entangle Ukraine in U.S. imperial ambitions.

Raffle tickets were sold and winners got everything from Ukrainian tea to cups with Ukrainian colors to a copy of Ukrainian artist Kataya Gritsvea’s depiction of the Russian invasion. An auction was held for a donated print from noted artist and journalist Molly Crabapple, made from a sketch of a main square in Kyiv during her 2022 trip to Ukraine. Bidding went on for a while and a hefty sum was raised for the Ukrainian union.

Teamsters were the biggest group attending the fundraiser, but members and retired members of five or six other unions took part. There was applause when it was announced that John Olsen, the former president of the Connecticut AFL-CIO (who was not able to attend), had made a donation.

The event was sponsored by Workers’ Voice and Promoting Enduring Peace and co-sponsored by the Ukrainian Socialist Solidarity Campaign, the New Haven Federation of Teachers (933R) Retired Teachers Chapter, the Ukraine Solidarity Network and around 15 individual union members.

Contributions can still be sent online via “Chuffed” at  https://chuffed.org/project/workersaidtoukraine or by check to Promoting Enduring Peace, 39 Goodrich St., New Haven, CT 06517.  Make checks to “Promoting Enduring Peace” and be sure to add in the “Memo” line “for Ukrainian miners.”

The Palestinian Exception to Free Speech

by Noor Kareem and Craig Birkhead-Morton, Yale Daily News
Feb. 7, 2023

Although Yale claims to be a bastion of free speech that provides a forum for addressing all political and cultural issues, the one exception to this is the issue of Palestinian liberation.

The discourse around Palestine at Yale is surrounded by fear and restraint. Discussion is often prefaced with the familiar acknowledgment of how complicated the topic is, immediately obscuring the power relations between a Western-backed occupying power and a population subjected to life under occupation…

Many incorrectly frame Zionism — the political project seeking to establish Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people — as synonymous with Jewish identity. This conflation of the Jewish people with the Zionist state makes any criticism of the occupation immediately deemed “antisemitic.”

In reality, Zionism is an ideology and a political movement that, in the words of its founders, necessitates the erasure of Palestinians and the violent seizure of their land in the pursuit of creating a modern nation-state.

If we have learned one thing from the last couple of years, it is that silence kills. The lack of discussion on the systemic nature of Israeli war crimes has given total impunity to a state that murders civilians, massacres refugees and bombs a city already under siege. Since the assassination of American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh by Israeli forces in May 2022, the Biden administration has failed to hold Israel accountable. The number of murders is showing no signs of slowing down so far, as 2022 was the deadliest year for Palestinians since the Second Palestinian Intifada. And as of Feb. 6, 2023, 36 Palestinians have already been killed…

In December 2022, Yalies4Palestine launched the first-ever BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) campaign at Yale. Prior to this, Yale was the only university in the Ivy League not involved in the BDS movement, largely due to this campus’s pro-Zionist climate. This is despite public institutional condemnations of human rights violations in Iran and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We must overcome this culture of hypocrisy and call on Yale to take a stand against the Israeli occupation… As students at one of the most elite academic institutions in the world, we have an obligation to illuminate truth and honor light over darkness. Join us in fulfilling this obligation by signing and sharing our petition demanding that Yale cancel its contract with G4S — a security company involved in some of the world’s worst human rights abuses, including those in Israel — and by taking the initiative to learn more about the BDS movement.

[Article can be read in its entirety at yaledailynews.com/blog/2023/02/06/kareem-birckhead-morton-the-palestinian-exception-to-free-speech. To find out more about the BDS Committee for Yalies4Palestine, email [email protected] or [email protected]]

Ban Russian Uranium, But Work with Russia against Nuclear War

by Stanley Heller, Administrator, Promoting Enduring Peace

Every year hundreds of millions of dollars are spent by U.S. companies to buy raw and enriched uranium from Russia. Profits from these sales are helping fund Russia’s war against Ukraine. It’s hypocritical for the U.S. government to demand European countries stop importing Russian natural gas while we import uranium from the very same country.

The U.S. has allowed itself to depend on major uranium imports from Russia and Russian-allied Kazakhstan, but we are not simply calling for increases in domestic uranium production. Uranium mining usually comes at a steep price in pollution of Native American land. There’s also the fact that the uranium is being used chiefly by the nuclear power industry.

Besides the usual worries about the safety of nuclear power plants and lack of a long-term plan for disposal of nuclear waste, this year we’ve learned of a grave new concern, that parties at war will not automatically give a wide berth to nuclear power plants. Russia shelled and took over the Zaporizhya nuclear power complex and its attacks on Ukraine’s electric power grid in November have cut normal and vital electric power to all four Ukraine’s nuclear power complexes.
The U.S. should stop importing Russian uranium and start a crash program to transition away from costly and environmentally damaging uranium and fossil fuel dependence.

The above is the text of a petition we are sponsoring along with the Ukrainian Socialist Solidarity Campaign. It’s a one-two punch, one punch against Russian aggression and another against the costly and dangerous nuclear power industry. We hope you’ll consider signing. We link it at our site: PEPeace.org.

Another and even bigger nuclear issue is the possibility that the war over Ukraine could become a nuclear war. Putin has made several scarcely veiled threats to that effect. As Daniel Ellsberg has said, Putin is acting like the U.S. has done on many occasions. What can be done? While we want nuclear weapons to be abolished entirely, we see that we have to do things in the short run to dampen down the possibility that wars go nuclear. The Defuse Nuclear War campaign has many good ideas: 1) Abolish the ICBMs, the land-based nuclear-armed missiles; 2) make a no-first-use pledge and structure nuclear weapons policy around it; 3) Take nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert; 4) rejoin nuclear treaties that Trump renounced.

Read more about this at our site: PEPeace.org.

Coming up in late February:

Promoting Enduring Peace and Workers Voice US will support a fund-raiser for the independent miners union in Ukraine, NGPU (Independent Mineworkers Union of Ukraine). The union faces enormous challenges, first from an invader who frequently cuts electricity even while miners are below the earth and second from a government that pushes anti-labor measures in its Rada (parliament). For an interview with a miner leader see the Ukraine/Russia links in the Resources section of PEPeace.org.

Connecticut Activists Rally in Solidarity with Ukrainian Victims of the Russian Invasion

by Erwin Freed, Socialist Resurgence, March 8, 2022

[Below is an excerpt from the article, which can be read in its entirety at socialistresurgence.org/2022/03/08/connecticut-activists-rally-in-solidarity-with-ukrainian-victims-of-the-russian-invasion].

Responding to an international call initiated by major antiwar groups, activists in Connecticut organized an emergency protest at the Federal Court Building in New Haven in solidarity with Ukrainian victims of the ongoing Russian invasion on March 6. The main slogans of the international call, initiated by Code Pink and two British antiwar coalitions, were “Stop the War in Ukraine! Russian Troops Out! No to NATO expansion!” The international call also opposed U.S./EU sanctions against Russia, which are a way of waging war by economic means, and demanding opening borders to refugees.

Endorsers of the Sunday action included Unidad Latina en Acción, New Era Young Lords, Promoting Enduring Peace, Mending Minyon, 350CT, International Marxist Tendency (Socialist Revolution), Socialist Resurgence, and a number of individual members of local clergy, labor, and other social movement groups. The protest was quickly organized on an emergency basis in a collaborative manner with much collective discussion on slogans, speakers, and building activities by activists from endorsing groups. Despite the limited time to build the action and bad weather conditions, over 100 people showed up to listen to a broad range of speakers, to stand in solidarity with Ukrainians struggling against Russian occupation and against U.S./NATO intervention.

Speakers at the demonstration connected the war on Ukraine and mounting inter-imperialist militarism with a diverse range of different local and international issues. Stanley Heller of Promoting Enduring Peace kicked off the rally by denouncing the Russian invasion and calling for international solidarity for the Ukrainian people and Russian antiwar activists, as well as victims of imperialist violence in Syria and Yemen.

Melinda Tuhus, speaking on behalf of 350 Connecticut, spoke about the devastating human and environmental cost of militarism. Melinda pointed out how “the war in Ukraine highlights dirty energy’s role in destabilizing our geopolitics,” giving specific examples of how the war and responses by various countries and companies have horrific implications for the environment. This includes a planned increase in liquified natural gas by the United States, a type of fuel whose production releases methane emissions, which are 100 times worse for the climate than CO2. She pointed out that “militaries around the world, with the U.S. far in the lead, consume massive amounts of oil and gas” and that the U.S. military’s almost $800 billion budget should be converted to human needs.
Nika Zarazvand, a local Iranian activist involved with many struggles for justice, spoke about the devastating effects of sanctions for working and oppressed people. She mentioned her own experience: “As an immigrant from Iran, I am used to people not knowing anything about my country other than the talking points of sanctions and nuclear weapons.” She continued that her family members in Iran were unable to access COVID vaccines, PPE, and health care due to the crippling unilateral sanctions on Iran. In the U.S., Nika’s family members “are interrogated for over two hours at their own bank … because they send money to Iranian medical students in Ukraine.”

Rally in solidarity with Ukraine this Sunday at 11:30 a.m. & 1 p.m.

Dear friends,

Please come to a rally in solidarity with Ukraine this Sunday at 11:30 a.m. Demands are Russia out of Ukraine! No NATO expansion! More info is at this link:

https://www.peaceinukraine.org/1031496/rally_in_solidarity_with_ukrainian_victims_of_invasion_no_russian_troops_no_nato_u_s_expansi_n

(Correction: it’s outside the federal courthouse on Church St across from the Green)

There is another rally at 1 pm on the Green organized by local Ukrainians, but it’s necessary to also point out the role of the US/NATO in the crisis that’s unfolding.

 

A Community Unity Dialogue Page

by Frank Panzarella, PAR Committee

The PAR Newsletter has always had as its mission the bringing together of activists by sharing reports of the events and ongoing work of groups to build a progressive community.

Sometimes we have received articles that are more like critiques of controversial issues that are important to particular groups but tended to emphasize differences within the progressive and broader community. As we tend to focus on community unity and building a broad progressive constituency, we have rejected such articles and asked groups to send reports that show what groups are doing.

We recognize that within activist circles and the broader population there are many complex issues that can sometimes divide us and that require ongoing dialogue.

In this spirit we would like to present a dialogue page in the PAR newsletter that will act as a place for groups to express differing views on controversial issues.

We would like this to be a page where groups focus specifically on their own positions on these issues, points of possible unity with others, and not as a place to criticize other groups or individuals with whom they disagree.

As an example, some activists see police violence as a reason to defund the police departments and to completely change the nature of “policing.”  Others in our community feel the police are still necessary and look to other reforms.  Discussions of such issues may help people find common ground and programmatic unity to further the causes dear to our hearts or at least to clarify differences.
Other examples, for instance, are the strong differing views on the threat of war in Ukraine or the differing views on political violence in Syria.

We hope organizations will take up this offer and contact us with issues they would like to see on the dialogue page.  The PAR committee looks forward to providing a forum for all to sort out controversial issues and build a stronger progressive family.