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Pro-Choice Activists Blockade Supreme Court

DC Media Group - Mon, 06/13/2022 - 00:59
SCOTUS6 Action Group passes outside Brett Kavanaugh’s home, scene of intense police protection but no arrests of the SCOTUS6 have taken place. Photo: J.Zangas/DCMG

Washington, DC—Margaret Mead once said “Never underestimate the ability of a small group of committed individuals to change the world.” And the Activists of SCOTUS6 Action Group have taken her words to heart, going to the homes of Supreme Court Justices for 6 weeks now, creating an unignorable presence outside and gaining a lot of media attention nationally, in the mainstream media and on social media.

But on Monday morning they ramped up  action to a higher level of civil disobedience by forming a human blockade at the entrances to the Supreme Court. They had planned their civil disobedience actions with other umbrella groups spearheaded by Shut Down DC, which is also based in Washington DC.

Their plan was to block the entrances to the Supreme Court so the Associate Justices and their staff could not get to work on Monday which is typically the day rulings are handed down. It was possible the final ruling of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health majority opinion would be released on Monday, but as the last of the rulings were issued at about 11:00 am, Dobbs was not among them. The Dobbs decision will be released in the coming weeks and possibly near the end of June as the last rulings issued come in late June for Supreme Court sessions.

The Dobbs ruling is all but certain to be made in favor of the conservative majority as it was previously mapped out in the unauthorized release in Samuel Alito’s draft majority opinion. This ruling will trigger a flurry of overturns of Roe v. Wade in the 26 States already signaling they want to overturn reproductive rights.

With a conservative ruling in favor of Dobbs, the rights of 63 million Americans to the agency over their own bodies, and to make their own personal decision of whether or not to carry a pregnancy to full-term, would be removed from Federal statute, sent to the States to decide, and effectively overturn Roe v. Wade, a benchmark ruling that has been the law of the land for 50 years.

SCOTUS6 Ground Team blocks access to Supreme Court for several hours on June 13, 2022 with no arrests. Photo: J Zangas/DCMG

A Supreme Court decision in favor of Dobbs would not end all abortions outright across the U.S. as there are still 24 States that will support Roe v. Wade in their State statutes. But in the 26 States already signaling they plan to overturn Roe v. Wade, it will result in travel out of State for those needing and wanting reproductive healthcare and that is something many in Southern States will not be able to afford.

This ruling will also result in an unfair imbalance across the nation in the personal liberties of individuals to reproductive rights healthcare, a condition which the Supreme Court will someday be forced to revisit.

It is for the victims of this imbalance of liberties that activists are waging their campaign of civil disobedience.

Supreme Court Shutdown

Early Monday morning the SCOTUS6 Action Group Ground Team met at Stanton Park along with other activists from umbrella groups, including Extinction Rebellion, a climate action group, under the larger umbrella of Shutdown DC, a direct action rights group based in DC.

From there the demonstration proceeded down Massachusetts Avenue and turned towards the Supreme Court on 1st Street. A group of forced-birth antagonists attempted to block them and a skirmish of bullhorns and jostling resulted in the antagonists being forced back. While tempers flared there were no injuries or arrests observed or reported (see DCMG video below).

Smaller groups broke off from the main body to block Supreme Court entrances to carports on 2nd Street at both Maryland Avenue and East Capitol Street.

SCOTUS6 Action Group on East Capitol Street blocking access to the Supreme Court for several hours on Monday, June 13, 2022.

The SCOTUS6 Action Group walked to 2nd and East Capitol Streets where they formed a human blockade. Police finished the intent of the activists by functionally shutting down the streets with barricades and lines of officers in order to prevent activists from gaining access to the carport entrances proper. At one point there were 50 officers but only 18 activists at 2nd and East Capitol Streets. The number of activists increased to over 100 as others joined them from other points in the action. The staff of the Supreme Court were blocked from access and police turned them away to find access elsewhere.

Meanwhile Extinction Rebellion blocked the carport entrance at 2nd and Maryland Avenue. Police kettled them and they were detained but soon after released without charges.

As the action began to wind down, Dr. Sophia Marjanovic, from the Court Accountability Project and ShutdownDC said, “The thing is people like you and me always stick together and we win eventually. We’re going to keep organizing together, doing our mutual aid because that is what actually wins. This is what they’re afraid of,”

Activists Planned Blockade For Weeks

The SCOTUS6 Action Group has been planning this action for weeks and spent a lot of time preparing for it through the rigors of street actions they undertook by going to the homes of all the right-wing justices over a sustained period..

They have received a lot of support from neighbors of some of the Justices, especially in Samuel Alito’s neighborhood in the Township of Fort Hunt, Virginia. Last Monday, neighbors on his street waved and thanked the SCOTUS6 Action Group for their perseverance while some joined them outside to engage in conversation about their action. One resident brought their toddler out to dance to their music and chants. Several teenagers followed them on bikes—one of the local neighbors extemporaneously joined them and carried a sign with them. Another celebrated the spirit of their resistence with a glass of wine as the demonstration passed her home.

Other neighbors have not been so nice about it, especially outside the private developments where Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch reside. While the Activists are not allowed inside the developments some neighbors have driven by them as they stand near the entrances, name calling, cursing, and gesturing at them. They’re unfazed by the negative attention and laugh it off—mostly.

Police lined the street outside Alito’s in unmarked vans and dark windowed vehicles to make sure they didn’t do anything wrong—and they haven’t done anything more than protest and chant on bullhorns as they walk by holding their signs. They are decidedly a non-violent action group.

If one were to believe any of the reports in the right-wing media it would seem they are breaking laws against intimidating Justices and should be arrested for breaking statutes forbidding the harassment of Federal Judges.

They haven’t broken any windows.
They haven’t threatened anyone.
They haven’t littered or spray-painted cars, sidewalks, or mailboxes, and if they had, one of any of the dozens of law enforcement waiting for them outside the homes would certainly have arrested them by now.

On the contrary, a designated representative of the SCOTUS6 Action Group has set up liaison with local police agencies and speaks to a representative of police before or during each action to make sure that ordinances and laws are not broken and the rights of others are not violated. Any allegations in right-wing media are unfounded or designed to distract viewers from the important issues: the removal of liberties once granted by the High Court.

“For the Supreme Court to change its mind on a law so basic as Roe v. Wade is going to create a lot of angry people because it can’t give half the population a right and then 50 years later decide to take it away simply because someone changed the Court with conservative people who disagree with that law,” said Carol, a feminist from Atlanta. “Its also going to create certain chaos as they plan to take other rights away like same sex marriage and [LGBTQ] rights—and they will if they do this,” they said.

SCOTUS6 Not Backing Down From Action

Margaret Meade also wrote, “The way to do fieldwork is never to come up for air until it is all over.” And the SCOTUS6 Action Group has kept a frenetic pace going to homes nearly every day of the week and planning their actions on the off days. Logistics take up a lot of time and money. Questions need to be answered and needs require immediate attention with every action because attendees and resources change daily. Questions like who is going to carpool who to where; who is going to bring signs; provide water, food, bullhorns, batteries, liaising with police, safety, etc., all have to dealt with. Often they are up to late hours filling in all the blanks of the questions members ask to make things work.

The Activists of SCOTUS6 Action Group have been going to the homes of Supreme Court Justices for 6 weeks now, creating inconvenience and noise ouside the Justices’ homes. It has readied them for today’s action.

Their efforts are being noticed online too and it has gotten allies to join them. Among them is Dragon, a skilled musician who helped create the band Resistance Company. He brings his amplifier, drums and guitar to the actions and has turned chants into musical treats the activists enjoy. It creates a buoyant mood and energizes the activists. One could easily mistake an action as a party-like atmosphere though the issue is very serious—Dragon has taken a heavy issue and difficult issue and created a scene of positive vibrations with his amazing musical abilities and creativity. It is not easy playing a drum with one’s foot while singing and playing a guitar but he does it.

See video of Dragon on twitter here.

Bodily Autonomy—A Ruling Would Affect More Than Cis Women

A large part of the fight for bodily autonomy and reproductive justice is led by cisgender women, that is, women whose gender matches their biological sex. Though this is incredibly vital, cis women are not the only population affected by the loss of safe reproductive care, said Thiel (they/them) who wanted to draw the distinction that the reproductive healthcare rights issue affects many identities.

“Many transgender people also have uteruses; this includes trans men, intersex people, and nonbinary people, just to name a few. These folks still deserve their basic human rights, and they definitely deserve to be part of the larger conversation around decisions regarding their bodies. We’ve been intentional about including this intersectionality in our signage and our messaging – that this is an LGBTQ+ issue as well as a women’s issue,” said Thiel.

“Further, the leaked draft which would remove abortion protections also cites the “right to privacy” as something these justices view as an impediment to their goals – which sets a dangerous precedent to further remove rights such as marriage choice and sexual safety and privacy, and further endangers the very existence of trans and gender non-conforming people. Bodily autonomy not only covers access to safe, legal, and affordable abortion care, but it also covers all aspects of gender expression and medical transition; trans folks are already targeted enough as it is and this ruling will serve as another avenue to endanger their lives.“

Thiel said that when the Activists show up to the marches at the justices’ homes, they hope to amplify the voices of the millions of people with uteruses whose lives will be devastated by this ruling; They hope to make it clear to the fundamentalists in power that the people they’re meant to represent do not stand behind them in this, and that we will continue to fight for these basic human rights.

“They’ve been trying to duck away from the dissent, so part of the point behind these non-violent organized actions is to bring local and national attention to their backwards views and to say that we are not being adequately represented and in fact, are being actively threatened, by these six justices who would rather see us hide in fear than hear us speak our minds.”

See @DCMediaGroup on twitter and tic toc and follow @RuthSent on tic toc for video shorts and livestream of this action.

The post Pro-Choice Activists Blockade Supreme Court appeared first on DCMediaGroup.

Abortion Rights Activists Build A Movement At Homes of Right Wing Supreme Court Justices

DC Media Group - Mon, 06/06/2022 - 01:50
The SCOTUS6 Action Group stirs up “Good Trouble” at all the homes of the conservative Justices. Photo: J. Zangas / DCMediaGroup

Washington DC—When Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s draft majority opinion in the abortion case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health was leaked to the press, the streets outside the Supreme Court turned into a hornet’s nest of reproductive rights protests, mimicking Black Lives Matter Plaza after the Minneapolis police slaying of George Floyd in June 2020. Abortion rights activists were shocked by Alito’s draft opinion because it would explicitly overturn Roe v. Wade and end 50 years of settled law. They swarmed the Supreme Court within hours of its release.

A few days later U.S. Marshals barricaded sidewalks outside the Court to keep pop-up abortion rights protesters at bay. So some of the activists did what no one expected—they took their protests directly to all the homes of the five right-wing Justices supporting Alito’s draft majority opinion. This had never been done before.

There were only a handful of activists at first and they didn’t have a plan to counter the expected ruling. And they couldn’t do it 250 feet from the Supreme Court. They only knew their rights and bodies were on the line and they had to do something—anything—to express their outrage. So they organized a chat and connected, adding more who joined them later. The logistics for sustained protests would be daunting but they wanted to at least try to see how long they could do it. They planned the days to visit each justice’s home, arranging carpooling and rides since some of the justices lived too far out for everyone to travel from DC.

Reaching the sleepy suburban neighborhoods, its manicured laws and million dollar homes takes a lot of time, uses up gas money, and gas prices are going up fast with limited funds. But they want to make noise. They want to vent their rage. They brought bullhorns and made signs. Then they laced up their shoes. They call themselves the SCOTUS6 Action Group.

The First Day — Roberts and Kavanaugh

The Saturday afternoon after the big Woman’s March for Reproductive Rights action when over 15,000 and as many as 25,000 passed the Supreme Court, the activists pass flyers to marchers asking them to join protests at the Supreme Court Justices’ homes later that evening. They hand out stacks of flyers—all they had. But only a few showed up.

The activists met at a nearby rendezvous point before going to two Justice’s homes in Chevy Chase, Maryland that live about a half mile apart. Chevy Chase is outside DC but not as accessible as other parts of DC. They coordinated a walk through the narrow streets to Justice Brett Kavanaugh with plans to continue on to Chief Justice John Robert’s home later. The homes there are older and priced in the millions but they’re close together with small front lawns close to the street.

They chose a support activist to drive his car behind them for protection from traffic as they walk along the sidewalk. As Joseph drives he plays music as they begin to walk calling out, “No justice for us, no peace for you!” Their chanting bounces off the quiet homes and some neighbors come to their windows. Scenes like this play out in DC all the time but never here. It is odd to see a protest in a sleepy suburb but the situation has left the activists no choice.

When they arrive at Brett Kavanaugh’s home two dozen police are waiting outside for them—about one uniformed police responder for every activist. At least three police agencies are present based on the different uniforms they wear.

They chant and walk slowly past Kavanaugh’s home, remaining far from the police and in the middle of the street as they pass. There are no signs that the Kavanaugh family is even there although the drapes of one of the upstairs windows are left open with a desk lamp turned on as if to make it seem like a welcoming home but the excessive police force dashes that pretense. The fully armed police forces are intimidating enough, spaced closely together in a line on the sidewalk, with another line on the lawn and a few more by the front door. It is an overkill of force but no one knows what is going to happen as they pass. And word in the media was spread that by going there the activists were unlawful by “intimidating” Federal judges. But would they be arrested?

The First Amendment Right of the Constitution plays in their favor. As long as they keep moving they could not technically be intimidating someone they are not threatening. And as long as there’s no one there to be intimidated and they do not tresspass onto property they shouldn’t be arrested for that either.

They walk by Brett Kavanaugh’s home. They chant “Keep your rosary off my ovaries!” and “No justice for us, no peace for you!” The police don’t move their places standing like statues and there are no arrests. The activists walk past half a block and turn around to pass by again and then again, skirting the boundaries of the law that supposedly says they can’t assemble there. They pass by Kavanaugh’s home eight times. The police are irritated. And the mosquitoes are biting the police. The activists begin to chant “F— Kavanaugh!” and it is profane but the irony is the Supreme Court ruled profanity is not illegal on public airwaves in the 1970s. They walk the half mile towards Chief Justice John Roberts’ home. Many motorists cheer and blow horns in support as they pass. The activists cheer back. It gives them a boost. The walk there takes 15 minutes and the young activists move at a fast pace leaving some of the older ones behind—someone calls for them to slow down. The day is hot and in the 90s and they’re all tired from earlier march in DC. Someone says to hydrate—drink a lot of water. They press on passing under old growth shade trees with some relief from the heat.

The same annoyed police wait for them outside, having driven the half mile to beat them to Robert’s home. The activists pass by and then circle back, repeatedly passing Roberts’ home. There’s no sign he and his family are there. All the windows have drapes pulled closed. This time they walk on the sidewalk close to the property but are careful stay off the grass. The police stand motionless as they pass except to swat back the assault from mosquitoes targeting them. There are no arrests.

Many of the activists involved in the neighborhood protests have a personal story about access to abortion healthcare and how it provided them support when they needed it most. Some say it saved them from serious injury or worse and prevented serious medical outcomes that would have affected them permanently.

Key among the organizers is Sadie, who is determined to show up to every action no matter what. Her personal experience showed her first hand the threat to healthcare posed by the coming ruling on Roe.

Sadie is energetic and positive and puts the other activists at ease with her gentle voice. She’s a natural fit for leadership and when she chants on the bullhorn it seems to come easy for her. She is easy to like and shows a tender heart towards the other activists. She has a caring nature for animals and shares photos of her cat with the others. She is also youthful and energetic, and it seems she hasn’t been hurt too much by the way of the world but appearnces can be deceptive and she has to tell her story too.

Years ago she had an incomplete miscarriage which would have caused her to go into septic pregnancy or even worse, have cost her life had it not been for access to clinical care abortion. She got life-saving abortion healthcare from an urgent care clinic in DC. She wants the same option of care preserved for others. She doesn’t want to see others die needlessly.

She also worries for her younger sibling who identifies as transgender. She knows trans healthcare will also be affected by any overturn of Roe v. Wade. She says that there is already a difficulty getting care for the trans community and the fact that the Supreme Court is already attacking choices and bodily autonomy it will make it even harder for the trans community.

“Our mothers and grandmothers didn’t always have these rights so they feel the threat much more than we understand it,” she says. “For us its hard to imagine what it’s going to look like post Roe and it’s terrifying to think that at some point I could not have any more choices and that I could be forced into having a child.”

Sadie also worries for the other rights that may be lost as Alito’s draft opinion opens the doors to remove protections for same-sex marriage, LGBTQ rights, and inter-racial marriage. These rights have the potential to be re-examined by this Court using the logic of Alito’s draft majority opinion and it is unsettling to her.

Nadine is another strong personality unafraid to go into the heat of an action. Her energy is bottomless but underneath she is also tender hearted. Though she is much older than most of the other activists she is able to keep up with their tempo and often goes to the Supreme Court after the actions at the homes. She had a large flag made out of fabric: “Don’t Tread on My Uterus” in a play on the Libertarian motto. But instead of a snake the logo is the feminine organ. The flag is catchy and she shows it off to the other activists who love its message. Many tourists stop to photograph it.

Nadine was enraged at the Minneapolis police for smothering the life out of George Floyd in 2020 and as a result she spent a lot of time at Black Lives Matter Plaza in downtown DC. She saw a lot of police actions taken against activists in the six months at BLM Plaza so the police don’t intimidate her very much.

She often leads on the bullhorn and loud voice and her Caribbean accent booms unapologetically. She too has her story of tragedy regarding women’s healthcare. Life’s experiences were very harsh in her early years. She tells how she never had a mother because her “incubator” as she puts it, abandoned her and her siblings when they were born. Her incubator did not want children but had no access to abortion healthcare and was forced to birth children she did not want. Her upbringing was one of poverty and unspeakable abuse. The abuse she describes can not be written here. At times she did not want to live. She tells part of her experiences publicly in front of the Supreme Court after an action in early May so people there will know what some of the consequences that await a post Roe society. She doesn’t tell the details of the abuse.

During one of the actions at Justice Amy Barrett’s home in late May a disturbed neighbor follows the activists in the cul-de-sac where Barrett resides. She calls them names and tells them to “stop harassing” her neighbor, Justice Barrett. She yells at them to find something worthwhile to do with their time. The encounter quickly turns ugly as she tells the Black activists to “speak english” she can understand. The activists respond to her bigotry by circling the cul-de-sac more tightly. The activists pull up a hit song from their playlist by Lily Allen and jack it up on the speaker. They know they lyrics well and sing them as they walk past the neighbor who is actually following them around. She bacomes more enraged as she realizes the lyics “F— You very much” are for her and too much for her to take. She circles the activists ranting and cursing then runs behind the U.S. Marshalls who are bemused by the spectacle. The incident energizes the activists and they circle in front of Amy Barrett’s house for nearly a half hour until she leaves.

The African-Americans in the group are both bothered and hurt by the bigotry though they don’t express it outright. They decide to return by themselves after the other activists have left to sing a spiritual song as they walk. The contentious neighbor is by then gone but they wanted to have the last words and they wanted those words to be spiritual, not the bigoted remarks.They sing and walk slowly. Their song serves to cleanse the air of its foul mood.

A pair of right-wing media journalists employed by the Daily Signal, the mouthpiece of the conservative Heritage Foundation witness the scene but leave out of their report the ugly behavior and bigoted comments from the neighbor. The journalists don’t attempt to interview any of the activists to learn their stories. And even if they had done so it is unlikely they would report it in earnest anyway. The Daily Signal is rated mediocre for objective reporting.

But if they did objectivly interview the activists they would find the reasons the activists are going into the neighborhoods has nothing to do with changing the minds of the right-wing Justices, or trying to intimidate them, for that cannot be done anyway. The activists’ going there has to do with exposing the Democrats for not acting to investigate the right-wing Justices who were put on the Court not for their accomplishments but by dark money from groups like the Federalist Society and influence of the Heritage Foundation. They are there to expose the weaknesses of the Democratic party for not taking decisive action to codify Roe when they had control of the Senate. This is lost on the Daily Signal journalists.

Activists supporting the actions from the group Ruth Sent Us further point out the structural power dynamics at the Supreme Court are designed to disempower dissent—from the architectural design of the building which dwarfs protests to make them seem insignificant, to the barricades now moved into the streets to keep them as far back as possible.

The right-wing Justices are also historically partisan and in fact, three Justices, Roberts, Kavanaugh, and Barrett all worked on the George W. Bush campaign in the run up to the 2000 Presidential election, an election not decided by the popular vote. Roberts’ ascension to the Court and insertion by President George W. Bush to the position of Chief Justice, a position for which he was less qualified than any other Justice then on the Court, was completed by a President unpopular with the majority in the 2000 election. Other Justices were all senior to him and typically should have been considered for the Chief Justice position.

Then there is the spate of permissive rulings on lethal military-grade guns by the conservative wing of the Court. By failing to regulating guns they are able to legally look away from the terrorization of the citizens by those guns. Ruth Sent Us activists say the Court blinds itself to the affects of terror it allows because it disempowers citizens in the same way the Taliban rules with terror over Afghanistan. By failing to rule for gun regulation they in effect delegate terror to young white men with easy access to guns to carry out the terror and control over its citizens. And by overturning Roe they distract attention from what they are doing.

Many of the activists in the group have strong leadership personalities and that would typically lead to conflict and infighting but not this group. They jell together well and they’d better get along too. The issues are weighing on them. They have few choices left available to them so creating trouble at the Justices’ homes is their tactic. The days are arduous and there seems to be little reward and it’s impossible to tell what affects they’re having.

One thing is certain and that is their social media handles are getting a lot of views. Their accounts on Twitter and Tic Toc are starting to gain more and more enumeration and that means people are watching them. The accounts are taken down a few times but they have not violated community standards and are restored quickly. It’s obvious to the activists they pose a threat to right wing parties so it emboldens them even more.

Rising To The Call For Social Justice

Howard Zinn wrote, “People should go where they are not supposed to go, say what they are not supposed to say, and stay when they are told to leave,” and that’s exactly what the abortion rights activists of SCOTUS6 Action Group are going to the homes to do. They go to Supreme Court Justices’ homes to say things that the people there don’t want to hear and they keep going back. Kavanaugh and Roberts on Wednesday, Barrett on Thursday, Thomas on Friday, Gorsuch on Saturday, and Alito on Monday.

A month later they have persisted in a relentless pace through summer heat, downpours and angry neighbors. They keep returning to the neighborhoods like a heard of elephants clamoring through sleepy villagages with their speakers cranked on blast from a wheeled-wagon. They carry their offensively “vulgar” signs and bold banners; they chant to the resistence pop-music; and they trumpet over their bullhorns. Their constant returns have stirred up “good trouble” in the neighborhoods of each of the five right-wing Justices who signed onto the Alito draft majority abortion opinion. Their persistence has irritated police and gotten many neighbors to come out to thank and support them for showing up. Some neighbors bring gift cards and food. Others wave and ask how they can donate or support the activists.

One neighbor who has had enough of the constant protests outside Amy Barrett’s home confronts the activists outside his home with a camera pointed in their faces. His underage daughter also follows him to confront the abortion activists while he records, and he curses at them, calling Sadie a “Filty Potty-Mouthed, F—ing Radical”. Sadie laughs it off and the other activists coin the term “Cully the Twatwaffle” and blast him on social media. They later make a sign in his honor reading “F—Theocracy and Cully the Twatwaffle,”hoping he’ll be there next week to see i when they return. Sadie writes his insult on a shirt she wears to mock him. She takes a selfie of it with Nadine.

Paradoxically the activists are energized by the pushback they get. They laugh it off and come up with names and slogans for the opposition neighbors. They have persisted for three weeks and will make it to a month soon and they show no signs of backing down.

June 3, Marks A Month of Home Protests

Despite heavy police guards outside the homes, protesters keep up their pressure and for a month and make it into June. They have visited one or more homes almost every day—and some homes much more often than once a day. They pass by the same home multiple times to come as close to the edge of picketing the homes without actually picketing. They’re getting more organized, their legs have strengthened, some have lost a little weight, and their shoes show wear.

The overturning of the rulings Roe v. Wade (1973), and Casey v. Planned Parenthood, the benchmark rulings as proposed in Justice Alito’s draft majority opinion of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health majority opinion will vanquish 50 years of what the right wing Justices themselves admitted during their confirmation hearings, was “settled law.”

The loss of these rights that granted an individual’s right to bodily autonomy and to decide whether or not to carry pregnancy to birth, is all but etched in stone. Justice Alito’s draft opinion of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health majority opinion, which was released to the media on May 2, may see to that if it is published in its draft form.

Nikki, an experienced activist who understands movement dynamics tells of the hypocrisy of this Court to regulate vaginas while allowing guns to multiply unabated and unregulated. While the home protests have gone on one month there have been several dozen mass-shootings killing and wounding hundreds of innocent people going about their daily routines. The gun cozy Court is ignoring mass-shootings which have become the predominant health crisis across the nation, several of the activists say.

Understanding Movement Dynamics

Movement building is by its nature contentious and disruptive, impolite and vulgar, and often results in arrests as ordinary people push against social inequalities to demonstrate their discontent. To be civil and polite, unvulgar, and not to go against law that led to societal inequality in the first place would otherwise not change anything, according to Nadine. The question becomes—how much force is necessary to effect changes for social justice.

Frederick Douglas answered that question in 1857.

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.”

Nikki is another leader among the group and has a strong voice with experience from past political activities she quit after years’ of involvement and becoming frustrated. The political two-party system was designed to frustrate and not accede to change. She left and now helps run a group that took interest in the reproductive healthcare fight and wanted to go to the homes because it was a natural fit for her. Keeping up seems to wear her down physically but she pulls more energy from reserves and keeps going with the younger activists.

Nikki laments—the big out-of-town organizers like the Woman’s March and NARAL suck energy out of the reproductive rights movement by not posing a significant challenge to the Democratic power structure which has failed to codify Roe and is directly responsible for the coming overturn of Roe v. Wade. And because of this lack of follow-through the march was barely a blip in the media. “People come out to march for a couple of hours and these organizations do no follow through,” she said. “Not these milk-toast namby pamby one-off occasional things. Where is the “Okay, you hundred people from Colorado came out. Here’s each other’s contact information. Go do some shit and here are some ideas; here’s the other states and what they are doing. Here’s what we are doing and how to plug in.”

She is infuriated by the lack follow through and it is as if The Woman’s March and NARAL are where the woman’s movement goes to die. “And then people feel even more helpless because the organizations that are supposed to be doing shit, aren’t so why even bother. The only thing I’ve gotten from them is one fundraiser email.”

After an action at Amy Barrett’s home one day in May, the activists agree to meet afterwards at a sports bar to share tater-tots and beer. It’s a party to celebrate their friendships as much as anything; they blow off steam as they unwind from the stress of organizing, police, keeping up with hundreds of chat messages, planning, and the unruly neighbors in Barrett’s suburb.

Nikki deep dives into the power dynamics of movements and gives a take on why the Left struggles for social justice and it is an issue that many often miss. She has a whole thought thing on how there are two different kinds of “liberalism” and they are often at odds with one another in each person and this makes organizing difficult in activist circles.

As she talks her energy rises and her clear voice is easy to hear above all the other discussions in the sports bar. Her voice carries and has clout. She shares wisdom with the newer activists. They learn from her.

Guns v. Uteruses and Vaginas

Michelle joined the activists with experience from the healthcare industry. She had little experience in actions on the street but she fits in like smooth piece of the puzzle. She is artistic with signs and designs the sign for “Cully the twatwaffle.” Everyone gets a kick out of her antics. Shes is not as vocal as the others.

The Court is clearly not pro-life she says. “They would do something to help curtail gun violence in this country if they were,” she says. “Thomas dissented on a ruling which allowed for gun restrictions for those with a history of domestic violence, arguing a single conviction shouldn’t be enough. If Thomas had his way, he would allow open carry without license/permit of any firearm anywhere in the US.

She says that in the eyes of SCOTUS, an individual’s Second Amendment right supersedes the rights of women to bodily autonomy, the rights of our children to attend school safely, and the rights of all our nation’s citizens to live their lives free from the threat of these mass shootings.

She is angry and depressed about the mass shootings as everyone else in the SCOTUS6 Action Group is. They support themselves by talking to each other about the grieving nation and the overwhelming nature of the terror society is feeling.

Nikki repeats often “if it doesn’t bother someone then they are the problem.” It is apparent that guns are not a problem the Supreme Court is concerned enough to fix, she says. There is another mass-shooting in Philadelphia on June 5; a day after two others in other states. It has been just over a week since 19 children and two teachers were killed in a classroom in Uvalde, Texas. There were a record of 59 mass shootings in May 2022 across the U.S., according to a published report. Hundreds were killed and wounded, many families are forever being destroyed by gun violence across the U.S.

Several of the activists talk among themselves about how hypocritical the Court is by rulings to revoke reproductive rights while allowing gun laws to terrorize the nation. Its as if the Taliban were here wrecking terror but the Court and Elected can’t act in the role of the Taliban directly so they allow 18 year old white men to terrorize for them. It results in disempowerment and deflates the will to resist. They must overcome and keep going.

The Women, The Men, They, and Them

There are many men supporting the women leading the marchs to the homes. They are almost never on the bullhorn. But they show up to the actions with a supporting attitude. They join the chants with the others even when the chanting refers to feminine roles.

Joe Little is one of them. He often helps shuttle the activists to the direct actions and acts like a marshal to help them stay together so no one gets lost. He believes that even though men don’t experience reproductive healthcare issues personally, the issue extends equally to them from a societal standpoint because men have a stake in the outcome of a child bearing partner.

As a DC native and healthcare professional, he understands that revoking Roe would do incalculable harm to men in DC as well as their partners. He tells how he has been upset since the night Alito’s draft majority opinion was released on May 2.. He can’t get his mind around this Court’s vendetta against choice when there is choice in so many other aspects of American life.

“As an African American I am also aware of the rates of maternal mortality in African American Women. As a Black cisgender man I feel it’s important to stand for them as they stood for us,” he said.

As a Candidate for At Large City Council, he also understands that DC does not have a voice in the Federal system of government because it does not have elected Representatives or Senators. This needs to change he believes.

“DC is unable to write their own story when it comes to representation and Roe v. Wade. That is a disservice to the Women who reside in Washington DC, in Puerto Rico and in all Territories who lack representation in our government. We had no say in our representatives and they shouldn’t have a say in our affairs,” he said

Rusty is a late comer to the home demonstrations but loves the camaraderie and cooperative attitude of SCOTUS6 Action Group. He comes after work to support where he can. He is quickly admired by the others and takes a quiet role. With his size and stature the aggressiveness from unruly neighbors is somewhat neutralized and stay away. Rusty believes the nation is going backwards by decades. “All the conservative Justices are activists who lied under oath about settled law and Roe,” he said.

On a late Sunday afternoon Nadine protests outside the Supreme Court by herself. While she dances to music a man speeds by on a scooter wearing a MAGA hat. They exchange words. Gender has nothing to do with the rights of the oppressed and it is just a distraction from the issues she says. She chalks slogans on the street. Among them is “Equal justice under law, my ass.”

On the Western Pediment of the white marble facade the words “Equal Justice Under Law” are etched in block letters under its apex. Nadine tells me to look at the figure at the top. “See? Its a woman,” she says. It is actually the mythological figure ‘Liberty’ enthroned in the image of a woman’s body. To her right and left are the figures Order and Authority, which face her.

If Roe v. Wade is overturned and it is almost certain it will be, American women will no longer have the liberty of bodily autonomy and the words ‘equal justice under law’ will be relegated to slogan staus. We’ve seen such slogans before.

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Press Freedom Advocates Say No To Julian Assange Extradition

DC Media Group - Tue, 05/17/2022 - 23:59
John Kiriakou said that it was illegal to classify an illegal action as was done with the ‘Collateral Murder’ video. Photo: John Zangas/DCMediaGroup

Washington DC— Press rights advocates joined voices at the Department of Justice on Tuesday afternoon to condemn efforts to extradite Wikileaks journalist Julian Assange to the United States on charges of violating the U.S. Espionage Act. Activists speaking at the Department of Justice included well-known whistleblower and former CIA Intelligence Officer, John Kiriakou; Max Blumenthal, Editor-in-Chief and writer for The Grayzone; and Randy Credico, a civil rights activist, comedian, radio host, and the former director of the William Moses Kunstler Fund for Racial Justice. Many others also spoke, including Dr. Marsha Coleman-Abedayo, founder of No Fear Coalition and Esther Iverem, an independent media journalist.

The action was organized by DCActionForAssange and held in parallel with another action being held in the U.K. to urge Priti Patel, the Home Office Secretary to block Assange’s extradition. Home Secretary Priti Patel is expected to rule on Assange’s extradition May 18th. If she rules in favor of US extradition, Assange’s last, but best hope for freedom will be appealing to the European Court of Human Rights.

Assange has been held in Belmarsh Prison, London, since April 2019 and although he faces no charges in the U.K., he faces up to 175 years imprisonment if extradited to and convicted in the U.S.

The advocates condemned the treatment of Assange, calling those responsible for his incarceration hypocritical and barbaric parties in their roles to extradite him. Advocates also cast the process as illegal from the perspective of international law and a form of torture from a human rights perspective. They also called the entire affair an abuse of press-freedoms which are protected under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Max Blumenthal said, “We need to expect Julian Assange in our community here,” in the near future, meaning his extradition was destined to happen at any time. He called on those who loved press-freedoms to champion his cause, follow his case, and criticized those in media remaining silent as complicit.

Blumenthal also revealed that The Grayzone would continue to publish a trove of email which contained information damning to Home Secretary Priti Patel, UK Home Secretary, of a gross conflict of interest in oversight of Julian Assange’s extradition to the U.S.

John Kiriakou also castigated the mainstream media for its silence in covering the Assange case and ignoring the implications Assange’s extradition would have on journalistic liberties. Kiriakou said, “I’ve heard weak-kneed journalists saying ‘I’m not writing about this because Julian Assange isn’t a journalist he’s an activist.‘ It doesn’t make a difference what he is. What he did was he revealed waste, fraud, illegalities, or threats to the public health or to the public safety. Thats the legal definition of a whistleblower.”

Kiriakou also said that it was illegal to classify a criminal act and that just because the CIA says something is classified does not make it so. “This is a political case more than anything else and we have to make sure that the American people understand that it’s a political case,” he said.

Kiriakou urged Assange’s supporters to show up and to be present for Assange if and when he was brought before the Eastern District Court in Arlington, Virginia. It was in this same court that dozens of U.S. Attorneys twice failed to compel Chelsea Manning to testify against Julian Assange. As a result of her refusal to give testimony against Assange she was held in contempt of Court and further imprisoned another 18 months before the Judge was forced to free her. She was not convicted for refusing to testify against Assange.

Manning was previously convicted of violating the Espionage Act during a 2013 General Court-Martial at Fort Meade, for her role in releasing 750,000 classified documents to Wikileaks. She was sentenced to 35 years imprisonment and served from 2010 to 2017 until President Barack Obama commuted her sentence. These documents included a videotape that became known as the ‘Collateral Murder’ video which depicts two Reuters journalists and several Iraqi civilians, including children, being gunned down by a U.S. military Apache helicopter during the Iraq War. Public knowledge of this incident would not have come to light had the video not been released.

John Kiriakou referred, in part, to the ‘Collateral Murder’ video when he said that the classification of illegal actions was not sanctioned under national security law.

Esther Iverem, an independent journalist, and radio host of ‘On The Ground: Voices of Resistance From tge Nation’s Capital’ Photo: J. Zangas/DCMG

 

Esther Iverem, an independent media journalist, and radio host of ‘On the Ground: Voices of Resistance From the Nation’s Capital’, told there was a connection  between the absence of press coverage about oppression of black and brown populations around the world and the absence of coverage of Assange, because mainstream media avoided the stories highlighting the underlying issues.

“There’s been a war on black and brown populations around the world whose deaths don’t even make the news,” she said. “When they talk about the [mass-murder] shooter in Buffalo [New York] they don’t want to talk about how he was wearing some of the same Nazi insignia on his clothing that the soldiers in Ukraine are wearing, that we are funding and supporting. If we had journalists courageous enough who aren’t afraid to speak out we would hear more of this news.”

Iverem was highly critical of those in the corporate press and admonished their silence on the issues behind the Assange story. “You’re not doing any favors to the American people by keeping truth from them. When we get to the point where our jobs and livelihoods are more important than telling the truth then I wonder why we came into journalism in the first place,” she said.

Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, Founder of The No Fear Coalition, and a whistleblower during the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush Administrations, spoke from her own experiences in describing Assange’s incarceration. “Anyone who believes in press freedom and opposes imperialism must be a staunch Assange supporter because Wikileaks revealed U.S. crimes committed around the world,” she said.

Coleman-Adebayo exposed management for its corruption, retaliation, and discrimination against Federal workers at the Environmental Protection Agency during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Her experience and pushback against such policies ushered through Congress the No Fear Act, a law signed into effect in 2003, that has protected thousands of Federal workers and their families from exposing personnel abuses in government workplaces.

Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, Founder of The No Fear Coalition, and a whistleblower during the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush Administrations, spoke from her own experiences in describing Assange’s incarceration. Photo: J.Zangas/DCMG

Coleman-Adebayo drew a parallel between her experiences as a whistleblower and that of Assange. “I just had to be here today because I know the cost of being a whistleblower—the cost to your life, to your family, to your community. I think we all need to identify in a personal way with being a whistleblower,” she said.

Randy Credico said it was a very good sign that so many new activists and supporters had taken interest in Julian Assange’s case. “What they’re doing is a coup—forget about January 6–its like the final blow pulling out its most important pillar—the First Amendment.”

Chip Gibbons, Director of Policy for Defending Rights & Dissent, said that since Wikileaks revealed the truth about U.S. foreign policy, the U.S. intelligence agencies have waged an “all-out vendetta on everyone involved.” He pointed out that Chelsea Manning served more time than anyone else ever has for giving information to news media.

Gibbons also characterized the FBI and CIA as rogue organizations in their involvement with the Assange case. “The FBI illegally entered the nation of Iceland under false pretenses and seized the twitter account of a sitting member of Parliament and the CIA planned to assassinate Assange,” he said. He said that these are some of the reasons to be concerned about the prosecution of Assange and the that these policies had far reaching implications to press freedoms.

Voices From The Past

There is a lengthy history of whistleblower resistance in American history. Notable among those is Daniel Ellsberg, an employee of Rand Corporation who was working at the Pentagon when he released information to the New York Times about the Vietnam War during the Nixon Administration. These unauthorized releases became known as the Pentagon Papers and consisted of a trove of documents exposing U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, the bombing of Hanoi, and the creep of the War into the neighboring countries of Laos and Cambodia.

In an interview with DCMediaGroup in 2014, Ellsberg said that Manning’s willingness to release information to Wikileaks resulted in “truth that authorities did not want [let] out, about torture, assassinations in Afghanistan, corruption…”

Video interview: Daniel Ellsberg Interview one

Video interview: Daniel Ellsberg Interview two

Ellsberg’s release of the Pentagon Papers caused a  knee-jerk reaction from intelligence services, and threw a damper on the Nixon Administration’s continuation of the war there as public perception cooled towards U.S. forces being there. The Manning document release had similar affects on public perception to the Iraq War, both at home and abroad.

Another voice from the past is that of Ethan McCord, the Army Soldier depicted in the Collateral Murder video which was revealed in the Manning release. McCord was a Specialist assigned to a combat unit in Baghdad when Apache helicopters opened fire on Reuters Journalists and Iraqi civilians nearby. McCord was sent to the scene of the carnage with his squad and described in this interview the aftermath of what he found and his reaction to help dave the lives of seriously wounded Iraqi children.

McChord soon afterwards left military service.

Video interview: Ethan McChord

Randy Credico, a civil rights activist and radio host, said the prosecution of Assange was tantamount to pulling out the first pillar of democracy-the First Amendment. He traveled from NYC with his companion, Sophia, to speak at the event.

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Reproductive Rights Advocates March To Supreme Court In DC

DC Media Group - Sat, 05/14/2022 - 12:43
Reproductive rights supporters marched by the thousands on Saturday demanding the Supreme Court keep Roe v. Wade in place. Photo: John Zangas/ DCMediaGroup

Washington DC—Thousands rallied at the Washington Monument for reproductive rights in the nation’s capital as the U.S. Supreme Court was poised to overturn its 50-year old benchmark Roe v. Wade ruling. At the Washington Monument speakers told stories of what healthcare looked like before the pivotal ruling legalizing abortion in 1973. They said that overturning abortion rights would push the country back to a time when many died or were no longer able to give birth because of botched procedures and the fact that safe procedures were then not legal or available.

They marched in waves to the U.S. Capitol and past the Supreme Court, chanting and carrying the signs they made. Some had plans to later continue their protests at the suburban homes of the six conservative justices who signed the draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade.

Sister marches were held in cities across the U.S. as the grassroots swell of resistence grew across the nation. All indications of increasing police and political pressure to restrict access around the U.S. Capitol and U.S. Supreme Court buildings have only served to make protests grow as realization sinks in that healthcare liberties are at risk, and with them the threat to other pivotal Supreme Court decisions such as Civil rights, same sex marriage, interracial marriage, and contraceptive rights.

Thousands followed the lead banner to the Supreme Court in a show of support for maintaining the benchmark rulings of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Photo: John Zangas/DCMediaGroup

Demonstrations have been held daily outside the Supreme Court as organizers mapped out plans to circumvent the coming ruling by planning free services and safe-haven city zones in States for those seeking healthcare options outside the States that have already passed restricive healthcare laws.

There were rows of barricades and law enforcement at the U.S. Capitol and the Supreme Court in anticipation of the large march. As the marchers proceeded up Constitution Avenue, they chanted “Bans off our bodies!” and “Our bodies, our choice!” and when they reached the Supreme Court, they chanted “We will not go back!” and “We will not obey!”

Mayor Muriel Bowser vowed to make Washington DC a safe-haven for anyone seeking abortions. There are over 700,000 residents living in the District proper who do not have a voice in the U.S. Legislative because they do not have elected Representatives and Senators. Since DC does not have statehood, the DC Mayor serves in a role as if she were a State Governor but with oversight from the U.S. Congress so any such declaration of safe-haven she makes could be rescinded by a conservative U.S. Legislature in tandem with a Supreme Court overturn of Roe v. Wade.

Protesters Walk Past Homes of Supreme Court Justices

Although Republican Legislators frowned on protests outside the suburban homes of Supreme Court Justices, protesters have walked past the homes of the six conservative Justices since the draft opinion was leaked on May 2. Virginia and Maryland State Governors Glenn Youngkin and Larry Hogan have asked the Department of Justice to step in to prevent protests from going to Jurists’ homes but the White House sided with protesters saying the First Amendment allows for peaceful assembly there. And that didn’t stop Saturday’s protesters from going to the homes of all six conservative Supreme  Court Justices. Organizers coordinated a series of break-away protests and visited all six justices who signed on Justice Alito’s draft opinion.  There have been cordons of Federal and State police outside the homes to monitor the protests.

One group of about 20  protesters showed up at Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home in Chevy Chase, Maryland and then walked about a mile to Chief Justice John Robert’s home in an adjacent neighborhood. They were met by lines of police outside both homes, wearing different uniforms and from different agencies. Typically Federal police agencies are tasked to provide security for high-ranking government officials, but there were also State police and DC police on the scene—which numbered about 20 officers in uniform—more than one officer for every protester that walked by.

The protesters were both vocal and persistent, walking past Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home eight times. There were no signs anyone was present inside. Local residents looked from their windows and some waved in approval while many blew horns in support as they passed. One nearby resident came out to ask the protesters how to connect with the activists so she could organize others in the neighborhood to join the protesters.

Other groups visited the homes of Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch and Barrett. Police in Virginia restricted access the Justice Thomas’s home but it only served to make protesters inconvenience neighborhood traffic by impeding it.

Voices of Women Fighting To Keep Reproductive Rights (Video Below)

Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood b. Casey have not been overturned—yet. Overwhelmingly women want it to stay that way. The Supreme Court is expected to rule in early June after this term has ended. These are some of the voices of the supporters who marched Saturday.

Rosemary (No Last Name Given) in her 60s

”Leave women’s bodies alone. Let us make our own decisions-please. I can’t believe we’re going back in our history. In 1973 it was very, very scary. If you were accidentally pregnant you had no place to go.”

Julia Scotton, in her 50s

”Stop this Court from taking us back to the 1950s. They have no right to control women’s bodies. A fetus is not a baby. The sad thing about this is they only care about the fetus. Once the baby is born they don’t provide healthcare, food, shelter, or anything else. So is this really about pro-life? No. Its about keeping women down and its about keeping the poor poorer. Because who can’t afford to go out of State or out of Country for an abortion? Poor people. The rich women will still be able to have abortions at will. This is nothing about pro-life.”

Katherine Schultz, 20s, Mother of one daughter

”My daughter should have human rights. Withholding abortion is a form of torture. I hope that when she grows up she has the right to abortion whenever she wants and for whatever reason.”

Women young and old stand against rescinding their healthcare liberties. Photo: J. Zangas/DCMG

Kate Bigley, High School Student

“We have to do something about this. This fight has already happened. Its terrible we have to do it again. It infuriates me. It terrorizes me. I can’t believe I’m growing up in a Country where basic human rights are something we have to fight so bitterly for. But that doesn’t take away my determination to do that fight again. The reasoning of [Alito’s draft opinion] can be applied to turning back contraceptives, the rights to get contraceptives, and the rights to gay marriage. Its the logic that’s used that os dangerous and the fact that a body of people who are trusted to be objective to carrying out the Constitution are applying it in ways that roll back fundamental rights.”

 

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Congresswoman Cori Bush Joins Abortion Rights Protests Outside SCOTUS

DC Media Group - Tue, 05/10/2022 - 23:59

Washington DC—A modest gathering of abortion rights protesters got an unexpected signal boost from U.S. Representative Cori Bush (D-MO) when she joined a protest organized by ShutDownDC outside the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday night. The Congresswoman took over on the bullhorn for a few minutes thanking the activists for their dedication in the fight for women’s healthcare and giving them encouragement to continue their activism.

But it was the double wall of barricades that set the backdrop behind Congresswoman Bush of a Supreme Court that appeared almost under siege ever since last Monday when an unauthorized pre-released opinion authored by Justice Alito spilled into the media. It was the pre-release of his opinion that ignited a surge of angry demonstrations—and the rebirth of a new movement for woman’s healthcare rights—not seen there in many decades.

“We’re not new to this fight,” she said as forced-birth trolls tried to out-shout her on their own bullhorns nearby. “We understand that [these] folks want to control our bodies because they can’t control our minds. But you know what? When abortion rights are under attack, what do we do? Stand up and fight back!” Bush rallied with the pro-choice activists, leading the activists in a series of chants to shut down the trolls nearby who we’re beginning to anger the activists. The activists volleyed nearby by bullhorns with the trolls until police formed a line to separate the groups.

“This is our movement,” she continued. “This isn’t about babies this is about control and that’s one thing they won’t get from us. If it was about babies then these folks wouldn’t have a problem with medicare. There would be no problem with affordable housing. We’d have clean water and clean air. This isn’t about babies this is about control,” she repeated.

Pro-abortion rights activists marched from the U.S. Supreme Court to the U.S. Capitol to demand Congress pass the Women’s Health Protection Act. Photo: John Zangas/DCMediaGroup

The Senate is set to vote on the “Woman’s Health Protection Act” on Wednesday. Passage of this bill would create a Federal mandate which supersedes States’ restrictive laws over women’s rights to abortion. This bill has little chance of gaining the support it needs to pass because of the filibuster, Senator Joe Manchin’s pro-abortion stand, and Senator Kyristen Sinema’s pro-filibuster stand.

The activists then marched to the U.S. Capitol which is across the street from the U.S. Supreme Court. There they met more barricades and police but navigated onto the grass across from the North Wing of the Capitol.

Another speaker decried the expected U.S. Supreme Court overturn of Roe v. Wade because of the loss of autonomy over their bodies and the life and death consequences forced-birth laws would have for many experiencing unwanted or at-risk pregnancies.

The activists were decidedly not going back to a pre-1973 United States when abortions were only accessible through back-room pseodo-doctors resulting in death and infertility for many.

“I’d rather attend a protest than a funeral,” said a 19-year old speaker who said her grandmother encouraged her to go to the protest because she didn’t want to see her granddaughter live in a time she did when abortions were illegal and many suffered permanently from botched procedures. “Abortions are going to continue nevertheless and women are going to die,” she said.

Women and supporters are demanding Roe v. Wade not be overturned and vow to continue the fight for healthcare rights no matter what the Supreme Court rules. Photo: John Zangas/DCMG

 

 

The action comes on the heals of visits by activists and supporters to the suburban homes of several of the Supreme Court Justices who signed in support of the Alito opinion. Police presence has been heavy because of the swelling numbers of participants in the abortion rights movement. Crowd-control barricades with 10-foot metal fencing behind them have rarely been erected around the U.S. Supreme Court pending a high-profile ruling.

 

 

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Women’s Rights Groups Swarm SCOTUS As Unofficial Roe Ruling Surfaces

DC Media Group - Tue, 05/03/2022 - 17:06
Thousands descended on the Supreme Court Tuesday following an unauthorized pre-release of an opinion set to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade law granting women certain rights to choose birth options. Photo: John Zangas/DCMG

Washington DC—On Monday night an unprecedented leak of a pre-decisional opinion showed the conservative-heavy Supreme Court is poised to overturn the historic Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey rulings which protected a woman’s liberty to decide whether or not to have an abortion. The premature release of the draft opinion immediately triggered an onslaught of reactions outside the white marbled Supreme Court building as thousands rallied in opposition to the impending official ruling. There was, however, little they could do politically in the near term to change the expected outcome. What was not yet known was how this decision would play out in the results of the midterm November elections later this year.

The high Court’s ruling—although not yet officially released—is certain to further polarize viewpoints while galvanizing women’s healthcare rights advocates to provide work-around solutions for those seeking abortions. It will also spur renunciation of right-wing discourse over women’s rights and erode conservative support at the mid-term poles this November when the decision’s impacts will have become more clear.

A vast majority of Americans—over 70%—support a woman’s right to decide their own healthcare options and plan their own families, according to a Pew Research poll conducted this year.

Emotions Run High Outside Supreme Court

Outside the Supreme Court police cordoned off the burgeoning crowd as speakers decried the unprecedented early text release which was confirmed authentic by Chief Justice Roberts earlier in the day.

Speakers included Senator Elizabeth Warren and House Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who both excoriated the contents of Justice Alito’s text. Several other speakers urged supporters to donate to local collectives providing services for those needing healthcare but not able to pay for it.

Later a dozen forced-birth activists showed up to heckle the crowd but were out-shouted and surrounded by hundreds of women’s healthcare rights advocates. The crowd confronted the hecklers who refused to leave although they had an exit on the Supreme Court grounds. A clash ensued and police arrested one of the hecklers before escorting the rest of them away. It was not clear what charges he faced.

The backlash against overturning the William E. Burger Court ruling on Roe v. Wade in 1973 has been building for decades as attempt after attempt by conservatives to overturn it had failed. But attempts to whittle away at and overturn the 50-year old Roe v. Wade law gained traction over the last four years by the confirmation the three consecutive controversial right-wing jurists. They were pushed through the confirmation process by very slim margins in a deeply split partisan Congress following acrimonious hearings. These confirmations occurred during the Presidency of Donald Trump, an administration that lost the 2016 election popular vote by 2.7 million votes; and a president with the historically lowest approval rating of any President ever.

The text of an embargoed ruling was released to journalists at Politico and has embarrassed the Supreme Court as Chief Justice Roberts vowed an investigation. Photo: John Zangas/DCMG

Next came the inevitable political maneuvering to vet the conservative Jurists. First was the forced delay of President Barrack Obama’s first nomination of Merrick Garland to the Court by then Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who premised that a SCOTUS nomination 11-months out from an election should be delayed until after the election was done. McConnell then rejected his own premise at the end the Trump Administration and weeks from the Inauguration, by rushing the confirmation hearings of Amy Barrett. As a result, the Court has lost the luster as an unbiased mitigator of constitutional law. Some of those calling its legitimacy into question include key Democratic leadership.

All of the last three conservative Jurists appointed— Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, testified in their opinion Row V. Wade was “settled law” during confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The impending decision to overturn the “settled law” was met by Democratic leadership with bitter criticism that these three Jurists lied to Congress during their confirmation hearings.

But the Court faces other potential sources of backlash as key elements of Alito’s justification to overturn the Roe and Casey rulings can easily be tailored to remove LGBTQ and Marriage liberties the Court has already enshrined.

Historic Roe v. Wade Ruling Was Not Absolute

When the William E. Burger Court ruled in 1973 to overturn the Texas District Court ruling in Jane Roe v. Henry Wade, the Court pointed out that the right to abortion was ‘not absolute’ and had to be weighed against the government’s interest in protecting a woman’s health and protecting prenatal life. This wording left the door slightly open to disturb the present Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade.

The 14th Amendment provided a fundamental right to privacy and the Court held that the Texas law violated this right. The 1973 William Burger Court held:

“The due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides a fundamental “right to privacy” that protects a pregnant woman’s liberty to choose whether to have an abortion. This right is not absolute, and must be balanced against the government’s interests in protecting women’s health and protecting prenatal life. The Texas law making it a crime to procure an abortion violated this right.”

On Tuesday, President Joe Biden vowed to prepare options in response on Monday to the pre-release of the Court’s decision. But any option to affect Federal law will have to pass through Congress and so far that body has refused to take down its own rule, the filibuster.

Biden’s press release reads,

I believe that a woman’s right to choose is fundamental, Roe has been the law of the land for almost fifty years, and basic fairness and the stability of our law demand that it not be overturned.

Second, shortly after the enactment of Texas law SB 8 and other laws restricting women’s reproductive rights, I directed my Gender Policy Council and White House Counsel’s Office to prepare options for an Administration response to the continued attack on abortion and reproductive rights, under a variety of possible outcomes in the cases pending before the Supreme Court. We will be ready when any ruling is issued.“

On Tuesday, Chief Justice John Roberts confirmed the pre-decisional opinion was in fact an authentic text and promised to initiate a probe to determine the parties responsible for its release to Politico. But rights groups were quick to counter that the real issue is the overturn of Roe v. Wade.

Investigations into releases of government information are usually handled by the FBI.

Contents of The Pre-decisional Opinion

An cursory review of the contents of the pre-decisional opinion has shown that Justice Alito’s majority opinion is a disturbing read at best. He referred to Roe as “not deeply rooted” in American history, opening the door for the Court to also throw out recent rulings in rights for LGBTQ access to Federal , same-sex marriage, interracial marriage, and civil rights in general. Alito also quoted Sir Matthew Hale, an English jurist from the early 1600s, in support of his opinion. Hale supported marital rape and had several women executed for witchcraft.

Video short of woman’s healthcare rights advocates:

We will update this story as more developments are learned.

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Cash Bail 101

Grassroots DC - Mon, 05/02/2022 - 09:42

Systematic Effects on Low-Income Neighborhoods

Starmanie Jackson, a single mother of two, was seized during a traffic stop. While in custody, police found a three-year-old warrant prompting a speedy arrest. Within minutes of her hearing, bail was placed at $700, despite being unable to afford it and having no legal representation. As a result, Ms. Jackson lost her employment since she was unable to inform her job of the situation. She was jailed for a week because she could not afford the bail. Ms. Jackson is just one example of an individual who lost their job, custody of their kids, and housing because she could not afford bail.

It is quite easy to be apprehended despite what most people may believe. This is because police do not have to be “convinced” that you are guilty. If there is sufficient evidence for the police, regardless of the situation, you can be arrested and convicted. 

What is cash bail?

Cash bail is a price placed on civilians to ensure their release from jail. The accused will be detained until payment is made.  This collateral is an agreement that the arrested person will return to court. A judge typically places the bail after the initial arrest. There are seven types of bonds that each have a monetary value. Surety, property, citation release, recognizance release, federal, immigration, and cash bonds are all forms of bail. 

Cash bail should be abolished because it is unconstitutional. Bond and insurance companies are businesses and are not a part of the legal system. These companies violate equal protection rights under the 14th amendment and the act of prohibition under bond also violates the 8th amendment.

Bond companies operate to make a profit and not to help guarantee people’s freedom. While this system works for those with access to money, the multibillion-dollar bail industry does not provide adequate resources for defendants who cannot afford bail. There is a significant disparity in the price that bail can be set at, ranging from under $2,000 to around $500,000.

Additionally, there are incentives to set higher bails to ensure a profit.  However, higher bail amounts do not increase public safety. 

Many judges set bail without considering if the defendant can pay for it. As a result, one in six people in jail has yet to be proven guilty.  Many people lose their jobs, custody of their kids, and housing because they wait for trials for nonviolent offenses and cannot afford to pay their way out.  There are a lot of factors that can cause an arrest, and a warrant is the most common factor that causes a lot of people to be sentenced. Studies show that higher bail bonds are a primary driver for jail population growth. About 600,000 people step into a jail cell every year, and people are put in jail 10.6 million times a year.  One in four people arrested will return to prison within the same year. 

The bail system was created in 1789, the same year the Bill of Rights was implemented. Since then, this billion-dollar industry has charged more than 36% in additional fees to clients for minor offenses. 

On top of all of this, not all people released on bond are analyzed to see if they are a danger to society under our current system.  In many instances, people who have a violent past have continuously been allowed back into society. If the Founding Fathers put this system in place for the greater good of the community, why do the people who are not a threat suffer the most? And, why are most of these people Black and brown? 

Unfortunately, bail amounts have also doubled over the past 20 years.  This means that many people sit in jail while awaiting their trial. However, pretrial detention is also a significant factor in rearrest. Yet, being released on pre-trial did not increase the defendants’ likelihood of committing crimes. In Mississippi, bail agents can charge 10 percent on a bond valued at 100. They also can tax $50 on each bond. All of these extra fees are profits for the bail agents.  Once a bond is paid, the amount is typically in the custody of the court or the sheriff. The money the courts make through bonds is then distributed through the city and county. This money is spent on general government expenditures. Instead of relying on the bonds system, a wealth tax can replace or even provide more money. Rather than forcing poor and working-class people to pay for government programs through bail, placing a higher tax on businesses and the wealthy could help provide funding.

Many people argue that bail is necessary for public safety. In  New York, for example, after disbanding its bail system, many arrested people began to trend online. With their charges plastered on social media, it started a conversation regarding public safety and raised the question: Is cash bail good for public safety? Regardless of your financial status, the requirements regarding the bail amount are determined by numerous factors. There becomes an overlap of due process principles and equal protection. The process of waiting for a trial is very lengthy. Your court date can continuously be pushed back, and there is no way for you to organize your affairs.  Regardless of the extent of the crime, as long as you can post bail, you are free to go. This structural linchpin divides people based on wealth and not safety. 

There is no cash bail in the District, and a risk assessment algorithm determines a person’s threat to public safety. The algorithm gives judges a score that determines how likely the accused will be to return to court. Unless the defendant is dangerous or committed a severe felony, about 85% of defendants are released without bond. This assessment determined 99% of released defendants administered back into society have not been a danger. The success comes from local and state bail statutes outlining detention eligibility, restricting cash bail usage, and providing supervision options that match risk levels. 

Cash bail is a flawed system that does not protect the people. It is a system constructed around monetary gain.

Regardless of the severity of the crime, you can simply buy your way out. The conversation then changes from safety to wealth. The Bill of Rights targets incarceration as a means to protect criminal defendants. However, the cash bail system hinders the public by accumulating taxpayer money.

Furthermore, a person’s release based on income is an infringement upon the 14th amendment. Bail is not a significant factor in aiding crime. Environmental factors, poverty, revenue, and other disadvantages lead to criminalization. Rather than investing in pretrial detention, increased investment in violence prevention or community services can have a more positive effect. The focus should be made on prevention.   

For more information or resources to end cash bail practices check out some of these organizations.  DMV Bailout ​​has a locally focused inicative called End Money Bail you can find more information here.  Harriet’s Wildest Dreams has several programs and you can find more here.  Maryland 4 Justice Reform, here, has the Court Objection Project which is designed to educate people on the pretrial system while also changing the reliance on bail. These organizations provide ideas for alternatives to bail along with means to better assist defendants.

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May Day March 2022 Supports Workers Rights In U.S.

DC Media Group - Sun, 05/01/2022 - 12:49

 

Washington DC—One won’t see mainstream media come out to report the annual May Day March in Washington DC at Malcom X Park and the numbers of marchers won’t swell by the tens of thousands as they do at stores on black Friday or at stadiums during the playoffs. But maybe May Day should be much more popular given that workers rights affect just about everyone struggling to make it in the economy with earnings for many that don’t even cover the cost of living. Mainstream media avoids coverage of workers carrying International Workers of the World (IWW) posters, red flags and calling for workers’ rights with higher wages because the wealthy own the major media outlets. why advertise the power of workers organizing? But the Organizing dynamics of union representation in Amazon max-prison style warehouses and Starbucks coffee shop sweat shop counters has caught mainstream media attention lately. Wealthy media owners know that workers hold the real power in determining their influence in the workplace and their economic outcomes—when they are organized and speak with one voice.

Despite virtually no media coverage, organizers from the IWW, the Socialist Party, the Communist Party, and immigration rights groups loyally show up each year to raise their voices and community awareness of the struggles workers, women, and immigrants face for paying the price of the long arm at capitalism’s stick held by wealthy CEOs and political classes.

The May Day March is a celebration of the power of the working class despite a lack of resources in both time and money and a lack of the lobbying power and access enjoyed by the wealthy in legislative affairs.

Diana, a member of the Communist Party, spoke about their reasons why supporting worker’s rights is important, saying that May Day is a day workers celebrate their collective power through organizing with unions. “Workers’ rights are always going to be a struggle because of the nature of the power of the capitalist ruling class has over us, they said. Diana, who did not give their last name pointed out that many of the privileges workers enjoy—the 5-day work week, 8-hour work day, and a 2-day time of time off per week were the result of unions and sacrifices workers make to fight for those rights.

But they also pointed out that immigrants, marginalized persons, and latinos working in janitorial and restaurant positions had the least power in the workforce.

“We are the backbone of this country and deserve to be respected and not exploited, they said.

Many Latino groups joined the May Day march in Washington DC to focus attention on the workers who form the backbone of the economy. Photo: John Zangas/DCMG

Diana offered that could be accomplished by organizing unions by “standing up and taking revolutionary action for all [workers’] rights, not just for the rights of a few.”

Union Organizers Gain High-Profile Victories

With small a budget and improbable odds, organizers were able to vote the unionize an Amazon fulfillment warehouse in the Staten Island Borough, NYC on April 1, 2022, the first ever unionization of an Amazon facility. The main organizer, Christian Smalls had been fired from Amazon for staging a walk-out in 2020 over a lack of worker protections during the Covid pandemic.

This was a stunning victory for workers of the behemoth company run by Jeff Bezos, a billionaire who reaped over 47 billion in profits during the pandemic while many workers lost jobs. Amazon workers were forced to work in high pressure conditions and odd-hour shifts management created despite the spread of Covid through their ranks and with little support or safeguard for them them from managers. This is one of the main reasons why Smalls organized the successful unionization vote on April 1, 2022. His story is an impressive example of how the will and tenacity of organizing can overcome the deep-pocket push-back and lobbying power of the largest companies in the U.S.

The efforts of Smalls and others like him have resulted in historic gains for workers during a time of upheaval in the workforce due to the pandemic and inflationary pressures. It has also emboldened other Amazon facilities to begin organizing for union representation.

It is also in keeping with the struggle of the workers during the Chicago Haymarket riots 135 years ago fighting for the 8-hour work week and other rights.

Starbucks employees have also been successful, voting to unionize coffee shops in several locations. A popular Starbucks location in Baltimore at the corner of Charles and Preston Streets unanimously voted to unionize just last week. This accomplishment occurred despite intense lobbying from Starbucks management against workers’ unionizing efforts.

During Pandemic Billionaires Gained While Workers Lost 

Billionaires raked in nearly 6 trillion during the pandemic over the last 2 years while many women lost jobs staying at home to care for families and their overall wealth of workers diminished by 0.3 %, jobs and savings evaporated, a million died in the U.S., and 12 million died globally. Yet the global economy remained tilted so that the profits of the U.S. big five (Amazon, Facebook, Walmart, Big Oil, Blackrock), afforded billionaires breathtaking gains.

The facts are really quite ugly when it comes to the viability of the U.S. working class with inflation taking more than its share of a shark-like bite at the little wage gains workers have eked out over the last six months. Just to fill up the tank costs over $50—and in case one is wondering, most of those who attended the 2022 May Day March in Washington DC walked, rode their bike, or took metro to get to it.

The world’s 2,400 billionaires raked in an increase of $4 trillion to their wealth during the first year of the pandemic alone, increasing their fortunes by 54%, according to a published report and that was in the first year of the pandemic.

A poster created by artist and illustrator Donny Dots was displayed at the White House on May Day to draw attention to the lop-sided wealth of 26 billionaires. Photo: John Zangas/DCMediaGroup

During the lengthy pandemic the wealthiest 1% increased their wealth by $6.5 trillion in 2021 to 32.3 % while the wealth owned by the bottom 90% of Americans dropped by 0.3 %, (30.2% from 30.5% of total wealth) according to government statistics. The wealthiest Americans (the “1 %” owned 32.3 % of total wealth. the next bracket of wealth holders “the 9 %” have the balance of wealth.

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Activists Support Ukraine with Light Projections on Russian Embassy

DC Media Group - Thu, 03/17/2022 - 00:36

Washington DC— Activists showed support for Ukrainian resistence fighters by projecting a light show on the Russian Embassy on Wednesday night. The lights were to demonstrate support for Ukrainian resistence fighters, despite the activists’ stand against war. They were also designed to embarrass the few Russian diplomats left in the U.S.

Activists used a high-power projector with a metal plate copied from a button design depicting a Ukrainian woman holding flowers while facing an onslaught of a certain violent end. The Ukrainian resistence has stood against overwhelming odds the last 20 days and captivated worldwide attention, while inspiring the support of nearly every nation.

Activists projected this image of a Ukrainian freedom fighter at the Russian Embassy. Image: Heidi Phelps ©️ use by artist’s permission

Bill Moyer, Executive Director of Backbone Campaign, said that the projection onto the Russian Embassy was “to escalate peace and show solidarity with the people of Ukraine.” He also called for a ceasefire and withdrawal of all Russian forces. “We stand with the Ukrainian people who, like all people of the world, hunger only for peace and dignity,” he said.

Phil Atito, the light projectionist said he stood with solidarity for Ukrainian freedom fighters, and worried parties were moving towards nuclear war. He faulted NATO for its decades’ long ambitions that contributed to a war-footing situation. “We are not condoning Russia in any way,” he said, ”but the part of the puzzle that isn’t being talked about is NATO escalating the situation for the last [few decades].”

The projected image of a woman holding a sunflower was created by artist Heidi Phelps as a free non-commercial download to give the public a chance to show support for the Ukrainian resistence. The poster was inspired by Ukrainian vyshyvanka traditional folk dress, and Ukraine’s national flower, the sunflower, according to Phelps’ website.

Phelps said she created the image to stand with the Ukrainian people and stand against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “I made this poster available for free download on my website to make it easier for people to print and use as protest posters to get out on the streets and make themselves heard. By projecting this image, I’ll be creating a series of photos to use in a digital campaign to help raise funds for military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, and provide a list of resources where people all over the world can provide concrete help now,” she said.

The light projection was accompanied by an image of a Ukrainian flag behind it.

Activists renamed the entrance to the Russian Embassy ‘Zelinsky Way’ in honor of the president leading the ongoing resistence in Ukraine.

Moyer said that said that “no country’s greatness is elevated by violence and bullying. Neither the US role in NATO nor interference in post-Soviet Russia is an excuse for Putin’s immoral, delusional and dictatorial violence on the people of Ukraine and his endangerment of the entire world. We refuse to allow Putin to bait the world into further devastating violence or any escalation that might unleash unthinkable levels of nuclear annihilation.”

Moyers applauded the people of Russia protesting in order to halt the war being perpetrated in their name. He urged them to continue their courageous and necessary efforts to stop the war on Ukraine through general strikes or any other nonviolent means.

“There are so many threats to our children’s future and the planet. Those actual threats demand transnational solidarity and collaboration. Russia’s shameful war robs us all of the opportunity to address these challenges together.”

Other light images projected included ‘Stop the War Machine’ and ‘War Fixes Nothing.’ All images were projected over a color image of a blue and yellow Ukrainian flag.

A video of the action follows below.

 

 

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Ukrainian-Americans Denounce Russian Invasion

DC Media Group - Sun, 03/06/2022 - 16:58

    Students from Hood College joined Ukrainian-Americans to show their support for the beleaguered nation. Photo: J. Zangas/DCMG

 

Washington, DC—Hundreds of Ukrainian-Americans rallied at the White House Sunday on the 10th day of a brutal Russian invasion of their homeland and urged NATO and the Biden Administration to close the sky above the imperiled nation with direct air support. Many carried signs and wore painted Ukrainian flags on their faces while others were draped in blue and yellow Ukrainian flags and wore flowers in their hair. Speakers warned of much worse days to come for Ukraine and Europe if the invading military forces of Russian President Vladimir Putin are not decisively stopped.

Many told of family back home hiding in subways and bunkers and unable to evacuate as bombs, missile strikes, and special forces control most of the throughways leading from the cities.

Andrii [surname redacted], an international student from Hood College who was joined by several other students, said he was concerned members his family were trapped in [city redacted] in a bunker without a safe passage and dwindling supplies of food and water and that power was cut. “My father is on the front lines fighting and my mom and sister are in a bunker,” he said. He also said he felt terrible not only because of their situation but because the war was not something they wanted. He also said it was necessary to fight not just for Ukraine’s sake but also for the survival of Europe.

He reasoned that “Putin was just going to go into Poland after he took Ukraine” so placating Russia by standing back while Ukraine was destroyed was making an wider regional war more likely.

Andrew Futiy, President of the Ukraine Congress Committee of America had a message for the citizens of his country. “Dear brothers and sisters of Ukraine: Let there be no doubt we are with you, we are fighting for you, and we’re doing everything to make sure that Ukraine remains free and independent, and that you are alive.”

The Ukrainian Congress Committee of America is calling for more military equipment to be sent to Ukrainian fighters with deliveries of military fighters; continuing the crippling sanctions which have shut Russian banks from access to SWIFT, an international monetary transaction network; and supports closing the air space over Ukraine by creating a no-fly zone.

But Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday that any direct military action taken by NATO countries to create a no-fly zone would be taken as an act of war and would result in “catastrophic consequences” for the rest of the world,” according to a published report.

Putin further warned the West on Sunday that sanctions were tantamount to a declaration of war.

Andrii [surname redacted] argued that Vladimir Putin was already a significant threat and serious enough for Europe and NATO to engage Putin now and before he attacked Poland. He considered the situation serious enough that if NATO waits any longer it will give Russian forces a stronger hand in the coming weeks.

Video of Ukrainian-American action at the White House on Sunday:

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DC Area Peace Activists Discuss Ukraine Tensions

DC Media Group - Sat, 02/19/2022 - 21:24

Washington DC—Local Peace Activists spoke about the growing crisis in East Europe, characterized the crisis as avoidable, and recommended solutions to avoid conflict. As tensions between world powers reached a climax not seen since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, and diplomatic efforts between stakeholders seemed all but doomed to fail, the activists drew on years of experience and understanding of global issues to draw their recommendations. Despite ominous developments they still held out hope that war could be averted.

Their recommendations came as President Joe Biden spoke to the nation on Friday afternoon, saying that diplomacy was still an option. His optimism however, was eclipsed by media reports of shelling in Eastern Ukraine from rebel-held territory, pipeline explosions, a car bomb explosion in Donesk, and the evacuations of most Western Nation embassies from Kiev. Another report flashed that Ukraine separatists had evacuated Ukrainians to Russia from rebel held territory, further complicating efforts to unwind regional tensions.

Superpowers are Responsible for Arms Reduction

David Swanson, Executive Director, World Beyond War, said that both Russia and the United States have played roles in the crisis.

“I think we’re dealing with a situation in which all the momentum is toward escalation. You just can’t line up two armies in front of each other, swear to each one that the other is about to attack them, commit each one to counter-attacking, throw in nationalistic and ethnic hatred, and then hope for peace. Both sides are guilty of this, not because they are equal in all ways, but simply because they are guilty of this. The main way in which they are not equal is that this is happening on the border of Russia, whereas the U.S. instigator is thousands of miles away. Russia’s demands for months have been perfectly reasonable and exactly what the U.S. would demand if the roles were reversed. Evacuating people to safety is a good thing, though unfortunate and not a complete solution.”

Swanson pointed out that the U.S. had already derived benefits from the situation by arms sales and the establishment additional military bases in Eastern Europe. He also offered possible solutions to deescalation.

“A complete solution would be to begin a reverse arms-race, a deescalation. But the reason Biden and gang don’t much care about their predictions of imminent invasions making them look dumb is the other purposes of such a crisis that are rarely talked about. The U.S. has gotten out of this already: new bases in Slovakia, billions in tank sales to Poland, billions more in other weapons to Ukraine and Eastern Europe, and along with all of that, more U.S. influence in a Europe kept at odds with Russia—plus a proposal to Congress for record military spending without the slightest murmer of diaspproval from anywhere. A success in moving toward peace would require undoing all of those successes for the military industrial congressional “intelligence” media academic thinktank complex. But if we can make it through 50 days of an invasion being imminent, we can make it through 100.“

Sustain Peace By Supporting International Monitoring Groups Like the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe

Michael Beer, Director of Nonviolence International, an Internationally recognized organization dedicated to building a global culture of nonviolence, said, “We need all governments to beat the drums of peace.” Beers further elaborated that the U.S. could do more to support peace monitoring support by strengthening the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine.

“While the US is concerned about the safety of its OSCE personnel it is at moments such as these when we most need peace monitors. It is critically important to maintain the personnel, who are currently involved in monitoring the situation along the line of contact and to take every possible measure to expand their capacity. Strengthening the Peace Monitoring Mission in Ukraine is something everyone can agree on.”

Michael Beer recently published his first book, Non-Violent Tactics in the 21st Century, which is a free update of Gene Sharp’s seminal text training the world in the value of nonviolent tactics, and is available online here.

Reduce Conflict Scenarios by Disbanding NATO and Cutting Military Expendatures

Medea Benjamin, co-founder and peace activist at CODEPINK! Women For Peace, said in a video that the roots of the current situation were tied up in continuing support for expanding NATO, while at home both parties in the Congress continued to green-light massive military spending. This along with silence among the voices of progressives has led to the present situation in Ukraine.

“Parties In the House and Senate fast-tracked bills calling for massive [amounts] of weapons to be sent to Ukraine. It just shows us once again that we have two war parties. We’ve seen this before and we’re seeing it now. The progressives in the meantime, are much more focused on domestic issues and you don’t hear them in Congress coming out and screaming ‘what the heck is going on’ and ‘what we need now is deescalation, diplomacy, and not to antagonize Russia’.”

Benjamin also said that progressives needed to discuss disbanding NATO and pointed to recent historic facts to explain why Ukraine’s intent to joint NATO led to Russia’s reaction.

“At the time of the breakup of the Soviet Union there were guarantees given to then President Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not move eastward and instead NATO move easteard and now NATO is on Russia’s border. So instead of progressives in Congress saying now is the time to talk about NATO there is all this talk about shoring up NATO.”

Benjamin discussed the limited role peace groups have in projecting a peace narrative because mainstream media was a much longer reach. “Peace groups are small and don’t have the ability to mobilize. The [mainstream] media consistently puts out the message ‘is Biden strong enough’ and ‘should he put sanctions on Russia now or later’, so we don’t have the mainstream media that can help us. We don’t have enough voices in the Democratic party so we have to work overtime to get the message out that it is insane what the Biden Administration id doing with the support of most of the congress.”

Benjamin also pointed out that most Americans do not want war with Russia, especially a war with a nuclear armed power, over the sovereignty of a nation next to Russia that most Americans cannot find on a map.

Commitments made During the Glasgow Climate Conference Demand Solutions for Deescalation

Margaret Flowers, Director of Popular Resistance, said that Western nations made a pact with the planet to preserve the environment for future generations but the signors of the COP26 agreements were sidestepping their commitments by posturing and moving towards conflict.

“The U.S. military is the greatest user of fossil fuel as a single institution and it is also the greatest polluter on the planet. There is a growing awareness in the climate justice and anti-war movements that these things are closely interconnected and we can’t deal with the climate crisis if we don’t address the U.S. military and the wars it wages.”

She also said that the world is changing geopolitically and the U.S. needed to accept that it is no longer the dominant world power it once was.

Flowers said that in terms of solutions we already know what they are and they include working within the international structures we already have in a good-faith way by respecting the framework of the Minsk Protocols, agreements signed by the key regional governments in 2014/15. She stated that the U.S. must stop funding and arming those in the Ukraine government it helped put into power by coup in 2014 and it must work earnestly with the U.N. Security Council to stabilize East Europe.

“The U.S. has been propagating misinformation to the U.N. Security Council but must use that body in the way it was intended to resolve the conflict that is going on in a peaceful and lawful manner.”

Flowers also felt the situation was a very dangerous period because it involved two nuclear powers with many at home distracted by other tangential crisis: the Covid pandemic and economic pressures which have created poverty and hunger.

“This could easily escalate into a world war, a devastating nuclear war with nuclear fallout and nuclear winter. This is really a moment people need to be aware and mobilizing,” said Flowers.

American Empire, Exceptionalism, and the Flames of Global Conflict

Lou Wolf, Co-founder and Director of Covert Action Magazine, said that American empire was devoted to the doctrine of American exceptionalism and was intent on expanding the 900 to 1000 military bases it already had in order to secure its access to natural resources.

“The daily bellicose drumbeat of war is blasting out of the White House and bespeaks the real agenda to encircle Russia and openly use NATO as a battering ram.”

Wolf said that Presidents Biden and Putin needed “to stop trying to out-macho each other with inflammatory and war-like statements.” He also criticized the Biden Administration for delivering planeload after planeload of weapons that further undermined the situation in Ukraine.

Wolf said it would be difficult to avoid conflict at this point with the accusations which were not designed to be diplomatic. “The elephant in the room is the distinct possibility of a nuclear exchange and if that level of conflict were reached, it would extinguish the human race,” said Wolf.

Video of a peace rally held at the White House in opposition to war in Ukraine at the White House last week:

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Peace Groups Say No to War Between U.S. and Russia over Ukraine

DC Media Group - Sun, 02/06/2022 - 00:12
Peace Groups rallied at the White House on Saturday February 5 over escalating tensions between the US and Russia in Eastern Europe. Photo: J. Zangas/DCMG

Washington DC—Groups opposed to war rallied outside the White House to condemn the Administration’s role in a military buildup in Europe and warned war between superpowers would come at great cost. Speakers questioned why the U.S. is involved in yet another conflict less than a year after the end of the Afghanistan War — its most recent and the longest war it ever fought — while many families can not afford adequate housing, food and healthcare, and communities buckle under crumbling infrastructure.

Speakers from anti-war groups Answer Coalition, CODEPINK Women Against War, Caudia Jones School for Political Education, World Without War, and others hammered at the social and economic implications another war would bring. They called out the excessive funding for defense as a misguided policy that inevitably leads to war with results serving only those who profit from it.

Arianna “Afeni” Evans, an anti-war activist who rose to prominence during the Black Lives Matter protests in DC June 2020, said that war funding by “the richest country in the Americas” ignored the plight of working families and left children without food and healthcare, and communities with broken infrastructure. “There are a thousand bridges that are structurally unsound in the United States of America but for some reason we can find money to build another fighter jet,” she said. “Fifteen million people got kicked off health insurance at the beginning of the pandemic and most of those people didn’t get their health insurance back because they can’t afford COBRA. Their priorities are ‘lets go to war with Russia’ because war makes us money.”

Afemi, a Peace Activist said that war comes at the cost of families and communities. Photo: J. Zangas/DCMG

 

 

Evans also admonished peace groups for the same strategy of resistance against the arms industry. “It is not enough to continue chanting and screaming. We cannot just continue to protest. The only way they’re going to listen to us is when we withhold our labor, withhold our taxes and actually challenge the structural power of this country.”

Rafiki Morris, of the Black Alliance for Peace and a long time Peace Activist, said the costs of war would take the lives of families that could least afford it. “When the war starts they’re gonna send these little black boys out here on the streets that are joining the Army,” he said.

Morris spoke about his past involvement in the anti-war movement and told those present to take the messages home with them and speak to their families about them and ask them to join the movement. “When the war starts, thats who they’re going to send. Thats who is going to die.”

David Swanson, Director of World Without War, an anti-war activist from Charlottesville, said the evil forces that need resisting are not in Moscow. “They’re over there working at Lockheed-Martin, and Boing, and Northrup-Grumman, and Fox News, CNN, and down the street at the Washington Post. They’re toiling away in the U.S. Government dealing weapons around the globe and insisting on more and more bases and missiles because it’s better for business.”

Swanson stated we need a department of defense against the war-mongers and “in its absence we’ve got to build it ourselves and do it ourselves.”

On Friday night, President Joe Biden committed to send 3000 additional troops to Eastern Europe to augment the troops already being mobilized earlier in the week. Meanwhile video footage reportedly from Belize, showed dozens of Russian Special Forces tank units moving towards the border of Ukraine.

 

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Reverend William Barber Leads Moral Monday Action at U.S. Capitol

DC Media Group - Mon, 12/13/2021 - 23:57
Reverend William Barber demanded Senate action on voting rights and economic bills now pending. Photo: John Zangas

 

Washington DC—Community organizers and faith leaders from 33 States converged on the U.S. Capitol to demand passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (H.R. 4) and the Build Back Better Bill (H.R. 5376), now pending Senate approval. They chastised West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin for his role in delaying passage of the legislation which would provide protection for voting rights and financial relief for millions of impoverished Americans.

Reverend William Barber called out Senator Joe Manchin by name for playing a “trick” on his constituents by delaying a vote in the Senate on the voting rights bill. Barber said that by delaying the vote until March it would give State legislatures time to gerrymander districts and allow passage of more restrictive voting laws. He acknowledged the voting rights act had some good provisions but for the first time in the nation’s history, it would mandate voter identification at the poles.

“We are here today to say to the Senate and the White House that they must pass voting rights protection, not in January, not in March 2022, They’ve had the entire year to do it and they haven’t gotten it done and its time to get it done now,” said Barbara Arnwine, President of Transformative Justice Coalition, and an internationally recognized human and civil rights leader.

Arnwine has been heavily involved in supporting voting rights nation wide for over 20 years and was a founder of Election Protection, the nation’s largest nonpartisan voter protection coalition, according to her website. Election Protection is a coalition of 100s of groups lauched in 2004 to assist historically disenfranchised persons to exercise the fundamental right to vote.

Hundreds of faith leaders and community organizers from 33 states marched in the Moral Monday action and dozens were arrested blocking Pennsylvania Avenue. Photo: John Zangas

Other community organizers were more blunt in their criticism of Senators responsible for delaying voting rights legislation, especially Joe Manchin. Catherine Jozwik, a community organizer from West Virginia, said Joe Manchin had a history of putting corporate interests before his constituents.

“I represent the thousands of West Virginians who are tired of being ignored and poisoned by Manchin and his corporate overlords. You should stand with the ordinary people of West Virginia and the country,” she said. Jozwik described how Senator Manchin “did nothing [while] Rockwool, a Danish company wanted to export its polution from Denark to the U.S. by building a coal and fracked gas fueled factory directly across the street from a Title I elementary school.”

Jozwik told how the residents of Jefferson County fought the Rockwool project while Senator Manchin ignored their requests to intervene. They visited his office to meet with him but he did not show up.

Maryanne Smith, an organizer from Oklahoma, told how the Build Back Better Bill would help many impoverished children get healthcare they need. “Even though Oklahoma citizens voted to expand medicare in 2020, our politicians have yet to abide by the people. This affects thousands of children who need and deserve this legislation,” she said.

Other speakers told of homelessness and deteriorating economic conditions in their communities due to stagnant wages. They also urged passage of the legislation as a moral imperative.

As the speakers finished the Moral Monday Marchers slowly walked while singing the same songs sung during the civil rights marches of the 1950s and 1960s. Voting rights and economic challenges communities faced then are the same as those faced today.

As faith leaders and marchers blocked Pennsylvania Avenue, U.S. Capitol Police moved in to arrest them. Reverend Barber asked the marchers to pray for the moral conscience of the police leadership for arresting those fighting for the good and better conditions in their communities while having allowed the January 6, 2021 insurrectionists to rampage through the U.S. Capitol.

On January 6, 2021, there was not one arrest on a day that resulted in five dead and scores of police injured and maimed. On December 13, this day, several dozen faith leaders and community activists were arrested on misdemeanor charges of obstruction.

 

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Police Reform: What went wrong? Part 3

Grassroots DC - Mon, 11/08/2021 - 09:07

Part 3: Body Worn Cameras and the Police Chief

Among the Emergency Amendment (covered more in part 2 of this article series) was also language on one particular reform that has often been talked about these past few years throughout the country: Body Worn Cameras (BWC’s). The act requires that police release BWC video within five business days at the request of the Chairperson of the Council or if it involves serious use of force and/or an officer-involved death. This should make it easier for BWC videos to be made public and hopefully also hold police accountable. The logic often applied to Body Worn Cameras when people call for this reform is that the threat of having misconduct recorded will prevent police from carrying out said misconduct. Unfortunately, this has not been the case. For years we have had videos of police brutality, yet the problem has not gotten better. 

MPD has one of the largest BWC programs in the country, with over 3,200 cameras for their 3,800 members, yet they also know that the program alone does nothing. On their website, they highlight the randomized controlled trial with The Lab @ DC that they ran to find the effectiveness of BWCs. But they fail to show clearly what that study found, seemingly because they concluded that BWCs had no noticeable effect. 

“Our experiment suggests that we should recalibrate our expectations of BWCs. Law enforcement agencies (particularly in contexts similar to Washington, DC) that are considering adopting BWCs should not expect dramatic reductions in use of force or complaints, or other large-scale shifts in police behavior, solely from the deployment of this technology.”

BWC Report from The Lab @ DC

Quoted directly, from a study that MPD ran itself, where 6 out of 8 people running it worked directly for MPD. They also based their results on police officers’ reports of incidents written after the fact (under the assumption that they were telling the truth). Despite this, they had no choice but to report that BWCs are not enough to affect significant change. The BWC program at MPD has received nothing but more support and more funding. Instead of investing in programs proven to work like ONSE, they are throwing money at things that have proven to do nothing.

One more major change that happened last year was the appointment of a new chief of police, Robert Contee III. Some believe that Contee’s appointment will lead to the reforms that MPD needs. But is he committed to these changes? On the one hand, Contee talks about the need for change, on the other hand, he talks about how much great change has already happened within MPD over the past decade. Contee is also a big fan of a community policing model, which unfortunately means more police interactions in communities that are already over-policed. Both Contee and Mayor Bowser would like to expand the police force (even though, MPD is one of the biggest police departments in the country). One of his first measures as chief was to increase the police presence in “six historically crime-ridden neighborhoods” in an effort to deter crime. Although this is not something unique or new from Contee, it is not the policy change that many have been saying he represents. 

All of these increases in policing are being justified by talking about high rates of crime. Contee claims that more officers are needed because there simply are not enough to effectively respond to all of the calls being made. Nationwide focus on gun violence and homicide is used to pressure people into giving police more power, even though evidence shows that police do not solve these problems. Nevertheless, the MPD budget has been steadily increasing. Many police supporters will point to the budget cut in 2020, from $591,313,726 to $559,526,918, as well as the supposedly rising crime rates. However, this one cut does not represent the overall trend in the rising MPD budget. The proposed 2021 operating budget of $578,069,493, is less than the budget in 2019, is still $8 million more than the budget in 2018 at $570,087,037. Looking at MPD’s crime data, we see that the overall crime rates in DC have been falling. The homicide rate this year is higher, going from 99 by July 14th in 2020, to 101 by the same date in 2021. But that represents only a 2% increase while the overall number of crimes, both violent and property, are down by 2%. All this is with the large budget cut. This is also after a huge decrease in crime from 2019 to 2020, where the total amount of crime decreased by 19%. Despite the trend of decreased crime each year, homicides have increased, from 116 in 2017 to 160 in 2018, and then from 166 in 2019 to 198 in 2020. Rhetoric that tries to tie a lack of funding to increased homicide rates is wrong – rates have been going up well before any cuts were made in MPD’s budget. Despite what Contee wants people to believe, more policing does not solve the issue of gun violence and homicide. 

While the reforms in both the NEAR Act and the Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Emergency Amendment Act are steps in the right direction. These have been undermined through a lack of funding or police just ignoring them. What we ultimately need is to decenter the police. The recommendations made by the Police Reform Commission speak about centering communities rather than the police to prevent crimes from happening in the first place. The first step towards a safer DC is to push back on Contee’s calls for an increased police force by making sure that the Council follows the recommendations made by the PRC. If we have learned anything from 2020, it is that public pressure campaigns do work. We need to hold the DC Council and Mayor Bowser accountable because it is not the police who will keep us safe. We keep us safe.

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Police Reforms: What went wrong?

Grassroots DC - Mon, 10/25/2021 - 12:29

Part 2: Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Emergency Amendment Act of 2020

Following the murder of George Floyd and the mass protests that he inspired, DC passed the Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Emergency Amendment Act of 2020. This act prohibits the use of neck restraints like chokeholds. It increases access to body-worn camera videos, limits consent searches, restricts MPD’s purchasing and use of military weapons, as well as limits the use of “internationally banned chemical weapons (tear gas), riot gear, and less-lethal weapons (rubber bullets),” and created the Police Reform Commission. Limiting consent searches, restricting military weapons, and prohibiting neck restraints are changes that immediately impact how police officers carry out their jobs. Decreasing the use of tear gas, riot gear, and rubber bullets is a step to protect people’s first amendment right to freedom of assembly. This particular provision has a loophole, where it states that these aggressive items can be used if there is “an immediate risk to officers of significant bodily injury.” Considering that cops use this excuse all the time, this provision might not be as helpful as it seems. Nevertheless, these are changes we should ensure are carried out. 

One of the most interesting parts of the Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Emergency Amendment Act was the creation of the Police Reform Commission (PRC). The Commission was composed of 20 representatives, none of whom were affiliated with MPD in any way, who would examine the policing practices in DC and recommend reforms. Formed in July of 2020, they would only have until the end of the year to report to Mayor Bowser. Although they did not have much time, the Police Reform Commission published a lengthy report with many great recommendations to change how police operate within DC. They recommended replacing police with behavioral healthcare professionals as “the default first responders to individuals in crises.” Calling on police only in dangerous crises where weapons are involved, and even then, the response is in conjunction with the behavioral health professional. The PRC also recommended strengthening social safety nets. Including increasing funding for the Department Of Behavioral Health, addressing the housing needs of all DC’s residents, and decriminalizing low-level offenses like panhandling, among other recommendations. Rather than criminalizing certain behaviors, the PRC calls on DC “to expand and create community-based services and other resources that meet people’s underlying needs.” Many of their recommendations spring from what they called “Reducing and Realigning.” Meaning that the size of the MPD should be reduced, and that money that usually goes to policing should go to building community programs that help people instead. As they pointed out in their report, 

“While many cities have significantly reduced funding for police, MPD funding has increased by 12 percent since 2015. MPD’s budget dwarfs the District’s budgets for affordable housing, employment services, physical and behavioral health (and is less than human services).”

Police Reform Commission Report

Reduction and realignment are in their proposals through removing police from schools and taking special measures to protect young people from over-policing and criminalization. Funding the ONSE, holding police accountable, and building a community-centered MPD with a harm reduction approach to policing.  This report is very long and goes much further into detail than this article. There is a move away from policing communities and towards building communities. Policing has never worked to bring about material improvements for working-class people. Community-based approaches like the ONSE are proven to work. The Police Reform Commission is an important step in this direction and their recommendations should be put into effect. 

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Police Reforms: What went wrong?

Grassroots DC - Mon, 10/11/2021 - 13:53

Part 1: The NEAR Act: Has it been implemented?

By Grassroots DC

For years now, police reform has been a mainstay in public discourse. Ever since the creation of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2013, we have been discussing how we should reform our justice system. Outside of mainstream outlets, calls for changing the system of policing and mass incarceration have been around for even longer. In the almost 10 years since the inception of BLM, what reforms have been happening here in DC? And have those reforms been effective in, if not ending, reducing police brutality?

One of the biggest reforms passed in DC was the Neighborhood Engagement Achieves Results (NEAR) Act in 2016. Among the reforms proposed in this act are more officer training, improved stop and frisk/use of force data collection, and the creation of the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (ONSE).  ONSE was created to provide support for “individuals determined to be at high risk of participating in, or being victim of, violent criminal activity.” The ONSE can provide these individuals with programming, access to mental and physical health care, and even stipends.  

In addition to the creation of the ONSE, the NEAR Act also mandates that MPD provides more training on various things, including community policing. While the language on community policing in the NEAR act is vague, it manifests as more interactions between police and community members. The reforms in the NEAR Act are just first steps towards holding police accountable and even moving towards proactive crime prevention measures. If you were to check this site, it would say that everything in the NEAR Act has been implemented with a big green check mark as if to say job well done. However, if we look closer into some of the individual titles, we see a different picture. After the NEAR Act was enacted, the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) did not release the data that the act mandated. It was only after the local chapter of the ACLU sued MPD that they finally released some data for 2019 in February of 2020, almost four years after the NEAR Act was implemented. 

The numbers do not tell a good story for MPD. MPD seems to have purposely made the report long and hard to understand, using a generous amount of space explaining why they feel that stops are necessary and the risk that cops are exposed to on the job. One great example is the page titled “Why isn’t stop data comparable to Census data?”  Accompanying these paragraphs of text trying to justify MPD’s actions are misleading graphs that show data in a way that is hard to compare and even understand sometimes. Earlier in the report, MPD claims that 60% of stops were made on Black people, without giving the context needed to evaluate that number.  After wading through the colorfully confusing graphs and nonsensical talking points, the real number is printed one time in tiny font at 72%.

This is just from the report of 2019. The report that was put out in 2020 is a lot less detailed. While the report in 2019 was 24 pages long, 2020’s report was only 2. And where the 2019 report tried to hide the data, 2020’s report just doesn’t have the data at all. They kept the language about why stops are important, then took out any data on who was being stopped. According to MPD a more comprehensive report was due to be released April 2021, but it has yet to be released.  

The data on stops was also accompanied by a report of MPD’s special Gun Recovery and Narcotics units mandated by the DC Council. This report found that 87% of those stopped were Black, 91% of those arrested were Black, and 100% of those hurt in use-of-force incidents were Black. In 65% of the stops on Black people there was no contraband recovered. Unfortunately these numbers show us what we already know; police have always and still to this day disproportionately target Black people.

In a sense, improved stop and frisk/use of force data collection was successful. We have more data. Having this information is vital to supporting activists in their efforts to create meaningful change.  Unfortunately, these changes are slow and are continuously slowed down by MPD’s unwillingness to follow the NEAR Act. The Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement, on the other hand, does directly affect people’s lives in effective ways. Among those individuals that they are able to reach, the ONSE has been able to make a difference and reduce violent crime. Their flagship program, the Pathways Program, provides those at risk of participating in and/or being victims of violence with temporary employment and training in a three-phase model. 

“The first phase is an intensive, nine-week classroom-based training that focuses on life and job skills. Phase two offers six months of subsidized employment, which helps participants gain real work experience, build positive work habits, and establish a record of employment. The third phase offers long-term retention and support services aimed at ensuring participants successfully transition to permanent unsubsidized employment, retain said employment, and continue to pursue their other self-identified personal and professional goals. Throughout every phase of the program, Pathways participants are offered a host of wraparound services including: transportation benefits, nutritional services, mental health services, housing assistance referrals, clothing and/or uniform assistance, access to a variety of pro-social extracurricular activities, and more.” 

Pathways Program

Another important part of the ONSE is their violence interrupters. Not only do these interrupters refer individuals to the Pathways program, they are also responsible for developing neighborhood plans for violence intervention based on the specific needs of a community. More recently, the ONSE started a pilot program at Anacostia High School to help repeat 11th and 12th graders by providing them “attendance, course performance, and behavioral support.” Although this program was only started in 2020, and thus cut off by the pandemic, it was able to help 40 students. Over half of these students were able to graduate in the spring of 2020. This is just one of many successful programs run by the ONSE. The only thing that keeps the ONSE from helping more people is how small the organization is. Though the budget has been growing, from $2,394,808 in 2018 to $7,579,212 in 2020, it was cut in the proposed budget for 2021 to $6,716,014. Compare this to the MPD budget which was at its highest in 2019 at $591,313,726. So while the ONSE is an effective organization, it is limited in how effective it can be with a tiny budget that is barely more than 1% of the MPD.

The ONSE is an example of how the NEAR Act has laid the groundwork for greater changes. Imagine the impact the ONSE could have if it had the budget MPD currently has. Currently, there are multiple organizations fighting to increase funding for the ONSE. We will be highlighting some of those programs in articles and videos to come.

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The Afghanistan War: Plague of Ignorance

DC Media Group - Tue, 08/17/2021 - 17:09
Antiwar protesters at the White House call for end to endless wars. The War in Afghanistan lasted 20 years, longer than any other conflict in U.S. history. Photo: J. Zangas, DCMG

 

Washington, DC—From the beginning to end, incompetence was the primary theme of the US political, military, and intelligence failures to work in a responsible manner by any stretch of imaginable leadership standards. As the fall of Kabul unfolds, it’s time to revisit the events that led so many nations to follow the USA into a war that had no realistic goals to help the Afghan people, nor provide Allied soldiers any sense of accomplishment. So, how did it all begin? For that answer, we need to remember the statement by National Security Advisor Richard Clarke at the 9/11 Commission on the Hill. “Your government failed you, and I failed you,” he said. “We tried hard, but that doesn’t matter because we failed you. And for that failure, I would ask, once all the facts are out, for your understanding and for your forgiveness.” (Nov 27, 2002 Bush critic takes center stage)

The political squabbles of Clarke’s claims were never picked apart because Bush, the media, and the American public were all focused on revenge. On October 7th, 2001, the vast majority in the USA and beyond simply became bloodthirsty for retribution and if you dared hesitate to ask, ‘Hey wait, how did we get into this situation?”, you were labeled a coward and/or an idiot.

I’ve got to take pause for a minute as my eyes are getting blurry from all the propaganda I’m reading while doing research on this article. Some of the worst comes from the Washington Post ‘Afghanistan Papers’ series on Aug 10th a few days ago. The title had me hooked because it’s a recent piece that might lend some insight as to the depth of the Cheney lies and deception that led US troops into the war in Iraq. Nope, it was some incredibly untimely article about how the Taliban lied about an almost successful plot to kill Cheney in Afghanistan. It almost makes Cheney sound like a war hero.

Next, there is the New Yorker ‘“Not Our Tragedy”: the Taliban Are Coming Back, and America Is Still Leaving” By Susan B. Glasser. These recent distractions remind me of a quote from the Neo Liberal writer, Thom Freidman, 3 days before the US troops began flattening Baghdad on March 20, 2003. Freidman did a press conference to discuss the likely possibility of the war in Iraq. I recall that it felt like a stand-up comedy act when he said, “nobody washes a rented car”. His meaning was, that the US would create a mess and leave a mess in both Iraq and Afghanistan. I don’t often agree with Thom but on this he got it right.

One could say that the US press are doing one hell of a job trying to mop up this monstrous 20-year debacle with some fancy spin doctoring. It’s possible that I might be lacking the moral integrity to sufficiently outline these events because I’m not exactly comfortable in rehashing the darkest hours of the war such as the US torture policy and atrocious embezzlement of war funds from Cheney’s Haliburton. Whoops, maybe that was just enough to get folks riled up.

Moving on… Senator Joe Biden had been either minority or the majority ranking Democrat on the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee. At the start, he was all for both the Afghan and Iraq war. Just before joining Obama on the campaign trail in 2007, he did a U-turn and began opposing the wars because support for these messy wars were less popular with voters. Once Obama/Biden took office in the White House, it’s now said that Biden opposed staying in Afghanistan during discussions in 2009. President Obama proceeded to spend his remaining 6 or 7 years in office telling the public that he would draw down troops to zero, ‘next year’. To be honest, because I followed this very closely, Obama might have taken a year off in saying he’d end the war in Afghanistan somewhere in the middle there.

Now let’s get down to the stone-cold facts. Anthony H Cordesman was the Civilian Advisor to Gen. McChrystal in Afghanistan. He was on CNN Monday as it was announced that Kabul had fallen to the Taliban. This is what he had to say on the historic afternoon, “This isn’t about a Taliban failed state, as it is a Taliban taking over a failed state.” Why is this advisor worth mentioning? Well because he wrote a detailed article/report called ‘Afghanistan: Conflict Metrics 2000-2018’. (CSIS)

One of the many eye-popping realities of how leadership dealt with a war that was going nowhere, is that they cherry picked any positive metrics/data and ignored harsh realities. In Cordesman’s report, he clearly states that intelligence and data gathering varied between the United Nations, the media, and think tanks. One of the only undeniable truths had been that Afghanistan continued to be controlled by warlords and tribal leaders.

One final note. In the reporting on the fall of Kabul I was irritated to note Russia and China spent the day humiliating the US for its failure in Afghanistan. It is a fact that Russia hadn’t made any effort develop medical clinics, help encourage women’s rights, and attempt to create some exposure to voting rights. Yes, most of the US contractor money for medical clinics went missing somehow, but hey, at least the USA tried to introduce something good.

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Reverend William Barber Leads Moral Monday March For Voting Rights To US Capitol

DC Media Group - Tue, 08/03/2021 - 00:19

 

Washington DC — This story could easily have been copied word for word from the newspaper stories of the 1960’s civil rights protests. During the civil rights marches of that era, some 60 years ago, clergymen such as Dr. Martin Luther King and Jesse Jackson, among others, led thousands on direct actions for civil rights, voting rights, fair wages, and housing equality.

On Monday August 2, 2021, Reverend William Barber walked alongside Jesse Jackson leading several thousand on a revival of that same moral imperative. Their Moral Monday March was to demand that Congress restore the Voting Rights Act, signed by President Johnson on August 8, 1965, by passing the For The People Act, legislation which will strike down at the Federal level, all new voting restrictions passed in States like Georgia, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, and Arizona.

Reverend Barber joined clergy from around the country and working people in calling for a federal minimum wage of $15.00, a rejection of the filibuster, a jim crow era act of Congress which Reverend Barber called an order of procedure steeped in racism, and amnesty for 11 million migrants. “”We’re here not to just take a picture, we’re here to take action,” he said.

He chastised both Democratic and Republican legislators who passed a Covid Reief Bill which gave almost 86% of the trillion it earmarked in relief to corporations while leaving workers behind.

After his speech, Reverend Barber led dozens of other clergy who had come from around the country, on a march to the U.S. Capitol, with hundreds of followers behind him. His golden cross stood out on his wide chest against the pitch black cloth suit he wore. He labored in the oppressive heat up the hill to the Capitol, Summer heat took effect on the large man and several times he had to stop and cool down. Reverend Jesse Jackson, now 79 years old, also walked very slowly up the hill with the heat  slowing him and he too had to rest often. At times he also needed assistance from others but he completed the march with all the other marchers.

As they arrived at the top of the hill and past the grounds of the U.S. Capitol — they did not attempt to step on the grounds proper — Capitol Police swarmed around them. A Capitol policewoman read two warnings over a loudspeaker for them to leave the roadway or face arrest. So ushers urged the marchers out of the street and onto the confines of the narrow sidewalk to avoid immediate arrest.

It was clear that the Capitol Police strategy and tactics had changed from demonstrations of the past year. The difference: their enforcement of street obstruction misdemeanor codes on this day was exceptionally strict in comparison to enforcement of U.S. Capitol building access restrictions during the riots of January 6, earlier this year.

The marchers avoided arrest at first but they intended to be arrested  from the beginning of their march. They were carrying a message to Legislators that they would not stand quietly while an ongoing impasse in the Senate fails to restore the Voting Rights Act and strike down voting suppression laws which are now being written with some already on the books in 18 states. In the States that have already enacted them, there are 30 new vote suppression laws, that have been passed by GOP legislators since Trump lost the election last year. These voter restrictions were designed to make it more difficult for voters to get access to the ballot box, according to a published report.

The marchers walked past the Capitol and around to the Supreme Court singing songs handed down by the civil rights activists about voting rights and equal rights in the 1960s.

Finally they arrived at the Senate Hart Building, a scene of many demonstrations and mass arrests in the past. Reverend Barber sent five activists to its doors to request entry but Capitol Police refused them to admit them. He called them back and then organized a mass blockade of the street outside the Hart Senate building.

Reverends Barber and Jackson were both arrested for blocking the street during a demonstration, followed by several hundred other protesters.

The Brennan Center tracks State laws being enacted involving voting rights, outlining the easing and restrictions thereof.

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Assange Supporters Urge Release of WikiLeaks Journalist

DC Media Group - Fri, 07/09/2021 - 05:31
John and Gabriel Shipton, family of Julian Assange speak at the Department of Justice and signed a petition for Assange’s release. Photo: John Zangas

Washington DC—The family of imprisoned journalist Julian Assange says his condition is worsening and there is no applicable legal framework to justify his continued detention. Supporters urge action by the State Department to drop charges against him citing his status as a journalist and precedent that journalism is a protected right under the First Amendment.

Supporters organized a sendoff for Julian Assange’s father, John Shipton, and his brother Gabriel, outside the Department of Justice on the last day of their #HomeRun4Julian tour. They also celebrated his 50th birthday with a cake and music.

Artist Paula Iasella displayed her re-creation of Italian sculptor, Davide Dormino’s ‘Anything to Say?’ bronze sculpture. The sculpture depicts images of whistleblowers Snowden and Manning, and Assange, standing on chairs. Paula Iasella said, “when you follow the artists you’re going to end up in a place of truth.”

Supporters signed a petition urging U.S. officials to drop charges against Julian Assange.

The tour was a 3-week visit of major U.S. cities at which noted persons spoke regarding Assange’s protracted detention at Belmarsh maximum security prison in London.

 

 

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Peace Vigil Marks 40th Year At the White House

DC Media Group - Thu, 06/03/2021 - 00:02

Washington DC—The Activists at the PeaceVigil cut cake and shared stories of their experiences at the nation’s longest running vigil for peace near the White House on June 3. It was on this date in 1981 when William Thomas began his 24-hour vigil against nuclear weapons and the war machine 4 decades ago. His vision to keep watch on the North Portico with a round-the-clock presence at the White House and to pressure then President Ronald Reagan to decommission nuclear weapons and to work for world peace, has lasted through seven presidencies. Nobody expected it to last this long but it has endured against improbable odds.

Year of Pandemic and Riots Did Not Stop Peace Vigil

The last year has been one of the toughest challenges the Peace Vigil has faced, according to Philipos Melaku-Bello, manager of the Vigil. He recounted the challenges of the civil unrest and the closure of Lafayette Park which forced the activists out of the park—onto H Street at Black Lives Matter Plaza—and face to face with daily clashes between police and protesters, nights of raids and tear gas, disgruntled counter protests, and uncertainty as to whether the Peace Vigil could continue its presence there. The pandemic also took its toll as there were months of few visitors and times when few activists who could staff the Peace Vigil.

Then on May 19 Lafayette Park was reopened and the activists gathered to rebuild the tent spine of pvc pipes and install the tent canvas and it resumed its place on the red bricks across from the North Portico of the White House. Melaku-Bello affectionately named the activists who stood with him over their year of banishment from Lafayette Park and one by one, he recalled their selfless efforts to be there to help him maintain a steady presence just outside the park edge. It occurred to him that the Peace Vigil could not continue without the Peace Activists who replaced him during the shifts he was not there and he was very thankful.

But he says putting in the hours on the red-bricked sidewalk is not about him or about any one person but about the message of peace, disarmament, and continuing efforts to decommission nuclear weapons and close down nuclear power plants. He recites the facts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as they are ingrained in his memory like his birthday and age and he argues their history is a warning of the last seconds ticking on the “doomsday clock.” He knows the details of Chernobyl, Fukushima, and Three Mile Island, as if they are his children and tells visitors why it is past time to scrap such projects forever.

Beyond the obvious destruction and calamities of war he tells of the defense of human rights and the rights of oppressed people that the Peace Vigil represents in his conversations with multitudes of multinational visitors who happen by the Peace Vigil tent. The signs around the front of the tent condemn tyranny and rebuke tyrants by raising up individuals such as Brianna Taylor and George Floyd. The advocates working there reject despots and authoritarianism by standing up for the human rights of the oppressed. The signs, “War is Not the Answer,” “Wanted: Wisdom and Honesty,” and “Free Speech Zone” and the photos of the aftermath of Hiroshima attract a wide range of people to ask why the Peace Vigil is there.Melaku-Bello is in his zone when they inquire why he is there and he tells the stories about the vigil and its founder, William Thomas, and his messages for common good that peace would bring.

Philipos Malaku-Bello staffs the Peace Vigil on most days. Photo: John Zangas

Melaku-Bello has a knack for engaging an impressive range of people, young and old and speaks six languages fluently. He has years of practice speaking with anyone who wants to talk. A pair of men from Nigeria visiting the U.S. for the first time are taken aback by his knowledge of their country and they speak at length about past Nigerian political leaders. A group of five young women for Colorado University engage him for a while, impressed with his message of denuclearization. Someday they may return to Washington DC to visit, perhaps with their children.Melaku-Bello wonders aloud if the Peace Vigil will still be there for them to visit when they return. He leaves a deep impression on them as he does with many and they take a photograph with him—he holds up his hand in a customary peace sign.

Is Time Is Running Out For Peace?

Time is not on the side of waging peace. It is not on Philipos’ side either. His years of dedication to the Peace Vigil has cost him dearly in terms of his health and longevity. Snowy cold days with occasional blizzards, days of blazing hot sun, rain and wind, and a few hurricanes have worsened his health and he is in need of funds both to run the Peace Vigil and for medical attention. He wishes to be there indefinitely but knows time is catching up with him and his body is challenged by the elements. Time is a strange thing he laments. We have more than we think but don’t have as much as we’d like.

The Spirit of William “Doubting” Thomas

One might say there is a little bit of William Thomas in Philipos and all of the activists who staff the Peace Vigil. All of them have an indomitable resilience like Thomas did. The long hours of staffing the tent are one thing. But another is the cacophony of opinions from visitors about the political structure of the world that comes with the flow of visitors on an average day and it can wear one down over time. Arguments are frequent in a time of waxing and waning civility. The last four years of the previous administration brought much acrimony to Lafayette Park.

William Thomas overcame challenges like these by educating himself on a range of topics to support and spread the message he carried. He traveled to Africa during the famine of the 1980s and to Asia and other parts of the world to gain a first-hand understanding of challenges facing humanity.

When he began his Peace Vigil on June 3, 1981, it was against world hunger as well as nuclear disarmament. Police kept arresting him and the other the vigilers who stood with him because they stood up where no one dared before—right outside the White House gates—24-7. So he fought back by studing the law. He sued the government pro se to stop the arrests and after many court appearances he won a permanent permit to remain on the red bricks. He also challenged the government in the courts over signage and won on that accord as well, guaranteeing his right to maintain two large permanent signs, as long as they did not exceed a 6 foot height. He was arrested over 40 times standing for peace and human rights before his permanent permit was granted.

William Thomas’ peace activism also helped inspre Conresswoman Eleanore Holmes-Norton’s legislation to abolish nuclear weapons which she has been reintroducing every year since 1994. Her bill, HR-2850, the “Nuclear Weapons Abolition and Economic and Energy Conversion Act,” seeks to abolish nuclear weapons and provides that no taxes paid by the residents of Washington DC shall be used for war.

William Thomas died in January 2009 but his spirit lives in the tenacity of the activists who have succeeded him.

Vigilers Comment On The Peace Vigil Message

Lou Wolf, a longtime Vigiler and peace activist, who has worked on Covert Action Magazine publication since the 1980s, said “As lifelong peace advocates we, the worldwide peace movement, are as big as the world movement. But we stand for peace and justice, not only peace by itself.”

Lou Wolf spoke about the symbolism of having the Peace Vigil across from the front door of the White House. Photo: John Zangas

“This vigil has grown to include the causes of peace because you can’t get rid of nuclear weapons easily unless we get rid of war, said Michael Beer, a former Vigiler and longtime Prace Vigil supporter. “We can’t get rid of war unless we talk about human rights and so this vigil has taken on human rights around the world,” he said.

Michael Beer said that one cannot abolish nuclear weapons unless they work to end war and cannot talk about ending war without talking about human rights. Photo: John Zangas

 

The Peace Vigil will continue celebrating its 40th anniversary this year and the activists are thrilled to be a part of this historic moment. They are inviting the public to share their story and message of world peace and nuclear disarmament. Their cutting the peace cake and sharing lunch and telling stories of the most challenging year the Peace Vigil has yet faced is just the beginning of plans to reach out to others to join them in the message of peace and human rights. A recording of their event with photos and videos can be seen hosted on zoom and on social media here.

You may also donate to the Peace Vigil to help repair the signs here with the cash app $WHPV for cash donations. Any amount no matter how small will help.

Video newsreel of the 40th anniversary celebration at the Peace Vigil on June 3:

The post Peace Vigil Marks 40th Year At the White House appeared first on DCMediaGroup.

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