David Swanson's Blog, page 159
December 2, 2012
Davids Oppose Israel's Use of King David
One tool being employed by the government of Israel to evict Palestinian people from their homes is the claim that doing so will allow archaeologists to discover historical evidence of the existence of King David. Such evidence is intended to strengthen the claim that Jews are returning to land occupied by Jews millennia ago.
Yet the living people moved off their land by Israeli expansion are denied any right to return to it.
The King David in the book of Samuel is greedy and cruel, thoughtless of the pain he causes others. David is punished for his actions, but appears to learn nothing from the punishment. The lesson that Nathan attempts to teach David, to condemn evil actions in oneself that one would condemn in others, is a difficult lesson to learn.
We encourage the government of Israel to try.
David R. Applebaum, professor, USA
David Bacon, photographer, USA
David Barkham, film-production-designer, South Africa
David Becker, environmental-lawyer, USA
David ben Or, computer-scientist, USA
David J. Biviano, educator, USA
David Berrian, videographer, USA
Dave Bleakney, educator, Canada
David Booth, software-architect, USA
David Brast, appliance-repairer, USA
David Brookbank, social-worker, USA
David B. Buehrens, editor, USA
David Camfield, professor, Canada
David Cobb, activist, USA
David Cole, researcher, USA
David Cone, webmaster, USA
David Crowningshield, consultant, USA
David Earnhardt, filmmaker, USA
David Ecklein, computer-consultant, USA
David Finke, printer, USA
David Finkelstein, filmmaker, USA
David Graeber, anthropologist, UK
David Scott Halenda, rambler, USA
David Hall, MD, physician
David Hartsough, activist, USA
David J. Heap, professor, Canada
David R. Heap, actor, Ireland
David Janzen, activist, Canada
David Klein, professor, USA
David Korten, author, USA
David Kubiak, journalist, Japan
David Lambert, Activist, USA
David Lerner, PR guy, USA
David Levy, computer-consultant, USA
David Lindorff, reporter, USA
David Lippman, songwriter, USA
David Lloyd, Professor, USA
David L. Mandel, attorney, USA
David Marsh, broadcaster, USA
David R. Marshall, guitarist, USA
David McGiffen, atheist, UK
David McNally, professor, Canada
David McReynolds, activist, USA
David Meserve, activist, USA
David J. Milne, peace-and-justice-worker, Canada
David Morris, musician, USA
David Neff, manager (retired), USA
David Norris, city council member, USA
David I. Robinson, professor, USA
David Rovics, musician, USA
David Rubinson, activist, France
David Schaich, physicist, USA
David Schott, partnership-coordinator, USA
David Shelton, entrepreneur, USA
David Shewan, Environmentalist, UK
David Eric Shur, salesman, USA
David A. Smith, sociologist, USA
David Solnit, author, USA
David Soumis, human, USA
David Stark, executive director, USA
David Swanson, author, USA
David Tykulsker, attorney, USA
David Underhill, descendant, USA
David Weiss, environmental-activist, USA
David Welsh, labor organizer, USA
David Witham, educator (retired), USA
David Zaworski, pastor, USA
If your name is David, please add your name and identification in the comments below.
November 30, 2012
Military Law Is to Law as Military Music Is to Music
Jeh Charles Johnson, General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Defense, on Friday admitted that murder by drone is not a form of law enforcement:
"Some legal scholars and commentators in our country brand the detention by the military of members of al Qaeda as 'indefinite detention without charges.' Some refer to targeted lethal force against known, identified individual members of al Qaeda as 'extrajudicial killing.'
"Viewed within the context of law enforcement or criminal justice, where no person is sentenced to death or prison without an indictment, an arraignment, and a trial before an impartial judge or jury, these characterizations might be understandable."
We Used to Make the Rich Poorer and the Poor Richer
Many of us have heard the current period referred to as a second gilded age. Or we've seen the current inequality in wealth in the United States compared to that of 1929. But we have not all given sufficient thought to what ended the first gilded age, what created greater equality, what created the reality behind that category our politicians now endlessly pretend we are all in: the middle class. We have a sense of what went wrong at the turn of each century, but what went right in between?
The 2012 Peace Prize Is Unlawful
FROM: Nobel laureates demand 2012: c/o Peter Kolbe, Werderstr. 36 69120 Heidelberg, Germany p.kolbe@nobelforpeace-summits.org
TO: The Nobel Foundation, P.O. Box 5232, SE-102 45 Stockholm, Sweden
CC: The Foundations Authority, Stockholm County (Länsstyrelsen)
November 29, 2012
The Case and the Movement Against Armed Drones
Unmanned killer robot planes have convinced certain people that there is a better way of waging war.
But these drones have now made the United States as unpopular in places like Pakistan and Yemen as any nation has ever been in another. Making our nation hated does not make us safer. It endangers us.
These drone wars are not a reduction in war-making but an expansion. They're underway in nations the United States was not previously at war with. They're beginning to result in the addition of ground troops, the opposite result of the image we have in our heads of drones taking the place of ground troops.
Drone pilots in Afghanistan have been targeted and killed. Drone pilots in the United States suffer PTSD at higher rates than real pilots.
Drone victims are 98% innocent civilians according to a recent Stanford/NYU study. The other 2% are targeted victims of murder without charge, trial, due process, or in many cases even knowledge of the target's name.
Drones buzzing over houses traumatize children before they kill them. That those children are (in most cases) not American hardly diminishes the immorality.
Drones are rapidly being developed and deployed by other nations. It is time for Americans to ask themselves: Do I support the equal right of other nations to kill with drones in the United States? And if not, why not? And how can I apply a different standard to my own government?
Did you know that the White House has refused to allow Congress, the institution charged by the U.S. Constitution with making every law, to see its legal reasoning that supposedly justifies killing men, women, children, Americans, and non-Americans anywhere on earth without any charge or trial?
Did you know that even the current president believes no Republican president should ever be allowed the powers he has himself created?
The following organizations have decided to do something about this:
Antiwar.com
Arlington Green Party
Bill of Rights Defense Committee
Code Pink
Fellowship of Reconciliation
Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space
Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace
Jeannette Rankin Peace Center
KnowDrones.com
LA Laborfest
The Northampton Committee to Stop War
RootsAction.org
Sitkans for Peace and Justice
Veterans For Peace
Veterans For Peace Chapter 27
Voices for Creative Nonviolence
WarIsACrime.org
Women Standing
These groups have decided to urge:
the United Nations Secretary Generalto investigate the concerns of Navi Pillay, the U.N.'s top human rights official, that drone attacks violate international law -- and to ultimately pursue sanctions against nations using, possessing, or manufacturing weaponized drones;
the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Courtto investigate grounds for the criminal prosecution of those responsible for drone attacks;
the U.S. Secretary of State, and the ambassadors to the United States from the nations of the world, to ratify a treaty forbidding the possession or use of weaponized drones;
President Barack Obama, to abandon the use of weaponized drones, and to abandon his "kill list" program regardless of the technology employed;
the Majority and Minority Leaders of the U.S. House and Senate, to ban the use or sale of weaponized drones.
You can join this movement and put your name on the petition being delivered to those authorities. It will take you 10 seconds or so, right here:
http://act.rootsaction.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=6180
November 28, 2012
KPFK 'BradCast': On Ending, Not Mending, the Filibuster; FL GOP Voter Suppression; Climate Change and Denialism
On my KPFK/Pacifica Radio show today we covered quite a bit of ground.
From Republican admissions about the most obvious story in the world (that the Florida GOP was attempting to suppress the vote this year), to the debate over filibuster reform in the U.S. Senate, and whether it should be mended, ended, or none of the above, with David Swanson (his vote: end it!), to the latest Green News Report and a remarkable piece of audio tape from a (now former?) Bill O'Reilly fan who saw the new documentary Chasing Ice and is pissed that she's been so misled by O'Reilly and Fox "News" about climate change for so many years...
Download MP3 or listen online below [appx. 58 mins]...
Talk Nation Radio: Glen Ford on Black and Progressive Activism in the Obama Era
Glen Ford of blackagendareport.com discusses what the Obama presidency has meant for black society, black activism, and progressive activism in the United States.
Total run time: 29:00
Host: David Swanson.
Producer: David Swanson.
Engineer: Christiane Brown.
Music by Duke Ellington.
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November 27, 2012
Neither Grand, Nor a Bargain
Liberal groups have been organizing protests of the looming "grand bargain" (a bargain between two political parties aimed at saving us from the fictional "fiscal cliff" by giving more of our money to the super-rich and the war machine). But they've been doing so only in Republican Congressional districts and with messages placing all the blame on "the Republicans," thus telegraphing the message that all shall be tolerated if labeled "Democratic."
We're supposed to be against a bargain, but only against one of the two partners to the bargain. Any bets on how well that'll work?
November 25, 2012
Howard Zinn's Echoes
We're approaching three years since Howard Zinn left us, and to my ear his voice sounds louder all the time. I expect that effect to continue for decades and centuries to come, because Zinn spoke to enduring needs. He taught lessons that must be relearned over and over, as the temptations weighing against them are so strong. And he taught those lessons better than anybody else.
November 21, 2012
December 1st Is Military Abolition Day
I've been fond of December 1st ever since I was born on it. I later found out that it had been on a December 1st that Rosa Parks had sat down and refused to stand up or move to the back of that racist bus in Montgomery. Later still I found out about a December 1st that had happened still earlier.
