Inside the Belly of the Beltway Beast

Abu Bakker Qassim's letter to Barack Obama Dear Mr. President, I express my gratitude and my best respect for the contribution of the United States of America to our Uighur community. At the same time, I express my gratitude for your right and prompt decision to close the jail of Guantánamo Bay. I hope you will forgive my English, which I have tried to learn. I hope my letter will find you in a good health. Please allow me to express my wish and prayer to read my letter. My name is Abu Bakker and I'm writing on behalf of Ahmet, Aktar, Ejup, with whom I have lived since May 2006 in Albania, the only country that offered us political asylum from Guantánamo when US courts concluded that we were not enemy combatants. I would like to write something about myself. The Uighur people have a proverb: "Who thinks about the end will never be a hero." Obviously it is human to think about the end, as it is human for me to remember things long ago. 30.12.2000. My last night in my l...

By David Swanson It's just spring, when the world is puddle-wonderful, and your representative and your two senators pack up their lingerie and come dancing from hop-scotch and toy soldiers to make the trek outside the Beltway for a well-earned vacation sponsored by corporations completely indifferent to legislative news and dedicated to appreciation of nature's bounty in this season of new birth -- er, I mean, to begin a District Work Period dedicated to discovering exactly how much you appreciate the good work they've done so far -- er, that is to say, the last frazzled human threads that our democratic republic hangs by are coming home from April 4th to 19th and if you want to nudge them gently or forcefully in any direction you should call and ask for an appointment NOW. This is something you have a right and a responsibility to do, either alone or with your friends and family, or with some like-minded neighbors, or with a coalition representing activist groups, labor u...

This is a positive development. As someone entirely dedicated to peace, I am extremely pleased with the direction Pres. Obama appears to be taking

Myself and several other activists associated with the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance visited the Pentagon Tuesday morning taking with us copies of a letter that had been delivered a week earlier to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. The letter asked for the U.S. government to pursue peace and just diplomacy over illegal and immoral wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as an immediate cessation of bombing portion of the nation of Pakistan. We also said that if we did not receive a response, we would pay him a visit. Seven of us approached the doors of the Pentagon, about 30 yards from an entrance to the Metro station. We spoke with a guard monitoring those entering the building, as we did not carry officially-issued Pentagon badges. However, we are all citizens and taxpayers of the U.S., and wished to meet with at the very least someone from Gates' office. We were told to go into a security booth for those arriving at the Pentagon for business where we had to show tw...

This further confirms what many of us activists long believed about the modus operandi of the Bush regime. Of course many of us (including myself and 52 others in Maryland) were tracked and labeled terrorists by the Maryland State Police. And a subset of that group was further spied on by the Department of Homeland (Fatherland) Security. Here it is, Bruce Fein explains what happened to the U.S. Constitution following September 11, 2001. FEIN: End presidential secrecy Bruce Fein Congress should swiftly enact a statute prohibiting secret presidential government. The urgency was demonstrated last week when nine ill-conceived legal memoranda to justify despotism cobbled together by the pliable Jay Bybee and John Yoo in the Justice Department under President George W. Bush were belatedly released. Their shelf-life would have been nanoseconds if they had been immediately exposed. Their counterconstitutional reasoning would have been instantly discredited. Instead, the memoranda remained inta...

By Roberto Lovato, New America Media Posted on March 3, 2009, Printed on March 3, 2009 http://www.alternet.org/story/129674/ At a time when racial conflict and discrimination are on the rise around the world, the Administration of the world's first black U.S. president will not be attending the world's most important conference on race and racism. In what may signal a dangerous new, "post-racial" approach to global race relations, President Barack Obama's Administration announced that it will not attend the second World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in Geneva next April. According to this article in the New York Times, the Administration will boycott the conference to protest what it deems the unfair equation of Zionism with racism in the outcome documents of the first conference held in Durban, South Africa, and now the second conference, also known as "Durban II, as well." Other concerns cited by A...

By Max Obuszewski In 2002, the Iraq Pledge of Resistance was formed to prevent a war with Iraq. While we failed, we continued to engage in nonviolent direct action to end the war and the occupation. Eventually, the group, in expanding its focus, became the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance [NCNR]. In light of the massive Capitol Climate Action on March 2nd, we would like to take the opportunity to describe what we as a campaign have committed ourselves to. We celebrate this opportunity to share our thoughts with other progressive activists. As a group with lots of direct action experience, NCNR has consistently encouraged organizations and individuals to recognize the difference between civil disobedience and civil resistance. We see the difference as being important in the struggle for nonviolent, positive social change. The classic definition of civil disobedience, as practiced by the civil rights movement, is the breaking of an unjust law with the intent of changing it...

Today we protested AIPAC at their Washington office building, 251 H Street NW. We were confronted by an FBI agent who apparently works at the building (had a pass card for the building). We were there to identify their location (no identification on or around the building) and to raise awareness about one of the 10 most influential lobbies. They continually press for war against the Palestinian people and the denial of their basic human rights, two good reasons to protest against this organization. AIPAC has an annual budget of more than $16 million and lobbies Congress for militaristic policies in the Middle East, including the $3 Billion military aid sent to Israel every year. The powerful voice of people for peace is ultimately stronger than any lobby for war. Together we must call for an end to US aid to Israel and justice for Palestinians suffering under military occupation. We want our political leaders to create policies that support human rights and peace for all. We will be re...

Hello friends, Join us with Witness Against Torture's 100 Days Campaign in urging President Obama to take the first step in shutting down Gitmo and once and for all -- Free the Uighurs! In September of 2008, the government formally conceded that none of the seventeen men is an enemy combatant. On October 7th, 2008, US District Court Judge Ricardo M. Urbina held that their continued imprisonment was unlawful and ordered the government to bring all seventeen Uighurs to his courtroom for release into the United States on appropriate conditions. We join with the Uighurs' attorneys in calling on the government to release these innocent men in the only place they can be released – the United States. Bringing the Uighurs here is an important early step toward carrying out President Obama's executive Order. The executive should proceed directly with the transfer of the Uighurs by direct Executive action or by withdrawing the Bush administrations appeal of Judge Urbina's order. ...

Washington Post By George McGovern Thursday, January 22, 2009; As you settle into the Oval Office, Mr. President, may I offer a suggestion? Please do not try to put Afghanistan aright with the U.S. military. To send our troops out of Iraq and into Afghanistan would be a near-perfect example of going from the frying pan into the fire. There is reason to believe some of our top military commanders privately share this view. And so does a broad and growing swath of your party and your supporters. True, the United States is the world's greatest power -- but so was the British Empire a century ago when it tried to pacify the warlords and tribes of Afghanistan, only to be forced out after excruciating losses. For that matter, the Soviet Union was also a superpower when it poured some 100,000 troops into Afghanistan in 1979. They limped home, broken and defeated, a decade later, having helped pave the way for the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is logical to conclude that our massive mil...

William Thomas, dedicated peace and anti-nuke activist, passed away Friday morning at home. He was co-pilot of the 24-hour seven-day a week vigil at the White House for 27 years. He is survived by his wife Ellen and vigil co-pilot Concepcion. I remember Thomas from my high school years years early in on his vigil. Millions of people from hundred of countries visited Thomas as he kept vigiling, warning them of the dangers of nuclear holocaust and the ravages of war. He will be greatly missed by the peace and justice movement. An excerpt from an article in The Washington Post by David Montgomery, published a couple years ago: WASHINGTON — William Thomas first introduced fanny to brick on the White House sidewalk on June 3, 1981. His sign said, "Wanted: Wisdom and Honesty." He's been there ever since, still squatting, still wanting. A few months after he began, he was joined by Concepcion Picciotto, who has remained similarly steadfast. War is not over, but the peace protest...

WASHINGTON -- Witness Against Torture (www.witnesstorture.org), an organization formed from a march to Guantanamo in 2005 to protest the prison there, applauds President Barack Obama's executive orders to shut down Guantanamo and the CIA "black sites," and to end the "enhanced interrogation techniques" used by the CIA at Guantanamo and other prisons. "President Obama has taken important first steps to undo much of what was the worst Bush administration policies," said Matthew Daloisio, one of those who marched to Guantanamo. According to the Guantanamo order, "The detention facilities at Guantanamo for individuals covered by this order shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than one year from the date of this order." Witness Against Torture joins other human rights groups in insisting that the facility can be closed much sooner than one year. "While pleased with these developments, we are disappointed that Guantanamo will s...

By Zaid Nabulsi I lost my gloves one day in a coffee shop in Geneva, and I tell you, it’s difficult to ride a motorcycle without them when it’s really cold. So as I was paying for a new pair with a credit card, the salesman - who I knew was from Israel - asked me what my family name means. I told him that it relates to the city of Nablus where my family is originally from. Suddenly, the most bewildered look got plastered on his face. “Where is Nablus?” he asked, “I’ve never heard of it”. Then he pretended to remember. “Ah, Shkheim you mean?” With my insistence not to learn these ugly sounding names that the Zionists have dug up from oblivion to erase our identity, that name certainly didn’t ring a bell. Now it was my turn. Although I knew where he was from, I asked: “And you’re… from?” As he smiled, I replicated the look on his face moments ago. “Israel? Where is that?” Then after a brief pause: “Ah, the land of Canaan you mean. Palestine.” You see, if you want to get biblical, there w...

On Tuesday, January 6, about 80 anti-war protestors came to Capitol Hill to remind elected representatives of the death and destruction they continue to fund. Laurie Arbeiter and her colleagues in the Activist Response Team (ART) organized another performance of the March of the Dead on the first day of the 111th Congress, followed by dramatic banner drops and arrests for nonviolent civil resistance later that day. The protestors did not gain much media attention, although plenty of cameras were on the scene. It appears at the end of the day their producers and editors only had time for Mr. Burris, the man appointed by a defamed governor to take the president-elect’s seat in the senate. However, Bill Moyers picked up on it and commented on it during his TV show. The rest of the media did not have time for the names of the dead slain by our military, or our proxies the Israelis. I marched in this somber procession of remembrance that rainy day, and I took part in the nonviolent civil re...

New Documents Reveal Md. Program's Reach By Lisa Rein and Josh White Washington Post Staff Writers Sunday, January 4, 2009; A01 The Maryland State Police surveillance of advocacy groups was far more extensive than previously acknowledged, with records showing that troopers monitored -- and labeled as terrorists -- activists devoted to such wide-ranging causes as promoting human rights and establishing bike lanes. Intelligence officers created a voluminous file on Norfolk-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, calling the group a "security threat" because of concerns that members would disrupt the circus. Angry consumers fighting a 72 percent electricity rate increase in 2006 were targeted. The DC Anti-War Network, which opposes the Iraq war, was designated a white supremacist group, without explanation. One of the possible "crimes" in the file police opened on Amnesty International, a world-renowned human rights group: "civil rights." Accor...

By Bruce Gagnon Dandelion Salad space4peace.blogspot.com Dec. 21, 2008 Chicago teacher Jesse Sharkey writes: “In the past couple years, Arne Duncan [Obama's pick for Secretary of Education who hails from Chicago] has been turning public schools over to private operators–mainly in the form of charter and contract schools — at a rate of about 20 per year. Duncan has also resuscitated some of the worst ’school reform’ ideas of the 1990s, like firing all the teachers in low-performing schools (called ‘turnarounds’). At the same time, he’s eliminated many Local School Councils and made crucial decisions without public input.” “To me, the thing that made Duncan’s role clear came after three months of organizing at Senn High School, the community school where I teach, against the Chicago Board of Education’s proposal to install a Naval Academy.” “After an inspiring campaign that involved literally hundreds of people in the biggest education organizing effort in the area in decades, we for...

By Eve Tetaz As was anticipated Judge Morin sentenced us to five days in jail(suspended as the prosecutor didn't think it was worth the expense to jail us), 6 mos. probation, and a heavy fine. He then allowed us to give our sentencing statements. After I gave mine, I told him that I would refuse probation and would not pay the fine. (Last time I refused, I was sent to jail.) Each of my codefendents gave his or her statement followed by the same refusal. After the last defendant spoke, the Judge gave a new ruling, as follows: None of us would be required to be on probation, none of us has to pay a fine, and all of us were sentenced to one day in jail already served because we had spend the night and a day in jail waiting for arraignment. It is apparent to me, that Judge Morin was moved to change his ruling because of the justice of our actions. I think I can speak for the others when I say, "We will not be silent." We will continue to speak truth to power. Amen and Hallelu...