(…*To Inspire You To Hide Under Your Bed Until Jan. 21, 2009)

 This must-read report just in from the New Yorker’s “This Would Be Funny If It Wasn’t So Fucking Scary” Department: “Preparing the Battlefield: The Bush administration steps up its secret moves against Iran” by the ever-vigilant Seymour Hersh.

 Hersch writes:

Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership.

This may sound like generically scary Bush warmongering, but it’s actually so much more. (more…)

Round Providence, we know David Segal as a Dose poobah and Progressive Dem state legislator, who fights for the environment, affordable housing, progressive taxation, fair school funding, and democracy and criminal justice reform.

But in Knoxville, they know David Segal as the bellicose Ice Bears Right Wing who, according to dropyourgloves.com, fights for basically any reason, to the tune of .55 incidents of fisticuffs per game.

Watch here as the minor league ice-pugilist kicks the crap out of some dude:

Update! Segal has been traded to the Muskegon Fury, where he leads the team in Penalty Infraction Minutes (PIM). Go team! (more…)

You’re right, it makes no sense, but General Colin Powell—formerly Secretary of State, National Security Advisor, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—will deliver the keynote address for the U.S. Scholar-Athlete Games—currently taking place at the University of Rhode Island—tomorrow night at the Providence Performing Arts Center. The speech will take place at 7 p.m. and will be followed by a Question and Answer period. Tickets are on sale at the PPAC box office and cost $20 for adults and $15 for students 18 and younger.

And, the ProJo reports:

Schedule permitting, Powell may also lead the games’ first “peace walk ” by about 1,000 competitors and their coaches in downtown Providence tomorrow afternoon. The walk is scheduled to begin at 4:30 p.m. from the park on South Main Street near the Licht Judicial Complex and proceed along the river walk to Burnside Park. Since the games began, in 1993, the goal has been to eventually hold a “peace summit,” said Dan Doyle, the games’ founder and executive director of the Institute for International Sport, which sponsors the games. The peace walk is the first in a series of events meant to lead up to the summit, he said.

And, no, I’m not paying $20 either.

Says GWB:

Phrases such as “bring them on” or “dead or alive”, he said, “indicated to people that I was, you know, not a man of peace”.

Bob Whitcomb drops Ed Bernays’s name in his column today. Which has inspired me to post this:

It’s from an Adam Curtis film called The Century of the Self, all available online. Bernays basically invented the public relations industry, using the ideas of his uncle, Sigmund Freud. Among other things, he’s largely responsible for: it becoming cool for women to smoke cigarettes, our overthrow of the democratically-elected Arbenz government in Guatemala, and Freud’s existence as a pop-culture phenom.

He, and other dignified men of his day, thought active manipulation of the unconsciousnesses of the masses was somehow integral to democracy — and good for making a buck to boot. The concept of the “engineering of consent” — coined by New Republic founder Walter Lippmann — was once more widely used by elites, who thought it had positive connotations (and affirmed their standing in society).

Much of Chomsky’s popular work has entailed putting them in their place. You can check out the CBC film Manufacturing Consent over here.

Bad ass:

On May 1, every port on the West Coast of the United States was shut down to demand an end to the U.S. war and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. The historic May Day walkout by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) is the first time ever that an American union has struck against a U.S. war. The union ranks defied the rulings of an arbitrator, who twice ordered them to go to work.

They overcame the capitulations of the ILWU leadership, which didn’t want the work stoppage in the first place, tried to water it down and cowered before the threats of legal action while waving the flag. The employers’ Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) declared the May 1 port shutdown an “illegal strike.” But after all the huffing and puffing from the bosses’ mouthpieces, the dock workers pointed the way to defeating the imperialist war by mobilizing working-class power. In the end, it was more than a work stoppage. The dock workers’ May Day strike against the war was a first step, a show of what it will take to bring down the warmongers in Washington.

…of at least one thing the RI House of Reps did this week — pass Al Gemma and Ken Carter’s HOUSE RESOLUTION RESPECTFULLY URGING THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TO FULLY SUPPORT HOUSE BILL 808

And what’s up with US House Bill 808, you ask? It creates the Department of Peace.  (Dan asked for clarification — and, yes, it’s Kucinich’s version, not Orwell’s.)

Both sponsors have military service under their belts, and Carter chairs the Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

What an enticing header!  But seriously, these guys are bad-asses.  From Martha, of the AFSC:

I hope folks will join us for what should be an inspiring evening. I have known Granny D for a number of years and am always inspired by her wit and wisdom. She walked across the country at the age of 90 for campaign finance reform (and made some serious waves in DC as a result). Ever since she has been speaking on the importance of civic engagement and what one person (and one more and one more) can do to bring about change. She minces no words on what she sees going on.

Jerry Elmer is a local attorney and long time peace activist (author of A Felon for Peace) and will join her in a conversation about what is happening to our civil liberties and what we need to do about it. Come be inspired!

The event is at 7pm at the Round Top Center at Beneficent Church (300 Weybosset). The Raging Grannies will get us all singing to start the evening.

From Scott Warren, of Brown’s Darfur Action Group: 

Hi all,

I hope you have seen our flag display on Lincoln Field.  It’s pretty powerful!  Now, come to an equally powerful event!

Please come to Hunter Lab (on Waterman St, right by Faunce) tonight at 7 PM to see the critically acclaimed movie, Darfur Now.  The movie stars six individuals, including Don Cheadle, two Darfurians, and the head of the ICC.

Additionally, the movie stars Adam Sterling, a UCLA student at the time who heads up a successful divestment movement in California.  Adam will be speaking after the movie. He is only 25, and is incredibly inspiring, as he has a student perspective on the situation.

Adam is one of my best friends and is making a special trip up to Brown, so it’d be great if we could pack Hunter Lab for him tomorrow!

I really hope to see you there, and let me know if you have questions!

Scott

Here’s a preview:

Give it up for GOP Senator Voinovich of Ohio, who not only gave a ‘lil hat tip to Obama during yesterday’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee grilling of Iraq honchos Petreaus and Crocker, but also threw a couple of his own critical shrimp on the barbie.

But while the senior senator from Ohio may be listening to the people on this one, it seems like his colleague from Arizona just plum doesn’t get it.

Linc’s new book comes out on April 1st, and it sounds like it’s going to please those who enjoy his maverick tendencies (and were sad that he didn’t always speak out against Bush as much as we’d hoped he would — and thought he wanted to, deep down). It’s going to make quite a few people feel guilty for not having been able to vote for him in 2006 — and will certainly be a boon to the former senator’s political future.

Matt covers it here. And here he is in the AP, (rightfully) calling Clinton a ‘Bush Enabler.’

He was on Hardball last night, saying he’d probably write somebody in if the general is McCain v Clinton.

Brown SDS’s protests of the war in Iraq have been front page news on the Projo’s website for two straight days, and are making national news too:  Michael Moore’s home page, for instance.

It’s extraordinary to realize that it’s been four years since Miguel Luna and I spoke at Beneficent Church, upon the first anniversary of the Iraq war. Tomorrow at noon, we’ll be gathering at there once more to demonstrate our continued opposition to the war:

In order to raise local awareness of these issues and their impact on the Providence and Rhode Island community and resist their ongoing existence, Providence SDS and fellow anti-war activists will engage in direct action and civil disobedience on Thursday March 20th at 12:00pm. We invite and encourage the press to attend in the interest of reporting on world issues that intersect with local events.

Earlier that morning, there’s the kick-off of the ‘We Can Stop the Hate Rhode Island’ initiative:

(more…)

UPDATE by Will Emmons:

Just got back from this event and it went insanely well. Providence SDS showed up with an anti-imperialist funk machine in the form of two speakers in a shopping cart jury-rigged to a car battery and connected to someone’s mp3 player.  The funk machine was decorated with mad anti-war signs and flags. The greatest moment of my life was watching a shopping cart bumping with Daft Punk leading a train of dozens of colorfully clad activists to take Kennedy Plaza. Many young people who were waiting for buses realized that the FUNK THE WAR dance party was way cooler than where ever they were planning to go and we ended up with a head count of over 50 folks dancing on and around the Civil War memorial which had been taken over with “Providence Students for a Democratic Society” and “Resist U.S. Empire” banners. During an intermission in the dancing, Brown student Sopheya Lambertson, ‘11, and RISD student Kat Poe, ‘09, explained that this dance party wasn’t just about protesting five years of war but also taking back public space for activities other than working and consuming.  Special kudos goes out to the high schooler with the koi tattoo who was break dancing and the folks who fronted the money for the car battery. My only complaint was that no M.I.A. was played.

Check back later for rockin’ pictures and be sure to check out the rest of Providence SDS’s 5th Anniversary of the War Week of Action, like tomorrow’s anti-war march with the RI Spring Mobilization Committee starting at 4:00 PM from Burnside Park (next to Kennedy Plaza) and marching to the headquarters of the war profiteer and cluster bomb manufacturer Textron and then to the State House.  You’ll remember that it was Providence SDS that started this recent round of Textron activism last March with a die-in where Dylan V. Cofer-Shabica was arrested for smearing the building with raspberry jam.  

Oh and to the police who videotaped us: put that shit on Youtube so I can show my mom.

Original Post after the jump: (more…)

Take a break from getting waste off green beer to come out and see “Iraq for Sale: the War Profiteers”, which will be kicking off Providence Students for a Democratic Society’s anti-war Week of Action during this the week of the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War. It starts at 7:30 at MacMillian Hall, Room 115 (on Thayer between George and Waterman) on Brown’s campus. It sounds pretty cool:

The story of what happens to everyday Americans when corporations go to war. Acclaimed director Robert Greenwald ( Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, Outfoxed) takes you inside the lives of soldiers, truck drivers, widows and children who have been changed forever as a result of profiteering in the reconstruction of Iraq. Iraq for Sale uncovers the connections between private corporations making a killing in Iraq ( Blackwater, Halliburton/KBR, CACI and Titan) and the decision makers who allow them to do so.

Oh and no excuses because admission is free.

Join Providence Students for a Democratic Society, Operation Iraqi Freedom (Brown U’s anti-war group), and others in saying no to five years of imperialist war.

Monday, March 17
Screening of “Iraq for Sale“
7:30 PM at MacMillian Hall, Room 115
(On Thayer between Waterman and George)

Tuesday, March 18
FUNK THE WAR
Student Power Dance Party Against Empire
Dress code: Supah fly.
6:00 PM in Kennedy Plaza
(folks from Brown meeting up to walk down at 5:30 from Faunce Arch)

(more…)