Our mission is to oppose the war in Iraq and US militarism in general; to build a multi-racial peace movement throughout the neighborhoods of Dorchester; and to work against the war at home, including violence, budget cuts, racism and political repression.

DPP Update - June 5, 2009

This Sunday, June 7, Dorchester Day Parade!

DPP will be marching again this year along with our friends and allied organizations. Our contingent will gather around Noon in Dorchester Lower Mills (look for us along Richmond St., off Dorchester Av), with the parade kick-off 1pm.

Our message will focus on ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, reducing the military budget and funding urgent needs at home in our neighborhoods and communities. Thousands of parade watchers will see our banners and get our anti-war flyers!

DPP will host an after-Parade barbeque at 123 Cushing Ave. From about 3:30 on. We’ll have hamburgers and hotdogs on hand -- Parade marchers can also drop off food or drink before the parade if that works for them.

We are getting an excellent response from our members and friends! This promises to be the largest and most diverse Peace presence ever in the Dot Day Parade. Please help spread the word and let us know if you will be marching with us by emailing info@dotpeace.org or phoning 617-282-3783.

Gen. Smedley Butler: “WAR IS A RACKET”

A speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC.

“WAR is a racket. It always has been It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives…”Full text and an audio story/commentary here

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Next DPP Meeting

Monday, June 8, Kick-Off 25% Solution Campaign, 7-9pm,Vietnamese American Community Center, 42 Charles St., Fields Corner. Also, an update on this year’s opt-out/counter-recruiting campaign.Wheelchair accessible. Please call in advance if you need translation, childcare, a ride, or have other needs: 617-282-3783.

The new DPP Facilitation Team is:

Denise Zwahlen - denisezwahlen@yahoo.com

Alan Booth - adb_durant@hotmail.com

Jeff Klein – jjk123@comcast.net

Contact them for questions, suggestions for meeting topics, DPP organizational matters

DPP Needs YOU!

With DPP’s new decentralized committee-based structure there is sometimes a need to consult or make decisions about issues in between membership meetings we established a “Core” or decision-making group of active DPP members who could be contacted quickly by email or phone. This is also a way of participating more actively in DPP work -- also possible through becoming active with one of our committees (see contact info at the end of this email) Please reply to this email if you want to be a participant in the DPP decision-making process.

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UJP Strategy Conference Saturday, June 13 - Hold the Date

1-5pm, Friends Meeting House, 5 Longfellow Park, Cambridge

The Strategy Conference will cover: Political discussion on ending the Afghanistan/Pakistan war; Reports from Cut Military Budget 25% Disarmament, Israel-Palestine, and other working groups; General discussion on state of the peace movement; Structure of UJP

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DEMOCRATS POSTPONE ACTION ON WAR BILL

Worried by their prospects in the House, Democrats postponed final action on a nearly $100 billion wartime spending bill until next week so as to buy more time for talks among lawmakers and the return of President Barack Obama from overseas. More

With Your Help, The House Can Defeat the War/IMF Supplemental

Can you call your Representative today, and ask him or her to vote no on the war supplemental? The Congressional switchboard is 202-225-3121: ask to be connected to your Representative. Last month, 60 Members of the House voted against the war supplemental. But this week, the supplemental could be defeated on the floor of the House. House Republicans, including Minority Leader John Boehner, have threatened to vote no on the war funding if the IMF money is attached. If Republicans vote no, and if all the Democrats who voted no last month vote no again, the war supplemental would fail on the floor of the House, 200-228.

McGovern Bill to Require Afghan “Exit Strategy”

Rep. Jim McGovern introduced H.R. 2404, a house resolution “To require the Secretary of Defense to submit a report to Congress outlining the United States exit strategy for United States military forces in Afghanistan participating in Operation Enduring Freedom” by the end of the year. Details here.

The bill now has 84 co-sponsors, including (beside McGovern) Capuano, Delahunt, Frank, Olver, Tierney, Tsongas; not so far Lynch, Markey, Neal.

Lynch constituents should call his office. . . (202) 225-8273 (ask for Mariana Osorio, his foreign policy staffer) or email stephen.lynch@mail.house.gov

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OBAMA IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Addressing Muslim World, Obama Calls for New Start

As President Obama opened a bold overture to the Islamic world on Thursday, urging Americans and Muslims to drop their suspicions of one another and vigorously confront violent extremism, he pledged to pursue a two-state solution to Middle East peace “that is in Israel’s interest, Palestine’s interest.”It was the first time Mr. Obama had publicly referred to “Palestine,” choosing it over the more ambiguous “Palestinian state” usually relied on by United States leaders. He dwelled on Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan in his sweeping address here, but reserved some of his sharpest words for Israel and called for an end to settlements in the West Bank. More

Read (and watch) the speech here

Muslims see shift in Obama speech, no breakthrough

From shopkeepers and students to radical groups such as Hamas, many Muslims praised President Barack Obama's address Thursday as a positive shift in U.S. attitude and tone. But hard-liners criticized it as style over substance and said it lacked concrete proposals to turn the words into action. Obama touched on many themes Muslims wanted to hear in the highly anticipated speech broadcast live across much of the Middle East and elsewhere across the Muslim world. He insisted Palestinians must have a state and said continued Israeli settlement in the West Bank is not legitimate. He assured them the U.S. would pull all it troops out of Iraq by 2012 and promised no permanent U.S. presence in Afghanistan. More

Obama's speech marks a strategic revolution for Israel

For Israel, Obama's "Cairo speech" marks nothing less than a strategic revolution. During the Bush era, Israel was America's friendliest partner in the war on terror, and enjoyed military freedom of operation against the Palestinians, Hezbollah and Syria, for which it in return withdrew from the Gaza settlements. With Obama, Israel has to undergo a re-education, and will have to once again pass a test of its dedication to U.S. interests in the Middle East. Until yesterday, Obama discussed the Israeli-Arab conflict in terms of interests, and refrained from speaking about values and ethics. But in Cairo, he used the vocabulary and narrative of the American liberal left, whence he came. He spoke unwaveringly about "the occupation" and about the "Palestinians aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own," More

Iraqis See Signs of Progress in Obama's Speech to Muslim World

President Obama did not dwell on the war in Iraq during his speech to the Muslim world in Cairo Thursday. But the address was closely watched by Iraqis, who are looking for signs of what is to come for their own nation and hope they can believe what the president said. Two to three minutes of Obama's nearly hour-long speech were devoted to reassuring Iraqis that the U.S. will honor its commitment to pull troops out of the country by 2012. More

Obama Hits A Home Run

He even nodded to Hamas, acknowledging that Hamas has support among the Palestinians, and – amazingly – did not refer to the organization as a "terrorist group." And, of course, he kept up the pressure on Israeli expansionism by yet again slamming the settlements in the occupied territories – an issue, that likely as not, will bring down Bibi Netanyahu's right-wing government. On Iran, Obama stated clearly that Iran has the right to peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Indeed, it is precisely that issue that will be at the core of the coming U.S.-Iran dialogue… More

CHOMSKY: What Obama Didn't Say in His Cairo Address Speaks Volumes

A CNN headline, reporting Obama's plans for his June 4 address in Cairo, Egypt, reads "Obama looks to reach the soul of the Muslim world." Perhaps that captures his intent, but more significant is the content hidden in the rhetorical stance, or more accurately, omitted… Those familiar with the history will rationally conclude, then, that Obama will continue in the path of unilateral U.S. rejectionism. More

Wall Street Journal: “Barack Hussein Bush”

One benefit of the Obama Presidency is that it is validating much of George W. Bush's security agenda and foreign policy merely by dint of autobiographical rebranding. That was clear enough yesterday in Cairo, where President Obama advertised "a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world." But what he mostly offered were artfully repackaged versions of themes President Bush sounded with his freedom agenda. More

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Tell Congress to Ban Cluster Munitions!

One year ago this week -- on May 30, 2008 -- more than 100 governments put the finishing touches on the biggest arms control and humanitarian treaty negotiated in a decade. The global treaty to ban the production, use, and stockpiling of cluster munitions has been endorsed by nearly all of the United States NATO allies and many other countries -- 96 in all.

In December 2008, then President-elect Obama promised that after he took office he would launch a review of the Bush administration's decision not to sign the global treaty banning cluster bombs.

The Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) is campaigning to persuade President Obama to overrule the Pentagon and endorse a global treaty banning these weapons by promoting the Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act (S. 416), They hope to reach at least 33 Senate cosponsors. Senator Kennedy has signed on, but so far not Kerry.

Please help make some noise! Send a letter to your senators urging them to cosponsor the Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act (S.416) and help put an end to use of these terrible weapons.

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COST OF WAR

GEORGE MCGOVERN: We could defend ourselves with half the military budget

We now spend $12 billion a month on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- two mistaken invasions that have increased violence and terrorism in the Middle East. For a fraction of what we are spending on these badly conceived interventions, we could fund a new GI Bill with full medical care for the tens of thousands of veterans who have lost legs or arms or suffered lasting nerve or brain damage. The second step I would take is to ask Congress to shift half of our military budget to other sources of national security. More

Where the money comes from, where it goes and what it could pay for instead.

http://nationalpriorities.org/

The Military Cost of Securing Energy… and the alternatives

http://www.nationalpriorities.org/Energy_Security/Energy_Priorities

DPP Takes Up the “25% SOLUTION” Campaign

FUND OUR COMMUNITIES – REDUCE MILITARY SPENDING

DPP members decided at our April 13 meeting to work on developing a campaign to reduce military spending and redirect the funds to vital community needs. We are working in collaboration with the our community allies and the larger UJP movement. Since February, some of us have been talking to numbers of organizations to find out what they think about joining together in a "Fund Our Communities - Cut Military Spending / 25%" campaign. It is expected that a group of community leaders, together with DPP, will soon convene a larger meeting to launch the effort, with a possible “roll-out” with a joint group marching in the Dorchester Day Parade June 7.

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“WHERE THE MONEY IS. . .” – During the 1930’s a notorious gangster was asked why he robbed banks. His famous reply: “Because that’s where the money is!” If we look at where the bulk of federal spending goes, it is clear that military spending is “where the money is.” This is why local government and community services are starved – and why, by ignoring this, local politicians are looking to raise additional revenue from regressive taxes on family spending and housing.

$23,458,507,116 = Cost of Iraq/Afghanistan Wars to Massachusetts, so far.

A 25% reduction in military spending could mean annual funding of

$5,000,000,000 for Massachusetts

$500,000,000 for Boston

What could that pay for in schools, neighborhood services and green jobs?

In case you missed it. . .

Barney Frank: Cut the Military Budget

I would be very happy if there was some way to make it a misdemeanor for people to talk about reducing the budget deficit without including a recommendation that we substantially cut military spending. Sadly, self-described centrist and even liberal organizations often talk about the need to curtail deficits by cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other programs that have a benign social purpose, but they fail to talk about one area where substantial budget reductions would have the doubly beneficial effect of cutting the deficit and diminishing expenditures that often do more harm than good. More

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“WAR ON TERROR” . . . Do You Feel Safer Now?

How Many Times Will Guantánamo Kill?

It began with the deaths of Manei al-Otaibi, Yasser al-Zahrani (Saudi Arabia) and Ali Abdullah Ahmed Al Salami (Yemen) in June 2006. That was followed the deaths of Abdul Rahman al-Amri (Saudi Arabia) in May 2007 followed by Abdur-Razzaq (Afghanistan) in 2008. All but the latter are said to have committed suicide. That version of events is highly contested by their families and former prisoners who knew them. A few weeks ago the alleged suicide of Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi in a Libyan desert-prison elicited a similar response. This week, it was the turn of Muhammad Ahmad Abdallah Salih, one of the hundred or so Yemenis, the single largest group still held at Guantánamo Bay. More

Taking a Troubling Measure of Torture

According to the Times, "Armed with polling data that show a narrow majority of support for keeping the prison open and deep fear about the detainees, Republicans in Congress started laying plans even before the inauguration to make the debate over Guantanamo Bay a question of local community safety instead of one about national character and principles. " No political party would dare make torture a cornerstone of its rejuvenation if people really understood what it is. And lest we forget, we're not just talking about waterboarding, itself a trivializing euphemism for drowning. More

CIA station chief: Torture did not thwart terror attacks

Milton Bearden, a former Central Intelligence Agency Pakistan station chief who served at the agency for three decades, says claims that the Bush administration’s so-called enhanced interrogation techniques saved American lives are likely false. The retired senior CIA officer also says that the former administration’s repeated assertions that attacks were foiled through torture are hurting US credibility abroad, endangering alliances and aiding the cause of would-be terrorists. More

General Rick Sanchez Calls for War Crimes Truth Commission
In front of a packed audience tonight at the Times Center in New York City, General Ricardo Sanchez, the former commander of all coalition forces in Iraq, called for a truth commission to investigate the abuses and torture which occurred there. The General described the failures at all levels of civilian and military command that led to the abuses in Iraq, "and that is why I support the formation of a truth commission." The General went on to say that, "during my time in Iraq there was not one instance of actionable intelligence that came out of these interrogation techniques." More

And “DOMESTIC TERRORISM. . .”

The Murder of Dr. Tiller

The Rush Limbaughs, Pat Robertsons, and Ann Coulters have responsibility for Dr. Tiller’s murder too, by creating a political climate leading to his murder. 9-11 was the fault of “abortionists” according to Pat Robertson. The clever Rush comment “Tiller the Killer,” drawn straight from the constant street protesters around George’s clinic, and Coulter’s comment that previous abortion doctors were killed by a “gun used in a procedure” all fuel the climate that it’s OK to murder doctors. More

George Tiller: Casualty of the Culture Wars?

It is too early to say whether the murder of Dr. Tiller will trigger a wave of violent terrorism targeting abortion providers similar to the one that took place during the mid-1990s. It is not too early to be struck by the parallels. Then, as now, the violence came not in a moment of triumph for the prolife movement but in the face of isolation and defeat. More

The far-right's violent return

When Barack Obama was elected president last year, pro- choice activists were elated, but there was an undercurrent of anxiety. In the past, the extremist fringe of the anti-abortion movement has responded to political disempowerment with violence… So when Dr Tiller was assassinated in church on Sunday morning, it was a hideous shock, but it was also, in some ways, predicted. This April, a leaked report from the Department of Homeland Security warned about a possible outbreak of right-wing violence. "Paralleling the current national climate, right-wing extremists during the 1990s exploited a variety of social issues and political themes to increase group visibility and recruit new members," the report said, mentioning opposition to gun control, free trade, abortion and same-sex marriage, as well as racial antagonism. More

Some Headlines from a Rightwing Religious Web Site:

FAITH UNDER FIRE

WorldNetDaily Exclusive: 'Government persecuting' jailed creation evangelist; Kent Hovind built celebrated anti-evolution ministry, now serving 10-year prison sentence on tax charges

Got your permit to study the Bible?

Exclusive: Chuck Norris warns America, it's time to fight for religious freedom

Stunning Darwin-led-to-Hitler video – $4.95 today only!

Acclaimed DVD documentary, normally $25, will change your view of evolution forever

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IRAQ

DAHR JAMAIL: The Return of the Resistance

At least 20 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq in May, the most since last September, along with more than 50 wounded. Iraqi casualties are, as usual - and in both categories - at least ten times that number. Attacks against US forces are once again on the rise in places like Baghdad and Fallujah, where the Iraqi resistance was fiercest before so many of them joined the Sahwa (Sons of Iraq, also referred to as Awakening Councils), and began taking payments from the US military in exchange for halting attacks against the occupiers and agreeing to join the fight against al-Qaeda in Iraq. More

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AFGHANISTAN LOOMS. . . and Pakistan

New U.S. Afghan strategy will cost billions, take years

President Barack Obama's choice to take charge of the war in Afghanistan Tuesday called "significant growth" of the Afghan army and national police the key to his strategy, but the annual cost of building and maintaining the existing Afghan force is more than four times larger than the entire Afghan economy… "We are building an army they will never be able to afford," a senior U.S. military official told McClatchy. More

"War on Terror" Destabilizes Pakistan

So far the principle result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan following the events of 9-11 has been the destabilization of Pakistan. That breakdown is peaking with the events in what AP calls the “Swat town” of Mingora---actually a city of 375,000 from which all but 20,000 have fled as government forces moved in, strafing it with gunships. We’re talking urban guerrilla warfare, house-to-house fighting, not on the Afghan border but 50 miles away in the Swat Valley. We’re talking about Pakistani troops fighting to reclaim the nearby Malam Jabba ski resort from the Tehreek-e-Taliban, who since last year have been using it as a training center and logistics base. We’re talking about two million people fleeing the fighting in the valley and 160,000 in government refugee camps. More

Corpses lay exposed in retaken Swat town

Corpses lay exposed in the Swat Valley's main town on Sunday, and residents rushed to mostly empty markets in search of food a day after the military claimed to have retaken the city from the Taliban… "We have been starving for many days. We have been cooking tree leaves to keep ourselves alive. Thank God it is over," said Afzal Khan. "We need food, we need help. We want peace." More

Pakistan's Victories Over the Taliban: Will They Last?

The lasting impact of the military's Swat campaign, however, may well be the 3 million civilians it has displaced, left to largely fend for themselves in neighboring towns and emergency camps. Aid agencies warn of an impending humanitarian disaster in Swat, where civilians who failed to flee have been cut off for days from food and water supplies; others languish in camps and sympathetic communities desperately short of resources. Many of those who have returned to areas cleared by the military have found their homes, stores and mosques reduced to rubble. More

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PALESTINE - ISRAEL

The Peril of Forgetting Gaza

The recent meeting between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu generated speculation over the future relationship between America and Israel, and a potentially changed U.S. policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Analysts on the right and left are commenting on a new, tougher American policy characterized by strengthened U.S. demands on Israel. However, beneath the diplomatic choreography lies an agonizing reality that received only brief comment from Obama and silence from Netanyahu: The ongoing devastation of the people of Gaza. More

VIDEO: Focus on Gaza here

ANALYSIS / Netanyahu will comply with Obama's demands

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will back down. Another week, another month, and he will give into American pressure and will be forced to accept the two-state solution and also agree to some sort of concessions on settlements… The Americans are demanding complete cessation of construction in the settlements, or in the language of President Obama, "no settlements." Netanyahu insists on "natural growth," but has no troops. Not one of Israel's supporters in the U.S. has stood up against the popular president to defend the construction of a new neighborhood in Ma'aleh Adumim or a home for a young couple in Itzhar. At most, they might ask Obama to be a little more gentle and not bash Israel. More

Israelis Say Bush Agreed to West Bank Growth

Senior Israeli officials accused President Obama on Wednesday of failing to acknowledge what they called clear understandings with the Bush administration that allowed Israel to build West Bank settlement housing within certain guidelines while still publicly claiming to honor a settlement “freeze.” The complaint was the latest in a growing rift between the Obama administration and the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over how to move forward to achieve peace in the Middle East. Mr. Obama was in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday and is scheduled to address the Muslim world from Cairo on Thursday. More

Gideon Levy: Future of Mideast is a domestic American issue

As the odds of Israeli society coming to its senses and fighting for its destiny have become infinitesimal, the arena for ending the occupation and pursuing peace has moved stateside, and Jewish America is itself beginning to undergo a revolution. One line of thinking goes like this: If Obama succeeds in dealing with GM, he will also win public support in dealing with Yitzhar and other settlements like it. If he can convince American supporters of Israel that relations with the Jewish state have become dishonest, the sky's the limit. Americans must understand that without changing relations with the Arab and Muslim worlds, the world itself will become a more dangerous place, and that improving relations with those people need not be at Israel's expense, but to its benefit. More

AVNERI: "Racists for Democracy"

HOW LUCKY we are to have the extreme Right standing guard over our democracy. This week, the Knesset voted by a large majority (47 to 34) for a law that threatens imprisonment for anyone who dares to deny that Israel is a Jewish and Democratic State… THE FACTORY of racist laws with a distinct fascist odor is now working at full steam. That is built into the new coalition. At its center is the Likud party, a good part of which is pure racist (sorry for the oxymoron). To its right there is the ultra-racist Shas party, to the right of which is Lieberman’s ultra-ultra racist "Israel is our Home" party, the ultra-ultra-ultra racist "Jewish Home" party, and to its right the even more racist "National Union" party, which includes outright Kahanists and stands with one foot in the coalition and the other on the moon. More

* * * *

Pushing for War with IRAN

Report Ties Dubious Iran Nuclear Docs to Israel

A report on Iran’s nuclear program issued by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month generated news stories publicizing an incendiary charge that U.S. intelligence is underestimating Iran’s progress in designing a "nuclear warhead" before the halt in nuclear weapons-related research in 2003. That false and misleading charge from an intelligence official of a foreign country, who was not identified but was clearly Israeli, reinforces two of Israel’s key propaganda themes on Iran – that the 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iran is wrong, and that Tehran is poised to build nuclear weapons as soon as possible. More

Blast from the past (2002)…

NETANYAHU: The Case for Toppling Saddam

If a pre-emptive action will be supported by a broad coalition of free countries and the U.N., all the better. But if such support is not forthcoming, then the U.S. must be prepared to act without it. This will require courage, and I see it abundantly present in President Bush's bold leadership and in the millions of Americans who have rallied behind him. More

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Other Events

Friday, June 5, Returning War Veterans: Challenges in Continuing Mental Health Care, 2:30-5pm, Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology, 221 Rivermoor Street, Boston (West Roxbury). Veterans returning from war carry emotional and brain injuries that are long-lasting and call for protracted care beyond crisis intervention. Is our mental health system and our society—traditionally geared to acute care of acute problems—willing and able to provide this care? How can we enhance our military, veterans administration, and civilian mental health systems and our community support to deal with these prolonged mental health needs? Open to the Professional Community and the Public—No Admission Charge

Saturday, June 13, Boston Teachers Union School Fundraiser, 8pm-midnight, BTU Hall, 180 Mt. Vernon St. Dorchester. DPP member Betsy Drinan, one of the lead teachers opening the new Boston Teachers Union School in September( www.btuschool.org), writes:

“We are having our first fundraiser - a comedy night on June 13 - and would love it if you could attend! You can purchase tickets for $35 by calling the BTU at 617 288 2000. You can also purchase tickets at the door ( though obviously advance ticket sales assist with the planning)See attached flyer for more information.”

Monday, June 15, Rabbis for Human Rights Arik Ascherman: Pursuing Justice, Finding Hope: Post Gaza Reflections, 7:30pm, Nehar Shalom Community Synagogue, 43 Lochstead Ave, Jamaica Plain. For parking information and directions, please visit Nehar Shalom Community Synagogue's website. Ascherman is visiting the States from Israel in June and will be speaking in several locations across the country, including Boston, as part of his twice-yearly educational and fund raising tour. You will find his complete itinerary at www.rhr-na.org. There is no cost for the talk, and donations in any amount are very appreciated.

Starts Tuesday, June 16, White People Challenging Racism: Moving From Talk to Action, Adult education Summer 2009 class starts Tuesday, June 16. Meets weekly for 5 weeks, from 6:45 pm to 8:45 pm at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education, 42 Brattle St., Harvard Square, Cambridge. Costs only $27 (plus administrative fee), including materials. Register at www.ccae.org (the course code is WHIT) or call 617-547-6789 For more information, go to: www.wpcr-boston.org, contact Barbara Beckwith phone: 617-868-3143 email: beckwithb@aol.com

Friday, June 26, Islamic Society of Boston: Interfaith and Civic Leaders’ Inaugural Breakfast. 8:45am, breakfast at the Reggie Lewis Center; 11:30am Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony at the mosque with Mayor Menino. The weekend’s various inaugural events entitled "Islam in America: From Slavery to Citizenship", mark the completion of Phase 1 of the 68,000 square foot Islamic cultural center; the largest in New England. . Several key leaders from various faith communities will speak, and Professor William A. Graham, Dean of the Harvard Divinity School will be a featured speaker. Tickets to the Breakfast event are $25.

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CONTACTING DPP and Joining Our Work:

To make it easier to get involved with DPP, we've decided to publish contact info for our coordinators in every issue of this update. We will also regularly publish upcoming meetings of work committees, create a brochure or flyer about DPP, and greet new people at monthly meetings with an explanation of how we work. Here's how to reach them.

Facilitation Committee:

Denise Zwahlen - denisezwahlen@yahoo.com; Alan Booth - adb_durant@hotmail.com; Jeff Klein – jjk123@comcast.net

The Anti-War Committee pressures Congress, does community outreach and education to end the wars in the Middle East. Contact Denise Zwahlen at denisezwahlen@yahoo.com.

The Counter-Recruitment Committee educates youth and their parents about alternatives to military service and how to keep military recruiters from getting their contact information. Contact Alison Gottlieb at alison.gottlieb@umb.edu .

The Biolab Committee opposes the bio-hazard laboratory that BU is building at Boston Medical Center. Contact Mike Coté at mike_j_cote@yahoo.com.

The Multi-Cultural Competence Committee promotes internal and public education on racism and the diverse cultures of Dorchester. Contact Mary Regan, maryregan@hotmail.com.

Our Treasurer is Mike Prokosch, mikeprokosch@verizon.net. Daryl Wright and Mike Prokosch prepare budgets

and write funding proposals: dwright@youthbuild.org, mikeprokosch@verizon.net .

* * * *

DPP Calendar - Monthly Meetings/Events

June 7: Dorchester Day Parade

June 8: Next DPP meeting

* * * *

CORI Reform Rally & Speak Out
Wednesday, June 3 10am-12:30pm
State House Steps (Beacon St): after rallying on the steps, we will enter the State House around 11am to deliver letters to our legislators. Please join BWA and our allies in a creative Rally & Speak Out on June 3rd for CORI reform. CORI speakers will be dressed in the clothing of their occupational of choice (cook, nurse, customer service, building trades etc) to underscore the talents that they have and to show how CORI locks them out of the system.
For more information or to endorse the campaign, contact: Aaron at Boston Workers' Alliance, 617 606 3580 or email atanaka@bostonworkersalliance.org

Please save the date: June 30 for a major press conference & lobby day to pass CORI reform in 2009. Stay tuned for details.

* * * *

Project HIP-HOP Still Needs Your Help

Mariama White-Hammond writes:

Project HIP-HOP refuses to cut back in the face of the greatest need we have ever seen. Our board, staff and volunteer base are rallying together to raise these funds and we need your support.

If you missed the Thursday fundraiser, you can still make a contribution on-line or by mail – details here

* * * *

Next DPP Meeting

Monday, June 8, Kick-Off 25% Solution Campaign, 7-9pm,Vietnamese American Community Center, 42 Charles St., Fields Corner.

Wheelchair accessible. Please call in advance if you need translation, childcare, a ride, or have other needs: 617-282-3783.

The new DPP Facilitation Team is:

Denise Zwahlen - denisezwahlen@yahoo.com

Alan Booth - adb_durant@hotmail.com

Jeff Klein – jjk123@comcast.net

Contact them for questions, suggestions for meeting topics, DPP organizational matters

DPP Needs YOU!

* * * *

UJP Strategy Conference Saturday, June 13 - Hold the Date

1-5pm, Friends Meeting House, 5 Longfellow Park, Cambridge

The Strategy Conference will cover:

· Political discussion on ending the Afghanistan/Pakistan war

· Reports from Cut Military Budget 25%, Disarmament, Israel-Palestine, and other working groups

· General discussion on state of the peace movement

· Structure of UJP

* * * *

McGovern Bill to Require Afghan “Exit Strategy”

When the bill was filed it had 74 co-sponsors, including (beside McGovern) Capuano, Delahunt, Frank, Olver, Tierney, Tsongas; not so far Lynch, Markey, Neal.

Lynch constituents should call his office. . . (202) 225-8273 (ask for Mariana Osorio, his foreign policy staffer) or email stephen.lynch@mail.house.gov

Senate O.K.'s $91 Billion in War Funds

The Senate approved $91 billion in funding for the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan yesterday, with all senators but three voting for the bill.

This, along with a House vote last week in favor of $97 billion, seals the deal for the Obama administration's first supplemental war spending request. The no-strings-attached legislation comes as a deep disappointment to progressive members of Congress, as well as to antiwar voters, many of whom hoped the Obama administration would mark a significant break with Bush-style war funding. More

Last minute efforts by peace groups across the country (including many UFPJ member groups), were able to garner as many as 52 antiwar votes on the House side. (Roll-call vote here) This was much better than anticipated, but still far from the numbers we need. On the Senate side, there were only two antiwar votes: Feingold and Sanders.

Please call the district or state offices of your Representative or Senator, and thank them if they voted "No." If they voted "Yes" ask if a staff member can explain their decision and express your disappointment.

DPP joined many other anti-war organizations in signing a letter to the Congressional Progressive Caucus asking for their continued opposition to more money for war funding.

Tell Kennedy and Kerry: No More Blank Checks for War!

Kennedy: (202) 224-4543; email: senator@kennedy.senate.gov

Kerry: (202) 224-2742; email: john_kerry@kerry.senate.gov

* * * *

Tell Congress to Ban Cluster Munitions!

In December 2008, then President-elect Obama promised that after he took office he would launch a review of the Bush administration's decision not to sign the global treaty banning cluster bombs.

* * * *

GI TRAUMA, RESISTANCE. . .

The SECOND ANNUAL MEMORIAL DAY FOR PEACE was observed Veterans for Peace and other organizations at Long Warf on Monday with a moving tribute to the soldiers and civilians who lost their lives in US wars. The crowd was solemn but determined – and the event also received significant local publicity:

Honor the dead, work for future peace, speakers say

Though the speeches mostly focused on members of the military who had died in wars present and past, politics crept in. Maureen Hearn of Military Families Speak Out raised the specter of an impatient electorate when she noted that while voters "elected a president who promised to bring the troops home . . . President Obama is not only continuing the war in Iraq, he's increasing the number of troops" being sent to Afghanistan. More

Nice article in The Metro also, here

CINDY SHEEHAN: Day Of The Dead
Casey will always be my hero but he was a victim of US Imperialism and his death should bring shame, not pride, as it did not bring freedom to anyone. I will, of course, mourn his senseless death on Memorial Day as I do every day. However, we do not need another day here in America to glorify war which enables the Military Industrial Complex to commit its crimes under the black cloak of "Patriotism." From Palestine to Africa to South America, our quest for global economic domination kills, sickens, maims or oppresses people on a daily basis and about 25,000 children per day die of starvation. I am not okay with these facts and I am not proud of my country. I will spend my reflective time on MD to mourn not only the deaths of so many people all over the world due to war, but mourn the fact that they are the unseen and uncared for victims of US Empire. More

Courage to Resist:

http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/

* * * *

“OUR BOMBS” is an interactive website and documentary film that looks at the human cost and strategic implications of U.S. air strikes. The film takes a unconventional look at the psychology behind military decision making, questioning how the technology and distance of aerial warfare affect our ethical and strategic judgments.

[But it doesn’t include attacks with US bombs by other countries – principally Israel, but also Turkey. . . ]

* * * *

COST OF WAR

Cost of Empire

"There is virtually no news coverage-no journalists' or editors' curiosity-about the pressures or lures at work when the U.S. government seeks to persuade officials of Romania, Aruba or Ecuador that providing U.S. military-basing access would be good for their countries." The American public, if not the residents of the territories in question, is almost totally innocent of the huge costs involved, the crimes committed by our soldiers against women and children in the occupied territories, the environmental pollution, and the deep and abiding suspicions generated among people forced to live close to thousands of heavily armed, culturally myopic and dangerously indoctrinated American soldiers. More

Where the money comes from, where it goes and what it could pay for instead.

http://nationalpriorities.org/

The Military Cost of Securing Energy… and the alternatives

http://www.nationalpriorities.org/Energy_Security/Energy_Priorities

DPP Takes Up the “25% SOLUTION” Campaign

FUND OUR COMMUNITIES – REDUCE MILITARY SPENDING

* * * *

$23,458,507,116 = Cost of Iraq/Afghanistan Wars to Massachusetts, so far.

A 25% reduction in military spending could mean annual funding of

$5,000,000,000 for Massachusetts

$500,000,000 for Boston

What could that pay for in schools, neighborhood services and green jobs?

In case you missed it. . .

Barney Frank: Cut the Military Budget

* * * *

“WAR ON TERROR” . . . Do You Feel Safer Now?

Facts and myths about Obama's preventive detention proposal

Guantanamo is a symbol, true, but it's a symbol of a lawless, unconstitutional detention and interrogation system. Changing the venue doesn't solve the problem… There are literally tens of thousands of potential terrorists all over the world who could theoretically harm America. We cannot protect ourselves from that possibility by keeping the handful we have in custody locked up forever, whether in Guantanamo or some Super Max prison in the US. More

Military Commissions, Round Three

Politicians normally like to be praised, but I have to wonder how President Obama feels having gotten accolades from such unaccustomed sources as Ari Fleischer, John McCain and the Wall Street Journal. …this month, the Obama administration announced that it would resume trials of Guantanamo detainees by military commissions, albeit under new rules that would offer defendants greater legal protections. The additional rules prohibit the introduction of evidence obtained through cruel treatment, tighten the rules on hearsay evidence, and allow detainees greater choice in selecting defense lawyers. While the revised commissions improve somewhat on the model used by the Bush administration, they still fall far short of providing the due process guarantees found in U.S. federal courts. Unsurprisingly, Republicans are jubilant. More

Inflating the Guantánamo Threat

…a Pentagon report made public on Tuesday concluded that 74 of the 534 men who have been freed from Guantánamo were “confirmed or suspected of re-engaging in terrorist activities.” This is a recidivism rate of around 14 percent, which was up from the Pentagon’s previous estimate in January of 11 percent. But are things this bad? While we must of course be careful about who is released, these numbers are very likely inflated. This is in part because the Pentagon includes on the list any released prisoner who is either “confirmed” or just “suspected” to have engaged in terrorism anywhere in the world, whether those actions were directed at the United States or not. And, bizarrely, the Defense Department has in the past even lumped into the recidivist category former prisoners who have done no more than criticize the United States after their release. More

Freedom is worth security risks: The Chimera of Total Security

If history is a guide to the future (and it is), then terrorists will hit us again, no matter who is president, no matter what policies he or she sets. Dick Cheney knows this, yet he preys on our fear with politics. No one denies a need to take every reasonable precaution for security. But we need to get over the idea we can guarantee we are never hit again. You simply cannot make that promise and have left a country worth living in. Or as President Eisenhower reputedly said, "If you want total security, go to prison." More

General Accuses WH of War Crimes

The two-star general who led an Army investigation into the horrific detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib has accused the Bush administration of war crimes and is calling for accountability… Now, in a preface to a Physicians for Human Rights report based on medical examinations of former detainees, Taguba adds an epilogue to his own investigation. The new report, he writes, "tells the largely untold human story of what happened to detainees in our custody when the Commander-in-Chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture. This story is not only written in words: It is scrawled for the rest of these individual's lives on their bodies and minds. Our national honor is stained by the indignity and inhumane treatment these men received from their captors. More

Yet Another Bogus 'Terror' Plot

Despite the pompous statements from Mayor Bloomberg of New York and other politicians, including Representative Peter King, the whole story is bogus. The four losers may have been inclined to violence, and they may have harbored a virulent strain of anti-Semitism. But it seems that the informant whipped up their violent tendencies and their hatred of Jews, cooked up the plot, incited them, arranged their purchase of weapons, and then had them busted. To ensure that it made headlines, the creepy informant claimed to be representing a Pakistani extremist group, Jaish-e Muhammad, a bona fide terrorist organization. He wasn't, of course. It is disgusting and outrageous that the FBI is sending provocateurs into mosques.

The headlines reinforce the very fear that Dick Cheney is trying to stir up. The story strengthens the narrative that the "homeland" is under attack. It's not. More

5 decry jail terms in Holy Land Foundation case

The five defendants in the Holy Land Foundation case were defiant Wednesday while being sentenced for their roles in funneling money to overseas terrorists, expressing disbelief that American law could criminalize the feeding of needy Palestinian people… "We gave the essentials of life – oil, rice, flour," former Holy Land board chairman Ghassan Elashi said before receiving his 65-year sentence. More

* * * *

PALESTINE - ISRAEL

Obama Pushes Israel On Settlement Issue
President Obama yesterday continued to press his administration's tough stance on Jewish settlements in the West Bank, telling reporters after a meeting with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas that Israel must halt all settlement activity to build momentum for peace. Obama, who met last week with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, said, "In my conversations with Prime Minister Netanyahu, I was very clear about the need to stop settlements, to make sure that we are stopping the building of outposts . . . to alleviate some of the pressures that the Palestinian people are under in terms of travel and commerce." More

Key Lawmakers Are Opposing Israeli Policy On Settlements

…when Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu came to Capitol Hill for a May 18 meeting after being pressed by President Obama to freeze the expansion of West Bank settlements, he was “stunned,” Netanyahu aides said, to hear what seemed like a well-coordinated attack against his stand on settlements. The criticism came from congressional leaders, key lawmakers dealing with foreign relations and even from a group of Jewish members… In their meetings, according to the congressional aide, lawmakers rejected Netanyahu’s call for Palestinian reciprocity on terrorism as a precondition and kept pressing him on the need to stop building in settlements. More

Israel rebuffs US call for total settlement freeze

Israel defied a surprisingly blunt U.S. demand that it freeze all building in West Bank Jewish settlements, saying Thursday it will press ahead with construction. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday that President Barack Obama wants Israel to halt to all settlement construction _ including "natural growth." She was referring to Israel's insistence that new construction is necessary to accommodate the expansion of families already living in existing settlements. More

The Never-Ending “Outpost Evacuation”

At this week's cabinet meeting, Benjamin Netanyahu said that "we will not set up new settlements." But in the very same breath he added that "it is not fair not to provide a solution for natural increase." The best of Israbluff: Every community in the territories occupies a nearby hill or Palestinian agricultural land, builds roads there, sets up houses and calls this "natural increase." It's not a new settlement, it's a new neighborhood, they say. Even the new immigrants who settle there are considered "natural increase." The settlers have one aim - to create facts on the ground to render any territorial solution impossible. Not a Palestinian state, not even a state of cantons. More

Is Abbas Still Relevant to the Peace Process?

Last week's meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu underscored the challenge Obama faces in pursuing a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — the Israeli leader, after all, opposes the principle of sovereign independence for the Palestinians. This week, Obama will encounter a second major obstacle: Abbas may be committed to the two-state solution, but his political authority over his own people is so limited that he is unable to effectively negotiate on their behalf. More

The Dangers of False Optimism in the Middle East

But whether or not Obama is willing to twist arms to impose a settlement, a broader question remains unanswered. The conditions for peace processing may be better than they have been in the preceding eight years, but the reality on the ground is now eight years worse… The status quo is also increasingly untenable, and the more likely scenario for the coming decade, if not longer, is that Israel's determined efforts to perpetuate it will produce increasing - and increasingly existential, regionalised and bloody - conflict. With the train derailed, the light at the tunnel's end is liable to remain very dim for the foreseeable future. More

* * * *

IRAQ

Army chief: Troops could be in Iraq after 2012

The United States could have fighting forces in Iraq and Afghanistan for a decade, the top Army officer said, even though a signed agreement requires all U.S. forces to be out of Iraq by 2012. Gen. George Casey, Army chief of staff, said Tuesday his planning envisions combat troops in Iraq and Afghanistan for a decade as part of a sustained U.S. commitment to fighting extremism and terrorism in the Middle East. More

U.K. Finishes Withdrawal of Its Last Combat Troops in Iraq

The last of Britain’s combat troops finished military operations in Iraq today, ending a six-year deployment at their base near Basra in the south of the country… The U.K. deployed up to 46,000 soldiers to help the U.S. oust Saddam Hussein and has scaled back its force steadily since then. About 400 British personnel will stay on after today, mainly to help train the Iraqi navy. More

Prospects are dismal for returning Iraqi refugees

Since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, an estimated 4 million Iraqis have fled their homes to escape the violence, half of them abroad. Several months ago, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki began telling them to return, assuring them that Iraq is safe. Not everyone agrees, however, and some families who've come back said they regretted it. They face soaring rents, limited job opportunities and shortages of electricity, clean water, education and health care, not to mention the continuing threat of violence and political instability. More

DAHR JAMAIL: Provoking the Inevitable

… the ongoing attacks by the Maliki government against the Sahwa continue to destabilize the situation in Iraq and allow overall violence to increase with each passing week. We are seeing Sahwa fighters leave their posts in ever-increasing numbers; the US military is literally redrawing the boundaries of cities in order not to move their bases outside of them to respect the Status of Forces Agreement, and there is no sign from the Obama administration that there will ever be a full withdrawal from Iraq, nor reparations made to the people of Iraq. More

* * * *

Pushing for War with IRAN

Obama orders Gates to update plan for Iran strike

American defense secretary tells NBC television president has instructed him to refresh plans for military action against Tehran prepared during Bush era. 'Presidents always ask their military to have a range of contingency plans available to them,' he says More

Everything You Think You Know About Iran is Wrong

… over the last five years, senior Iranian officials at every level have repeatedly asserted that they do not intend to build nuclear weapons. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has quoted the regime's founding father, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who asserted that such weapons were "un-Islamic." The country's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a fatwa in 2004 describing the use of nuclear weapons as immoral. In a subsequent sermon, he declared that "developing, producing or stockpiling nuclear weapons is forbidden under Islam." Last year Khamenei reiterated all these points after meeting with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei. Now, of course, they could all be lying. But it seems odd for a regime that derives its legitimacy from its fidelity to Islam to declare constantly that these weapons are un-Islamic if it intends to develop them. More

Have We Already Lost Iran?

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S Iran policy has, in all likelihood, already failed. On its present course, the White House’s approach will not stop Tehran’s development of a nuclear fuel program — or, as Iran’s successful test of a medium-range, solid-fuel missile last week underscored, military capacities of other sorts. It will also not provide an alternative to continued antagonism between the United States and Iran — a posture that for 30 years has proved increasingly damaging to the interests of the United States and its allies in the Middle East. More

ANALYSIS / Netanyahu bringing Israel closer to war with Iran

A senior source close to the Obama administration has said that the dialogue Obama has offered Iran will come to nothing and that the U.S. will not strike Iran unless something unusual and unexpected happens. If this turns out to be the case, the Netanyahu government may have to decide whether to attack Iran's nuclear installations… A war with Iran is not inevitable. But the prime minister took another step yesterday toward preparing the general public for the possibility that it might break out. More

Blast from the past (2002)…

NETANYAHU: The Case for Toppling Saddam

Half of Israelis back immediate strike on Iran

Fifty-one percent support an immediate Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear sites, while 49 percent believe the Jewish state should await the outcome of efforts by the US administration to engage with the Islamic republic, said the survey published by Tel Aviv University.

But 74 percent of those questioned said they believe that new US President Barack Obama's efforts will not stop the Islamic republic from acquiring atomic weapons. More

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Other Events

May 21 - June 6, The Eyes of Babylon: award-winning, critically acclaimed play by IVAW member, Boston Playwrights' Theater, 949 Commonwealth Ave. The play is developed from the Iraq War Journals of Iraq Veterans Against the War member, and former marine, Lance Corporal Jeff Key who deployed to Iraq in March 2003 and was med-evac'd two months later for surgery after a non-combat related accident. While deployed to Iraq, Key kept his sanity by recording his experiences in a small moleskin notebook he kept in the cargo pocket of his cammies. For entertainment, he read the journals to his fellow marines. In the journal there are serious moments and moments seriously funny. For tickets: http://www.bu.edu/bpt or 866-811-4111. For more info on the play: http://www.theeyesofbabylon.com To hear Key's Winter Soldier testimony: http://ivaw.org/wintersoldier/

Saturday, May 30, Modern Day Slavery in Bateyes, 5-8pm, Great Hall, Codman Sq. Please join members of the Association of Haitian Women (AFAB) and two special guests-HELENE KOSCIELNIAK and AMY SERRANO- on May 30th for a discussion on the plight of Haitians in the Dominican Republic For more info - tel 617-287-0096

Wednesday, June 3, Community-Labor United Annual Dinner, 6 pm at the China Pearl restaurant, 9 Tyler Street, Chinatown. Please reserve your tickets now for CLU's Annual Awards Dinner,. This year we are honoring: •Caroline Murray and the Alliance to Develop Power for their pioneering work creating community-controlled green jobs in and around Springfield. •Mike Fadel and SEIU 1199 for their rapidly growing campaign to organize healthcare workers in eastern Massachusetts. •Marvin Martin and the Greater Four Corners Action Coalition for valiantly defending and improving their neighborhood. Tickets are $50 and you can reserve them by mailing a check to Community Labor United, 8 Beacon St, 2d floor, Boston MA 02108. http://massclu.org/

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CONTACTING DPP and Joining Our Work:

Facilitation Committee:

Denise Zwahlen - denisezwahlen@yahoo.com; Alan Booth - adb_durant@hotmail.com; Jeff Klein – jjk123@comcast.net

The Anti-War Committee pressures Congress, does community outreach and education to end the wars in the Middle East. Contact Denise Zwahlen at denisezwahlen@yahoo.com.

The Biolab Committee opposes the bio-hazard laboratory that BU is building at Boston Medical Center. Contact Mike Coté at mike_j_cote@yahoo.com.

The Multi-Cultural Competence Committee promotes internal and public education on racism and the diverse cultures of Dorchester. Contact Mary Regan, maryregan@hotmail.com.

Our Treasurer is Mike Prokosch, mikeprokosch@verizon.net. Daryl Wright and Mike Prokosch prepare budgets

and write funding proposals: dwright@youthbuild.org, mikeprokosch@verizon.net .

* * * *

DPP Calendar - Monthly Meetings/Events

June 7: Dorchester Day Parade

June 8: Next DPP meeting

* * * *

Sunday, May 10, 13th Annual Mother's Walk for Peace, 9am-12noon, gather at the park in Field’s Corner. Louis D. Brown Peace Institute's (LDBPI) Mothers' Walk draws together hundreds of men, women, & children who make up the surviving families of homicide victims, as well as community supporters from throughout Massachusetts. Last year, over 5,000 people walked to support the uniquely effective services the LDBPI provides families, young people, and urban neighborhoods. DPP supports this event as an organization and will have a marching contingent. Look for our banner in the park! Register Online Now

Sunday, May 10, NO MORE RAIDS! Families Know NO Borders!, 1:30- 2:30 Meet at South Bay Detention Center, Boston 20 Bradston Street (not far from Boston Medical Center). Mother’s Day is a time for celebration for mother’s everywhere. Yet, for women in prison and immigration detention this is not the case Everyday in Massachusetts, approximately 800 immigrants and asylum-seekers are in detention in county jails around the state waiting to be deported or fighting a legal battle to stay in the country. None of those persons are serving sentences for having committed a crime. Resist The Raids Coalition American Friends Service Committee Proyecto Voz API Movement Boston Interpreters Collective Boston Liberation Health Group Boston May Day Committee Centro Presente Deported Diaspora Jobs with Justice and many other organizations.

Mother's Day Proclamation - 1870
by Julia Ward Howe

Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the bosom of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

* * * *

National Call-In Day: FUND DIPLOMACY, NOT THE WARS!

Tuesday, May 12 - To reach the Congressional Switchboard 1-800-517-5696

The Obama Administration has asked Congress for another $83.4 billion in Supplemental funding for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. As of today, the House Appropriations Committee has actually increased this amount to $94.2 billion.Members of Congress need to hear from their constituents that this funding bill is not acceptable !
(Voting on the Supplemental will be happening as early as next week. It is vitally important that people across the country send a clear, rapid message that this bill continues and extends the failed policies of the past.)

On May 12, join the National Call-In Day and let Congress know that while we support funding for the safe withdrawal of troops, and for diplomacy, economic assistance and humanitarian aid, we oppose more money for war. While making that call, urge them to co-sponsor a bill by Congressman James McGovern that would require President Obama to provide an exit plan for Afghanistan no later than December 2009.

Key Talking Points:

· At a time of economic crisis and multiplying domestic needs, the 2009 Supplemental is an appalling waste of our money.

· The Supplemental funds the increase of troops to Afghanistan, escalating the war rather than ending it.

· The Supplemental places no restrictions on American bombings in either Afghanistan or Pakistan, despite the disproportionate harm to civilian inhabitants.

· The Supplemental maintains a high level of American troops in Iraq for the duration of FY 2009.

Join the National Call-in Day on Tuesday May 12

Congressional Switchboard: 1-800-517-5696

Let them know that you reject yet another "blank check" for war!

Click to see the OMB analysis of the War Supplemental funding request (in PDF) here:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/assets/budget_amendments/supplemental_04_09_09.pdf) and
click here for analysis of the Supplemental from the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.

* * * *

Monday, May 25, Second Annual Memorial Day for Peace

Veterans For Peace and Military Families Speak Out are sponsoring our second annual Memorial Day For Peace on at noon at Christopher Columbus Park near Long Wharf. Last year, people felt that this was a very meaningful event. We will have some speeches, read names of Massachusetts people killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and honor all civilian victims of war as we say NO MORE WAR. Please consider coming, and forward this on to your mailing lists and friends. The flyer is located at:

http://smedleyvfp.org/page15/files/memorial%20day%20flyer.pdf

Our friends at Veterans for Peace and Military Families Speak Out (MFSO) continue to work on a petition for legislation to Bring Home the Mass National Guard: see the petition here: http://smedleyvfp.org/page8/page34/files/petition.pdf

Save the Date!

Sunday, June 7, Dorchester Day Parade! Watch for details soon.

* * * *

DPP Takes Up the “25% SOLUTION” Campaign

FUND OUR COMMUNITIES – REDUCE MILITARY SPENDING

* * * *

$23,458,507,116 = Cost of Iraq/Afghanistan Wars to Massachusetts, so far.

A 25% reduction in military spending could mean annual funding of

$5,000,000,000 for Massachusetts

$500,000,000 for Boston

What could that pay for in schools, neighborhood services and green jobs?

* * * *

Saturday, May 9, Economic Recovery and Beyond: Redirecting Military and Energy Resources, 1-4pm, Watertown Free Public Library at 123 Main Street. The Mini-Conference, featuring academics/activists, Dr. Anita Dancs and Dr. Frank Ackerman, is free and open to anyone interested in learning how our economy is effected by military spending and climate change. Anita Dancs, Assistant Professor of Economics, Western New England College and former Research Director at the National Priorities Project (NPP), is the author of The Military Cost of Securing Energy. Frank Ackerman, Professor of Economics at the Global Development and Environment Institute, Tufts University, has written extensively about the economics of climate change and other environmental problems. His latest book, Can we Afford the Future? Economics for a Warming World was published in the fall of 2008.

For more information please visit www.watertowncitizens.org or call 617-926-8560, mailbox 2. The Library is easily accessible by public transportation by taking the #73 Bus from Harvard Square and getting off at the last stop in Watertown Square. The Library also has a metered parking lot.

In case you missed it. . .

Barney Frank: Cut the Military Budget

* * * *

COST OF WAR

Obama's War Budget

President Obama is seeking $130 billion to fund the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in his budget request for 2010. This is a mere $14 billion less than overall funding in 2009. It won’t be possible to determine the direction Obama seeks to take war funding until the Department of Defense releases its justification materials to lay out how this $130 billion will be spent. Yet the reality that Obama’s Fiscal Year 2010 request is only $14 billion less than the 2009 war budget is not at all encouraging. More

Where the money comes from, where it goes and what it could pay for instead.

http://nationalpriorities.org/

The Military Cost of Securing Energy… and the alternatives

http://www.nationalpriorities.org/Energy_Security/Energy_Priorities

* * * *

ECONOMIC CRISIS / “BAILOUT WORLD”

Mortgage Madness: Why the Home Loan Industry Won’t (and Can’t) Fix Itself

But what Obama's plan doesn't do--so far--is address the larger question: can any solution work if it doesn't strengthen the negotiating hand of overwhelmed borrowers? Like all previous initiatives, industry participation in the president's plan is largely voluntary, if heavily subsidized. He's proposed allowing homeowners to modify mortgages through bankruptcy courts, which could reduce their principal, but the industry, led by firms like JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Bank of America, has fought hard to kill the legislation, blocking it in the Senate since March. And the plan does nothing else to give borrowers more leverage, such as freezing foreclosures--as candidate Obama pledged he'd do back in October. More

City Life/Vida Urbana Featured on PBS

Bill Moyers’ Journal had a long and positive feature on the City Life / anti-foreclosure campaign last Friday, with Steve Meacham and others, including footage of foreclosure blocking actions in Dorchester. Video here

U.S. Taxpayers Risk $9.7 Trillion on Bailout Programs (Update1)

The stimulus package the U.S. Congress is completing would raise the government’s commitment to solving the financial crisis to $9.7 trillion, enough to pay off more than 90 percent of the nation’s home mortgages. The Federal Reserve, Treasury Department and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation have lent or spent almost $3 trillion over the past two years and pledged up to $5.7 trillion more. The Senate is to vote this week on an economic-stimulus measure of at least $780 billion. It would need to be reconciled with an $819 billion plan the House approved last month. More

What "oversight" means in Washington

Yesterday, the Fed's Inspector General, Elizabeth Coleman, appeared before the House Financial Services Committee and was questioned by Rep. Grayson about her office's oversight duties. Just watch this five-minute question-and-answer session to get a sense for the true breadth of decay and corruption in our political and financial classes and for what a sorry joke the concept of "oversight" is in Washington(VIDEO here) More

* * * *

AFGHANISTAN LOOMS. . . and Pakistan?

Afghans riot over air-strike atrocity

Shouting "Death to America" and "Death to the Government", thousands of Afghan villagers hurled stones at police yesterday as they vented their fury at American air strikes that local officials claim killed 147 civilians. The riot started when people from three villages struck by US bombers in the early hours of Tuesday, brought 15 newly-discovered bodies in a truck to the house of the provincial governor. As the crowd pressed forward in Farah, police opened fire, wounding four protesters. More

Any Remorse, Mr. President?

The International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed yesterday that "dozens of people, including women and children," were killed in U.S. air strikes on villages in Western Afghanistan Monday night… So far, however, Obama's public response has been muted. This could be because the military is refusing to confirm the reports from the ground. But it makes me wonder: Have we all, including Obama, gotten so desensitized to the violent death of civilians at our hands, ostensibly in the name of fighting terror? Is this another tragic Bush legacy?Where is Obama's anger, his sadness, his regret, his vow to find out what happened and make sure it never happens again? More

AFGHANS TO OBAMA: “Get Out, Take Karzai With You”

It is not so much that the Taliban is strong and popular, but that the government is weak, corrupt and dysfunctional. “Security has not deteriorated because of what the Taliban has done,” says Daoud Sultanzoy, a US-trained commercial pilot who is a highly respected MP from Ghazni province, south-west of Kabul, “but because people feel the government is unjust. It is seen as the enemy of the people, and because there is no constitutional alternative to it, the Taliban gain.”… The problem for Obama is similar to that facing Afghans. His administration can see the failings of Karzai and his government, but they can’t see an alternative that would offer an improvement. The strong criticism of the Karzai government coming out of Washington several months ago has subsided for the moment. More

Congress Issues A 'Vietnam' Warning

There were new signs of uneasiness on Capitol Hill about United States involvement in the region. The Democratic chairman of the House Appropriations Committee pronounced himself as "very doubtful" that Mr. Obama's plan for Afghanistan and Pakistan could succeed. The chairman, Representative David Obey, of Wisconsin, said he would allow only one year for the White House to show concrete results, and repeatedly likened Mr. Obama's approach to President Richard Nixon's plans for Vietnam in 1969. More

U.S. Options in Pakistan Limited
The Pakistani government was mired in political bickering. The army, still fixated on its historical adversary India, remained ill-equipped and unwilling to throw its full weight into the counterinsurgency fight. But despite the threat the intelligence conveyed, Obama has only limited options for dealing with it. Anti-American feeling in Pakistan is high, and a U.S. combat presence is prohibited. More

US Senate takes up aid to Pakistan bill

The US Congress made a friendly gesture to President Asif Ali Zardari on Monday, introducing a bill to triple American aid to Pakistan on the day he arrives in the US capital on a four-day visit. Two influential senators – Democrat John Kerry and Republican Richard Lugar – introduced the Pakistan Enduring Assistance and Cooperation Enhancement or the PEACE Act of 2009, in the Senate on Monday afternoon after a long delay.‘The legislation intents to help transform the relationship between the US and Pakistan from a transactional, tactically-driven set of short-term exercises in crisis-management, into a deeper, broader, long-term strategic engagement,’ said a statement issued by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. More

* * * *

“WAR ON TERROR” . . . Do You Feel Safer Now?

The Threatmonger's Handbook

The United States has the world's largest economy (so far), and the world's most powerful conventional military forces... America is further protected from conventional military attack by two enormous oceanic moats, there no great powers in the Western hemisphere, and it hasn’t been invaded since the War of 1812. 9/11 reminded us American security is not absolute, of course, and the strategic advantages I just outlined are no defense against climate change, pandemic disease, or financial collapse. But surely the United States is about as secure as any great power in modern history. Yet Americans continue to fret about national security, continue to spend far more on national security than any other country does, and continue to believe that our way of life will be imperiled if we do not confront an array of much weaker foes on virtually every continent. More

Bible and Guns: Why Soldiers Who Proselytize Strengthen Our Enemies

Many Americans have expressed shock at news that some U.S. soldiers have been seeking to use their positions of power in Iraq and Afghanistan to preach Christianity. But this does not come as news to Muslims, who have been long aware of these proselytizing efforts at the end of a gun… Even worse, the image of the soldier-preacher fits directly into Al-Qaeda's meme that Americans are engaged in a new Crusade to destroy Islam. And to the extent that these fundamentalist churches are allowed to exert influence in our military, our enemies are proven right. More

Interrogation Debate Sharply Divided Bush White House

The proclamation that President George W. Bush issued on June 26, 2003, to mark the United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture seemed innocuous, one of dozens of high-minded statements published and duly ignored each year… But inside the Central Intelligence Agency, the statement set off alarms. The agency’s top lawyer, Scott W. Muller, called the White House to complain. More

CIA Says It Briefed Congressional Leaders

Congressional leaders were briefed in detail about techniques used in the Central Intelligence Agency's interrogation program, according to a new intelligence document. The document appears to conflict with recent statements from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was then the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee. Ms. Pelosi has said she hadn't been told that the CIA was using the technique known as waterboarding, or simulated drowning. According to the document, Ms. Pelosi was one of the first lawmakers briefed on the interrogations in 2002.. More

We need to investigate the Bush years

This may be our great teachable moment, our one chance, Democrats and Republicans alike, to look clearly at our country and what it became under Bush. Already, people's attention is wandering, ennui is setting in, and a banal mood of easy acceptance is taking hold. If we don't act now, the chance may be lost. And then, the next time there is a terrorist attack, a cunning ideologue could once again lead America down the same primrose path. More

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IRAQ

NIR ROSEN: The Big Sleep in Iraq

The Sunni militiamen of the Awakening movement have outlived their usefulness to American forces and the Iraqi government. Some worry these unemployed fighters will relaunch the insurgency they left behind – but they don't stand a chance… The prevailing order in Iraq today is a Shiite-dominated one, but the balance of power is not divided along exclusively sectarian lines: it is between those close to the state and those without its backing – as some wags put it, between the “powers that be” and the “powers that aren’t”. More

Iraq's Wrecked Environment: Half Life of a Toxic War

When the Bush administration (parts one and two) and its congressional allies sent troops to Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime, they not only ordered these men and women to commit crimes against humanity, they also commanded them to perpetrate crimes against nature… More than 15 years later, the dire health consequences of our first radioactive bombing campaign [with DU] in this region are coming into focus. Since 1990, the incidence rate of leukemia in Iraq has increased over 600 percent. Detection and treatment of cancers was made unnecessarily difficult by Iraq’s forced isolation under a regime of sanctions, producing what was described by former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan as “a humanitarian crisis.” More

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PALESTINE - ISRAEL

Settlement expansion seeing biggest boost since 2003

West Bank construction has been accelerating for several months, putting Israel on a collision course with a U.S. administration taking a hard line on settlement expansion. A new outpost, new roads, and other building projects have raced ahead in and around the settlements, often without legal permits, producing the biggest construction drive since 2003, according to Dror Etkes of the Israeli advocacy group Yesh Din. That group monitors construction in the West Bank. The construction, which has sped up even more since Benjamin Netanyahu's government took office this spring, is to be a main issues in U.S. President Barack Obama's meeting with Netanyahu at mid-month. More

UN laments choking of Bethlehem

The UN has accused Israel of restricting development of the Bethlehem region in the West Bank. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) said just 13% of land around Bethlehem was open for use by the Palestinian population. It said the traditional birthplace of Jesus Christ was hemmed in by Israeli settlements and military zones as well as Israel's West Bank barrier. More

AIPAC Confronts A New Reality as Obama’s Agenda Becomes Clear

…when they went to lobby on Capitol Hill, AIPAC delegates even found some stalwart supporters in Congress holding back on one of their key legislative initiatives — a full-court press to impose new sanctions on Iran to accompany the Obama administration’s drive to engage Tehran diplomatically. It was the lobby’s first mass encounter with a Washington now dominated by President Obama and his party. The broad and uncritical embrace of the Bush administration’s eight years seemed a distant memory. Bush’s GOP, now out of power in the White House and both houses of Congress, seemed in full retreat. And pro-settler evangelical Christians — a prominent feature of AIPAC conferences during the Bush era — were not on the schedule at this year’s conference. More

What Obama must tell Netanyahu

If Washington can talk to North Korea and Iran, it has no reason to boycott the people who won the last Palestinian elections and are likely to win the next one. Far from defeating Hamas, Israel's war on Gaza has made it stronger while further reinforcing Israel's image as a bully. By the same token, the US needs to talk to ¬Hezbollah in ¬Lebanon. Israel's war on Hezbollah in 2006 was as brutal as its war on Gaza this year, nothing more than the old strategy, taken to a -grotesque level, of demolishing homes as a collective punishment. More

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And in the REST OF THE WORLD. . .

Africa: The Second Scramble for Africa Starts

Sub-Saharan African countries have of late become the target of a new form of investment that is strongly reminiscent of colonialism: investors from both industrialised and emerging economies buy or lease large tracts of farm land across the continent, either to guarantee their own food provisions or simply as yet another business… Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and activists in Europe are denouncing this land grab in Egypt, Sudan, Cameroon, Senegal, Mozambique and elsewhere in Africa as a new form of colonialism. More

Misreading the Somali Pirate Threat

US hawks, who--conflating piracy, the militant Somali group Al Shabab and Al Qaeda--swiftly turned the attack into a new excuse for extending the "war on terror" to this corner of Africa. John Bolton, former ambassador to the United Nations, called for an invasion as "the prudential response" to piracy, while the Heritage Foundation's James Carafano argued for "going into Somalia and rooting out the [pirate] bases." Former FBI interrogator Ali Soufan maintained in the Wall Street Journal that if Al Qaeda mounts another successful attack, "there is a strong chance it will be linked to Somalia."… The Obama administration's response to Somali piracy--and the strategy it develops to deal with Al Shabab--will be a crucial test of whether the neocon worldview retains any traction. More

U.S. Navy says fight against pirates needed ashore

The fight against piracy must involve efforts on land and at sea, the U.S. Navy's top officer said on Monday, saying the issue was more complex than just putting arms on commercial ships… Mullen also said the issue was ultimately larger than just piracy. "It's about Somalia and it's about a future safe haven, and it's about what the international community is going to do with respect to Somalia, among other things." More

Why Latin America's Left Keeps Winning

Washington's foreign policy establishment has been proven wrong. Latin America is more stable and democratic than ever.. The left governments have mostly succeeded where their neoliberal predecessors failed. Partly they have benefited from an acceleration in world economic growth during most of the last five years. But they have also changed their economic policies in ways that increased economic growth. More

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Other Events

Friday, May 8, LONG TIME PASSING: Mothers speak about war and terror, 7pm, Beacon Hill Friends House, 6 Chestnut St., Boston. Military Mom and Author Susan Galleymore made international headlines by taking the extraordinary and dangerous step of traveling to Iraq to visit her son stationed on a military base in the so-called Sunni Triangle, north of Baghdad; she continues to share the stories of those affected by war as founder of MotherSpeak, as a radio host for Raising Sand Radio, and as a counselor on the G.I. Rights Hotline. With Art, Poetry, and Refreshments, a moving portrait of what it means to be a mother in time of war...

Saturday, May 9, Boycott Motorola Weekly Action, 1-2pm, Coolidge Corner Verizon Store, 285 Harvard St. Please support the call from Palestine to participate in B/D/S work, and help put consumer pressure on Motorola to stop aiding Israeli apartheid and profiting from Israel's war crimes. Next Saturday May 16, Harvard Square, Cambridge, 1pm

Saturday, May 9, American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee of Mass: Annual Community Banquet, 6:45 registration, Hyatt Harborside at Boston's Logan Airport, 101 Harborside Drive. Keynote Speaker: Noura Erakat, Esq. Arab-American Political Engagement: A Necessity, Not an Option; This Year's Honoree: Susan Akram, Esq. - Dedication to the Defense of Human Rights and Advocacy for Refugees
Tickets: $65 -- Regular; $45 -- Student Ticket. To reserve your tickets, send an email to info@adcma.org; call 617.492.3282 Deadline: April 30^th

Thursday, May 14, Community Summit to protect our children, 6-8pm, Roxbury Community College Student Center, Roxbury Crossing T.on the proposed Boston School Department's proposed student assignment plan, that would decrease school choices for parents and students, and decrease access to high-performing schools for children in Roxbury, Mattapna, and Dorchester. DPP allies UMN, BPON, Chuck Turner, and Sam Yoon are among the sponsors and endorsers.

Saturday May 16, New England Security Officers' Convention! 10am-2pm, SEIU Local 615, 26 West St., Boston. On May 16^th, thousands of security officers will gather together in over two dozen cities nationwide to demand an economic recovery for all workers through the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, legislation that would enable millions of workers to organize unions in order to improve wages and benefits and rebuild the middle class. While bankers and CEOs fight over our taxpayer bailout money, working people are angry and looking for new leadership and new solutions in these difficult economic times. It is our collective responsibility to be that voice in our communities!

Saturday, May 16, New England United Regional Meeting, 1-5pm, Encuentro 5, 33 Harrison Ave., 5^th floor, Boston. OPENING PROGRAM – 1:00-2:30 pm "Iran: The key to understanding U.S. policy in the Middle East." Presenter, Phil Wilayto, editor of The Virginia Defender and author of In Defense of Iran: Notes from a U.S. Peace Delegation's Journey Through the Islamic Republic will offer an eyewitness account of his travel to Iran and an analysis of the critical role Iran plays in US foreign policy. NEU MEETING – 2:30-5pm. Refreshments will be provided. For further information, www.newenglandunited.org Tel: 781-316-2018

Sunday, May 17, Protest AIPAC at its 10th Annual New England Leadership Dinner, 4:30, gather at 10 Copley Place
[the corner of Huntington Ave. and Dartmouth St.]near outside the Westin Copley Place Hotel. Signage should focus on AIPAC – suggested messages include: AIPAC = ENDLESS WAR; AIPAC: BAD 4 PALESTINE-ISRAEL-U.S.; AIPAC: OBSTRUCTION TO PEACE. Spondored by AMERICAN JEWS FOR A JUST PEACE-BOSTON – “JUSTIC IS THE KEY”

Thursday, May 21, Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions for Israel/Palestine: A Forum, 7pm, Friends Meeting House, 5 Longfellow Park, Cambridge. United for Justice with Peace invites you to a forum with Nancy Murray, respondent: Martin Federman. In 2005, over 100 Palestinian civil society groups called for “international civil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era” Come to a forum to learn more about BDS and the “Hang Up on Motorola” campaign and to discuss whether this campaign might be an effective tool to help bring peace to the Middle East.

Tuesday, May 26, Lobby Day for CORI reform legislation, 10:00-12:30: State House demonstration to press for fairness in job applications, removing non-convictions from people's records, and sealing outdated records for adults and aged out (grown up) juveniles.

Called by Commonwealth CORI Coalition, of which DPP is a member. Info: Boston Workers' Alliance, 617-359-0336.

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CONTACTING DPP and Joining Our Work:

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DPP Update, February, 2009

SAVE THE DATE!

Monday, March 9

IRAQ UNCENSORED:

Independent Journalist and Eyewitness Dahr Jamail

The invasion of Iraq has been presented to us by mainstream media in the most sanitized way possible: we don’t see pictures of the dead and dying, the wounded, the funerals. We don’t hear about the rage and anguish of returning soldiers. And above all, we don’t hear the other side of the story, about the oppression and suffering endured by the Iraqis. Journalist Dahr Jamail has reported brilliant and moving accounts of the invasion and its impact on the life of Iraqi citizens and collected his dispatches in a book entitled Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq. You can also check his website www.dahrjamailiraq.com

We are also calling on other organizations to co-sponsor and help plan the event. If your organization/ church/mosque/ affiliation/ work-place/peace-group/ would like to be a sponsor and help us with outreach, please email Denise (denisezwahlen@yahoo.com) or Hayat (imamhayat@hotmail.com) right away and mark your calendars for the

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NEXT DPP MEETING

April, Date and topic TBA – A possible Afghanistan event in collaboration with Milton for Peace is in planning.

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UFPJ Campaign: Beyond War, A New Economy Is Possible

United for Peace and UJP locally are gearing up for a new campaign that links the Wars and the Economy; local activists will be meeting to flesh out this effort and present details at the UJP’s annual meeting

“We are in historic times. The Obama campaign mobilized millions of people, and his election has brought a new sense of hope and possibility to the nation. United For Peace and Justice is building on this momentum and the rich history that made the election of an African-American possible. With the inauguration coming the day after our nation celebrates the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday, we are reminded again of King's courage and wisdom in connecting the issues of poverty, racism and war… Campaign that will kick off on January 19th and culminate its first phase on April 4th with a massive mobilization in New York City.” More

Saturday, February 28, UJP Quarterly Strategy Meeting, 1-5pm, Friends Meeting House, 5 Longfellow Place near Harvard Square The next UJP strategy meeting, a follow-up to the very successful gathering on Nov. 22 in Central Square. Working Group reports and strategy discussion: there will be brief reports from the new groups including Afghanistan, Cutting the Military Budget, Spring mobilizations, Nuclear Disarmament, Israel-Palestine, and broadening the UJP agenda (eviction moratorium campaign). Following will be a strategy discussion: what does this all add up to? What is the moment and where are things going? What will 2009 bring for the peace and justice movement? Speaker: Peter Lems (invited), AFSC Program Director for Education and Advocacy on Iraq and Afghanistan, will address the war and occupations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Gaza. In November 2007 he was part of an assessment team that visited Syria and Jordan, exploring opportunities to work with Iraq refugees.

We need your participation in this important meeting!

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Tuesday, March 3, BLACK HISTORY EXHIBIT: "America's Islamic Heritage"

5:30pm, Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center (Roxbury Crossing – corner Columbus and Malcolm X Blvd.)

Please join members of DPP to visit the Exhibit with Imam Abdullah Faaruuq of the Shawmut Avenue Mosque in Roxbury. The multimedia presentation focuses especially on the African-American connection with Islam from the earliest days of colonization and slavery to the present time. You can get an idea of it by visiting http://mosquepraiseallah.com/ We will also be able to tour the beautiful new Mosque in whose building the ISB Cultural Center is housed. Email jjk123@Comcast.net for more info.

For those who can’t make it next Tuesday, the exhibit is ongoing until March 6. This Saturday, February 28 DPP member Hafeeza Shaheed will lead a performance of her youth dance/step group GMKTP between 5-7pm at the ISBCC.

Covered in glory: Bilqis Abdul-Qaadir knows there is more to life than a game. But does she have game.

Bilqis cannot help standing out. For one thing, she is the top-ranked student in her class. She wants to study pre-med in college with an eye toward being a cardiac surgeon. "The heart," she says, "is most interesting to me." Then there is her presence on the basketball court, where she is a magnet for the eyes of all fans, and not just because she competes with her legs and arms completely covered beneath her uniform, and with a hijab (or head scarf) over the top of her head… Despite a steady diet of double-teams and box-and-one defenses designed to stop her, she is averaging, this season, an astonishing 41.3 points per game. More

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Thursdays . . . until March 19:

BANK OF AMERICA: Homes & Jobs for people! No More Bank Bail-outs!

Copley Sq./577 Boylston St.: protests from Feb. 26 to March 19, each 4-6 pm

Bank of America, which has already received $34 Billion in US bailout funds, offers a just 3 week moratorium on fore-closures – but the Obama administration offers them more tax money to entice them to lower interest rates on mortgages!

We need to organize to end this crisis! A coalition including the Mass. Alliance Against Predatory Lending and Jobs with Justice is organizing Thursdays at the bank. We want to encourage people to come to Copley Sq. But, if you want to protest at another branch at the same time, feel free to do so. The demand? We want an end to all post-foreclosure evictions!; a moratorium on foreclosures; and sales of property at real value.

Steve Meacham – City Life/Vida Urbana (617) 524-3541 smeacham@clvu.org

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Friday March 20, Fundraiser for Chuck Turner Defense, 69 Robeson St. (entrance on the right) Jamaica Plain, 02130, from 6:30-8:00. There will be beer, wine, water and great food! Minimum donation: $25. Our goal is to raise $5,000 of the $20,000 he needs for legal defense
and campaign expenses through the summer. Chuck will be there and there will be testimonials and appreciations for him from many of his supporters and representatives of Boston anti-poverty programs. We would like yours to be one of them. Directions are attached. On street parking is plentiful on the non-park side of Sigourney St. If you can't attend, please send a check for whatever you can afford, made out to "Committee to Re-elect Chuck Turner" to David Ludlow, 69 Robeson St., Jamaica Plain, 02130. He can accept up to $500 per person per year. There is no limit per household.

Witness stops cooperating in sting case: Says FBI used him to topple Turner and Wilkerson

Ronald Wilburn, the federal government's "cooperating witness" in a bribery sting targeting former state Senator Dianne Wilkerson and Councilor Chuck Turner of Boston, said he is no longer cooperating. In an interview with the Globe, Wilburn, a businessman, said he felt he had been used by the FBI to topple a pair of prominent black politicians, while four months after the first arrest, no white officials have been charged in the investigation. More

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TWO NATIONAL ANTI-WAR MOBILIZATIONS

Saturday, March 21, MARCH ON THE PENTAGON!

From Iraq to Afghanistan to Palestine – Occupation is a Crime
In March the U.S. will enter its 7^th year of war and occupation of Iraq. This criminal war based on lies has brought the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and well over 4000 U.S. troops. Many coalitions, networks, and organizations are organizing nationally, regionally, and locally for a mass March on the Pentagon and demonstrations in San Francisco and other cities on March 21. Organized by the ANSWER coalition and many other groups. Info: answer.pephost.org, www.StopTheWars.org Prices for the bus tickets (to Washington, D.C and back) are $50. Please reserve soon at www.newenglandunited.org/easternmass. Buses will be leaving Boston late Friday evening (March 20th) and leaving Washington in the afternoon on March 21.

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Saturday, April 4, MARCH WITH UFPJ NEW YORK CITY
It’s Time to End the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
It’s Time to Address the Economic Crisis by Cutting Military Spending

'Beyond War, A New Economy Is Possible!'
On April 4, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his historic speech against the war in Vietnam at NYC's Riverside Church. King's work linked the most pressing issues of his day; his life was about taking public action in the service of the struggles for equality, freedom, justice, and peace. This year, on Saturday, April 4, we call on all people to take up Dr. King's example of public action and join us in the streets of New York City's financial to move this country in a new direction. We will march on April 4 because the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan must be ended now! We will march on April 4 because a critical piece of addressing the economic crisis must be cutting military spending, starting with ending the flow of our tax dollars into these wars and occupations. Click here to read the full call for our April 4 mobilization.

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FINANCIAL MELTDOWN / WARFARE ECONOMY

Barney Frank: Cut the Military Budget--II

Obama seeks $205 billion for Iraq, Afghan wars

President Barack Obama requested about $205 billion in war funding through the end of fiscal 2010 on Thursday, as he sought to withdraw tens of thousands of troops from Iraq and boost forces fighting a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan. Obama's first budget proposal asked for $75.5 billion through September, which would bring total war spending to $141.4 billion for the current fiscal year. Obama also requested a slightly smaller $130 billion to fund the wars for fiscal year 2010, which starts on October 1. More

Freeing Up Resources ... for More War?

Hours after President Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress, the New York Times printed the news that he plans to gradually withdraw “American combat forces” from Iraq during the next 18 months. The newspaper reported that the advantages of the pullout will include “relieving the strain on the armed forces and freeing up resources for Afghanistan.” More

Privatizing the Military

KBR has grossed more than $25 billion since it won a 10-year contract in late 2001 to supply U.S. troops in combat situations around the world… These staggering figures are testimony to the role KBR has played in supporting the U.S. military in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries targeted in President Bush's Global War on Terror… Today, there is one KBR worker for every three U.S. soldiers in Iraq – and the main function of these workers, under LOGCAP, is to build base infrastructure and maintain them by doing all those duties that once were considered part of military life. More

Too Many Bases

In these difficult economic times, the Obama administration and Congress should initiate a major reassessment of our 1,000 overseas bases. Now is the time to ask if, as a nation and a world, we can really afford the 1,000 bases that are pushing the nation deeper into debt and making the United States and the planet less secure. With so many needs facing our nation, it's unconscionable to have 1,000 overseas bases. It's time to begin closing them. More

Reining in Defense Spending?

A military posture of restraint -- one focused on U.S. defense rather than quixotic efforts to promote social transformation and dampen all instability -- would allow us to spend half what we do on defense. We'd be safer for it, because lower spending would discourage us from meddling in others' conflicts. More

TOUGH TIMES IN TROUBLED TOWNS: America's Municipal Meltdowns

It isn't surprising that towns which relied heavily on the collapsing auto industry and the building trades are going belly-up first, but what about the rest of America's towns and even big cities? The same economic forces are battering them, and while they may have been able to withstand immediate collapse, there's no guarantee that town after town won't be deep in the red, drowning in joblessness, and facing catastrophe as the American depression drags on. More

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IRAQ

Obama Plans to End “Combat Mission” in Iraq by August 2010

After August 2010, the Obama plan will leave behind 35,000 to 50,000 of the 142,000 American troops now in Iraq to advise and train Iraqi security forces, conduct discrete counterterrorism missions and protect American civilian and military personnel working in the country, including State Department reconstruction teams. The residual troops, which the Obama administration is calling a “transition force,” will remain only through December 2011, when a strategic agreement negotiated by President George W. Bush before he left office mandates the withdrawal of all American troops. While the Bush team once envisioned a long-term military presence in Iraq long after violence subsides, akin to the deployment of tens of thousands of American forces in Germany or South Korea for decades after wars there, the Obama team said it plans to stick to the complete withdrawal by the end of 2011.More

After pullout some US forces still in combat

Some of the U.S. forces left in Iraq after President Barack Obama fulfills his pledge to withdraw combat troops will engage in operations against suspected terrorists, the Pentagon said Wednesday… Although most of the fighting forces would be withdrawn within 18 months, some of those units could be in Iraq for years to come. A prior agreement forged by the Bush administration with Iraqi officials requires removal of all U.S. forces by 2012. More

Iraq's Resurgent Nationalism

For President Obama, the handwriting is on the wall. If, on the advice of US military commanders, he attempts to prolong the occupation, he will run afoul of Iraq's newfound self-confidence... Indeed, an early test of that proposition will come this summer, when Iraqis vote in a national referendum on whether to ratify the US-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement, which allows US troops to stay in Iraq until the end of 2011. Washington can expect strong opposition from the nationalist movement, and the outcome of the referendum is uncertain. If voters reject the SOFA, Obama will have a deadline of twelve months to get all US forces out of Iraqi territory; if they vote in favor, they will do so only because the 2011 deadline seems plausible. In either case, they're not likely to look favorably upon any US effort to create a long-lasting military presence beyond that deadline. More

Dahr Jamail: Iraqi Doctors in Hiding Treat as They Can

Seventy percent of Iraq's doctors are reported to have fled the war-torn country in the face of death threats and kidnappings. Those who remain live in fear, often in conditions close to house arrest… In the absence of the doctors who left, particularly of senior doctors, the medical system is on the brink of collapse. It is short not just of doctors but also of other qualified staff, equipment and drugs. Patients are often forced to buy their own medicines on the black market. More

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AFGHANISTAN LOOMS. . . and Pakistan?

Afghanistan: Chaos Central

Even the section of society that should have benefited most from the US-led invasion was full of sorrow. Female MPs told me they felt ashamed for not being able to help their constituents. One said she was sure the time was approaching when she would be a prisoner in her own home again. “For all this I blame America. When the Russians were here the people picked up guns to fight them. Now people are picking up guns to fight the Americans,” she said. More

The U.S. and Afghan Tragedy: A Look Back

The consequences of U.S. policy towards Afghanistan through the 1980s and 1990s played a major role in the Taliban's rise and al-Qaeda's subsequent sanctuary. The September 11 attacks brought the United States directly into battle in Afghanistan for the first time, and U.S. troops are to this day fighting the forces of former Taliban and Hezb-e-Islami allies. The United States has made many errors during the more than eight years of fighting, but one of most dangerous was repeating the tragic mistake of placing short-term alliances ahead of the Afghanistan's long-term stability. More

U.S. Unit Secretly in Pakistan

More than 70 United States military advisers and technical specialists are secretly working in Pakistan to help its armed forces battle Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the country’s lawless tribal areas, American military officials said… It started last summer, with the support of Pakistan’s government and military, in an effort to root out Qaeda and Taliban operations that threaten American troops in Afghanistan and are increasingly destabilizing Pakistan. It is a much larger and more ambitious effort than either country has acknowledged. More

Obama Widens Missile Strikes Inside Pakistan

With two missile strikes over the past week, the Obama administration has expanded the covert war run by the Central Intelligence Agency inside Pakistan, attacking a militant network seeking to topple the Pakistani government… The strikes are another sign that President Obama is continuing, and in some cases extending, Bush administration policy in using American spy agencies against terrorism suspects in Pakistan, as he had promised to do during his presidential campaign. At the same time, Mr. Obama has begun to scale back some of the Bush policies on the detention and interrogation of terrorism suspects, which he has criticized as counterproductive. More

Strikes Worsen Qaeda Threat, Pakistan Says

The officials acknowledge that the strikes and raids by the Pakistani military are proving effective, having killed as many as 80 Qaeda fighters in the past year. But they express growing alarm that the drone strikes in particular are having an increasingly destabilizing effect on their country. They also voiced fears that the expected arrival of 17,000 American troops in Afghanistan this spring and summer would add to the stresses by pushing more Taliban fighters into Pakistan. More

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IRAN

Don't Let the Iran Headlines Scare You

What Iran has is one ton or so of low-enriched uranium. You can't build a bomb with that. To do so, Iran would first have to re-enrich all of it to weapons-grade uranium, which it isn't doing. Right now that uranium is under lock and key, watched over by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). In order to enrich it, Iran would have to do so right in front of the inspectors, who'd tell us all about it, or kick the inspectors out and do it secretly. Either way, (a) we'd know about it, and (b) it would still take Iran a long time, many months, if not a year or two, and that's assuming that they do it right and that the machines don't break down. More

Chris Hedges: War Incitement Against Iran

Bibi Netanyahu’s assumption of power in Israel sets the stage for a huge campaign by the Israeli government, and its well-oiled lobby groups in Washington, to push us into a war with Iran. Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program, according to U.S. and European intelligence agencies. But reality rarely impedes on politics. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama, along with Netanyahu, all talk as if Iran is on the brink of dropping the big one on the Jewish state. More

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PALESTINE - ISRAEL

Amnesty Calls On Us To Suspend Arms Sales To Israel (and Hamas)

Detailed evidence has emerged of Israel's extensive use of US-made weaponry during its war in Gaza last month, including white phosphorus artillery shells, 500lb bombs and Hellfire missiles. In a report released today, Amnesty International listed the weapons used and called for an immediate arms embargo on Israel and all Palestinian armed groups. It called on the US president, Barack Obama, to suspend military aid to Israel. More

Full Amnesty report available here

US Reps Say: 'Israel must change "counterproductive" Gaza policies'

Israel's policy toward Gaza was not helping stop the rockets, Baird said. "What you are doing now is going to create more rockets in the long run," he said. Ellison added, "When people have been deprived and feel beat down long enough, you cannot make them do what you want by beating on them more. They are used to that. They know that. They have been without and they can be without," he said… As Americans, they were acutely aware while in Gaza that the IDF had used American-made weapons to attack the Palestinians, they said. More

The Real Israel-Palestine story is in the West Bank
Before Hamas existed, Israel was colonising the occupied territories, and maintaining an ethnic exclusivist regime; if Hamas disappeared tomorrow, Israeli colonisation certainly would not. Recognising what is happening in the West Bank also contextualises the discussion about Israel's domestic politics, and the ongoing question about the makeup of a ruling coalition. For the Palestinians, it does not make much difference who is eventually sitting around the Israeli cabinet table, since there is a consensus among the parties on one thing: a firm rejectionist stance with regards to Palestinian self-determination and sovereignty. More

PA official: Peace process dead
Israel's impending new government indicates that the peace process "has died," a senior Palestinian Authority official told Ynet on Tuesday. "Given the government that is going to lead Israel, it's clear that there won't be any serious process and that, at the most, it will be a process for appearances' sake only that is intended to quiet the international community and primarily to let the Palestinians know that the option of peace still exists," he said. According to the official, the Palestinians understand that the Oslo process no longer exists. Those close to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas don't think there is any way to salvage it. More

* * * *

“WAR ON TERROR” . . . Do You Feel Safer Now?

Senate will advance torture commission

The Senate Judiciary Committee plans to move forward with a commission to investigate torture during the Bush administration… Spearheading Senate efforts to establish a torture commission is Rhode Island Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse. As a member of both the Judiciary Committee and the Intelligence Committee, Whitehouse is privy to information about interrogations he can't yet share. Still, regarding a potential torture commission, he told Salon, "I am convinced it is going to happen." In fact, his fervor on the issue was palpable. When asked if there is a lot the public still does not know about these issues during the Bush administration, his eyes grew large and he nodded slowly. "Stay on this," he said. "This is going to be big." More

"You can't sweep unlawful activities under the table"

President Obama vowed that "the United States will not torture" only two days into his new administration. But one big question Obama hasn't answered is whether and how to investigate notorious Bush-era interrogation and detention policies. On Thursday, 18 human rights organizations, former State Department officials and former law enforcement and military leaders asked the president to create a nonpartisan commission to investigate those allegedly abusive detention practices. More

* * * *

COST OF WAR

The Military Cost of Securing Energy… and the alternatives

http://www.nationalpriorities.org/Energy_Security/Energy_Priorities

Where the money comes from, where it goes and what it could pay for instead.

http://nationalpriorities.org/

**********************************

Other Events

February, Black History Month, Celebrate America’s Islamic Heritage, Lecture series, exhibit at the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center (Roxbury Crossing) in cooperation with other local mosques. “We owe it to ourselves to examine our history. The ideology, the ideals, the culture, the religion, and the traditions that were once ours should not, must not be forgotten. We cannot forget our past, our successes, and our failures, and expect to carve out a successful future for ourselves.” Check their web site for times and dates.

Saturday, February 21, Boston Women’s Fund: Young Women to Watch, 5:30-8:30pm, YWCA, 7 Temple St., Cambridge. An evening of celebration in honor of the 2006-2008 graduating class of Young Sisters for Justice in Philanthropy (YSFJP). YSFJP provides a catalyst for participants to become critically aware of the social, political and economic barriers that are the reality of our cultural experience. The event marks the 25^th Anniversary of the Boston Women’s Fund. For Additional information about the event, go to www.bostonwomensfund.org or call 617-725-0035 x 3011

Friday, February 27, DSNI Open House, 4:30-8pm, 504 Dudley St, Roxbury. Please come and celebrate 24 years of community building with the Didley Street Neighborhood Initiative at their new office space. Food, music, friends! For More Information Call 617 442 9670 or Visit www.DSNI.org

Saturday, February 28, The Color of Class: A Workshop for People of Color, 9am-5pm, the office of United for a Fair Economy, 29 Winter St., 2nd Fl., Boston (Between the Park St. and Downtown Crossing MBTA stops) In this workshop we will work to better understand how our current economic inequality has been and continues to be shaped by racialized policies and behavior from the past to the present. Click here for more information and/or to register or call 413-585-9709. Workshop fee is based on sliding scale from $25 – $150.

Tuesday, March 3, GAZA: Behind The Headlines, 6:30, Boston University Law School auditorium with Duncan Kennedy, Harvard Law School; Stephen Walt, Kennedy School of Government, Noam Chomsky and others.

Thursday-Friday, March 5-6, “STAND OUTS AGAINST ISRAELI APARTHEID” 5-6pm.. March 5: Harvard Square. (Meet by Au Ban Pain/Holyoke Center; March 6: outside RUGGLES STATION (orange line) on the Northeastern University side at 5 PM and walk in procession through the station to the commuter bus area. Apartheid Awareness weeks are taking place in more than 40 cities across the globe (the number of cities is growing daily). There is a full week of lecture, stand outs and other events throughout the Boston area. See http://boston.apartheidweek.org/ for program. See http://www.itisapartheid.org/getthefacts for fact sheets on Israeli Apartheid. Sponsored by Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights and other organizations.

Saturday, March 7, Boston Workers' Alliance Open House, 12-3pm, BWA Office, 411 Blue Hill Ave, Dorchester. The Boston Workers' Alliance invites you to visit our new office in Grove Hall. Stop by our Open House to meet the leaders of the BWA. Hear about our efforts to win jobs and CORI reform, and find out how you can support the movement. Families are welcome. Light lunch will be served. Download flyer: http://bostonworkersalliance.org/index.php/?p=353

Saturday, March 7, Combatants for Peace, 2 -4pm, First Parish UU Church in Harvard Sq., Cambridge. Guy Elhanan and Bassam Aramin, a an Israeli soldier and a Palestinian fighter, two Combatants for Peace representatives are coming to Boston to receive the “Courage of Conscience Award” at the Peace Abbey. Combatants for Peace is a group of Israelis and Palestinians who cooperate and commit themselves to working nonviolently for peace and a two-state solution. For more information on Combatants for Peace, please visit http://www.combatantsforpeace.org

Saturday, March 7, AFAB International Women’s Day 2009, 5-8pm, The Great Hall, 6 Norfolk St. (Codman Sq.)

Enpak Kriz Finans Mondyal la sou Kominote nou an / The Impact of the Global Financial Crisis on our Community, with Lunine Pierre-Jérôme, Ed.D; Marie Louise Jean-Baptiste, MD; Lesly René, MA. Atelye / Workshop: Enpak Ekonomik/ Economic Impact; Sante fizik ak mantal/Physical and Mental Health; Edikasyon nan Moman Kritik / Education in a Time of Crisis

Thursday-Friday, March 5-6, Foreign Policy Challenges for the New Administration: Iran and the Middle East, Tufts University, Cabot Intercultural Center, Medford. The purpose of this conference is to identify issues that, in light of a new American administration, will be of concern to Americans in 2009, specifically the continuing confrontation between the United States and Iran. The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and subsequent developments in that country have had a significant impact on Iran’s position and policy there. Yet, American and Iranian interests and policies have collided in the Gulf and in the Eastern Mediterranean region, as well. Nuclear issues in particular have brought the United States and Iran into renewed confrontation. More info and registration: http://farescenter.tufts.edu/events/conferences/index.asp

Monday, March 9, IRAQ UNCENSORED: Independent Journalist Dahr Jamail, 7-9pm, First Church, Meetinghouse Hill, Dorchester. The invasion of Iraq has been presented to us by mainstream media in the most sanitized way possible: we don’t see pictures of the dead and dying, the wounded, the funerals. We donft hear about the rage and anguish of returning soldiers. And above all, we donft hear the other side of the story, about the oppression and suffering endured by the Iraqis. Journalist Dahr Jamail challenged that picture.. In 2003, he traveled to Iraq at his own expense to be a witness on behalf of the Iraqis. His brilliant and moving accounts of the invasion and its impact on the life of Iraqi citizens have become monuments to truth in a sea of lies passed on by our political leaders and embedded journalists. He has gathered his accounts in a book entitled Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq. You can also check his website www.dahrjamailiraq.com

Sunday, March 15, THE WAR ON DRUGS AND THE PRISON-INDUSTIRAL COMPLEX, 12:30pm, Friends Meeting at Cambridge

5 Longfellow Park, Cambridge. Jack Cole, a retired New Jersey State Police officer and the founder of Law Enforcement against Prohibition (LEAP), will speak about the decades old "War on Drugs". He also provides compelling information about the racism, gender bias, and violence inherent in the nation's "criminal justice" system and in the Prison-Industrial Complex spawned by that system. This program is jointly sponsored by Prison Fellowship and by Friends for Racial Justice of Friends Meeting at Cambridge. All are welcome.

Monday, March 16, Tariq Ali: Afghanistan, The Good War? 7pm, Austin Hall North, Harvard Law School. Join Unbound for a discussion with Tariq Ali on the war in Afghanistan and US policy in the region. Tariq Ali is a novelist, historian, political campaigner and editor of the New Left Review. A leading figure of the international left since the 60s, his latest book is The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power. For information, contact: tkrever@jd11.law.harvard.edu

SAVE THE DATE!

Friday-Sunday, March 27-29, Conference: NEW STRATEGIES FOR NEW REALITIES, AFSC, in association with Tufts University’s Peace and Justice Studies Program and other New England peace and justice organizations is in the process of organizing a New England Regional conference on New Strategies for New Realities, designed to help re-focus the movement for peace and social justice for our new era. Among those we anticipate serving as speakers are Noam Chomsky , Phyllis Bennis, Bill Fletcher, Zia Mian and others still to be invited. For more information or to get involved, contact Joseph Gerson at JGerson@afsc.org or Genevie Gold at GGold@afsc.org or phone: 617-661-6130.

Saturday-Sunday, March 28-29, Conference: ONE STATE FOR PALESTINE / ISRAEL- A Country for All Its Citizens, UMass Boston. Trans Arab Research Institute (TARI), an independent American think tank registered in the state of Massachusetts, and the Joiner Center for the Study of War and Its Social Consequences of the University of Massachusetts (Boston), are convening an international conference to undertake a critical assessment of the current status of the two state solution to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict and conduct a detailed examination of the feasibility, strategies and organization for the realization of the one state solution. Information, registration and speaker biographies: http://onestateforpalestineisrael.com.

Tuesday, April 14, A LOST LEVANT: A REPORTER’S REFLECTIONS ON LEBANON, PALESTINE AND IRAQ, 7:15-9pm,

Harvard Law School event with Pulitzer Prize winner, Anthony Shadid (Washington Post). Refreshments: 6:45 to 7:10 p.m. Pizza and Cold Drinks;

Open to the Public free of charge. Sponsored by: The Harvard Middle East Law School Association and the Evelyn Abdalah Menconi Memorial Cultural Series

On the Economic Crisis and what to do about it, Mike Prokosch has highly recommended this reading:

“GLOBALIZATION FROM BELOW” TACKLES THE “GREAT RECESSION”A Global Labor Strategies Discussion Paper which can be downloaded here

HOPES. . .

Obama Orders Secret Prisons and Detention Camps Closed

Saying that “our ideals give us the strength and moral high ground” to combat terrorism, President Obama signed executive orders Thursday effectively ending the Central Intelligence Agency’s secret interrogation program, directing the closing of the Guantánamo Bay detention camp within a year and setting up a sweeping, high-level review of the best way to hold and question terrorist suspects in the future. More

Obama Offers Internationalist Vision

Speaking before a record crowd estimated at between two and three million people at his inauguration Tuesday, U.S. President Barack Obama promised a foreign policy of "humility and restraint" and "greater cooperation and understanding between nations." … After pledging to uphold the rule of law and human rights while maintaining national security, he pledged to "all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more." More

Obama to meet war council on first full day

President Barack Obama's promise to end the war in Iraq will be on the agenda Wednesday when the new commander in chief meets with top national security aides and senior commanders, officials said… During his campaign, Obama said he intended to withdraw all U.S. combat brigades from Iraq within 16 months, although it was not clear Tuesday whether the president would issue a hard-and-fast order Wednesday to end the war on that specific timeline or declare his intentions in more general terms. In his inaugural address Tuesday, Obama said he would "begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan," though he offered no details about his plan for either war. More

Seasoned Negotiator to Serve as a Mideast Envoy

President Obama moved swiftly to engage on the Middle East on Wednesday, calling Israeli and Arab leaders on his first morning in office and preparing to appoint a seasoned peace negotiator and former senator, George J. Mitchell, as his special emissary to the region. Mr. Obama did not announce any new initiatives, though he promised deeper American involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than was evident during the Bush administration, which steered clear of the peace effort in its early days. More

And FEARS

PAUL KRUGMAN: What Obama must do

There's nothing in either the data or the underlying situation to suggest that the plunge in employment will slow anytime soon, which means that by late this year we could be 10 million or more jobs short of where we should be. This, in turn, would mean an unemployment rate of more than nine percent. Add in those who aren't counted in the standard rate because they've given up looking for work, plus those forced to take part-time jobs when they want to work full-time, and we're probably looking at a real-world unemployment rate of around 15 percent - more than 20 million Americans frustrated in their efforts to find work. More

GEORGE MCGOVERN: Calling a Time Out

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.

More Americans Joining Military as Jobs Dwindle

As the number of jobs across the nation dwindles, more Americans are joining the military, lured by a steady paycheck, benefits and training.The last fiscal year was a banner one for the military, with all active-duty and reserve forces meeting or exceeding their recruitment goals for the first time since 2004, the year that violence in Iraq intensified drastically, Pentagon officials said. And the trend seems to be accelerating. More

Will Public Education Be Militarized?

In a glowing introduction to the media, President-elect Barack Obama named Arne Duncan, the chief executive officer of the Chicago Public Schools system (CPS), as his nominee for U.S. Secretary of Education… Chicago's school system is currently the most militarized in the country, boasting five military academies, nearly three dozen smaller Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps programs within existing high schools, and numerous middle school Junior ROTC programs. More troubling yet, the military academies he's started are nearly all located in low-income, minority neighborhoods. This merging of military training and education naturally raises concerns about whether such academies will be not just education centers, but recruitment centers as well. More

Obama’s Middle East Peace Challenge

The catastrophe in Gaza has… presented President Barack Obama with an opportunity to restart the peace process -- precisely because it has demonstrated the catastrophic failure of the approach adopted by the Bush Administration. Unfortunately, the raft of domestic and economic challenges facing the 44th President may tempt Obama to keep many Bush foreign policies on autopilot for now… The failed U.S.-Israeli strategy of trying to depose Hamas reached its nadir in the pre-inauguration bloodbath in Gaza, which not only reinforced Hamas politically, but actually weakened those anointed as "moderates" as part of a counterinsurgency strategy against Hamas and its support base. It is in America's interest, and Israel's, and the Palestinians' that Obama intervene quickly in the Middle East, but that he do so on a dramatically different basis than that of his two immediate predecessors. More

* * * *

Too Much GAZA?

Readers of the Update could not fail to notice that there has been a lot of material on the Gaza Crisis in the past few weeks. I make no apology for that: the horrific destruction and loss of life – perpetrated by US-supplied weapons – is a spectacle that has transfixed the world, mobilizing the efforts of anti-war activists locally and across the globe. The DPP Anti-War Committee helped organize standouts in Dorchester and Roxbury; upwards of 20 DPP members/supporters, joined protests along with hundreds from UJP and other organizations we work with. What is more, it seemed especially urgent to present readers with alternative sources of information to the superficial, one-sided reporting that typified mainstream media coverage.

Not all DPPers saw it that way: One member emailed to complain about the extent of Gaza/Palestine coverage.

The choice of what appears in the DPP Update is to a certain degree personal. Of course DPP activities are central and an effort is made to be clear when something represents a DPP position or an activity that we endorse – or when it is merely informational (as is much of the news and opinion linked in the Update). On the other hand, I take pains not to promote any cause which contradicts the mission or work of DPP or which does not reflect the issues we have already taken up. Palestine solidarity, the Israeli Occupation and its relation to the larger issue of War and Peace in the Middle East have been a significant part of DPP’s work for years now.

We don’t get as much feedback to the Update as we would like. I would welcome hearing from other DPP members about this issue. As always, your concerns will be acknowledged and noted here as appropriate: info@dotpeace.org

* * * *

GAZA Aftermath. . .

Scale of Gaza destruction emerges

The full scale of devastation in Gaza following Israel's three-week offensive is becoming clear, after both Israel and Hamas declared ceasefires.

UN official John Ging said half a million people had been without water since the conflict began, and huge numbers of people were without power. Four thousand homes are ruined and tens of thousands of people are homeless. More

Outcry Erupts Over Reports That Israel Used Phosphorus Arms on Gazans

Amnesty International said it found “indisputable evidence of widespread use of white phosphorus in densely populated residential areas in Gaza City and in the north.” In a statement, it said its investigators “saw streets and alleyways littered with evidence of the use of white phosphorus, including still-burning wedges and the remnants of the shells and canisters fired by the Israeli Army.” It called such use a likely war crime and demanded a full international investigation. More

Gazans Rally Behind Hamas

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, as he announced a cease-fire in Gaza over the weekend, said Israel's military objectives against Hamas had been met. But at least initially, the militant group appears to have gained what Israel and its Bush administration allies had long hoped they could damp: popular support. …Hamas appears to have gained politically from the attack, drawing parallels with Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group that resisted a withering Israeli ground and air attack against Lebanon two years ago. After those attacks and a reconstruction effort led by Hezbollah, the group emerged stronger, both in terms of domestic support inside Lebanon and on the world stage. More

* * * *

GAZA: Background

A Fact-Sheet on US arms transfers to Israel is available to download here

CHOMSKY: "Exterminate All The Brutes": GAZA 2009

Today, Israel could have security, normalization of relations, and integration into the region. But it very clearly prefers illegal expansion, conflict, and repeated exercise of violence, actions that are not only criminal, murderous and destructive but are also eroding its own long-term security… Meanwhile we are quietly observing a rare event in history, what the late Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling called "politicide," the murder of a nation -- at our hands. More

JOHN MEARSHEIMER: Another War, Another Defeat

The actual purpose is connected to Israel’s long-term vision of how it intends to live with millions of Palestinians in its midst. It is part of a broader strategic goal: the creation of a “Greater Israel.” Specifically, Israel’s leaders remain determined to control all of what used to be known as Mandate Palestine, which includes Gaza and the West Bank. The Palestinians would have limited autonomy in a handful of disconnected and economically crippled enclaves, one of which is Gaza. Israel would control the borders around them, movement between them, the air above and the water below them. More

EDUARDO GALEANO: Operation Unpunished Lead

Since 1948, the Palestinians live condemned to perpetual humiliation. They cannot even breathe without permission. They have lost their country, their land, their water, their freedom, everything of theirs. They do not even have the right to choose their governments. When they vote for those they should not, they are punished. Gaza is being punished. It turned into a mousetrap without exit since Hamas cleanly won the elections of 2006. Something similar happened in 1932 when the Communist Party triumphed in the elections of El Salvador. Drenched in blood, the Salvadorans atoned for their bad behaviour and since then have lived under military dictatorships. Democracy is a luxury which not everyone deserves. More

* * * *

DONATE: Urgent Relief For People In Gaza

While direct medical aid is difficult due to the closure of Gaza by the Israeli military, the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund has been providing food for hundreds of children in the central and southern areas of the Gaza Strip, where the population is the most marginalized and poor. Please support our efforts to feel and cloth the poor and needy children in Gaza by visiting our web site and donating

ANERA (American Near East Refugee Aid) is sending more than $4 million worth of relief, including emergency food packets, donated medicine and medical supplies.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society "PRCS" issued a 6-month preliminary emergency appeal with a total budget of $6,826,874 for medical supplies, equipment, relief items and ambulances in addition to core cost of the main services provided in Gaza Strip, attached above. You can donate on-line by clicking on the link http://www.mapcan.org/english.html. Select the icon for "Donations," then select the button "Donate now through CanadaHelps.org.'' Please visit the PRCS website www.palestinercs.org for more information about the appeal as well as the daily situation update.

* * * *

IRAN

So-called “IRAN DIVESTMENT” is back in Massachusetts. Proponents have re-filed the bill that was blocked in the state Senate last year, titled Act to Protect the Massachusetts Pension Fund from the Risks of Investment in Iran -- an Orwellian turn of phrase if there ever was one. . .

Despite protestations by its sponsors that the bill is a peaceful effort “to avoid nuclear proliferation in the Middle East and to protect the Massachusetts pension fund against dangerous investments in an unstable region” the effort is actually a national project of AIPAC and the pro-Israel Lobby to ratchet up tensions with Iran and promote an eventual military confrontation; and rather than “protect” state pension funds, the measure is estimated to come with a cost of many millions of dollars.

Last year DPP joined others from the peace movement and allies in the state legislature to stop this bill.

DPP member Jeff Klein testified against the measure, which you can read here.

The backers of the bill are seeking additional sponsors.

Let your state legislators and senators know you think it is a bad idea which they should not support.

"Realists" on Iran

Sanctions and threats have failed to force Iran to abandon its enrichment program and by themselves are unlikely to do so even with Iran's recent economic problems… Of course, there are issues on which Washington and Tehran disagree, such as Hamas, Hezbollah and human rights. But treating Iran as a donkey that must be dealt with carrots and sticks is unlikely to work. It is time to begin dealing with Iran as a serious, proud and influential nation with a deep culture and history, one whose common interests with the U.S. and other countries in the region should be recognized and acted on before events make success impossible. More

Barack Obama: Administration willing to talk to Iran 'without preconditions'

The Obama foreign policy agenda that appeared on the White House website said: "Barack Obama supports tough and direct diplomacy with Iran without preconditions," the policy outline said. The Bush administration made direct talks between the US and Iran conditional on Iranian suspension of its uranium enrichment programme. This step breaks that conditionality, as part of a fundamental shift in diplomatic approach. The Obama agenda said the new administration will "talk to our foes and friends" and not set preconditions. More

* * * *

“WAR ON TERROR” . . . Do You Feel Safer Now?

Mohammed Jawad and Obama's efforts to suspend military commissions

One of the Guantanamo detainees whose military commission has not yet concluded is Mohammed Jawad. Jawad is an Afghan citizen who, in late 2002, was taken into U.S. custody and then shipped from Afghanistan, his home country, to Guantanamo, where he has remained ever since -- more than six full years and counting. Nobody has ever accused Jawad of belonging either to Al Qaeda or the Taliban… Suffice to say, Jawad's chief prosecutor at Guantanamo -- the Bronze-Star-recipient Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld, who since 9/11 has served in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Africa -- became so repelled by the treatment to which Jawad was subjected, by the fact that virtually all of the evidence against him was severely coerced, and by the fact that there is "no credible evidence" to justify his detention, that he first demanded that Jawad be released, then, when Bush officials refused, unsuccessfully demanded to be relieved of his duty to prosecute, and then finally resigned. More

* * * *

COST OF WAR

The Military Cost of Securing Energy… and the alternatives

http://www.nationalpriorities.org/Energy_Security/Energy_Priorities

Where the money comes from, where it goes and what it could pay for instead.

http://nationalpriorities.org/

**********************************

Other Events

Friday, January 30, "KEEPING THE DREAM ALIVE" The Future of Educational Opportunity in Boston, 11am-1pm

City Hall, 5th Floor, Curley Room. Community Briefing on Public School Funding for the Next Fiscal Year in Boston Public Schools

Join Union of Minority Neighborhoods-RISE, Access Strategies Fund, Boston Parent Organizing Network, President of Boston Teacher's Union Richard Stutman City Councilors: John Connolly, Chuck Turner, Sam Yoon and others. For more information contact (617) 522 3349, Rally to Improve Schools and Education-RISE/ 891 Centre St, Jamaica, Plain, MA 02130/ www.unionofminorityneighborhoods.org/

Friday, January 30, FOR GAZA: A night of readings and conversation, 7-9pm, Friend’s Meeting House, 5 Longfellow Park, Cambridge. Howard Zinn, Leila Farsakh, Salma Abu Ayyash, Kevin Bowen, Joshua Rubenstein and others. Sponsored by:

• American Friends Service Committee • Arrowsmith Press • • The William Joiner Center for the Study of War and Social Consequences •

Saturday, January 31, Dinner/Fundraiser: The Gaza Community Mental Health Program, 7pm, Palestine Cultural Center, 41 Quint Ave, Allston. Speakers: Message from Dr. Eyad El-Sarraj, Founder and Director, Gaza Community Mental Health Program, and Commissioner-General of the Palestinian; Independent Commission for Citizens' Rights; Nancy Murray, President of the Gaza Community Mental Health Foundation; Sherif Fam, Producer of "This Week in Palestine" Radio Program. More details to follow

SAVE THE DATES!

Monday, March 9, The Reality of the Iraq Occupation from an Unembedded Journalist: Dahr Jamail, location and time TBA. The invasion of Iraq has been presented to us by mainstream media in the most sanitized way possible: we don’t see pictures of the dead and dying, the wounded, the funerals. We donft hear about the rage and anguish of returning soldiers. And above all, we donft hear the other side of the story, about the oppression and suffering endured by the Iraqis. Journalist Dahr Jamail challenged that picture.. In 2003, he traveled to Iraq at his own expense to be a witness on behalf of the Iraqis. His brilliant and moving accounts of the invasion and its impact on the life of Iraqi citizens have become monuments to truth in a sea of lies passed on by our political leaders and embedded journalists. He has gathered his accounts in a book entitled Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq. You can also check his website www.dahrjamailiraq. com.

Saturday-Sunday, March 28-29, Conference: ONE STATE FOR PALESTINE / ISRAEL- A Country for All Its Citizens, Trans Arab Research Institute (TARI), an independent American think tank registered in the state of Massachusetts, and the Joiner Center for the Study of War and Its Social Consequences of the University of Massachusetts (Boston), are convening an international conference to undertake a critical assessment of the current status of the two state solution to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict and conduct a detailed examination of the feasibility, strategies and organization for the realization of the one state solution. Information, registration and speaker biographies: http://onestateforpalestineisrael.com.

Next DPP Meeting

Monday, January 12

The Economic Crisis and the Warfare State 7-9pm,Vietnamese American Community Center, 42 Charles St., Fields Corner. Join DPP members for a lively, participatory explanation of the economic crisis and what caused it. The discussion on What's going on with the economy? will focus on: where do the war and military spending fit in

Wheelchair accessible. Please call us a week in advance if you need translation, childcare, a ride, or have other needs: 617-282-3783.

“Yes We Can” Campaign to Cut Military Budget

On Monday, January 19th, the country will celebrate the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. On that day -- and during the weekend of Jan. 17th -18th -- people around the country will participate in many events and activities to honor the life and work of Dr. King. …Our Yes We Can Campaign will make the link between the current wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan and the ways our communities are suffering from the draining of our national treasury by these wars. In the coming weeks, we will be sending you more details about the campaign -- and resources to help your group be actively involved in this effort. More

The Soaring Cost of the American Defense Establishment:

Kosiak estimates that by 2018, the total spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with related spending on veterans’ health care and other matters, could reach $1.7 trillion… But the truly astounding number in Kosiak’s report comes on page 38, where he estimates that the total cost of sending a single soldier to fight in Iraq or Afghanistan is about $775,000 per year… Kosiak’s estimate of the daily cost of deployment is particularly important given Obama’s plans to send an additional 20,000 U.S. soldiers to Afghanistan, a move that could bolster the U.S. presence there to about 52,000. And some analysts are projecting that the U.S. could need more than 100,000 troops to stabilize the vast country. But at a cost of more than $2,100 per day per soldier, a military expansion of that magnitude will be incredibly costly. More

* * * *

BUS TO OBAMA INAUGURATION, JANUARY 19-21:
PAYMENT DEADLINE IS THIS MONDAY, JAN. 5
DPP and the Boston Workers Alliance are co-sponsoring an overnight bus to Washington departing from Roxbury Crossing January 19th at 10 pm. It will arrive in DC about 8 am the next morning. The bus will leave Washington, Tuesday at 8 pm to return to Boston, arriving here about 6 am on Wednesday, Jan. 21. People under 18 years old must be accompanied by an adult. Any questions, please call Becky or Mike at 617-282-3783. Cost is $66/seat. Payment is due by Mon. Jan. 5. (If people sign up and pay later than that, they will be on the wait-list, and will get a seat if any remain; if not their money will be refunded promptly.) Donations are also needed to help sponsor seats for low/no-income people who would like to go.

Checks should be sent to Dorchester People for Peace, along with name, address, phone no., and e-mail address (optional), at 41A Brent St., Dorchester 02124. Download a flyer here.

Gaza crisis: a crossroads for Obama

...from the ashes of this war, new lands can be seeded – if President-elect Obama is bold enough to do what his predecessors would not. Like the financial meltdown in the US, Israel's grave and massive blunder in Gaza provides Mr. Obama with an opportunity for sweeping changes unimaginable on Election Day. Obama could begin by making clear that the days of Israel's impunity are over. Israel's outsized response to Qassam rocket attacks has not only killed more than 350 Palestinians in the past three days; it has further radicalized Arab populations from the Gulf to Egypt and may lead to a third intifada. More

* * * *

DPP members have participated in Gaza Demos around Boston since Saturday:

At Park St. T-Station Sunday;

At Senator Kerry’s Office Monday;

At Roxbury Crossing Monday evening (a DPP initiative along with members of the Shawmut Ave and ISB mosques) where about 30 people stood out and leafleted;

at the Israel Consulate Tuesday; and at Park St and Copley on First Night.

Thanks to DPPers who showed up, including Alison, Becky, Hayat, Joseph, Mike, Vic – and DPP friends Phil Dunkelbarger and Vets for Peace; Mike made some really striking banners on short notice which were prominent at several actions.

Jeff appeared on the Jimmy Myers radio show Sunday for almost two hours, archived here

DONATE: Urgent Relief For Children In Gaza

While direct medical aid is difficult due to the closure of Gaza by the Israeli military, the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund has been providing food for hundreds of children in the central and southern areas of the Gaza Strip, where the population is the most marginalized and poor. More urgent aid is required for Gaza during these days of brutal assault. Please support our efforts to feel and cloth the poor and needy children in Gaza by visiting our web site and donating

* * * *

Groups Press Obama to Change Israel-Palestine Policy

Last week, the US Campaign to End the Occupation, a national coalition, launched an open letter to President-Elect Obama entitled "We Need a Change in Israel/Palestine Policy." Already, nearly one hundred organizations and thousands of individuals have signed it. The DPP Decision-making group voted to add our organization to the list.

Last year, you pledged to “take an active role, and make a personal commitment to do all I can to advance the cause of [Israeli-Palestinian] peace from the start of my Administration.” We are eager to work with you to fulfill this goal.

To do so, your Administration should break with past policies of unconditional support for Israel's illegal military occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip, and change U.S. policy toward Israel/Palestine to support human rights, international law, and equality. (view the rest of the text: here)

* * * *

US PUBLIC DOES NOT UNCONDITIONALLY BACK ISRAEL – But Politicians Do

A new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll of 18 countries finds that in 14 of them people mostly say their government should not take sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Just three countries favor taking the Palestinian side (Egypt, Iran, and Turkey) and one is divided (India). No country favors taking Israel's side, including the United States, where 71 percent favor taking neither side… [But] Congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle rallied to Israel’s cause Monday as it pressed forward with large-scale air attacks against Islamic militants in the Gaza Strip. . . . More

Americans generally "are closely divided over whether the Jewish state should be taking military action against militants in the Gaza Strip" (44-41%, with 15% undecided), but Democratic voters overwhelmingly oppose the Israeli offensive -- by a 24-point margin (31-55%)… Democratic Party leaders -- including Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi -- are just as lockstep in their blind, uncritical support for the Israeli attack, in their absolute refusal to utter a word of criticism of, or even reservations about, Israeli actions. While some Democratic politicians who are marginalized by the party's leadership are willing to express the views which Democratic voters overwhelmingly embrace, the suffocating, fully bipartisan orthodoxy which typically predominates in America when it comes to Israel -- thou shalt not speak ill of Israel, thou shalt support all actions it takes -- is in full force with this latest conflict. More

* * * *

ATTACK ON GAZA …latest news

Israel Continues Bombing, Kills senior Hamas figure and his family

A senior leader of the Palestinian Hamas movement has been assassinated in an air assault by the Israeli military in Gaza. Nizar Rayyan is the most senior Hamas official killed since Israel unleashed its massive bombardment on Gaza, in what Israel argues is a response to persistent rocket fire from the enclave…Medics say 13 members of Rayyan's family, including his wife and three children, were killed in the attack on his five-storey home in the Jabaliya refugee camp on Thursday. About 30 people were wounded and surrounding buildings badly damaged… At least 420 people have been killed and 2,100 injured since Israel's aerial bombardment of the coastal strip started six days ago.The UN has said at least 25 per cent of the dead are civilians. More

Gaza Aid worker diary

Since the bombing started six days ago, people are becoming more and more desperate. I've met families who are resorting to boiling weeds that they've dug out from the ground in order to feed their families. People are queuing up to an hour to get bread rations. The long queues are dangerous - bombs could fall at any time and being out in the open is the worst place to be. The weather is getting colder and this is another danger for Gazans. Islamic Relief has already distributed blankets. We distributed 400 today to the injured at Shifa hospital to take home with them…. As usual, it is the vulnerable who suffer the most, and it's the children I fear for - they are hungry, tired, scared and cold. It is not easy to blank out the sounds of screaming F-16s or bombs being dropped for an adult, but more so for children. More

Israel accused of downplaying food crisis

Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister, speaking during a visit to Paris denied the 1.5 million-strong population of Gaza was suffering a humanitarian crisis. She was responding to calls led by France but supported by the European Union for a ceasefire in Gaza to allow a surge in humanitarian supplies. "There is no humanitarian crisis in the Strip and therefore there is no need for a humanitarian truce,'' she said. "Israel has been supplying comprehensive humanitarian aid to the Strip ... and has even been stepping this up by the day.'' Her analysis was at odds with Gordon Brown who categorised the current situation in Gaza as a "humanitarian crisis'' and called for a ceasefire. More

* * * *

GAZA: Background

Understanding Gaza

The context of the renewed rocket launching, of course, was the breakdown of the ceasefire brokered by Egypt between Israel and Hamas in June, which expired last week. Israel set off the latest upsurge in rocket attacks by launching raids on Nov 5 which it said were necessary to stop Palestinians tunneling under the boundary fence… But why would Hamas settle for a cease-fire that removed the threat of Israeli bombs, but did nothing to relax Israel’s chokehold on its economy? …The US-Israeli strategy on Hamas in Gaza has been a spectacular failure because it is fatally flawed (by its inability to relinquish the goal of reversing the results of the 2006 Palestinian election by anti-democratic means). More

Gaza: The Logic of Colonial Power

The democratically elected Hamas government was targeted for destruction from the day it won the elections in 2006. The world told the Palestinians that they cannot have democracy, as if the goal was to radicalise them further and as if that would not have a consequence. Israel claims it is targeting Hamas's military forces. This is not true. It is targeting Palestinian police forces and killing them, including some such as the chief of police, Tawfiq Jaber, who was actually a former Fatah official who stayed on in his post after Hamas took control of Gaza. What will happen to a society with no security forces? What do the Israelis expect to happen when forces more radical than Hamas gain power? More

Bennis: The Gaza Crisis

The Israeli airstrikes represent serious violations of international law - including the Geneva Conventions and a range of international humanitarian law. The U.S. is complicit in the Israeli violations - directly and indirectly. · The timing of the air strikes has far more to do with U.S. and Israeli politics than with protecting Israeli civilians. This serious escalation will push back any chance of serious negotiations between the parties that might have been part of the Obama administration's plans. More

FISK: Why bombing Ashkelon is the most tragic irony
…the Palestinians who lived in Ashkelon and the fields around it – Askalaan in Arabic – were dispossessed from their lands in 1948 when Israel was created and ended up on the beaches of Gaza. They – or their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren – are among the one and a half million Palestinian refugees crammed into the cesspool of Gaza, 80 per cent of whose families once lived in what is now Israel. This, historically, is the real story: most of the people of Gaza don't come from Gaza. More

* * * *

IRAQ

U.S. Soldiers Will Remain in Green Zone Next 90 Days
The United States on Thursday handed the Iraqi government formal control of the Green Zone, the locus of power in the country and symbol of American influence for the past five years, but officials announced that U.S soldiers would continue to help maintain security in the area for at least the next 90 days. "The Americans will supervise us," said Brig. Gen. Emad al-Zuhairi, commander of the Baghdad Brigade, the Iraqi military unit in charge of the Green Zone. "We hope this is just the first step." More

In Iraq, the Day After
The war in Iraq is indeed over, at least the conflict as it was understood during its first five years: insurgency, communal cleansing, gangland turf battles and an anarchic, often futile quest to survive. In other words, civil war -- though civil war was always too tidy a term for it. The entropy, for now at least, has run its course. So have many of the forces the United States so dangerously unleashed with its 2003 invasion, turning Iraq into an atomized, fractured land seized by a paroxysm of brutality. … Not to say that there is peace in Iraq. As many people are killed today as on any day in 2003 and 2004. Nor is there victory. For any Iraqi, the word, translated into Arabic, draws a dumbfounded look. Victory for whom? Certainly not the tens of thousands of civilians -- perhaps many more -- killed in the frenzied clashes of those once inchoate forces… This war's end feels more truce than treaty, more respite than reconciliation. There is no revival or renaissance, no celebration. It manifests itself most in the simple lifting of a siege. More

* * * *

AFGHANISTAN

For Afghans: "A Narco-Mafia State”

Kept afloat by billions of dollars in American and other foreign aid, the government of Afghanistan is shot through with corruption and graft. From the lowliest traffic cop to the family of President Hamid Karzai himself, the state built on the ruins of the Taliban regime seven years ago now often seems to exist for little more than the enrichment of those who run it… “This government has lost the capacity to govern because a shadow government has taken over,” said Ashraf Ghani, a former Afghan finance minister. He quit that job in 2004, he said, because the state had been taken over by drug traffickers. “The narco-mafia state is now completely consolidated.” More

20,000 GIs to surge into Afghanistan

Afghanistan’s southern rim, the Taliban’s spiritual birthplace and the country’s most violent region, has for the last two years been the domain of British, Canadian and Dutch soldiers. That’s about to change. In what amounts to an Afghan version of the surge in Iraq, the U.S. is preparing to pour at least 20,000 extra troops into the south, augmenting 12,500 NATO soldiers who have proved too few to cope with a Taliban insurgency that is fiercer than NATO leaders expected. More

* * * *

COST OF WAR

REPORT: Cost of the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, And Other Military Spending

To date, some 4,800 US Service members have been killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and about 33,000 wounded. These military operations have also incurred substantial financial costs, including both direct budgetary costs and associated interest payments on the federal

debt. These costs have grown dramatically over the past few years. More

The Military Cost of Securing Energy… and the alternatives

http://www.nationalpriorities.org/Energy_Security/Energy_Priorities

Where the money comes from, where it goes and what it could pay for instead.

http://nationalpriorities.org/

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Sunday, November 16

DPP Annual Retreat

12 noon-6pm, Ashmont Nursery School, 1 Ashmont St (corner of Washington Street near the Dorchester Y),
Join fellow DPPers to celebrate our achievements, evaluate our work over the past year – and plan for the future,

beginning with a light lunch at noon.

Please let know if you're coming, unless you already did (mikeprokosch@verizon.net); talk with others on your committees and see if they are bringing any ideas to the retreat: evaluations of our work in 2008, proposals for 2009. Our committees are Anti-War, Biolab, Counter-Recruitment, Multi-Cultural Competence, and Outreach (Outreach already met); show up promptly at noon so we can have a light lunch and get started; bring a dessert or a drink if convenient (we don't need everyone to do this, but we will have a mid-afternoon dessert break.)

Part of the agenda will be

1. Evaluate DPP's work in 2008
2. How has our environment changed with the presidential election, developments in the Middle East, around the world, in the state, in Dorchester? What do all these mean for us and DPP?
3. What do we want to do in 2009?
-projects and events
-coalitions and relationships
4. Internal functioning, including:
-outreach, membership, leadership
-committees
-the decision group
-phone tree, update, website
-finances

Reflections on the Election and other things. . .

I watched the election returns early Wednesday morning in the Palestinian West Bank city of Ramallah, at the home of my friend Mohammed Saleh. Ramallah is just north of Jerusalem, in effect a suburban satellite town similar to Newton, but its residents – like those of Bethlehem to the south -- are cut off from their economic and cultural hub by walls and checkpoints, which they are not allowed to cross without special permission from the Israeli occupation authorities, rarely granted. Recently, after he was refused an emergency entry permit, Mohammed had to sneak into East Jerusalem for surgery at the Palestinian Makassed Hospital; his wife Sawsan paid a smuggler almost a week’s wages to help her visit him during his recovery. Mohammed is a trade unionist, laid of from his paid job as an official with the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions, which is nearly broke because of the severe economic decline in the Occupied Territories. He works without salary as the president of Ramallah’s largest labor organization – the Union of Unemployed Workers.

Most Palestinians I met were “realistic” about what Obama would mean for their aspirations, given his groveling as a candidate before AIPAC and his speedy appointment of Israeli hawk and corporate DLC member Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff. But they were also hugely relieved to see the last of George Bush and understood that McCain’s loss was in large measure a repudiation of the Bush administration policies. Perhaps they perceived a glimmer of hope, despite so many disappointments with the US role in the Middle East, from the fact that the Israeli establishment and the many Israeli voters with dual US citizenship preferred McCain by a strong margin. I and many others on the Left probably feel the same way. While remaining skeptical of the new administration’s commitment to real and substantive political change, we are awed by the cultural significance and social impact of Obama’s victory. We hope for the best but prepare for disappointment. . .

I look forward to speaking with many of you about what I learned on this latest trip to Palestine. I ask that you think about any organizations or venues which might want to hear a report – and I urge you all to consider making the trip yourselves next year. You will experience and learn a great deal, while helping to bring hope to our Palestinian brothers and sisters who crave the evidence of solidarity from the outside world.

Many thanks to Mike Prokosch for taking care of the DPP Update while I was away

* * * *

The National Priorities Project, which brought us the on-line Cost of War Calculator, is offering several brand-new "tools to help you shape our new federal budget" including:
*The Individual Cost of the Iraq War Calculator (war taxes you've paid and war taxes you still owe)
*New fact sheets about energy use and fossil fuels.
*Fact sheets that examine the real cost of a barrel of oil and a gallon of gas, when you include the military costs.
"In addition to the $2.65/gallon price of gasoline, the American people pay an additional $0.57 for each of the 142 billion gallons of gasoline we use every year. $215.4 billion represents nearly 30% of the federal defense budget - just to gain access to foreign energy."
*New figures on military recruitment, FY 2009 spending priorities, graphs and maps which put the U.S. military in a global context....
all at http://www.nationalpriorities.org/.

Saturday, November 22, 1:30-5:30 pm: UJP Post-election Strategy Session. Three activists will share their views on the meaning of the election and the economic crisis, and the implications for our peace and justice work. Following these presentations there will be ample time for discussion, questions, answers, new proposals for projects, etc. Cambridge Senior Center, 806 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square (across from Cambridge City Hall).

* * * *

Post-Election Challenges

Don't Let Barack Obama Break Your Heart: Why Americans Shouldn't Go Home

Let's assume the best: that Barack Obama truly means to bring some form of the people's will, as he imagines it, to Washington after eight years of unconstitutional "commander-in-chief" governance. That -- take my word for it -- he can't do without the people themselves expressing that will… Washington remains an imperial capital. How in the world will Barack Obama truly begin to change that without you? More

Obama Mania

Now a new beginning under Obama. With hoped for change that he promised. A "bold mandate (for) progressive governing." A "transformational presidency." The end of neoliberalism and new era for his faithful. With legions lining up to cheer. Unmindful of how American politics works. The way it is most everywhere. The same old, same old that The New York Times ignored in saying that "Obama began moving (swiftly) to build his administration and make good on his ambitious promises to point the US in a different direction...." Without a whiff of progressivism in any high-level appointees so far named, suggested, or in his transition team co-chairmen. More

ACLU Calls On Obama To Close Guantánamo On Day One Of Presidency

The American Civil Liberties Union launched a new campaign today calling on President-elect Barack Obama to close the Guantánamo Bay prison and end the military commissions on Day One of his presidency. Obama, as a candidate, pledged to "close Guantánamo, reject the Military Commissions Act and adhere to the Geneva Conventions." In a full page ad in the New York Times today, the ACLU urges Obama, as president, to fulfill those promises and immediately. . . More

The US can quit Iraq, or it can stay. But it can't do both

Fear of covert US control is one of the reasons why the Iraqi government has been so intent on insisting that all US forces be out of Iraq by the end of 2011. The latest draft of the security accord has dropped mention of US troops staying behind for training, or making the US withdrawal conditional on improved security in Iraq being maintained. The American position in Iraq has always been undermined by the fear that, whatever they claimed to be doing in Iraq, their long-term objective was to rule the country. More

With Iran, Obama Needs More Carrot, Less Stick

As Iran heads toward a presidential election in the coming year, the United States—and the Obama administration—would achieve better and longer-lasting results by seeking solutions geared toward resolving the legitimate issues at play in the region, rather than creating short-term sound bites here at home. A clean break with the neoconservative policies of the Bush administration is a prerequisite for success, and achieving this requires great imagination and courage. President-elect Barack Obama has demonstrated the potential for both of those qualities. More

America's Energy Crunch Comes Home

Of all the challenges facing President Barack Obama next January, none is likely to prove as daunting, or important to the future of this nation, as that of energy. After all, energy policy -- so totally mishandled by the outgoing Bush-Cheney administration -- figures in each of the other major challenges facing the new president, including the economy, the environment, foreign policy, and our Middle Eastern wars. Most of all, it will prove a monumental challenge because the United States faces an energy crisis of unprecedented magnitude that is getting worse by the day. More

* * * *

DPP’s Friends at VETERANS FOR PEACE report on their November 11 Parade Action:

Yesterday was a big success for us. The American Legion, afraid of confrontation with us, cancelled the speaking portion of the event. We had more people marching with us than last year. Thanks to our supporters from Code Pink, Mass. Peace Action, Raging Grannies, U Mass Antiwar group, and others who came out. As we reached City Hall Plaza
Iraq Veterans Against The War was on the sidewalk, applauding us and we all hugged and shook hands. Then, in a great suggestion by Liam Madden, we had our own speaking event on City Hall Plaza. Speakers were myself, Shep Gurwitz, Liam Madden, national VFP President Elliott Adams, Paul Brailsford. And then we ended with the Raging Grannies
singing a song.

We marched with cadences the whole way, and passed out hundreds of flyers in an attempt to get the wars and occupations back into the consciousness of the public. We got a great response from people along the way, and only a couple of negative reactions. The motorcycles that the Boston Police put between us and the parade made it seem like we had a motorcycle escort!

News reports and photos here

* * * *

BANKS GET BAILED OUT… PEOPLE GET THROWN OUT.

After the last weeks of bank collapses and government bail-outs – with hundreds of billions more promised to Wall Street -- it’s hard to believe that banks would continue to seek evictions rather than negotiate to allow families to remain in their homes. But this administration, led by the very officials whose malfeasance or simple incompetence brought on the current crisis – continue to push the interests of Wall Street over the needs of Main Street!

Background on the Financial Crisis: Mike has been posting good articles about the "bailout" on http://www.uml.edu/laborextension/Economic_Crisis.html

And watch for announcements of upcoming EVICTION BLOCKADES organized by City Life/Vida Urbana and supported by other DPP Allies like ACORN

In case you missed it:

THE GOP'S BLAME-ACORN GAME

For months, the right-wing echo chamber--bloggers, columnists, editorial writers and TV and radio talk-show hosts--has pitched in with a well-orchestrated campaign to blame the mortgage crisis on ACORN and the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), the 1977 anti-redlining law… The right-wing case against the CRA is entirely bogus--a diversionary tactic to take the heat off the financial services industry and its allies, like McCain. The CRA applies only to depository institutions, like commercial and savings banks, but thanks to Congress's deregulation mania, there are now many other lenders, including private mortgage companies like CitiMortgage, Household Finance and Countrywide Financial (which was recently bought out by Bank of America). These outfits, which exist in a shadow world without government oversight, account for most of the predatory loans in trouble today. More

* * * *

PALESTINE / ISRAEL

UN warns over Gaza food blockade

The UN in the Gaza Strip says it will run out of food aid in two days unless Israel's blockade - which it describes as "shameful and unacceptable" - eases. The UN refugee agency Unrwa, which distributes food to half of Gaza's 1,5m people, called the blockade "a physical as well as a mental punishment"… Gaza's only power plant was closed on Monday, after Israel stopped fuel deliveries. Aid agencies estimate the new deliveries of fuel will run out within a day-and-a-half. More

UN 'has run out of Gaza food aid'

The UN has no more food to distribute in the Gaza Strip, the head of relief efforts in the area has warned. John Ging said handouts for 750,000 Gazans would have to be suspended until Saturday at the earliest, and called Gaza's economic situation "a disaster". Israel earlier denied entry to a convoy carrying humanitarian supplies. It has prevented the transfer of all goods into Gaza for nearly a week, blaming continuing rocket attacks by Palestinian militants. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa) distributes emergency aid to about half of Gaza's 1.5m population. More

Israeli police evict Palestinian couple from home of 52 years

Israeli police have evicted a disabled Palestinian man and his wife from the home where they had lived for 52 years, in a Palestinian district of east Jerusalem which is now surrounded by hardline Jewish settlers. The eviction came after years of litigation which culminated in an Israeli supreme court ruling in July ordering them out of the house. More

* * * *

COST OF WAR

Where the money comes from, where it goes and what it could pay for instead.

http://nationalpriorities.org/

VIDEO: “ONE DAY = $720 MILLION"

NEW SLIDE SHOW RESOURCE:

“The Real Price of Occupation”

International Cost of War

http://www.stwr.net/component/option,com_costofwar/Itemid,165/

Have you ever wondered what the International community could achieve if funding for war was diverted to urgent humanitarian needs? This eye opening cost calculator shows what could be bought instead of arms and military equipment.

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Other Events

Saturday, November 15, FIRST PARISH CHURCH Holiday Fair, Gift Bazaar, 10am-4pm, First Parish Church in Dorchester

10 Parish Street, Meetinghouse Hill, Dorchester 617-436-0527 UNIQUE GIFT ITEMS by local artisans, organizations and vendors; also for sale: collectibles, fair trade items, crafts by church members and friends. ACTIVITIES FOR KIDS including greetings from Santa and his helpers! REFRESHMENTS

Wednesday, November 19: NOAM CHOMSKY: "What's Next? The US & the World After Bush" 6:30, Arlington Street Church (by the Boston Gardens). (5:30 for reception ticket holders). Information and tickets at http://www.encuentro5.org. [BTW: Equal Exchange is donating free hot chocolate that will be available to everyone arriving between 6:00 and 6:30 p.m.]

Saturday, November 22: UJP Strategy Session: Obama's election victory and the Economic Crisis for UJP's work in 2009. 1:30pm to 5:30pm Cambridge Senior Center 806 Massachusetts Ave in Central Square Cambridge (across the street from Cambridge City Hall) Please come and help us set the direction for our work and prepare effective peace and justice activities in the post-election terrain. The session begins with 3 panelists: Mark Solomon from The Committees of Correspondence; Marilyn Levin from Arlington UJP and the UJP Coordinating Committee; and Edwin Argueta, a lead organizer for Jobs with Justice. They will share their views on the implications of the election and the economic crisis and what it all means for our work.

Tuesday, November 24: Foreclosure Corporate Accountability Hearing at City Hall. Community Labor United, SEIU 615, ACORN, and City Life will testify on the economy and how corporations need to be held accountable concerning foreclosures and families. 4 pm, Boston City Council Chambers.

Saturday, December 6: "Green Jobs" Campaign Launch, 10-11 am, Twelfth Baptist Church, 150 Warren St, Roxbury. Join Community Labor United as they kick off a new campaign that will insulate people's homes, slow climate change, create jobs in our neighborhoods, and keep people in their homes despite the foreclosure crisis. Followed by ACORN's Energy Fair from 11 to 3. Free. Contact Kalila Barnett, kalila@massclu.org.

*************************************

CONTACTING DPP and Joining Our Work:

Our Facilitation Committee coordinates monthly meetings and deals with organization-wide questions. Contact Hayat Imam, imamhayat@hotmail.com; Jane Taylor, janetaylor11@gmail.com, 617-698-0774; betsymiessner@email.com; 1-617-285-2198.

The Anti-War Committee pressures Congress, does community outreach and education to end the wars in the Middle East. Contact Denise Zwahlen at denisezwahlen@yahoo.com.

The Biolab Committee opposes the bio-hazard laboratory that BU is building at Boston Medical Center. Contact Mike Coté at mike_j_cote@yahoo.com.

The Multi-Cultural Competence Committee promotes internal and public education on racism and the diverse cultures of Dorchester. Contact Mary Regan, maryregan@hotmail.com.

Our Treasurer is Margaret Lamb, ForumGal@aol.com. Daryl Wright and Mike Prokosch prepare budgets

and write funding proposals: dwright@youthbuild.org, mikeprokosch@verizon.net .

* * * *

DPP Calendar - Monthly Meetings
Tentative 2008 calendar

November 16: DPP Annual Retreat – details above

December 8: holiday party

***************************************************************

ARE YOU A VETERAN?
HAVE YOU EXPERIENCED NEIGHBORHOOD VIOLENCE?
ARE YOU FAMILY / FRIEND OF A VET OR SOMEONE IMPACTED BY
VIOLENCE?

FROM IRAQ &
AFGHANISTAN BACK
HOME TO
DORCHESTER:

A COMMUNITY RESPONDS TO
THE WOUNDS OF VIOLENCE

Saturday, September 20 - full day program
9:30 am - 4:00 pm

Dorchester House Multi-service Center
1353 Dorchester Avenue * Dorchester, MA 02125

Speakers * networking * education * open mike

Assistance and information provided by: VetCenter, SoFAR, Veterans Upward Bound rogram, Veterans Advocacy Network, NE Shelter for Homeless Veterans, Veterans Benefits learinghouse, Statewide Head Injury Program from Massachusetts Rehabilitation
Commission, Louis D. Brown Peace Institute and others.
A LIGHT BREAKFAST & CATERED LUNCH WILL BE PROVIDED.

Please contact if you have any questions, require childcare or can provide outreach assistance for this event at 617-983-5383, dorchesterconference@gmail.com or www.dotpeace.org/campaigns.

Event co-sponsors include Dorchester People for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War—Boston Chapter, Louis D.Brown Peace Institute, Massachusetts Chapter of Military Families Speaks Out, Veterans for Peace—Smedley Butler Brigade and the William Joiner Center for the Study of War & Social Consequences at UMASS-Boston.

DOWNLOAD A FLYER HERE!

* * * *

Sunday, June 1, DORCHESTER DAY PARADE: March with DPP for Peace and Justice. . .
We need more help to plan our participation. If you are interested to join Jane or Denise in organizing some aspect of the event, contact Denise at denisezwahlen@yahoo.com. We are inviting some of the community groups we have worked closely with to join us (IVAW, BWA, City Life Vida Urbana). That is a way to make clear the connections between the war at home and the war and occupation in the Middle East.

NEXT DPP MEETING

WEDNESDAY, June 11, FORUM ON THE FORECLOSURE CRISIS, 6:30-8:30pm, Vietnamese American Community Center, 42 Charles St., Fields Corner. Hear from the people that are experiencing it. Learn what you can do to help homeowners and tenants facing eviction and help save our neighborhoods! Fight for economic and racial justice!

The number of foreclosure petitions has gone up tenfold this year and is only increasing. The situation is expected to hit crisis level this summer as payments on variable-interest-rate mortgages skyrocket. Sponsored by: Boston Tenant Coalition, City Life/Vida Urbana, Community Change Inc., Dorchester People for Peace, ACORN, and United for a Fair Economy

Wheelchair accessible. Please call us a week in advance if you need translation, childcare, a ride, or have other needs: 617-282-3783.

****************************************************************************************

CONGRESS VOTES NO TO IRAQ WAR FUNDING!

In a surprising outcome Thursday afternoon Congress defeated the $162.5 billion to continue funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- while passing a measure that demands troop withdrawals, bans torture and expands education benefits for returning veterans. The entire Massachusetts delegation (including Lynch and Capuano) voted against the war funding. (more details below)

* * * *

Sunday, May 18-Thursday May 22, WALK TO FREEDOM for CORI REFORM!

This Sunday dozens from Ex-prisoners and Prisoners Organizing for Community Advancement (EPOCA) will begin a 5 day walk from Worcester to Boston to raise momentum for CORI reform. To join the Walk to Freedom from Worcester, call EPOCA at (508) 410 7676 or visit www.exprisoners.org

Volunteers needed to help BWA leaflet for the May 22 Freedom Walk

Here is the schedule and the list of BWA people who have volunteered so far. If you can help, please contact Aaron at 617-427-8100. .The leaflet is available at the BWA website www.BostonWorkersAlliance.org

JOIN the final leg of the Walk to Freedom Thursday, May 22: 10am at Bunker Hill Community College. Greet the walkers and march the final leg to the State House, expected to arrive about 1pm for a rally with speeches from prominent elected officials and real life testimonials on the need for CORI Reform Now – followed by visits to legislators inside. Whether you are able to march the entire route, just the final leg, or join us at the State House on May 22^nd, please join us to demand CORI Reform.

1) Remove the criminal record question ("the box") from all job applications.
2) Only check CORI for sensitive positions
3) If a CORI is used, only check as the last step in the hiring process
4) Reduce the waiting period to seal a felony to 7 years and misdemeanors after 3
5) Automatically seal dismissed and not guilty and keep from employers and housing gatekeepers

Call the Chairmen of the Joint Judiciary Committee today:
Rep. Chair Eugene O'Flaherty (D - Chelsea Charlestown): 617-722-2396
Sen. Chair Robert Creedon (D - Brockton): (617) 722-1200

* * * *

WAR RESISTANCE

War Funding Defeated in Congress!

(News “not fit to print” on the front-page of the NYTimes or the Boston Globe. . .)

In an amazing turn of events, the House of Representatives Thursday voted AGAINST the supplemental funding for the war in Iraq!! The bill would have provided $166 billion in war funding, the largest single provision since the war started in 2003. In a move that no one expected, dozens of Republicans voted "present," which is the same as abstaining on the vote. This meant that the 149 NO votes were enough to defeat the bill. (141 votes were cast in favor.) The entire Massachusetts delegation (including Lynch and Capuano) voted against the war funding. See the roll call vote here.

The peace movement pressured Congress in the days preceding the vote – including a visit to Lynch’s South Boston office Wednesday by a group from Veterans for Peace and DPP. The hard work of people all around the country secured those 149 clear NO votes.

The bill now moves to the Senate, where we can expect an attempt to add the war funding back into the bill. After that, the bill will go to a conference committee, then back for a re-vote in both the House and the Senate. That means we need to keep up the pressure on both the House and the Senate.

Here's what you can do:

--Call your rep (202-224-3121) to say thanks and ask him to hold firm over the next few weeks.
--We must all escalate our pressure on the Senate! Call your two senators (202-224-3121) and let them know how strongly you oppose further funding for this war!

Let us claim this victory and at the same time push as hard as we can to stop the Senate from giving the green light on billions more of our tax dollars going into this war and occupation.

Additional Information: Two other measures were passed in the House this afternoon. The first of those had some good provisions (no permanent bases, no use of torture), but also included a non-binding goal for the withdrawal of U.S. troops to be completed by December 2009. This would keep our troops in Iraq for another year and half, and this timeline is only a goal. In other words, this doesn't even come close to our call for all of the troops to come home now. The second measure that passed today would increase veterans benefits and provide funding for some important domestic needs.

We expect the Senate to vote next week. Given the un-expected development in the House, all bets are off on what the Senate will do. After the Senate acts on the package, both chambers will negotiate and try to come up with a compromise, which will then go before both chamber for a re-vote.

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WINTER SOLDIER ON THE HILL: Congress has heard from politicians, pundits, and generals, but not, up to this point, from the average boots-on-the-ground soldier. On May 15, Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) and the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) began the process of righting this imbalance with “Winter Soldier on the Hill.” Thursday morning, nine IVAW members testified before Congress for the first time, giving our representatives a picture of the Iraq occupation that has been missing from the debate for too long.

C-SPAN covered the hearing live, and you can watch video of the entire proceedings online or listen to audio from KPFA. Visit the Winter Soldier on the Hill page for links to video and audio files.

More details: Read bios of the testifiers and find out how you can help! Download the Winter Soldier on the Hill press release.

IVAW member refuses deployment to Iraq - show your support!
Immediately after this morning's hearings, IVAW member Sgt. Matthis Chiroux held a press conference where he publicly refused his deployment to Iraq. Sgt. Chiroux had been honorably discharged last summer after four years of service, and had been scheduled to deploy to Iraq in June. You can read Sgt. Chiroux's statement on refusing his orders and find links to video of the announcement on our website.

To donate to IVAW’s Legal Fund to support Matthis and other servicemembers who are refusing to support the occupation of Iraq, use our online donation form and select “Legal Fund” under special projects. If you would like to send a message of support to Sgt Matthis Chiroux, email thankyoumatthis@ivaw.org.

COURAGE TO RESIST: “Support the Troops Who Refuse to Fight. . .”
News and resources on resistance within the military. Check it out here

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Peace Group Sues Bush Administration, Charging Iraq War Is Unconstitutional
An anti-war activist group sued President Bush in U.S. District Court in Newark on Tuesday, seeking a declaratory judgment that the war in Iraq is illegal and unconstitutional. The suit, New Jersey Peace Action et al. v. Bush, represented by the Constitutional Law Clinic at Rutgers University Law School-Newark, alleges that the war violates article I, section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, which assigns to Congress the authority to declare war. More

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School Recruiting Could Violate International Protocol
Pressed by the demands of the "global war on terrorism", the United States is violating an international protocol that forbids the recruitment of children under the age of 18 for military service, according to a new report released Tuesday by a major civil rights group that charged that recruitment practices target children as young as 11 years old. The 46-page report, "Soldiers of Misfortune", which was prepared by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for submission to the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, also found that the U.S. military disproportionately targets poor and minority public school students. More

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"Locking Up Our Children”: The ACLU of Massachusetts has released a major new report called “Locking Up Our Children: The Secure Detention of Massachusetts Youth After Arraignment and Before Adjudication." Through months of painstaking research, we found that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is simply locking up too many kids -- even those accused of only minor offenses and who pose little or no danger to their communities. This is unfair, threatens public safety, and wastes public money. Click here for links to our op-ed in Monday's Boston Globe, the entire report itself, and other information about this issue:

http://www.aclum.org/lockingupkids/

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STOP THE PUSH FOR WAR WITH IRAN!

Oppose IRAN “DIVESTMENT” BILL (House 4270)

Please contact your representatives! Let them know you are opposed to a measure aimed at raising tensions in the region and promoting the slide toward war with Iran -- and which would cost the retirement system $5million while increasing annual administrative expenses by up to $40,000.

H.4270 has now been referred to the Committee on Ways and Means: Rep. Bob DeLeo is the chairman- Telephone: 617-722-2990 E-Mail: Robert.DeLeo@state.ma.us; House members (includes St.Fleur of Dorchester and Mallia of JP), Senate members (includes Wilkerson, Joyce)

You can read the innocuous-seeming text of the House 4270 here. DPP member Jeff Klein testified against the measure at a hearing April 10 (read the testimony here) and wrote an article published in this week’s Dorchester Reporter, April 24, 2008, page 10

Many useful resources on Iran, the nuclear issue and US-Iran relations available at these sites:

http://www.armscontrolcenter.org/, http://irannuclearwatch.blogspot.com, http://www.newiranpolicy.org/

“Beating the War Drums. . .”

Israel, US see need for "tangible action" on Iran
The United States and Israel agree on the need for "tangible action" to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokesman said after a visit by US President George W. Bush... Bush ratcheted up his rhetoric toward Tehran in a speech to Israel's Knesset on Thursday, saying critics' calls for talks with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were comparable to the "appeasement" of Adolf Hitler before World War Two. More

Tom Friedman's latest declaration of war
Friedman has shifted his warmongering eyes from Iraq to Iran. While he denies in passing that he wants to wage war actual war on Iran, he says we must find incentives "that the other side finds too tempting or frightening to ignore." In November, he argued that if Barack Obama becomes President, it was urgent that Dick Cheney be his Vice President because "when negotiating with murderous regimes like Iran's or Syria's, you want Tony Soprano by your side, not Big Bird" and Obama needs "a Dick Cheney standing over his right shoulder, quietly pounding a baseball bat into his palm." That's what passes for Serious Foreign Policy commentary in America… More

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PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS – What Do We Do?

It’s no news to DPP members that 2008 is a crucial election year when the country will choose a new president and a new Congress -- with an important potential impact on the war in Iraq and at home

Obama says he'll reshape US foreign policy. But can he?
So the big questions remain: does Obama really want to change US foreign policy and can he, if he does? Having a black person in the Oval Office, and especially one with an understanding of US imperialism, would have a colossal international impact in itself. But would this merely result in even greater disappointment once the months go by and US policy stays the same? More

Bush's Comments In Israel Fuel Anger: Linking of Nazis, Iran Seen as Jab at Obama
On an emotional visit to mark Israel's 60th anniversary, President Bush on Thursday compared people seeking talks with Iran and radical Islamic groups to the Nazis' appeasers, provoking a political storm at home and accusations that he was politicizing the celebration… Bush's comments about appeasement reverberated across the U.S. campaign trail, offering a new platform for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to sharpen their lines of attack.

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EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW. . .

THE NEW GEOPOLITICS OF ENERGY

While the day-to-day focus of US military planning remains Iraq and Afghanistan, American strategists are increasingly looking beyond these two conflicts to envision the global combat environment of the emerging period--and the world they see is one where the struggle over vital resources, rather than ideology or balance-of-power politics, dominates the martial landscape. Believing that the United States must reconfigure its doctrines and forces in order to prevail in such an environment, senior officials have taken steps to enhance strategic planning and combat capabilities. More

AMERICA OUT OF GAS: Portrait of an Oil-Addicted Former Superpower

The average G.I in Iraq now uses about seven times as much oil per day as G.I.s did in the first Gulf War less than two decades ago. And every sign indicates that the same ratio of increase will apply to coming conflicts; that the daily cost of fighting will skyrocket; and that the Pentagon's capacity to shoulder multiple foreign military burdens will unravel. Thus are superpowers undone… As a result of our addiction to increasingly costly imported oil, we have become a different country, weaker and less prosperous. Whether we know it or not, the energy Berlin Wall has already fallen and the United States is an ex-superpower-in-the-making. More

Oil Wars: Worried About the Price of Gas? End the Wars

Not long ago the price of oil was about a quarter of what it is today. But soon after the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq the price of oil began to escalate in tandem with the escalation of war and political turbulence in the Middle East. The fact that the rise in the price of oil has followed the heightened insecurity in oil markets is neither accidental nor a simple correlation; it represents a causality that runs from the heightened insecurity in oil markets to the inflated price of energy. The war also contributes to the escalation of fuel cost in indirect ways; for example, by plunging the U.S. ever deeper into debt and depreciating the dollar. As oil is priced largely in U.S. dollars, oil exporting countries ask for more dollars per barrel of oil as the dollar loses value. More

About That ‘New’ Middle East…

Could there be a more perfect image of the catastrophic self-inflicted rout suffered by U.S. Middle East policy under President George W. Bush? This week, the President will party with Israel’s leaders celebrating their country’s 60th anniversary — and champion a phony peace process whose explicity aim is to produce an agreement to go on the shelf … Meanwhile, across the border in Lebanon, Hizballah are riding high on the tectonic shifts in the Middle East’s political substructure, making clear that the “new Middle East” memorably (if grotesquely) inaugurated by Condi Rice in Beirut in 2006 is nothing like that imagined or pursued by the Bush Administration. More

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ANNIVERSARIES

As we enter the sixth year of war and occupation in Iraq, Palestinians will soon be commemorating the 60th anniversary of their expulsion from what is now Israel – the Nakba or “Catastrophe,” as they call it -- and the 40^th year of occupation in the West Bank and Gaza.

STOP ARMING ISRAEL’S OCCUPATION!

Last year, the United States and Israel signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to increase military aid to Israel by 25%, totaling $30 billion over the next decade. Earlier this month, the President sent his FY2009 budget request to Congress, which includes $2.55 billion in military aid for Israel, the first proposed increase under this ten-year agreement. The US is also giving or selling billions of dollars in arms to friendly dictatorships and client regimes throughout the Middle East. Don't you wish there was something you could do about it? Now you can. Check it out by clicking here.

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DIRECT AID TO IRAQI VICTIMS OF US AGGRESSION

The Web resource Electronic Iraq has initiated a program intended to build bridges of friendship and support with Iraqis displaced as the result of the ongoing Iraqi crises through providing funds for crucial medical expenses.

Learn more and make a contribution here.

Friday, May 23, NO MORE VICTIMS: A Conversation with Noam Chomsky, 3-5pm, MIT (77 Mass Ave.) Chomsky will discuss the impact of the war and occupation on Iraqi civilian – and the failure of the media to cover this; No More Victims – which works to obtain medical care for war-injured Iraqi children – will show a video in which Iraqi families describe assaults by the US military. Suggested donation $10. DPP is co-sponsoring. More info: www.nomorevictims.org

Iraqi Blogs Describe Conditions First-Hand:

Inside Iraq, Iraq Today, Baghdad Burning (Riverbend), An Arab Woman Blues, Last of the Iraqis

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FREE ANTI-WAR VIDEOS: DPP MEMBER Judith Baker points out that many good anti-war/pro-peace videos are available for free viewing (along with a lot of other useful materials) at the “Teach Peace” Website

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“WAR ON TERROR” . . . Do you feel safer now?

Guantánamo makes us all less safe
In reading the histories of Guantánamo, and of the kidnappings, extrajudicial detention and torture the US government (helped by the United Kingdom) has pursued around the world, two things become clear. The first is that these practices do not supplement effective investigation and prosecution; they replace them. Instead of a process which generates evidence, assesses it and uses it to prosecute, the US has deployed a process that generates nonsense and is incapable of separating the guilty from the innocent. The second is that far from protecting innocent lives, this process is likely to deliver further atrocities. Even if you put the ethics of such treatment to one side, it is surely evident that it makes the world more dangerous. More

Welcome to the Age of Homeland Insecurity
When the history of this era is finally written… Osama bin Laden and his scattering of followers may be credited for goading the fundamentalist leaders of the United States into using the power in their grasp so -- not to put a fine point on it -- stupidly and profligately as to send the planet's "sole superpower" into decline. Above all, bin Laden and his crew of fanatics will have ensured one thing: that the real security problems of our age were ignored in Washington until far too late in favor of mad dreams and dark phantoms. More

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ISRAEL/PALESTINE

Hamas condemns the Holocaust
The Israeli media and pro-Israel western press are full of views that deny or seek to excuse well-established facts of history including the Nakba of 1948 and the massacres perpetrated then by the Haganah, the Irgun and LEHI with the objective of forcing a mass dispossession of the Palestinians. But it should be made clear that neither Hamas nor the Palestinian government in Gaza denies the Nazi Holocaust. The Holocaust was not only a crime against humanity but one of the most abhorrent crimes in modern history. We condemn it as we condemn every abuse of humanity and all forms of discrimination on the basis of religion, race, gender or nationality.. More

Blast kills Gaza teacher in front of her children
Wafer Shaker al Daghma, 34, a teacher at a local UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) elementary school, was killed last Wednesday as she stood preparing to open the wooden door of her home to the troops. According to UNRWA and relatives who found her body, the military usedan explosive device on the door which blew most of her head from her body. They then confined the traumatised children – aged from two to 13 – for five hours while the body lay outside the door of the room where they were held. More

“But what if nobody takes notice?”
Israel is expected to go to parliamentary elections shortly — whether or not Olmert survives the threat of a criminal indictment hanging over him. Olmert’s strategy has been to persuade Israelis that the ‘agreement’ is somehow an achievement. And in one limited sense, it may be seen by Israel to be an ‘achievement’. But not in bringing any change on the ground: the Occupation and the grinding life of Palestinians will continue as before. Indeed almost all Israelis and Palestinians understand that the much fêted ‘shelf agreement’ will be inoperable — neither Olmert nor Abbas can implement it, even if they wished so to do. More

Israelis and Palestinians must share the land. Equally
There is no longer a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Forget the endless arguments about who offered what and who spurned whom and whether the Oslo peace process died when Yasser Arafat walked away from the bargaining table or whether it was Ariel Sharon's stroll through the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem that did it in. All that matters are the facts on the ground, of which the most important is that -- after four decades of intensive Jewish settlement in the Palestinian territories it occupied during the 1967 war -- Israel has irreversibly cemented its grip on the land on which a Palestinian state might have been created. More

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COST OF WAR

THE PENTAGON STRANGLES OUR ECONOMY: Why the U.S. Has Gone Broke
It is virtually impossible to overstate the profligacy of what our government spends on the military. The Department of Defense's planned expenditures for the fiscal year 2008 are larger than all other nations' military budgets combined. The supplementary budget to pay for the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not part of the official defense budget, is itself larger than the combined military budgets of Russia and China. Defense-related spending for fiscal 2008 will exceed $1 trillion for the first time in history. The U.S. has become the largest single seller of arms and munitions to other nations on Earth. Leaving out President Bush's two on-going wars, defense spending has doubled since the mid-1990s. The defense budget for fiscal 2008 is the largest since the second world war. More

Where the money comes from, where it goes and what it could pay for instead.

http://nationalpriorities.org/

VIDEO: “ONE DAY = $720 MILLION"

NEW SLIDE SHOW RESOURCE:

“The Real Price of Occupation”

International Cost of War

http://www.stwr.net/component/option,com_costofwar/Itemid,165/

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Other Events

Friday, May 16, Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times: Amy Goodman, David Goodman, & You, 7pm (doors open at 6pm), First Church in Jamaica Plain, Unitarian Universalist,Parish Hall, 6 Eliot St. Vetran journalists Amy and David Goodman are asking some hard-hitting questions: Where are the millions marching in the streets to defend human rights, civil liberties, and racial justice? Where is the mass revulsion against the killing and torture being carried out in our name? Where are the environmentalists? Where is the peace movement? The answer: They are everywhere. Tickets $5 - A Benefit for the Jamaica Plain Forum www.jamaicaplainforum.org

Friday, May 16, Dorchester Historical Society Fundraiser with Jimmy Tingle, 7pm, Local 103 IBEW, 256 Freeport St. Come to our ‘fun’draiser and help us save the Clapp Family Barn! The Dorchester Historical Society’s Clapp Family barn stands as a symbol of the town’s agricultural heritage. Nationally-known comedian Jimmy Tingle headlines the show Hors d’oeuvres * Cash Bar * Raffles * Door Prizes Tickets $40 Call Ovationtix at 1-866-811-4111 toll-free, or log on to www.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/44051 Or mail your check, made payable to Dorchester Historical Society, to DHS Tickets, 195 Boston Street, Dorchester – pick up tickets at the door .Contact: Earl Taylor 617-288-7367, Ermmwwt@aol.com or Peggy Mullen pmul3@hotmail.com

Saturday, May 21, Historic 21^st Annual Malcolm X Memorial & Awards Breakfast, 8am, Roxbury Community College. The Black Community Information Center, Inc. and Roxbury Community College proudly presents the 21^st Annual Malcolm X Memorial & Awards Breakfast. The theme of the “Breakfast”: “Is the Barack Obama Candidacy for President, A Real or Illusionary Contribution to Black Freedom?” The featured guest speaker is State Representative Marie St. Fleur. A donation is requested and vendors are welcome. For further information, call 617.427.2522.

Wednesday, May 21, How to Build an Empire: U.S. Military Bases Around the World, 7pm, St. John’s United Methodist Church, 80 Mt. Auburn Street, Watertown. Presentation and Discussion with Dr. Joseph Gerson, leading nuclear specialist and peace campaigner, is the Director of Programs of the American Friends Service Committee in New England. U. S. military bases and installation throughout the world provide the foundation for and maintenance of an empire. Sponsored by the Justice with Peace Task Force of Watertown Citizens for Environmental Safety (WCES) Call 617-926-8560, mailbox 2 for more information. See www.watertowncitizens.org for this and other listings.

Tuesday, May 27, Codman Academy Energy Awareness Open Studios!!! 6-8pm, Great Hall (Codman Sq.). Codman Academy

Charter Public School tenth graders are hosting an Energy Awareness Open Studios. Energy-related "exhibits" will be hosted by students and professionals. Learn the pros and cons of both renewable and non-renewable energy sources! Participate in an energy scavenger hunt, and you might even leave with a prize! Come out from 6-8pm and support local youth as they promote energy awareness, and positive change. For questions or to participate, email teacher coordinator Carrie-Anne csherwood@codmanacademy.org or call 617-287-0700

Saturday, June 28, Ride the Green Wave To the Dorchester Energy Fair! 12noon-4pm, Grover Cleveland School, Fields Corner, 11 Charles St., Dorchester (across from the Fields Corner stop on the Red Line) Expert speakers! Exciting demonstrations! Great Energy Saving ideas & devices! See how to save money on your energy bills! Free and open to the public! for more information, call Chris at ACORN at (617) 436-7100

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TAKE ACTION!

Oppose IRAN “DIVESTMENT” BILL (House 4270) at State House—Stop the March to War!

DPP member Jeff Klein testified against the measure at a hearing April 10 (read the testimony here) and wrote an article published in this week’s Dorchester Reporter, April 24, 2008, page 10

The proponents of the bill were mobilized principally by local organizations and individuals active in pro-Israel lobbying; the bill was opposed by the State Pension System Trustees, along with several local academics, only a few legislators expressed reservations. It would cost the system $5million and increase annual administrative expenses by up to $40,000. You can read the innocuous-seeming text of the House 4270 here. Ironically, the language replaces a 1980’s measure to embargo investments in South Africa, which was passed at a time when Israel was an ally and principal arms supplier of the Apartheid regime.

Please contact your representatives! H.4270 has now been referred to the Committee on Ways and Means: House members (includes St.Fleur of Dorchester and Mallia of JP), Senate members (includes Wilkerson, Joyce) Let them know you are opposed to measures aimed at raising tensions in the region and promoting the slide toward war with Iran.

Many useful resources on Iran, the nuclear issue and US-Iran relations available at these sites:

http://www.armscontrolcenter.org/,

http://irannuclearwatch.blogspot.com,

http://www.newiranpolicy.org/

“Beating the Drums. . .”

Groups With Iran’s Backing Blamed for Baghdad Attacks

Nearly three-quarters of the attacks that kill or wound American soldiers in Baghdad are carried out by Iranian-backed Shiite groups, the United States military said Wednesday. Senior officers in the American division that secures the capital said that 73 percent of fatal and other harmful attacks on American troops in the past year were caused by roadside bombs planted by so-called “special groups.” More

Clinton Threatens to ‘Obliterate’ Iran

Seizing upon a question as to how she would respond to a nuclear attack by Iran, which doesn’t have nuclear weapons, on Israel, which does, Hillary mocked reasoned discourse by promising to “totally obliterate them,” in an apparent reference to the population of Iran. That is not a word gaffe; it is an assertion of the right of our nation to commit genocide on an unprecedented scale. More

Petraeus Promotion Frees Cheney to Threaten Iran

The nomination of Gen. David Petraeus to be the new head of the Central Command not only ensures that he will be available to defend the George W. Bush administration's policies toward Iran and Iraq at least through the end of Bush's term and possibly even beyond.

It also gives Vice President Dick Cheney greater freedom of action to exploit the option of an air attack against Iran during the administration's final months. More

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Investment in US-Iran Engagement, Not Divestment

... In fact, the very logic of divestment bill has the opposite effect of divesting the US of potential leverage, in the form of shared interests and nets of interdependence that could conceivably be useful in future negotiations with Iran on the nuclear standoff, Iraq, and other contentious issues between Iran and the US. More

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HOME MORTGAGE / EVICTION CRISIS

IF THEY PAY, THEY STAY: Hub bill would ban foreclosure evictions

Warning that America is experiencing a “housing emergency,” six Boston city councilors want to force lenders who foreclose on Hub properties to rent seized houses and apartments back to occupants. “The United States is facing a national housing emergency (and) the City of Boston is facing a serious public emergency in regards to foreclosures,” Councilors Michael Flaherty, Steve Murphy, Michael Ross, Chuck Turner, Charles Yancey and Sam Yoon write in a new home-rule petition. More

Photos from the protest in Dorchester last Wednesday -- here.

Roundup of national anti-eviction actions -- here

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CORI REFORM MARCH ON THE STATE HOUSE: A march for CORI Reform from Worcester to the State House is planned for May 18^th through May 22^nd to call attention to the CORI Reform legislation that is currently being held in committee and could die in committee if not acted upon before June 30^th. The final leg of the march, on May 22^nd, is planned to leave Bunker Hill Community College around 11AM and end at the State House around 1PM, with speeches from prominent legislators, elected officials and real life testimonials on the need for CORI Reform Now. Details on the course of the march, times and locations, sponsoring organizations, speakers and volunteer opportunities will be announced as they become known. Whether you are able to march the entire route, just the final leg, or join us at the State House on May 22^nd, please join us to demand CORI Reform.

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WAR RESISTANCE

IVAW Boston:

Donations needed for care packages to service members “The Boston chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War is collecting donations for care packages to fellow service members through the end of May. Packages will be delivered to bases by July 4^th. Donations can be dropped off or mailed to 33 Harrison Ave, 5^th Floor, Boston, MA, ATTN: IVAW. Pickups can also be arranged in Jamaica Plain. To schedule a pick up, please contact boston@ivaw.org

Suggested items include: lip balm, sunscreen, deodorant, razors, shaving gel, foot powder, feminine products, lotions, tissues, toilet paper, tea bags, chewing gum, candy (anything that won’t melt), toothbrush, floss, anti-bacterial wipes, popular magazines, music and movie DVDs, new paperback novels, microwave popcorn, trail mix, nuts, dried fruit and cookies.”Thanks for supporting the troops!”

Thursday, May 8, IVAW / UMass Students Sponsor Anti-War Roundtable, 12pm and 2:30, UMass Campus Center, 3^rd floor lounge, with clips from Winter Soldier and discussion of topics including: “Racism and Dehumanization of the Enemy”, “The War at Home,” and “The Future of the GI Resistance Movement.” See www.campusantiwar.net

The Christian Science Monitor had a wonderful multimedia piece on Winter Soldier -- here.

COURAGE TO RESIST: “Support the Troops Who Refuse to Fight. . .”

News and resources on resistance within the military. Check it out here

THE POWER IN THEIR PAIN: Iraq war veterans create art to protest

Cameron and Hughes, members of the antiwar organization Iraq Veterans Against the War, are among a small but growing number of American vets who are using their experiences in Iraq to explore the interrelation of art and political resistance… Hughes and Cameron are documenting their transition from soldiers to resisters. Their intent, they say, is to reimagine the myths, images, and assumptions that brought them and their cohorts to this point; their method is to pose questions, not supply ready-made answers. More

VA confirms 18 vets commit suicide every day

In a stunning admission, top officials at the Veterans Health Administration confirmed that the agency’s own statistics show that an average of 126 veterans per week -- 6,552 veterans per year -- commit suicide, according to an internal email distributed to several VA officials. More

Veterans having hard time finding jobs

War veterans face many obstacles. Discrimination. A lack of helpful job-finding resources. Skill sets viewed as insufficient in the civilian workforce. And fears about post-traumatic stress disorder. Tammy Duckworth, director of the Illinois Department of Veterans' Affairs, said she hears similar stories "over and over again" from young men and women in uniform. More

Pentagon Obstructs View of War Funerals – Despite Wishes the Family

Even when families approve media coverage for a funeral, the journalists are held at a distance for the pageantry -- the caisson, the band, the firing party, "Taps," the presenting of the flag -- then whisked away when the service itself begins. Nor does the blocking of funeral coverage seem to be the work of overzealous bureaucrats. Gina Gray, Arlington's new public affairs director, pushed vigorously to allow the journalists more access to the service yesterday -- but she was apparently shot down by other cemetery officials. More

Cindy Sheehan Letter in Support of ILWU Action on May 1

On behalf of myself and my congressional campaign, and in memory of my son Casey, I want to thank you for the principled and dignified action that you are taking on May 1^st The exemplary resolution passed by your Longshore Caucus, and your decision to stop work on the West Coast docks on May 1, 2008 points the way for all of us who struggle to end the disastrous war and occupation of Iraq. More

See the ILWU Anti-War Strike poster -- here

Vermont Union offers strong endorsement of West Coast Longshoremen's action

The following is a release put out by the Vermont AFL-CIO: The Executive Board of the Vermont AFL-CIO, representing thousands of workers in countless sectors across Vermont, have unanimously passed an historic resolution expressing their "unequivocal" support for the first US labor strike against the war in Iraq. More

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In Washington

Petraeus promotion keeps nation on its war course

President Bush is promoting his top Iraq commander, Army Gen. David Petraeus, and replacing him with the general's recent deputy, keeping the U.S. on its war course and handing the next president a pair of combat-tested commanders who have relentlessly defended Bush's strategies. More

House Democrats may add unemployment aid to war bill

House Democratic leaders plan to add extended unemployment benefits and new education funding for veterans to President Bush's war funding bill while dropping lots of other party priorities… Bush is certain to oppose the effort, which would add to the war spending legislation a $12.7 billion plan to give 13 more weeks of unemployment checks to people whose benefits have run out and 13 weeks beyond that in states with especially high unemployment rates. He's also likely to oppose the even more expensive plan for higher GI Bill benefits for veterans. But the plan would make it more palatable for anti-war Democrats to provide money until the next president takes office. More

The Pentagon's Corrupt "Military Analysts" Media Scheme

In Sunday's New York Times, investigative reporter David Barstow exposed television's "military analysts" on the Iraq War as sock puppets of the Pentagon who consciously peddle the Bush administration's talking points on Iraq while hiding their own vested economic interest in selling the public on the Bush administration's happy talk about the war. This very long and very well-documented story lays bare the most blatantly obnoxious feature of the "Military-Industrial-Media Complex" which ensures that the airwaves convey the administration's major messages on the war day in a day out. More

VIDEO Report - here

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PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS – What Do We Do?

It’s no news to DPP members that 2008 is a crucial election year when the country will choose a new president and a new Congress -- with an important potential impact on the war in Iraq and at home

ABC's Debate Debacle: Trivia and biased questions dominate Democrats' debate

The ABC-sponsored Democratic debate in Philadelphia on April 16 emphasized trivial matters of little concern to voters, while the actual policy questions were often based on misleading right-wing spin. During the first half of the debate, ABC moderators George Stephanopoulos and Charles Gibson avoided any mention of policy issues. As the Los Angeles Times noted (4/17/08), "With the moderators and Clinton raising assorted questions about Obama's past for the first half of the debate, issues received relatively short shrift. Not until 50 minutes in was a policy issue-- Iraq--asked about by the moderators." More

Obama, Bitterness, Meet the Press, and the Old Politics

Are Americans who have been left behind frustrated? Of course. And their frustrations, their anger and, yes, sometimes their bitterness, have been used since then - by demagogues, by nationalists and xenophobes, by radical conservatives, by political nuts and fanatical fruitcakes - to blame immigrants and foreign traders, to blame blacks and the poor, to blame 'liberal elites,' to blame anyone and anything. Rather than counter all this, the American media have wallowed in it. More

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GLOBAL DAY OF ACTION TO BAN CLUSTER BOMBS

Congress Should Act on Cluster Bombs

The U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines is urging every member of Congress to cosponsor the Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act (S.594/H.R.1755) and to support adequate levels of assistance for demining and aid to victims of landmines and other explosive remnants of war. This law would prohibit the use of cluster munitions in civilian-populated areas. It would also ban use of cluster munitions with high “dud rates,” meaning they leave behind widely dispersed minefields of unexploded cluster bomb submunitions. All but a tiny fraction of existing U.S. cluster munitions would be banned under the legislation. More than 130 faith leaders in Pennsylvania sent a letter to Senator Arlen Specter, urging him to co-sponsor S.594

Campaigners launch Global Day of Action to ban cluster bombs in support of first ever treaty

The Friends Committee on National Legislation,

http://fcnl.org/press/releases/cluster_april040308.htm

You can help to stop Cluster Bomb Deaths in Lebanon!

Only 20% of the hundreds of thousands of unexploded cluster munitions that Israel launched into Lebanon in the summer of 2006 have been cleared.

1. See the list of more than thirty organizations that have signed a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice calling for Israel to release the list of cluster bomb target sites to the UN team in charge of clearing the sites in Lebanon: http://www.atfl.org/orgs.htm

2. You can Learn more about the American Task Force for Lebanon at their website: http://www.atfl.org/

3. Send a message to President Bush, the Secretary of State, and your Members of Congress to stop the carnage and ban the cluster bomb by clicking on the link:

Cluster bomb left from 2006 war wounds 4 children in S. Lebanon

A state-run Lebanese news agency has said that an explosion of a cluster bomb left behind by the Israel Defense Forces from the Second Lebanon War wounded four young Lebanese in the country's south. The report says that Friday's incident occurred in the village of Adsheet when the four children, aged between 10 and 15, found the suspicious device and held it before it went off. The four were then taken to hospital in the southern province of Nabatiyeh. More

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ANNIVERSARIES

As we prepare to enter the sixth year of war and occupation in Iraq, Palestinians will soon be commemorating the 60th anniversary of their expulsion from what is now Israel – the Nakba or “Catastrophe,” as they call it -- and the 40^th year of occupation in the West Bank and Gaza. It is also just five years ago that Rachel Corrie, a brave young American woman, was killed by Israeli occupation forces as she tried to prevent the destruction of Palestinian homes by a Caterpillar bulldozer, “Made in USA”.

See events at Harvard April 28-May 2, marking the 60 Years of Nakba (details under event listings below)

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STOP ARMING ISRAEL’S OCCUPATION!

This spring also marks the anniversary of the 1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam and a final end to the Vietnam War in 1975 – although the effects continue to devastate Vietnamese people and US veterans. No significant reparations were ever made.

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DIRECT AID TO IRAQI VICTIMS OF US AGGRESSION

Learn more and make a contribution here.

Iraqi Blogs Describe Conditions First-Hand:

Inside Iraq, Iraq Today, Baghdad Burning (Riverbend),

An Arab Woman Blues, Last of the Iraqis

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Spreading “DEMOCRACY”

“WAR ON TERROR” -- Do You Feel Safer Now?

Trials of Muslim Charities Likened to a Witch-Hunt
The U.S. government's anti-terrorist financing programs are based on the "guilt by association" tactics of the McCarthy era and have had a widespread negative impact on U.S. charities, critics say… Kay Guinane, director of the Nonprofit Speech Rights Program said that government actions have resulted in program cutbacks and increased fear of speaking out on important public issues… [and] accused Congress of continuing "an unfortunate pattern of insufficient congressional oversight of anti-terrorist financing programs, neglecting to address the unnecessarily harsh impacts the programs have on U.S. charities and philanthropy." More

Professor in Deadlocked Terrorism Case Could Face a New Indictment

Sami al-Arian, a computer science professor imprisoned for more than five years after pleading guilty to a single terrorism-related charge when his trial deadlocked, is back in legal limbo this week. He faces either deportation or a new indictment that could extend his incarceration for years. More

More info on the Al-Arian Case and Actions to take -- here

Top Bush aides pushed for Guantánamo torture

America's most senior general was "hoodwinked" by top Bush administration officials determined to push through aggressive interrogation techniques of terror suspects held at Guantánamo Bay, leading to the US military abandoning its age-old ban on the cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners, the Guardian reveals today. General Richard Myers, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff from 2001 to 2005, wrongly believed that inmates at Guantánamo and other prisons were protected by the Geneva conventions and from abuse tantamount to torture. More

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IRAQ

Muqtada's biggest battle already won

A new study by the Washington DC-based advocacy organization, Refugees International, reveals that Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's militant force, Jaish-al-Mahdi, is the largest social welfare dispenser in Iraq. It is a tribute to the Mahdi Army's successful adaptation of the model pioneered by Hezbollah in Lebanon. When survival needs of food, water, housing, electricity and protection are in short supply, and the state apparatus is unable or unwilling to come to the rescue of the population, radical non-state actors can exploit the vacuum and step in as provider of last resort. The quid pro quo here is that the militant outfit's benevolence earns political legitimacy from the poor who bear the brunt of war. More

Iraq Wants U.S. to Compromise More on Security Deals

Iraq is resisting U.S. proposals for a pair of new bilateral security agreements, saying it expects Washington to compromise on "sensitive issues," including the right to imprison Iraqi citizens unilaterally, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Monday.Other problematic areas now being negotiated, Zebari said in an interview, are provisions in U.S. drafts to give American contractors immunity from Iraqi law and allow the United States to conduct military operations without Iraqi government coordination. "These are the main ones, but there could be others," he said, among them "issues of sites, of locations, of access" by U.S. troops. More

THE NEW WALLS OF BAGHDAD: How the U.S. is Reproducing Israel's Strategies in Iraq

The new "surge" strategy in Iraq, led by General David Petreaus, has been heavily marketed as an example of the U.S. military's application of the "lessons of history" from previous counterinsurgencies to Iraq, foremost among them the need to win the population over from insurgents through cultivating human relationships, addressing popular grievances and providing security. Yet one glance at the realities on the ground in Iraq today reveal that the cornerstone of current U.S. military strategy is less about cultivating human relationships than about limiting them, primarily through concrete walls and checkpoints. And it has been less about minimizing violence than containing Iraq's population and redirecting the battlefield from the streets to the skies above Iraq. More

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ISRAEL/PALESTINE

Carter Says Hamas and Syria Are Open to Peace

Jimmy Carter said here on Monday that in talks in Damascus, Syria, over the last several days, he obtained a significant concession from the militant group Hamas regarding Israeli-Palestinian peace and found Syrian leaders eager for a full peace treaty with Israel. Mr. Carter said he extracted a promise from Hamas to respect the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip negotiated by Hamas’s rivals in the Palestinian Authority if it were ratified by a referendum of the Palestinian people. Furthermore, Syrian leaders told him, he said, that “about 85 percent” of the issues between Syria’s government and Israel had been resolved in prior negotiations and that it wanted a peace deal “as soon as possible.” More

Hamas set to agree on staged truce starting in Gaza Strip

A delegation from Hamas on Thursday told Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman that Hamas is prepared to accept a temporary cease-fire with Israel, to begin in the Gaza Strip. The deal would extend after a predetermined time to the West Bank. Hamas had previously demanded that a truce apply simultaneously to both areas, but Israel refused. In accepting Egypt's compromise proposal, Hamas can claim that it pushed Israel into agreeing to a cease-fire in both places. More

Fuel crisis threatens UN Gaza aid

The United Nations has said it will have to suspend humanitarian work in the Gaza Strip within hours unless it receives fresh fuel supplies. Assistant Secretary General Angela Kane said the distribution of food aid to 650,000 refugees and the collection of rubbish from 500,000 people would stop. More

Israelis Claim Secret Agreement With U.S.
Ehud Olmert, the current Israeli prime minister, said this week that Bush's letter gave the Jewish state permission to expand the West Bank settlements that it hopes to retain in a final peace deal, even though Bush's peace plan officially calls for a freeze of Israeli settlements across Palestinian territories on the West Bank. In an interview this week, Sharon's chief of staff, Dov Weissglas, said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reaffirmed this nderstanding in a secret agreement reached between Israel and the United States in the spring of 2005, just before Israel withdrew from Gaza. More

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THE WORLD and US

Hunger Plagues Haiti and the World

Consumers in rich countries feel it in supermarkets but in the world's poorest ones people are starving. The reason - soaring food prices, and it's triggered riots around the world in places like Mexico, Indonesia, Yemen, the Philippines, Cambodia, Morocco, Senegal, Uzbekistan, Guinea, Mauritania, Egypt, Cameroon, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Peru, Bolivia and Haiti that was once nearly food self-sufficient but now relies on imports for most of its supply and (like other food-importing countries) is at the mercy of agribusiness. More

How the rich starved the world

World cereal stocks are at an all-time low, food-aid programmes have run out of money and millions face starvation. Yet wealthy countries persist with plans to use grain for petrol. Plus Iain Macwhirter on how food prices are rocketing. The irony is extraordinary. At a time when world leaders are expressing grave concern about diminishing food stocks and a coming global food crisis, our government brings into force measures to increase the use of biofuels - a policy that will further increase food prices, and further worsen the plight of the world's poor. What biofuels do is undeniable: they take food out of the mouths of starving people and divert them to be burned as fuel in the car engines of the world's rich consumers. More

Iraq's gift to Latin America

Trying to figure out who won the Iraq war is a challenging parlour game. Nearly every faction, group and nation has lost. The only evident victors are Iran, the Kurds and a handful of giant American corporations. It is slowly becoming clear, however, that there is another winner: Latin America. With the United States so totally consumed by the Iraq conflict, it has no time, energy or political capital to crack down on challenges south of the Rio Grande. Sensing their historic chance, many Latin nations have embarked on experiments that the US would in past eras have instantly stepped in to crush. More

America through Arab eyes

This year's poll revealed strong and widespread opposition to American policies in the region. This is not particularly newsworthy, as this has been known for years, but it is particularly interesting for showing the substantial disdain that defines Washington's engagement with the Arab world. I am not surprised that Bush's democracy-promotion strategy in our region has gotten nowhere, given that American policy tends to totally discount the will of the Arab people as it is expressed in repeated polls. More

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COST OF WAR

Where the money comes from, where it goes and what it could pay for instead.

http://nationalpriorities.org/

VIDEO: “ONE DAY = $720 MILLION"

NEW SLIDE SHOW RESOURCE:

“The Real Price of Occupation”

International Cost of War

http://www.stwr.net/component/option,com_costofwar/Itemid,165/

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Other Events

Friday-Saturday, April 25-26, CONFERENCE: Charting a Path to End The Wars Abroad And At Home, Tufts University, Medford. Where We Stand Today in the Middle East and at Home: US Foreign Policy and Military Spending and its Impact on the Countries of the Middle East and the US. Friday, 7-9:30: FORUM US Wars and Military Spending: The Impact on the People of the Middle East/Pakistan, the US Economy and the People at Home; Saturday, 9:45-4:30: Panels and action workshops, decide on program. Join us as we assess the current situation and plan unified action campaigns in this election year. Contact us: http://www.newenglandunited.org/ Co-Sponsored by Tufts Peace & Justice Studies Program.

Sunday, April 27, The Human Cost of War and Chemical Weapons: Focus on Iran, 7pm, Christ Church Cambridge, Zero Garden Street, Harvard Sq., Cambridge. Dr. Shahriar Khateri and Dr. Mohammad Soroush, founders of The Society for Chemical Weapons Victims Support in Iran will speak in Boston area as part of their tour of the United States. A traveling exhibit will accompany their medical talks about the devastation that chemical weapons have brought on Iranian soldiers and civilians, during the Iran-Iraq war. Exhibit: Democracy Center, 45 Mt. Auburn, Cambridge (Exhibit hours: Monday April 28, 2-9pm, and Tuesday April 29, 2-6pm) Sponsors: Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), and the Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII)

Monday-Friday, April 28 - May 2, HARVARD COMMEMORATING NAKBA 1948: 60 Years Of Palestinian Dispossession, beginning with Nakba Commemoration Balloon Ceremony Monday, April 28 11:30am - 1:00pm in Harvard Yard, 1:00pm - 2:30pm in Kennedy School Courtyard; film screenings; Tuesday, April 29: Nakba 101: A Discussion with Dr. Noam Chomsky 5:30pm - 6:30pm Emerson 105, Harvard FAS; Friday, May 2: Candlelight Vigil, 5:00pm - 6pm, Harvard Square, Palestinian Cultural Night (evening of food, music, dance, poetry, and celebrating life) 6-8pm, Ticknor Lounge, Boylston Hall, Harvard FAS

Tuesday, April 29, SPEAKING TOUR: "THE OTHER ISRAEL" 7:30, Friends Meeting House, Longfellow Park-off Brattle St.

Cambridge. Ra'ed Al Mickawi, Director of BUSTAN, an Israeli NGO working at the nexus of social and environmental justice in the Negev region of Israel. See www.bustan.org for more information. Ra'ed's presentation will include slides and short video. It may be geared more toward environmental issues or the political situation depending on the interest of the audience. Please note: this tour is intended both to get the word out about these critical issues and also to raise funding for Bustan’s ongoing work.

Wednesday, April 30, ACLU: The Right to Vote, 6:30-8pm, Old South Meeting House, 310 Washington St. Voting rights in American history have been shaped by such forces as economic development, immigration and race and class relations. How do new efforts to regulate voting change our concept of this civic act? This program is the final lecture of the Revolutionary Ideals, Modern Debate series where diverse speakers explore the evolution of liberty and justice from the Bill of Rights to modern meanings. Please visit the MFH website at www.mfh.org.

Wednesday, April 30, Benefit Concert for the Children of Gaza, 7pm, Cathedral Church of St Pauls, Tremont St., across from the Park St. T-stop. Hilary Rantisi, Emcee; Arabic and contemporary Jazz music and song, poetry, photo exhibit, handicrafts auction. More information: Amy 617-738-8029

Thursday, May 1, Haitian Heritage Month Celebration In Boston, 5:30-7:30pm: kick-off ceremony; 11-5pm, Grand Display about the Massachusetts Haitian Community Haitian Multi Service Center, 185 Columbia Rd, Dorchester. Honorary Guests: State Reps. Marie St. Fleur and Linda Dorcena Forry Sponsors: HAITIAN-AMERICANS UNITED, INC. (H.A.U.) and HAITIAN MULTI SERVICE CENTER. Please join us for a kick-off ceremony --Admission free (Donations welcome) For questions or information, please call (617) 298-2976

Thursday, May 1, Dr. Evelyn Higginbotham on her new book: African American National Biography, 6:30pm, Grove Hall Public Library, 5 Crawford St., Dorchester. Dr. Higginbotham, the author of many books on African American history, co-edited the new AANB with Harvard Prof. Henry Louis Gates. Light refreshments will be served.

Save the Dates!!

Sunday, May 11, 12th Annual Mothers' Walk For Peace, 2008, 7-10:30am, with a 2-mile circuit starting and ending in Fields Corner
Townfield. DPPers will form a contingent and march with our own banners Click here to regiser online and print out pledge sheets, Click here for a map of the 2008 walk route

Sunday, May 11, Ashmont Hill Chamber Music Concert, 7pm, All Saints Church (Peabody Hall), 209 Ashmont St. Dorchester. Woks by Schumann, Beethoven and others -includes DPP member Rachel Goodwin! info: 617-876-8986 / www.ashmontchambermusic.org

Tuesday, May 13, SANDY TOLAN, “Lemon Tree” Author: Reading and Presentation, 7-8:30, YMCA, Central Sq., Cambridge, 820 Mass Ave. Reading, remarks and question and answer by the author of The Lemon Tree: An Arab, A Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East. Reception and book-signing to follow. Free and Open to the Public, Tickets available in advance at: Cambridge Library Main Branch: 359 Broadway or Harvard Book Store: 1256 Mass. Ave. For more information or reservations, call the Cambridge Peace Commission, 617-349-4694 or email, peace@cambridgema.gov

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CONTACTING DPP and Joining Our Work:

The Anti-War Committee pressures Congress, does community outreach and education to end the wars in the Middle East. Contact Denise Zwahlen at denisezwahlen@yahoo.com.

The Biolab Committee opposes the bio-hazard laboratory that BU is building at Boston Medical Center. Contact Mike Coté at mike_j_cote@yahoo.com.

The Multi-Cultural Competence Committee promotes internal and public education on racism and the diverse cultures of Dorchester. Contact Mary Regan, maryregan@hotmail.com.

Our Treasurer is Margaret Lamb, ForumGal@aol.com. Daryl Wright and Mike Prokosch prepare budgets

and write funding proposals:

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DPP Update - June 5, 2009

Honor the dead, work for future peace, speakers say

Nice article in The Metro also, here

Monday, May 25, Second Annual Memorial Day for Peace

Senate will advance torture commission

For Afghans: "A Narco-Mafia State”

20,000 GIs to surge into Afghanistan

America's Energy Crunch Comes Home