Peace group calls for cease-fire in Ukraine

   By Reginald Johnson 

  The Connecticut Peace and Solidarity Coalition, a group which opposes wars of intervention and advocates for cuts in military spending, has taken out a full-page ad in the New Haven Register, demanding an end to the war in Ukraine.

  “The war in Ukraine is costing thousands of lives, generating millions of refugees and causing the destruction of billions in infrastructure.  We demand it quickly end,” the ad began. “The only way it can end is through honest negotiations, not actions that lead to the escalation of violence.”

“We call on Ukraine, Russia the United States and its NATO allies to immediately agree on a prompt cease-fire, stop pouring weapons, trainers and troops into Ukraine and quickly negotiate steps towards peace and common security for all parties.”

  The statement also said that “The longer the war lasts the greater chance that nuclear weapons will be used, creating global catastrophe.”

 The Peace and Solidarity Coalition, composed of activists from around the state, has been fighting a lonely battle to try to stop the Ukraine war since it began five months ago after the Russian invasion. Ukraine’s request for military aid has won almost blanket support in Congress and in the media. Support for the war among the public has been more evenly divided.

 Just this year the US has sent over $50 billion in support to Ukraine. Even so-called progressive Democrats have joined in backing the military assistance.

Negotiations to end the conflict are at a standstill and the Biden administration has said almost nothing about the need to settle the war, despite calls for peace talks by several European leaders such as France’s Emanuel Macron.

The Ukrainian army has been given billions of dollars in military hardware by the United States.

Few questions are asked in Congress or in the media about the US and NATO’s role in provoking the conflict, by pouring billions of dollars in weaponry into Ukraine over the years as well as to other eastern European countries that are close to Russia; allowing for the eastward expansion of NATO toward Russia; allowing Ukraine to attack the Russian-speaking, separatist Donbas region and violating the Minsk Agreement in the process.

 The coalition ad blasted the press for its role in supporting the war.

 “We reject mainstream media’s ongoing cheerleading for the war, similar to what we saw when the US prepared to invade Iraq.”

  The coalition statement urged people to call Congress at 202-224-3121 and the White House at 202-456-1111 and ask that United States push for a cease-fire and negotiations to end the war.

  To contact the Connecticut Peace and Solidarity Coalition email the group at CTPeaceAndSolidarity@gmail.com.

  To take more action on this issue, go to: https://tinyurl.com/NegotiatePeace

 

 

Taliban at Cornell: Cancelling Lincoln

By Reginald Johnson 

    Commentary

  One of the things I am getting increasingly tired of is “Cancel Culture.”

   This is the trend in recent years of blotting out, erasing or cancelling the legacy of some great person in history due to concern about some moral shortcomings or some specific thing they did wrong or possibly some comments, now deemed inappropriate, they might have made.

  The whole thing is really out of hand. We’re in danger of  “Talibanizing” this nation. The living and the dead must hold the correct views --- or else.

 There’s a totalitarian ring to this and it’s deeply troubling.

 You recall the Taliban, the Islamic extremists who run Afghanistan. In 2001, they decided to blow up the ancient Buddhist sculptures at Bamiyan, because, they said, the monuments represented “idols” to the wrong religion. Heresy will not be tolerated.

  In a few seconds, one of the great works of art in world history was destroyed.

  The attacks on heresy are strong in this country also, particularly at universities. Our greatest leaders are being denounced to the point where demands are being made that names be removed from buildings and statues taken down.

  Even Abraham Lincoln, probably our greatest president --- a man who kept the union together through a brutal civil war and ended slavery in the process --- is being attacked.

  At Cornell University, officials recently decided to remove a bust of Lincoln and a plaque of the immortal Gettysburg Address from the library. It’s not entirely clear why this happened --- university officials are being evasive --- but the action was taken after “a complaint was made.” 

  So that’s all it takes today.  Some unnamed person makes a “complaint” and weakling university officials --- apparently scared of being cancelled themselves --- cave in and remove whatever is deemed “inappropriate.”

   Shame on Cornell. Not only was Lincoln a great president but the Gettysburg Address is one of the great speeches of all time. Lincoln made the speech after the decisive battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania in which thousands of men died. He honored those who “gave their lives that the nation might live.”

   Lincoln then said: “It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us --- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain --- that this nation under God, shall have a new birth of freedom --- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”