World Disinformation Forum

 By Reginald Johnson

   I checked out a few bits of the "World Economic Forum" meeting in Davos, Switzerland and it is distressing. The WEF is supposedly this elite group that promotes all these advanced ideas that will save the world. Billionaires are in attendance so you can only imagine what those "advanced" ideas would be.

 In the morning on Euro News, I heard the Finnish President, I can't remember her name, say repeatedly how important it was to give Ukraine all the weapons it needs to win the war with Russia. Crucial for Europe, she said, without saying why. No mention of the need for negotiating a peace or of possible nuclear dangers if the war keeps going.

 Then later in the day, I saw former CNN pundit Brian Stelter interviewing Arthur Sulzberger, publisher of the New York Times, in a discussion about controlling "disinformation." As they used to say back in the '60s, can you dig it? Here was Stelter, who promoted the totally wrong Trump-Russia collusion claims a few years ago talking with the head of the Times, which also backed the same bogus claims, over and over, in addition to censoring the explosive Hunter Biden laptop story prior to the 2020 election, blacking out the FBI's strongarming of social media in violation of the First Amendment and running one-sided stories about the Ukraine War.

Disinformation is right --- perpetrators are on full display in Davos. So much for the WEF.

 

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr: we must work for peace

 

  By Reginald Johnson

 

   

  The immortal words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. were heard in New Haven City Hall Friday as people took part in a community reading of King’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech given in 1967.

 About 15 people read excerpts of the speech, in which the civil rights leader came out and condemned the Vietnam War and demanded that American leaders take steps to end the brutal conflict.

 “The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war,” he said.

 King also urged that America stop spending so much money on the military and invest more money at home to eliminate poverty, racism and improve peoples’ lives.

 “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death,” he said.

  King, who was attacked bitterly for his criticism of the war and America’s militaristic policy overseas, said it was crucial for people to take a stand, work for peace and turn away from violence.

  Giving his address before an audience at the Riverside Church in New York City, King said, “We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late…We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent coannihilation.”

Community residents take part in a reading of Dr. Martin Luther King's "Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence" speech in New Haven City Hall. (Photo by Reginald Johnson)

 The community reading of King’s speech, the full title of which is “Beyond Vietnam – A Time to Break Silence,” takes place every year in New Haven and is sponsored by the Greater New Haven Peace Council. It coincides with the Martin Luther King’s birthday, which is Monday.

 Peace council members said the reading took on extra significance this year, as the United States is now heavily involved in another overseas conflict – the Ukraine War. Although there are no American boots on the ground --- yet --- the US and NATO countries have delivered more than $120 billion of lethal aid to Ukraine, to fight its war with Russia.

  The war began after Russia invaded Ukraine last February. US and Ukrainian leaders called the invasion “aggression” and totally unjustified. But Russian President Vladimir Putin said his nation acted only after a series of provocations by the West, including violations of the Minsk peace agreement covering eastern Ukraine, expansion of NATO to include countries close to Russia and a build-up of Ukrainian forces close to the Russian border.

  The war has taken 200,000 casualties so far and shows no sign of letting up. A number of observers have expressed the concern that the war could escalate into a nuclear conflict, which would be catastrophic.

 Peace groups are holding protests around the country this month demanding that the US stop fueling the war and take steps to bring about a ceasefire and ultimately a peace settlement. The Biden administration has so far refused to call for negotiations and in fact has scuttled tentative peace deals since the war began.

  Henry Lowendorf, the president of the Greater New Haven Peace Council said Dr. King’s Riverside Church speech still has so much relevance today. His call for an end to a brutal overseas conflict, stopping US militaristic policies in general and reducing military spending to free up money for domestic needs, all have application today.

 

  

   

Public reading of King's "Beyond Vietnam" speech

   

   By Reginald Johnson

 

   The Greater New Haven Peace Council will sponsor a community reading of the Rev. Martin Luther King’s famed “Beyond Vietnam" speech on Friday Jan. 13 at New Haven City Hall.

 King’s address on April, 4, 1967 at the Riverside Church in New York City was the moment when the civil rights leader decided to come out against the Vietnam War and condemn America’s militaristic policies abroad.

  “I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic, destructive suction tube,” King said.

  “So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.”

   King also said that “a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

   The community reading of King’s address comes just weeks after Congress and President Biden approved a record $858 billion for the military budget. Defense spending takes up well over half of the total federal discretionary budget.

 The New Haven event also takes place as the deadly and highly costly Ukraine-Russia war continues. There have been more than 200,000 casualties in that conflict which shows no signs of letting up. The United States has given more than $100 billion in military aid to Ukraine.

  Many observers have expressed the concern that the longer the war drags on without a diplomatic settlement, the chances grow that tactical nuclear weapons might be used on the battlefield by either Ukraine or Russia. Such an event could then escalate to a nuclear war between the United States and Russia.

  Rev. King’s opposition to the Vietnam War angered some people who thought that the civil rights leader had overstepped his bounds by speaking out about foreign affairs. King was assassinated in Memphis exactly one year to the day after his speech at the Riverside Church.

(The community reading of “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence” will take place at 12 noon on the second floor of New Haven City Hall at 165 Church Street.  More information can be obtained by contacting the peace council at grnhpeacecouncil@gmail.com)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  King said when he had counseled poor black youth in the cities against resorting to violence to achieve political change . he had been challenged.

  “”But they ask --- and rightly so

Secret files said to link CIA to JFK assassination

 

      By Reginald Johnson

 

   In an astonishing newscast last week dealing with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, FOX’s Tucker Carlson said a source who has access to still-unreleased CIA files on the case stated “unequivocally” that the agency “was involved” with Kennedy’s murder.

 “We spoke to someone who had access to these still hidden CIA documents, a person who was deeply familiar with what they contained,” said Carlson. “We asked this person directly,  ‘did the CIA have a hand in the murder of John F. Kennedy, an American president?’ And here’s the reply we received, verbatim: ‘The answer is yes. I believe they were involved. It’s a whole different country from what we thought it was. It’s all fake.’ “

   “It’s hard to imagine a more jarring response than that,” Carlson said. “Again, this is not a conspiracy theorist that we spoke to. Not even close. This is someone with direct knowledge of the information that once again is being withheld from the American public. And the answer we received was unequivocal --- ‘yes. the CIA was involved in the assassination of the president.’ ”

  Carlson’s show ran the same day that the Biden administration opted to release some of the secret CIA files dealing with the assassination ----- but not all.  Some of the most sensitive documents are still hidden, despite the fact that a congressional act was passed more than 30 years ago mandating that all the records relating to Kennedy’s assassination should be made public by the year 2017. That has not taken place, with successive administrations, Republican and Democrat, slow-walking the process.

  It’s long been speculated that the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) was involved with the JFK assassination, which took place on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Tex. Thousands of books and articles and been written about the case, and many authors have either speculated about the CIA’s responsibility, or in some cases pointed the finger directly at the CIA. Kennedy had a bad relationship with the agency, after he faulted the CIA for the botched Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961.

  Oliver Stone’s film, “JFK,” also told a story about FBI, CIA and military officers being involved in the murder, in what was portrayed as a coup d’etat.

   However, no one in the mainstream press, in Congress or in the government bureaucracy has ever dared to come out and say that the CIA might have been tied to the president’s killing. The establishment view on the assassination for years has remained that the Warren Commission --- which reviewed Kennedy’s murder in 1964 --- was correct in concluding that the 35^th president was murdered by a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, and there was no conspiracy involving other actors or government officials.

  Carlson’s show therefore was unusual --- a highly rated commentator on a mainstream channel voicing the strong possibility that a branch of the United States government was involved in the murder of a sitting president.

 The FOX commentator also said if what the source is saying is true, it confirms the belief held by many over the years --- that the US has a democracy in name only.

  “It means that within the US government, there are forces wholly beyond democratic control. These forces are more powerful than the elected officials that supposedly oversee them,” Carlson said. “These forces can affect election outcomes. They can even hide their complicity in the murder of an American president. In other words, they can do pretty much anything they want. They constitute a government within a government, mocking by their very existence the idea of democracy. As cynical as we have become after 30 years of watching government officials ignore the voters who employ them, we were shocked to learn of this. It’s not acceptable,” Carlson stated.

  Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the son of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy who, like his brother, was also assassinated, called the Carlson show,  “The most courageous newscast in 60 years. The CIA’s murder of my uncle was a successful coup d’état from which our democracy has never recovered.”

  Sen. Kennedy was killed in 1968, also allegedly by a lone gunman, Sirhan Sirhan. Sirhan, now in his late 70s, is serving a life sentence.

 Robert Kennedy Jr. has said previously that he believed that neither Oswald nor Sirhan acted alone in the two murders.

  In a follow-up show on the JFK case on Dec. 16, a lawyer who is pushing for the full release of the CIA files on Kennedy, told Carlson the Biden administration’s decision to only release part of the files was “very disappointing, frustrating and infuriating.”

  New York Law School Adjunct Prof. Lawrence Schnapf said, “Essentially what we got yesterday was old wine packaged in new bottles. The 13,000 records released yesterday were basically records that had already been released and maybe with less redactions.”

  He added “the spin that the CIA is doing is unfortunately (something) that the New York Times and the Washington Post have taken hook, line and sinker … this is a big nothing burger.”

  The Mary Ferrell Foundation, the nation’s largest nonprofit repository of the assassination records has sued the administration to make all the documents public. The foundation says the CIA is withholding most of the records at issue.

 The Assassination Records Review Board that was established under the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 has also tried to obtain more Kennedy files from NBC that it says the company is holding,  according to Schnapf.

 “To show you the level of obstruction in our government, the review board prepared a subpoena to serve on NBC and the Department of Justice refused to serve it,” Schnapf said.

  The attorney urged Carlson and his listeners to pressure leaders of the new incoming Congress to hold hearings and subpoena CIA officials to come and testify why they are not turning over the Kennedy files as required by law.

  The last few years have seen more calls for Congress to set up a new "Church Committee" to investigate abuses by the intelligence community, including the CIA, FBI and NSA.

  In the 1970s, a Senate committee headed by Sen. Frank Church of Idaho conducted a sweeping investigation of irregularities at the agencies and that triggered a number of reforms.

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

  

 

 

"Christmas Truce" in Ukraine?

 

     By Reginald Johnson

       Commentary

 

    For two wonderful days in December, 1914 during World War I, the guns fell silent and tired soldiers on both sides of the conflict crawled out of their trenches to shake hands with combatants on the other side and celebrate Christmas.

  English, French, and  German soldiers came together in a spontaneous moment to eat dinner, sing Christmas carols and even play soccer.

  The informal cease-fire was dubbed “The Christmas Truce.”

 Though the truce didn’t last long ---  the war resumed and dragged on for another four years --- the Christmas Truce is long remembered as a special moment in history, when the killing stopped and there was a glimmer of hope that a brutal conflict could somehow be brought to an end.

  Now, peace advocates are urging that a “Christmas Truce” be called in the Ukraine War, also a brutal conflict that has left 200,000 Ukrainian and Russian soldiers killed or injured in just nine months.

“The Christmas Truce of 1914 was a symbol of hope and courage, when the people of warring countries organized an armistice on their own authority and joined in a spontaneous act of reconciliation and fraternization,” said a statement by CODE Pink, an anti-war organization.

  “In this same spirit, we ask you to join us in urging President Biden, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and congressional representatives to support the International Peace Bureau’s call for a Christmas Truce in Ukraine,” the statement said. 

“A truce --- a moment of holiday peace --- could pave the way for negotiations to reach a lasting security agreement to end the bloodshed once and for all.”

  A petition has been set up on the CODE Pink website for people to sign and indicate their support. https://www.codepink.org/christmas_truce_in_ukraine_gen

   The peace group and other organizations such as the Fellowship of Reconciliation have also been urging leaders of the faith community and social justice movements to support the campaign.  Dr. Cornel West and the Rev. Jesse Jackson have gotten behind the effort.

 The Ukraine War began in February when Russia invaded Ukraine in what Russia called a “Special Military Operation.”  US and Ukrainian officials called the invasion an act of naked aggression --- completely unjustified and illegal under international law.  Russian officials maintained, however, they acted after a series of provocations by Ukraine and the US-led military alliance, NATO, which has bases in many countries close to Russia.

  The US has supplied over $100 billion in military aid to help Ukraine to fight the war.

 Negotiations to end the war have stalled, with Biden administration officials indicating little interest in peace talks. A tentative plan to end the war last April --- agreed to by Russia and Ukraine --- fell apart after the US rejected the deal.

  The possibility the war could turn nuclear arose after Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky suggested preemptive strikes against Russia to prevent the Russians from using nuclear weapons. Russian officials said they interpreted Zelensky's remarks as suggesting that NATO should launch a nuclear first strike against Russia.

. Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country would not fire a nuclear first strike at Ukraine, but said Russia would use nuclear weapons in response to a nuclear attack.

 Noam Chomsky,  the world renown intellectual and long-time foreign policy critic, warned recently that there could be dire consequences for the human race if the war is not brought to a close in the near future.

  Chomsky foresees possible catastrophe in two ways --- first by the possibility of a nuclear war starting in Ukraine; and second, by the environmental consequences of more widespread use of highly-polluting liquid natural gas, as the flow of Russian gas has been stopped. He said the world only has limited time to shut down high-carbon fossil fuel usage and control global warming, and the wider use now of dirty fuel will hasten the arrival of a total climate collapse.

  “Every possible path to a diplomatic settlement should be pursued,” Chomsky told an audience at The Peoples Forum. “There is no time for delay.”

  The International Peace Bureau is calling for a ceasefire in Ukraine for Christmas 2022/2023 from Dec. 25^th to January 7^th  “as a sign of our shared humanity, reconciliation and peace.”  https://www.ipb.org/ipb-christmas-peace-appeal/

To ask for a Christmas Truce in Ukraine, call the White House at 202-456-1111 and your members of Congress, at 202-224-3121.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

'A state beyond insanity'

      

    By Reginald Johnson

     World renown intellectual and social critic Noam Chomsky is warning of catastrophe if the Ukraine War continues.

  The MIT professor emeritus of linguistics and longtime anti-war activist told an audience at the Peoples Forum in New York City recently that the war creates the potential for disaster in two ways – first by triggering a sharp increase in the use of highly polluting fossil fuels at a time when the world has only limited time left to avoid a climate collapse, and second, by creating the real possibility of nuclear war between the United States and Russia.

 “The longer the war continues the greater will be the toll, reaching very fast perhaps, to the end of organized human life, speak of the vast number of species we are wantonly destroying,” Chomsky said.

 “And that of course is assuming we can ward off the option of destroying ourselves more expeditiously with nuclear war, a possibility that is casually being discussed, as if it were an option – it’s an indescribable descent to a state beyond insanity.”

  “Sorry if these remarks seem hyperbolic. They are not,” Chomsky said. “All of this tells us that every possible path to a diplomatic settlement should be pursued in accord with the wishes of almost the entire world, including the core of Europe… There is no time for delay,” he said.

  Chomsky delivered his sobering message during a panel discussion entitled “The Real Path to Peace in Ukraine.” The event, co-sponsored by the ANSWER Coalition, was designed to discuss ways to develop a wider protest movement aimed at stopping the war.

  Among those joining Chomsky was peace activist Medea Benjamin of Code Pink; Dr. Jill Stein, former Green Party presidential candidate and historian and commentator Vijay Prashad.

  The discussion took place as the Ukraine-Russia war is now in its ninth month and shows little signs of letting up. Approximately 100,000 casualties have been reported and there’s been widespread damage to Ukraine’s infrastructure. Leaders of both Ukraine and Russia have said the use of nuclear weapons is not out of the question.

 Meanwhile, the Biden administration has shown no interest in promoting peace talks to end the conflict; in fact, a tentative deal to end the war last April was rejected by the White House.

 Administration officials as well as leaders in both political parties in Congress maintain that continued aid is needed to help Ukraine win back its freedom, resist “Russian aggression” and stop a claimed “threat” posed to the rest of Europe.

  Critics charge however, that the real goal of the United States in funding the war is a geopolitical one: weaken Russia and eventually spark regime change in that country; Ukraine is simply being used in that process.

  So far the United States has given nearly $100 billion --- much of it lethal military hardware --- to help Ukraine fight Russia.

                                                          

The Ukrainian military has gotten billions of dollars in aid from the US to fight Russia.

  “We’re saying ‘no’ to this proxy war, we’re saying ‘no’ to the US government policy of bleeding Russia through the lives of countless Ukrainians,” said Manolo De Los Santos, co-director of the People’s Forum, in introductory remarks.  “We are not going to wait for nuclear war.  We are not going to wait for global famine. We are not going to wait for a further energy crisis…We will not allow them to sacrifice either  Ukrainian or Russian people or better yet we will not allow them to sacrifice the planet for their new war of greed.”

  Benjamin said it will take a broad-based grassroots movement to force a change in US policy on the war, which is supported even by so-called “progressive Democrats” in Congress.

  “It’s important to gather up our forces and to extend them to get the people in the environmental movement to recognize that this war has only led to production of more dirty energy, giving a green light to the oil and gas and coal and nuclear weapons and power producers,” Benjamin said, adding, “we have to get the environmental movement to work with us to say that this war and all wars are so destructive of the environment and they have to stand with us for peace.”

  The Code Pink founder continued, “We also call on the faith-based movement to say war is immoral, all wars are immoral and they need to come with us and call for a ‘Christmas Truce’ like the one that happened during World War I… We are calling on faith-based leaders around the country to join the Pope, who has said we must get all sides to the table.”

Noam Chomsky

     In her remarks, Stein said the war represented “end-stage capitalism” in which only the elites are benefitting from war --- through arms sales and oil profits – while the vast majority of people around the country and the world are seeing a decline in their quality of life.

  “The chickens have come home to roost back here in the seat of the Empire,” she said. “The chickens have come home to roost in the struggles of the poor and the working poor who are growing by the millions in the US and around the world. Hundreds have joined the ranks of the billionaire class while hundreds of millions have joined the ranks of poverty.

  “So the system just doesn’t last,” Stein said. “And we’re all in the crossfire – not just the people of Ukraine who are being set up to the last person, man, woman and child --- their lives are being expended --- we are all part of this vast exercise of unaccountable and abusive power on the part of economic elites. We are saying no more. The buck stops,” she said.

  The 2016 presidential candidate said there is a disconnect between how members of Congress see the nation’s priorities and how regular people see them. She said that Gallup polls indicate that economic priorities --- such as inflation and cost-of-living issues relating to housing and healthcare are at the top of the list of concerns cited by working people.

  Stein said “70,000 people in the United States are dying for lack of health insurance every year and housing is an acute crisis with 11 million people facing eviction.” But Congress is not targeting funding to deal with these problems.

“If you look at Congress it’s very clear and explicit that it’s funding for a new generation of nuclear weapons and more tanks for Ukraine and armaments that is their number one priority,” she said.

  Santos said about the panel discussion, “This is not “a one-off event. This the beginning of a movement to fully challenge NATO and US imperialism.”

  A series of actions and anti-war protests are planned for January, he said.

    

 

 

 

Connecticut's congress members: all in for war

     By Reginald Johnson

  

         Commentary

  

   (I recently read a nice summary in the Connecticut Examiner presenting statements by all the candidates running for Congress in Connecticut on where they stand on the Ukraine War. I would highly recommend that everybody take a look at this article if you’re concerned about this war and the need for peace. It is at https://ctexaminer.com/2022/10/26/connecticuts-candidates-for-congress-weigh-in-on-continued-aid-for-ukraine/) 

  If you’d like to see the Ukraine War war brought to an end as I do, you’ll be distressed to learn that all the Democratic Party incumbents in the state’s five congressional districts back the war wholeheartedly.

 They have no problems with the vast sums of money being expended to allegedly defend Ukraine. And they stand foursquare for continuing the conflict, despite the fact that if it goes on much longer nuclear weapons could be used and that would be a possible world-ending event. There’s no mention by any of them of the need for peace talks to end the war and stop the slaughter.

 One of the hawks is one-time liberal Rosa DeLauro, the incumbent Congresswoman from the Third Congressional District. DeLauro said she’s proud of chairing of the House Appropriations Committee which steered $66 billion in “emergency funding” (much of that for lethal weaponry)  “to support the Ukrainian people and defend global democracy in the wake of Russia’s unprovoked and malicious attack.”

 She added, “We will continue demonstrating to the Ukrainian people that in the face of ongoing Russian aggression we will not let them down.”

  Jim Himes, the incumbent congress member from the Fourth Congressional District, sounded a similar theme. He said that as a member of the House Intelligence Committee he and others met with Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky and other top Ukrainian officials “to reassure them of continued US military and nonmilitary aid. Ukraine is fighting our and the world’s fight for democracy, the rule of law and basic human decency.”

  DeLauro and Himes make it sound like the US involvement in Ukraine is based on the idea that Russia is similar to Nazi Germany in 1939 and the Russians, if allowed to take Ukraine, will sweep over Europe crushing all the democracies and then ultimately threatening the United States.

 This is patently absurd. The fact of the matter is that Russia was in large part provoked into launching the invasion of Ukraine because of the eastward advance of the Western military alliance known as NATO, in violation of a pledge by US leaders to former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991 that that exact same thing would never take place; by the violation of the Minsk peace accords by the present Ukrainian regime which saw Ukrainian forces attack the ethnic Russian provinces in the eastern part of Ukraine, states which were supposed to be given autonomy and self-governance under the agreement; and the continued demand by the US that Ukraine be allowed to join NATO, something which the Russians have opposed --- and understandably so --- for years.  

  The Russians saw a security threat developing in Ukraine and they took action to stop it --- just the way the US took action 60 years ago when the Soviet Union put missiles into Cuba only 90 miles from our shores.

 The claims by the incumbent House members that America is defending democracy in Ukraine are bogus. The Zelensky regime has shut down newspapers, locked up dissidents and officially recognizes a holiday for a World War II Nazi collaborator who helped the Germans carry out pogroms against Ukrainian Jews. Democracy??

 The other Democrats in Congress in Connecticut, Jahana Hayes in the Fifth District, John Larson in the First District and Joe Courtney in the Second District also took hard-line positions in supporting Ukraine.

  Republican challengers were hardly any better in their responses to the survey. One or two did take issue with the high cost of the war to the United States --- not in human terms, of course --- but in terms of the high dollar amounts.

 The only candidates in the Examiner survey that took progressive positions on the war were two Green Party candidates, Mary Sanders, running in the First District against Larson and Justin Pagliano, running in the Third District against DeLauro. Another good anti-war candidate running is Dr. Amy Chai of New Haven who is challenging DeLauro.

  Sanders had the best position of all. She said in part, “The US government has supported the expansion of NATO east to the border of Russia, steering the region into war in order to feed the military-industrial intelligence complex like they have done so many times before.

  “I would work for an immediate cease-fire and relief for the victims while stopping the export of arms to Ukraine. Humanitarian and economic development is needed not more weapons! I support a UN Security Council guarantee of neutrality and security for Ukraine and a UN mediated solution to the questions of the Donbass and Crimea with its warm water port Sebastopol,” Sanders said.

  While the Green Party and independent candidates probably won’t get much support in the election, they deserve a lot of credit for taking principled and humanitarian positions on this disastrous war which has already cost so much and threatens to spark a worldwide catastrophe.

  Thank you to those candidates and shame on the Democrats and Republicans for their belligerent and dangerous views.