To all
activists espousing demilitarization, nuclear abolition and a true peace-in-action.
It was all accomplished 68 years ago and who noticed? Peace and prosperity, no military, lowest homicide rate among industrial nations, no hand guns, no assault weapons allowed, excellent health care at 5 dollars a visit on demand, marvelously healthy diet, affordable housing, great educational system (with a few quirks), a gem of a public transportation system and until very recently a healthy democracy. Of course I'm talking about the Japanese Constitution which both Noam Chomsky and Helen Caldicott called a model for the rest of the world to follow - especially Article 9 and the Preamble to the constitution which forbids Japan to ever again make war. Japan is also the only major industrial power to eschew nuclear weapons. All of this which the rest of the world ignored, a gift of peace on a silver platter.
Now of course that wonderful gift is under siege by their own government, bullying and illegally trashing their own constitution. Now too a slumbering infant has awakened. The youth of Japan, stung by the lies, obfuscations and blatant disregard by the Abe administration for the will of the people, has arisen in record numbers staging dramatic protests and demonstrations to retain their beloved constitution in concert with labor unions, academics, hibakusha and older generations who have long battled for their human rights guaranteed by their peace constitution.
Instead of re-inventing the wheel may we encourage you to join forces with WILPF, Veterans for Peace and the Jane Adams Peace Association to campaign for a resolution to bring a version of Article 9 as an amendment to the U.S. constitution. Strong connections have already been made in Japan for mutual support including Naomi Takasu (founder of committee to nominate Art. 9 for the Nobel Peace Prize), Global Article 9 Campaign to Abolish War, Peace Boat, Hidankyo, Allen Nelson Peace Project, academics from Ristumeikan University and Okinawa. Here in America we have gained endorsements and support from the Japanese-American Museum in Los Angeles, Georgia WAND, MASS PEACE ACTION, American Friends Service Committee and the Smedley Butler Brigade of Veterans for Peace.
In Boston Mary Popeo and David Rothauser are producing independent films focused on the abolition of war and nuclear weapons. Mary's new film, "I Am An American," projects the energy and enthusiasm of American College students expressing their concern and support for Article 9 as a true force for world peace. David's films, "Hibakusha, Our Life to Live," and "Article 9 Comes to America," presents Japanese, Korean and American A-bomb survivors stories while his Article 9 film challenges pre-conceived concepts of war, peace and nuclear weapons.
With Peace and Love,
David Rothauser
Institute for Public Accuracy
ABC News reports: "French President Francois Hollande is blaming ISIS for a series of attacks across Paris Friday night that left at least 127 dead and many more injured. Hollande called the attacks 'an act of war' in a speech Saturday morning local time, and said France 'will be merciless' against the 'barbarians of the Islamic State group.'"
In response:
NAFEEZ AHMED
An independent investigative reporter, Ahmed is a columnist with Middle East Eye. His books include A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization. He will be attending the "Vigil in Solidarity with the People of Paris" tonight in London, organized by the Christian Muslim Forum.
Earlier this year, he wrote the piece "No Piers Morgan. This is how to destroy the Islamic State," which states: "Uncontrollable rage and ritual denunciations are not going to defeat IS. To defeat IS, we need to recognize that this Frankenstein's monster is neither simply a fault of 'the West,' nor of 'the Muslims.' It is a co-creation of the Western and Muslim worlds, specifically of Western and Muslim 'security' agencies who have lost all moral compass in the pursuit of geopolitical prowess, self-aggrandizement and corporate profiteering. Citizens of all faiths and none must stand together in solidarity to reject the violence perpetrated in our name on all sides."
BARRY LANDO
Lando, who lives in London and Paris, is a former producer with "60 Minutes." His books include Web of Deceit about the history of Iraq. He has written for numerous publications including the International Herald Tribune, Salon, Counterpunch and Truthdig. He just wrote the piece "France is on the Verge of … What?" which states: "'Is France Ripe for an Authoritarian Regime?' What is remarkable about that op-ed piece in the conservative Le Figaro newspaper, is that it was written not in the wake of today’s horrific terrorist attacks in Paris -- but the day before. As I write, it is still unclear how many have been killed in the French capital -- the reported total has reached at least 140 -- but there is no question that the massacre could have a devastating impact on France’s already very shaky democratic institutions." Lando lived in France for nearly 40 years and his wife is French.
VIJAY PRASHAD
Prashad is professor of international studies at Trinity College in Connecticut. He was just on The Real News just before the Paris attacks talking about the recent *Beirut and Baghdad attacks: "Is the ISIS Bombing in Beirut a Product of U.S. Policy in the Region?"
* TP Editor's note-readers in Japan report they have not seen a single article about either attack. In any case, there has been proportionally very little said about these other attacks.
On Twitter, he just listed "six terror lessons for Hollande," which are being widely distributed on social media in graphic form:
"1. Grieve for those who have been killed. #terrorlessons no. 1.
2. Find out who did the killing through a forensic police inquiry. Bring them to justice. #terrorlessons no. 2.
3. Try to get to the root of the issue, to what provoked the inhumanity. #terrorlessons no. 3.
4. Erase the conditions of provocation. #terrorlessons no. 4.
5. Do not replicate provocation. #terrorlessons no. 5.
6. If you replicate the provocation (The Bush Strategy), the cycle of violence shall continue. #terrorlessons no. 6."
PAUL GOTTINGER
Gottinger is an independent journalist. He recently wrote an analysis of the"war on terror": "Despite 14 Years of the U.S. War on Terror, Terror Attacks Have Skyrocketed Since 9/11," which states: "Terror attacks have jumped by a stunning 6,500 percent since 2002, according to a new analysis by Reader Supported News. The number of casualties resulting from terror attacks has increased by 4,500 percent over this same time period. These colossal upsurges in terror took place despite a decade-long, worldwide effort to fight terrorism that has been led by the United States.
"The analysis, conducted with figures provided by the U.S. State Department, also shows that from 2007 to 2011 almost half of all the world’s terror took place in Iraq or Afghanistan -- two countries being occupied by the U.S. at the time.
"Countries experiencing U.S. military interventions continue to be subjected to high numbers of terror attacks, according to the data. In 2014, 74 percent of all terror-related casualties occurred in Iraq, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Syria. Of these five, only Nigeria did not experience either U.S. air strikes or a military occupation in that year.
"The U.S. invasion of Iraq destabilized Iraq and Syria, creating the conditions for the emergence of ISIS, which now controls large parts of the two countries. The invasion of Afghanistan has not been able to wrestle large sections of the country from the Taliban, leaving Afghanistan in state of perpetual war. And the air war to oust Muammar Gaddafi has left Libya in a state of chaos.
"The instability caused by these wars, along with the atrocities perpetrated by U.S.-led forces, which can be exploited for terrorist recruitment, have played a significant role in the increase of terrorism worldwide."
From Common Dreams
Gunmen and bombers attacked busy restaurants, bars and a concert hall at six locations around Paris on Friday evening
Rescue workers and victims at the site of an attack at a Paris restaurant Friday. (Photo: Thibault Camus/Associated Press)
This is a developing story...
Update (8:58 PM EDT): Paris in lockdown after deadly attacks
France 24 reports:
At least 120 people are reported to have died in a wave of simultaneous attacks in the French capital on Friday evening, an official at Paris City hall said early Saturday morning.
Gunmen and bombers attacked busy restaurants, bars and a concert hall at six locations around Paris on Friday evening, killing scores of people in what a shaken President François Hollande described as an unprecedented terrorist attack.
The apparently coordinated gun and bomb assault came as the country, a founder member of the US-led coalition waging air strikes against Islamic State group fighters in Syria and Iraq, was on high alert for terrorist attacks ahead of a global climate conference due to open later this month.
Hollande, who was attending an international football match with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier when several explosions took place outside the national stadium, declared a state of emergency in the Paris region and announced the closure of France's borders to stop perpetrators escaping.
"This is a horror," the visibly shaken president said in a midnight television address to the nation before chairing an emergency cabinet meeting.
Earlier:
Reports coming out of Paris on Friday night indicate that multiple shootings and a series of explosions have left numerous people dead and others injured.
According to the BBC:
At least 18 people have been killed in several shootings in the French capital, Paris, as well as explosions at the Stade de France.
At least one man opened fire with an automatic gun at the Petit Cambodge restaurant in the 11th district.
Liberation newspaper reports four deaths. It also reports shootings near the Bataclan arts centre.
The Guardian, which is providing live updates here, subsequently added:
Police officials confirmed that there had been a shootout at a Paris restaurant in the 10th arrondissement amid busy Friday night bars and cafés. Then another shootout took place near the Bataclan concert venue in the nearby 11tharrondissment. Hostages have been taken at the Bataclan, police confirmed to AFP.
At around the same time, there was a series of explosions outside the Stade de France, north of Paris, during a France-Germany friendly football match. The French president François Hollande was at the match and was evacuated from the stadium to the French interior ministry for a crisis meeting.
A police official confirmed to Associated Press that there had been one explosion in a bar near the stadium.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
Featured Blogs September 29, 2015 (http://www.madinamerica.com)
Psychiatrists and psychologists have been used by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to facilitate mind control and torture in Project MKUltra and in the American Psychological Association bolstered CIA torture program. Psychiatric political abuses in nations that are U.S. enemies have been routinely denounced by U.S. establishment psychiatry and the U.S. government, especially during the Cold War within the Soviet Union (where political dissidents were diagnosed with “sluggish schizophrenia” and psychiatrically hospitalized and drugged). However, the abuse of psychiatric diagnosis and treatment to subvert human rights has occurred not only in totalitarian U.S. enemies but in the United States as well.
While the following list of political abuses of U.S. psychiatry and psychology begins with the infamous Project MKUltra and recent American Psychological Association torture scandal, this should not be taken to imply that these more sensational abuses are the most important ones. For gay Americans, Native Americans, and African Americans, the political abuse of psychiatry and psychology is a significant part of their traumatizing American history; and while MKUltra resulted in severe trauma and even death, mental health professionals’ current enabling of dehumanizing American institutions continues to create, quite possibly, even greater damage.
Rania Masri and Vijay Prashad say the western media's reporting on the ISIS bombing in Lebanon is deeply racist and accepts the ISIS narrative by describing the southern Beirut neighborhood as a "Hezbollah bastion" - November 13, 2015
from the Real News Network
Also see Democracy Now story:
Read Real News story below:
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The U.S. deployment of a team of special operations forces to Syria comes after the first U.S. combat casualty in Iraq in four years. Just last month, President Obama reversed course in Afghanistan, halting the scheduled withdrawal of U.S. troops fighting in the nation’s longest war. In an escalation of the air war in Syria, the United States has also announced plans to deploy more fighter planes, including 12 F-15s, to the Incirlik Air Base in Turkey. On top of the wars in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, the U.S. continues to carry out drone strikes across the globe from Pakistan to Yemen to Somalia. “[Obama’s] policy has been one of mission creep,” says Andrew Bacevich, retired colonel, Vietnam War veteran, and international relations professor at Boston University. “The likelihood that the introduction of a handful of dozen of U.S. soldiers making any meaningful difference in the course of events is just about nil.”
TokyoProgressive takes no position on the eating of whales. However, we respect the writers of this article, who call out the Japanese government for hypocrisy on the issue. -Ed.
On October 6th 2015, it came to light that the government of Japan sent a notice to the UN stating that it would amend its declaration to abide by the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). According to the notice, Japan will no longer accept lawsuits pertaining “any dispute arising out of, concerning, or relating to research on, or conservation, management or exploitation of, living resources of the sea.” This is Japan's strategy to avoid having further lawsuits filed by other countries through the ICJ against its new research whaling plan (NEWREP-A) that it plans to implement this year.
<The ICJ Ruling>
The ICJ ruled in March 2014 that Japan's research whaling program (JARPAII) was not designed for the purposes of scientific research, prohibiting Japan to grant any permit to implement the program. In response to the court decision, Japan put together NEWREP-A, which is planned to launch this November. This new plan is the same plan that the expert panel of the International Whaling Commission concluded this January did not demonstrate the need for lethal sampling. This report was further supported by 44 scientists at the IWC Scientific Committee held in May.
It is easy to surmise that the government recognized the possible illegality of this new program against international laws, and in order to avoid having challenged further at the ICJ over NEWREP-A it decided to amend its declaration to abide by the jurisdiction of the ICJ. In this new program, the research area has been expanded and 333 minke whales are planned to be caught annually, adding up to about 4000 whales total over the 12-year period.
<No companies want to start commercial whaling in the Antarctica>
Resumption of commercial whaling is the objective of Japan's research whaling. However, the whaling industry that once existed is no longer interested in restarting an unprofitable whaling business in the Antarctic. The demand for whale meat is limited in Japan, and the current system for supplying whale meat cannot operate without government subsidies.
<Increasing subsidies and decreasing actual catch>
The initial government subsidy to research whaling at the onset of the program was 500 million yen. The amount is increasing every year, and the current amount is 3.1 billion yen. Not only this, but it also received an additional 4.5 billion yen last term, from the Fisheries Agency under the grant program called “Profitable Fisheries” designed to “vitalize Japan's fisheries.” These large sums of tax payers' money were spent presumably to help the deficit-laden Institute of Cetacean Research, the main body in charge of implementing the research, which is suffering from the shrinking market for whale meat.
It is very clear that any operation that requires going out to distant international waters does make a good business plan.
<Seas at risk>
One of the biggest problems discussed at various international organizations such as the UN is the critical state of the ocean. The oceans and seas cover 70% of the earth, circulating water, moderating the climate, providing food and more, making them vital to human existence. However, the same oceans and seas are now faced with drastic changes due to problems such as acidification, pollution, and overfishing, including illegal fisheries. Sharing a sense of urgency, many countries are now concerned about how to return the ocean to a healthier state, making these issues international.
Our country Japan is surrounded by the ocean, and has been thriving due to the wealth of the sea. The health of the ocean then must be the utmost concern to us, more so than most countries. However, despite the fact that Japan is responsible for many cases of decline in marine resources, the government has failed to address these issues.
We, the citizens of Japan, cannot dismiss such an announcement by the government like the one made to the UN last month that ignores international agreements.
We strongly demand that the government of Japan retracts the amendment to its original declaration as soon as possible, and do not start any new research whaling programs.
Sign:
All Life In Viable Environment(ALIVE)
Animal Rights Center
Choices for Tomorrow (CFT)
Circle of Life
Citizens Against Chemicals Pollution
Citizen’s Nuclear Information Center
FoE Japan
Greenpeace Japan
Iruka&Kujira(Dolphin & Whale) Action Network
JELF(Japan Env'tal Lawyers Federation)
Japan Civil Network for the United Nations Decade on Biodiversity(JCN-UNDB)
Japan Tiger and Elephant Fund(JTEF)
Japan Wildlife Conservation Society
PEACE （Put an End to Animal Cruelty and Exploitation）
Ramsar Network Japan
Voice for Zoo Animals
From Jacobin: 2015/11
The growing youth movement against Prime Minister Shinzō Abe is disrupting Japan’s conservative status quo.
by Gavin Walker
Protesters outside Japan's Diet building in August 2015. LittleGray_T / Flickr
Since the earthquakes and a nuclear meltdown in Fukushima hit eastern Japan in March 2011, fissures have opened up across the surface of the Japanese archipelago — and across the surface of Japanese society.
Contemporary Japan is freighted with the triple weight of historical memory, natural disaster, and austerity — a situation sustained and compounded by the regime of Shinzō Abe, the most conservative prime minister the country has seen since World War II.
But there are signs that this unstable status quo is producing its own revolts and generating its own forces of resistance at the core of Japanese society. In August and September alone, hundreds of thousands of youth, activists from across the social and political landscape, leaders of opposition parties, trade unionists, workers, and others held intense, nightly demonstrations against the Abe administration outside the National Diet, a force of direct political action unseen in Japan for many years.
What explains this seemingly sudden explosion?
2015年11月9日 05:05
From the Ryukyu Shimbun
【ワシントン＝問山栄恵本紙特派員】１９９５年の米海兵隊員による少女乱暴事件当時に駐日米大使を務め、翌９６年に当時の橋本龍太郎首相とともに普天間飛行場返還の日米合意を発表したウォルター・モンデール氏（元副大統領）が事件から２０年の節目を迎えたことを機に、琉球新報のインタビューに７日までに応じた。モンデール氏は米軍普天間飛行場の移設先について「われわれは沖縄とは言っていない」と述べた上で「基地をどこに配置するのかを決めるのは日本政府でなければならない」との考えを示し、移設先は日本側による決定であることを強調した。名護市辺野古移設計画については「日本政府が別の場所に配置すると決めれば、私たちの政府はそれを受け入れるだろう」と述べ、米政府が計画見直しに柔軟な姿勢を取る可能性にも言及した。
