The Weekly Watch

Waging Peace

It's the hundred year anniversary of Armistice Day....

And then they stopped, at 11:00 in the morning, one century ago. They stopped, on schedule. It wasn’t that they’d gotten tired or come to their senses. Both before and after 11 o’clock they were simply following orders. The Armistice agreement that ended World War I had set 11 o’clock as quitting time.

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Armistice Day was established by Congress in 1926 to “perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations, (and added later in 1938) a day dedicated to the cause of world peace,” Armistice Day was widely recognized for almost thirty years.

In 1954 the holiday was was hijacked by a militaristic US congress and renamed Veterans Day, morphing into an occasion for flag waving and military parades. Today few Americans understand the original purpose of Armistice Day, or even remember it. The message of peace seeking has been all but erased. We no longer have a national day to recognize or reflect upon international peace.

Celebrating the first Armistice Day in Chicago

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Much of the following is excepted from David Swanson's excellent article worth a full read

WW1, the Great War, the war to end all wars was only a continuation of the forever war. Recall that the Great War was the worst, most concentrated violence that white people had ever imposed on themselves, and that they were not used to it. On top of the dramatic death toll, the United States shipped soldiers and sailors with the flu off to the trenches of Europe from which the deadly disease spread around the world, killing perhaps 2 or 3 times the number of people killed directly in the war. Ignorance about the flu was encouraged by policies that forbid newspapers to report anything less than cheerful during a war. Spain didn’t have those restrictions. So news of the epidemic was first reported in Spain, and people began calling the disease the Spanish Flu.

But can we really say that the war was won? If ever there was a conflict that both sides lost, this was it. For one thing, it didn’t have to happen. There were rivalries among Europe’s major powers, but in June, 1914, they were getting along amicably. None openly claimed part of another’s territory. Germany was Britain’s largest trading partner. The royal families of Britain, Germany, and Russia were closely related, and King George V and his cousins Kaiser Wilhelm II and Tsar Nicholas II had all recently been together for the wedding of Wilhelm’s daughter in Berlin. And yet by early August of that year, after the epic chain of blunders, accusations, and ultimatums that followed the assassination of the Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand, at Sarajevo, the entire continent was in flames.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/11/05/a-hundred-years-after-the-...

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Sadly it was a time when the world was redistributed and the road to more war was insured. Smart observers predicted World War II the moment they saw the nasty terms of the peace agreement that Wilson helped create from his sick bed. The treaty was a fit of collective lunacy which would eventually kill more than the first world war and its flu combined. And the legacy of World War II would be the endless ongoing slaughter of millions of civilians in a normalized permawar that has ended all peace. And that has included permanent WWII propaganda rendering it impossible to question WWII and therefore much more convenient never to think about WWI.

None the less, WWI is the subject of some great anti-war films. Among my favorites are Kubrick's Paths of Glory with its horrors of trench warfare (5 min charge scene gives a sense of the stupidity) Here's a 10 min discussion of the film.

King of Hearts
proves being crazy is better than the insanity of war. Here's the closing 5 minutes.

And a last one, the 1971 Dolton Trumbo classic, "Johnny Got His Gun" (full 2 hour film) is difficult to watch. If you want a taste a 7 min review.

One reason peace advocates have not been and still are not listened to is the system of propaganda first created for World War I. The propaganda machinery invented by President Woodrow Wilson and his Committee on Public Information had drawn Americans into the war with exaggerated and fictional tales of German atrocities...

Historian Adam Hochschild argues war resisters are the real heroes who should be honored, as Trump visits Paris to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of WWI (video or text)
https://therealnews.com/stories/french-president-macron-praises-nazi-col...

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Congress passed an Armistice Day resolution calling for “exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding … inviting the people of the United States to observe the day in schools and churches with appropriate ceremonies of friendly relations with all other peoples.” Later, Congress added that November 11th was to be “a day dedicated to the cause of world peace.”

That is the tradition we need to restore. It lasted in the United States up through the 1950s and even longer in some other countries under the name Remembrance Day. It was only after the United States had nuked Japan, destroyed Korea, begun a Cold War, created the CIA, and established a permanent military industrial complex with major permanent bases around the globe, that the U.S. government renamed Armistice Day as Veterans Day on June 1, 1954.

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Reach for a new Armistice...Efforts at Peace

The First Nations Peoples wish to lead us toward peace. Stuart Myiow, Wolf Clan Representative of the Mohawk Traditional Council, Kahnawake of the Five Nations Longhouse Confederacy, Turtle Island was raised exclusively within the ceremonial cycle of the traditional longhouse people. He tells about the Great Law of Peace (Video or text)
https://therealnews.com/stories/what-can-humanity-learn-from-the-great-l...

"America", said Adams, “goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. Otherwise, she might gain an empire and, in the process, lose her soul." … The best way to pay tribute to our veterans, living and dead, is to stop making so many of them – in other words, to have fewer wars. https://original.antiwar.com/Jack_Kenny/2018/11/08/remembering-armistice...

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Will the US prevent peace? Why of course....

Afghanistan
Afghan Peace Talks in Moscow involving the Taliban and the government as well as many other countries...but not the US.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNifLLLR650 (3.5 min)
The landmark peace conference hosted by Russia could mark a shift in the 17-year war. The Taliban is there in its highest level diplomatic engagement in years. Vijay Prashad and Aaron Mate discuss the situation (video or text)
https://therealnews.com/stories/the-taliban-in-moscow-a-turning-point-fo...

Korea

Tim Shorrock of the Nation: There’s been this back and forth between the Trump administration and the Moon Jae in administration about South Korea moving too fast on its inter-Korea peacemaking, and diffusing the tensions between North and South Korea.
https://therealnews.com/stories/can-washingtons-hawks-sabotage-koreas-peace

Syria victory with no peace?
Russia, the US, Turkey, Iran, and Israel all continue bombing despite Assad's victory against the rebels.
https://original.antiwar.com/Brett_Wilkins/2018/11/08/latest-us-led-air-...

http://videotarts.com/video/vDjoHJEWzIo/syrian-war-report-november-9-201...

Yemen is our shame...

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis have both called for a ceasefire in Yemen. Meanwhile, The Washington Post reports that the Trump administration is considering designating the Houthis a “terrorist organization.

The U.S. has sold billions of dollars in weaponry to Saudi Arabia to stop Shiite rebels known as Houthis, who Washington and the coalition consider a proxy for Iran.
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/civilian-deaths-in-yemen-increasing-de...

Andrea Carboni from ACLED discusses his organisation’s new study which shows 56,000 have died as a direct result of conflict in Yemen, what steps can be taken to create peace in Yemen,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxHR9aWxDgM (8 min)

But wait there's more...Iran
The US desire for control, oil, and power can't be satiated. Iran is in the sights...
Jimmy in a great panel discussion... "How they start the Iranian War."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVP-CLnbFCA (6 min)

Former Iranian ambassador to Germany and the spokesperson for Iran in its nuclear deal negotiations Seyed Hossein Mousavian discusses Trump’s new sanctions on Iran & says Iran can resist them https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_7RQ2KE05M (11 min)

And don't forget our own hemisphere...

And this president and his entire administration will stand with the freedom fighters. The troika of tyranny in this hemisphere—Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua—has finally met its match. Warmonger in chief, John Bolton

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With Bob Scheer, Rubin expounds on a range of topics including progressive media and the corrupting influence of arms dealing in U.S. foreign policy. “I mean we are by far the biggest arms dealer in the world,” he says. “And a lot of the enemies, the official enemies that our government has, [were] in one way or another created by these arms deals. … We’re making a lot of money by selling [Saudi Arabia] arms that are being used in a genocide in Yemen. And the discussion’s just nowhere to be found.” (audio or text)
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/some-of-our-biggest-cheerleaders-for-w...

US soldiers have not been fighting and dying for freedom and democracy, they have been fighting and dying for imperialism, Raytheon profit margins, and crude oil.
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/the-best-way-to-honor-war-veterans-is...

War, it's a racket, all right. A few profit -- and the many pay. But there is a way to stop it. You can't end it by disarmament conferences. You can't eliminate it by peace parleys at Geneva. Well-meaning but impractical groups can't wipe it out by resolutions. It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of war.

Smedley Butler (War is a Racket)

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War is bipartisan, but the recent Mid Term Elections were not...
JtC was on target when he reported the big winners were the 1%.

Lee Camp's analysis is pretty much a bullseye too (1st 10 min.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4eEydYi9oE

Ralph Nader's analysis was interesting.

Conservatives and liberals, self-styled voters, are ripped off the same way. So the major redirections that we can win soon are living wage- that’s a left-right support among workers. You think conservative workers at Wal-Mart don’t want a better wage? The second is full Medicare for all. The third is dealing with the $1.4 trillion of gouging student debt that is aborting their opportunities in life year after year. The fourth is law enforcement, law and order crackdown on corporate crooks. From the ghettos to Wall Street they’re ripping off trillions of dollars of money that people earned.

https://therealnews.com/stories/ralph-nader-on-how-the-democratic-party-...

Abby Martin also sees the lack of a progressive agenda as the undoing of the dims
https://therealnews.com/stories/abby-martin-the-democratic-partys-abysma...

Supporting Ralph and Abby's concept of focusing on issues, Jimmy, Ron, and Stef discuss the success of progressive ballot initiatives in Red States
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9rjr_H5bwI

How will the mid-term effect our foreign policy? Not at all. Expect more war. Many new dims are ex-CIA and State Dept. hawks (8 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx-iXQ8P8k0

While most are fixed on election spin the wars rage on. Protests in the street for Beauregard Sessions, but not against all our wars? Celebrating diversity but a complete failure to recognize our alliance with the repressive Saudi and Israeli regimes.

Jimmy takes on Cory Booker's anti-BDS position.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVW1h_JD-iA (9 min)

The media focuses on the election of Islamic women... Palestinian American Rashida Tlaib in Michigan and Somali American Ilhan Omar in Minnesota became the first two Muslim women ever elected to Congress. Rashida Tlaib is a Democratic Socialist who supports the Palestinian right of return and a one-state solution. She also supports Medicare for all, a $15 minimum wage and abolishing ICE. She plans to introduce a Justice for All Civil Rights Act.
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/11/9/rashida_tlaib_on_impeaching_trump...
Yet she has a poorly informed understanding of Saudi US relations..."We send a lot of money—I don’t know, I think it’s in billions—of money to the Saudi government."
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/11/9/congresswoman_elect_rashida_tlaib...

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Media
blocks the way to peace with misinformation, distraction, omission, among other tricks.

Where are the Afghan stories? No one talks about it nor the Trillion plus we've spent there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ptTuKqYn9k (5 min)
Now our goal is the get rid of the Taliban? That guarantees forever war.

Do you ever hear about Pakistan? Poor Pakistan is caught in the cross fire.
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/u-s-pakistan-relations-on-a-razors-edge/

Why are we ill-informed? Consider the fate of Truthtellers...
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is in the news again after reports of a “security incident” at the Ecuadorean Embassy where he is currently confined. He is denied contact with visitors and his health may be in decline. Afshin Rattansi discusses these concerns as well as the role political changes in Ecuador could play in determining Assange’s fate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kho3jOIvH5s (7 min)

Republicans and Democrats like it that way. They practice the politics of distraction and go on tacitly supporting one indecisive intervention after another, all the while basking in the embarrassment of riches bestowed upon them by the corporate military industrial complex.
https://original.antiwar.com/Danny_Sjursen/2018/11/05/2012334409/

Amanda Zackem's film “American Psychosis,” with Chris Hedges is their attempt to make people think more deeply about the world we’re living in.
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/has-america-gone-insane/ (11 min with text interview)

Chris and David Harvey discuss neoliberalism on his show this week (and next week too)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-YO5EROH-I (26 min)

Chris and Jeremy Scahill in a longer wider ranging conversation (audio or text)
https://theintercept.com/2018/11/07/chris-hedges-on-elections-christian-...

Noam returned to Amy's show this week to discuss the midterms, nuclear war, and climate chaos. (video or text)
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/11/5/noam_chomsky_on_midterms_republic...
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/11/5/a_march_to_disaster_noam_chomsky
https://www.democracynow.org/2018/11/5/noam_chomsky_the_future_of_organized

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War is glorified. Win at all costs...
Consider Sgt York, conscripted Quaker pacifist, celebrated for his war prowess.
or SGT. STUBBY: AN AMERICAN HERO tells the incredible true story of America’s most decorated dog. After being rescued off the streets by a young soldier on the eve of World War I, Stubby is given a home, a family, and the chance to embark on the adventure that would define a century...it's a heartwarming "tail" for the entire family!
http://www.stubbymovie.com/
Quite a contrast to the earlier films of WWI cited.

The transition from Armistice day to veteran's day clearly illustrates the subtle push for war pervasive in our culture....

If we really wanted to honour veterans, we would abolish Veterans Day and replace it with a day that celebrates peace, not war. Peace is a better way to honour the sacrifice of veterans like me than a day designed to recruit the next generation of soldiers we’ll have to thank for their service in yet another war.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/11/us-observe-armisti...

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It is in our mutual interest to work together for peace. Most of us want similar things...a biosphere which promotes life instead of spreading extinction, a society which values people and nurtures children, an economy that provides productive work and rewards, a global peace with good will and cooperation among nations....

It's the 100th edition of the Weekly Watch on the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day. Peace is the theme of this column, and I try to make it a theme in my life. I was touched and affected by the Civil Rights movement (hey I'm from Alabama), but I was a child of the peace movement. We have not gotten there yet my friends. We have to seek peace within and among ourselves. We have to seek peace with the ecosystem. We must find a balance on the brink of extinction.
We must learn to harmonize. Peace!

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smiley7's picture

King of Hearts, maybe the best movie ever; metaphorically rich. Alan Bates is extraordinary. One of my favorite lines is when the Duke of Earl answers Bates question "about why the monkey" sitting by his side, the Duke replies, "Don't worry, he's one of us."

Hey, ran into a family member from the ski shop and relayed the essence of your story; she was very pleased and said she would tell the owner and it would warn his heart to hear about it. Unfortunately, she also shared with me that they are closing the ski shop; Near retirement age and not making any money--hard to compete with online sales. We had a long conservation, she is a lovely friend. Thought you would like to know.

And fuck Trump for dissing the ceremony because of rain.

Thanks for the OT and have a great week.

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Lookout's picture

@smiley7

Thanks for the hardware relay. I've been meaning to write them, but life's been getting in the way. Hope to do so before the first of the year.

I'll bet everyone in France is glad Tiny Hands is afraid he'll melt if he goes out. I would prefer him to stay in if I had to see him.

Have a peaceful productive day and thanks for coming by!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@smiley7 I'd better watch that; I've never heard of it before.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

smiley7's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

On the computer thing, like i said, no techie. My son's a gamer and come to think of it, he doesn't use Apple products.

Fun thing, more than a decade ago, i stopped by one of my young, college age ski instructor's for a drink and conversation and he had a car radiator hooked up to a desktop without it's shell and a large screen to game. I was amazed. I admire those who know their way around on computers.

A trailer for the movie:

Hope you enjoy.

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Azazello's picture

But I noticed a curious omission. When that war-mongering loon was going through the history of how "we" have had to wait for some sort of casus belli before starting a war, he didn't mention 9/11. Strange, huh ?

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We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

Lookout's picture

@Azazello

What I really find odd is the way 9/11 was carried out primarily by the Saudis, but it is the Afghanis fault...it's the Taliban - cause they supported Al Qaeda. Now we support Al Qaeda in Syria and no one is the wiser. Life is full of irony heh?

Glad you enjoyed the clip. I thought it was pretty funny despite the subject.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

The vain glorious 'honoring veterans' meme is just wrong. Give Peace a Chance!

Johnny We Hardly Knew You from Larkworthy Antfarm on Vimeo.

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Lookout's picture

@QMS

is give peace a chance. How would the world be different if John was still with us? I wonder...
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyzSk8HVZTc]

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

@Lookout
peace is part and parcel of our continued existence.

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Lookout's picture

@QMS
(4 min)
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-hyEKIdJWM]

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

@QMS
the War to End All Wars:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-38PB_5ozc]

Some documentary makers brought Eric Bogle back to William McBride's grave, decades after writing the song.

I've just walked around this graveyard ... there's only 400-odd boys buried here, it's quite a small one ... and you look at their ages, I'm looking at them now ... 21, 24, 24, 21 ... they're boys. They're children. When war starts we send our children to kill their children ...

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCocS6HWrvQ]

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Lookout's picture

@UntimelyRippd

The more we think about war, the less likely we are to perpetrate them. That war (WWI) was horrid as are all deadly conflicts. The loss of young lives...some of whom might have positively changed the world had they not fallen.
2.5 min
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qDkC4yJxdc]

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

edit: oops sorry Lookout, wrong essay. This is not the OT. doh

peace

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Lookout's picture

@eyo

I find comfort in the familiarity of the stars...no matter where in the Northern Hemisphere you are. Sunday is shooting day around here. They are preparing to kill Bambi in a couple of weeks...bam, bam, bam, boom. Lots of turkeys around lately (some even have wings). Take care and avoid the carbon monoxide in the exhaust....it will exhaust you so to speak.

Trying to send good vibes out your way out to those on the left coast in smoke and fire.

We are livin' neath the great big dipper...
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPoCexljNuA]

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

Smart observers predicted World War II the moment they saw the nasty terms of the peace agreement that Wilson helped create from his sick bed. The treaty was a fit of collective lunacy which would eventually kill more than the first world war and its flu combined.

Wilson was a class-A bastard, and does not deserve being taught as the wonderful visionary founder of the League of Nations, as he was when I was a girl.

I believe that under Wilson we had both the institution of the Federal Reserve and the Espionage Act, as well as that cursed treaty.

Bastard.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

Even a temporary block is both unexpected and welcome.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Lookout's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

The Standing Rock protest were powerful to me. I had hoped (and still do) that the 7th generation prophecy was coming true.

EL explained in his Wed OT why...
https://caucus99percent.com/content/wednesday-open-thread-deja-vu-vu-vu-vu

Fracking An oil and gas drilling boom that has lost 280 billion dollars in the last decade and is being financed by banks and wall street. Companies that can't even pay the interest on their debt getting even more loans and investment capital in a market area that is guaranteed to produce only gluts and reduced prices the more it succeeds. Does this sound at all reminiscent of Penn Square? I tried to ferret out the total debt load of this industry and came up blank. Not the most prolongued, sophisticated or dedicated search, but everybody is talking about the losses, and even the debt, but no numbers for the debt. The losses will have to tell the story. Back in 2014, during an oil price dip, about 100 frackers walked away from some 70 billion in debt. Bankrupt. Who held it? Dunno. It is clear that the banks and brokers are now in it strictly for the commissions (and why not with interest rates so low?), and the fracking company CEOs are in it for their obscene compensation. Their compensation and bonuses come not from finding, extracting and selling product, but from finding and extracting money in the form of debt and even capital.

As to Wilson...he reminds me of Temer in Brazil suppressing Lula

On June 16, 1918, Eugene Debs made a speech in Canton, Ohio in opposition to World War I and was arrested under the Espionage Act of 1917. He was convicted, sentenced to serve ten years in prison and disenfranchised for life.
http://www.prosebeforehos.com/word-of-the-day/01/20/the-anti-war-speech-...

These words were used later to sentence Debs to prison for ten years under the Sedition Act of 1918. It was from there that he received nearly one million votes for president in 1920 (3.5 percent of the popular vote). He ran as simply “Convict No. 9653.”
https://progressive.org/dispatches/eugene-debs-got-1-million-votes-presi...

Wilson was not the progressive he is sold as in US history.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

magiamma's picture

peace love and flowers, hari krishna, what's your sign. Yep. Regan. That's what I remember as the turning point. The first day of office he cancelled a budget item for schools and the next day he put the same amount of money into arming groups opposing the Sandinistas, iirc. That was the beginning. I had no idea then, how carefully planned that transition was. Money to be made. Endless war. Sending young men to kill each other. (Testosterone makes you fearless. Begins to dampen down slowly at age 19 and gently recedes as one ages. Less testosterone is why young girls are better at math.)

War is sheer madness. Make peace. Sow love. Om. Thanks for keeping on. Smile

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Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation

Hot Air Website, Twitter, Facebook

Lookout's picture

@magiamma
E O Wilson sees it as an evolutionary character of our species (13 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggO0Aso-eYk

Enjoy the day. Ours is lovely, but 1-2 inches of rain due tonight and tomorrow. I need to get in another walk before it hits.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

@Lookout
I just know what I learned in biology class about his brilliant work with ants and insect social structures and underlying genetics.

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Beware the bullshit factories.

Lookout's picture

@Timmethy2.0

So I've had a good bit of exposure to EO. He's been working to create a protected area around the delta system near Mobile...
Here's an hour documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEynUn8VW3Y
or just a 5 min trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXwOIqVPyDs

Good to "see" you. Happy Armistice day!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

@Lookout
n/t

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Beware the bullshit factories.

divineorder's picture

@magiamma onto our precious planet.

@magiamma

DIVEST !

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

Lookout's picture

@divineorder

I don't twitter so I miss that stuff. Medea and code pink are at the forefront of the antiwar movement.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

@magiamma
old girls? young boys? grown women? grown men? i'm not sure what you're trying to say there.

all evidence i know suggests that on average (i said, ON AVERAGE) and possibly at the extreme end, males are -- and i'm sorry if this ruffles feathers, which it probably should, because it treads a very dangerous path -- innately (or alternatively, developmentally) "better" at math (however you want to measure that) than are females. HOWEVER, there is also considerable evidence that girls (and eventually, women) would ON AVERAGE be a lot better at math IF they weren't treated with contempt by math teachers going all the way back to elementary school. (That's actually an overspecification of the problem -- the general problem is that our culture continues to treat math as something that is not, should not, and need not be of any great interest to most girls.)

regardless, the most important thing about that paragraph is the phrase "on average". the 90th percentile of women may be behind the 90th percentile of men, but they're still way, way ahead of most men (i won't cite any particular percentile, because I don't know what's been reported, and I'm guessing it's neither accurate nor precise). this is the critical subtlety that is almost always lost on people when analyzing comparative psychological/sociological statistics.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

magiamma's picture

@UntimelyRippd
teen girls and teen boys... very complicated and do not have the time to research sufficiently. Even a cursory search brings up much conflicting and complex data. I concede to you. And apologize for any assumptions until I can back them up. peace.

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Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation

Hot Air Website, Twitter, Facebook

@magiamma
so I don't know whether there's anything to be conceded.

I do know that almost all education data are generally contradictory and/or inconclusive, because it's almost impossible to do fully controlled experiments on a large enough population to measure what are often fairly small differences. (The difficulty being, small annual differences -- and few controlled experiments even try to go beyond a single academic year -- can add up to a really big difference after 12 years.)

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Lookout's picture

@UntimelyRippd

...of 8th graders (for most of my career), I would suggests we are all individuals...male and female. Generalities are just that...in general. From my anecdotal observations girls tend to mature and think more deeply around age 13 than boys. As to math skills? Don't know.
https://www.nctm.org/Publications/Teaching-Children-Mathematics/Blog/Cur...
Girls are now doing just as well as boys on math assessment tests, according to a new study of over 7 million schoolchildren from 10 states according to this story
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92881902

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

divineorder's picture

We don’t talk about peace enough, do we?

FWIW here is the Dalai Lama with some thoughts about peace.

Have a peaceful day, and a peaceful life, all !

Hugs

https://youtu.be/Xnr2SPHLraI

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

Lookout's picture

@divineorder

Thanks for the clip! What if we had a department of Peace?
Dalai-Lama-XIV-2.jpg

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

divineorder's picture

@Lookout I read Twitter for news items from the organizations and people I follow. Caitlin Johnstone has written about how to set up a newsfeed on Twitter. Good stuff.

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

@divineorder
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nyezksbfrnw]

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Lookout's picture

@UntimelyRippd

I knew a feller come from the city he picked up a little striped Kitty ....he's movin' on, movin' on. We helt our nose while he buried his clothes, he's movin' on....
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmLJdd2Rsnc]

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

@Lookout
i went off and watched some clips of jethro burns playing with steve goodman.

up
0 users have voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

The Liberal Moonbat's picture

...November 5th came and went, and I didn't blow anything up.

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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

Lookout's picture

@The Liberal Moonbat

The celebration of Guy Fawkes Day , observed each November fifth, was effectively ended two hundred and forty-three years ago in America during the Revolution, in large part due to George Washington. Here is his order on November 5, 1775.

I think there were some marches in Denver this year?

The UK parties hardy. https://matadornetwork.com/read/coolest-2018-guy-fawkes-celebrations-uk/

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

@The Liberal Moonbat
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHkvD7-u7y8]

up
0 users have voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Raggedy Ann's picture

I got busy watching the videos instead of commenting and going back. So many interesting events.

Hope all is well. We are getting a snow storm tonight and tomorrow. If it dumps more than a couple inches, I’ll either have a delayed start to work or stay home enty. We’ll see how it plays out.

Have a beautiful Sunday, everyone! Pleasantry

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

Lookout's picture

@Raggedy Ann
according to the weather people, but you know what meteorologist means don't you? ...LIAR!

We do get snows in this corner of Alabama. In fact we have the southern most ski slope in the US on Lookout Mt.

All the best!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

mhagle's picture

Bunch of stuff here I didn't know or had forgotten. I appreciate it.

Peace.

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Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

Lookout's picture

@mhagle

...like the flu killed twice as many as WWI. Glad you came by!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

@Lookout
after the NHL's number one star died of flu.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

@Lookout

those too old for the draft who likely were even more vulnerable to the flu than males of draft age.

The flu became a pandemic rather than an epidemic because men returning from World War I carried the flu to their home lands around the globe. That was an unintended consequence of war, as was the rise of Hitler. (One could say that the rise of Hitler was attributable to the peace treaty, not the war. While that is so, no war, no peace treaty.)

Unintended consequences of war are among the reasons we should evolve past war. Wo iw 5h3 utter insanity of killing innocent people who reside in a country because its leader(s) did something that the leader(s) of another nation disliked.It's been with us since we dwelt in caves. Enough!

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A blues about WWI. "The last kind words I hear my Daddy say"
Last Kind Words Blues. Maybe the most haunting blues ever, about her father leaving for "that German war". Must be listened to , today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mq8RBmtB5UE

Don't know the method for posting live links. Use googletube at your own risk.
Rhiannon does a helluva version, too.

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Lookout's picture

@pindar's revenge

Here's Rhiannon's version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6UrSOTMiOE

In case you would like to know, to embed video it is...
[video: link here add another bracket

Can one escape the google monster? I use duckduck ....but I also youtube (without an account)

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

@Lookout
Thanks for the Rhiannon link. Been following her since the Carolina Chocolate Drops.
Yes, one can avoid the Great Giggle. utube is tempting, but I hit it only a couple times a year. It's one of the greatest spy mechanisms that the giggle uses, take a look at all the scripts that run when you hit it.
I used to spend hours on youtube listening to lots of songs I hadn't heard in decades, and watch creative videos for some of my favorites (Smithsonian Institute Blues, e.g.). I even appeared in some backyard music videos on it (I think they're all gone, now). It was fun to look up the worldwide view stats and see that someone in Norway or Singapore watched it.
Then "The Evil" bought it.
I found that I can do very well without it.
Yep, duckin' it beats googlin' it; Startpage has some good advanced features, too. But I bend over backwards to avoid feeding the animal.

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Lookout's picture

@pindar's revenge

with the Chocolate Drops...prior to their demise. All good musicians.

I use youtube a good deal...Jimmy Dore and vintage music through farming and mechanical how-tos. I also use Amazon - Bezo's monster. Don't like it...kinda like buying things wrapped in plastic. The AI tracking and algorithms these behemoths use is staggering...probably have nothing on the NSA though (once played in a band - Polynomial and the Algorythms). I believe they are listening through our devices. There was a conversation the other week here on c99 about all the incidents of talking about things and having ad about the topic show up. Life in the modern world is quite a conundrum.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

@Lookout

Nice, you got to play with or alongside the Drops! I am soooo jealous (grin)
I love how Rhiannon's taking the banjo back to its roots.

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Bisbonian's picture

@pindar's revenge , to the Black Twig Picker's version...but love these other two, as well. I've never seen a video of it, unfortunately. One of these days, I need to learn it. A related song is Clifton Hicks' version of German War. DEFINITELY got to learn this one.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-4rku2ms20]

Clifton was, at one time, spokesman for Iraq Veterans Against the War.

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"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

@Bisbonian

The raw emotion in her voice, saying goodbye to her father, remembering his "last kind words", who mentions "the rich man's land". The guitar arrangement -- not fast and flashy, but very expressive. You can read much into the back story of a black man who goes to war. In that point of history, why did he do that? To improve the standing of black people? Drafted? We don't know. It could be similar to the motivation of Private Gunther, the young German American from Highlandtown in Baltimore, who charged the German line in the last minutes before Armistice. His comrades and even the Germans told him to stop. Why did he charge? Because of the prejudice against German descendants in America?
Not only is this song one of the most haunting blues I've ever heard, it's a window into history.

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I'm still working on it but there was defintely a sequence of events beginning with the Armistice and the French need for revenge against Germany. That and the Depression created enough resentment in Germany for Hitler to exploit for his own evil ends and the tragedy that followed. Also the huge mess that Churchill helped create in the Middle East, that Trump is currently making worse, came from the short-sighted way WWI ended.

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Beware the bullshit factories.

Lookout's picture

@Timmethy2.0

...and created countries like Iraq.

but it started earlier. Here's Reilly Ace of Spies in 1901 stealing a map of oil wells for the UK in the start of a TV series of arms deal and war. Sidney Reilly was supposedly the basis of the Bond stories. Carving up the ME was in the plans for awhile.

The NYer article was interesting. Glad you liked it!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

@Timmethy2.0
whatever it was that some folks thought the UK ought to have gotten out of the Treaty of Versailles. Supposedly he remarked something along the lines of, "I thought I did quite well, seated as I was with Napoleon on my left and Jesus Christ on my right." (referring to Clemenceau and Wilson.)

Though it must be said that, considering the price they had paid, the French thirst for revenge was pretty understandable.

And not just revenge, but security, this having been the second time in less than 50 years that the Boche had poured across the frontier. Their fears were well-enough founded, given the events 20 years subsequent. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned here before that when I was in France in 1980, there was an op-ed piece in the International Herald-Tribune by a writer who felt compelled to explain to Americans that France was quite happy with a divided Germany, and did not view reunification as a particularly desirable objective.

up
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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

because they just had to get in another morning of killing?

*bangs head against wall*

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Lookout's picture

@HenryAWallace

Interesting story in Swanson's article...

Henry Nicholas John Gunther had been born in Baltimore, Maryland, to parents who had immigrated from Germany. In September 1917 he had been drafted to help kill Germans. When he had written home from Europe to describe how horrible the war was and to encourage others to avoid being drafted, he had been demoted (and his letter censored).

After that, he had told his buddies that he would prove himself. As the deadline of 11:00 a.m. approached on that final day in November, Henry got up, against orders, and bravely charged with his bayonet toward two German machine guns. The Germans were aware of the Armistice and tried to wave him off. He kept approaching and shooting. When he got close, a short burst of machine gun fire ended his life at 10:59 a.m.

Henry was the last of the 11,000 men to be killed or wounded between the signing of the Armistice six hours earlier and its taking effect. Henry Gunther was given his rank back, but not his life.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

@Lookout

out of war." However, he had not gone to war during his first term because he thought the US unprepared for it. Unlike Cheney, who said, "you go to war with the army you have, Wilson got the military equipped first. So, I have a sneaking suspicion that Wilson knew very well as he ran for re-election that he was going to ask Congress for a war vote during his second term.

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@Lookout

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Bisbonian's picture

joined with VFP Tucson in a march to reclaim Armistice Day as a day for peace....around the perimeter of the historic Presidio San Augustin...waving banners, chanting silly slogans, and propping up flags for the local statues to hold:

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"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

Lookout's picture

@Bisbonian

Looks like y'all had great weather too. Thanks for the Clifton Hicks tune too!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”