The ProgBlog (News and views from the TÜBINGEN PROGRESSIVE AMERICANS)

China Keitetsi in Tübingen

Gus Hagelberg — 2007-11-19T17:33:00Z

I wanted to tell you all about a women I heard speak last night here in Tübingen. I also had the opportunity to meet and speak with her. At the big theater house here in town there was an intercultural evening with music and speeches. There were guests from every continent. It was a wonderful evening.

China Keitetsi also spoke. Her story is terribly moving. She was a child soldier in Uganda from the age of 8 til 18. She had her first child at the age of 14 and her second at 18. She was separated from both of them for ten years. She only spoke for a few minutes so I didnt get to find out so much about her, but she is an amazing women. She spoke of a childhood where she only new the sounds of gun fire and how she lost her parents and sisters.

Somehow she survived and has begun a new life. She has written two books, one only available in German. Her first book became a bestseller in Germany. She now lives in Denmark and is working on projects to help prevent children from fighting in wars. You can check out her web site (although the English needs some touching up) (www.chinakeitetsi.info). She said if you want to order her book in English you can go to amazon and get the British version.

China asked me if I new of any managers in the US. I dont know exactly what she is looking for but I guess somehow to help promote her, promote her books, promote her as a speaker. If anyone has ideas on how to help her please let me know.

Another special part of the evening was that Susa did the simultaneous translation for China. She did a great job.

Speech by Mayor of Salt Lake City

Gus Hagelberg — 2007-11-17T11:09:00Z

[This speech was sent to me via email. Ted Turners sister Laura Seydel originally sent the email. I am very pleased to see that such words are being spoken in the US public]

Salt Lake City Mayor says We wont take it anymore!
October 27, 2007 City & County Building Salt Lake City, Utah

Address by Mayor Ross C. Rocky Anderson

Today, as we come together once again in this great city, we raise
our voices in unison to say to President Bush, to Vice President
Cheney, to other members of the Bush Administration (past and
present), to a majority of Congress, including Utahs entire
congressional delegation, and to much of the mainstream media: You
have failed us miserably and we wont take it any more.

While we had every reason to expect far more of you, you have been
pompous, greedy, cruel, and incompetent as you have led this great
nation to a moral, military, and national security abyss. You have
breached trust with the American people in the most egregious ways.
You have utterly failed in the performance of your jobs. You have
undermined our Constitution, permitted the violation of the most
fundamental treaty obligations, and betrayed the rule of law.

You have engaged in, or permitted, heinous human rights abuses of the
sort never before countenanced in our nations history as a matter of
official policy. You have sent American men and women to kill and be
killed on the basis of lies, on the basis of shifting justifications,
without competent leadership, and without even a coherent plan for
this monumental blunder.

We are here to tell you: We wont take it any more!

You have acted in direct co ntravention of values that we, as
Americans who love our country, hold dear. You have deceived us in
the most cynical, outrageous ways. You have undermined, or allowed
the undermining of, our constitutional system of checks and balances
among the three presumed co-equal branches of government. You have
helped lead our nation to the brink of fascism, of a dictatorship
contemptuous of our nations treaty obligations, federal statutory
law, our Constitution, and the rule of law.

Because of you, and because of your jingoistic false patriotism,
our world is far more dangerous, our nation is far more despised, and
the threat of terrorism is far greater than ever before. It has been
absolutely astounding how you have committed the most horrendous
acts, causing such needless tragedy in the lives of millions of
people, yet you wear your so-called religion o n your sleeves,
asserting your God-is-on-my-side nonsense - when what you have done
flies in the face of any religious or humanitarian tradition. Your
hypocrisy is mind-boggling - and disgraceful.

What part of Thou shalt not kill do you not understand? What part
of the Golden rule do you not understand? What part of be honest,
be responsible, and be accountable dont you understand? What
part of Blessed are the peacekeepers do you not understand?

Because of you, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed,
many thousands of people have suffered horrendous lifetime injuries,
and millions have been run off from their homes. For the sake of our
nation, for the sake of our children, and for the sake of our
brothers and sisters around the world, we are morally compelled to
say, as loudly as we can, We wont take it any more!

[**from Gus: the rest of the speech was crossed out in the email I received. Dont know why.]

As United States agents kidnap, disappear, and torture human beings
around the world, you justify, you deceive, and you cover up. We find
what you have done to men, women and children, and to the good name
and reputation of the United States, so appalling, so unconscionable,
and so outrageous as to compel us to call upon you to step aside and
allow other men and women who are competent, true to our nations
values, and with high moral principles to stand in your places - for
the good of our nation, for the good of our children, and for the
good of our world.

In the case of the President and Vice President, this means
impeachment and removal from office, without any further delay from a
complacent, complicit Congress, the Democratic majority of which
cares more about political gain i n 2008 than it does about the
vindication of our Constitution, the rule of law, and democratic
accountability.It means the election of people as President and Vice
President who, unlike most of the presidential candidates from both
major parties, have not aided and abetted in the perpetration of the
illegal, tragic, devastating invasion and occupation of Iraq. And it
means the election of people as President and Vice President who will
commit to return our nation to the moral and strategic imperative of
refraining from torturing human beings.

In the case of the majority of Congress, it means electing people who
are diligent enough to learn the facts, including reading available
National Intelligence Estimates, before voting to go to war. It means
electing to Congress men and women who will jealously guard
Congresss sole prerogative to declare war. I t means electing to
Congress men and women who will not submit like vapid lap dogs to
presidential requests for blank checks to engage in so-called
preemptive wars, for legislation permitting warrantless wiretapping
of communications involving US citizens, and for dangerous,
irresponsible, saber-rattling legislation like the recent Kyl-
Lieberman amendment.

We must avoid the trap of focusing the blame solely upon President
Bush and Vice-President Cheney. This is not just about a few people
who have wronged our country - and the world. They were enabled by
members of both parties in Congress, they were enabled by the
pathetic mainstream news media, and, ultimately, they have been
enabled by the American people - 40% of whom are so ill-informed they
still think Iraq was behind the 9/11 attacks - a people who know and
care more about baseball statis tics and which drunken starlets are
wearing underwear than they know and care about the atrocities being
committed every single day in our name by a government for which we
need to take responsibility.

As loyal Americans, without regard to political partisanship as
veterans, as teachers, as religious leaders, as working men and
women, as students, as professionals, as businesspeople, as public
servants, as retirees, as people of all ages, races, ethnic origins,
sexual orientations, and faiths we are here to say to the Bush
administration, to the majority of Congress, and to the mainstream
media: You have violated your solemn responsibilities. You have
undermined our democracy, spat upon our Constitution, and engaged in
outrageous, despicable acts. You have brought our nation to a point
of immorality, inhumanity, and illegality of immense, trag ic,
unprecedented proportions.

But we will live up to our responsibilities as citizens, as brothers
and sisters of those who have suffered as a result of the imperial
bullying of the United States government, and as moral actors who
must take a stand: And we will, and must, mean it when we say We
wont take it any more.

Silence is complicity. Only by standing up for whats right and never
letting down can we say we are doing our part. Our government, on the
basis of a campaign we now know was entirely fraudulent, attacked and
militarily occupied a nation that posed no danger to the United
States. Our government, acting in our name, has caused immense,
unjustified death and destruction.

It all started five years ago, yet where have we, the American
people, been? At this point, we are responsible. We get together once
in a while at demonstrations and complain about Bush and Cheney,
about Congress, and about the pathetic news media. We point fingers
and yell a lot. Then most people politely go away until another
demonstration a few months later.

How many people can honestly say they have spent as much time
learning about and opposing the outrages of the Bush administration
as they have spent watching sports or mindless television programs
during the past five years? Escapist, time-sapping sports and insipid
entertainment have indeed become the opiate of the masses. Why is
this country so sound asleep? Why do we abide what is happening to
our nation, to our Constitution, to the cause of peace and
international law and order? Why a re we not doing all in our power to
put an end to this madness?

We should be in the streets regularly and students should be raising
hell on our campuses. We should be making it clear in every way
possible that apologies or convoluted, disingenuous explanations just
dont cut it when presidential candidates and so many others voted to
authorize George Bush and his neo-con buddies to send American men
and women to attack and occupy Iraq.

Lets awaken, and wake up the country by committing here and now to
do all each of us can to take our nation back. Let them hear us
across the country, as we ask others to join us: We wont take it
any more!

I implore you: Draw a line. Figure out exactly where your own moral
breaking point is. How much will you put up with before you say No
more and mean it?

I have drawn my line as a matter of simple personal morality: I
cannot, and will not, support any candidate who has voted to fund the
atrocities in Iraq. I cannot, and will not, support any candidate who
will not commit to remove all US troops, as soon as possible, from
Iraq. I cannot, and will not, support any candidate who has supported
legislation that takes us one step closer to attacking Iran. I
cannot, and will not, support any candidate who has not fought to
stop the kidnapping, disappearances, and torture being carried on in
our name.

If we expec t our nations elected officials to take us seriously, let
us send a powerful message they cannot misunderstand. Let them know
we really do have our moral breaking point. Let them know we have
drawn a bright line. Let them know they cannot take our support for
granted - that, regardless of their party and regardless of other
political considerations, they will not have our support if they
cannot provide, and have not provided,principled leadership.

The people of this nation may have been far too quiet for five years,
but let us pledge that we wont let it go on one more day - that we
will do all we can to put an end to the illegalities, the moral
degradation, and the disintegration of our nations reputation in the
world.

Let us be unified in drawing the line - in declaring that we do have
a moral breaking point. Let us insist, together, in supporting o ur
troops and in gratitude for the freedoms for which our veterans gave
so much, that we bring our troops home from Iraq, that we return our
government to a constitutional democracy, and that we commit to
honoring the fundamental principles of human rights.

In defense of our country, in defense of our Constitution, in defense
of our shared values as Americans - and as moral human beings - we
declare today that we will fight in every way possible to stop the
insanity, stop the continued military occupation of Iraq, and stop
the moral depravity reflected by the kidnapping, disappearing, and
torture of people around the world.

Our country's moral compass is spinning out of control...

mhatlie — 2007-11-08T09:40:00Z

We are about to approve another attorney general who won't admit that torture is illegal. Watch Wednesday's Democracy Now! to see leaders with moral clarity like Ted Kennedy speak out and watch some Democratic leaders who seem to see the problem, but still refuse to play hardball with the goons running (and ruining) our country.

James Circello, AWOL from Vicenza Italy

Gus Hagelberg — 2007-10-31T17:57:00Z

I'm posting this after receiving it from Meike Capps-Schubert.

Sergeant James Circello is an Army Airborne Infantryman who went AWOL in April 2007 because of his opposition to U.S. military intervention in the Middle East.

James enlisted in the Army in 2001 following the attack on the World Trade Center. He spent a year in the Kirkuk area of northern Iraq with the 2nd Battalion (Airborne), 503rd Infantry, 173rd Airborne Brigade from March 2003 to March 2004.

After much soul-searching, James left his base in Vicenza, Italy (Caserma Ederle) on April 10, 2007. Recently he has attended the Veterans for Peace National Convention in St. Louis this August, the mass anti-war march on Washington DC last month, and is currently working with Iraq Veterans Against the War and Courage to Resist.

James plans to turn himself over to military authorities soon and will undoubtedly need our support.

read on at http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/445/1/

Video James at 27th october protest new orleans:

http://blip.tv/scripts/flash/blipplayer.swf?autoStart=false&file=http://blip.tv/file/get/FluxRostrum-AWOLJamesCircelloNewOrleansO27Protest755.flv

A reasoned Awol video by James see here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mkcsmfydoM

"An Open Letter to the Government Ending All Military Obligations" by James Circello read here:

http://www.godlikeproductions.com/bbs/message.php?page=1&messageid=452722&showdate=10/22/07&mpage=1

Aimee Allison and Chris Capps in Tübingen

Gus Hagelberg — 2007-10-28T20:57:00Z

On October 26th, 2007 Aimee Allison and Chris Capps visited Tübingen to talk about their work in the counter recruitment. Aimee was a medic in the Persion Gulf War in 1991, applied for concientious objector status and after two years was given an honorable discharge. She is grassroots activist in Oakland, CA. Chris was a technician in the present Iraq War for 1 year and deserted in January of 2007 and is now living in Germany. Since then he has been active with the Iraq Veterans against the War.

In the morning of the 26th Aimee spoke at two different schools to about 200 students. She showed a short video on anti recruitment and had a number of slides depicting the recruitment campaigns going on in the US. Aimee spoke of the need to support soldiers to get out of the army or, better yet, prevent the recruiters from baiting the young kids in the first place. The recruitment campaigns have become completely prolific. They are having a harder and harder time getting new soldiers and are resorting to more drastic, even illegal means to get new blood.

The response from the young boys and girls was great. They asked lots of questions and seemed very interested.

In the evening Aimee and Chris spoke to about 50 people at the German American Institute. There was a lively discussion afterwards and a number of representatives from other peace groups showed up. See http://tpablog.twoday.net/stories/4393069/ for a detailed report of that evening.

The press response was also a success. There was a good, long article in the local newspaper Schwäbisches Tagblatt on Oct. 29th and the Sonntag Aktuell which serves a large region in southern Germany, will be printing an article. The Frankfurter Rundschau (Oct. 25th) and the Tageszeitung (taz) (Oct. 29th), two national newspapers, also had good articles. In the taz there was even an editorial related to their visit.

It was so inspiring to listen to and get to know Aimee and Chris. They gave us many ideas on how our local peace group can continue our work against this dreadful war. Chris story of gathering up the courage to desert from his unit shows that soldiers can say no and dont have to continue participating in this madness. At the age of 17 many youngsters cant imagine what it means to be in a war. Certainly even an adult who has not experienced war can not imagine what it means to be out there. It is understandable that so many young people sign up. They see the military as an opportunity and they are mislead and lied to by a multi-billion dollar recruitment campaign. Chris brought this all close to us and we thank him for that.

Aimee has been active in the area of counter recruitment ever since she left the army back in 1991. Her words and experience are such an inspiration. She sees first hand the outrageous lies going on in the US surrounding the war and regarding recruitment efforts and she counsels soldiers who have returned from Iraq and want to simply lead normal lives.

An evening with Aimee and Chris

mhatlie — 2007-10-27T10:55:00Z

After some introductory words by Gus, the evening started out with a short anti-recruitment film (available for viewing at notyoursoldier.net) with German subtitles. It is a face-paced, flashy film designed, as Aimee put it, to appeal to the MTV generation. The film unmasked and countered the deceptive tecniques used by military recruiters in the United States.

After the film, which Aimee described as a "subvertizement" to subvert the military's messages to young people, she went on to make a number of major points:

- Every country that builds an empire and fights wars is faced with the problem of finding enough young people to go an fight. With the social fabric in the U.S. crumbling, the costs of higher education skyrocketing, the military PR machine focuses on the career and education prospects offered by signing up. The Army's PR campaign "Army Strong" (which in my day was "Be all you can be" and was later "Army of One") is run by the exact same corporation that invented Tony the Tiger.

- The military also latches onto other structures and institutions, especially schools and colleges, to get their message out: Not only do they have a physical presence on schools and college campuses, most of the advertizing in the public for-high-school TV channel is recruiting propaganda. Recruiters also have a strong presence in MySpace, at sporting events, and even online multi-player video games, including one that the Defense Depart itself bankrolled for $10 million. It is a so-called "ego-shooter" called America's Army with the expressed goal of "deeply penetrating youth culture." In that context, Aimee also mentioned a resistance effort being waged by people who enroll for the video game under the name of "Dead in Iraq" to provoke other players and protest against recruitment and the glorification of the war.

- She described more of what she called the "military recruitment complex", a $4 billion industry in 2006. It involves using all means available, like those above, to create "recruitlandia," the term recruiters use to describe conditions congenial to joining the military - a condition they try to create as early as eight years old and lasting 10 years (until high school graduation). Aimee showed a rock-climbing park sponsored by the Army with an advertizement in Spanish.

- There are 9000 recruiters on the job in the U.S. The recruiters try to build relationships with young people (a tecnique which, I might add, is almost identical to what the Mormons call BRT - building relationships of trust to encourage membership). For some, like the child of Taiwanese immigrants that Aimee told about, the recruiter becomes the only adult in that young person's life who takes time with them.

- The militarization of schools was one of her themes. Not only are recruiters present at schools. She showed a picture of some high school children doing rifle drills with mock wooden rifles, presumably as part of the JROTC program. (She pointed out that the same school has a "zero tolerance policy" for violence!) Aimee also noted that the United States Marine Corps has just opened its own high school in Chicago.

- The military is clearly desparate. Since 2005, they have raised the age of elligibility to join the armed forces up to 45, lowered the required scores on standardized tests, and begun a campaign of recruiting in prisons. The number of "moral waivers" - that is, persmission to join the military despite a criminal record - has increased significantly. There have been more such waivers over the past year than over the past 10 years combined.

- Recruiters never talk about Iraq and, if asked, will sometimes emphasize how unlikely it is that the new recruit will be sent there. Another lie by omission is that they don't talk about what is arguably the main purpose of a soldier: to kill our country's enemies. Chris Capps, the other speaker, stepped in that this point and noted that his sergeant major was quite clear on that aspect - but only after he had joined. Another bit of important information that recruiters don't mention is that about 1/3 of female soldiers are raped during their time in the military and that sexual harassment is rampant.

- Aimee then told the story of a young man - not untypical - who wanted out even before basic training was over. While learning urban combat tecniques in a mock search, he was admonished to fire at a dummy representing a young boy. He told his parents, "I can't learn to kill children."

- Another theme was the cooperation of the corporate mass media with the military establishment. They don't show American casualties, they carefully select their images to put a positive spin on the war (showing clapping children in an intact street in Falludja, for example, instead of showing what the 60% of the city which was destroyed looked like after the battle).

Aimee pointed out that to address all these problems, the peace movement is no longer interested in organizing large protest marches. They are ignored by the media and the leadership and hence, lead to nothing. Instead, grass roots action, "people politics" as Aimee called it, is the approach. Examples:

- Chris Capps and Aimee Allison told about Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW.org), soldiers speaking out against the war both to their local environments and to the broader public. They each told their personal stories of how they changed their own hearts and minds and then went on the road to tell others. Chris put his story in the context of other recent conscientious objectors and deserters such as Watada and Aguayo and showed pictures of them and told their stories as well. Chris left his dead-end job as a pizza delivery boy. His time in Iraq was unspectacular - he was a communications technician at Camp Victory. But doing things like upgrading the communications with Abu Ghraib prison gave him misgivings. He saw rampant corruption and how obvious it was that the U.S. bases there were meant to be permanent. He bolted when the unit he later transfered to in Germany was ordered to deploy to Afghanistan.

- They showed a leaflet campaign in Oakland, CA, to inform high school students and their parents about how the military recruiters get their personal contact information.

- Aimee told about a successful effort in Chicago to shut down the recruiting infrastructure for several days. In operation "Befriend a recruiter", fewer than 20 people managed to engage the recruiters and busy them with appointments and questions, taking up all their time, until they actually cancelled all activity for several days.

- There were other actions like the "raging grannies", old women who tried to sign up to join the military, and the "Insurgent Rebel Clown Army" that disturbed recruiting offices with jokes and silliness. In Chicago, the result of all this was the closing of a recruitment office!

It takes the direct action of only a few determined individuals to make a noticeable difference.

Aimee's presentation included several stories of individual recruits or potential recruits she has worked with. She told about one young lady who was dead set on joining the military because she was a self-described "bad ass." She was tough and strong and she liked the "structure" offered by the military, despite the fact that her father, a 20-year veteran of the USMC, begged her not to join. She stayed in touch with Aimee after seeing one of her presentations. When Aimee suggested she become a firefighter or even a smoke jumper - something requiring strength and courage and offering "structure", the girl had an awakening and cancelled her ticket to boot camp. Counter-recruitment, Aimee said, is about giving people ideas.

They closed their presentation by emphasizing that supporting GI resistance is the best way to stop the war.

The discussion began with a brief exchange about how habeas corpus has been weakened in America. There was disagreement between the speakers and a member of the audience as to how severely it has been curtailed. Then I asked if Aimee was advocating a principled pacifist position, whether she would disband the armed forces for example, or whether she was just opposing this particular war. She answered that her resistance was aimed at the current state of affairs, but with a call to discuss alternatives to traditional defense models (such as "social defense"). Our current system is wrong and must be stopped. She is dead set against our currect program of empire.

There was then a brief policy discussion about what to do in Iraq. Someone in the audience objected to Chris and Aimee's position of an immediate and complete withdrawal from Iraq followed by reparations to the people who have been damaged by the war. Chris - and some from the audience - offered a vigorous defense of withdrawal. The chaos and civil war that are conjured up for a time after withdrawal is already happily. The conversation also revolved around the U.S. role in fueling the conflict there with weapons and money - weapons and money which get "lost" as part of our aid to our allies there. Part of the discussion was also about Iran and the need for an enemy after the Cold War to feed the defense industry.

One of our own TPAers steered the discussion back to peace and counter-recruitment by asking that Chris tell about his participation in the peace efforts against American bases in Italy, which he briefly did. Then he was asked and told about the relationship of IVAW to the earlier Vietnam Veterans Against the War movement of a generation ago.

Asked how dangerous their work is, Chris and Aimee both made it sound safe and easy to be activists. While Chris noted how difficult it can be to speak out while still in the military, the worse Aimee has ever experienced was being told by a Marine Corps member that she is "ruining our country." She went on to tell how she diffused the situation and won over the man's respect, albeit not his complete agreement with her cause. Her luggage never arrives with her when she flies. She has seen black SUVs at events she has attended. But she has never been harassed or abused.

The discussion turned to the media. They related how it has become more favorable over the past six months (I recalled the scathing abuse that Cindy Sheehan got from the right-wing noise machine a few years ago). The discussion included brief questions or remarks from the audience and the speakers about the role of contractors, religion and recruitment (no connection), economic recruitment, and the structure of the IVAW (it has about 500 members from all five branches of the armed forces).

Aimee closed again by emphasizing her "Army of None" approach: build on the power of relationships, "people politics", to make a difference at the bottom in your locality.

Greetings from Europe: The view of home through the microscope and through the telescope...

mhatlie — 2007-10-25T14:08:00Z

The following proclamation is circulating on the internet. I thought it looks like something most TPAs could sign on to, so I'll put it up here:

GREETINGS FROM EUROPE!

American Voices Abroad Berlin sends you greetings of solidarity!

As citizens of the United States living abroad, we look at our country through both a telescope and a microscope. From a distance we see what all the world sees: a country mired in a war begun under false pretenses and dominated by profiteering, a war that has unleashed multiple sources of violence. From our distant but very focused point of view, we see a delusional administration unwilling to end the occupation of Iraq, incapable of admitting its own failures, stalling until it is no longer in office.

But under the magnifying lens we see the people of the United States - our families, friends and former neighbors, now an overwhelming majority of the population - asking: How can we get out of Iraq responsibly?

From our point of view, responsibility means demonstrating our non-imperial aims: We must end all claims to permanent bases! We must end all claims to Iraqi oil! We must end the occupation of Iraq, withdrawing our soldiers and military contractors. This is the responsible way out.

We ask of our country that it work with the United Nations to form a peace-building mission - unprecedented in size and vigor - with partners especially from the Arab and Islamic worlds, led by the United Nations, without troops from the occupying countries. Those occupying countries - the United States and the Coalition of the Willing - must now work with the United Nations to re-build Iraq, to compensate it for all the death and destruction.

And, of course, responsible behavior also means preventing a war with Iran. Five years ago many Americans did not believe that the United States would really go to war with Iraq, especially because UN inspectors were not finding any weapons of mass destruction. But the disinformation campaign was successful, and a war powers authority resolution was passed in Congress, a resolution that is still in effect. This resolution must be repealed. And congressional hearings must begin to expose the current alarming disinformation campaign justifying war with yet another country. We must stop behaving as if we were sent by God to invade and remake the entire region.

At home, we must take care of our veterans. We must reform our dysfunctional electoral system. We must restore all of our
constitutionally guaranteed rights.

These are the right things to do. These are the responsible things to do. And, as far as we can tell from abroad, this is all in the national interest of the United States.

Let us begin to consider what real security means and what an effective government in the United States might look like. How do we want to relate to the rest of the world - as aggressors and war profiteers, or as a force for peace and justice and international law?

Thank you.

American Voices Abroad Berlin, Berlin/Germany (a member group of the UFPJ coalition)

signed: Ann Wertheimer, for the executive committee of American Voices Abroad Berlin, October 2007

Strategy Dinner

Gus Hagelberg — 2007-10-21T13:55:00Z

((Hi contributors: please write your responses directly into the text so we could try to develop this together. It would be too much work to try to integrate everyone's ideas. So if you want to add or change something, maybe just write your initials in brackets before and aftr your changes. Kinda a wiki thing, gell.))

In November we plan to have a strategy dinner at Gus'. Charles is going to prepare Chinese finger food (dim sum) and we want to invite some "outsiders" and do some networking. Charles had the idea after all the active email discussions going on about parecon. Mostly Mark, Charles, Reinhold Klett und Fabian Betz exchanged ideas on social activism and parecon.
Here are some thoughts on how this evening might be designed. Basically there will be great food but it won't be a sit-down-at-table type of thing. Rather people should be encouraged to get into discussions. Of course we can't tell people what to talk about but maybe in the invitation we could make some suggestions:
- What are your basic ideas about how to change our society? What are the basic "evils" of our day and age? ((I think the attendees will all agree that there are some serious problems with the way our society is organized and some major things need to change.)
- What can the individual do to make a difference? How can we encourage self-determination/empowerment/activism?
- What can we do at the local level to move towards such common goals as citizen involvement (Bürgerbeteiligung), grass-roots democracy, cooperation, solidarity

Infostand in Stuttgart...

mhatlie — 2007-10-07T09:30:00Z

Yesterday, the 6th of October, seven of us Americans from Tübingen, Stuttgart and Heidelberg spent about four hours on the Königstraße near the Schloßplatz with an information stand about the Tübingen Progressive Americans, the Military Counseling Network, and the militarization of the European Union. There was a lot going on that day in Stuttgart and there was a heavy, constant stream of people past the stand.

Unfortunately, we didn't get much resonance. We only managed to engage a few people in discussions. One of the more interested passers-by insisted that 911 was an event orchestrated by the government to create fear. While most of us would agree that 911 has been abused and its exploitation can clearly be seen in the context of the "New American Century" project, we don't sign on to that depth of government depravity (yet?).

	Here are Karen and Gus behind our stand.
	This picture shows a that we did get some attention.

Various explanations for the general lack of interest were put forward by various members of the group: our poor presentation, the beautiful weather, the competition from flee markets, live music and shopping, the a-political nature of people in Stuttgart, recent general disinterest in the war.

We only ran into a few Americans, including an American student from Tübingen. We did not see or meet any American military personnel.

There was a general consensus that it would be more worthwhile to go to downtown Stuttgart/Vaihingen in the future. There, there is less of a crowd, but more American military people.

Chomsky and the Establishment

Gus Hagelberg — 2007-09-29T12:29:00Z

Recently I read an article from Chomsky in which he spoke of peoples beliefs who have made it into the establishment. He looks at a typical top journalist for the New York Times, for example, and asks what moves this guy to write what he writes. Is he being censored, manipulated by his bosses to write pro-government, pro-corporate articles? Chomsky says no. This guy believes what hes writing. Hes not lying and hes not being censored. The journalists world view is clearly within that of the dominate culture. He is no radical and he doesnt think in revolutionary terms and doesnt seriously question the system. Hes beliefs conform to those of the power elite.
Chomsky says that top journalists are by default conformists. If they werent they simply wouldnt have gotten where they are. They would have been booted out way earlier. The education they go through conditioned and formed them. Throughout his education and career the journalist has been molded into what h is. You could say he brainwashed, though that is misleading. So theres no need to actively censure your newspapers cus they are by their own will printing what you want them to.
This attitude seems defeatist to me cus it says: youre a conformer, youre in the system cus you believe in it, so what can be changed? If the conformers firmly believe in what theyre doing, then theres no way theyre gonna change. That seems rather hopeless.
Would Chomsky agree to that? There is no way to convert the conformists and theres no use wasting our time trying. Maybe we should concentrate our efforts elsewhere. Maybe itÄs been a mistake and a waste of time thinking we could convince the established if we just tried hard enough, got enough people behind us an had good enough arguments.

Conference on Socio-Economic Justice in Tübingen

Gus Hagelberg — 2007-09-29T12:28:00Z

We would like to organize a workshop on economic alternatives. Topics could range from parecon to local currencies to local first (small-mart revolution). Here is what it could look like:
- one or two day event
- small introductory lectures on a few central topics
- focus on working groups
- summary at end and planning next steps
- goals: help people find groups in the area in which they can get involved, setup system where groups in the region can network
Possible topics:
- parecon and libertarian socialism (Charles)
- Bürgergeld (ZAK)
- Small-Mart: Penny?
- Military and capitalism, attac?? Globalisierungskritiker
- local currencies (Reinhold Klett)
- Global Marshall Plan
- Alternative Wohnformen (Axel Burkhart (Burgi) von der Schelling (burgi@schellingstrasse.de): he has a presentation prepared on Wohnprojekte, Networking)
Goals:
- creating a vision
- helping get more people involved
- encouraging dialogue
- encouraging long-lasting, substantive change through local action
- what can be done at the community level to further global goals of economic justice?
- how can more people get involved?
- how can we reach a wider sector of the population?
- common goals of attendees?
-- strengthen local economies
-- decrease dependence on corporations
-- increase control of individual over his/her life (consumption, work, political life)
-- increase economic justice
- networking
Guidelines:
- topics have to be focused on socio-economic issues
- in the workgroup segments it has to be a priority that as many people as possible take part in the discussions. It has to be avoided that we only have experts lecturing on their topics.
- By giving people the opportunity to speak themselves we radically increase the chances of them becoming empowered to get involved.

Questions:
We we like to adopt the principles of the World Social Forum (https://www.ussf2007.org/en/wsf_charter)
How could we get others involved in the preparation?

Infostand in Stuttgart!

mhatlie — 2007-09-18T14:18:00Z

On Saturday, October 6th, 2007 the Tübingen Progressive Americans are going to have an information stand in front of the Wittwer bookstore off the Schlossplatz in down town Stuttgart. Stop by and see us and talk to us if you are in town from 11-15:00.

We are still considering ideas for how to make the information booth as interactive as possible. We are considering bringing an easel with large notepads to have passers-by record their thoughts on various themes as "graffiti." We are hoping to engage Germans on the role of Germany in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and talk to Americans about our group and its goals.

Iraq for Sale

mhatlie — 2007-09-18T13:36:00Z

Last night, the Tübingen Progressive Americans sponsored a movie in the Deutsch-Amerikanisches Institut in Tübingen, Robert Greenwald's Give War a Chance. About 40 people came to watch and join in the discussion (in English) moderated by TPA member Charles Yee.

The film elicited discussion not only of the film's main ideas - the profiteering by contractors in Iraq and the humanitarian consequences, the no-bid contract process, the revolving door between government, contracting, lobbying and the military, etc. - but also on similar phenomena in Germany, the general human tendency toward greed, the causes and results of the Iraq War, our ignorance and how we allow ourselves to be manipulated, the lack of alternative vision, the biases of recent documentary film making, and more. The viewing was very timely, happening on the same day that the news about Blackwater getting in trouble in Iraq and possibly even having some of its personnel face prosecution.

After the discussion, about eight of us went for a beer and further discussion.

What can we do with Parecon

Gus Hagelberg — 2007-08-17T14:02:00Z

We've seen a great email discussion going on after Charles Yee gave his presentation of parecon in Tübingen in early August.

Most of the questions and comments seemed to focus on the validity of parecon. I didn't want to get too much into the specific details of how well the council structure, for example, could encourage innovation or how well parecon addresses the concept of work or money. I have read most of Michael Albert's book and I most of these ideas are addressed there. Certainly it's important to get into the details, think through the possibilities and argue about the merits. I don't think parecon represents a blueprint for the correct way to organize a future society. I do think, though, that we can use it to focus our struggle towards a better society. It's not really possible for someone to now know the best way to organize a totally new society based on cooperation, solidarity and equality.

For me a basic statement in parecon is that people need to get together and solve problems together. To say that we already know what this "utopia" looks like contradicts this basic tenet. The realization of this future society is going to be an evolutionary process done by the people. I guess it's a "Gratwanderung" between letting the process evolve and kind of guiding it in the direction one imagines.

For me now it would be important to focus more on how parecon can help us move specifically towards a more just and democratic society. Can we use it's theoretical framework to judge the value of, for example, a small-mart revolution or local currencies? What I particularly appreciate about parecon is its critique of capitalism and Soviet socialism (or whatever you wanna call it). Albert sets up a number of basic questions and values about how a pareconist views society. Charles did a good job of presenting these: solidarity, diversity, equality, self-management (and a couple others I forgot). He names these as basic values which should guide a discussion about creating a better world.

By asking the question: does this activity or project or proposal conform to these basic principles? we can better judge the virtue of our activities.

Torture then is interrogation now...

mhatlie — 2007-06-07T08:16:00Z

Read some more of the hard goods on how the U.S. is now, by its own earlier criteria, a state with an official policy condoning torture. Even the corporate media is covering it:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/weekinreview/03shane.html