Sowing The Seeds Of Violence by Bruce Gagnon

by Bruce Gagnon
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
Organizing Notes
April 29, 2010

by Helen Cox, used with permission

I am on the train to NYC and the wireless connection seems to come and go on this “Downeaster”.

I got an email this morning from a Tea Party list that somehow got my name. One line in particular that stands out is “Arizona is being targeted by millions of illegal aliens for race riots!”

A virtual call to arms is now being sounded by some Tea Party organizers. One of them says:

“How many more Citizens must die before Washington realizes America is under a full scale attack? TeaParty.org will NOT negotiate our values. We will NOT stand down and we will NOT go silently into the night. ”
Stephen Eichler J.D. Executive Director – TeaParty.org

Chomsky In Portland, Maine by Bruce Gagnon

by Bruce Gagnon
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
Organizing Notes
April 25, 2010

Yesterday I drove two hours north to the University of Maine-Orono where the annual Hope Festival was held. Fellow Bring Our War $$ Home organizer Lisa Savage (Code Pink Maine) and I worked our table handing out literature and asking people in Maine’s 2nd congressional district to call Rep. Mike Michaud and urge him to vote against the upcoming $33 billion war supplemental for Afghanistan.

We had a good table location right by the stage so our big Bring Our War $$ Home banner was easily seen by most of those attending the event. We had to leave early in order to then drive 2 1/2 hours south to Portland in time for the Peace Action Maine annual dinner that featured Noam Chomsky as the speaker.

Military Space Planes – First-Strike Systems by Bruce Gagnon + X-37B: Secret plane launched

by Bruce Gagnon
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
Organizing Notes
April 23, 2010

The new military space plane, called the X-37B, was launched yesterday from Cape Canaveral strapped to an Atlas V rocket. The X-37 will spend up to 270 days in space before landing at Vandenberg AFB in California. The space plane will mostly fly on “autopilot” since there is no human inside the craft.

Meanwhile yesterday at Vandenberg AFB, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) also test launched another space plane – the Hypersonic Technology Vehicle, known as the Falcon.

Why Mislead About Pentagon-NASA Connection? by Bruce Gagnon

http://www.buzzflash.net/story.php?id=1089203

by Bruce Gagnon
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
Organizing Notes
April 21, 2010

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I was a bit surprised to hear Obama last week promote the Mars missions with such vigor. His call for manned missions to the red planet won’t be cheap and you wonder how the nation can afford to pay for them. He intends to increase NASA funding by $6 billion over the next five years – one of the few budget increases in government discretionary funding.

Democracy Now did a short story on the Obama announcement and had Victoria Samson from the Secure World Foundation on to talk about it. Amy Goodman asked her about the military connection to NASA and she denied there was one. Anyone who follows the space program knows differently. Here is what she said.

The American Taliban by Bruce Gagnon (Jesus Camp – 2006) (no longer available)

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

by Bruce Gagnon
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
Organizing Notes
March 27, 2010

A French documentary about the right-wing Christian fundamentalists who are preparing to wage war on behalf of Jesus.

In a sense the U.S.-NATO war on Iran has already begun by Bruce Gagnon

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by Bruce Gagnon
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
Organizing Notes
March 16, 2010

I’ve had lots of responses to my post the other day about the Marines being used to clear out southwest Afghanistan. One friend here in Maine sent me the above map that was in a Canadian newspaper in 2008. This map lays out a similar pipeline route from Turkmenistan that would deliver natural gas through Afghanistan, Pakistan, and then into India.

The June, 2008 Globe and Mail story was entitled “Pipeline opens new front in Afghan war.”

Central Asia Pipeline Plan Begins To Emerge by Bruce Gagnon

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by Bruce Gagnon
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
Organizing Notes
March 14, 2010

The Washington Post today introduces us to a controversy over Afghanistan war strategy. The Post reports that operations in Delaram (in the southwest) are “far from a strategic priority for senior officers at the international military headquarters in Kabul. One calls Delaram, a day’s drive from the nearest city, ‘the end of the Earth.’ Another deems the area ‘unrelated to our core mission’ of defeating the Taliban by protecting Afghans in their cities and towns.”

Will Democrats Stop War? Answer Remains No For Now by Bruce Gagnon + Kucinich Closes Afghan War Debate

by Bruce Gagnon
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
Organizing Notes
March 11, 2010

The House of Representatives voted yesterday to deny the resolution put forward by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) that called for Obama to bring the troops home from Afghanistan. The vote was 356 against the resolution, 65 in favor, with nine not voting.

It was clearly a vote that showed that there is one key issue in Washington where the Republicans and Democrats largely agree and that is on endless war. Out of the 356 votes to shoot down the resolution 189 of them were Democrats and 167 were Republican. Only five Republicans voted in favor of the Kucinich resolution.

The Sword And The Shield by Bruce Gagnon

by Bruce Gagnon
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
Organizing Notes
Feb. 4, 2010

The latest word is that Romania will be hosting the U.S. Army’s ground-based “missile defense” systems. Russia is not pleased with these developments.

News that the U.S. is also about to deploy a PAC-3 missile battery in Poland led Russia’s ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, to recently state: “Do they really think that we will calmly watch the location of a rocket system, at a distance of 60 km from Kaliningrad?”The deployment of SM-3, with several times the reach of the Patriot, on land and sea (the SM-3 will soon be converted to be deployed on land like the PAC-3) in the same Baltic Sea neighborhood will only makes matters more dangerous.

Peaceful Protesters Roughed Up, Arrested By Obama’s Pentagon + Obama Budget Request Seeks Additional $7B for Nuclear Arsenal

by Bruce Gagnon
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
Organizing Notes
Feb. 2, 2010

Is this how Obama thanks those who are taking his call for the abolition of nuclear weapons seriously? He has then roughed up and arrested for standing with signs outside Vandenberg AFB in California while his Pentagon fires “missile defense” tests in the sky above the Pacific Ocean?

For years people have been protesting outside Vandenberg AFB when the base launches missiles. Now and then the military police would grab one of the organizers and arrest them but often nothing was done at all. But on January 31, just as another $150 million “missile defense” test was launched from the base, the Obama led Pentagon had virtually everyone who was at the protest, legally standing outside the base, arrested.

The CIA, and their drone attacks, is the symbol of the corporatization and privatization of U.S. war policy by Bruce Gagnon

by Bruce Gagnon
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
Organizing Notes
Jan. 18, 2010

I love taking the train. The seats are comfortable and I ride in the quiet car. They have electricity so I can plug my laptop in and read my emails and answer them for mailing once I hit the next wireless hotspot.

I spent my two nights in Washington DC at the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker House where I usually stay during such trips. Longtime friend Art Laffin has lived there for years and when I was organizing big space center protests in Florida he would come and help coordinate our nonviolent civil disobedience actions. Art is a tall guy who played small college basketball and excitedly told me about how his adopted three-year-old son can now dribble the basketball without looking at it. I told Art that on my next trip I hoped Carlos would be the point guard for my hapless Washington Wizard NBA team. (The team’s current star has been in the news recently for taking five handguns into the locker room. He is now facing sentencing after pleading guilty to a felony charge.)

Cindy Sheehan and Bruce Gagnon at CIA Headquarters Protest + Going To Dick Cheney’s House

with Cindy Sheehan
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox Blog
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox

with Bruce Gagnon
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
Organizing Notes
January 16, 2010

toxoid

Courage To End Total War by Bruce Gagnon

by Bruce Gagnon
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
Organizing Notes
Jan. 1, 2010

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

It’s a brilliant strategy if you think about it. Make the public afraid of each other. Every person could be a terrorist – everyone is suspect. There is no better way to defeat an organized anti-war opposition than to make the people terrified of each other.

The corporate oligarchy is now doing under Obama what it could not accomplish under Bush. Total war. The anti-Bush movement in the US and worldwide was gaining too much ground. So the oligarchy let the air out of that balloon. In Bush’s place they put in a magician who has proved very effective at keeping the left off balance and thus unable to pump new life into the reeling anti-war movement.

Protest against CIA drone attacks coming to Langley, Virginia by Cindy Sheehan

by Cindy Sheehan
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox Blog
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox
Dec. 28, 2009

Contacts: Cindy Sheehan (cindy@cindysheehanssoapbox.com)
Joshua Smith (joshuagarrettsmith@gmail.com)

PROTEST AGAINST CIA DRONE ATTACKS COMING TO LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

“Every one of these dead non-combatants represents an alienated family, a new revenge feud, and more recruits for a militant movement
that has grown exponentially even as drone strikes have increased.” – David Kilcullen (Counterinsurgency Expert) Center for New American Security

On January 16th, 2010 from 1pm to 4pm activists will descend upon the home of the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia to protest the immoral, illegal and inhumane use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs – also known as “drones”.) Speaking at this event will be:

Pax Americana and the Weaponization of Space, New Space Film Out by Bruce Gagnon

by Bruce Gagnon
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
Organizing Notes
December 15, 2009

paxamericanafilm on Apr 13, 2010