Inauguration 2017 Special Coverage w/ Angela Davis, Naomi Klein, Ralph Nader & More
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Special coverage in the Trump Era
From Public Citizen's Corporate Presidency site: "44 Trump administration officials have close ties to the Koch brothers and their network of political groups, particularly Vice President Mike Pence, White House Legislative Affairs Director Marc Short, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and White House budget director Mick Mulvaney."
Dark Money author Jane Mayer on The Dangers of President Pence, New Yorker, Oct. 23 issue on-line
Can Time Inc. Survive the Kochs? November 28, 2017 By Jane Mayer
..."This year, among the Kochs’ aims is to spend a projected four hundred million dollars in contributions from themselves and a small group of allied conservative donors they have assembled, to insure Republican victories in the 2018 midterm elections. Ordinarily, political reporters for Time magazine would chronicle this blatant attempt by the Kochs and their allies to buy political influence in the coming election cycle. Will they feel as free to do so now?"...
"Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America" see: our site, and George Monbiot's essay on this key book by historian Nancy MacLean.
Full interview with The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer March 29, 2017, Democracy Now! about her article, "The Reclusive Hedge-Fund Tycoon Behind the Trump Presidency: How Robert Mercer Exploited America’s Populist Insurgency."
Democracy Now! Special Broadcast from the Women's March on Washington
The Economics of Happiness -- shorter version
Local Futures offers a free 19-minute abridged version of its award-winning documentary film The Economics of Happiness. It "brings us voices of hope of in a time of crisis." www.localfutures.org.
What's New?
April 11, 2017
Traprock/WLOE Statement on Syrian Attack
Just days ago we remembered Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's April 4, 1967 speech Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence and its warning that: "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."
Now an abrupt missile strike in Syria shifts attention away from exclusion at home and borders and a glutted military budget ignoring the most vulnerable and the environment.
Yes, images of dead and dying children are horrifying. But they have been dying by the thousands for years now in Syria, in Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen, and on the shores of Europe, with families fleeing war. Sudden escalation of a conflict in which the US has played an aggressive role is no solution, besides being constitutionally (Congress) and internationally (UN) illegal.
"This recent chemical attack is just the latest in a war that has taken the lives of over 400,000 Syrians," write peace activists Medea Benjamin (CODEPINK) and former US diplomat Ann Wright. "Instead of more bombing," they continue, "the Trump administration should pressure the Russian government to support a UN investigation into the chemical attack and take bold steps to seek a resolution of this dreadful conflict." We agree.
Why investigate? There has been a long and serious problem with chemical weapons in Syria, and many aspects of this latest crime are not known or proven: from the kind of gas used to how it happened and who was behind it.
Bombs bursting in air, 'proof' of caring and retribution, may appeal to the mass media, military and some leading Democrats. But they only make peace more difficult to achieve.
This month will again see resistance in the streets: from the April 22nd Earth Day 'March for Science," to the Indigenous Environmental Network, Movement For Black Lives and others' April 28 "We hold the Red Line" action in DC, a day before they join the nationwide Peoples Climate Movement march for climate, jobs, and justice.
All three of those goals: a healthy climate, safe and productive jobs, and justice at home and abroad, are connected -- and threatened by the illegal use of this country's bloated military machine. So let's speak out, write, lobby, march if we can, in a strong public voice for peace and justice. It may work: the alternative will not.
By Anna Gyorgy for the Traprock Center for Peace & Justice
http://traprock.org/ April 8, 2017
ONLINE HERE with: Two actions (to take) from two organizations