Texas Labor Against the War

Saturday, April 9

March and Rally:
END THE WARS ! FUND THE PEOPLE !

Gather for march at Noon at the Federal Building plaza (300 E. 8th St.)
Rally at the Capitol at 1:00 PM

While the US is engaging in wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, and giving billions of dollars in aid to Israel, which continues to threaten the Palestinians, we are left with Governors like Wisconsin’s Scott Walker Texas’ Rick Perry, who want to strip us of our labor rights, lay off teachers, close our schools, and deny us health care.  Meanwhile, big corporations pollute our environment, make record profits, and pay low or no taxes.  These priorities are upside down!  Come to a rally to demand an end to the wars abroad and a re-direction of funding to basic services for the people: education, healthcare, infrastructure, jobs, clean air and water.

Sponsored by: Iraq Veterans Against the War-Austin, Veterans for Peace-Austin, Sustainable Options for Youth, Under the Hood Cafe, Palestine Solidarity Committee, CodePink-Austin, International Socialist Organization, Nuke Free Texas, and more.  For more information or to co-sponsor: [email protected]

see also United National Antiwar Committee, http://www.nationalpeaceconference.org/

Our TSEU union sister and CodePink member, Alice Embree, celebrates the intersection of rallies on two crucial issues. And why does an anti-war website publish this stuff? Well, readers no doubt have no trouble figuring that out: another intersection, war, U.S. imperialism, repression of unions and workers and women and children in Iraq and Afghanistan, money spent on war, not on jobs and education; and sending our working class young people to kill and be killed.

http://theragblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/alice-embree-spirited-austin-rally-is.html

Hundreds of pro-choice demonstrators marched down Congress Ave. in Austin Saturday, Feb. 26 (above), and then joined with supporters of Wisconsin workers for an enthusiastic rally on the steps of the Texas state Capitol. Photos by Terry DuBose / The Rag Blog.
Rallies at Texas state Capitol:
Pro-choice demonstrators join
supporters of Wisconsin workers

See more photos below.

By Alice Embree / The Rag Blog / February 28, 2011

AUSTIN — Two spirited demonstrations took place in front of Austin’s state Capitol on Saturday, February 26th. The Austin American-Statesman failed to cover the pro-choice rally and carried two paragraphs on the second Austin rally in a larger AP story on nationwide events supporting Wisconsin workers.

Hundreds of demonstrators showed up at noon at the south steps of the Capitol to defend women’s reproductive rights and later marched down Congress Ave. Speakers from Planned Parenthood, Whole Women’s Health, National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) Texas, the Lilith Fund and CodePink addressed the crowd. Pink was prominent and bright pink placards read: “I Stand with Planned Parenthood,” “Don’t take away my birth control,” “Don’t take away my breast exams.” Four of CodePink’s Pink Police led the march decked out with their crime prevention badges.

The crowd was mostly young and mostly female. Chanting: “Women’s rights under attack. What do you do? Stand up, fight back!” and “Not the church, not the state, we’re the ones who ovulate.” Placards were both informative and inflammatory. A homemade sign read: “Keep your Boehner out of my uterus.” One woman had lettered: “Get your laws off my body” on her exposed belly. Another woman had constructed a box around her lower body that read: “Think outside my box.”

Marchers split off from the south steps of the Capitol and went down the sidewalks on both the east and west side of Congress, trading sides at Sixth Street as the two lines returned. Passers-by honked and returned peace signs and fists. It was an impressive turnout, organized primarily with word spread through Facebook and listserves.

In some ways, just as impressive was the decision by the pro-choice demonstrators to march up the sidewalk to the Capitol steps and join a 2 p.m. rally organized by MoveOn.org in support of Wisconsin workers. DPS troopers attempted to block the newcomers, but union advocates welcomed them.

A crowd of about 1,000 listened to music led by Bill Oliver and friends. Texas Democratic Congressman Lloyd Doggett addressed the crowd, as did former Texas Agricultural Commissioner and populist pundit, Jim Hightower. Austin’s demonstration was one of many throughout the country and coincided with the largest turnout in Madison to date. More than 70,000 demonstrators gathered in Madison despite freezing temperatures.

Hightower said: “You are the Koch brothers’ worst nightmare.” The reference is to conservative donors Charles and David Koch who made huge contributions to conservative candidates in the last midterm elections and who, according to Reuters, “are playing an influential role in the drive to strip public employee unions of their rights to bargain in several U.S. states.”

Wisconsin’s newly elected Governor Walker returned the funding favors with over $100 million in tax breaks to corporations in January before he named teachers and public workers in his state as the cause of Wisconsin deficits.

This was the second mobilization by Austin union supporters in one week. A demonstration organized by the AFL-CIO attracted hundreds to the south steps of the Capitol on Monday night.

Austin’s teachers’ union, Education Austin, is calling for a large turnout at the AISD School Board meeting on Monday evening, February 28, where layoffs and school closures are on the agenda. It seems that the aggressive actions of conservatives who feel empowered by midterm elections are prompting nationwide mobilizations to defend rights ranging from the right to collective bargaining to family planning.

On a related front, the Workers Defense Project is convening a march and rally to commemorate the 138 workers who lost their lives while working at Texas construction sites. The March 2 event, a “Day of the Fallen,” begins at 3:30 p.m. at the federal building and ends at the Capitol.

[Alice Embree is a long-time Austin activist and organizer, a former staff member of The Rag in Austin and RAT in New York, and a veteran of SDS and the women's liberation movement. She is active with CodePink Austin and Under the Hood Café. Embree is a contributing editor to The Rag Blog and is treasurer of the New Journalism Project.]

Photo by Alice Embree / The Rag Blog.
Photo by Terry DuBose / The Rag Blog.
Photo by Terry DuBose / The Rag Blog.
Photo by Alice Embree / The Rag Blog.
Photo by Alice Embree / The Rag Blog.
Photo by Terry DuBose /The Rag Blog.

Hoodstock Flashback to benefit Under the Hood
6-11 p.m., Sunday, November 14, 2010 at Jovita’s, 1617 South 1st St., Austin, Texas. $10 requested.

Featuring Barbara K., Karen Abrahams, Sugar Bayou, Thom Moon 10, Andrew Crosby, Jim Patton & Sherry Brokus, Sally Allen, Chris Van Loan, Daniel Cioper, Will T. Massey, Beth Galiger, and Richard Bowden!

In the spirit of the Oleo Strut, Under The Hood is a place for soldiers to gather, relax and speak freely about the wars and the military. Support services for soldiers include referrals for counseling, legal advice and information on GI rights.

In Killeen, near Fort Hood, Under The Hood needs your donations and support!

http://www.underthehoodcafe.org/

Fort Hood suicide rate four times the national average?  Austin activist and Under the Hood Cafe volunteer Jim Turpin takes another look at the escalating crisis of GI suicides and PTSD.

Under the Hood Café near Ft. Hood in Killeen Texas is a place where active duty GIs and veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan can discuss the debilitating effects of war. Photo from Under the Hood / Flickr.

Texas’ Fort Hood sets the pace:

PTSD and suicides in the military
are at an all-time high

By Jim Turpin / The Rag Blog / October 27, 2010

KILLEEN, Texas — Even with the spin from the current administration that the “war is over” in Iraq, it is well known that 50,000 combat-ready troops remain in the country. Add to that a recent deployment of 2,000 troops from the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment from Fort Hood in Texas. At present almost 100,000 troops remain in Afghanistan.

With the total number of U.S. military personnel cycling through both Afghanistan and Iraq at almost 1.8 million, and with the RAND corporation estimating that 18% have PTSD (which is deemed low by some experts), this would put the returning numbers with PTSD at 324,000.

A recent article in The New York Times confirms what the organizers of the Killeen-based GI coffeehouse Under the Hood Café have been battling at Fort Hood for the last year and a half: suicides are at the highest point since 2008, with 14 confirmed suicides since the beginning of 2010. In one recent weekend, there were three suicides and one murder-suicide at Fort Hood.

With the population at Fort Hood ranging from 46,000 to 50,000 soldiers at any given time, the rate of suicide is four times the national average, based on Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates of 11.5 suicides per 100,000 people.

The repeated deployment of military personnel who suffer from both physical and psychological wounds has led to these all-time high suicide rates. A recent article in the American Journal of Public Health studied 2,500 New Jersey National Guardsmen and determined “deployed soldiers were more than three times as likely as soldiers with no previous deployments to screen positive for post traumatic stress disorder.”

Despite these staggering statistics, the Fort Hood command continues to find ways to deny soldiers their right to receive necessary mental health services. Several soldiers have come forward recently with reports of harassment, undue punishment, and interference when seeking these necessary services.

A number of examples include:

• The imprisonment of SPC. Eric Jasinski in March 2010. Jasinski, who was suffering from PTSD, refused redeployment to Iraq based on this condition. It was feared that Jasinski’s confinement could interfere with his ability to receive his prescribed medications. Eric’s attorney James Branum stated, “He was seeing a psychiatrist for his condition and prescribed Zoloft for depression and Trazadone to get to sleep, and they handed him his gun and told him to go back to Iraq.”
• The deployment of 50 soldiers from Ft. Hood with physical (knee, back, and shoulder issues due to bomb blasts) and psychological (PTSD/TBI) issues in June 2010 to the National Training Center at Ft. Irwin, California. Combat training for those soldiers with verified PTSD and other anxiety disorders runs counterintuitive to generally accepted psychiatric practices.
• Recent reports from soldiers at Ft. Hood suffering from PTSD and substance abuse who are being given extra work loads or are being kept from dealing with additional personal crises at home. Issues they are confronted with include being given medication only (instead of counseling) or being ignored by the chain of command when they request assistance.

Veteran deaths also surge after discharge from the military and are often the result of vehicle accidents, motorcycle crashes, drug overdoses, or other causes. An article this month in The New York Times discusses the huge number of veteran deaths attributed to destructive, risky, and lethal behaviors:

“The data show that veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan were two and a half times as likely to commit suicide as Californians of the same age with no military service. They were twice as likely to die in a vehicle accident and five and a half times as likely to die in a motorcycle accident. These numbers are truly alarming and should wake up the whole country,” said United States Representative Bob Filner, Democrat of San Diego, who is the chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

“They show a failure of our policy.”

The Under the Hood Café and Outreach Center, the GI coffeehouse located near Ft. Hood, Texas, the largest military base in the U.S., offers GIs a free speech zone. It provides a non-military environment that allows active duty GIs and veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan to discuss the debilitating effects of war. Under the Hood offers free referrals for medical and psychological services and legal assistance for those soldiers who are resisting redeployment to war zones.

To benefit its ongoing efforts in support of GIs, veterans, and military families, Under the Hood is having a “Hoodstock Flashback” concert (see graphic below) on Sunday, November 14, from 6-11 p.m. at Jovita’s in Austin. Admission is $10 at the door and includes such artists as Barbara K, Karen Abrahams, Will T. Massey, and Richard Bowden.

[Jim Turpin is a native Austinite and member of CodePink Austin. He also volunteers for the GI coffeehouse Under the Hood Café at Ft. Hood in Killeen, Texas.]

Texas Labor Against the War joined other groups in a press conference highlighted by Texas State Representative Lon Burnam of Fort Worth and Iraqi-American Dr. Dahlia Wasfi, at Under the Hood Outreach Center and Cafe on Monday, August 30, 2010.  For the full Killeen Daily Herald story, go to http://www.kdhnews.com/news/story.aspx?s=44003

RALLY FOR PEACE

By Amanda Kim Stairrett
Killeen Daily Herald
August 30, 2010

Peace activists gathered in Killeen Monday morning to speak out against U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The event, which was hosted at Killeen’s Under the Hood Café, focused on Iraq and the president’s recent announcement that U.S. combat operations ended there today. Speakers also questioned the deployment of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment to Iraq. The final of several thousand of the regiment’s troopers departed Fort Hood for the Middle East Friday in what military officials call an advise-and-assist mission. Those soldiers will assist Provincial Reconstruction Teams and help prepare Iraqi security forces to care for and protect their own nation.

The 1st Cavalry Division’s 4th Brigade Combat Team will deploy soon for the same mission.

Central Texas activists were in town Aug. 23 to protest the regiment’s deployment. As buses carried soldiers from main post to West Fort Hood’s Robert Gray Army Airfield, demonstrators waited on the overpass with their headlights turned off, according to information from Fort Hood and videos posted on YouTube by participants.

As the buses drove south on Clarke Road Gate at about 3:40 a.m., the demonstrators held up banners and chanted. Several blocked the buses’ path for a short time.

“Acting to protect Department of Defense personnel and equipment, Fort Hood police moved the demonstrators away from the intersection to the sidewalk,” read a statement from Fort Hood.
Individuals were released without incident and the bus convoy continued to the airfield, it went on to read.

Post officials did have advance knowledge about the demonstration, they said.

Monday’s speakers included Cynthia Thomas, Under the Hood manager; Rep. Lon Burnam, a Democrat from Fort Worth and former director of the Dallas Peace Center; Dr. Dahlia Wasfi, a peace activist of Muslim and Jewish heritage; Larry Egly, of the Peace and Justice Support Network of Mennonite Church USA; and Leslie Cunningham, of Texas Labor Against the War.

CodePink Austin, Iraq Veterans Against the War and Veterans For Peace were also represented.

Monday’s event was just one of two in Central Texas “aimed at peeling back the mass deception surrounding ‘the end of combat operations,’” according to information from Under the Hood. The first was a talk in Austin Sunday featuring Wasfi.

Most Americans are lulled to sleep because they think the war is over, Burnam said. He attacked Presidents Bush and Obama, saying the “expansionist” war was an illegal and immoral occupation — something that was fiscally wrong to start seven years ago.

Burnam heavily criticized the Iraq war’s financial burden on the country, saying it was wrong for Bush to start two “outrageous” wars while providing tax cuts. Burnam said he was tired of officials using the “financial back of us working folks” to fund conflicts, and quoted a 1953 speech by President Dwight Eisenhower: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

It is time for Obama to end the occupation, end tax cuts for the rich and cure a deficit that will hurt “our children and grandchildren,” Burnam went on to say.

Thomas said Under the Hood started a telephone campaign to make sure non-deployable soldiers were not deployed. The organization has previously worked with soldiers and families from the regiment who said they were not fit to deploy.

The administration and command know there aren’t enough soldiers to cover two wars, Thomas said, and they continue to ignore family members and soldiers instead of focusing on their well-being.

“This community is not going to be able to survive it much longer,” she said.

The 1 percent of the U.S. population in uniform are the ones fighting and paying the most, Thomas said.

If people really wanted to support the troops, they would be fighting for them to come home, she added.

Contact Amanda Kim Stairrett at [email protected] or (254) 501-7547. Follow her on Twitter at KDHmilitary or www.facebook.com/astairrett.

For more information

Under the Hood is located at 17 S. College St. It is open daily from 5 to 10 p.m. Visit the café online at www.underthehoodcafe.org.

For more information about Texas Labor Against the War, visit www.txlaboragainstwar.org or call (512) 470-8485.

Peace and Justice Support Network of Mennonite Church USA can be found online at http://peace.mennolink.org.

Is endless war the American way?

Why militarism permeates our society.

By Jim Turpin / The Rag Blog / July 28, 2010

Orwell would be proud. The United States is about to begin its tenth year in Afghanistan in an attempt to prove that “endless war” is not only possible, but the accepted norm in American society.

But why has militarism become such an integral part of our political and social lives in this country?

I see three main areas of influence on why we accept the present state of aggressive militarism in this country:  

1. The state’s use of messaging on “war” and “terrorism.”
2. The media’s servitude towards aggressive militaristic policy.
3. The social and cultural reinforcement of militarism.

Messaging on war and terrorism, or
Why my brain is always scared

G.M. Gilbert, an American psychologist who interviewed Herman Goering at Nuremberg in his Nuremberg Diary quoted Goering as saying:

…the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

The human brain is well constructed to deal with danger and fear on an automated and highly developed level. The amygdala is responsible for both fear conditioning and memory consolidation. These combined are the neurological area of the brain to condition and retain fear memories.

In other words, a sweet spot to frighten at will and control the masses.

The use of the phrase “war on terror” is at best a disingenuous means of simultaneously stimulating the fear response and the use of metaphors that have no real meaning.

The words “terror” and “terrorism” are the most politically manipulated words of our time and may be applied to any country, group or individual you wish to bomb, torture, or indefinitely detain.

It may also be used by the United States to nimbly point out those who are “state sponsors of terrorism,” which presently include Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria. Never mind that we sponsored El Salvadoran death squads or backed the likes of Marcos, Mobutu, Pinochet, or the Shah for decades that led to the torture and death of hundreds of thousands, possibly millions.

The cowardly MSM or
How to be a poster child for cognitive dissonance

Does the mainstream media (MSM) really ignore what is happening or change reality to fit government policy?

As Glenn Greenwald, in a recent Salon article, so succinctly put it:

A newly released study from students at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government provides the latest evidence of how thoroughly devoted the American establishment media is to amplifying and serving (rather than checking) government officials. This new study examines how waterboarding has been discussed by America’s four largest newspapers over the past 100 years, and finds that the technique, almost invariably, was unequivocally referred to as “torture” — until the U.S. Government began openly using it and insisting that it was not torture… Similarly, American newspapers are highly inclined to refer to waterboarding as “torture” when practiced by other nations, but will suddenly refuse to use the term when it’s the U.S. employing that technique.

Greenwald also points out that such MSM outlets as “the NYT, The Washington Post and NPR explicitly adopted policies to ban the use of the word “torture” for techniques the U.S. Government had authorized, once government officials announced they should not be called “torture.”

So torture is now “harsh interrogation techniques”?

Is this the terminology used in the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment?

This is the document the United States signed in 1988 and reaffirmed in 1994 that defines torture in Article 1.1 as:

Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

Article 2.2 states:

No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.

Orwell was again right: “…the object of torture is torture… the object of power is power.”

Cultural and societal acceptance of war
Or, ‘That’s Militainment!’

“Militainment” or entertainment with military themes is ubiquitous in music, television, movies and video games.

It is even everywhere in clothing. Just look around the next time you walk down the street or go to a clothing store. Desert-style camo wear is EVERYWHERE. Women have camo shorts, men wear camo hats, and even babies have camo bibs and jumpers.

Sears ran a line of clothing in 2008 that “signed a deal with the U.S. Army to launch the All American Army Brand’s First Infantry Division clothing collection. It marks the first time the U.S. Army has officially licensed its marks and insignias; licensing fees will be used to support military programs for troops and their families.

The president of Sears Apparel said the brand will be prominently featured during the retailer’s Fall Forward fashion. The line will also be included in future marketing campaigns, including those slated for the holiday season.

“Over the years, military-inspired clothing has played a distinct role in shaping fashion trends,” Mr. Israel said. “We are now able to exclusively offer a line that is pure to the origins of that inspiration.” (Military.com 9/3/08)

Recent war video games are international best sellers (Call of Duty, Modern Warfare, and God of War) and are excellent training for future military recruits. At the least, they can be considered realistic “war porn.”

The Army recently had to close a $12 million recruiting station in Philadelphia with interactive video exhibits, nearly 80 video-gaming stations, a replica command-and-control center, conference rooms, and Black Hawk helicopter and Humvee combat simulators.

It was repeatedly targeted for protests by those who said the Army’s use of first-person-shooter video games desensitized visitors to violence and enticed teens into the military. Anyone over 13 could play games, though the most graphic ones were restricted to those 18 and older.

War movies and TV specials are making a comeback with The Hurt Locker (2009), Inglorious Basterds (2009), and the HBO special The Pacific (2010) which all sell war as the “Band of Brothers” myth to perpetuate heroism and nationalism.

Music sells war, especially the country genre including Toby Keith’s lyrics:

Justice will be served/ And the battle will rage/ This big dog will fight when you rattle his cage/ And you’ll be sorry that you messed with the U.S. of A./ ‘Cause we’ll put a boot in your ass/ It’s the American Way.

Endless war… It is indeed the “American way.”

From the Rag Blog:  http://theragblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/jim-turpin-endless-war-and-american.html

At Under the Hood, Memorial Day 2010 was a day to remember two friends who were mainstays of the Texas peace community. Nick Travis III, 55, passed away suddenly early Monday morning, May 24, in Austin. Lisa Morris, 28, passed away unexpectedly the next day in Copperas Cove.  Nick, a long-time peace activist, was known to show up at Under the Hood with his guitar and infectious smile.  People couldn’t help but be a little happier with Nick around.  Lisa, a regular at Under the Hood, always made sure to stand in protest with fellow soldiers, veterans and family members at the gates of Fort Hood.  She leaves behind many friends.  Both will be missed dearly.  Our work continues on in their memory.

Under the Hood needs YOUR support now!  This is a critical time and we won’t be able to keep our doors open without your sustaining donation. Please consider signing up for a recurring donation today. If you believe in the work we do at Under the Hood, show us your support by considering a monthly donation.  As little as $10.00 a month can go a long way toward making Under the Hood sustainable.   Two hundred supporters contributing $10 a month will help us ensure that we can continue to provide these important services.  It’s easy to become a sustainer through PayPal.  The first 100 supporters to sign up for a sustaining donation will receive their choice of a poster or 12 oz. bag of Under the Hood coffee!

We would like to thank our most recent UtH supporters. A special thanks to our newest sustaining donors.We now have 16 sustaining donors toward our goal of 200!   We also want to thank Lee & Hardy Loe and Sue & Walter Long for their generosity.  Because of these two families, we had two very successful fundraisers in Houston and Austin in May.  We are also very grateful for a $1,000 grant from the Nonviolent Action Community of Cascadia in Seattle, Washington.

The Fort Hood Support Network (FHSN) operates Under the Hood Café and Outreach Center.  FHSN is a Texas non-profit corporation with 501(c)(3) tax exempt status. Donations may be treated as tax-deductible.

Under the Hood has had a steady stream of soldiers reaching out to us for support. For the first time, however, a group of military spouses recently contacted Under the Hood for assistance. As the U.S. heads into its tenth year of combat in Afghanistan and continued combat missions in Iraq, the number of soldiers facing multiple redeployments and resulting physical and mental health problems is reaching unprecedented levels. Soldiers and families are increasingly finding that the Army is doing little to address these and other health issues soldiers face. In fact, right here in Fort Hood, the Army is violating its own regulations by training soldiers for deployment despite their non-deployable status.

RISE TOGETHER: IVAW national convention is coming to Austin July 8 – 11, 2010. IVAW and Under the Hood mutually support each other’s efforts to end the war, one soldier at a time!  We look forward to seeing many of our IVAW brothers and sisters this July.  For more information about the IVAW convention, check it out here.

Or visit Under the Hood on the web at