| Subject: | UFPJ Calls for Week of Concentrated Media Work on Gaza Crisis |
| From: | "carolyn bninski" <carolynbn@earthlink.net> |
| Date: | Mon, Jan 12, 2009 10:15 pm |
| To: | <dnc@lists.riseup.net>, <dontdoit@googlegroups.com>, "CCJP Announce" <CCJP-announce@yahoogroups.com> |
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UFPJ Calls for Week of Concentrated Media Work on Gaza Crisis As
vital as it is to keep up the public protest, and as important as it is
that we make sure our elected officials in Washington hear from us,
this is also a crucial moment to bring our message to the mainstream
media. We hope your group will join this nationwide week --
starting today, January 9 and running through next Friday, January 16
-- of focused efforts on media work.
There are two major goals of our media work:
1) Coverage of our protest events and other public activities.
As
you continue to organize rallies, marches, vigils and other protests,
be sure to contact all of the media outlets in your area! We have heard
from some groups that they have been able to get good coverage of their
events, so let's try to expand this as widely as possible.
2) Bringing our message to a much wider audience.
As
we all know, the people the mainstream media usually have doing the
"analysis" are more often than not retired State Department or military
officials, representatives of the Israeli government, or others who
give a one-sided or biased perspective. There have been some notable
instances of other voices breaking through, such as the Norwegian
doctor in Gaza who has been on CBS and other outlets. But it is rare to
see a Palestinian or anyone else with a critical view of what Israel is
doing being interviewed.
For talking points and updates be sure to check the website of UFPJ and the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, as well as the website of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee.
A concentrated, nationwide effort to bring another perspective into the mainstream media could make a difference. Click here for a comprehensive list of media outlets in your area.
Making
sure our voices are heard and read means asking many people to take up
this effort, so please share this memo as widely as you can. We are
encouraging you to work on any or all of these four specific things:
1) An outpouring of letters to the editors, in every size and every type of publication.
- Letters are more likely to be printed if they are short.
- It often helps if the letter is in response to an article printed in the publication.
- If there is a connection to some local issue or group, that can be very helpful.
2) Opinion pieces and/or guest columns in your daily newspapers.
- These
are often hard to get in, but are worth pursuing. Call your local paper
to find out about requirements and the process for submitting a piece.
- It
is often easier to get a piece printed if it comes from someone who has
recently been to the area, someone respected in your community (a
religious leader, an elected official, etc.) or someone who has a
personal relationship to the issue.
3) A massive push to call into local radio talk shows.
- Millions
of people listen to talk radio in every corner of the country, every
day: we can reach people who might not otherwise ever see or hear our
message.
- Many
talk shows have an open format - you can raise any issue. It's best to
know the one or two points you want to make on the call since there
will most likely not be time for too much.
4) Use the online tools of media outlets.
- Just
about every media outlet now has some online way for people to express
their opinions. Be sure to check out what's available in your area and
then use those tools!
Finally, let us know if your group is taking up this work! Send a quick note to us at organizing@unitedforpeace.org And
be sure to let us know if there are specific resources you would like
UFPJ to produce that can help make your efforts stronger and more
successful. |
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[This is the Gaza portion of this email]
| Subject: | RMPJC: Events, announcements |
| From: | "carolyn bninski" <carolynbn@earthlink.net> |
| Date: | Thu, Jan 08, 2009 10:44 pm |
| To: | "CCJP Announce" <CCJP-announce@yahoogroups.com>, <dontdoit@googlegroups.com>, <dnc@lists.riseup.net> |
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The following email contains:
1) Announcements; 2) RMPJC Sponsored Events 3) Events of other organizations
______________________________ Announcements: GAZA:
Call Obama's transition office about Gaza and the need to end U.S.
support for the Israeli occupation: 202-540-3000 press 2 to speak to
staff member GAZA
LEAFLETTING Help with leafleting about the attacks on Gaza. This
Sunday from 6-7 at the Boulder Theater and other times. Call Carolyn
303-444-6981x2 |
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[A splice of the balance part]
| Subject: | [CCJP-discuss] Re: [dnc] Pro-Gaza Vigil - Monday, Jan 5th @ 5PM in Denver |
| From: | Michael Pugliese <michael.098762001@gmail.com> |
| Date: | Sun, Jan 04, 2009 7:33 pm |
Why Using Nazism and the Holocaust to Support Palestine is a Grave Error 1.
Because if the killing of some hundreds, or even thousands of people is
"genocide" on a par with the Holocaust, then where do you go when the
death toll hits five or six figures? Just as the Israeli response in
Gaza is deemed "disproportionate" by the international community, we
need to recognize that some verbal responses are "disproportionate" as
well. 2. Part of the desire to use the Holocaust against the
Jews/Zionists/Israelis is a natural and understandable desire to 'tweak
the noses' of one's opposition. This kind of dark sarcastic or spiteful
language isn't unique to this issue, but it's rarely as harmful. The
problem is that political messaging to observers doesn't work when
couched in this kind of language. In the same way that email often
fails to convey humor, dark and spiteful doesn't convey political
messaging well. 3. The Holocaust is an awful tragedy that befell
the Jewish people. Taking that experience and turning it around as
verbal barbs against the same group is tasteless and offensive. It's
like white people using the "N word". Even though Blacks do it, you
can't. 4. The conflict between Israelis and Palestinians has
spread, and now includes many other groups. The Lebanese, for example,
who paid an enormous price as a consequence of the Nakba. Or the
Jordanians, whose demographics were drastically altered. By using
Holocaust imagery and language, you are conveying that the opposition
isn't merely Israel, or the Zionists, but all Jews. This has the effect
of portraying your side as anti-Semitic, thus strengthening Israel's
case. It also helps unite Jews in active or passive support of the
Israeli PR effort. Notice I'm being careful in my words to
convey mostly strategic reasons to avoid this kind of imagery. There is
of course, the moral and ethical imperative to treat other groups, and
the sacred cows of those other groups, with a certain degree of
respect. That doesn't mean supporting Israel just because most Jews do;
Israel is a legitimate political issue. Violating Jewish sensibilities
to score rhetorical point for Palestinians is cheap, mean-spirited,
hateful, dishonest and vicious. These are sentiments that play well
(sadly) with some overwhelmingly Arab, Muslim and far-left audiences.
Since it comes at the cost of building support for Palestinian rights
in the Western world, we can also say that using this language is also,
ultimately, a blow against the Palestinian cause. And a shout out to April Rosenblum's excellent pamphlet "The Past Didn't Go Anywhere" about anti-Semitism on the left. You can see a free version here.
[Oops, now I know why my Jewish peace activists friends just shook their heads and walked away. I do understand how Jews feel about "Never again" and "a Jewish Homeland." And I understand how many have taken this too far. And I understand how Palestinians want a homeland too, and feel like they are being made slaves of Israel, starved into submission, no economy without Israeli agents. And I understand how many have taken this too far. Walt]
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| Subject: | RMPJC: Act to end the attacks on Gaza |
| From: | "carolyn bninski" <carolynbn@earthlink.net> |
| Date: | Sun, Jan 04, 2009 5:51 pm |
| To: | "CCJP Announce" <CCJP-announce@yahoogroups.com>, <dontdoit@googlegroups.com>, <dnc@lists.riseup.net> |
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Peace vigil in Boulder to protest the attacks on Gaza Monday: Monday, January 5 12:00 noon to 1 p.m. Canyon and Broadway, Boulder .
___________________________________ WRITE YOUR OFFICIALS: Contact the president 202-456-1111; 202-456-2461 (fax)
________________ CALL CONGRESS; SET UP MEEETINGs WITH CONGRESS PEOPLE. Demand
an unconditional, immediate cease-fire; full humanitarian access to
Gaza and a lifting of Israel’s siege; and accountability for Israel’s
misuse of U.S. weapons to kill Palestinian civilians. I've
updated the Congressional delegation. New people haven't set up their
Congressional offices yet and are using other numbers listed below. If
anyone has additional information let me know. Contact Congress in Washington D.C.: 1-800-828-0498; 202-224-3121 Senator Ken Salazar Phone: 303-455-7600 Fax: 303-455-8851 Senator Mark Udall 1-800-828-0498 Rep. Diana DeGette Phone: 303-844-4988 Fax: 303-844-4996 Rep. Ed Perlmutter Phone: 303-274-7944 Fax: 303-274-6455 Rep. John Salazar Phone: 719-543-8200 Fax: 719-543-8204 Rep. Doug Lamborn 719-520-0055 Fax: 719-520-0840
_____________________ WRITE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Talk to your friends, relatives etc and ask them to do the above.
_________________________ _______________________ MORE INFORMATION ABOUT SITUATION IN GAZA Carolyn Bninski
RMPJC
303-444-6981x2 "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
-Martin Luther King |
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| Subject: | Gifts to support Palestinians |
| From: | "carolyn bninski" <carolynbn@earthlink.net> |
| Date: | Fri, Dec 19, 2008 5:28 pm |
| To: | "CCJP Announce" <CCJP-announce@yahoogroups.com>, <dontdoit@googlegroups.com>, <dnc@lists.riseup.net> |
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Gifts to Support a Cause Selection of Items: Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center. www.rmpjc.org Calendars, videos, books, embroidery Assorted olive wood items from the occupied territories (bowls, candlesticks, pencil holders, camels, angels, etc.). 303-494-2338 American Educational Trust. Embroidery, greeting cards, olive oil & soap, poetry, and solidarity items. http://www.middleeastbooks.com/pact/index.html 2009 Calendars: http://www.resistanceart.com/calendars.htm Olive Oil: Oliv You & Me: 2043 Broadway, Boulder. http://olivym.com/ Online- http://www.palestineoliveoil.org/faq/palestine.html http://www.palestineonlinestore.com/oliveoil/index.html http://www.holylandoliveoil.com/; http://www.zaytoun.org/ http://mountainhighimports.com/products; http://www.brooklynpeace.org/ip/oliveoil.html Music: Marcel Khalife. http://www.marcelkhalife.com/ Books: (Recommended Bookstore is Left Hand Books) A Life in Pencil, poems by Ghada Kanafani; purchase from RMPJC: 303-444-6981 Flawed Landscape: Poems 1987-2008, by Sharif S. Elmusa http://imeu.net/news/article0014455.shtml Witness in Palestine: A Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories, by Anna Balzer. http://www.annainthemiddleeast.com/ An Israeli in Palestine, by Jeff Halper. http://www.icahd.org/eng/ Let It Be Morning, by Sayed Kashua Moghrabi's Olives, by Deborah Rohan Schlueter Check the book list on the Americans for Middle East Understanding site: http://www.ameu.org/books.asp American Educational Trust (publisher of Washington Report on Middle East Affairs). http://www.middleeastbooks.com/ Organizations to make donations to: See the Washington Report Web site for a more extensive list of charitable organizations that accept and need donations. http://www.wrmea.com/charorganizations/index.htm Addameer—Prisoners’ Rights and Support Group. Supports Palestinian political prisoners through visits, aid, advocacy and the media. www.addameer.org
Al-Rowwad Center. An independent Center for artistic, cultural, and theatre training for children in Aida Camp http://alrowwad.virtualactivism.net/donate.htm Arab Resource Center for Popular Arts (AL-JANA).
A non-profit organization, in a Beirut camp to help refugee children
retain Palestinian culture, history, and folklore, all of which help to
build young refugees' sense of identity, meaning, and self-esteem. http://www.al-jana.org/friends.htm Gaza Community Mental Health Program (GCMHP). Provides urgently needed mental care for residents of the Gaza Strip. www.gcmhp.net The Jerusalem Fund. Provides grants for humanitarian and cultural projects in Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan, and educational projects in the U.S. www.thejerusalemfund.org
Kinder USA. Supports relief and development programs in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon and Jordan. www.kinderusa.org
Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders.
Global organization that provides emergency medical relief across the
Arab and Muslim world, including the victims of the recent war in
Lebanon. www.doctorswithoutborders.org Middle East Children’s Alliance.
Promotes peace and justice in the Middle East, focusing on Palestine,
Israel, Lebanon and Iraq through educating North Americans about U.S.
foreign policy in the Middle East and supporting relief and development
projects in the region. www.mecaforpeace.org Palestine Children’s Welfare Fund. Supports educational and health programs for Palestinian children living in West Bank and Gaza Strip refugee camps. www.pcwf.org Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice. The
Corrie family foundation promotes educational programs in the U.S. and
economic, environmental and social justice in Rafah, where Rachel
Corrie was killed. www.rachelcorriefoundation.org US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.
The US Campaign aims to change U.S. policies that sustain Israel's
41-year occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, Gaza Strip and East
Jerusalem, and that deny equal rights for all. http://www.endtheoccupation.org/ |
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An Open Letter to Barack Obama Between Hope and Reality By RALPH NADER Dear Senator Obama: In
your nearly two-year presidential campaign, the words "hope and
change," "change and hope" have been your trademark declarations. Yet
there is an asymmetry between those objectives and your political
character that succumbs to contrary centers of power that want not
"hope and change" but the continuation of the power-entrenched status
quo. Far
more than Senator McCain, you have received enormous, unprecedented
contributions from corporate interests, Wall Street interests and, most
interestingly, big corporate law firm attorneys. Never before has a
Democratic nominee for President achieved this supremacy over his
Republican counterpart. Why, apart from your unconditional vote for the
$700 billion Wall Street bailout, are these large corporate interests
investing so much in Senator Obama? Could it be that in your state
Senate record, your U.S. Senate record and your presidential campaign
record (favoring nuclear power, coal plants, offshore oil drilling,
corporate subsidies including the 1872 Mining Act and avoiding any
comprehensive program to crack down on the corporate crime wave and the
bloated, wasteful military budget, for example) you have shown that you
are their man? To
advance change and hope, the presidential persona requires character,
courage, integrity-- not expediency, accommodation and short-range
opportunism. Take, for example, your transformation from an articulate
defender of Palestinian rights in Chicago before your run for the U.S.
Senate to an acolyte, a dittoman for the hard-line AIPAC lobby, which
bolsters the militaristic oppression, occupation, blockage,
colonization and land-water seizures over the years of the Palestinian
peoples and their shrunken territories in the West Bank and Gaza. Eric
Alterman summarized numerous polls in a December 2007 issue of The
Nation magazine showing that AIPAC policies are opposed by a majority
of Jewish-Americans. You
know quite well that only when the U.S. Government supports the Israeli
and Palestinian peace movements, that years ago worked out a detailed
two-state solution (which is supported by a majority of Israelis and
Palestinians) , will there be a chance for a peaceful resolution of
this 60-year plus conflict. Yet you align yourself with the
hard-liners, so much so that in your infamous, demeaning speech to the
AIPAC convention right after you gained the nomination of the
Democratic Party, you supported an "undivided Jerusalem ," and opposed
negotiations with Hamas-- the elected government in Gaza . Once again,
you ignored the will of the Israeli people who, in a March 1, 2008 poll
by the respected newspaper Haaretz, showed that 64% of Israelis favored
"direct negotiations with Hamas." Siding with the AIPAC hard-liners is
what one of the many leading Palestinians advocating dialogue and peace
with the Israeli people was describing when he wrote "Anti-semitism
today is the persecution of Palestinian society by the Israeli state." During
your visit to Israel this summer, you scheduled a mere 45 minutes of
your time for Palestinians with no news conference, and no visit to
Palestinian refugee camps that would have focused the media on the
brutalization of the Palestinians. Your trip supported the illegal,
cruel blockade of Gaza in defiance of international law and the United
Nations charter. You focused on southern Israeli casualties which
during the past year have totaled one civilian casualty to every 400
Palestinian casualties on the Gaza side. Instead of a statesmanship
that decried all violence and its replacement with acceptance of the
Arab League's 2002 proposal to permit a viable Palestinian state within
the 1967 borders in return for full economic and diplomatic relations
between Arab countries and Israel, you played the role of a cheap
politician, leaving the area and Palestinians with the feeling of much
shock and little awe. David
Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator, described your trip
succinctly: "There was almost a willful display of indifference to the
fact that there are two narratives here. This could serve him well as a
candidate, but not as a President." Palestinian
American commentator, Ali Abunimah, noted that Obama did not utter a
single criticism of Israel , "of its relentless settlement and wall
construction, of the closures that make life unlivable for millions of
Palestinians. ...Even the Bush administration recently criticized
Israeli's use of cluster bombs against Lebanese civilians [see
www.atfl.org for elaboration] . But Obama defended Israeli's assault on
Lebanon as an exercise of its 'legitimate right to defend itself.'" In
numerous columns Gideon Levy, writing in Haaretz, strongly criticized
the Israeli government's assault on civilians in Gaza , including
attacks on "the heart of a crowded refugee camp... with horrible
bloodshed" in early 2008. Israeli
writer and peace advocate-- Uri Avnery-- described Obama's appearance
before AIPAC as one that "broke all records for obsequiousness and
fawning, adding that Obama "is prepared to sacrifice the most basic
American interests. After all, the US has a vital interest in achieving
an Israeli-Palestinian peace that will allow it to find ways to the
hearts of the Arab masses from Iraq to Morocco . Obama has harmed his
image in the Muslim world and mortgaged his future-- if and when he is
elected president.," he said, adding, "Of one thing I am certain:
Obama's declarations at the AIPAC conference are very, very bad for
peace. And what is bad for peace is bad for Israel , bad for the world
and bad for the Palestinian people." A
further illustration of your deficiency of character is the way you
turned your back on the Muslim-Americans in this country. You refused
to send surrogates to speak to voters at their events. Having visited
numerous churches and synagogues, you refused to visit a single Mosque
in America . Even George W. Bush visited the Grand Mosque in Washington
D.C. after 9/11 to express proper sentiments of tolerance before a
frightened major religious group of innocents. Although
the New York Times published a major article on June 24, 2008 titled
"Muslim Voters Detect a Snub from Obama" (by Andrea Elliott), citing
examples of your aversion to these Americans who come from all walks of
life, who serve in the armed forces and who work to live the American
dream. Three days earlier the International Herald Tribune published an
article by Roger Cohen titled "Why Obama Should Visit a Mosque." None
of these comments and reports change your political bigotry against
Muslim-Americans- - even though your father was a Muslim from Kenya . Perhaps
nothing illustrated your utter lack of political courage or even the
mildest version of this trait than your surrendering to demands of the
hard-liners to prohibit former president Jimmy Carter from speaking at
the Democratic National Convention. This is a tradition for former
presidents and one accorded in prime time to Bill Clinton this year. Here
was a President who negotiated peace between Israel and Egypt , but his
recent book pressing the dominant Israeli superpower to avoid Apartheid
of the Palestinians and make peace was all that it took to sideline
him. Instead of an important address to the nation by Jimmy Carter on
this critical international problem, he was relegated to a stroll
across the stage to "tumultuous applause," following a showing of a
film about the Carter Center 's post-Katrina work. Shame on you, Barack
Obama! But
then your shameful behavior has extended to many other areas of
American life. (See the factual analysis by my running mate, Matt
Gonzalez, on www.votenader. org). You have turned your back on the
100-million poor Americans composed of poor whites, African-Americans,
and Latinos. You always mention helping the "middle class" but you
omit, repeatedly, mention of the "poor" in America . Should
you be elected President, it must be more than an unprecedented upward
career move following a brilliantly unprincipled campaign that spoke
"change" yet demonstrated actual obeisance to the concentration power
of the "corporate supremacists. " It must be about shifting the power
from the few to the many. It must be a White House presided over by a
black man who does not turn his back on the downtrodden here and abroad
but challenges the forces of greed, dictatorial control of labor,
consumers and taxpayers, and the militarization of foreign policy. It
must be a White House that is transforming of American politics--
opening it up to the public funding of elections (through voluntary
approaches)- - and allowing smaller candidates to have a chance to be
heard on debates and in the fullness of their now restricted civil
liberties. Call it a competitive democracy. Your
presidential campaign again and again has demonstrated cowardly stands.
"Hope" some say springs eternal." But not when "reality" consumes it
daily. Sincerely,
Ralph Nader
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| Subject: | Re: [CCJP-discuss] Dream On |
| From: | K DeBacker <therebis@yahoo.com> |
| Date: | Thu, Nov 06, 2008 5:29 pm |
| To: | carolyn bninski <carolynbn@earthlink.net>, moderator <ccjp-discuss@yahoogroups.com> |
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was reading through the comment section of a few posts this morning
(something I rarely can bring myself to do anymore) and I realized that
I need to remind people of something that's very important for successful governance: FDR
was, of course, a consummate political leader. In one situation, a
group came to him urging specific actions in support of a cause in
which they deeply believed. He replied: "I agree with you, I want to do
it, now make me do it."
He understood that a President does not
rule by fiat and unilateral commands to a nation. He must build the
political support that makes his decisions acceptable to our
countrymen. He read the public opinion polls not to define who he was
but to determine where the country was – and then to strategize how he
could move the country to the objectives he thought had to be carried
out. It is a matter of the grassroots organizing in order to exert pressure for change that we believe in. In
innumerable speeches Barack has said that it is up to YOU and I to
promote the change that he will be "forced" to do. We, as progressives
and liberals, have to MAKE him do it through our power as citizens. Nothing
is simple and nothing will be given. Every objective that we hold must
be fought for and it is time to realize that we must be the leaders and
the teacher to Obama. Not the other way around. Ken |
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