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Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Fwd: WPJC Supplemental News - No War with Syria Rally

 Note: The editor of this email from the Whatcom Peace and Justice Center  wishes  to add these contact numbers to the Peace Rally notice below:

Call Your Congressperson:
WHATCOM COUNTY
Rick Larsen: 360-733-4500
Suzan DelBene: 425-485-0085

Call Your Senators:
WASHINGTON
Maria Cantwell: 888-648-7328
Patty Murray: 866-481-9186

Call the White House:
Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414

Get Involved:

Whatcom Peace & Justice Center
1220 Bay Street
office@whatcompjc.org
www.whatcompjc.org
Find us on facebook & twitter



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Whatcom Peace & Justice Center" <office@whatcompjc.org>
Date: Aug 28, 2013 10:33 AM
Subject: WPJC Supplemental News - No War with Syria Rally
To: <rferrisx@gmail.com>
Cc:




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Whatcom Peace and Justice Center
No War with Syria Rally



NO WAR IN SYRIA RALLY
Saturday, August 31 - 12:00 pm
Federal Building -104 W Magnolia St, Bellingham (http://goo.gl/maps/1RWK2)

Facebook event is here: http://on.fb.me/1cftHlZ

There will be a rally against the proposed war in Syria at 12 noon outside the Federal Building in Downtown Bellingham on Saturday, August 31st. The rally will bring together people of Bellingham standing against a new war in Syria.

The rally will feature speakers and music against the existing and proposed wars. Participants will have the opportunity to sign a petition to their Congressional delegation and be plugged into the movement to stop the war.

Call Janet Marino at the Whatcom Peace and Justice Center for more details, (360) 734-0217 or email janet@whatcompjc.org

If you'd like to make phone calls or canvass to help get the word out about this event, contact Matt Petryni at (360) 303-1660. We'll be making phone calls from the Whatcom Peace and Justice Center office, 1220 Bay Street starting on Thursday.

ADDITIONALLY:
Whatcom Peace & Justice Center is going to be open on Wednesday and Thursday night from 4-8pm in addition to our regular hours, possibly later, if people want to come down. We have internet and news access, some sign making materials, though more are welcome. I'll try to get some food together in time, too. All are welcome.
Copyright © 2013 Whatcom Peace and Justice Center, All rights reserved.
This is the main email list for friends and supporters of Whatcom Peace and Justice Center.
Our mailing address is:
Whatcom Peace and Justice Center
1220 Bay Street
Bellingham, WA 98225



Fwd: SEP Newsletter: The war drive against Syria

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Socialist Equality Party" <sep@socialistequality.com>
Date: Aug 27, 2013 11:24 AM
Subject: SEP Newsletter: The war drive against Syria
To: "rferrisx@gmail.com" <rferrisx@gmail.com>
Cc:


World Socialist Web Site

Socialist Equality Party Newsletter

Below is a selection of articles appearing on the World Socialist Web Site last week. Six days a week, the WSWS publishes on all the major political, social and cultural developments. To sign up for the daily newsletter, click here.
Take up the fight for socialism! Join the Socialist Equality Party! For more information and to get involved, click here.

Contents:

The war drive against Syria

26 August 2013
Ten years after the US government went to war in Iraq on the basis of lies about nonexistent weapons of mass destruction (WMD), a no less grotesque provocation is being concocted by Paris, London, and Washington to justify a new war of aggression against Syria.
The allegations that the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad carried out mass chemical weapons attacks last Wednesday in Ghouta, near Damascus, lack any credibility.
The Assad regime has no motive to carry out such an attack. Until Wednesday, its forces were handily defeating the US-backed opposition militias without using chemical weapons. Due to their lack of popular support and the repeated defeats they have suffered, the opposition is disintegrating into bands of looters and murderers--a state of affairs confirmed by Al Qaeda-linked opposition forces' declaration that after the Ghouta a ttack, they will kill any member of Assad's Alawite faith they capture.
Allegations that Assad used chemical weapons serve only one purpose: to give Washington and its allies a pretext to attack Syria, which they have repeatedly threatened to do if a chemical attack by the regime occurred. If a chemical weapon attack did take place in Ghouta, François Hollande, David Cameron, and Barack Obama know far more about its execution than does Bashar al-Assad.
Before any proof of a chemical attack had emerged, and before any investigation had even begun--indeed, in less time than police departments take to issue an indictment in a routine street crime--French and British officials were calling for war with Assad. The day after the alleged attack, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius insisted that "force" was the only appropriate response.
Obama administration officials even said th at they did not want a UN investigation or the collection of evidence before proceeding with their war plans. They told the New York Times yesterday that, with target lists for US strikes in Syria already circulating at the White House, they were "determined not to be drawn into a protracted debate over gaining access for United Nations investigators, because of doubts that they could now produce credible findings."
The Obama administration's claims that it is going to war because it is concerned that a "red line" of chemical weapons use has been breached is utterly fraudulent. It does not intend to investigate what occurred in Ghouta. Rather, it wants to obtain a pretext for war that it can present as "credible" to the media, to justify military action that it intends to pursue regardless of whether the Assad regime used any chemical weapons.
Paris, London, and Washington are rushing into a war wit h far-reaching implications. US guided missile destroyers are heading to the eastern Mediterranean to get in position to strike Syria, and military planners are preparing a massive bombing campaign and stepped-up weapons shipments to Islamist opposition militias in Syria. They are dismissing blunt warnings by Syria's allies, Iran and Russia, that a US attack on Syria will have dire consequences throughout the region.
The geostrategic and economic interests driving war preparations against Syria were spelled out in a long statement by one of US imperialism's leading strategists, Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, issued two days after the alleged chemical attack.
He wrote, "If Bashar al-Assad wins or survives in ways that give him control over most of Syria, Iran will have a massive new degree of influence over Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon in a polarized Middle East divided b etween Sunni and Shi'ite and steadily driving minorities into exile. This will present serious new risks for an Israel that will never again be able to count on a passive Assad. It will weaken Jordan and Turkey and, most importantly, give Iran far more influence in the Gulf. BP estimates that Iraq and Iran together have nearly 20 percent of the world's proven oil reserves, and the Middle East has over 48 percent."
To achieve the objective of removing all impediments to their control over the vast oil reserves of the Middle East, the imperialist powers, led by the United States, would gladly organize the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Syrians, just as they did in Iraq.
There is deep opposition in the working class in the United States and Europe to being railroaded into another war for oil and geopolitical advantage. One Reuters/Ipsos poll published Saturday shows that only 9 percent of the US public supp orts US intervention in Syria, and only 25 percent would support it even if it were proven that Assad had used chemical weapons.
Well aware of this public sentiment, the American and European media say nothing of the interests underlying the war plans and subject none of the Islamist opposition's accusations to critical examination, even though it is well known that these forces have ties to Al Qaeda and routinely lie to the press. The stench of lies surrounds this latest operation by a state-controlled media to roll out a pack of WMD lies to justify yet another war of aggression.
As for the imperialist powers' claims that they are attacking Syria out of a humanitarian urge to protect Syrian civilians, these statements deserve nothing but contempt. They are moving to start another bloody war only days after sanctioning the slaughter of thousands of unarmed protesters by Egypt's US-backed military junta.
Workers and youth must oppose the war that Washington and its allies are threatening to unleash in Syria. Until they are stopped by a movement of the working class, the imperialist powers will go well beyond war with Syria in pursuit of the agenda outlined by Cordesman. Besides the countries already devastated by fighting spilling over from Syria, such as Lebanon and Iraq, the imperialist powers have Iran, and ultimately Russia and China, in their sights.
Alex Lantier

On the eve of war with Syria: John Kerry's "Colin Powell moment"

27 August 2013
Yesterday, US Secretary of State John Kerry appeared on national television to deliver a lying statement aimed at preparing public opinion for an impending US-NATO attack on Syria. It was his very own "Colin Powell moment."
On February 5, 2003, Powell, then the secretary of state in the Bush administration, made an infamous presentation before the United Nations. For two hours, armed with photos, graphs and audio tapes, the chief diplomatic officer of the United States made the case for war against Iraq. He claimed that the evidence he presented showed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD), which it was about to unleash on the world.
The media and politicians of both parties hailed Powell's performance, declaring that the former general had made an overwhelming case that Iraq had enormous WMD programs. Six weeks later, bombs fell on Iraq as the US invasion began.
Powell's speech was a pack of lies. Not one of his claims about yellowcake uranium from Niger, aluminum tubes, or mobile weapons labs was true. At the time, the WSWS wrote that the brief for war was "a diplomatic charade laced with cynicism and deceit... predicated on a colossal lie: that the coming invasion is about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and Baghdad's supposed threat to US security and world peace." And so it proved to be.
The speech ten years later by Kerry was no less dishonest, no less cynical. Indeed, by comparison, Powell's presentation was a masterpiece of detail.
US Secretary of State John Kerry threatens Syria

Monday, August 26, 2013

Fwd: Our plan is working

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Aaron Ostrom, Fuse Washington" <info@fusewashington.org>
Date: Aug 27, 2013 12:00 PM
Subject: Our plan is working
To: <rferrisx@gmail.com>
Cc:

Ten weeks before the November election, the race between Sen. Nathan Schlicher and Rep. Jan Angel is too close to call. Our plan is working, but winning this race is only the first step toward retaking the Senate from Rodney Tom and the Republicans. Will you give us the ongoing funding we need to win by donating $10.00 per month?

Chip in!

Dear Friend,

Ten weeks before the decisive November election, the race between Sen. Nathan Schlicher and Rep. Jan Angel is too close to call.

In just two months, our progressive coalition has closed the gap in this critical Senate race. It's an incredible testament to the power of grassroots organizing and a hard–hitting communications campaign. When we educate voters about Angel's far–right track record, they move to support Dr. Schlicher.

We're starting the general election in a position to win. But winning this race is only the first step.

Reclaiming the Senate from Rodney Tom and the Republicans is a two year project. We need to defeat Jan Angel this November, hold Senate Republicans accountable during the legislative session, and then defeat them at the ballot box in 2014.

Our plan is working. We are getting the truth out and voters are moving our way. The only question is if we'll have the resources to finish the job.

Will you give us the ongoing support we need to win this critical long–term campaign by donating $10.00 per month as part of the Fuse PowerSource team? We need 50 activists to say "Yes!" to progress once a month. Click below to join our team:

powersource.fusewashington.org

Our hard–hitting campaigns to hold Senate Republicans accountable are getting noticed. The Seattle Times reported that Rob McKenna and his campaign manager Randy Pepple are even trying to start a "business–friendly counterweight" to Fuse.1

It's a flattering sign of our success that McKenna is trying to build a conservative Fuse. But it's also a reminder that conservatives and their corporate backers are in this for the long–term, and we must be too.

We're working every day to put Washington back on a path to progress, and it starts with defeating Jan Angel this November. Will you give us the ongoing funding we need to win by donating $10.00 per month as part of the Fuse PowerSource team? Click below to join our team now:

powersource.fusewashington.org

Thanks for all that you do,

Aaron and the entire team at Fuse

  1. http://blogs.seattletimes.com/politicsnorthwest/2013/05/31/rob-mckenna-launches-new-web-site-and-mystery-nonprofit/





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How our species will end...

"LeMay believed that ultimately we're going to confront these people in a conflict with nuclear weapons. And, by God, we better do it when we have greater superiority than we will have in the future.
At the time, we had a 17 to 1 strategic advantage in nuclear numbers. We'd done 10 times as many tests as they had. We were certain we could maintain that advantage if we limited the tests. The Chiefs we're all opposed. They said, "The Soviets will cheat." I said, "How will they cheat?" You won't believe this, but they said, "They'll test them behind the moon." I said, "You're out of your minds." I said, "That's absurd."
It's almost impossible for our people today to put themselves back into that period. In my 7 years as Secretary, we came within a hair's breath of war with the Soviet Union on three different occasions. 24 hours a day, 365 days a year for 7 years as Secretary of Defense, I lived the Cold War."
Robert McNamara interview with Errol Morris in The Fog of War , 2004

So the Russians are right, aren't they? Obama is just as crazy and dumb and spineless as George W. Bush. Amid escalating international tension with Russia, he has warships stationed for attack off Syria's coast, appropriately timed with UN inspectors visiting Syria just in time to gather evidence from the world's most obvious false flag attack.  Obama and the carbon cartel are apparently desperate.  Apparently, "the fallback plan" was to create so much chaos, violence, disaster in the South Asia, the Middle East, North Africa that the U.S. (with the help of Israel) can just start launching low-yield nuclear war heads against the Syrians and Iranians.

Do you want the bad news first? The fascist idiots that control American foreign policy now would  make Curtis LeMay look like a pacifist. Not even a young, hawkish McNamara would be acceptable for their employment. He would simply be considered too intelligent, too independent, too rational. Let's face it, Webster Tarpley was right. Under the pretext of electing hope and change we put a trilateral spy in the White House: an intellectual lightweight with questionable intelligence, hypocritical left-wing beliefs and balls made of fiber-glass. Yeah: they just blow which ever way the military-industrial establishment pushes them.

So this is how the world will end.  A cardboard American President will do whatever he is told by his deranged, elitist, military-industrial complex.  Russia, China, Iran, Syrian, North Korea, Cuba and possibly Venezuela will counter attack with nuclear strikes and sabotage and that's that! There goes your nice, half sunny late summer Northwest morning! All of you know that the cozy alliance WA state has made with the military since the neo-conservative/neo-liberal (Was there ever really a difference?) reign of Jackson/Magnuson will make us target no. 1 on the West Coast: Bangor-Kitsap, Whidbey Island, JBLM, Yakima-Echelon, Bremerton, Everett, Jim Creek, Olympia-MOA... Hell, anyone one of these is probably worth at least several hundred kt from a TOPOL-M. But then again, neither we nor our children will be around to measure it, will we? Thank God for that. As long as my Monday morning $4 double latte ends in a sharp white blast, I just won't feel a thing....

What a pathetic lot we are as Americans. Our founding fathers would be ashamed of us.  As our deranged "deep state" marches us to nuclear annihilation, we might gather on street corners or write vanity laced letters of protest. In truth, only Vladimir Putin and the Russian military can help stop American imperialism and war-mongering. The rest of West is too subdued or in bed with American foreign policy hawks too give a sh*t.  At what point will Russia decide that they have just been pushed too far? At what point will they have no more "tricks up their sleeve?"  Kiss your children this morning. Make sure their memories are fresh in your over-educated, over-resourced, under-whelming, narcissistic American mind. We shouldn't expect the last moments of civilization to be anything but cheerful for us now, should we?

If you can't think of anything else to do to help, at least turn off cable news for the next two weeks. If you can, please walk,bike,carpool, or transit to work and stop buying gasoline. God knows, you can't really afford it anyway. Maybe the fascists will notice a drop in television revenue and oil profits. Seems to be the only thing they care about anyway....

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Fwd: Public comment period: Cornwall Ave Landfill cleanup site - Bellingham, Wash.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Terpening, Dustin (ECY)" <DTER461@ecy.wa.gov>
Date: Aug 22, 2013 11:44 AM
Subject: Public comment period: Cornwall Ave Landfill cleanup site - Bellingham, Wash.
To:
Cc:

 

Cornwall Ave Landfill cleanup site

An environmental report that details contamination and a preferred cleanup option for the Cornwall Avenue Landfill cleanup site on Bellingham's waterfront is available for review and comment Aug. 22 through Sept. 20.

 

Extensive sampling across the 16-acre site found potentially harmful levels of hazardous substances in the groundwater, soil and sediment.

 

To prevent people, plants and animals from being exposed to contaminants, four cleanup options were evaluated.

 

Please see the attached fact sheet, read the news release, or visit the project website for additional information.
(Note: If printing the fact sheet, it prints best on 11x17 paper, landscape, double-sided.)

 

A couple pictures of the cleanup site are on Flickr: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjHDkmDL.

 

Review documents

The draft technical report, referred to as a Remedial Investigation and Feasibility Study, is available for review on our website, at our offices in Bellingham and Bellevue, and at the Bellingham Public Library.

 

Submit comments

Comments can be submitted to Ecology site manager Mark Adams at mark.adams@ecy.wa.gov or 3190 160th Ave NE, Bellevue, WA 98008.

 

Community meeting

We are hosting a public meeting from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 28, at the Bellingham Public Library in the downstairs Lecture room to provide more details and answer questions about the contamination and cleanup options. A presentation begins at 7 p.m.

 

 

 

Dustin Terpening

Washington Department of Ecology

Communications Manager

360-715-5205 or @ecynorth

 

 

SUBSCRIBE: Email dustin.terpening@ecy.wa.gov to be added to the Bellingham Bay email list.

UNSUBSCRIBE: Email dustin.terpening@ecy.wa.gov to be removed from the Bellingham Bay email list.

 

Saturday, August 10, 2013

21.63% turnout for 2013 Primary (with no ballots left to count to date)

Disastrous is how I would describe a 21.63% turnout


from http://vote.wa.gov/results/current/whatcom/

August 6, 2013 Primary

Last updated on 08/09/2013 11:27 AM
Number of Precincts93
Number of Registered Voters65,994
Total Ballots Counted14,275
Estimated Ballots Left to Count
Next Ballot Count On08/12/2013 3:00 PM
Last Tabulated08/09/2013 11:27 AM
Voter Turnout21.63%
Certification Date08/20/2013

Fwd: SEP Newsletter: Obama's press conference: The smiling face of a police state

Devastating comment by WSWS authors this week on the death of Lavabit and the Ascension of the Police State in America -RMF


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Socialist Equality Party" <sep@socialistequality.com>
Date: Aug 10, 2013 7:07 AM
Subject: SEP Newsletter: Obama's press conference: The smiling face of a police state
To: "rferrisx@gmail.com" <rferrisx@gmail.com>
Cc:


World Socialist Web Site

Socialist Equality Party Newsletter

Below is a selection of articles appearing on the World Socialist Web Site last week. Six days a week, the WSWS publishes on all the major political, social and cultural developments. To sign up for the daily newsletter, click here.
Take up the fight for socialism! Join the Socialist Equality Party! For more information and to get involved, click here.

Contents:

Obama's press conference: The smiling face of a police state

Monday, August 5, 2013

Remember to Vote!!

 A dismal 7,809  primary votes had been recorded by  2:30pm 8/2/13 on Friday. Tuesday is your last day to vote in the Primary



Saturday, August 3, 2013

RE Sources wins a substantial settlement against SSA

RE Sources won a substantial settlement against SSA.  See their blog link below:

RE Sources for Sustainable Communities: SSA Marine's Actions Prove They Cannot Be Trusted: Photo of the Cherry Point reach, the proposed site of the coal terminal. After a year-and-a-half legal battle, RE Sources for Sustainabl...

Friday, August 2, 2013

NSA Leaks : Part XI

So after reading about the NSA's "X-KeyScore" servers that apparently collect everything a user does online, I just have to ask: Where exactly is that little red dot in Northwest? Yakima-Echelon? JBLM? Bangor-Kitsap? Whidbey Island AFB? .  The server(s) are probably located so as to be close to the undersea cables that transit the Northwest. Most probably they would be part of a large scale server infrastructure involving many servers and lots of cooling capacity.  They may want to be near internet exchanges like SIX or BCIX.  But certainly "X-KeyScore" server infrastructure would result in a significant physical presence, perhaps even multiple significant presences. And there would be interfaces....

The slides are from 2008, so one can only imagine significant "X-KeyScore" server growth since then. You can bet the hunt is on by state security services and rogue hackers across the world to find these servers and their interfaces.

From The Guardian

What I find so astounding about all these revelations is not the comprehensiveness of the surveillance, the arrogance of the NSA lying before Congress, or the fact that all my web searches, email, and blog posts are probably being logged for all eternity.  What I find so astounding is the fact that slides like the one above were ever produced let alone made available to a network administrator like Edward Snowden. You see, these slides don't contain the specific information that a network administrator would need to work on a particular set of servers. The slides seemed to be designed for a collection analyst, yet that type of analyst really wouldn't need to see a bunch of vague red dots showing world wide collection points in order to perform data queries.

Apparently, nobody at the NSA gave any thought as to what the reaction would be if this information ever escaped. This would imply that the NSA thought their security was bulletproof, which is really, really strange. Because no one I know in the security field has believed such braggadocio for a long time now.  Did anyone at the NSA stop to think of the potential scope of economic catastrophe if the internet users of the world suddenly stopped trusting their desktops and internet? How about the counter-intelligence catastrophe if someone actually penetrated X-KeyScore servers once their general locations were revealed? And  how was it exactly that a contract network administrator like Edward Snowden, employed in the top security organization in the world came to have access to so much sensitive material? Is the national security establishment in the United States simply too big and too complex now to be secured?

To say that the NSA's  information access policy was (is)  designed in an insecure and careless fashion is an understatement.  The exposure of this type of information is simply going to result in economic, communication, national, and security based "creative destruction" to use Joseph Schumpeter's phrase.  In effect, the continuing exposure itself is not just a form of counter-intelligence. It is a harbinger of world-wide revolution.  Whether you think Edward Snowden and Glen Greenwald are traitors is beside the point. The carelessness of which your many tax dollars were spent is going to fund a worldwide devaluation of  global capitalism and a revolution in the information industry.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Friday night setup in full swing for The Anacortes Art Festival

Rarely ever is Anacortes a bee hive of activity. It is tonight and will be more so this weekend.