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Mike Ferner, President, Veterans for Peace 419-360-3621
Michael McPhearson, Exec. Dir., Veterans for Peace 314-303-8874
On November 30th, representatives of 34 antiwar groups delivered an
open letter to President Obama strongly opposing his anticipated decision to
escalate the war in Afghanistan with the commitment of tens of
thousands of additional U.S. troops.
The
document called increased war spending, in light of the ongoing U.S. economic
crisis, an "utter folly" and named the war "a war against ordinary
people, both here in the United States and in Afghanistan," which "if
continued, will result in the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of U.S. troops
and untold thousands of Afghans"and "cause other people in other lands
to despise the U.S." as "the world's richest nation making war on one of
the world's very poorest."
The
signatories pledged "to keep opposing this war in every nonviolent way
possible. We will urge elected representatives to cut all funding for war.
Some of us will be led to withhold our taxes, practice civil resistance, and
promote slowdowns and strikes at schools and workplaces."
Signed
by veterans and peace activists and religious leaders the document represents
one of the most widespread antiwar coalitions in decades, including many of the
organizations which, in 2003, brought millions onto the streets to oppose the
U.S.-Iraq war.
Signers to the letter
are urging their colleagues to participate in local demonstrations the day after
an announcement of troop escalations is made.
The letter ends by warning
President Obama, "we will do everything in our power, as nonviolent peace
activists, to build the kind of massive movement -- which today represents the
sentiments of a majority of the American people - that will play a key role in
ending U.S. war in
Afghanistan. Such is the folly
of your decision and such is the depth of our opposition to the death and
suffering it will cause."
###
President
Barack Obama
The White
House
Washington, D.C.
November
30, 2009
Dear
President Obama,
With
millions of U.S. people feeling the fear and desperation of no longer having a
home; with millions feeling the terror and loss of dignity that comes with
unemployment; with millions of our children slipping further into poverty and
hunger, your decision to deploy thousands more troops and throw hundreds of
billions more dollars into prolonging the profoundly tragic war in Afghanistan
strikes us as utter folly. We believe this decision represents a war against
ordinary people, both here in the United
States and in Afghanistan. The war in Afghanistan, if continued, will result in the
deaths of hundreds if not thousands of U.S. troops, and untold thousands of
Afghans.
Polls
indicate that a majority of those who labored with so much hope to elect you as
president now fear that you will make a wrong decision -- a tragic decision that
will destroy their dreams for America. More tragic is the price of
your decision. It will be paid with the blood, suffering and broken hearts of
our young troops, their loved ones and an even greater number of Afghan men,
women and children.
The
U.S. military claims that
this war must be fought to protect U.S. national security, but we believe it is
being waged to expand U.S. empire in the interests of oil
and pipeline companies.
Your
decision to escalate U.S.
troops and continue the occupation will cause other people in other lands to
despise the U.S. as a menacing military power
that violates international law. Keep in mind that to most of the peoples of the
world, widening the war in Afghanistan will look exactly like
what it is: the world's richest nation making war on one of the world's very
poorest.
The war
must be ended now. Humanitarian aid programs should address the deep poverty
that has always been a part of the life of Afghan people.
We will
keep opposing this war in every nonviolent way possible. We will urge elected
representatives to cut all funding for war. Some of us will be led to withhold
our taxes, practice civil resistance, and promote slowdowns and strikes at
schools and workplaces.
In short,
President Obama, we will do everything in our power, as nonviolent peace
activists, to build the kind of massive movement --which today represents the
sentiments of a majority of the American people--that will play a key role in
ending U.S. war in Afghanistan.
Such would
be the folly of a decision to escalate troop deployment and such is the depth of
our opposition to the death and suffering it would cause.
Sincerely,
(Signers names listed in alphabetical order)
Jack
Amoureux, Executive Committee
Military
Families Speak Out
Michael
Baxter
Catholic
Peace Fellowship
Medea
Benjamin, Co-founder
Global
Exchange
Frida
Berrigan
Witness
Against Torture
Elaine
Brower
World
Can't Wait
Leslie
Cagan, Co-Founder
United for
Peace and Justice
Tom
Cornell
Catholic
Peace Fellowship
Matt
Daloisio
War
Resisters League
Marie
Dennis, Director
Maryknoll
Office for Global Concerns
Robby
Diesu
Our
Spring Break
Pat
Elder, Co-coordinator
National
Network Opposing Militarization of Youth
Mike
Ferner, President
Veterans
For Peace
Joy
First, Convener
National
Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance
Sara
Flounders, Co-Director
International
Action Center
Sunil
Freeman
ANSWER
Coalition, Washington,
D.C.
Diana
Gibson, Coordinator
Multifaith
Voices for Peace and Justice
Jerry
Gordon, Co-Coordinator
National
Assembly To End Iraq and
Afghanistan Wars and
Occupation
Rabbi
Lynn Gottlieb
Shomer
Shalom Network for Jewish Nonviolence
David
Hartsough
Peaceworkers
San
Francisco
Mike
Hearington, Steering Committee
Georgia
Peace and Justice Coalition, Atlanta
Larry
Holmes, Coordinator
Troops
Out Now Coalition
Mark
C. Johnson, Ph.D., Executive Director
Fellowship
of Reconciliation
Hany
Khalil
War
Times
Kathy
Kelly, Co-Coordinator
Voices
for Creative Nonviolence
Leslie
Kielson , Co-Chair
United
for Peace and Justice
Malachy
Kilbride
National
Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance
Adele
Kubein, Executive Committee
Military
Families Speak Out
Jeff
Mackler, Co-Coordinator
National
Assembly to End Iraq and
Afghanistan Wars and
Occupations
Imam
Abdul Malik Mujahid, Chair-Elect
World
Parliament of Religion
Michael
T. McPhearson, Executive Director
Veterans
For Peace
Gael
Murphy, Co-founder
Code
Pink
Michael
Nagler, Founder
Metta
Center
for Nonviolence
Max
Obuszewski, Director
Baltimore
Nonviolence Center
Pete
Perry
Peace
of the Action
Dave
Robinson, Executive
Director
Pax Christi USA
Terry
Rockefeller
September
11th
Families
For Peaceful Tomorrows
Samina
Sundas, Founding Executive Director
American
Muslim Voice
David
Swanson
AfterDowningStreet.org
Carmen
Trotta
Catholic
Worker
Nancy
Tsou, Coordinator
Rockland
Coalition for Peace and Justice
Kevin
Zeese
Voters
for Peace
The Vermont Independent called for expanding popular federal programs rather than allowing a bipartisan commission to propose devastating cuts.
Progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders on Saturday slammed right-wing Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin's widely panned proposal to explore slashing Social Security benefits as part of a debt ceiling pact with Republicans.
During a Wednesday interview with Fox Business at the ruling class' annual gathering in Davos for the World Economic Forum, Manchin (W.Va.) suggested that members of both major U.S. political parties "work together" on solving the nation's so-called "debt problem." Although Manchin didn't explicitly demand cuts to Social Security and expressed opposition to GOP calls for privatization, he singled out the program for intervention, saying that Congress "should be able to solidify it."
Given that Republicans are currently threatening to tank the global economy unless Democrats agree to reduce social spending, Manchin's unilateral call for appeasement has set off alarm bells.
What's especially concerning to progressives is that the corporate-backed lawmaker is the co-author, alongside Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), of the TRUST Act, a bill that would enable Congress to create bipartisan "rescue" committees for the nation's trust fund programs—including Social Security and Medicare—and give the panels 180 days to develop "legislation that restores solvency and otherwise improves each." Measures put forth by the bipartisan committees would be fast-tracked for floor votes in both chambers of Congress, with no amendments allowed.
Not only is Social Security legally incapable of adding to the federal deficit, but budget analysts have shown that the program is financially sound, requiring just a small increase in payroll tax revenue to ensure full benefits beyond 2035.
"The last thing we need is another commission to propose cuts to Social Security and Medicare," Sanders (I-Vt.) tweeted Saturday.
"The disastrous Bowles-Simpson 'fiscal commission' came very close to passing Congress some ten years ago. Bernie led the fight against it. It was a bad idea then, it is an even worse idea now."
"The last time we had one, it proposed cutting Social Security benefits for middle-class seniors by up to 35% and cutting tax rates for billionaires," Sanders added, referring to the notorious 2010 Bowles-Simpson Commission, on which Manchin and Romney's bill is based.
Former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles and former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson (Wyo.), the Obama-appointed chairs of that commission, both endorsed the TRUST Act in 2021, calling it "important and vital."
Historically informed critics, by contrast, have condemned Manchin and Romney's legislation as "a Trojan horse to cut seniors' benefits."
Sanders' staff director Warren Gunnels provided additional historical context on Saturday, linking to a 2012 essay in which the senator explained that in addition to seeking to cut wealthy households' tax rates and current retirees' Social Security benefits, the panel also proposed raising the retirement age to 69 years, slashing veterans' benefits, increasing interest rates on student loans, and eliminating 450,000 federal jobs, among other harmful measures.
\u201cThe last "fiscal commission" proposed:\n\u2b07\ufe0f450,000 jobs\n\u2b07\ufe0fSocial Security by 35% for the middle class\n\u2b07\ufe0fSocial Security by $1,000 for 85-year olds\n\u2b07\ufe0fVeterans benefits by $2,260 for 65-year olds\n\u2b07\ufe0fTax rates for 1%\n\u2b06\ufe0fStudent loan rates\n\nNo. We don't need another cat food commission.\u201d— Warren Gunnels (@Warren Gunnels) 1674321181
On Wednesday, Manchin asserted that his and Romney's bill could be used to secure a debt ceiling deal with House Republicans, many of whom have vowed to not lift the country's borrowing cap—an arbitrary and arguably unconstitutional figure set by Congress—unless Democrats agree to shred vital social programs.
The U.S. government's outstanding debt officially hit the statutory limit of $31.4 trillion on Thursday, at which point the Treasury Department started repurposing federal funds.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told congressional leaders last week that "the use of extraordinary measures enables the government to meet its obligations for only a limited amount of time," possibly through early June. She implored Congress to "act in a timely manner to increase or suspend the debt limit," warning that "failure to meet the government's obligations would cause irreparable harm to the U.S. economy, the livelihoods of all Americans, and global financial stability."
Notably, Capitol Hill's deficit hawks do not support reducing the Pentagon's ever-expanding budget or hiking taxes on the rich to increase revenue. On the contrary, the first bill unveiled by House Republicans in the 118th Congress seeks to rescind most of the Inflation Reduction Act's roughly $80 billion funding boost for the Internal Revenue Service—a move that would help wealthy households evade taxes and add an estimated $114 billion to the federal deficit.
A 2011 debt ceiling standoff enabled the GOP to impose austerity and also resulted in a historic downgrading of the U.S. government's credit rating, but the country has never defaulted on its debt. Economists warn that doing so would likely trigger chaos in financial markets, leading to millions of job losses and the erasure of $15 trillion in wealth.
Knowing that a painful recession is at stake, "many leading Republican lawmakers are demanding that their new House majority use the debt limit as leverage to force the Biden administration to accept sweeping spending cuts that Democrats oppose, creating an impasse with no clear resolution at hand," the Washington Postreported last week.
Manchin claims to have spoken "briefly" with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) about the TRUST Act. Asked about the White House's opposition to attaching any policy concessions to a debt ceiling agreement, Manchin said he believes the Biden administration will change its tune and negotiate with Republicans.
Alex Lawson, the executive director of Social Security Works, toldCommon Dreams earlier this week that President Joe Biden should "reiterate his commitment to only signing a clean debt limit increase, and specifically rule out a closed-door commission designed to cut Social Security."
Lawson's sentiment was echoed Saturday by Gunnels, who wrote on social media: "I'm old enough to remember that the disastrous Bowles-Simpson 'fiscal commission' came very close to passing Congress some ten years ago. Bernie led the fight against it. It was a bad idea then, it is an even worse idea now."
Rather than allowing a bipartisan commission to propose devastating cuts, Sanders argued, "we must instead expand Social Security."
Surveys have shown that U.S. voters are strongly opposed to cutting or privatizing Social Security and want Congress to expand the program. Last year, Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) led the introduction of the Social Security Expansion Act, which would lift the cap on income that is subject to the Social Security payroll tax and boost the program's annual benefits by $2,400.
According to Data for Progress, 76% of likely voters—including 83% of Democrats, 73% of Republicans, and 73% of independents—support imposing, for the first time, payroll taxes on individuals with annual incomes above $400,000 per year to fund an expansion of Social Security benefits. Currently, only those making $147,000 or less are subject to the Social Security payroll tax.
"Given the glacial pace of change in the EPA's plan, states should not wait for the EPA to act on PFAS," argued one advocate.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's newly released plan for regulating wastewater pollution, including discharges of toxic "forever chemicals," is far too muted and sluggish, a progressive advocacy group warned Friday.
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) detailed how the EPA's long-awaited Effluent Guidelines Program Plan 15 postpones sorely needed action to rein in widespread contamination from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). PFAS are a class of hazardous synthetic compounds widely called forever chemicals because they persist in people's bodies and the environment for years on end.
"We are deeply concerned that the EPA is punting on restrictions for PFAS polluting industries like electronics manufacturers, leather tanners, paint formulators, and plastics molders," said Melanie Benesh, EWG's vice president of government affairs. "We are also alarmed that the EPA's proposed restrictions on some of the most serious PFAS polluters—chemical manufacturers and metal finishers—are also getting delayed, with no timeline for when those limits will be final, if ever."
According to EWG, the EPA's new plan "falls short" of its pledge, made in the agency's 2021 PFAS Strategic Roadmap, to "get upstream" of the forever chemicals problem.
As the watchdog summarized:
The EPA confirmed that by spring 2024—nine months later than previously scheduled—it will release a draft regulation for manufacturers of PFAS or those that create mixtures of PFAS. The agency will do the same for metal finishers and electroplaters by the end of 2024, a delay of six months. The EPA did not announce when final rules will be available for these industries.
The agency will also begin regulating PFAS releases from landfills but did not provide a timeline for a final rule.
For all other industrial categories the EPA considered for PFAS wastewater limitation guidelines, the new plan includes more studies and monitoring, likely delaying restrictions on these sources indefinitely.
"Polluters have gotten a free pass for far too long to contaminate thousands of communities. Now they need aggressive action from the EPA to stop PFAS at the source," Benesh said. "But the EPA's plan lacks the urgency those communities rightfully expect."
"Although it's a good thing the EPA is committing to address PFAS discharges from landfills—a source of pollution that disproportionately affects vulnerable communities—it's also frustratingly unclear from EPA's plan when, if ever, those limits will materialize," said Benesh.
"Given the glacial pace of change in the EPA's plan," she added, "states should not wait for the EPA to act on PFAS."
"Polluters have gotten a free pass for far too long to contaminate thousands of communities. Now they need aggressive action from the EPA to stop PFAS at the source."
Scientists have linked long-term PFAS exposure to numerous adverse health outcomes, including cancer, reproductive and developmental harms, immune system damage, and other negative effects.
A peer-reviewed 2020 study estimated that more than 200 million people in the U.S. could have unsafe levels of PFAS in their drinking water. The deadly substances—used in dozens of everyday household products, including ostensibly "green" and "nontoxic" children's items, as well as firefighting foam—have been detected in the blood of 97% of Americans and in 100% of breast milk samples. Such findings stem from independent analyses because the EPA relies on inadequate testing methods.
Researchers have identified more than 57,000 sites across the U.S. contaminated by PFAS. Solid waste landfills, wastewater treatment plants, electroplaters and metal finishers, petroleum refiners, current or former military facilities, and airports are the most common sources of forever chemical pollution. Industrial discharges of PFAS are a key reason why 83% of U.S. waterways contain forever chemicals, tainting fish nationwide.
Some congressional Democrats are "trying to force the EPA to address PFAS more quickly," EWG noted.
The Clean Water Standards for PFAS Act, introduced in 2022 by Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), would require the EPA to establish PFAS wastewater limitation guidelines and water standards for PFAS in nine distinct industry categories by the end of 2026.
Facing criticism over recent air travel issues, the U.S. Transportation Department is reportedly investigating whether three airlines have scheduled flights they know they can't staff.
Three unidentified U.S. airlines are under federal investigation for potentially scheduling flights the companies know they ultimately will not be able to fly—a revelation The New York Timesreported Friday, just two days after United Airlines' CEO suggested competitors are doing just that.
The Times focused largely on how air travel issues—including mass cancellations from a winter storm during the holidays last month and a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) system outage that grounded air traffic across the country last week—have put Pete Buttigieg, the head of the U.S. Department of Transporation (DOT), "in the hot seat."
"Unfortunately, the Department of Transportation has been hesitant to hold the airlines accountable," John Breyault, the vice president for public policy at the National Consumers League (NCL), told the newspaper. "While Secretary Buttigieg has talked a tough talk, particularly over the past few months, we have yet to see that really translate into action."
"Imagine any other industry taking money for products it can't deliver."
In an interview, Buttigieg defended his record—which has included a proposed rule on refunds, an online dashboard of airlines' commitments, and nearly $16 million in fines—saying that "in terms of what we've done and in terms of what we're doing, I would stack up our work in this area against anybody who’s taken this on at the federal level."
According to the report, "The department is also investigating three U.S. airlines over whether they scheduled flights that they did not have enough staff to support, a spokeswoman for the agency said, though she declined to identify the airlines."
That reporting came after United CEO Scott Kirby said Wednesday during an earnings call with investors that "there are a number of airlines who cannot fly their schedules. The customers are paying the price. They're canceling a lot of flights. But they simply can't fly the schedules today."
\u201cThe CEO of United Airlines accused his rivals of committing fraud by selling tickets on flights they know they can't service. This statement by an airline CEO about the industry's problems is so much harsher than anything Pete Buttigieg has said or done. https://t.co/dW7SAt6Ji8\u201d— Matt Stoller (@Matt Stoller) 1674141074
"What happened over the holidays wasn't a one-time event caused by the weather, and it wasn't just at one airline. One airline got the bulk of the media coverage, but the weather was the straw that broke the camel's back for several," Kirby said—presumably referring to Southwest Airlines, which faced intense scrutiny for canceling nearly 17,000 flights partly due to issues with its personnel management system that employees and other critics claim could have been avoided with technological upgrades.
United has recognized "the new reality and the new math for all airlines," Kirby asserted, while warning that "our industry has been changed profoundly by the pandemic and you can't run your airline like it's 2019 or you will fail."
"We believe any airline that tries to run at the same staffing levels that it had pre-pandemic is bound to fail and likely to tip over to meltdown anytime there are weather or air traffic control stresses in the system," the CEO said, highlighting the need for investments in not only staff but also technology and infrastructure.
Kirby's comments about competitors' alleged scheduling practices caught the attention of the anti-monopoly think tank American Economic Liberties Project (AELP), which described them as "the airlines' open admission of fraud."
\u201cAnd yet, crickets from @USDOT.\n\nJust one more reason why we need to eliminate federal preemption and allow state AGs, courts, and consumers to crack down on the airlines themselves.\nhttps://t.co/4f3hHswTyR\u201d— American Economic Liberties Project (@American Economic Liberties Project) 1674146197
"What an extraordinary admission," William McGee, senior fellow for aviation and travel at AELP and author of the airline industry exposé Attention All Passengers, tweeted Thursday.
For months, the AELP has asked the DOT "to investigate IF airlines were accepting bookings (and $!) for flights they couldn't operate," he said. "Now United's CEO confirmed it. Imagine any other industry taking money for products it can't deliver."
"Ironically, we're learning more about canceled flights from the airlines than we are from the Department of Transportation," McGee toldThe Lever, while also pointing out that the DOT's "complaint database showed that United was by far the worst offender on unpaid refunds dating back to the earliest days of Covid in 2020."
As The Lever reported Friday:
Complaints against the major U.S. airlines, including United, more than tripled in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, as companies routinely sold tickets for flights they could not adequately staff, canceled the flights at the last minute, and slow-walked or withheld refunds while collecting billions in taxpayer bailout dollars.
The behavior prompted 34 attorneys general to write to Buttigieg on December 16 asking his agency to "require airlines to advertise and sell only flights that they have adequate personnel to fly and support, and perform regular audits of airlines to ensure compliance and impose fines on airlines that do not comply."
The letter, submitted as part of the rulemaking process for a still-delayed consumer protection proposal at Buttigieg's agency, also noted that the proposed rule "includes no provision that would correct this practice and that would prevent airlines from advertising and selling tickets for flights that they cannot reasonably provide."
In an opinion piece published by the Times last week in the wake of the FAA outage, the AELP's McGee traced U.S. air travel troubles back much further than the ongoing pandemic, explaining that although "the airlines were initially regulated in the 1930s for many reasons, some of which should be familiar to us in 2023," Congress passed the Airline Deregulation Act (ADA) in 1978.
"One could envision a wholesale return to the pre-1978 era, with route-setting and price-setting brought back into public hands entirely," he wrote, noting that the AELP "has proposed more FAA funding and eliminating federal preemption, which would allow consumers and state officials to sue airlines over consumer and safety rules."
"My colleagues and I are, however, eager to take part in a national conversation about regulating the industry more comprehensively," McGee added. "We haven't had a national discussion for 44 years about the state of air travel. It's time to have that discussion, rather than playing whack-a-mole with each crisis as it arises."
Buttigieg "has taken a tougher line than most of his predecessors" at the DOT, the NCL's Breyault tweeted Friday, while sharing his critical remarks to the Times. "But he is hamstrung by the ADA, which gives airlines far too much power. To truly protect passengers, Congress needs to act."