February, 04 2022, 06:54am EDT
Activists Across the Country Will Take to the Streets to Protest Escalation Towards a U.S.-Russia War
This weekend activists in more than 60 cities across the United States will be taking to the streets to protest the Biden administration's escalation towards a war between the U.S. and Russia. Despite the Biden administration finally admitting this week that a Russian invasion of Ukraine is not imminent, the Pentagon announced on Wednesday, February 2 that 3,000 U.S. troops are being moved to Eastern Europe.
NATIONWIDE
This weekend activists in more than 60 cities across the United States will be taking to the streets to protest the Biden administration's escalation towards a war between the U.S. and Russia. Despite the Biden administration finally admitting this week that a Russian invasion of Ukraine is not imminent, the Pentagon announced on Wednesday, February 2 that 3,000 U.S. troops are being moved to Eastern Europe.
The actions are being organized by CODEPINK and other anti-war organizations to call for serious negotiations, not military escalation, which could easily spiral out of control to the point of pushing the world to the precipice of nuclear war.
"Whether it's the anti-China rhetoric causing an increase in sinophobia or the movement of U.S. troops towards Ukraine, the Biden administration is playing a dangerous and counterproductive game," says CODEPINK co-founder Jodie Evans. "The chest pumping and lies that led us into the Iraq war continue to cause horrific suffering across that region and now President Biden is looking for a new war. The American people say NO WAY!"
"NATO must stop doing the bidding of the military-industrial complex," says CODEPINK cofounder Medea Benjamin. "We need the money to be spent here at home on healthcare, education, housing, and the other things that improve people's lives, not on spent more bombs."
While the U.S., NATO and Russia are all responsible for this crisis, its roots are entangled in the failure of the U.S. government to live up to its promise made in 1990 by then-Secretary of State James Baker that NATO would not expand "one inch to the East." Since 1999, NATO has expanded to include numerous former Soviet allies and even members of the former Republic, including some that border Russia. Rather than dismissing out of hand the Russian government's current insistence on a written guarantee that Ukraine will not become part of NATO, the U.S. government should agree to a long-term moratorium on any NATO expansion.
Protests are taking place this weekend in numerous cities such as Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., New York City, Chicago, Portland Oregon, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Asheville, North Carolina, and many more. See here for a full list of all the cities where protests are taking place this weekend.
CODEPINK is a women-led grassroots organization working to end U.S. wars and militarism, support peace and human rights initiatives, and redirect our tax dollars into healthcare, education, green jobs and other life-affirming programs.
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United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres stressed the "urgent need" for Israel to "de-escalate violence on all fronts."
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United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said Thursday that he is "deeply concerned" by Israel's "recent and extensive violations of Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity," including a ground invasion and airstrikes carried out by the Israel Defense Forces in the war-torn Mideastern nation.
Guterres "is particularly concerned over the hundreds of Israeli airstrikes on several locations in Syria" and has stressed the "urgent need to de-escalate violence on all fronts throughout the country," said U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.
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Addressing the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and conversations it has sparked about the country's for-profit system, longtime Medicare for All advocate Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday condemned the murder and stressed that getting to universal coverage will require a movement challenging corporate money in politics.
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"Killing people is not the way we're going to reform our healthcare system," Sanders added. "The way we're going to reform our healthcare system is having people come together and understanding that it is the right of every American to be able to walk into a doctor's office when they need to and not have to take out their wallet."
"The way we're going to bring about the kind of fundamental changes we need in healthcare is, in fact, by a political movement which understands the government has got to represent all of us, not just the 1%," the senator told Jacobin.
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)—a co-sponsor of Sanders' Medicare for All Act—similarly toldHuffPost in a Tuesday interview, "The visceral response from people across this country who feel cheated, ripped off, and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies should be a warning to everyone in the healthcare system."
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Reporters Without Borders' (RSF) 2024 roundup, which was published Thursday, found that at least 54 journalists were killed on the job or in connection with their work this year, and 18 of them were killed by Israeli armed forces (16 in Palestine, and two in Lebanon).
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Multiple journalists were also killed in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Mexico, Sudan, Myanmar, Colombia, and Ukraine, according to the report, and hundreds more were detained and are now behind bars in countries including Israel, China, and Russia.
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