Peace History – This Past Week

Below you will find abit about the History of this Planet that makes for such a turbulent World to live in, from one of the many sites, found on the web and before that, and still, in the many history books written to supposedly help us humans remember and not repeat the failed policies and actions of the past.

These track the importance of what man does, the failures and the recognition, leading to the  actions, or lack of, of many trying to right the wrongs to bring about a better World to exist in and leave a better World for those that follow.

We Fail Miserably in the study of the past, as we repeat the wrongs, more than the rights, over and over, while creating more wrongs!

One of the reasons for this post is a day, listed below, that is just one of the many wrongs that has led us to what is happening in the most reason history to the present. I’ll point that day out at the bottom.

The little button with a BIG message

This Week in History is a collection designed to help us appreciate the fact that we are part of a rich history advocating peace and social justice. While the entries often focus on large and dramatic events there are so many smaller things done everyday to promote peace and justice.

To the real peace advocates – YOU!

This week at a glance.

Monday

Jan 14

•Treaty of Paris

•Draft found constitutional

•Rights and jobs for blacks

•Elected state rep refused his seat

•Ukraine shuns all nuclear weapons

•ELF Project protest arrests

A. Philip Randolph, president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (and widely considered de facto chief spokesperson for the African American working class) called for a march on Washington, demanding racial integration of the military and equal access to defense-industry jobs.

“On to Washington, ten thousand black Americans!” Randolph urged. He said in the fight to “stop discrimination in National Defense…While conferences have merit, they won’t get desired results by themselves.”

Tuesday

Jan 15

•Happy Birthday, Martin

A day on, not a day off

•Jeannette Rankin Brigade

•Fish-in trial

Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia. The son of a Baptist pastor, he followed in his father’s footsteps, then went on to lead the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and ’60s, and to speak out against the Vietnam war.

In 1955 Dr. King organized the first major protest of the civil rights movement: the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott. Influenced by Mohandas Gandhi, he advocated nonviolent civil disobedience to end racial segregation. The peaceful protests he led throughout the American South were often met with violence and arrest, but King and his followers persisted.

His inspiration, leadership and eloquence helped tens of millions claim the fundamental rights of citizenship, and changed the face of a nation.

A selected bibliography on and about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Since 1986, the third Monday in January has been designated a federal holiday honoring the greatness and sacrifice of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

A chronology:

April 4, 1968 Dr. King was assassinated. Shortly thereafter, U.S. Representative John Conyers (D-Michigan) introduced legislation to create a federal holiday to commemorate Dr. King’s life and work.

January, 1973 Illinois became the first state to adopt MLK Day as a state holiday.

January, 1983 Rep. Conyers’s law was passed after 15 years

January, 1986 The United States first officially observed the federal King Day holiday.

January, 1987 Arizona Governor Evan Mecham rescinded state recognition of MLK Day as his first act in office, setting off a national boycott of the state.

January, 1993 Martin Luther King Day holiday was observed in all 50 states for the first time.

Brief biography of Dr. King

Wednesday

Jan 16

•Joan Baez

sentenced

• Shah forced into exile

•El Salvadoran civil war ends

•Greenpeace acts for nuclear-free oceans

Faced with strikes, violent demonstrations, an army mutiny and clerical opposition to his repressive rule, the Shah of Iran, its hereditary monarch since 1941, was forced to flee the country. He had been installed in a CIA- and British-engineered 1953 coup which overthrew elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq. Mossadeq’s government had voted to nationalize Iran’s oil industry, displacing the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.

The U.S. gave substantial and continuous military and intelligence support to the Shah throughout his regime. Despite having imposed martial law the previous October, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi fled the Peacock Throne for Egypt and, later, the U.S. for medical care. Following the subsequent revolutionary overthrow, an Islamist state under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was established.

Chronology of Iran in the 20th century

more about the Shah

Thursday

Jan 17

•U.S. takes control of Hawaii

•100 years of U.S. control

•Ike gives fair warning

•La Raza Unida

•Half million say no to Iraq War

In frigid temperatures, 500,000 converged on Washington, D.C. to oppose the U.S. war on Iraq – the largest U.S. peace demonstration since the Vietnam era.

Friday

Jan 18

•WWI Paris Peace Conference

•The smell of Agent Orange in the morning

•McGovern runs against Vietnam war

•U.S. refuses to face World Court

U.S. began spraying herbicides on foliage in Vietnam to eliminate jungle canopy cover for Viet Cong guerrillas (a policy known as “territory denial”). The U.S. dropped more than 20 million gallons of such defoliants, sparking charges the United States was violating international treaties against using chemical weapons. Many of the herbicides, particularly Agent Orange, manufactured by Dow Chemical, Monsanto and others, were later found to cause birth defects and otherwise rare forms of cancer in humans.

Agent Orange: An Ongoing Atrocity

Saturday

Jan 19

•Julian Bond refused his seat

•March against 1st Gulf war

The Georgia State House of Representatives refused to seat black state representative Julian Bond despite his election the previous November.

Their stated objection was his endorsement of a Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee statement accusing the United States of violating international law in Vietnam.

In December 1966, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Bond’s exclusion unconstitutional, and Bond was finally sworn in the following month.

Sunday

Jan 20

•ACLU founded

•” Final Solution”

•Bush II inauguration protest

Nazi Party and German government officials arrived at what they called the “final solution to the Jewish question in Europe.”

They developed plans for the coordinated and systematic extermination of all Europe’s Jews during a meeting at a villa near Lake Wannsee in Berlin. Notes of the meeting recorded by Adolf Eichmann used vague terms such as “transportation to the east” or “evacuation to the east” (nach dem Osten abgeshoben). But at his trial for genocide Eichmann testified of the meeting that “the discussion covered killing, elimination, and annihilation.”

More on the Wannsee conference

You can look at the list above and find many comparisons to things happening today, or in the recent past.

I won’t give the History of what led up to this day, January 16 1979, I leave it to you, if you don’t know, to research on your own. But scroll back up and find out more about our failed policies concerning the installation of our wants into anothers country, taking down a Democratically Elected leader, and Installing the Shah of Iran!

While you research the Shah, or before, you may want to view this video of our Good Friend, Saddam, Thanks For The Memories. This was put together by Eric, over at Bush Flash, it now seems so long ago, directly after our Illegal Invasion of an Innocent Country, well before the YouTubes though. Oh you can research the information Eric put together as well, it’s History.

You also should study more about the Mujahadeen and their fight against the Illegal Invasion, by the Soviets, into Afganistan. As the U.S. were their major Arms Dealer of Weapons of Mass Destruction helping them Defeat the Soviet invasion, the invasion and bloody war helping in the final collapse of that union, and what the U.S. promised but never delivered once the Soviets left.

Many should also Study the complete History of the Whole Region, especially as to how these Nation States came about to their present forms!

History repeats and repeats and repeats……………., only the names change, lessons never learned, as the few try to better the past players!