Iran

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Shirin Ebadi to Answer Your Questions Online
By David Swanson

Shirin Ebadi (Persian: شیرین عبادی - Širin Ebâdi) is an Iranian lawyer, human rights activist and founder of the Children's Rights Support Association in Iran. On October 10, 2003, Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her significant and pioneering efforts for democracy and human rights, especially women's and children's rights. She is the first Iranian, the first Shia and the first Muslim woman to receive the prize. She is currently visiting the United States, and is focusing her energies on opening lines of communication and preventing war between the United States and Iran.

Here's a chance to ask Ebadi questions about Iran and the United States that are on your mind. I'll be interviewing her live, and she'll be taking your questions, between 3 and 4 p.m. ET on Thursday, May 1, 2008.

Go to http://www.thepeoplespeakradio.net/listen-live to listen live. You'll find instructions there to enter a paltalk chat room where you can post questions. We will not be taking questions by telephone during this interview. Following the show, the audio file will be posted at http://www.thepeoplespeakradio.net/audio/2008

By David Swanson

On Friday outside the gates of Stratcom, the strategic command center outside of Omaha, Nebraska, that controls U.S. nuclear weapons and military space technology and from which the next war of aggression will be run, a group of activists gathered from all over the world. A number of people gave speeches in the freezing bone-chilling wind and snow. This was mine:

By R.K. Ramazani, Charlottesville Daily Progress

Any candidate, Democratic or Republican, who wins the presidential elections will face a great challenge of understanding Iran.

The propaganda machine does not help, and actually beclouds, our understanding of Iran. It depicts Iran as an irrational country that threatens world peace, that aims to hit the American homeland with missiles, that threatens to destroy Israel, that works to build nuclear weapons, and that aspires to dominate the oil-rich Middle East. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says publicly that she does not understand Iran, and there is no guarantee that a future secretary of state will either.

Photos here.

In the first event of a nation-wide campaign, TrueMajority members joined with local peace groups PeaceSurge and Hampton Roads Veterans For Peace to deliver over 1600 petitions to Sen. John Warner's Norfolk, Virginia office. The media was there (we'll post the coverage as it comes in), and you can bet that Sen. Warner is feeling the heat applied today by many passionate activists and one eye-popping, war opposing machine.

Remarks at American University Teach-In on March 22, 2008
By David Swanson

Robert Dreyfuss's presentation that I now have to follow was tremendous and I learned a lot, but I disagree with his pessimism. I am fond of the saying "Let's save our pessimism for better times." It's a choice to be a pessimist, and it is a wrong one, always.

By David Swanson

The TrueMajority.org "IranMobile", a Dr. Strangelovian thermonuclear missle/bomb that rises for launch 20 feet in the air with George W. Bush astride, came to Charlottesville, Va., as part of the http://www.NotAnotherWar.org campaign to stop an impending war on Iran. Lights, smoke, music, audio were part of the presentation. Members of the Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice collected petition signatures and handed out flyers from http://dontattackiran.org The mayor of Charlottesville Dave Norris came by and spoke in support of stopping any attack on Iran.

Local Code Pink activists and allies:

Mayor Dave Norris with True Majority's IranMobile Master Aaron Rubin:

Bombs Away!

By David Swanson

In a wide-ranging hour-long discussion on live radio, General William Odom said he sees two useful things Congress can do: cease funding the occupation of Iraq, and impeach Bush and Cheney.

The TrueMajority.org "IranMobile", a Dr. Strangelovian thermonuclear missle/bomb that rises for launch 20 feet in the air with George W. Bush astride, is coming to Charlottesville, Va., as part of the NotAnotherWar.org campaign to stop an impending war on Iran. Lights, smoke, music, audio are part of the presentation. Citizen activists will provide written materials and encourage discussion of the U.S. policy of aggressive war that was born 5 years ago this week.

Please come out and join us!

WHEN: Friday, March 21st

WHERE: In the parking lot between Water Street and South Street downtown beginning at 4 p.m.

WHY: The American public elected a Congress to end one war in 2006, and -- far from ending it -- our government is threatening to launch another war, this time against Iran. The current issue of U.S. News and World Report includes an article with the headline "Six Signs the U.S. May Be Headed for War in Iran." The illegal occupation of Iraq is entering its sixth year.

More information about the IranMobile is available at http://notanotherwar.org

More about the threat of an attack on Iran is available at http://dontattackiran.org

The Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice (CCPJ), which is assisting in this event, is at http://charlottesvillepeace.org

By David Swanson

Imagine yourself sitting down transfixed and watching video footage of U.S. bombs hitting Iran. You see children ripped limb from limb, mothers screaming and wailing, people panicked, tortured, traumatized, and killed. Imagine asking yourself at that point: What was I doing these past many months that I thought was more important than preventing this?

Now ask yourself today: What am I doing that is more important than ending the ongoing hell of the U.S. occupation of Iraq?

In 2008 many of us understand that our nation - and even the entire planet - are in a state of crisis. The deep longing for positive, lasting change is the bedrock upon which this conference is based. How do we fix our country and our world? And how can we form one mass movement to address the crisis?

In Radford, Virginia on May 22-25, thousands of activists, academics, journalists, poets, musicians and policymakers will converge at the 2008 "Building a New World" Conference. If you want to participate in building a new world, sign up now. Hotel and dorm rooms are limited.

Learn more about First WPA Summit 2008.

Register now.

Cindy Sheehan, William Blum, Kathy Kelly, Mike Whitney, Alice Lovelace, David Swanson, Gareth Porter, Medea Benjamin, Farid Bitar, Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Robert Jensen, Kevin Zeese, Antonia Juhasz, Father Roy Bourgeois and many more leaders and luminaries will join thousands of people from across the country and from other lands as well, for a conference to lay the foundations for building a new world now.

Read Dave's blog where he describes Dennis Kucinich asking him if he would be willing to do this.

Click for audio of interview with Eve Tetaz and Mark Goldstone

On the 3rd Friday of every month, since September, people around the country have been taking antiwar action in their own communities, workplaces, schools and other locations as part of the Iraq Moratorium. United for Peace and Justice urges you to join the building momentum on Friday, November 16th.

1. Ask Senator Jim Webb to filibuster the next war funding bill. The funding for the occupation of Iraq can only be stopped by blocking bills, not by passing them. 202-224-4024 or Email.

2. Contact the media and Congress in support of a vote on impeachment that Congressman Dennis Kucinich will force on the House floor next week.

By David Swanson
Remarks at October 27, 2007, rally in Jonesborough, Tenn., preceding march to Aerojet Ordnance, manufacturers of Depleted Uranium weapons.

There are those who think Congress should keep shelling out our grandchildren's money to continue our occupation of Iraq, and there are those who think Congress should pass a bill opposing the occupation. And they are both wrong. Any decent bill on any issue, much less this one, will be vetoed. The way to stop funding the occupation of Iraq is for Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to announce on Monday that they will not bring to the floor any more bills to fund the occupation.

Don't miss this chance to shut down a criminal government and build a public demand for peace and sustainability.
http://www.nowarnowarming.org

By David Swanson

If you haven't already, you really should read Chris Hedges' book "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning." The portrait of war and wartime propaganda and emotion is brilliant and deadly accurate. But the headline is misleading. War does not give us lasting solid self-assured meaning. War gives us a temporary high that is rooted in desperate self-deception. Hedges' book carries on the cover a photo of people with candles and U.S. flags, holding hands, eyes closed, mouths open. These people are smoking crack, they're taking a two-week cruise of the Caribbean, they're on stage at American Idol, they're kneeling in church, they're tapping shoes in airport men's rooms. These people are escaping from their lives, not building lives that mean something to them.

No buses have been planned from Charlottesville, but car pooling can be done.

Philly ride board here.

Jonesborough ride board here.

Neocon Nutcase Frank Gaffney is scheduled to speak at UVA as part of the coming week's national fascistic lie fest known as Islamofascism Awareness Week. It would be very helpful if someone could find out the details (yes, even if you have to pretend to be a neocon) so that we can confront this bigotry before it grows.

Meet Norman Solomon and Laura Flanders: JOIN US ON SUNDAY.

From Democracy Now!

"The warfare state doesn't come and go. It can't be defeated on Election Day," writes media critic Norman Solomon in his new book, Made Love, Got War: Close Encounters with America's Warfare State. Like it or not, it's at the core of the United States - and it has infiltrated our very being." Norman Solomon joins us in our firehouse studio to about the book. Listen/Watch/Read

By David Swanson

[Remarks at September 15, 2007, impeachment rally in Miami, Fla., organized by www.floridaimpeach.org ]

It's great to see such a crowd and so many groups represented. I especially want to thank Veterans for Peace. Dave Cline was a great leader and will be badly missed. We should all go out and do as much as he did with his admirable life.

On a lighter note, I went to a party yesterday in Washington, D.C. You might think we have very little to celebrate, but this was a party to say goodbye and good riddance to Alberto Gonzales!

Congress returns on September 4th after a month's vacation. It has been 8 months since this Congress took power with a mandate to end the occupation of Iraq and hold Bush and Cheney to the rule of law. This Congress has funded the occupation, legalized unconstitutional spying, and promised never to impeach. Will this trend continue? Can we afford to allow it to? We have killed over a million people, and the death rate is double this year what it was last year, according to the Associated Press.

There are signs that the tide may be turning. A serious movement in Congress to impeach Gonzales helped lead to his departure. Twenty congress members of conscience have signed onto articles of impeachment for Cheney. Congressman John Conyers says he wants impeachment proponents to come to his office to urge him on (watch the video). And 70 congress members have committed to oppose funding the occupation, while funding a withdrawal by January 2009 or sooner.

What can we do to push Congress in the direction of peace and justice? Big marches are planned for the 15th and the 29th in Washington, but the pressure will be all month long. September has something for everyone!

There are local events all over the country on the September calendar. Here are some of the most exciting national (and international) dates: