[pjw] REPORT BACK: Drizzly at last: Friday rally #135 since stay-at-home orders

[Peace and Justice Works]

Peaceful people

As someone at last night's rally said, what a difference a week can make. 
On October 14, it was 81 degrees and several of us were wearing shorts; 
last night it was 51 degrees and we were bundled up for rain. Luckily, it 
was not the downpour predicted and at most the six of us were drizzled on. 
We did have one other person who joined us for about 10 minutes before 5 
PM; he was wearing both a COVID mask and a Halloween mask on the upper 
part of his face that I would describe as a lumberjack costume? Hard to 
say, he had to leave after he hung out and yelled about how police 
brutality, war, violence and Guantanamo are bad.

We had a lot fewer honks and pedestrian thanks than usual, mostly I think 
due to the weather. Downtown seemed pretty subdued overall. But we did 
manage to hand out a few fact sheets. (I forgot to mention that last week 
when Biden was in town we handed out more than 30!)

Oh, and the presence of rain meant that the world's worst air quality 
problem from Thursday (due to wildfires) disappeared in a day, so there's 
that!

Here are some of the headlines we talked about this week:

--The Department of Defense, as noted a while ago, is working on a policy 
around civilian casualties. Their new plan calls for investigations into 
future incidents, but not past ones. They're being "forward-looking" which 
does nothing for hundreds of thousands of victims of the "war on terror."

  https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/20/pentagon-wont-reopen-past-cases-of-civilian-deaths-00062737

--Despite the climate crisis (that leads to things like 30 degree 
temperature plunges in Portland), the US is trying to push Iraq to get 
Saudi Arabia and OPEC to pump more oil. For their part, Iraq said "no."

  https://thecradle.co/Article/News/17086

--Fitting on ongoing patter, the US is now making claims that Iran 
is helping Russia with drones in Ukraine. They say they have evidence but 
aren't sharing it.

  https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/iran-sent-troops-ukraine-help-russia-use-iranian-made-drones-biden-adm-rcna53277

---Also, Russia has allegedly knocked out 30% of Ukraine's power, which is 
being discussed as a war crime. Oh, really, I wonder when the US will be 
held responsible for doing the same thing to Iraq in 1991 and 2003.

  https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/10/18/russia-destroyed-30-of-ukraines-power-stations-zelenskyy-says

---Aaaaannd NATO is conducting war games including mock nuclear weapons 
despite the tensions with Russia and ongoing talk of potential Armageddon.

  https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/10/11/nato-hold-nuclear-exercise-despite-russian-warnings.html

--In this hemisphere, the unrest in Haiti has led the US to propose 
sending in UN troops. The US and/or UN have intervened more times than I 
can count since PJW was formed in 1992.

  https://news.antiwar.com/2022/10/16/us-backs-sending-international-force-to-haiti/
  https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/explainer-haitis-troubled-history-foreign-interventions-91337537

In local news, I talked about a woman who's going to receive a $47,500 
settlement for an "encounter" with the police in September 2020. I'm 
guessing this means she was subjected to police violence during a protest, 
but the City agenda is vague about the topic.

  https://www.portland.gov/council/documents/ordinance/settlement-evelyn-cushings-bodily-injury-claim

By the way, I spaced out on discussing the officer-involved shooting that 
happened last week because I mentioned it in the last report back. FYI, 
the police still have not released the name of the officer in that 
incident.

Along the route, I told two tales about the Israel-Palestine situation:

First, a federal court in Arkansas upheld that state's ban on boycotting 
Israel; the ACLU is now taking that case to the Supreme Court on free 
speech grounds.

  https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/10/20/aclu-asks-top-us-court-to-review-law-against-boycotting-israel

Secondly, Australia originally followed Donald Trump's lead and recognized 
Jerusalem (rather than Tel Aviv) as Israel's capital, but they are now 
changing their position back to allow the Palestinians to negotiate that 
issue.

  https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/10/18/australia-reverses-recognition-of-west-jerusalem-as-israel-capital

As we headed back to the Square, I noted that Congress is proposing to 
double the amount of money they originally planned to throw at Taiwan's 
military from $5 billion to $10 billion. Sure, better to poke at a 
possible war with China than feed or house people or fix the environment.

  https://www.defensenews.com/congress/budget/2022/10/17/senate-to-add-10-billion-in-taiwan-aid-scale-back-arms-sale-reform/

This week the Ann Huntwork Peace Memorial Sign went out as soon as we 
stepped onto the block where the Gucci Store is located. Is the weather a 
factor? Who knows.

For the time being, we have a policy for all PJW events (in our office, 
any indoor ones we might sponsor, and outside) to mask up and stay 
distanced. Oregon is predicting the second highest infection rate since 
the pandemic started.

  https://www.oregonlive.com/coronavirus/2022/10/coronavirus-in-oregon-winter-surge-could-peak-mid-december-updated-pandemic-forecast-indicates.html

Still, we hope people will join us some Friday at 5 PM at SW Yamhill and 
Broadway. Getting out and about for peace is always an uplifting 
experience.

peace
--dan handelman
peace and justice works iraq affinity group