[pjw] REPORT BACK: food as bombs: Friday rally #208 since stay-at-home orders

[Peace and Justice Works]

Hello peaceful people

Last night's Friday Rally for Peace and Justice was both the largest in 
some time, with nine people in attendance, and one of the strangest I can 
ever remember. We arrived at the corner to find a Portland Police SUV 
parked _on_ the Square, right in the area where we meet. So we kind of 
scattered ourselves around it, though there were about five other police 
vehicles parked next to and across from the Square. It turned out they 
were there to try to separate a pro-Israel protest and a pro-Palestine 
protest from one another. Apparently several arrests were made. 
Anecdotally we were told a cop pushed one protestor before arresting them.

Strangely I received some of this information from the same police officer 
who I wrote about in September, who had approached the Alliance for 
Democracy sign holding event. We engaged in a congenial conversation where 
he revealed that he learned a lot in the 10 years since I first met him on 
the Community Oversight Advisory Board. I think some of the other regulars 
were worried about how long I was talking to a police officer since my 
general advice is never to do so. At this point the car left the Square 
with about three others. We definitely made several jokes among ourselves 
about how the police claim to be short-staffed but they could put 8 or 
more officers at a protest action.

Then we had a _lot_ of honking horns in support for our messages of peace. 
There was one block where I think every car honked for us. On the flip 
side, so to speak, someone held up their hand toward us and I said "thank 
you" only to discover the person had just one finger extended and not two.

As we neared the Pioneer Place Mall, we came across one of the 
pro-Palestine protestors, who informed us about the cops arresting a few 
people, and had planned to stand across the way from the fracas by 
stopping in front of Pioneer Courthouse at the end, but by then nearly 
everyone was gone. About six of the pro-Palestine folks stopped to talk to 
us and described various aspects of the County Commission meeting from 
Thursday (more on that below).

We were able to hand out a lot of flyers for the March 22 Iraq 21 years 
later event coming up in just under two weeks now.

  https://pjw.info/iraq21yl.html

So what did we talk about this week? Put on your best trauma protection 
and read on.

--Five people killed in Gaza when the parachute holding up airdropped 
humanitarian aid failed to deploy. Sad, tragic, and predictable. I 
remember when we used to see Food Not Bombs in Portland all the time (are 
they still around?) but here was food _as_ bombs.

  https://news.antiwar.com/2024/03/08/air-dropped-aid-crushes-5-palestinians-to-death-in-gaza/

---In related news, Israel bombed Lebanon again and... nobody seems to be 
warning them about widening the war in the region. A different article 
about this incident said only one person was killed. It's not about the 
magnitude, it's about the violence, which has to stop.

  https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-bombards-hezbollah-sites-in-southern-lebanon/

---In his State of the Union address, President Biden talked about sexual 
violence committed by Hamas as if it were 100% factual, even though at 
best a UN Report said there are "reasonable grounds to believe" the 
allegations but there is still no tangible evidence I've read about.

  https://www.npr.org/2024/03/04/1235824305/israel-sexual-assault-rape-hamas-attack-un-report

---And for the _former_ President's part, Donald Trump said that Israel 
should "finish the job" in Gaza, by which I think he means to raze it to 
the ground and kill everyone, but I didn't ask him.

  https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-israel-finish-the-problem-gaza_n_65e76ed1e4b0f9d26cac9866

--Meanwhile, Sweden formally joined NATO this week, and as the headline of 
several articles note, this ends decades of their neutrality in what was 
once termed the Cold War. (I guess it's getting hot again.)

  https://apnews.com/article/sweden-nato-us-russia-ukraine-8372bc866c8ddcf42d2b8209fa5cd2b1

--Boats from China and the Philippines collided in the South China Sea as 
tensions (stoked by the US) continue to rise. But the real key here is 
that the headline about the crash uses the word "again" so this is not the 
first time it's happened.


  https://news.antiwar.com/2024/03/05/philippine-chinese-coast-guard-vessels-collide-again-in-south-china-sea/

--Three stories about the National Guard:

---In Texas, Republican primary voters were able to vote for a resolution 
calling for the National Guard to only be deployed in declared war zones 
(similar to our Guard Home efforts but from a totally different 
perspective!). It was 86%-14%.

  https://news.antiwar.com/2024/03/06/texas-republicans-vote-overwhelmingly-in-favor-of-restricting-combat-deployments-of-states-national-guard/

---In Idaho, their state Senate similarly voted overwhelmingly for a 
Guard Home resolution, 27-8.

  https://news.antiwar.com/2024/03/04/idaho-state-senate-passes-defend-the-guard-act/

---In an example of how NOT to deploy the National Guard domestically, in 
New York the Guard are now being used to patrol the subways and look for 
weapons. I wonder whether anyone will keep data on the race of the people 
they stop. Hmm. Maybe this was done because NYC recently overrode a 
Mayoral veto to force better tracking of police stops.

  https://taskandpurpose.com/news/new-york-national-guard-called-up-to-patrol -nyc-subways/
  https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/politics/how-many-stops-act-nyc-eric-adams-veto-override/5087689/

--So I would call the Guard Home news "good" (especially in the overall 
context of these weekly reports), and here's another one: Drone 
whistleblower Daniel Hale was released from prison after 33 months.

  https://thedissenter.org/drone-whistleblower-cmu-finally-released-from-prison/

--Speaking of drones, even though the militias in Iraq have stopped 
attacking American bases AND the Iraqi government is (supposedly) 
negotiating to et them our, the US is flying drones all over that country.

  https://www.newarab.com/news/us-drones-keep-watch-over-iraqi-skies-despite-ceasefire

In local news, the Oregon Supreme Court rejected the City's plea to let 
them enforce their anti-camping ordinance, which a lower court found 
could be unconstitutional. They said no, you have to wait for a full 
ruling, and the City's now going to re-think the draconian plan.

  https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2024/03/portland-may-rewrite-its-daytime-ban-on-homeless-camping.html

And another piece of good news (the stars must be aligning?) the Multnomah 
County Board of Commissioners unanimously adopted a resolution calling for 
a ceasefire in Gaza. It wasn't everything people wanted but it's more than 
Portland City Council has done, that's for sure!

  https://www.portlandmercury.com/news/2024/03/07/47070473/multnomah-county-board-of-commissioners-adopts-gaza-cease-fire-resolution

Along the march route I added to the Israel/Palestine news that Jordan, 
Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Germany joined America's Antony Blinken in calling 
the new settlements in the West Bank a violation of international law.

  https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/7/israels-illegal-west-bank-settlement-plans-face-global-condemnation

They didn't divert any money away from the military toward housing, health 
care and education but Congress passed ANOTHER stopgap bill (I've lost 
count of how many there have been now). The house voted 339-85. I heard 
that the Senate passed it also by about 4 PM PST yesterday with a deadline 
of 9 PM PST, the vote was 75-22.

  https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/us-house-approves-spending-bill-to-avert-government-shutdown/ar-BB1jsomE
  https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/senate-inches-vote-government-funding-bill-fears-brief-shutdown-rcna142255

I wasn't paying attention when the Ann Huntwork Peace Memorial Sign went 
out this week, a little distracted after the police cars went flying by, 
but it was certainly off by the time we were near the end of the block 
with the Gucci store.

Be sure to join us when you can, and we do still encourage masking up and 
distancing. Another person I work with regularly came down with COVID this 
week right after remarking "it's still out there." Indeed.

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