Earlier this month passed another Veterans Day, which formerly commemorated the signing of the armistice which would end Europe’s World War the first. Often forgotten in the celebration associated with the cessation of war are the victims who suffer from its ills long after alleged peace deals are signed. The effects of WWI on the culture of the US and the world were not fully actualized as events were transpiring. If history was any indicator, the nation would find itself in the same brutish death trap just over a generation later.
Conscientious objectors at Camp Lewis, WA. Nov 1918
A violent militarism, which could be described as an antipacifism, swept the United States, with an even stronger sentiment arising in the more war-ravaged Soviet Union. One of the darkest examples of this hostility towards civilians during WWI is the treatment of pacifist Hutterites following the draft which began just over a year before the war would come to an end. While saukerkraut makers were changing their product names to ‘Liberty Cabbage’ and South Dakota was banning instruction of the German language in government schools, four members of a 400 year old pacifist, communalist Christian sect received draft notices to risk their lives in Europe for the mythical Uncle Sam. Perhaps it was by chance and perhaps deliberately that four names from an antimilitant community found their way onto the draft register. There had already been tension building between the area Hutterites and their neighbors, as the community had refused to buy war bonds the year prior. (more…)
Sentencing for three of the five men arrested in connection with an FBI plot to destroy a bridge outside of Cleveland on May 1 occurred yesterday. Douglas Wright, Brandon Baxter, and Connor Stevens were handed 138, 117, and 97 month sentences respectively, including a lifetime on supervised release. While the five had initially pleaded not guilty, in July, the oldest individual charged, Anthony Hayne, pleaded guilty to the three charges against him in “hopes to get leniency in return for his testimony”, according to his attorney. On September 5, it was reported that another three had pleaded guilty to federal charges of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction, attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction, and attempted use of an explosive device to destroy property used in interstate commerce. Hayne is scheduled to be sentenced within the next week. The one remaining defendant to have not pled guilty, 23 year old Joshua Stafford, is currently being evaluated for whether or not he is competent to stand trial. Judge David Dowd initially supported a ‘terrorism’ classification for the charges against the youth as recommended by the prosecution, but ultimately opted against it at the sentencing hearing. Such designation would have effectively doubled the sentences. (more…)
Local independence movements continue to be popular in various media. NHPR has today published a seven minute segment that focuses mostly on the Foundation for New Hampshire Independence. Also published on the same day as last week’s Free Concord article on the subject was a story on the Concord-NH Patch, Secession Movement Comes to NH. FreeWilliamsburg.com published on November 16 an interview with a resident of the Brooklyn neighborhood who started a petition on WhiteHouse.gov to grant secession to East Williamsburg to ‘create a new, hipper neighborhood’.
A mural welcoming Barack Obama to Burma (Myanmar) is vandalized in Yangon
On Friday, November 16 at the Unitarian Universalist church in Keene, New Hampshire Peace Action hosted a presentation and discussion with author Joan Roelofs. Joan is a former professor at Keene State College and the author of Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism and Greening Cities: Building Just and Sustainable Communities. In her presentation, she theorizes the reasons for the disappointing state of antiwar movement, given the chronic militarization of the globe. See the playlist embedded below for the full hour and forty minute discussion on focusing through the distractions to confront the issues that most threaten peaceful human existence.
