Activism Across America

John McCain is coming to Pittsburgh today, and progressive activists will be there to meet him, and confront his campaign with a demonstration against McCain’s terrible right wing record. The focus of the protest will be against John McCain’s anti-choice politics, calling attention to McCain’s voting record against reasonable reproductive health. However, the protest will be a good opportunity to highlight McCain’s other significant compassion deficits: Pro-war, pro-torture, anti-health care, anti-freedom.

Here’s what you need to know to get to the protest:

Noon Today
Omni William Penn Hotel
530 William Penn Place
Pittsburgh

Signs will be provided, but if you’re feeling creative feel free to bring your own!

For more information, Contact Molly Johnson, at 412-434-8957 ext. 126

Thanks to Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania for organizing this protest. Additional thanks to 2 Political Junkies for spreading the word about this activist event.

There’s an opportunity for Pennsylvania, coming with the latest whipped-up controversy throwing sparks between the presidential campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Barack Obama has said that he thinks that people who link up with xenophobic, hate-ideologies in small towns in Pennsylvania do so because they have been provoked by economic hardship, and are seeking to place the blame for their position on a convenient target.

Is there anything wrong with saying that? Some people within the Democratic Party in Pennsyvlania don’t even want to discuss this issue intelligently. They just want issues of rural poverty in Pennsylvania swept under the rug. I think that’s a shame.

I have found a place to debate Barack Obama’s insight about rural poverty in Pennsylvania, and its connection to economic anxiety. I suggest you take a look, and join the discussion.

This Friday, at noon, at the convergence of Mall & Goddard Boulevards in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, locals will gather to protest against the work of Lockheed Martin. The Brandywine Peace Community calls Lockheed Martin the largest war profiteer in the United States.

So far, the protest sounds good. It’s at this point, however, that the Brandywine Peace Community does some really clumsy mixing of religion and antiwar activism. They declare their demonstration “War’s 5th Anniversary Trail of Mourning & Truth” and say that it will be modeled on the Catholic stations of the cross Easter walk, which in many parts of the world still involved ritual self-mutilation.

The posting at United for Peace and Justice explains, “The Good Friday Demonstration, modeled on the traditional Stations of the Cross, will include readings paralelling the U.S. policy of war and occupation, war economy and unmet human needs, with the last steps and crucified death of Jesus Christ and will also include nonviolent civil disobedience…”

Huh?!?

What on earth does the crucifixion of Jesus have to do with Lockheed Martin? Are they supposed to be responsible for the execution of Jesus?

A word of advice to the Brandywine Peace Community: There are a lot of good non-Christian peace activists around, but you lose their support when you insist on using antiwar demonstrations to push your religion at people. People ought to be able to protest for peace without having someone harangue them about Jesus.

The Iraq War is not about Jesus, or the Virgin Mary, or the Book of Revelations, okay? Please, let’s stay on topic.

Philadelphia might well be renamed Pharmadelphia. That’s the reaction that comes after the news that, after the testing of the water supplies for at least 62 metropolitan areas, it’s Philadelphia’s water that comes out on top, or on the bottom, depending on how you look at it. Of all the sources of water tested, Philadelphia’s water had the most kinds of pharmaceutical contamination in it.

The researchers found traces of 63 different medications in Philadelphia’s waters. The most pharmaceutically-contaminated city water after that was New York City’s, with 16 medications found.

Philadelphia’s waters include antibiotic amoxicillin. It’s no wonder, then, that Philadelphians are suffering from more antibiotic-resistant infections.

Just a few minutes from now, the Brandywine Peace Community will observe the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, not with some empty rhetoric, but by doing as Dr. King himself would have done. The group will be engaging in civil disobedience against Lockheed Martin, “the world’s largest weapons corporation and the Iraq War’s chief weapons profiteer.”

The antiwar demonstration will be taking place at the Lockheed Martin weapons complex at the meeting of Mall and Goddard Boulevards in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Only those who have received civil disobedience training for this protest with the Brandywine Peace Community will be engaged in that aspect of the protest, but many others will be there for support, and to engage in lawful acts of demonstration.

Philadelphia’s political activist community is getting very Caribbean today. Not only is there the noontime protest to shut down Guantanamo, but at 6:00 PM, the National Boricua Human Rights Network is organizing a protest in Philadelphia at 6th and Market Streets (the same place the Guantanamo protest will start).

The NBHRN protest is related to the subpoena of three Puerto Rican nationalist activists before a grand jury in New York City. They call these subpoenas “intimidation” of the activists. I’m not really clear on this issue, to tell the truth. How is a subpoena intimidation, and not a legitimate legal investigation?

If anyone can educate me on this matter, I’d love to hear what they have to say.

In a more general sense, it’s great to see free speech alive and well in the historical heart of American liberty.

Tommorow, at high noon, in the area of Independence Mall, citizens from the greater Philadelphia area will gather together to join in a protest against the shameful and illegal American prisons at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The demonstration to shut down Guantanamo begins at noon in front of the Philadelphia Federal Courthouse, at the meeting of 6th Street & Market Street. Then, people wearing orange jumpsuits will be pulled in a symbolic procession that will walk past the Liberty Bell, past Independence Hall, ending at Constitution Center.

The same standards of justice and law must apply to everyone, or they apply to no one. This protest is not pro-terrorist. It’s pro-Constitution, and pro-law.

Wear orange to remind passers-by that when the Constitution is ignored, and the rule of law is no longer in effect, we are all prisoners.

For more information, visit the site of the Brandywine Peace Community.