Protest over drones draws many after civil rights activist Cornel West energizes crowd in Syracuse

After speaking to a crowd of about 500 at Syracuse's Tucker Missionary Baptist Church, academic Cornel West joined upwards of 300 in a massive demonstration at the nearby Hancock AFB in the town of Dewitt, from which the 174th Attack Wing of the Air National Guard operates killer drones. Police and soldiers were present in large numbers, but no arrests were made.

Cornel West melted into the crowd, joining the People
 in speaking out against the drone atrocities being
 perpetrated at Hancock and elsewhere.

The theme of the protest was the delivery of a "People's Order of Protection" against all those complicit in U.S. drone terror. After West drew connections between racism, poverty, and drone killing, the Peoples' Order of Protection allowed those taking part in the protest to ally themselves with the victims of drone killing as part of a global 99%, standing up against murder and surveillance by the wealthy and powerful. It also made a mockery of the recent ludicrous abuse by Dewitt town judge Gideon of the Order of Protection against those engaging in peaceful protest at Hancock.

Demonstrators stood in vigil to remember
 those killed by U.S. drone strikes.

As West said: "We're seeing the unfolding of a movement in Syracuse to view drones -- which kill children especially -- as a crime against humanity," West said during the march. "It's a moral and spiritual awakening with political consequences."

Major sponsors of the event were the Syracuse Peace Council  and the Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars.

Read more at PopularResistance.org

The Spring Days of Drone Action are in full swing!
 CLICK HERE to learn more.

Write or Call Your Member of Congress Today: Make the U.S. Come Clean on Drone Killings

For years, New York State has been a center for protesting the immoral and illegal U.S. policy of using drones to carry out targeted killings.

Today, people protesting drones are contacting their representatives to encourage support for H.R.4372: the Targeted Lethal Force Transparency Act. If passed, the bill will require the Obama administration to come clean about the killings it has carried out using drones -- killings that, up until now, the administration has been able to pretend don't exist.

So now's the time: write or call your member of Congress today. 

To determine what district you live in, go to http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

To see an example of a constituent letter, see An Open Letter to Congressman Mike Quigley on H.R.4372: the Targeted Lethal Force Transparency Act


New York Congressional Delegation

(Members of the Progressive Caucus are presumed to lean in favor of the bill and are marked Progressive Caucus; members of the Drones Caucus are presumed to lean against the bill and are marked Drones Caucus. As for those who are members of both . . . ?)
 NY01 - Timothy Bishop - (202) 225-3826 email
NY02 - Peter King - 202) 225-7896 email
NY03 - Steve Israel - (202) 225-3335 email
NY04 - Carolyn McCarthy - (202) 225-5516 email
NY05 - Gregory Meeks - (202) 225-3461 email
NY06 - Grace Meng - 202-225-2601 email
NY07 - Nydia Velázquez - (202) 225-2361 email (Progressive Caucus)
NY08 - Hakeem Jeffries - 202-225-5936 email (Progressive Caucus) 
NY09 - Yvette Clarke - (202) 225-6231 email (Progressive Caucus)
NY10 - Jerrold Nadler - 202-225-5635 email  (Progressive Caucus)
NY11 - Michael Grimm - (202) 225-3371 email
NY12 - Carolyn Maloney - 202-225-7944 email (Progressive Caucus)
NY13 - Charles Rangel - (202) 225-4365 email (Progressive Caucus)
NY14 - Joseph Crowley - (202) 225-3965 email
NY15 - José Serrano - (202) 225-4361 email (Progressive Caucus)
NY16 - Eliot Engel - 202) 225-2464 email
NY17 - Nita Lowey - 202-225-6506 email
NY18 - Sean Maloney - 202-225-5441 email
NY19 - Christopher Gibson - 202) 225-5614 email
NY20 - Paul Tonko - (202) 225-5076 email
NY21 - William Owens - (202) 225-4611 email
NY22 - Richard Hanna - 202-225-3665 email  (Drones Caucus)
NY23 - Tom Reed - (202) 225-3161 email
NY24 - Daniel Maffei - 202-225-3701 email
NY25 - Louise Slaughter - (202) 225-3615 email (Progressive Caucus) (Drones Caucus)
NY26 - Brian Higgins - 202-225-3306 email 
NY27 - Chris Collins - 202-225-5265 email

[SEE: hub page for all Resources to SUPPORT the "Come Clean on Drone Killings" Act (Schiff/Jones HR 4372: the Targeted Lethal Force Transparency Act)]

Related posts

First Reps. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-AZ) and Keith Ellison (D-MN) called the U.S. on the carpet for dodging the call from the international community to come clean about its drone killings. Then Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Walter Jones (R-NC) submitted a bill calling for drone transparency. So ... are we finally going to get the truth?

(See REAL Progressives Demand that the U.S. Come Clean on Drone Killings)

A 2013 U.N. report makes it clear that the U.S. has to report fully on all its drone attacks.

(See 2014: The Year of Transparency (for U.S. Drone Use)?)

The reason the Administration is hiding truth about drones is that they don't have a satisfactory answer for how decisions about drone strikes are made.  As we have known all along, we need the public to think about how crummy the whole drone program is, and then they will be ready to be on our side. The best way to get them really thinking is to shine a spotlight on the secrecy, evasiveness, and deceit involved in the U.S. drone program.

(See Drone Killings: Come Clean )

Cornel West to Speak on Poverty, Racism, and Drones in Syracuse

Dr. Cornel West- “Connecting the Dots: Poverty, Racism and Drones”

April 27, 2014 at 2 pm (doors open at 1:30)

Tucker Missionary Baptist Church

515 Oakwood Ave, Syracuse, NY.

 The Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars is pleased to present Dr. Cornel West, a prominent and provocative populist intellectual.  Dr. West will be speaking at the Tucker Missionary Baptist Church, in Syracuse, NY on the links between poverty, racism, and killer drones.  The event is free and open to the public.

Dr. Cornel West will present:
 "Connecting the Dots: Poverty, Racism and Drones."

Following the talk we will have Rally and a short Walk to Hancock Air National Guard Drone base** themed "The People’s Orders of Protection Against Drone Terror".  The rally will begin at 4:30pm at the BOCES parking lot (6820 Thompson Rd, Syracuse, NY, near the east gate of the base.)

*Dr. Cornel West is a Professor of Philosophy and Christian Practice at Union Theological Seminary and Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. He has also taught at Yale, Harvard, and the University of Paris. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard in three years and obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy at Princeton. He has written 20 books and has edited 13. He is best known for his classics Race Matters and Democracy Matters, and his memoir, Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud. - See more  here. 

"There is a cloud of witnesses that say that those innocent persons, especially the precious babies, who are killed by US drones in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen have exactly the same value as those priceless white children who were killed in Newtown, CT; as those black brothers and sisters in the south side of Chicago; brown brothers and sisters in barrios; red brothers and sisters on reservations; yellow brothers and sisters.  We are here to bear witness and to say we will not allow the kind of callousness toward catastrophe and indifference to criminality to become the norm and routine in America... We remember the legacy of Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Philip Berrigan, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Grace Boggs; these are names that constitute figures in movements that say, it's time to straighten our back up, it's time for us to try to awake our fellow citizens; No More Sleep Walking in America when it comes to  militarism, when it to comes to consumer market materialism, when it comes to racism, antisemitism, anti arab, anti muslim, homophobia any form of xenophobia, and most importantly when it comes to imperial crimes that emanate from Washington, DC around the world." 

                              -Dr. West, International Drone Summit.   Washington, DC  11/10/13

  

**Hancock Airfield is just outside of Syracuse, NY in the Town of Dewitt. It is the home of the 147th Attack Wing of the Air National Guard and the national maintenance and training center for the MQ9 Reaper drones. These drones are operated by remote control from the base, and are used to carry out attacks in Afghanistan and possibly other countries. Over the past 4 years there have been on- going demonstrations at the base by The Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars, an organization made up of groups from Upstate NY including Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Binghamton, Albany, Ithaca and other towns.

For more info, visit The Upstate NY Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars

For Flyers, click here.

         

Syracuse: Carol Baum at the Syracuse Peace Council, (315) 472-5478

Rochester: Judy Bello, (585) 733-4058

Buffalo: Vicki Ross, (716) 884-0582

Ithaca: Ellen Grady, (607) 279-8303

Binghamton: Jim Clune (607) 773-0246

Sponsored by: The Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars; The Syracuse Peace Council, The Buffalo Peace Center, The Ithaca Catholic Worker, etc.

The Spring Days of Drone Action continue! Click here to learn more about events nationwide!

Drones & Dirty Wars: Prelude to Drone Days of Action 2014

While the Spring Days of Drone Action are already well underway in New York with events in Syracuse, the Hudson Valley, and elsewhere throughout the state, their beginning will be marked on Wednesday, April 2 at 7 PM with a web-cast & live event in Manhattan. The event will take place at the Community Church at 40 E. 35th Street

In attendance will be:

Madiha Tahir, film maker, Wounds of Waziristan

An independent journalist reporting on conflict,
culture and politics in Pakistan, she has
 followed the U.S. drone attacks there for years.

   

  Maria LaHood, Senior Staff Attorney, 
Center for Constitutional Rights who
 specializes in international human
 rights litigation, seeking to hold
 government officials and corporations
 accountable for torture, extrajudicial
 killings, and war crimes abroad.

  

    Carl Dix, Vietnam War resister and member of  the Revolutionary Communist Party.  A leader of protests against police brutality, stop-and-frisk, and founder, with Cornel West, of the Stop Mass Incarceration Network.
















    
The event will be sponsored by Knowdrones, World Can't Wait, the Action for Justice Committee of The Community Church of New York Unitarian Universalist

For more information, check out the Facebook event page.

The nationwide Spring Days of Drone Action are just beginning! Click to learn more about events in New York and throughout the nation!

Spring Days of Drone Action 2014

Attack Drones, Cyber-Weapons and Autonomous Robots: Law and Morality

7 p.m., Wednesday, March 26
Panasci Family Chapel, LeMoyne College, Syracuse

The computer revolution has made possible the development of extraordinary new weapons. Although our current legal and moral principles do not permit force in any but the most serious situations and as a last resort, government officials and certain academics are arguing for new interpretations of the rules.

Mary Ellen O’Connell, professor of law and research professor of international dispute resolution at the University of Notre Dame, will address these arguments, which she believes are inconsistent with the fundamental right to life. 

Mary Ellen O'Connell, who will argue that
 attempts to reinterpret legal and moral principles to
 expand the use of force are incompatible with the
 fundamental right to life.

This lecture is part of “The Faith That Does Justice Series” sponsored by the College’s Office of Mission and Identity.

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE NATIONWIDE SPRING DAYS OF ACTION AGAINST DRONES.

Spring Days of Drone Action 2014

NYC Screening of Wounds of Waziristan in NYC

Join Amy Goodman of Democracy Now and Madiha Tahir, the film's maker, for a screening of Wounds of Waziristan, a documentary chronicling the impact of the U.S. drone campaign in the tribal regions of Pakistan, this Wednesday March 12 from 6-8 PM at Lerner Hall on the campus of Columbia University. 

Wounds of Waziristan: to be screened 3/12/14, 6 pm at Columbia University

While the event is free, seating is limited, so click here to reserve a spot.

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE UPCOMING SPRING DAYS OF ACTION AGAINST DRONE WARFARE!

Relentless Anti-Drone Action this month in the Hudson Valley!

Drone-Alert Hudson Valley is hosting a series of what promise to be powerful opportunities to educate the public more about drone killing and surveillance this month.

A rally and sidewalk march will be held on Saturday, March 22 at 3 pm in Peace Park (behind Village Hall) in New Paltz. Bring signs, kites, balloons, drums, and any other means to get attention and educate passersby about drone injustice and atrocities.

Wounds of Waziristan to be screened 3/23 at 4:30 PM in the Elting
 Library Community room in New Paltz

A screening and discussion of Wounds of Waziristan, Madiha Tahir's powerful 25 minute documentary about the impact of drone strikes on people in the tribal areas of Pakistan, will take place on Sundaym March 23 at 4:30 pm in the Elting Library Community Room in New Paltz.  This documentary features Karim Khan, a Pakistani who was recently kidnapped and tortured by his government for his attempts to speak out about drone atrocities in his community and subsequently released after great public protest.

Kareem Khan, tortured and detained by the Pakistani government for
 speaking out against the American drone war.

On Sat March 29 at 2:45 pm there will be a rally and march on the Walkway over the Hudson in Poughkeepsie. We will gather at either end of the Walkway and set off at 3 pm, to meet at the flagpole for a rally. No signs are allowed on the Walkway so wear buttons/slogans on clothes (tape signs, bumper stickers on clothing). Bring kites, balloons, your well-behaved dog on a leash!(Heavyrain/snow date: Sun March 30, 2:45pm) 

The flagpole in the middle of the walkway will
 remind us to speak out forcefully against the perversion
 of American ideals that is drone killing.

For more information about these events, please e-mail Barbara Kidney of Drone-Alert Hudson Valley at bask999@yahoo.com

To learn more about the upcoming nationwide Spring Days of Action against Drone warfare and surveillance, visit http://springdaysofdroneaction.org