Category: The Struggle for Peace

Ukraine’s Transgender Military Spox Fired For ‘Unapproved’ Statements | ZeroHedge

The controversial American transgender spokesperson for Ukraine’s Territorial Defense Forces Sarah Ashton-Cirillo (born Michael Cirillo) has been suspended indefinitely by the Ukrainian military, also pending an investigation.

Senator JD Vance of Ohio has made formal inquiry as to whether Sarah Ashton-Cirillo (born Michael John Cirillo) is being funded by the US government or has ties to the US intelligence community.

Last week a viral video by Ashton-Cirillo saw him declare on behalf of the Territorial Defense Forces of Ukraine that Russia’s “propagandists” will be “hunted down” around the world.

Revealingly, this was said just as an American journalist, Gonzalo Lira, was due in Ukrainian court on vague charges of “justifying Russia’s aggression.” That video sparked frenzy and anger online, given it seemed an open threat to journalists or anyone that doesn’t toe a pro-Ukrainian line on any given issue related to the war.

Responding to an inquiry form Senator JD Vance of Ohio, Sarah Ashton-Cirillo — born Michael John Cirillo — declared that he answers to three people: “my Ukrainian commanders, the Ukrainian people, and the American taxpayer.”

An hour later, Cirillo posted a video backtracking on the previous statement, insisting that the U.S. government is not funding his Ukrainian military media operation overseas.

Vance later gave some apt and appropriate comments to Breitbart News, saying: “If the Ukrainians want to hire weirdos to threaten Americans and others for speaking their mind, I guess that’s their right. They shouldn’t use our tax dollars to do it.”

He continued: “And we shouldn’t pretend this is a war for freedom when our supposed ally is threatening violence to anyone who opposes the war.”

Source: Ukraine’s Transgender Military Spox Fired For ‘Unapproved’ Statements | ZeroHedge

Opinion | Vienna’s International Summit for Peace in Ukraine Issues a Global Call for Action | Common Dreams

During the weekend of June 10-11 in Vienna, Austria, over 300 people representing peace organizations from 32 countries came together for the first time since the Russian invasion of Ukraine to demand an end to the fighting. In a formal conference declaration, participants declared, “We are a broad and politically diverse coalition that represents peace movements and civil society. We are firmly united in our belief that war is a crime against humanity and there is no military solution to the current crisis.”

Summit organizers chose Austria as the location of the peace conference because Austria is one of only a few neutral non-NATO states left in Europe. Ireland, Switzerland and Malta are a mere handful of neutral European states, now that previously neutral states Finland has joined NATO and Sweden is next in line. Austria’s capital, Vienna, is known as “UN City,” and is also home to the Secretariat of the OSCE (the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe), which monitored the ceasefire in the Donbas from the signing of the Minsk II agreement in 2015 until the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Surprisingly, neutral Austria turned out to be quite hostile to the Peace Summit. The union federation caved in to pressure from the Ukrainian Ambassador to Austria and other detractors, who smeared the events as a fifth column for the Russian invaders. The ambassador had objected to some of the speakers, including world-renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs and European Union Parliament member Clare Daly.

Source: Opinion | Vienna’s International Summit for Peace in Ukraine Issues a Global Call for Action | Common Dreams

From Simp to Soldier: How the Military is Using E-Girls To Recruit Gen Z Into Service

Amid a crisis in recruitment, the U.S. military has found a new way of convincing a war-weary Generation Z to enlist: thirst traps.

Chief among these attractive young women in uniform posting sexually suggestive content alongside subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) calls to join up is Hailey Lujan. In between the thirst traps and memes, the 21-year-old makes content extolling the fun of Army life to her 731,000 TikTok followers. “Don’t go to college, become a farmer or a soldier instead,” she instructs viewers in a recent video. “Just some advice for the younger people: if you’re not doing school, it’s ok. I dropped out of college. And I’m doing great,” she adds.

If Lujan feels like a psyop (a psychological operation) it is because, technically, she is. Lujan is a psychological operations specialist; one of a small number of Army personnel whose job is to carry out influence and disinfo operations, either on or offline. Thus, she is using her femininity to recruit legions of lustful teens into an institution with an infamous record of sexism and sexual assault against female soldiers.

The United States is a nation addicted to war, spending 229 of its 247 years of existence in some kind of conflict. It controls a network of over 800 military bases spanning the globe, and, according to a Congressional report, has carried out a staggering 251 foreign military interventions since the end of the Cold War in 1991. A new report compiled by the Institute for Policy Studies shows that the U.S. spends more on its military than 144 nations combined.

It is now well-established (if not well-known) that the Department of Defense also fields a giant clandestine army of at least 60,000 people whose job it is to influence public opinion, the majority doing so from their keyboards. A 2021 exposé from Newsweek described the operation as “The largest undercover force the world has ever known,” warned that this troll army was likely breaking both domestic and international law, and explaining that,

These are the cutting-edge cyber fighters and intelligence collectors who assume false personas online, employing ‘nonattribution’ and ‘misattribution’ techniques to hide the who and the where of their online presence while they search for high-value targets and collect what is called ‘publicly accessible information’—or even engage in campaigns to influence and manipulate social media.”

Source: From Simp to Soldier: How the Military is Using E-Girls To Recruit Gen Z Into Service

The People Haven’t Risen Up For The Same Reason Abuse Victims Don’t Leave Their Abusers – Caitlin Johnstone

This is what so few people understand about abusive relationships. People see friends and family members stuck in relationships that are obviously horrible and say “She should leave him! Why doesn’t she just leave??” If the abuse happened in secret the first question your loved ones ask when you escape is “Why did you let it go on so long? Why didn’t you leave sooner?”

Abusive relationships aren’t just one partner doing cruel things to another. If they were, there would be no relationship: there’d just be a woman getting assaulted one time by her boyfriend and then immediately leaving. Abusive relationships necessarily include the construction of psychological barriers to leaving, or else they would not exist. Victims of abuse are kept constantly confused, off-balance, insecure and unsure of themselves, because their abuse always necessarily includes the element of psychological manipulation.

This is why people stay in abusive relationships, whether it’s abusive relationships with significant others or abusive relationships with empires.

Vast fortunes are poured into keeping us from realizing that we are being exploited by powerful wealth hoarders while our nation’s resources are sent to fight wars of planetary domination. That our ecosystem is being destroyed for profit with no real plan for what to do when it’s gone. That we are being increasingly oppressed and impoverished to keep us from having enough awareness and wealth to dethrone our rulers. And that it doesn’t have to be this way at all.

Source: The People Haven’t Risen Up For The Same Reason Abuse Victims Don’t Leave Their Abusers – Caitlin Johnstone

Australia sold weapons to Mali as UN warned violence creating ‘humanitarian disaster’

The Australian government approved a large volume of weapons sales to war-torn Mali in the same year the United Nations warned escalating violence was creating an “unprecedented humanitarian disaster” in the West African nation.

Save the Children Australia chief executive Paul Ronalds said arms exports to nations like Mali and Somalia must cease immediately. He said there was an urgent need for greater accountability and transparency on Australia’s arms sales.“We cannot let vested interests and profits take precedence over the lives of children,” Ronalds told the Guardian.“Australians would be rightly appalled to know we were potentially prolonging devastating wars in places like Yemen and Mali, and in doing so, increasing and prolonging the suffering of millions of children.”

Source: Australia sold weapons to Mali as UN warned violence creating ‘humanitarian disaster’ | Australia news | The Guardian

Michael Moore

For decades now the NRA has successfully lobbied Congress to prevent any funding for the CDC to study why gun violence in the US has grown to epidemic proportions.

I don’t have a Ph.D, and I’m not a social scientist, but I’d like to offer a few observations and ask that we perhaps “study” the following:

1. Nearly all gun murders are committed by one gender. Let’s study why that is.

2. The vast majority of guns are owned by white people. Why is that? Most of these white people live in nearly all-white suburban and rural areas which have little or no crime. Why, really, do they need all those guns?

3. Why are most of these school shootings and other mass shootings committed by young white males?

4. Why, when the media covers gun violence in our black communities, do they never speak of it as the result of millions of African Americans still forced to live — 150 years after slavery — in a premeditated, predetermined system of enforced and cruel poverty, thus causing a tremendous amount of suffering and pain and death.

5. Why are many men unable to work out their anger issues without violence? And what are they afraid of? Why not study why there is so much unfounded fear within white men. Are they subconsciously afraid because they know they live in a society where one race gets a pass (or at least a chance), and the other races are left to fight for the crumbs? Why not study why there is so much unfounded fear within white men. Do white men who see so many fellow white men crushed by a dog-eat-dog economic system, they fear they too may be next?

So the frightened scared man needs a gun. Yet women — who have a REAL reason to be afraid in this society — carry hardly ANY of the 300 million+ guns in this country. Let’s study that.

6. Why are women so often the victims of this violence? Let’s study how millions of boys are raised and socialized in this culture to be man-boys who fear & despise women. And why women end up dead because of this ugly misogyny.

7. Perhaps it simply comes down to this: In the US, women hold no real political, economic or social power. 75% of Congress are men. A woman wins the presidency, but a slave-era law prohibits her from taking office. Just 6% of the CEOs of the Fortune 500 companies are women. None of the major religions are run by women. Wall Street is not run by women. We still haven’t passed the Equal Rights Amendment for women.

Wouldn’t a scientific study by the CDC show that if Congress was majority female (which might give us better schools, universal health care, day care and senior care), and if women were paid the same as men (a strong wage so all could have a decent life), wouldn’t this then be the ultimate result: Far less of us will die on any given day from an angry spray of random bullets?

“Retired activist” Puts Case Against Amnesty International to WILPF for Human Rights Week

Australian feminist, environmental activist and whistleblower Isla MacGregor gave a compelling case against Amnesty International’s “Sex Work policy” at the Women’s International League For Peace and Freedom (WILPF)  forum in Hobart.

(ed: this is from 2015 but still relevant now)

Source: “Retired activist” Puts Case Against Amnesty International to WILPF for Human Rights Week | eachone

PM ‘appalled’, unmoved on One Nation preferences after pro-gun footage

The Prime Minister said he was “appalled” by revelations that Pauline Hanson’s key lieutenants were caught on tape with pro-gun lobbyists in the US seeking to secure millions of dollars in donations.

The documentary shows footage from a meeting in Washington DC with the powerful National Rifle Association, where Mr Dickson discusses his hopes to change Australia’s gun laws.

“We get the balance of power, very simply that means that we have the testicles of the government in our hand at every given stage,” he said.

Source: PM ‘appalled’, unmoved on One Nation preferences after pro-gun footage

Christchurch attacks: New Zealand brings in sweeping gun-law changes

Bans on assault rifles and military-style semi-automatics introduced as well as a buyback scheme

Source: Christchurch attacks: New Zealand brings in sweeping gun-law changes | World news | The Guardian

NSW State Election 2019 : The GCA Position – Gun Control Australia

Our world-leading gun control laws are being undermined as a result of decades of pressure from the well-funded and powerful gun lobby.  Nowhere is this more evident than in New South Wales, where the total number of registered firearms has just broken through the 1 million mark – meaning there is now one gun for every eight NSW citizens.

NSW laws breach the National Firearms Agreement – the landmark pact all states and territories signed up for after the 1996 Port Arthur Massacre – 11 times.

Source: NSW State Election 2019 : The GCA Position – Gun Control Australia