Bill Ayers

Julian Assange’s father and brother, John and Gabriel Shipton, will be in Chicago from Wednesday, April 5th to Friday April 7th. Press release and flyer are attached.

The commercial screening of the documentary movie ithaka is at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Wrigleyville. The screening theatre is not very large but we still have seats left. It is important we have a full house to show that Chicago supports the campaign to free Julian Assange.

Trailer Buy tickets

Peace and solidarity,

Frank Lawrence

Chicago Area Peace Action

630.632.2314

https://www.codepink.org/piu20iraqchicago

https://soundcloud.com/user-75847912/from-dungeons-to-focos-with-

MARCH 8—INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY

Bread And Roses

As we go marching, marching, in the beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing: Bread and Roses! Bread and Roses!
As we go marching, marching, we battle too for men,
For they are women’s children, and we mother them again.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses.
As we go marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient call for bread.
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.
Yes, it is bread we fight for, but we fight for roses too.
As we go marching, marching, we bring the greater days,
The rising of the women means the rising of the race.
No more the drudge and idler, ten that toil where one reposes,
But a sharing of life’s glories: Bread and roses, bread and roses.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; bread and roses, bread and roses.

53 years ago…
We just walked along Lake Michigan remembering our Beloveds: Diana Oughton, Terry Robbins, Ted Gold, three Freedom Fighters who died fifty-three years ago today. We floated flowers in the water, and we embraced their brilliant, loving spirits. We spoke of their fierce dedication to peace and justice, their struggles to end imperialism and racial capitalism—this brutal, cruel system.
Say their names.
Never forget.
Rise up!
xoxoxo

A moving note from Dan Ellsberg, a courageous and brilliant peace and freedom fighter:

Dear friends and supporters,
I have difficult news to impart. On February 17, without much warning, I was diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer on the basis of a CT scan and an MRI. (As is usual with pancreatic cancer–which has no early symptoms–it was found while looking for something else, relatively minor). I’m sorry to report to you that my doctors have given me three to six months to live. Of course, they emphasize that everyone’s case is individual; it might be more, or less.
I have chosen not to do chemotherapy (which offers no promise) and I have assurance of great hospice care when needed. Please know: right now, I am not in any physical pain, and in fact, after my hip replacement surgery in late 2021, I feel better physically than I have in years! Moreover, my cardiologist has given me license to abandon my salt-free diet of the last six years. This has improved my quality of life dramatically: the pleasure of eating my former favorite foods! And my energy level is high. Since my diagnosis, I’ve done several interviews and webinars on Ukraine, nuclear weapons, and first amendment issues, and I have two more scheduled this week.
As I just told my son Robert: he’s long known (as my editor) that I work better under a deadline. It turns out that I live better under a deadline!
I feel lucky and grateful that I’ve had a wonderful life far beyond the proverbial three-score years and ten. ( I’ll be ninety-two on April 7th.) I feel the very same way about having a few months more to enjoy life with my wife and family, and in which to continue to pursue the urgent goal of working with others to avert nuclear war in Ukraine or Taiwan (or anywhere else).
When I copied the Pentagon Papers in 1969, I had every reason to think I would be spending the rest of my life behind bars. It was a fate I would gladly have accepted if it meant hastening the end of the Vietnam War, unlikely as that seemed (and was). Yet in the end, that action—in ways I could not have foreseen, due to Nixon’s illegal responses—did have an impact on shortening the war. In addition, thanks to Nixon’s crimes, I was spared the imprisonment I expected, and I was able to spend the last fifty years with Patricia and my family, and with you, my friends.
What’s more, I was able to devote those years to doing everything I could think of to alert the world to the perils of nuclear war and wrongful interventions: lobbying, lecturing, writing and joining with others in acts of protest and non-violent resistance.
I wish I could report greater success for our efforts. As I write, “modernization” of nuclear weapons is ongoing in all nine states that possess them (the US most of all). Russia is making monstrous threats to initiate nuclear war to maintain its control over Crimea and the Donbas–like the dozens of equally illegitimate first-use threats that the US government has made in the past to maintain its military presence in South Korea, Taiwan, South Vietnam, and (with the complicity of every member state then in NATO ) West Berlin. The current risk of nuclear war, over Ukraine, is as great as the world has ever seen.
China and India are alone in declaring no-first-use policies. Leadership in the US, Russia, other nuclear weapons states, NATO and other US allies have yet to recognize that such threats of initiating nuclear war–let alone the plans, deployments and exercises meant to make them credible and more ready to be carried out–are and always have been immoral and insane: under any circumstances, for any reasons, by anyone or anywhere.
It is long past time–but not too late!–for the world’s publics at last to challenge and resist the willed moral blindness of their past and current leaders. I will continue, as long as I’m able, to help these efforts. There’s tons more to say about Ukraine and nuclear policy, of course, and you’ll be hearing from me as long as I’m here.
As I look back on the last sixty years of my life, I think there is no greater cause to which I could have dedicated my efforts. For the last forty years we have known that nuclear war between the US and Russia would mean nuclear winter: more than a hundred million tons of smoke and soot from firestorms in cities set ablaze by either side, striking either first or second, would be lofted into the stratosphere where it would not rain out and would envelope the globe within days. That pall would block up to 70% of sunlight for years, destroying all harvests worldwide and causing death by starvation for most of the humans and other vertebrates on earth.
So far as I can find out, this scientific near-consensus has had virtually no effect on the Pentagon’s nuclear war plans or US/NATO (or Russian) nuclear threats. (In a like case of disastrous willful denial by many officials, corporations and other Americans, scientists have known for over three decades that the catastrophic climate change now underway–mainly but not only from burning fossil fuels–is fully comparable to US-Russian nuclear war as another existential risk.)
I’m happy to know that millions of people–including all those friends and comrades to whom I address this message!–have the wisdom, the dedication and the moral courage to carry on with these causes, and to work unceasingly for the survival of our planet and its creatures.
I’m enormously grateful to have had the privilege of knowing and working with such people, past and present. That’s among the most treasured aspects of my very privileged and very lucky life. I want to thank you all for the love and support you have given me in so many ways. Your dedication, courage, and determination to act have inspired and sustained my own efforts.
My wish for you is that at the end of your days you will feel as much joy and gratitude as I do now.

Love
Dan

Don’t take my word, or Girl, I Guess’ word for it, listen to Barbara Ransby and Luis Gutierez:

Our Guy Brandon

If you follow me at all on social media, you probably saw my December endorsement of Brandon Johnson for Mayor of Chicago. Longtime readers of Girl, I Guess will remember that in 2019, Ellen and I made a dual endorsement for the Mayoral race between progressive activist Amara Enyia and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle. We made that choice because while we both loved Amara’s campaign, various issues and a lack of an ability to break through as a candidate dogged her for the entire campaign, and Toni had historically been progressive, even though she was a Machine candidate with a capital M. This year, history is repeating itself, with reliable progressive legislator and Mustache Machine Head (upper lip?) Chuy Garcia running, and a small number of other progressives running to his Left. But I don’t think this race is a rehash of 2019. With all due respect to single-issue Transit voters who have fallen in love with Kam Buckner, I think every progressive, Leftist, and voter in general in Chicago should head to the polls and vote for Brandon Johnson to be the next Mayor of Chicago. I’ll tell you why: 

Brandon Johnson is the most progressive candidate running for Mayor.

There it is, plain as day, on his issues campaign page. A slew of progressive issues, plus a forthcoming LGBTQ policy plank that commits to the biggest investment in LGBTQ people of any candidate and hits major community issues that we’ve been advocating for for years and gotten the cold shoulder on from Lori. I got a sneak peek at, thanks to the Johnson campaign sending it over to me and assuring me it’ll be up without edits from what I saw. But let’s tackle the issues themselves. 

Apparently a full public safety plank is on its way, but what Brandon has so far ain’t bad at all, considering that it includes Treatment Not Trauma, ending the gang database, working with the new Community Commission on Public Safety and Accountability to hold cops responsible for their actions (I actually also trust Brandon to nominate good Commissioners), reopening the mental health clinics, and creating year-round youth employment opportunities. Not bad for an interim plan at all. 

On Affordable Housing, Brandon’s platform is the strongest in the field, with commitments to expand affordable housing, naming the wealth divide and historical racism that has led to disinvestment on the South and West sides and committing to actually fix it (not just take credit for pre-existing projects like Lori has), and making housing a human right in Chicago. That includes Just Cause For Eviction. That includes expanding the Affordable Requirements Ordinance. And that includes passing the Real Estate Transfer Tax. A sterling plank which hits all the biggest progressive points. 

On Jobs, Brandon promises to fight for a Green New Deal, protect workers, and regulate corporations. That includes making transit universally free and accessible, passing the Rideshare Living Wage Ordinance, and expanding childcare and pre-K citywide. Oh, and on top of all of that, there are commitments to use TIFs to actually develop and strengthen neighborhoods, not just line the pockets of developers, mandate CBAs for new developments, and add dignified union jobs for Chicagoans. 

It just keeps going and going. On Education, there’s no candidate I trust more than Brandon Johnson to fight for fully funded, fully staffed schools, and make sure that CPS, the City Colleges system, and everything in the Chicago education ecosystem has everything needed to ensure students succeed and thrive. Environment? Brandon commits to ending so-called “sacrifice zones” in neighborhoods near industrial sites, expand Green infrastructure citywide, and reopen and fully fund the Department of the Environment. On Healthcare? Brandon is an asthmatic and has experienced absurd waiting times at Cook County Hospital growing up and trying to access treatment. He’s committed to speeding up and bringing equity to lead waterline replacement, expanding the Health Department to include more frontline workers, and making home care more accessible in Chicago. Good Government? Brandon is committing to passing laws that mandate transparent budgeting on the Citywide level and creates public financing for elections. Progressive positions on Women’s Rights, Immigration, Transportation and transit… you get the picture. Brandon Johnson has experience passing real, impactful, progressive legislation on all of these issues at the County level, and he’s made the commitment in public to do it on the City level again. And while nobody is beating Kam Buckner’s transit platform, taken as a whole Brandon has far and away the most progressive, and the most visionary platform on pretty much every single issue category, and it isn’t even close. But that’s just the first reason why he’s earned our votes as progressives. 

Brandon Johnson is an experienced activist and union organizer who is accountable to the people, and who has won tough elections before.

Brandon has been a leader in his community for years, first as a CPS teacher in Cabrini-Green and then later on the West Side, and later as a union organizer with the Chicago Teachers Union. During his time as a teacher and with the union, Brandon fought against the Emmanuel school closures, was a Dyett Hunger Striker, and fought to support CPS teachers in their recent strikes, and in passing an Elected School Board for CPS. 

Once he got elected to the County Board, Brandon didn’t stop fighting for marginalized communities. Early in his first term, he passed the Just Housing Ordinance, prohibiting discrimination against people with arrest records in public housing, and added Medicare Expansion to his accomplishments later in his first term. And he passed the Justice for Black Lives resolution and the Budget For Black Lives through the County Board, securing commitments for racially just and equitable budgeting and spending, which led to a (small) reduction in the Sheriff’s Budget the next year. AND he was an early responder to COVID in nursing homes, helped pass a law that let the Cook County Public Defender represent migrants in Immigration Court, and co-sponsored an ordinance alongside Commissioner Alma Anaya which shut down the Cook County Gang Database. Brandon has experience doing the work of the people, and has already accomplished on the County level many of the top progressive priorities for the City. I believe as Mayor he could get it done again. 

But don’t just take my word for it, take word of all these endorsing organizations and electeds, including 6 progressive Ward IPOs, The People’s Lobby, United Working Families, United Northwest Side, Activate Chicago Parents, One People’s Campaign, Grassroots Illinois Action, the AFT, IFT, CTU, CCCTU, SEIU; four Girl, I Guess Golden Shrugees (Delia Ramirez, Lilian Jimenez, Anthony Quezada plus Will Guzzardi); Alders and Green Endorsees Byron Sigcho-Lopez, Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez, Daniel La Spata, Jeanette Taylor, and Carlos Ramirez Rosa; County Commissioners Bill Lowry, Stanley Moore, and Josina Morita; Cristina Pacione-Zayas, and Jonathan Jackson (who I don’t love, but whose endorsement is a big deal in the Black Political Establishment anyway) and longtime State Rep Mary Flowers. That’s one hell of a list, comprised of progressive electeds from across the City.  

The tough election point is important, too but underrated; Brandon Johnson knows what it takes to win a knock-down, drag-out fight for public office, and that’s exactly what this Mayoral race is going to be, every step of the way. Although he was functionally unopposed in 2022 (Libertarians are for laughs, not for serious candidacies in Cook County), Brandon won his County Board seat by primarying Original Soda Tax Hater Richard Boykin in 2018. The margin? 437 votes. Kam Buckner has never faced a challenger in an election. Chuy Garcia hasn’t won a close election during this century. I’ll take the guy who knows how to win the close ones.

Brandon Johnson can win this election. No, seriously, Brandon can win this election. He’s got the money, with over $1.8 million in the bank as of the release of the Guide. He’s winning debates, being attacked by Lori, and is already polling (sorry, surveying) in first place in some measures. This isn’t some longshot, head-in-the-clouds Green Party Lefty campaign with all the right politics but not a prayer in the world of winning. Brandon’s campaign has the endorsements of most of the endorsing progressives in the City, has common sense policies that center progressive and community priorities and resonate with voters. He’s not a widely-hated candidate who’s been in politics for decades, nor is he scandal-prone or possessing a trove of skeletons in his closet. There’s no reason that Brandon can’t make the runoff. What happens then? Against another progressive like Chuy, Brandon can easily consolidate Black and progressive support to pull out a victory. Against a conservative like Paul Vallas or Willie Wilson, Brandon cleans up because nobody wants a Republican or a failed technocrat as Mayor. Against Lori, if she somehow makes the runoff? Lmao you’ve gotta be kidding me. Now all he needs is your vote. Dear reader, we’ve got a huge opportunity to elect an accountable, experienced, rooted, grassroots-made progressive to the highest office in this City. We’ve just got to hit the polls, request our mail-in ballots, and send Brandon Johnson to City Hall.