OMNI EARTH DAY, APRIL 22, 2025

 

OMNI

EARTH DAY, APRIL 22, 2025

Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology

https://omnicenter.org/donate/

 

What’s at Stake:   This April 22, the 55th Earth Day, reminds us of our struggle to create a livable planet for all, and how much is still at stake. Yet Arkansas’ members of Congress want to turn back the clock.   Futile as it might seem, let them know how you feel, to add to your protests.   

Arkansas Senators, Representatives, and Congressional ...

 

 

CONTENTS EARTH DAY APRIL 22, 2025

OR Books

AFSC, American Friends Service Committee

FCNL, Friends Committee for National Legislation

UUSJ, Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice

Move to Amend

Earth Day 2024 (carried over)

“War & Genocide on Earth Day.” 
Jill Stein Green Party: People, Planet, Peace.

Earth Day 2024 Contents

 

 

TEXTS It's Earth Day 2025

FOR BOOKS
We’re highlighting two new books on how human interference rewires the natural world.

 

THE MANIFESTO OF HERMAN MELVILLE by Barry Sanders. 
Herman Melville’s legendary Moby Dick is not, in fact, a novel, but a powerful environmental manifesto.  "An enraged manifesto against American greed and destruction of the natural world will leave readers utterly convinced and shaken.”  —Deanne Urmy

RETURN TO FUKUSHIMA by Thomas Bass. 
 Captures the aftermath of the 2011 nuclear disaster, chronicling the resilience of people navigating life amid radioactivity.   “Fascinating...a compelling message about a crucial question―one so crucial that it bears on the survival of the earth.”  —Noam Chomsky

 

 

AFSC.  Celebrate Earth Day with a gift

 

 

During Earth Month in April, many of us turn our mind to what we can do to protect our shared home.At AFSC, we see the impacts of climate change and environmental injustice in every community where we work. It worsens violence, forces people from their homes, and widens the divide between the richest and the poorest. 
Confronting climate change is a major challenge—but you’re part of a global AFSC community working year-round to secure a more sustainable and equitable future for all.
Here are just a few of the ways your support of AFSC powers work for environmental justice:

· Working with Indigenous communities, small-scale farmers, and others to safeguard traditional land and natural resources.

· Organizing to protect the basic rights to clean water and enough food for all.

· Pushing for laws and funding that prioritize human needs and care for the earth.

Please help these efforts continue. Make your gift today to support AFSC’s work for climate justice, and all of our work to build a more peaceful, just, and sustainable world.

 

In peace, 

Joyce Ajlouny   General Secretary

 

 

American Friends Service Committee   1501 Cherry Street   Philadelphia, PA 19102

 

FCNL	​

 

          On April 22, we mark the 55th Earth Day. It is a reminder of how far we’ve come in the fight for a livable planet, and how much is still at stake. Yet some members of Congress want to turn back the clock. Right now, there are serious attempts underway to repeal the clean energy tax credits passed in the Inflation Reduction Act (P.L. 117-169). We successfully lobbied for this bill, the strongest climate legislation in U.S. history.

If they succeed, we will lose critical investments in clean energy and well-paying jobs. Our journey toward environmental justice is derailed, and our chance at a climate-safe future will narrow. We cannot let this happen. But here’s the good news: our message is starting to break through. Lawmakers across the aisle are now speaking to defend these investments - but we cannot let up now.

Take two minutes to tell your members of Congress: Protect American clean energy jobs and investments.

These investments are already creating jobs, lowering energy bills, and cutting climate pollution—especially in the communities that need it most. Repealing them would be a disaster for our climate, our economy, and our future.

This Earth Day, join us in calling on Congress to protect, not cut, these important investments.
Sincerely,  Daren Caughron, Legislative Manager, Sustainable Energy and Environment

 

 In these troubling times for our nation, for our faith, our funds, our families and our futures, this Earth Day:

As we await another slew of Executive Orders aimed at advocates and activists for the environment, climate and justice we wish you courage and resilience.

As you wonder how to feed your soul despite the indifference being shown to our interconnected web of life, we wish you spiritual sustenance.

As you contemplate the work ahead of us, we invite you into accountable relationship with Mother Earth as the cornerstone of your witness, advocacy and agitation.

We counsel a posture of peaceful yet Faithful Defiance--active engagement! Yes, make some Good Trouble, show your Soul Force. Let us live into our religious values.

 

 

We will not obey oligarchy, plutocracy and autocracy in advance. Will commit to lift our voices in defense of this good green earth, this beautiful and wonderful creation.

We affirm belief in freedom and democracy and a United States in which we can all thrive.

 

MOVE TO AMEND
Dick --

This Earth Day, while the world pauses to honor our planet, we invite you to go deeper—to the root.

Because what’s killing the Earth isn’t just climate change. It’s not just pollution, deforestation, or rising seas.

It’s power.
The power of corporations to act as if they are people.
The power of money to speak louder than the will of millions.
The power of a legal system that puts profits over people—and the planet.

At Move to Amend, we’re growing a movement that goes beyond temporary fixes. Like a thriving ecosystem, lasting change starts from the ground up. While corporate interests continue to pollute and profit with impunity, people across the country are coming together to cultivate a future rooted in justice and sustainability. Momentum is blooming: the movement for systemic change is growing

The We the People Amendment (H.J. Res. 54) would end corporate constitutional rights and the doctrine that money equals speech—foundations of a system that allows polluters to operate above the law. . . .This Earth Day let’s go deeper—tackle the root, not just the symptoms.

 

OMNI EARTH DAY APRIL 22, 2024

https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2024/04/omni-earth-day-april-22-2024.html

HTTPS://omnicenter.org/donate

I  copied several of the excellent messages arriving last year for my Earth Day 2024 Anthology

“War & Genocide on Earth Day.”  Consortium News (4-22-24).

U.S. military aggression and imperial ambitions leave a trail of natural destruction — all under the guise of national security, writes Melissa Garriga. Read here...

People, Planet, Peace   Today, as we commemorate Earth Day, we are confronted with the harsh reality of a climate emergency that imperils the very survival of the human species. In 2023, we witnessed the hottest year on record, with the past decade marking the 10 hottest years since we began keeping records. For decades climate scientists warned us that we could not allow global average temperatures to reach 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels without catastrophic, likely irreversible damage to our planet. We sailed past 1.5 in the first quarter of 2024, and we are now on a collision course with +2°C.   The result has been a predictable and preventable wave of catastrophic fires, floods, megastorms, and droughts. We are watching ocean ecosystems collapse and a stark rise in climate refugees.   The brunt of this environmental devastation falls disproportionately on Black, brown, Indigenous, and low-income communities – both here in the United States and across the globe.   Yet, in the face of this existential emergency, what do we see? Continuous expansion of fossil fuel extraction under both Republican and Democratic leadership. We must rally behind a real Green New Deal . . . . In solidarity and gratitude, Jill

OMNI

EARTH DAY APRIL 22, 2024

Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology

https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2024/04/omni-earth-day-april-22-2024.html

HTTPS://omnicenter.org/donate

 

Contents April 22, 2024
TAKE ACTION FOR THE EARTH: Featured Organizations

Jane Fonda for Greenpeace

Rabbi Waskow for The Shalom Report

Union of Concerned Scientists

Google Search

Additional Articles’ Way to a Better

 

END OMNI EARTH DAY APRIL 22, 2025

 

OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #225, APRIL 16, 2025.

 

 OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #225, APRIL 16, 2025.   Compiled by Dick Bennett.

 

 

Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

US Peace Organizations.

Herman and Chomsky.  Manufacturing Consent.

 

International Peace Organizations, ex. WILPF.

Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (Geneva).

Women's International League ...

About us

Founded in 1915, the Women's International League for Peace ...

History

Together, they decided to create the International Women's ...

Our Offices    Events ...
Take cheer that OMNI Is Part of an International Struggle FOR Peace, Justice, Ecology.

 

Give more cheers for PEACEMAKERS, PEACE ORGANIZATIONS USA 2024

Entries with an asterisk are focused entirely or primarily on nuclear war.

About Face, ACLU, AI, AFSC, AMEU, APN, AROC,  *Back from the Brink, Beit Tikkun, BAS, *Campaign for Peace Disarmament and Common Security, CAM, Catholic Worker, Code Pink, FFRF, *Global Network, *Ground Zero, GreenPeace, Green Party,  GAP, IRC, ITT, JVP, Monthly Review, Muslim Legal Fund, *Muste Fund, *NIRS, NVNonviolent Peacemakers, *NAPF Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, The Nation, *Nevada Desert Experience, *Nuclear Resister, NCTE, *Nukewatch, OMNI, *Peace Action, PJSA, The Progressive, Roots Action, Resist, Scott Ritter, Jill Stein, Shalom Center, Syracuse Cultural Workers, UCS, UFP, UUA, UUFF, UUSC, UNUSA, VFP, WBW, WILPF, WRL.  (These orgs. I have direct contact with today.  See:  James Richard Bennett, Peace Movement Directory, 2001, annotating 1,200 peace groups.   –D) 

 

Propaganda Analysis for Peace, Justice, and Ecology
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media.  1^st ed. 1988.   2^nd ed. January 15, 2002 by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky.

A "compelling indictment of the news media's role in covering up errors and deceptions" (The New York Times Book Review) due to the underlying economics of publishing—from famed scholars Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky. With a new introduction.

In this pathbreaking work, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky show that, contrary to the usual image of the news media as cantankerous, obstinate, and ubiquitous in their search for truth and defense of justice, in their actual practice they defend the economic, social, and political agendas of the privileged groups that dominate domestic society, the state, and the global order.

Based on a series of case studies—including the media’s dichotomous treatment of “worthy” versus “unworthy” victims, “legitimizing” and “meaningless” Third World elections, and devastating critiques of media coverage of the U.S. wars against Indochina—Herman and Chomsky draw on decades of criticism and research to propose a Propaganda Model to explain the media’s behavior and performance.

Their new introduction updates the Propaganda Model and the earlier case studies, and it discusses several other applications. These include the manner in which the media covered the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement and subsequent Mexican financial meltdown of 1994-1995, the media’s handling of the protests against the World Trade Organization, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund in 1999 and 2000, and the media’s treatment of the chemical industry and its regulation. What emerges from this work is a powerful assessment of how propagandistic the U.S. mass media are, how they systematically fail to live up to their self-image as providers of the kind of information that people need to make sense of the world, and how we can understand their function in a radically new way.

OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #225, APRIL 16, 2025.

 

 

 OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #225, APRIL 16, 2025.   Compiled by Dick Bennett.

 Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

US Peace Organizations.

Herman and Chomsky.  Manufacturing Consent.

 

International Peace Organizations, ex. WILPF.

Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (Geneva).Women's International League ...
About us   Founded in 1915, the Women's International League for Peace ...
History   Together, they decided to create the International Women's ...
Our Offices    Events ...

Take cheer that OMNI Is Part of an International Struggle FOR Peace, Justice, Ecology.

 

Give more cheers for PEACEMAKERS, PEACE ORGANIZATIONS USA 2024

Organizations with an asterisk have been focused entirely or primarily against nuclear war, and successfully, for we now have the Treaty Abolishing Nuclear Weapons.

About Face, ACLU, AI, AFSC, AMEU, APN, AROC,  *Back from the Brink, Beit Tikkun, BAS, *Campaign for Peace Disarmament and Common Security, CAM, Catholic Worker, Code Pink, FFRF, *Global Network, *Ground Zero, GreenPeace, Green Party,  GAP, IRC, ITT, JVP, Monthly Review, Muslim Legal Fund, *Muste Fund, *NIRS, NVNonviolent Peacemakers, *NAPF Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, The Nation, *Nevada Desert Experience, *Nuclear Resister, NCTE, *Nukewatch, OMNI, *Peace Action, PJSA, The Progressive, Roots Action, Resist, Scott Ritter, Jill Stein, Shalom Center, Syracuse Cultural Workers, UCS, UFP, UUA, UUFF, UUSC, UNUSA, VFP, WBW, WILPF, WRL.  (Organizations I believe are making a positive effort.   For continuity, see:  James Richard Bennett, Peace Movement Directory, 2001, annotating 1,200 peace groups from Mexico City to Ottawa.   –D) 

 

Propaganda Analysis for Peace, Justice, and Ecology
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media.  1^st ed. 1988.   2^nd ed. January 15, 2002 by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky.

A "compelling indictment of the news media's role in covering up errors and deceptions" (The New York Times Book Review) due to the underlying economics of publishing—from famed scholars Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky. With a new introduction.

In this pathbreaking work, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky show that, contrary to the usual image of the news media as cantankerous, obstinate, and ubiquitous in their search for truth and defense of justice, in their actual practice they defend the economic, social, and political agendas of the privileged groups that dominate domestic society, the state, and the global order.

Based on a series of case studies—including the media’s dichotomous treatment of “worthy” versus “unworthy” victims, “legitimizing” and “meaningless” Third World elections, and devastating critiques of media coverage of the U.S. wars against Indochina—Herman and Chomsky draw on decades of criticism and research to propose a Propaganda Model to explain the media’s behavior and performance.

Their new introduction updates the Propaganda Model and the earlier case studies, and it discusses several other applications. These include the manner in which the media covered the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement and subsequent Mexican financial meltdown of 1994-1995, the media’s handling of the protests against the World Trade Organization, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund in 1999 and 2000, and the media’s treatment of the chemical industry and its regulation. What emerges from this work is a powerful assessment of how propagandistic the U.S. mass media are, how they systematically fail to live up to their self-image as providers of the kind of information that people need to make sense of the world, and how we can understand their function in a radically new way.

OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #225, APRIL 16, 2025.

 

OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #225, APRIL 16, 2025.   Compiled by Dick Bennett.

 

Stephen Vittoria.  The Gulf War:  Christina and the Whitefish.

Roy J. Eidelson.  Doing Harm: How the World’s Largest Psychological Association Lost Its Way in the War on Terror.  

Dick Bennett.  “What does a War Watch Weekly have to do with voting?” 

 

 

Human Consequences of the Gulf War

Stephen Vittoria.   Christina and The Whitefish.

From Stephen Vittoria (co-author with Mumia Abu-Jamal on the "Murder Incorporated" series).   Please purchase the book from the publisher-- here’s the link:   https://alternativebookpress.com/product/christina-and-the-whitefish/

“…tackles the toxic reality of the American Empire: its racism, homophobia, misogyny, and in this story, its warmongering trail of death and destruction.

 It’s 1994. Christina, a young Gulf War veteran wrecked by war and tragedy, seeks redemption in Asbury Park, the seaside mecca of her childhood. It’s a place well past its prime... and now reigned over by the self-proclaimed King of Asbury Park: The Whitefish—a disabled Vietnam-era vet, tavern owner, and all around oddball philosopher. It’s here, on the Jersey shore, that a chance meeting leads to a profound and life-altering connection.

The Nation’s Dave Zirin writes:

“Christina and the Whitefish is a joy to read. If Bruce Springsteen wrote fiction, it would read a great deal like this.”

Nobel Peace Prize nominee, David Swanson writes:

“The characters in this stunning novel stay with you… a high-spirited, humorous voyage… it will give you chills.”

Award-winning journalist Sonali Kolhatkar writes:

“A gifted filmmaker brings his storytelling prowess to the pages of this book… what a dramatic and beautiful journey. . . .”

 

Internal, Institutional Conflict Over US Wars  Doing Harm: How the World’s Largest Psychological Association Lost Its Way in the War on Terror By Roy J. Eidelson.  McGill Queens UP, 2023. Publisher’s description:      Psychology, Military, Security, & Conflict Studies

Top of Form

• Overview   Reviews   Author Bio   Table of Contents   Related Links

A thought-provoking, unflinching, scrupulously documented account of one of the darkest chapters in the recent history of psychology.

Doing Harm pries open the black box on a critical chapter in the recent history of psychology: the field’s enmeshment in the so-called [war on terror] and the ensuing reckoning over do-no-harm ethics during times of threat. Focusing on developments within the American Psychological Association (APA) over two tumultuous decades, Roy Eidelson exposes the challenges that professional organizations face whenever powerful government agencies turn to them for contributions to ethically fraught endeavours [a pleasant euphemism for war].

In the months after 9/11 it became clear that the White House, the Department of Defense, and the Central Intelligence Agency were prepared to ignore well-established international law and human rights standards in prosecuting the war on terror. It was less clear, however, that some of Eidelson’s fellow psychologists would become part of the abusive and torturous operations at overseas CIA black sites and Guantanamo Bay. Nor was it initially clear that this ruthless enterprise would garner acquiescence and support from the APA’s leadership.

Doing Harm examines how and why the APA failed to join human rights groups in efforts to constrain the US government’s unbridled pursuit of security and retribution. It recounts an ongoing struggle - one that has pitted APA leaders set on preserving strong ties to the military-intelligence establishment against dissident voices committed to prioritizing do-no-harm principles.

 

War, US Electoral “Democracy,” James Madison

Dick Bennett.  “What does a War Watch Weekly have to do with voting?”  Unfortunately, ever since Dec. 7, 1941, both Parties have constituted one War Party.  LBJ in starting and sustaining the Viet Nam War was as culpable as Bush, Cheney, and Rice in starting and sustaining the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.     The idea of democracy is the choice of having a ruler take us to war, like Johnson and Bush, or having the People vote for war.    (Jill Stein and the Green Party gave us a choice in the latest presidential election.) The democratic way to war will not always be wise, but we trust it will be less prone and quick to war than a powerful single person and his profiteering cronies.  Of course, Trump with the help of his profiteering cronies, elected, explodes such neat generalization.   Nonetheless,  that’s part of the struggle for checks and balances of the democratic hope.      James Madison believed that while war could strengthen the Union and demonstrate the nation's capacity, it also posed a threat to the liberties that the Founding Fathers sought to establish. He argued that war could lead to increased executive power, potentially subverting the balance of power within the government.   Madison’s argument seems to be demonstrated by successive bi-partisan war-making presidents, culminating in Donald Trump’s expanding autocracy.  But while democracy and diplomacy as the basis for politics seem to have been defeated on the international level, for the moment at least, at the grassroots the Democrats still promote the ideals and practices of its New Deal of the 1930s to this day, as I discover at the monthly meetings of AR Senior Democrats.

 

United Nations Good Work: April 10, 1972 more than 50 nations signed Treaty outlawing the stockpiling of biological weapons.