Modesto Peace/Life Center

We hope this quote by Audre Lorde resonates with you, I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own. #StopAsianHate #ProtectAAPIFolks #EndWhiteSupremacy : @casielle.jpg

Airstrikes in such densely populated areas resulted in a high level of civilian fatalities and injuries, as well as the widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure. Such strikes raise serious concerns of Israel’s compliance with the principles of distinction and proportionality under international humanitarian law. High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet also said Hamas violated international law by firing rockets into Israel. Her comments came as the U.N. Human Rights Council voted to create a permanent Commission of Inquiry to monitor human rights abuses in Israel, Gaza and the occupied West Bank

Join us as we host civil rights leader @DoloresHuerta’s 91st Virtual Birthday Celebration on Sat. 8/21 at 5p PDT. Proceeds to benefit the construction of the Dolores Huerta Peace and Justice Cultural Center. RSVP: http://bit.ly/dolores91st #Dolores91st

At least 67 people under age 18 in Gaza and 2 in Israel were killed during this month's violence, according to initial reports. They had wanted to be doctors, artists and leaders. Click on the photo and see their faces. How can this be justified?

OPNION BY DEB HAALAND, Interior Secretary MY GRANDPARENTS WERE STOLEN FROM THEIR FAMILIES AS CHILDREN. WE MUST LEARN ABOUT THIS HISTORY As I read stories abo...ut an unmarked grave in Canada where the remains of 215 Indigenous children were found last month, I was sick to my stomach. But the deaths of Indigenous children at the hands of government were not limited to that side of the border. Many Americans may be alarmed to learn that the United States also has a history of taking Native children from their families in an effort to eradicate our culture and erase us as a people. It is a history that we must learn from if our country is to heal from this tragic era. I am a product of these horrific assimilation policies. My maternal grandparents were stolen from their families when they were only 8 years old and were forced to live away from their parents, culture and communities until they were 13. Many children like them never made it back home. Over nearly 100 years, tens of thousands of Indigenous children were taken from their communities and forced into scores of boarding schools run by religious institutions and the U.S. government. Some studies suggest that by 1926, nearly 83 percent of Native American school-age children were in the system. Many children were doused with DDT upon arrival, and as their coerced re-education got underway, they endured physical abuse for speaking their tribal languages or practicing traditions that didn’t fit into what the government believed was the American ideal. My great-grandfather was taken to Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania. Its founder coined the phrase kill the Indian, and save the man, which genuinely reflects the influences that framed these policies at the time. My family’s story is not unlike that of many other Native American families in this country. We have a generation of lost or injured children who are now the lost or injured aunts, uncles, parents and grandparents of those who live today. I once spent time with my grandmother recording our history for a writing assignment in college. It was the first time I heard her speak candidly about how hard it was about how a priest gathered the children from the village and put them on a train, and how she missed her family. She spoke of the loneliness she endured. We wept together. It was an exercise in healing for her and a profound lesson for me about the resilience of our people, and even more about how important it is to reclaim what those schools tried to take from our people. The lasting and profound impacts of the federal government’s boarding school system have never been appropriately addressed. This attempt to wipe out Native identity, language and culture continues to manifest itself in the disparities our communities face, including long-standing intergenerational trauma, cycles of violence and abuse, disappearance, premature deaths, and additional undocumented physiological and psychological impacts. Many of the boarding schools were maintained by the Interior Department, which I now lead. I believe that I and the Biden-Harris administration have an important responsibility to bring this trauma to light. Our children, parents and grandparents deserve a federal government that works to promote our tribal languages, culture and mental health. Many Native children want to learn their tribe’s language, songs and ceremonies. Many Native families want the children who were lost to come home, regardless of how long ago they were stolen. The obligation to correct and heal those unspeakable wrongs extends to today and starts with investments such as those President Biden has made to strengthen tribal sovereignty through the American Rescue Plan, the American Jobs Plan and the budget for fiscal 2022. Our administration has set out to forge a new path to engage with tribal communities and to live up to its trust and treaty responsibilities. But that obligation also requires that all Americans listen and learn, that we allow federal boarding school survivors and their families an opportunity to be heard, and that we engage in meaningful tribal consultation to seek justice. Though it is uncomfortable to learn that the country you love is capable of committing such acts, the first step to justice is acknowledging these painful truths and gaining a full understanding of their impacts so that we can unravel the threads of trauma and injustice that linger. We have a long road of healing ahead of us, but together with tribal nations, I am sure that we can work together for a future that we will all be proud to embrace.

Hot, hot, HOT! Valley temps will soar into the 90s & 100s over the holiday weekend. Hottest days will be on Monday or Tuesday. For the forecast at any locat...ion, visit weather.gov. Stay cool & #BeatTheHeat!

"The supposed labor shortageone generated by an allegedly too-generous welfare systemis anything but. Among the economic lessons of the pandemic is an obvious one: Wages are too low, jobs too shitty. If employers want workers to return to flipping burgers for possibly unvaccinated customers in the midst of the greatest public health crisis in America’s history, then they should pay them more. If the government is beating the private sector in terms of providing a livable wage, that is a fault of business owners, who, in their infinite self-regard, seem to think that workers should be grateful for whatever crummy, sub-subsistence job they manage to get."

Tomorrow, Sat., June 12 is the Peace/Life Center Summer Sidewalk Event! We have so many books to share. New books. Used books available for a donation of your choice. Also posters, Black Lives Matter yard signs and bracelets. 9:00-11:00, 720 13th Street, downtown Modesto. Come on down to see us! https://www.facebook.com/events/1628628827336285?ref=newsfeed

"Violence against the Earth and interpersonal violence are two sides of the same coin. We now unite as a planetary community to stand together for the sacred; to midwife a transition to a world in which humanity will no longer dominate but cooperate with all life. Though it is difficult to see, there is an emerging and different vision for humanity. This vision foresees a world without violence as the next chapter of our collective evolution. It shows a future humanity inhabiting this planet as a network of interconnected, autonomous communities of trust." LaDonna Brave Bull Allard

Modesto Poet Laureate Emeritus Stella Beratlis talks about Dust Bowl Venus, her new book of poetry from Sixteen Rivers Press, on Arts of the San Joaquin Valley 8:00pm Monday, May 10 on 95.5FM and streaming at kcbpradio.org.

The final nail in the coffin of the KXL Black Snake! Thousands came together to stop this pipeline. Thousands are at Line 3 right now to stop that black snake. We can do this. - "Last Breath of the Black Snake" by Michael Horse #KXLStopped #StopLine3 #StopDAPL #BuildBackFossilFree

A new four-part documentary series, "Exterminate All the Brutes," delves deeply into the legacy of European colonialism and seeks to counter "the type of lies, ...the type of propaganda, the type of abuse, that we have been subject to all of these years," says director and Haitian-born filmmaker Raoul Peck. "We have the means to tell the real story, and that's exactly what I decided to do," Peck says. "Everything is on the table, has been on the table for a long time, except that it was in little bits everywhere. We lost the wider perspective." Peck's previous films include 2016's award-winning "I Am Not Your Negro" about the life and legacy of James Baldwin, as well as "Lumumba" and "The Young Karl Marx." MORE: https://bit.ly/3h6oK9b

The best thing about January is the John McCutcheon benefit concert for the Peace/Life Center! Get tickets at the link. You can attend wherever you are in the country! To be a sponsor of the concert, go to http://peacelifecenter.org/ and click on the Donate button or you can click on the Facebook "Donate" button here. You can donate $25, $50, $100, $250 or $500. Let Ken know at [email protected] of your sponsorship and the amount so that you can be recognized for you...r support. You will also need to buy a ticket to see the concert. PLEASE SHARE See more

"Nonviolence is a worldview and a way of being, a creative, democratic, and liberating pathway to creating Beloved Community. Also a martial art. Desire and will alone cannot bring about the changes that we need, We need training and skills. Our job is to show people an alternative to the status quo and inspire hope in people. Nonviolence is something we aim to practice in every interaction, in every moment of our lives." Kazu Haga

We appreciate all the support we have received over the past 50 years, and especially this year when all of our fundraising events had to be cancelled. We move into 2021 with hope and determination that we will work together for peace, justice and a sustainable environment. Please consider donating to KCBP 95.5 FM, the Peace/Life Center's community radio station. Independent local media is crucial to maintaining our democracy.

"We are bound in a delicate network of interdependence because, as we say in our African idiom, a person is a person through other persons. To dehumanize another inexorably means that one is dehumanized as well." Desmond Tutu

This election season, Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza says President Trump is stoking fires he has no intention of controlling and inciting far-right extremists. She was recently approached by the FBI after agents found her name on a list in the home of a white supremacist in Idaho who was arrested on weapons charges. Racial terror has always been used as a form of control, particularly during periods of people fighting for social change, she says.

Only 7 days left to vote! Unsure about the propositions? See our publication Stanislaus Connections (page 2) for endorsements from the Peace/Life Center, the California Federation of Labor, the League of Conservation Voters, the CA Dems, the CA Repubs, the CA Chamber of Commerce, the ACLU, the Sierra Club, the CA Teachers Association, Equality CA, Faith in the Valley and the League of Women Voters. http://www.stanislausconnections.org/connections%20Oct%2020

Significant social change comes from the bottom up, from an aroused opinion that forces our ruling institutions to do the right thing. Paul Wellstone passed in a plane crash this week in 2002. Poster/card available here: https://www.rlmartstudio.com/product/wellstone-memorial/

We speak with Jaromy Floriano Navarro, a survivor of medical abuse and neglect at Irwin Detention Center, where at least 19 immigrant women have said they were subjected to invasive gynecological procedures by Dr. Mahendra Amin. From day one that I met Dr. Amin, he said, 'OK, you need surgery,' Navarro says. They were really trying to do the surgery on me, for whatever reason. They wanted to take my womb out.

A quarter of gig workers are struggling to pay the rent and feed their families. And while the CEOs of Uber and Lyft are swimming in , taxpayers are subsidizing these companies’ low labor costs. We can’t afford to further exacerbate inequality in a time of hardship. Vote NO on Prop 22. Full report here: http://ow.ly/Bgny50C1nyb

White supremacists and other like-minded extremists conducted two-thirds of the terrorist plots and attacks in the United States in 2020. Feds say Texas adherent of far-right group fired on (Minneapolis) precinct building, conspired with cop killer to ignite civil war. https://www.startribune.com/charges-boogaloo-bois-fired//... Man Arrested In N.C. Had Plan To Kill Joe Biden, Feds Say https://www.npr.org//man-arrested-in-n-c-had-plan-to-kill- In October 2020, the FBI arrested Adam Fox, Barry Croft, and several other accomplices in a plot to kidnap and potentially execute Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Members of this network, which had ties to militias in Michigan and other states, referred to Governor Whitmer as a tyrant and claimed that she had uncontrolled power right now.1 They also discussed kidnapping Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, in part because of his lockdown orders to slow the spread of Covid-19. https://www.csis.org//war-comes-home-evolution-domestic-te

Voting ends on Tuesday, Nov. 3. Vote now! You can drop off your ballot at these official drop boxes: https://www.stanvote.com//2020GeneralElectionSatelliteOffi

RED Flag Warning Red Flag Warning goes into effect on Sunday as extremely critical fire weather conditions are forecast to develop. This has the potential to be the strongest offshore wind event of 2020. Now is the time to prepare.