Tag Archives ⇒ resignation

Earlham College seeks to roll back expense budget by a decade after president’s resignation

August 4, 2018
· Martin Kelley

From Inside High­er Ed:

Wor­ries mount that the col­lege has strayed too far from its lib­er­al arts core. Sus­pi­cions run high that col­lege lead­ers reached recent impor­tant deci­sions with­out regard for one of the key gov­er­nance prin­ci­ples root­ed in its Quak­er iden­ti­ty: consensus.

https://​www​.insid​e​high​ered​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​2​0​1​8​/​0​8​/​0​1​/​e​a​r​l​h​a​m​-​c​o​l​l​e​g​e​-​s​e​e​k​s​-​r​o​l​l​-​b​a​c​k​-​e​x​p​e​n​s​e​-​b​u​d​g​e​t​-​d​e​c​a​d​e​-​a​f​t​e​r​-​p​r​e​s​i​d​e​n​t​s​-​r​e​s​i​g​n​a​t​i​o​n​#​.​W​2​I​x​c​z​v​6​v​J​c​.​f​a​c​e​b​ook

Sheehan thoughs over on Non​vi​o​lence​.org

May 30, 2007
· Martin Kelley

Just a lit­tle note to every­one that I’ve blogged a cou­ple of posts over on Non​vi​o​lence​.org. They’re both based on “peace mom” Cindy Sheer­an’s “res­ig­na­tion” from the peace move­ment yesterday.
It’s all a bit strange to see this from a long-time peace activist per­spec­tive. The move­ment that Shee­han’s talk­ing about and now cri­tiquing is not move­ment I’ve worked with for the last fifteen-plus years. The orga­ni­za­tions I’ve known have all been housed in crum­bling build­ings, with too-old car­pets and fur­ni­ture lift­ed as often as not from going out of busi­ness sales. Mon­ey’s tight and careers poten­tial­ly sac­ri­ficed to help build a world of shar­ing, car­ing and understanding.
The move­ment Shee­han talks about is fueled by mil­lions of dol­lars of Demo­c­ra­t­ic Party-related mon­ey, with cam­paigns designed to mesh well with Par­ty goals via the so-called “527 groups”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/527_group and oth­er indi­rect mech­a­nisms. Big Media likes to crown these orga­ni­za­tions as _the_ anti­war move­ment, but as Shee­han and Amy Good­man dis­cuss in today’s “Democ­ra­cy Now interview”:http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07%2F05%2F30%2F1343232, cor­po­rate media will end up with much of the tens of mil­lions of dol­lars can­di­dates are now rais­ing. Shee­han makes an impas­sioned plea for peo­ple to sup­port those grass­roots cam­paigns that aren’t sup­port­ed by the “peace move­ment” but this rein­forces the notion that its the mon­eyed inter­ests that make up the move­ment. I’m sure she knows bet­ter but it’s hard to work for so long and to make so many sac­ri­fices and still be so casu­al­ly dis­missed – not just me but thou­sands of com­mit­ted activists I’ve known over the years.
There are a few peace orga­ni­za­tions in that hap­py medi­um between toad­y­ing and pover­ty (nice car­pets, souls still intact) but it mys­ti­fies me why there isn’t a broad­er base of sup­port for grass­roots activism. I myself decid­ed to leave pro­fes­sion­al peace work almost a decade ago after the my Non​vi​o​lence​.org project raised such piti­ful sums. At some point I decid­ed to stop whin­ing about this phe­nom­e­non and just look for better-paying employ­ment else­where but it still fas­ci­nates me from a soci­o­log­i­cal perspective.

Iran-Contra alum behind Terror Psychic Network

July 31, 2003
· Martin Kelley

The Idiot who came up with the “Ter­ror Psy­chic Net­work” is leav­ing the Pen­ta­gon over the flap. What’s even more strik­ing is his iden­ti­ty: it’s John Poindex­ter, one of the peo­ple at the heart of the Iran-Contra scan­dal that rocked the Rea­gan Administration.

For those too young to remem­ber, in the Iran-Contra affair Rea­gan’s kook­i­est spooks secret­ly sold arms to U.S. arch­en­e­my num­ber 1 (Iran) in order to cir­cum­vent Con­gres­sion­al demands that they not fund an oppo­si­tion army against U.S. arch­en­e­my num­ber 2 (Nicaragua), with the mon­ey being fun­neled through the coun­try that then and now still inex­plic­a­bly isn’t pub­lic ene­my num­ber 3 (Sau­di Ara­bia). It was the cir­cuitous­ness of it all more than any­thing that kept Rea­gan out of jail for all of this.

Why Poindex­ter was ever allowed back any­where near Wash­ing­ton, much less the Pen­ta­gon, is a mys­tery. Here are some arti­cles on Poindex­ter’s return to Wash­ing­ton and return of the Iran-Contra crew to the (Bush II) White House. Here’s anoth­er arti­cle on the res­ig­na­tion of the Rea­gan crook turned Bush-II fool.