It is currently Thu Mar 28, 2024 2:48 pm



Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 1 post ] 
 VFP Board officially supports "posse" corruption 
Author Message
U.S. Army Veteran
User avatar

Joined: Tue Oct 20, 2009 2:17 pm
Posts: 87
Location: Eugene, Oregon
Post VFP Board officially supports "posse" corruption
From: "Leah Bolger" <leahbolger@comcast.net>
To: "'Jon Monday'" <jmonday@sales-and-marketing.net>
Cc: "'Barry Ladendorf'" <bdl@san.rr.com>,
"'dennis lane'" <dennis@veteransforpeace.org>,
"'mike ferner'" <mike.ferner@sbcglobal.net>,
<elliottadams@juno.com>,
Subject: [VFP--IP] RE: Appeal to the VFP Board

Jon,
I have just gotten off the phone from the monthly VFP Board of Directors meeting. Your appeal to the Board was considered, and I was tasked with informing you of our decisions.
1. The Board will not be disbanding the Israel/Palestine working group, however we are going to be renaming the group as the Palestine working group, and asking the group to come up with an appropriate statement of purpose which makes it clear that the purpose of the group is to support Palestinian self-determination, human rights, and international law. The Board believes that by focusing the mission of the group, it will remove a major cause of dispute, and the participants will be more likely to all be rowing in the same direction.
2. Although the Decorum Policy was developed as a tool to try to keep the discussion civil, it has not been effective. While the Board wishes that we would all treat each other with dignity and respect, we have neither the time nor the inclination to monitor the language or arbitrate the policy.
Leah Bolger




From: Jon Monday [mailto:jmonday@sales-and-marketing.net]
Sent: Sunday, May 15, 2011 9:36 PM
To: 'mike ferner'; 'Leah Bolger'; elliottadams@juno.com; nateg@pobox.com; genevic@comcast.net; 9collins@sbcglobal.net; craven@vetbiz.com; cherieleichholz@yahoo.com; rngreenlee@gmail.com; will@nhpeaceaction.org; jbkranger@aol.com; djshea@hotmail.com; hartviges@gmail.com
Cc: 'Barry Ladendorf'; 'dennis lane'
Subject: Appeal to the VFP Board

To the VFP Board of Directors:

This email is from Jon Monday and Barry Ladendorf, the original co-chairs of the Israel/Palestine Working Group. Barry is also the current President of the San Diego Chapter of Veterans For Peace.

After careful consideration of the WG history and ramifications for VFP, we recommend that the Israel/Palestine Working Group should be disbanded or, in the alternative, a member of the Executive Committee or an appointee of the Board should take over the Chairman responsibilities for the WG. The group has become dysfunctional, and proven itself to be incapable of working with fellow VFP members who hold well-founded, but diverse positions. Our belief is that the continuation of the WG is not in the best interest of VFP or the cause of peace in the region.

Disbanding the Israeli/Palestinian Work-Group would not limit any member of the group from working together in any fashion they choose to influence the policies of the National Executive Board either by recommendations from their respective chapters or individuals working in concert to bring resolutions for presentation to the convention. By disbanding the working group, they would not be acting in any official capacity as a created instrument of the Executive Board. And, perhaps most attractive to the Executive Board, it would relieve the board from being repeatedly called into the middle of ongoing squabbles to act as a referee.

Perhaps the best VFP can do is to adopt a statement along these lines: Veterans For Peace supports and encourages all non-violent groups and actions to relieve the suffering and stop the killing in the Middle East.

Now, to the substance of the Appeal:

I want to thank the board again for taking up my appeal regarding ongoing abusive language and personal attacks directed at certain members of the Working Group, which the current Chairman, Eduardo Cohen, has refused to deal with, despite required to do so by the rules developed and handed down from the VFP Board.

There has been three new developments within the Working Group, since I sent my Appeal to the VFP Board about abusive language, which I will detail below.

As a reminder, here are just a few examples of abusive language directed at me and other members of the group, who don t agree with the current majority:

Directed at Ed McCarthy, BULLSHIT that ooozes out of McCarthy's fetid and racist mind

Directed at Jon Monday, you, and apparently, your families are complicit in Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing, and all the Zionist expansionist schemes

Directed at Barry Ladendorf and Jon Monday, pro-Ethnic Cleansing de facto racists

Directed at Ed McCarthy and Jon Monday, intransigent and racist silver tongued ideologues

Chairman Eduardo has decided to not issue warnings for these statements, claiming that despite the rules, it s up to the Chairman to determine when warnings are issued.

THREE NEW EVENTS:

The Conference Call of 5/4/11

Recently the Working Group had a conference call, which was recorded (a standard procedure so all members of the group can hear what occurred, since rules that were adopted allow for decisions of the WG to be argued and voted on in a conference call. Early in the call, Bill Perry asked me to join him in a conversation. I agreed, hoping that in a live conversation, we could find some common ground, or at least find ways to tone down the attacks. Someone suggested that we hold off until the end of the call, so that all the members would not have to listen. Bill and I both agreed.

As our conversation began, both Bill and I explicitly agreed to have our conversation recorded, along with the rest of the meeting. Instead of having a calm discussion of the issues, Bill launched into a tirade calling me a racist and other personal insults. It went on for several minutes.

Now, Chairman Eduardo is refusing to send out the code to access the recording, presumably to protect Bill Perry from penalties resulting from his abusive language. Eduardo also claims that the conversation was off the record , but both Bill and I agreed to have the conversation recorded.

Several members who couldn t be on the call, or had to leave early, have requested that the code be sent, so they could hear the discussion of the business of the WG.

Proposals to the VFP Board for Convention Workshops

Barry is the Chair of the Homeless Vet Work Group, and when he got copies of the notes from the last WG Chair conference call, he saw this entry about the I/P WG:

For instance, the Israel/Palestine WG submitted two proposals for workshops, neither of which was approved.

Neither Jon nor Barry had received any information through the I/P WG emails that discussed proposed workshops, and feel that there a sub-group (who describe themselves as the Posse ), have been conducting WG business without the full participation of the all members of the WG. It should be noted that this sub-group is not divided from the rest of the group along ideological lines, as Barry is very close to their ideas, but he is castigated for being willing to engage in serious discussions with those with different outlooks.

Open Letter to Peter DeFazio

Jack Dresser is Vice Chair of the I/P WG and along with Eduardo is a leader of the Posse . Another member found the following open letter to Congressman Peter DeFazio:

Dear Mr. DeFazio:

As a veteran I am appalled by the long history of lawless, deceptively justified violence visited by our country both covertly and overtly upon other peoples, and visited by Israel upon the Palestinian people with our military aid and diplomatic protection. The US remains the only obstacle to justice for the robbed and brutalized, almost entirely helpless Palestinians of both the West Bank and Gaza.

I am national vice chair of the Veterans for Peace working group on Israel/Palestine, and we have drafted the following notice for distribution to our chapters nationwide to urge actions in their own communities against HR 1501, an outrageous resolution. I ask that you oppose HR 1501 vigorously.

Jack Dresser, Ph.D.
Eugene, Oregon
Behavioral Research Scientist
Political & Prevention Psychology
National Vice Chair, Israel/Palestine Working Group, Veterans for Peace
Co-director, The Al-Nakba Awareness Project


House Resolution 1501 would Provide Israel Impunity for Gaza Crimes http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?id=2961

In a brazen display of the political power of the Israel Lobby over US Middle East foreign policy, legislation has passed the Senate and is now pending in the House to withhold US dues to the UN indefinitely contingent on UN retraction of their Goldstone Mission report. More information is available at the above link. This is a clear effort at extortion to cover up a crime, a felony in any jurisdiction in the developed world. This represents a disgraceful capitulation by our elected leaders to the efforts of a foreign government to evade international law. Congress will be in recess next week and our representatives will be home and accessible to personal visits, demonstrations and other forms of direct communication by constituents. We urge VFP members in districts represented by House members who voted to reject the Goldstone Report to remind them that:

1. Judge Goldstone suggested that further evidence might revise only one of 36 probable war crimes documented in the report.

2. All other members of the commission stand by the report in its entirety, without qualification of any kind.

3. The UN s McGowan-Davis follow-up committee reports no credible self-investigation by Israel.

4. The US Foreign Assistance Act prohibits foreign aid to any country with a repeated pattern of human rights abuses.

5. Israel s inhumane blockade of Gaza includes multiple human rights abuses over four years documented by the UN and other international organizations.

6. The US Arms Export Control Act prohibits use of US-supplied weapons except for legitimate self-defense.

7. Many US weapons were used in Operation Cast Lead.

8. The cease-fire was broken by Israel on our election day in 2008, killing six Palestinians, and the retaliatory Qassam rockets launched from Gaza without explosive warheads or directional controls injured no one in Israel.

9. Israel s subsequent attack indiscriminately killed over 1,400 Palestinians in Gaza including over 300 children and deliberately targeted the civilian police force.

10. The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits collective punishment, abuse of an occupied population, and use of disproportionate force.

11. General Petraeus has reported that unconditional US support of Israel infuriates the Muslim world and endangers our troops in the CENTCOM theater of operation.

12. This action would constitute extortion to cover up a crime.

A summary of the Goldstone Mission findings is attached in MS Word and PDF formats.

A list of US representatives rejecting the report can be found at http://blog.unwatch.org/?p=511.

This letter was not discussed or approved by the WG, or sent to the VFP Board for their review and approval. This is an abuse of the process we set up within the WG, and misrepresents itself as a product of the WG (and could be understood to be an official statement from VFP). Here are the specific offending words:

I am national vice chair of the Veterans for Peace working group on Israel/Palestine, and we have drafted the following notice for distribution to our chapters nationwide to urge actions in their own communities

In considering what action we would recommend to the VFP Board, both of us, Barry and Jon, have come to the conclusion that nothing useful can come from such a dysfunctional group; one that plays outside their own rules of procedure and ignoring the rules of discourse developed by the board.

We think the Working Group should immediately be disbanded or, in the alternative, a member of the Executive Committee or an appointee of the Board should take over the Chairman responsibilities for the WG.

Sincerely,

Jon Monday Barry Ladendorf

Chapter 91
The Hugh Thompson Memorial Chapter of
Veterans For Peace
http://sdvfp.org/
San Diego, CA

_________________
we have a NEW forum, if you're already a member of this group, feel free to join up at this link...
http://doomerparty.org/index.php


Sun Jun 05, 2011 12:44 pm
Profile WWW
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 1 post ] 


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Jump to:  
cron
Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group.
Designed by Vjacheslav Trushkin for Free Forums/DivisionCore.