Center for Citizen Initiatives

Bringing Russian and American citizens together in Peace since 1983.

Be Part of the Solution!

Dear CCI Friends,

I need your assistance! This is about CCI’s September Citizen Diplomacy Trip to Russia. We hope for a 100 member delegation. Consider traveling with us on this “one-of-a-kind” trip. It will be CCI’s most intensive diplomacy effort ever. Travelers will meet with and question a dozen Russian Experts in Moscow including Mikhail Gorbachev and Vladimir Pozner. The meetings are usually two-hour sessions. Our two videographers will capture the Expert meetings and much of the entire trip.

Following Moscow meetings, we travel in triads to 30 regional cities to explore average Russian citizens’ interests, their thoughts and concerns, and how they carry out their lives far from the centers of power. We will share similar topics with them. Following these visits we reconvene in St. Petersburg where we will spend the first full day listening to and learning from fellow travelers’ experiences in their regional cities. YouTube videos, articles and stats will result from this data dump. With our important work completed, we will enjoy St. Petersburg’s unparalleled classical culture and meet with numerous CCI alumni from our former business management training programs. During these and regional traveling days we will have had face-to-face discussions with thousands of Russians across 10 time zones.

We need more Americans to travel on this CCI fact-finding diplomatic mission.

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The Cold War Ides of March by Stephen Cohen

US Cold Warriors escalate toward actual war with Russia.

By Stephen F. Cohen
March 20, 2019
The Nation

Russian Air Force Su-25 jets fly past the Russian flag on the Kremlin complex during a rehearsal for the Victory Day military parade in Moscow, Friday, May 4, 2018. (AP Photo / Pavel Golovkin)

(Audio from the John Batchelor show is available here.)

Heedless of the consequences, or perhaps welcoming them, America’s Cold Warriors and their media platforms have recently escalated their rhetoric against Russia, especially in March. Anyone who has lived through or studied the preceding 40-year Cold War will recognize the ominous echoes of its most dangerous periods, when actual war was on the horizon or a policy option. Here are only a few random but representative examples:

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Counterthoughts on Polarization Regarding Russia

Dear Friends,

The Mueller Report is finally out.However, the dangerous polarization against all things Russian and Vladimir Putin continues to deepen despite the report findings of no evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia or Putin.

Democrats and most Republicans alike continue to demonize and damn Russia, the only other country that can destroy our entire nation!  Have Democrat and Republican policy makers and the media completely lost their minds?  Have they forgotten that there are no remaining treaties or agreements regarding weapons of mass destruction between the two nations? Do they remember that diplomacy between our countries is non-existent due to their pressure and protestations in the U.S. media over the past three years? Do they think we in America are somehow immune or protected from Nuclear War? If so, they need a wake-up call.

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Meddling, Meddling, Meddling!

Dear CCI Friends,

Professor Cohen has penned another very important piece that I know you will want to digest, since it goes to the heart of the demonization going on during the current frenzy to dismantle, dismember and bankrupt the largest country in the world. The good professor has tolerated my request to add some ungracious bolding and underlining to his fine article. For you speed readers, if you read the bold sentences, I’m quite sure you will want to check the non-bolded ones as well!

Regardless of what others repeatedly proclaim, the following is the truth about the “meddling” issue.

Sharon (signature)

Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives

The Nation
March 6, 2019

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CCI’S INVESTIGATIVE TRIP TO RUSSIA 2019

Dear CCI Friends,

The dramatic and dangerous deterioration in relations between the U.S. and Russia demands that we all take unprecedented actions in 2019. It requires that citizens find unusual ways to educate and break through the mire of political actions and inaction to create new initiatives. CCI led the way in U.S.-USSR relations in the early 1980s before the term “citizen diplomacy” was coined. We are again searching for unparalleled ways for citizens to act.

Hence, we announce our latest venture in the direction of recreating goodwill, truth, openness and hope in the battered relationship between the U.S. and Russia … between American and Russian citizens and officials. Nothing on the planet is more important than this relationship during today’s state of affairs.

We invite you to consider participating in this nationwide, 30-city investigatory trip … or forwarding this invitation to someone you know who may be interested in this much-needed endeavor.

Sharon (signature)

Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives

CCI’s Investigative Trip to Russia 2019 Flyer

 

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