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| I am posting this message from a Green Party colleague in Arizona in honor of Veteran's Day which was sent to urge people to support the Green Party which is the only political party with a platform that promotes peace:
The Green Party is the Peace Party, the one voice in the political array that doesn't rely on about-face justification for continuing international violence underpinning notions of a superior calling for our nation. What does that mean? On Veteran's Day, what is the price of war? I'm from a military family. My dad went into the Navy right out of high school, and is a Pearl Harbor survivor. After the war, he went Army, to finish his twenty years. Growing up, I attended 13 schools before I finished 9th grade, most of them in rural villages, where the Nike missile base was a barracks for the privates, the missile "silo" was a cramped metal trailer, and the two families with kids were temporary outsiders. Except for aunt Marianne, who was a navy nurse, the military didn't want women, so we four daughters were not expected to enlist. As a woman, I was often told I had no right to an opinion in favor of peace, unless I had a brother or a cousin in combat. Like many of you, I decided that the way you best fight war is to get there ten years beforehand, and prevent despair by fixing what was wrong. My husband's family was also military. In their Appalachia, no one was drafted-- they were Volunteers. His dad never saw a plane close-up, til he climbed into one, to learn to fly it for WWII. He re-upped, and finished his military career by teaching ROTC, in a building on campus that a Quaker-led group, including me, would stumble into one day, and occupy long enough to pray for the dead, and the still living. My as-yet-unmet husband's only brother was among the unnamed for whom we prayed. His unarmed reconnaissance plane was shot down, the last fatality from Tucson. Until the next war. ( Read more... ) | |
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| More to come, but here's a taste:
2009 Event Photos
THE AMAZING PEACE TREE
UTAH PEACE JAM
ART WORK CREATED BY SCHOOL CHILDREN AND DISPLAYED BY ROOTS AND SHOOTS
Also view 2009 photos and videos at: Dignity MyPeace.TV Facebook
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| It's been 4 years since the First Imagine Peacefest. Check it out, this Saturday, September 19th, at noon: Schedule Outdoor Plaza (south side of library) Noon – Opening Ceremony Noon – 6pm: Music and other entertainment in the amphitheater MUSIC FOR PEACE CONCERT Come hang your wish for peace on the world peace tree! See the awesome peace jam lineup of prominent local musicians at followed by DRUMMING FOR PEACE Drum Circle – 6pm All invited to participate Thank you to Gary Stoddard for organizing this part of the event! Downstairs in Library noon to 5:00pm ~ Art Display Thank you to Westminster Roots and Shoots for organizing this part of the event!
Library Auditorium beginning at 2:30pm “World Peace” a short film Produced by
Dan Fahndrich Productions “Creation in Multimedia”
www.danfahndrichproductions.com followed by:
Our feature film about Erica Fernandez, an amazing youth who is from Oxnard California and stopped a liquified natural gas plant from being put off the shore in her community. When Erica found out that a liquefied natural gas facility was proposed
for the coast of Oxnard and Malibu with a 36-inch pipeline routed
through low-income neighborhoods, she was outraged. She worked in
concert with the Sierra Club and Latino No on LNG group to mobilize the
youth and Latino voice in protests and public meetings. She organized
weekly protests at the BHP Billiton offices in Oxnard, met regularly
with community members, marched through neighborhoods that would be most impacted, reached out to the media, and brought more than 250 high
school students to a critical rally. Her passionate testimony at the
California State Lands Commission meeting was quoted in news articles,
and helped convince the Commission to vote to deny the project. Next,
she helped convince the California Coastal Commission to vote 12-0
against the project, and worked on a letter writing and phone call
campaign to the Governor asking him to veto the project, just as the
commissioners did. Erica’s community organizing and dogged determination played a crucial role in helping her community to resist a multinational billion-dollar corporation. | |
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| Today is the day that the U.S. Government says is the deadline for filing the annual income tax. Even though there is a new president, there is and will still be too much of our money spent on the military industrial complex. The National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC) is an organization that advocates for withholding the portion of one's income tax that is spent on war. It is a coalition of groups from across the U.S., formed in 1982 to provide information and support to people involved in or considering some form of war tax resistance (WTR). Each year there are actions planned all around the country - view today's actions here.Several years ago Tom and I were in D.C.on April 15th and partiicpated in an action at the IRS building there. People gathered to collectively present a giant (I mean giant in the physical sense!) check for their portion of taxes spent on war to a non-profit organization. Very clever and creative.
National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee
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| Full adult privileges are not afforded to U.S. youth until age 21, yet youth in the U.S. are recruited for the military as early as middle school. Aside from the issue of marketing the military to ANYONE, there's something wrong with this picture of youth recruiting. Democracy Now! aired a segment yesterday on military recruiting in California.
Source: www.democracynow.org Last November, residents of Eureka and Arcata passed a ballot initiative known as the Youth Protection Act that bars the US government from trying to enlist youths under the age of eighteen in any branch of the US armed forces. But just days after the laws went into effect, the Justice Department filed a suit seeking to overturn them. The Justice Departments civil action says the initiatives are invalid because they conflict with federal law. Both towns are refusing to cave. Theyve hired lawyers and filed counter-claims challenging the federal governments action. | |
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| Where is the rage? "Hundreds" of demonstrators? It seems as though since Obama has been elected people have let down their guard. At our regular vigil in Salt Lake City not long ago a bus driver pulled up and shouted out "Obama won, why are you still out here?" There's still a war, there are still injustices, there is still corporate control and domination. Now, more than ever, we need to hit the streets and demand an end to all of this!
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| I was interviewed awhile back by Mike Paleck"s New American Dream site and am the feature interview today. It will be up until Thursday a.m., then will be in the archives. Mike, who is an Iowa author of peace and justice issues, visited Salt Lake City last April. He has authored several books, one of which has a photo of Utah's Radical Cheerleaders, Pom Poms Not Bomb Bombs! | |
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| Green Party members nationwide are mourning the unexpected and tragic loss of Texas Green Bill Holloway. Bill was very good to me and Tom when we visited Austin and Camp Casey in August of 2006. He even wrote about us on his blog. Here are two photos of us with Bill at Camp Casey:   January 10, 2009 The Green Party of Texas mourns the tragic loss of Bill Holloway. Bill was a dedicated leader who was currently serving as the Co-Chair of the Travis County Green Party in Austin, TX. He will be missed as a mentor and a friend. ( Read more... ) | |
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| January 1, 2009 Yesterday, we met with the President of Lebanon, the Chief of the Military, and the Interior Minister who all thanked us for responding and risking our lives on a mission of mercy; we profusely thanked them for rescuing us. What would we have done, stranded out at sea, prohibited from reaching our destination, low on fuel, with a badly damaged boat if Lebanon had not
accepted us? Lebanon sent their ships to find us. Lebanon rescued us. Lebanon welcomed us. And we are truly thankful. It’s official now. We’ve been told that the sturdy, wood construction of our boat, Dignity, is the reason we are still alive. Fiberglass would probably not have withstood the impact of the Israeli attack and under different circumstances, we might not be here to tell the story. Even at that, the report that came to us yesterday after the Captain and First Mate
went back to Sour (Tyre) to inspect the boat was that it was sinking, the damage is extensive, and the boat will take, in their estimation, at least one month to repair. Tomorrow, we will bring the Dignity from Sour to Beirut. And now, we must decide what to do and from where we will do it and how we are to get back to wherever that might be.( Read more... ) | |
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| December 30, 2008
I’m so glad that my father told me to buy a special notebook and to write everything down because that’s exactly what I did. When we left from Cyprus, one reporter asked me “are you afraid?” And I had to respond that Malcolm X wasn’t afraid; Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wasn’t afraid. But little did I know that just a few hours later, I would be recollecting my life and mentally preparing myself for death. When we left Cyprus, the Mediterranean was beautiful. I remember the time when it might have been beautiful to look at, but it was also filthy. The Europeans have taken great strides to clean it up and yesterday, it was beautiful. And the way the sunlight hit the sea, I remember thinking to myself that’s why they call it azure. It was the most beautiful blue. </div> | |
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