[Peace-discuss] what next?
Charlotte Green
chgreen48 at yahoo.com
Wed Nov 13 21:11:30 CST 2002
I like the idea of getting people in the churches,
synagogues, mosques etc. more involved. I think there
are many people in religious institutions who
recognize that preemptive war is not in accordance
with their faith, but they are spread out in different
places of worship and may feel isolated and helpless.
One daydream I have is to get such folks to
participate in an interfaith march/rally in solidarity
with the big march on Washington in January. The
rally could have speakers and music, representing the
common theme of peace from diverse groups--and since
it will be around MLK holiday, it could draw on King's
anti-war legacy, also. Rather than AWARE organize a
march, it would probably be better to get
representatives from various religious groups to do
the planning. They would have more ownership of the
event that way.
I also think we must try to keep Palestine in the
public eye. An unfortunate byproduct of Bush's
eagerness for going to war in Iraq is that the
spotlight has been removed from Israel's treatment of
the Palestinians. We've had speakers on the issue and
I think we've helped educate the public. It seems
like it may be time for more direct action. Has a
divestment campaign ever been discussed?
--- Ricky Baldwin <baldwinricky at hotmail.com> wrote:
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<P>I think Susan is right that we now need to connect
with other groups, and I like Carol's idea of a
regional event a lot. Personally, I doubt folks
would travel from far and wide to hear an alternative
media or anti-war speaker unless they were already
committed activists, but local folks might come, so
maybe these are not two different kinds of events at
all.</P>
<P>What if we planned an event - with a "bigname"
speaker and a nuts-and-bolts workshop or two
- that would draw anti-war activists and
organizers from other states as well as interest local
folks who are less involved? A one-day event,
with plenty of time after the show for
activists/organizers from elsewhere to get together
with AWARE, IMC, PRC, whoever, to talk about how we
can all work together? It depends how ambitious
we want to be, of course - and the bigger the event,
the more time we'd probably need to pull it off - but
I'd just pose the question: How many lefty speakers
would you travel 150 miles to hear but not 1,500
miles?</P>
<P>I also think we should think seriously about trying
again to bring someone here from 9/11 Families for
Peaceful Tomorrows - see when someone could come, and
then work around that. It's the kind of event we
would need to push in the churches, libraries,
etc. Frankly, I wouldn't care if nobody we
already know showed up. But we should be there
taking names.</P>
<P>And Karen Kohn had a suggestion for a speaker, too
- maybe we should talk about this at the meeting
Sunday night?</P>
<P>Ricky</P></DIV>
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<DIV></DIV>----Original Message Follows----
<DIV></DIV>From: parenti susan rose
<SPARENTI at UX1.CSO.UIUC.EDU>
<DIV></DIV>To: Carol Inskeep
<INSKEEP at ALEXIA.LIS.UIUC.EDU>
<DIV></DIV>CC: <PEACE-DISCUSS at LISTS.GROOGROO.COM>,
<ARUNC at EVERGREEN.EDU>
<DIV></DIV>Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] what next?
<DIV></DIV>Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 12:47:36 -0600 (CST)
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>Carol and Al,
<DIV></DIV>From traveling around so much, I notice how
each group in a local place
<DIV></DIV>is working away, unaware of what groups 100
miles away are doing. The
<DIV></DIV>unaware-ness disempowers us. When Ricky(and
Carl) connected with the
<DIV></DIV>Danville group of protestors, I thought,
hmmmmm, there's a direction we
<DIV></DIV>could go in---contacting, supporting,
organizing with groups in Illinois.
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>An extension of this:
<DIV></DIV>I have a few friends at different
universities around the country. Right
<DIV></DIV>now I hear from them how discouraged people
are with the results of the
<DIV></DIV>elections, and how they fear the
discouragement will make people give up,
<DIV></DIV>and no longer come to meetings and get
involved in actions. If we had a
<DIV></DIV>role in AWARE for a kind of 'encouraging
scribe'---i.e., a person who
<DIV></DIV>would be in contact with a few sister
groups in the country and who would
<DIV></DIV>write to them, inform them of what we're
doing, encourage them---this
<DIV></DIV>might be a step towards 'building a
movement', as Ricky says.
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>A different idea:
<DIV></DIV>From what I've read, it looks like the US
war on Iraq is almost
<DIV></DIV>inevitable. How can we use this, for
building a muscle of discontent
<DIV></DIV>in this country? How can we take advantage,
so to speak, of what will seem
<DIV></DIV>as our failure to stop this war, to use it
towards something we want? Saul
<DIV></DIV>Alinsky called this 'capitalizing on
failure'---to turn what could seem a
<DIV></DIV>failure, into something that further
rallies people to sustained
<DIV></DIV>discontent.
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>Last philosophic note----I maintain we are
trying to create a foment of
<DIV></DIV>discontent, not content. We are doing the
delicate, almost artistic dance
<DIV></DIV>of taking our horror at the current
political directions, and rather than
<DIV></DIV>have that discourage us(which would
normally happen), make this 'horror'
<DIV></DIV>be empowering. When SDS came to campuses in
the 60's(I was there) they'd
<DIV></DIV>show up in a car from some other campus in
a different state, and put up a
<DIV></DIV>film projector in the lounge of some dorm,
and there show 33mm films of
<DIV></DIV>what was going on in Vietnam. The films
horrified people, shocked people,
<DIV></DIV>made people really mad. What SDS did, was
generate discontent, push at it,
<DIV></DIV>sort of 'push people's noses in it'. They
didn't offer solutions, other
<DIV></DIV>than to organize.
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>OK, you get my point: we're engineering
discontent, making sure it doesn't
<DIV></DIV>decay into discouragement.
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>So, my question for the question 'what
next?'---how can we make more
<DIV></DIV>discontent, of the kind we can use for
building a movement?
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>Susan, who misses AWARE
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>On Tue, 12 Nov 2002, Carol Inskeep wrote:
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>> folks,
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>> i've been thinking quite a bit about
what's next for us. it seems to me
<DIV></DIV>> that AWARE is in a very strong
position right now as an organization - we
<DIV></DIV>> have some money (yeah!), we have good
turnouts to our events, we have
<DIV></DIV>> strong organizers in our group, and we
get more media coverage these days.
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>> on the other side, there seems to be
concensus that things are bad and
<DIV></DIV>> getting worse - the war is soon to
expand, civil liberties restrictions
<DIV></DIV>> and harassment of groups like ours are
likely to increase, and there is
<DIV></DIV>> always the possibility of more 9/11
style terrorism that would dramatically
<DIV></DIV>> inflame the situation.
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>> are there some ambitious plans we
could make? could we organize a
<DIV></DIV>> regional event, for example, that
would promote alternative media -
<DIV></DIV>> perhaps try to bring amy goodman of
democracy now and - a concerted effort to
<DIV></DIV>> expose folks to a range of alternate
sources for news? or could we use
<DIV></DIV>> some of our money to send someone to
afghanistan and organize widely
<DIV></DIV>> around that trip?
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>> these are just ideas that i pose in
effort to get a discussion going about
<DIV></DIV>> what to do with this chunk of money
and with the great energy we have
<DIV></DIV>> going right now...
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>> carol
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>
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