[Peace-discuss] Re: humanitarian drive ideas-MORE POLITICS

[Lisa Chason]

Is it just me or do other people find the humanitarian aid direction too
a-political?

Of course I'm not against it but I think the role of AWARE should definitely
be more in the educational direction. The aid idea is good symbolically but
we could never really make a dint in what's needed. I'd rather be working on
affecting the policies that got us here (and where they're taking us) than
trying to put band aids on the gaping wounds that have been created.
Personally I would give money to Oxfam (actually already do) or blood in a
blood drive but I would rather leave it to churches or voluntary
organizations to organize it. I don't think that's where our limited
resources should be placed, except perhaps very symbolically.

I do think we should be thinking along the lines of speaking to other
groups, offering alternative ideas and information channels. But then we
should also think about developing AWARE more as an organization so that
after we attract people we have something to offer.

What about a series of study groups? We could recruit a number of speakers
and have them each do say 2 or 3 sessions (David Green on the Middle East,
Carl on the history of critical action, Steve Harnett on something to do
with civil liberties, Ricky Baldwin on political organizing, Susan Davis on
the media, Sandra Ahten on expressing yourself politically in art, Sharon
Coeurvie on taking care of yourself under political stress...). You get the
idea -- use our wonderful and talented membership AND the resources of the
university. Design a program and put it together in a brochure. Then small
groups will be talking and thinking together, and from there action ideas
may also come.

Another idea would be to contact other organizations around the country or
look them up on the web, including other IMCs, and see what others are
doing. I was struck when hearing about anti-war activity on NPR or Democracy
Now in the weeks before the war started how many groups had thought along
the same lines we had -- weekly demos in heavy traffic areas,  teach-ins and
speakers, cities for peace.

Tuesday at Linda's people are going to be discussing what to be working on.
I think we need more suggestions about politically-oriented projects.

my 2 cents,
Lisa

----- Original Message -----
From: "patton paul" <ppatton at ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
To: <peace-discuss at lists.cu.groogroo.com>
Sent: Sunday, April 06, 2003 4:30 PM
Subject: [Peace-discuss] Re: humanitarian drive ideas


> On Sun, 6 Apr 2003 peace-discuss-request at lists.cu.groogroo.com wrote:
>
> >
> > Today's Topics:
> >
> >    1. Re: More thoughts on Proposal for Humanitarian Drives--text (with
footnotes) (Linda Evans)
> >
> > --__--__--
> >
> > Message: 1
> > Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2003 06:39:21 -0800 (PST)
> > From: Linda Evans <veganlinda at yahoo.com>
> > Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] More thoughts on Proposal for Humanitarian
Drives--text (with footnotes)
> > To: Ken Urban <kurban at parkland.edu>, peace-discuss at lists.groogroo.com
> >
> > Ken (and all),
> >
> > I really love all these ideas about community outreach
> > and I think this is really important.  Since we don't
> > have a lot of time in our Sunday meetings to discuss
> > this and put these ideas into action, I would be more
>
>
> While humanitarian drives to help local poor or needy people would
> certainly be a worthy endeavor, it seems to me that we could best express
> our view of a more compassionate and humane world order by directly
> helping the people of Iraq.  There are now a number of humanitarian
> assistance agencies, including Oxfam, the International Red Cross/Red
> Crescent, and UNICEF that are conducting fund drives for humanitarian
> assistance to the people of Iraq.  I think a good goal for a humanitarian
> drive would be to raise money to donate to these organizations.  If the
> pro-war people really mean what they say about wanting to liberate and
> help the people of Iraq, then we should challenge them to join us in such
> an effort.
> -Paul P.
> __________________________________________________________________
> Dr. Paul Patton
> Research Scientist
> Beckman Institute  Rm 3027  405 N. Mathews St.
> University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign  Urbana, Illinois 61801
> work phone: (217)-265-0795   fax: (217)-244-5180
> home phone: (217)-328-4064
> homepage: http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~ppatton/index.html
>
> "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.  It is the
> source of all true art and science."
> -Albert Einstein
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