[Peace-discuss] Fwd: Strike for Peace Campaign update

Sat Aug 27 23:54:56 CDT 2005

"Hal Snyder, M.D." <drxyzzy at gmail.com> wrote:---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Brian Bogart 
Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2005 16:58:57 -0700
Subject: Strike for Peace Campaign update

Dear IntelligentFuture members and CampUS Strike for Peace Campaign 
supporters,

As you know, I am in my final year as the first and only graduate 
student in Peace Studies at University of Oregon (20,000 students), 
and I will strike on the first day of school (9/26) for the entire 
year because I have learned too much about the war industry in our 
schools, communities, and lives. I ask that you join me in this 
nationwide outreach campaign to inform members of our many 
communities by passing along the below information.

So far, I have signatures and offers for organizational help from 
more than 200 schools, and I encourage all who are involved with 
schools to embrace this wonderful opportunity to connect, inform, and 
empower our ready-made network of 300-500 Pentagon-funded schools. 
If you can help build the network among campuses, please reply and 
tell me which school you belong to or have ties to.

Please pass along my email address (bbogart at uoregon.edu) to other 
educators and activists who would like to sign the petition and 
assist in building this network (ask them to include name and title/ 
degree/school). I will strike and speak every day while everyone 
else supports by dispensing info that I'll pass along via 
strikeforpeace.org all year (site goes online 9/26).

If you could circulate the below petition/info, and instruct people 
you meet to contact me to sign and get involved, it would be very 
helpful. Medea Benjamin will deliver the petition to the White House 
on September 26, the day I begin my strike. I will submit it again 
next June after students across the nation have informed their 
communities about the war industry in our schools and towns while 
gathering signatures from the general public.

The simple strategy, the same for every school, is nearly done, and I 
will send it out to you soon.

Now is the time to contribute financially if you can. I've just paid 
out my student-budgeted savings of $1100 for the website, and need 
funds for a wealth of items for the campaign, including travel funds 
to visit schools around the country and tent facilities for the 
strike. ANYTHING will help, but I encourage you to think about the 
focused nature of this campaign, that it is not just throwing money 
at a symptom but addresses a key causal issue: the militarization of 
our schools and communities through Pentagon outsourcing over the 
last 15 years, especially the last 5. I have all the facts and 
figures, and the public has no idea of the degree to which we are 
connected to the war industry. Our schools are the most logical 
place to begin rejecting this connection and this priority of profit 
over people.

Anything will help. If everyone sends $20, it will add up to a great 
foundation for change. If those who are able to do so can contribute 
more, please please, now is the time to help preparations. Yesterday 
a retired professor at one of my lectures wrote a check for $500. I 
encourage those who can to match this empowering commitment to the 
peace campaign.

Checks can be made to IntelligentFuture
and sent to:

Strike for Peace
PO Box 3150
University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403

Thanks and very best wishes for a fantastic yearlong effort for peace,

Brian Bogart
IntelligentFuture/Project Censored
CampUS Strike for Peace Campaign
September 26, 2005 - June 10, 2006

PETITION FOR PEACEFUL PRIORITIES

September 26, 2005

President George W. Bush, The White House
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, Department of Defense, The 
Pentagon
President Nils Hasselmo, Association of American Universities
Governor Ted Kulongoski, State of Oregon
President Dave Frohnmayer, University of Oregon

Dear Public Servants,

As University of Oregons first graduate student in the field of 
Peace Studies, it is my responsibility to explore the role of the 
military in society and those conditions that most promote peace and 
human welfare. In so doing, I have come to understand the nature of 
Americas war industry, and how that industry has flourished in the 
wake of the Cold War. I have come to find that more than 300 of our 
universities are developing weapons for the Department of Defense, 
and that these schools are increasingly reliant on the industry of 
war to sustain their education programs. Indeed, the Association of 
American Universities appears to be little more than a lobby for such 
funding.

As a person of good conscience, I have learned too much about the 
business of war to remain silent about its overwhelming encroachment 
in our schools, communities, and global life systems. In promoting 
this encroachment, I do not believe that you serve in the interest of 
prosperity and security for the common people. By your consistent 
actions, in fact, it is abundantly clear that you believe Americas 
top priority is profit from the business of war, not the general 
welfare of its people.

When America was born a people-first country, the concept of freedom 
spread rapidly throughout the world without military force. The 
vision of our Founders was to advance the notion of people living in 
peace using the freedom that nature provides upon birth. You may 
feel at peace with yourselves, but I believe you are acting as 
businessmen instead of servants. And in honoring our Founding 
principles, I must proclaim that to exploit the fears and prejudices 
of the common people to maintain the flow of profits from conflictto 
perpetuate a state of war for personal gainis treasonous to our creed.

You say this is a peace-loving nation when you know it is not; 
America is by far historys greatest peddler of arms, and your 
business is making war everyone elses business. The people, under 
this set of priorities, are an expendable resource, and on behalf of 
those who founded this country and those whose lives stand in peril 
todaythus, on behalf of all AmericansI reject the notion of our 
servants serving only themselves and war profiteers.

Therefore, I feel compelled to strike in peaceful but vociferous 
opposition to your priorities until our national policies reflect our 
priorities and serve the rights and needs of the common people.

I am a dedicated scholar and University of Oregon alumnus. But I 
refuse to study inside the classroom of any school that sells itself 
to the war industry, and I will stand outside and speak my heart as 
strongly as possible to highlight the obvious hypocrisy that you 
promote. For I fear that if I do not, America and other countries 
are very likely to suffer and fall as a result of your cold 
determination to saturate with weapons a world that stands on the 
verge of resource depletion.

Developing weapons at our institutions of enlightenment contradicts 
the inherent purpose of learning. How will we ever learn peace while 
making war in our schools?

I hereby submit to you this petition for peaceful priorities.

Dutifully,

Brian D. Bogart
IntelligentFuture/Project Censored
Specialist, Military and Defense in Society
M.A. Candidate, Peace Studies, University of Oregon
B.A. Japanese History, University of Oregon 1997

International Studies Certificate, Waseda University, Tokyo 1996

Multicultural Studies Certificate, US-Japan Relations, Lewis and 
Clark College, Portland 1995

Sponsors of this action include:

Noam Chomsky

Franklin W. Stahl

Professor Emeritus of Biology

University of Oregon

Medea Benjamin

Code Pink, Global Exchange

San Francisco, California

Peter Phillips Ph.D.

Sociology Department/Project Censored

Sonoma State University

Madoka Kusakabe

East Asian Languages & Literatures

University of Oregon

Oleg Kripkov Ph.D.
Russian Studies
University of Oregon

Virginia Raymond, Doctoral Candidate
Assistant Instructor, Department of English
University of Texas at Austin

Stan Taylor JD. LLM. Ph.D.

Instructor of Political Science

Lane Community College

Susan K. Fuhr, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Psychology
Portland, Oregon

Scott Kerlin Ph.D.

Peace Studies

Vancouver, BC Canada

Ray McGovern
Steering Group

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

and thousands more from around the world.

This petition will be delivered to the White House on my first day of 
school, September 26, and again near the last day of school in June 
2006. Signatures will be collected throughout the academic year in a 
sustained outreach effort to inform our 300-plus Pentagon-dependent 
campus communities about weapons development in our schools.

Build the movement:
If you would like to sign my petition, please send your name and city 
(title and/or school optional but recommended) as you would like them 
to appear (using above examples) to: bdb92 at hotmail.com
If you would like to support the strike campaign with organizational 
resources, write to: bbogart at uoregon.edu
If you would like to support the strike campaign with financial 
resources, write checks to IntelligentFuture and
Send to:
Strike for Peace Campaign
PO Box 3150
University of Oregon
Eugene OR 97403

My school town is an EXAMPLE of war-industry ties to our communities:
Eugene, Oregon (population 130,000) has 56 companies that serve the 
US military.
University of Oregon receives major funding from the Pentagon.
My home town is an EXAMPLE of war-industry ties to our communities:
Palo Alto, California (population 58,000) has 55 companies that serve 
the US military.
Stanford University receives major funding from the Pentagon.

What about your school or town? Find out: Ask Brian and support the 
effort.
bbogart at uoregon.edu
CampUS Strike for Peace Campaign
September 26, 2005 June 10, 2006

MAJOR UNIVERSITIES RECEIVING DoD FUNDS FOR WEAPONS DEVELOPMENT:
Brandeis University
Brown University
California Institute of Technology
Carnegie Mellon University
Case Western Reserve University
Columbia University
Cornell University
Duke University
Emory University
Harvard University
Indiana University
Iowa State University
Johns Hopkins University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
McGill University
Michigan State University
New York University
Northwestern University
Ohio State University
Pennsylvania State University
Princeton University
Purdue University
Rice University
Rutgers, New Jersey State University
Stanford University
Stony Brook, New York State University
Syracuse University
Texas A&M University
Tulane University
Vanderbilt University
Washington University, St. Louis
Yale University
University at Buffalo, New York State
University of Arizona
University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Davis
University of California, Irvine
University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, San Diego
University of California, Santa Barbara
University of Chicago
University of Colorado, Boulder
University of Florida
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
University of Iowa
University of Kansas
University of Maryland, College Park
University of Michigan
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
University of Missouri, Columbia
University of Nebraska, Lincoln
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
University of Oregon
University of Pennsylvania
University of Pittsburgh
University of Rochester
University of Southern California
University of Texas, Austin
University of Toronto
University of Virginia
University of Washington
University of Wisconsin, Madison
(Smaller schools number in the hundreds.)

#44 on the DoD Top-100 procurement list: Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology
#66 on the DoD Top-100 procurement list: Johns Hopkins University
#21 on the Navy Top-50 procurement list: Johns Hopkins University
#41 on the Navy Top-50 procurement list: Pennsylvania State University
#11 on the Air Force Top-50 procurement list: Massachusetts Institute 
of Technology

_______________________________________________
PDI mailing list
PDI at illinoisprogressives.org
http://illinoisprogressives.org/mailman/listinfo/pdi_illinoisprogressives.org
For help (including unsubscription requests), please email gary at garykleppe.org

---------------------------------
 Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/private/peace-discuss/attachments/20050827/19a0765c/attachment.htm