[Peace-discuss] Minutes from AWARE meeting of 4/29/07

Sun May 6 13:24:45 CDT 2007

AWARE Minutes
Sunday, April 29, 2007

Karen facilitated, Stuart took notes

Carl Estabrook offered News of the Week
[see his posting on 4/30/07].

About 19 people attended, including two
welcome newcomers, Ash A. and Lance W.

Working Groups:

Treasury – read by Grandpa in Jan's absence.  Current balance 2157.94.

Main event – coming 5/5, next Sat.
   Got flyers?
   Jan & Durl have a flyer to propose – didn't have a draft ready
   but will pass it out during next week's protest -
   on the theme of Mother's Day

Media WG?
   Dave E and other WG members aren't here -- no report.

Aware Presents WG

  Jamie S. passed around flyers for Jamal Nassar event, May 17th, 7:00PM,
  at St. Mary's Catholic Church Parish Hall (Park & Wright, Champaign),
  on US and the Middle East.  Nassar is retiring, and leaving the state.

  Carl -
   St.Mary's Parish Hall is the Oscar Romero center –
   assasinated (martyred) in the US-supported war in El Salvador.
   C.E. is delighted that this is happening there – on north side
   of univ ave – many in the church are pleased.

  Videotaping?
     -	Durl is willing to videotape Nassar's talk.
	Can borrow a camera.

      Can this go on UPTV?   - Probably yes.  

  Carl – at yesterday's (4/28) May Day IMC event, a teacher from Bloomington,
       who had been a student of Nassar's mentioned that Nassar had been
       the best teacher he had ever had

  Jamal has agreed to come for dinner at 5:30 – 
     Jamie asked Hamid whether he'd offer a family-style
     dinner at Jerusalem; not yet sure, to be decided soon.

     [Note in proof -- Yes, there will be a dinner at Jerusalem
      at 5:30 on May 17th.  Cost $10.  Let Jamie Storm know soon
      (gary_jamie {at} hotmail.com), as the restaurant needs
      an accurate count and a week's notice.]

  Jamie had last week suggested money for Nassar – to cover expenses
  Stuart/Mort/Linda - Let's offer him more than that.
      Unspecified amount had been proposed last week.
  $150 proposed and accepted.

  AWARE Presents meeting at Kruse house, Thurs 5/3, 7pm, 2007 S. George Huff

   [some comments to let the newcomers know about the history & purpose
    of AWARE Presents]
   We bring people here to speak on issues of interest to us --
   Kim Abel, Paul Street, ...

   Mort - We'll consider anyone we can get at modest price

   What's on AWARE Presents agenda now?
	Blackwater/Triple Canopy
	Seeking panel members on topics related to Iran
	Cost of War presentations

Anti-racism WG
	On 5/27, Patrick Thompson is to appear in Judge Clem's court.
	Judge Clem called for a new trial – or at least invalidated
	the guilty verdict from previous trial, based among other things
	on ineffective counsel by Thompson's lawyer Harvey Welch.
	Prosecutor Vujovich is considering whether to pursue a new trial.

	Bob I 'can't imagine why Vujovich would decide to prosecute under
	the circumstances', but his crystal ball may be cloudy

	Robert Kirchner (who along with Ruth Wyman were Thompson's lawyers
	in the motion for a new trial) presented 800 pages of documentation,
	while Vujovich submitted nothing, an encouraging sign.

	Details at:   http://www.ucimc.org/node/1143

Counter-recruitment WG
    No report

Student groups –
   Shara Esbenshade of Uni High says their student paper, the Gargoyle,
    http://www.uni.uiuc.edu/gargoyle/
   publishes events of interest -- she invites anyone around town to
   enter events on the web form!
   Please enter time, place, address, URL-if-any
   Shara will accept submissions too…

   Are students disbanding for the summer?
     - Not the high school students!

Iran –
    Got a bunch of cards (~100) from yesterday's IMC May Day event
    Have received 900-1000 in all.     

  Dave Harley suggests it's time to shift gears.

  History of Iran WG: We've been suggesting people write cards to their
  senators/representative to oppose an attack on Iran.

  others - We need to continue with letter writing.  Someone
   needs to do something for Public Square.

  Jenny Goodwine – she is collecting cards from her school,
      should they just send them themselves?
      – Yes

  DHarley – There's been little talk recently about attack on Iran

  Carl – Iran is still an option.
	Administration may become more dangerous as their backs
	are against the wall.  Also, this week there was sabre-rattling talk
	in an interview with Ehud Olmert [with a german newspaper?]
	  which the paper deemed so inflammatory that the publisher withheld it

	In any case we have plenty of other reasons to write.
        Carl cited Durbin's "couldn't speak because of secrecy
	  [on the Administration's public presentations of
	  pre-Iraq-invasion intelligence being in conflict with intelligence
	  presented to Sen. Intel. Cmte, of which Durbin was a member]",
	  or Obama's recent expansionist speech 

  Shara – continuing to provide postcards => reminding people to participate in democracy, to keep letting their reps.
               know how they feel
               she had put up a stack of cards, a sign
                  "democracy depends on your involvement"
               sign, and talking points

        When does Iran WG meet? 
          dharley – sporadically.  last meet was 3 wks ago.

Blackwater WG
   ... is still getting organized; will meet with AWAREPresents on 5/3 7pm meeting
         Trying to put up obstacles to Blackwater's and Triple Canopy's

   Carl – SAIC – huge mil contractor (who have contracts in Iraq and elsewhere)
	were among other things the ones who offered a job to
	Shaha Riza, girlfriend of Wolfowitz
	They have offices here in Champaign too -- South Research Park.

       [SAIC = Science Applications Int'l Corp.  Modernization efforts,
	    Intelligence, Logistics and Product Support [hmm, weapons?]
	    ... and commercial services ...]

Old business –

  Grandpa Wahlfeldt passed around signup sheet for Farmer's Market,
  beginning on 5/12

New ideas –
   None raised

Past events
   Bill Moyers' Journal – seemed a bit soft, says Mort, could have
	included Howard Zinn or Paul Street, say.
	He did have John Stewart on ("America's leading purveyor of news", says Carl)

        Carl – the show is available on line.

	    http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04272007/

          Instead of analysis of 'why do we have the press we do'
          (who didn't drop the ball by 'mistake').  A lot of people
	  really did know – fiction that 'no one knew', or of
	  'bad intelligence'.  They never seemed to mention 
          Scott Ritter, did they? 

	Bob I – Moyers has a flaw: he is a gentleman.

  DHarley – Do we know how many contractors are in Somalia now?

  Ash – As part of leaving military [which he had been in],
	you get a presentation for Life After, including from contractors
	who are hiring.   There are places on every post – recruitment is heavy.
	They recruit just as hard for people who are leaving Military as
	the Military does to bring people in.

Road to Guantanamo film
    What's the point of holding people in gitmo?
    - To convince American people that they are in danger
       "look at all these terrible people we're holding"

    Mort — if you want to have your nerves jangled, you can see it

 Carl – Andrew Cockburn article this week in counterpunch.org

	http://www.counterpunch.org/andrew05012007.html

   Rumsfeld & Wolfowitz were getting nightly reports from Abu Ghraib –
     i.e. interrogation was so much a part of their activities that they
     got direct reports from it.   So much for "bad apples" argument.

 Talk about getting Alfred McCoy, professor of history at UW Madison,
     author of "Politics of Heroin in SE Asia", and of a book on torture.
     Could we bring him here to speak?

 Stuart - 4/26 county zoning board hearing on the Hindu Temple project:
 Nearest existing Temple is in Peoria, so the local Hindu community
 would like one here.  They own a strip of agricultural land
 in Hensley Twp, near Mattis Ave & ~3 mi N of I-74, near a 7-year-old housing
 tract.  Proposal is to put the Temple, parking lot, etc. on 5 of their
 40 acres, leaving the rest in ag. use.

 The neighbors object -- complaining of risk to drainage from their lawns,
 worries about traffic, "change in the character of the neighborhood", etc.
 Encouragingly, the county's State's Atty gave an opinion limiting reasons
 the Zoning Board could use for denial: the Temple people needn't show
 that this is the *only* feasible site in C-U area; site appearance can't
 be a criterion; nor may the land's "best prime farmland" status be used
 as a basis to deny, given the type of change being requested (not rezoning,
 but "special use" of a type permitted for ag. land).  But injury to
 public safety/health/morals/general welfare may still be argued.
 One (final?) hearing is planned for 5/31.

Upcoming events:

   May 1st rally/march on immigration – Stop the Raids, Stop Separating Families
	through the raids.   March at 11am from Green & Neil to campus;
	rally on Quad at noon.  Last year march/rally drew about 1000 people.

   AWARE Presents May 3rd, 7pm, at the Kruse home, 2007 George Huff

   Jonathan Cook interview on focus 580, 11 AM Wed 5/2
       independent correspondent – wrote through the lebanese war –
	(interview will be on focus 580 web site)
	Cook's web site:
	    http://www.jkcook.net/
	RealAudio stream of Focus 580 interview:
	    http://willmedia.will.uiuc.edu/ramgen/archives/focus070502b.rm
	MP3 download of the same:
	    http://www.will.uiuc.edu/media/focus070502b.mp3

   Bob Wahlfeldt moving on Monday (from Champaign to apt. in Urbana)  
      Last one out of champaign turn out the lights!

   Bob I - IMC General Membership Meeting coming soon –
	not sure whether this Sat.
	[yes it was: Sat 5/5, 5pm]

   Shara – United for Uganda is still selling DVDs;
       all proceeds go to Uni High's sister school in Uganda.
       (new effort – just joined a week earlier)

   Japan House 5/2 (Wed 5pm)  Making origami paper cranes for peace;
	a professor here will be travelling to Japan, will bring the
	cranes to the Hiroshima war memorial 