[Peace-discuss] Re: student interview request

[Stuart Levy]

[Ms. Babinska wrote to aware at anti-war.net.]

On Mon, Nov 02, 2009 at 09:12:29PM -0600, Iga Babinska wrote:
> Dear Sir/Madam,
> 
> My name is Iga Babinska and I'm currently a journalism student at Loyola
> University Chicago. I work at the school's magazine, "Mosaic". This year's
> edition is dedicated to the topic of War and Peace, with the emphasis on the
> recent Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

That is great news -- glad you and they are taking it on!

> I was wondering if you could tell me whether you have experienced an increase
> in membership recently, due to the growing discontent (with the current wars)
> of the general public as well as the veterans or maybe decrease in membership
> due to president Obama's plans to stop both wars? Or maybe you found yourself
> organizing more meetings than before?

I wish both of those were true.  For our group, we've been struggling to
keep active membership, and to continue holding events at the same rate
as before.   I've heard that this is happening with peace groups
across the country, even as the US population becomes more and more
disenchanted with even the "good" war in Afghanistan.   

There seem to be several reasons for this -- Obama's hope-filled
presence in the White House ("just support him and he'll do the
right thing"), activist-inclined people turning from peace to domestic
issues such as health care and economic justice, internal dissension in
the peace movement, the fact that the wars have been going on for so long
and we've made seemingly so little headway...

> In any case, I'd love to talk to you about your group and what you do.

Would you think to do this by telephone, or does it make sense
to come down to Urbana-Champaign?

Either way sounds good to me.  AWARE people, who'd like to
talk to Ms. Babinska?  If she comes here, should we invite
her to one of our meetings?

>  I'm working on a story for the magazine and
> would greatly appreciate your help. I have recently talked to a military
> police member who came from Iraq and said that more veterans are joining
> peace organizations, questioning the idea of war. I thought it would be a
> great subject to explore.

Very good.  Had the MP joined Iraq Veterans Against the War?
There is a fairly active IVAW chapter here in Champaign
(would you like contact information for them as well?),
and there's one in Chicago too.   I *hope* they are gaining
members but haven't heard whether that's happening or not.

Don't know if you're looking for other sources too.

Robert Naiman of the national group Just Foreign Policy
(justforeignpolicy.org) lives here in Urbana (and reads this list) --
he'll have a much broader view of the peace movement, and 
is anyway a great guy to talk with.

Also, closer to home for you: there is a statewide loose association
of groups, the Illinois Coalition for Peace, Justice and the Environment
(www.icjpe.org).  Member groups are scattered around the state,
and AWARE is one, but the center of mass is around Chicago.
Several people on its coordinating committee (living in Chicago)
are involved, not just in keeping track of groups in Illinois,
but in fostering such groups-of-groups in states across the US
(pjep.org) -- so they may get a much broader view of the state
of the peace movement and might be interesting to talk to.

Please let me know if you'd like contact info for either.

> Thank you for your time and help. Hope to hear from you soon.
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Iga Babinska