[Peace-discuss] Kucinich to receive the Thomas Merton Award for work in social justice

[Karen Medina]

Congressman Dennis Kucinich to receive the Thomas Merton Award for
work in social justice. [ the following is scrapped together from a
Cleveland newspaper and the Thomas Merton Center website -kem ]

Dennis Kucinich has bills for national health care, calls for the
abolition of nuclear weapons, and strongly opposes the North American
Free Trade Act.
Kucinich has a long history of promoting justice throughout his
lengthy career in politics, spanning from his stint as Cleveland's
mayor through his career in Congress

Congressman Kucinich is well known for introducing the National Health
Care Act (HR 676), which looks to provide universal single-payer
health care for all. Recently, a House committee approved his
amendment allowing individual states to adopt a single-payer system.

On issues of war and peace, Kucinich advocates that the U.S. abolish
nuclear and space-based weapons, lead multilateral disarmament, and
increase dialogue with Iran to avoid militaristic confrontation. He
has proposed a plan to institute a Department of Peace in the U.S.
government. Kucinich is a strong advocate for withdrawal from the
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) because, in his view, more
U.S. jobs are lost than created under its terms, and it provides
adequate protection of neither worker rights nor environmental
safeguards.

Kucinich also supports aggressive emissions reductions and urges U.S
ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, an agreement signed by 160+
countries to reduce greenhouse gases.

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past recipients of the Thomas Merton Award
1972: James Carroll, currently columnist in the Boston Globe and
author of “House of War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of
American Power.”
1973: Dorothy Day, pacifist, founded the first Catholic Worker (CW) in
New York City in 1933. Today there are over 185 CW communities.
Catholic Workers live a simple lifestyle in community, serve the poor
and resist war and social injustice.
1974: Dick Gregory, ‘60s comedian, vegetarian, Civil Rights activist,
a drum major for equal rights and nutritional consultant.
1975: Joan Baez, folk singer: "I can't tell you how boring it would be
for me to give a concert and not have it connected with people's lives
and suffering and real issues. There's no music for me outside of
that."  She lived her beliefs, founding the Institute for the Study of
Non-Violence in California.  Said Thomas Merton of her: “A precious,
authentic, totally human person.”
1976: Dom Hélder Câmara “When I feed the poor, they call me a saint;
when I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist.” Archbishop of
Recife, Brazil, he became renowned throughout the world as the
inspirer of Latin America’s liberation theology movement.
1977: Dick Hughes, Pittsburgh man who went as a journalist to Vietnam.
Meeting young boys made homeless by the war he first took them in,
then was inspired to found  the Shoeshine Boys Project, a hostel for
street children in Vietnam.
1978: Bishop John Burt & Bishop James Malone co-founded the Ecumenical
Coalition of the Mahoning Valley as the collapse of the steel industry
devastated Youngstown and the lives of  its workers. They fought to
keep Youngstown Sheet & Tube from completely reneging on agreements
with labor and to seek ways to reopen the mills. Despite the failure
to keep jobs, they led the way as the struggle moved to Western PA.
1979: Helen Caldicott, co-founded Physicians for Social
Responsibility, helped found Intl. Physicians for the Prevention of
Nuclear War, Women’s Action for Nuclear Disarmament. Her books,
“Nuclear Madness” and  “Missile envy,” helped spur U.S. disarmament
movement, Nobel Peace Prize 1985. 1982 documentary “If You Love This
Planet” won the Academy Award.
1980: William Winpisinger, International President of the
International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM);
founder and president of the Citizen/Labor Energy Coalition; and
co-chair of the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee. Member,
National Commission for Economic Conversion and Disarmament, which
supported converting from a military economy to a civilian economy.
1981: The People of Poland. Solidarność,  the Polish trade union
federation led by Lech Wałęsa, was founded in September 1980 at the
Gdańsk Shipyards and withstood martial law in 1981 and years of
repression in a nonviolent campaign to force the government to
negotiate with the union, a key event that helped spark other efforts
that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
1982: Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen withheld half of his income tax to
protest the stockpiling of nuclear weapons by the United States, as
typified by the naval base on Puget Sound for Trident missile-equipped
submarines. This action prompted the IRS to garnish his wages. A
strong supporter of Vatican II, especially ecumenism and multicultural
issues.
1983: no award
1984: Bernice Johnson Reagon  Jailed for participating in a SNCC
demonstration, she spent the night in jail singing songs. She joined
the SNCC Freedom Singers to use music as a tool for civic action.
Composed and produced much of the Sweet Honey in the Rock's renowned
repertoire of traditional African and African American music.
1985: Henri Nouwen renowned author, teacher, spiritual guide whose
passionate conviction that those rejected by society have essential
and prophetic gifts to offer took shape during the 1960s through his
involvement with the civil rights, peace and social justice movements.
One of the 20th century’s most popular and prolific spiritual writers,
he helped people deepen their spiritual foundations and cultivate
community.
1986: Allan Boesak Through his prodding,  in 1982 the World Alliance
of Reformed Churches suspended the membership of the Afrikaner
Reformed churches in South Africa, declared Apartheid a heresy and
elected Boesak their president.
1987: Miguel D’Escoto, an  ordained  Roman Catholic priest, became
foreign minister when Nicaragua  was governed by the Sandinista
National Liberation Front (1979-1990).The U.S. had armed and supported
the Contra death squads  responsible for the deaths of tens of
thousands of Nicaraguans so “we took the United States...to court, the
World Court”  where the government “received the harshest sentence,
the harshest condemnation ever in the history of world justice.”
1988: Daniel Berrigan Jesuit priest, poet, writer. He, his brother
Philip and Trappist monk Thomas Merton founded an interfaith coalition
against the Vietnam War. One of  the Catonsville Nine, who removed 378
draft files from  the draft board of Catonsville, Maryland, which they
took outside and burned. He was one of the Plowshares Eight.
1989: Comrades of El Salvador & Elizabeth Linder.  Mother of Ben
Linder, an engineer who was murdered while working on a project to
bring electricity to the village of El Cua, Nicaragua. Elizabeth
courageously spoke out against the U.S.-backed wars in Nicaragua and
El Salvador where Amnesty International reported that death squads and
paramilitary groups were responsible for the systematic murder,
torture and "disappearances" of suspected government opponents during
the 1980s and early 1990s.
1990: Marian Wright Edelman  In 1968 was counsel for the Poor People's
Campaign. She founded the Washington Public Policy Resource Center
which developed into the Children Defense Fund.  She organized the
Stand for Children March on behalf of children which brought hundreds
of thousands to Wahington. “ If we don't stand up for children, then
we don't stand for much.”
1991: Howard Zinn His “A People's History of the United States”
presents U.S. history through the eyes of ordinary people,  Native
Americans, slaves, unionists and other workers, women against
patriarchy, of African-Americans and others whose stories, as Zinn
suggests, are not often told in mainstream histories. The New York
Times review suggested it be "required reading" for students. Zinn not
only writes but acts on his beliefs. He helped to edit “The Pentagon
Papers.”
1992: Molly Rush, staff organizer, co-founder of the Thomas Merton Center.
1993: Reverend Lucius Walker, leader of the Interreligious Foundation
for Community Organization (IFCO), was Associate General Secretary of
the National Council of Churches of Christ 1973-78. He founded Pastors
for Peace, which organizes humanitarian aid caravans to Nicaragua, El
Salvador, Guatemala, Chiapas and Cuba for the victims of U.S. foreign
policy.
1994: Richard Rohr OFM, a Franciscan priest of the New Mexico
Province. He was the founder of the New Jerusalem Community in
Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1971, and the Center for Action and Contemplation
in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1986. He has  preached around the
world. Among his books are, "Simplicity, the Wild Man's Journey" and
"Hope Against Darkness."
1995: Marian Kramer In the front lines of the welfare rights and civil
rights movement from its origin in the 1960s, she has co-chaired the
National Welfare Rights Union (NWRU) an organization of, by and for
the poor in America. She’s been committed to ending poverty in America
by empowering the poor, especially women, and has been a mentor to
college students fighting poverty.
1996: Winona LaDuke, Native American activist, environmentalist,
economist and writer. In 1996 and 2000, she ran for Vice President on
the Green Party ticket. She was involved in the struggle to recover
lands promised to the Ojibwe by a 1867 treaty, helping the Ojibwe buy
back thousands of acres of ancestral land. She was Ms. Magazine Woman
of the Year in 1997.
1997: Ron Chisom went from janitor at Louisiana State University to
medical researcher to community activist to leader of an international
anti-racism training organization, the Peoples Institute for Survival
and Beyond. He is committed to racial justice, leadership development
and community empowerment. Today he advocates for the least of those,
the victims of Katrina.
1998: Studs Terkel, legendary author of  “Hard Times: An Oral History
of the Great Depression,”  “American Dreams: Lost and Found,” Pulitzer
Prize winner “The Good War: An Oral History of World War II” and
“Race: How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel About the American
Obsession.”  “The Studs Terkel Program” ran on Chicago’s station WFMT
from 1952 to 1997.
1999: Wendell Berry The New York Review of Books described him as a
“Kentucky farmer and writer, and perhaps the great moral essayist of
our day.”  He says, “My work has been motivated by a desire to make
myself responsible at home in this world and in my native and chosen
place.”  “A Place on Earth,” “Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community” and
“ What Are People For?” are other works by Berry.
2000: Ronald V. Dellums  In his 27 years in the U.S. House of
Representatives he conducted hearings on the Vietnam War, founded the
Congressional Black Caucus, was a consistent voice on  Africa issues,
and led campaigns against defense projects, saying   the funds would
be better spent on peaceful purposes, especially in U.S. cities. He
was just elected Mayor of Oakland, CA.
2001: Sister Joan Chittister  “Joan Chittister has been one of
America's key visionary spiritual voices for more than 30 years.” said
Bill Moyers. Her focus is on the moral responsibility to respond to
the social, economic and political injustices plaguing our society. As
co-chair of the Global Peace Initiative of Women she helps facilitate
a worldwide network of women peace builders, particularly in Israel
and Palestine. She supports ordination of women in the Catholic
Church. She currently co-chairs the Network of Spiritual Progressives.
2002: Bishop Leontyne T.C. Kelly in 1984 became the first African
American bishop in a mainline denomination ( the United Methodist
Church) and the First African Methodist Episcopal Female Bishop  in
213 years. A remarkable preacher and a strong advocate of nonviolence,
peace and justice.
2003: Kathy Kelly and Voices in the Wilderness, a campaign to end
economic and military warfare against the Iraqi people. They organized
more than 70 delegations to Iraq in deliberate violation of UN
economic sanctions and U.S. law.  In October 2002, she joined Iraq
Peace Team members in Baghdad where they maintained a presence
throughout the bombardment and invasion.  She is currently in Lebanon
helping to deliver supplies to people who have fled the violence.
2004: Amy Goodman is the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!
a national daily, independent, award-winning news program airing on
over 300 stations in North America. She co-authored (with her brother,
David Goodman) the national best-seller “The Exception to the Rulers:
Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media that Love
Them.”
2005: Reverend Roy Bourgeois Maryknoll Priest who founded SOA Watch, a
large, diverse, grassroots movement rooted in solidarity with the
people of Latin America. The goal of SOA Watch is to close the School
of the Americas, and to change U.S. foreign policy in Latin America by
educating the public, lobbying Congress and participating in creative,
nonviolent resistance.
2006: Angela Y. Davis is internationally known for her ongoing work to
combat all forms of oppression in the U.S. and abroad. Over the years
she has been active as a student, teacher, writer, scholar and
activist/organizer. Davis' long-standing commitment to prisoners'
rights dates back to her involvement in the campaign to free the
Soledad Brothers, which led to her own arrest and imprisonment. Today
she remains an advocate of prison abolition and has developed a
powerful critique of racism in the criminal justice system. She is a
member of the Advisory Board of the Prison Activist Resource Center,
and currently is working on a comparative study of women's
imprisonment in the U.S., the Netherlands, and Cuba.
2007: Cindy Sheehan is an American anti-war activist whose son, Casey,
was killed during his service in the Iraq War. She attracted
international attention in August of 2005 for her extended
demonstration at a peace camp outside President George W. Bush's ranch
in Crawford, Texas while requesting a second personal meeting with the
president, who had declared that the soldiers had died for a "noble
cause". Sheehan wanted to know exactly what that cause was, and to
demand an immediate end to what she viewed as an unjust and immoral
war. She is credited with having revived the anti-war protest, and is
one of nine founding members of Gold Star Families for Peace, a
support and activist organization that seeks to end the U.S. presence
in Iraq and provide support for families of fallen soldiers.
2008: Malik Rahim is a former Black Panther, convicted felon, and a
long-time housing and prison activist in the U.S. state of Louisiana.
He gained publicity as a community organizer in the aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina when he stayed to assist the community. Since then,
he has been speaking out about racism and the failures of government
exposed by the Katrina disaster. To counter the powerful corporate
forces trying to control the rebuilding, Malik founded Rebuild Green
to work with community-based organizations' efforts to advance social
justice and environmental sustainability. Malik states that "By
focusing on green building technology, renewable energy, mass transit
systems, and green community development that empowers local people to
take control of their local resources, the rebuilding of New Orleans
can take our city from being a symbol of disaster to being a prototype
sustainable city of the future."