[Peace] AWARE notes from 5/26

[Carol Inskeep]

AWARE notes from May 26, 2002

Announcements

- Immediately following the AWARE meeting a group of folks who are
planning for the 4th of July parade float were to meet.

- AWARE members spoke at both the Decatur Presbyterian Church and the
local Unitarian church services on Sunday morning.

- Sandra Ahten had a letter in the News Gazette regarding aid to Israel.
Other AWARE members are encouraged to write to the local papers as well.

- Carl Estabrook reports excellent progress on his petition drive to be on
the ballot in the congressional race against Tim Johnson.  Can you pitch
in and help get a few more signatures?  Contact Carl:  galliher at uiuc.edu
or visit the website for more info:  www.carlforcongress.com

AWARE Care

Beginning this Thursday, there will be a weekly meeting for those
interested in planning the Sunday night AWARE meetings.  These meetings
will provide an opportunity to plan the agenda, to brainstorm about issues
and process for AWARE meetings, to plan art/performance for the meetings,
and to raise other relevant concerns.  All are welcome.  First meeting is
this Thursday, May 30th at 7pm at the Indy Media Center.

Street Theater

After some controversy, those doing street theater at the Farmers Market
in Urbana on Saturdays finally have a space at the Market.  So far, good
response from the audience, and this seems to be an excellent community
forum to do street theater.  For a variety of reasons, demonstrations on
Prospect on Saturdays will stop (at least for a while) and so folks
brainstormed about how we might use our presence at Farmers Market to
inform and entertain.  Ideas:  a skit-writing group that would incorporate
Carls News of the Week into skits that could be performed; an interactive
open stage where audience members could join in; handouts with information
such as news of the week that you probably didnt hear about.  Would you
like to be involved?  Contact Clint Popetz:  cpopetz at cpopetz.com or Brian
Hagy:  bhagy at onthejob.net.

There was also discussion about informational tables at the Market and how
like-minded non-profits might share tables/staffing.  We also decided to
take another look at our informational handouts and update them.

WEBSITE

Paul Patton is updating our website.  If you have ideas of links that
should be included, please email him at ppatton at uiuc.edu

MUTUAL AID PACT

Al Kagan reported that the committee agreed at a meeting this week that
the Mutual Aid Pact infrastructure and database are complete, but that
recruiting more members to sign on should probably wait for a more
politically opportune time.   The committee also raised concerns for the
larger AWARE membership to discuss regarding the issues of outreach and
networking:  is there more we could/should be doing to shore up ties to
other groups (as was AWAREs original vision)?  Should we do more outreach
to individuals in order to build their involvement with AWARE?  Should we
get involved with other groups regionally?  This will be an agenda item at
an upcoming AWARE meeting.

Susan Parenti (sparenti at uiuc.edu) also mentioned that Jim Hightowers
Rolling Thunder (a political event/party to draw folks together  both
progressives and those who want to learn more and have fun) will be in
Chicago the weekend of June 14th.  If interested in going, contact Susan.

ISRAELI REFUSENIK

Discussion of the Refuseniks visit  good turnout at both events.  Many
people were moved by his comments and there was lively discussion about
several issues he raised (or didnt raise!) including the role of US aid to
Israel, the militarization of the Israeli society, the importance of
recognizing the humanity of people on both sides, the centrality of the
settlements as an extremely costly and volatile issue, the possibility of
being both Pro-Israeli and Pro-Palestinian.  And many other issues....  

Is there anything we could/should be doing to address those in the
military or those considering joining the military here in the US?
Outreach to schools or ROTC?

Excellent work by David Green, Karen Kohn and others who contributed to
getting him here to speak.

CARLS NEWS OF THE WEEK

see previous emails

NEXT MEETING:  Sunday at 5pm