[Peace] meeting notes from 2/23/03

[Myles Robert]

Aware Meeting Notes from February 23, 2003 at the IMC

9.   Upcoming Events

+Virtual March on Washington held by MOVE ON.  A concerted
call-in, fax-in, emailing of our representatives Bush, Durbin, Johnson and Fitzgerald on Wednesday, February 26th.  Please see:
http://www.moveon.org/winwithoutwar/ for further information.

+Oxfam Hunger Banquet to be held at the Urbana Middle School
Cafeterium on Saturday, March 1st at 5 PM.  Aware participants Miriam and Adrian are in the process of organizing and fasting
for this event.

+Seeing Iraq: Opening the Door to Peace: a presenation by recent
Iraqi represenative at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil  will present at Greg Hall room 212 at 7 PM today February 
25th.

+The PRC will be holding a Women Against War rally on Friday, March 7th at noon on the University of Champaign Quad in 
solidarity with the wmen's anti-war protests happening around
the world on March 8th for International Women's Day.

+Yoga: Sunday, March 9th at 4PM; Aware participant Lois, will be
holding a free Yoga class for Aware participants at her studio
on West Springfield in Urbana.  Lois presents this special 
workshop out of gratitude for her recent trip to DC made possible
by funds provided by AWARE.

+Coca-Cola Accused of Using Death Squads to Target Union Leaders:  Luis Cardona will speak at the UI Champaign campus 
(location and time unknown - please contact David Green)
Luis Cardona is involved with a program run by the AFL-CIO's
Solidarity Center in DC to help protect threatened Colombian tradeunionists by bringing them to the US for traing and internships with unions such as the Teamsters, the Steelworkers, and the Service Employees.  

+NAACP:  Will host a discussion at the 'old Douglass Library' in
Champaign this Thursday, February 27th in support of turning over
the current school board district #4.  In April, there is an opportunity to have the school board actually represent the contingent lower-income, largely African-American population they are suppose to represent.  Please support this long anticipated effort.

8.	Working Group Reports

Finances: Gabe Rosen recently became treasurer, recieving the
account from Raia Fink.  Aware's current balance stands at 1801.50
Recent expenses include $175 to support local protesters in DC,  
$300 to send Danielle to DC to represent Urbana City Council,$500 for renting space in the IMC, $420 for another order of lawn signs stating "No War in Iraq".  It was asked that we are more prudent in ordering lawn signs.

Literature:  New members include Janet Wessell, Jim Buell, Paul King, Richard Frazin

Speakers' Bureau:  It was asked that we do more outreach.  It was
also asked that the Speakers' Bureau ally themselves with the efforts
of the Literature group.

Aware Benefit: schedualed for 6 PM April 13th


7.	

Report from the group developing a pamphlet to orient new
protestors at prospect.

A draft was presented and a discussion followed with some concerns including:

As a larger group of people meet at prospect on saturday,    there is an increasing responsiblilty arising, on behalf of Aware.

How should we propose suggestions (rules) for conduct at the protest?

Should we state what we do want or what we do not want?  For example,are we asking for peaceful or non-violent gestures.

As an example a recent sign's slogan stated "Bomb Texas".  Is this a
statement Aware, as a group wants to represent or condone.
"Texas has people too" might be an alternative to the slogan
"Bomb Texas".

Do "offensive" gesstures and slogans repel some potential protesters from taking part on Saturday?

One participant at the meeting said if such a protester was repelled from participating in the Protests on Prospect and chose to instead
do nothing, then she would not support such a lack of effort.

Other participants said that they understood their efforts out on 
Prospect to be attempts to educate and persuade by means of
slogans (on signs) and in the manner they conduct themselves in.

Some participants agreed they would not tolerate censorship.
Many participants agreed we should set ground rules, such as
prohibiting profanity and physical  violence.  Many members agreed that "new-comers" will feel safer if Aware establishes some 
minimum ground rules.

One participant said it may be helpful to synchronize our efforts, yet lets not thwart creativity.  

Other concerns brought up during this discussion included the 	
relationship of the Protesters to the the busy-ness district we situate ourselves in.  It is important to let folks know that their cars will be 	towed away if left in the parking lot of Tires -Plus.  It was also stated, that an Aware participant was told by a represenative of the 	business district that some business have expressed sympathy with Tires-Plus in their remark that Aware's presence on Saturday hinders their  profit.

It was also brought up, that uninformed people might not know the 
expectations set forth by the Champaign Police Dept., such as 
 prohibiting our presence on Prospect's meridian.

As a note, Tom Tarenno's son has the majority of the signs used in 
this past week's protest and will return them to Prospect this next
Saturday.

6.     

Report from this weeks Protest on Prospect was attended by over 100 people.  It was said that there were alot of new faces at this 
event, including dancers, drummers and leafleteers from the
"Move-On" movement (please see upcoming events).  There was
both excitement and concern that a group outside of Aware, such
as"Move-On" are able to use the prospect-protests to further
their own efforts.  It was also stated that the protests on prospect
are in need of new signs.

5. Cities For Peace

Danielle Chenowyth reported back from her recent trip to D.C. where she represented the Urbana City Council, in a resolution
passed by the city council, to oppose a war in Iraq.  107 city 
councils from around the nation joined Urbana in this effort.
Also many county boards and state represenatives have joined
in this movement: including the state of Maine and soon the New
York City Council is expected to be a participant.

Events in DC included marches and presentations, including a panel of 30 council members sharing what their experiences were in their 
local municipalities as they fought to pass this resolution.  Danielle also met with our three national represenatives,  Tim Johnson, Dick Durbin and Scott Fitzgerald.  Danielle reported she was disappointed that Fitzgerald said a US invasion of Iraq would be
quick and inexpensive and Durbin, an exceptional voice in 
Washington stated that a US invasion was, he believed inevitable
despite his contrary desires.  Danielle responded to Fitzgerald by  
calling his description was merely a fantasy and asked Durbin not to give in.
	
Danielle also said  her attempt to talk with Bush and his staff was thwarted by White House Security and described how she 
nearly missed her scheaduled appearence on-stage at a rally as
security forces were harassing folks off-boarding a subway she
had rode to the event.  Danielle stated these measures of security were a thraeat to our freedom of speech.

Danielle spoke of a press conference held at New York's City Hall.
She also mentioned that she is recieving solicitations from 
international newspapers and radio to furnish reports that describe
her experiences and motives during these events.  As an example,
Danielle passed around a copy of a Swedish newspaper entitled,
“Saemann”.

4.  Reports from this week's local events.

+Presentation of emancipative efforts in Guatemala.  App. 80 people attended this event at the IDF.  Meridith Krause will offer a showing of a video recording of this event in
the near future.

+Teachers for Peace and Justice.  Presenters: Bob McChesney - 
 Media and the current political climate,  Cliff Singer - Weapons
 of Mass Destruction.  Discussion of what might be the possible 
 rational of the current Iraqui Government.  App. 80 people    attended this event at the IDF.  Two more related events are 
schedualed to be held at the IDF this spring.

+Fair Trade  This was an all day event on campus with presentations  by Mark Wizebrough - Globalization and 	Economics, Dr. Bronner 	  (the soapy clean cult hero?).  This event was curiously funded by the Newman Foundation. And was held on the Champaign campus.

+Fellowship for Recollection presented a workshop of activities and presentations with the purpose of providin a toolbox of practical methods for addressinng the violence in our lives and in the world. This event was held over two days at the Chaning-Murray 
foundation.  Next week, participants of this workshop will offer a short report to at the next Aware meeting.

+Patch Adams presented as part of the Unit One Series held in Allen Hall.  Dr. Adams presented on the possiblilty to "never have a 	bad  day again."  He compared the Bush administration to the Nazi movement and suggested many books to read, including titles by
Bob McChesney and "The People's History of the U.S." by 	  Howard Zinn.

+A panel discussing Issues of race and the current prison system
presented on the Champaign Campus Thursday evening and held a breakfast table discussion the following morning.  Presenters
included  several men recently exonerated from death-row.

+A gathering was offered by Aware participant, Carol Inskeep, at with the purpose of writing letters-to-the-editor.  Stay tuned for
future events.

+The News-Gazette was reported to have reported on the INS 
Special Registration program which requires photographing,
Fingerprinting, and much closer monitoring of all immigrants
including credit/dbit card numbers.  Also see the most recent Public-I for another perspective on this issue.

+Gabe Rosen was interviewed by WILL 580 A.M. during the most
recent Aware protest held on Prospect Ave.

3.  A selection of this weeks news reports presented by Carl Estabrook.  Please see Carl's separate email containg this.

2.  Music by Paul Koetheimer, ending with a sing-a-long of a song entitled "Bomb Iraq".

1.  An introduction of all attending participants via a-go-around of calling out participants names.



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