[Peace] You know what

[Brussel, Morton K]

Thanks David for digging up and reproducing this bit of history of early (2003) AWARE meetings. It reinforces my memory of who attended/participated, and who did not.

The dangers now we all face are even more dire for humanity and the nation, but not as compelling, unfortunately for local organizing, as what the U.S. was waging then in the Middle East, especially in Iraq. Recent interviews with Chomsky, Richard Wolff, Paul Jay, and others, describe the present predicament compellingly. “Desperate" is a word now in apt  currency.

"What is to be done”?

Mort


On Jul 26, 2020, at 4:12 PM, David Green via Peace <peace at lists.chambana.net<mailto:peace at lists.chambana.net>> wrote:

Well, you know what's on mind by now. Apparently by July 2003, Linda Evans still hadn't got the memo from Danielle and Elizabeth about sexism and patriarchy at AWARE meetings. I guess she was too busy with her toddler, they can be really distracting as we all know: Racism: Linda Evans talked about the anti-racism meeting at her house on Friday, 27 June. From that meeting, the ARE (Anti-Racism Effort) Group was thought of as a working group to fulfill the mission of AWARE. This group will be involved in outreach and network with other groups such as the NAACP, Urban League, etc., and report to AWARE. Mike Simon presented to the group a passionate argument that international and domestic war are inseparable, that AWARE has not lived up to its name, and that a working group to address racism is not enough. Some members took umbrage to Mike's statements. Jeff Sowers was concerned that dealing with anti-war and anti-race simultaneously would shift the focus of AWARE. Others also agreed with Jeff. A proposal was made to change the name of AWARE to an anti-war effort (ARE). Another proposal was made to keep the acronym and include racism in the mission statement. Mission Statement: The current mission statement does not include racism. Morton Brussel had written a revised mission statement with racism included (Refer to Peace-Discuss Archive to read Morton's mission statement). Even though the mission statement was the topic of discussion, people still wanted to talk about the racism issue. One person suggested that a mission statement cannot be composed save an agreement is made on AWARE's aim. Process: An agreement was made that consensus is not always needed. The group also agreed that policy is not more important procedure. Ninety percent approval is sufficient in a group decision. There was talk on when a vote becomes final. Answer: Read meeting minutes and any objections should be raised at the next meeting. Announcements: Jeff Sowers distributed twelve video tapes on DU and Gulf War Syndrome.
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