[KCITF] KC Iraq Task Force Update-Next meeting Monday, May 24, 6:30pm
Ira Harritt
Next KC Iraq Task Force Meeting, May 24, Monday, 6:30pm
Help us plan work to assure the withdrawal of all U.S. troops and military contractors from Iraq
and increase the call for an end to the war in Afghanistan.
You can help support KC area Iraqi refugees, shift U.S. budget priorities way from war and toward human needs at home and abroad.
Join us! AFSC office, 4405 Gillham Rd., KCMO. Call 816 931-5256 for more information.
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“If we are to teach real peace in this world,
and if we are to carry on a real war
against war,
we shall have to begin with the children.”
~ Mohandas Gandhi
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Dear Peacemakers,
Stark realities of excessive war spending in our struggling economy should wake up the American public to the unsustainability of continuing these misguided and immoral spending priorities.
$776.20 billion is budgeted to go toward military expenditures in the FY 2011 discretionary budget (no including fixe budget items like interest on the debt) while only 49 billion goes to education, 41 to housing and urban development and 83 billion to health and human services. Is it a surprise that the military industrial complex is happy and profiting and education institutions and cities are suffering?
Our economic problems though may help wake up the public and lead to redirecting our priorities. See “Putting the Pentagon on a Diet -Will Bad Times and a Bad Economy Finally Discipline the Pentagon?” article below.
We are doing our part to help people see the connection between war spending, economic problems and the crisis in public education. We are excited about the “In Defense of Public Education: Fund Schools, Not War!” Forum which will examine our nation’s spending priorities, commitment to education and intersections between education and our militarized society.
The Forum will take place this Saturday, May 22, 10:00 – 11:30am, Royal Hall, room 104, UMKC. Topics will address: Misguided National Priorities ; Crisis in Education; Violence in Schools and our World; Solutions; and Actions we can take. And we will also have the storytelling skills of Br. John Anderson who will help frame the event with a telling of the story of “the Good and the Evil Wolves.”
We hope you will join us! See flyer below. Or down load a flyer by clicking this link.
We are also continuing planning for a new creative and larger Stories of Peace Justice and Hope Festival. I recently met with members of the Crossroads Community Association Community Enrichment subcommittee and am pleased with ideas and opportunities developing in working with them.
We are planning to include a participatory art experiences that could involve hundreds of individuals, perhaps pre-Festival events and post-Festival workshops… Join us at our next meeting on Tuesday, May 25 and help create a powerful force to raise peace consciousness and action in Kansas City!
Thanks for your work for a just and peaceful world!
Peace and Blessings,
Ira Harritt
KC American Friends Service Committee
816 931-5256
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You are invited to help plan the
2010 Stories of Peace, Justice and Hope Festival
We are exploring the potential for holding the Festival
during a First Friday Art Walk
in the Crossroads Arts District in the Fall of 2010
We envision a Festival full of storytelling, poetry, music and theater performances on a main stage and in galleries and other venues in the Crossroads District.
We invite your assistance in identifying potential partners in the Crossroads and artists and performers who could address our Stories of Peace, Justice and Hope theme
Contact us at ihar...@afsc.org or 816 931-5256 to help.
Join us at our next planning meeting on
Tuesday, May 25, 6:40pm
at the AFSC office, 4405 Gillham Rd., Kansas City, MO
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"We have to be part of something larger than ourselves,
because our dreams are often bigger than our lifetimes.”
~Sr. Rosalie Bertell
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Upcoming Peace and Justice Activities
Click on link or scroll down for more information about the peace and justice activity
May 22, Saturday, 10:00 to 11:30AM. In Defense of Public Education: Fund Schools, Not War! at UMKC, Royal Hall, Room 104, 800 E. 52nd Street, KCMO
May 24, Monday, 6:30pm, KC Iraq Task Force Meeting, Help us plan work to assure the withdrawal of all U.S. troops and military contractors from Iraq and increase the call for an end to the war in Afghanistan. You can help support KC area Iraqi refugees, shift U.S. budget priorities way from war and toward human needs at home and abroad. Join us! AFSC office, 4405 Gillham Rd., KCMO. Call 816 931-5256 for more information.
May 25, Tuesday, 6:40pm, Planning Meeting for Festival for Justice and Peace, date and location to be determined. The proposed theme this year is “Stories of Justice and Peace.” At the AFSC office, 4405 Gillham Rd., KCMO. Call 816 931-5256 for more information.
May 26, 6:30 pm: Join KC’s anti-nuke crew—PeaceWorks/Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR)/East Meets West of Troost—in planning opposition to the KC Plant (Honeywell); it makes parts for nukes at Bannister Federal Complex, and the new KC Plant will get a $45 million tax cut from KC, plus up to $10 million for roads, etc. The May 26 meeting is at 3251 Forest. Similar meetings are at 6:30 pm on June 1 at All Souls UU Church, 4501 Walnut, and on June 9 at 3251 Forest. For info, see www.kcnukeswatch.wordpress.com or call 913-206-4088.
June 16-19: Juneteenth Celebration: Abolition of Slavery! Abolition of Nukes!–sponsored by PeaceWorks/PSR-KC/East Meets West of Troost. On June 16, 5-9 p.m., take nonviolence training at St. Mark Union Church, 11th & Euclid. On June 17, noon, hear “If You Love This Planet—Medical Consequences of Nuclear Weapons Production/Nuclear Energy Production,” a talk by Helen Caldicott, M.D., Australian pediatrician who revitalized the U.S. PSR in the 1980s; at KU Medical Center (room TBA), including lunch. On June 17, 3-6 pm, join “Grassroots Nuclear Abolition”—workshops & potluck at St. Mark Union Church. On June 17, 7-10 pm, attend “Grassroots Nuclear Abolition: Solutions for Health, the Environment & Economic Justice”—speakers and concert at All Souls UU Church, 4501 Walnut. Speakers include Caldicott, author of If You Love This Planet, Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer, six other books; Bill Wickersham, coauthor of Confronting Nuclear War: The Role of Education, Religion and the Community; Steven Starr, PSR scientist at MU, expert on nuclear weapons’ effects; Jay Coghlan, head of NukeWatch New Mexico; Sasteh Mosley, head of East Meets West of Troost, which employs at-risk youth. On June 18, witness for peace through civil resistance to the KC Plant. On June 19, come to 18th & Highland for Juneteenth activities re urban farming, recycling, green jobs.
August 6-7, Hiroshima, Nagasaki—Never Again! Aug. 6, PeaceWorks’ annual observance in Loose Park, 6:30 pm potluck, 7:30 pm ceremony. Aug. 7, caravan to current KC Plant and new site for KC Plant, Botts Road & Mo. Hwy. 150; leave at 3 p.m. from All Souls UU Church, 4501 Walnut.
August 14-16, No Nukes, KC!—Spirituality & Science. Come to Linwood United Church, 3151 Olive, for 3 days of spirituality, science and resistance to nuclear weapons-making (probably beginning at noon Aug. 14, with specifics for the 3 days TBA) and hear presentations and a concert Aug. 14, 7-10 p.m., at All Souls UU Church, 4501 Walnut.
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EVERY Sunday: Iraq Peace Vigil, 4pm, JC Nichols Fountain, 47th & Main, Streets, Kansas City, MO http://www.kciraqtaskforce.org/
EVERY Tuesday, JOIN THIS Peace Demonstration Every Tuesday between 5PM - 6 PM in the median strip on the south corner of the intersection at 63rd & Ward Parkway, Kansas City, Mo. For more information email '63rd Street Patriots' at schwar...@sbcglobal.net
News and Alerts
The Cost: $1 Trillion
The Purchase:
Almost nine years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
On May 30, war spending in Afghanistan and Iraq will reach $1 trillion. $1 trillion could create 20 million jobs at $50,000 year, which would put all 15.3 million people counted as unemployed back to work, and there would still be money left over.
Last week Congress began the approval process to pay for 30,000 more U.S. troops in Afghanistan. These troops will cost an additional $33 billion. The ‘emergency’ spending bill that will pay for the escalation combines war costs with funds for earthquake relief in Haiti, FEMA disaster relief, and cleanup efforts in the Gulf.
Say no to more funds for war. Congress should separate war funds from funds for humanitarian emergencies. There should be a separate stand-alone vote on war funding that receives careful consideration. The stakes are too high and the American people deserve to know where their member of Congress stands on the wars.
The Senate will be considering more war funding next week.
Tell your Senators to say no to more war spending and make sure the humanitarian emergency funds are approved in a separate bill.
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Published on Thursday, May 20, 2010 by CommonDreams.org
The Learning Curve of Peace
“Why are we violent, but not illiterate?”
This question, originally posed by writer Colman McCarthy, was asked at the Midwest Regional Department of Peace conference, which was held last weekend outside Detroit. It cuts to the core of our troubles. The answer is agonizingly obvious: “We’re taught to read!” Could it be we also need to be taught, let us say, calmness, breath and impulse control, practical applications of the Golden Rule? But until we know enough to ask these questions, violence, like ignorance, is just a fact of life.
Oh, humanity. In Russian, the word “mir” means “earth”; it also means “peace.” We know the answers. They’re hidden in our language. We long for peace with every fiber of our being, yet we spend countless trillions annually pursuing its opposite, as though determined in our perversity to be the worst we can be, to squander our enormous intelligence chasing fear and rage to their logical conclusion and annihilating ourselves.
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to H.R. 808, the bill to create a cabinet-level U.S. Department of Peace.
More> http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/05/20
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Published on Wednesday, May 19, 2010 by The Nation
Brazil, Turkey Engineer Breakthrough on Iran
by Robert Dreyfuss
The best comment so far about the brilliant diplomatic coup engineered by Brazil, Turkey, and Iran yesterday comes from the Turkish ambassador to the United Nations, who said, in reacting to the smarmy, negative reaction from Washington:
"I would have expected a more encouraging statement. We don't believe in sanctions, and I don't believe anyone can challenge us, certainly not the United States. They don't work."
Despite the huffing and puffing from the Obama administration, there are other powers reaction positively to the dramatic development. President Sarkozy of France called it a "positive step," [1]adding:
"France will examine this with the Group of Six [international powers] and is ready to discuss without preconceptions all its implications for the whole of the Iran dossier."
China, too, which had reluctantly joined the idiotic U.S. sanctions bandwagon, now seems to be backing off, and China's foreign minister said [1]:
"China has noted the relevant reports and expresses its welcome and appreciation for the diplomatic efforts all parties have made to positively seek an appropriate solution to the Iranian nuclear issue."
Before traveling to Iran, Brazil's President Lula da Silva said that he believed that he had a 99 percent chance of a successful breakthrough in the talks with Iran, even as U.S. officials expressed extreme skepticism that anything could be accomplished.
More> http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/05/19-8
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Published on Thursday, May 20, 2010 by TomDispatch.com
Putting the Pentagon on a Diet
Will Bad Times and a Bad Economy Finally Discipline the Pentagon?
Is that the wake-up smell of coffee wafting through the halls of the Pentagon? After a decade and a half of unparalleled budget growth, top Defense Department officials are finally talking about the possible end of their spending spree. And they're not alone.
In recent years, Republicans and Democrats in Congress and successive administrations have not only repeatedly resisted efforts to control Pentagon spending, but regularly pushed for more dollars to go into the defense and national security budgets. And many of them still are.
Nonetheless, with the current economic situation bringing suffering, foreclosure, and unemployment to millions, and concerns about spiraling deficits as well as a staggering national debt, the first faint signs of a possible mood change in Washington on the issue of the Pentagon budget are appearing. Military spending may, in fact, finally be edging its way into an increasingly fierce budget debate. This could prove a rare window of opportunity, unmatched since the moment the discussion of a "peace dividend" faded into the woodwork bare years after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.
Overmatching the World
Last February, President Obama announced the formation of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform to advise his new administration on options for addressing the national debt. The commission has just begun its deliberations and already some of its members are stating publicly that, as they consider their options for cutting government spending, "everything is on the table," including the military budget. In the Washington we've known since talk of that "peace dividend" disappeared, this simple fact qualifies as eye-opening.
In response to the formation of the commission, Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA), long an outspoken opponent of unnecessary military spending, has convened a panel of national security experts, the Sustainable Defense Task Force. Its job is to generate a series of recommendations on how to cut the defense budget while preserving national security. Frank plans to submit these recommendations to the Commission in June.
More> http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/05/20-6
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“If I Had a Trillion Dollars” Youth Video Contest
The economic cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is about to reach $1 trillion. Youth are affected by the ongoing cost of the wars and our federal budget priorities (budget cuts, future debt incurred) but are often not part of the conversation or the anti-war, pro-peace movement. National Priorities Project and American Friends Service Committee are teaming up to make sure youth have a voice!
If you work with youth or in schools, this is a chance to get them involved in making a video with the theme “If I Had a Trillion Dollars!”. You can download the IHTD Outreach/FAQ packet and Curriculum by going to: http://drop.io/ihtdmaterials
The Rules:
· Entries must be produced by youth between the ages of 13 and 23.
· Due by July 31, 2010.
· Must be between 1 and 3 minutes in length and address the $1 trillion price tag for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
First Prize - $500 and trip to Washington, DC to show video to home legislator
Second and Third prizes - Flip video cameras
For more information contact mze...@afsc.org, 312.427.2533
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KC Program Coordinator
American Friends Service Committee
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