Peace Across the Atlantic Nr. 4 / 2005, English Version
PEACE ACROSS THE ATLANTIC
News about Grassroots Peace Activities in the USA
Issue No. 4 / 2005
Peace Across the Atlantic (PATA) Number 4 is a much shorter edition than we normally produce. You will find reports on current activities and campaigns, but no special theme. The current reports cover a wide range of topics, from global warming to disarmament to the freedom to read.
The reason for the smaller size is that we, the editors, are moving from Germany to the United States in June 2005 and are immersed in the process of sorting, packing, and storing. Because of the move we will not be producing this newsletter next month but will return with issue number 5 at the end of July.
From our new location in the USA, we will continue to produce Peace Across the Atlantic. Through the Bridges of Encouragement project, we are also planning to initiate other activities aimed at strengthening international ties with U.S. activists. These include helping local groups on both sides of the Atlantic to set up twinning arrangements, activist-in-residency exchange programs, and peace tours in both directions.
We encourage you to forward this issue to friends and colleagues. We also hope you will pass the information along orally. For example, you may be in discussions with friends and colleagues who, after seeing the latest TV or newspaper reports, wonder if any voices for peace are left in the US. This could give you a chance to share with them some of the stories described below.
<><><><><><><><><><><>
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Recent Campaigns and Actions
Courage in a Small-Town Library
Mothers Day in the U.S. – A Day Against War
156 U.S. Mayors Agree to Follow Kyoto Protocol
Anti-Nuclear Groups at U.N. Disarmament Conference
If You Want To Do More
Who We Are
<><><><><><><><><><><>
RECENT CAMPAIGNS AND ACTIONS
Courage in a Small-Town Library
Joan Airoldi is a librarian and the director of the Whatcom County Rural Library District in Washington State. In June 2004, an FBI agent visited the county's small branch library in Deming, Washington and demanded the names of all library patrons who had borrowed a particular book, Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America. The FBI had been alerted by a reader that someone had written a threatening note in the margin of the book. (Later, through a Internet search with Google, the library's lawyers were able to show that the sentence was a direct quote from a published interview that bin Laden made in 1998.)
Joan Airoldi led the library in its efforts to resist the FBI request. First, the branch library refused to provide the information to the FBI and told the agent that it would not release any information without a court order. Two weeks later, the library received a court order in the form of a Grand Jury subpoena for the names of all the people who had taken the book out since November 2001. [In the U.S., a Grand Jury decides whether to charge a person with a crime. The Grand Jury, chosen from local citizens, has the power to gather any information it deems necessary to make their decision.]
The County Library Board of Directors decided to resist the Grand Jury demand. It made plans to legally challenge the subpoena as an infringement on the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech. The Board also decided that it would fight any further subpoenas it received. A month later, it learned that the FBI had withdrawn the court order.
In April 2005, Joan Airoldi and her library received a special First Amendment Award from the PEN American Center, part of PEN International, the well-known literary and human rights organization. They plan to use the $25,000 prize money to establish a foundation that will fund forums and workshops on intellectual freedom.
In giving them the award, which is called the PEN / Newman's Own First Amendment Award, PEN American Center called the actions of Joan and her staff heroic. Hopefully, they will serve as models for other libraries and bookstores to follow if presented with similar demands. In the Whatcom Library case, the FBI went through a Grand Jury to get a subpoena. If the FBI had returned with an order based on the new anti-terror legislation called the U.S. Patriot Act, the library would have been unable to legally challenge the request, and the readers' names would have made their way into the FBI files.
The Patriot Act faces a renewal before the end of 2005. Human rights groups are actively campaigning for the U.S. Congress to delete many of the sections which undermine civil liberties, including those that allow the government to monitor what citizens are reading.
For more information:
www.pen.org/page.php/prmID/810
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002248045_brodeur21m.html
Mothers Day in the U.S. – A Day Against War
Mothers Day in the United States, the first Sunday in May, is a very big holiday. It is said to be the most popular day of the year for long distance telephone calls, and the second biggest day for gift-giving (second only to Christmas). Since 1914, it has been an official U.S. holiday for honoring one's own mother and mothers in general. But the original idea behind Mother's Day was actually an anti-war effort, a call for the mothers of soldiers everywhere to mourn the loss of their sons and to speak out against all war. This May, peace groups in some U.S. communities celebrated Mothers Day by highlighting this original message.
The original idea for a special mothers' day came from Anna Jarvis, a homemaker who lived in the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia. In the mid-1800's, she organized women into Mothers Day Work Clubs to improve sanitation conditions in their communities. When the U.S. Civil War began in 1861, theirs was a divided region where the armies of both sides were based. The Mothers Day Clubs decided that they would continue to work as a single unit, no matter which side their sons and husbands were fighting on. When typhoid fever broke out among the soldiers, they were then asked to care for the sick in both armies. After the war ended, Anna was asked by local politicians to help with reconciliation. She organized Mothers' Friendship Day in her county, and a powerful reconciliation ceremony took place among the previously warring families.
A few years later, a well-known writer named Julia Ward Howe, who was inspired by the work of Anna Jarvis, issued a public call for a Mothers Day for Peace. Earlier, during the Civil War, she had visited soldiers' camps and seen the death and maiming firsthand. She had also worked with the widows on both sides and this led her to realize that the effects of war went far beyond the killing of soldiers. In 1870, she learned that a new war had started - the Franco-Prussian War - and she saw the tragedy repeating itself. She issued a proclamation where she called for women to rise up and oppose war in all forms, and she called for the formal recognition of a Mothers Day for Peace. Unfortunately, her effort was not successful. Many years later, the daughter of Anna Jarvis (also named Anna Jarvis) was able to campaign successfully for an official Mothers Day holiday, but in the process, the day was changed from a protest against war to a celebration of motherhood.
Now, many peace and women's groups are trying to bring back the original meaning to the day. On May 11, the Norfolk, Virginia Peace Coalition held their Third Annual Mothers Day Rally for Peace and Justice. In Denton, Texas, there was a Mothers Day Picnic for Peace. In Charlotte, North Carolina, people held a Mothers Day vigil, to “reclaim and honor the original purpose of the day.” In Northern California, the Peninsula Raging Grannies (See Raging Grannies in PATA Issue No. 1) staged a costumed re-enactment of Julia Ward Howe reciting her Mothers' Day Proclamation. The Mothers Day Proclamation was distributed widely in peace publications and over the Internet. 135 years after it was written, the words of the Proclamation remain relevant and important.
For more information: www.peace.ca/mothersdayproclamation.htm
If you would like the Julia Ward Howe's “Mothers Day Proclamation” in German, please contact us.
156 U.S. Mayors Agree to Follow Kyoto Protocol
156 mayors of United States cities have formed an unusual new environmental coalition. They have all agreed to fight global warming at the local level by trying to meet the Kyoto Protocol in their own cities. Their action stands in contradiction with the U.S. government decision to pull out of the Kyoto Agreement, claiming that such an agreement would be bad for the American economy. These mayors, both Democrats and Republicans, think that climate change is a far greater threat to the economy of their cities and that something must be done about it now.
Their agreement, called the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, states that the mayors will strive to meet or exceed the Kyoto Protocol targets by taking actions in their own operations and communities. Each of them has made a commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in their respective cities by 2012, to levels 7 % below those of 1990. The Agreement also urges the federal and state governments to do the same. The Agreement includes 12 possible actions that the city governments can take, such as promoting alternative transportation options, purchasing only energy-efficient equipment and appliances for a city's use, and enforcing land use policies that reduce urban sprawl.
The Agreement was initiated by the mayor of Seattle, Greg Nickels, in February 2005, when the Kyoto Protocol went into effect. Along with nine other mayors, he sent a letter to over 400 other mayors, asking them to join the Agreement. So far 156 mayors have signed on; they come from 37 states and represent 32 million citizens. (as of June 1, 2005)
Many of the mayors who signed are feeling the direct effects of global warming in their communities. Greg Nickels was concerned about Seattle's recent series of dry winters and the decline of glaciers in a nearby mountain range, which could affect the city's supply of drinking water and hydroelectric power. For the mayors from New Orleans. Louisiana, and Alexandria, Virginia, the concern focuses on the increased threat of flooding. The mayor from Bellevue Nebraska said he signed on because of concerns about droughts on his farming community.
To meet the Kyoto Protocol standards, the mayors have committed their cities to conduct inventories of global warming emissions in city operations, set reduction goals and create an action plan. The actions they choose differ from place to place. For example, Seattle is now requiring the many cruise ships to turn off their diesel engines while docking at their ports and to only use electric power provided by the city. Salt Lake City has become the largest buyer of wind power in the state of Utah.
This action by US mayors is a hopeful sign that at the local government level, people are beginning to recognize the inter-relationship between environmental health and a society's well being.
For more information: www.ci.seattle.wa.us/mayor/climate/
The full text of the Agreement will be found at: www.ci.seattle.wa.us/mayor/climate/cpaText.htm
A list of all the mayors who have signed the Agreement will be found at: www.ci.seattle.wa.us/mayor/climate/quotes.htm#mayors
An article in the New York Times about the Agreement: www.nytimes.com/2005/05/14/national/14kyoto.html
(There is a small fee for articles over 1 week old.)
Anti-Nuclear Groups at UN Disarmament Conference
The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) is a landmark international treaty with the objective of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology. It came into force in 1970, and had 188 signatory countries, including the five major nuclear weapons states. It has been a cornerstone in global efforts at nuclear disarmament. Part of the Treaty requires a review conference to take place every five years. The “2005 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on NPT” took place at the United Nations in New York throughout the month of May.
The Review Conference is not only a gathering of all the governments that signed the Treaty, but also a focal point for anti-nuclear activists from around the world. Hundreds came to the U.N. Headquarters in New York City during the month of May to monitor the Conference, to lobby and speak with international representatives, and to promote disarmament to the public through protests, vigils, educational workshops and art shows. United for Peace and Justice, one of the large peace coalitions in the U.S., organized a demonstration of more than 40,000 people in New York City on the opening day, May 1.
For American peace organizations, the Review Conference was an important opportunity to bring anti-nuclear issues back into the public spotlight. In recent years, peace groups have concentrated primarily on ending the war in Iraq, so concerns about nuclear disarmament have taken a “back seat.” However, nuclear disarmament campaigners are feeling a new urgency to educate and mobilize public opinion against US nuclear weapons policy.
While the Bush Administration is threatening actions against Iran and Korea for their possible nuclear programs, the United States is planning to spend nearly $7 billion in 2005 to maintain and modernize its own nuclear warheads, keeping them usable for decades to come. Many billions of dollars more will be spent to operate and modernize their means of delivery. Altogether, the United States spends about $40 billion a year on its nuclear forces. Ten thousand nuclear warheads — two thousand on hair-trigger alert — remain in the U.S. arsenal. Some members of the Bush government are also promoting the idea that it would be acceptable to use nuclear weapons in conventional war situations.
Many well-known international disarmament coalitions and campaigns took an active role in organizing events and workshops alongside the NPT Review Conference. Below, we have listed the web sites for many of organizations that took a leadership role in these events. This included many U.S. groups and international coalitions, which have local U.S groups in their membership.
Abolition 2000
Campaign for treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons within time-bound framework.
www.abolition2000.org
Atomic Mirror
Uses the creative arts to reveal the secrets of the nuclear age, and to advocate for the abolition of nuclear weapons and power.
www.atomicmirror.org
Economists for Peace and Security
www.epsusa.org
Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space
www.space4peace.org
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War
www.ippnw.org
U.S. Branch of IPPNW (Physicians for Social Responsibility)
www.psr.org
Lawyers Committee for Nuclear Policy
www.lcnp.org
Mayors for Peace
Campaign has been initiated by the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
There are currently 60 U.S. cities that are members of the campaign.
www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp/mayors/english
Military Toxics Project
U.S. organization representing people affected by military contamination and pollution.
www.miltoxproj.org
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
www.wagingpeace.org
Shundahai Network
Founded at the Nevada Nuclear Test Site. This is a coalition of environmental, peace, justice, and indigenous land rights communities. They oppose nuclear weapons research, development, testing and production.
www.shundahai.org
Western States Legal Foundation
Organization monitoring and analyzing U.S. nuclear weapons programs and policies.
www.wslfweb.org
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
www.wilpf.org/international/default.htm
U.S. Branch: www.wilpf.org/us-wilpf/default.htm
<><><><><><><><><><><>
IF YOU WANT TO DO MORE
If one of the descriptions above triggers your interest or inspires you, you may want to follow up on what you read. What can you do? Here are a few suggestions:
Learn more: You can start by looking at the group's web site and following links to other web sites and organizations.
Share the information: Do you know organizations in your community that have a similar focus to one of the groups you read about? Please pass the information on to them. You are encouraged to republish this information and to translate it into other languages. Please mention Peace Across the Atlantic as the source. Please let us know where it has been republished (or send us a copy).
Write a “fan letter”: If you read about a particular U.S. group in these pages, and you find their work inspiring, send them an email and tell them so! Write your message in English if you can. Even a very short and simple letter will carry a powerful message of encouragement. If a group's postal or email address is not included in our description, you will find it on their web site.
Your feedback and suggestions are both welcome and important. Are there particular types of peace or human rights groups that you would like to learn more about? You can email us your suggestions.
You can make a donation to help us continue to keep you and others informed about peace and human rights efforts in the United States. Transfer a donation to one of the banks accounts below: (Mark “for BRIDGES ”)
Friedenskotten Lippinghausen e. V.
Account No. 135 616 400, Volksbank Herford, BLZ Nr. 494 900 70
or
Versöhnungsbund e.V.
Account No. 400 906 72, Sparkasse Minden-Lübbecke, BLZ 490 501 01
<><><><><><><><><><><>
WHO WE ARE
Peace Across the Atlantic is one part of a networking project called Bridges of Encouragement, which seeks to build stronger ties between peace and human rights activists in the United States and activists in Europe and other parts of the world. Currently Bridges of Encouragement focuses on efforts that will offer encouragement and support to American activists as they struggle to change U.S. military practices and government abuses of human rights and civil liberties. Such cooperative and collaborative activities will strengthen peace and human rights groups in every country.
Peace Across the Atlantic is researched and edited by the Coordinators of Bridges of Encouragement, Dorie Wilsnack and Eric Bachman. Dorie and Eric are U.S. Americans with extensive experience in the German, U.S. and international peace movements. The information in this newsletter is derived from public reports of the organizations described. This email newsletter is published once a month, in German and English. Back issues are available by request.
Many thanks to Winfrid Eisenberg , Elisabeth Hebert, Heike Huschauer, Davorka Lovrekovic-Sufiar; and who volunteered their time to translate this issue into German.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
SUBSCRIPTION REQUEST ( please mark with “Yes”)
____ Please continue to send Peace Across the Atlantic to me each month.
____ in English ____ in German
Name _______________________________ Email ________________________________
and send this form to:
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Peace Across the Atlantic
a project of
Bridges of Encouragement
Dorie Wilsnack and Eric Bachman
Milchstr. 83, D-32120 Hiddenhausen, Germany
Tel: ++ 49-5221-689708 Fax: ++ 49-5221-689741
Email: transnationalbridges (at) gmx.org
