[Afsckc-peacealert] KC AFSC Peace and Justice Alerts – November 17, 2011

Thu Nov 17 21:41:55 EST 2011

KC AFSC Peace and Justice Alerts – November 17, 2011

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Educate Yourself. Share your knowledge. Take Action!
For information about the American Friends Service Committee,
contact us at 816 931-5256 or afsckc at afsc.org<mailto:afsckc at afsc.org>

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“Let us remember that, as much has been given us,
much will be expected from us,
and that true homage comes from the heart
as well as from the lips,
and shows itself in deeds.”
~Theodore Roosevelt

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Over 60 people attended the Windows and Mirrors opening at the Central Library, KCMO

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Dear Peacemakers,

Thanks to all who helped with and attended the opening reception and program for the Windows and Mirrors: Reflections on the War in Afghanistan exhibit. The murals are powerful. Mike Ferner (Vets for Peace) gave a thoughtful and encouraging talk and the refreshments delicious. A news story ran on Channel 41 (Click this link to view the TV news story<http://www.nbcactionnews.com/dpp/news/local_news/art-exhibit-brings-afghan-war-images-to-kansas-city>.) and a photo appeared in the Kansas City Star. (Click this link to read an AFSC story and see photos of the exhibit and event.<http://www.afsc.org/story/afghan-images-stir-kansas-citians>)

We have another Windows and Mirrors: Reflections on the War in Afghanistan exhibit opening this Saturday, November 19, 1:30pm with a reception, youth panel and program at Johnson County Central Resource Library at the Johnson County Central Resource Library, 9875 W. 87th St., Overland Park, KS.

The exhibit at the Johnson County Central Resource Library will feature eleven murals created by youth from the traveling exhibit and five murals created by students from the Kansas City area. The Johnson County Library exhibit also includes images collected from Afghan high school students by Dr. Zahir Wahab, a professor at Lewis and Clark College who asked young Afghans to make drawings from their daily reality.

Touching and thoughtful works by youth from: the Learning Club Leadership Academy, KCK; Whatsoever Community Center Kids, KCMO; LEARN Homeschoolers Action Art Class, KCMO; and the Kansas City Academy, 2D Art Class, KCMO will be on display. In their works youth strove to communicate: “similarities between their lives in the Northeast KC and the lives of children in Afghanistan;” “the differences as well as the harmony between the United States and Afghanistan;” that the “destruction on 9/11 was a tragedy for the people of the United States as well as the people of Afghanistan;” and “hope for the people of Afghanistan.” Youth from the four youth programs which created murals for the exhibit will participate on a panel at the Johnson County Central Resource Library program on November 19, 2:00pm.

The opening program will also include a talk, Afghanistan: What’s Next?, by Peter Lems, American Friends Service Committee's National Program Director for Education and Advocacy on Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2008 he went to Afghanistan to contribute to a conflict assessment, and help design the organizations program work for the coming year.

Hope you can join us on Saturday.

We at AFSC thank you for your support and your work for a peaceful and just community and world. We pray that you have much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving holiday and that you share your blessings with the world.

Peace,
Ira Harritt
KC AFSC Program Coordinator
iharritt at afsc.org<mailto:iharritt at afsc.org>   816 931-5256

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Get involved in KC AFSC Peacemaking Work
Meetings will take place at the AFSC office, 4405 Gillham Rd., KCMO
unless otherwise noted

We have restructured this work and are forming three committees to better plan and carry out peace campaigns. We are dividing our work among:

·         Cutting Military Spending / U.S. Budget Priorities Committee– will organize education and advocacy campaigns on military spending and budget issues including passage of “Move the Money” budget resolution campaign- Directed toward organizations and city councils. Campaign will also collaborate with organizations who will be conducting candidate forums to include this issue in forum debates – Note change of meeting date to the fourth Monday of each month, Next meeting ->Monday, November 28, 6:00pm;

·         Anti-War Committee – will organize campaigns to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (Libya…) including: organizing actions to mark the 10th Anniversary of 9-11 and the Afghan war and planning events for the Windows & Mirrors Afghan Mural exhibit in November and December – (http://afsc.org/project/windows-and-mirrors) – Next meeting Tuesday, December 13, 6:30pm ;

·         Peace-building Committee – will organize activities to promote a positive vision of peace including holding an annual Visions of Peace at the Crossroads Festival. We have decided to postpone the festival so that it will take place in the spring of 2012.

Meetings will take place at the AFSC office, 4405 Gillham Rd., KCMO

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Windows & Mirrors Exhibit Programs
Reflections on the War in Afghanistan
A powerful art exhibit on the human cost of the war including 45 murals from the traveling exhibit plus murals created by students in the KC area.
November 12 – December 30, 2011
at the Central KCMO and Johnson County Libraries

Johnson County Central Resource Library. (Exhibit opens November 19)
9875 W. 87th St., Overland Park, KS

November 19, Saturday, 1:30pm

Reception

2:00pm

KC Area Youth Reflections on Afghan War
Panel Discussion of KC area youth and artists who created murals for the Windows and Mirrors exhibit  -And
Afghanistan: What’s Next?-a talk by Peter Lems, American Friends Service Committee's National Program Director for Education and Advocacy on Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2008 he went to Afghanistan to contribute to a conflict assessment, and help design the organizations program work for the coming year.

December 4, Sunday, 2:00pm

‘Forbidden Lessons’ from Afghanistan -a talk by Suraya Sadeed, of Help the Afghan Children and author of “Forbidden Lessons in a Kabul Guesthouse: The true story of a women who risked everything to bring hope to Afghanistan,” will speak on her experiences founding the humanitarian organization. She will discuss witnessing the humanitarian crisis on her trips to her home country since 1993 and changes she observed. She will also read from her book and comment on hope for Afghanistan’s future.

KCMO Central Library, (Exhibit opens November 12)
14 West 10th Street, Kansas City, MO

December 11, 2:00pm

Courage for Peace: Perspectives from Afghanistan” -  a talk by Kathy Kelly, co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, a campaign to end U.S. military and economic warfare. Since May 2010, she has visited Afghanistan four times with small delegations intent on learning more about conditions faced by ordinary people in Afghanistan. Kathy has been working closely with the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers in search of non-military solutions to end the war.

For information: Contact the  American Friends Service Committee,
816 931-5256, afsckc at afsc.org<mailto:afsckc at afsc.org>,
http://windowsandmirrors.org/ or www.afsc.org/kansascity<http://www.afsc.org/kansascity>

(Click this link to an online Windows and Mirrors schedule.)<http://afsc.org/document/windows-and-mirrors-kc-schedule>
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Upcoming Peace and Justice Activities
Click on link or scroll down for more information about the peace and justice activity

November 19, Saturday, 1:30pm, Reception; KC Area Youth Reflections on Afghan War and Afghanistan: What’s Next?-a talk by Peter Lems, AFSC National Program Director for Education and Advocacy on Iraq and Afghanistan, Johnson County Central Resource Library. (Exhibit opens November 19), 9875 W. 87th St., Overland Park, KS

November 20, Sunday, 5:00pm – 7:30pm, 27th Annual Interfaith Thanksgiving Ritual Dinner, Interfaith event; buffet dinner, entertainment, and Interfaith Award presented.Hindu Temple & Cultural Center, 6330 Lackman Road, Shawnee Mission, KS Temple tours from 3:30-4:30. Reservations (required) at www.culturalcrossroads-kc.org. Tickets are $25/adult and $15/child (12 years & younger) until November 15, then $5 additional per ticket.. Information at 816-509-7984 or HeartlandADL at hotmail.com.

November 21, Monday, 7:00pm – 8:30pm, Meeting: Citizens for Justice in the Middle East -- focusing on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Village Presbyterian Church, Room 230, 67th & Mission Road, Mission, KS. More info contact: 816-729-9102 or info at cjme.org http://www.cjme.org

November 28, Monday, 6:00pm, Military Spending / Budget Priorities Committee Meeting will organize education and advocacy campaigns on military spending and budget issues including passage of “Move the Money” budget resolution campaign- Directed toward organizations and city councils. Campaign will collaborate with organizations conducting candidate forums to include this issue in forum debates.

December 13, Tuesday, 6:30pm, AFSC Anti-War Organizing . Join us to organize campaigns to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, plan for the Windows & Mirrors Afghan Mural exhibit… At 4405 Gillham Rd., KCMO. For more information call 816 931-5256 or afsckc at afsc.org<mailto:afsckc at afsc.org>.

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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  schwartzkatz at sbcglobal.net<mailto:schwartzkatz at sbcglobal.net>

News and Alerts

From: Coalition on Human Needs

The deadline for the "super committee" to agree on a deficit reduction plan is days away.

Will they

 *   make people wait longer to get Medicare?
 *   cut Medicaid?
 *   shrink Social Security benefits over time?
 *   slash at other vital programs like SNAP/food stamps, housing, education, child care, job training...?
 *   actually CUT TAXES for the top 1 percent while raising taxes on the middle class?

All these have been proposed by members of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction.  Better options have been floated - like fair and adequate revenues, protections for low-income people, military cuts, and job creation. We don't know how it will come out, or if they can make a deal at all.  We do know that powerful interests are weighing in to get more advantages for the top 1 percent and to protect the military from reductions. They are busy because they know the decisions made (or the failure to make a decision) will have consequences for the next decade and beyond.

Please be a part of a growing number telling Congress it must protect the 99% - and especially the poor and vulnerable - so our economy works for all.

Please call your Senators NOW to weigh in with the "super committee:"
Call 1-888-907-1485 (toll-free*) THURSDAY AND FRIDAY, NOV. 17-18.

Sample message:

Please tell the deficit reduction Committee to reject plans that cut essential services for low-income people and to insist on substantial increased revenues from high-income people and corporations.

The plan should create jobs and make savings from reducing wasteful spending in the military and elsewhere.

Call two times, so you can speak to both of your U.S. Senators.

Please be encouraged to be specific about the services you are most concerned about,  But since we know the issues of fair tax revenues and savings from reducing waste in the military are big issues, we hope you will talk about the need to use these sources to reduce the deficit.

Want some more info?  You can listen and view the Emergency Update<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=jny%2B8lmwPlZwH53RuQ8E19reqQwOZ6st> with Senator Al Franken (that was live on Wednesday, November 16).

*Thanks so much to AFSCME for making the toll-free number available!
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Thousands Occupy Wall Street
All Entry Points to New York Stock Exchange Blockaded
November 17 Day of Action Underway Marking 2 Months Since Birth of the 99% Movement

NEW YORK - November 17 - Thousands marched on Wall Street this morning, blockading all entry points to the New York Stock Exchange. 'People's mics' have been breaking out at barricades, with participants sharing stories of struggling in an unfair economy.

"I paid taxes and took care of my responsibility, and I'm struggling," said participant, Leah Lackner, 27, who had taken the day off work as a mental health counselor to join the protest. Her sign read: "I played by the rules."

57-year-old bond trader Gene Williams joked that he was “one of the bad guys” and said supportively, “The fact of the matter is, there is a schism between the rich and the poor and it's getting wider."

Participant and small business owner Jonathan Smucker confronted a Wall Street financial firm executive who held a sign that said 'get a job': "Ten percent of Americans are looking for work, most Americans are struggling, and you stand smugly in your suit and say to 'get a job'. You're insulting just about everyone in your country," Smucker said.

At least 200 people have been arrested so far for peaceful assembly and nonviolent civil disobedience, including retired Philadelphia Police Captain Ray Lewis. "All the cops are just workers for the one percent, and they don't even realize they're being exploited," Mr. Lewis said. "As soon as I'm let out of jail, I'll be right back here and they'll have to arrest me again."
More> http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/11/17-6

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War: The Wrong Jobs Program
by Mark Engler<http://www.commondreams.org/author/mark-engler>

More than 40 years ago, long before anyone had ever heard of Barack Obama, before the collapse of Bear Stearns, and before contemporary debates about bailouts and debt ceilings, two authors, Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy, considered<http://books.google.com/books?id=GMXDtNh94f0C&lpg=PA63&ots=CSZV6-eBvF&dq=%22Arms%2C%20more%20arms%2C%20and%20ever%20more%22&pg=PA63#v=onepage&q=%22Arms,%20more%20arms,%20and%20ever%20more%22&f=false>  a tricky problem. In times of downturn, the government must spend to stimulate the economy. Yet getting the political establishment to agree on one particular program of spending seemed nearly impossible.

World War II posterBaran and Sweezy phrased the conundrum as a question: "On what could the government spend enough to keep the system from sinking into the mire of stagnation?"

After assessing the political realities that steer America's power elite, they could find only one response. It was not what typically comes to mind when we think of economic stimulus or government-led job creation.

Their answer: "On arms, more arms, and ever more arms."

The authors did not approve of military spending as a strategy of economic development. But, even at the very outset of the Cold War, they saw the deep hold that it had on decision-makers in Washington, DC.

We can see the continuing hold it has today. This fall, responding to high and persistent unemployment, President Obama called for a federal jobs act. Among its measures, the act proposed investment in schools and infrastructure. Conservative opponents responded with cries of derision. The critics charged<http://www.boston.com/Boston/politicalintelligence/2011/09/gop-candidates-denounce-obama-deficit-plan/OEWpKFzW8xrwyt2yqhVW6I/index.html> that the plan "doubles down on a failed government stimulus strategy." It means "adding more money to the same broken system" they said<http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/09/17/politics/main20107733.shtml?tag=stack>. Finally, they insisted<http://www.businessinsider.com/republicans-against-obamas-jobs-billbut-they-dont-know-whats-in-it-2011-9>, “It comes to a point that you can’t keep borrowing in a futile attempt to stimulate the economy when the increased debt itself is weakening the economy.”

Obama's proposals were considered political non-starters, certain to be stonewalled by the Republican Congressional majority. But for all the right-wing insistence that government should end stimulus spending, cut federal budgets in order to reduce the deficit, and generally leave the market to its own devices, our country already has a massive spending program, and it enjoys strong bipartisan support. America's jobs program is its military—and the immense industry that provides the military with services and armaments.

More> http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/17-5
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Published on Thursday, November 17, 2011 by CommonDreams.org<http://www.commondreams.org>
Bomb Iran? Sanity in Exile
by Robert C. Koehler<http://www.commondreams.org/robert-c-koehler>

Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran . . .

Or as Mitt Romney put it, playing the irresponsible-lunatic game convincingly enough to become the leading Republican presidential candidate: “If we re-elect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon.”

The consensus congeals: Our next war must be with Iran. A report issued by the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency, which the New York Times called “chillingly comprehensive” (though this is debatable), stoked this long-simmering agenda. It charges that Iran has conducted secret experiments on nuclear triggers and created computer models of nuclear explosions, among other things, which proves that the nation, despite its leaders’ protestations to the contrary, is pursuing . . . oh God, oh God . . . a nuclear weapons program.

War hysteria springs eternal. It certainly makes great fodder for a presidential campaign, as virtually all the GOP commander-in-chief wannabes are playing tough as nails on the issue, yanking the debate screamingly to the right. This is the way the game works. The Obama administration thus has to defend itself for eschewing, so far, a military response to the threat and pursuing only economic sanctions.

No matter the current sanctions have “applied so much pressure that the Iranian economy has ground to a halt,” according to an administration spokesman. Iran’s alleged hideous crime, of pursuing weapons only the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea are allowed to possess, requires a military pummeling of the first order. And this, then, is the national “debate”: war or war by other means. No other perspective is allowed or acknowledged.
More> http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/17

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We need your support to keep our life affirming peacemaking work alive.
Contribute. Volunteer. Spread the word!
Contact us and mail your tax deductible contribution to:
American Friends Service Committee
4405 Gillham Rd., KCMO 64110
(816) 931-5256

The information and events described in AFSC Peace and Justice Alerts are intended to educate and assist members of our community in becoming active in working for a more just and peaceful world. Inclusion of a listing does not necessarily imply that AFSC KC agrees with all points of view that will be represented at the event.

The American Friends Service Committee is a Quaker organization that includes people of various faiths who are committed to social justice, peace, and humanitarian service.
Its work is based on the Quaker belief in the worth of every person and faith in the power of love to overcome violence and injustice

To subscribe or unsubscribe to this list go to:
http://list.afsc.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/afsckc-peacealert

Ira Harritt
KC Program Coordinator
American Friends Service Committee
816 931-5256
iharritt at afsc.org

Ira Harritt
KC Program Coordinator
American Friends Service Committee
816 931-5256
iharritt at afsc.org
http://afsc.org/office/kansas-city-mo

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