The Declaration of Peace - Pennsylvania

Mar. 22 - 1,000 march in Erie, PA

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 15:51:46 -0500

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Hundreds march for peace
BY DANA MASSING
March 19, 2007

For an hour Sunday, a 25-foot stretch of chain-link fence in Erie served as a memorial to the more than 3,200 U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq.

Four metal posts held the fence in the snow-covered grass along East Sixth Street in front of the Pennsylvania National Guard Armory at Parade Street. The fence was put up Sunday morning for the event.

More than a thousand people walked past during Sunday’s March for Peace, organized by the Erie Peace Initiative to mark the fourth anniversary of the Iraq war. Dozens stopped to hang paper peace cranes or weave the stems of roses and carnations through the fence links.

Veteran Chris Gerhart was the first to turn the metal barrier into something more, placing a flower arrangement on an easel there.

The crowd behind him filled a line a block long and chanted, “What do we want? Peace. When do we want it? Now.”

Gerhart, of Erie, spent 14 months in Iraq with the 1st Cavalry and was one of the speakers at the rally in Perry Square before the march. He said the war was more about oil than weapons of mass destruction.

“Save the life of a soldier,” Gerhart told the crowd. “Fight to bring them home now.”

Erie resident Jennifer Bennett said it’s important to remember the U.S. troops in Iraq, who have sacrificed so much.

“I came to protest the war and let my voice be heard,” she said at the memorial. “It’s time to bring them home.”

Bennett was the last to add something to the fence: a red carnation. She said it initially bothered her that the memorial was only temporary. But then she decided that “it’s OK as long as it’s up here even briefly.”

In 12 minutes, the marchers were gone, the peace cranes beginning to fly away in the crisp March wind.

Erie Peace Initiative member Jim Wise and his wife, Sandy, captured the escaping paper birds and placed them in boxes.

“I can’t throw this away,” Jim Wise said as he gazed at the flags and the ribbons and handwritten notes with messages like “Bring them home.”

The couple waited 25 minutes, then began carefully slipping out flowers and placing them in a bucket, some destined for the Pennsylvania Soldiers’ & Sailors’ Home.

As the Wises dismantled the memorial, drums could be heard from four blocks away in Perry Square. The marchers had returned to the gazebo where they started.

Organizers had hoped to draw one marcher for each U.S. soldier killed in Iraq. Estimates from initiative members put the turnout at not quite one marcher for every three soldiers. Still, the group was pleased.

“Without a doubt, this is the largest peace demonstration in the history of Erie,” said Matthew Ochalek, an initiative member and one of the speakers.

“It takes a broad-based movement to stop war,” he said. “Our march … is only part of it.”

As the drumming died down and the crowd in the park thinned, the Wises and other volunteers took down the fence at the armory. Ochalek said the Army didn’t want the memorial left there.

But he said that photos had been taken and would be sent in a card to the armory to recognize the suffering of National Guard members and all the military.

And the mementos left at the fence would be saved, he said, although the Erie Peace Initiative hadn’t decided what to do with them yet.

“The tokens people left behind are very meaningful,” Ochalek said. “We would never throw them away.”

Your Name: Anne McCarthy, osb

Your Email Address: annemccosb@yahoo.com

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Notes: Note that the news headline says hundreds but the body of the story says over 1,000.

Mar. 22 - Editorial, Erie, PA: Protesters offer democratic lesson

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 15:47:54 -0500

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Editorial — Erie Times News
Published: March 21. 2007 6:00AM

You could call what happened in the lobby of the U.S. District Courthouse political theater. You could call it an anti-war protest. Or a peace protest. Or even a simple nuisance.

But what best describes what occurred Monday is pure democracy in action.

Nine members of the Erie Peace Initiative blocked the doors at the courthouse in a symbolic effort to close the building and protest the Iraq war.

It was a small protest against bigger forces and bigger events. It was, if you wish, a quiet exercise.

The protesters let lawyers walk past them into the courthouse. There was no shouting or screaming as supporters outside the courthouse sang and carried signs to protest America’s conflict in Iraq. Then it ended as security officials and the FBI arrived.

These Americans’ patriotism or motives should not be questioned. They engaged in a tidy piece of civil disobedience, which fit the spirit of America’s democratic traditions.

It was quiet but not insignificant.

Everyone involved — law enforcement officials, lawyers, people doing business at the courthouse — carried on without much fuss and simply allowed events to take their proper course. People did their jobs and went about their business. What glorious routine.

Whether the men and women from the Erie Peace Initiative changed any minds is perhaps less important than their open lesson of taking a stand and the reactions that it drew. That they were allowed to protest in dignity and face the legal consequences without incident said good things about all of us.

Democracy is often messy, defined by dissent. No matter the size or volume.

Your Name: Anne McCarthy, osb

Your Email Address: annemccosb@yahoo.com

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Mar. 22 - Erie, PA: Courthouse protesters: Give peace a chance

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 15:42:58 -0500

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BY ROBB FREDERICK
Erie Times News
March 20, 2007

An odd bit of political theater played out in the lobby of the U.S. District Courthouse on Monday when nine members of the Erie Peace Initiative blocked the doors to protest the Iraq war.

The group locked arms at the elbows. They asked that the building be closed. Then they let a lawyer through.

“We’re not against you,” Molly Brechtel said to him.

They spread the line. Outside, a dozen supporters sang and carried signs. “How Many Lives Per Gallon?” bumped up against “Bring Them Home Now!”

The protesters sat cross-legged. They sang “Give Peace a Chance.”

A tall lawyer stepped over them.

They stood. They bunched up in front of the metal detector, which beeped.

A federal marshal in a suit jacket shut it off.

Katie White offered a loud prayer. She’s a war mom, with a son in Afghanistan and another who served in Iraq.

“Our government has become a corporation without a conscience,” she said. “And that’s happened because the citizens have not done their job. They’ve become discouraged. They’ve become cynical. They just don’t care.”

Jim Wise held her arm.

“As citizens of a democracy, we are all responsible for what is happening in Iraq,” he said. “I bear some responsibility. And I’m here to do something about it.”

Security officers gathered behind the front desk. The FBI arrived.

“As our government officials escalate the war in Iraq, we escalate our nonviolent efforts to end it,” Matt Ochalek said. “We’ve written to them. We’ve called. And they have not yet heard our message.”

Four Erie police cruisers pulled to the curb.

Federal officer Todd Carlson cleared his throat. “You will be arrested if you do not move,” he said.

“You do what you have to do,” Wise answered.

The group knelt again.

Carlson returned a few minutes later. “You have three minutes to disperse,” he said. “We will give you those three minutes. And then we will arrest you.”

Anne McCarthy, a Benedictine sister, thanked him as he stepped over her.

It took more than 30 minutes — and some huffs from lawyers and courthouse employees who knotted in the lobby, not wanting to squeeze through the group — for security to finally move. They started by ushering out the news cameras.

The nine protesters were arrested without incident. They were put in three holding areas — the four women in one room, the five men in two others. They waited two hours for their turn before Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan Paradise Baxter.

In that time, the Pentagon announced the deaths of two more U.S. servicemen. The war went on.

Your Name: Anne McCarthy, osb

Your Email Address: annemccosb@yahoo.com

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Mar. 21 - Report of Civil Disobedience Action in Erie, PA

Wed, 21 Mar 2007 07:00:47 -0500

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We arrived at the Federal Building in Erie around 8:15 am on Monday, March 19, 2007. We held short vigil during which we read our statement to the media and to our supporters and provided individual participants to share their thoughts on the days action. After singing “Peace, Salaam, Shalom,” nine of us departed from the vigil and approached the door of the Federal Building.

We had previously informed the US Marshals at the building that we were planning the action and they were prepared for us. They only let two of us in and then locked the doors. I read our statement in the foyer and they asked us to leave. We declined and instead asked that they close the building for the day to honor those killed by the war in Iraq. Our seven friends who were left outside attempted to block the doors while we on the inside blocked the metal detector.

The marshals knocked us around a bit as we blocked the metal detector. We were forcibly moved and then would calmly walk back to our place. This happened 3-4 times. After about twenty minutes, the marshals at the door received orders to unlock the doors. We motioned to the seven outside to come in. They were surprised to have the doors unlocked but entered and brought with them a reporter and photographer from the Erie Times-News.

We created a human barricade and stopped a couple of folks from entering. As we were explaining our action and inviting them to join us in the line the marshals shoved, kneed and pulled the three of us directly in front of the metal detector (Tuesday’s Erie Times-News printed a photo of us being knocked around by US Marshals).

After approximately 90 minutes, the marshals arrested us with assistance from the Erie City Police. We were split up and placed in holding cells for two and a half hours before being taken before Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan Paradise Baxter and charged with “unnecessarily obstructing public areas such as entrances, foyers.” We were released shortly after 1:00pm on our own recognizance.

We will appear before Judge Baxter again Tuesday, March 27, 2007 at 10:00 am.

Your Name: Matthew Ochalek

Your Email Address: matthew_ochalek@riseup.net

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Notes: I am the author. You can publish my name if you want.

Mar. 19 - Remembrance & Resistance: Lockheed Martin, Valley Forge, PA - Noon

admin — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 06:57:33 -0500

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Remembrance & Resistance - 4th Anniversary of the War: Today Noon at Lockheed Martin

On March 19, 2003 the U.S. Air Force Stealth Fighter Wing - made up of Lockheed Martin Stealth fighter jets - began “precision” airstrikes on a location in southern Baghdad.

What followed has been 4 years of war - hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead, nearly 3200 U.S. troops dead (many more maimed for life).

MARCH 19, 4th Anniversary of the Iraq War
Lockheed Martin, Valley Forge, PA
It’s Time to Resist the War and the War-makers!

Noon, Nonviolent Resistance to the War at the War’s chief profiteer, Lockheed Martin, Mall & Goddard Boulevards, Valley Forge/King of Prussia, PA (behind the King of Prussia Mall).

Circle of “Mourning to Resistance”, Indictment of Lockheed Martin for aiding and abetting War Crimes and Nonviolent Civil Disobedience by those prepared to face arrest.

Brandywine Peace Community
P.O. Box 81, Swarthmore, PA 19081
610-544-1818
www.brandywinepeace.com

Endorsers: American Friends Service Committee [AFSC], Catholic Peace Fellowship; Community of the Christian Spirit (Elkins Park); Granny Peace Brigade Philadelphia; House of Grace Catholic Worker; Phila. Catholic Worker; Philly Delaware River Area Code Pink; The Shalom Center; United Christian Church, Levittown, PA; and Phila. Veterans for Peace, Chapter 31.

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Your Email Address: info@declarepeace.org

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9/27 - News on Philadelphia arrests, request for letters to the editor and others

admin — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 20:31:13 -0500

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Sep 27, 2006

Friends and fellow progressive patriots,

I have just come back from two of the most emotionally, though not physically, satisfying days of my life. On Monday, September 25th, I attended a peace rally and march in Philadelphia with three members of LEPOCO, Nancy Tate, Robert Daniels II and Tim Chadwick, and then Robert, Tim and I participated in civil disobedience at Senator Rick Santorum’s office at the Widener Building in that city. Fourteen of us were arrested, charged with three (3) misdemeanors (apparently declaring peace is now a criminal conspiracy, criminal tresspass, and defiant tresspass) and then held overnight in the infamous Roundhouse. We were not released until after 2 PM yesterday, 23 hours after our initial arrest.

Many supporters and local activists had gathered at 10 in the morning in downtown Philadelphia’s Old Reformed Church in Olde City, at 4th and Race Streets, where a beautiful and inspiring service was held. Introductions were made by Robert Smith of the historic Brandywine Peace Community, and then we shared music, including, in English and Spanish, No Nos Moverán (We shall not be moved) and a verse of Yo Vengo a Ofrecer mi Corazón, Fito Páez’ moving song (I have come to offer up my heart). The Grannies for Peace sang several funny Broadway takeoffs (There’s no business like war business!), Sylvia Metzler reported on some of her recent activities and travels through Nicaragua and other places where we have meddled and caused death and destruction, and we ended with Tom Mullian teaching us an inspired song written specifically for the Declaration of Peace activities.

From the church we marched through Center City to the Philadelphia Federal Building, headquarters of Senator Arlen Specter in Philadelphia, where we proceeded to declare peace loudly, reading the names of PA dead and Iraqi civilians dead, and heard from a brother on homelessness and the need to “Feed our cities, not the war.” We then marched around City Hall, coming finally to the Widener Building, where the offices of Senator Rick Santorum are located. Prior to entering the building we declared peace and demanded the eight points of the Declaration of Peace, www.declarationofpeace.org.

Four of us, two men and two women, had entered the building through a side entrance and proceeded in the elevator to the Senator’s office on the 9th floor. Once there, we had knocked on the glass door (there is no doorbell provided) and asked to meet with the Senator so that we could hand him some documents. After repeatedly knocking, an aide told us the door would not be opened, so we sat peacefully and began reading the names of the 126 PA soldiers dead interspersed with some of the names of Iraqi civilians dead. At one point, the aide who had said he could not open the door also stated he could not speak to us. We were then joined by one of the aides, known as “Jeff,” who engaged us in discussion, and stated that “we would never agree,” as the Senator has made clear statements about the “evil out there,” including Chávez in Venezuela and the “situation in Iran.”

Some time after Jeff spoke to us, about seven or eight police persons escorted Santorum’s staff members from a side door in Santorum’s office, away from the “danger” posed by the four of us who were sitting on the floor reading names…

It should be noted that when as we were coming up the elevator, at the 9th floor the heavy elevator door began to close, and the two who were out had to hold the door open so that we could squeeze out. We later found out that all elevators were shut down when the remaining group attempted to proceed upstairs, so that we were declaring peace in front of Santorum’s office on the 9th floor and downstairs in the lobby, joined by over a hundred supporters both inside and outside the Widener Building.

At about 1:30 PM we met a man who introduced himself as Homeland Security, Anti-Terrorist Squad for the Police Department (is this an excuse to use Homeland Security funds?). He stated that the building owner/manager did not want us to remain on the premises, and that unless we left voluntarily, we would be arrested. We explained that we were all constituents of the Senator, and were attempting to speak to our Senator or one of his aides in behalf of his 126 dead constituents. This individual (whose name escapes me) returned on several occasions; at one point he said that if we did not leave we would be arrested “on his time, not ours,” and charged with a count of trespass. He told us that the last warning would be videotaped. It was only during the videotaped warning that we were advised the charge had been “upped” to a misdemeanor charge for “defiant” trespass. Sometime after 3 PM the four of us were arrested and taken out of the building by a rear entrace. As we were cheered by supporters and led into waiting police vans, we were joined by others who had also been arrested.

The nine women (we were segregated by gender) were taken to an intake facility and there we were photographed, and herded together in a dank, dirty cell with a bench and a toilet/drinking water metal apparatus. We were inside for hours, and when we asked for some privacy so that some of the women could use the toilet facilities, a mocking officer by the name of Rita said that if we wanted to “tangle with the Man,” what else could we expect, but she did close the door briefly to give us some privacy.

All nine of us joined in spontaneous singing, from Dylan, Peter, Paul and Mary songs and old spirituals, through a rendition of Amazing Grace that I am told moved many outside, the adapted lyrics to Sibelius’ Finlandia (This is my song, Oh God of all the nations, A song of peace for lands afar and mine), Guantanamera, and some wonderful discussion on places we had been to (Haiti, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic) and things we had done. It felt as though we had been there for a couple of hours, but at the same time, the company and moral support and solidarity made the time go by quickly. Our jailhouse birds for peace impromptu choir should go on the road…

As were led outside to the waiting van for transport to the next facility, which we were several times assured would be the 55th and Pine facility, and later told the Roundhouse, we were cuffed to each other in groups of two; Sylvia Metzler and I, sharing a first name as tocayas, decided to be cuffed together, and we were then put inside inside a poorly ventilated van. The van door for the driver kept opening and then slamming, as if people were getting in and out, we were standing inside a garage, with no ventilation, and at times the lights inside would go out. We were having difficulty with breathing; some of the women arrested were in their seventies; when we asked for fresh air, the heat was turned on, making it harder for the rest of us, handcuffed to each other, to breathe. I do not know how long we were in the van, but it felt longer than an hour (not moving, although sometimes the van would be started, driven forward, driven backwards, and then stopped).

At the Roundhouse, we were fingerprinted, again photographed, and then herded into cells which were approximately 69 X 79 inches (I toilet-paper measured the cells, when I was refused information about their size) X 7 foot (I toilet-paper measured the cells, and will provide more exact measurements in a further report) with one toilet/water facility, and one single metal bench against the wall. There is no toilet paper inside the cells, or any soap; you have to literally beg the outside “attendants” for paper by clanging your cell door and screaming, and eventualy they bring some. These cells are suitable (if one can use that word for anything in the Roundhouse facility) for a single occupant, if that, but there were at least three of us in each cell. I shared the accommodations with a woman who had been arrested for possession of narcotics, and another who had been arrested and charged with burglary and retail theft for a $15 blouse which was never found in her possession… she had contusions from attack by five security officers (not police) at a local Rainbow store…

Several of the women I was arrested with were in their seventies and late sixties; when they asked for a blanket or a jacket, these were denied. No food was offered until midnight? 1:00 AM? when after being examined by an RN, those who asked received a peanut butter sandwich and a small container of orange juice. I had already decided to go on a hunger strike, but I did have a container of orange juice because I was feeling dizzy.

Through most of the night the women and men who were working the Roundhouse kept a loud radio on, very loud conversation and laughter, so that it was nearly impossible to sleep. I sat against the dirty wall and eventually dozed off at about 3 AM for a couple of hours (one of my jail mates kept asking someone the time…) We had been told we might have a hearing in the morning, but we were not reached until after 1:30 PM, when we had a videohearing, released ROR, and handed our charges. They had been raised to misdemeanors, and there were three rather than one.

Now, here is where all of you who are reading this come in. First, as you know, we had conducted a vigil to declare peace on Thursday, September 21st, International Day of Peace, which was one of many vigils nationwide to declare peace. Our local paper sent a photographer but to my knowledge, published nothing, and will not release photographs unless they are paid for, and not to be used except for “personal reasons.” Apparently the Pocono Record does not think that the work of peacebuilding is “news fit to print.” I do not think they will write about the Philadelphia arrest or mistreatment at the Roundhouse and in processing either.

It is up to each of you to write protest letters to anyone you can think of, to share the news, so to speak, about our local paper’s refusal to ‘share the news.’ I also would ask that you write letters to anyone in Philadelphia, to the Human Rights Watch, about the horrible conditions at the Roundhouse. I speak not only as someone who was mistreated and abused, but as a person who for many years represented people of color, who are more likely to be arrested for minor things and mistreated and vilified (think of the $15 shoplifting mentioned in the middle section of this report). I will attempt to file a class action, not only for the mis-treatment of dissidents, but for the mistreatment of the prison body at large. By the way, our men were herded into a large holding pen with benches, no privacy, high lights always on…

One of the reasons that we continue to raise our voices is that we know full well the iniquities of the “justice” and prison system in our country; I have interviewed prisoners in my former “hat” of criminal and civil rights lawyer in many inadequate jails, but the Roundhouse will remain in my book as the worst I have viewed or had the displeasure to be “housed” in; I also have to say that although we were well treated by some of employees at both facilities (the fingerprint man, with whom I discussed the similarities between our movement and the Civil Rights movement) is a wonderful example, there were also many sadistic, mocking and unduly harsh officers. Officer Rita is hereby nominated into the Top Five Nasties!

So please send your letters, to all agencies you can think of, to your friends, relatives, enemies, to all who might and should make a change in the way we treat those that come into the so-called justice system. The streets of Philadelphia are full of homeless men and women; all our cities have them, and with our government’s decision to fuel the war and not the cities, this will only get worse.

At some point I will be spearheading a drive for funding; with three misdemeanors, including criminal conspiracy, we will have to hire counsel.

Banish apathy! Protest! Raise up your voices in song and in protest! ¡Hasta la victoria siempre!

Silvia Antonia Brandon Pérez, abuelita revolucionaria

(Put your gray hair to work, people!)

This is my song
Lloyd Stone, 1934

This is my song, Oh God of all the nations,
A song of peace for lands afar and mine.
This is my home, the country where my heart is;
Here are my hopes, my dreams, my sacred shrine.
But other hearts in other lands are beating,
With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean,
And sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine.
But other lands have sunlight too and clover,
And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.
Oh hear my song, oh God of all the nations,
A song of peace for their land and for mine.

May truth and freedom come to every nation
May peace abound where strife has raged so long;
That each may seek to love and build together,
A world united, righting every wrong.
A world united in its love for freedom,
Proclaiming peace together in one song.

Your Name: Scott

Your Email Address: scott@vcnv.org

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9/27 - The Philadelphia Inquirer - Antiwar protesters arrested outside Santorum office

admin — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 20:00:34 -0500

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The 14 activists with Brandywine Peace Community allegedly refused to leave the Center City building.

By Joseph A. Slobodzian
Inquirer Staff Writer
September 27, 2006
The Philadelphia Inquirer

Fourteen antiwar protesters were arrested for allegedly refusing to leave the Center City building in which U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum (R., Pa.) has a regional office, police said yesterday.

Capt. William V. Fisher, of the police Civil Affairs Unit, said the 14 - all associated with the Brandywine Peace Community - were arrested shortly before 5 p.m. Monday at One South Penn Square, the building southeast of City Hall also known as the Widener Building.

Fisher said all 14 were charged with defiant trespass, a misdemeanor, and held overnight at police lockups at the Major Crimes Unit, 39th Street and Lancaster Avenue in West Philadelphia, and Police Headquarters at Eighth and Race Streets in Center City.

One of the 14 arrested, Robert M. Smith, a veteran antiwar demonstrator from Swarthmore and longtime spokesman for the Brandywine group, said yesterday afternoon that all 14 were released on their own recognizance pending a Nov. 21 hearing at the Philadelphia Criminal Justice Center.

Smith said prosecutors yesterday added a charge of criminal conspiracy against all 14.

Smith identified the other 13 arrested as: Beth Friedlan, Caren Wisniewski, Sylvia Metzler, Mary Jo McArthur, Bernadette Cronin-Geller, Melissa Elliott and Ronald Coburn, all of Philadelphia; Timothy Chadwick and Robert Daniels, both of Bethlehem; Robin Lasersohn and Thomas Mullian, both of Media; Marjorie Van Cleef, of Bryn Mawr; and Silvia Brandon-Perez, of Tobyhanna, Pa.

Many of those arrested are veterans of the peace movement. Metzler, Mullian and Cronin-Geller, for example, were among 107 demonstrators arrested for blocking the entrance to the federal courthouse on March 20, 2003, at the start of the war in Iraq.

Metzler and Mullian were among a group that elected to spend seven days in the Federal Detention Center rather than pay a $250 fine.

Monday’s arrests capped a daylong antiwar march that began at 10:30 a.m. at Old First Reformed Church at Fourth and Race Streets, continued along Market Street, stopped at the federal building complex at Sixth Street, and circled City Hall before heading to the Widener Building.

Smith said four demonstrators got to the corridor outside Santorum’s ninth-floor office before the staff locked the doors and building management turned off the elevators.

The other 10 demonstrators arrested gathered in the lobby where Smith said they chanted, “Bush won’t listen, Congress must act,” read the names of Pennsylvanians killed in Iraq, and refused to leave until Santorum signed the “Declaration of Peace Congressional Pledge.”

Santorum spokesman Robert Traynham said that “the senator does respect other people’s rights to express their displeasure, but they don’t have a right to disturb the workplaces of others in the same building.”

Your Name: Scott

Your Email Address: scott@vcnv.org

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Anti-War Activists Demonstrate in Center City Philadelphia

Cynthia — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 16:28:18 -0500

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by KYW’s Karin Phillips

Link to story on KYW Newsradio website

A group of local peace activists are marching throughout Philadelphia, demanding that Congress end the war in Iraq.

Led by a wooden coffin and flowers for the war dead, members of the peace organization “Brandywine Peace Community” stopped in front of the federal courthouse near 6th and Market Streets on Monday, demanding that Congress end the war and occupation of Iraq.

Robert Smith is the march coordinator. He says this is the first step in the group’s “Declaration of Peace.”

“There’s only two agencies in this country who can now end the war; one is the military and the other is Congress. It is our Congress. We need to stop the funding of the war, we need to develop a comprehensive plan to end the war. Bush won’t listen; Congress must act.”

Your Name: Cynthia

Your Email Address: info@declarationofpeace.org

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BUSH WON'T LISTEN; CONGRESS MUST ACT! JOIN US in DECLARING PEACE!

staffuser — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 14:23:42 -0500

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This past Thursday, September 21, United Nations designated “International Day of Peace,” was the start of Declaration of Peace Week which focuses on congressional action demanding the establishment of a comprehensive plan to end the war in Iraq. Throughout the country (see www.declarationofpeace.org) people held candlelight vigils.

In Monroe some of us gathered in front of the Monroe Superior Court at Main and 7th in Stroudsburg, with candles and a poster reading: “Bush Won’t Listen, Congress Must Act.” We light candles as a way to light the darkness and record our desire to build a presence for peace in our planet. As to congressional action, President Bush has already told us that he does not care what we or the world community think about the war, and thus it is up to us to demand that Congress act to stop this war, by refusing to fund it.

We held a vigil, read the names of the 126 PA soldiers dead as of that day, along with the names of Iraqi children and elders who died as a result of our invasion. Notably, the Iraqi dead who have been identified by the International organization, Iraq Body Count, are sometimes only named as children of dead woman or some other familial relationship. For every identified civilian on the list, there are nine others who are not identified but who are confirmed dead civilian victims of this planetary atroccity. We brought ten pages out of 160 pages of dead CIVILIANS, part of a memorial to give honor to all the dead, named and unnamed. If Col. Tommy Franks does not do body counts, we do, and we wish to remember those whom our government (and the coalition) has refused to count or to name. Until they are all identified, we show no respect to their memory.

After the reading of the names Janet Lawson spoke about a new “strike of legs” being conducted by the women of Pereira, Colombia, reminiscent of the strike against war of faraway Lysistrata’s Greece. These are women of gang members in Colombia who are refusing to sleep with their men unless the violence stops. We spoke briefly about Dennis Kucinich’s effort to establish a Department of Peace, which would gather the nation’s energies on peace rather than on war and invasion, so that we can finally stop being a warrior society.

María Román Pérez sang the chorus of a song she is writing about our need to be united beyond ethnic and racial lines, and read verses from it. Ronald Yates, head of the local NAACP, shared some thoughts, as did Frank and Joan Jeffers, Sue Lyons, Julie Weber, Ann Francois, David Payne, and others I may have forgotten. We ended by singing in Spanish and English, “We shall not be moved.”

Now we move to Monday with Nonviolent Direct Action…Join the declaration!

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 25
The Pocono Progressives (in the person of Silvia A. Brandon Pérez) joins LEPOCO’s Tim Chadwick and Robert Daniels II in Philadelphia. We will be joining the Brandywine Peace Community for PHILA. DIRECT ACTION to DECLARE PEACE. Here is the proposed schedule:

10:30 AM, Old First Reformed Church, 4th & Race Sts., Olde City, Philadelphia, PA - Gather to Declare Peace, followed by march through Center City, with a stop at Phila. Federal Building (office of Senator Arlen Specter), walk-around of Phila. City Hall, raising Our Voices for Justice: “Feed Our Cities, not The War,” and then a Sit-in for Peace, Stand Up to Santorum: Demonstrate and Support the Nonviolent Civil Disobedience at the office of Senator Rick Santorum, Widener Building, 1 S. Penn Square, insisting on the demands of the Declaration of Peace, * A National Campaign to Establish by September 21 (International Peace Day) a Comprehensive Plan to End the War in Iraq and “Bring the Troops Home Now” * A Pledge to Take Nonviolent Direct Action if a Comprehensive Plan to End the War is not established and underway by September 21, 2006

All endorsing organizations are invited to carry their identification banner.

Respectfully submitted,

Silvia A. Brandon Pérez
abuelita revolucionaria
because what else is gray hair good for?

Your Name: Christy Hogan

Your Email Address: christylpg@earthlink.net

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