Appalachian Peace Education Center (Virginia/Tennessee)

In Our Own Backyard

2012-01-26T22:18:00.001-05:00

The first in a series of programs about the

NUCLEAR DANGERS

   we allow in our own communities,

sponsored by the
Appalachian Peace Education Center

Depleted Uranium (DU) Weapons Production

featuring Linda Cataldo Modica

When?

Tuesday, February 7th, 7:00 pm

Where?

Washington County Library, Abingdon

Link to the Facebook Event:

https://www.facebook.com/events/264737496927578/?context=create

Aerojet Ordnance Tennessee

Aerojet Ordnance Tennessee, a US Army weapons contractor located in rural Telford just outside of Jonesborough, is one of the largest manufacturers of depleted uranium weapons in the country.

This production in East Tennessee threatens the health of workers at the plant and people who live near the plant while it threatens our soldiers and those living in war zones.

This program will highlight the dangers of DU to noncombatants in war zones as well as to those living close to their production and will describe the campaign to end the production of uranium weapons at Aerojet.

Linda Cataldo Modica has been working with the Christian Peacemaker Team’s Depleted Uranium Campaign for several years and has helped to identify offsite DU (a radioactive heavy metal that is both neurotoxic and mutagenic) contamination of the soil, water and sediment around Aerojet.

10 reasons the U.S. is no longer the land of the free

2012-01-17T15:16:00.000-05:00

By Jonathan Turley

Every year, the State Department issues reports on individual rights in other countries, monitoring the passage of restrictive laws and regulations around the world. Iran, for example, has been criticized for denying fair public trials and limiting privacy, while Russia has been taken to task for undermining due process. Other countries have been condemned for the use of secret evidence and torture.

Even as we pass judgment on countries we consider unfree, Americans remain confident that any definition of a free nation must include their own — the land of free. Yet, the laws and practices of the land should shake that confidence. In the decade since Sept. 11, 2001, this country has comprehensively reduced civil liberties in the name of an expanded security state. The most recent example of this was the National Defense Authorization Act, signed Dec. 31, which allows for the indefinite detention of citizens. At what point does the reduction of individual rights in our country change how we define ourselves?

While each new national security power Washington has embraced was controversial when enacted, they are often discussed in isolation. But they don’t operate in isolation. They form a mosaic of powers under which our country could be considered, at least in part, authoritarian. Americans often proclaim our nation as a symbol of freedom to the world while dismissing nations such as Cuba and China as categorically unfree. Yet, objectively, we may be only half right. Those countries do lack basic individual rights such as due process, placing them outside any reasonable definition of “free,” but the United States now has much more in common with such regimes than anyone may like to admit.

These countries also have constitutions that purport to guarantee freedoms and rights. But their governments have broad discretion in denying those rights and few real avenues for challenges by citizens — precisely the problem with the new laws in this country.

The list of powers acquired by the U.S. government since 9/11 puts us in rather troubling company.

Assassination of U.S. citizens

President Obama has claimed, as President George W. Bush did before him, theright to order the killing of any citizen considered a terrorist or an abettor of terrorism. Last year, he approved the killing of U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaqi and another citizen under this claimed inherent authority. Last month, administration officials affirmed that power, stating that the president can order the assassinationof any citizen whom he considers allied with terrorists. (Nations such as Nigeria, Iran and Syria have been routinely criticized for extrajudicial killings of enemies of the state.)

Indefinite detention

Under the law signed last month, terrorism suspects are to be held by the military; the president also has the authority to indefinitely detain citizens accused of terrorism. While the administration claims that this provision only codified existing law, experts widely contest this view, and the administration has opposed efforts to challenge such authority in federal courts. The government continues to claim the right to strip citizens of legal protections based on its sole discretion. (China recently codified a more limited detention law for its citizens, while countries such as Cambodia have been singled out by the United States for “prolonged detention.”)

Arbitrary justice

The president now decides whether a person will receive a trial in the federal courts or in a military tribunal, a system that has been ridiculed around the world for lacking basic due process protections. Bush claimed this authority in 2001, and Obama has continued the practice. (Egypt and China have been denounced for maintaining separate military justice systems for selected defendants, including civilians.)

Warrantless searches

The president may now order warrantless surveillance, including a new capability to force companies and organizations to turn over information on citizens’ finances, communications and associations. Bush acquired this sweeping power under the Patriot Act in 2001, and in 2011, Obama extended the power, including searches of everything from business documents to library records. The government can use“national security letters” to demand, without probable cause, that organizations turn over information on citizens — and order them not to reveal the disclosure to the affected party. (Saudi Arabia and Pakistan operate under laws that allow the government to engage in widespread discretionary surveillance.)

Secret evidence

The government now routinely uses secret evidence to detain individuals and employs secret evidence in federal and military courts. It also forces the dismissal of cases against the United States by simply filing declarations that the cases would make the government reveal classified information that would harm national security — a claim made in a variety of privacy lawsuits and largely accepted by federal judges without question. Even legal opinions, cited as the basis for the government’s actions under the Bush and Obama administrations, have been classified. This allows the government to claim secret legal arguments to support secret proceedings using secret evidence. In addition, some cases never make it to court at all. The federal courts routinely deny constitutional challenges to policies and programs under a narrow definition of standing to bring a case.

War crimes

The world clamored for prosecutions of those responsible for waterboarding terrorism suspects during the Bush administration, but the Obama administration said in 2009 that it would not allow CIA employees to be investigated or prosecuted for such actions. This gutted not just treaty obligations but the Nuremberg principles of international law. When courts in countries such as Spain moved to investigate Bush officials for war crimes, the Obama administration reportedly urged foreign officials not to allow such cases to proceed, despite the fact that the United States has long claimed the same authority with regard to alleged war criminals in other countries. (Various nations have resisted investigations of officials accused of war crimes and torture. Some, such as Serbia and Chile, eventually relented to comply with international law; countries that have denied independent investigations include Iran, Syria and China.)

Secret court

The government has increased its use of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has expanded its secret warrants to include individuals deemed to be aiding or abetting hostile foreign governments or organizations. In 2011, Obama renewed these powers, including allowing secret searches of individuals who are not part of an identifiable terrorist group. The administration has asserted the right to ignore congressional limits on such surveillance. (Pakistan places national security surveillance under the unchecked powers of the military or intelligence services.)

Immunity from judicial review

Like the Bush administration, the Obama administration has successfully pushed for immunity for companies that assist in warrantless surveillance of citizens, blocking the ability of citizens to challenge the violation of privacy. (Similarly, China has maintained sweeping immunity claims both inside and outside the country and routinely blocks lawsuits against private companies.)

Continual monitoring of citizens

The Obama administration has successfully defended its claim that it can use GPS devices to monitor every move of targeted citizens without securing any court order or review. (Saudi Arabia has installed massive public surveillance systems, while Cuba is notorious for active monitoring of selected citizens.)

Extraordinary renditions

The government now has the ability to transfer both citizens and noncitizens to another country under a system known as extraordinary rendition, which has been denounced as using other countries, such as Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan, to torture suspects. The Obama administration says it is not continuing the abuses of this practice under Bush, but it insists on the unfettered right to order such transfers — including the possible transfer of U.S. citizens.

These new laws have come with an infusion of money into an expanded security system on the state and federal levels, including more public surveillance cameras, tens of thousands of security personnel and a massive expansion of a terrorist-chasing bureaucracy.

Some politicians shrug and say these increased powers are merely a response to the times we live in. Thus, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) could declare in an interview last spring without objection that “free speech is a great idea, but we’re in a war.” Of course, terrorism will never “surrender” and end this particular “war.”

Other politicians rationalize that, while such powers may exist, it really comes down to how they are used. This is a common response by liberals who cannot bring themselves to denounce Obama as they did Bush. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), for instance, has insisted that Congress is not making any decision on indefinite detention: “That is a decision which we leave where it belongs — in the executive branch.”

And in a signing statement with the defense authorization bill, Obama said he does not intend to use the latest power to indefinitely imprison citizens. Yet, he still accepted the power as a sort of regretful autocrat.

An authoritarian nation is defined not just by the use of authoritarian powers, but by the ability to use them. If a president can take away your freedom or your life on his own authority, all rights become little more than a discretionary grant subject to executive will.

The framers lived under autocratic rule and understood this danger better than we do. James Madison famously warned that we needed a system that did not depend on the good intentions or motivations of our rulers: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”

Benjamin Franklin was more direct. In 1787, a Mrs. Powel confronted Franklin after the signing of the Constitution and asked, “Well, Doctor, what have we got — a republic or a monarchy?” His response was a bit chilling: “A republic, Madam, if you can keep it.”

Since 9/11, we have created the very government the framers feared: a government with sweeping and largely unchecked powers resting on the hope that they will be used wisely.

The indefinite-detention provision in the defense authorization bill seemed to many civil libertarians like a betrayal by Obama. While the president had promised to veto the law over that provision, Levin, a sponsor of the bill, disclosed on the Senate floor that it was in fact the White House that approved the removal of any exception for citizens from indefinite detention.

Dishonesty from politicians is nothing new for Americans. The real question is whether we are lying to ourselves when we call this country the land of the free.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University.

The Income Gap: Unfair, Or Are We Just Jealous?

2012-01-14T20:30:00.000-05:00

by Scott Horsley

January 14, 2012

The widening gulf between the rich and everyone else is a growing source of tension in America.

A new survey from the Pew Research Center finds the income gap is now seen as a bigger source of conflict in the U.S. than race, age or national origin. That's why some believe the issue could matter in the presidential campaign, and others worry it could warp the national debate.

Two out of three Americans now perceive strong social conflicts over the income gap — up sharply from two years ago. Paul Taylor of the Pew Research Center has an idea what's behind the increase.

"The Occupy Wall Street movement kind of crystallized the issue: 1 versus 99. [It's] arguably the most successful slogan since 'Hell no, we won't go,' going back to the Vietnam era," he says. "[It] certainly triggered a lot of coverage about economic inequality."

Over the last three decades, the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans more than doubled their share of national income, while the bottom 80 percent saw their share shrink. Taylor says majorities of Democrats, independents and even Republicans now see the income gap as a cause of friction.

Pew Center Report

'Rising Share Of Americans See Conflict Between Rich And Poor'

"There's no question that there is rising inequality in this country, and I think those perceptions are part of the national agenda in a way that they weren't," he says. "And certainly they are in times like this, where we've had this very, very difficult economy and a lot of people are struggling."

The 'Politics Of Envy'

The rise of the issue has not been welcomed by Mitt Romney, the front-running Republican presidential candidate. Romney, who made millions as a private equity investor, has accused President Obama and others of engaging in what he calls "the bitter politics of envy."

"I think it's fine to talk about those things in quiet rooms and discussions about tax policy and the like, but the president has made this part of his campaign rally," Romney says. "We hear him talking about millionaires and billionaires and executives and Wall Street. It's a very envy-oriented, attack-oriented approach. And I think it will fail."

Romney was challenged by Today Show host Matt Lauer, who asked if envy is the only reason someone might question the increasingly skewed distribution of wealth. Lauer asked if it was instead about fairness.

"I think it's about envy. I think it's about class warfare," Romney responded. "I think when you have a president encouraging the idea of dividing America based on the idea of 99 percent versus 1 percent, and those people who've been most successful will be in the 1 percent, you've opened up a whole new wave of approach in this country which is entirely inconsistent with the concept of 'one nation under God.'"

Nothing Wrong With Being Rich

Even as the Pew survey found more conflict over the income gap, it did not find evidence that Americans are growing more resentful of the rich. A separate Gallup poll found Americans far more concerned with growing the economic pie rather than changing the way it's divided.

Conservatives have long argued that growth trumps inequality, and a rising tide lifts all boats, even if some are yachts and others dinghies. But Obama's top economist, Alan Krueger, gave a speech this week arguing that severe inequality can actually threaten growth, as well as hobble the "opportunity society" that Romney says he wants to promote.

"There's a cost to the economy and society if children from low-income families do not have anything close to the opportunities to develop and use their talents as the more fortunate kin from better-off families, who can attend better schools and draw on a network of family connections," he said.

Krueger argues the economy as a whole would be in better shape if income and buying power were not so concentrated among the very rich. Obama made the same case in December in Osawatomie, Kan.

"When middle-class families can no longer afford to buy the goods and services that businesses are selling, when people are slipping out of the middle class, it drags down the entire economy — from top to bottom," he said.

Krueger notes that since World War II, income growth has tended to be strongest when it's most widespread — when rich, poor and middle-class Americans are growing together, instead of growing apart.

Compassion Is Our New Currency

2012-01-04T12:06:00.002-05:00

Occupy Your Heart: Compassion is Our New Currency
Notes on 2011’s Preoccupied Hearts and MindsBy Rebecca Solnit
Excerpts:
Usually at year’s end, we’re supposed to look back at events just passed -- and forward, in prediction mode, to the year to come. But just look around you! This moment is so extraordinary that it has hardly registered. People in thousands of communities across the United States and elsewhere are living in public, experimenting with direct democracy, calling things by their true names, and obliging the media and politicians to do the same.
The breadth of this movement is one thing, its depth another. It has rejected not just the particulars of our economic system, but the whole set of moral and emotional assumptions on which it’s based.... a denial of what that competitive entrepreneur Cain said to God after foreclosing on his brother Abel’s life. He was not, he claimed, his brother’s keeper; we are not, he insisted, beholden to each other, but separate, isolated, each of us for ourselves.
If it’s a movement about love, it’s also about the money they so unjustly took, and continue to take, from us -- and about the fact that, right now, money and love are at war with each other. After all, in the American heartland, people are beginning to be imprisoned for debt, while the Occupy movement is arguing for debt forgiveness, renegotiation, and debt jubilees.
Not only does the occupation of abandoned foreclosed homes connect the dots between Wall Street and Main Street, it can also lead to swift and tangible victories, something movements desperately need for momentum to be maintained. The banks, it seems, are softer targets than one might expect because so many cases are rife with legal irregularities and outright criminality. With one in five homes facing foreclosure and filings showing no sign of slowing down in the next few years, the number of people touched by the mortgage crisis -- whether because they have lost their homes or because their homes are now underwater -- truly boggles the mind.
Occupy has some of the emotional resonance of a spiritual, as well as a political, movement.... it wants to ask basic questions: What matters? Who matters? Who decides? On what principles?“
Compassion is our new currency,” was the message scrawled on a pizza-box lid at Occupy Wall Street in Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan -- held by a pensive-looking young man in Jeremy Ayers’s great photo portrait. But what can you buy with compassion?
Quite a lot, it turns out, including a global movement. Occupy has created a space in which people of all kinds can coexist, from the homeless to the tenured, from the inner city to the agrarian. Coexisting in public with likeminded strangers and acquaintances is one of the great foundations and experiences of democracy, which is why dictatorships ban gatherings and groups -- and why our First Amendment guarantee of the right of the people peaceably to assemble is being tested more strongly today than in any recent moment in American history. Nearly every Occupy has at its center regular meetings of a General Assembly. These are experiments in direct democracy that have been messy, exasperating and miraculous: arenas in which everyone is invited to be heard, to have a voice, to be a member, to shape the future. Occupy is first of all a conversation among ourselves. The ad hoc invention of the people’s mic by the occupiers of Zuccotti Park, which requires everyone to listen, repeat, and amplify what’s being said, has only strengthened this sense of presence. You become the keeper of your brother’s or sister’s voice as you repeat their words.
Activism had long been in dire need of new modes of doing things, and this year it got them.
Occupy arrived and, as if swept by some strange pandemic, a contagious virus of truth-telling, everyone was suddenly obliged to call things by their real names and talk about actual problems. The blather about the deficit was replaced by acknowledgments of grotesque economic inequality. Greed was called greed, and once it had its true name, it became intolerable, as had racism when the Civil Rights Movement named it and made it evident to those who weren’t suffering from it directly. The vast scale of suffering around student debt and tuition hikes, foreclosures, unemployment, wage stagnation, medical costs, and the other afflictions of the normal American suddenly moved to the top of the news, and once exposed to the light, these, too, became intolerable.
Only a few years ago, hardly anyone knew what corporate personhood was. Now, signs denouncing it are common. Similarly, at Occupy events, people make it clear that they know about the New Deal-era financial reform measure known as the Glass-Steagall Act, which was partially repealed in 1999, removing the wall between commercial and investment banks; that they know about the proposed financial transfer tax, nicknamed the Robin Hood Tax, that would raise billions with a tiny levy on every financial transaction; that they understand many of the means by which the 1% were enriched and the rest of us robbed.
This represents a striking learning curve. A new language of truth, debate about what actually matters, an informed citizenry: that’s no small thing. But we need more.It’s our nature to be more compelled by immediate human suffering than by remote systemic problems.
Climate change isn’t anywhere near as remote as many Americans imagine. It’s already creating human suffering on a large scale and will create far more. Many of the food crises of the past decade are tied to climate change, and in Africa thousands are dying of climate-related chaos. The floods, fires, storms, and heat waves of the past few years are climate change coming to call earlier than expected in the U.S. If you think the eviction of elderly homeowners is brutal, think of it as a tiny foreshadowing of the displacement and disappearance of people, communities, nations, species, habitats. Climate change threatens to foreclose on all of us. Occupy the Climate may need to come next.
One thing couldn’t be clearer: compassion is our new currency. Nothing has been more moving to me than this desire, realized imperfectly but repeatedly, to connect across differences, to be a community, to make a better world, to embrace each other. This desire is what lies behind those messy camps, those raucous demonstrations, those cardboard signs and long conversations. Young activists have spoken to me about the extraordinary richness of their experiences at Occupy, and they call it love.
In the spirit of calling things by their true names, let me summon up the description that Ella Baker and Martin Luther King used for the great communities of activists who stood up for civil rights half a century ago: the beloved community. Many who were active then never forgot the deep bonds and deep meaning they found in that struggle. We -- and the word “we” encompasses more of us than ever before -- have found those things, too, and this year we have come close to something unprecedented, a beloved community that circles the globe.

The Forgotten Wages of War

2012-01-04T11:19:00.000-05:00

By JOHN TIRMAN
Cambridge, Mass.
THE end of the Iraq war occasioned few reflections on the scale of destruction we have wrought there. As is our habit, the discussion focused on the costs to America in blood and treasure, the false premises of the war and the continuing challenges of instability in the region. What happened to Iraqis was largely ignored. And in Libya, the recent investigation of civilian casualties during NATO’s bombing campaign was the first such accounting of what many believed was a largely victimless war.
We rarely question that wars cause extensive damage, but our view of America’s wars has been blind to one specific aspect of destruction: the human toll of those who live in war zones.
We tune out the voices of the victims and belittle their complaints about the midnight raids, the house-to-house searches, the checkpoints, the drone attacks, the bombs that fall on weddings instead of Al Qaeda.
Gen. Tommy R. Franks famously said during the early days of the war in Afghanistan, “We don’t do body counts.” But someone should. What we learn from body counts tells us much about war and those who wage it.
More than 10 years after the war in Afghanistan began, we have only the sketchiest notion of how many people have died as a consequence of the conflict. The United Nations office in Kabul assembles some figures from morgues and other sources, but they are incomplete. The same has been true for Iraq, although a number of independent efforts have been made there to account for the dead.
But such numbers, which run into the hundreds of thousands, gain scant attention. American political and military leaders, like the public, show little interest in non-American casualties.
Denial, after all, is politically convenient. Failing to consider the mortality figures, the refugees, the impoverished, the demolished hospitals and clean water systems and schools is to deny, in effect, that the war ever happened.
The American military cannot afford to be so cavalier about the dynamics of war. The consequences of how we fight wars reveals a great deal about how and why others fight us.
In Iraq, for example, the causes of the Sunni resistance were often attributed to lost social status; the role of American violence against civilians early in the conflict was rarely discussed. Yet many of the captured Iraqis said they were defending their communities by resisting the occupying forces. Roughing up, detaining or killing suspected enemy fighters — as the coalition forces did in countless operations — prompted some Iraqis to take up the gun, the I.E.D. and the suicide bomb. The more violence from the occupiers, the more ferocious their reaction.
Gen. David H. Petraeus recognized this and sought to reform Army practice. In a field manual he co-authored in 2006, he explained that when “forces fail to provide security or threaten the security of civilians, the population is likely to seek security guarantees from insurgents, militias or other armed groups. This situation can feed support for an insurgency.”
In several opinion polls, Iraqis identified American forces as the primary cause of the violence besetting their country. And although the violence of war and occupation was a proximate cause of the Iraqi resistance, we have few metrics to understand its scope. WikiLeaks released military documents in October 2010 that included accounts of Iraqi fatalities, but such reports are incomplete and sometimes biased, and they reflect only what the troops actually witnessed. News media reports are similarly limited. And our political and military leaders barely consider these numbers anyway.
They dwell instead in a make-believe world of vastly less mayhem, oblivious to what actually besets the civilian population. In 2006, two separate household surveys, by the Iraqi Ministry of Health and by researchers from Johns Hopkins University, found between 400,000 and 650,000 “excess deaths” in Iraq as a result of the war. At the time, however, the commanding general in Iraq put the number at 50,000 and President Bush had claimed in late 2005 that it was just 30,000.
If our leaders are unwilling to grasp the scale of death and social disruption, and the meaning of this chaos for the local population, then American war efforts are likely to end badly and relationships with allies will become strained, as has happened with President Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan.
Mr. Karzai’s repeated complaints about NATO actions that cause civilian casualties are often dismissed in the West as political posturing, but his persistence on this issue indicates how deeply it resonates with Afghans. While we dismiss it, Muslims around the world take note.
Ignoring the extent of civilian casualties and the damage they cause is a moral failing as well as a strategic blunder. We need to adopt reliable ways to measure the destruction our wars cause — an “epistemology of war,” as another general, William Tecumseh Sherman, called it — to break through the collective amnesia that has gripped us.
If we do not demand a full accounting of the wages of war, future failures are all the more likely — and warranted.
John Tirman, the executive director of the Center for International Studies at M.I.T., is the author of “The Deaths of Others: The Fate of Civilians in America’s Wars.”

Martin Luther King, Jr., Celebration

2011-12-29T11:59:00.003-05:00

Please join APEC at our 25th annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration this coming January 14th. This year we are stressing King’s messages about economic justice, messages that resonate today through the Occupy Wall Street movement. America should have listened to him 45 years ago!
The celebration will start with a 1:30pm march down Main Street, Abingdon from Charles Wesley United Methodist to Abingdon United Methodist. Feel free to bring a sign with your own message or we will have signs for you to carry. At 2:00 pm the celebration will begin at Abingdon United Methodist. Afterwards, there will be a reception in the fellowship hall.
The most important thing is to attend the march and celebration and bring a friend; be inspired by the music and by the words of MLK. Here are some other ways you can help:
This year we have YARD SIGNS (like the ones you see before elections) that promote the celebration. Cinny Poppen and I can give you one or more signs. You can contact me at 475-3191 or bboone@bvunet.net or contact Cinny at 492-0303 or goldenpop60@hotmail.com and we’ll arrange to get you a sign. Please help us put these signs up all around the region and especially throughout Abingdon.
Send a notice of the meeting to any listserv you belong to our just to your email friends. Link to our facebook entry.
If you can, bring some finger food or drink for our “potluck” reception after the celebration.
Thanks!
Buckey Boone

Information from Tar Sands Action

2011-12-23T14:39:00.001-05:00

Dear Friends,
We’ve been doing our best the last couple of weeks to keep you up-to-date on the machinations about Keystone in Washington. “Our best” in this case has only been so-so, because the whole process has been incredibly confusing. But it seems to be getting a little clearer now.
Today the House agreed to legislation for a payroll tax cut that also includes language forcing the president to decide one way or the other on the Keystone pipeline in the next 60 days. Our hope is that the president will use the opportunity to deny the permit, and sooner rather than later. His administration has made it clear many times over the past few weeks that the demand for quick approval attached to this legislation would result in the rejection of the pipeline.
As White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer tweeted a few days ago: the bill “simply shortens the review process in a way that virtually guarantees that the pipeline will NOT be approved.” No one could responsibly approve such a project under the gun; even the Canadian government announced this month that they would delay the review of proposed pipelines to the Pacific for a year because of environmental concerns.
You have patiently and firmly explained to the president for the last six months why this pipeline is a bad idea—and by “you” I mean the twenty top scientists who sent a letter explaining the climate impacts, the ten Nobel Peace Prize laureates, the dozens of tribal leaders who signed the Mother Earth Accord, the 1253 people who got arrested, the 12,000 who circled the White House, the 500,000 who filed public comments on the plan, the many many more who sent letters and emails and made phone calls to the White House and Congress.
Bill McKibben for 350.org

Occupy Our Homes

2011-12-12T15:52:00.000-05:00

BROOKLYN, N.Y. -- Until three days ago, Teresa Bolton didn't consider herself part of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Bolton is 55 and lives in East New York, Brooklyn, an hour's train ride from the skyscrapers of Manhattan's financial district, where the movement was born. But when occupiers appeared on her block this week, as part of a new national campaign to help homeless families move into vacant houses and resist foreclosure-related evictions, she opened her door.
"Occupy Wall Street came to me. I didn't go seek it out," she said, standing on her porch, wearing a navy turban and a pink sweatshirt, large silver hoops dangling from her ears. "I always wanted to be involved in something positive that was beneficial to everyone."
The street was relatively quiet on Friday afternoon. The exception: a few neighbors milling about on the sidewalk and a steady stream of white 20-somethings filing in and out of a house down the street. The neighborhood is home to mostly poor African Americans and Caribbean immigrants; Occupy Wall Street protesters are overwhelmingly white. On Friday, those activists were the only white people spotted in the neighborhood, besides the police officers stationed nearby. The house had a large banner stretched across it that read, "BANKS STEAL HOMES," and a sign perched on the roof declaring, "FORECLOSE ON BANKS NOT PEOPLE, OCCUPY WALL ST."
On Tuesday, the street had been packed with hundreds of protesters, community organizers and neighbors who joined a marching tour of foreclosed homes in the area. Out here, there are plenty: East New York has the highest foreclosure rate in the city. The march ended at the house with the banners, where a homeless family of four plans to live. For now, more than a dozen occupiers are staying there, along with the father, Alfredo Carrasquillo, as they make renovations and address lingering security concerns.
How and if the authorities respond to the squatters will partly determine the future of Occupy Our Homes, a national campaign aimed at the nation's foreclosure crisis. So far, police in East New York have observed but not attempted to enter the premises.
Since activists first erected tents in Zuccotti Park, many have questioned the protesters' unwillingness to settle on one demand. In the last month, as Occupy camps across the country have been cleared, the skepticism has escalated: Without public camps, will the movement end? This week, some protesters answered with Occupy Our Homes. The new campaign, which some say may be the future of the Occupy protests, takes the movement far from its financial district roots.
Since 2006, more than 4 million American homes have been taken over by banks, according to RealtyTrac, a California-based real estate data firm. A map of East New York foreclosures on RealtyTrac's website looks like it came down with chicken pox. A recent report spells out the danger this holds for neighborhoods: More vacancies lead to declining property values and tax revenues, crime rises, and a vicious cycle ensues.
After just three days in the neighborhood and despite little warning, East New Yorkers appear to have embraced Occupy Our Homes' presence. Many storefront windows hold supportive signs: "Foreclose on banks, not on people."
Bolton didn't have much warning about Tuesday's march -- just a knock on her door Monday afternoon. But as the crowd passed by, Bolton said, she invited groups of occupiers into her home for tea and coffee until the beverages ran out. At one point, Bolton noted, it became too much and she locked her door, refusing to let anyone else into her bright blue kitchen. "I was overwhelmed, I'm not going to lie," she said. But that night, when the crowd dispersed, she sat down and wrote a poem about Occupy Wall Street -- and she called it "our movement."
"It's a positive thing, to see a family in a home," she said.
Down the street, Carrasquillo sat in the yard of the occupied house, by a Christmas tree topped with an "Occupied Real Estate" flag, chatting with a crowd of occupiers and a videographer from the Yes Men, a loose-knit association of activists. A couple of neighbors dropped by.
"What made you do this?" asked Dannett Burnett, who lives across the street.
"I know it's crazy, right?" Carrasquillo said, laughing.
"It's not crazy, it's right," she said.
Burnett moved into East New York in 1974, when another plague of vacancy swept the neighborhood. At that time, she said, white families were fleeing faster than African Americans and Caribbean immigrants were moving in.
The occupied home and its immediate neighbor are attached and technically part of a single building. But there are large differences.
At the occupied house, the front door is secured by a steel link chain hooked through the window.
Next door, a brass lock seals the door. Velveteen red bows and nearly three-foot tall candy canes that light up at night have been placed at consistent and precise intervals around the postage-stamp-sized yard. The black metal mailbox, the fence, even the house's white front door all look freshly painted.
On Monday, people associated with the Occupy Wall Street movement knocked on the neighboring door -- where James, who declined to give his last name, lives -- and explained their plans to move a homeless family into the vacant house. The group spoke with James' wife, who told him about the plan.
"I'll be honest," said James, 44, who has lived on the street for six years. "My first thought was, OK, are the police going to come here, shoot up the place and drag people out the door? Bullets don't know addresses."
But there are also five vacant houses on the block, James said. That night, he thought about the number of people who have lost jobs, homes and their sense of security since the financial downturn began.
"Basically, I am always going to be in support of anything that is for people," he said. "I agree with this concept. It is better to foreclose on banks than it is to foreclose on people."
James remains concerned that the police may pay an unexpected and messy visit next door, putting his wife, four children, and grandchild in danger. But he also hopes that the idea of occupying foreclosed homes will catch on around the country.
Just before noon on Friday inside Lechonera Restaurante 2, a Dominican restaurant down the road, the lunch crowd is busy with plates of stewed pork, rice and beans, and heavily seasoned fish. While no one appears to be talking about the nearby occupation or its broader goals at Lechonera, an Occupy sign hangs in the front window. On top of the toilet in the restaurant's only bathroom, a copy of the Occupy Wall Street Journal waited for a reader. The publication is produced by people associated with the movement.
"A man came by on Monday, if I remember correctly, and he told me what they were doing," said Evcely Olivera in Spanish. She has owned and operated Lechonera for seven years in this spot. "He asked if they could hang a sign in the window, and I said yes, of course. I like the general idea."
Olivera said that although she is familiar with Occupy Wall Street, she does not speak enough English to follow all its activities and organizing efforts. Still, she likes that someone has come to the neighborhood and said something about all the wasted, vacant houses taken from families who never had much money.
Back at Bolton's house, her husband, Doyle Coleman, stood on the porch painting the front of their home. The two of them weren't concerned that the occupiers are mostly white or that someone would be living down the street from them without a lease and not paying rent.
"People come into this country every day from all over the world, so what's the matter with an American citizen occupying anything in the United States?" she asked.
"Well said," Coleman responded, nodding.
The couple have been renovating their home as they could afford it. The floors and stairs are currently stripped down to the bare wood. "No credit cards, no contractors, no debt," Coleman said, dipping his paintbrush and delicately touching up the frame of the house.
Inside, above the computer, hangs a framed photograph of Dr. Martin Luther King. Bolton thinks there's a strong parallel between the Occupy movement and the civil rights movement.
She was born not long after Rosa Parks refused to obey bus driver James F. Blake's order to give up her seat to make room for a white passenger. When Bolton was a small child, after the law was lifted -- but when racism in the South was still a powerful force -- she rode the bus with her mother and wanted to sit upfront, but her mother, worried about her daughter's safety, insisted they sit in the back. Bolton sees the occupation down the street as a similar gesture of defiance.
"The difference now," she said, "is nobody is telling them, 'Get out.' People here are saying, 'Stay right here. Stay here. Stay put.'"

Recent Activities of Virginia Organizing

2011-11-30T15:26:00.004-05:00

An Economic Emergency for the 99%
Virginia Organizing supporters, unemployed workers and local residents turned out in a cold downpour to declare an “Economic Emergency for the 99%” in Richmond. November 17 was a nationwide day of action for the 99% and Americans in 60 cities across the nation held rallies at decaying schools and bridges that underscore the need to invest in infrastructure and jobs. The Hamilton Street bridge in Richmond is used by 85,749 vehicles each day and is a vivid example of the many roads, schools and other infrastructure sites in need of repair. The American Jobs Act would provide $809,000,000 in infrastructure funding for Virginia and 10,500 infrastructure jobs. “We can’t wait any longer for action. We need jobs – not more budget cuts. The Hamilton Street bridge needs repair and is a symbol of our leaders’ failure to pass a jobs bill or do anything to help the 99%, while the bankers and other members of the 1% keep getting richer,” said Del McWhorter, Virginia Organizing board member.The American Jobs Act would also help support up to $10,800 education jobs. “I have been unemployed since 2008 when I was laid off of my job teaching high school science. After I was laid off, I applied for hundreds of jobs. I love teaching and I want to get back to work. But after you have been turned down so many times, it makes it tough to keep going,” said unemployed high school teacher Jack Janulis. “Unemployment is tearing away at the fabric of our society an Congress needs to act now.”

We Move Our Money Together
On November 2, Bank of America dropped their proposed $5 per month debit card fee— a victory for consumers. Unfortunately, excessive fees are one of many ways that Bank of America is hurting our communities. In Virginia, we are particularly concerned about Bank of America funding the predatory lenders. We’re going to move our money until the big banks invest in our communities instead of taking advantage of them. This month we held big bank divestment actions in Charlottesville, Norfolk and the Valley and will continue actions statewide. No more profiting off of millions of illegal foreclosures. No more billions of dollars in taxpayer funded bailouts. No more hoarding over a trillion dollars while our communities crumble and good jobs disappear. No more stealing our democracy with corporate money in politics. No more funding predatory lenders.

The Surplus That Never Was
The governor will announce his budget proposal in mid-December and the outlook is grim. Despite Governor Bob McDonnell lauding a supposed surplus all year, the state faces an $800 million shortfall.The state has run out of options to manage its way through this recession. The governor is left with no options other than a cuts-only strategy, a revenue-only strategy, or a combination of the two. In poll after poll, large majorities of Virginians prefer closing our budget shortfall using a balanced approach—one that includes new revenue along with targeted spending cuts. We can do this by reforming outdated, inefficient, or unwarranted tax credits and loopholes. Loopholes cost Virginia more than $12.5 billion every year – that’s more than 12 times our current shortfall. Even as we cut funding for crucial investments in our future like roads, schools, environmental protection, and healthcare, nearly two out of every three corporations in Virginia have no tax liability at all.While middle class families pay taxes on their income and purchases, more than 60% of corporations in Virginia pay no corporate income tax! In 2008 alone, Virginia coal companies claimed $31 million in tax credits. Those tax credits were designed to support employment in the coal industry. Instead, coal companies laid off employees faster than ever. While middle class families pay sales taxes on everything they buy, Virginia gives a cut rate on sales taxes for those who buy luxury yachts. Reforming costly and inefficient loopholes will preserve Virginia’s future prosperity and bring balance to our current budget process.

No Deal is Better Than a Bad Deal
Over the last six months Virginia Organizing leaders made phone calls, shared petitions, held rallies, made presentations and wrote letters to oppose cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Just before Thanksgiving, co-chairs of the Supercommittee announced that they were unable to come to an agreement. Rather than accept a bad deal that would have included cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, we got no deal, and for once, the gridlock is something to be thankful for.

Breaking Wonderful News!

2011-11-10T19:47:00.000-05:00

It looks like the Keystone XL is down for the count. We need to thank the President and remind him that we will be VIGILANT and ACTIVE to insure that this project does NOT add to the climate change burden of our nation.
Now the rest of the story...The International Energy Agency warns, the world is headed for IRREVERSIBLE climate change in FIVE YEARS if fossil fuel infrastructure is not rapidly changed. IEA says, the world will 'lose forever' the chance to avoid dangerous climate change!
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/09/fossil-fuel-infrastructure-climate-change)
Victories like the Keystone XL show that concerted action can make a difference. Can we build a worldwide climate preserving movement? Do we have any choice? Please join in this epic struggle. A start is to join in the 350.org network and there is always the pledge, or working against mountaintop removal or coal plants in your state. Working together works! Find a particular climate change issue and adopt it as your cause. We can't let the children down.
Rees

Dear Friends,
Um, we won. You won.
Not completely. The President didn’t outright reject the Keystone XL pipeline permit. My particular fantasy -- that he would invite the 1253 people arrested on his doorstep in August inside the gates for a victory picnic by the vegetable garden -- didn’t materialize.
But a few minutes ago the President sent the pipeline back to the State Department for a thorough re-review, which most analysts are saying will effectively kill the project. The president explicitly noted climate change, along with the pipeline route, as one of the factors that a new review would need to assess. There’s no way, with an honest review, that a pipeline that helps speed the tapping of the world’s second-largest pool of carbon can pass environmental muster.
And he has made clear that the environmental assessment won’t be carried out by cronies of the pipeline company -- that it will be an expert and independent assessment. We will watch that process like hawks, making sure that it doesn’t succumb to more cronyism. Perhaps this effort will go some tiny way towards cleaning up the Washington culture of corporate dominance that came so dramatically to light here in emails and lobbyist disclosure forms.
It’s important to understand how unlikely this victory is. Six months ago, almost no one outside the pipeline route even knew about Keystone XL. One month ago, a secret poll of “energy insiders” by the National Journal found that “virtually all” expected easy approval of the pipeline by year’s end. As late as last week the CBC reported that Transcanada was moving huge quantities of pipe across the border and seizing land by eminent domain, certain that its permit would be granted. A done deal has come spectacularly undone.
Our movement spoke loudly about climate change and the President responded. There have been few even partial victories about global warming in recent years so that makes this an important day. We need to let the president and oil companies know that we're ready to take action should they try to push this pipeline through in a couple of years. There's a pledge to take bold action against the pipeline up on our site, and I'll be keeping your names an emails safely stored away so that you'll be the first to know about anything we need to do down the road.
The President deserves thanks for making this call -- it’s not easy in the face of the fossil fuel industry and its endless reserves of cash. The deepest thanks, however, go to you: to indigenous peoples who began the fight, to the folks in Nebraska who rallied so fiercely, to the scientists who explained the stakes, to the environmental groups who joined with passionate common purpose, to the campuses that lit up with activity, to the faith leaders that raised a moral cry, to the labor leaders who recognized where our economic future lies, to the Occupy movement that helped galvanize revulsion at insider dealing, and most of all to the people in every state and province who built the movement that made this decision inevitable.
Our fight, of course, is barely begun. Some in our movement will say that this decision is just politics as usual: that the President wants us off the streets -- and off his front lawn -- until after the election, at which point the administration can approve the pipeline, alienating its supporters without electoral consequence. The president should know that If this pipeline proposal somehow reemerges from the review process we will use every tool at our disposal to keep it from ever being built; if there’s a lesson of the last few months, both in our work and in the Occupy encampments around the world, it’s that sometimes we have to put our bodies on the line.
In the meantime, since federal action will be in abeyance for a long stretch, we need to figure out how best to support our Canadian brothers and sisters, who are effectively battling against proposed pipelines west from the tar sands to the Pacific. And we need to broaden our work to take on all the forms of ‘extreme energy’ now coming to the fore: mountaintop removal coal mining, deepsea oil drilling, fracking for gas and oil. We’ll keep sending you updates; you keep letting us know what we need to do next.
Last week, scientists announced that the planet had poured a record amount of CO2 into the atmosphere last year; that’s a sign of how desperate our battle is. But we take courage from today’s White House announcement; it gives us some clues about how to fight going forward.
And I simply can’t say thank you enough. I know, because of my own weariness, how hard so many of you have worked. It was good work, done in the right spirit, and it has secured an unlikely victory. You are the cause of that victory; you upended enormous odds.
I’m going to bed tired tonight. But I’ll get up in the morning ready for the next battle, more confident because I know you’re part of this fight too.
Onwards,
Bill McKibben for the 350.org Team

A Day for Education and Action

2011-11-10T15:42:00.006-05:00

Economy and Environment Teach-In:
Sunday, November 20th, 2 – 5 pm
Washington County Library, Abingdon

The Occupy Wall Street Movement has brought attention to the enormous inequalities in our society, to the plight of poor, working and middle class families.

Many have also begun to link this same economic system to environmental and energy problems, and our inability to make real progress in these critical areas.

If you are concerned about the concentration of wealth and power in our country, but not sure how it all connects or what you can do about it, please join your friends and neighbors on November 20th for our first Education and Action Day.
Discussion leaders: Anthony Flaccavento, Brian Johns, Dr Ed Davis and Rees Shearer

Hope to see you there, and please spread the word!

New York Times editorial calls for cancellation of funding for Oak Ridge

2011-10-31T14:00:00.002-04:00

The Bloated Nuclear Weapons Budget
Published: October 29, 2011
Twenty years after the end of the cold war, the United States still has about 2,500 nuclear weapons deployed and 2,600 more as backup. The Obama administration, in an attempt to mollify Congressional Republicans, has also committed to modernizing an already hugely expensive complex of nuclear labs and production facilities. Altogether, these and other nuclear-related programs could cost $600 billion or more over the next decade. The country does not need to maintain this large an arsenal. It should not be spending so much to do it, especially when Congress is considering deep cuts in vital domestic programs.
A war with Russia is now unthinkable, conventional weapons are increasingly capable, and the main nuclear threat comes from Iran and North Korea. To have the credibility to try to contain their ambitions, the United States needs to be weaning itself from its reliance on nuclear weapons. Reducing the number of weapons, scaling back unnecessary modernization programs, and delaying or scrapping plans to replace some delivery systems will save billions and help make the world safer.
President Obama can start by speeding up already negotiated reductions in deployed weapons and committing to further cuts, unilaterally if necessary.
Washington and Moscow pledged in the 2010 New Start treaty to reduce their number of deployed long-range nuclear weapons to 1,550 from 2,200 by 2017. But unless something changes, both countries will increase nuclear spending in coming years, as they replace or upgrade aging nuclear production facilities and delivery vehicles — submarines, missiles and bombers. That makes no sense.
The Global Zero campaign believes that as an interim step, the country can go down to 1,000 warheads, deployed and stored, without jeopardizing security. We agree.
President Obama endorses the goal of a nuclear-free world. But he has not gotten very far with his promise to negotiate even deeper reductions with Moscow.
In his push to win votes for the New Start treaty, Mr. Obama gave away far too much to balking Republican senators. He promised to invest an extra $85 billion over 10 years for the nuclear labs to maintain and modernize the arsenal, including overhauling thousands of older bombs that should be retired. He proposed spending $125 billion over the next decade for a new fleet of nuclear-armed submarines, 100 new bombers, a new land-based intercontinental ballistic missile and two other missiles.
Senior military officials acknowledge that hard decisions must be made — including possibly eliminating one leg of the nuclear triad. In July, Gen. James Cartwright, then vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called for a reassessment of where nuclear weapons fit in today’s world.
All Americans need to be part of that discussion, as does the Congressional “supercommittee,” charged with coming up with a plan to reduce the deficit by $1.5 trillion over 10 years. Here are sound cuts for the nuclear budget:
¶Senator Tom Coburn, one of the few Republicans to support nuclear reductions, has called for cutting the number of deployed strategic warheads to 1,220, the ballistic missile submarine fleet to 11 from 14, and intercontinental ballistic missiles to 300 from 500. He also favors delaying the purchase of new bombers until the mid 2020s. Total savings, according to Mr. Coburn, would be at least $79 billion over the next decade. It is a smart beginning.
¶Don’t modernize the B61 tactical nuclear bombs in Europe. No one can imagine that the United States would ever use a nuclear weapon on a European battlefield, and Washington is in discussions with NATO to bring them home to be dismantled. If the Europeans want to keep them for political reasons, let them pick up the tab. Savings: $1.6 billion.
¶Halt construction of the new plutonium storage facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Costs have increased tenfold, and there are serious safety questions about the location — along a fault line and near an active volcano. Savings: $2.9 billion.
¶Halt construction of the Energy Department’s Savannah River facility that is supposed to recycle plutonium from dismantled weapons into mox, a fuel for nuclear power plants. The sole customer for the fuel dropped the contract. Savings: $4 billion.
¶Cancel the uranium processing facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn. The nonpartisan Project on Government Oversight says that with $100 million in upgrades, another facility there can do the work. Savings: $6 billion.¶Down-blend more of the 400 metric tons of highly enriched uranium in United States weapons stocks for sale to nuclear power plants. The administration has neglected this, while investing in programs that increase the life of nuclear warheads. Revenue: $23 billion.
The country will need some number of nuclear weapons for the foreseeable future. And it must ensure that they are safe and reliable. But spending on the arsenal must be rational and consistent with national security goals — not driven by inertia or politics.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: October 30, 2011
An earlier version of this editorial incorrectly described the positions of the former secretaries of state George Shultz, James Baker and Henry Kissinger. All three have endorsed the eventual goal of a world without nuclear weapons. Mr. Kissinger is not a supporter of the Global Zero campaign. Mr. Shultz and Mr. Baker have participated in Global Zero events, but have not endorsed Global Zero’s call for moving quickly to an interim reduction to 1,000 nuclear warheads.

Sign a petition calling for an end to attacks on Occupy protests

2011-10-26T19:58:00.001-04:00

Yesterday police in Oakland, California, attacked thousands of largely peaceful protesters -- firing tear gas, flash grenades and rubber bullets into crowds that included children, the elderly and people with disabilities.
Police have cracked down on other Occupy encampments across the country, evicting and arresting hundreds of nonviolent protesters in Chicago, Atlanta and Albuquerque. Occupiers in Baltimore, San Francisco, and other cities are also being threatened with eviction and arrest.
When a peaceful movement for social and economic justice is met with violence and repression, people of faith have a moral obligation to speak up.
Sign the petition at the following site: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2518/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=8542&tag=taf

Follow-up to forum co-sponsored by APEC

2011-10-26T16:16:00.003-04:00

OCCUPY AEROJET: A day of re-imagining Aerojet Ordnance without the manufacturing of Depleted Uranium. Open to all of the public! Bring food, stories, concerns and questions to share.
Where: Across the street from the Aerojet Ordnance plant: 1367 Old State Route 34
When: 11am-5pm, Saturday October 29
11am: Re-imagining new jobs, products and layout of the Aerojet plant
1pm: Storytelling from locals affected and concerned about the use of Depleted Uranium, as well as those who have encountered the use of Depleted Uranium in war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan
3pm: Organizing a clean up of Aerojet
Why: To raise local awareness of Depleted Uranium issues; its effects in production and use on the battlefield. While we hold environmental and public health concerns for DU production, even more dramatic are the consequences for veterans and citizens exposed to DU particulates after its production.
For questions contact Heather Mitchell (CPT Representative) at 214-502-8035
Organized by Christian Peacemaker Teams and local citizens concerned about Depleted Uranium issues

Article from Johnson City Press about forum co-sponsored by APEC

2011-10-26T16:12:00.000-04:00

Occupy Aerojet movement planned, forum focuses on depleted uranium’s usage and safety
Published October 25, 2011By Amanda Marsh - Press Staff Writer

A forum prompted by the Christian Peacemakers Teams’ weeklong delegation against depleted uranium usage at Aerojet Ordnance was held at East Tennessee State University Tuesday.
Several individuals spoke out against DU and the harmful side effects suffered by those who come in contact with it. There also was talk about the soil and water samples released by CPT earlier this week, which showed traces of DU in Limestone Creek downstream of Aerojet Ordnance, as well as in the soil of non-residential and residential areas near the facility.
The CPT is planning an occupation of Aerojet, 1367 Old State Route 34, on Saturday beginning at 11 a.m.
“It can pierce the armor on tanks and take out underground bunkers, but it doesn’t treat the human body very nicely and that’s its handicap,” said Cliff Kindy, coordinator for the CPT depleted uranium campaign. “If anything’s going to change in Iraq, we’ve got to do the work here. What would it take to stop the production of depleted uranium weapons?”
Gathering support while educating others about DU was part of the forum’s focus. Ann Harris, executive director of whistleblower support group We The People, discussed the complex stages involved before DU munitions can be made.
“When they (the military) eject depleted uranium out of any Abrams tank or out of any facility, 70 percent of it goes into a big cloud of dust and you’re breathing it in.”
Another speaker, John Paul Hasko, said contact with DU has taken the life of at least one of his former co-workers at Aerojet. With the health of locals, especially children, on his mind, Hasko called for Aerojet to pay for an epidemiological study of the graduating classes of David Crockett High School from 1977 to 1997.
“Do you know what the real problem is with DU? We humans don’t have a four and a half billion year half life, we only have this life to make it right for the children,” Hasko said.
During Kindy’s talk, he mentioned that Aerojet was invited to the Uranium Weapons Production in Our Own Backyard forum, but did not attend.
“Why wouldn’t they talk about what they’re doing?” he said. “If they’re selling a good product, certainly the community would be happy to know what they’re doing.”
Retired Army Maj. Doug Rokke was originally scheduled as the keynote speaker, but severe health issues kept him from making the trip from Illinois. He served as the former director of the Army’s DU project and says interaction with it has given him upper respiratory problems, cataracts, fibromyalgia and osteoporosis.
Robbie and Somer Seaton of Afton attended the forum in order to learn more about DU and possibly join the CPT and its delegation against Aerojet. Since their 9-year-old son Memphis died of an adult brain tumor five months ago, the couple is searching to figure out why he developed the tumor as well as why Robbie’s father suffered lung cancer and why many of their livestock and pets have developed cancer.
“Our whole cause is to find answers and protect other children,” Somer said. “And so everything we went through wasn’t in vain.”
At the occupation of Aerojet on Saturday, the CPT will look at alternatives for the facility and listen to stories from veterans.
“I think we need to begin to put this together and to understand it in ways that we don’t at this point,” Kindy said. “You’re going to be the people that make those changes, it’s not going to happen without you.”
Read more: http://www.johnsoncitypress.com/News/article.php?id=95308#ixzz1buMJu6Op

Forum co-sponsored by APEC

2011-10-18T12:52:00.001-04:00

Appalachian Peace Education Center and Christian Peacemaker Teams will present a forum on Tuesday, October 25, 2011, at East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, Tennessee. Reception at 6 pm, room 122, forum at 7 pm, room 102, Rogers-Stout Hall.
In connection with CPT’s delegation to Jonesboro protesting the use of depleted uranium.
Speakers:
Doug Rokke, PhD, US Army (retired), DU weapons expert and whistleblower: health implications of uranium weapons for US Troops
John Paul Hasko, former Aerojet worker: uranium weapons production in Jonesboro
Ann Harris, Nuclear Safety Advocate: from mining through enrichment – the weaponization of uranium
Cliff Kindy, DU Weapons Campaign Leader: “getting in the way of DU weapons in Iraq and Afghanistan”
Ash-lee Henderson, ETSU graduate and community organizer: role of nonviolent civil disobedience in pursuit of peace and justice
Moderator: Jacqueline Luck, Minister, Holston Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, Convenor of Tri-Cities Cooperation Circle of United Religions Initiative
Please join us to discuss the uranium weapons being produced in our own back yard, endangering our communities, our workers, our troops . . . our world.

Occupation in Johnson City, TN

2011-10-12T16:18:00.000-04:00

Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Roger Golden and I just returned from Occupy2011 in Washington, DC. We're delighted to see that the movement is spreading. Information about occupations all around the country is available at www.OccupyTogether.org. I just signed up to participate in what I think may be the closest one in Johnson City:
Saturday, October 15, 2011, 10:00 AM
State of Franklin walkway by ETSU Mcdonalds to Downtown JC
1216 West State of Franklin Road Johnson City, TN (map)
For solidarity to the Wall St protesters!
ONLY GOOD VIBES PERMITTED.
PROTEST IS OPEN TO ALL BELIEFS AND OPINIONS.
JOIN THE 99%
From Cinny Poppen, APEC staff

Report from the Occupation, by Cinny Poppen

2011-10-12T16:14:00.003-04:00

10/12/2011

Stop yer bitching. . . start a revolution! (message on a t-shirt)

The Occupy movement is spreading all over this country. Roger and I felt extremely moved by the encampment we joined in Washington, DC, from its first day, Thursday, October 6, 2011, through Saturday, October 9.

People were well-organized, peaceful, angry, and determined to make their desires known. We found the hundreds of colorful signs dotting Freedom Plaza extremely entertaining.

The first night we witnessed a large crowed making decisions by consensus. An excellent facilitator asked for proposals on the subject of where the demonstrators should sleep, limiting speakers to a minute apiece. People reacted with what I learned is called “sparkling”: hands in the air with fingers waving means agreement, hands pointed downward means disagreement. Through this process the many proposals were finally boiled down to one with two tiers. After much helpful clarification, especially by members of DC’s homeless population, it seemed that the plaza might be under federal jurisdiction, so sleeping there could lead to arrest by federal police. Sleeping on nearby streets might be less risky because the park police, or DC police, or transit police, or yet another of the many policing entities in our nation’s capitol, would be in control. As it turned out, around 300 people slept outside with no arrests at all.

During the subsequent days several marches took off down the street, at least once to another occupation in McPherson Square, and once to the Art and Space Museum in an ill-advised attempt to protest the current exhibit of drones there. When I first saw Bread and Puppet Theater in Chicago years ago, some of the actors, dressed in black, pretended to be bombers, with great effect; now members portrayed even more threatening drones.

On Saturday welistened to a talk on US national security policy by iinvestigative historian/journalist Gareth Porter, participated in a workshop on economics for the people, and then had the great pleasure of hearing from Ralph Nader. He advised us to keep our focus and warned us not to be co-opted--because we are the 99%. The permit was supposed to end on Sunday, October 10, but the city has agreed to extend it for four months.

From an article in the Washington Post on Tuesday, October 11, by Tim Craig:

”Several D.C. Council members said Tuesday they have no problem with antiwar and anti-Wall Street protesters setting up extended encampments on National Park Service property in the city, and one council member hopes they ‘stay for years.’

“Two groups are entrenched in Freedom Plaza and McPherson Square downtown. Protesters with the Stop the Machine and Occupy DC groups have erected tents and piled up boxes and other living materials as they hold meetings, decamp for marches and protests and otherwise traverse the city. “In Freedom Plaza, Stop the Machine group organizer Margaret Flowers said Tuesday that the group and the National Park Service agreed to extend its permit to stay there through Dec. 30. At McPherson Square, Occupy DC protesters have said they have no permit and have not been bothered by authorities.

“In interviews Tuesday, eight of 13 council members supported the protesters’ presence. “’Sometimes for people without means, the only way to get a message out is a public display,’ said council member Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3), a constitutional law professor at George Washington University. ‘Other issues could develop, such as public health, but I think we shouldn’t be too quick to sweep them off the public plaza.’

“Flowers said Tuesday that while her group has a permit for the entire Freedom Plaza park area, other groups have permits for events there and she would make sure space is cleared. Meanwhile, she said her group may apply for another extension that would run through February. “’We can’t say how long we’ll be here,’ Flowers said. ‘We’ll see an end when our groups accomplish what they need to accomplish.’”

October2011

2011-09-29T16:24:00.000-04:00

From Cinny Poppen, APEC staff:
My partner Roger Golden and I will represent APEC at the occupation in DC beginning Thursday, October 6. We’ll also attend the Tar Sands demonstration opposing the Keystone Pipeline on Friday, October 7. Because I haven’t heard from anyone, I assume we’re the only people from this area who plan to go.
Following is a letter we received from Margaret Flowers, one of the organizers.
It is almost here! There are three things I want to tell you about an incredibly important event for you, your family and our nation: Stop the Machine: Create a New World.

1. It is going to be huge and historic. Thousands have already signed up to join us in Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC. You are going to want to tell everyone you know you were part of this. You are going to want your children and grandchildren to know you helped ignite the change to a new world.
2. This event is critically important. Our nation is at a crossroads. We need to get off the wrong path and on to the right one. We need to end the dominance of government by the political and economic elite when it is obvious that the people can do a better job. We need to create an economic system where we participate, a government that responds to the people and a nation that puts the people’s needs before human greed.
3. It begins soon. In less than a week thousands will gather to begin a multi-day encampment that builds on the revolts being seen in Egypt, Tunisia, Span and Greece, as well as Madison, WI and Wall Street, NY. The time is right for this moment in history. The beginning of a massive movement to create a country that reaches its ideals, that becomes the more perfect union that the nation has always sought to be.

People will look back at this event and see it as the beginning – the turning point when the people demanded that the country move from militarism and war to diplomacy and cooperation; from funneling money to the wealthiest 1% to sharing the nation’s prosperity among all of us; and from environmental degradation to the planet’s renewal. It is our responsibility to get this nation on the right track. You need to be part of this. Join me in Freedom Plaza starting on October 6.

Success! US Cancels Nuclear Missile Test on International Day of Peace

2011-09-22T14:45:00.001-04:00

I’m writing with great news! Over 7,000 NAPF Action Alert Network members wrote to President Obama in response to our alert about the planned US Minuteman III nuclear-capable missile test on the International Day of Peace. On Friday, the Air Force Global Strike Command announced that the test has been postponed. The International Day of Peace will now be a more peaceful day.
Although the government is unlikely to ever admit it, I see this as evidence that your messages do make a difference. This is a small victory, but with your continued support there will be bigger victories to follow.
Rick Wayman, Director of Programs, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

A Child Speaks Out

2011-09-19T13:04:00.001-04:00

This moving video shows a child expressing her concern about her future.

http://youtu.be/TQmz6Rbpnu0

Activists Protest Nuclear Weapons Facility Expansion

2011-09-19T11:24:00.001-04:00

A study by the Army Corps of Engineers released in July estimated a $6.5-$7.5 billion price tag on the proposed expansion of a nuclear weapons complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Meanwhile, peace activists and Oak Ridge community members continue their nearly six-year-long protest against the project.

The expansion, which would add a uranium processing facility to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Y-12 weapons complex, has seen a tenfold increase in estimated costs since the project was first announced in 2005.

Over the years, the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance (OREPA) has protested the ballooning costs and has raised alarms about the environmental impact of the structure. Most critically, according to OREPA coordinator Ralph Hutchison, the group objects to a nuclear-based defense policy that it says actually makes the world less secure. Y-12 officials, on the other hand, call the facility a “key to global security.”

The Department of Energy recently announced its official approval of the project, called a record of decision, available at nepa.energy.gov/ records_of_decisions.htm.

Speaking at the Appalachian Peace Education Center in May, Hutchison said that the expansion would allow the Oak Ridge facility to produce 80 warheads every year. Hutchison detailed OREPA’s efforts to draw attention to the project and fight nuclear proliferation.

By Paige Campbell, The Appalachian Voice, August/September 2011

Letter to friends about Oak Ridge

2011-09-19T11:02:00.002-04:00

Dear friends and family, below you will observe the text of a letter outlining my concerns about the building of a new Nuclear Bomb factory in Oak Ridge Tn. Several of us in Abingdon, Va. have visited the Oak Ridge facility several times to protest the building of this new facility along with the "modernization of all of our exiting nuclear weapons. This is being planned at a time that we are in serious financial trouble and having just signed a new treaty, obligating our country to work towards the eventual elimination of all nuclear weapons' Please read this over and consider acting to protest this costly and insane program that our country is embarking on. Thanks.
Written by APEC member Tom Boyle

Forty years ago the United States signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, agreeing to negotiate "in good faith" the elimination of nuclear weapons. The New START treaty that passed the senate earlier this year is also a commitment to decrease our nuclear supply. In spite of these commitments, the National Nuclear Security Administration recently announced an increase in funding for the nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

On August 6th and 9th we commemorate the 66th anniversary of the US bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It's hard to understand why our government is using a "life extension program" to modify existing warheads, in some cases adding new military capabilities and making their intended use as much as thirty times more powerful than the bombs dropped in 1945.

In an article from the Wall Street Journal , March 2011, former cabinet members George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, William Perry, and former Senator Sam Nunn argue for a world without nuclear weapons. "With the spread of nuclear weapons, technology, materials, and know-how, there is an increasing risk that nuclear weapons will be used." And they conclude, "It is clear that the U.S. and Russia - having led the nuclear buildup for decades - must continue to lead the build-down."

When a cataclysmic earthquake and tsunami caused massive devastation at the Fukishima nuclear plant in Japan, more than 200,000 people were forced to evacuate from their homes and radioactive toxins now circle the globe, poisoning our water, soil, air, and contaminating the global food supply. Each of the 442 nuclear reactors in the US, besides continuing to generate tons of nuclear waste that will last for hundreds of thousands of years, is a potential Fukishima waiting to happen, either by force of nature, human error, or deliberate malice. The estimated 23,000 nuclear bombs on our planet are also subject to catastrophic accidental misuse, deliberate sabotage, or intentional use by some misguided government with an insane death wish.

Stop the Machine: Create a New World!

2011-09-17T10:30:00.002-04:00

October 2011 will mark the start of the 11th year of the invasion of Afghanistan and the onset of the 2012 US federal budget, which provides unlimited funds for war and corporate welfare, yet withholds essential funds for services that meet human needs.
Starting on October 6, 2011, thousands of concerned Americans will assemble in Freedom Plaza, in Washington DC to take control of our country and our lives. We will occupy the plaza and hold a People's Assembly where we come up with just and sustainable solutions to the crises we face and demand that these solutions be presented and that the people's needs be addressed. We will plan and engage in creative acts of civil resistance and demand that our inherent rights and freedoms be protected, and that our children have a chance to live in peace,to breathe clean air, and to grow edible natural food.
Will you stand with us and denounce the systems and institutions that support endless war and unrestrained corporate greed ?
Connect with a U.S. "Tahrir Square" demonstration at www,October2011.org.
And contact Cinny Poppen if you're interested in going: 276-492-0303, goldenpop60@hotmail.com.

Nuclear Missile Launch on Int'l Day of Peace

2011-09-12T13:51:00.001-04:00

“This provocation underscores the need for action – not just at the UN Security Council, but in our determination to prevent the spread of these weapons.”

That was President Obama’s response to an Iranian missile test in 2009. The president is right to be concerned about the existence of missiles that may eventually be capable of carrying nuclear warheads. But did you know that the United States regularly test-launches its own long-range nuclear missiles?

The United States keeps 450 Minuteman III missiles, which carry nuclear warheads, on high-alert status, ready to be fired within moments of an order. Since their development in the late 1960s, the US has test-fired this type of nuclear missile over 200 times.

Two tests have already taken place in 2011, with a third scheduled for September 21, the International Day of Peace. That day is officially recognized each year by the United Nations General Assembly as a day for “commemorating and strengthening the ideals of peace both within and among all nations and peoples.”

So, on the 2011 International Day of Peace, the United States has chosen not “to honor a cessation of hostilities,” but rather to implement a very visible, $20 million test of a nuclear-capable missile.

Send a message to President Obama today, asking him to respect the International Day of Peace by cancelling the Minuteman III missile launch, and to take nuclear weapons off high-alert status in order to lower the possibilities of accidental or unauthorized missile launches.

Phone:(202) 456-1111
Fax:(202) 456-2461

http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/6357/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=8047

2011-09-12T13:41:00.000-04:00

http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/6357/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=8047

Report from Rees

2011-08-27T14:06:00.002-04:00

Dear APEC Friend,
Saturday, I was arrested in front of the White House while protesting the Tar Sands Keystone XL Pipeline. Along with Bill McKibben and Gus Speth, I spent 52 hours in custody of the Park Police and DC city jails. I stood with the first 70 of over 2,000 activists committed to participating in this organized civil disobedience over the next two weeks.
Why am I and hundreds of others, wearing our Obama 2008 buttons, while risking arrest over such an obscure project? 350.org founder Bill McKibben describes the tar sands pipeline as “a 1700-mile fuse to the largest carbon bomb on the planet.” James Hanson, NASA's preeminent climate scientist, says that if the tar sands are fully exploited it's "game over" for the planet! Hanson is among those coming to DC to be arrested.
President Obama can stop this project singlehandedly--without interference from Congress. Obama has sole authority. We must compel him to make good on his promise. In his June 6, 2008, speech in St. Paul, MN, upon securing the Democratic nomination Obama said, "This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal."
Background: Production of oil from tar sands bitumen produces between 3 and 5 times the greenhouse gas pollution of conventional oil production. Keystone XL is a project proposed to develop a $7 billion pipeline to transport oil from oil sands reserves in northern Alberta, Canada, to refineries Texas. Gathering and refining petroleum from the oil sands in Canada is perhaps the most environmentally hazardous and costly method of oil extraction on the table right now. Tar sands extraction endangers the health and destroys the lands of indigenous peoples. The pipeline risks leaks across some of the nation's prime farm and ranch land and the precious Ogallala Aquifer. Farmers are rising to oppose the pipeline.
While in jail, I adapted that old civil rights song "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around" to a new purpose:
We're gonna walk (work, stand, ______) to turn Obama around, Obama around, Obama around Were gonna talk (pray, fight, sing, ______) to turn Obama around
Keep on a workin', keep on a talkin'
Gonna shut the pipeline (Keystone) down.
I was manacled, shackled, and isolated from our group at the Federal Courthouse for singing those words.
My son Daniel rushed south from New England surprising me at the Federal Courthouse door when we were released. What a wonderful feeling of support his embrace gave me. Now, I need your help, too! Many of us worked hard for President Obama's election three years ago. We feel very disappointed in the progress on environmental healing that we expected Obama to lead.
It's time we let Obama know how he can rekindle some hope and change. The President acting alone can stop the Keystone XL pipeline project. Let's make him do it. Tell him you were a supporter and want to be again, but you need a clear signal that he is on your side and that of future generations.
• Send your own personal message to President Obama at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact
• You can sign the petition at http://www.tarsandsaction.org/obama-petition/
• Forward this message on to other individuals and lists.
Thank you for your faith that we can turn this country around from the old ways of doing business and create space for a green energy future to flourish.
--Rees
rrshearer@gmail.com
(276) 944-5355
+++++++++++++++++
P.S. It's so good to be unshackled, eating garden produce instead of baloney on white bread, and sleeping on a soft mattress instead of cold steel. If you would like to receive my story (when completed) about what the jail experience was like, email me.
BTW, the court dropped all charges.

Amy Goodman on Tar Sands Protest

2011-08-24T17:59:00.001-04:00

The White House was rocked Tuesday, not only by the 5.9 Richter-scale earthquake, but by the protests mounting outside its gates. More than 2,100 people say they’ll risk arrest there during the next two weeks. They oppose the Keystone XL pipeline project, designed to carry heavy crude oil from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, to refineries on the US Gulf Coast.
A “keystone” in architecture is the stone at the top of an arch that holds the arch together; without it, the structure collapses. By putting their bodies on the line – as more than 200 have already at the time of this writing – these practitioners of the proud tradition of civil disobedience hope to collapse not only the pipeline, but the fossil-fuel dependence that is accelerating disruptive global climate change.
APEC member Rees Shearer was arrested on Saturday, along with others including Bill McKibben, environmentalist and author who founded the group 350.org, named after the estimated safe upper limit of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of 350ppm (parts per million; the planet is currently at 390ppm). In a call to action to join the protest, McKibben, along with others, including journalist Naomi Klein, actor Danny Glover and Nasa scientist James Hansen, wrote the Keystone pipeline is “a fifteen hundred mile fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the continent, a way to make it easier and faster to trigger the final overheating of our planet”.

An Invitation

2011-08-23T16:01:00.003-04:00

This invitation was published by a group of environmentalists, indigenous leaders and scientific experts, calling for action to stop the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. To answer the call and join the action, go to www.tarsands.com
Dear Friends
This will be a slightly longer letter than common for the internet age—it’s serious stuff.
The short version is we want you to consider doing something hard: coming to Washington in the hottest and stickiest weeks of the summer and engaging in civil disobedience that will quite possibly get you arrested.
The full version goes like this:
As you know, the planet is steadily warming: 2010 was the warmest year on record, and we’ve seen the resulting chaos in almost every corner of the earth.
And as you also know, our democracy is increasingly controlled by special interests interested only in their short-term profit.
These two trends collide this summer in Washington, where the State Department and the White House have to decide whether to grant a certificate of ‘national interest’ to some of the biggest fossil fuel players on earth. These corporations want to build the so-called ‘Keystone XL Pipeline’ from Canada’s tar sands to Texas refineries.
To call this project a horror is serious understatement. The tar sands have wrecked huge parts of Alberta, disrupting ways of life in indigenous communities—First Nations communities in Canada, and tribes along the pipeline route in the U.S. have demanded the destruction cease. The pipeline crosses crucial areas like the Oglalla Aquifer where a spill would be disastrous—and though the pipeline companies insist they are using ‘state of the art’ technologies that should leak only once every 7 years, the precursor pipeline and its pumping stations have leaked a dozen times in the past year. These local impacts alone would be cause enough to block such a plan. But the Keystone Pipeline would also be a fifteen hundred mile fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the continent, a way to make it easier and faster to trigger the final overheating of our planet, the one place to which we are all indigenous.
As the climatologist Jim Hansen (one of the signatories to this letter) explained, if we have any chance of getting back to a stable climate “the principal requirement is that coal emissions must be phased out by 2030 and unconventional fossil fuels, such as tar sands, must be left in the ground.” In other words, he added, “if the tar sands are thrown into the mix it is essentially game over.” The Keystone pipeline is an essential part of the game. “Unless we get increased market access, like with Keystone XL, we’re going to be stuck,” said Ralph Glass, an economist and vice-president at AJM Petroleum Consultants in Calgary, told a Canadian newspaper last week.
Given all that, you’d suspect that there’s no way the Obama administration would ever permit this pipeline. But in the last few months the administration has signed pieces of paper opening much of Alaska to oil drilling, and permitting coal-mining on federal land in Wyoming that will produce as much CO2 as 300 powerplants operating at full bore.
And Secretary of State Clinton has already said she’s ‘inclined’ to recommend the pipeline go forward. Partly it’s because of the political commotion over high gas prices, though more tar sands oil would do nothing to change that picture. But it’s also because of intense pressure from industry. The US Chamber of Commerce—a bigger funder of political campaigns than the RNC and DNC combined—has demanded that the administration “move quickly to approve the Keystone XL pipeline,” which is not so surprising—they’ve also told the U.S. EPA that if the planet warms that will be okay because humans can ‘adapt their physiology’ to cope. The Koch Brothers, needless to say, are also backing the plan, and may reap huge profits from it.
So we’re pretty sure that without serious pressure the Keystone Pipeline will get its permit from Washington. A wonderful coalition of environmental groups has built a strong campaign across the continent—from Cree and Dene indigenous leaders to Nebraska farmers, they’ve spoken out strongly against the destruction of their land. We need to join them, and to say even if our own homes won’t be crossed by this pipeline, our joint home—the earth—will be wrecked by the carbon that pours down it.
And we need to say something else, too: it’s time to stop letting corporate power make the most important decisions our planet faces. We don’t have the money to compete with those corporations, but we do have our bodies, and beginning in mid August many of us will use them. We will, each day, march on the White House, risking arrest with our trespass. We will do it in dignified fashion, demonstrating that in this case we are the conservatives, and that our foes—who would change the composition of the atmosphere are dangerous radicals. Come dressed as if for a business meeting—this is, in fact, serious business.
And another sartorial tip—if you wore an Obama button during the 2008 campaign, why not wear it again? We very much still want to believe in the promise of that young Senator who told us that with his election the ‘rise of the oceans would begin to slow and the planet start to heal.’ We don’t understand what combination of bureaucratic obstinacy and insider dealing has derailed those efforts, but we remember his request that his supporters continue on after the election to pressure his government for change. We’ll do what we can.
And one more thing: we don’t just want college kids to be the participants in this fight. They’ve led the way so far on climate change—10,000 came to DC for the Powershift gathering earlier this spring. They’ve marched this month in West Virginia to protest mountaintop removal; a young man named Tim DeChristopher faces sentencing this summer in Utah for his creative protest.
Now it’s time for people who’ve spent their lives pouring carbon into the atmosphere to step up too, just as many of us did in earlier battles for civil rights or for peace. Most of us signing this letter are veterans of this work, and we think it’s past time for elders to behave like elders. One thing we don’t want is a smash up: if you can’t control your passions, this action is not for you.
This won’t be a one-shot day of action. We plan for it to continue for several weeks, till the administration understands we won’t go away. Not all of us can actually get arrested—half the signatories to this letter live in Canada, and might well find our entry into the U.S. barred. But we will be making plans for sympathy demonstrations outside Canadian consulates in the U.S., and U.S. consulates in Canada—the decision-makers need to know they’re being watched.
Twenty years of patiently explaining the climate crisis to our leaders hasn’t worked. Maybe moral witness will help. You have to start somewhere, and we choose here and now.
If you think you might want to be a part of this action, we need you to sign up here.
As plans solidify in the next few weeks we’ll be in touch with you to arrange nonviolence training; our colleagues at a variety of environmental and democracy campaigns will be coordinating the actual arrangements.
We know we’re asking a lot. You should think long and hard on it, and pray if you’re the praying type. But to us, it’s as much privilege as burden to get to join this fight in the most serious possible way. We hope you’ll join us.
Maude Barlow – Chair, Council of Canadians
Wendell Berry – Author and Farmer
Tom Goldtooth – Director, Indigenous Environmental Network
Danny Glover – Actor
James Hansen – Climate Scientist
Wes Jackson – Agronomist, President of the Land Insitute
Naomi Klein – Author and Journalist
Bill McKibben – Writer and Environmentalist
George Poitras – Mikisew Cree Indigenous First Nation
Gus Speth – Environmental Lawyer and Activist

APEC monthly meeting

2011-08-14T17:28:00.000-04:00

APEC's next monthly meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m., Monday, August 22nd and will be held at the Washington County Library's meeting room (Oak Hill and Valley Streets). The program will be a discussion: "Next Steps: To Get Rid of Nuclear Weapons and To Stop the Oak Ridge Nuclear Boondoggle".

- For the last month, APEC has conducted a coordinated campaign to raise awareness about the nuclear weapons issue: visits to Congressional offices, letters to the editor, a demonstration in Abingdon, travel to the Oak Ridge Hiroshima dimonstration, and a full page ad in the Bristol paper. Please plan to attend and help us develop ways to keep this campaign alive. -

The discussion will be followed by APEC's Board business meeting - all are welcome to attend the board meeting also.

Hope to see you on the 22nd!

Buckey Boone

APEC at the Y12 gate

2011-08-12T10:47:00.012-04:00

Several of us participated in a very moving demonstration at Oak Ridge on Saturday, August 6, the 66th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.

Please notice the bright (heliotrope) t-shirts, on sale by APEC for $10 apiece. Call Cinny Poppen at 492-0303 if you're interested in buying one.

Ad in Bristol Herald Courier, Aug. 7, 2011

2011-08-08T11:53:00.002-04:00

Nuclear weapons threaten world peace and American national security. If we continue to produce them, an increasing number of countries will acquire them, and they may soon fall into the hands of terrorists.

The United States has agreed to cut down its supply of nuclear weapons, by adopting the START treaty. But the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has announced an increase in funding for the nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

During our country's worst budget crisis since the Great Depression, a new $6.5 billion uranium processing facility, sized to produce 80 warheads a year, will be built there if the NNSA is not stopped.

We, the undersigned, are alarmed about the intentions of our government and see a major discrepancy between signing the START treaty and going forward with continued nuclear weapons development.

We encourage Senators Jim Webb, Mark Warner, Lamar Alexander, and Bob Corker, and Congressmen Morgan Griffith and Phil Roe to assi! st in making the United States a leader in banning all nuclear weapons and reaching the goal of a nuclear free world.

The future of the planet and the wellbeing of present and future generations depend on reaching this goal.

Monica Appleby Susan Apthorp Buckey and Joan Boone Tom and Marianne Boyle Richard and Linda Brumleve Mary Carberry Joyce Casey Ed and Sandy Davis Vickianne Dotten Carol Edwards Margaret Evans Margaret and Robin Feierabend Steve Fisher Dr Joseph Fitsanakis Dr Vanessa Fitsanakis Nancy Garretson Patricia Gaskin Roger Golden Margaret Gregg Larry Harley Adrianne Hess JoAnn Hicks Sally Hoover Nancy Hunter Kathy Hutson Anne Leibig Fran Levin Carol Levine Marcia Murray Elizabeth Mathews Ann Mathews, for Abbie, Allie, Cami, Max, and Calder Steve McBrien Dene Peterson Cinny Poppen Eric Reese Beverly Robinette Mary Rodgers Catherine Rumschlag Cory Scott Molly Scott Rees and Kathy Shearer Frances Steen Maura Ubinger Jon and Carole Towers Jamie Tubmen Jim VonBramer David Winship

Ad in newspaper

2011-08-03T12:55:00.002-04:00

Today we sent an advertisement to the Bristol Herald Courier signed by many people who agree that our country has no need to expand its capacity to build nuclear bombs. Attached is a copy of the completed ad, which will appear in the paper on Sunday, August 7, the day between the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Thank you all for your support.

Signature Ad

2011-07-28T19:24:00.001-04:00

The APEC board agreed at its last meeting to create a signature ad that will appear in the Bristol Herald Courier on Sunday, August 7, to be paid for by the people who sign the ad. We chose this date because it’s the day between the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. If you’d like to add your name, please contact Roger Golden at 276-492-0503 or goldenpop60@hotmail.com, pledge the amount you’re able to pay, and tell him how you want your name to appear. Send your pledge money to APEC, PO Box 1831, Abingdon, VA 24212.

At the demo on Saturday, July 30th, we’ll have copies of a petition asking our Congresspeople to assist in leading the effort to create a nuclear-free world. Copies will also be available the next Saturday, August 6.

We now have new APEC t-shirts in a color called heliotrope (brighter than pink or peach), costing $10 apiece, sizes medium, large, and extra-large. Please let me know if you want one. Cinny Poppen, APEC staff, 276-492-0303, same email as Roger’s.

In the interest of economic justice

2011-07-25T11:01:00.002-04:00

Virginia's Sen. Mark Warner is a "Gang of Six" negotiator. All the more important that Virginia Senators hear from you.
Senator Larmar Alexander is cozying up to a "Gang of Six" deal. He and Sen. Corker need to hear from you.
Both parties say deficit reduction requires “tough choices” and “shared sacrifice” and “taking on sacred cows.” But the only sacred cows being gored by the latest proposals, including the Senate’s “Gang of Six” proposal, are working people, the middle class, seniors and the poor.
We are told the revenue portion will be worked out later--not with this Tea Party dominated House of Representatives pledge to no tax increases EVER!
We have given the wealthy a bailout. An audit of the Federal Reserve just revealed $16 TTTTTTrillion (The Fed Audit - www.sanders.senate.gov) in secret loans to bail out wealthy bank investors. It's time to even out the burden. Many people are still unemployed from the economic catastrophe that Wall Street's cowboy capitalism reigned down on the rest of us. Not one financial player has been called to account for this disaster.
The Tea Party has even opposed extending unemployment insurance. The parties are only reflecting the power of the rich. Please ask your Senators to stand tall for the rest of us and oppose placing the burden for these disastrous excesses on the poor, the elderly, and working people.

Senator Lamar Alexander:
DC Phone: (202) 224-4944
Blountville Phone: (423) 325-6240
Senator Bob Corker
DC Phone: 202-224-3344
Blountville Phone: 423-323-1252
Senator Mark Warner
Phone: 202-224-2023
Senator Jim Webb
Phone: 202-224-4024
posted by Rees Shearer

APEC invites you to two events

2011-07-13T21:44:00.002-04:00

Appalachian Peace Education Center's next monthly meeting will be on Thursday, July 21, 2011, at 7 pm, at the United Methodist Church, 101 E. Main Street, Abingdon. We will watch excerpts from the DVD Nuclear Tipping Point, which will be followed by a discussion of our government's plans to expand the weapons plant at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and plans for the commemoration of the bombing of Hiroshima, in August, at the Oak Ridge Weapons Facility. At a time when the United States has adopted the new START treaty and has thereby agreed to cut down its supply of nuclear weapons, the National Nuclear Security Administration has announced an increase in funding for the nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. If the government is not stopped, a new $6.5 billion Uranium Processing Facility, sized to produce 80 warheads a year, will be built there. A small group of hibakusha, survivors of the Hiroshima bombing, whose courageous voices have continued to oppose nuclear weapons for 66 years, will lead the protest. APEC will join the protest at the Y12 plant on August 6th. Some of us plan to leave the afternoon of Friday, August 5, and stay overnight so that we can join the ceremony that begins at 6 am on the 6th. Other cars will leave early Saturday morning and get there for the rest of the protest. Roger Golden will organize carpooling. You can reach him at goldenpop60 "at" hotmail dot com or 276-492-0503. For more information, go to www.OREPA.org.

Staying Human: Sailing to Gaza

2011-07-11T14:30:00.002-04:00

By Kathy Kelly, speaker at APEC's Taste of the World in 2008

Last week, newly-arrived in Athens as part of the US Boat to Gaza project, our team of activists gathered for nonviolence training. We are here to sail to Gaza, in defiance of an Israeli naval blockade, in our ship, The Audacity of Hope. Our team, and nine other ships’ crews from countries around the world, want Israel to end its lethal blockade of Gaza by letting our crews through to shore to meet with Gazans. The US ship will bring over 3,000 letters of support to a population suffering its fifth continuous decade of de facto occupation, now in the form of a military blockade controlling Gaza’s sea and sky, punctuated by frequent deadly military incursions, that has starved Gaza’s economy and people to the exact level of cruelty considered acceptable to the domestic population of our own United States, Israel’s staunchest ally.

Read the rest of Kathy's report here.

Taste of the World

2011-05-20T10:59:00.002-04:00

APEC is delighted to announce an addition to our program for Taste of the World on Thursday, May 26, at the St. John's Lutheran Church in Abingdon. Besides our main event, honoring Laura Weaver for her peace and justice work, we will hear from Ralph Hutchison, coordinator of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance. Ralph has served on an EPA federal advisory committee, on the state of Tennessee's steering committee for the Oak Ridge Health Study, and has presented information about nuclear weapons production at Congressional briefings and at the United Nations. We look forward to learning from Ralph about the current plans to expand facilities at Oak Ridge.

APEC Members Go to Oak Ridge

2011-04-25T13:04:00.003-04:00

The National Nuclear Security Administration announced recently that it plans to build a new $6.5 billion plant to produce thermonuclear bomb parts in Oak Ridge, TN, with the capacity to create 80 warheads a year. On Saturday, April 16, eight people from the Appalachian Peace Education Center took part in a demonstration at Oak Ridge to oppose the expansion, along with 190 people from several other states, including North Carolina, Ohio, and Michigan.

OREPA’s youth, Action and Events Committee, and coordinator Ralph Hutchison created a moving and memorable occasion, beginning with a 2-mile march to the Y12 gate of the nuclear weapons complex. Giving in to our arthritic knees, a friend and I drove to the site and waited along with police and their vehicles and paddy wagons, unnecessary because no one committed CD that day, probably a first for the police because through the years many people have done versions of arrestable acts of civil disobedience protesting the US refurbishing of nuclear weapon.

Cold rainy weather didn’t dampen the scene: first a concert by the Emancipators and the Raging Grannies from Michigan and then a hilarious skit featuring papier maché puppets and a theme that ranged from Macbeth, to Hamlet, (“To build or not to build”) to the Christmas Carol. When the skit ended, we all decorated the fence with paper peace doves while a beautiful meditation was read to us and to the cops on the other side. A die-in on the cold and muddy ground for five minutes followed, until people rose one by one shouting “A Safer World Is Our Right.”

We were impressed to learn that OREPA has demonstrated weekly at the gate for 12 years. You can find out more about the project and the demonstration at OREPA.org. There you’ll find a You Tube video of the activities of the day. Ask your congressional representative to support H.R. 1334 – Nuclear Weapons Abolition and Economic and Energy Conversion Act of 2011, sponsored by Eleanor Norton.

APEC Resumes Monthly Programs

2011-04-07T16:17:00.004-04:00

Some months ago the APEC board created a new pattern for meetings. After a presentation by a board member, those attending will constitute the board and will meet to make decisions.

● On Thursday, April 28, board chair and Crisis Center employee Laura Weaver will lead an interactive program about the peace and justice issues pertaining to sexual violence. APEC often focuses our time and energies around the violence of war, and while that is incredibly important, there are individuals in our families and communities who are searching for peace from a different kind of violence. Because April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, there’s no better time to come together to learn the truth about sexual assault, how to help victims, and the services available in our communities. The program will be presented at the ElderSpirit Community Common House, 125 ElderSpirit Court, Abingdon. For directions call Cinny Poppen, 276-492-0303.

● On Thursday, May 26, APEC will host our annual Taste of the World celebration, offering traditional dishes from a variety of cultures and countries prepared by local restaurants and local cooks, and giving an opportunity to share time with friends and neighbors who are looking for ways to make our world more just and peaceful. We will present the tenth annual Peace and Justice Award to honor a person from our community who has worked diligently for peace and justice. We will meet at 6:30 pm at St. John’s Lutheran Church, 807 E. Main St., Abingdon.

APEC Supports Workers

2011-04-06T11:45:00.003-04:00

On Monday, April 4, several APEC members participated in a rally for workers held in a park in Abingdon and co-sponsored by the Virginia Organizing Project and the Communication Workers of America. The occasion was the commemoration of the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968, the day after he spoke to black sanitation workers in Memphis, TN. Speakers at the rally reminded us of the importance of showing our support for union organizing at a time when it’s under attack in several states, not only Wisconsin but also Michigan, Ohio, and perhaps Virginia. Over and over we heard the message that we must remember the sacrifices made by those who fought to create the unions and that we must be vigilant to protect their rights of collective bargaining.

MLK celebration planning meeting scheduled

2009-12-29T15:01:00.005-05:00

The next meeting of APEC's planning committee on the 2010 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Day celebrations will take place on Tuesday, January 5, at the home of Elizabeth Hill. If you are interested in joining the planning committee, or wish to lend your talents to the celebration, please contact APEC. The celebration, which is scheduled for Saturday, January 16, 2010, includes a peace and justice march, as well as an indoor program. To learn more about the celebrations, and to attend, click here.

APEC to host 23rd Annual MLK, Jr. celebration

2009-12-03T15:06:00.000-05:00

The Appalachian Peace Education Center is pleased to announce its 23rt Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration. This important event, which is sponsored by APEC, will be held on Saturday, January 16th, with the march starting at 1:30 pm at Charles Wesley Methodist Church on 322 East Main Street in Abingdon. The celebration will start at 2:00 pm at the Sinking Springs Presbyterian Church, located on 136 East Main Street. Following the program, there will be a reception at the church's Fellowship Hall. For more information about the Celebration, please call Buckey Boone at 276-628-8446. To see a flyer with the program of events, please click here.

Listening Project interviews nearing completion

2009-11-03T17:51:00.000-05:00

The APEC Listening Project Committee wishes to thank all of APEC's volunteers for their contribution to the Listening Project survey. We know first hand that this took a great deal of your time. We have collated about half of the results and will soon add the second half to that. When you have a chance to see the cumulative product, which includes detailed responses from over 100 APEC members, you will understand what a massive accomplishment this collaboration represents.

The APEC committee that meets after the Saturday demonstrations reviewed our preliminary (first half) results on Saturday afternoon. Those present were able to experience the thinking that this project represents and saw first hand how it catalyzed thinking and responses at the meeting.

The project responses will enable the leadership of APEC to better shape future APEC strategic and policy decisions. These interviews brought to the surface much of APEC's history, a rich vein to draw upon. It also directed a clear light of criticism on what we are currently doing, which will be equally helpful. Overall there was a clear sense in which people value the community and action that APEC represents. The affirmation of APEC, despite its warts, is palpable. Just patiently listening to people about their ideas about APEC has already made a difference. We can at least partially attribute to your work the doubling of the size of our demonstration turnout last Saturday, despite the nasty weather.

A few of you still have interviews to complete. You are invited to do so, as long as you are willing to collate your results into the final summary yourself. The summary must be finalized by November 14th, however, to allow the APEC Board to access it ahead of their meeting.

If this project has led you to certain conclusions or creative ideas please feel free to share those with the APEC Board by emailing us (click here for our contact information).

We thank you again for venturing faith in APEC and giving generously of your time to further its mission.

APEC members participate in 350.org action

2009-10-27T17:43:00.000-04:00

Several APEC members and activists were among 150 people gathered at Abingdon's Farmer's Market building last Saturday, to demonstrate their commitment to curb climate change. Participants put down their hats in the shape of the number 350, which is the number of carbon dioxide parts per million that experts believe the atmosphere can safely sustain. The very successful event was organized by the Climate Change Coalition, and included speakers such as Abingdon mayor Ed Morgan and author Barbara Kingsolver, who prompted participants not to allow "anybody tell you it’s unpatriotic to oppose a sector of the economy that you believe is evil”. To read more about the event, and see photos, click here.

APEC peace protest to focus on Afghanistan/Pakistan

2009-10-26T12:42:00.000-04:00

Just because US President Barack Obama has been named as the recipient of Nobel Peace Prize does not mean the US wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere are over. Please join APEC in demonstrating against the US military occupation of Iraq, and --primarily-- Afghanistan. Please brink with you blank board paper and markers, so we can make new signs focusing on Afghanistan. APEC's monthly peace rally will take place on Saturday, October 31, in front of the Abingdon Federal Court House (Cummings and Main) from 10:00 a.m. to noon. As the Obama Administration's foreign policy takes shape, let us continue to remind American leaders that war and militarism is never the answer. For more information contact APEC.

APEC sponsors Afghan War film showing at SWVHEC

2009-10-24T12:30:00.002-04:00

APEC Board member Ann Matthews arranged for APEC's copy of Rethink Afghanistan to be shown at the South West Virginia Higher Education Center (SWVHEC) in Abingdon, VA. Rethink Afghanistan is an engaging documentary on the war, produced and directed by filmmaker and political activist Robert Greenwald. Twenty people came to SWVHEC's state-of-the-art auditorium to watch the film on Thursday, October 22, at 1:00 p.m. A discussion followed, led by APEC member Rees Shearer, in which the general response was "outrage and in one case absolute remorse", according to Ann Matthews. Almost everyone present signed a petition to de-militarize the US intervention in Afghanistan, while several people took relevant literature with them. APEC wishes to thank SWVHEC for hosting this worthwhile event.

Upcoming Events

2009-10-23T15:16:00.000-04:00

Please click on the links below for information on individual upcoming events.

[click here for a calendar of non-APEC-related progressive events]

01/16/10: 23rd Annual APEC Martin Luther King Celebration
01/05/09: MLK Day celebration planning meeting
12/26/09: APEC monthly peace protest
11/28/09: APEC monthly peace protest
10/31/09: APEC monthly peace protest
10/22/09: Rethink Afghanistan shown at SWVHEC
10/14/09: Event to mark eight years of Afghan War
09/26/09: APEC monthly peace protest
08/29/09: APEC monthly peace protest
07/25/09: Organizing meeting
07/25/09: APEC monthly peace protest
07/15/09: Free film: Buying the War
06/27/09: APEC monthly peace protest
05/30/09: APEC monthly peace protest
05/07/09: APEC annual Taste of the World Celebration
04/31/09: APEC Board of Directors meeting
04/25/09: APEC monthly peace protest
03/28/09: APEC monthly peace protest
03/22/09: Evening of Desert and Stories
03/18/09: APEC Listening Project planning meeting
03/04/09: Justin Raimondo talk at ETSU
03/02/09: Capitol Climate Action day
02/28/09: APEC monthly peace protest
02/17/09: APEC Board of Directors meeting
02/12/09: APEC Creating Community Task Force meeting
02/05/09: APEC Listening Project planning meeting
01/31/09: APEC monthly peace protest
01/17/09: 22nd Annual APEC Martin Luther King Celebration
01/13/09: APEC Board of Directors meeting
01/08/09: APEC War and Peace group meeting
01/08/09: APEC Listening Project planning meeting
12/27/08: APEC monthly peace protest
11/29/08: APEC monthly peace protest
10/25/08: APEC monthly peace protest
09/27/08: APEC monthly peace protest
08/30/08: APEC monthly peace protest
07/26/08: APEC monthly peace protest
06/28/08: APEC monthly peace protest
05/31/08: APEC monthly peace protest
04/26/08: APEC monthly peace protest
03/15/08: Rally to mark 5th anniversary of the Iraq War
03/07-09/08: Creating a Culture of Peace workshop
02/23/08: APEC monthly peace rally
01/26/08: APEC monthly peace rally
01/22/08: GLBTQ Media Training Session
01/19/08: 21st Annual MLK Celebration
12/09/07: Talk "The US Relationship with al-Qaeda Before 9/11"
11/24/07: Peace protest against Iraq War
11/18/07: Film "Theologians Under Hitler"
10/21/07: APEC Board of Directors meeting
10/21/07: APEC new membership meeting
08/25/07: APEC Peace rally

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APEC welcomes new Board chairperson

2009-10-20T14:14:00.000-04:00

The Appalachian Peace Education Center welcomes its new chairperson, Laura Weaver. Laura (photo), who is a longtime APEC Board member, was unanimously approved to lead the Board on August 26, 2009. She is the coordinator and community educator for the Bristol Crisis Center, which serves hundreds of people per week in Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee. She has been involved with APEC in various positions for nearly a decade.

On the same day, August 26, 2009, Buckey Boone stepped down as chairperson of APEC’s Board. Buckey chaired APEC for several years that witnessed the rise and fall of the neoconservative government in Washington, the tragedy of 9/11, as well as the US invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. Under Buckey’s direction, APEC emerged as our region’s most vocal advocate for peace and reconciliation in the Bush years. APEC’s major peace advocacy began in 2003, prior to the US invasion of Iraq, and continues until today, with monthly vigils to promote nonviolence by witnessing to our local community. Buckey plans to continue to serve on the Board of APEC.

The Board thanks Buckey for his persistent efforts and invaluable contributions to APEC over the years, and appreciates Laura’s commitment and dedication, as she steps forward to lead the Center in the Obama era.

Three informative articles on the Afghan War

2009-10-16T07:00:00.000-04:00

In the next few days, APEC will announce the date, time and place for the first meeting of the Afghanistan Study Group (see here for more information). The group will hold regular meetings and will be open to everyone interested in learning more about the geopolitical situation in Afghanistan, and what can be done to demilitarize America’s involvement in that region. To get us started, three articles have been selected, which provide an excellent analysis of the US involvement in Afghanistan after 9/11. You can access the articles on .PDF by clicking on the titles. They are: "The War In Afghanistan", by Noam Chomsky, Z Magazine, February 1, 2002; "An Open Letter to President Obama", by William R. Polk, The Nation, October 19, 2009; and "Is US strategy in Afghanistan working?", by Dan Murphy and Ben Arnoldy, Christian Science Monitor, October 4, 2009.

APEC community seeks ways to end US war in Afghanistan

2009-10-15T22:24:00.007-04:00

Close to 40 people (photo) came to Abingdon’s Washington County Library on Wednesday evening to attend the showing of a documentary to mark the 8th anniversary of the continuing US invasion of Afghanistan. The APEC-sponsored event featured a free showing of Rethink Afghanistan, an engaging documentary on the war, produced and directed by filmmaker and political activist Robert Greenwald. Greenwald is noted for documentaries such as Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism (2004) and Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers (2006). Greenwald's approach has been to adapt the principles of “guerrilla filmmaking” to political documentaries, using small budgets and short shooting schedules to produce timely films and then distributing them on DVDs or the Internet in affiliation with politically sympathetic groups, such as APEC.

Neatly divided into 6 chapters, the 70’ film presented an excellent analysis of the complex situation in Afghanistan, as understood primarily by Afghans themselves. The voices of Afghan men and women from all walks of life, politicians, activists, journalists and farmers, among many others, featured prominently in the documentary. In this way, it escaped the banality of the usual military and security “talking heads” that tend to monopolize US news reports on Afghanistan.

A vibrant discussion followed the showing of the film, in which participants sought ways to take the film’s antiwar message to our family, friends, colleagues and to our community as a whole. Among ideas discussed were: (a) proceeding with the planned establishment of an Afghanistan Study Group, which will meet biweekly and focus on understanding ongoing developments in the Afghan War; (b) continuing APEC’s monthly peace demonstrations in Abingdon, using signs that focus near-exclusively on the Afghan War; (c) leafleting local communities with brochures that promote American military disengagement from Afghanistan and peaceful solutions to the conflict; (d) gathering signatures for a petition to end the war in Afghanistan, in conjunction with leafleting; (e) systematically faxing and calling the White House and urging the President not to increase US military presence in Afghanistan; (f) showing Rethinking Afghanistan several times in the Tri-Cities area, in churches, schools, libraries, etc; (g) purchasing a pro-peace advertisement in the local paper.

There will shortly be an announcement concerning setting up the Afghanistan Study Group, and other ways of action will be discussed. In the meantime, APEC urges all its members and friends to lend their presence to our monthly demonstration, on Saturday, October 31. Click here for more information on the planned demonstration.

Event to mark eight years in Afghanistan

2009-10-11T01:28:00.000-04:00

October 7 marked the eighth anniversary of the US war in Afghanistan. On October 7th, 2001, US submarines launched cruise missiles from the Arabian Sea and B-52 and B-2 stealth bombers began air strikes. The war was on. It came less than a month after 9/11. The Pentagon called it “Operation Enduring Freedom”. Since then, nearly 900 US troops have been killed, 230 of them in this year alone, putting 2009 on track to be the deadliest year for US forces. There is no reliable count on the number of Afghan civilians killed, but some estimates put the figures in the tens of thousands.

To mark the entry into the ninth year of yet another bloody American war, the Appalachian Peace Education Center (DNTC's parent organization) will be sponsoring a screening of the documentary “RETHINK AFGHANISTAN” on WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2009, at 7:00 p.m., at the WASHINGTON COUNTY LIBRARY, 205 Oak Hill Street, Abingdon, VA. A discussion will follow. The screening is free and open to the public.

During the event, APEC members and friends will discuss plans for launching the AFGHANISTAN STUDY GROUP, which will hold regular meetings. The group will be open to everyone interested in learning more about the geopolitical situation in Afghanistan, and what can be done to demilitarize America’s involvement in that region. For more information about the October 14 event, contact Buckey Boone at 276-628-8446.

2010 APEC MLK Day Celebration flier

2009-10-10T15:14:00.000-04:00

Click on image below for larger version.

APEC to hold monthly peace protest --despite Obama Nobel

2009-10-04T01:24:00.000-04:00

Just because US President Barack Obama has been named as the recipient of Nobel Peace Prize does not mean the US wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere are over. Please join APEC in demonstrating not only against the US occupation of Iraq, but also the occupation of Afghanistan and the ongoing criminal abuse of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, with US support. APEC's monthly peace rally will take place on Saturday, October 31, in front of the Abingdon Federal Court House (Cummings and Main) from 10:00 a.m. to noon. As the Obama Administration's foreign policy takes shape, let us continue to remind American leaders that war and militarism is never the answer. Bring your own signs or use one of ours. For more information contact APEC.

APEC endorses Peaceable Assembly Campaign

2009-09-30T01:35:00.002-04:00

The Appalachian Peace Education Center has formally endorsed the nationwide Peaceable Assembly Campaign. The Campaign was launched by Chicago-based Voices for Creative Nonviolence, as a means to press for an end to the US wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and an end to US support of the continued occupation of the Palestinian territories. Beginning in September, 2009, and continuing for the next ten months, endorsing organizations will engage in both legal and extralegal (nonviolent civil disobedience/civil resistance) lobbying efforts, urging Representatives and Senators to stop authorizing and funding wars and occupations. To find more about the Peaceable Assembly Campaign, click here.

Join APEC members in protesting US wars

2009-08-19T21:12:00.000-04:00

Please join APEC in demonstrating not only against the US occupation of Iraq, but also the occupation of Afghanistan and the ongoing criminal abuse of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. APEC's monthly peace rally will take place on Saturday, August 29, in front of the Abingdon Federal Court House (Cummings and Main) from 10:00 a.m. to noon. As the Obama Administration's foreign policy take shape, let us continue to remind American leaders that war and militarism is never the answer. Bring your own signs or use one of ours. For more information contact APEC.

Listening Project ready to take off

2009-08-04T21:03:00.003-04:00

Several APEC members got together after last week's customary Saturday demonstration, to fine-tune the Center's Listening Project, which is now ready to go on the air. Participants, including Carol Edwards, Buckey Boone, Steve Fisher, Reese Shearer, Ann Mathews, and Cinny Poppen, talked about the previously stated plan to conduct an internal Listening Project with APEC members. An initial list of 252 names has been filtered down to 170. It was agreed to use the survey sent out in late July, to complete the project in September, and, in the case of a couple, to talk to the person who answers the phone. The next step is to recruit callers, and group participants made commitments to call people from a list containing around 15 names. Each person recruited will be asked to make five or ten calls and will be given names from the master list along with a copy of the survey.

Join APEC organizers to discuss ways of promoting peace

2009-07-23T10:30:00.002-04:00

Immediately following this coming Saturday's peace demonstration in Abingdon, APEC organizers will meet to discuss further plans to promote peace in our region. We will be talking about furthering the Center's educational programs, which began earlier this month with the public showing of the Bill Moyers documentary Buying the War. We will also discuss plans to conduct a phone survey of APEC friends and members, with the aim of gathering information that will help make APEC more responsive to the needs of its members. The meeting will begin shortly after noon on Saturday, June 25, at the Tuscan Grill, located at 502 Cummings Street in Abingdon, VA. The restaurant is on your left as you head toward Exit 17 of I-81. All APEC members, volunteers and friends are welcome to the meeting.

News from APEC's listening project group

2009-07-20T10:18:00.002-04:00

For several months, APEC's listening project planning group has been discussing the possibility of conducting a community listening project. That idea has evolved into an APEC Internal Listening Project. The purposes are to reconnect with those who have not been involved in APEC for a while and to gather information that will help make APEC more responsive to the needs of its members.

If you click here, you will find a Google document that contains the calling script we suggest for the APEC Listening Project. A committee composed of Cinny Poppin, Steve Fisher, and Rees Shearer collaborated to produce this draft. Please feel free to offer suggestions by email. Then the draft will be discussed at the open meeting of APEC supporters who meet for lunch after the monthly APEC anti-war demonstration in Abingdon. The next meeting is Saturday at shortly after noon at the Tuscan Grill, just off of Cummings Street on your left as you head toward I-81's Exit 17 from downtown Abingdon. We will need volunteers willing to call other members and listen. We hope that a good number of you will be motivated to volunteer to help strengthen our regional peace group.

APEC peace vigil to coincide with first day of VA Highlands Festival

2009-07-16T14:54:00.000-04:00

This month's APEC peace vigil to protest the ongoing US wars, will coincide with the first day of the Virginia Highlands Festival. Please join us to add your voice for peace at a critical time for our nation and the world, as we bear witness for peace, standing up against the US occupation of Iraq, but also the occupation of Afghanistan, the continuing US attacks on Pakistani soil, and the ongoing criminal abuse of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. APEC's monthly peace rally will take place on Saturday, July 25, in front of the Abingdon Federal Court House (Cummings and Main) from 10:00 a.m. to noon. As the Obama Administration's is laying out its policies, let us continue to remind our leaders that war and militarism is never the answer. Bring your own signs or use one of ours. For more information contact APEC.

First film in APEC documentary series shown

2009-07-15T05:13:00.000-04:00

Nearly 30 APEC members and volunteers gathered (photo) at the Washington County Library earlier today to watch Bill Moyers' Buying the War, a meticulously researched documentary account of how the mainstream US media failed their mission and principles by colluding with the US government's propaganda during the run-up to the Iraq War. A lively discussion followed, focusing on the role of investigative journalism in a democracy. Several participants were highly critical of the Obama administration's persistence in pursuing a militaristic solution in Afghanistan and, increasingly, Pakistan. APEC supporter Maggie Hess read part of W.H. Auden's poem September 1, 1939, written on the outbreak of World War II. The poem can be read in its entirety here.

The showing of Buying the War, which was free and open to the public, was the first in a series of APEC film showings around issues of war and peace, as well as discussions on how peace-loving individuals and groups can pursue a pro-peace agenda. If you have in mind a relevant documentary that you think APEC should show, please contact us to let us know.

APEC to show free film on war and the US media

2009-06-29T14:45:00.000-04:00

On Wednesday, July 15, at 6:30 p.m. APEC will be showing a shocking documentary by Bill Moyers, entitled Buying the War. The film, which is free and open to the public, will be shown at the Washington County Library, located at 205 Oak Hill Street in Abingdon (telephone 276-676-6222). This documentary describes how the US media bought into all of the misinformation that justified the Iraq War and then sold it to the American public. As our country is now engaged in two wars, the history of how the media sells militarism continues to be relevant.

How did the mainstream press get it so wrong? How did the evidence disputing the existence of weapons of mass destruction and the link between Saddam Hussein to 9-11 continue to go largely unreported? How and why did the press buy the case for war, and what does it say about the role of journalists in helping the public sort out fact from propaganda? The film will be followed by a discussion.

APEC award recipient honored by Berea College

2009-05-30T14:33:00.002-04:00

Longtime APEC member Steve Fisher, who, along with his wife, Nancy Garretson, were selected earlier this month as the 2009 recipients of the APEC's Peace & Justice Award, has also been honored by Berea College, in Kentucky, for his commitment to service. Steve, a professor emeritus at Emory & Henry College, was awarded the 2009 Berea College Service Award. The award, which is given by the Berea College faculty, recognizes persons who have rendered outstanding service to society and have achieved "the high ideals to which Berea has committed itself". At its March 31, 2009, meeting, APEC's Board of Directors decided to present the 2009 year’s Peace and Justice Award to Steve and Nancy, for working tirelessly for peace and justice in our region.

APEC group attends Amy Goodman talk at ETSU

2009-04-09T16:29:00.001-04:00

Several APEC members, including organizers with Democracy Now Tri-Cities (DNTC), APEC's media outreach project, attended a talk by Democracy Now! news presenter Amy Goodman, on April 7, at East Tennessee State University, in Johnson City. The presenter of Democracy Now! flew from Florida to Asheville, NC, where she gave an early afternoon talk. She then braved the snowstorm and drove, along with the show’s outreach director, Dennis Moynihan, to Johnson City, for her scheduled fundraiser for WETS-FM. This represents a typical day’s schedule for Amy, who is currently on a 70-city tour of the United States to promote the show and her new book, Standing Up to the Madness.

APEC and DNTC staffed an information table at the event, which was attended by several hundred fans of the show. Amy delivered an energetic speech filled with insightful observations about the present conditions of the progressive movement in the United States, as well as about the importance of persisting through activism to ensure that change will remain on the agenda of the new Administration in Washington.

Following Amy’s talk, a few dozen people joined the Democracy Now! presenter for a book signing reception, where she was literally overwhelmed with friends and supporters. Speaking to DNTC, Amy expressly thanked the show’s many supportive listeners in the Tri-Cities for putting Democracy Now! on the air and for keeping it there. She also promised to return to the region for another talk soon.

Board selects 7th annual Peace and Justice Award recipient

2009-04-03T18:46:00.004-04:00

At its March 31 meeting, the Appalachian Peace Education Center's Board of Directors decided to present this year’s Peace and Justice Award to Steve Fisher and Nancy Garretson. The two lontime APEC members were selected to receive the award from a large pool of worthy nominees, who have worked tirelessly for peace and justice in our region. Steve and Nancy have been contacted by the Board and said they were both excited and honored. They will be honored on May 7th at APEC's annual Taste of the World venue. More information about Steve and Nancy will follow soon.

APEC Board of Directors to meet

2009-03-27T21:30:00.001-04:00

The Board of Directors of the Appalachian Peace Education Center (APEC) will meet on Tuesday, March 31, at 7:00 p.m., in Abingdon. The meeting will take place at the Elderspirit Community common rooom in Abingdon, VA. APEC is the Tri-Cities (TN/VA) region's most historic active citizens' group fighting for peace and social justice. To participate and to get involved with APEC, contact the group by clicking here. Directions to the meting location are as follows: (1) Turn onto Pecan St. (towards Creeper Trail) (2) Go across traintracks (3) Turn LEFT onto A Street (4) Turn RIGHT onto Kings Mountain Dr. Go up hill, around curve to the left, beside the Pre-K school (5) Turn RIGHT onto Hickman St. (there is a playground on the corner). ElderSpirit Community is down the hill on your RIGHT. The Common Room is in the large, 2 story building closest to the road. Parking is available on the upper level (1st entrance on right) or lower level (2nd entrance on right). We will be in the upper level meeting room.

Help us select annual Peace and Justice Award recipient

2009-03-24T18:42:00.001-04:00

Since 2003, the Appalachian Peace Education Center has awarded an annual Peace and Justice Award to a person from the central Appalachians who has worked to promote peace and justice. The award will again be given at APEC’s annual Taste of the World event in May. Past recipients were: Ann Newlun, Bob Rademacher, Catherine Rumschlag, Joan & Buckey Boone, Kathy & Rees Shearer, and Maura Ubinger. This year, the Board of Directors is seeking nominations from friends and members of APEC. Please let us know of a person who you admire for their persistent work on issues of peace and/or issues of justice. We want to honor a person who lives or has lived in our region of Appalachia and who has worked with others to improve justice and to promote peace. Please contact APEC with the name of your nominee, along with the nominee’s contact information and a brief description of the nominee’s work on behalf of peace and justice by March 31.

Monthly peace rally to incorporate Palestine, Afghanistan

2009-03-23T21:26:00.000-04:00

Please join APEC in demonstrating not only against the US occupation of Iraq, but also the occupation of Afghanistan and the ongoing criminal abuse of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. APEC's monthly peace rally will take place on Saturday, March 28, in front of the Abingdon Federal Court House (Cummings and Main) from 10:00 a.m. to noon. As the new Obama Administration's policies take shape, let us continue to remind American leaders that war and militarism is never the answer. Bring your own signs or use one of ours. For more information contact APEC.

APEC to host "Evening of Desert and Stories"

2009-03-19T12:56:00.000-04:00

Appalachian Peace Education Center will be hosting an "Evening of Desert and Stories" in Abingdon, Virginia. The event, which has been organized by APEC's Community Building Committee, will take place on Sunday, March 22, from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. at the Jubilee House, located behind Christ the King Catholic Church, in Abingdon. The evening will feature guest story tellers Nancy Meador and Bonnie Jessee. All APEC friends and supporters, as well as other members of the public are invited to this free event. The Center asks that those who come bring a favorite desert to share. Drinks will be provided. For directions to the Jubilee House, click here. For questions or further information, please contact Beverly at (276) 429-5072.

Virginia Organizing Project wants to hear from you!

2009-03-18T23:41:00.002-04:00

A lot of you probably think your personal story of healthcare is no big deal. You think the Virginia Organizing Project (VOP) and our elected officials are looking for long well written speeches about health care to make the case for change. Well, that’s not the case. That health care story you tell at the dinner table or during a break at work is exactly what will make a difference. Our elected officials get lots of position papers and studies. But they still aren't sure that ordinary people like you actually have a serious problem. Sit down today and write that story down. Don't worry about spelling, punctuation, etc. Don't worry about whether you think it's important. The important thing is that it is your story —the story of a real person facing a real problem. VOP's prescription is: if you care about your health and your nation's health care, write down your story and send it to us! For more information on the VOP’s ongoing Healthcare Reform Campaign, please contact Brian Johns at bjohns@virginia-organizing.org or (276) 619-1920.

APEC Invites All to its Listening Project Planning Meeting

2009-03-17T23:34:00.002-04:00

APEC members and supporters are invited to attend in the planning meeting for the Center’s Listening Project, which will be on Wednesday, March 18th at 7:00 p.m. in the all-purpose room at the Elderspirit Community in Abingdon (click here for directions). The Listening Project is a program that APEC decided to take on at its "okay, Obama is elected, what do we do now?" meeting back in December. It is hoped that through this project we will be able to listen with intention to our neighbors and our community. For information on APEC’s decision to undertake the Listening Project, click here.

Capitol Climate Action Update from Rees

2009-03-09T23:24:00.000-04:00

The following communication is from APEC member Rees Shearer, who participated in the historic Capitol Climate Action rally in Washington DC. The rally was endorsed by APEC on February 17.

Special recognition should be accorded the Emory & Henry “Greens”, 20 strong, who joined 12,000 other young people at the PowerShift Conference for three days in DC. These students drove to the conference on the maiden voyage of the E&H Outdoors Club's veggie oil-powered bus. After two days of workshops and panels, these young people massed on Capitol Hill, lobbying hundreds of congressional offices. Some of them, including Ryan Hasty, who attended the APEC dinner last May, came to the Capitol Climate Action demonstration at the Capitol Power Plant as well.

We weren't successful in drawing nationwide news coverage because the Capitol Police refused to arrest any of the 2,500 demonstrators blocking the entrances to the Capitol Power Plant in the bitter cold. Still, it was a marvelous convergence of activists and luminaries of this budding international movement: 350.org's Bill McKibben (who spoke at E&H's Winter Forum last year), pre-eminent climatologist James Hansen, author and farmer Wendell Berry, author and educator Gus Speth, hip-hop artist Rev. Lennox Yearwood, author Terry Tempest Williams, Georgia poet Janisse Ray, waterkeeper Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (who spoke exclusively about the degradation of Central Appalachia and its culture from rapacious mountaintop removal and the moral bankruptcy of the coal barons), and the country music artist Kathy Mattea sang a couple of Jean Ritchie songs including "Black Waters," in which everyone who knew the words joined in on the last stanza: "If I had ten million, somewhere's there about; I'd buy Perry County, and I'd run 'em all out; Then I'd sit myself down with my bait in my can; And watch the clear waters run down through the land; Wouldn't that be like the "Old Promised Land"? Clear waters, clear waters running down through the land".

Perhaps we didn't accomplish the immediate goal of grabbing the brief attention of a nation, but maybe we achieved the more important goal of kick-starting a national movement to really fight for appropriate climate change legislation. That tale remains to be told, but I believe we must act as if it is kick-started.

One of the features of both the conference and the demonstration was the focus on the number 350. To give the world some understanding of the task at hand, James Hansen ran through all the data on climate change and came up with 350. Three hundred and fifty is the number of parts/million of CO2 that can be in our atmospheric mix and still allow us to have something close to the kind of environment that allowed life and human culture as we know it to evolve on this planet. Right now, we are well over that number. We are at 384 and rising by 2 parts/million each year. We must radically reverse course if human beings in 2100 are to enjoy anything similar to the kind of life the planet affords us now.

On October 24th, people around the world are devising ways to teach the significance of this most important number in the world to the members of their community. We at APEC can join them. For more information visit 350.org.

The evening before the acts of civil disobedience, many of this new movement's luminaries gathered for a fundraising performance for Chesapeake Climate Action Network. At that event, Janesse Ray read a haunting poem. I wish I could quote it exactly for you. She said, "The eyes of the future's children are praying. Silently praying for us in the here and now to do what we must do for their world".

APEC endorses antiwar talk at ETSU

2009-02-28T20:39:00.002-05:00

The Appalachian Peace Education Center is among the official endorsers of a talk by Justin Raimondo, Editorial Director of Antiwar.com, at East Tennessee State University's Culp Center Auditorium, on March 4. The talk will take place on the first floor of ETSU’s D.P. Culp Center at 6:00 p.m., and it is free and open to the public. Justin Raimondo, who writes the popular online column Behind the Headlines, will deliver a speech titled "Obama's Wars", in which he will detail the planned wars and interventionism of the Obama Administration. He will be giving insight, opinions, and solutions from a non-interventionist perspective before fielding questions from the audience. Raimondo’s talk is hosted by Students for American Liberty, ETSU's pro-Constitution service group, and is sponsored by ETSU's Student Government Association (SGA). Other endorsers of the event include the Tennessee state branch of the Libertarian Party, The Peacebuilding Institute of East Tennessee, Concerned Tennessee Citizens, ETSU's Progressive Student Alliance, and ETSU's Students for a Democratic Society, among others. To view a flier for the event click here. For more information contact Joanna Simmons at 423-439-6052.

APEC members speak with Rep. Boucher about prison reform

2009-02-22T20:48:00.001-05:00

A group of APEC members, including Jean Bratton, Bonnie Jessee, Carolyn Lee and Maura Ubinger, met with US House Representative Rick Boucher on February 20, and spoke with him about his views on prison reform. During the meeting, the delegation raised a number of prison reform issues, including the exorbitant phone bill situation in the prisons, the inequities and inconsistencies in drug-related sentencing, and —most of all— the need to reform the mandatory minimum laws. Representative Boucher said he opposes to mandatory minimums and that he is in favor of alternatives to prison where appropriate. He also assured the group that he favors increased funding for rehabilitation and reentry programs in prisons, and that he is “right in line” with Bobby Scott, another Virginia legislator who has been working on and advocating for prison reform for over 12 years. He also asked the APEC group to let him know what bills he ought to work for or vote against. The group also asked Mr. Boucher to take the initiative in introducing and co-sponsoring prison reform-related legislation. Speaking about the meeting with Rick Boucher, Maura Ubinger, who led the APEC delegation, said the group can now “hold his feet to the fire”. For more information about prison reform, please visit Perversion of Justice and Families Against Mandatory Minimums. To get involved in APEC’s prison reform efforts, contact us.

APEC endorses Capitol Climate Action

2009-02-19T21:09:00.002-05:00

At its Board meeting of February 17, APEC opted to endorse the Capitol Climate Action in Washington DC, scheduled to take place on March 2nd. At least two APEC members will be attending this event, which many environmental observers have described as potentially historic. Some time ago, former US Vice President Al Gore said he couldn’t “understand why there aren’t rings of young people blocking bulldozers and preventing them from constructing coal-fired power plants”. A nationwide coalition of nearly 100 groups, including APEC, decided to engage in just what Al Gore suggested. On March 2, 2009, downtown Washington DC will be the site of the largest mass civil disobedience for the climate in American history. The action, which is expected to be joined by thousands of people in a multi-generational act of civil disobedience, will take place at the US Capitol Power Plant. This plant powers Congress with dirty energy and symbolizes “a past that cannot be our future”, the organizers say. They call upon everyone concerned about the future of our planet to use this event as a rallying cry for a clean energy economy that will protect the health of our families, our climate, and our future. For more information about the event, please visit the Capitol Climate Action website.

An update from APEC's Listening Project group

2009-02-07T16:11:00.004-05:00

This is an update from APEC’s Listening Project planning group, concerning the work that has been done toward the Listening Project, and an invitation to anyone who is interested in helping out. The group’s planned meeting was cancelled last Thursday, February 5, due to the snow, but the planning work continues.

The Listening Project is a program that was suggested by Rees Shearer at APEC’s "okay, Obama is elected, what do we do now?" meeting back in December. It is hoped that by doing this project we will be able to listen with intention to our neighbors and our community. You will find on the website some examples of communities who have used this project, and usually it is used with a specific purpose —like in Harlan County, Kentucky, where the Concerned Citizens Against Toxic Waste (CCATW) used a Listening Project to document the effects of the contamination and to educate people. However, APEC’s goal is a little bit more ambiguous at this point: we want to simply provide the safe place for people to enter into dialogue with folks they may not otherwise listen to. This came out of the experiences of many people who worked door-to-door to register voters during the recent Presidential election. They felt that there were many folks who wanted (and needed) to talk about their hopes, dreams, fears, beliefs. Obviously, this needs a little more direction, and we need to hammer it out a bit more. We're hoping you will help with this!

We understand from RSVP (the folks who devised and administer the Listening Project) that this project will require a significant commitment from APEC as an organization, its membership, and the greater community. The project will take time to organize, train for, implement, and follow-up on. It will most likely be at least 12 months from start to finish. We need a group of about 10 people to help spearhead the project, with other folks stepping in for specific tasks as needed. There are many ways to be involved on varying levels of time commitment. We are hoping to recruit some other community groups to help with the project (once we get to a more solid understanding of our goals and objectives).

We're hoping to do the project in several phases. We would like to conduct a "trial run" or "mini LP" within our own membership. Let's talk with and listen to our membership. It is large and so many folks get emails and newsletters that many of us do not know or have ever met. We'd like to listen to our own membership before listening to the larger community. Through this process we're hoping to recruit more of you to help with the rest of the Listening Project and also strengthen the membership of APEC. There may be some folks who would be willing to talk with other APEC members, but would be hesitant to knock on strangers doors — that's fine, we need help on both parts! By the same token, we're hoping to find more members for APEC during our community listening phase of the project.

The Listening Project group would therefore like to invite anyone who is interested in helping to coordinate this endeavor to our next Coordinating Meeting (to be announced). If you are so inclined, please RSVP if you are planning to come. Also, if you have input, but cannot be at the meeting, please direct them to Rees Shearer and APEC Board member Laura Weaver. You can contact them by emailing APEC here. Finally, if you are not able to help coordinate but would like to help with the actual implementation of the project, keep a look out for emails and announcements!

APEC's Creating Community Task Group to meet

2009-01-27T22:57:00.002-05:00

The next meeting of APEC's Creating Community Task Group will be on Thursday, February 12, at 7:00 p.m., at the home of APEC Board member Laura Weaver. The purpose of this meeting will be to finalize the logistics of APEC's March event and to begin talking about the details of the annual Taste of the World evening in May. The Creating Community Task Group's mission is to organize events that strengthen community links between APEC members and volunteers. If you would like to get involved with this effort, please contact APEC.

APEC’s “War and Peace” group collects messages for new President

2009-01-24T20:23:00.004-05:00

Following the end of the festivities for APEC’s 22nd annual Martin Luther King celebration, the Center’s War and Peace task force urged participants to write messages to America’s new President, Barack Hussein Obama, on pre-addressed postcards. The postcards were collected by members of the task force, and displayed in a colorful collage that caught the eye of many participants (see photo). Many of the postcards cautioned the new President over his stated plan to intensify America’s military intervention and occupation of Afghanistan. Others reminded the President that the US has unique power to help end the war in Israel/Palestine, by exercising pressure on the reckless leadership in Jerusalem and urging both sides in the dispute to respect international resolutions concerning the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine. To read the messages on the postcards, in .PDF format, please click here.

Pat Gaskin, an APEC Board member who was also one of the main organizers of the postcard initiative, staffed the War and Peace table, equipped with several postcards, stamps, multicolor pens and even a few ideas about what to tell the President. She said that 46 postcards were written with "heartwarming and genuine messages" directed to President Barack Obama. Speaking to The Bristol Herald Courier, Pat noted that “[t]his [Martin Luther King] day means more than before. It’s exciting, it’s wonderful”. The postcards were put in the mail on the following Monday and will by now have been received by the President’s White House staff.

Over 200 attend APEC’s 22nd annual MLK celebration

2009-01-23T19:07:00.000-05:00

Refreshed and uplifted from the recent change of leadership in Washington, over 200 people, APEC friends and supporters, gathered in downtown Abingdon, VA, on January 17, to mark the Center’s 22nd annual Martin Luther King Jr. celebration. Over 50 of them, holding a variety of peace and justice signs, marched through several blocks singing anthems that became well known during the American civil rights struggle. The rally was attended by several APEC Board members, numerous Democracy Now! Tri-Cities supporters, as well as a delegation from the local branch of the United Steel Workers, among many others.

Numerous signs held by the demonstrators urged the new Administration to honor its promise of bringing back the troops from Iraq, while others denounced Barack Obama’s promise to intensify the US war in Afghanistan. There were also three or four signs that mentioned the suffering of the Palestinian people under occupation and urged the US to stop providing the Jewish state with military and diplomatic support.

The celebration culminated with a powerful program of festivities at Abingdon United Methodist Church, where the local peace and justice community honored Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream and vowed to continue the struggle for a more equitable, a more just and a more peaceful world. Numerous speakers stressed the historic occasion of the assumption of the US Presidency by Barack Obama, the country’s first African-American elected leader. One presentation (see photo), titled “Yes We Can!” featured a side-by-side display of an original newspaper from April 5, 1968, bearing news of Dr. King’s assassination, and a newspaper from November 5, 2008, with news of Barack Obama’s election victory. The multiracial crowd of participants ended the celebration by holding hands and singing “We Shall Overcome”.

Over 60 people stayed on for the fellowship meal, following the festivities. This was probably the most heavily attended annual Martin Luther King celebration in recent years, which may be an indication of the progressive community’s sense of hope, in these historic times. An article about the event was written by Amy Hunter and published in the Bristol Herald Courier. It featured several photographs by David Crigger, as well as quotes from many of the event participants. The article can be accessed here.

Monthly peace rally to incorporate Palestine, Afghanistan

2009-01-18T18:51:00.000-05:00

Please join APEC in demonstrating not only against the US occupation of Iraq, but also the occupation of Afghanistan and the ongoing criminal abuse of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. APEC's monthly peace rally will take place on Saturday, January 31, in front of the Abingdon Federal Court House (Cummings and Main) from 10:00 a.m. to noon. As the new Obama Administration settles into office, let's continue our effort to remind American leaders that war and militarism is never the answer. Bring your own signs or use one of ours. For more information contact APEC.

APEC Board of Directors to meet on February 17

2009-01-17T18:47:00.002-05:00

The Board of Directors of the Appalachian Peace Education Center (APEC) will meet on Tuesday, February 17, at 7:00 p.m., in Abingdon. The meeting will take place at the Elderspirit Community common rooom in Abingdon, VA.

Among issues on the agenda for the meeting is a possible endorsement by APEC of the Capitol Power Plant mass civil disobedience event on March 2nd in Washington, DC. This event is an effort to raise people’s awareness of the damage to our atmosphere of coal powered plants (like the one being built near St. Paul, VA). Wendell Berry and others have endorsed this event. You can learn more about the plans by going here.

To participate and to get involved with APEC, call (276) 944-5355. APEC is the Tri-Cities (TN/VA) region's most historic active citizens' group fighting for peace and social justice. You can contact the group by clicking here.

Directions to the meting location are as follows: (1) Turn onto Pecan St. (towards Creeper Trail) (2) Go across traintracks (3) Turn LEFT onto A Street (4) Turn RIGHT onto Kings Mountain Dr. Go up hill, around curve to the left, beside the Pre-K school (5) Turn RIGHT onto Hickman St. (there is a playground on the corner). ElderSpirit Community is down the hill on your RIGHT. The Common Room is in the large, 2 story building closest to the road. Parking is available on the upper level (1st entrance on right) or lower level (2nd entrance on right). We will be in the upper level meeting room.

Local Paper Prints Story on APEC's MLK Event

2009-01-16T22:42:00.002-05:00

The Bristol Herald Courier has published a lengthy article on APEC's upcoming 22nd annual Martin Luther King, Jr. March and Celebration. The article, which is called "Hill Remembers Dr. King’s Message As One Of Love" is available online here. It quotes Elizabeth Hill, one of the main speakers at the Celebration, who graduated from the all-black Frederick Douglass High School, during segregation. The report also quotes APEC Chairperson Buckey Boone, who said that even as people celebrate Dreams Fulfilled (a reference to King’s famous speech 45 years ago when he laid out his vision for racial equality) it’s important to remember that more work remains. Other speakers at the event include the Rev. William Reid, pastor of New Hope Baptist Church in Bristol; Wilhemina S. Banks, Director and Curator of the NYUMBA Y TAUSI-Peacock Museum in Bristol, VA, who graduated with Elizabeth Hill in 1949; and the pastors of two sister churches –-one white and one black-– in Chilhowie. For more information about APEC's MLK March and Celebration, click here.

Antiwar Talk Flier

2009-01-15T20:38:00.001-05:00

Click on image below for larger version.

MLK Celebration Moved to Abingdon United Methodist Church

2009-01-14T22:13:00.000-05:00

Because of a scheduling conflict, APEC's 22nd Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration has been moved to Abingdon United Methodist Church, at 101 East Main Street. The march will still start at 1:30 pm at Charles Wesley Methodist Church, on Saturday, January 17. The celebration at Abingdon United Methodist will begin at 2:00 p.m. For more information about the Celebration click here, or call Buckey Boone at 276-628-8446. To see a flyer with the program of events, please click here.

APEC War and Peace Group to Meet in Abingdon

2009-01-05T21:02:00.002-05:00

At APEC’s general planning meeting in December, a group of members and friends started plans to educate our community about War and Peace issues (US Empire, militarism, weapon proliferation, etc.). They called themsevles APEC War and Peace Group. The next meeting of the group is scheduled for 7:30 pm, on Thursday, January 8th. It will take place at Elderspirit’s Common House in Abingdon, Virginia at the corner of Hickman and Lowland Streets. The group will meet in the upstairs meeting room. Anyone interested in these issues is welcome to come and help.

APEC to host 22nd Annual MLK, Jr. celebration

2008-12-24T21:09:00.001-05:00

The Appalachian Peace Education Center is pleased to announce its 22st Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration. The Celebration will be held on Saturday, January 17th, with the march starting at 1:30 pm at Charles Wesley Methodist Church and the celebration starting at 2:00 pm at Abingdon United Methodist Church at 101 East Main Street. Following the program, there will be a reception at the church's Fellowship Hall. For more information about the Celebration, please call Buckey Boone at 276-628-8446. To see a flyer with the program of events, please click here.

APEC Board of Directors to Meet

2008-12-20T21:01:00.000-05:00

The Board of Directors of the Appalachian Peace Education Center (APEC) will meet on Tuesday, January 13, at 7:00 p.m., in Abingdon. The meeting will take place at the Elderspirit Community common rooom in Abingdon, VA. To participate and to get involved with APEC, call (276) 944-5355. APEC is the Tri-Cities (TN/VA) region's most historic active citizens' group fighting for peace and social justice. You can contact the group by clicking here.

APEC Considers Launching Listening Project

2008-12-14T20:40:00.003-05:00

On Tuesday, December 2, over 30 APEC members and supporters gathered in Abingdon to discuss possible ways of channeling the energy for change in the wake of the election campaign and new Obama Administration. Several participants noted the emergence of negative racial feelings and fears during the election campaign. It was also thought that APEC should reach out to our community with focus on economic conditions and class attitudes. A sub-group then decided to employ The Listening Project to reach out to our community to foster personal growth in positive attitudes on race and class.

In a recent message, APEC Board member Laura Weaver encouraged members to visit the Listening Project’s website, which is located here. She urged anyone interested in helping to spearhead the project check out especially "How It Works" and "Steps".

There is opportunity for folks to contribute to the project with various levels of time. APEC feels this will be helpful in incorporating many members at the level they feel comfortable (see "Time and Resources Needed" at the LP website). The project as a whole will require at least a one year commitment from APEC and then additional follow-up time. A typical timeline includes 6 months for organization and 6 months for interviews (and then the vital piece of follow-up).

Initially, a core group of people will serve as the Organization Committee. This Committee will help complete tasks such as: (a) determining how (and if) the LP fits into the goals and mission of APEC; (b) laying out specific goals and objectives for the project; (c) discussing funding possibilities; (d) developing the structure/timeline of the project that makes sense for our group; (e) developing/forming contacts with other groups/organizations who will be partners for the project (and recruiting within APEC); (f) publicity (if and when we determine it is necessary).

The aim is to see this begin to happen during scheduled January and February meetings on the following dates: 1st Meeting: Thursday, January 8th at the Washington County Public Library (pizza will be served!). (Please RSVP to Rees or Laura Weaver by Tuesday, January 6 if you plan to attend so that we can have enough pizza and materials). It is hoped that at least the first two items in the above list will be tackled. An appointee will also be tasked with reporting to the APEC Board meeting of January 13. 2nd Meeting: Thursday, February 5th (Location TBA). What is accomplished at the January 8 meeting will determine what happens at the second meeting.

It would be great to have as many people involved as possible from the beginning to make sure we have a real interest and commitment to the project, which appropriately reflects the supporting organization (APEC).

This project potentially completes a few key goals, which are welcome to be tweaked, added to, or changed as the process begins. Those already involved report being excited about the potential to renew energy around APEC, form new relationships with community partners, and make positive progress on race relations in the area. APEC hopes that many members and friends will join those already involved.

If you have any questions or comments specific to the LP, please direct them to Rees Shearer and APEC Board member Laura Weaver. You can contact them by emailing APEC here.

APEC to Mark 5th Anniversary of Iraq War With Protest

2008-03-09T21:12:00.002-04:00

Sadly, the 5th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War is nearly upon us. On Saturday, March 15, 2008, we at the Appalachian Peace Education Center invite you to join us in demonstrating against the Iraq War and occupation in front of the Abingdon Federal Court House (Cummings and Main) from 10:00 a.m. to noon. Five years of war have been enough! As the presidential primaries progress, let us continue our effort to remind American politicians and voters alike that the Iraq War must remain on the political agenda. For more information call 423-218-0350.

APEC Co-Sponsors Nonviolence Workshop

2008-02-03T10:55:00.000-05:00

APEC is proud to co-sponsor the Creating a Culture of Peace workshop, a three-day nonviolence training course, in Elizabethton, TN. The workshop, which will take place on March 7-9, is an interactive experience focused on planning concrete peacemaking projects. Participants will explore the nature of violence and nonviolence, how social change occurs, and how to build communities of trust to take action.

The total cost to participate is $20.00 per individual, $30.00 per couple, and $10.00 per youth (ages 14 - 18). All workshop and training sessions will take place at the facilities of the First Presbyterian Church of Elizabethton, located at 119 West F Street in Elizabethton. To download a PDF flyer with information about the event and the expert facilitators, click here. To download a registration form in PDF, click here.

The Creating a Culture of Peace program is available nationwide. Certified trainers have facilitated workshops in numerous schools, civic organizations, veterans' groups, faith congregations, and other institutions. Develop the skills and learn the principles of spiritually-grounded, active nonviolence for your life. Harvest wisdom from your experiences, as well as from the lives of ordinary people and famous nonviolence leaders. Take time for reflection, and depart with a renewed sense of peace that will allow you to cultivate change in our world. For more information about this important event please call (423) 543-7737.

Restructuring and Empowering APEC

2008-01-30T23:30:00.000-05:00

Since late October 2007, APEC members have engaged in a broad discussion aimed to increase APEC’s effectiveness. The discussion has been informed by the need to maintain and add to APEC’s great legacy. Furthermore, there is a general agreement that one only has to look at the talents and capabilities of the people that make up APEC to get an idea of the Center’s tremendous organizing potential. Thus the central question is how can we realize this potential? How can APEC best utilize the organizational talents and activist energy of existing members, while successfully recruiting new members in our area, both in Virginia and Tennessee?

In addressing this core concern, discussion participants have highlighted four areas of action: (a) increasing APEC’s visibility in our community; (b) increasing APEC’s operational contacts with the segment of our population most brutally affected by militarism and inequality –namely working class whites and minorities; (c) making APEC consciously welcoming to people of color, and to the idea of cross-class alliances; and (d) engaging in systematic relationship-building among APEC members.

As this discussion progresses, we will post here relevant documents, including meeting minutes, for all to access. We encourage all APEC members and friends to participate in this important discussion about the future of progressive organizing in our area.

APEC's GLBTQ Support Group Hosts Media Training

2008-01-14T23:54:00.000-05:00

SWVAlliance is APEC's gay and lesbian support and action group. SWVAlliance is hosting a training on how to work with the media to get our message across. It includes tips on how to write a letter to the editor and give a good press interview. The trainer is from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and is sponsored by Equality Virginia. It will be held at Emory and Henry's Board of Visitor's Lounge beginning at 6:00 pm on Tuesday, January 22nd. This meeting is open to all who share SWVAlliance's goal ofjustice for people of all sexual and gender orientations. Please plan toattend and let others know about this meeting.

APEC to Host 21st Annual MLK Celebration

2008-01-13T09:37:00.000-05:00

APEC is pleased to announce its 21st Annual Martin LutherKing, Jr. Celebration. The Celebration will be held on Saturday, January 19th with the march starting at 1:30 pm at Charles Wesley Methodist Church and the celebration starting at 2:00 pm at Abingdon United Methodist Church. Ted Delaney, Director of African-American Studies at Washington and LeeUniversity will be a featured speaker. Local choirs and youth groups will also perform. To see a flyer with the program of events, please click here. Hope to see you all there!

Join APEC Peace Rally on February 23

2008-01-11T23:51:00.000-05:00

Please join APEC in demonstrating against the Iraq war and occupation on Saturday, February 23, in front of the Abingdon Federal Court House (Cummings and Main) from 10:00 a.m. to noon. Let us unite our voices with those of war resisters and dissenters across the nation and the world, in opposition to the suicidal madness of war and militarism in Iraq, Palestine, Darfur, and beyond.

APEC Sponsors Talk on US-al-Qaeda Relations

2007-11-21T23:39:00.000-05:00

It is said that '9-11' changed America forever. But what were the events that preceded ‘9-11’, and to what extent did America itself assist those who attacked it on that fateful day? Appalachian Peace Education Center hosts a free talk by political scientist Dr. Joseph Fitsanakis, who specializes in the politics of intelligence, on the murky dealings between successive US governments and al-Qaeda prior to ‘9-11’, which include covert assistance in cash and armaments. Do you think you know the truth about ‘9-11’? Come and hear this talk. The undisputed facts may surprise you.

The talk will take place on Sunday, December 9, 2007, at 4:00 p.m. at the public meeting room of the Washington County Public Library, located at 205 Oak Hill Street, Abingdon, VA. The talk is free and open to the public. For more information contact Ann Mathews at (276) 623-2144.

Troubling Film on Theologians in Nazi Germany

2007-11-19T23:43:00.000-05:00

Around 20 people gathered at the public meeting room of the Washington County Public Library on November 18 to watch the documentary Theologians Under Hitler, which was sponsored by APEC. The film traced the enthusiastic blessing of the Nazi regime by three esteemed German theologians, who are still academically revered around the world. Although quite academic in content, the film was vivid, well crafted, and easy to follow, and captivated the audience.

Following the film, a lively discussion among those present was facilitated by APEC Board member Ann Matthews, who was behind the effort to bring the film to Abingdon. APEC wishes to thank Ann for her initiative in showing this extremely timely film.

APEC to Screen Timely Documentary

2007-11-12T20:19:00.000-05:00

Progressives often point to the irony of how the increasing militarization of American foreign policy enjoys the uncritical blessing of many in the religious community. Yet this phenomenon is hardly new, nor unique. On November 18, Appalachian Peace Education Center hosts a free documentary titled Theologians under Hitler. The film probes the relationship between the government and the church in the Third Reich, by examining how people of faith came to align themselves with the militarist ideology of the Nazi regime. What can we learn from history? Could it happen again? Join us to examine the implications for today's America of the relationship between church and state in wartime Germany.

The film will be shown and discussed on Sunday November 18, 2007, from 4:00 to 5:30 p.m., at the public meeting room of the Washington County Public Library, located at 205 Oak Hill Street, Abingdon, VA. The event is free and open to the public. For more information contact Ann Mathews at (276) 623-2144.

New APEC website officially unveiled

2007-08-21T19:06:00.000-04:00

APEC's new website has been officially unveiled. With a new design, updated infrastructure, and unified graphics, the website aims to make APEC's mark in cyberspace. Perhaps the most important change in the new website is its increased functionality, which allows for dynamic content and speedy content updating. It is hoped that this latter feature will enable the organization to maintain an active, fast-paced web presence, suitable for today's fast-paced poltical developments in our country and our world.

Please take some time to look around and explore the new, user-friendly, simple yet functional layout. For comments and suggestions feel free to contact us by clicking here.

APEC organizes peace rally in Abingdon

2007-08-21T16:38:00.000-04:00

Please join APEC in demonstrating against the Iraq war and occupation on Saturday, November 24, in front of the Abingdon Federal Court House (Cummings and Main) from 10:00 a.m. to noon. Less than a month ago over 400 people marched in Jonesborough, TN, against the war. Let's add to their effort! We need to voice the counter argument: bring home the troops! Please call others who you think might be interested and invite them to the rally.

APEC Board of Directors to meet in October

2007-08-21T16:00:00.000-04:00

The Board of Directors of the Appalachian Peace Education Center (APEC) will host a new membership orientation meeting on Sunday, October 21, 4:00 p.m., to welcome new members and share with them the history of the organization. The meeting will take place at the Washington Coutny Public Library in Abingdon, VA. Prior to that, at 3:00 p.m., the APEC Board will meet at the same location.

APEC is the Tri-Cities region's most historic active citizens' group fighting for peace and social justice. If you would like to get involved, please contact us.