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The Handful of Salt
is published six
times a year by the Peace
and Justice Action League of Spokane. It is named for Mahatma Gandhi’s
salt tax protest, a successful, nonviolent grassroots action that
created significant social change against overwhelming resource
advantages.
Steering Committee
Christy Anderson, Brock Baker, Mark
Hamlin, Maurina Ladich, Mike Nuess,
Avery Rendon, Marianne Torres, Lew Wilson
Finances
Mike Nuess, Avery Rendon
Staff
Nancy Nelson, Rusty Nelson, Shane Russell
Volunteers
Sierra Bumsted, Winto Everette, Linda
Greene, Greg Lahti, Rebecca Lamb,
Jerry Mueller, Marilynne Mueller, Jan Nelson, Michael Snow
Diamond Press
Editorial
Loving the Olympics, to me, is like loving my country. I have to stay connected to reality and committed to human rights without losing sight of what's really important to the people of my country and every other country. Games, athletic competition has the potential to distract huge audiences from crimes being committed against our brothers and sisters and our planet, especially when sandwiched between spectacle that is colorful and artistic enough to fascinate and inspire anyone.
One can be appalled at the audacity of the Chinese exploitation of children and disregard of rules to win medals in gymnastics, and, at the same time, be enthralled by the athletic and artistic mastery on display. It's like being indignant about child and slave labor in China and still being drawn to Wal-Mart to buy the cheap products resulting from these crimes.
Another way of looking at the system is seeing that some of these children have been rescued from sweatshops and poverty, taken out of the frying pan and placed into the fire of relentless training and separated from their families for five to ten years at a time. This is hardly the Olympic ideal, but it seems to work for those with a certain zeal for success.
It was alright with me for the International Olympic Committee to award the games to China. It was worth the risk for reforms and increased opportunity for the largest human population on the planet, just like the ping pong diplomacy of the early 70s, perhaps the only good thing Henry Kissinger ever did for the world. It, too, had its limits and failings, but China and the U.S. are both less scary because of the initiative of a hippie table tennis player.
Perhaps Tibet and Darfur are still forbidden topics, but if we can talk about diving and volleyball and the high hurdles, is still a chance for meaningful dialogue. And there are other conflicts that might have better resolution because of the games. It's a good thing that athletes from Russia and Georgia were at home in the same village for a while, undermining the demonization being attempted by their leaders.
Kenyan athletes were desperate to show that they're not all about massacres and street violence. North and South Korea needed another round of participating together on the world stage. Jamaica used track and field to burst out of the U.S. shadow, and Cuban athletes continued to show that there is life before, during, and after Castro (although NBC appeared reluctant to admit they were even present).
It is foolish to try to eliminate politics from the Olympics. Politics is about people, and only to the extent that athletic competition is about both people and peoples, will peoples prevail. If the flag-raising and national anthems could be eliminated from the award ceremonies, the games would have even more hope to offer for friendship and collaboration, and a paranoid host nation wouldn't be so quick to shut out groups like Team Darfur.
Other
problems remain, especially regarding money, but addressing the
problems as international sports people rather than small groups of
nationalistic idealogues will mean progress- not just faster, higher,
farther- for the human condition. -RN
Scahill Brings Blackwater Spotlight
to Spokane
The talk will be at 7 pm. Admission is $10 at the door. We expect books to be available.
Based in North Carolina, Blackwater enjoys the confidence and largesse of the Bush administration in spite of it's reputation as a collection of military misfits and thugs. It has been awarded a number of large no-bid contracts for security operations in war zones, most notably, Iraq. A criminal investigation into the fatal shooting of 17 Iraqi civilians by Blackwater personnel in September is widely expected to result in several slapped wrists.
In April, the Coeur d'Alene Press reported that Blackwater is planning a training facility in North Idaho and is negotiating a contract with the Idaho Peace Officer Standards & Training (POST) Academy to provide space and instruction to law enforcement personnel. Plans are said to call for an emergency vehicle operation course, various shooting ranges, classrooms, cafeteria, administration buildings, and dormitories to house at least 80 people, according to a Blackwater spokeswoman. Instruction would be by teachers from Blackwater, POST, and North Idaho College, which is an accredited law enforcement education provider.
The article said there's no timetable, but Jeff Black of the Idaho POST Academy expressed hope that he would start using the training center in 2009, although there has not been state approval. Law enforcement agencies now send officers to the POST Academy in Meridian, amid complaints about distance and expense.
Black admits local reaction is mixed, and Kootenai County Sheriff Rocky Watson worries, "The perception that our law enforcem
He says Obama is critical of the mercenary empire, but his policy statements on Latin America and Afghanistan leave him open to a certain dependence upon Blackwater and other entrenched military contractors.
The author has been touring to support a new paperback edition of his book. Not a part of that tour, his visit to Spokane is co-sponsore
ent officers will be trained by mercenaries is a problem...Our jobs are totally different. We're not paramilitary. The perception is important to our customers."
Scahill, a Democracy Now correspondent and contributor to The Nation, says Blackwater is rolling in spite of questions about it's brutality and lack of integrity. In a June piece for the Los Angeles Times, he pointed out that the Bush administration renewed the Pentagon contract for Blackwater services in Iraq, over objections of the Iraqi government. In the U.S., Blackwater sued the city of San Diego after residents there stalled a new warfare training center. "A federal judge, appointed by President Bush's father, ordered San Diego to stand down. Now the company is entrenched, guns a blazin', in San Diego and is well positioned to cash in on the increasingly privatized border-patrol industry."
A Real Investigative
Journalist
Scahill has appeared as a commentator on many news programs and networks, including CBS Evening News, ABC World News Tonight, NBC Nightly News, CNN, MSNBC, Bill Moyers Journal, The Daily Show, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, NPR's Fresh Air and the BBC World News.
Formerly a senior producer and correspondent for Democracy Now!, he has reported extensively from Iraq, from Yugoslavia during the 1999 NATO bombing and spent years covering the downfall of Slobodan Milosevic. He has also reported from Nigeria, where he and Amy Goodman exposed the role of Chevron in the killing of protesting villagers in the oil-rich Niger Delta. Traveling in the wake of Katrina in 2005, Scahill exposed the presence of Blackwater mercenaries in New Orleans and sparked a congressional inquiry and an internal Department of Homeland Security investigation.
Scahill's awards include the prestigious George Polk Award and numerous Project Censored Awards. He was among the only Western reporters to gain access to Abu Ghraib prison when Saddam Hussein was in power, and his story on the emptying of the prison won a Golden Reel for "Best National Radio News Story." He also worked as a producer for Michael Moore's TV series The Awful Truth.
Among other publications, he
has written for The Guardian, O Magazine, Z Magazine,
In These Times, and The Progressive.
Hearts, Minds, and Middle Eastern Territory
What if, as we're told repeatedly, it's not about oil? The War Against Terrorism, Middle East Conflict, Mission Accomplished, etc.
Oil, energy, power and influence are all tied up in this deadly series of military adventures, but there's more, and energy may be too simplistic to remain the first reason listed.
From PJALS, we've been watching anxiously as friends of ours participate in a harrowing experiment in nonviolent action to break the seige of Gaza. Having learned that their boat arrived safely, we breathe a little easier, but many questions remain about where their courageous investment will lead.
Greta Berlin and Dr. Bill Dienst, who both took part in a recent PJALS forum, are with international activists who sailed from Cyprus on two boats to challenge the Gaza blockade imposed by Israel last year. They took aid in the form of food and medicines which have been in critically short supply
This is a significant operation in terms of material support and the challenge to Israeli hegemony. The activists risked having the boats seized or destroyed, but they repeatedly declared their nonviolent intentions and insisted upon thorough inspections by Cypriot officials to prove they had no weapons or contraband, ensuring that an Israeli attack would become a public relations disaster.
In effect, Israel said "stay away," and the activists, including Israeli peacemakers and a relative of former British P.M. Tony Blair said, "You have nothing to fear unless you stop us."
The crossing was not without hardship. Weather was rough and communications was spotty, at best. The sailors said they believe their radios were electronically jammed.
The expedition was closely followed by Israeli and European media but practically blacked out here. The Spokesman Review indicated it had no local news value.
Dienst, an Omak physician, is a veteran medical volunteer in Palestinian areas. Berlin heads a Palestinian support organization based in California.
Sometimes, it's too easy to see Israel as a bad guy in this mess, but the Israeli government rarely misses an opportunity to cry "Wolf!" or stir the pot or justify the use of overwhelming force. It's not so much that the security of the state is at risk, as the right to write the history of the 20th and 21st Centuries.
Far too often, the "Children of Israel" have been under attack. Much of Israel's population has survived disgraceful international policies, betrayal, and genocide. In the 21st Century, even with Israeli peacemakers and visionaries hard at work, the Israeli government seems to refuse to rise above the treachery that has scarred its people, and routinely acts out of fear and hatred, often with the express backing of the United States.
Palestinians, too, miss opportunities to move past a state of war, with their violence arising from a position of weakness and desperation rather than a position of strength and control.
Creative acts of constructive, nonviolent action like this small flotilla of material aid, which includes Israelis, Palestinians, and third party activists, will ultimately prove stronger than anyone's capacity for violence.
At Press Time, it's the Democrats' turn. Denver has become the center of the American media universe, not that we can expect any news to be generated there.
While major newspapers try to decide if Michele Obama was maudlin or magnificent, and broadcast reporters are looking for blood to be spilled between Hilary and Barack's supporters, most of the decisions that matter to the voters, indeed to the country, have already been made, whether or not our input was taken into consideration.
The good news is that a major party candidate is going to look a little different this year, and that we've known that for months. Sen. Clinton is being given credit for "18 million cracks in the glass ceiling" 88 years, to the week, after American women were given the vote. Sen. Obama will become the first African American to head a major ticket in the week that marks one of Martin Luther King's great speeches.
The bad news is that this landmark celebration can be undermined by the very system that has created it. All the bragging about the exhaustive nominating process doesn't address what the voters have lost as peace candidates and fair trade candidates have gone by the wayside. The process has also failed to school Obama and McCain in alternatives to a national policy of warfare and corporate control.
Meanwhile, third parties and independents have some excellent ideas, platforms, and even candidates of which the general public will never hear a word. No wonder. Most voters only know what they have pounded into them by hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising.
Even T. Boone Pickens is not going to back a great environmental candidate who doesn't have a massive funding arm. And the mass media will give no credibility to a candidate who does not genuflect to military spending while turning a blind eye to monopolies and disgraceful practices by the big money people who control health insurance and predatory lending.
Some of the obscure parties and candidates have exciting ideas and programs that would help fulfill America's promise, but a vote for any of them will be called a wasted vote. Much like some will call your PJALS dues a wasted $40.
I don't want to spoil your presidential campaign. I'm glad you're having dialogue about the issues, standing up for the candidates and the values in which you believe. It's important, even if it is flawed and subject to control by big money, small-minded politicians and functionaries and Supreme Court justices.
I may actually vote for a major party candidate for the first time in many years, myself, although I could vote Green and cast a ballot for an African American Woman, whom I've admired for years. Have you ever heard of Cynthia Maddox? Sure, she used to be a Democratic U.S. Representative, but she was too radical, not for her constituents, but for her state party. Good old two-party politics.
And, in the end, my vote may not
count anyway. Silly voter. People don't elect presidents. States do.
If Not the Death Penalty,
What?
by Glen Anderson
Glen Anderson works with the Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation's Committee for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.
POINT #1: People ask this question, so we do need to address it. However, this question is misleading, because it assumes that the death penalty is a common sentence for murder cases, and the death penalty's absence would leave a great void.
Actually, very few homicide cases could even qualify for death sentences. In Washington State, for example, death sentences are possible (not required, but merely possible) only in very rare situations. Death sentences are possible only for those homicides that are First Degree Murder and have certain aggravating factors that are defined by law and are free from mitigating circumstances that are defined by law and for which the county prosecuting attorney has chosen to charge as capital crimes and for which the juries are unanimous in imposing a sentence of death. The death penalty is possible only for cases that meet all of these requirements. Death sentences cannot be imposed in cases that are lacking even one of these requirements. The death penalty cannot be considered for the vast majority of homicides. The vast majority of homicides are already covered by state laws that provide for prison sentences through the regular sentencing procedures. In Washington only about ten individuals are on death row at any given time. This is an almost trivial number when compared to the overall number of homicides. With such small numbers, the question "If Not the Death Penalty, What?" is practically irrelevant.
POINT #2: Even when death sentences are imposed, the offender is very UNLIKELY to be executed, so - in effect - we are already dealing with the "What" alternative even in death penalty cases.
Washington executed nobody from the mid-1960s through 1992. We executed four persons from 1993 through 2001. With only four executions in more than 40 years, the death penalty clearly is not much of a solution to the crime problem. Except for those four cases, people stay on our state's death row until appeals overturn their sentences or they die of natural causes.
POINT #3: Washington State Law already provides an alternative to the "What" question.
In Washington State, for the very rare kinds of homicide cases that could result in the death penalty, the default sentence already is a life sentence without any possibility of parole. If for whatever reason the jury is not unanimous in imposing a sentence of death, the offender would serve a life sentence and never be eligible for parole.
POINT #4: Fourteen states and 91 nations worldwide - including all European Union nations - do not use the death penalty, so they are already effectively dealing with the "What" alternative.
The question "If Not the Death Penalty, What?" is not a difficult question, at all. It's a non-issue in much of the world. Besides the 91 countries without death penalty laws, 33 more have death penalty laws on their books but don't actually impose death sentences. All of these U.S. states and other nations impose prison sentences without getting mired in the problems and complexities of trying to impose death sentences and wade through the complexities of so many appeals. Effective solutions already exist. Asking the "What" question just keeps us stuck in the past
******************************* A
longtime abolitio
You have probably noticed that
something is going on down on the main floor of the Community Building!
Kizuri,
(rhymes with Missouri and means 'good'
in Swahili) is a new community-inspired shop that will satisfy your
personal style and social conscious by providing our neighborhood -and
all of Spokane- with unique gifts & clothing that are FAIR TRADE -
EARTH FRIENDLY - and LOCAL!
And being 'community inspired', I would love to hear from YOU. What do you want to shop for in your neighborhood? We will not necessarily be asking you to shop more than you already do.....altho it may be hard to resist sometimes.....but we want to have what you're looking for and provide it from a fairly traded & ethical source. So please let me know. Just send a quick reply to this email and tell me what you would like to see/shop for at Kizuri. We already have a lot of great products coming in but, if you want something that we don't have, we would love to do our best to get it for you! Looking forward to meeting you in the neighborhood.
Thanks for
supporting Fair Trade!
Kim Harmson, Kizuri
kimharmson@hotmail.com
509-747-7377
Kim tells PJALS she hopes to have Kizuri open for the Main Street Fair, which begins at noon on September 13, but that may be a little ambitious. Meanwhile, she is stocking Fair Trade Items from Ten Thousand Villages and other suppliers for the late, lamented, Global Folk Art, as well as newer and smaller projects with great products.
Hours will be Monday-Saturday, 10-6,
and Sunday, 12-5, from mid-September through the holidays.
Even with lame duck directors, this is an exciting time for PJALS. This election year is full of firsts that can be appreciated by progressives on both the national and local levels; the country is finally coming to understand that a war for every season is not an indicator of strength, security or moral superiority; and huge corporations are finally being put on the defensive to justify low wages for workers while executives and stockholders reap unprecedented wealth and power.
With online organizations and political parties doing good work and looking for your money, our situation is no guarantee of survival, much less prosperity, for small nonprofits like PJALS. Foundations are getting many more grant requests than ever, and very few of them have ever had the inclination to fund multi-issue organizations. And because you support progressive causes, you get asked to fund groups all over the country.
That's why the PJALS staff and steering committee is so grateful for your response to our latest appeal. Good checks are coming in every week, easing the late summer pressure that we feel every year and proving to us that you want PJALS to continue working locally to spread hope, education and empowerment about peace and social and economic justice.
People
sometimes wonder how PJALS has survived for over 30 years in an
environment that can seem downright hostile. The answer is simple.
Folks like you want us to keep on going, to provide an alternative
voice, to stand against violence and for creative solutions to conflict
and fear.
After all these years, it's about time.
I've been on the PJALS Steering Committee for a couple years now and realize that this wonderful organization needs more financial stability - like a small endowment, an account to draw on for new challenges, an annuity of some type, an interest in a trust or estate, or something even more creative.
Here are some of our challenges. Too often valued young workers quit and move on to better paying jobs with better benefits. Last year our Living Wage initiative failed to get enough signatures to make the ballot because we didn't have the staff to do it right. Applicants for the Executive Director position are not going to be impressed by the minimal salary/benefit package we offer. New ideas compete for funds that we need just to survive as an organization.
These problems can be solved with a reliable source of money. I picture happier and more secure young workers, the ability to attract and hold the best new director we can find. A strong Peace And Justice League for years to come.
If you have the same concerns or are interested in doing a little brainstorming, please call me - Lew Wilson 747-0659. I'll buy the coffee and cookies.
It may be time, for those of us who can do so, to "step up" and include PJALS in our estate planning, or gift excess property in exchange for a nice tax deduction, or save income tax by transferring appreciated property or an investment account to PJALS, or name PJALS as a beneficiary for our IRA or 401k. There are other angles to be explored. Congress gives those of us with assets many ways to benefit from being generous. So maybe its time we do some brainstorming about how PJALS is going to survive and grow into the future.
Again, call me at home - Lew Wilson,
(509) 747-0659.
Its time to make our future more secure.
Thanks being an important, essential part of PJALS.
It's that time of year again, when every other ad you see on the television talks about change and progress. I really don't think of myself as much of a philosopher, but the question of what progress truly is keeps coming back at me, again.
If you ask the executives at Wal-Mart, they might give you an answer based on growth of their stores. Is this progress though? Is wiping out a neighborhood's and city's heritage and local flavor progress? Is replacing good-paying local jobs with big box store jobs, such as Wal-Mart, progress?
To me the answer is a resounding "No." Let us ride the wave of change and end exploitation of our fellow citizens in our great city. I urge you to make a difference and join the living wage movement. Our coalition of citizens is moving forward and our momentum is continually growing. Yes we can-change the direction of the White House, but we can change direction locally, as well.
I'm Shane Russell and I approve of this message.
PJALS is committed to involving individuals and local communities in building foundations for a just and nonviolent world.
Please join PJALS or make sure your annual membership is current. We can take your credit card contributions at our website: www.pjals.net. It's through PayPal, but you do not need a PayPal account to make an online donation.
The Peace and Justice Action League of Spokane depends upon gifts and dues from members to continue to work for peace and justice, locally and globally. We welcome anyone who favors free exchange of ideas and nonviolent action to war or to inaction and ignorance. PJALS, 35 W Main, Spokane, WA 99201.
You determine your own level of support and participation. Members also determine issues and projects
that get the most attention and effort.
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