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The Handful of Salt
is published eleven 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
Michelle Guilford, Maurina Ladich, Dennis Medina, Mike Nuess, Avery Rendon, Marianne Torres, Lew WilsonFinances
Lowell Brocklehurst and Gary Proctor
Staff
Carla Brannan, Joni Brown, Nancy Nelson, Rusty Nelson
Volunteers
Brock Baker, Randy Cofer, Chuck Fisk, Linda Greene, Mark Hamlin, Joel Hobson,Myrta Ladich, Jerry Mueller, Steve Smith, Terry Walline, Printing—Diamond Press
Editorial
Electoral politics could be a lot more fun. I still look forward to casting my ballot, and I don’t mind doing it by mail. I feel very strongly about some candidates and issues, but my sense of hope and anticipation is weak and erratic. Do you think that might be my problem, or is it part of a widespread burnout for passionate promoters of progressive agenda?
This may seem a strange time to be depressed about elections as Republicans seem poised to self-destruct, and Democrats are connecting to mainstream voters on issues blown by the administration and Congressional leaders. But, the two-party system is a huge part of the problem.
In some ways, the big parties have disqualified themselves from representing me because I refuse to sit still within the confines of a big party box, and I will never consider excellent fundraising skills to be a qualification for holding public office.
A few years ago, I thought it might be possible for Americans to forge a multi-party system which would force policy-makers to consider a more diverse range of options for their most important decisions. Instead, we have rejected such a system out of fear that the party we hate will simply consolidate its power as such a process begins.
The freshest frustration for third party enthusiasts in Washington is illustrated by the KING-TV senate race debate. To participate, a candidate had to attain a certain level of campaign funding so voters wouldn’t be confused by issues not aired by Democratic and Republican advertising. Alas, the lowly Libertarian candidate turned out to be the third millionaire in the race and gave his campaign a huge donation just in time to qualify for the tv exposure. Aaron Dixon, the Green candidate, had more contributors and was out-polling the Libertarian, but he could not pull a cool million out of his pocket anymore than he could have bought his party’s nomination.
Dixon made the best of his situation, I believe, by being hauled away in handcuffs when he wouldn’t take “Get lost!” for an answer to his plea for respect. I feel more inclined to vote for someone arrested for principles than for candidates with deep pockets. And I hope some voters will understand that the rules that excluded the Green Party, in this case, are an affront to every thinking voter, not just the ones who wanted to watch a meaningful debate or had already decided whom to support.
Some very wealthy people have become outstanding public servants, but the whole idea of public service is endangered by an electoral system in which the candidate with the most money is almost certain to receive the most votes.
Even the compensation system seems stacked against voters of modest means. As officeholders salaries have steadily advanced while the federal minimum wage remained stagnant, there is no one in the country represented by a senator or representative who is not in the top one percent in income. Montana’s Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate says his constituency is the Middle Class, Montanans who make around $250,000/year. Who could blame hard-working folks in Montana for simply skipping the election?
Then, of course, there’s the war thing. Many Republicans have saner ideas about the war than their Democratic rivals, but that doesn’t mean they have a clue about the ways war wastes human, fiscal, and environmental resources, with a by-product of increased reliance upon violence throughout the population.
Thoughtful people have developed nonpartisan alternatives for the expense and hassles of run-off elections, even primary elections, and we cling to the stupidity of the old Electoral College and the new and trackless computer voting.
Common sense and a few new ideas could give us some much better options for determining our political options. They could even bring about electoral campaigns in which character assassination is unnecessary and both sides (3 or 4 sides) are willing, even anxious, to tell the truth.
Make our next elections more fun. Don’t quit thinking about voting after November 7. Make the people who win, this time, think about it, too, and let’s have better candidates and better options and better outcomes in two years. - RN
BREAKING THE SILENCE COMES TO SPOKANE
Join two former Israeli soldiers as they share experiences in the Occupied Territories. Dotan Greenvald and Yehuda Shaul each served three years in the Israeli Army and in the Occupied Territories, Shaul first as a soldier and then as a commander in the Israeli Occupation Forces in Hebron, Bet-Lechem, and Ramallah. They are making a tour of the United States as representatives of Breaking the Silence, an organization of former Israeli soldiers who served in the Territories—Gaza, Hebron, Bethlehem and other places. As soldiers in the Israeli Occupation Forces, members of Breaking the Silence manned check points; participated in patrols, arrests, raids; witnessed innocent civilians being wounded and killed, children being stopped because of curfews that lasted for weeks, parents unable to bring food to their families because they could not go to work.
Their experiences as soldiers in the Israeli Occupation Forces led them to believe that their military service distorted and harmed the moral values on which they grew up. Not able to forget what they had done and what they had witnessed, they decided to break the silence.
The first project undertaken by the organization was an exhibition in Israel called “Breaking the Silence—Fighters tell about Hebron.” The exhibition was attended by thousands and for the first time a window was opened up to the world revealing what the Israeli military had done in Hebron.
After that exhibition Breaking the Silence began to investigate, interview and document the experiences of hundreds of former Israel soldiers who had served in the Occupied Territories and, as a consequence, came to realize that their experiences were not “exceptional cases.” Exception had become the norm.
During their combat service, these former soldiers participated in many missions. They have one mission left—to talk, tell, and not keep anything hidden.
Accompanying them will be Judith Kolokoff, a 77 year old Jewish woman from Seattle who was instrumental in organizing Jewish Voice for Peace/Seattle, coordinating American tours for the Refuser Solidarity Network (Israeli men who have refused to serve in the military), and organizing the first American national tour of Breaking the Silence. She has visited Israel/Palestine five times in the last 12 years, most recently in the spring of 2005.
7 PM, November 9, St. Ann’s Parish Hall (behind St. Ann’s Church), at 2120 E. First Ave. (First and Lee). - Myrta LadichMonday, Nov. 20, 7 to 9 pm
Featured speaker:
Sonia Shah, author of
Crude: The Story of
Oil
Spokane Falls
Community College
3410 W. Fort George Wright Drive
Student Union Building (#17), A,B,C
O Connections between oil consumption, global warming and resource wars.
O Positive steps to halt global warming, achieve energy independence, prevent “the next Iraq.”
o How to move beyond oil peacefully.
Free and open to the public. Donations welcome.
Sponsors include: WA Physicians for Social Responsibility, SFCC, and PJALS.
Generous support from the Ploughshares Fund.
Information: Martin Fleck, WPSR, 206.547.2630; Paul Haeder, SFCC, 509.533.3614; paulha@spokanefalls.edu
Spokane's only Low Power FM community radio station has learned it will not be forced off the air when an out-of-state commercial station moves in to the market on its frequency.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved KYRS radio's bid to
move from 95.3 FM to 89.9 FM, ensuring that Thin Air can remain on the air.
After the FCC initially indicated that the move might violate
existing statues, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell, with help from broadcast
attorney Michael Couzens and broadcast engineer Michael Brown, asked
the Congressional Research Service to examine whether the Commission
correctly interpreted the law on which it based its concerns. The
resulting report gave the Commission the flexibility to allow KYRS to
change frequencies. Approving the move, the FCC decided the change is
in the public interest.
"We are very fortunate to have the senator's help," said KYRS
Station
Manager Lupito Flores. "We've been under threat of encroachment by an
out-of-state commercial station for more than a year. Without Senator
Cantwell's help, this frequency move to save our station could not have
happened," said Flores.
When the Low Power FM (LPFM) service was enacted by Congress
in 2000,
FCC rules allowed any commercial station to enter a community and
displace an LPFM station.
"That happened to us," said Flores. "We are a small community station trying to serve Spokane with local and diverse perspectives and independent music, but a large commercial station can come in and knock us off the air.”
KYRS, among the largest and most successful low-power FM
stations in the country, reaches over 300,000 people through its
primary signal at 95.3 FM and a translator station operating at 92.3
FM. However, in September 2003, the FCC granted KPND- a full-power
Idaho station on 95.3, a permit to build closer
to Spokane,
increasomg KPND's broadcast power, and allowing it to reach the Spokane
market while serving its primary market in Sandpoint. The new signal
would cause harmful interference with the KYRS signal.
The decision to allow KYRS to move its primary signal to 89.9 FM means it retains the same power and listening area.
To make its case to the FCC, KYRS worked with two stations
very close to 89.9 that are legally protected from interference.
KEWU-FM (EWU) and KHQ-TV (Channel 6) both agreed not to object. "We are
very grateful to [them] for agreeing, and for trusting us to not
interfere with their signals," said Flores.
KYRS estimates the change to 89.9 will come in late November.
"People
who listen on 92.3 will still be able to hear us just as they do now,
loud and clear," said Flores. -lupito@kyrs.org
We are changing the date of the potluck from election eve, Monday, 11/6, to Tuesday, 11/14 at 5:30pm. We have some exciting things to discuss. Some of you attended the meeting last week with Josh Friedes from Equal Rights Washington. They are partnering with other non profits to host an event that will focus on building a statewide movement for LGBT equality. At our potluck meeting, we'll have an opportunity to discuss what our Spokane community would like to see happen at the Spokane event. I think it is an exciting opportunity and I hope you'll join us. Please don't hesitate to contact me with questions or comments you may have. - CB
...from ACLU Washington's Web:
Equality Work Continues Despite Marriage Loss
The Washington Supreme Court declined to reconsider its decision to uphold the state ban on marriages between people of the same sex. Meanwhile, the ACLU and its allies are planning future work to continue the drive for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) equality.
“Regrettably, the court failed to uphold basic fairness. The state confers many benefits on married couples. Same-sex couples who want to make the same commitments should not be denied the rights given to other couples and their families,” said Kathleen Taylor, Executive Director of the ACLU of Washington.
“The ACLU will continue to work with our allies to lobby for laws that protect the common property of LGBT couples, enhance public and private benefits for families, and prevent discrimination. The ACLU will also pursue lawsuits challenging unequal access to benefits, services, or other entitlements for couples of the same sex,” added Taylor.
A motion to reconsider had been filed in August 2006, a month after the state supreme court ruled 5-4 against 19 couples seeking the right to marry in Washington. The decision reversed two lower court rulings backing marriage equality. Appeals of the two cases – Castle v. State brought by the ACLU and Andersen v. King County brought by Lambda Legal and the Northwest Women’s Law Center – were jointly decided.
The court did not file a majority opinion. But the plurality opinion written by Justice Barbara Madsen said that the state Legislature had a valid interest in limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples to further procreation and encourage the raising of children by biological parents.
“The court did not come to grips with the very real harms done to same-sex couples by denying them equal access to the many benefits of legal marriage,” said Paul Lawrence, the lead attorney on the ACLU’s legal team for the case. “The court’s reliance on the tie between procreation and marriage does not make sense. Many opposite-sex couples get married with no intention of having children, and many same-sex couples do in fact raise children.”
Representing the 11 couples in Castle v. State are
Paul Lawrence, Matthew Segal and Amit Ranade of Preston Gates &
Ellis; Karolyn Hicks of Stokes Lawrence; Roger Leishman of Davis Wright
Tremaine; and ACLU-WA Staff Attorney Aaron Caplan.
Living Wage Campaign Needs
You!
PJALS is pursuing an anti-poverty city ordinance through the
initiative process. Living wage initiative petitions are hot off the
union press, and we are ready to recruit a volunteer team for a
signature gathering campaign. We will be collecting approximately 4,500
signatures in the next eight months to get the initiative on the city
ballot in November 2007 so voters can require big box retailers to pay
a living wage to their employees.
PJALS will need help from poverty advocates and community activists
across the city to make a big box living wage ordinance a reality. We
are anxious to gather ideas and support in increasing wages for the
city's working poor. We need your help to spread the message that big
box retailers should pay enough to keep their employees out of poverty.
Please let us know if you or your church, school or business can
endorse the living wage campaign and/or "host" a numbered petition for
signing.
Contact Joni Brown at 838-6025 if you are available to participate in
signature gathering, if you have campaign ideas, or for information.
And watch for training sessions for volunteers who are gathering
signatures.
Signatures have to be from Spokane voters, but this issue affects us
all, and county residents can help put Spokane wages in the headlines
and have a positive impact in our own neighborhoods at the same time.
The next living wage meeting is Nov. 14th at 5PM in the Mezzanine at
the Community Building. Please join us!
See the entire initiative on the petition sheets, or check the language
at www.pjals.net. We also
have voter registration cards to encourage more participation in the
process throughout our community.
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For 2007, we need a PJALS treasurer. The
right volunteer will have an affinity for numbers
as well as for social justice. QuickBooks
experience is helpful. Work according to
your own schedule with support of long-time volunteers, staff and
steering committee. And yes, we will ask
you to deal with Form 990.
Gary Proctor has spent
untold hours and a
staggering number of years helping PJALS with our fiscal management.
Knowing his way around so well, he refused to be our treasurer, again,
but still did much of the heavy lifting around here over the past
several years. He’s giving us until
January to get someone up to speed, and he can tell you the dreaded and
the rewarding elements of the job.
Meanwhile, Lowell Brocklehurst,
another former treasurer and
steering committee member, has been doing the bookkeeping since 1988,
and he could see turning that over to another volunteer, or the new
treasurer.
As you might expect, Gary and Lowell both have long lists
of volunteer activities and people counting on their expertise.
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Volunteers are needed to staff the PJALS table at the Fair Trade
Festival on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday after Thanksgiving. Two
hour shifts. Please
call the office. That the festival is an
important, fun annual event is a tribute to people like you, who care
about economic justice, here and abroad.
Having
gone through half of a wonderful grant from the Marguerite Casey
Foundation, we are filing our progress report and preparing for our
post-grant era. Several members have been
very helpful in identifying possible funding sources, though there
aren’t
that many for multi-issue organizations. If
you find a foundation or a website that might be a match for PJALS,
we’ll be grateful for any information you can forward.
PJALS Members Are Coming
Through
We continue to receive some very exciting
checks from our
members in response to our emergency appeal. Combined
gifts, including appeal response, major donations and renewals now
exceed $15,000.
This puts us close to where we need to be this time of
year for operating funds, but we are still hopeful that some overdue
renewals will reach us, soon.
The PJALS staff and steering committee would like to thank
all of you for your generosity and commitment to social justice.
It's frightening that at this time and in this nation,
torture must be discussed as if it were a legitimate issue. What's next
-- the pros and cons of child molestation?
Even hawks like Sen. John McCain and Gen. Colin Powell say
torture is immoral and counterproductive. McCain, a former prisoner of
war, knows torture is likely to generate disinformation. Those being
tortured will tell their interrogators anything to avoid further
torture.
Further, using torture spurs the other side to use
torture. This puts our own soldiers and citizens, when captured or
abducted, at extreme risk. The rebuttal should end right there. What
more need be said? Why isn't the torture issue dead and buried long
since?
The torture issue keeps coming up because the Bush
administration keeps pushing torture as a "legitimate" response to
"terrorism." And the military and their contractors - whether at Abu
Ghraib or Guantanamo or wherever - keep torturing captives. Never mind
that Bush Inc.'s war on Iraq is just terrorism with a bigger budget and
bigger bombs.
I don't mean to
suggest the administration initiated
torture. Probably any invader uses torture. The U.S. Army used torture
in Vietnam. Those techniques were then taught at the U.S. Army's
School of the Americas at Fort Benning, long before Bush became
commander-in-chief. The difference now is that Bush actually demands a
license to continue torture.
Besides the McCain/Powell reasons to oppose torture, there are other
compelling ones:
· Torture undermines the moral stature of those who condone it.
· Torture loses "hearts and minds" and allies - huge strategic mistakes.
· Torture embitters the tortured and others. Torture recruits "terrorists."
· If enemy soldiers face torture upon being captured, they are less likely to surrender. Their determined resistance causes more casualties on both sides.
· Torture is utterly inconsistent with New Testament Christianity. Jesus, who was himself tortured, urged, "Love your enemy."
The case against torture is unanswerable. Why then does the "Christian"
George Bush, despite broad condemnation and despite the strategic cost,
relish torture?
The likely answer is ugly. I suspect - but would welcome being proved
wrong - that the Bush administration is seeking to establish a
precedent. If U.S. people and the U.S. Congress can be conned or scared
into tolerating the torture of "enemies," this will help legitimize
torture generally. On this slippery slope, we will be de-sensitized to
torture wherever it occurs.
So why would anyone want that? Tolerating torture abroad
paves the way for torture at home. Not only will anyone designated a
foreign enemy be liable to torture, but so will those designated as
domestic enemies. If you don't support the government, you just might
end up on that enemy list.
Sound farfetched? Consider that the administration, by
promoting torture, puts our own soldiers at greater risk. If it
dismisses the lives and rights of our own soldiers, why would it be any
great respecter of non-soldier U.S. citizens? Already we have seen how
the so-called Patriot Acts and illegal domestic spying is no great
respecter of the Constitution.
Domestic torture - or internal terrorism as it might be called - is
business as usual for certain U.S. allies and other authoritarian
states seeking to squash dissent and intimidate opposition. The United
States now seems embarked on that same ugly road.
5 Prisoners of Conscience
Released!
On October 6, Ken Crowley, Jane Hosking, John LaForge, Sr. Mary Dennis,
and Edward "Naed" Smith were released after serving six-months for
nonviolent opposition to the SOA/WHINSEC. We join communities,
families, supporters and SOA Watch activists around the world in
celebrating their release as well as their courage and commitment to
denouncing human rights abuse and oppression in Latin America.
Of the 37 activists from around the US arrested last November, Jonathan
Robert remains in prison and Charles Carney and Jaime Walters are
completing sentences of 12 months probation.
All who make the deliberate decision to put their bodies
and freedom on the line to call attention to the School of the Americas
are committing nothing more and nothing less than an act of love in
solidarity with the thousands of victims of torture, murder, rape and
systematic violence that the SOA has perpetuated in Latin America.
This year human rights activists will again take their message onto
Fort Benning. The Direct Action Working Group is working with people
who have committed to "crossing the line" this November 18-20.
A
Pacifist Perspective on 9-11-06
9-11-2001: Our first
impressions were not allowed to stand. Media
hammered us with replays, speculation, and meaningless commentary from
experts who knew nothing and reporters clueless about handling a story
lacking nothing in drama and horror and sadness.
We were a relatively free people, then. Free
to wonder aloud how this could happen and who could want it. Free to complain that an un-elected president
could decide how our country would respond. Free
to plead that we not attack a country to find a criminal.
Free to suggest a nonviolent approach.
Free to demand that innocent civilians in another country
not be slaughtered to show how much we value human life.
On October 8, the 5th anniversary of the assault on Afghanistan passed
quietly in this country as soldiers and civilians died violently and
unnecessarily there.
The 9/11 Investigation, said 2 years ago, “That crystal
blue morning changed the world, shocking the US into realizing that it
had been drawn into a global war with brutal suddenness.”
It adds the U.S. was led by “a president persuaded that
the U.S. had no choice but to strike at the terrorist evil before it
struck again.”
We thought America was good and fair.
We thought we had a voice and that with enough people, we
could persuade our leaders to abandon plans for reckless violence and
brutality, that our country would place a premium on the lives of our
military personnel, that it would be years before a commander-in-chief
could have his own private war on behalf of corporations, that Israelis
and Palestinians had a corner on rescuing war from the threat of peace.
I’ll try not to squeeze you into my little pacifist box, but I must
make a case for wasted opportunities for peace and show you how active
nonviolence was always overlooked, ignored, or mocked as our leaders
worked so hard to get us into a “good war.”
Had the U.S. been drawn into a global war? Did
the president have no choice?
Of course not. The U.S. had
an infinite range of choices to stop the bleeding, to honor fallen
heroes and loved ones, to rally friends, to find the source of
terrorism, to make our country more secure. Unfortunately,
Congress was blissfully unaware of nonviolent options or not disposed
to consider them.
Some of my friends introduce their positions, “I’m not a
pacifist, but…” They may add that this
war is bad or wrong. Most of us against
the war felt we had to say, “I love my country,” or, “I support the
troops, but…”
We sound like people who speak to me as I hold signs like “when we kill
the innocent, we become the enemy,” or “there is no way to peace, peace
is the way.” They say, “I disagree with
you, but I’ll fight to the death for your right to say that,” or “If it
weren’t for our troops, we’d be speaking Japanese or German,” or “If you love your freedom, thank a veteran.”
Something I learned in Vietnam, about myself and every soldier I knew
is that we didn’t go because we were willing to die for our
country. We went, whether we were heroic
or cowardly or grandly ambivalent, because we were willing to kill
for our country.
Too bad! Our country, then as now, didn’t
need killing or killers. It needed
healers, reconcilers, peacemakers. Now as
then, we’re not big on producing, training or supporting peacemakers. How could we find resources for that when
there are corporations to protect in Latin America, regimes to change
in the Middle East, terrorists to find, allies to hound or bribe,
enemies to create, suspects to torture, and secrets – deep, dark,
precious secrets – to keep.
Speaking of secrets, being a pacifist isn’t so bad. I’ve been trying to be a pacifist 25 years,
and I still have friends and a job (three jobs, to be technical). My pacifism became possible when I decided I am
a Mennonite, but here’s another part of the secret. A pacifist gets to decide what being a
pacifist means.
For me, being a pacifist means I won’t kill a human being. I won’t kill you or kill for you.
I won’t help you get killed, and I won’t help you kill
someone else. In fact, I’ll go to extremes
to keep from hurting or preparing to hurt anyone. I
believe killing is wrong. I know it’s
wrong for me. I think it’s wrong for my
state and my country. It’s wrong for
criminals and for cops, for democratically elected officials and for
tyrants, for generals and privates, for abused wives and jealous
husbands, for brilliant strategists and frightened pawns.
The act of killing demeans all of us who would be human.
That doesn’t mean I’m free of violence.
I get the urge to wring necks and break heads. I yell, use violent terms, have violent
thoughts. It’s in my culture, maybe even
in my DNA.
It’s not all struggle and turning the other cheek. There’s an upside, the kind of upside that
brings us back to 9-11 and lessons learned and lessons to be
comprehended.
A commitment to nonviolence is made easy by attempted pacifism. It leads to creative nonviolence, because, in
spite of the cock-eyed notion that a pacifist will always be ignored,
run over, or left out, he or she will be open to try something new,
innovative, surprising, creative.
Imagine if the US had reached into a new bag of tricks
after 9-11, ruled out knee-jerk retaliation, failed to be humiliated by
misguided extremists, listened to the survivors of the 9-11 victims who
said “Don’t try to honor our loved ones by repeating this crime.”
We could have convinced the Arab and Muslim worlds that our country,
our civilians, our public safety responders had been killed unjustly by
a group that posed a danger to their culture as well as ours. Not only would there be no wars in Afghanistan
and Iraq, there would be no role models and martyrs among those who
died thinking it was holy to kill Americans.
Many will tell you the U.S. exercised restraint five years ago, perhaps
the same people who will say Israel exercised restraint in Lebanon. What we did not exercise, besides restraint,
was creativity, compassion for humanity, and the organic distrust that
we should have for every war that shows its hideous face.
Many of us are still learning disturbing things about the 9-11
disaster. Whatever shocking truth we may learn, here’s a lesson I hope
millions learn by the next anniversary of 9-11:
The hi-jackers, their masters, their backers and their
enablers had no victory five years ago. You
can say the destruction surpassed their wildest dreams, but destroying
the Pentagon and the Capitol and killing 10,000 more in addition to the
catastrophe they triggered would not have been true success. What gave them the keys to the paradise they
sought and elevated Osama bin Laden to super-stardom was the U.S.-led
military attack of Afghanistan, including the devil’s deal with
Pakistan and the assurance of many civilian deaths, friendly fire
incidents, and martyred defenders of their faith and homeland.
That the coalition of the coerced is still hapless in
Afghanistan is a bonus for bin Laden, icing on the cake.
That his enemy Saddam Hussein is busted and secular Iraq
is in ruins is another paradise for bin Laden and his band. We can’t find him because he’s in heaven.
And a more straightforward lesson for all of us is:
Wars have no winners. Today’s
military victory cannot be distinguished from military defeat. In our continuing struggle for security for
our children and harmony for the peoples and places of the earth, there
is no progress when enemies are killed, only when they are converted
into our friends.
PJALS has had some tremendous public presentations this
year, and there are more to come in November. We’ve
heard outstanding lectures and seen power point shows
from activists from Omak, from Eugene, Berkely, and Iran and co-hosted
important speakers from Colombia.
Sometimes this all seems strange when we have so much local talent, in
the first place, and turnout varies from surprisingly good to
embarrassingly dismal.
Take our perennial SOA project, for example. We
know PJALS members are enthusiastic about supporting SOAW, but we can’t
get ten of you around a table to decide what to do next, and we’re not
going to ask you to kick in hundreds of dollars so a few of us can
enjoy a feel-good weekend at Ft. Benning where 50 people will get
arrested and sent to prison while
20,000 perform a safe and worn ritual outside the gates.
We can’t get Seattle or Portland to organize regional SOAW
events like we’ve had in Tacoma and Spokane, but we must offer
something.
We’re going back to the basics, back to the movies.
Thursday, November 16, in the Community Building, at
5:30 pm, we will show Hidden In Plain Sight, one of the
newest of the fine films about the SOA. This
is just after the anniversary of the UCA Massacre in San Salvador,
before the annual gathering in Columbus, GA. We
need your support to draw a crowd, folks that need to know what our tax
dollars buy at Ft. Benning.
Meanwhile, congressional candidate Goldmark has been very
receptive to our SOA message, and Rep. McMorris has regurgitated the
Pentagon line that WHINSEC is no longer in the terrorist business. Help us tell the truth.
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. PJALS
is a nonprofit, 501©3 nonprofit corporation.
Call the PJALS office (838-7870) to discuss the
by-the-month and direct deposit options.
Other
membership options:
Name(s)________________________________________________________
Essential/Vintage members $60/year
Address_______________________________________________________
Retro members $40/year
_____________________________________________________________
Precious Scholars $20/year
Phone/email______________________________________________________
PJALS | ISSUES | HISTORY | CONTACT | HANDFUL | CALENDAR | SUPPORT | MEMBERSHIP