Resources
This page brings together some resources of interest to
people for peace, justice, and healing. (Note also the link above
to a page of resources relating to Iraq.)
- THE LABOR PRESS PROJECT This
site comes from work done in UW Prof. James Gregory's History
450 class ("Class and Labor in American History") in the spring
of 2001. The site "brings together information about the history and ongoing
influence of newspapers and periodicals published by unions, labor
councils, and radical organizations in the Pacific Northwest. . . . The
Labor Press Project
provides a gateway to both the past and present of this important
set of media. Sponsored by the Harry Bridges Center for Labor
Studies at the University of Washington.
- The Peace
and Justice Studies Association (PJSA)
was formed in 2001 and seeks to provide leadership
in peace, conflict and justice studies. Located in Olympia,
Washington, The Peace and Justice Studies Association
is "dedicated to bringing together academics, K-12
teachers and grassroots activists to explore
alternatives to violence and share
visions and strategies for social justice and social change."
- Founded by Ralph Nader in 2001,
Citizen Works is a group
that seeks
to advance justice by strengthening citizen participation in
power. Its strategy is to enhance the work of existing
organizations, recruit, train, and activate
citizens, and start new groups and act as a
catalyst where there are too few public interest voices.
- Robert Fisk is has covered the Middle East as a journalist for 23 years, and his reporting has earned him the British International Journalist of the Year award seven times. He covered the Iranian revolution, the Iran-Iraq war, the Persian Gulf war, and the war in Algeria. He holds a Ph.D in Political Science from Trinity College, Dublin in 1985. The website robert-fisk.com is a portal not only to his own work but also to a number of other valuable resources.
- The home page of Robert Jensen, professor of journalism at University of Texas at Austin and a great American whatever they may say, is fearless in speaking out about the controversial issues of the day.
- The website of The Institute for Public Accuracy tries to hold public officials accountable to the truth.
- Overcoming our love of war.Lawrence
LeShan is a clinical psychologist well known for his
work with cancer patients. He is also the author of How to
Meditate. He is a famous practitioner of holistic medicine and has
been called the "father of mind/body medicine." He is also a former
lecturer and research psychologist at the Union Theological Seminary.
A practicing psychologist for more than 50 years, he served the U.S.
Army for many years and has treated thousands of soldiers and military
decision makers during World War II and the Korean War. He has taught
at Roosevelt University, Pace College, and the New School for Social
Research. He lives in New York. This article, entitled
Why We Love War
And What We Can Do to Prevent It Anyway, appeared in
the Utne Reader (Jan.-Feb. 2003), and is based on The
Psychology of War: Comprehending its Mystique and its Madness
(Helios Press 2002).
- The Center for Media & Democracy created PR Watch to "help the public recognize manipulative and misleading PR practices by exposing the activities of secretive, little-known propaganda-for-hire firms that work to control political debates and public opinion." Of special interest is PR Watch's Spin of the Day, which offers daily reporting on public relations, propaganda, and media spin.
- Links to 110 websites with information
from/about intelligence agencies or
"security services" maintained as part
of Research Resources for the Social Sciences by
McGraw-Hill Ryerson. Similar collections of links are
maintained for more than
a dozen other areas of interest to PJHers, including
economics,
political
science,
law, law
enforcement, and policing,
psychology
and psychopathology, and
news
and journalism.
- Mike Hersh.com: Political
Commentary and Analysis is a site inspired by outrage at the
2000 US presidential election. Mike Hersh is a graduate of
Columbia University and the Washington College of Law who is
now a full-time writer and activist whose modest goal is
to "rebuild the vital center of US politics in the great
American tradition and philosophy of Teddy, Franklin and
Eleanor Roosevelt."
- Third
World Traveler "puts up magazine articles and
book excerpts that offer an alternative view to the
corporate media about the state of democracy in America,
and about the impact of the policies of the U.S.
government,
transnational corporations, international trade and
financial institutions, and the corporate media,
on war and peace, democracy, civil liberties, free
speech, human rights, and social and economic justice,
in the Third World, and in the United States."
- Code Pink is
a women's group organized to oppose war on Iraq.
- The Center
for Public Integrity was founded in 1990 and has earned
a distinguished reputation for watchdog journalism in the
public interest.
- Need a laugh in these dark times? Try
the other
White House site.
- Sign up at
TrueMajority
to send free faxes to Congress on the war resolution and to get
e-mail alerts on critical issues. TrueMajority was founded by
Ben Cohen, Co-founder, Ben and Jerry's. It's a grassroots
education and advocacy project of Priorities, Inc., a
non-profit, non-partisan, tax-deductible, 501(c)(3) corporation.
Once you register, you can go to the "Take Action" section and
send faxes on on issues. You're always free not
to participate in any specific issue or remove your name
from their list.
- Chris Pringer is a local activist and energy worker who
has developed a remarkable series of writings and reflections
that go much deeper into the sources of human being than is
common among the materials linked to this webpage. If you're
looking for the deeper connections between the personal and the
political, you'll find of interest Chris's
Overcoming
Political Disillusionment page. And this is only the
beginning....
- Colorado Campaign for Middle
East Peace. This group has been active for more than twelve
years and maintains a very useful website.
- Rep. Dennis Kucinich's bill to create a
U.S.
Department of Peace deserves attention and support.
- The Western States Legal
Foundation, based in California, is devoted to monitoring
and analyzing U.S.
nuclear weapons programs and policies, with a focus on the
national nuclear weapons laboratories.
- Spotlight on
Military News. A review of recent articles in the press
pertaining to military affairs, prepared by the Canadian Forces
College. The same website offers a page of links to
Military Sites.
- Iraq Is a Tree, Not a Forest. This four-page piece argues
that "implementation of the Bush doctrine would change the fundamental character of the United States of America" and proposes a set of
readings that can be the basis of study groups to alert the
citizenry to the dangers the nation is now facing from its own
leaders. Approved by SNOW on Nov. 25, 2002.
- The Medium is the Massage, as Marshall McLuhan used
to like to say. MediaLens
offers a sophisticated perspective
on contemporary mainstream media, with
book reviews, links to articles,
bulletin board discussions, and other websides that analyze
media critically. For an up-to-date guide to what the media
giants own and
control, consult the Columbia
Journalism Review. An easy-to-read chart of what the top ten
media companies own is maintained by
The
Nation. A Media
Reform Center chart dramatically illustrates the consolidation
of the control of the media in the U.S. in the hands of a few
corporations, and also provides links to dozens of websites.
What can be done? Robert McChesney has a plan for media reform,
which he outlines in an article entitled
Making
Media Democratic from the Boston Review. -- See PPJH's
guide to
alternative sources which
provide crucially needed information unavailable in the corporate-
controlled media universe.
- Matthew Crenson & Benjamin Ginsberg,
From
Citizens to Customers, Losing Our Collective Voice,
Washington Post, November 3, 2002. "We are watching the
slow-motion collapse of American citizenship. . . .
Now our government no longer needs us. The citizen-soldiers
have given way to the professional all-volunteer military and
its armada of smart bombs and drone aircraft. The
citizen-administrators have disappeared, too, replaced long ago
by professional bureaucrats. Americans may still regard each other
as fellow citizens with common causes and commitments. But the
candidates seeking votes on Tuesday see us as something less:
not a coherent public with a collective identity but a swarm
of disconnected individuals out to satisfy our personal needs
in the political marketplace. We see them, in turn, as boring
commercials to be tuned out."
- CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR STATUS, should a draft be reinstated,
will be harder to obtain. There have been significant
changes to the law: a narrowing of the
application time for this status to 10 days, a requirement for
five (5) substantiating letters, a requirement for a face-to-face
interview, and a limitation of appeal unless there is at least
one dissenter on the SSS Board. Thus if the draft is reinstated,
it will no longer be feasible for people to await Selective
Service Notification prior to the preparation of their
documentation. They need to have it ready to mail in, literally
at a moment's notice. The changes in application procedures
for active duty military are equally stringent if they wish to
be assigned noncombatant status. A recommended first step is to
fill out this form and follow
its instructions. For more information, contact
Conscientious Objector's Counseling, 7215 47th Ave. E., Tacoma,
WA 98443. To send an e-mail for more information,
click here.
- The Federation of American Scientists funds something known
as the Project on Government Secrecty, and employs Steven
Aftergood to publishe frequent numbers of
Secrecy News,
which is available to subscribers and can also be consulted in
an archive of past numbers.
- An antiwar website devoted to noninterventionism called
antiwar.com serves as a
clearinghouse of information of interest to opponents of
war. It defines its own politics as libertarian, and likes
to quote
Randolph Bourne (the early 20th-century radical American political
thinker, literary critic, essayist, and pacifist who
wrote for
The New Republic back in the days when it represented
values almost the opposite of those that magazine represents
today), who said: "War is the health of the state."
- Jeremy Rifkin is encouraging us to think of how we could
move from an oil economy to a hydrogen economy (in fact,
The Hydrogren Economy is the title of his new book). He
summarized his ideas in September in a Los
Angeles Times article entitled
A
Hydrogen Economy: The Power to Change the World.
- Can how you spend your money make a difference? The Oscar
Romero Catholic Worker House in Oklahoma City has
called for a
Consumer Strike
against the War.
- Did the president make a good case for war in his
speech on October 7? Commentators Chris Toensing,
editor of Middle East
Report, Rahul Mahajan, author of The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism, As'ad Abukhalil, author of
Bin Laden, Islam, & America's New 'War on Terrorism',
Susan Wright, co-author of Biological Warfare and
Disarmament: New Problems/New Perspectives, Stephen
Zunes, author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the
Roots of Terrorism, Robert Jensen, author of Writing
Dissent, Jacqueline Cabasso, Executive Director of the
Western States Legal Foundation, Anthony Arnove, editor of
Iraq Under Siege, John Berg, director of graduate
studies at Suffolk University's Government Department, and
Phyllis Bennis, author of Before and After: U.S. Foreign
Policy and the September 11 Crisis offer a
point-by-point
commentary on President Bush's October 7 address.
- Despite the failure of the U.S. Senate and the House of
Representatives to obey the will of the people and reject the
resolution "to authorize the use of United States Armed Forces
against Iraq" and to abdicate their constitutional war powers
to the President in this situation, it is important to remember
that under the Constitution
Congress still retains control of the U.S. military through
its Article I, Section 8 power "to raise and support armies"; the
constitution specifies that "no appropriation of money to that
use shall be for a longer term than two years." This means that
Congress has the power to stop any war by cutting of its
funding.
Write to Senator
Patty Murray (VOTED AGAINST THE WAR RESOLUTION)
at murray@murray.senate.gov
(click here to
send Sen. Murray an e-mail or call her office
(DC: 202-224-2621/DC Fax:
202-224-0238/Seattle: 206-553-5545) to express your views.
Please also write to Senator Maria Cantwell
(VOTED FOR THE WAR RESOLUTION) at maria@cantwell.senate.gov
(click here to
send Sen. Cantwell an e-mail
or call her office (DC: 202-224-3441/Fax:
202-228-0514/Seattle: 206-220-6400/Seattle Fax: 206-220-6404) as
well.
Also, please contact your representative to the U.S. House of
Representatives to express your views:
District 1 - Rep. Inslee (VOTED AGAINST THE WAR
RESOLUTION) - 202-225-6311, 425-640-0233
District 2 - Rep. Larsen - VOTED AGAINST THE WAR
RESOLUTION) - 202-225-2605, 425-252-3188
or 1-800-562-1385
District 3 - Rep. Baird - VOTED AGAINST THE WAR
RESOLUTION - 202-225-3536, 360-695-6292
District 4 - Rep. Hastings - VOTED FOR THE WAR
RESOLUTION - 202-225-5816, 509-543-9396
District 5 - Rep. Nethercutt - VOTED FOR THE WAR
RESOLUTION - 202-225-2006, 509-353-2374
District 6 - Rep. Dicks - VOTED FOR THE WAR
RESOLUTION - 202-225-5916, 253-593-6356
or 1-800-947-NORM
District 7 - Rep. McDermott - VOTED AGAINST THE WAR
RESOLUTION - 202-225-3106, 206-553-7170
District 8 - Rep. Dunn - VOTED FOR THE WAR
RESOLUTION - 202-225-7761, 206-275-3438
District 9 - Rep. Smith - VOTED FOR THE WAR
RESOLUTION - 202-225-8901, 253-593-6600
or 1-888-Smith09
- As described below,
a SEPTEMBER 26-30, 2002, POLL SHOWED THAT 60% OF AMERICANS OPPOSED
GRANTING THE PRESIDENT THE
UNILATERAL POWER TO GO TO WAR WITH IRAQ, and did not regard
Iraq as the U.S.'s most pressing foreign policy problem.
And yet 68% of the members of the House of Representatives
voted Thursday to give the President this power. Please
write to newspapers and
Congressional representatives bringing this anomaly to
their attention, and questioning whether the House of
Representatives deserves any longer to be known as "the People's
House." Micah L. Sifrey analyzes the influence of
the defense establishment on those who voted on this
resolution in Money,
Politics, and War, TomPaine.com, April 2003: "Members
of the House who voted to authorize the use of force got slightly
more than twice the contributions from the defense sector than
members who voted 'no.' The 296 members who voted 'yes' received
an average of almost $19,000 from defense contractors for the 2002
election cycle, and those who voted 'no' received an average of
$9,000. Of the 150 members of the House who had received at least
$10,000 from the defense sector, 123 voted 'yes' and 25 voted 'no.' On
the Senate side, where the vote was more lopsided (77-23), the
correlation is almost as strong. 'Yes' voters got an average of
almost $60,000 over the past six years, a full Senate cycle, while
those who voted 'no' received an average of $38,000."
- A TOLL-FREE NUMBER to call your Senators and Representative:
1-888-832-4246.
- If you don't know who your Representative is or live outside
Washington State, contact two Senators and one Representative by
calling the CONGRESSIONAL SWITCHBOARD: 202-224-3121. Anyone can
get the local and federal addresses and fax numbers of
representatives by simply typing in a ZIP code at
http://www.capwiz.com/wa/dbq/officials.
- Vivien Sharples, who has many years' experience providing
training in peacekeeping, conflict resolution, and techniques of
nonviolent action, will be discussiong these skills on
October 6 from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. at the Douglas-Trugh Library in
Seattle (23rd Ave. & Yesler Way). If you cannot attend this
meeting to plan for skills training and are interested in future
training workshops for a local peaceforce, please write to
dberrian@earthlink.net
to be kept informed.
- George W. in the Garden of Gethsemane, by Michael Moore
- Long Night's Journey into Day, available for loan through Foundation for Global Community, 253-383-5592. No charge/donation always appreciated. $25 totally refundable deposit
- Now with Bill Moyers, new PBS show (from Jean)
- A Timeline issue with an article by Admiral Carroll. Download the Timeline.pdf file near the top of the page--requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.
- Some older articles that have been circulated in emails, from Chris:
- JustResponse.org is a project initiated by the Fourth Freedom Forum and other groups and individuals as a clearinghouse website featuring regularly updated information resources for the media, students, activists and anyone else who is interested in the implementation of a just and effective response to the tragic attacks of September 11th 2001. From Sallie.
- Labyrinth walk dates, in Tacoma and Seattle
- We have an arsenal of ideas, by Patrick H. O'Neil, University of Puget Sound
- Featured: Center for Defense Information and Global Exchange
- An invitation to join our discussion that you can print out and give to anyone who's interested can be found here.
- Resource prepared for the October 9 Helena Peace Seekers Open Public Forum, from Sallie
- Give Peace a Website, a Wired article about folks like us using the web to organize. From Jean.
- Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, from Janie
- Looking for Answers, from PBS' Frontline, from Flo
- Missing the Oil Story, from Janie
- changemakers.net, from Jude. Of special interest is their October journal, Transforming Disaster Relief into Community Building
- www.rawa.org is the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan.
It's a great site for info of all sorts. -from Sallie
- The other is www.lukepowell.com. Luke Powell is a fine-arts photographer
who has taken gorgeous photos of Afghanistan, Palestine (and elsewhere). -from Sallie
- www.lukepowell.com/autumn2001.htm is a short essay that, among other things,
deals with our arrogance/ignorance when it comes to other cultures. VERY
interesting and provocative for those of us who are horrified by the
Taliban's treatment of women; see especially paragraph #4 if nothing else,
but as a world citizen, please take the time to read it all... -from Sallie
- Starhawk's website, from Jean
- October 14, 2001 Op-Ed piece (TNT)
- A letter to the editor from Ronnie Gilbert on McCarthyism Again?, from Flo
- Illia Thompson poem, from Flo
- Edward Said, writing in the Nation, on The Clash of Ignorance
- Institute for Global Communications, home of PeaceNet, one of the Internet's oldest online communities. They maintain a good collection of news links to September 11 coverage.
- Global Exchange, from Janie. A great collection of resources, including links to posters, flyers, etc., that can be downloaded and printed out.
- Why do they hate us?, from the Christian Science Monitor
- Washington Post article on Bin Laden--links to interviews in the section "How Can I Learn More?"
- List of world newspapers by geographic region
- Rest in Peace, commentary and poem
- Prof. Josh Tenenberg of UW Tacoma has compiled
a list
of internet-based news and information sources somewhat similar to this one.
To subscribe to our mailing list, please register with
Yahoo. Once you've
registered, join our group by going to Yahoo Groups
(click "Groups" on the Yahoo website above) and
search for "tacomapjh" -- or you can find our group under the
Cultures & Community/Issues and Causes/Peace and Nonviolence
category.
Last updated: March 6, 2004
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