GfP Newsletter - December 2004

Dear GFP member, and friend,

Do you mind if I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year this far in advance? I'm in a wonderful mood this morning, and feel like writing.

I promise no comments about the election.

Last weekend I went with son Jo to the SOA Watch at Ft. Benning and it was exhilarating. Many hugs, many familiar faces, and of course, great speeches, beautiful prayers, good workshops, lots of energy and creativity with dramatizations, puppets and banners. Each of you must experience this at least once in your lifetime! Jo made a 6-min PowerPoint slide show of the event that he will mail to anyone interested. You can contact him at mcintire@aug.com.

Next weekend our local PPJ (People for Peace & Justice) broke (our) tradition by requesting a permit to participate in the Christmas Parade. Our theme will be Peace on Earth. (Politics forbidden, but we'll be wearing our T shirts, and carrying tall signs with lovely doves.)

And thinking ahead, you are all invited to share an alternative New Year 's weekend with some 40 or more peace activists from all over the state, at Crooked River State Park, St. Marys, Georgia. This is the naval base for Trident Submarines, perhaps the largest arsenal of weapons of mass destruction anywhere in the world. We celebrate the Feast of the Holy Innocents with good meals, good talk, chestnuts in the fire, and a candle lit three-mile walk to the base for a midnight vigil. Our long-term vision is to convert the military facility into a peace-teaching university. Will we get a Department of Peace first? We're working on it!

I am particularly enthusiastic about the weekend because the Florida Coalition for Peace & Justice is hosting it, and Bruce Gagnon (from Global Network against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space) will be with us, together with his partner Mary Beth Sullivan, whom many of you know from Pax Christi.

We have five cottages reserved. If you want to register, or need more information, contact me or Bob Tancig (FCPJ Coordinator) at 352-468- 3295 or fcpj@juno.com.

We are all receiving appeals in the mail, more than ever. I thought I'd share a few that touched my heart.

The Interfaith Alliance, l-800-510-0969, a non-partisan, grassroots organization of people from more than 70 faith traditions. It works at national and local levels, to preserve the constitutional separation between religion and government and to defend religious liberties. (I'm tired of the divisive political tactics of the Religious Right.)

Nevada Desert Experience, PO Box 46645, Las Vegas, NV 89ll4, nde@peacenet.org, concerned about nuclear weapons proliferation. A witness commemorating the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the 60th anniversary of their bombing will run from 4-8 August 2005.
The event will be held in Las Vegas and at the test site. Who will go with me?

Lori Berenson has been imprisoned in Peru since November 30, 1995. She was 26 years old, an American working as a freelance journalist, accused of being a leader in a revolutionary guerrilla movement. She was "convicted" of treason and sentenced to life in a maximum security prison by a hooded anonymous army officer while a hooded soldier held a gun to her head. She has been declared a political prisoner by Amnesty International and the UN High Commission on Human Rights has stated that she is being arbitrarily detained. There is a Committee to Free Lori Berenson, 110 Maryland Avenue NE, Washington DC 20002, Contributions are tax deductible.

Father Jean-Juste is but one of more than l,000 political prisoners currently being detained in Haiti. (On October l3th Haitian police forcibly entered the Sainte Claire Catholic Church in Port-au-Prince and arrested him while he was feeding the hungry children of his parish.) There is an International Committee working to save human lives and re-establish democracy in Haiti. For more information, call 305-582-4846 or 954-458-7383.

A lawsuit was filed against Coca-Cola in 2001 by the International Labor Rights Fund and the United Steelworkers of America, charging abuse of the global public interest: overexploitation and pollution of water sources, benefiting from hazardous child labor, anti-worker policies, racial discrimination, gross human rights and environmental abuses. See www.KillerCoke.org.

Global Exchange has a speakers bureau on a variety of issues: sweatshops and the global economy, countering military recruitment of youth, building a movement against empire, oil's impact on human rights and the environment in Colombia, and more. To book an event or for more information, call l-800-497-1994 or email speakers@globalexchange.org.

Witness for Peace announces delegations to Colombia in February, June and July 2005. Website www.witnessforpeace.org. "Nowhere in this hemisphere is the faith in non-violence more clearly manifested than in Colombia."

War Resisters League's 2005 Peace Calendar is the best yet! On the cover, a strong young woman leaping over New York City's skyline, "I am in the World to Change the World". 11"x17", wonderful photographs or artistic renderings, inspirational quotations, celebrating "heroic, often unrecognized - certainly underappreciated - struggles" for justice, freedom and peace. $12.95, printed by union labor in USA on New Leaf's Reincarnation paper, 50% post-consumer waste; processed chlorine free, no dioxin. Why not order a calendar for yourself and send one or more as gifts? scw@syrculturalworkers.com, www.syrculturalworkers.com Tel.345-474-1132. Dates to remember... dates to look forward to. This calendar makes EVERY day a SPECIAL day.. a day to enjoy!

Be well, be happy, be useful... in 2005.

Holiday greetings to each and all.

Peg