It’s Aug 26, we’re at Brooklyn Borough Hall. Our table with the penny gizmo again attracts a crowd.
People sorted 20 pennies into the 8 categories according to their priorities as tax payers.
People connect with what matters to them.
84 people came up with this vote for the day.
- Caroline Chinlund
for the Granny Peace Brigade
GRANNIES AND PALS PROTEST THE PROTEST
A protest against the Islamic Center had been planned for 10:00AM Sunday. We were asked to show up at Church and Warren Streets with signs of welcome.
The protesters gathered, some on motorcycles. The police kept the two groups separated – out of sight of each other.
Caroline wore her Granny Peace Brigade button; Jenny and Joan P. did too. Barbara H said, “I came as myself,” and Jerry said, “I came for the Constitution.” Pat wore her Constitution shirt and Barbara W was, like Barbara H, dressed as herself. Steve was in his priestly collar.
Neighborhood residents arrived saying they were glad to have found the rally…wondered how we knew about it.
We got curious about who the other guys actually were, and Joan P and Jenny went over to check them out. Joan P was pleasantly surprised at how few of them there actually were, considering that they had been bused in. She says they didn’t occupy a half a city block. Most sadly they sang, “We Shall Not Be Moved” (guess there are no Woody Guthries or Pete Seegers in that crowd) and tried to convince themselves that their Islamophobia springs from their desire to protect the hallowed Burlington Coat Factory (as Rachel Maddox called it) and not the unacknowledged wellspring of racism so evident when one listens to their words carefully.
Although Jenny agrees that the demo was not as large as one might have thought given the choreographed nature of the event, it was most chilling and horrifying that this is taking place anywhere in the country and awful that it is in our city. We need to be most vigilant. History shows that times like this when the economy is increasingly bad for people, politicians prey on fears and promote divisions among people. The Muslims are most vulnerable nowadays. As are we all. The media must be held accountable when they stoke the fires of fear and conflict and racism.
One of the good home-made signs “hate = terrorism” captured a problem with the activities of the “welcome to the center” group. Some of us were uncomfortable with the intensity of the negative message being generated in the chants by people marching alongside of us. What rankles is that what sells papers is conflict, and the reporters suggested, albeit politely at times, that we were one of two groups in a sporting match.
The protesters had organized far ahead of the date; they had about 500 people, or so the papers said. We were about 200, pulled together in a few days.
What if we could bring the whole city out into the streets on 9/11 this year to say “let us have our diversity; we’re used to it; give us freedom of religion and quality education and that will hallow our ground.”
- Caroline Chinlund with Joan Pleune and Jenny Heinz
for the Granny Peace Brigade
Photos: Bud Korotzer
What would you do if your homeland were taken from you?
Earlier Period
1. For millenia Jews, Arabs, and their Semite ancestors have lived in the area we now call Israel/Palestine. (Since both Arabs and Jews are Semites, does the term ‘anti-Semitic’ have any usefulness in a consideration of the people affected in the Israel/Palestine conflict?)
2. Jericho (in the West Bank), which we are told is the oldest inhabited city, was built about 10,000 years ago by ancestors of Arabs.
3. Early Jews moved from Ur in Sumer (Mesopotamia, now Iraq) to Canaan (inter alia, Israel/West Bank) about 4,000 years ago.
United Kingdom of Israel about 1020 BC - about 922 BC, then
Israel (northern Kingdom ) about 922 BC - about 722 BC
Judah (southern Kingdom) about 922 BC - about 586 BC
4. There was a Jewish diaspora over time; however, many Jews remained in Palestine.
5. In Jerusalem during the First Crusade (1096 – 1099 ) thousands of Muslims, Jews, and Arab Christians suffered. Palestine was their home.
Later Period
6. The Balfour Declaration, in November 1917, stated in part “His Majesty’s Government” (that is, the Government of Great Britain) “view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, … it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine….”
7. The declaration was accepted by the League of Nations in July 1922 and was embodied in the mandate given Great Britain for temporary administrative control of Palestine.
8. In 1947 the British Government turned the Palestine question over to the United Nations.
9. In November 1947, partition of Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state was recommended by the United Nations.
10. Many Arab Palestinians had to leave, many fleeing, their homes – many settling in, or becoming refugees in, the West Bank or Gaza, and many settling or becoming refugees outside Palestine. In May 1948 Israel proclaimed independence.
What would YOU do if YOUR homeland were taken from YOU? In such a case, what do YOU think SHOULD be done?
One proposal
Source: ‘The Nation,’ June 28, 2010
Implementation of the 2002 Nusseibeh-Ayalon Plan for the creation of two states — with June 1967 borders (with small, one-to-one adjustments) and Jerusalem being the shared capital of both states.
Israel/Palestine negotiations
Negotiations are planned to begin again in September 2010 and to cover ‘issues like the borders of a new Palestinian state, the political status of Jerusalem, security guarantees for Israel and the right of return for Palestinian refugees,’ reported in the “New York Times, August 20, 2010.” Will there be a just outcome? Make your views known to the White House
e-mail: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact; comments: 202-456-1111; switchboard: 202-456-1414.
Some Books:
A Peace to End All Peace, David Fromkin (New York: Henry Holt and Company – Owl Books, 1989).
Arabs & Israel for Beginners, Ron David (New York and London: Writers and Readers, 2001).
Fateful Triangle – The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians, Noam Chomsky (Cambridge, Massachusetts: South End Press, 1999).
One Palestine Complete – Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate, Tom Segev (New York: Henry Holt and Company – Metropolitan Books, 1999).
The Balfour Declaration – The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, Jonathan Schneer (New York: Random House, 2010).
- Barbara Walker
for the Granny Peace Brigade
East Harlem Teen Fair – Thursday, August 19,2010
Passersby took the time to consider the categories posted on the penny tubes and then vote how their tax dollars should be allocated.
Mothers, fathers, grandmothers,
teens and children participated in the activity. It was the rare opportunity for families and friends to talk about the issues and consider just what is needed in their community, what would add quality to their lives, and how to assure a better future for the children.
Edith, Joan, Barbara W, Caroline, Jenny, Fran Koritzer were all part of the team during the day. All went very well – it’s really a blast because you get to talk to the people in the street and share concerns.
Join us for some grass roots good times. Sign up for email alerts (about two a week) from grannypeace@gmail.com. We’ll let you know when and where we’ll be hitting the streets.
- Barbara Harris
for the Granny Peace Brigade
Photos 1 – 5 Bud Korotzer
Photo 6 Caroline Chinlund
Friday the 13th – A Report From the Streets
Dear Sisters & Brothers In Peace,
What an afternoon it was! The skies cleared, the humidity evaporated and our wonderful new gizmo was a roaring success.
Maybe it was Sister Jennie’s clarion call or Ms. Eva-Lee’s hat that got ‘em to the table, but whatever the lure — folks lined up to get their twenty pennies and allocate them into the appropriate tubes.
Once participants made their choices for spending tax revenues, we offered them literature (Note to War Resister’s League: Many Thanks!) that shows how Washington actually spends our tax dollars. And the almost universal reaction? Shock and outrage.
Now we aren’t about to make any sweeping, Fox-like generalizations about this afternoon’s endeavor. We will take ourselves, our apparatus and our stash of pennies to many different locations in the next weeks to take the ‘tax temperature’ of a wide cross-section of the citizenry. But just for the record, this is the data we collected today: jobs, education and housing are the top priorities. As for the military? Not so much.
Tabulating the results over a quick lunch, we all agreed was perhaps the best aspect of today’s action was the thoughtful and smart conversation it provoked – and we want more! So keep a sharp eye out for a colorful table with a crazy contraption and a bunch of old ladies offering baggies full of pennies. And you can be sure that every time we set up shop, we’ll be reporting back to you with all with our findings. And if you’re interested in having us come to your neighborhood, give us a blast at grannypeace@gmail.com.
- Fran Sears
Photos: Eva-Lee Baird
for The Granny Peace Brigade
WE MUST NEVER FORGET!
It was 65 years ago, August 6 and August 9, 1945, that the U.S. dropped nuclear bombs on the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Commemorations of the atrocities were held in many cities around the world but, for the first time in history, a representative of the U.S. Ambassador John V. Roos, was present at the ceremony held in Hiroshima. Unbelievable!
With President Obama calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons in Prague last year and his planned visit to Hiroshima and Nagasaki in November, a renewed hope for the abolition of nuclear weapons is in order. Many of the country’s participating in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review at the U.N. in May, expressed their ardent desire for a nuclear-free world.
On Friday August 6, the Granny Peace Brigade and their friends gathered on the anniversary of these horrific acts of war, in Time Square. We are committed to building a nuclear-free world and keeping alive the drive to secure one. Hopefully those who saw our signs and banners, read our flyers, and engaged us in conversation will also work for the abolition of nuclear weapons, worldwide.
The countries with nuclear warheads are the U.S., Russia, China, France, the U.K. India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea. But, the only country to deploy nuclear weapons is the United States of America.
“Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.” – General Omar Bradley, U.S. Army 5 star General, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Let us renew our commitment
to build a peaceful and just world.
- Phyllis Cunningham, Edith Cresmer, Fran Sears, Joan Pleune, Molly Klopot
- Photos: Phyllis Cunningham, Fran Sears
We filed into court, quiet, respectful, hoping against hope that the prisoner would be given the full extent of the powers of the court. That she would receive a mild admonishment for her slight alleged infraction of the law, an error in judgement that anyone, even the most learned judge might make.
According to John Eligon of The New York Times, Thurs. July ,16th, Judge John Koeltl presided over the resentencing of Lynne Stewart after it was deemed that her first sentence of twenty-eight months was too light. Lynne Stewart – the Terrorists’ Handmaid – will be tucked away for the next ten years. Maybe she’ll make it in jail until she’s 90 though she’s got breast cancer.
You better watch out, America. Didn’t she say, “I’d do it again” ? And that’s why they have to lock her up for a good, long time. She’s “potentially lethal” said the prosecuting attorney, Mr Andrew Dember to the grey-haired, school-marm lawyer sitting in front of him.
He should be feeling good now, Judge Koeltl, he’s done his duty. Even though he received hundreds of letters attesting to Lynne’s honesty, virtue and loyalty; even though he heard her daughter burst into tears on hearing the cruel verdict, he can rest easy. He was so careful about all the necessary legal enhancements that will keep America safe, especailly since 9/11. They – the powers that prevail in this country today – are not stupid. They know a good opportunity when it happens. 9/11 was a gift from heaven – although devastating and horrible as it was – it gave them a chance to “enhance” our laws. Enhance was once a pretty word – it usually meant to make nicer or better. Not in this case! Their aim is to destroy the liberties that the founders of our country fought so hard to create – now with new laws they can sanction government interference between client and attorney, wire-tapping and above all, intimidation of the legal profession into fear and ultimately, impotence. Woe to a hapless victim who appears before the bench. Between the lawyers’ fear and the enhanced laws, justice doesn’t stand a chance.
Why were we lulled into thinking she might given a mild, fitting sentence? This isn’t medieval times when men were sentenced to life imprisonment or death for stealing a loaf of bread. We are reasonable people nowadays with reasonable laws – aren’t we? Or is there now a deliberate choice to destroy all the civil liberties that followed those times? We listened so patiently as Koeltl struggled to justify the numbers of the various enhancements, wondering how he could have forgotten what was crucial to the sad woman sitting in front of him; enhancing prison numbers can do that to you. She was asked by Judge Koeltl why she doesn’t exhibit remorse – a strange question. She is an innocent woman. She has nothing to show remorse for.
No, Lynne, you didn’t fail us. We failed you. We failed because we weren’t ready – too sanguine – perhaps stupid – but we should have known and been prepared for that verdict. We should have proclaimed, exhorted, shouted – Lynne Stewart is innocent – she is guilty of nothing but being human. She has never aided or abetted terrorists – she is just a good human being – the best among us. It is the legal system that is now being perverted, destroyed and dishonoring America. But it is more than that – it is the governing body – the Congress and the President that are guilty as well, playing their parts and letting it happen.
We must have courage.
- Lillian Pollak
reading the U. S. Constitution
July 4, 2010
for the Granny Peace Brigade
Federal Judge John G Koeltl passed down sentence today, 15 July 2010 on the defendant, Lynne Stewart: 120 months incarceration in the Danbury Federal Correctional Institution Connecticut on five counts to be served concurrently.
The 70 year old breast cancer survivor with a cancer now in remission has multiple health issues impacting on an already vulnerable and aging body. Lynne Stewart who has spent thirty years defending poor, oppressed, unpopular clients is to spend the next ten years of her life away from her husband and life partner, her adult children and numerous grandchildren.
Judge Koeltl in a lengthy statement told the now disbarred woman lawyer who started her professional career as a teacher in Harlem that his ruling followed the dictum of the appellate court which demanded he review the 28 months sentence given her one year ago for the crimes committed ten years ago. Today, he today reversed his previous sentence and in compliance with directives from the appellate court sentenced Lynne Stewart to ten years in prison.
Over and over again in his remarks leading up to the sentencing, Judge Koeltl used the term “terrorist enhancement.” Those warning words bring up the specter of some of the nastiest aspects of the Cold War and its present re-incarnation in the Patriot Act which by expanding law enforcement’s surveillance and investigative powers represents a significant threat to civil liberties. Read the official text… “Uniting and Strengthening America by providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism.
The Lynne Stewart case has been lifted out of the obscurity it might have had if the events of Nine Eleven had not transpired. Past and the now present White House Administration believe that by surrendering our freedoms, we are buying national security. Fighting terror has become a buzz word allowing us to accept heightened police presence and militarization domestically and abroad has kept us in two costly and unwinnable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan .
The verdict in Lynne Stewart’s Case should tell us that our country’s policies are still set in a miasma of confusion and controversy. Human security means full employment, jobs and health care for all, affordable housing, mass transit, improved and restored national infrastructure, education for all, the welfare of the old and the protection of the young –these are the solid bases for true national security. What rankles most in the Patriot Act are those provisions that sweep normal criminal law enforcement under the looser procedural standards for fighting terror. It’s important and vital that the state be able to fight terror. No one disputes this. But it’s equally important that the state not use the war on terror to gut the warrant requirement or undermine the First Amendment.
But the state must recognize that poverty is a weapon of mass destruction that brings terror to millions of our people; recognize that banks and financial institutions under whatsoever names they now call themselves are harbingers of terror with foreclosures, plant closings, environmental devastations like the BP Gulf of Mexico debacle.
The death sentence imposed on a seventy year old woman has sent a message that the term “terror”, “terrorism” can be used to stifle dissent, to silence voices, to let the powers that be trample over the rights of ordinary citizens. Those of us in the peace movement, the anti-war movement, the anti-racism movement, the environmental movement, the movement for a just immigration policy must continue our struggles. This is what Lynne Stewart wants us to do. Her sacrifice will not be in vain if we continue these vital grass roots movement for a just and humane society.
We owe that to our beloved Lynne Stewart, the People’s Lawyer. We got your back, Lynne. La luta continua!
- Vinie Burrows
UN Rep for the Women’s International Democratic Federation
Founding member of the GRANNY PEACE BRIGADE
Awarded the Paul Robeson Award by Actors Equity Association
What kind of banana republic is this? Where is the transparency in NYC government?
NYC’s fiscal year begins on July 1, and City Council has ‘deferred’ the 6/24 public hearings on on the education budget for 2010-2011. You might ask yourself if or when the hearings will be rescheduled? We wanted to know, but no one downtown could tell us. Probably things are on hold because of the shenanigans in Albany. In the meantime, while the Mayor and Chancellor Klein continue to cut the guts out of educational programs, that figure of over $2 million for JROTC programs is still in the budget. Do these folks think we’re not paying attention?
Friends, this is no time to get distracted. Let’s keep the pressure on City Council — trying to sneak this one by us is unacceptable. Tell them to cut bucks out of JROTC and put the money back in real education.
INFORMATION PLEASE PHONE-A-THON
Friday, June 18th
12noon – 1.30PM
City Hall Park (Broadway & Park Place)
No cellphone, no problem. There is much to do, and we need all the helping hands we can get!
See you in the streets!
- Fran Sears
for the Granny Peace Brigade
We like chocolate just fine, but we want peace – NOW.
So the Granny Peace Brigade and CodePink set out on our 4th Annual Mother’s Day stroll to take back the day. Julia Ward Howe started the whole thing in 1870 with her Mother’s Day Proclamation and we carry her words in our hearts today: “Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”
Special musical accompaniment
by the Rude Mechanical Orchestra
and the Raging Grannies brightened our way
as we gave Mother’s Day cards with a message of peace to passers by.
Three generations of peaceniks joined us. Now whose grandson might that be?
Article 9 is a clause in the National Constitution of Japan that prohibits an act of war by the state. The United States needs an Article 9.
One American woman with messages for everyone.
- Eva-Lee Baird
for the Granny Peace Brigade
-All Photos by Bud Korotzer