Granny Peace Brigade Blog

Yesterday evening there were at least two events that Granny Peace Brigade members wanted to attend. (Nothing new about that.) Since she hasn’t figured out yet how to be in two places at the same time, Bev went to the demo at the Federal Building – 26 Federal Plaza to protest FBI raids and harassment of antiwar activists in Chicago and Minneapolis.

Meanwhile, Barbara H, Joan P and I (our two-places-at-once skills aren’t so great either) tottered out to Brooklyn to join CodePink NY, Brooklyn for Peace and others for the Stolen Beauty AHAVA Boycott Campaign outside the Ricky’s store on Montague Street.

Counter demonstrators showed up at Ricky’s.

There was a lot of hollering. We had to chant really loud to compete with the noisy, ardent counter demonstrators. It was hard. It was tiring. Our voices started to give out. But we carried on.

As we were leaving one of the organizers suggested that next time we should have a sound permit.

Here’s my question:

Is using amplified sound to cope with noisy counter demonstrators a good idea?

This is a general question about street demos where we expect counter demonstrators. My concern is that by cranking up a sound system we might alienate the people we are trying to reach. Maybe we should work on having the best chants and songs (Corinne, Mercy — head’s up)…  and pack along some throat lozenges.

What do you think?

- Eva-Lee Baird
for the Granny Peace Brigade

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Ms. Gizmo Rides again — to Union Square this time. As always people think very carefully about how to allocate the twenty pennies we offer. Click on the photos for larger images and go to our previous post for a bit of explanation about Ms. Gizmo and a list of her eight tax categories.

We will post the statistics and charts on today’s vote early next week.

- Eva-Lee Baird
for the Granny Peace Brigade

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This Thursday, September 16 the Granny Peace Brigade took Ms. Gizmo to Brooklyn. For the fifth time she was out on the town and again, as always she was embraced with enthusiasm by people passing by.

What is it about Ms. Gizmo that makes her so very popular? After all physically she’s just a bunch of plastic tubes standing side by side in a couple of racks. Is it the labels on her tubes?

• Arts & Culture,
• Education,
• Environment & Clean Energy,
• Health Care,
• Housing,
• Jobs,
• Military,
• Transportation.

Or is it the question we ask? “How would you spend your own tax dollars?” We offer each passer by a plastic bag containing 20 pennies. People can drop these pennies into Ms. Gizmo’s tubes in any way they see fit. That’s it – 20 pennies and eight categories. Of the hundreds of people who have distributed pennies, not a single person has done this thoughtlessly. All have concentrated as they allocated these modest funds.

The key to Ms. Gizmo’s charm — New Yorkers want to be heard. Many of us are not pleased with the enormous amounts of money the U.S. spends on war, on the military. We see a crying need for increased spending on the other seven categories. Ms. Gizmo is a step towards giving us a voice. She helps to bring us together and start conversations. We’ll see where we can go from here.

- Eva-Lee Baird
for the Granny Peace Brigade

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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