Around 6:00PM Thursday evening three members of the Granny Peace Brigade, Bev, Pat D and I, joined about 60 other demonstrators and a bunch of cops in a ballet near the Brooklyn Bridge. We had our costumes and our moves worked out well in advance. The demonstrators sat; the cops stood; one had a bullhorn. That cop told us to move. We chanted so loud we couldn’t hear him but we knew what he said. We didn’t move and at the speed of light the officers asked us to stand and cuffed us. That was the end of the fast part.

The rest of the night was larghissimo all the way. Assigning us to officers took time, loading the buses took time (Thanks Buddy for being on the street waving!), the driver’s standup routine took time (he was funny), driving to One Police Plaza took time, being turned away and sent to Queens took time, and driving to the Queens Central Booking Unit really took time. And then it took hours to get all of us processed and into cells.

Each new arrival in the women’s cell was greeted with applause. We were an assorted group of gals; SEIU was well represented with Mary Kay Henry in the cell. There were several women from 1199 and a group from Make the Road. The oldest woman arrested will turn 75 next week and of course we sang “Happy Birthday.” One of our youngest cellmates was celebrating her birthday as an arrestee – we sang again – loud. My City Council Rep Melissa Mark Viverito was with us and was delightful company. We sat, we chatted, we sang a little more, we got hungry. The cops ranging in attitude from matter-of-fact courtesy to warm support and gratitude brought us water, milk and sandwich-like entities. When one of our cellmates complained about the cuisine another said, “At least they are trying. It’s whole wheat.” Now that’s a positive attitude! What ever “IT” is, it is tan and grainy and might be bread, and if you are hungry enough you eat it unless somebody has smuggled in an extra granola bar.

As the night wore on the heroic support team (it was a lot warmer in the cells) helped newly released arrestees find safe ways of getting home. Thank you Annabelle for being so gracious and steady throughout that cold night. Pat and I were released after 1:00AM and Pat went home to face work the next day. How she did that is beyond my comprehension – she’s tougher than she looks. Bev got out a little after 4:00AM and the support team got us a livery cab to share with 1199SEIU organizers going to Manhattan.

Our driver had been listening to the news throughout his 12-hour shift and thanked us for what we were doing. The car which belonged to the service, not to him, broke down in lower Manhattan. Hopelessly stalled, he called for another car. He called for a tow truck. He was worried that he would not be home in time to give his wife money so that she could get work and have lunch. They live day to day. Our driver was not making money while he was sitting with us in that broken car. The car was quiet but not his heart.

We are the 99%.

-Eva-Lee Baird
for the Granny Peace Brigade

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The Lincoln Center plaza was chosen for the silent vigil because it is privately managed even though it is owned by New York City.  The GPB is concerned about the lack of opportunities to exercise freedom of speech and the right to assemble peaceably in public venues. The Lincoln Center plaza is such a space and affords high visibility for getting our messages out to the public

Although we were threatened with arrest by a member of the Lincoln Center Administration, the NYC Police never took action. The event garnered more than 150 people joining the silent vigil with multitude of on-lookers.  It is our hope that our messages will be carried far and wide and propel more people into action for peace and social justice.

-Phyllis Cunningham
for the Granny Peace Brigade

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And on Broadway walking south past Barclay Street, past Vesey, past Fulton to Liberty are groups of young people – some carrying brooms. On each block approaching Zuccotti Park there are more young people – and brooms.

It’s going to be okay.

By 6:05 the crowd in Zuccotti Park is so dense it’s hard to see, hard to move. Where are the other grannies? With cell phone help I find Ann, Jenny and Joan P with Laurie. They have been in the park since midnight and are looking surprisingly good.

We hear the news. Occupy Wall Street has triumphed and will stay in Zuccotti Park for now.

The celebration begins. There is some speechifying and music but people are restless and want action. Two or three spontaneous marches begin.

The march I am on is small, noisy and lacks the considerate mindfulness of so many other Occupy Wall Street marches. The vibe is raucous. A handful of Wall Street Occupiers work to direct the march and manage the tone. They are smart, they are thoughtful, they must be exhausted, they are beautiful.

It’s going to be okay.

- Eva-Lee Baird
for the Granny Peace Brigade

(more photos on Facebook)

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We will be observing our anniversary on Tuesday, October 18th, at 7:00PM by the fountain at Lincoln Center (Broadway & West 66th Street).

In a silent vigil timed to coincide with showtime, we grannies will once again stand our ground…

• against invasions, wars, occupations
• against U.S. military bases abroad
• against militarization of youth
• against the human cost of war—domestic and international
• against the economic cost of war.

We will stand our ground FOR freedom of speech; for the right to peaceably assemble as our First Amendment guarantees.

We invite you to join with us in this silent mini-occupation as we reflect on the issues that have galvanized us for the past six years.

We stand our ground.

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John Lennon and Yoko Ono said – War is over if you want it. Imagine Peace.

As endless wars continue, the military industrial complex seeks new young bodies to fill the ranks of our forces preparing them to wage war.  The Department of Defense is fat on money – no supplemental funding to support war has been denied by Congress.  The Pentagon spends $5 billion per year on recruiting. No nook or cranny, no high school, playground, sporting event, or school career fair is overlooked for the opportunity to speak with students, to embellish the benefits of service and entice youth into enlisting in the military.  Movies, violent video games, advertising and clothing design all incorporate the war story and the myths and misleading precepts surrounding military service and patriotism. Turning war into a video game, becoming the hero – the good guy/gal, saving the world, the country, your honor.  Kill – maim – destroy, then press the reset button.  You’re safe in your room and you’ve destroyed the “other – the alien – the foreigner – the terrorist.”  It’s fun, it’s strong; it’s immoral, it’s wrong.  In real life, there is no reset button.

How can a child, a teen, an adult understand the true meaning of war, who dies, who kills, and why?  We are all diminished by the lack of compassion and understanding of the great human loss in war no matter the country or culture.  Imagine Peace.

Our tax dollars go to support the military to the tune of 48c of every dollar collected. Bring our troops home now, bring our war dollars home now, renew hope and opportunities for our youth.  Provide care for those who have served and now suffer from innumerable physical and mental illnesses. This is the time – we are the people.  Bring Our War $$s Home – domestic needs to be served, social and economic justice for all.  If not now – when?

Peace is not just the absence of war. It is a world with justice and equality.  It’s a world where the basic needs of the majority of the people are met.  The future is with our youth. We come together today for our children and grandchildren. Continue the action – we have a worthy cause.  We must continue to seek peaceful solutions to domestic and global conflicts.

Imagine peace.

- Barbara Harris
for the Granny Peace Brigade

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Our young brothers and sisters in the struggle are curious to know what is bringing these old, grey heads to the Zuccatti encampment.

How can we explain that one of our members can remember helping to bang the pots and pans in celebration of the end of World War I?  Another can vividly recall holding her father’s hand at a rally supporting Sacco and Vanzetti.  Joan was a guest of the state in Mississippi, jailed as a Freedom Rider at the infamous Parchman Prison. Some of our mothers and dads took us to protest the murder of Emmett Till.

“Emmett Till,” one young reporter puzzles.  “Is he here today?”

It would be too easy to laugh, instead we are caught short and reflect.  Most definitely Emmett is here with us — along with Troy Davis, Viola Liuzzo, Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, and James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner and so many others we could name.  We don’t just march in their memory — they all are still very much with us.

One woman appears in a green dress and a big smile.  She saw us on Facebook and she had to “get her butt down here.”   A few blocks along on our march to the Post Office, she tells us her husband tried to dissuade her.  “That just sealed the deal,” she tells us with a twinkle.

Amy Goodman and her crew marching with us and a big thumbs up to Congressman Jerry Nadler for doing the right thing – stepping up to support the postal workers.  It seems we now live a world where good behavior on the part of an elected official is the exception, not the rule.  But even in this dark season, there are some true points of hopeful light. C’mon down to Zuccotti and see what we mean.

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In peace always.

- Fran Sears
for the Granny Peace Brigade
Photos: Eva-Lee Baird

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The sound system for the meeting was extraordinary. The demonstrators do not have a sound permit so the lawyer said a few words and paused. The people nearest the speaker repeated the words in chorus for the benefit of those who were farther away.

When the demonstrators wanted to show approval they did so silently.

The system worked. Everyone at the meeting (even us half-deaf grannies) was able to follow the discussion. And it more than worked. There was a quiet dignity, a sense of connectedness, respect and cooperation that no electronic sound amplification system has ever produced.

Two marches each day are timed for the opening and closing of the Stock Exchange.

As the afternoon march began promptly at 3:30PM we put on our yellow Granny Peace Brigade tunics and started walking. Again and again we were showered with thank yous and hugs from the ardent, heroic young people around us.

Come to Liberty Plaza now!

See you in the streets.

- Eva-Lee Baird
for the Granny Peace Brigade
Photos 1,2,4,6 & 7 Eva-Lee Baird
Photos 3 & 5 Edith Cresmer

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AUGUST 3 – Wednesday Afternoon through  AUGUST 5 – Friday
CONFERENCE SESSIONS

Plenary sessions and workshops of the 2011 World Conference Against Atomic & Hydrogen Bombs took place at the Bunka Koryu Kaikai Hall.  The opening plenary began promptly at 2 p.m. and after preliminary welcome greetings and introductions, conference chairs were selected.  Among them was Corazon Fabros from the Philippines who led the victorious struggle to close the USA base at Subic Bay and is now engaged in the campaign to end the “Visiting” Forces Agreement. (She is barred entry to the USA.)

Buddhist monks fasting August 5 in the Hiroshima Peace Park prior to the memorial event honoring all the victims of the Uranium bomb dropped on August 5, 1945. With them is Nydia Leaf of the Granny Peace Brigade and Hisae Ogawa, founder of Code Pink/Osaka.
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The continuing shadow of Fukushima hung over the conference, especially with revelations in newly declassified documents of President Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles that the U.S. “sold” atomic power plants to Japan. An article in the July 24, 2011 Japan Times described the U.S. policy initiated in October 1954 to “remove the strong Japanese notion that atomic and nuclear energy is primarily destructive.”

Themes introduced were the joint Abolition of Nuclear Weapons and Power Plants, Hibakusha compensation, and future NPT (Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons) Preparatory conferences, and papers presented at the conference sessions amplified these ideas.  Overseas presenters spoke of their solidarity and concern for the Japanese people in the aftermath of Fukushima.

The Children’s Peace Monument is a bronze statue of Sasaki Sadako, the twelve year old Hiroshima girl exposed to radiation in 1945 who died of leukemia in 1955.  She folded a  thousand origami cranes hoping it would bring her long life.

Detailing each delegate’s message would be repetitive. Instead here follows a broad list of the most trenchant points to help further our aim of sharing information:

-    The complacency of 25 years post-Chernobyl has been shattered by Fukushima and has shifted the balance in organizations from strictly anti-nuke to now encompass nuclear power plants.  The 442 nuclear plants in 29 countries produce 15% of total electricity needs.  An international non-violent struggle for complete energy transformation has already begun.

-    Nuclear Weapons abolition remains our most urgent task.  23,000 Nuclear Weapons exist and 2000 are maintained on a high alert status.  The technology is too complex to be mastered; thus “safety” is a myth.  Likewise the Cold War strategy of “Mutual Assured Deterrence” is now exposed as myth.

-    The 2015 NPT conference should be held in Hiroshima with significant progress to be made at the U.N. prep com meetings in 2012 and 2014; no progress has been made since last year’s NPT meetings, in particular, work towards a nuclear free zone in the Middle East.

-    The need for a Nuclear Weapons Convention is clearer now than ever before.  The Non-Aligned Movement in May 2011 proposed a high-level international conference “to identify ways and means of eliminating nuclear weapons.”

-    The peoples of Japan and Guam have been caught in the middle of geopolitics that compromises the safety of the entire world.  Peace and stability in Northeast Asia (China, Japan, Korea) is possible through regional cooperation.

-    It is important to create Nuclear Free Zones, especially in the Middle East.  Mayors For Peace, the world’s largest organization working to abolish Nuclear Weapons, has 5000 member cities representing nearly one billion people.

-    According to SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) annual military spending is $1.6 Trillion of which 100 Billion is for the nuclear industry.

-    The U.S. has violated the NPT by illegally deploying nuclear weapons on its European bases.  The German government was forced to admit that 20 U.S. nuclear bombs are deployed in Buchel.  Now Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, The Netherlands and Norway have called on the U.S. to remove nuclear weapons from their territory.

-    U.S. bases – Because of two Marine bases located at Mt. Fuji, the site cannot be registered as a World Cultural Heritage site.   In the Philippines, the U.S. closed its Subic Bay in 1992 but left a heavily contaminated area with resultant cancers like leukemia and miscarriages.  This is a lesson for Japan to learn that it must stop hosting the USA.

-    The City of Kobe has banned the presence of U.S. nuclear warships and submarines.  Other cities in Japan should do likewise.

-    A strong call for No More Hibakusha.  Victims of Agent Orange should also be remembered.

-    Korean Hibakusha abroad should be entitled to the same welfare benefits and compensation as Japanese Hibakusha.  Likewise now for the new Hibakusha resulting from the Fukushima Daiichi plants.

-    Chernobyl in 1986 has left millions who suffer its consequences but facts are not available.  In 1959 a contract between the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) permits WHO release of information about radiation impact only after consultation with the IAEA.

-    Death tolls continue to climb in the Marshall Islands after the 1954 Hydrogen bomb (Bikini) test and nuclear claims for compensation and restitution meet with little or no response from the U.S.

-    Victims of the 193 tests conducted by France over a 30 year period (150 underground and 43 above) have struggled with the French government for compensation for tests in Polynesia and Algeria.  They have launched an Appeal for a United Nations conference to take up the issue of Nuclear Test sites around the world for cleaning, rehabilitating and developing of all regions so affected.

-    “Don’t send our Students to Battlefields.”   Education for Peace is essential and textbooks need to be monitored for their description of nuclear energy – “Renewable Energy Sources” are usually portrayed as insufficient to meet energy needs.

The message from Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to the Conference, delivered by Sergio Duarte, U.N. High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, thanked Gensuikyo for its role in the work of disarmament.  Mr. Duarte called the gathering a “Collective Conscience” that must push for accountability and, while acknowledging the many obstacles as countries continue to modernize their arsenals, he expressed his gratitude for Gensuikyo’s contributions.

The Atomic Bomb Dome is a fragment of the only building purposely kept standing in Hiroshima, the Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall,  2 km kilometers from the epicenter.

AUGUST 6 – Saturday –
HIROSHIMA PEACE MEMORIAL CEREMONY – 8 to 8:45 a.m.
As a U.S. citizen attending this solemn, formal commemoration, the event was very painful – it was the U.S. that unleashed this horror on the world and inflicted a nightmare of destruction on the people of Japan.  The Peace Park area was set with 12,000 chairs; escorts to seats done quietly with no frenzy; a program and a flower given to each person as they arrived; phalanxes of TV camera crews arrayed on the side; orchestras and choruses dressed all in white; the day was clear and hot and attendees were advised to drink water which was provided.  At eight o’clock the ceremony began with a dedication of the register of names of the victims, a brief address and then foreign dignitaries presenting wreaths at the cenotaph.  At 8:15 a.m. (the time when the bomb struck on August 6, 1945) a bell rang followed by silent prayer.  The Mayor of Hiroshima spoke.  Flocks of doves were released several times and a “Commitment to Peace” was read by the two 6th grade school children who had written it…their high voices sounding open and hopeful.  A Peace Song was sung and the ceremony closed.  We were invited to lay flowers at the monument where banks of Chrysanthemums had already been arranged.

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-Nydia Leaf
for the Granny Peace Brigade

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On Friday, August 5, The Granny Peace Brigade (GPB) and supporters gathered at the Armed Forces Recruiting Station in Time Square to remember the horrendous crimes visited on Japan, August 6 and 9, 1945.

With our banner, signs, and flyers we hoped to encourage others to take time to recollect and perhaps engage in activities focusing on building a peaceful and just world.

Although there are several other countries with nuclear warheads (Russia, China, France, the U.K., India, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea), the U.S. is the only country to employ them.  The GPB is committed to the abolition of nuclear weapons and war, and works toward making the world a better place with justice and peace for all.

We, the people must rely on each other and work together to bring peace to the world.  In the words of Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969),  “I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.”

Let us renew our commitment
To build a peaceful and just world.

- Phyllis Cunningham
for the Granny Peace Brigade
Photos:   1, 2, 3 – Bud Korotzer;   4 – Phyllis Cunningham

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This is a funny video, but the message is deadly serious– the Grannies participated to stress the need to fight the Obama administration, as President Obama has offered cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security in the debt ceiling negotiations currently gripping Capitol Hill. While I personally didn’t vote for Obama, I think it is important to keep him as the focal point in yet another atrocity being leveled at the citizens of this country- in this case, the low or no-income, the elderly and sick. in addition, in Grand Central Station, the cops tried to stop us and said if we danced, we would be arrested!

- Ann Shirazi
for the Granny Peace Brigade

New York—While swinging their hips to a Motown groove, grannies tell Obama and congressional leaders to keep their hands off Medicare.
Angering many voters who supported him, President Obama has offered cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security in the debt ceiling negotiations currently gripping Capitol Hill. So on the eve of Medicare’s 46th birthday on July 30th, the grassroots advocacy group Healthcare-NOW! releases a video of grannies performing a choreographed dance based on the Supremes’ hit to deliver an urgent demand: Medicare needs to be expanded, not cut.

Though having a good time doing a group dance, members of the Granny Peace Brigade and the Raging Grannies say this is a life-and-death issue. Advocates for Medicare expansion cite numbers from Harvard Medical School reporting that 45,000 people a year die in the U.S. because they don’t have health insurance; the number jumps to 101,000 when including people who are under-insured: they have insurance, but their insurance companies deny them necessary care when they get sick.[1]

Bev Rice, a retired nurse who danced in the video, says “As a nurse I saw so many people suffer and die prematurely because insurance companies wouldn’t pay for the care they needed. I have Medicare and it works. It should be open to everyone.”

Advocates say that not only would a Medicare-for-All system cover everyone, it would also save the country $400 billion a year in health spending. While Medicare spends only 3% on administrative costs, private health insurance companies spend 17-28%, including profits, marketing, and extravagant CEO salaries.

Another one of the dancing grannies, Joan Pleune, says: “Rehearsing for this choreographed dance is harder than getting arrested during the Freedom Rides of 1961.” The veteran of the Civil Rights Movement adds, “But my health is threatened and I need Washington to pay attention—expand, not cut, Medicare!”
Laurie Wen, Healthcare-NOW! NYC,
Katie Robbins, Healthcare-NOW! www.healthcare-now.org

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