The lovely park outside the 1-2-3 Subway stop at 72nd and Broadway was the scene of our latest Penny Poll. (Click on photos for larger images.)
We asked neighborhood residents their opinion about how their tax dollars should be spent and each person deposited 20 pennies into some or all of the Gizmo’s eight tubes.
Education was the most important purpose by a long shot. See the results in the chart below.
- Edith Cresmer
- Photos Phyllis Cunningham
for the Granny Peace Brigade
This week when we set up Ms. Gizmo in Brooklyn near Borough Hall we attracted the attention of a new group of voters. Montessori students from all over the country were visiting with their teachers, and several groups stopped to vote in the penny poll and discuss tax dollar allocation. (Click on the photos for larger images.)
The results were slightly different from polls done at other Ms. Gizmo events in this location — with more pennies in the “Military” tube than usual. Boys in the classes were allocating more of their tax money to the military than does our usual crowd of adult passersby.
- Eva-Lee Baird
for the Granny Peace Brigade
Photos: Caroline Chinlund
Chart: Edith Cresmer
This is the Union Square scene and the people who heard Vinie Burroughs’ speech. (Click on the photos for larger images.)
Our Philadelphia Granny Peace Brigade friends joined us. Here they are with Corinne listening to the speakers in Union Square.
Resting away from the high volume of the speakers, I found two of many people who had come from Maine. They got up at 1:00 AM to get on the bus and travel to NYC.
My companions, shown here with Lillian, were parents of a soldier who tried to get work when he returned from his first tour in Iraq. He failed to find a job; the army refused to give him the Spanish language training he wanted so that he could be in the Border Patrol, which was the work he wanted to do. His Mom said he felt he had no choice but to go back for a second, and now a third, tour. “He has a wife and kids to support, “ she said.
Marching down Broadway was the moment I felt how many we were. You could see us going on forever, in front and behind. We were diverse; we were young and old; it felt like we have all the challenges and thrills of Tahrir Square ahead of us if we can stay committed to staying together and making a better nation.
There were more speeches in Foley Square. The drone in the foreground was the work of a peace activist from Westchester. Meeting people was energizing. Cindy Sheehan, Bill Perkins, religious leaders from the Muslim communities, and many others gave 90 second speeches. Steve took his turn, urging people to stay aware they are making a difference by being out and being seen. We were startled to find that there was virtually no news coverage of the demonstration and march. New York 1 covered a labor rally in Times’ Square which was going on at the same time as the Peace demonstration. CBS radio on the evening news mentioned that “thousands gathered in lower Manhattan” but there wasn’t one word in the New York Times. It leaves me thinking we’ve got to be our own messengers.
- Caroline Chinlund
for the Granny Peace Brigade
Brooklynites began thinking about taxes when they saw our Penny Poll. Ms. Gizmo attracted a crowd, including small children, and everyone thought carefully about where they wanted their tax dollars to go.
We provided twenty pennies to each voter and asked them to divide the pennies among eight tubes, representing categories in the Federal Budget. “Pretend you’re a Congressman, and these are twenty billion dollars,” we told them. After they voted, we provided these active citizens with information [on the War Resisters League flyer] about where their taxes are really being spent. Education is our game and pennies and tubes are our tools.
- Edith Cresmer
for the Granny Peace Brigade
Photos: Eva-Lee Baird
WE ARE ONE, one with the people of Egypt, Yemen and Palestine.
WE ARE ONE in opposing the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan.
WE ARE ONE with the 5 million people of Libya who, in the first days of the humanitarian military action, were attacked by 161 Tomahawk Cruise missiles. Each cruise missile costing more than one million dollars means this military assault on Libya cost US taxpayers a quarter of a billion dollars. However, compared to the 2 billion a week we spend in Afghanistan, that seems like chump change.
Let us remind ourselves that the bottom line in our capitalist society, in our imperialist society is money. But not money as more wages for the laborer but instead greater profits for the employer. Oil is the bottom reason for our militaristic Libyan expedition.
So once again, we find the imperial conqueror lusting after Black gold, OIL. And this same lust for greed and profit kidnapped upwards of 20 millions of my ancestors from Africa. The Transatlantic Slave trade built up the great cities of England: Liverpool, London. Slave labor, free labor enabled the young United States of America to enthrone Cotton as King and thus laid the foundation for the giant we were to become.
BLACK GOLD from Africa as free labor and BLACK GOLD today with the control of the vast reserves of oil. The newly created unified military command AFRICOM is leading that latter mission with its sinister machinations in Libya specifically and Africa generally.
WE ARE ONE WITH workers everywhere…workers with jobs and workers needing jobs.
WE ARE ONE with unions seeking better conditions for their members, seeking to protect gains won and recover gains lost.
WE ARE ONE with women and men wanting to have work that enables them to support and sustain their families.
WE ARE ONE with all who come to this country as immigrants recalling that when the first immigrants came to thses shores there were indigenous families, people, tribes, nations living here; and they fed the strangers, sheltered and helped them to survive. The newly arrived accepted the hospitality then expropriated their lands, drove them away to live on reservations. As the native American elder once said: white man made many promises to Indians, only one promise he kept, he promised to take our lands and he took them.
Brothers and Sisters
We are men, women, Indian, Hispanic, African, Asian, Jew, Christian, Muslim, immigrant WE
WE ARE ONE. Thank you.
- Vinie Burrows
for the Granny Peace Brigade
Photos of demonstration: Edith Cresmer
The GPB and CodePink went to Hunter College with Ms. Gizmo on V-Day and International Women’s Day. We invited students and teachers to vote their tax preferences using a package of 20 pennies as their vote. We told them to imagine they were Congresspeople distributing 20 billion dollars among our eight categories.
The results of their votes are shown below. Not surprisingly education was the top draw.
After they allot their pennies, we give voters a copy of the War Resisters League pie chart flyer – “Where Your Income Tax Money Really Goes” so they can compare their ideas to the actual Federal budget.
- Edith Cresmer and Eva-Lee Baird
for the Granny Peace Brigade
The Pentagon budget for military recruitment is more than $4 billion/ year. You see the military outreach everywhere – movies, toys, ads, video gaming, clothing, recruitment career centers, and recruiters at high schools and around the neighborhood.
To counter military recruiting, on Thursday, March 17th, 38 volunteers, with a very small budget but lots of commitment, showed up at 14 high schools in NYC to distribute informational flyers to parents and students. The handouts address truth in military recruiting and non- military alternatives for life choices after high school.
Parents on their way to a meeting with their child’s teacher stop for a minute or so to hear about the ‘Options’, to find out about financial aid, scholarships and job and college websites. They thank volunteers for providing information they need, the support given, and thumbs up on learning more about opportunities available for their kids.
Outside a school, a group of 5 girls are talking. One of the girls with a guitar tells me she plans to enlist. I ask, ‘Why, what are you looking for?’ ‘Got information on music?’ she replies. Together, we look at the Options flyer and see a website for creative arts. ‘Check it out.’ Now she’s interested and takes the flyer. The other girls ask for the sheet too.
The Questions to Ask and Points to Consider Before You Enlist flyer provides responses to questions families have concerning promises and benefits of service often made to potential enlistees. Recruiters are salespeople and youth are their customers. This information rings true with parents and students.
‘Not going into the Army, no way. –I need this information for him.’ Volunteers note that most families are opposed to having their children serve in the military.
One teacher rushes by – no time to talk, but another teacher stops, ‘Wow – good stuff. I’ll talk to my class about this.’
Volunteers mention the rewards of the action – a moment of shared support, offering useful and positive information to families, and, perhaps, a change in direction for a student.
Volunteering for peace – Ending war one student at a time.
- Barbara Harris
for the Granny Peace Brigade
Photos: Eva-Lee Baird
Recruiting Station Times Square New York City:
Brothers and sisters we gather today in solemn observance of the 8th anniversary of the United States invasion of Iraq. However in our grief let us empathize with the suffering of our sisters and brothers in Japan the earthquake and the tsunami which have devastated them. And we also recognize that their precarious nuclear situation can be traced back to the hellish invention of the atom bomb. On August 6, 1945, at 8:15 am , under an Executive Order of President Harry Truman an evil genie was let out of a bottle over the city of Hiroshima and the genie can never be put back into the bottle and so brothers and sisters, the horrors of nuclear power will come back to haunt us again and again until the world forever renounces war and nuclear power.
There is no way to peace, peace is the way. The wars and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan have cost, at a conservative estimate the lives of more than 1 million three hundred thousand human beings - civilians , non-combatants , and almost 5000 US service men and women . The human cost of war includes, also, thousands who return from wars physically. spiritually and emotionally damaged. And we can add to the cost of war, the diversion of funds that could be used for schools, hospitals, mass transit, sewers, tunnels, bridges, the vital infrastructure which serves as the arteries and veins of transport and travel locally, regionally, and nationally. And we can add to the cost of war here and abroad, the destruction of educational and cultural institutions, museums, schools, libraries, universities, the migration of more than three million human beings fleeing the war, the heartbreaking dissolution of family and human networks.
A 9 year old Afghan boy said and these are his words in translation.
WHY DID YOU KILL MY FATHER
YOU NEVER EVEN KNEW HIM
HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO MAKE A GUN
WHY DON’T YOU MAKE BREAD INSTEAD.
The businessmen (Halliburton, Bechtel) who trade in death are also the shareholders of private military, gas and oil corporations who receive compensation, in other words receive our tax dollars for the so called reconstruction of Iraq. You see they made money to destroy and then they make money to reconstruct and the MONEY THEY MAKE IS OUR MONEY IS OUR TAX DOLLARS AND WE HAVE A RIGHT TO SEE THAT IT IS SPENT JUSTLY.
The economic situation in the USA and in Puerto Rico is dire. Absolute poverty exists in our harlems, our ghettos, our inner cities, Appalachia, Indian reservations. Tens of thousands have lost their jobs, thousands more have lost their homes. In our own city the number of homeless has increased, the number of children living in poverty has increased.
We grannies – who are mothers, grandmothers, great grandmothers – denounce the Obama agenda which in its foreign policy suspiciously resembles the Bush agenda. Our combined ages total one thousand years and we tell the president whom we supported listen to your mothers:
Mothers represents life. War is death, the grannies wage a struggle for peace. There is no way to peace, peace is the way. No more wars Thank you.
- Vinie Burrows
for the Granny Peace Brigade
Photo: Bud Korotzer
(Click on pictures for larger images.)
The annual Toy Industry Association Fair is taking place inside the Javits Center as Edith, Susan, Bev, Joan P and I study song sheets and begin to sing on the sidewalk outside. Later we will be told the sidewalk we are standing on is private property. We will be told to go stand on the narrow strip behind us at the curb on 11th Avenue near 35th Street.
We are here to protest war toys and toys that celebrate violence — particularly the Toy-Of-The-Year winner in the boy toy category, Hasbro’s Stampede Blaster. The writing on the box speaks for the toy and for Hasbro.
Launch an all-out assault with the fully automatic Stampede ESCI. Unleash a storm of darts from the extended 18-dart clip, and reload in a hurry….
The people on the awards committee — what were they thinking?
Barbara engages two sympathetic toy fair attendees in conversation – is she standing on public or private space?
Calen hands out valentines – on public or private space? We sing, and sing and sing. With us is David Walllace who captured our message in this powerful video. Many, many thanks David.
Security tells us we are on private property. We sing.
Security calls the police and when the officer arrives a discussion ensues about the sidewalk in front of the Javits Center in particular, and about public vs private space in general. There is a wide sidewalk in front of the Javits center…
Here’s a view of our spot from Google Maps. The Javits center roof is dark. The image was taken some time ago and does not show the scaffolding. The sidewalk is about as wide as two traffic lanes and we’re standing near the “C” in “Convention.”
The same view with the so-called private sidewalk in red and the public strip in green.
We’ve done what we came to do here and head north toward 41st Street where Hasbro has a separate exhibit. On the way we stop at the 37th Street entrance to the Javits Center where an even greater swath of sidewalk and roadway has been declared private.
We go in to a space where commercial connections are made. Some old time lyrics run through my head…
But the banks are made of marble
With a guard at every door…*
The public agora is closing down piece by piece. Every day more of the discourse, the exchange of ideas that makes a democracy vibrant and strong is taking place in spaces like this under corporate control.
We sing. People listen. The fair attendees seem to be divided into two camps; the people who dismiss us impatiently, and those that thank us enthusiastically.
On to Hasbro where…
A piece of 41st Street has been made into a private museum for Hasbro, velvet ropes and all. The truck is promoting transformer toys.
The security guy on the right tells us “just don’t block the door.” Bev who does not slow down in the presence of security hangs a pass to the exhibit around her neck (yes we have one) and marches in. Blink your eyes and they’re throwing her out.
Whose streets? We have work to do.
- Eva-Lee Baird
for the Granny Peace Brigade
Photos 1 – 6: ©2011 David Wallace
Photos 7 & 8 Google Maps
Photos 9 – 11: Eva-Lee Baird
*Song by Les Rice ©Stormking Music 1950
Why is it that every time I come back to AARP, something else happens to make me regret my decision?
I recently received your Jan/Feb issue, with a cover so vile that I could not bring myself to have it in my house-I had to drop it in the garbage room of my building.
Why would you feature a proud warmonger and acknowledged war criminal, George Bush, in your magazine?
It is telling and disappointing that AARP has never seen fit to give space to the thousands of elderly activists who have devoted their lives to preventing criminals like your cover boy from murdering millions more and more innocent people in the Middle East and around the world.
Photo: Eva-Lee Baird
There are many many groups, such as the Granny Peace Brigade grannypeacebrigade.org, whose members continue to be arrested and jailed in the quest for peace, despite their physical difficulties and advanced age.
Photos: Eva-Lee Baird
Several of the women in my group are over 90: amazing brave and fearless women like Marie Runyon, who lay on the floor of Congress with Dr. Benjamin Spock during the Viet Nam “War”; Molly Klopot, who was an active labor organizer and is still a leader of WILPF (Womens Int’l League for Peace and Freedom) despite back pain and blindness (she climbs hundreds of steps a day to and from the subway between Manhattan and her home in Coney Island); Lillian Lifflander, a former WAC in World War II and community organizer on the Lower East Side of New York City; Lillian Pollak, who published a book (The Sweetest Dream: Love, Lies and Assassination) at 93-she is now 95 and going strong in all weather, marching, demonstrating, fighting.
Photo: Masahiro Hosoda
All these women, along with other equally impressive “younger” activists in their 70s and 80s, are still out on the street, risking arrest and abuse, to keep up the struggle for human rights and an end to the seemingly endless invasions, sanctions and threats perpetrated by the United States on other countries.
Photo: Bud Korotzer
But no, you choose to put this hideous caricature of a human being on your cover, with a story inside that I assume attempts to portray him as a family man and good guy instead of the unconscionable heartless and mindless murderer that he is.
Shame on you.
Disgusted,
Ann Shirazi
New York City
for the Granny Peace Brigade
