The Struggle Shared

On a recent morning in a neighborhood in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the sun rose to illuminate a group of activists distributing fliers to young people as they arrived at their school to begin the academic year. The handouts were emblazoned with the logo: “Our Youth Should Not Go To War.” There was a tear-off at the bottom which students were encouraged to sign and hand to their teachers if they did not wish to be contacted by military recruiters. This scene was repeated in communities all over the island.

Although there is a long history of military service on the island, the war in Iraq has become increasingly unpopular, and pro-independence organizations have tapped this sentiment in a very successful opt-out campaign. Pro-independence organizations advocates point out that most Puerto Ricans do not regard the U.S. armed forces as “their military.” If the death of a Puerto Rican soldier is tragic, it’s more tragic if that soldier has no say in that war,” says Juan Dalmau, secretary general of the Puerto Rican Independence Party.

Between 2003 and 2006, 4947 men and women from Puerto Rico enlisted in the U.S. military. The Pentagon lists 37 service members from the island killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, but anti-war groups say the number is closer to 80, including suicides, and soldiers recruited on the main land. In the past year, 57% of youth or their families have signed opt-out forms, effectively barring the Pentagon from reaching out to about 65,000 high school students. According to Bill Carr, Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for military personnel policy, the opt-out rate for the continental United States rarely exceeds 10%. The efforts of the Independistas, and other anti-war groups in Puerto Rico have been greatly facilitated by the education secretary for the island, Rafael Aragunde. A self-declareed Independista, Aragunde last year granted equal access to pacifist groups and recruiters seeking to contact young people. “You don’t want children fighting on the streets, you don’t want children cheating, nor stealing, and you don’t want them thinking that an alternative to solving any conflict is war…I’ve always felt that one of the by-products of a good educational system is that you have citizens who will defend pacifism. I think that just as we have to insist on ecological values, we have to insist on pacifist values.” (Source: Paul Lewis, Washington Post, 8/18/2007)

THE STATE OF HATE

Every so often, in an almost predictable cycle, an indident like the Jena Six in Louisian becomes a media showcase to remind us that racism is very much alive and well in the United States. As Gary Younge writes in The Nation (“Jena is America”, 10/8/2007), “What took place in Jena is not aberrant; it’s consistent. The details are a local disgrace. The broader themes are a national scandal. Jim Crow, Jr. travels well – unencumbered by historical baggage.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) continues, as consistently as this pervasive racism, to monitor organized hate group activity throughout the states and to publish their documented research in “The Intelligence Report”. In a recent broadside, SPLC identified 844 active hate groups in the United States, 27 of them in Pennsylvania. The groups include Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazi, racist Skinheads, Christian Identity, Black Separatist, and general hate groups that don’t fit neatly into any mold. The groups have different philosophies, different targets, different modi operandi, but they all promote hate, are violent and often illegal.

In their Call to Action, SPLC suggests ways that individuals can promote tolerance, and fight against organized hate groups. Among them are: speak up when you hear slurs; seek out opportunities to interact with people who are different from you; encourage local police to identify bias-motivated criminal acts as hate crimes; complain when media reports promote stereotypes; look inside yourself for hidden biases; take test at http://www.hiddenbias.org.

ARLEN SPECTER ON THE GLOBAL WARMING FENCE

The dire warnings about the future effects of unabated global warming are well known. The good news is that we may be able to avoid the worst effects by taking dramatic action today, and that there are bills before Congress that, if implemented quickly, could achieve the 80% reduction in emissions of green house gasses that scientists are telling us will be necessary by the middle of the century. One of these the Sander-Bauer Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act, S-309, could come to a vote this Fall. Our Senator Arlen Specter has yet to decide whether he will cosponsor this critical legislation.

You can contact Senator Specter and ask him to cosponsor S-309 and thereby protect us from a future when the average summer terperatures will be 100 degrees in Pennsylvania by the end of the century. (Source: Union of Concerned Scientists Action Network) -Jeff Vitelli

August-September 2007

“The less political policies are derived from a concrete human “here and now,” and the more they fix their sights on an abstract “some day,” the more easily they can denigrate into new forms of human slavery." – Vaclav Havel, from the time when he was a prisoner in Czechoslovakia

Battle Lines Form Around Hazleton's Immigration Law

On July 27th, Federal District Judge James M. Munley overruled Hazleton, Pennsylvania’s Illegal Immigration Relief Act, as unconstitutional. Far from burying the xenophobic legislation that demonizes undocumented immigrants, and scapegoats them for all of the city’s growing pains, the new ruling has fired up proponents on both sides of an important national debate. Not only will the Munley decision be appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, but Hazleton’s Mayor has been catapulted to national prominence, and now may run for the U.S. Senate in a bid to pursue his mission. As none other than Pat Robertson said on MSNBC, there are over a hundred other communities which have proposals similar to Hazleton’s, believing that if the Federal Government won’t enact and enforce laws restricting “illegals” it is up to municipalities to do so.

Hazleton’s law would require that English be the official language, and would suspend the business permits of any employer who hires or rents to undocumented workers. In its case, representing the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund and the Community Justice Project, the attorneys of the American Civil Liberties Union argued that although the intent of the law is to target only “illegal immigrants”, the effect is to promote discrimination of all foreigners, regardless of their immigration status, because it is so hard to determine who is in the country without proper documentation.

Although Hazleton’s Mayor Louis Barletta has blamed “illegal immigrants” for a budgetary crisis, over-burdened health care systems, and a wave of crime in his campaign for legislative relief over the past year, the facts that emerged in the trial were that the city has moved from a $1.2 milliion budget deficit to a small surplus, hospitals have served fewer immigrants than other area hospitals and generated a system-wide profit of $4 million last year, and finally, while there has been a surge in crime statistics over the last ten years, less than 1% were committed by immigrants.

Judge Munley’s ruling said, in part: “The genius of our constitution is that it provides rights even to those who evoke the least sympathy from the general public…Whatever frustrations the officials of Hazleton may feel about the current state of immigration enforcement, the nature of the political system in the U.S. prohibits the city from enacting ordinances that disrupt a carefully drawn statutory scheme.”

Hazleton’s “illegal is illegal” approach is simplistic, and clearly begs the question of what the real answers are to the current flaws in our national immigration policy. This writer suggests that the answers may be found in issues that concern all working people: universal health care, a guaranteed living wage, the right to unionize and organize against the Walmartization of the economy, and international labor solidarity to resist the effects of Free Trade Agreements as a root cause of why so many foreign workers are driven to immigrate to the U.S. (see Joe DeRaymond’s piece in the last LEPOCO Newsletter).

Impeachment On A Roll

At the Allentown Armory Activist picnic on July 14th (see last month’s “The Struggle Shared”), the nationwide drive for impeachment of Bush and Cheney shifted gears and set off from the bucolic South Mountain Park on the next leg of a long haul across the country.

Jim Goodnow and a group of Iraq Veterans Against the War boarded the “Yellow Rose of Texas Bus for Peace” to the cheers of the Impeach for Peace Picnickers and rolled off the mountain. Over the past 22 months, Jim and some part of the veteran’s group have driven the Yellow Rose through 28 states with messages like, “I refuse to fight in a war started by men who refuse to fight in a war.”

While the Yellow Rose vets are driving for an end to the war,k and impeachment, they are calling for a national strike if Congress does not act. Incidentally, if the Yellow Rose seems to stop at McDonald’s an inordinate number of times, it may not be as much for the food, as for the cooking oil: the engine is equipped to burn biodiesel fuel. To track their progress across the country, log onto yellowrosepeacebus.blogspot.com.

Renewable Energy Fair

Over the past many months, several members of the Lehigh Valley Alliance for Sustainable Communities have traveled to participate in regular meetings of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Renewable Energy Conference.

The outcome of this commitment is the Pennsylvania Renewable Energy and Sustainable Living Festival to be held in Kempton on Saturday and Sunday, September 22-23, from 9 am to 7 pm, each day, rain or shine. This is the third annual fair to be held on the 66-acre grounds of the Kempton Community Center.

If you attend, you can expect to be in workshops with respected experts from across the U.S., see exhibits and demonstrations of products that save energy and promote socially just relationships between humans and other inhabitants of the planet. Admission cost is $12 per adult ($15 for campers), $6 for those 12 to 212 years old, and under 12 free. For directions or more information, check their website at www.paenergyfest.com. -Jeff Vitelli

July 2007

Won't you help me sing

These songs of freedom

They're all I've ever had

Redemption songs... - Redemption Song, by Bob Marley

Dalai Lama to Receive Congressional Medal of Honor

In October, 2007, the United Stated Congress will award our nation's highest civilian honor to Tibet's Dalai Lama, for his lifelong efforts to promote religious harmony, nonviolence, an end tohuman rights abuses around the world, and his tireless peaceful diplomacy with the Chinese Government to return traditional Buddhist culture and authority to Tiber. More than two thirds of Congress from both sides of the aisle voted to honor the Dalai Lama.

In March, the House Foreign Affairs Committee held hearings on the status of negotiations between the Chinese Government and representatives of Tibet's Government in exile. Among others, testimony was heard from Lodi Gyari, special envoy to the Dalai Lama and Richard Gere, Chair of the International Campaign for Tibet.

As the Chinese prespare to host the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, the Dalai Lama and the Campaign for Tibet are taking full advantage of the spotlight to press the Chinese to reach a diplomatic settlement of the issues of Tibetan Autonomy, and speed the return of the Dalai Lama to the home from which he has been exiled since the Tibetan Uprising of 1959.

In the next few months, his steadfast commitment to peace will be more visible in the US than at any times since he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. He recently embarked on a speaking tour of dozens of cities from coast to coast, terminating in events in New York City, Washington, DC, Atlanta, and Bloomington, Indiana, around the congressional Medal of Honor Award in October. (The Dalai Lama is scheduled to visit Lehigh University for six days in July 2008. Arrangements are being made by the Chaplain's Office.)

Now is the time to be in the presence of one of the most profound and inspiring peacemakers of our time. For more information, see The International Campaign for Tibet or www.dalailamadc.org.

Cesar Chavez Park

Our elected representatives seem to be unusually generous of late in honoring peace heroes. In January, legislation was introduced in Congress that would authorize the Department of the Interior to study sites significant in the life of United Farm Workers Union leader Cesar Chavez.

Born near Yuma, Arizona, growning up in migrant camps, eventually founding the United Farm Workers Union in California, and campaigning against harmful pesticides and unfair labor practices, he led the grape and lettuce boycotts of the 1970's and 80's. He led the Union until his death in 1993.

Hilda Solis (D-CA), original sponsor of the House Bill, said "Cesar Chavez's courageous life inspries me daily to continue the fight for environmental justice, so our children and their families have a healthier future...As Latinos, the environment is such a large part of our culture. To have the National Park Service trace landmarks significant to his life is a very fitting honor to Chavez and the greatest way to make Latinos feel at one with the Park Service."

Similar legislation has been introcuded in previous sessions of Congress, but it ismorelikely that it actually may reach the President's desk this time around, with the shift in the political landscape. Despite the Park Service's aim to represent our national heritage fully, there is not, to date, a park unit dedicated to a contemporary Latino. (Source - National Parks Magazine)

Peace Picnic in the Park

This past April 28th, the Allentown Armory Activists retreated from their usual weekly vigil site in the city for a day of frivolity and good food at Cedar Beach Park. For this second annual picnic, about 50 people showed up over the course of the day, played music, read anti-war poems, painted kids' faces, and ate, and ate, and ate, burger, hot dogs, as well as vegeterian fare, most of it prepared by "Chef Jeff" (no relation).

The day ended with a short stroll up the knoll to the interesection of Hamilton and Ott Streets, where 15-20 people rallied with signs and hand-held banners, while a small knot of people tethered a large weather balloon and a cluster of multi-colored smaller helium-filled balloons, which held aloft, perhaps a hundred feet above the intersection, a 33-foot IMPEACH banner. Now that's high visibility!

The Activists are planning their next picnic for July 14th - Bastille Day: "Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite..." and all that. So plan to emancipate yourself, break free from whatever prison confines you, and come enjoy a peace picnic near Allentown's South Mountain Reservoir. -Jeff Vitelli, from the July, 2007 LEPOCO newsletter