KC AFSC Peace and Justice Alert – October 18, 2013

Educate Yourself. Share your knowledge. Take Action! For information about the American Friends Service Committee,

contact us at 816931-5256 or afsckc@afsc.org

Donate Now

Click this link above to make a donation to support the work of the Kansas City Program of American Friends Service Committee

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Power without love is reckless and abusive,

and love without power is sentimental and anemic.

Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice,

and justice at its best is power

correcting everything that stands against love.”

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Peacemakers, The good news is the government shutdown is over. The reality is that the budget austerity wars go on. (check out articles below analyzing budget challenges). Related to the shut down and forces at play, was last week’s premiere showing of Inequality for All (still playing at the Tivoli and Glenwood Theaters) and the post-screening program were powerful, engaging and very informative (check out Tivoli photo of panel).

AFSC interns

created this Budget Mania

game to engage youth in learning about federal

spending and revenue policies and needs in our community.

The film is an in-depth portrait and analysis of the inequality of our economy and the actions which have created it. Most of the almost 200 attendees stayed for the discussion led by UMKC Professor Bill Black (Author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One), Mary Lindsay (Kansas City Move to Amend), Doug Greer (KC Friends of Community Media) and me, Ira Harritt (American Friends Service Committee). The small victory and growing public recognition of the importance of government services is hope for the future. Over one million jobs have already been lost to the austerity deficit cutting narrative. Unless people speak up for their interests more cutting will occur, more jobs lost, more people suffering from a jobless “recovery. We invite you to join the Move the Money Campaign to educate, mobilize and help change the storyline around the budget and then change budget and revenue policies themselves so they better serve our community!

We are beginning new work to document the local impact of the sequester, government shutdown, and all the austerity budget-cutting going in Washington, D.C. We will hold listening dialogue sessions with community, civic, social service and education leaders and with city managers and elected officials to find out how they see the budget cutting frenzy impacting our community and to learn what they think should be done. Following the listening sessions we will hold meeting with editorial boards, community forums and publish online stories and report. Contact us to find out how you can be involved. We are also preparing to retire the Eyes Wide Open Cost of War Exhibit including 200 pairs of combat boots which represented Kansas and Missouri troops killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. We plan to donate the boots to homeless programs so that these symbols of war can be transformed into useful help to area homeless, just as the military budget should be transformed. We plan to have a donation day around November 11, Veterans’ Day. Stay tuned for details. See below for these activities, other calendar events, and articles, alerts and more. Thanks for all of your work for our community.

Sincerely,

Ira Harritt KC Program Coordinator American Friends Service Committee 816 931-5256, iharritt@afsc.org

Check out these events articles below:

October 18–20: 20th Annual Peace Colloquy at Community of Christ Temple, 201 S. River Blvd., Independence, MO 64050.

October 21, Monday, 6:00 to 7:30pm, Strategies for Social Change: Nonviolence Action Brainstorm, We will use a “critical path analysis” process and brainstorm and evaluate tactics for social change. Imagine a public policy goal where a corporate player resists change that you want to explore. Bring your ideas and help innovate. At the AFSC office, 4405 Gillham Rd., KCMO

October 26, Saturday, 9 am-4 pm, Local Peacebuilding: Lessons from Uganda Articles:

Winning The Peace: The Post-Shutdown Challenge by Richard Eskow

Shutting Down Americans: The Government Shutdown in Perspective by Jo Comerford and Mattea Kramer

Iraq: Counting the Bodies by Michael Reagan

Snowden Showing Dangerous Symptoms of Patriotism by Ray McGovern

UN Expert Challenges Foundations of US Covert Drone War Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions

Andrea Germanos, staff writer

Fast-Food Giants Make Billions While Their Workers Use Billions In Welfare Benefits By Steven Rosenfeld

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Check out infographic on Syrian Refugee crisis>

http://afsc.org/story/infographic-syrian-refugee-crisis

Upcoming Peace and Justice Activities

Click on link or scroll down for more information about the peace and justice activity

October 18–20: 20th Annual Peace Colloquy at Community of Christ Temple, 201 S.

River Blvd., Independence, MO 64050. Programming for ages 5 and up at this “Peace, Justice, and Song” weekend will create experiences of the transformational power of song as it gives witness, proclaims the gospel, promotes peace with justice, and inspires us to act. Highlights include a kick-off hymn festival, more than 20 inspiring workshops, and a complimentary hymnal. See rates for children, youth, college students, and adults, and register online at www.CofChrist.org/peacecolloquy.

October 21, Monday, 6:00 to 7:30pm, Strategies for Social Change: Nonviolence

Action Brainstorm, We will use a “critical path analysis” process and brainstorm and evaluate tactics for social change. Imagine a public policy goal where a

corporate player resists change that you want to explore. Bring your ideas and help innovate. At the AFSC office, 4405 Gillham Rd., KCMO

October 26, Saturday, 9 am-4 pm, Local Peacebuilding: Lessons from Uganda The conference will explore local peacebuilding initiatives in northern Uganda, with a special focus on how healthcare services contribute to peacebuilding by functioning as sites of healing that diverse populations must share. At Johnson County Community College, Hudson Auditorium. Free admission More information http://www.jccc.edu/internationaleducation/local-peacebuilding.html

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1st and 3rdSaturdays, 1:00pm, Chelsea Manning Support Rally, Join us outside the gates of

Ft. Leavenworth, in support of Bradley Manning through his court martial trial in February.

EVERY Tuesday, JOIN THIS Peace Demonstration between 5PM - 6 PM in the median strip

on the south corner of the intersection at 63rd & Ward Parkway, Kansas City, Mo. For more information email '63rd Street Patriots' at schwartzkatz@sbcglobal.net

Weekly Wednesday, Noon, Jericho Walk for Immigrant Rights gather outside KansasCity

Immigration Court, 2345 Grand Blvd., KCMO Info at http://www.ijamkc.org/

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

News and Alerts

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Published on Thursday, October 17, 2013 by Campaign for America's Future Blog

Winning The Peace: The Post-Shutdown Challenge by Richard Eskow

It’s a major victory. The shutdown’s ending, the government isn’t defaulting (at least not yet),

and Democrats didn’t yield in the face of threats and bullying. But what happens next could

shape our fate for many years to come.

Congratulations are in order. The President vowed not to negotiate over the debt ceiling, and he

was as good as his word. He stood up to the closet ideologues of the artificial “center,” the ones

who unwisely argued that being the “adult in the room” meant surrendering to the tantrums of

children.

Sen. Harry Reid’s tough talk was matched by equally tough action. (Reid also deserves credit for

coining the phrase “banana Republicans,” as pithy a summation of their approach to governance

as we’ve seen.)

Once and Future Losses

But the celebrations are premature. Yes, the public is furious at Republicans – Tea Partiers and

plain-vanilla GOP extremists alike – for causing so much damage in pursuit of an ideology so far

outside the political mainstream. Most Americans have rejected the things Republicans stand for:

their values, their priorities, and their apocalyptic economic vision.

And yet, unless something changes, this deal will bend the next few months’ deliberations along

the same misguided lines that have guided our political discourse for years now. House and

Senate members will be encouraged to come up with a “deficit reduction plan” – in other words,

to impose another round of cuts just like those which have already wounded the economy and

shredded millions of jobs.

That’s hardly cause for celebration. The conservative Peter G Peterson Foundation estimates that

the. “crisis driven fiscal policy” of the past several years has resulted in the loss of 900,000 jobs.

Discretionary cuts of the kind that will be urged upon Congress have already cost us 1.2 million

jobs, according to the study, and have resulted in a loss of 0.7% from the GDP.

More> http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/10/17-0

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Published on Thursday, October 17, 2013 by TomDispatch.com

Shutting Down Americans: The Government Shutdown in Perspective What Was “Essential” and What Wasn’t by Jo Comerford and Mattea Kramer

On a damp Friday morning 11 days into the government shutdown, a “few dozen” truckers took

to the Capital Beltway in a demonstration with the Twitter hashtag #T2SDA (Truckers to Shut

Down America). They wanted to tell lawmakers they were angry, launch an impeachment

campaign against the president, and pressure Congress to end itself.

They were on a “ride for the Constitution,” protesting big government and yet the opinion polls

were clear. In fact, the numbers were stunning. One after another, they showed that Americans

opposed the shutdown and were hurting because of it. At that moment, according to those polls,

nearly one in three Americans said they felt personally affected not by too much government, but

by too little, by the sudden freeze in critical services.

In reality, that government shutdown was partial and selective. Paychecks, for example, kept

flowing to the very lawmakers who most fervently supported it, while the plush congressional

gym with its heated pool, paddleball courts, and flat-screen televisions remained open. That’s

because “essential” services continued, even as “nonessential” ones ceased. And it turned out

that whether the services you cared about were essential or not was a matter of just who got to do

the defining. In that distinction between what was necessary and what wasn’t, it was easy enough

to spot the values of the people’s representatives. And what we saw was gut-wrenching.

Stomach-churning.

Prioritized above all else were, of course, “national security” activities, deemed beyond essential

under the banner of “protecting life and property.” Surveillance at the National Security Agency,

for instance, continued, uninterrupted, though it was liberated from its obviously nonessential

and, even in the best-funded of times, minimal responsibility to disclose those activities under

the Freedom of Information Act. Such disclosure was judged superfluous in a shutdown era,

while spying on Americans (not to speak of Brazilians, Mexicans, Europeans, Indians, and others

around the planet) was deemed indispensible.

"So let this be the last time we as a nation let our elected officials cut nutrition assistance for

vulnerable children at the same moment that they protect deep tax loopholes for the wealthy and

corporations. And let’s call recent events in Washington just what they are: breathtaking greed

paired with a callous lack of concern for the most vulnerable among us."

Then there was the carefully orchestrated Special Operations Forces mission in Libya to capture

a terror suspect off the streets of Tripoli in broad daylight, proving that in a shutdown period, the

U.S. military wasn’t about to shut off the lights. And don’t forget the nighttime landing of a

Navy SEAL team in Somalia in an unsuccessful attempt to capture a different terrorist target.

These activities were deemed essential to national survival, even though the chances of an

American being killed in a terrorist attack are, at the moment, estimated at around one in 20

million. Remember that number, because we’ll come back to it.

Indeed, only for a brief moment did the shutdown reduce the gusher of taxpayer dollars, billions

and billions of them, into the Pentagon’s coffers. After a couple days in which civilian Defense

Department employees were furloughed, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announced that 90%

of them could resume work because they “contribute to morale, well-being, capabilities, and

readiness of service members.” This from the crew that, according to Foreign Policy, went on a

jaw-dropping, morale-boosting $5 billion spending spree on the eve of the shutdown to exhaust

any remaining cash from the closing fiscal year, buying spy satellites, drones, infrared cameras

and, yes, a $9 million sparkling new gym for the Air Force Academy, replete with CrossFit space

and a “television studio.”

Furloughing Children

Then there were the nonessential activities.

In Arkansas, for instance, federal funds for infant formula to feed 2,000 at-risk newborn babies

were in jeopardy, as were 85,000 meals for needy children in that state. Nutrition for low-income

kids was considered nonessential even though one in four children in this country doesn’t have

consistent access to nutritious food, and medical research makes it clear that improper nutrition

stunts brain architecture in the young, forever affecting their ability to learn and interact socially.

Things got so bad that a Texas couple dug into their own reserves to keep the program running in

six states.

More> http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/10/17-6

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Published on Wednesday, October 16, 2013 by War Times

Iraq: Counting the Bodies by Michael Reagan

On Saturday a car bomb in Baghdad exploded in a crowded commercial street. Kamal

Mahmoud, a school teacher, witnessed the blast. He told the New York Times, “I felt the heat of

the blast on my face and the bodies of two women thrown in the middle of the street covered in

blood, one of them without legs.” It’s not clear if the women survived. Fourteen people were

killed.

Political violence has increased this year, one of the bloodiest since the partial U.S. withdrawal

in 2011. According to media reports, 6,000 people died from violence in 2013, over 1,000 in

September alone. These numbers come largely from deaths recorded in the press, notoriously

inaccurate for a comprehensive picture of mortality in Iraq, or any combat zone.

A new study released today and published in the Public Library of Science – Medicine journal

tries to create a more accurate picture of what death in Iraq has looked like since 2003. An

international team of researchers from the University of Washington, Simon Fraser University,

John Hopkins University, and Mustansiriya University (Baghdad) sampled 2000 households,

asking for information on deaths of family and household members.

It finds that approximately one half million Iraqis died from war related causes between 2003

and 2011. A majority, more than sixty percent of the deaths, were directly caused by violence –

gunshots, explosions like Saturday’s car bomb, or areal bombings. The rest are attributable to

social collapse, the loss of infrastructure and health care from the invasion, occupation, and

political and sectarian violence that followed.

What’s significant about the study is that it is the first household statistical sampling to emerge

following the US withdrawal of combat troops, and therefore attempts to provide something of a

comprehensive picture of violence in Iraq during the period of U.S. occupation.

Although perhaps low, the numbers from this study are devastating. It would make Iraq one of

the worst humanitarian disasters – crimes if we think about responsibility – of the 21st century,

second only to Congolese war in terms of numbers of dead.

More> http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/10/16-1 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Published on Tuesday, October 15, 2013 by Common Dreams

Snowden Showing Dangerous Symptoms of Patriotism

President Obama says he welcomes the debate on post-9/11 surveillance of Americans and the world, but that debate was only made meaningful by the disclosures of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, who was then indicted and sought asylum in Russia, where he just met with some ex-U.S. intelligence officials, including Ray McGovern. by Ray McGovern

I’ve had a couple of days to reflect after arriving back from Moscow where my whistleblower

colleagues Coleen Rowley, Jesselyn Radack, Tom Drake and I formally presented former

National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden with the annual Sam Adams Associates

award for integrity in intelligence.

The thought that companioned me the entire time was the constant admonition of my Irish

grandmother: “Show me your company, and I’ll tell you who you are!” I cannot remember ever

feeling so honored as I did by the company I kept over the past week.

That includes, of course, Snowden himself, WikiLeaks journalist Sarah Harrison (and “remotely”

Julian Assange) who, together with Russian civil rights lawyer Anatoly Kucherena, helped

arrange the visit, and – last but not least – the 3,000 Internet transparency/privacy activists at

OHM2013 near Amsterdam, whom Tom, Jesselyn, Coleen and I addressed in early August and

who decided to crowd-source our travel. (See: “In the Whistleblower Chalet” by Silkie Carlo;

http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/in-the-whistleblower-chalet)

As representatives of Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence, we were in Moscow

last Wednesday not only to honor Snowden with the award for integrity, but also to remind him

(and ourselves) that we all stand on the shoulders of patriots who have gone before and pointed

the way.

Because of speaking commitments he could not break, Pentagon Papers truth-teller Dan Ellsberg,

whom Henry Kissinger called “the most dangerous man in America” and who in 1971 was

vilified as acidly as Ed Snowden is being vilified now, could be with us only in spirit. He did

send along with us for Ed the video of the award-winning documentary that uses Kissinger’s

epithet as its title, together with Dan’s book Secrets, in which he had inscribed a very thoughtful

note.

Ellsberg’s note thanked Snowden for his adroit – and already partially successful – attempt to

thwart what Snowden has called “turnkey tyranny,” that is the terrifying prospect of a

surveillance-driven government tyranny ready to go with the simple turn of a key.

Two at our table – Ed Snowden and Tom Drake – enjoy with Dan the dubious distinction of

having been charged with espionage under the draconian Espionage Act of 1917 that is so much

favored by the administration of President Barack Obama and other zealous protectors of the

national security state and its multitude of secrets.

Call me naïve, but I had no sense that I was cavorting with treasonous criminals. Rather, it

seemed crystal clear that Ed Snowden is simply the current embodiment of people so castigated

when they feel compelled to speak out, as Ed did, against gross violations of the Fourth

Amendment.

Moree> http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/10/15-8 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Published on Thursday, October 17, 2013 by Common Dreams

UN Expert Challenges Foundations of US Covert Drone War Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions - Andrea Germanos, staff writer

A new report by Christof Heyns, the UN's Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or

arbitrary executions, challenges the lack of transparency in the growing use of drones, and their

threats to civilian life and international law.

The report examines the thorniest issues in the US’s covert drone campaign – although it does

not refer directly to the US. Heyns explores civilian harm, ‘double-tap’ strikes, sovereignty and

the consent of other nations, accountability, and the pillars of the US’s legal justification for

using armed drones in Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia, where it is not on a formal war footing.

In his report, Heyns blasts drone strikes known as "double-tap" strikes, ones where a second

strike follows a first to target rescuers, a tactic TBIJ documented the U.S. has used in its drone

war. Heyns states that this is a war crime. He writes:

Where one drone attack is followed up by another in order to target those who are wounded and

hors de combat or medical personnel, it constitutes a war crime in armed conflict and a violation

of the right to life, whether or not in armed conflict.

More> http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/10/17-10

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace AlterNet /

122 COMMENTS

Fast-Food Giants Make Billions While Their Workers Use Billions

In Welfare Benefits By Steven Rosenfeld

Two new studies profile the worst employers in America. October 15, 2013 |

Wages at America’s fast-food chains are so low that millions of employees have been receiving

at least $7 billion a year in welfare benefits between 2007 and 2011, according to a new study by

University of California and University of Illinois labor economists.

“Our research estimates the public cost of low wages—low wage jobs in the fast food industry,”

said Ken Jacobs, chair of the U.C. Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education. “We

specifically focus on the core, frontline fast-food workforce. These are people you are most

likely to see when you walk into a fast-food restaurant.”

“The median wage for these workers is $8.65 an hour,” Jacobs said Tuesday. “Only 13 percent

have health benefits through their employer. The combination of low wages, meager benefits and

often part-time hours means that many of the families of fast-food workers must rely on

taxpayer-funded safety net programs to make ends meet.”

But the billions in taxpayer subsidies is only half of the story, the labor economists said, because

a companion report, also released Tuesday, found that the 10 largest fast-food chains made more

than $15 billion in profits and shareholder give-backs in 2012—revealing the industry could

afford to pay living wages.

The 10 biggest chains earned $7.44 billion in profits in 2012, National Employment Law Project

(NELP) found. The 10 chains, with 2.25 million workers, account for “nearly 60 percent, or $3.8

billion, of the almost $7 billion in public costs associated with their low-wage, no-benefit

business model,” it said. These corporate-run franchises granted “more than $53 million in

compensation to their highest-paid executives and an additional $7.7 billion in dividends and

buybacks to shareholders.”

More> http://www.alternet.org/corporate-accountability-and-workplace/fast-food-giants-make-billions-while-workers-welfare --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We need your support to keep our life affirming peacemaking work alive.

Contribute. Volunteer. Spread the word!

Contact us and mail your tax deductible contribution to:

American Friends Service Committee

4405 Gillham Rd., KCMO 64110

(816) 931-5256

The information and events described in AFSC Peace and Justice Alerts are intended to educate and assist

members of our community in becoming active in working for a more just and peaceful world. Inclusion of a listing does not necessarily imply that AFSC KC agrees with all points of view that will be represented at the

event.

The American Friends Service Committee is a Quaker organization that includes people of various faiths who are committed to social justice, peace, and humanitarian service.

Its work is based on the Quaker belief in the worth of every person and faith in the power of love to overcome violence and injustice

Ira Harritt KC Program Coordinator American Friends Service Committee 816 931-5256 iharritt@afsc.org http://afsc.org/office/kansas-city-mo