[Antiracism] AFSC Community Action Calendar -- Timely!

Tue Apr 18 10:34:44 EDT 2006

Greetings Friends!

April is a remarkable month in our region. I URGE you to visit the WMA AFSC 
calendar for a full line up of what's available to us (url below).

This email calendar highlights a few of the upcoming events, but be sure to 
note fundraisers for CAN (April 22), Arise (April 25), Jobs with Justice 
(May 1) and the Men's Resource Center (May 7). Be sure also to note the 
on-going film series of the Northampton Committee and Reel World  and 
Mother's Day organizing (thanks to the Women's Congress) and much more!

In the coming weeks, thanks to Kasia Paprocki, Darcy Sweeney, Gordon Tripp 
and Susan Lantz more than 100 organizers across the region will hit the 
streets with petitions for a non-binding ballot initiative to end the war 
immediately and bring the troops home. This is the first initiative of its 
kind in the nation. For more information, call AFSC, 413.584.8975.

Stay tuned -- also -- for news about a May 12 regional meeting to plan for
the WMA Social Forum and ways to resist the Bush Administration's endless 
war and threats to bomb Iran....

For up-to-date calendar information: www.WesternMassAFSC.org

Also in this email:
**April 17-21 - Tent State University UMass -- Cindy Sheehan, April 18
**Pioneer Valley Coalition Against Secrecy and Torture, April 19
**April is a Month of Books Building Bridges!, April 20, 23, 25
**Is War Inevitable? Panel Discussion, April 20
**Frida Berrigan: Witness Against Torture: A March to Visit the Prisoners 
at Guantanamo, April 27
**MILITARY RECRUITMENT, the REALITY of WAR AND RETURN, three new films!, 
April 30

April 17-21 - Tent State University UMass -- Cindy Sheehan, April 18
TSU is a week-long outdoor alternative university shaped by the students, 
workers, and community members.
CINDY SHEEHAN AT UMASS
STUDENT UNION/LIBRARY LAWN, 8 PM
TUESDAY, APRIL 18

Noted anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan will be in the Pioneer Valley on 
Tuesday, April 18th to speak in conjunction with the first-ever Tent State 
University on the campus of the University of Massachusetts--Amherst.

Cindy Sheehan is an internationally known mom and peace & social justice 
advocate whose son, Army Specialist Casey A. Sheehan, was killed in action 
in Sadr City, Baghdad, on April 4, 2004. Cindy Sheehan is founder of Gold 
Star Families for Peace, an organization of Americans who have had loved 
ones killed in wars.

Cindy's speech, which will in part address the ongoing war in Iraq and the 
connection between military spending and the lack of funding for public 
higher education, will be held at the main Tent State University tent on 
the Student Union Lawn at UMass and will begin at 8:00 pm. All are welcome 
and encouraged to attend this free event.

Immediately preceding Cindy at 7:30 pm will be a speech by Preston Smith, 
the co-chair of the Debs-Jones-Douglass Institute's Free Higher Education 
Campaign, who will talk about the current economic realities of public 
higher education and how we can work towards creating a system that is 
completely open and accessible to everyone.

Pioneer Valley Coalition Against Secrecy and Torture, April 19
PVCAST will host a Northampton Town Meeting, on Wednesday, April 19th, from 
7 - 9 PM at the First Churches Northampton, 129 Main Street.

This program features a power point presentation prepared by ACLU that 
examines "myths" about secrecy and torture. A panel will offer commentary, 
followed by a public discussion.

Panelists include: Ervin Staub, UMass professor emeritus, who has written 
extensively on group violence and genocide; Attorney John Bonifaz, a Conway 
native and voting rights advocate investigating impeachable actions by 
Bush; Christopher Pyle, Professor of Politics, Mt. Holyoke College, who 
teaches and consults on civil liberties and constitutional law, formerly a 
military intelligence officer who exposed Pentagon spying on civilians in 
1970.

For more information about these events or the Pioneer Valley Coalition 
Against Secrecy & Torture, contact: martygjf at comcast.net

April is a Month of Books Building Bridges!
During the month of April, local librarians, educators and families in 
western Massachusetts will examine the impact of war on libraries, literacy 
and education in the US and in Iraq through their participation in Books 
Building Bridges.

Books Building Bridges is a year-long, community-building project developed 
in order to acknowledge and foster a common human desire for learning, 
authentic connection and a healthy society while transcending political 
divisions in the United States and the geographic and social distance 
between the United States and Iraq. The group was inspired by Jeanette 
Winter's book The Librarian of Basra: a true story from Iraq, which 
chronicles the work of Basra librarian Alia Muhammed Baker who, with her 
community, saved 30,000 volumes from being destroyed during the current war.

In addition to the following calendar of events, book stores and libraries 
throughout the western Massachusetts will feature Books Building Bridges 
displays. Book drives on many local college campuses will also begin to 
collect college text books for students and faculty of Baghdad University, 
as well as dictionaries and other learning tools for The Literacy Project's 
Adult Basic Education program. Finally, students of The Literacy Project 
will continue their use of the Books Building Bridges curriculum (available 
on line).

The following is a Books Building Bridges calendar of events: [Note: all 
events are free and open to all. Donations are welcome.]

April 20, 2006, 10am to noon

Jackson Street Elementary School, 120 Jackson Street, Northampton
A vacation-week, family-centered program, which includes:

Author/illustrator Jeanette Winter will read and discuss The Librarian of 
Basra, with projected images from the book

Synopsis: Alia Muhammad Baker is a librarian in Basra, Iraq. For fourteen 
years, her library has been a meeting place for those who love books. Until 
now. Now war has come, and Alia fears that the library along with the 
thirty thousand books within it will be destroyed forever. In a 
war-stricken country where civilians especially women have little power, 
this true story about a librarian's struggle to save her community's 
priceless collection of books reminds us all how, throughout the world, the 
love of literature and the respect for knowledge know no boundaries.

Creative & Participatory Learning Stations:
Arabic Calligraphy Instruction
Discussion with BBB Curriculum Educators: use in the classroom
Iraqi Children's Art Exchange
Design Your Own Button
A Taste of Dates and Appreciating the Cultural Significance

April 23, 2006, 1pm to 4:30pm

Holyoke Children's Museum, 444 Dwight Street, Holyoke
A vacation-week, family-centered program, which includes:

1pm & 3pm: bi-lingual (Spanish and English) readings of The Librarian of
Basra, with projected images from the book
See April 20 summary

2pm & 4pm: Creative & Participatory Learning Stations
See April 20 summary

April 25, 2006, 7pm

Jones Library, 43 Amity Street, Amherst
"Untamed Nostalgia" an evening of poetry and song in Arabic and English
with Wafaa' Al-Natheema

Wafaa' Al-Natheema is the founder of The Institute of Near Eastern and 
African Studies (INEAS). For more information about INEAS, please visit: 
www.ineas.org. For specific details about this program, please call Claudia 
Lefko at 413.584.0068.

For more information about the project and its participants, please visit: 
www.BooksBuildingBridges.org.

For more information, or to get involved, please call Erika Arthur, 
413.559.1373 or Jo Comerford, 413.695.6059. All volunteers and participants 
are welcome!!

Is War Inevitable? Panel Discussion, April 20
Thursday, April 20, 7:30pm, Amherst College, Amherst MA, Johnson Chapel

Panel and discussion: The Ethics of War and the Ethics of Peace; Join us 
for a timely discussion with an extraordinary panel that will, in part, 
address that ages-old question, "Is war inevitable?" Panel members: Randy 
Kehler (jailed in federal prison for resisting the Vietnam era draft, war 
tax resister), Al Miller (Vietnam combat veteran, peace activist), writer, 
Jonathan Shay (author of Achilles in Vietnam, former Ethics Chair, U.S. 
Army), and Lt. Col. David H. Vacchi (Head of UMASS ROTC, Iraq veteran) 
Moderator: Kristin Henderson
Frida Berrigan: Witness Against Torture: A March to Visit the Prisoners at 
Guantanamo
Frida Berrigan will give a slide show and talk on her recent trip to 
Guantanamo.

April 27, 2006
7:00 PM
St. Mary's Church
3 Elm Street, Northampton

Frida Berrigan is a Senior Research Associate at the Arms Trade Resource 
Center of the World Policy Institute in New York. She is also a member of 
the National Committee of the War Resisters League and the daughter of 
Plowshares activists Elizabeth McAlister and Phil Berrigan, who co-founded 
the Jonah House Community in Baltimore and the niece of 
poet-priest-Plowshares activist Daniel Berrigan.

Sponsored by:

The Western Massachusetts Interfaith Coalition for Peace and Justice 
consists of people of many faiths, drawn together by our deep concern for 
the safety, justice and peace of people of the world. We believe that war 
increases the cycle of hatred, claims innocent lives, and distracts us from 
the work of ending poverty and injustice at home and abroad. We dedicate 
our actions to building a culture of peace, eradicating poverty, guarding 
human rights,and working under international law. We will seek courage and 
guidance from our religious traditions and solidarity with one another in 
pursuit of equitable and non-violent solutions to conflict.

Cosponsored by SAGE, American Friends Service Committee and the Buddhist 
Peace Fellowship of the Pioneer Valley.

Contact: Rene Theberge, 413-575-8123 for further information.

MILITARY RECRUITMENT, the REALITY of WAR AND RETURN, three new films!
Film Screening and Discussion with Filmmakers
hosted by Raul Matta of AFSC Western Massachusetts

Sunday, April 30, 2006, 1:30pm
Academy of Music
274 Main Street, Northampton MA

Three incredible films, in a youth-centered event:

All That I Can Be
A first-hand look at the military recruiting process from the lens of New 
York high school students. All That I Can Be is the winner of the Economic 
Justice Award at the Fifth Annual Media that Matters Film Festival in June 
2005.

Occupation: Dreamland
Occupation: Dreamland documents the lives of soldiers as they embark on the 
military assault of Fallujah in the winter of 2004. Occupation Dreamland 
won the Best Documentary at the Memphis Film Festival 2005. It also was an 
award winner at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival 2005 in 
recognition of the film's "potential to engage audiences to meaningful 
action that results in concrete impact and social change."

Purple Hearts
Tells the story of wounded soldiers upon returning home.

$5 admission charge (free tickets are available by calling AFSC, 
413.584.8975). Followed by discussion with the filmmakers.

Information about ways to get involved in and help build the truth in 
recruiting work in our region will be available.

For more information: 413.584.8975.

"Peace is all around us.  It is not a matter of faith; it is a matter of 
practice."  ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Jo Comerford
American Friends Service Committee, Western Massachusetts
140 Pine Street, Room 10
Florence, Massachusetts 01062
413.584.8975 (W)
413.584.8987 (F)
413.695.6059 (C)
afsc at crocker.com
www.WesternMassAFSC.org

New Resource:
Ten Reasons Why the US Must Leave Iraq:
http://www.afsc.org/iraq/activism/10-reasons.pdf
http://www.afsc.org/iraq/activism/10-reasons.htm (Text)
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