Date: Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Location: The Evergreen State College
2700 Evergreen Parkway NW
Olympia, WA 98505

The keynote speaker is Captain James Yee, former Fort Lewis chaplain who served at Guantanamo Bay. Yee, a third-generation Chinese American, West Point graduate, and convert to Islam, served as Muslim chaplain at the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp in 2003. He was arrested, accused of spying, espionage, and aiding alleged Taliban and Al-Qaeda prisoners there, and held in a U.S. Naval prison for 76 days in solitary confinement.

He was later cleared of all criminal charges. Since resigning from the U.S. Army in 2005 with an honorable discharge, he has detailed his experiences at Guantanamo and his struggle to prove his innocence in his book For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire.

The Religion and Wartime forum will also include a panel discussion by clergy from local faith communities. Panelists include Cyndi Pollard, associate pastor and principal of the Evergreen Christian School, Olympia; Fred LaMotte, Quaker chaplain of The Evergreen State College’s interfaith student group, Common Bread, Olympia; Seth Goldstein, rabbi of Temple Beth Hatfiloh, Olympia; and Captain Kelly Hansen, chaplain at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

The forum will be held from 7 to 9 pm in the Longhouse at The Evergreen State College in Olympia.

The event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served. The forum is sponsored by the Evergreen academic program Religion and Society, and co-sponsored by the Evergreen Foundation, the Academic Deans, the Cultural Landscapes academic program and Common Bread. Info: Suzanne Simons, (360) 867-6710 or Stephen Beck, (360) 867-5488

Iran: The Green Movement
The New Civil Rights Struggle
A panel discussion

with:
Hamid Dabashi
Shadi Mokhtari
Trita Parsi

Feb. 25, 7:30 PM, at The Evergreen State College, Lecture Hall 1

Iran remains in the headlines: Popular protests, human rights abuses, and threats from the West.

Confused? Intrigued? Frightened?

A panel of prominent Iranian and Iranian-American voices will help you sort it out:

HAMID DABASHI: Columbia professor and author of Iran: A People Interrupted will give a brief history of the Iranian civil rights movement.

SHADI MOKHTARI: Author of After Abu Ghraib: Exploring Human Rights in America and the Middle East, will speak on the state of human rights in Iran.

TRITA PARSI: President of the National Iranian American Council and author of Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Iran, Israel and the United States, will speak on US foreign policy toward Iran and how the civil rights movement will influence greater Middle East politics.

CYNTHIA McKINNEY:
"Don't Get Tired When Working for Justice"

2008 Green Party Presidential Candidate, first African-American woman to represent Georgia in the House of Representatives, and relentless activist for social justice.

Cynthia McKinney has been active in the Free Gaza Movement and was the subject of the documentary American Blackout, on voter disenfranchisement. She was recently awarded the Peace Through Conscience Award by the Munich American Peace Committee.

Price: $5 general admission. FREE for all students, staff, and faculty of any high school, college, or university (just bring school ID).

Doors open at 4:30

Sponsored by the Black Student Union and the Mideast Solidarity Project.

(Panel on Iran's "Green Movement" immediately follows at 7:30 in Lecture Hall 1)

The Rachel Corrie Foundation and Break the Silence Mural Project co-present

Peace Works 2009

A day-long salute to those who work for peace through justice – from hometown roots to global communities.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Event Schedule 11:00am – 5:30pm at United Churches (110-11th Ave SE, Olympia)

The Rachel Corrie Foundation and Indigenous Youth Delegations’ Report Back on their recent trips to the West Bank and Gaza plus Art & Activism workshop with lunch provided (tickets: $25/$15 students and low-income)

6:30 – 7:00 pm: Mural Walk to the Unveiling w/ Samba drummers (The Walk starts at the Procession of the Species Studio, 311.5 Capital Way North)

7:00 – 9:00pm at the corners of Capitol & State streets, Olympia: Unveiling the Olympia-Rafah Solidarity Mural Project ~ A Celebration of our progress. This is a free event with live musical entertainment.

more information: Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice

(360) 754-3998 and

olympiarafahmural.org

I was alerted to this Derrick Jensen article in Orion Magazine by a post on the Envirotalk listserve (which is part of SPEECH and South Sound Green Pages.)

I think it's an important article because it breaks up some of the prevailing and problematic thinking about how to get out of this economic/ecological/environmental/sociological mess that we are in. Instead of laying the blame at the feet of individuals (for not bicycling, or growing their own food, for example), Jensen lays the blame squarely where it is due - at the feet of decision-makers.

So, here's a link and a couple of excerpts from this lucid, rational, and well-written article. Thanks to Jerry for passing it on.

Forget the Shorter Shower | by Derrick Jensen | Orion Magazine

WOULD ANY SANE PERSON think dumpster diving would have stopped Hitler, or that composting would have ended slavery or brought about the eight-hour workday, or that chopping wood and carrying water would have gotten people out of Tsarist prisons, or that dancing naked around a fire would have helped put in place the Voting Rights Act of 1957 or the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Then why now, with all the world at stake, do so many people retreat into these entirely personal “solutions”?

Come see a Great movie during the Olympia Film Festival, "Great Speeches From A Dying World", AND help support EGYHOP, a shoe-string-budget, direct-service-providing, all-volunteer-run, non-profit group serving homeless and low-income populations in downtown Olympia.

First, about the movie (quoted from the festival guide):

• "Filmmaker Linas Phillips spent nearly two years getting to know nine of Seattle’s homeless population. The result is a unique and compassionate exploration of the hard luck, wrong turns, and broken dreams that reside on the city’s streets. This film uncovers circumstances that have landed (and keep) these people lost and penniless—most involving abuse, addiction, and mental illness. But it also finds kindness and hope. Each subject was asked to recite a famous speech from history that they felt related to their lives. The words of Shakespeare, Lincoln, JFK, and others are reinvested with meaning as they’re tied to these personal stories. From atop the Space Needle high above the parking garage in which she lives, Deborah delivers a speech by former slave Sojourner Truth asking, “Ain’t I a woman?” Jose’s recitation poses a question that most in the film have pondered: whether it is nobler to suffer outrageous fortune or to die. We’re reminded that the authors of these canonized speeches, the downtrodden folks reciting them, and each of us are all part of the same human endeavor. With beautiful photography and a musical score by Lori Goldston, Great Speeches is one of the most intimate encounters with homelessness on film and a moving meditation on the fragility of life.
• Director will be in attendance for Q & A following the screening. " 

And, then, a short description of EGYHOP:

Join author and actor Mike Farrell (of TV's M*A*S*H and Providence) for a reading, Q&A and book signing of his bestselling title, "Just Call Me Mike: A Journey to Actor and Activist." Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing. Pick up free tickets at the library's information desk beginning Monday, September 8. Questions? Call 360-352-0595

One of the things that is evident from all the discussions on this blog about the Port Militarization Resistance group and their activities in Olympia and Tacoma is that there is a huge difference in the underlying assumptions that people hold. Folks within the PMR use words like "empire" and "militarization," and I think that many who read this blog don't have the same context for understanding the meaning they are intended to convey. I wonder if would be possible to bring to the surface some of the context surrounding the meanings of those words through a shared set of documents, videos, podcasts, maps, etc. So, if you know of a good article, interview, analysis, or graphic, please put a link in the comments. After we've collected some material, we may be able to ground our discussion a bit more, and perhaps achieve a better understanding of the arguments, if not agreement on the positions.

Special Fundraiser Event for the Freeschool Community! Pizza Party Event with live music, Those Bottom Feeders and Paris! At Fertile Ground, 311 9th Ave, SE, on Saturday, May 17th, 2008. 6pm-9pm. Join us!

for more information about the Freeschool Community classes and events, visit:

www.freeschoolunity.org or visit our back website at
www.freeschoolcommunity.org

There is a PDF Flyer for this event as a File Attachment here (pdf).

Please show solidarity and print it out ans share with others! Thanks!

Love, Solidarty and Peace worldwide! :)

Tonight's community forum at the Knox Center gave over two hundred Olympians a chance to share thoughts about the projected $2 million school district budget cuts. The event filled the Board Room and a spillover room hastily arranged upstairs. As the meeting began people stood along side walls and out in the hallway.

To start the forum, Jim Crawford, Assistant Superintendent and the night's emcee, gave a 15 minute synopsis of the budget process. In short, projected costs and revenues are both increasing, but costs grow faster. Combine this with a needed 5% contingency fund--$4 million--and we'll have to trim about $2 million from next year's expenses. "Reductions to balance the 2008-2009 budget will help forestall major additional reductions in 2009-10," Crawford's PowerPoint noted. Or, in his words: "Our outlook for the following year is another deficit... If we can solve this now, we won't be in this position next year."

Crawford also explained why the publicized cut sheet [pdf] wasn't as much cause for alarm as some think. "There are more cuts on this sheet than we're going to need to adopt, and that's very intentional... We want to hear from you before we [make cuts]."

Students, parents, teachers, and other concerned community members crammed around tables for the next hour and a half, discussing, debating, brainstorming, grousing, and, for the most part, learning a lot about their neighbors' values and their own. I sat in the back corner, sometimes blogging, sometimes taking part in a lively discussion led by constituents of Capital and Olympia's Drill Teams.