BRANDYWINE PEACE COMMUNITY - P.O. Box 81, Swarthmore, PA, 19081--(610)544-1818BRANDYWINE PEACE COMMUNITY - P.O. Box 81, Swarthmore, PA, 19081--(610)544-1818
2010 Events
Sun, Jan 10, 2010 Monthly Potluck - Why We Fight, large screen showing of the acclaimed documentary film as we approach the fifth anniversary of its release and 49th anniversary of President Dwight Eisenhower's farewell address on January 17, 1961, in which he warned of the "disastrous rise of misplaced power" that is the military-industrial complex. Why We Fight, (2005 PG-13), directed by Eugene Jarecki, is a documentary film about the military-industrial complex during the past half century and its role in fueling wars to maintain U.S. dominance around the world and prospering the weapons manufacturers like Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Among those interviewed are political scientist and former-CIA analyst and author Chalmers Johnson, writer Gore Vidal, and public policy expert Joseph Cirincione.
Monday, January 18, Noon – Make War No More! Martin Luther King Day of Nonviolent Resistance at Lockheed Martin. Hear the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and honor in word and deed his message of nonviolent action for justice and peace. About 40 people came out to Lockheeed Martin in the bright sun and warmish air (compared to recent frigid weather) to hold signs and banners and listen to excerpts from Dr. King's speeches. A very special treat was Rabbi Arthur Waskow's reading of a story written by him and his wife entitled The Long Narrow Pharaoh & the Midwives Who Gave Birth to Freedom. 7 people were arrested for blocking the driveway. More details, photos and litany are forthcoming. more
Sunday, February 14, 4:30p.m. - Monthly Brandywine Potluck 1959 - 2010 - Cuba Over Our Time with: Deena Stryker (www.otherjones.com) writer and international free lance journalist, and her power point film documenting her time in Cuba, circa 1963 - 1966, that included doing the first Western published interview with Fidel Castro after the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Sandy Dunn, lifelong educator, who has traveled extensively throughout Latin America and every year to Cuba, criss-crossing the country as part of the St. Augustine-Baracoa Friendship Association providing humanitarian aid especially in Baracoa located in the easternmost tip of the island in Guantanamo province.
Tues, Feb 23 5p.m., Phila. City Hall (west side), 15th & Market St. Vigil for Peace & Bell-Tolling, with reading of names of Pennsylvanians killed in Afghanistan. Mourn all the War Dead As of February 4, 2010, 983 U.S. soldiers have died in Afghanistan (see www.icasualties.org). We are quickly coming to another milestone in what war and empire means: death. photos
1,000 U.S soldiers dead in Afghanistan is not just another number, but a representation of the toll of war for parents, daughters and sons, wives and husbands here in the U.S., and thousands of miles away in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Untold thousands of civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan have been killed over the past eight years.
Pakistanis now, as part of the war, face near daily remote-controlled CIA drone bombing strikes that have killed 708 civilians just over the past year. These drones, based in Afghanistan and built by Lockheed Martin and other U.S. weapons profiteers, are directed from the continental U.S. through space by satellites (also built by Lockheed Martin). "For each al Qa'eda and Taliban terrorist killed by US drones, 140 innocent Pakistanis also had to die. Over 90 per cent of those killed in the deadly missile strikes were civilians”, claim Pakistani authorities.
No less, of course, and far more than we can really know, the people of Afghanistan face an escalating war, with the deployment of 30,000 more U.S. troops, sent by the second President and Commander-in-Chief to preside over the U.S. war in Afghanistan. By the fall of 2010, the Pentagon will have 100,000 U.S. combat forces in Afghanistan (and an equal number of private U.S. “contractors”).
Another milestone of eight years of war is before us as we face the 1,000th U.S. combat death in Afghanistan.
Another time of mourning and remembrance is almost upon us. We don’t know the exact day, undoubtedly a matter of days, perhaps a week or so, but another protest in Philadelphia of the escalating war in Afghanistan and yet another vigil for peace is being planned. So plan to stand together with us as the names of the war dead are read, and as all (!) the war dead are remembered and mourned.
Plan to toll the bell of peace for all the war dead in Afghanistan, and Pakistan, as well as the casualties of war right here at home – the billions of dollars squandered ($100 billion a year in Afghanistan, $1 million per year per soldier in Afghanistan, on top of a price tag that is reaching $1 trillion, that could easily have covered real health care reform for all uninsured Americans and gone a long way to re-building the U.S. economy). Plan to toll the bell for all the people forgotten and the millions of jobs lost to an utterly war-torn economy (civilian spending has always created more jobs than spending on war, one statistic today is that the $1 million spent per soldier per year in Afghanistan is equal to the cost of employing sixteen full time construction workers a year).
Citing the impact of World War I in ending the Progressive Era, World War II in killing the New Deal, the Korean War in terminating Harry Truman's Fair Deal program and the Vietnam War in crushing Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, Boston University historian Robert Dallek told President Obama at a White House meeting last year, "war kills off great reform movements."
“War Is [still] Not The Answer” for either the U.S. or Afghanistan. Funding for the war must cease for the sake of peace and development in Afghanistan and economic justice in the United States.
Read Norman Solomon’s excellent piece Don’t Call It a ‘Defense’ Budget in Common Dreams, http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/02/02 Phyllis Bennis article
Sunday, March 14, 4:30p.m. - Monthly Brandywine Potluck What Now? Health Care Reform and the Future of Universal Health Care, Dr. Walter Tsou, former Health Commissioner for the City of Philadelphia, and nationally noted expert on Universal Health Care. A Congressional up or down vote on “health care reform” is soon to take place. Months of promises compromised, lies, double-talk and double-speak from both (or more) sides of the health care “debate” has passed. Talk about timely! Come, this Sunday to the Brandywine Peace Community monthly potluck supper & program and hear someone speak who knows what he’s talking about, who understands and can talk about the travesty and injustice of health care in this country - who lives (and profits) and who dies - and knows what it will mean and take for there to be health care justice in the country.
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Walter Tsou, MD, MPH is a nationally known consultant on public health and health care reform. Currently, he is on the visiting faculty of the University of Pennsylvania. He was President of the American Public Health Association in 2005 and served as Health Commissioner of Philadelphia from April 2000 to February 2002. He has extensive experience in public health and has lectured widely on public health and health disparities. He is a founding member of the national board of Physicians for a National Health Program and locally is on the boards of Philadelphia Physicians for Social Responsibility, Health Care for All Philadelphia, the Asian American Health Care Network, and the Green Tree Healthcare Foundation. In 2007, he received the Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition’s Award. His medical degree is from the University of Pennsylvania; his MPH is from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, and he has an honorary Doctorate in Medical Sciences from Drexel University. |
Saturday, March 20, 11:30a.m. - 1:30 p.m. Watch the VIDEO Read story and see photos by John Grant.)
Regional rally at Knights & Woodhaven Roads featuring speakers and music followed by a dramatic memorial and protest inside the Franklin Mills Mall in front of the Army Experience Center. Rally Speakers include: Jesse Hamilton, former U.S. Army Staff Sergeant in Iraq, adviser to Iraqi Army in Fallujah, ‘05-‘06. Music, bell-tolling and reading the names of Philadelphians killed in Iraq and recruited through one of the recruiting stations merged into the Army Experience Center. Over the past year, as part of the United for Peace & Justice—Delaware Valley Network's campaign to close the Army Experience Center (AEC) located in the Franklin Mills Mall in Northeast Philadelphia, there have been regular protests and a monthly vigil (3rd Saturday of each month) at Knights & Woodhaven Roads, urging people not to shop at the mall until the AEC is closed.- Join us in memory of all the war dead;- Join us in demanding the Closing of the Army Experience Center. A number of SEPTA (www.septa.com) buses leave from the Frankford Terminal for the Franklin Mills Mall. SEPTA bus #84 stops right at the corner of Knights & Woodhaven Road, before reaching the Mall. For more information: Brandywine Peace Community, 610-544-1818, Coalition for Peace Action Coalition, (609) 924-5022, www.peacecoalition.org BuxMont Coalition for Peace Action, 215-380-6804, www.cfpabuxmont.org More on the Army Experience Center, including directions to the Franklin Mills Mall: at http://www.peacecoalition.org/component/content/article/39-cfpa/133-demonstration-at-the-army-experience-center.html as well as http://shutdowntheaec.net/
Friday, April 2, Noon - Good Friday Stations of Justice & Peace at Lockheed Martin, Goddard Boulevard off Mall Boulevard, Valley Forge, PA. (behind the King of Prussia Mall and across from the United Artist King of Prussia movieplex). SEPTA (www.septa.com) bus #125 from Philadelphia, stops on Goddard Boulevard, right across the street from Lockheed Martin. Highlighted by large wooden crosses with the Lockheed Martin logo at the crucifixion nail points, and a sign reading “Lockheed Martin: We’re Making a Killing!”, the annual Good Friday Stations of Justice & Peace is modeled on the traditional Stations of the Cross with readings paralleling the last steps and crucifixion of Jesus with the contemporary crucifixion of humanity by war, environmental neglect, and social injustice. The large wooden crosses signify the human cost of war as well as the social and environmental casualties of militarism and Lockheed Martin.
Sunday, April 11 – Monthly Brandywine Potluck The Legacy of Vietnam Today : speakers panel, including Dr. Sophie Quinn-Judge, aid worker during the war, Associate Director Center for Vietnamese Philosophy, Culture, and Society (http://www.temple.edu/vietnamese_center/sqj.htm), and just back from extended visit to Vietnam; David McReynolds (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_McReynolds), internationally renowned socialist-pacifist, , first openly gay man to run for the U.S. Presidency (1980 and 2000 on the Socialist Party USA ticket), during his 40 years on the National War Resisters League staff helped to lead the anti-war movement during the Vietnam War, visiting Vietnam twice during the war (1967, 1971) and after the war in the 1980’s.; Peter Lems, American Friends Service Committee Advocacy Program for Afghanistan and Iraq, and more.
Thursday, April 22 Earth Day Rally and Walk for a Nuclear-Free World! 12noon – 1p.m.: Rally @Independence Mall Visitors Center, 6th & Market, Phila., PA music, special guests, local speakers, and the Honor the Earth Ceremony followed by start of Phila to NYC Interfaith Peace Walk for Nuclear Abolition across Ben Franklin Bridge to Camden, NJ (4 miles to Waterfront South neighborhood) (Video & Photos coming soon)
Wed., April 28, 6p.m. - The Cry to Abolish Nuclear Weapons: Hiroshima to NPT Review, Peace Center of Delaware County, 1001 Old Sproul Road, Springfield, PA, Potluck Supper, Presentation & Discussion with: Yoko Nishimura, Director, Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation. Co-sponsored by the Brandywine Peace Community and Delaware County Wage Peace & Justice. or call 610-544-1818 http://delcopeacecenter.org/
Sun., May 9 – Special Mother’s Day showing of EXPLICIT ILLS (2008, 87 mins., R for language and drug use). Little-seen drama by Mark Webber, Philadelphia Native, and son of anti-poverty organizer, Sheri Honkala. Four stories of poverty, drugs, despair, and hope played out on the streets of Philadelphia.
Sunday, June 13, 4:30p.m., Potluck Supper & Program - Traci Confer, of the Energy Justice Network, will speak along with large screen presentation, on: The Re-Emergence of Nuclear Power & The Energy ‘Bomb’ Around Us Learn how the nuclear fuel chain impacts communities and intersects with nuclear weapons manufacturing. Energy Justice Network,http://www.energyjustice.net/, advocates a clean energy, zero-emission, zero-waste future for all.
Saturday, June 19, Noon – Celebrate the Closing of the Army Experience Center (AEC) in NE Philadelphia The US Army has announced that the Army Experience Center (AEC) - located in the Franklin Mills Mall - will close by July 31.
Saturday, July 3, 6:30p.m. - 8:00p.m DECLARE YOUR INDEPENDENCE from WAR, OIL, & CORPORATE POWER Assert Your Independence from the Tyranny of War Profiteering, Big Oil, and Corporate Domination.. Declare Your Independence in Philadelphia a few steps away from Independence Hall where the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776 was signed… Make Another Declaration of Independence Music, Dramatic Readings of Independence and Reading and Signing the 2010 Declaration of Independence from Corporate Domination drafted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow, director, Shalom Center (http://www.theshalomcenter.org/)
Sunday, July 11 - “Ban All Nukes Generation: A New Look at Abolishing Nuclear Weapons” – Kim Thao-Nguyen, Asst. Director for Programs, Emily Gleason, Research Assistant, Project for Nuclear Awareness (http://projectfornuclearawareness.com/), with PowerPoint presentation and movie shorts.
Fri., August 6 – Hiroshima Day demonstration at Lockheed Martin Mall & Goddard Boulevard, Valley Forge/King of Prussia, PA (behind the King of Prussia Mall) 8:15a.m. (time of the Hiroshima bombing) – Bell-tolling Peace Vigil at entrance to the Valley Forge complex of the world’s largest war profiteer and the U.S.’s #1 nuclear weapons contractor; Noon – Hiroshima Day commemoration and nonviolent civil disobedience. Click here to read the Brandywine Peace Community’s Journey of Death, chronicling the building and use of the first atomic bombs, first published in 1985. Read the report
Mon., August 9, 11:02a.m. (time of Nagasaki bombing) Phila. City Hall west side, 15th & Market Sts. Nagasaki Day Human Postcard to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, beneath the statue of William Penn atop Phila. City Hall, followed by procession to SS Peter & Paul Roman Catholic Cathedral, 18th & Benjamin Franklin Parkway, and dedication to peace in memory of the Urakami Catholic Cathedral that was ground zero for the Nagasaki Bombing 65 years ago.
Sunday, September 5, 2p.m.Celebration of the 30th Anniversary of the Plowshares 8 Demonstration – Re-Dedication to Nonviolent Action for Peace
And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks… – Isaiah 2:4. On September 9, 1980, eight religious peace and anti-nuclear weapons activists entered a General Electric (now: Lockheed Martin) plant in King of Prussia and with hammers “disarmed” Mark 12A warhead casings. Participants in the first “swords into plowshares” action were called the Plowshares 8. They were tried the following spring in the Montgomery County Court in Norristown, PA. and found guilty of burglary, conspiracy, and criminal mischief. The Brandywine Peace Community was the organizing and support base for the Plowshares 8 as well as the similar GE 5 action in October, 1981. Nearly seventy-five plowshares actions have occurred over the past thirty years across the country and in Europe, many involving long prison sentences for the participants. For more on the Plowshares 8 and other plowshares actions, visit http://www.craftech.com/~dcpledge/brandywine/plow/Chronology.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plowshares_Movement.
Sunday, September 12, 4:30p.m., Brandywine Peace Community Potluck Supper & Program. In celebration of the 30th Anniversary of the Plowshares 8 action (who on September 9, 1980, in resistance to the production of nuclear weapons, hammered on nuclear warhead casings at a General Electric plant (now: Lockheed Martin) in King of Prussia, PA…Special large screen showing of IN THE KING OF PRUSSIA (1982, 92 mins., NR, directed by Emile de Antonio, starring Martin Sheen, and members of the Plowshares 8, including Daniel and Philip Berrigan), documentary portrait of the landmark Plowshares 8 action and trial that intersperses news footage with re-enactments of portions of the trial thirty years ago.
The program will also include a film short 30 YEARS OF NUCLEAR RESISTANCE, produced by the Nuclear Resister, and special guest participants from “Swords into Plowshares” actions.
Sept 28 2010 Fed Bldg Protest video
Saturday, October 9, Noon Ground the Drones – Stop Lockheed Martin 9th Anniversary of the War in Afghanistan War Wasn’t the Answer. And Still Isn’t! Stop the Wars and the War Makers! Jobs not Wars! October 2010, the ninth anniversary of U.S. war in Afghanistan, which began on October 7, 2001, will be marked with anti-war demonstrations and protests around the world. The week of October 2 – 9 is also the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space’s KEEP SPACE FOR PEACE WEEK, http://www.space4peace.org/ Central to the escalating war is the use of UAVs, unmanned remote-controlled bombing and surveillance drones, in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Lockheed Martin produces drone aircraft that are directed from the continental U.S. through space based satellites also built by Lockheed Martin.
Sunday, October 10, 4:30p.m., Brandywine Peace Community Potluck Supper & Program. Tom Paine Cronin speaks on Organizing for Jobs not Wars.
Tom Cronin is a Philadelphia labor leader, former President of AFSCME DC 47, International Labor and Human Rights Solidarity worker, and director of the Comey Labor Studies Program at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia. Plan to attend the area's longest running on-going program for peace and justice, the Brandywine Peace Community Monthly Supper/Program, now in its 3rd decade.....2nd Sunday of the month (except August), 4:30PM, at the University Lutheran Church, 3637 Chestnut Street, Phila., PA (bring main dish, salad, or dessert to share). Programs begin at 5:30 p.m. Easily accessible by public transportation, SEPTA bus #21 www.septa.com
Wed., November 10, 11a.m. – 1p.m. Phila. City Hall, west side, 15th & Market Sts. A Public Media Event & Celebration of Free Speech, Dissent, and Civil Libertie - The War on Dissent: A Town Hall at Friends Center, 1501 Cherry St., Citizen activist groups across Pennsylvania have been tracked by the PA Department of Homeland Security (PADHS) in ‘Terror Watch’ bulletins compiled by the Institute for Terrorism Research & Response (ITRR) in a no-bid $103,000 contract with PADHS. ITRR is an Israeli/U.S. private security firm that is part of the mega-billion post 9/11 growth in the private for-profit surveillance and spying industry in the U.S. Tracked in the ‘Terror Watch’ bulletins: groups speaking out peacefully for peace and human rights, the environment, Immigrant support groups, and a range of political groups. For much more: http://www.brandywinepeace.com/PA%20Terror%20Watch.html Reminiscent of the Vietnam War era FBI COINTELPRO operation of spying and harassment of anti-war and social justice activists, the FBI recently raided the homes of anti-war activists in the mid-west. Who will be next? Citizens throughout U.S. history have had to protect our most fundamental civil liberties, from politicians and the powerful that, by using the fear of communism, minorities, terrorism, the foreigner or immigrant, would stifle dissent, trample the constitution and violate our civil liberties. Join the First Amendment Network (FAN), comprised of groups tracked in the PA ‘Terror Watch’ bulletins and other concerned citizen groups fighting to protect our civil liberties, free speech, and the right to dissent. DON’T SPY ON US!Demandthat the Governor-Elect END the tracking and spying of activist and protest groups in Pennsylvania, regardless of the overseeing agency – PA Department of Homeland Security, The State Police, etc. Speakers, Music, Displays, Tabling, Get the information – Get involved!Learn more about current threats to your right to dissent, including: The latest on the state anti-terrorism bulletins tracking activists; The dangers of 'fusion centers', mechanisms created to share federal, state and local intelligence; The use of the PATRIOT Act’s “material support” statute to go after activists; The risks of privatizing intelligence gathering.Panel will include: Michael German, former FBI agent and ACLU Policy Counsel and Jess Sundin, one of the targets of the recent FBI raids on activists in the Midwest Organized by American Civil Liberties Union. Co-sponsored by Brandywine Peace Community and other area groups. For more: www.aclupa.org/warondissent Click HERE, to watch Brandywine’s NEW video: “WAR ON DISSENT”
Sunday, November 14, 4:30p.m., Brandywine Peace Community Potluck Supper & Program. Iris Marie Bloom, Phila. coordinator of Protecting Our Waters (www.ProtectingOurWaters.com), a Philadelphia-based grassroots alliance committed to protecting the Delaware River Basin, the state of Pennsylvania, and our region from unconventional gas drilling (Fracking) and other threats to our drinking water, environment, and public health.
Saturday, November 27, 12 Noon (Thanksgiving Weekend), LOCKHEEDVILLE Demonstration at Lockheed Martin Mall & Goddard Boulevards, Valley Forge/King of Prussia, PA. LOCKHEEDVILLE: where the business of war matters, and human needs don’t! During the Great Depression unemployed and homeless people constructed shanty towns called Hoovervilles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hooverville). 60 Minutes reports that national unemployment and underemployment has reached 17.5%. Amidst today’s trillion-dollar war-gutted economy, one in six people in the U.S. is unemployed or underemployed. Join the annual LOCKHEEDVILLE tableau at Lockheed Martin (the world’s largest war profiteer), in Valley Forge, PA.
Sunday, December 12 Brandywine Peace Community Monthly Potluck Supper & Program: A Story of Peace: Zak Ebrahim non-violence lecturer, who uses his experiences as the son of a convicted terrorist to show the impact of violence and that someone taught and exposed to hatred and bigotry can realize peace. Plus: music and short film honoring John Lennon, killed 30 years ago on Dec. 8, 1980.
Wed., December 22, 7pm - Christmas Vigil for Peace at Lockheed Martin, Valley Forge, PA Please join us as we raise a song of hope when the earth is in its darkest period. Hear the tolling of the Peace bell and light lamps of resistance as we join in fortelling the return of the Earth's light and fertility after a season of cold and fallowness, and joyfully proclaim "unto us a child is born" in a long-ago land also under the boot of empire and war.