During the weekend of May 5-7, NACC hosted a mini-conference, "Ways We Resist War", along with a meeting and gathering of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC). More than sixty antiwar activists participated during the weekend and shared stories of counter-recruitment; war tax resistance; anti-nuclear and anti-corporate organizing; and working with veteran, student, and neighborhood groups. The discussions offered a chance to compare notes on successes and obstacles, to learn better approaches from each other, and to look at ways that we can more effectively unite our efforts to end war.
The weekend began with a talk by Fr. Roy Bourgeois on Friday night. He spoke movingly of his political awakening in Vietnam after he had joined the Navy as a patriotic young man. "We are simply not made for war. We cannot go about killing and come home and clear our conscience." Once out of the military and seeking renewed hope, he entered the Maryknoll Seminary and spent a year in Bolivia, "where they introduced to me my country's foreign policy." Bourgeois' Latin America experiences, including the tremendous fear he felt in El Salvador in the 1980s, led him to eventually learn about the School of the Americas and to take action there. Thus began School of the Americas Watch (SOAW) in 1990.
SOAW has seen success in the growth of its annual actions, from a handful of activists to the 19,000 who turned up in 2005. The weekend vigil and direct action take place in November near the anniversary of the killing in El Salvador of the six Jesuit priests, their co-worker, and her teenage daughter. SOAW's new effort is to persuade Latin American governments to pull their soldiers out of the school; and Bourgeois was excited to report that Venezuela, Argentina, and Uruguay had agreed to end participation in the program!
"We've got to act," Bourgeois said. "It is with this work, becoming activists, that we hold onto our hope," adding one of the most important things we can do is not pay our taxes.
The Saturday morning panel focused on "Resistance To Resistance / Fears We Face", and included activists whose paychecks come from the government, an antinuclear organizer, a counter-recruitment organizer, a war tax resister, and a member of Veterans for Peace. Each described how they organize, the obstacles they face, and overcoming their own fears or those of the people they approach. Sharon Hall, who works in veterans' hospitals, talked about the constrictions as a government worker, but also the opportunity she has to help people who have to deal with the fact that they "gave something of themselves for a cause which was all false." A big challenge is how to deal with "the attachment a lot of people have to the discipline, honor, patriotism of the military. We still love war. It's a deep part of our subconscious," she said.
Jelani Jackson, a counter-recruitment activist with AFSC in Seattle, said, "The military is really not the hot topic for youth. It's music or other things. You have to approach it a different way. You need to start a personal relationship and learn their names, even if it's 100 people. There are youth that want to get involved, and they need to hear what is out there."
Daniel Woodham, a member of NWTRCC and a resident of North Carolina, said that war tax resisters need to emphasize the positive consequences more. "People are excited about WTR when they hear about it. It opens a door in their mind." Glenn Milner spoke about his anti-nuclear organizing with Ground Zero, and the research work that he does to keep up with what the government is doing. He also reminded us that the simplest actions have an effect when he said that he started his war tax resistance after someone in a march handed him a card about WTR. Regarding direct action, he said that when people learn about it they are interested, but oftentimes they need to be inspired too. When Trident missile worker Bob Aldridge quit his well-paying job to write and speak against first-strike weapons people were especially inspired because of the personal risk he took.
In the afternoon we heard from organizers of specific projects: Ellen Finkelstein talked about SNOW ([Puget] Sound Nonviolent Opponents of War), designed to establish neigh-borhood groups and inspire more local antiwar action. Western Washington University student Michael Bieschauval talked about campus organizing and the untapped energy of young organizers. The advantages of intentional communities were presented by Sheldon Cooper, who lives in an egalitarian social justice commune in Seattle and is also involved in a community land trust. Lincoln Rice described war tax resistance organizing, while Jackie Hudson spoke about Ploughshares actions. Antonia Juhasz, author of The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time, talked about her research and activism around the corporate profiteering and war.
In a general discussion we tried to "put it all together", listing successful actions and guidelines for our ongoing efforts. The list included: combat ignorance and apathy; build community support; clarify goals; acknowledge cultures of fear and work through them; overcome powerlessness; build relationships; be consistent; use clear phrasing; link issues.
The mini-conference ended with a concert by Seattle folksinger Linda Allen. She was celebrating the release of a new CD, Where I Stand, and was joined by her daughters, friends, and the Labor Chorus of Seattle for a rousing program.
War Tax Resistance Meetings
NACC is an affiliate of NWTRCC and participates in the meetings and decision-making of this national network of groups and individuals that organize on war tax resistance. NWTRCC meets twice a year, and Sunday morning was devoted to organizational business, including selecting new members of the group's steering committee and choosing a representative to attend the international war tax resistance meetings in Germany in October. We critiqued a new flyer on W-4 resistance that was requested by young adults who are entering the working world. The flyer will be on the NWTRCC website, http://nwtrcc.org, in September. The meeting also re-viewed the text of a War Tax Resistance Survey (also on the NWTRCC website, and included in this newsletter); the survey is circulating until November to gauge peace activists' knowledge and opinions of WTR, and the information will help war tax resistance activists develop a one-year resistance campaign. Readers are encouraged to fill it out. A committee is also working on a new video that will offer and introduction to war tax resistance.
Everyone left the weekend with all kinds of new organizing ideas, tips on outreach to specific communities, and plans for making more connections across communities of resistance.
-- Ruth Benn is a war tax resister in Brooklyn, New York; and the coordinator of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee
For many, the final event of the 2006 Veterans For Peace (VFP) convention was the highlight. On August 13, 2006, more than 100 people traveled two hours from Seattle, Washington, by bus and car to Peace Arch Park at the U.S.-Canada border to join several hundred supporters in thanking and celebrating war resisters now living in Canada! Living their resistance, these US citizens have changed history by action. Past and present resisters inspired the crowd both at a rally and in conversations over a picnic lunch. They shared their personal stories of how they serve by refusing to fight.
Like the national NWTRCC meeting also held in Seattle just months earlier, the many different ways to resist war spun a central thread at the VFP convention. The convention, starting with the National VFP Board meeting on August 9, drew more than 500 people -- convention registrants, volunteers, and members of the press. In 36 workshops, five plenary sessions, dozens of interviews, and several important press conferences, participation in planning for peace was the goal.
The film Sir! No Sir!, shown at the beginning of the convention, chronicled the role of vets in the antiwar movement during the Vietnam era and brought that mostly lost or unknown history into the present day. Dahr Jamail returned from Lebanon just in time to report on the situation there and Cindy Sheehan spoke eloquently at a press conference about her work to protest the war on Iraq.
Ricky Clousing announced his intention at a press conference to turn himself over to the military as a war resister after one year of being away from his assigned duty post in the military. Sgt Clousing served in Iraq in from December 2004 through April 2005. Suzanne Swift’s mother, Sarah Rich, spoke alongside many women vets about the problem of sexual harassment and abuse in the military, introducing the concept of "command rape" to many. Spc. Swift, facing a redeployment to Iraq while serving under the command of the same individuals that allowed her to be raped and sexual harassed, suffered a breakdown due to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and went absent without leave rather than subject herself to the horrors she experienced during her first tour of duty.
Lt. Ehren Watada spoke at the convention banquet of his courageous reasons for leading the military to deny participation in an illegal war. Many who attended cited participation by members of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) as the most important part of the convention. The moment when several dozen IVAW members joined Lt. Watada on stage in solidarity affected all present.
SPC Swift, Lt. Watada, and Sgt. Clousing all turned themselves in at Fort Lewis, about 50 miles south of Seattle. Fort Lewis has become a frequent site of demonstrations in solidarity with these heroic resisters.
Veterans For Peace has a unique and powerful role to play in seeking peace in the world. The authentic voice of experience turned to wisdom is the voice of VFP. The convention theme, "Sow Justice, Seek Peace -- Strategies for Moving Beyond War" directed the focus of the workshops and plenary sessions. Critical concerns about global warming and the work that must be done if our species is to survive on the planet combined with the essential need for humans to recognize the destruction war is bringing to the planet and pointed to ways participants can work for peace and resist war.
Abe Asheroff, recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award, gave a challenging and essential acceptance speech -- telling this audience to find new audiences for our words -- not to speak to each other as often as we speak to those who need the awakening words of peace.
A team of video volunteers filmed nearly every event at the convention! Soon, DVDs will be available through the national office: the national website will soon post an order form. Several events (including Lt Watada's speech and Sgt Clousing's press conference are available now on the multimedia link of the Truthout website.
-- adapted by Erica Kay from an article in the VFP newsletter written by Gerri Haynes
The following is a letter submitted by Dana Visalli, a NACC newsletter reader who attended the convention:
The Politics of Obedience
August 19, 2006
Dear Readers;
Last week I attended a gathering in Seattle of 500 military veterans concerned about the war in Iraq.
Lieutenant Ehren Watada has refused to deploy to Iraq, because, as he put it, "The wholesale slaughter and mistreatment of Iraqis is not only a terrible moral injustice, but it is a contradiction of the Army's own law of warfare. My participation would make me party to war crimes."
Sergeant Ricky Clousing, who has refused to redeploy to Iraq for a second tour, described how U.S. vehicles regularly smashed Iraqi cars, how soldiers bashed in car windows with rifle butts, and opened fired on livestock for fun. He said these acts were not isolated incidents, but "the daily devastation of occupation, daily incidents where innocent Iraqis are being killed." He told how he was part of a convoy from which a humvee opened fire without warning on a civilian in a car who was no threat, and killed him. Clousing reported the incident to his superiors, and was told to "suck it up".
Retired Air Force Captain and Vietnam veteran Brian Willson described how he witnessed the destruction of entire villages in Vietnam from U.S. bombing runs. When he once broke down in tears at sight of 100 dead villagers, mostly women and children, another officer asked to him, "What's your problem?" Willson has wondered many times since, "Why was I so obedient, why was I willing to travel 10,000 miles from home to participate in the murder of innocent people that I knew absolutely nothing about?"
Brian's question is relevant to all of us. Why are we so obedient? Why are we willing to participate in the murder of innocent people 10,000 miles away that we know absolutely nothing about?
It's grants season at NACC again. We are accepting applications for peace and social justice groups to apply for funding. As most of our readers and depositors know, we use the interest that we earn from the CMTC escrow account and money that we raise to distribute grants every year. It's our way of re-distributing the interest from resisted war taxes to fund the work that we all believe in.
This cycle we're focusing our grants on war resistance. That's not an exclusive emphasis, but in this period of dire foreign policy on the part of the US government, it's crucially important. And, of course, resistance to war is what NACC is all about.
We thought you might like to know who some our grantees have been over the years. We started in 2001, and one of our first grants was $1,000 to Project YANO, the Project on Youth and Non-Military Alternatives. At that time they were translating one of their resource pieces on counter-recruitment into Spanish. In 2005, we gave them another grant, this time $2,000, to help fund their ability to meet the huge increases in demand for their resources and expertise. Counter-recruitment has been one of our priorities over the years, and the need is increasing all the time. In addition to YANO, in our last cycle we granted $750 to the Bay Area Military Out of Our Schools project for its youth-led work in the Oakland schools.
Another of our funding priorities has been local and regional peace and justice centers. In 2001, in the aftermath of 9/11, we granted $1,200 to the Appalachian Peace and Justice Network to organize a series of events "Democracy Requires Dissent". That same cycle included a $1,500 grant to the Washington, D.C. Peace Center to train youth peace and social justice activists. In 2003, we granted $1,000 to the Peace and Social Justice Center of South Central Kansas for its School of the Americas Watch organizing, and in 2005, the South Dakota Peace and Justice Center received $750 for its "Eyes Wide Open" campaign.
War tax resistance is NACC's key issue, and we've made grants to NWTRCC, the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee, the umbrella network of war tax resistance groups in the US. We've also awarded grants in the Pacific Northwest where we're located, and where a large number of our supporters live as well. Last year we granted $1,000 to the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action to help them rebuild their community house that was destroyed by fire. Over the years, we've collaborated with Ground Zero, and held a number of NACC retreats at their center, so it felt just right to help out a bit with rebuilding.
Each year we grant between $6,000 and $8,000. It's never enough, and it's always very difficult to choose among the applicants. Still, it feels like good work to be doing, using the money entrusted to us as wisely as we can. Our goal is to support the good necessary work for peace and justice that grass roots groups around the country are undertaking. This year the deadline to apply for grants is November 15, and you can find the application at our website. Grants will be awarded on January 1, 2007.
As always, you can help us with outreach. If you know of an organization that should apply for this grant, please pass along to it the web address noted above. Also, don't hesitate to post, circulate, or publish in any appropriate venue the advertisement on Page 8 of this newsletter (which is also available in .gif format on our grants web page). Thanks!
-- Carolyn Stevens
Nonviolent Action is published biannually by the Nonviolent Action Community of Cascadia (NACC), formerly the Conscience and Military Tax Campaign.
NACC, 4554 12th Ave. NE, Seattle, WA 98105, (206) 547-0952, nacc (at) drizzle (dot) com, http://seanacc.org/.
The Nonviolent Action Community of Cascadia is a Seattle-based organization which uses nonviolent direct action to create political and social change. NACC acts to interrupt and transform militarism and other forms of violence, and to build a society based upon community, economic justice, environmental awareness, personal empowerment, and feminist, queer-positive and anti-racist principles.
NACC uses creative nonviolent direct action, war tax resistance, public education, grants to activist groups, and coalition building towards these ends, creating community and developing empowerment and conflict-resolution skills in the process.
NACC has an office staffed part-time by Geov Parrish, Scott McClay, and Eddie Tews. We welcome new members. For more information, contact us at the address, phone number, or e-mail address above.
NACC is an affiliate of the War Resisters League, the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee, and the Northwest Disarmament Coalition.
The Nonviolent Action Community of Cascadia
4554-12th Ave NE, Seattle, WA 98105. An affiliate of the
War Resisters League and NWTRCC
Tel: (206) 547-0952, Fax: (206) 547-2631. E-mail: nacc (at) drizzle (dot) com