Creating a Peace Budget

You are invited to a special meeting on forming a peace budget hosted by the Southern Illinois Peace Coalition and Southern Illinois Quaker Meeting –

Shaping a More Peaceful and Just Federal Budget:
A Conversation with Friends Committee on National Legislation Staff Katherine Philipson

When:
Tuesday, February 19, 2013 at 6:30 pm

Where:
Carbondale Civic Center Room 111

Why:
Starting at the end of February 2013, current law called the Budget Control Act automatically cuts both human needs programs and planned Pentagon growth. Members of Congress are talking with each other now about whether or not to reverse those cuts and how to curb the deficit instead. Our solution is simple don’t balance the budget on the backs of the most vulnerable. Instead, reduce planned Pentagon spending by $1 trillion over ten years and restore lost tax revenue.

As a leader in the Democratic Party and the new Chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, Senator Durbin is one of the most influential members of Congress on this issue. When budget deals are reached, Senator Durbin is sure to be in the room. Please join Katherine to plan how we can encourage Senator Durbin to reduce unnecessary Pentagon spending and reinvest in true human security.

Sponsored by the Peace Coalition of Southern Illinois.

Ex-Virginia executioner becomes opponent of death penalty

Jerry Givens’ improbable journey to the death chamber and back did not come easily or quickly for the 60-year-old from Richmond. A searing murder spurred his interest in the work, but it was the innocent life he nearly took that led him to question the system. And he was changed for good when he found himself behind bars.

His story helps explain how a state closely associated with the death penalty for decades has entered a new era.

“From the 62 lives I took, I learned a lot,” Givens said.

Click here to read the full article.

Tales, Adventures, and Reflections of a Quaker Activist

Daughter Do Mi (Barbie) Stauber wrote to ILYM and shared –

I’d like to let you know about a new book by a Quaker author formerly of Illinois Yearly Meeting:

Feeling Light Within, I Walk: Tales, Adventures, and Reflections of a Quaker Activist

Peg Morton was a member of Illinois Yearly Meeting from 1965 to 1989. She has published articles in Friends Journal and is the author of a Pendle Hill pamphlet, Walk With Me: Nonviolent Accompaniment in Guatemala. She is an activist who has spent her life working in the civil rights, war tax resistance, Latin America solidarity, and peace movements. She went to prison at age 73 for civil disobedience at the School of the Americas. Peg has written of a life that spans eighty-two years, fueled by a deeply spiritual commitment to raise her voice in nonviolent protest against war and injustice everywhere, and give voice to those who have none.

Peg has many wonderful memories of IYM and sends her love and greetings to all!

Feeling Light Within is available from Quakerbooks.org, or directly from the author: send $15.00 plus $3.50 s/h to Cedar Row Press, 2809 Shirley St., Eugene, OR 97404. Peg’s website Feelinglightwithin.com will accomodate online ordering soon!

What next? Tamms is closed.

What next?  Tamms is closed.  Now how do we attend to the climate of opinion that permitted, indeed endorsed, the construction of this institution?  Specifically, what steps can we take to reverse the programs and policies that characterize this nation’s penal systems?

Wrestling with the “what next” question has been far more difficult than coming to a position on closing Tamms.  I think my difficulty is one shared by others in my Meeting and in the general public.  And that is why I write.  I also write so that I may call attention to some responses to the “what next” question that are emerging as I listen to discussions among Friends in southern Illinois.

Shaping a Minute in support of closing Tamms drew attention to the larger and more complicated dimensions to this subject.  As I recall the process, many Friends expressed concerns that the discussion was being framed by Springfield’s concerns for budgets.  What about the penal system at large?  How is it that we pay our taxes to support systems of punishment rather than programs for rehabilitation?   By addressing the debate on closing Tamms, are we distracted from the grim statistics that point to the continuing presence of race and class in the sentencing process?   And so, after a month of careful listening, the Meeting did come to a minute supporting closure but with the provision that a second Minute be composed that addressed the larger contexts.

Lest we forget the thousands of prisoners in countless prisons, we have been working on that second Minute.  We are not done.  We work slowly not simply because of Quaker process but because of the complexity and the immensity of the subject.

Immensity and complexity seemed to numb imagination at the point of addressing the “what next” question.   To speak to the strident voices of retribution and to counter the political clout of the prison industry looms up as a labor of Herculean proportions.  Many of us have asked ourselves what talents we may offer or how much time and energy we are able to devote to such an undertaking.   As I listen, I sense that the discussion is shaped in part by images of a hero peacemaker who comes to task with extraordinary energies and focused devotion.  But have we been measuring ourselves by impossible standards?  Are we handicapped by such an ideal of the peacemaker that causes many of us to feel inadequate to the task?   In various ways, we are asking that question and coming to recognize such models of peacemaker are as likely to discourage as they are to inspire.  We seem to be asking another question: Who amongst us is not a peacemaker?  As we come to recognize the varieties of peacemakers in our small circle, we may be finding ways to help one another to move from faith and principle to practice.

Meanwhile, we are beginning to recognize specific works that are appropriate to this meeting’s size.  The Carbondale chapter of the The Three R’s Project—Reading Reduces Recidivism (www.3rsproject.org)—has been working to acquire books and transport them to regional prisons.  The handful of volunteers needs more people to collect, catalog, and move books to prisoners.  As Friends listened to a 3Rs organizer, they awakened to a path leading out of the shadow of doubt.  We are still aware of our limited abilities.  But we are exploring connections with other community groups.

Seeking for connections opens other answers to the  “what next” question.  By participating in the movement to close Tamms, we came to appreciate at a personal level how many others were concerned.   We were entering into a larger community of compassion.  With Tamms behind us, we are also learning more about the good work performed by Friends elsewhere who are addressing the prison system.  Farther north in Illinois, Quakers have been visiting prisons and bringing books.  The example and the guidance of Friends in Champaign may be helpful not only for practical reasons but, equally important, for renewing faith that we are not alone in our resolve to meet the immense and complex challenge of the prison system.

The times tremble with possibility.  If we listen carefully, we can hear a growing chorus of voices echoing our concern.  Look for a moment at Friends Journal and the recent issue (March 2012) devoted to our prisons.  If we look beyond our Meeting, we see that we are part of a larger awakening.  Consider for a moment Michelle Alexander’s New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.  This thorough and impassioned analysis has been praised for stimulating awareness of this long-festering disease.  And it has stimulated.  But by giving credit to Alexander’s work, do we forget that before the book appeared so many people were prepared to attend to her voice and to buy her book?  Alexander was not crying in the wilderness.  There were people ready to listen.  The buyers and the readers testify to the books significance.

What next?  I can only begin to imagine how the growing number of awakened souls in the nation will turn their concerns into practice.  But I think my experience in a small community at the very bottom of Illinois can inform.  While southern Illinoisans deliberated on Tamms, all the action seemed to be happening far north, 150 miles north in Springfield or another 150 miles farther north in Chicago.  I often felt as if we were on the periphery.  When asking the “what next” question, we might turn attention from the centers of power and attend to ways to support uncounted others who live in seeming isolation.  Lest such communities lose heart in the face of enormity and complexity, we might consider creating organization and  communication networks to sustain us all.  The struggle will be a long one.  This we all understand.  We will need to keep faith.  And we will need to organize our scattered communities into concerted energy.  What next?  This may be the emerging task of such groups as the ILYM Peace Resources Committee.

Honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Michael T. McPhearson is a former Executive Director of Veterans For Peace and a current board member. His volunteer social and economic justice activist work includes membership in Veterans For Peace, the Newark based People’s Organization for Progress, Military Families Speak Out, the American Civil Liberties Union and the former coordinating committee member for the Bring Them Home Now campaign against the U.S. occupation of Iraq. He is Secretary of the Saint Louis Branch of the NAACP and the founder of ReclaimtheDream.org.

Last week, Michael published an article exploring how we honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. –

I am a veteran. Sitting in the sands of Iraq in 1991, I remember how wonderful it felt to receive expressions of support from home. I once received a letter from an elementary school class and it made me feel good to know that people back home cared about me, and wanted me to safely return home. Citizens coming together to think about service members and take action to support them is a good thing, but not in the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Click here to read the full article.

The Closing of Tamms

Put simply, men were sent to Tamms to disappear.

Published by the American Civil Liberties Union, “Refusing to Disappear: Prisoners at Tamms and their Families Conducted a Sustained Advocacy Campaign to Shut this “Supermax” Down” was written by Alan Mills, Legal Director, Uptown People’s Law Center.

Click here to read his full report.

The notorious Tamms Correctional Center in Illinois officially shut its doors on January 4th, 2013. Like other “supermax” prisons, Tamms symbolized the ever more punitive, dehumanizing, and ineffective state of our criminal justice system, in which entire institutions are built to hold prisoners in extreme solitary confinement. With Tamms closed, we are one step closer to stopping solitary.

Click here to explore additional articles and reports published by ACLU.

Solitary Confinement in the United States

Thanks to AFSC for making these recordings available for additional audiences:

“Solitary Confinement & Mental Health”

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The Midwest Coalition for Human Rights, Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the National Religious Campaign Against Torture hosted Dr. Terry Kupers at a national strategic convening on solitary confinement and human rights.

Dr. Kupers is institute professor at The Wright Institute and distinguished life fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. Dr. Kupers provides expert testimony in class action litigation about the psychological effects of prison conditions, including isolated confinement in super-maximum security units, the quality of correctional mental health care, and the effects of sexual abuse in correctional settings. At this event, he discusses the psychological damage of long-term isolation and explains how the practice constitutes a human rights abuse.

“Solitary Confinement & Human Rights: An Evening of American Stories”

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Listen in as activists consider the U.S.’s use of solitary confinement. Through art and story, we look at three regionally diverse cases. Keynote speakers for this event are Robert King, activist and author, and Tessa Murphy from Amnesty International. The stories reflect on the Angola 3, California Secure Housing Units, and Tamms supermax prison.

Forty years ago, three men—the “Angola 3″—were convicted of murder and condemned to solitary confinement in Louisiana’s Angola prison. Two have remained in isolation ever since. The third, Robert King, was released after 29 years and is committed to sharing his story with the world.

Hundreds of prisoners have been confined in California’s high-security segregation units for 10 or more years in conditions of severe isolation. The issue caught the public eye when, in 2011, inmates launched a hunger strike. Tessa Murphy will share Amnesty International’s recent research on conditions in CA security housing units.

Two hundred inmates in Illinois Tamms Closed Maximum Security Unit (CMAX) languish in prolonged solitary confinement. Governor Quinn blocked funding to the facility in July, 2012, but it remains open today. The story of Tamms will be told through the “Tamms Year Ten Campaign Office” exhibit at Sullivan Galleries.

AFSC Reader’s guide: Economics matters

Compiled by Tony Heriza
Published in Quaker Action, Fall 2012

Mired in the “economic crisis,” people around the world are calling for just and sustainable economic policies at the local, national, and global levels. Members of AFSC’s program staff recommend these resources to help you understand the complex issues and imagine a more humane economic order.

You may order many of the books listed here through Quakerbooks.org.

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What’s wrong?

Economic Collapse, Economic Change: Getting to the Roots of the Crisis,” 2011
By Arthur MacEwan and John Miller

99 to 1: How Wealth Inequality is Wrecking the World and What We Can Do About It,” 2012
By Chuck Collins (also see his TEDx talk)

Inside Job,” 2010
Directed by Charles Ferguson
This documentary exposes the corruption and greed behind the crash of 2008.

JosephStiglitz.com
Find books and articles by the Nobel Prize-winning economist

Inequality and the Common Good
Data and analysis from the Institute for Policy Studies illuminate the corrosive impacts of inequality.

Visions of a different future

Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth,” 2009
By David Korten
Locally based, community-oriented economic alternatives

All Labor Has Dignity,” 2011
By Martin Luther King, Jr., edited by Michael Honey
A new collection of Dr. King’s speeches on labor rights and economic justice

America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth, Our Liberty, and Our Democracy,” 2011
By Gar Alperovitz
Democratizing our economic system from the bottom up

Breakthrough Communities: Sustainability and Justice in the Next American Metropolis,” 2009
Edited by M. Paloma Pavel
Urban strategies that benefit entire metropolitan regions, including low-income communities

Holy Cooperation!: Building Graceful Economies,” 2009
By Andrew McLeod
Theological support for cooperative economics

New Priorities Network
Works to cut military spending and increase investment in jobs and public services

The Occupy Handbook,” 2012
Edited by Janet Byrne
Essays on our economic disaster and avenues for change

The Other Game: Lessons from How Life Is Played in Mexican Villages,” 2008
By Phil Dahl-Bredine and Stephen Hicken
In some communities, sharing and inclusion are the highest values.

Click here to learn more about economics, see how you can get involved, and read select AFSC voices on the economy and related topics.