Grassroots Peace Actions Guide

Grassroots Peace 

Actions: 

A Guide for Engaging 

Communities

"Don't say it can't be done."

--Pete Seeger, “Take it from Dr. King"

"Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures."

--John F. Kennedy, Speech to United Nations, Sept. 20, 1963

Here are some suggestions for extending networks of peace actions based on work done in Bergen County, NJ and elsewhere:

1. Costs of War exhibit/posters/flyers

For example: http://janbarryphotojournal.shutterfly.com/pictures/143

2. Combat Paper/Warrior Writers workshops/events

Further information: http://www.warriorwriters.org/ and http://www.combatpaper.org/

3. Film showings/guest speakers with panel discussions

i.e: http://vetsforpeace21.blogspot.com/2011/06/poster-girl-showing-draws-crowd.html

4. Billboards with peace messages

5. Peace vigils, demonstrations and related activities

For example: http://www.mfsobergencounty.org/Local_Events.html

6. Letters to editors in local newspapers

7. Meetings with members of Congress

8. “Peace Is Patriotic” contingents in Memorial Day/ July 4th/ Labor Day/ Veterans Day/ Martin Luther King Jr. Day parades

9. Poetry/music events by war veterans, families and peace supporters

10. Resolutions to bring troops and military funding home from Afghanistan and Iraq – by municipal councils, county and state legislatures

11. Networking with community/social justice groups

12. Guest speakers in school and college classes

13. Information tables/booths at festivals and other events

14. Facebook page/website/blog on local actions for peace

Compiled by:

Military Families Speak Out, Bergen County

www.mfsobergencounty.org

Veterans For Peace, Chapter 21 NJ

vetsforpeace21.blogspot.com

“Poster Girl” Showing Draws Crowd

Robynn Murray (photo/Stefan Neustadter)

"Poster Girl,” the 2011 Oscar-nominated documentary, drew a standing-room-only crowd of more than 100 people in a recent showing at the Puffin Cultural Forum in Teaneck. The June 1 event also included a discussion with director Sara Nesson and Robynn Murray, the Iraq war veteran whose story is the focus of the film, which stirred a flurry of questions from the audience.

The 38-minute film unveils the life of a high-school cheerleader from Niagara Falls, NY who enlisted in the Army and ended up on combat patrols in Iraq, becoming a “poster girl” for women at war featured on an “Army Magazine” cover. Back home, Sgt. Murray battled the debilitating effects of post-traumatic stress disorder and other injuries.

Shot and directed by filmmaker Sara Nesson, the film focuses on a veteran’s home front journey of anguish, rage and renewal. In hand-held camera shots, it shows her frustration in seeking Veterans Affairs aid, including her medical records being lost at the Buffalo VA office. In a creative turn of events, the camera closely follows Murray as she moves from kicking car doors and punching walls to working out her own healing regime of art and poetry, symbolic displays of tattoos and feisty public speeches to lance festering war memories.

An unexpected setback, highlighted in the film, is VA medical treatments that subject veterans to astonishing amounts of medication. Murray said this caused more health problems, including addiction to morphine after surgery to repair a back injury.

“I was on 14 medications at one time, from the VA!” Murray told the Puffin audience. While some VA doctors and treatments were helpful, she said, a better approach to sustained healing was getting involved with art and writing projects sponsored by veterans groups, educational institutions and cultural centers.

“I’m doing much better now,” Murray said. “My getting involved with Combat Paper [art projects] and Warrior Writers changed my relationship with my healing. No longer was it something that happened to me. It was something that I owned.” Murray added that she discovered the writing and arts projects through involvement with Iraq Veterans Against the War.

Nesson encountered Murray at a Warrior Writers workshop on Cape Cod while making a documentary on veterans turning war memories into art. "Poster Girl" has been showcased at a number of film festivals and was selected by HBO for a cable TV run in the fall.

The showing at Puffin was cosponsored by Veterans For Peace, Chapter 21 NJ; Military Families Speak Out, Bergen County; Teaneck Peace Vigil, Bergen Grassroots, Central Unitarian Church Social Action Team, Leonia Peace Vigil Group, Bergen County Green Party, Rockland Coalition for Peace and Justice, Haiti Solidarity Network of the North East, NJ Peace Action, and People's Organization for Progress, Bergen County Branch.

Memorial Day Reflection

Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia

By Michael T. McPherson

Practically every city, town and village across the nation has at least one memorial to fallen soldiers. Many have many more than one. In the South, the deaths most honored are from the Civil War. This may hold true in the North as well. I respect and honor those who fell in battle as well as the veterans who survived war, but whom time has taken from us. It’s good to have obelisks and statues to remind us that people die in war, while acting on behalf of the United States.

Those who sacrifice and lose the most have the least to gain from war, and those who benefit the most almost always sacrifice and lose nothing. No matter my beliefs about the morality of war, the service members who died lost their lives for something bigger than themselves – whether they became soldiers to take care of their families or protect their buddies, or because they were drafted or believed in their country and the mission. We must honor that.

Spending the whole day eating and shopping is a desecration and honoring with monuments and words is not enough. To truly honor fallen soldiers requires self-reflection, questions and action. We must reflect on our part in their deaths. Are we allowing the blood of soldiers and civilians to be spilled in war because we are not willing to do the hard work of peace making? Hard work that may mean we must change our lifestyles, consume less and learn more about the world around us. Are we prepared to take any responsibility for our nation’s relationships with other countries? Are we willing to question our government's foreign policies and demand a change from domination to collaboration? Are we willing to take action to change ourselves so that our personal behavior and attitude reflects peace making rather than acceptance of war?

I believe the best way to honor those who have died in war, both combatants and civilians, is to work to abolish war. We must end the killing and suffering caused by war. This sounds idealistic because it is.

Idealism is one if the traits of humanity that sets us apart from the beast of nature. Striving for a higher purpose and looking to a higher calling brings out the best in us. If we truly want to honor those who died we must step up in an effort to ensure their death is not simply because we are too scared and selfish to take up the challenge to be better people.

This Memorial Day, after you eat, catch a sale, honor the dead at a memorial or leave flowers for a fallen solider; please take some time to reflect on what you can do to make the world more peaceful at home and abroad. Then go out and be the peace you want to see in the world.

Michael T. McPhearson was a field artillery officer in the 24th Mechanized Infantry Division during Desert Shield/Desert Storm, also known as Gulf War I. A Newark resident, McPhearson is the co-convener of United for Peace and Justice, and former executive director of Veterans For Peace.