Published by the Thomas Merton Center
PITTSBURGH’S PEACE & JUSTICE NEWSPAPER
VOL. 43 No. 4, April 2013
IN THIS ISSUE:
Source: Creative Commons
Working Across Generations Page 3
PA Can Save Billions with Single Payer Health Care Page 4
Drone Free Pittsburgh? Page 7
Student Activism Page 14
New Study: PA Single Payer Healthcare Bill Would Save $17 BILLION A YEAR!!
Molly Rush, Martin Sheen, and the Merton Center by Bette McDevitt
Table of Contents Page 2
Tax Day Rally & Penny Poll April 15 by Edith Bell
Merton Center, Molly Rush and Martin Sheen…lots of M’s, and lots of connections. Molly’s participation in the Plowshares Eight action at the General Electric plant in King of Prussia, led to her first meeting with Martin Sheen, and that was because of some “B’s:” the Berrigan Brothers, with whom Martin had spent some jail time. Martin Sheen’s upcoming visit sets the stage for a look back at Molly’s civil disobedience twenty-some years ago, which led others at the TMC to up the ante, according to Father Jack O’Malley. In the l970’s, Molly Rush, wife of Bill Rush and mother of six, became involved in civil rights issues with her parish. Within a few years, her belief that the arms race was immoral led her, hammer in hand, to enter a General Electric facility at King of Prussia, Pa., with seven others including the Berrigan brothers, Phil and Dan, both priests. On the morning of September 9, 1980, the group hammered on the nose cones of nuclear missiles manufactured at the site. Rush saw herself bearing witness to her religion, beating swords into plowshares as the prophet Amos had foretold, "I did the action to show others that ordinary people can have an impact." Her actions created quite a stir within her family and in the community. . . .
See page 15
On Monday, April 15, from noon to 2:00 pm next to the Squirrel Hill post office on Murray Avenue, the Women's international League for Peace and Freedom, Coalition for Peace Action and the American Friends Service Committee Pennsylvania (AFSC PA) will sponsor their annual educational rally and penny poll. There will be literature on the Federal Budget and an opportunity to share how you would spend your tax dollars if you were in charge. Plus songs by the Raging Grannies.
Come join us and help distribute flyers! Contact: 412-661-7149 Our tax system is skewed to benefit the wealthy. The richest people and corporations pay little or no taxes, while half of our Federal Budget is spent on current and past military. Congress is concerned about fixing the federal debt with cuts across the board. For more information about taxes and the Federal Budget...
See page 5 TMC works to build a consciousness of values and to raise the moral questions involved in the issues of war, poverty, racism, classism, economic justice, oppression and environmental justice. TMC engages people of diverse philosophies and faiths who find common ground in the nonviolent struggle to bring about a more peaceful and just world. April 2013
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East End Community Thrift
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New People Editorial Collective Robin Clarke, Rob Conroy, Ginny Cunningham, Michael Drohan, Jona Dudley, Russ Fedorka, Martha Garvey, Carol Gonzalez, John Haer, Xinpei He, Shahid Khan, Bette McDevitt, Charles McCollester, Diane McMahon, Kenneth Miller, Jonathan Reyes, Joyce Rothermel, Molly Rush, Marcia Snowden, K. Briar Somerville, Jo Tavener
TMC Staff, Volunteers, & Interns Managing Director: Diane McMahon Office Coordinator: Marcia Snowden Office Volunteers: Kathy Cunningham, Monique Dietz, Mary Clare Donnelly, RSM Jasmine Khan, Melissa Smith, James Lucius Finance Manager: Roslyn Maholland Assistant Bookkeeper: Mig Cole East End Community Thrift Store Managers: Shirley Gleditsch, Shawna Hammond, Dolly Mason Interns from local colleges and universities: Mike Deckenbach, Ying Li, Minghua He, Xinpei He, Shahid Khan, Stephanie Maben, Russell Noble, Michael Rosenberg, K. Briar Somerville
2013 TMC Board of Directors Ed Brett, Rob Conroy, Kitoko Chargois, Kathy Cunningham, Michael Drohan, Patrick Fenton, Carol Gonzalez, Mary Jo Guercio (President), Wanda Guthrie, Shawna Hammond, Ken Joseph, Edward Kinley, Chris Mason, Jonah McAllister-Erickson, Francine Porter, Joyce Rothermel, Molly Rush, Tyrone Scales, & M. Shernell Smith
TMC Standing Committees Board Development Committee Recruits board members, conducts board elections Building Committee Oversees maintenance of 5123-5129 Penn Avenue sites Development Committee Guides the strategic growth and expansion of the Center Membership Committee Coordinates membership goals, activities, appeals, and communications Editorial Collective Plans, produces and distributes The NewPeople newspaper Finance Committee Ensures financial stability and accountability of TMC Personnel Committee Oversees staff needs, evaluation, and policies Project Committee Oversees project applications, guidelines, and policies Special Event Committees Plans and oversees TMC fundraising events with members and friends Youth and Student Outreach Committee Coordinates outreach efforts with younger members of TMC
East End Community Thrift Celebrating 20 Years! This is a big year for Thrifty, twenty years strong and still growing and dedicated to service in the community! Stop by to say happy birthday and shop, volunteer, or donate from Tuesday to Friday 10-4, or Saturday from 12-4. Help us spread the love around at the East End Community Thrift Store! 412-361-6010
Table of Contents Page 1 Molly and Martin Tax Day Rally Page 3 Working Across Generations Page 4 Health Care for All Fair Budget? Page 5 Tax Time Sequestration 2 - NEWPEOPLE
Page 6 Sudan Update Lakota Project Bangladesh Update Page 7 Drone Free Pittsburgh? Opinion on Hacktivism Page 8 SOA to D.C. Don Fisher on Civil Disobedience
April 2013
For General Information about the Thomas Merton Center: www.thomasmertoncenter.org
TMC Projects:
TMC Affiliates:
Anti-War Committee info@pittsburghendthewar.org www.pittsburghendthewar.org
Allegheny Defense Project, Pgh Office 412-559-1364 www.alleghenydefense.org Association of Pittsburgh Priests Sr. Barbara Finch 412-716-9750 B.a.finch@att.net
Book‘Em: Books to Prisoners Project bookempgh@gmail.com www.thomasmertoncenter.org/bookem
Amnesty International info@amnestypgh.org www.amnestypgh.org
Capital’s End (724) 388-6258, iamholtz@iup.edu
The Big Idea Bookstore 412-OUR-HEAD www.thebigideapgh.org
CodePink: Women for Peace codepinkpgh@aol.com, 412-389-3216 www.codepink4peace.org
Black Voices for Peace Gail Austin 412-606-1408
East End Community Thrift Shop 412-361-6010, shawnapgh@aol.com
CeaseFirePA
Economic Justice Committee drohanmichael@yahoo.com
www.ceasefirepa.org
Environmental Justice Committee
Global Solutions Pittsburgh 412-471-7852 dan@globalsolutionspgh.org www.globalsolutionspgh.org
environmentaljustice@thomasmertoncenter.org
Fight for Lifers West
info@ceasefirepa.org
fightforliferswest@yahoo.com
Citizens for Social Responsibility of Greater Johnstown Larry Blalock, evolve@atlanticbb.net
http://fightforliferswest.mysite.com Formerly Convicted Citiznes Dean Williams (412) 295-8606
Haiti Solidarity Committee jrothermel@gpcfb.org 412-780-5118 www.thomasmertoncenter.org/hs
Human Rights Coalition / Fed Up (prisoner support and advocacy) 412-802-8575, hrcfedup@gmail.com www.thomasmertoncenter.org/fedup
PA United for a Single-Payer Health Care www.healthcare4allPA.org www.PUSH-HC4allPa.blogspot.com 2102 Murray Avenue Pgh, Pa 15217 412-421-4242
Marcellus Shale Protest Group melpacker@aol.com 412-243-4545
marcellusprotest.org New Economy Working Group MollyRush@verizon.net Pittsburgh Anti-Sweatshop Community Alliance 412-867-9213 Pittsburgh Campaign for Democracy NOW! 412-422-5377, sleator@cs.cmu.edu www.pcdn.org Pittsburgh Darfur Emergency Coalition jumphook@gmail.com; www.pittsburghdarfur.org Progressive Pittsburgh Notebook Call 412-363-7472 tvnotebook@gmail.com www.progressivepghnotebook.blip.tv Roots of Promise 724-327-2767, 412-596-0066 rootsofpromise@gmail.com spiritualprogressives.pgh@gmail.com School of the Americas Watch W. PA 267-980-4878 nobler@thomasmertonccenter.org
Pittsburgh Area Pax Christi 412-761-4319 Pittsburgh Committee to Free Mumia 412-361-3022 pghfreemumia@gmail.com Pittsburgh Cuba Coalition 412-563-1519 lisacubasi@aol.com Pittsburgh Independent Media Center info@indypgh.org www.indypgh.org North Hills Anti-Racism Coalition 412-369-3961 www.northhillscoalition.com Pittsburgh North People for Peace 412-367-0383 pnpp@verizon.net Pittsburgh Palestine Solidarity Committee info@pittsburgh-psc.org www.pittsburgh-psc.org Raging Grannies 412-963-7163 eva.havlicsek@gmail.com
www.pittsburghraginggrannies.homestead.com
Religion and Labor Coalition 412-361-4793 ojomal@aol.com
Urban Arts Project mbbpgh@yahoo.com Westmoreland Marcellus Citizens Group/ Roots of Promise 724-327-2767 murrysvillemarcellus@gmail.com
SW PA Bread for the World Donna Hansen 412-812-1553 United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) 412-471-8919 www.ueunion.org Urban Bikers urbanbikes@yahoo.com
Whose Your Brother? 412-928-3947 www.whoseyourbrother.com
TMC is a Member of: Pennsylvanians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty Martha Connelly 412-361-7872 osterdm@earthlink.net Pennsylvania Interfaith Impact Network 412-621-9230 office@piin.org
Page 9 Ending Hunger Haiti Update Award-Reginald Roberts Page 10 Silent Screams Review Kill Anything that Moves Review Capital’s End in April Page 11 Last Mountain Review Triple Divide Review
Indiana Film Series Page 12 & 13 Thrifty Celebrates 20 Affordable Chic Fashion Show on April 27 Page 14 Student Activism Sustainable Art No Sweat Campaign Intern Updates Page 15 RIP Brian Johnston
Veterans for Peace icwheaties@aol.com Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) Eva 412-963-7163 edith.bell4@verizon.net
New Board Member Chris Mason Molly, Martin and Merton continued from page one Page 16 Activist Calendar Membership Form—your chance to join the growing activist community in Pittsburgh.
Community Organizing Working Across the Generations by Anne E. Lynch
campaigns. Not having the years behind them of protesting, they’re I’ve frequently discussed the motivated to keep trying. There’s concept of intersectionality in my just one big problem – adults usually series of columns in The New People won’t listen to them. I’ve even heard about organizing. It’s one of my a story of one particular politician favorite words and topics. Today, who wouldn’t give the time of day to however, I’d like to take on another anyone under voting age – clearly “inter” word – one that usually goes not thinking that they may reach overlooked. Today, let’s talk about voting age some day! intergenerational work. In my recent work with teens, I Those of us who have been have found myself being infected by activists for a long time have their enthusiasm and passion for experience. We’ve seen campaigns justice. Having been involved in for social justice that have worked, various forms of activism since I was and have learned (hopefully) from eight years old, I see both sides of the ones that have not. We’ve intergenerational problems. While I marched, written letters, boycotted, still consider myself young (under lobbied, protested, and even possibly 35), I’ve been around the block more done civil disobedience and street than a few times in my activist life, theater. Some of us have grown seeing some issues seem to make no weary of having to keep doing the progress over the past two+ decades. same campaigns over and over, as, It’s easy to get fed up, but the teens for example, new challenges to in our program have helped turn women’s rights pop up. As we age, things around for me. I’m passionate other obligations sometimes stop us again, and want to make a change. from dedicating as much time to So, how can we help bridge the causes. gap between the younger activists This is where the next generation and the older activists? (or generations!) of activists come The first big step is to in. They’re younger, and have fresh, acknowledge how valuable youth innovative ideas on how to run voices are in our various movements
for justice. We will not be around forever. Neither will they. The more respect we give to youth, the more they will pass on to future generations. This street goes two ways, though. The youth, or those new to social justice work, also need to acknowledge the value in the voices of those of us who have more experience. This is not to say that we all need to agree! However, by respecting each other, and actively listening to each other, we create an environment of trust and openness. Let’s discuss listening for a moment by using a hypothetical situation. A meeting is called to launch a campaign against a new injustice. The facilitator sees a number of familiar faces, but also a fair chunk of new ones, mostly teenagers. It’s been my experience that in this case, the facilitator tends to call on those people s/he knows, leaving out the voices of the teens. Due to this type of treatment, subsequent meetings have less and less participation by new people, until it is only the familiar ones in the room. One way to address this is to have everyone wear nametags and introduce themselves before the meeting officially begins. Being addressed by name, rather than “You there, in the back,” makes a world of difference. Another tactic would be for facilitators to
make an effort to call on someone they do not know to speak first, and to ensure that they maintain a good balance between familiar and new voices. You can also show respect by asking each other what is the best way to communicate with them. The younger the audience, the more likely it is that we prefer organizing via social media rather than inperson meetings, and that we tend to prefer texts to emails. So clarify – how does the person you’re talking to wish to stay involved? Be as flexible as possible in respecting each others’ wishes, whether it’s a text, email, or old-fashioned phone call. Finally, learn from one another. For those of you new to the movement, those of us who have been active for years have great stories, and are a wealth of resources and experience. For us old-timers, we need to resist the urge to dismiss new tactics and strategies, and stop relying on “We’ve always done it this way.” The bottom line? Listen to each other. Anne E. Lynch is the Manager of Operations at Three Rivers Community Foundation. Find out more at:
The Thomas Merton Center is a proud consumer of TriEagle Energy. April 2013
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Pennsylvania Politics The Pennsylvania Health Care Plan: Impact and Implementation increased spending can be attributed to improvements in health care. Instead, the fastest growth has been in administration and billing operations - while a growing number of Pennsylvanians are by Gerald Friedman, Ph.D. without adequate health insurance or access to needed care. Senator Jim Ferlo introduced Senate Bill The Pennsylvania Health Care 400, The Family and Business Health Care and Plan (PHCP) would put the state on Security Act, in Harrisburg on March 19th which a sustainable path by controlling would establish a single payer system, known as health care costs while giving all Pennsylvania Health Care Plan. He also released citizens access to quality health a new Economic Impact Study of the bill which care. It would establish a singlewas commissioned by Health Care for All PA. payer system to finance health care The 38 page study is based on savings the bill, - paying for all necessary medical when passed, would provide in 2014. The care including hospital care, visits to legislation provides comprehensive healthcare to doctors / nurses, occupational and all Pennsylvanians through a 3% tax on physical therapy, prescription drugs, employees and a 10% tax on employers. For medical devices, medically necessary nursing information on local activities go to : www.PUSH home care and home health care. By reducing -HC4AllPA.blogspot.com. administrative costs and anti-competitive market The next meeting of PUSH/ practices, the PHCP could save $33 billion in HealthCare4AllPA will be held on Wednesday, 2014, almost 23% of existing medical spending. April 10th, at 6:15 pm at the PUSH office: 2101 These savings would allow the expansion of Murray Ave., Squirrel Hill. All are welcome to coverage to all Pennsylvania residents while still attend. You are urged to contact your state saving over $17 billion, or $1,335 per person. legislators and tell them you support SB400 and The PHCP would be funded by a 10% payroll urge them to co-sponsor the legislation : tax paid by employers and a 3% levy on income www.legis.state.pa.us paid by recipients. The shift from insurance premiums and out-of-pocket expenses to taxes Summary: linked with income would lower health care spending for over 80% of Pennsylvanians. Pennsylvania is on an unsustainable Businesses and local governments would also economic path. Health care costs are absorbing a benefit, saving on payroll costs as well as the growing share of personal income. Between 1991 premiums paid to cover the and 2009, spending on health care in the “administrative costs” associated with Commonwealth increased by $60 billion, rising nearly twice as fast as state income. Little of this private health insurance. By lowering
payroll costs, the PHCP would make Pennsylvania businesses more competitive, producing an additional 120,000 – 200,000 new jobs. <http://healthcare4allpa.org/wp-content/ uploads/2013/03/EISExecutiveSummary.pdf> Full study report (38 pages): <http://healthcare4allpa.org/wp-content/ uploads/2013/03/ EconomicImpactStudy3513.pdf> Gerald Friedman is a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts – Amherst.
CONTACT YOUR LEGISLATORS: www.legis.state.pa.us
Organizing for Fair Budget Priorities by Jo Schlesinger Are you concerned about the cuts in essential federal economic and social programs through the sequestration and deep cuts made in the current State budget? We know that people across Western Pennsylvania are already working hard across the state for fair budget priorities but we need to hear each other’s voices and support each other’s efforts. For example, Governor Corbett does not want to accept federal funding to support of Medicaid expansion through the federal Affordable Care Act. “If Pennsylvania fails to accept the opportunity to expand Medicaid, thousands of working people in this state will remain unable to access health insurance and the care they need” states Dr. Cheryl Bettigole from the National Physician’s Alliance.” According to State Senator Matt Smith, “Governor Corbett’s latest budget proposal reflects the same extreme ideology that we have seen from this administration for the last two budgets. The Governor’s two years in office have been marked by severe cuts to programs that benefit Pennsylvania’s hard working families, children and seniors. As we continue to grapple with high unemployment and slow job growth, we must address the issues facing all Pennsylvanians, particularly issues facing our most vulnerable citizens. We must invest in areas such as early childhood education, STEM programs, and school safety. Tying these programs to the sale of state assets is the wrong approach.” On the national level, the sequester cut both military and domestic programs. We know that while the Pentagon could easily absorb cuts mandated by sequestration, but social programs, already cut to the bone, cannot. The impacts of sequestration are real. The National Priorities Project finds that Pittsburgh taxpayers will pay $499.5 million of the projected FY2013 baseline Pentagon budget. That same amount could provide one year of health care to 18,127 low-income children, pay 673 4 - NEWPEOPLE
April 2013
elementary school teachers, provide 6,785 Head Start slots for children, provide VA medical care to 6,338 military veterans, 8,182 student Pell Grants, and much more. To put education in perspective, at Penn State University, the Pennsylvania share of projected Pentagon spending for FY2013, $28.1 billion, would fund all in-state expenses of a four-year education for each incoming freshman class for the next 26 years. Just the portion of the budget for weapon’s acquisition (1/4 of total Pentagon spending) is many times higher than total funding for critical domestic assistance programs. The Pentagon continues to waste billions of dollars for outdated, Cold War legacy weapons and other programs and weapons many national security experts agree are unnecessary. We could save billions annually if we: eliminate military waste and inefficiencies, end R&D and procurement of unnecessary weapons systems, dramatically reduce the nuclear warhead arsenal, eliminate two active Air Force wings and two carrier groups which are unnecessary for addressing current and probable future threats, scale back military contractors by 15% and end Foreign Military Financing. A coalition of social, environmental and peace groups based in Pittsburgh are joining with progressive groups and individuals across Western PA to build a stronger, more effective network to work for fair and just budget priorities at the federal and state level. We will be in a stronger position to demand redistribution of resources to our communities. This includes cutting the inflated Pentagon budget, and opposing state and federal tax breaks and subsidies that benefit multinational corporations and the
rich at our expense. Our goal is to organize and support citizen action through the media and in the public square, and pressure our federal and state elected officials. There is power in numbers. To the present federal and state budget crises present a challenge and opportunity to build alliances and coalitions concerned about human and community needs, public education, the environment, and peace. We all must stand up and say, Enough is enough! This country is not broke - let’s act to redistribute the wealth and create a budget that invests in people. To join our efforts, contact AFSC-PA Program Director Scilla Wahrhaftig (412)315-7423 <http://www.afsc.org/office/pittsburgh-pa > Jo Schlesinger is the Western PA Coordinator of the Coalition for Peace Action.
Federal Budget It's April and it’s Tax Time, from front page by Edith Bell
billion raised from taxing pollution and cutting environmentally harmful subsidies, taxing Wall The highest current tax rate for top incomes Street, corporations and the wealthy by $375 is 35%. Dividend and capital gains earnings are billion, and cuts in military spending of $252 taxed at 28%. In 1957 under President billion. Go to <http://www.ips-dc.org/reports> Eisenhower, all income over $200,000 was taxed for details. at 91%. Since the creation of jobs is on everybody's The question is often asked: “Why should mind, the loss of jobs by cutting military spending rich people pay more?” and a flat tax is proposed will cause major objections. The Pentagon has as fair. It is not. wisely spread its productions to almost all A person, earning $1,000 per month, pays congressional districts, so that no congressman for food, shelter, transportation, healthcare, and will vote for cuts in his/her district. The nothing is left. $100 for taxes means skimping on production of the F35, a new fighter plane, not yet meals or meds. At $10,000 per month, you can proven to work, is a $400 billion project. The manage on $9,000 without hurting, and at reasons for its relative immunity are a stark $100,000 per month, like many CEO's get, you illustration of why it is so difficult to cut the would not even notice the country’s defense difference. spending. Lockheed The Institute for Martin has spread the Policy Studies (IPS) work across 45 states recently published a — critics call it April 15 report America Is Not “political 12:00 pm to 2:00 pm Broke with specific engineering." suggestions for However, the Murray Avenue and Darlington Road potential new revenue, Federal Budget Information and Discussion Pentagon is not a big which would improve job-creator in our economy, and it comparison to other Music by the Raging Grannies includes proposals for government spending. reasonable cuts in the One billion federal military budget, which would not hurt U.S. dollars pays for 11,200 jobs in the military — or security. 16,800 jobs in clean energy Technology, or The IPS report proposes reforms for new 17,200 jobs in health care, or a whopping 26,700 revenues of $824 billion, consisting of $197 jobs in education.
Tax Day Rally and Penny Poll
The Congressional Progressive Caucus has now proposed a "Back to Work" Budget which puts the emphasis back where it belongs: the creation of seven million jobs, the preservation of the "entitlements," and full funding for domestic social programs. Deficit reduction will be achieved by increasing the number of working Americans, by raising taxes on the rich and by making reductions in the Pentagon budget. For more details: http:// cpc.grijalva.house.gov/back-to-work-budget/ It is going to be a hard battle to convince Congress, and it will involve displacement and retraining of many workers; but in the long run, there will be more people productively employed, and we'll have a more peaceful and greener world. Edith Bell coordinates the Pittsburgh branch of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and is a member and former board member of the Thomas Merton Center.
Are You Feeling the Consequences of Sequestration? By Joyce Rothermel
Last month due to the failure of Congress to act, 3% across the board cuts occurred to the 2013 federal budget for all discretionary (nonentitlement) programs. The New People would like to track some of the consequences in our region. For example, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported last month that the Allegheny County Housing Authority cut their staffing by 13 due to the federal cut to their funding allocation. Please help us report the impact by sending an e-mail to the Thomas Merton Center at: office@thomasmertoncenter.org with any information or experience you have regarding consequences to these very unfortunate and indiscriminate cuts. Some members of the House of Representatives are trying to reverse the cuts. Unfortunately the damage is already being done: for example, with the Housing Authority job cuts, unemployment for 13 people is now a reality. Thanks for your help. Read upcoming issues of The New People to find out what we have learned.
—Joyce Rothermel, Editorial Collective and TMC Board Member April 2013
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Local and Global Solidarity Sudan Update: Special Envoy Visits Pittsburgh
On
Lakota Solidarity Project Comes to Pittsburgh
by Mary Dawn Edwards Ten years have passed since a rebellion April 7: 6:30pm in Darfur in western Lakota Elders Truth Tour Sudan against the Bashir University of Pittsburgh, government’s neglect of Lawrence Hall, Room 121 the region was met savagely by the central Will you stand behind government and its the Lakota Elders? allied “Janjaweed” Join us as traditional militias. In response to Photo of Lyman’s Visit by Chelsey Engel Lakota elders from Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota speak out the news of atrocities on the world stage to end the genocide of their people and reclaim committed against civilians, including bombing Feb. 27, 2013, PDEC, their traditional matriarchal leadership. Listen to the elders share their and burning of villages, mass murder, and rape, the Ford Institute for stories of resistance. activists in Pittsburgh founded the Pittsburgh Human Security at the Learn the truth from Lakota elders and activists in the Darfur Emergency Coalition (PDEC). University of groundbreaking documentary Red Cry about genocide in “America.” Over the ensuing years, the conflict has Pittsburgh’s Graduate Join the growing grassroots campaign of people around the slowed. Still, an estimated 300,000 survivors live School of Public and world to end the genocide of the Lakota people. Everyone is in refugee camps in Chad, and 2,000,000 International Affairs, welcome. internally displaced survivors live in camps in members of the local Darfur with limited access to humanitarian aid. Sudanese Diaspora Thank you so much for your help. President Bashir and other government officials community and —Thembi Blessington of the Lakota Solidarity Project have been indicted by the International Criminal Pittsburgh City Court for crimes against humanity but remain in Council welcomed Website: LakotaGrandmothers.org power. In response to rebellion in the states of Ambassador Trailer for the documentary: LakotaGrandmothers.org/media Blue Nile and South Kordofan, bordering the Princeton Lyman, For more information, contact Pat: <pat@thundermtlenape.org> newly independent South Sudan, Bashir’s outgoing Special government has repeated the tactics used in Envoy to Sudan and Darfur, with bombing of villages and massive South Sudan, to Pittsburgh. displacement of civilians, and has refused to City Council, whose members supported hostile relationship at present, he thinks a allow any civilian access to humanitarian aid in divestment of city pension funds from companies return to war is unlikely. rebel held areas. doing business with the government of Sudan, There is an extreme lack of trust between the Responding to exorbitant fees charged by presented the ambassador with a proclamation. governments of Sudan and South Sudan and the Sudanese government for transport of oil Amb. Lyman thanked city council members and between the government of Sudan and through its territory and alleged pilfering of oil local activists for their concern for the people of opposition groups that makes implementation from supplies meant for sale, the South Sudanese Sudan and said that activists play an important of any agreements very difficult; building government shut down its oil extraction, its main role in reminding diplomats of the needs of the trust will take many years and outside help. source of income, despite its continuing poverty. people whose lives are affected by their U.S. diplomats deal with Sudanese Negotiations between the two governments, with negotiations. He also spoke with students, faculty, government officials but do not deal directly international involvement, including the U.S. and activists and Sudanese Diaspora members at the with President Bashir because of the ICC China, the main customer for Sudanese oil, have Ford Institute and made the following points: indictment. produced an agreement which has not yet been He considers the relatively peaceful The U.S. government has offered to establish implemented. separation of South Sudan a remarkable an educational exchange program with the achievement; although the two Sudans have a government of Sudan despite trade sanctions. wary and So far, the Sudanese have not responded. South Sudan has arable land as well as oil and has good potential for production of adequate food but lacks infrastructure to distribute it and needs massive aid to develop its resources and civil society. The U.S. has spent $10 billion for peacekeeping, humanitarian aid and development in the two Sudans, including The National Garment $7.5 billion in Darfur, but the cost of Workers Federation of continued instability and possible escalation Bangladesh (NGWF) to a regional conflict would be even higher. hosted an President Obama continues to place a high International priority on resolving the conflicts in Sudan Women's Day and will appoint a new special envoy.
International Women’s Day in Bangladesh
(March 8) protest in Bangladesh; a parade that began at the High Court in Dhaka, marched through the garment sector, and concluded at the office of the NGWF. Garment Workers are demanding that the law providing for maternity leave be enforced and that the amount of time be increased from 4 to 6 months for private sector garment workers. They also demanded safe workplaces, living wages and access to childcare. Eighty-five per cent of the 3.6 million garment workers in Bangladesh are women.
Photo - NGWF President Amirul Haque Amin. - New People Editorial Collective
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April 2013
We, members of PDEC, hope that continued US and international efforts to negotiate an end to these conflicts will result in a stable Sudan and South Sudan, where the people can live in peace and security. For more information about our group, please see <www.pittsburghdarfur.org>. We usually meet in meeting room C of the Squirrel Hill Library at 5:30 p.m. on the first and third Thursdays of each month; for a schedule of meetings and other events, please see the TMC events calendar. Mary Dawn Edwards is a member of the Pittsburgh Darfur Emergency Coalition .
Technology Consequences drones can stay in the sky for as long as 20 hours and are being by Scilla Wahrhaftig deploy unmanned drones to kill equipped with rubber bullets and tasers. Americans on American soil if they are There are contracts between the In February, by resolution of City suspected terrorists. Department of Defense and companies Council, Charlottesville Virginia Drones are already being deployed that are developing facial recognition became the first city in the country on the border and some police technology for use on drones that will be banning drones. The resolution means departments already have drones. able to identify individual people easily. that Charlottesville will be a no-drone Montgomery County, Texas has They are also talking about high tech zone and the use of drones for purchased a Vanguard Shadow Hawk sensors that can see through walls. surveillance and other uses will not be with money from Homeland Security The reality is that drones are here to permitted. which is equipped with sophisticated stay whether we like it or not. Some of As we consider the increased use of cameras and capable of firing rubber them will be used for harmless domestic drones by the United States to target bullets, ejecting tear gas canisters and use in mapping or farming, but in a potential terrorists overseas and the launching taser projectiles. culture where surveillance is becoming impact on people in the countries where The recent decision by the Federal the norm we must put in place ways to they are being used, we also need to be Aviation Administration to open our protect society. The ACLU has issued a aware of their increased use in this skies up to drones has meant that report recommending the following country and what that will mean for US thousands of applications from police safeguards: citizens. There is deep concern about departments, corporations and USAGE LIMITS: Drones should be President Obama’s claim to be able to universities have been filed. The deployed by law enforcement only with requests are for a warrant, in an emergency, or when drones of every there are specific and articulable grounds size from ones as to believe that the drone will collect small as a evidence relating to a specific criminal hummingbird to act. ones the size of DATA RETENTION: Images should those being used be retained only when there is overseas and for reasonable suspicion that they contain all sorts of evidence of a crime or are relevant to an purposes. The ongoing investigation or trial. FAA predicts that POLICY: Usage policy on domestic 30,000 of these drones should be decided by the public’s will fly representatives, not by police domestically in departments; and the policies should be less than 20 years. clear, written, and open to the public. P. JAMIOL/BFP Some of these
Can We Make Pittsburgh a Drone Free City?
OPINION: Why Hacktivism? by Alex Silady The prevailing myth has been that in the beginning, the Internet was a wild place, free and lawless. That even if no other form of media could escape interference and regulation, the Internet was simply too vast and not wellunderstood enough for governments or corporations to put a stranglehold on it. In truth, the Internet is no different than any other medium of expression, just as vulnerable to stagnation and censorship. Today, media corporations such as Disney, Time Warner, and Viacom are pushing for copyright legislation that would allow them to shut down any website that hosts even tiny pieces of their “intellectual property” for discussion. The Chinese government is forcing search engines and social networking sites to hide the truth about its human rights abuses from its own citizens. The friends and advocates of free speech ought to deplore and aim to prevent such behavior, which is why they must maintain a robust presence on the Internet. The Internet is made of nothing more or less than lines of binary code computer language consisting of ones and zeroes - stored in a physical locus on servers around the world. The varicolored banner of Google, its search box, and all of the links it finds are ultimately nothing more than those two digits in specific combinations. What we think of as websites can be changed and broken down simply by changing a few values in that source code. When this is
done as an act of creation, it is called programming or website building. When it is done disruptively or destructively, it is called hacking. Some activists use hacking as a tactic to disrupt the web presence of institutions they oppose - such as, indeed, Viacom or the government of China. Hence, we have one of the great portmanteau-neologisms of recent years: hacktivism. The hacktivists has at their disposal a medium that can reach a worldwide audience, with no limitations on physical space as there would be in print. They also have the ability to send a message by defacing or shutting down websites -- protest graffiti on a global scale, such as briefly turning the home page of the government-sanctioned Chinese version of Google into the photo of the Tank Man from the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Anyone with Internet access and a bit of technical curiosity can participate. These merry pranks are visible for hours, minutes, or mere seconds before the websites are restored to normal by their administrators, but they’re not easily forgotten. We are making our voices heard while still in our pajamas in bed. Hacktivists seek to draw a clear distinction between their activities and those of malicious hackers. They believe that people should be able to access the Internet not only without censorship, but without fear. Identity theft, bank fraud, and other forms of stealing are anathema to their mission, and hacktivists will often go after East European or Asian organized crime syndicates that
endeavor to rob from private citizens en masse through the theft of online account information. The hacktivist pursues change by targeting the institution, not the individual. One inclusive hacktivist tactic employs a popular stress-tester program. This application was originally designed to test how many users can get on a website at once without causing it to crash, but hacktivists have repurposed this program for denial-of-service attacks. This means users of this program can use their computers as conduits of essentially useless information that a targeted server must process until it is overrun. The kind of traffic generated by one user’s trafficstress “blast” will not do much. But multiple users can all use the program to target the same server at once; given the effort involved in coordinating and executing such an attack, this is hardly done without good reason. If ten thousand irate activists contribute their computing power to a raid on a site, momentarily bringing down the server of a single oppressive institution, even this simple and crude hack becomes an expression of a collective will. The tools of hacktivism are often quite elegant - there is a kind of beautiful irony in the example of the program designed to monitor server stress that can also overstress servers. But it also
ABUSE PREVENTION & ACCOUNTABILITY: Use of domestic drones should be subject to open audits and proper oversight to prevent misuse. WEAPONS: Domestic drones should not be equipped with lethal or non-lethal weapons. Now is the time to put in place what safeguards we can against the use of drones in our city. It is time for us to call on our City Council to join Charlottesville and make Pittsburgh a no -drone city. "The Obama administration's
unapologetic rationale for using drones to kill U.S. citizens sends a clear and urgent message about the need to limit the government's use of these devices domestically. We cannot afford to be lulled into a sense of complacency by legislation placing temporary moratoriums on drones. As with other weapons of war which have become routine weapons of compliance domestically, such as tasers and sound cannons, once drones are unleashed on the American people, there will be no limiting their use by government agencies." —John W. Whitehead, President , The Rutherford Institute Scilla Wahrhaftig is the Program Director of the American Friends Service Committee PA program.
gains a kind of undeniable clarity from its mass-participation nature. Institutions’ websites are big, wellmaintained, and complex, and it takes a great number of brave and clever people to manifest change in them. Hacktivism is a form of protest that involves no physical violence, but makes its point through subversive, dramatic, and cunning spectacle meant to draw attention to the issues of censorship that plague the Internet and the world at large. Alex Silady is a journalism student who likes the Internet and activism. He lives in New York and doesn’t get enough sleep.
April 2013
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Civil Disobedience Don Fisher Reflects on Civil Disobedience
SOA Watch Delegation to Lobby in D.C. By Russell Noble
by Bette McDevitt
The School of the Americas has
Father Don Fisher, a founding member of the Merton Center, had a habit of taking long walks along Braddock Avenue in East Hills to prepare the sermons for his congregation at Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament. As he did that one day after the Plowshares Eight, including Molly Rush, hammered on the nose cones of two warheads, poured blood on documents and prayed for peace at a General Electric facility in King of Prussia, he felt that he was being called to participate in civil disobedience. "Not everyone feels they need to do it, but I did." Fisher remembers that he was frightened before the first time, at the White House. “I had a long time admiration for Martin Luther King Jr. and Dorothy Day. They influenced me and taught me much about nonviolence and civil disobedience. “Personally doing non-violent civildisobedience acts, however, was another matter altogether. Fear held me back- fear of being in jail, fear of being confined in a cell, even fear of being handcuffed. The fear of handcuffs went back to early childhood when, in the midst of ordinary 'rough-housing' with siblings and friends, I always experienced a special disdain for being held down and not being able to move my arms. But after that first time, civil disobedience freed me to think about doing it again, and to think of the reasons we would be doing it." Fisher took part in civil disobedience several times in Pittsburgh. "I remember a rally in Trinity Episcopal Church. There was a 'die-in' during the liturgy, to bring to Bette McDevitt is a member of The New mind the horrors of nuclear war. People People editorial collective. were falling all over the aisles, writhing in pain, and yelling for their children. The church was packed. It was powerful and it made me cry. It touched me so much, that when I had the opportunity to be part of a 'die-in' to mark the 40th anniversary of Hiroshima, in August of 1985, at Rockwell, I did it. We got all dressed up in white faces and black outfits, and —Frank J. Correnti the police were marshaled in front of the door. It was during the week and there were plenty of There was a night when Anne Feeney people there. Everybody was was singing an inflammatory song watching from the windows and I couldn't bring myself to sing along. above. There was somber music It was just like the trumpets were blowing and people in ghost-like outfits
long been a thorn in U.S.Latin American relations. A training facility for Latin American officers and soldiers, the SOA has consistently churned out graduates who have returned to their home countries to commit human rights abuses. It serves as a policy tool for the United States by empowering regimes that further U.S. economic and military interests while enabling coups against regimes the U.S. sees as hostile. The SOA was established in Panama in 1946 and has since moved to Fort Benning, Georgia and taken on a new name—The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation—but the devastating consequences of its teachings for those who would uphold peace and justice in Latin America remain. In response to the staggering record of massacres, extrajudicial killings, kidnapping, and extortion committed by SOA graduates, School of the Americas Watch was founded in 1989. The purpose of this nonprofit is to close down the School of the Americas and express solidarity with its graduates’ victims in Latin America. It accomplishes this by educating the public, lobbying representatives in Congress, and meeting with Latin American political leaders. Every Congressional session since 1993 has seen a bill in the House of Representatives containing measures to cut funding to and/or thoroughly investigate the actions of the SOA. Only one of these bills has succeeded, in 1999, in closing down the SOA, but only two Freedom of Conscience Before Vatican Council II (1962-64) in the Catholic Church, the idea persisted that ‘error’ had no rights. Thanks to the work of Fr. John Courtney Murray, SJ the Council passed a Declaration on Religious Freedom that taught that all people have the right and duty to follow their conscience. People have a right to freedom of conscience. This was addressed to governments that tried to impose one religion, or ban all religions. But it was also addressed to the Church and all religions. It is part of the dignity and rights of all human beings to have freedom of conscience.
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years later, the nearly identical WHINSEC was established. Thus, the Congressional battle for Latin American human rights still has plenty of ground to cover. Our current session of Congress may be the first to see an anti-SOA bill introduced in the Senate. Pursuant to this interest, Pittsburgh’s own chapter of SOA Watch will be travelling to Washington, D.C. to lobby our Pennsylvania Senators as part of SOA Watch’s April Days of Action We will also be joining thousands in an Immigration Reform rally directed by the Service Employees International Union. Join us on April 10th as we participate in the democratic process, unite with our sister chapters from across the nation, and fight to close the School of the Americas. For more information, contact Russell Noble, President of SOA Watch Pittsburgh, by phone at 267-9804878 or by email at nobler@thomasmertoncenter.org. Russell Noble is the chair of the local chapter of SOA Watch Pittsburgh and intern at the Thomas Merton Center. His work with the Center will leave an indelible mark far into the future.
From Vatican Council II:
Was I Ever in the Silent Minority?
Association of Pittsburgh Priests
Declaration on Religious Freedom
“Many pressures are brought to bear upon the people of our day, to the point where the danger arises lest they lose the possibility of acting on their own judgment. On the other hand, not a few can be found who seem inclined to use this name of freedom as a pretext for refusing to
dropped to the ground. We kept slithering toward the front door and the police line kept moving back. We just kept coming. All I could see were shoes and legs. We were on the ground crawling around like snakes. We managed to get in the front door. It was a powerful demonstration for which we were arrested. We were sentenced to five days in jail if we refused to pay the fine, and, of course, we refused to pay the fine. Women went to the East End, and the men went to the downtown county jail and then were transferred to Kittanning, where we spent five days. It was very liturgical and ritualistic in the broader sense." Fisher always told his congregation about the actions. "I welcomed those experiences as opportunities to preach and teach. I wanted to tell them what I was doing and why, saying, 'This is who I am.' You could talk about anything in that parish after a while." Fisher recalled that Bishop Leonard never said a word about these priests being carted off to jail."I think down deeply they had a sense of pride that we were involved, and what were they going to do anyway? Clearly, we were on the right side of history." “It was, to a great extent,” Fisher said, “the example of Molly Rush, Phllip and Daniel Berrigan and The Plowshares Eight that encouraged me in the early 80's to face some of these fears head-on. When I did they began to lose some of their power over me. That was a good lesson to me back then. I'm very grateful. I am grateful, too, that the lesson continues to teach me.”
submit to authority and for making light of the duty of obedience. (An important goal is to have a well formed conscience.) This doctrine of freedom has its roots in divine revelation.”
and I decided to walk right out the door. It was in the mainstream of the movement, after Bill Clinton called. To give our energies and intelligence where injustice was being carried on. Would I sometimes have the courage to raise my voice? Does the Harley travel with his throat up the street? I have watched and marched with many who don't disavow the past. And it is the present we live in and have to change.
Frank Correnti is an old-timer who has long been a fan of the Merton Center.
Helping Hands table during the continuous budget negotiations, to by Donna Hansen implore Congress to maintain funding The Good for the programs that benefit the Shepherd Lutheran hungry and poor, and to approach the Church in Monroeville budget talks in a balanced fashion, was the venue for an informative Bread for the including proposals for new sources of revenues World workshop on March 3, 2013. Larry Hollar, at the same time that spending cuts are sought. Senior Regional Organizer for Bread, introduced A new and exciting part of Bread's the 22 participants to the 2013 Offering of Letters Offering of Letters this year is a separate Petition theme, which is "A Place at the Table". Larry asking President Barack Obama to make a discussed the current political landscape in commitment to end hunger by working with Washington D.C. and urged all participants to Congress in a bipartisan fashion. Larry indicated conduct an Offering of Letters at their place of that this is the first time Bread has ever asked its worship or organization, ideally this spring. members to sign a petition and that it is aiming to Writing letters, especially hand-written letters, to obtain 100,000 signatures. For more information our national Senators and Representatives, is a about the Petition and the Offering of Letters, powerful way to get their attention. The focus of please go to: www.bread.org/2013. the 2013 Offering of Letters is to ensure that the The workshop also included a visit by voices of the hungry and poor are included at the Congressional Staffer Chris Rosselot to
An Invitation to End Hunger in 2013
underscore Senator Bob Casey's support of issues pertaining to the hungry and poor and to discuss Senator Casey's move to the influential Finance Committee. Sheila Christopher from Hunger Free PA talked about state programs that feed the hungry in Pennsylvania, and Dr. Bob Dove enlightened the participants on issues to consider when conducting a letter writing campaign. The workshop ended with a discussion of Immigration and a brief showing of the DVD "We Are All Immigrants" by Sister Jeanette Bussen, CSJ. If interested in learning more about the Regional Bread Team, all are invited to our next Regional Bread planning meeting on Wednesday, April 24 at 10 AM at Christian Associates. Inquiries can also be made by contacting me at 412-812-1553 or at donna.hansen@verizon.net Donna Hansen is Co-Chair of the Regional Bread for the World Team and a member of Waverly Presbyterian Church.
Haiti: Recovery and Foundation Building Update by Tianna Ren Damage by the Earthquake Three years after the earthquake in Haiti, almost 360,000 people still live in tent cities in nearly 500 camps and informal sites scattered around Port-au-Prince. Thousands more live in transitional housing, a vast improvement over the tents, but still far from a permanent solution. Daily life remains a struggle for Haitians, whether one lives in a home that survived the earthquake undamaged or is trapped in a “temporary” tent shelter three years after the deadly tremor. Perpetrator Brought to Justice Jean-Claude Duvalier returned to Haiti from 25 years exile in France in January 2011, a year after the earthquake. He was then indicted by the Haitian authorities for embezzlement, theft of public funds, and crimes against humanity- including torture, executions, arbitrary detention and enforced disappearances- carried out between 1971 and 1980. Former Haitian dictator JeanClaude “Baby Doc” Duvalier’s case for crimes against humanity is currently up for appeal. The Bureau des Avocats International (BAI) and the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) lawyers are working hard to help a group of survivors and families of victims of torture, illegal executions and enforced disappearances during Duvalier’s time in power (1971-1986) request that the court overturn a previous decision not to investigate the former leader’s alleged responsibility for the crimes due to the expiration of the statute of limitations. Solidarity and Advocacy BAI, the largest and most successful public interest law firm in Haiti, and the IJDH, a Bostonbased human rights nonprofit, work with the people in Haiti in their nonviolent struggle for the consolidation of constitutional
democracy, justice and human rights and solidarity groups in Haiti and abroad.
national government, U.S. policy makers, and the international banking and development communities for policies that support rather than undermine Struggle to Normalcy In Haiti’s struggle to normalcy, Haitian rice farmers. When Haiti millions of dollars were invested in dropped its tariffs from 50 percent the renovation and the to 3 percent, the national rice modernization of Port-au-Prince’s industry collapsed. Now, more Toussaint Louverture International than 80 percent of the rice Airport. Yet it is hard to discern consumed in Haiti is imported. the scope of impact of these Reviving the rice industry is investments as the redistributive crucial for people who live in rural channel for money was not areas of Haiti. Fifty percent of transparent because of political Haitians suffer from corruption. In addition, many of malnourishment. the pledges for recovery have gone unfulfilled. Immigration U.S. Citizen and Immigration Fonkoze: Economic Foundation Services (USCIS) granted Haitians temporary protected status for Democracy The Fonkoze (shoulder to following the 2010 earthquake. On shoulder) Foundation headed by October 1, 2012, the U.S. extended Fr. Joseph Phillipe and Anne Temporary Protected Status (TPS) Hastings is a Haitian commercial for Haitians in the U.S. to July 22, microfinance institution that takes 2014, protecting Haitian nationals profitable branches and well-tested from deportation. Haitians with products from Fonkoze and TPS have two months for preexpands them to hundreds and registration. But Hurricane Sandy, thousands of Haitians, especially which struck the U.S. in late those in rural, hard to reach areas. October, shut down the Its mission is to build an economic administrative infrastructure of foundation for democracy in Haiti. regions where many Haitians in The fact that Haitians learned the U.S. reside. Thanks to the how to organize themselves collective work of IJDH and a politically but didn’t know how to broad range of advocates, USCIS organize themselves economically announced on December 27, 2012, was the major consideration for the that they would extend the reestablishment of Fonkoze. For registration period to January 29, people in Haiti, lack of money 2013. This extension helped many means lack of food, health care, Haitians follow the procedures clean water, and justice. The idea that allow them to live and work in of microfinance is the the United States. empowerment of people to gain access to low-interest loans so they Pittsburgh Regional Haiti can become more successful Solidarity Committee entrepreneurs. One way to be in solidarity with One arm of Fonkoze is a the people of Haiti is to become a Haitian commercial institution member of the Pittsburgh Regional which offers the Haitians a safe Haiti Solidarity Committee, an place to keep their money. It not affiliate of the Thomas Merton only gives loans, but also provides Center. Please contact Joyce money transfer services. Many Rothermel at 412-780-5118. Haitians around the world send money home to family members who depend on them. Tianna Ren is an intern serving with the Pittsburgh Haiti Revitalize Rice Economy in Haiti Solidarity Committee. Oxfam is advocating with the
Reginald Roberts Receives Social Work Award by Jonathan Reyes Reginald "Reggie" Roberts, a member of B-PEP, the Coalition Against Violence, Ceasefire PA and several other non-profit organizations, recently received the David E. Epperson Award, named for the late longtime Dean of the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Social Work. Reggie works tirelessly, but not for any man or reward. "I'm not looking for a 'good job', 'thank you', or 'award', I can't take none of that stuff with me when I've gone to glory," explains Reggie. He does it because that is simply where god has set his heart, which he wears on his sleeve as he asks an audience to hug their children when they go home from uncle "Reg" or grandpa, part of his pledge to look at all children as his own especially after Sandy Hooks tragedy. "I'm old school and people don't like the fact that I don't know how to sugarcoat. I tell it how it is, but I'm a big teddy bear, and the easiest way to hurt me is through my kids." The solemn words left a gloss in the eyes of many, even people like me who have heard the story before. A gentle giant with harmless values in troubled times, Reggie testifies his life and heart to anyone within reach or reason and gives all glory to God. The late David E. Epperson was a well known black social worker, or as Pittsburgh liked to call him, a social reformer. His goal was to eliminate the problems he ran into as he pursued his career to pave the way for future diverse social workers. Rising in his deep-casted and humbled shadow were hundreds of non -profit organizations from Pittsburgh, with a reach extending as far as Bangkok. Rising to receive Talk Magazine's Black History Month Merit Award was David E. Epperson’s daughter and well known Journalist, Sharon Epperson, who spoke in honor of her father. Also receiving awards for their outstanding community work were William Anderson, Rev. Maureen Cross Bolden, Matthew Moore Jr., and Brenda Tate. Jonathan Reyes is a member of the Editorial Collective as well as a member of Coalition Against Violence, B-PEP and CeaseFirePA. April 2013
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Arts and Culture Film Screening: Silent Screams by Edith Bell The Drones Can't Hear the Groans of People Dying on the Ground. Do We? Join us to view the powerful film Silent Screams on Sunday, April 7, at 1:30PM at the Thomas Merton Center, 5129 Penn Avenue. This gripping new documentary film deftly interweaves the lives of Iranian, Afghani and Pakistani villagers with the
hardships of countless Americans whose vital needs remain unmet as a result of America's spiraling military spending. In 35 minutes, Silent Screams echoes the desperation around the globe for victims without a voice, and examines the crucial question "What is real security?" "Silent Screams” is a carefully calibrated broadside aimed directly at the ignorance,
disinformation, crimes, and excesses that characterize the U.S. government's so-called Global War on Terrorism, rebranded by the Obama administration as Overseas Contingency Operations,” writes Michael Gillespie in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. The film showing is sponsored by the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and
the Anti-War committee of the Thomas Merton Center. There will be time for discussion after the screening, and it will be followed by the biweekly Anti-War Committee meeting. Contact: 412-661-7149 Edith Bell is a member of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.
Book Review: Kill Anything that Moves by Michael Drohan Kill Anything that Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam by Nick Turse,
operations of that war. Jonathan Schell, who Metropolitan Books, 2013 reported on the Nick Turse has war for the written a truly extraordinary New York history of the Vietnam War Times, states such as we’ve never read nor that this book, like no other seen on the big screen or of the 30,000 written on TV. The events, the subject, reveals the painstakingly researched and unspeakable truth about recorded, happened more what occurred. than 50 years ago. When one speaks of the Turse sees the war primarily through the lens of the war in Vietnam, especially its seamy side, many are aware of testimonies of its victims, Vietnamese men, women and the My Lai massacre when Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, children. This is not an easy read. In page after page he 20th Infantry, killed 500 Vietnamese men, women and describes mind-numbing cruelty, disregard for life, torture, children in cold blood on March 16, 1968. even sadism, utter disrespect for the Vietnamese people. Journalist Seymour Hersh and Vietnam veteran The title, “Kill Anything that Moves,” is from Ron Ridenhour in 1969, brought that horror to light. Turse, Captain Ernest Medina, commanding officer at My Lai’s however, finds a downside to this revelation in that My Lai directive. It’s similar to many orders for search and destroy came to be seen as the exception in an otherwise just enterprise, and that Sgt. William Calley was just one rotten apple in a barrel of good apples. Turse documents how the entire barrel was rotten with massacres that took place all over Vietnam, from North —R/B Mertz to South and in varying intensities throughout the war. Its excruciating detail challenges one’s belief in the goodness of human nature. based on a poem by Sylvia Plath As Turse depicts the continuous stream of atrocities that the tortured people of Vietnam endured, he attempts to Capitalism surfs around my house. delve into the mindset of those who executed the war - from Damn Capitalism, he looks so nice! the very top to the grunt on the ground. At the top, namely the The blue and red jewels of his flags smoke President, his Cabinet and the Congress, there was a In the windows, the bodies complete ignorance of Vietnamese history or the people’s Are filling with teeth. aspirations that led to their prolonged anti-colonial struggle, first against the French and then the Americans. What is so real as the cry of an American? They sought freedom from colonial rule and An Arab’s cry may be wilder economic exploitation. The U.S., stepping into the shoes of But it has no english. the French, superimposed another narrative on this Corn can cure everything, so Capitalism says, reality, namely the fight against evil communism. In a Corn is a necessary ingredient, sense, the U.S. was fighting a figment of its own fears Its syrups a little medicine. and imaginings. O capitalism, capitalism Hubris was written large, especially in Sweetly picking up pieces! technocrats such as Secretary of Defense Robert My Chinese tea, desperate white patient, McNamara, who guided the war. They perceived U.S. May be burned any minute, anesthetizing. superior weaponry and military power as a force that no poor peasant country could match. Despite years of And here you come, purchasing coffee persistence in the struggle, the eventual defeat of our Wreathed in paper. invading army was incomprehensible to army brass. The blood jet is poetry, In accord with their technocratic approach, the There is no stopping it. high command introduced a particularly perverse You hand me two animals, two remotes. measure of success, namely the body count. Battalions and companies were assessed, promoted and rewarded by the number of kills or body counts. The result was catastrophic. Hundreds of thousands of peasant men, R/B Mertz is a poet and writing teacher women and children were murdered in order to up the living in East Liberty who self-publishes body count of a given unit. at lifeandpoems.tumblr.com A perverse mindset prevailed, describing the people as “gooks,” “dinks,” or “slopes,” scarcely 10 - NEWPEOPLE April 2013
Capitalism
Source: Creative Commons
worthy of being treated as human beings. The U.S. soldiers came to Vietnam, supposedly, to liberate the people of Vietnam, but they faced a prevailing mentality that saw them as sub-human. Victory in such an enterprise makes no sense to any rational mind. The book raises thousands of still unanswered questions. Perhaps most important: how could a country believing itself to be guided by principles of decency have permitted such savagery to continue for over a decade? More disturbing: what might prevent a repetition of such atrocities? Alas, the experience of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars suggest that little was learned. In 2010, systems analyst Bradley Manning released to Wikileaks a video of the July 12, 2007, killing of 12 Iraqis including a Reuters correspondent in a Baghdad neighborhood. He described the action of the aerial team as exhibiting “bloodlust,” somewhat like a sadistic game of “killing ants underneath a magnifying lens.” The question that nags: was this event the My Lai of the Iraqi War, that is, one of countless similar events all over Iraq? Reading Turse’s book was for me both excruciating and salutary. I say salutary in that it fortified my opposition to the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and is Pakistan, Syria and the preparations for war and the economic strangulation of Iran. I fear that if Iraq and Afghanistan are anything to go by, we can expect a tragic sequel to this book. Michael Drohan is a board member of TMC and co-chair of the Editorial Collective.
Films for Activists April Environmental Justice Film Series The Price of Sand, The Last Mountain, and Triple Divide by Wanda Guthrie
The Last Mountain
The message of The Last Mountain is that it is Event details to be announced: Join the email list at the Thomas Merton Center to receive an update not enough to simply be outraged anymore. We are all users of the electricity and power that is generated on the time and place, or visit from the sacrifices of Appalachia residents and <EnvironmentalJusticeTMC.blogspot.com> miners. The imagery of environmental devastation is so shocking, the deregulation and egregious indifference of the coal mining companies’ various violations so appalling, that we begin to feel somehow complicit in perpetrating this modern American tragedy. Ordinary people, banded together in a common purpose, can indeed move mountains. And sometimes, they can even save them. The Earth Quaker Action Team (EQAT) has identified an age-old way to Source: Creative Commons address civic action. Civil disobedience is the response of ordinary people to Jim Tittle received a call from his mother two extraordinary injustices. years ago that an open-pit frack sand mine was being “American Quakers have considered for an area he remembered fondly from his historically been at the forefront of civil and human youth. “It really threw me for a loop,” said Tittle, and rights issues, and climate change is no exception,” he then set off with a video camera to research the explains EQAT executive issue of frac sand mining. His work culminated into director Amy Ward Brimmer. the documentary film The Price of Sand. “Spurred by our moral The documentary features interviews with conscience and sense of shared people on both sides of the frac sand debate, from responsibility to help right the wrongs of our society – displaced homeowners to drivers who found work slavery, child labor, suffrage, segregation, marriage with mining companies. The goal of the film was to equality and immigrant rights, to name just a few – we raise awareness of the human impact of frac sand have a tradition of engagement in mining, Tittle said. “I want people to see other creative nonviolent resistance. peoples’ stories. Wherever I could find a person Climate change threatens the affected by this, I’d go there and talk to them.” health and security of all Tittle first traveled to mines in Wisconsin, resulting in a series of YouTube videos that garnered Americans, and action proportional to the problem is more than 10,000 views in the summer of 2011. But he did not stop there. “I came to realize I could either required–now.” make more YouTube videos or explore the issue Lou Martin, a deeper,” Tittle said — and explore he did. The Price of participant in EQAT actions, will Sand is the result of his exploration. be leading questions and answers when the Environmental At our April film presentation, Linda Three Crows Meadowlark, resident of both LeSueur County, Justice Committee TMC sponsors a screening of The Last Wisconsin, and Pittsburgh will talk about sand mine Mountain in April. activism.
The Price of Sand
NorbergHodge believes that the success of local, by Colleen Donovan sustainable economies can be measured by On Friday, February 22, the Indiana the Genuine Progress Index (GPI) which County Center for Community Growth, a accounts for “human, community, and social grassroots progressive organization, wealth” (2012, Para 20). By means of the launched its film series with The Economics GPI, local communities have the opportunity of Happiness (2011) at the Indiana Theater. to focus on their personal wealth and The event was co-sponsored by The happiness as measured in terms of prosperity Thomas Merton Center of Pittsburgh. and well-being. The film, written and directed by Organizers for the Center for Helena Norberg-Hodge, Steven Gorelick Community Growth chose to show this film and John Page, discusses how globalization in order to initiate a community-wide by transnational corporations has wreaked discussion about organizing to improve havoc on much of the world’s economies standards of living in the area.. More than through the use of deregulation and mass 100 people attended the event. trade. In her film, Helena Norberg-Hodge During intermission, Center organizers calls for the creation of localized economies G. Smith and Eric Barker led a panel on how as a solution to globalization, suggesting that to bring ideas of localization and we create a system in which goods and sustainability to Indiana County and services are produced to fulfill real human Southwestern PA. needs, rather than based on ideas of Panelist Molly Rush of The Thomas consumption and growth, in order to Merton Center described the TMC’s new generate stronger, more self-sufficient mapping project that will help identify the communities around the world. many localization projects throughout the
Movement-Building Film Series at Indiana County Center
Triple Divide Through personal stories, experts and public documents, Triple Divide tells a cautionary tale about the consequences of fracking, including contamination of water, air and land; intimidation and harassment of citizens; loss of property, investments and standard of living; weak and under-enforced state regulations; decay of public trust; illness; fragmentation of Pennsylvania’s last stands of core forest; and lack of protection over basic human rights. The film begins at one of only four triple continental divides on the North American continent, in Potter County, Pennsylvania, where everything is downstream. From this peak, rain is sent to three sides of the continent—the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada, Chesapeake Bay on the eastern seaboard and the Gulf of Mexico. This vast water basin is drained by three major rivers—the Allegheny, Genesee and Susquehanna. These waterways rank among the most coveted trout streams in the U.S., helping to create a regenerative tourism economy upon which locals have depended for generations. At this “watershed moment” in Pennsylvania’s history, which way will the future flow? The documentary filmmakers, Joshuah Pribanic and Melissa Troutman, will lead a question and answer session.
region. Craig Stevens described The ThreeRivers Community Foundation, support for programs that address economic justice. Representatives of the IUP Environmentally Conscious Organization (E.C.O.) and Jane Baumer also spoke, as well as Professor Susan Comfort. Audience members responded enthusiastically to Dr. Comfort’s words: “I want us to recognize the wealth that we have in the people of Indiana County, and that there is real wealth here in this room.” Many ideas were generated during the second discussion at the end of the film screening. Some suggested turning to organizations already active in the county for resources and support, such as the Indiana Community Garden and the Indiana Farmers’ Market. Others mentioned a wide array of creative and unique ideas for encouraging sustainability in Indiana, such as developing local currency, establishing a cooperative food market, community supported agriculture (CSA), building more community gardens, time-sharing plans, and more. These ideas demonstrate the strength and passion possessed by the people of
Source: Creative Commons
Indiana and that the community is ready and willing to generate a local, sustainable economy through cooperation, commitment, continued education, and action. The film series will continue through late July. In March, the Center showed the fracking documentary Triple Divide (2012) by Melissa Troutman and Joshua B. Pribanic. This film focuses on the shortfalls of Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection and the controversy surrounding natural gas extraction in the Marcellus Shale. The Center for Community Growth raises funds through membership dues. To join our organization, follow us or to make a donation, go to our website at http:// theindianacenter.wordpress.com/ Also join our Facebook group, or follow @theindianacenter on Twitter. Written by Colleen Donovan; edited by Lindsey S. Quakenbush. Colleen Donovan is a member of the Center for Community Growth, a grassroots organization in Indiana County, PA that focuses on community development. April 2013
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Thrifty Fashion Show More than a Thrift Shop: A Sustainable and Welcoming Community by Sheila Keir
“Thrifty is the change I want to see in the world!”
“There couldn’t be a more loving and caring group of people than the people who work at Thrifty.”
“Two-year-old Brooklyn saw someone with a ladder against the building and screamed “Nana! What are they doing to our store!?”
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The East End Community Thrift store is so much more than a thrift shop. Don’t get me wrong, it is a “thrifty” place to shop, with prices consistently below other second-hand shops. But there is a deeper human value there that those words fail to capture. Thrifty offers values that include achieving sustainability. Consider twenty years of opportunity to reuse rather than destroy by adding to landfills and trash in our neighborhood streets, yards, ravines. Thrifty is a place where you get to know the volunteers, the customers, and the neighbors. This is a place where you can share news and concern with each other. Shirley Gleditsch, the shop’s founder, is a sterling asset with her warm approach to new shoppers and regulars alike. Where else does the manager ask your name and if you need help carrying your purchases? Our volunteers cheerfully act as personal shoppers, help new customers find what they are looking for, and show them the choice items that can be found in the store. Special days are celebrated with free pizza or sheet cake. Thrifty is supported and supplied by people living throughout Pittsburgh: the many who donate clothing, shoes, household items, children’s toys, books, “I like working at the thrift jewelry, furniture, shop because proceeds go collectibles and antique to peace and justice and the items. people I work with are Our customers are sincere and fun.” a varied group, including anyone looking for a good bargain, along with crafters and collectors of all sorts of treasures, new homeowners, students, the unemployed and the underpaid. Sheila Keir is a volunteer at Thrifty and a supporter of the Thomas Merton Center.
Happy Birthday, Thrifty Twenty Years of Caring for Pittsburgh & TMC by Colleen Dougherty Ten years ago, staff at the East End Community Thrift compiled a history of the store, archiving documents and photos of the shop’s journey in a lovely album. We’ve lifted the introductory words written in that little book for use in Thrifty’s 20th birthday celebration because they are still true and relevant all these years later: Thrifty is celebrating its 20th year of life! This remarkable place is a labor of love, its breath drawn from a concert of generosities, its success the communal success of many, many hands. When we look at these hands, we see that they are both young and old, and of different colors. We see that they are attached to the bodies of people who live all over the Pittsburgh area, people with assorted religious beliefs, and varying lifestyles. Diversity is a reality at East End Community Thrift, not solely an objective. To top it off, the daily struggles inside 5123 Penn Avenue, the struggles with hangers, overstuffed donation bags, shoppers and fellow workers, transpire within an environment of respect and love and peace…. Save for the occasional piercing scream, exhausted groan or crashing shelf of glassware! Truly remarkable! The shop, a project of the Thomas Merton Center, has been likened to a working model of the
“Every liberal thinking person in Pittsburgh should be shopping here and bringing in their donations.”
world TMC members strive to realize. As Gandhi suggested, “The means are the end in the making.” For twenty years the profits of the East End Community Thrift have been vital to the Thomas Merton Center’s operating budget - a means to another great end. But most importantly, its existence has been, and continues to be, an invaluable sustaining resource for the Pittsburgh community for 20 wonderful years.
HAPPY 20TH BIRTHDAY THRIFTY! You have certainly stood the test of time! Colleen Dougherty is a volunteer at Thrifty and a supporter of the Thomas Merton Center.
“At East End Community Thrift, the service is swift.”
“Shirley has kept us on track for 20 years, making all the tough decisions.”
“At Christmas, the store put a sign in the window that reads, ‘We love you,’ and you know, they meant it.”
April 2013
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Community News Student Activism On April 12, 2013, the Sustainable Art team will set up a booth by K. Briar Somerville and discuss their work at the 6th Annual Look out for the bottle panther! A Student Sustainability Symposium, group of four Pitt students interested in which will be held at the William Pitt promoting sustainability awareness have Union from 9:00am to 3:00pm. teamed up with Plant-to-Plate to erect a The two groups are working new panther sculpture made of together to plan an unveiling event later recyclable bottles on Pitt's in April or in May which will attract campus. Plant-to-Plate is a community students to the garden as well as prompt garden and kitchen that gives Pitt frank, open dialogue about recycling on students the opportunity to grow their campus. own food, and soon their lot will also The mission of the Sustainable feature original, sustainable student art. Art team at Pitt is to inspire recycling The Plant-to-Plate garden lot is among students. Crafted of a mass of located at Oakland Avenue and Sennott plastic bottles that will be able to be Street, and their season kick-off event taken apart and recycled when the will take place on May 8. panther begins to deteriorate, the
Sustainable Art at Pitt
sculpture will hopefully provoke consideration of the large numbers of bottles wasted by our culture en masse. According to The Green Upgrader, the average American consumes 167 bottles of water per year, and 80% of plastic bottles are not recycled. Help us demonstrate Sculpture design mockup. that recycling matters to Construction still underway! Pitt and Pittsburgh. To donate your recyclable K. Briar Somerville is an intern at the Thomas Merton Center, a Pitt student, plastic bottles to the Sustainable an art lover, a recycler, and loves kitty Art Project, email cats.
<kbsomerville@gmail.com>.
The #NoSweat Campaign: Pitt Students Fight for Workers Rights by Marko Gudic Students at the University of Pittsburgh are taking a stand against sweatshops. The #NoSweat Campaign, spearheaded by the student group Americans for Informed Democracy (AIDPitt) and joined by more than 50 student groups and organizations is trying to get Pitt’s administration to heed the concerns of its increasingly vocal student body. During the fall of 2012, AIDPitt took on the cause of workers’ rights with the launch of its #NoSweat campaign. The first goal of the campaign is to get Pitt to affiliate with the Workers Rights Consortium (WRC), an independent labor rights monitoring organization. The WRC, currently affiliated with 180 universities such as Carnegie Mellon, Duquesne, and most recently Temple, independently monitors and investigates working conditions in factories that produce university-licensed apparel. Additionally, the WRC serves as a mediator of potential workplace conflicts. WRC investigators ensure labor standards are upheld and codes of conduct are enforced. AIDPitt is a non-partisan
Workers Rights Consortium (WRC) pins that the #NoSweat Campaign is distributing to increase visibility on campus. —Photo by TJ Collanto
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Still looking for an internship you can be passionate about? For a flexible and friendly social justice internship, Email your resume to: mcmahond@thomasmertoncenter.org
Meet some of our Interns:
Students stand in solidarity with Heni and Aslam, former workers at an Adidas factory in Indonesia. —Photo by TJ Collanto
student advocacy group, co-founded by Joe Thomas and Rhodes Scholar Cory Rodgers. Since its founding in early 2011, AIDPitt has been dedicated to raising awareness on a number of global issues and has been working to create positive change to help solve them. Student efforts to encourage Pitt to affiliate with the WRC have been largely disregarded or dismissed by obstinate university administrators. The #NoSweat campaign began its advocacy efforts with a series of letter drops to prominent administrators, petitioning for Pitt’s affiliation with the WRC. In response, Vice Provost and Dean of Students Kathy Humphrey and Vice Chancellor G. Reynolds Clark expressed their satisfaction with the Fair Labor Association, or FLA (which Pitt is currently affiliated with). They also voiced doubts about the level of student support for the WRC affiliation. However, AIDPitt and the #NoSweat Coalition contend that the FLA suffers from a conflict of interest. They state that the FLA is insufficient in ensuring workers’ rights because the FLA is funded by the same corporations it monitors. They point out that the FLA uses third-party contractors to conduct its investigations—many of which fail to properly and consistently evaluate conditions. Activists generally favor the WRC because it is independently funded by universities, grants, and
donations, which removes the conflict of interest that the FLA suffers from. The WRC has a reputation for fairly conducting its investigations and presenting honest reports. Although it is by no means perfect, affiliation with the WRC would be a step forward for Pitt protecting worker rights. The #NoSweat campaign continues to grow and has received attention from media outlets such as The Pitt News, Pitt Political Review, The Tartan, WPTS radio, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The campaign remains committed to broadening its student base by distributing educational materials, videos, and WRC support pins. Recently, AIDPitt reached out to the United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) and hosted two former Indonesian garment factory workers, Heni Sutisna and Aslam Hidayat. Heni and Aslam spoke to a packed room of students about their experience producing apparel for major brands such as Adidas. AIDPitt and the rest of the #NoSweat Campaign remain determined to keep the pressure on at Pitt. They hope Pitt will affiliate with the WRC before the end of the spring semester. For more information about the campaign or to sign up for regular emails about the #NoSweat Campaign, go to nosweatpitt.com. Marko Gudic is an undergraduate student at the University of Pittsburgh.
Arvin Simon is a PhD student studying Clinical Psychology at Duquesne University. Originally from Canada, he was a practicing psychologist prior to returning to school. Now he is the Environmental Justice Assistant at the Thomas Merton Center. Michael Deckebach is a junior at Pitt studying history and religious studies. He has chaired the Youth and Student Outreach Committee at the Thomas Merton Center since December. Stephanie Maben started volunteering with TMC in November 2012 and became an intern this semester, focusing on TMC's social media outreach. She is a senior at the University of Pittsburgh, pursuing a Political Science degree with minors in Sociology and Administration of Justice. Stephanie enjoys working at TMC and learning the different facets of a peace and social justice organization, and she hopes to build on these experiences by working at a non-profit in the Philadelphia area after graduation.
Thomas Merton Center News In Memoriam, Brian Johnston by Kate Daher Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama Professor Emeritus Brian Johnston died peacefully on the morning of March 2 at the age of 80 due to complications from surgery. Professor Johnston, a humanitarian and scholar, was deeply committed to the rights of the Palestinian people and was centrally involved in the building and evolution of the Pittsburgh Palestine Solidarity committee over several decades. In the early years of the Second Intifada, as the so-called war on terror erupted over the attacks on the World Trade Center, and as pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian sentiment reached a crescendo, CMU professors David Demarest and Johnston, along with students and community activists, organized a powerful counter-campaign to the pro-war, pro-occupation propaganda. Almost one month to the day after September 11, 2001, Demarest and Johnston hosted labor historian and human rights activist Staughton Lynd, co-author of Homeland: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians, to speak about the Palestinians demand for justice. The success of this initial meeting was followed by several important actions in solidarity with the people of Palestine including lectures by Mazin Qumsiyeh, Ali Abunimah, Norm Finkelstein, Jeff Halper, Cindy & Craig Corrie, a demonstration against Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Heinz Hall where he promoted war against Iraq, a powerful Palestine film series, and dozens of local and regional actions and campaigns in which Brian played a central organizing role. As the occupation and resulting Intifada intensified, Professor Johnston came up with the idea of creating a banner that listed the names of the Palestinian dead, which caught the eye of the news media and many young Palestinians as it was carried in an anti-war demonstration through the streets of Washington D.C. But unfortunately, too soon did the solidarity activists realize that one banner could not contain the names of the more than 3,000 dead Palestinians. But not one to be discouraged, Johnston and several other artists, teachers and students from Pittsburgh traveled to the Occupied Territories to witness and report on the occupation first-hand in 2007. Brian wrote about this trip in an essay titled “Seeing Palestine Through the Architecture of Domination,” later published in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (March, 2008). Brian’s abhorrence of war and his great concern for the oppressed resulted from his own life experiences. As a young boy born into severe poverty, he along with four siblings survived the German Blitzkrieg over London, and it wasn’t until he joined the RAF (Royal Air Force) many years later that he learned to read and write. Eventually Brian moved to Oxford, where he earned the highest honors of his graduating class and where his career as a world-renounced scholar on the works of playwright Henrik Ibsen was brought to life. Another seminal moment in Brian’s political evolution was during his tenure as an American University of Beirut professor in 1982, where once again he was forced to experience the horror of air strikes and bomb shelters, this time as a result of the Israeli Air Force as they bombarded the city of Beirut and ultimately invaded it. After the bombings and an attempted kidnapping by Islamic Jihadists, Professor Johnston was rescued only to land safely in Pittsburgh, where he secured his teaching position at CMU. Following his retirement from CMU in 2007, Brian continued to travel and work for Palestinian rights. In 2010, he joined with British Parliamentarian George Galloway and other solidarity activists at a conference on Palestinian rights in Beirut, Lebanon — his first time back to the city after the 1982 war. A memorial to celebrate the life of Brian Johnston is being planned for May. For more information contact: Katedaher@yahoo.com Kate Daher is chair of the Pittsburgh Palestinian Solidarity Organization.
Welcome New Board Member: Chris Mason have convictions and stand by them and who come together to make life better in their community. Chris Mason Her approach to activism would never have is to support grassroots dreamed in the midinitiatives and be a voice 1980’s, when she for those who are began her activism marginalized. Chris was in high school most recently inspired by concerned about the Dr. Vandana Shiva, the environment and 2011 Merton Award human rights, that winner. In her acceptance she would become a speech, Dr. Shiva spoke of member of the the importance of people board of the coming to realize their capabilities and Thomas Merton Center in 2013! A then coming together to take action. native of Pittsburgh, spending more Chris has chosen to join the than 20 years on the South Side and now living in the Friendship area of the Outreach Committee as a part of her board work at the Merton Center. Her city, Chris first learned about the hopes are to learn more about the Merton Center in 1994 and became active with it through her involvement projects connected to the Center and get more involved; to spread the word with Occupy Pittsburgh a few years about the Center and its mission to ago. Chris began her post high school family and friends who are not aware of it, and to increase public awareness path in college, where she studied chemistry, anthropology and sociology. about the Center and its activities through social media. Beginning six years ago, Chris If you haven’t met Chris yet, you continues to work as the Executive will as you involve yourself with the Assistant for the Birmingham events and actions of the Center this Foundation on the South Side. She is year. She will be delighted to meet you now taking classes at Pittsburgh and learn more about your connection Filmmakers, hoping to produce to the Center and your efforts to make documentary and art films. Admiring the lives of people like our world a better place to live. Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi, Chris also finds role models in teachers Joyce Rothermel is a board member and everyday people in Pittsburgh who of the Thomas Merton Center.
by Joyce Rothermel
Molly, Martin, and Merton continued from front by Bette McDevitt
took the role of the judge. Molly said that Sheen agreed to participate because of his very great respect for the Berrigans. Rush could only tell beforehand that she was going to do something "very important," and when the Center's board gathered after the action, there was no questioning their support of Molly. Father O'Malley spoke for the Merton Center board when he said, "Molly is us, she came from us." Looking back, O'Malley says, "Molly was always out front, and it took the rest of us some time to catch up. These activities call for real heroes. I thought if they could do that, then surely I could stand up in the pulpit and speak about these issues." Molly gave us the courage to act. At the time of the Plowshares Eight, I lived in New Castle, following her actions through the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. I would still be in New Castle, rather than working in the peace community, if it were not for Molly’s action.
All eight of the Plowshares activists presented their defense and spent time in jail. The story is told in Liane Norman's book, Hammer of Justice. Norman quotes poet Daniel Berrigan, as he disparaged the definition of the warheads as property: “You have heard talk of hammers and blood. These things (gesturing toward the missiles) are the hammers of hell. These things are the hammers of the end of the world. These things are the hammers that will break the earth to bits and all life within.” Norman has since written another book, Mere Citizens, which tells the story of many years of direct action at Westinghouse’s headquarters in downtown Pittsburgh, during the time they made nuclear weapons. The final resolution came in 1991. 11 years after the trial, all eight Plowshares were sent back for re-sentencing and given "time served" by a different judge. Emile De Antonio created a film in 1982, In the King of Prussia, with the Bette McDevitt is a member of The activists taking their own roles, with New People editorial collective. the exception of the unsympathetic Judge Samuel Salus. Martin Sheen April 2013
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April Activist Events Sunday
Monday 1 Hot Metal Bridge Faith Community 7pm – 9pm
Tuesday 2 East Liberty Presbyterian Church, 7pm –
A time of study and reflection on the root causes of violence and responses to it,
9pm Community members affected by gun violence, and experts on gun violence will speak, followed by Q and A contribute and get involved.
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Wednesday 3 Failed Evidence: Law Enforcement and Science 6pm – 8pm
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Thursday 4 Green Party meeting 7pm-9pm Citizen Power's offices, 2121 Murray Avenue in Squirrel Hill, second floor
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Violence and Peacemaking, 7pm – 9pm Hot
1:30pm – 4:00pm Thomas Merton Center
Metal Bridge Faith Community, 2700 Jane St.
International Socialist Organization Meeting 7:30pm
Write On! Letters for Prisoner's rights, 7pm –
– 9:00pm. Thomas Merton Center
10pm ,Thomas
Robert M. Mill Lecture Series: Increased Demands, Decreased Revenue 3pm-5pm, CCAC-Allegheny Campus, Foerster Student Service Center Auditorium, 808 Ridge Avenue
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Saturday 6 Black Voices for Peace AntiWar Protest 1pm – 2pm Corner of Penn and Highland in East Liberty
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Storytelling and Martin Sheen Human Rights Receives Symposium , Thomas 2pm – 6pm, GRW Merton Award, Theater at the 5pm – 8pm ,
April Days of Action - SOA Watch Trip from Pittsburgh to Washington, DC
Film "Silent Screams" ,
Friday 5
Point Park University Center.
Merton Center
Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall, 4141 Fifth Avenue
Weekly Meetings: Monday Looking for a place to do your internship? Contact McMahonD@thomasmertoncenter.org.
Tuesday International Socialist Organization Meetings -meeting weekly at the Thomas Merton Ctr. 730-9:30 PM
Wednesday Fed-Up! Write on-Letters for Prisoner Rights 7:00 PM—Thomas Merton Center
Thursday TMC schedules potlucks on this evening. Interested in having one on an issue that’s important to you? Email JRothermel@gpcfb.org
Friday Looking for a place to volunteer on a regular basis? Email McMahonD@thomasmertoncenter.org.
14 Project to End Human Trafficking (PEHT) Volunteer Signup 10am – 12pm
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Alliance for Nuclear Accountability DC DAYS 2013
Violence and Peacemaking, 7pm – 9pm Hot Metal Bridge Faith Community, 2700 Jane St.
Carlow University Campus 21 North Hills People for Peace Forum at Kearns Spirituality Center Email Mary.Sheehan @verizon.ent
Health Care 4 All PA office, 2101 Murray Avenue
22 Violence and Peacemaking, 7pm – 9pm, Hot Metal Bridge Faith Community, 2700 Jane St.
28 Anti-War Committee Meeting , 2:00pm— 3:30pm. Thomas Merton Center
Monthly PUSH meeting, 6:15pm— 8:00pm
NEW ECONOMY WORKING GROUP, 10am—12pm, The Thomas Merton Center
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Association of Pittsburgh Priests Meeting, 7pm—9pm, Epiphany Rectory, 184 Washington Place
SAVE the PENNSYLVAN IAN , 4pm5pm , Holiday Inn, 250 Market St, Johnstown
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International SW PA Bread Socialist for the World Organization Team Meeting, 10:00am— Meeting, 7:30pm— 11:45am, 9:00pm, Thomas Christian Merton Center Associates, 204 37th Street, Suite 201
29 Violence and Peacemaking , 7pm—9pm, Hot Metal Bridge Faith Community, 2700 Jane St.
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The Constitutionality of Gun Control,
Ryan Room La Roche College 4 PM North Hills People for Peace
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A New Economy (YERT: Your Environmental Road Trip), 7:30pm— 10:00pm, Indiana
20 Fight for Lifers West meeting, 10am—12am, Crossroads United Methodist Church, 325 N. Highland, East Liberty
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Black Voices for Peace—Vigil to End War 1:00 pm—Corner of Penn & Highland Ave. in East Liberty Citizens for Peace Vigil, 12:00—1:00 pm, Intersections of Forbes and Braddock Aves
Sunday Anti-War Committee Mtg. every other week. Economic Justice Committee - varies Environmental Justice Committee Capital's End, 3:30—7:00 pm, AVA LOUNGE, 126 S. Highland Ave., Pittsburgh PA 15206 (East Liberty)
Monthly Recurring Meetings:
Black Voices for Peace AntiWar Protest , 1pm—2pm ,
First Friday Action
Corner of Penn and Highland in East Liberty
First and Third Wednesdays
Theater, 637 Philadelphia Street Indiana
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Saturday
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International Socialist Organization Meeting , 7:30pm— 9:00pm, Thomas Merton Center
1:30-3:00 pm Post Office Grant and 7th Avenue, Downtown Pittsburgh
Darfur Coalition Meeting 7:00—9:00 pm—2121 Murray Avenue Second Floor—Squirrel Hill Contact: (412) 784-0256
Second Wednesdays PUSH Meeting 6:15—8:00 pm—2101 Murray Avenue First Floor—Squirrel Hill Contact: Molly.rush@verizon.net
Second Mondays APP Meeting 7:00-9:00 pm Epiphany Administration Center
Second Sundays I want The New People to grow. I want more readers, more writers, more pages, more copies, wider distribution, more news. I want more attendees at political actions, and a stronger community. I believe in a competitive independent media and the power of people. I want our collective voices to be heard, and I want to push to include more voices that might not be heard otherwise. You can donate to The New People or become a member of TMC at
Dear Readers, It's been a pleasure meeting you and many writers, editors, and newsmakers since I started at The New People last fall. I am the intern newspaper coordinator, a fulltime undergraduate student. I get the mail, edit or find an editor for your submissions, keep track of all the content throughout each month's production, and do my best to put the puzzle pieces together at the end to produce the sixteen pages of layout you are now holding, with the help and guidance of the editorial collective (see page 2) and Diane McMahon, a part-time TMC staff person working on the newspaper.
igg.me/at/newpeople Thanks and Solidarity, K. Briar Somerville
Women In Black Monthly Peace Vigil 10:00—11:00 am Ginger Hill Unitarian Universalist Slippery Rock
First Thursdays Green Party Meeting 5:00—7:30 pm—Room C Carnegie Library—Squirrel Hill
Third Sundays Fight for Lifers West 10 am to Noon—Crossroads Church 325 N. Highland Ave—East Liberty
TMC MEMBERSHIP FORM Become a Member of TMC! __$15: Low Income/Student Membership __$50: Individual Membership __$100: Family Membership __$75: Organization (below 25 members) __$125: Organization (above 25 members) Join at thomasmertoncenter.org/join-donate or fill out this form and mail it in. ONCE YOU BECOME A MEMBER, YOU WILL RECEIVE THE NEW PEOPLE IN THE MAIL!
Name(s): _______________________________________________________ Organization (if applicable):________________________________________________ Address:________________________________________________ City: __________________ State: __________Zip Code:________ Home Phone:____________________________________________ Cell Phone: _____________________________________________
TMC membership benefits include monthly mailings of The New Email:_________________________________________________ People to your home or email account, weekly eblasts focusing on peace and justice events in Pittsburgh, and special invitations to Be sure to choose your membership level. membership activities. You will be an active member of our community! 16 - NEWPEOPLE
April 2013
Mail this form to: Thomas Merton Center, 5129 Penn Ave., Pgh., PA 15224. You can also join online at www.thomasmertoncenter.org/join-donate