Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation

Peace & justice activists have such ambitious agendas! We care about everything, see problems everywhere, and jump from one crisis to another. We have strong values and bold visions. Therefore, when we achieve a victory we typically fail to celebrate it – or even notice it – because we always see the unfinished business of bigger goals ahead. Deep down, we might feel guilty – or not radical enough – if we were to celebrate the victories we achieve.

But human psychology is based on reinforcement, and if we fail to celebrate our victories we fail to generate the reinforcement necessary to keep us going. Failing to reinforce our efforts leads to cynicism and burnout. For some people it leads to feelings of desperation that lead to tactics that turn out to be counterproductive.

For our own well-being – and for the long-term sustainability and growth of the overall peace & justice movement – we need to recognize the tremendous accomplishments that are occurring all the time.

Our August-September 2007 newsletter published an impressive list of 23 important victories for peace and justice since the previous newsletter. That was not a fluke. The progressive movement’s smart and persistent efforts produced more victories last month. Just a very few of May’s highlights are summarized below.

U.S. House rejects Bush’s new nuclear weapon: In early May the House Armed The House Armed Services Committee zeroed out funding for the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW), which Bush had been vigorously promoting. Supporters of new nuclear weapons failed to add the funding back on the House floor and were defeated by a vote of 271 to 145 – one of the largest anti-nuclear weapon votes in years. All of Washington state’s House members voted against the nuke, except for Doc Hastings. Urge Sen. Patty Murray and Sen. Maria Cantwell to vote against the RRW when it comes to a vote in the Senate.

U.S. Senate votes to limit media ownership concentration: By a near-unanimous vote on May 15, the Senate stood up to Big Media and rejected the FCC’s decision to let the largest media companies swallow up even more local media. This astounding victory for free expression and democracy resulted from massive grassroots efforts by people who sent more than a quarter million letters to their U.S. senators and testified at public hearings held by the FCC. The fight against the FCC now moves to the House, where our elected representatives need to hear from us. Today’s corporate news – with its propaganda pundits, horse-race election coverage, and celebrity gossip – undermines our democracy. We must continue to speak out and demand that the public airwaves be used to actually serve the public. The people can indeed protect minority ownership, diverse perspectives, and independent voices in the media.

U.S. House votes to force Pentagon to release information to SOA Watch: Tremendous grassroots pressure forced the U.S. House of Representatives on May 22 to approve (220 to 189) the McGovern-Sestak-Bishop amendment to the FY 2009 National Defense Authorization Act. It supported human rights and attacked the Pentagon’s culture of secrecy and lack of accountability. The amendment forces the Pentagon to release to the public the names, ranks, countries of origin, courses and dates of attendance of graduates and instructors of the notorious U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA, whose new name is abbreviated WHINSEC). WHINSEC had recently been denying information that has been vital in identifying the perpetrators of massacres, targeted assassinations, and human rights abuses committed in Latin America. In response to WHINSEC’s lack of transparency and its willingness to undermine public attempts of exercising oversight of the institution, human rights advocates and constituents have taken a stand for justice and demanded Congress to hold WHINSEC accountable. The nationwide organization School of the Americas Watch (SOAW) has worked hard on this. The matter went to the Senate for a vote there. Info: www.soaw.org

California college teacher gets job back after refusing to sign a “loyalty oath” that implied taking up arms in national self-defense: Wendy Gonaver, a Quaker who teaches at California State University, refused on religious grounds to sign the “loyalty oath” that the California State Constitution requires of all public employees. Ms. Gonaver wanted any statement she signed to make clear that it violated her deeply held religious beliefs to take up arms and that she was not committing to that with the oath, and also that she had free speech objections to being required to sign the oath. The University refused to allow Ms. Gonaver to attach any such explanatory statement and fired Ms. Gonaver from her job. She and some public interest attorneys from the People For the American Way Foundation reached an agreement with California that reinstates Ms. Gonaver, lets her attach a statement explaining her beliefs against war, and sets a precedent that should protect the religious liberty and free speech rights of all University employees. More than 14,000 persons nationwide signed a petition supporting her, and this grassroots pressure seems to have helped. Info: www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=25208

Florida’s farmworkers who pick tomatoes win big raise from Burger King: The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) announced on May 30 that, after a prolonged and often heated campaign, the nation’s second-largest burger chain has agreed to pay farm workers an extra 1.5 cents per pound of tomatoes picked, the equivalent of a 71 percent increase in wages. This agreement was reached after a large coalition of faith and labor groups targeted the company with letters and boycotts. Burger King is the last of the three largest fast-food companies to agree to the pay increase, following McDonald’s and Yum Brands, which owns Taco Bell. The agreement also includes a pledge that Burger King will have zero tolerance for growers in its supply chain that act unlawfully – a good precaution, given that some in south Florida have been indicted for holding tomato pickers in literal slavery.