July/August 2002

Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC.

Short Takes

On May 17th the US Treasury office sent a letter to Bert Sacks, a retired engineer from Seattle WA, imposing a $10,000 fine on him for his admission that he brought medicines to Iraq in 1997 without a US license. Working with Physicians for Social Responsibility, Fellowship of Reconciliation, and several local faith-based and community organizations, Bert has organized, led, or assisted with successive delegations to Iraq, and helped Voices in the Wilderness campaign actions seeking to end economic sanctions against Iraq.

Sacks, with representatives of Voices in the Wilderness (ViW) , AFSC, and others campaigning to end economic sanctions, held a Press Conference in Washington, DC June 17th to explain why he will not ask for a government license, why he will not pay the fine, and why, instead, he and the ViW campaign have begun raising a sum of $10,000 to purchase and deliver desperately needed medicines to pediatric wards and clinics in Iraq. They seek 1000 people committed to ending economic sanctions against Iraq and preventing a new war to each contribute $10 or more to help raise $10,000 that will be directed toward humanitarian and peacemaking efforts in Iraq as an alternative to paying penalties.

Checks can be made payable to Voices in the Wilderness, 1460 W. Carmen Ave, Chicago IL 60640. Please designate your check for this purpose by writing "Declaration 2002" in the memo section. Any amount you send is significant!

For updates, contact Voices in the Wilderness at 773/784-8065 or visit www.nonviolence.org/vitw.

To subdue that passion for war, which education, added to human depravity, have made universal, a familiarity with the instruments of death, as well as all military shows, should be carefully avoided. For which reason, militia laws should every where be repealed, and military dresses and military titles should be laid aside...

In order more deeply to affect the minds of the citizens of the United States with the blessings of peace, by contrasting them with the evils of war, let the following inscriptions be painted upon the sign which is placed over the door of the War Office:

1. An office for butchering the human species.
2. A Widow and Orphan making office.
3. A broken bone making office.
4. A Wooden leg making office.
6. An office for creating a public debt.
7. An office for creating speculators, stock Jobbers, and Bankrupts.
8. An office for creating famine.
9. An office for creating pestilential diseases.
10. An office for creating poverty, and the destruction of liberty, and national happiness.

In the lobby of this office let there be painted representations of all the common military instruments of death, also human skulls, broken bones, unburied and putrefying dead bodies, hospitals crowded with sick and wounded Soldiers, villages on fire, mothers in besieged towns eating the flesh of their children, ships sinking in the ocean, rivers dyed with blood, and extensive plains without a tree or fence, or any object, but the ruins of deserted farm houses.

Above this group of woeful figures--let the following words be inserted, in red characters to represent human blood, "National Glory."

--From "A Plan of a Peace Office for the United States" by Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Reprinted in Voices in Dissent, Arthur Ekirch, Jr., ed. (NY: The Citadel Press).

Francis Boyle, foreword by Philip Berrigan, The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence. Clarity Press, 877/613-1495; www.claritypress.com

Francis A. Boyle contends that the entire edifice of international agreements regulating, reducing, and eliminating weapons of mass destruction has been shaken to its very core. The Bush Administration's toying with the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Afghanistan and elsewhere, its intent to proceed with National Missile Defense and to develop "bunker-busting" nuclear weapons, and its determination to renew nuclear testing in outright defiance of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty regime and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, will all have disastrous impact on international efforts to rein in the global nuclear arms race.

This book provides a succinct and detailed guide to understanding the nuclear arms race from first use in Hiroshima and Nagasaki through the SALT I and II, ABM, and START efforts at arms control, to Star Wars, National Missile Defense and beyond. It goes in-depth into the foreign policy controversies and objectives that mark the development of America's nuclear policy. Boyle includes a special introduction titled, "George Bush, Jr., September 11th and the Rule of Law" and spells out the dangerous path this administration is taking both at home and abroad and in its radical departure from domestic legal norms and flagrant disregard for international law.

Francis A. Boyle has spent twenty plus years in anti-nuclear advocacy. His testimony persuaded a Scottish judge in the UK to direct a verdict against the UK Trident 2. Boyle was responsible for drafting the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, the American legislation for implementing the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention.

--from the publisher

Phillip Hoose, We Were There, Too! Young People in US History. Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 2001

This book tells the story of the role young people have played in US history. It follows young boys who sailed with Columbus to today's young activists. Based largely on primary sources--first person accounts, journals, and interviews--it highlights the stories of more than seventy young people from diverse cultures.

Some stories include Olaudah Equiano's kidnapping from Africa and his voyage into slavery; Anyokah, who helps her father create a written Cherokee language; Jessica Govea who, as a teenager, worked side by side with Cesar Chavez to organize migrant farmers. This book promises to be a great reference and a great read.

--from the publisher

PEACEWRITING encourages writing in opposition to war and in support of nonviolent peacemaking and peacemakers. PEACEWRITING seeks book-length manuscripts about the causes, consequences, and solutions to violence and war, and about the ideas and practices of nonviolent peacemaking and the lives of nonviolent peacemakers. The manuscripts must not have been published nor be contracted for publication.

Prizes: $500 for best non-fiction manuscript (history, biography, political science, international law, etc.); $500 for best imaginative work (novel, collection of short stories or poems, play or collection of short plays); $500 for best of the above for young people.

Manuscript must be postmarked by December 1 of each year. Awards will be announced by May 1 of each year.

For guidelines contact: PeaceWriting, 2582 Jimmie Ave., Fayetteville AR 72703-3420; 501/442-4600; jbennet@uark.edu

Peacewriting awards are sponsored by the Consortium of Peace Research, Education, and Development and the OMNI Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology.

A new audio documentary on two compact discs, including personal stories by Howard Zinn, Dennis Brutus, Norma Becker, Ralph DiGia, Arthur Kinoy, Frances Crowe, Staughton Lynd, and more; plus labor and protest songs, rare recordings, and scenes from the Chicago Eight trial. Recorded on October 20, 2001, at a celebration and tribute to Dave Dellinger. 33 tracks, over 140 minutes. Price: $24, plus $3 shipping. From Toward Freedom, POB 468, Burlington, VT 05402-0468; 802/657-3733; www.TowardFreedom.com

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