Join our Peace & Justice Action Committee!
By Shar Lichty, PJALS Organizer
Our Peace and Justice Action Committee has been busy working on ways to increase awareness of the connections between what Dr. King referred to as the triple evils: poverty; racism; and militarism in our work to advance peace and justice.
This year began with our committee members working hard to organize our War kNOw More event in March. Panelists Dr. Tom Jeannot, Rev. Todd Eklof, George Taylor, and Larry Shook discussed the racist history of US imperialism and the moral, financial, and psychological costs of war. Thank you to our dedicated committee members who coordinated our panelists, promoted the event, and baked homemade cookies and to our panelists for making this event such a success!
In April, our interns went to Riverfront Park and the EWU Riverpoint Campus to hand out flyers for the Tax Day Event. The flyers had information about the federal budget, how many tax dollars are being spent on military and alternative ways to use those tax dollars. The goal was to have conversations with folks to see how much they already knew about where their tax dollars were going and to educate them about what they can do if they don’t approve of where it is going now.
On June 6th we met via conference call with the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) to discuss joining their network of 100 grassroots Advocacy Teams across the country to strengthen grassroots political power to repeal the Authorization for Use of Military Force. This will be a continuation of our work from last year as we gathered nearly 1000 signatures on our petition calling for this repeal and delivered them to our members of congress.
On July 18, we will resume our strategic campaign planning to determine next steps for our work on militarism and peace. We need your ideas, time, skills, and passion to help strengthen this committee and our work moving forward. We hope you will join us!
The Peace and Justice Action Committee meets on the 1st & 3rd Thursday of each month at 5:30 pm in the Community Building, 35 W. Main (no meeting on June 20th or July 4th.)