by Liz Moore, PJALS Director

What I love most about PJALS is being part of a community of people who take action together based on the connections between human rights, economic justice, & peace.

Our Steering Committee asked you, PJALS members, to guide strategic planning for 2013-2014. We learned that you overwhelmingly support organizing to raise revenue & reject cuts as well as to counter the costs of militarism and to demand money for people, not for war. You’re also passionate about alternatives to incarceration & police accountability. You value that we create community together through our events & campaigns. You strongly support our Young Activist Leaders Program & our interns. You love our Action Conference. You want PJALS to continue to strengthen our connections with communities of color & with rural people.

Why prioritize those areas? Read more »

by Liz Moore, PJALS Director

I hope you will join us on Thursday February 7,  in the Community Building Lobby, 35 W. Main from 5:30-8pm  for our panel discussion of the culture of violence

Like you, my thoughts, heart, and sorrow have been with the families, children, teachers, and entire community of Newtown, CT, in the wake of the devastating tragedy of 28 people, including 20 children, shot and killed in Sandy Hook Elementary School. I have felt the need not to engage with much media coverage of this heartbreaking event, but I do feel the need to share some reflection and thoughts with you here.

This horrible atrocity is part of a pattern of violence in our country. A timeline of most deadly mass shootings from 1989 to the present is a shocking and saddening set of information, showing increasing frequency in more recent years. And at the same time, our federal budget puts 47% of our national budget into past and current Pentagon spending, Read more »

“If corporate interests cared about ‘creating’ jobs in the U.S., NAFTA and subsequent greased skids for ‘Made in the USA’ would be dismantled, and Americans would be building solar and wind power components for global energy needs.”

Rusty Nelson on Peace and War

It’s exciting to watch PJALS cram meaningful meetings, public events, and activist opportunities into your monthly schedule.  It reminds me that, halfway through our tenure at PJALS, Nancy and I realized Spokane had undergone drastic changes regarding things to do, places to be, and live and interactive education and information.  These days, of course, I have options. Sometimes, I feel free to simply stay home or even be detached about significant issues.  But there are times I miss the action, being in the trenches or on the street.

One week in December, there were two opportunities I couldn’t resist.  Read more »

By Mike Nuess

Capt. Wayne Porter, USN, proposes that a new world vision and strategies for strategic security and prosperity that he presents in Mr. Y: A National Strategic Narrative (NSN)  should replace those presented in George Kennan’s 1946 document, Mr. X: The Sources of Soviet Conduct, which defined the U.S. government’s Cold War vision, strategies and tactics still in place today.

Last April Pax Christi-Spokane and Gonzaga University’s Departments of Political Science and Religion hosted Capt. Porter in a one-day conference. Porter explained the new vision in terms of the need to respond to new threats requiring new ways of thinking. For examples, we are confronted by a global resource crisis where shortages of food supplies, water and the impending demise of fossil fuels challenge us to think of sustainable solutions that bring security; we must understand and adapt to an extremely turbulent change in climate, which will likely affect large populations around the planet, further impacting strategic and economic security. Read more »

by Josh Neil

The fight over the fiscal bluff continues to heat up.  Members of PJALS, Veterans for Peace, the Progressive Democrats, the EWU chapter of MEChA, and leaders in the faith community came together to lift our collective voice in order to tell Senators Murray and Cantwell, “Money for People, Not for War!”

Our country has a choice to make: we can either work towards prosperity for our working families and the middle class (who make up the majority of our population); or we can continue to pour money down the drain, into the mouths of the millionaires and CEOs.  I think the choice is crystal clear.  Forty-seven percent of income taxes for 2013 will go towards Pentagon spending–spending that creates fewer jobs than spending on education, healthcare and other social services. Read more »

With the support of 18 faith communities, businesses, and organizations, we delivered 1123 signatures to Senator Murray and Senator Cantwell, urging them to vote for “Money for People, Not for War!” Thank you for signing in support! You can still endorse this important campaign here: www.pjals.org/billions.

Col. Ann Wright

by Michelle Little, intern

I have often felt that many of the wars we are waging in foreign countries were wrong. I remember watching the initial bombing in our second war with Iraq played live on my television screen in a campaign we called “Shock and Awe.” I remember feeling scared, confused and borderline disgusted. I always feel a little disheartened when I watch crowds of Americans cheering about the death of “terrorists.” I never exactly understood why I was having those feelings or what it all meant, but after listening to Col. Ann Wright speak at the Unitarian Universalist Church on October 11, I no longer question whether those feelings are justifiable.

Col. Ann Wright told those who gathered at the church about her journey in the military. Read more »

by David Smith-Ferri, traveling in Kabul with Voices for Creative Nonviolence

Haroon has recurring dreams. Haroon whose father was killed when he was a boy and who remembers a gnawing hunger during the long winter in every year of his childhood. At night, he dreams that someone drops him from a great height. He freefalls through the air, crashes to hard ground, and dies. During the day, he dreams of relief from the anger and confusion that pursue him, and of being a photographer, a traveler.

Faiz, who lost his parents when he was a boy, and whose brother was shot and killed in front of him, has nightmares, too. Each night at the Afghan Peace Volunteer (APV) House here in Kabul, as he sleeps against the wall a few feet away, his moans and cries wake me. By day, he dreams of being a journalist, of marrying and raising a family, of a world without borders and war.

In Afghanistan, with a child mortality rate of nearly twenty percent, many children never even have a chance to form dreams, yet alone to realize one. Life is especially hard on children whose families flee their homes, leaving behind not only their land and livelihoods, but their social networks. Across the country, four hundred people are displaced every day by violence and poverty, and many of them choose to come to Kabul, carrying their shattered dreams with them. Kabul, a city built to support 300,000 people, is now home to over five million.

Last winter, particularly fierce, dozens of very young children froze to death in squalid, “refugee” camps on the outskirts of the city. An estimated thirty-five thousand people live in these camps….

Read the full article at http://vcnv.org/dreaming-of-duvets-in-afghanistan

Local faith and justice groups are host national peace leader Diane Randall on national budget priorities and opportunities, and we want you to join us!

Our Fall Advocacy Forum on Saturday, October 27, will feature keynote speaker Diane Randall, executive secretary of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, a 70-year-old peace lobby in Washington, D.C. Randall will present: “Change is All in the Timing: NOW is the Best Chance in Decades to Turn the Tide on Pentagon Spending!” Read more »

By Rusty Nelson

How’s your patriotic self esteem (PSE)? I usually do pretty well with that, considering that some observers long ago decided I deserved an especially warm spot in their version of Dante’s Inferno for being (choose one, according to political trends in the Inland Northwest) a traitor, an America-hater, a liberal, a socialist, a godless communist.

One thing I’ve retained as I lost more and more enthusiasm for nationalistic murder and mayhem is a great fondness for the Olympic Games, and now that is interfering with my PSE. Nancy and I watched lots of track and field, gymnastics and swimming, tolerated parts of the infinite matches and promotions of beach volleyball while catching glimpses of other sports. We often root for American teams and individuals, but we have a problem with some announcers and athletes who seem to feel that silver or bronze is for losers. Read more »