Support the CampU.S. Strike for Peace Campaign

[paineinthearse]

In the works for several weeks, Brian Bogart's www.strikeforpeace.org is up and running! Please share this with campus and civic organizations.



CampU.S.

Nationwide Strike for Peace Campaign
National Community Strategy of America

The CampU.S. Strike for Peace Campaign is an information-outreach campaign for everyone. You can help in several ways, by organizing a group to join the campaign, by supporting with funds, and by assisting with research.

Why schools and community groups should unite. The resistance of the 1960s movements came about because of the advent of color TV during war, a military draft, and the explosion of the number of college-age Americans. These elements are missing today. Media corporations are beholden to a war-for-profit economy, so they block coverage of war and distract us with 500 channels of soap and celebrities. The Pentagon has a solution to avoid instituting a military draft, and we’re working on it here on our campus.

(The Future Combat Systems program will integrate robotic systems into human soldiers beginning in 2008, to enhance their capabilities until real robots can replace them—20 to 30 years away, as if we can last that long on this path. We’ve successfully remote controlled rats and monkeys against their will, and now we are integrating that technology into the human brain—and that’s just one of hundreds of horrific weapons in development at our schools.)

Youth activists and others need a point of unity to be a single force like Noam Chomsky’s second superpower of public opinion. The CampU.S. campaign seeks to trigger a unification process by spreading statistics of an intimate nature. Gathering signatures for the entire year is a way to approach individuals in our schools and communities with numbers that relate to their towns and personal lives. In Eugene, home to University of Oregon, we have 56 companies on the Pentagon’s payroll. There’s no way all 310,000 such companies are going to part with their income. However, if enough young consumers call for a reasonable American defense posture—to continue these contracts while suspending the Pentagon’s insane bid for global resource dominance by military force—and demand the adoption of a reasonable vision for resource sharing and an end to the age of war for profit, we may save our planet and increase all of life’s prosperity in the process.

If we fail to steer toward survival and a just world for all in the next five to ten years, what’s the point of studying for a degree? If we do not prevail by advancing our vision for peace, we will perish by advancing our technology for war.

Simply changing administrations will not kill the war industry, because it never has. We need to change minds and build unity for a peaceful revolutionary solution offered by an informed popular demand, to shut down the war-profit priority and establish a people’s priority—as so many Americans believe was the purpose of America’s founding vision.

The goal is to mobilize community members everywhere newspapers are read, everywhere websites are browsed, and everywhere hope still resides.

INFORMATION OUTREACH while gathering signatures for our Petition for Peaceful Priorities. 310,000 companies supply the US military. 51% of our taxes support the war industry, more if we count the many programs tailored to suit our military-based economy. More than one trillion dollars a year is spent by this nation on its military (not counting Homeland Security, the Army Corp of Engineers, NASA, and education programs geared toward defense, foreign policy, and national security). That’s $1000 billion for "spreading freedom" overseas compared to $59 billion for education in the US. America has 6000 military bases domestically, some 1000 US bases overseas, and more than 350 US schools serving as weapons laboratories.

(For more background history on weapons and wars, America’s top industry since 1950, see Essays.)

The Pentagon’s plan for the next 20 years is to outpace all other nations; an arms race when we’re already at the top. We’re telling the rest of the world to build up for war because we’re the world’s WalMart of weapons.

Campaign strategy. This is not a consensus-based campaign; the strategy is simple, focused, and prepared. It is not limited to schools. It is an info-outreach campaign to unify the American people through common knowledge, common goals, and a simple strategy.

PURPOSE:

Inform and empower the people to challenge the encroachment of the industry of war in our schools, communities, and lives by collecting signatures and interacting with others in our daily outreach. Five simple principles: Interact—Inform—Empower—Challenge—and Change by popular demand.

TALKS:

Information will focus on surprising and locally-relevant war-industry facts and figures that the public needs to know, with no overload to hinder our normal career and school work.

When we gather to share information, we will minimize distractions to provide information access without interruption. We may discuss things at length individually, but the point of gathering is to share information with people on tight schedules. (Keep the rap short and sweet.)

University of Oregon and Eugene are CampU.S. Central. Strikeforpeace.org reaches nationwide to teach day and night, so the campaign is accessible to anyone with a computer. Information will remain simple and easy to convey, but there are in-depth essays at hand for those who want more. Again, this campaign is not just for schools. As all resources should be, this is for everyone who cares about life.

COLLECTING SIGNATURES / INFORMING THE PUBLIC:

Signatures will be collected from September 26, 2005 to June 10, 2006. Anyone can sign. The purpose of gathering signatures on campus and out in the streets is to dispense easily digestible information to the public, to surprise people with the depth of the war-industry reach in our local lives. (Lengthier discussions are fine if the listener initiates a topic.) Signatures will be delivered to the White House by students and others in June, but the campaign will not stop until peaceful priorities prevail and are reflected in American government documents.

"STRIKE": AN INFORMATION-OUTREACH CAMPAIGN FOR EVERYONE

The CampU.S. Campaign network spreads a focused message as one team nationwide. Everything is about the message—no need for mission statements or consensus discussions on organizing. We’re ready to go.

The Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) never stops dreaming up new ways to kill, and the best tool to network for peace is its greatest creation, the Internet (formerly ARPANET). Strikeforpeace.org will be the hub for this network, and crucial for establishing a personal relationship with communities and for staying on the same page.

EACH CAMPUS AND COMMUNITY CAMPAIGN GROUP WILL NEED:

Signatures Manager to download and control a signature list, retain backup copies, and send signatures to the main database or CampU.S. Central at University of Oregon

Communications Manager to build and maintain a sustained network effort between CampU.S. Central and individual communities, and guide supporters to strikeforpeace.org

Operations Manager to lead local operations and maintain a direct connection to CampU.S. Central

(One person can assume all three duties, but dividing them is recommended.)

BEHAVIOR:

All actions will be peaceful. Contact with the public will occur in a mature, kind, and unified fashion. Uniformity of the message is important, and that the message is well received. Violence is treason. Whoever goes that way is not with us; that’s how we recognize them—we don’t do that. We don’t dominate discussions, we don’t argue. We convey surprising facts about the clash between killing and learning, battlefields and schools, guns and books, and the choice between embracing bad history or a pristine future. If someone wants to argue, walk away politely and, if necessary, apologize for disturbing them.

IDEAS: Three examples of ideas that will help us part ways with war:

1) We are making a list of schools not working for the Pentagon to present to every senate member of every school that is working for the Pentagon.

2) Hold conferences featuring members of schools that have refused funds from the Pentagon. Compile their reasons and methods for refusal and deliver them to those who have not refused.

3) Hold a year-long weekly series of public events on the effects of the war industry in our schools and communities around the world.

SENATES have the ultimate authority over campus policies, but UNIVERSITY PRESIDENTS have bypassed campus senates by creating their own club, called the Association of American Universities. The AAU is not a public association of universities; it’s a private group of university presidents designed to lobby the Pentagon for funds. WE CAN REVERSE THIS TREND.

Summary: Outsourcing by the Pentagon has pulled our schools, companies, and communities into a for-profit mindset that keeps them from speaking against war—America’s top industry since 1950. I’m striking to put attention on the personal nature of the war industry, how it hurts all of us, not just those nations we invade, but those we ignore, including America.

I’m not asking, and I do not advise, that anyone else strike. However, nationwide simultaneous actions are extremely effective, so brief, unified, and well-timed striking—or repeatedly holding events at hundreds of locations across the country at the same time—will become a major tool for this campaign as it progresses.

My effort is what I can do in my final year as the only graduate student in Peace Studies here, but together we can influence a nation and answer the wishes of the thousands of people worldwide who are writing to ask U.S. Americans for help in changing our priority from military-dominant business profit to human prosperity.

Research: I am conducting research to gather more facts surrounding the Pentagon’s outsourcing program, and I am determined to get these numbers out. IntelligentFuture would greatly appreciate any financial and organizational assistance that can help this effort move forward with clarity and strength. This is a monumental undertaking that will require generous funding and teamwork from people like you. (Some of the search engines involved require subscriptions exceeding $600 a year.)

Please go to the "Help Us" page and select a way to assist. You can organize a group to join the campaign, support CampU.S. with funds, or offer assistance with our research projects.

(This campaign and site will begin slow and build, so please be patient during the first few weeks.)

For a world of promise,

CampU.S. Central Strike for Peace Campaign Team

IntelligentFuture

PO Box 3150

University of Oregon

Eugene, OR 97403

[Karenina]

1. Kick for Kids!

:kick:

[paineinthearse]

2. Thank you.

Please share with students and parents of students you know.

[stephenf]

3. Lots of work to do

Their Armageddon arm aged doom and gloom glue
Is spread by a preacher man
Who is singing their tune
Buy radials by Jesus, nick-nacks, and jewelry delights
Buy fear and sleep potions
Affecting your nights

Fear is an obstacle for us to walk past
and realize our connections
Are tied to the lines that we cast

The story they told you, a lie to deceive
To keep you in chains unable to see
That the gold that we hold is in the time that we have
With sisters and brothers and children with glee
We all share the same fate, we share the same lands

When you see whos doing the selling
you’ll begin to understand their plan
is keep you in thought prison
while they poison your land
while filling their pockets
its such a great scam
They keep us so busy from knowing we can

know that what I do to you so it does to me
Give me your hand if you’re too blind to see
with war an endeavor well never be free
always waiting to see if you were on the right side
leaving your hopes to that generals provide

Our future is not Jesus, Mohammad or Boogyman boohoo
Our future follows from the dreams that we do

So when you cast your own line
remember your lot
and to send some happiness to those it forgot
for we are all tied together like strands in a knot

stephen frank gary 2005

[paineinthearse]

4. Is this post.....

...boring :boring:

??????

[bear425]

7. No it isn't boring at all. But,

perhaps it would be more interesting if people read Brian Bogarts's essay first:

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=51&ItemID=8819

It's long, but fascinating.

Oh, and kick!

[paineinthearse]

5. Now is the moment

by email

Now is the moment

All friends and members of IntelligentFuture and the CampU.S. Campaign, please go to this link and support the post by adding a comment within the first day or so to give it a "top-nomination" status.

Thanks and good luck to all of us. We are a force for peace, and we have just begun to strike.

Courage and unity!

Brian Bogart

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph... ;address=104x4886844

How will we ever learn peace while making war in our schools?
strikeforpeace.org!

p.s. I'm at a loss to understand how some posts get greatest noms and others by same author / same topic get completely ignored!!! It's like hurding cats.

:shrug:

[buzzsaw_23]

6. Gotta do it

[bear425]

8. kick. n/t

[goodhue]

9. cool

thanks for posting this