Alice Franklin Bryant Park

Those among us who had the privilege of knowing Alice Franklin Bryant and her lifelong work for world peace have strongly supported the efforts of her granddaughter, Ruth Williams, and many others to name a quiet urban park in her honor.  We can never do enough to recognize the pioneers of the peace movement and to keep their memory alive. And on today's war-torn planet we need all the Alice Franklin Bryants we can find!

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Hello everyone,


As many of you know by now, Seattle Parks ignored the wishes of over 1,000 Seattleites and named Park Six 'Beaver Pond Park on Thornton Creek'. This is disappointing, but bureaucrats will have their day even in Seattle.

As a consolation they are offering a sort of monument at the Seattle Peace Park which is just NW of the University Bridge. At our request this would honor Alice, Floyd Schmoe, and Emery Andrews, and the work they did on behalf of the Japanese in the aftermath of WWII and Seattle's interned Japanese-Americans. We'll keep you informed of how things go.

One wonders how so much work and enthusiasm for 'Alice Bryant Peace Park' could be discounted as it has been. Parks' naming committee has a tradition of arbitrary application of their policy. Sometimes they ignore it completely. Nevertheless, they have made it so restrictive that despite its ambiguity I think it means only people involved in parks can be so honored.

In the spring of 2009 the naming committee chair stated, in a public meeting, that waging a write-in campaign is a legitimate way to get a park named. A year later this same person said that the most popular names aren't always the best ones. It might be time to revise the process, so that it makes sense to the rest of us.

It has been wonderful for me to 'revisit' Alice and bring her back to life for a new generation. And it has been a real pleasure to meet and talk with so many of you who share her values and would like to see her example publicly recognized and honored in a permanent way. Thank you for your support and for your continued work for the greater good.

Still Pushing for Peace,

Ruth

Young climate activist sues the United States

By Will Parry

          Alec Loorz is working with Al Gore to confront global warming. 

          “So what?” you say.  “So are a few million other people.”

          Right.  But Alec Loorz is 16 years old.  Since he was 12, he has been a climate change activist.  He’s a founder of Kids Against Global Warming.  He’s spoken before thousands at rallies and conferences.  He is the youngest “presenter” to be trained by Gore’s Climate Project.

          And on behalf of his generation, Alec Loorz has just filed a lawsuit against the United States of America “for handing over our future to unjust fossil fuel industries, and ignoring the right of our children to inherit the planet that has sustained all of civilization.”

          The government should “recognize the atmosphere as a commons that needs to be preserved,” Loorz says, emphasizing that “climate change is about our future.  It’s about the survival of this and every generation to come.”

          The lawsuit is far from the only activity of Kids Against Global Warming.  In the Sea Level Awareness Project (SLAP), youth groups installed more than one hundred poles across Ventura to demonstrate the future rise of sea levels.  Kids Against Global Warming is collecting the signatures of children on a Declaration of Independence from Fossil Fuels. It has organized global warming marches of youth in many cities.

          Loorz serves on six advisory boards, including that of the United Steelworkers Union.

Starve the poor, feed the Pentagon

Posted for Will Parry

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          The Republicans’ 2012 Agriculture Appropriations Bill might well be called the “Let Them Forage in Dumpsters” Act. 

          Their budget would slash $800 million from the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program; $38 million from the Commodity Supplemental Food  Program (CSFP) that helps feed 600,000 low-income mostly senior families each month; and $63 million from the Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), that supports the nation’s food banks.

          Even as they make confetti of basic nutrition programs, the Republicans’ budget would increase military spending by $17 billion, an amnount that could restore the cuts in all three food programs eighteen times over.  

Senator Tester challenges military’s base network

 Posted for Will Parry -

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          Senator Jon Tester, Montana Democrat, says if Congress is serious about balancing the federal budget, it should review the plethora of U.S. overseas military operations.

          Tester has written Secretary of Defense Robert Gates urging him to close down some of the more than 1,000 (one thousand!) U.S. military installations on foreign soil, including 268 in Germany, 124 in Japan and 87 in South Korea.

         

          “Approximately 370,000 U.S. servicemen and women are currently deployed in more than 150 countries around the world,” Tester said.

          “We need a responsible, long-term bipartisan strategy for cutting debt and cutting spending,” he said. “That plan should include making Medicare and Social Security stronger for future generations.  It should include fair tax reform.  And it should include spending cuts – including cuts to defense spending where we can afford them.”

          Where we can afford them!  Can we afford year after year maintaining 370,000 military personnel at more than a thousand installations abroad?

- Will Parry

Afghanistan withdrawal

By Will Parry

          After a full decade of brutal warfare, the ice is beginning to crack around our government’s obstinate pursuit of an ill-defined “victory” in Afghanistan.

          In the wake of Osama bin Laden’s death, many courageous voices in Congress and elsewhere are calling for the safe but speedy withdrawal of our troops and an end to the war, now the longest in our history.

          Vital initiatives by members of Congress in both the House and the Senate are designed to turn up the heat on the Obama Administration to speed the withdrawal and to stop the slaughter.

          These initiatives are ignored or under-reported in the media.  But they are critically important.  The Pentagon and the military brass in Afghanistan are talking about a withdrawal of only about 5,000 troops in July, with another 5,000 by the end of the year.

          With well over 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, “withdrawals” on that pathetic scale would guarantee stretching the bloody fighting and dying into the indefinite future.

          Robert Greenwald and Derrick Crow, writing in Reader Supported News, summed up the situation bluntly:

          “Osama bin Laden is dead.  Al Qaeda has been driven from Afghanistan.  The last plausible excuse for keeping troops in Afghanistan is gone.  Yet the military continues to fight a counterinsurgency campaign with tens of thousands of U.S. troops, a campaign that’s failed to blunt the ever-growing level of insurgent attacks across Afghanistan.  Civilian casualties are at an all-time high.  Troop injuries and acute stress are at an all-time high.  Costs are at an all-time high.  There’s no rational reason left to continue this farce.”

          Some in Congress are determined to bring a halt to the killing.

          Maine Democratic Congresswoman Chellie Pingree has launched a nationwide petition campaign, asking citizens to sign this simple message to the President:

          “We commend you for bringing Osama bin Laden to justice.  Please keep your commitment of an accelerated withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan beginning this July.”

          Meanwhile, California Congresswoman Barbara Lee has introduced HR 780, the “Responsible End to the War in Afghanistan Act.”  The bill has 60 co-sponsors, including Representative Jim McDermott of Washington. Here is the complete text:

          “It is the policy of the United States to ensure that funds made available for operations of the armed forces in Afghanistan are to be used only for providing the safe and orderly withdrawal of all U.S. military personnel and Department of Defense contractor personnel in Afghanistan.”

          Representative Lee has also secured the signatures of 81 members of Congress on a letter to the President calling on him to order a “significant and sizeable” withdrawal of troops in July.

           In addition, Representatives Jim McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat, and Walter Jones, a North Carolina Republican, have introduced the “Afghanistan Exit and Accountability Act.”  It would require the President to present to Congress a timetable for withdrawing the troops and a clear end date for the war.

          It would also require the President to submit quarterly reports to Congress on the progress of troop withdrawal, as well as on the human and financial costs of continuing the war.

          The McGovern-Jones bill is especially important because it carries with it the prospect of a roll call, in which every member of the House would have to endorse either a continuation of the open-ended war in Afghanistan or an unambiguous plan for military withdrawal.

          McGovern and Jones are expected to offer their bill as an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2012 defense authorization bill, when it comes before the House in May or June.

          In the Senate, New York Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has sponsored the “Safe and Responsible Redeployment of United States Combat Forces from Afghanistan Act of 2011.”  The measure is co-sponsored by Democratic Senators Barbara Boxer of California and Sherrod Brown of Massachusetts and Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois.  Gillibrand has invited rank-and-file voters to become “citizen co-sponsors” of the bill.

          The President’s timetable calls for U.S. troops to remain in Afghanistan through 2014.  But within the administration, there’s a fierce tug of war on the issue, with some for, others against, speeding the withdrawal.

          Polls show the war is increasingly unpopular.  In March, weeks before bin Laden’s death, a poll by ABC News and The Washington Post found that nearly two-thirds of respondents no longer believe the war is worth fighting.

          Some in the Senate are having second thoughts.  Durbin, who voted in 2001 to authorize the war, is among them.

          “Now here we are, ten years later,” Durbin said.  “The longest war in U.S. history, with no end in sight.  Even with the killing of Osama bin Laden, that is not what I was signing up for.”

          And Durbin added, “If you believe that resolution of this conflict by military means is highly unlikely and not a realistic basis for U.S. policy, how can we send one more American soldier to fight and die in Afghanistan?”

          Senator Carl Levin (D, Mich.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, says he will publicly advocate for a “significant reduction” of troops.

          Even Senator John Kerry (D, Mass.), who says we “can’t pack up and leave,” admits that “we must factor in what we can afford in light of our budget constraints.  We will spend $120 billion in Afghanistan this fiscal year…We have to ask at every turn if our strategy in Afghanistan is sustainable.”

          Others in Congress who have now spoken out against indefinite continuation of the war include Senators Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ), and Representatives Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), Raul Grijalva (D, Ariz.), Lynn Woolsey (D, Calif.). Maxine Waters (D, Calif.), Barney Frank, (D, Mass.), Cliff Stearns (D, ----_) and one Republican, Walter Jones  of North Carolina..

          MoveOn.org has launched its own petition drive, paralleling Pingree’s.  “A collective call from hundreds of thousands of Americans to bring our troops home will give the President the public support he needs to begin a swift, safe and significant withdrawal of our troops,” MoveOn said. 

          Pingree plans to deliver her own petitions to the White House, and if MoveOn can reach its goal of more than 125,000 signatures, she’ll deliver them, too.   

          While all this is going on in Congress, “September 11^th Families for a Peaceful Tomorrow,” composed of family members of the September 11^th victims, sounded a note of sanity after bin Laden’s death:

          “As we consider the killing of Osama bin Laden,” they said, ”our thoughts turn not only to our family members who were killed on September 11^th, but to all of the innocent people around the world who have died, and continue to die, as a result of the events of September 11^th, 2001.

          “It is our hope that the rule of law, underpinned by our Constitution that was so terribly strained in the name of September 11^th will again become the guiding light of our policies at home and abroad. 

          “One person may have played a central role in the September 11^th attacks, but all of us have a role to play in returning our world to a place of peace, hope and new possibilities.  We hope that process will begin today.”

                                                         

                                             

Medicaid attacked

by Will Parry

          After encountering a firestorm of voter anger over their scheme to destroy Medicare by turning it into a voucher program, House Republicans are training their Congressional gun sights on a program that serves children and the poorest Americans:  Medicaid.

          Medicaid advocates expect the House Energy and Commerce Committee to move quickly on a bill that would repeal the vital “maintenance of effort” (MOE) requirement in the health care reform law.  The MOE provision blocks the states from cutting their Medicaid rolls before the establishment of health care exchanges in 2014.

          The Hill, a news service that summarizes activity in Congress, quoted both Bruce Lesley, president of the children’s advocacy group First Focus, and Director Ron Pollack of Families USA, as expressing deep concern over the threat to Medicaid.  “I’ve always worried that Medicare and Social Security would go off the table and Medicaid would the only thing left standing,” Lesley said.

          “More than $1.3 trillion of the savings in Representative Paul Ryan’s (R, Wisc.) budget proposal would come from Medicaid,” The Hill reported. “So far, those plans haven’t attracted the same political furor as the budget’s Medicare components.  Some Democrats have been blunt about the reason:  Seniors vote in large numbers, whereas Medicaid primarily serves children and the poor.”

          The Congressional Budget Office estimated that eliminating the MOE requirement would cut about 300,000, mostly children, from the program.

          Medicaid advocates are also concerned about a second proposal in the GOP budget, to convert federal Medicaid funding into block grants for the states.  First Focus and Families USA oppose both Republican proposals.  Either would be “all about rationing care and cutting people off of coverage,” Lesley told The Hill.

          Governors have lobbied for MOE repeal, contending that they cannot maintain their Medicaid enrollment without making major cuts in other areas.  Clearly, a major battle to save Medicaid’s integrity is  shaping up. 

From coal to clean energy

by Will Parry

          The transition from fossil fuels to clean energy in Washington State has been significantly advanced with an agreement to phase out the state’s only coal-fired power plant in Centralia.

          “Over the next 14 years, we’ll scrub the last of the coal from our in-state power production, while working to reduce imports of coal power,” said K. C. Golden, policy director for the environmental organization Climate Solutions.

          Opposition to coal is no longer confined to organizations like the Sierra Club, Golden reported.  Readiness to “power past coal” has been expressed by the Centralia Economic Development Council, by organized labor, by Transalta (which owns the plant) and by Governor Chris Gregoire.

          “Steady progress in making the clean-energy economy real in the Northwest is a big part of what makes the coal transition possible,” Golden said.  “Energy conservation programs are saving energy and money hand over fist, squeezing more value out of the region’s hydropower.  Wind power is online.  Solar, geothermal, cogeneration, smart grid and tidal energy initiatives are under way.”

          At the same time, Golden warned that “coal giants Arch and Peabody have targeted the region for coal export facilities so they can ship the coal we don’t burn – and a whole lot more – to Asia.  If they succeed, we’ll be sending a big Northwest thumbs up for huge coal plant investments in Asia that will lock humanity in to catastrophic climate disruption.”

          Clearly, major battles lie ahead, but the phasing out of the Centralia plant suggests that clean energy is the wave of the future.

 

bad news for the Young Jerks in the House

The Tea Party doesn't want any changes to two of the government's biggest programs.

The vast majority of Tea Party supporters - 70% - oppose cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, a new McClatchy-Marist poll found.

The results are somewhat in line with the feelings of registered voters as a whole - 80% oppose proposed cuts to those entitlements.

But it is something of a surprise for Tea Partiers, whose political platform is built on the principles of slashing government spending.

Medicare and Medicaid are among the country's most expensive programs, and their projected growth is largely responsible for expanding deficit projections.

The poll revealed: 92% of Democrats, 73% of Republicans and 75% of independents also oppose the cuts.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/04/18/112386/poll-best-way-to-fight-deficits.html

Welcome to TalkBack

President-Emeritus and current Editor-in-Chief Will Parry plans to use this blog for articles and comments that do not fit the format or the timeline of The Retiree Advocate, PSARA's monthly newsletter.  He expects to write one or two articles per week for this blog.  PSARA members with special expertise will be asked to submit material as well.  Will plans to pass along links to articles that he finds particularly valuable. 

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