Join Us! Become a Peaceworks Member or Renew Your Membership Now

It's membership time for Peaceworks. We urge you to consider the importance of the work we do and to give as generously as you can. Please take just a minute to CLICK HERE and download a PDF of our new membership letter. Great pics and it really let's you know a lot more about what we stand for and the work we do.

People's Economics? What's That?

Get beyond the hype and in the know.  

Peaceworks will be offering an 8-week People's Economics course on Tuesday evenings, 7:15-9 p.m., beginning Feb. 28.

 

Our goal: Empowering the 99% 

 

Join us for this if you’d like to be able to effectively challenge the rightwing myths. Conversations with your Sean Hannity-loving uncle will never be the same again.

 

This weekly class is designed for a general audience, without any background in economics. We want you to gain a greater understanding of how the economy really works and we’ll emphasize information you can use to promote progressive social change. 

 

In the first few sessions, you will learn the basics of economics. The remaining sessions will allow us to explore in greater depth specific topics relevant to the current economic crisis and the decisions we face today. 

 

Registration is required. There is a nominal fee of $20 general/$10 student and low-income for the entire course. Limited scholarships available. More info and registration forms at the Peace Nook. Or you can download the info and form if you CLICK HERE.  Then opt for "download original."

Show Me a Peace Economy

Peace Economy? What is it? Why do we need one? How do we get there? These are some of the questions Peaceworks is out to explore in 2012. We encourage you to join us in working for a sustainable economy that puts all to work with meaningful, productive employment.

Today’s economy is highly militarized, but it wasn’t always so. Prior to World War II, the United States demobilized after each war. For the past seven decades, however, our economy has been on a permanent wartime footing. We’ve squandered tax dollars like a drunken sailor on shore leave. While our population is only 4.5 percent of humanity, we pay for nearly half of the planet’s military expenditures. U.S. bases ring the world—more

than a thousand of them—with a presence on every continent, on every ocean, in the skies and outer space.

Hundreds of billions expended each year on the Pentagon has led to under-investment in other areas. We see crumbling infrastructure, failing schools, and a nation falling far behind Europe or China in efforts to transition to sustainable energy technologies. And our wars and weapons are not making us more secure.

Overall military spending, not counting interest on the debt, is now in the range of $870 billion a year. When we factor out the $117 billion earmarked for the Afghan and Iraq wars, our non-war 2012 military spending level, inflation adjusted, is higher than all military spending during the peak of the Vietnam War (when we had more than half a million troops deployed in southeast Asia). For more info, visit National Priorities Project and War Resisters League.

Diverting so much money, year after year, away from productive investment is deeply problematic. It’s clearly not our only economic problem, however. A Peace Economy needs to be a Just Economy. Currently, we face a seriously flawed tax code and a structural deficit. Tax cuts for the wealthy leave us with too little revenue to pay our bills. We face growing inequality, with the growth in income over the past three decades going overwhelmingly to the richest Americans. Meanwhile, working class and middle income citizens face mountains of debt and, if they are lucky enough to be employed, a paycheck that barely keeps pace with inflation.

A movement for a Peace Economy would address these concerns and reject the bipartisan push for austerity. While selective cuts in spending, particularly in the military budget, are desirable, the effect of general spending cuts, at a time when the economy is already severely depressed, is a prolonged period of profound dislocation and real suffering for tens of millions of people.

As Sen. Bernie Sanders said recently in a Senate Budget Committee hearing, “This country does in fact have a serious deficit problem, but the reality is that the deficit was caused by two wars — unpaid for. It was caused by huge tax breaks for the wealthiest people in this country. It was caused by a recession as result of the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street. And if those are the causes of the deficit, I will be damned if we’re going to balance the budget on backs of the elderly, the sick, the children, and the poor. That’s wrong.”

We invite you to join Peaceworks in our work for a more peaceful, just and sustainable economy. Please check out our upcoming Peace Economy Film Series and our People’s Economics class. Consider joining our Peace & Justice Committee. Please contact us for more info. Positive change will only come when enough of us seriously engage the system in a sustained way. Join us.

BUY NOTHING? BUY SOME THINGS? BUY ETHICALLY.

As almost everyone knows, this Friday, Nov. 25, is "Black Friday," the day that kicks off the orgy of American consumerism known as the "Holiday Season." It's a day of "door-buster" sales and stampedes at malls and big box stores around the country.

Many are rightly critical of the excesses of seemingly mindless consumption. Some, led by the Adbusters Foundation, have attempted to remake "Black Friday" into "Buy Nothing Day," a day to take a holiday from consuming. For more info on BND please see http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/bnd  and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buy_Nothing_Day

We, here at Peaceworks and the Peace Nook, respect the sentiment of BND. We also recognize that the answer is not to avoid all shopping on one day of the year, but rather to change our relationship with consumption more thoroughly. And to do so year round, rather than on one particular day.

We all need to consume some things. Most of us certainly can consume less. And most can make changes in the mix of what we consume, as well as reexamine our attitude towards consuming, so that it's a more deliberate process, rather than one that is spurred on by advertising and the manipulation of our desires.

It seems to us that we each need to find our own healthy balance. Some of the general suggestions we might offer regarding gifts and the holiday season include: 

•   Buy local, when possible. Support your community.
•  Buy durable goods that are produced in a sustainable fashion. Avoid excessive packaging and products whose production involves significant environmental pollution.
•  Buy things that are made using fair labor practices, and, when buying imported goods from developing countries, look for Fair Trade items. 
• Support non-profits and organizations doing good work (this includes making donations in the name of a loved one in lieu of buying things, especially for folks who might already have more things than they need)
• Give of yourself. This can include making at least some of your gifts yourself and also giving services (e.g. babysitting, massage, help with chores, etc.).

SUPPORT THE PEACE NOOK:  The Peace Nook, the non-profit store operated by Peaceworks, meets a number of these criteria. We are local and non-profit. We offer Fair Trade imports and environmentally friendly products.

We are here for you, our community. We wouldn't be here without your support. We really hope you will choose to patronize the Nook during the holiday season, as your purchases at this time of year are critical to our financial health and therefore to Peaceworks ability to do educational and advocacy work.

If you are observing BND, we respect this choice. We hope to see you when it works for you to come down to visit the Nook on a different day.

If you are not observing BND, and would like to visit us this Friday, we will be open. No, we won't have any 4 a.m. door-busters, but we'll be keeping our usual 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. hours.

We thank you, our community, for 21 years of support and are hopeful that your support will continue and grow. In many ways, shopping at the Peace Nook is a gift to the community.