Putting Peace into the Holiday Season

We here at Peaceworks wish you and yours joyous, peaceful holidays, whichever ones you might celebrate. We hope, as it grows colder outside, that your home will be filled with the warmth of loving, caring family and friends.

We also hope that the holiday season can be a time of "Peace on Earth, Goodwill to All."

We know that our world today is rife with conflict; that massive commitments of money and human lives are continuously turned over to war and the preparation for war. What is saddest is that we have grown to take this for granted. Like a frog in a pot of water that is heated gradually, our society has, to a great extent, come to take an Orwellian state of Permanent War as the norm, even as it is destroying us. 

Continuous war not only costs far too many lives and leaves so many more physically and psychologically scarred. It also threatens our very survival. 

• It does this in part because it makes enemies, and this then feeds a cycle of violence. 
• It also means failing to come to grips with the nuclear threat. By failing to abolish nuclear weapons in a universal, mutual and verifiable fashion, we make nuclear war, at some time in the future, far more likely. 
• Throwing many hundreds of billions down a non-productive rat hole is perilous to our economy as well. By failing to invest in people, infrastructure and appropriate technologies, we do a disservice to the nation. By fighting these wars on borrowed money, we run up our children's and grandchildren's credit cards. 
• Finally, by normalizing aggressive war-making and its tragic consequences for millions of people, we compromise our basic shared ethical framework. By accepting this illegal and immoral behavior on the part of our government, we become collectively complicit in the crimes.

On a more positive note, when we keep the vision of a peaceful future alive, and work for it day-in and day-out, we have a basis for hope. When we go beyond holding the vision to sharing it, we make an even greater difference.

We encourage you to share with others the notion of "Peace on Earth, Goodwill to All." And, when you do, in some kind way, let your loved ones know that this is not an idle cliche, but rather a statement of what is needed now for our collective survival and betterment. May this heartfelt affirmation of peace and justice for all spread far and wide.

And, again, make them joyful, peaceful holidays.

Help Needed with Signature Ad

We are collecting names on a peace signature ad that will run in the Columbia Daily Tribune on Friday, August 6. The statement calls for ending the wars, building a peace economy and moving forward on mutual, verifiable nuclear disarmament. We aim to have at least 1,000 names and hope to raise sufficient donations to pay for a full page ad. 

GET YOUR PETITION FORM:  If you can help collect names, please download a signature form below. Note that the petition form comes in either an 11-inch or a 14-inch version. If you have legal length paper, it's best to print this in 14" format, as you get more names to the page. If you can only print 11" this works too, it just takes more paper. The statements are, of course, identical.

COLLECT SOME NAMES:  We encourage you to collect names at your house of worship, at organizational meetings, from family members, friends and neighbors, at parties, events, etc. If you can help with public petitioning, please let us know this. If you know of events we should be collecting names at, please share this info with as much lead time as possible.

GET THEM IN TO US:  We will be collecting names through July 25. Please bring or send your signatures to the Nook as soon as is feasible, so we don't end up with a logjam doing entry at the end.

HELP US PAY FOR THE AD:  A full page in the Tribune costs nearly $2,000. So we also really need financial support to help pay for the ad. Donations are optional, but most appreciated. You can bring money with you, send a check with your mailed in signature, or make a contribution on-line, and earmark it for the ad.

We thank you!

Download Petitions Here:

• Download 14-inch version (PDF)

• Download 11-inch version (PDF)

Peaceworks Activists in Action at the Airshow

For more than a decade, Peaceworks members and our allies from the Columbia Peace Coalition have raised awareness outside the Airshow. We suggest to our fellow citizens that there are more appropriate ways to remember those who've tragically lost their lives in war than to celebrate the weapons of war. Moreover, we point out that a major focus of the Airshow is to recruit our young people to enlist, by making war and the military glamorous. 

We also participate in the Veterans for Peace Memorial Day event, Peace Honors Veterans, which provides a more reverent observance of the holiday. We encourage others to join us, both at these events next year, and also at our regular weekly peace vigil held each Wednesday, 4:30-5:30 p.m. at Broadway and Providence.

Seven Steps to a Peaceful Future

As we observe the seventh anniversary of the Iraq War, Peaceworks and our allies in the Columbia Peace Coalition invite all to take action on multiple fronts to promote a peaceful future for ourselves, our children and the generations to come. Here are a few suggestions:

Seven Steps to a Peaceful Future

Be visible for Peace. Participate in vigils and rallies. Display peace messages. Keep peace in the forefront.

Speak Up for Peace. Make your concerns known by writing letters and making phone calls. Communicate regularly with elected officials, write letters-to-the-editors of newspapers, call in on radio shows, comment on blogs, etc. Challenge the influence of the corporate war machine. Those who profit from war have undo influence over our political process. Help build a grassroots, pro-peace counterweight.

Celebrate Peace Creatively. Messages of peace can be conveyed through visual arts, music, dance, performance art, poetry and other creative writing. Listen to your muse and let your peace message out.

Educate and Empathize for Peace. Become informed as to the true costs of war, including its impact on civilians, members of the military, and society at large. Share your concerns with friends, neighbors, co-workers, co-parishioners &/or family members.

Live Simply for Peace. Make peace with the Earth. Join the sustainability revolution.

Be a Peacemaker. Develop and utilize conflict resolution skills to promote greater harmony in your family, your social circle and your wider community. Participate in the evolution of our society into one that embraces inclusion and win-win solutions, rather than dominance and control.

Cultivate Inner Peace. Through prayer, meditation or creative visualization seek the peaceful space within. Find strength in this peace to support your activism.

Learning from History, Making Change in the Present, Building a More Peaceful Future. Peaceworks to Offer People's History Class.

As we move forward in a new decade, our mission is to build the sort of grassroots, activist presence that can significantly influence the shape of things to come. From confronting wars and militarism to promoting clean energy and sustainable alternatives to climate change, environmental destruction and resource wars, Peaceworks sees heightened, participatory activism as a necessary to our collective ability to facilitate needed change.

How can we be effective and sustain our work? While there are no unequivocal answers, we can learn a lot from the history of progressive struggles. We can also sharpen our analysis of current conditions if we view them through the lens of historic perspective.

For these reasons, Peaceworks will be offering a new class, "A People’s History of the United States: Focus on War & Peace/American Empire" beginning on February 4. Using selected readings from Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, this seven week class will provide insight into the evolution U.S. foreign policy and its impact at home and abroad.

Presented by PW Director Mark Haim, the course will explore the roots of the contemporary U.S. role in the world, American Exceptionalism and the history of progressive and peace organizing in opposition to American imperialism and wars. The sessions will run from 7-8:45 p.m. on seven consecutive Thursdays. Registration is required and a fee of $20 general enrollment and $10 for students is requested. If you're interested in enrolling or would like more information, contact us at mail@midmopeaceworks.org or by calling 573-875-0539.