DPP Campaigns

DPP Takes Up the “25% SOLUTION” Campaign 

FUND OUR COMMUNITIES – REDUCE MILITARY SPENDING

DPP members decided at our April 13 meeting to work on developing a campaign to reduce military spending and redirect the funds to vital community needs.  We are working in collaboration with the our community allies and the larger UJP movement. Since February, some of us have been talking to numbers of organizations to find out what they think about joining together in a "Fund Our Communities - Cut Military Spending / 25%" campaign. It is expected that a group of community leaders, together with DPP, will soon convene a larger meeting to launch the effort, with a possible “roll-out” with a joint group marching in the Dorchester Day Parade June 7.

 

*    *    *    *

“WHERE THE MONEY IS. . .” – During the 1930’s a notorious gangster was asked why he robbed banks.  His famous reply: “Because that’s where the money is!”  If we look at where the bulk of federal spending goes, it is clear that military spending is “where the money is.” This is why local government and community services are starved – and why, by ignoring this, local politicians are looking to raise additional revenue from regressive taxes on family spending and housing.

 

$23,458,507,116 = Cost of Iraq/Afghanistan Wars to Massachusetts, so far.

 

A 25% reduction in military spending could mean annual funding of

 

$5,000,000,000        for Massachusetts

$500,000,000            for Boston

 

What could that pay for in schools, neighborhood services and green jobs?

 

*    *    *    *

Saturday, May 9,  Economic Recovery and Beyond: Redirecting Military and Energy Resources, 1-4pm, Watertown Free Public Library at 123 Main Street. The Mini-Conference, featuring academics/activists, Dr. Anita Dancs and Dr. Frank Ackerman,  is free and open to anyone interested in learning how our economy is effected by military spending and climate change.  Anita Dancs, Assistant Professor of Economics, Western New England College and former Research Director at the National Priorities Project (NPP), is the author of  The Military Cost of Securing Energy. Frank Ackerman, Professor of Economics at the Global Development and Environment Institute, Tufts University, has written extensively about the economics of climate change and other environmental problems. His latest book, Can we Afford the Future? Economics for a Warming World was published in the fall of 2008.

For more information please visit www.watertowncitizens.org or call 617-926-8560, mailbox 2. The Library is easily accessible by public transportation by taking the #73 Bus from Harvard Square and getting off at the last stop in Watertown Square.  The Library also has a metered parking lot.

 

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Be Part of the Solution. . .Petition available here:

http://www.dotpeace.org/files/25% Petition-final.doc  

 

The 25% Solution draws its name from Congressman Barney Frank’s call for a 25% reduction in military spending.  Frank puts the issue clearly -- “If we are not able to get military spending under control……we will not be able to respond to important domestic needs.” 

--The US spends more on its military than the all the other counties of the world combined.

--The military budget almost doubled in the eight years of the Bush administration

--Half of all US annual discretionary spending goes to the military and war fighting

--Tens of $billions are spent on costly and unnecessary weapons systems

--The US maintains more than 700 military bases in almost 100 foreign countries

--The U.S. pours nearly $500,000 per minute into the Iraq war

Military spending -- now approaching $1trillion per year -- is bankrupting our country and draining the life blood of our communities.  The call for a 25% reduction is a good and practical first step.  Just ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, cutting obsolete programs, and eliminating wasteful spending would easily meet the goal.

With the US facing devastating economic and environmental crises, with our states and cities forced into layoffs and cutbacks, now is the moment to demand a shift in our country’s priorities.

We call on everyone to support a 25% reduction in military spending, with the savings redirected to urgent domestic needs, including the funding of jobs in infrastructure repairs, housing, health care, education, clean energy -- and preventing the layoff of State and local public workers in the Commonwealth.

BACEVICH: Obama's sins of omission  

…however much Obama may differ from Bush on particulars, he appears intent on sustaining the essentials on which the Bush policies were grounded. Put simply, Obama's pragmatism poses no threat to the reigning national security consensus. Consistent with the tradition of American liberalism, he appears intent on salvaging that consensus… Obama's revised approach to the so-called Long War, formerly known as the Global War on Terror, should hearten neoconservative and neoliberal exponents of American globalism: Now in its eighth year, this war continues with no end in sight. Those who actually expected Obama to "change the way Washington works" just might feel disappointed. Far than abrogating the Sacred Trinity, the president appears intent on investing it with new life.  More

 

Commentary: Military spending is killing the United States

The wars the U.S. is embroiled in do not make us safer or more secure. We kill civilians in faraway lands, lose soldiers and waste resources that could be put to constructive purpose rather than destructive. As we face devastating economic and environmental crises, right now is a crucial moment to demand a shift in our nation’s priorities.  More

 

In case you missed it. . .

Barney Frank: Cut the Military Budget

I would be very happy if there was some way to make it a misdemeanor for people to talk about reducing the budget deficit without including a recommendation that we substantially cut military spending. Sadly, self-described centrist and even liberal organizations often talk about the need to curtail deficits by cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other programs that have a benign social purpose, but they fail to talk about one area where substantial budget reductions would have the doubly beneficial effect of cutting the deficit and diminishing expenditures that often do more harm than good.  More

 

The US should cut military spending in half

Hawks depicted the cuts that Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently proposed for the Pentagon's weapons programs as a savage assault on the military industrial complex. They insisted that Secretary Gates would leave us prostrate before future rivals… To really keep us safe, we should slash defense spending. Americans should prepare for fewer wars, not different ones. Far from providing our defense, our military posture endangers us. It drags us into others' conflicts, provokes animosity, and wastes resources. We need a defense budget worthy of the name. We need military restraint. And that would allow us to cut defense spending roughly in half.   More

 

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COST OF WAR

 

Where the money comes from, where it goes and what it could pay for instead.

http://nationalpriorities.org/

 

The Military Cost of Securing Energy… and the alternatives

http://www.nationalpriorities.org/Energy_Security/Energy_Priorities

 

 ***************************************************

ARE YOU A VETERAN?
HAVE YOU EXPERIENCED NEIGHBORHOOD VIOLENCE?
ARE YOU FAMILY / FRIEND OF A VET OR SOMEONE IMPACTED BY
VIOLENCE?

FROM IRAQ &
AFGHANISTAN BACK
HOME TO
DORCHESTER:

A COMMUNITY RESPONDS TO
THE WOUNDS OF VIOLENCE

Saturday, September 20 - full day program
9:30 am - 4:00 pm

Dorchester House Multi-service Center
1353 Dorchester Avenue * Dorchester, MA 02125

Speakers * networking * education * open mike

Assistance and information provided by: VetCenter, SoFAR, Veterans Upward Bound rogram, Veterans Advocacy Network, NE Shelter for Homeless Veterans, Veterans Benefits learinghouse, Statewide Head Injury Program from Massachusetts Rehabilitation
Commission, Louis D. Brown Peace Institute and others.
A LIGHT BREAKFAST & CATERED LUNCH WILL BE PROVIDED.

 

Please contact if you have any questions, require childcare or can provide outreach assistance for this event at 617-983-5383, dorchesterconference@gmail.com or www.dotpeace.org/campaigns.

Event co-sponsors include Dorchester People for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War—Boston Chapter, Louis D.Brown Peace Institute, Massachusetts Chapter of Military Families Speaks Out, Veterans for Peace—Smedley Butler Brigade and the William Joiner Center for the Study of War & Social Consequences at UMASS-Boston.

* * * *

What’s a Strategy to End the War?

DPP discussion, February 11, 2008

 

1. We started by going around and asking: What do you mean when you say “end the war?”

• Change the status quo.
• End US wars, not just this war.
• Iraqi sovereignty and safety. End violence and make restitution to people of Iraq.
• A new politics in the US so that war is prevented... but that’s very long term, and in the short term people are dying: any progress in ending this war is important!
• Retribution for the criminals who started the war.
• Economic justice policies here.
• Justice and peace.
• Iraq for the Iraqis and regional peace.
• Reconciliation.
• End white supremacist and corporate control of the US government.
• Return to the rule of law (the UN, Congress and not just the President...) instead of imperialism.

 

How long are we talking about?

• Years and decades, but our work in the short term is also essential.
• Iraqis are moving to end the war. Iraq’s government says it will not renew the US’s war authority which expires this December. Oil rights are tied to this. How do we support and publicize their agency?

 

Points of unity:

• We have 3 “R”s -- restitution (reparations), retribution, and reconciliation. (or five, with regional peace and return to the rule of law).
• We all talked about institutional, structural change. Nobody stopped with “end the shooting” or “troops home now.”

 

2. Next we looked critically at the three strategies that DPP works on.

 

a. Counter-recruitment, GI resistance -- taking away the troops that Washington needs to keep the war going.

 

Put your mind into the future and imagine that this strategy is about to succeed. What has happened to bring that about? What does the picture look like?

• Young men have other alternatives than enlisting.
• There’s more counter-recruiting work and it’s networked across the country.
• The Pentagon gets desperate for troops, they restore the draft, and it all unravels.
• Counter-recruiting doesn’t actually deny them the troops, it just makes it more expensive to recruit them. (The government raises enlistment bonuses and other rewards.) If this strategy works it’s because of those actually serving in the army.
• Immunity for mercenary contractors in Iraq has been ended, so they stop coming -- that cuts off nearly half the US force in Iraq.
• The antiwar movement has helped magnify the voice of Iraq Veterans Against the War, through efforts like Winter Soldier, to the point where it becomes safe to oppose the war if you’re still in the armed services.

 

What are the difficulties in making this happen?

• If permanent low-level occupation replaces hot war, enough US people might accept that.
• Lack of media attention.
• Unit cohesion -- the Pentagon now keeps units together instead of rotating soldiers in and out, so soldiers will reluctantly go back to Iraq rather than betray their buddies.

 

What’d we learn from this discussion?

• There are some things we and our strategies can’t control, like the war machine in Iraq disintegrating.
• Counter-recruitment will raise the cost of the war but won’t end it.
• We need to publicize developments happening in Iraq, by Iraqis.
• Supporting IVAW accomplishes many things: they do counter-recruitment, they encourage GI resistance...
• DPP’s “Health Consequences of the War” forum which we’re planning this spring is another way to publicize the effects of the war on US soldiers and veterans, and another place for IVAW to do its work.

 

b. Political pressure, elections -- putting so much pressure on the decision-makers that they decide to end the war.

 

Imagine that this strategy is about to succeed. What happened to bring that about?

• There’s more political participation, the population is more mobilized (on non-war issues) and it is putting a lot more pressure on congress.
• Not because public opinion is against the war (it already is and the war hasn’t ended) but because one sector of the ruling class decides the cost is too high to keep it going. (What are the costs that would be too high for them?)
• What happened with the Vietnam war was the army falling apart plus Vietnamese resistance (the main factor) plus the threat of losing control of the country socially and economically: rebellions and strikes among people of color and working class people, losing a whole generation of future managers, the economy spinning out of control. And then it took ten more years to end that war.
• Violent riots.
• UFPJ meets with a presidential candidate to discuss endorsement if he’ll end the war.
• We ask why they are in Iraq -- if it’s control of oil or control of the region, when those conditions change (for example, if the Iraqi government takes control of Iraq’s oil) the “deciders” in Washington could let go. They could decide to buy the oil instead.
• In congressional and presidential elections, the issue of the war tips the balance between candidates. Afraid of losing the election, politicians or a political party agree to end the war. The electoral force that’s big enough to make this happen would probably be part of a much larger social movement.

 

What are the difficulties in making this happen?

• Here, “Kerry and Kennedy are on the right side,” so it’s hard to get people to call them.
• Politicians think the anti-war movement isn’t making any electoral or political difference, so our pressure has no effect.
• UFPJ’s endorsement might hurt a candidate more than it would help him.
• War is profitable for the ruling elite and it keeps the economy afloat, so they actively don’t want to end it. [We then asked whether war was good for the whole elite or just parts of it.]

 

What’d we learn from this discussion?

• Movements make changes, not political parties.
• We can’t imagine how this strategy would work in any concrete way.
• ... but we need to keep pressuring the political class because if we stop, it becomes easier for them to keep the war going.
• Political pressure is a necessary part of our work but not a sufficient strategy to end the war.
• We do it because it’s the principled thing to do.
• This strategy needs more thought.
• It doesn’t end wars, it just ends this war.
• There is a precedent for targeting swing districts and unseating pro-war congressmen, making examples of them. Just because we can’t do it here doesn’t mean it will not work elsewhere.
• It could be effective to link these two strategies: go to Lynch and other congressmen with IVAW, work with IVAW to pressure Congress.

 

c. Follow the leadership of people of color to end the war

 

Imagine that this strategy is about to succeed. What happened to bring that about?

• People of color aren’t enlisting.
• People of color are speaking out.
• There’s a broad social movement that combines the peace movement with other movements, and that mega-movement is having an effect on

· electoral politics

· the economy (by demanding better education, no mortgage foreclosures, less dependence on oil, the movement is making the economy better for the majority)

· support for the Iraqi people

• We’ve blocked all foreclosure evictions and forced the mortgage companies to keep people in their homes. The power of that groundswell builds a broad strong movement that says “fund human needs not war.”
• There are more people active and that translates public opinion into political results. (Right now lots of people are feeling hopeless, esp. white working class people. If people think they can have an effect, maybe they’ll do things we say like lobby Congress.)

 

What are the difficulties and unresolved questions in this strategy?

• We’re doing the right thing by supporting people of color struggles but we haven’t thought through how to link the war issue. If we think this is the right strategy we should be able to figure out how to express it -- for example, bringing it to meetings and events that our allies are organizing. We need to be out there ourselves when we support others too.
• But we’ve just started supporting issues of people of color -- housing, police brutality, schools. We need to do more to support them.

 

• It’s a problem if fighting against war is not people of color’s issue. If it’s our issue but not theirs. At some point we all have to say that we all oppose this war together.
• But people are on survival level, they know the war is part of what’s wrong but their energy has to go into survival.

 

• We can’t stop the war or economic injustice unless we build a broad movement, and the only way to do that is to follow the leadership of people of color... because racism is the foundation of our economy and that makes it central to address. The logic of following people of color is that people of color understand best what’s wrong with the system (that’s founded on racism).

What did we learn from this discussion?

• This is a fundamentally different way of looking at this strategy. Before, I was thinking that we and people of color would get together in a peace movement to end the war. Now, this strategy is saying that we create a broader movement that can also take down the war.
• The “movement of people of color” doesn’t have a specific strategy to end the war. We are looking at a much longer-term movement-building strategy, and one of its byproducts is ending the war.
• We have been blurring a movement of color, leaders of color, people of color broadly, and issue campaigns concerning people of color. They’re very different (for example, left leaders of color are doing and saying things that many/most people of color aren’t). We need to separate all these in next month’s discussion about the “following the leadership of people of color” strategy.

 

 

Notes from DPP meeting, January 14, 2008

Present: 18 members on a snowy evening.

Opening go-round: what recent DPP events have you particularly liked?

Standouts, involving new people

Collaboration with our allies in most of the things we did

The weekly update

Democratic spirit, shared leadership

Holiday party with awards that aren’t run-of-the-mill

War and racism event as part of a multi-class, multi-race movement

Not ever blaming veterans

A whole day retreat that people come to

The night we got the Hidden Heroes award

Peace walk: lots of our threads coming together

 

Decisions about Infrastructure

 

Facilitation Team

1. The DPP Facilitation Team will have three members (at least).

2. Facilitation Team members will serve one or more 6-month terms. Members are encouraged to serve more than one term if they can. Having some overlap between old and new members is helpful.

3. Facilitation Team elections will be in October (at the annual retreat) and in April (at the regular DPP meeting). It is the responsibility of the currently serving Facilitation Team to announce, organize, and run the election -- including recruiting people in advance of the election who are willing to serve on the Facilitation Team, as well as taking nominations/volutneers from the floor at the election meeting. If for any reason there is not a business meeting or other face-to-face opportunity to hold the election during the appointed month (April, October), the Facilitation Team will attempt to make another provision, perhaps by e-mail, to hold the election as scheduled, and thus to ensure that Facilitation Team members’ terms start and end at the agreed-on times.

... so think about when you can serve, starting in April!

 

Decision Group

All DPP members are invited to join this email list to make minor non-controversial decisions between meetings. The Facilitation Team is circulating the list to generate one list that everyone consistently uses.

 

Treasurer’s Report

Our current balance is $2008.76.
Our new account saves us over $130/yr in fees.

Our annual dues are $20/yr and members are welcome to pay more or less. Thank you very much for making it possible for DPP to offer the peace movement to so many people in this community and beyond.

 

Sign-ups

People signed up to distribute flyers in their neighborhoods, contact ally groups, and call branches on our phone tree.

 

Activities for 2008

 

Membership Committee

will meet 6:30 Wednesday January 23 at Angela’s, 188b Savin Hill Ave.

 

Anti-Racism/Multicultural Competence Committee

is discussing a name change.

Its objective this year is to help DPP follow through on its commitment to fully integrate our anti-racism and anti-war work. We will hold a discussion meeting on that in March that’ll include District 7’s Principles of Peace.

A specific goal is to keep CORI reform on our agenda and we need a contact person who’ll do that.

 

Counter-Recruitment Committee

wants to continue opt-out work, and meet with the most involved five or so ally groups to figure out the next phase of counter-recruitment work. Feedback: add IVAW to the list of groups for that meeting.

In addition the committee will probably set up presentations for high school classes, distribute The Ground Truth and our 17-minute clip from it, maybe print a revised Alternatives booklet.

 

Biolab Committee

BU will likely meet its March deadline for completing the approval process, and the anti-biolab network may organize an action Saturday March 1 to publicize BU’s failure. We want everyone there -- stay tuned! In the meantime you can send letters to elected officials that we will probably post on DPP’s site, maybe publicize in the weekly update. And you may also come to a City Council Transportation Committee hearing (if it’s scheduled) on the difficulty of transporting extremely dangerous organisms to the lab.

 

Anti-War Committee

Proposed for 2008:

Hand out “candidates and the war” scorecards at subway stations before presidential primary day, February 5.

Help Iraq Veterans Against the War: pull off their Winter Soldier hearing (Washington in March), raise money (Dorchester house party), and set up dates to talk to youth, community, and school groups.

Bring Iraq’s reality here with a May forum on Health Effects of the War in Iraq and here; a sister relationship with a community in Iraq which we’re looking for; a fall forum on what’s really happening in Iraq.

Devote February’s general meeting to a discussion on what’s really happening in Iraq.

Input:

-add Iran.

-use the candidate scorecard from the District 9 network

-take our scorecard to the Ward Committee meetings on February 2 and ask people who are supporting specific candidates how they’ll end the war immediately.

-figure out how to integrate the February and March discussions on ending the war & war+racism.

 

Announcements

Predatory Lending: City Life is canvassing every week and finding 100 more families subject to eviction from predatory mortgages. We can help them by signing up to help block evictions and by putting up their leaflets in our neighborhoods -- City Life hasn’t had anyone evicted yet and people need to hear about that!

Boston Workers Alliance needs people to help with its fundraiser February 17, 7-11 pm at the Carver Den Youth Center, 80 Talbot Ave.

The GI Rights Hotline is looking for new counselors and holding a training March 29. Please spread the word.

Ask your friends if they are getting DPP’s email. If they want to but have been cut off, let Jeff know.

 

2008 calendar

February 11: Discussion: what’s a strategy to end the war?

March 1: biolab action to be announced

March 10: Discussion: integrating our anti-racism and anti-war work/District 7’s Principles of Peace.

April 14: business meeting and elections for Facilitation Team

May 12 or sometime in May: Forum: health effects of the war

June 1: Dorchester Day Parade

June 9: open meeting date

July 14: business meeting

August 11: counter-recruitment / opt-out campaign

September 8: speaker on the reality in Iraq

October 6 or 20: open meeting date

October 25: retreat date?

November 10: open meeting date

December 8: holiday party?

 

DPP’s FALL PEACE SURGE

--- JOIN UP NOW!

This fall is a crucial time and a moment of opportunity. Congress is deciding whether to fund the Iraq war for several months more, and we can have an impact on that vote. The public is focusing on the war, and we can broaden the peace movement, increasing our power and voice. Contact info@dotpeace.org if you can help.

We decided to:

1) Intensify our visibility in Dorchester. We will be tabling, leafleting, doing standouts and holding banners starting Friday, September 21, the first day of the national Iraq Moratorium – and continuing at least through October.

2) Raise crucial issues: Peace in our community (also known as racial and economic justice), the oil law in Iraq (more info below), and the danger of a war with Iran.

HERE’S WHAT YOU CAN DO RIGHT AWAY!

Help reach more Dorchester neighbors. We will start by leafleting the subways Friday morning September 21, then table and do standouts on weekends in September and October. This visibility-and-outreach campaign will peak in a big banner-holding action on October 19, the second Iraq Moratorium day.

Publicize the New England regional peace rally on Saturday, October 27. This massive rally will bring together peace people across New England on Boston Common, noon to 3. Tell your friends, family, and neighbors; bring your family; get other people to come; and during the rally, help us bring our crucial issues to the peace movement by doing outreach within the crowd.

Pressure our Congressmen. On Wednesday September 19, meet at G Street and Day Boulevard beginning at 5:15 p.m; at 6:30, walk up G Street to Rep. Stephen Lynch's home to urge him to vote "NO" to more war funds. Call or write our other Congressman, Michael Capuano, at 617-621-6208 or Rep. Capuano, U.S. House, Washington, DC 20515.

Help make all this happen. Here is a list of campaign-building tasks that need your help.

• Writing and producing a new flyer for tabling: We need help! Hayat and Becky may focus on a “fund the dream”/racial and economic justice message; Hayat will presumably work on the oil law message; Rachel will presumably work on the Iraq war message; and we will need more people to help, including designing and copying the leaflets. This team could also recruit volunteers for leafleting, tabling, and standouts – if not, another team will have to.

• Coordinating the Bannering Drive. This is a special effort that needs two or three people to agree on the banner-making method, pick places for banners, and organize people to help. They also need to settle on a core message for the leaflets and banners, like the “Funding the War Is Killing the Troops”.

• Special outreach for the October 27 peace rally. We need to contact some of our community allies – at least the “peace in our streets” groups starting with the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute – to let them know about the rally, ask them to endorse it and come.

• General mobilizing for October 27. We need two or three people who will coordinate our get-people-there effort (phone calls, visibility, media, going downtown together) and our presence at the rally (we may be roving the crowd in small teams with leaflets and/or signs, pushing our special issues of Iran, the oil law, and “Fund the Dream”).

• Deeper campaigns. The oil law campaign also involves media work and other ways of mobilizing opposition. Iran and Fund the Dream could, too. If you want to work on deeper campaigns.

PLEASE CONTACT info@dotpeace.org

IF YOU CAN HELP WITH ANY OF THESE PIECES.

Attachment	Size
march 12 legislature letter.doc	32 KB
OpposeHouse4270.doc	35 KB
08 accomplishments.doc	28 KB
08 retreat long.doc	54 KB
FinCrisisFlyer.doc	88.5 KB
DPP Retreat 5-2-09.doc	45.5 KB
25% Petition-final.doc	24 KB
25percentInviteLetter-1 (2).doc	29.5 KB
PETITION-one signer4.doc	33 KB