6th International Conference on Teacher Education and Social Justice

6th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON
TEACHER EDUCATION AND SOCIAL JUSTICE:

Reframing Race, Gender, and Teacher-Education Policy

Dates: 5-6 December 2009
Location: University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), U.S.A.

Co-Sponsors:
Center for Anti-Oppressive Education
Department of Educational Policy Studies, UIC
Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy, UIC

Conference Overview

What does it mean to prepare teachers to teach toward social justice? Across the United States and around the world, educators face many challenges. Especially troublesome are the economic, social, and political contexts that make difficult our attempts to address differences and oppressions in schools and society. Yet, in the face of these challenges, teacher educators are continuing to produce significant theories, practices, and coalitions. The largest conference to date, the 6th International Conference on Teacher Education and Social Justice will offer rare opportunities to discuss cutting-edge research, develop innovative resources, build networks, and explore possibilities for new directions in teacher preparation. The Conference will draw together over five-hundred educators from around the world with diverse experiences but with shared commitments and priorities, including scholars from Australia, Canada, Chad, Chile, India, Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Palestine, Uganda, and across the United States.

** Special Note** The Conference Organizers are pleased to announce that registration is free for the 6th International Conference on Teacher Education and Social Justice. All participants must pre-register for the conference by November 20th. Space is limited, and on-site registration will not be available, so please pre-register early. Participants are responsible for their own transportation, lodging, and meals. CAOE does not issue letters of invitation to participants from outside of the United States.

Conference Theme

Reframing Race, Gender, and Teacher-Education Policy: The Conference will highlight cutting-edge research and theory on race, gender, and teacher-education policy, particularly regarding new and innovative ways to conceptualize policy and politics of teacher preparation at the intersections of race and gender.

Special Features of the Conference

Workshop on Publishing for Emerging Scholars: Designed for emerging scholars (graduate students and recent graduates) in the field of teacher education and social justice, this three-hour workshop offers invaluable tips and unravels the “unspoken rules” for publishing books and journal articles. Facilitated by the Director of CAOE, this popular workshop is free with conference pre-registration and is scheduled to be held at the end of the conference.

Booksale: Bring an extra bag with you to carry home new books and resources that you are sure to want from our impressive booksale and resource tables.

Networking Reception: A highlight of previous conferences, the Networking Reception provides an opportunity to meet other conference participants in an informal setting with light refreshments.

Registration Information
** Pre-Registration is required, and ends on November 20th **

All educators, researchers, and educational leaders and advocates throughout the United States and the world and from all levels and disciplines are invited to attend and participate in this conference. This conference is free and open to the public; however, all participants must pre-register for the conference by November 20th.

To pre-register, please download the Pre-Registration Form either in MSWord or in PDF.

Space is limited, and on-site registration will not be available, so please pre-register early. Refreshments will be provided throughout the conference. Participants are responsible for their own transportation, lodging, and meals. CAOE does not issue letters of invitation to participants from outside of the United States.
Location

The Conference will be held on the campus of the University of Illinois-Chicago in the EPASW (Education, Performing Arts, and Social Work) building, 1040 W. Harrison Street, Chicago, Illinois 60607. Maps of the campus, as well as parking information, can be downloaded at http://www.uic.edu/index.html/maps.shtml.

The University of Illinois at Chicago is conveniently located near downtown Chicago and adjacent to the UIC/Halsted station of Chicago’s rapid transit, the “L”.

Lodging

Conference participants are responsible for their own transportation, lodging, and meals.

The Conference Organizers are once again pleased to announce that the nearby Marriott Chicago Medical District/UIC has a special conference rate of $109/night (single or double) for conference participants. The hotel provides Complimentary Shuttle Service between the hotel and UIC every half hour from 6:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. To take advantage of this special rate, please contact Norma Badal, Senior Sales Manager, at nbadal@marriottchicagomd.com, and mention the “International Conference on Teacher Education and Social Justice.”

News from Teachers for Social Justice and the TSJ Curriculum Fair

TSJ curriculum fair - Association of Raza Educators keynote the meeting - photo by pidge

Chris Drew demonstrates his free speech art silk screening project - photo by pidge

Thanks from the Curriculum Fair and Next Steps – Get involved!
Thanks everyone for coming to the Teaching for Justice Curriculum  Fair and adding to the vibrancy of the TSJ community. The energy, conversation, passion, and commitment were really inspiring. Thank you!!! We are so grateful to all of the event organizers, educators, presenters, youth workers, administrators, cultural workers, activists, parents, students, and young folks who came out. The conference was put on completely by dozens of amazing volunteers with no paid staff or foun

Ron Towns discusses how math can be learned using social justice models - photo by pidge

dation funding. This is a grassroots project and the critical mass of volunteers and activists is truly inspiring. It felt like the education movement we are building.

There were over 700 attendees, 30 Teacher curriculum exhibitors, 38 resource tables, 9 workshops, art, t-shirts, books, and more.

• Keynote speakers, the Association of Raza Educators (ARE) from California emphasized the struggle to remake the world is a collective one, not about individuals. It takes organization, analysis, courage, and humility.
• TSJ delegates to Honduras shared the stories of the Honduran people’s struggle for democracy and the leading role of teachers.
• CORE gave us the lowdown on building a social justice teachers union.
• CYIC inspired and challenged us to stand up with them for education justice.

• The Committee for Safe Passage to School, mothers of Fenger students living in Altgeld Gardens, made us all aware of

Teachers for Social Justice table at entrance to Curriculum Fair – photo by pidge

their righteous struggle to reclaim their neighborhood school.
• Kevin Coval and Young Chicago Authors closed it out with words and rhymes to move us forward.

Get involved and help bring this energy to your school, community, students and youth, and into the struggles we are waging for education justice in the city.

SPECIAL MEETING  SATURDAY DEC 5
Help evaluate the curriculum fair, ideas for next steps and how everyone can be involved:   4:00-5:30
Honduras Delegation Report Back  5:30-7:00

Decima Musa, 19th & Loomis

REGULAR TSJ MEETING AND POTLUCK LUNCH, SATURDAY  DEC 12
Planning next steps, committees, activities
11:00 – 1:00
UIC College of Education, 1040 W. Harrison (Harrison & Morgan), 3rd floor

STAY  INVOLVED! IT TAKES ALL OF US!
–
*******************************************************************************

Teachers for Social Justice (Chicago)

http://teachersforjustice.org/
teachersforjustice@hotmail.com

10 Questions: Interview with Barbara Kingsolver

The following interview is reprinted from Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/interviews/show/376.Barbara_Kingsolver?utm_medium=email&utm_source=Nov_newsletter

10 Questions with Barbara Kingsolver

November, 2009

Barbara Kingsolver
As a master’s student in evolutionary biology, Barbara Kingsolver struggled to complete her thesis on the social life of termites. Thankfully, Kingsolver dropped the bugs and took up the pen—writing books with strong political motifs. The Poisonwood Bible, her best-known work, analyzes post-colonial inequity in Africa, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is an autobiographical tome about planting and eating locally grown food. Her latest book, The Lacuna, follows the son of a Mexican mother and American father. Harrison Shepherd stumbles into Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and Leon Trotsky as he witnesses history take shape in the United States and Mexico, from pre-World War II turmoil to McCarthyism. We asked Kingsolver why she believes that literature will always be political.

Goodreads: It has been nine years since your last work of fiction, Prodigal Summer. When did you begin work on The Lacuna and what inspired you to canvas midcentury Mexico and the United States?

Barbara Kingsolver: I’ve always wondered about the uneasy relationship between art and politics in the U.S. In most other places I’ve been, the two are completely intertwined. Mexico, particularly, has historically celebrated its most political artists as national heroes.

I began writing The Lacuna in February 2002. The previous autumn, after the terrorist attacks on the U.S., I had expected that we might use that challenging time to examine our role in the world. But that was not the national mood. Patriotism is strongly identified with the notion of our country as a perfect finished product—as in, “love it or leave it.” Mexico is so different; their revolution is always a work in progress. I wanted to write about that.

I went poking into history, hoping to find a formative era when these modern political identities took shape, soon after World War II. And what a surprise, I found a thrilling seven-year project.

GR: The story is told through protagonist Harrison Shepherd’s diaries and letters, but also through other devices, such as newspaper clippings. What kind of research did you conduct, and how much historical source material did you incorporate?

BK: The research was daunting: It felt, in the beginning, that I was undertaking to move a mountain with a teaspoon. But I like doing research, I told myself, spoon in hand. Beyond the historical and political sleuthing, a novel is made of details. Characters have to wear clothes, use transportation, cook, listen to radio programs, and speak in the particular jargon of an era. In this case, “the era” involved dozens of different locations in two countries, crossing nearly thirty years. I traveled in Mexico, of course, visiting settings from the coastal jungles to Mexico City’s art museums, the homes of Rivera and Kahlo, Trotsky’s personal archives, the amazing pyramids at Teotihuacán, every place I would have to translate for the reader using all my senses. I also studied the U.S. settings, particularly Asheville, North Carolina.

That was the fun, adventurous part. But the lion’s share of the work happened here in my study. I sat and read for years. Everything written by Trotsky, Diego Rivera, and Frida Kahlo, and everything written about them. Thousands of newspaper and magazine articles documenting everyday life in the U.S. during World War II, and then the postwar freeze-up. Old photo collections. Many newspapers now have electronic archives, but the best material is not online. I had to get my nose into a lot of dusty places. But I loved the surprises. For example, I learned that contrary to popular belief, the continental U.S. was attacked during WWII. The New York Times ran photos of the aftermath. The Japanese sent a submarine up the Columbia River and deployed a floatplane bomber, with the goal of setting the Oregon forests on fire and throwing the country into a panic. But the plan was rained out. History hinges on things like this, events that get forgotten—this is the soul of the story I wanted to tell. First I had to learn it myself. My heart was in my throat more or less the whole time.

GR: You are noted for your skill with dialogue, often using vernacular speech. This book includes many historical figures, such as Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. Is it more difficult to find the voice of these real characters compared to your own fictional characters?

BK: Dialogue is my favorite thing to write. It can be an elegant way to package some of a novel’s most crucial information. But you do have to work hard to keep it vernacular and well paced. I construct the fictional conversations in my head and listen carefully. It might seem easier to put words in the mouths of my own invented characters than the historical figures who also appear in the story—Frida and Diego, for example. But really there was little difference. By the time I’d read their personal diaries and everything else, their voices were coming through loud and clear. Sometimes their words came straight from the record. The conversations with my protagonist, Harrison Shepherd, are all invented, of course, but it was engaging to fit everything together.

When I went into the studio to record the audio book, I realized I was hearing these characters plainly in my mind, so I did my best to replicate those accents and intonations. This meant acting out conversations between characters who were Mexican, Russian, French, Mexican American, Ashevillean, and so forth, in various combinations. If I thought too much about it, my brain might blow a fuse. So I just channeled the voices as I heard them.

GR: You are the founder of the biennial Bellwether Prize, which celebrates socially responsible literature by awarding (and guaranteeing publication of) a work of fiction that includes an element of social change. Over the ten years of the prize’s history, the United States has witnessed the 9/11 attacks, a country at war on multiple fronts, a sea change in political power, and now the economic recession. Have you observed any trends in the sociopolitical topics being tackled by authors? What role will literature play in the political landscape as we move further into the 21st century? (Readers: Vote here for your favorite books that include an element of social change!)

BK: It’s an interesting question, which I can’t answer. We get hundreds of submissions for each cycle of the Bellwether Prize, and I don’t see any manuscripts until our energetic panels of readers and judges winnow the pile down to a few finalists. So I don’t know whether the submissions reflect any trends in the political landscape. But I have noticed that new writers are often tackling the novel form rather bravely, both in terms of craft and content. Twenty years ago the cool thing in writing workshops was minimalism: a conversation between a cashier and a bored lady buying cigarettes, posited as a story, heaven forbid it should have any noticeable beginning or end. Now you see more writing in the “maximalist” line, with extremely unusual devices and thematic material. I love the courage of these efforts, and sometimes they succeed.

Literature will always be political: It cultivates empathy for a theoretical stranger by putting you inside his head, allowing you to experience life from his point of view. It can broaden your view of gender, ethnicity, place and time, power and vulnerability, all the elements that influence social interaction. What could be more political than that?

GR: We asked for questions from your readers, got a huge response, and selected a few for you. Goodreads member Elizabeth says, “In the preface of The Poisonwood Bible you wrote that you waited nearly 30 years for the wisdom and maturity to write that book. As an active writer with that sort of ethic, do you ever find it difficult to have enough material for which you feel ready to write? What else do you do, when the wisdom and maturity are still cooking?”

BK: Excellent question, Elizabeth. When a project feels compelling but too scary, for practical or moral reasons, I keep it on the back burner but don’t give up on it. I pondered The Poisonwood Bible for ten years before I felt ready to tackle it. During that time I collected clippings, books, and jotted down thoughts I hoped would someday help me frame the big questions I wanted to ask. In the meantime, I wrote novels and nonfiction books that were more modest in scope, with more familiar settings and fairly linear, manageable story arcs. The most important part of this paragraph is: “but don’t give up on it.” The most daunting ideas turn into the best books.

Backing up a few more years, I can tell you that long before I felt ready to write my first whole book, at around age 30, I wrote short stories, poems, articles, reviews, anything. Writing is writing, it all adds up. Freelance journalism was the best training for becoming a novelist. Every day I had to pull on my boots and go make myself an “expert” in whatever an editor had assigned me to write about. The essential ingredient of authorship is authority. You hunt it out in a library, you chase it down the street, or you knit it from the fiber of your own will. From somewhere, you get it. You begin.

GR: In reference to Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, Goodreads member Amy asks, “I’d love to know if you are still gardening and eating all local foods. Did the experiment stick?”

BK: Yes, we’re still eating locally. Our garden expands every year, and our local farmers’ market also keeps growing. How could we turn our backs on that bounty? It feels great to be an active part of one’s own food chain. Given the worrisome state of globalized, fossil-fueled infrastructures, we all seem to be headed in a more localized direction, and I recommend embracing the change. Where food is concerned, it’s overwhelmingly a change for the better.

GR: What are you reading now? What are some of your favorite books and authors?

BK: Now that I’ve finished reading hundreds of arcane books about the Mexican Revolution, Life magazines from the 1940s, et cetera, I’m thrilled to be digging into my backed-up personal-reading pile that has been waiting. My last five books devoured and loved: Milan Kundera’s The Joke, Margot Livesey’s The House on Fortune Street, Annie Dillard’s The Maytrees, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood by Janisse Ray, and Eaarth by Bill McKibben.

Letter on the Honduras Coup and proposed “Elections”

[The following letter went to the new U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Arturo Velenzuela, on Wednesday from a group of 55 Central America scholars.]

Dr. Arturo Valenzuela
Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs
United States Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520

Dear Arturo:

As a group of scholars of Central America we ask that you seek to change the ill advised position taken by Mr. Thomas Shannon that would recognize the results of the Honduran election even though Pres Zelaya is not restored to office. This sets a terrible precedent that undermines the wave of democratization that has swept the region because it in essence legitimizes a coup. It is at odds with the other Latin American nations.

We ask also that the Department of State not fund election observation missions by the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute, as announced by Senator Richard Lugar. This would legitimize a patently illegitimate poll. The secretary general of the Organization of American States, José Miguel Insulza, said he would not send observers to monitor the November 29th elections, while many of the OAS’s member countries said they would not recognize the election winner unless Zelaya was reinstated. Will you push for reconsideration of the decision to send U.S. observers?

The issue is not whether technical election procedures are carried out, or if the ballots are counted accurately, but rather the effects on the election of the coup. Several candidates have withdrawn because they do not wish to legitimize an election sponsored by a coup government, including Carlos H. Reyes of the Independent Party and leader of the resistance movement against the coup. It is highly unlikely that the forces behind the coup would have allowed him to take office were he to win. The broad-based national resistance movement has called for a total boycott of the elections and a number of candidates have withdrawn. Press reports note that as many as 110 mayoral and 55 congressional candidates have withdrawn because they do not believe the elections will be free and fair.

We are concerned that there appear to be powerful forces (beyond the individual efforts of Senator Jim DeMint) pushing the United States in the direction of acceptance of efforts to roll back the democratic gains in Latin America because of the election of some or all candidates of the left. Could you tell us if you perceive these rollback efforts as a threat and, if so, what your plans are to minimize them?

Human rights violations continue. The Committee of Families of the Detained and Disappeared of Honduras (COFADEH) notes, in its second report since the coup, that the de facto government relies on:

“the use of excessive force on the part of military and police, control of the media and closure of media outlets that are not allies of the regime, use of paramilitaries to intimidate, threaten and kidnap those opposed to the coup, and the emission of illegal decrees that suspend the exercise of fundamental rights…. It is clear that a repressive apparatus is being mounted to intimidate and annihilate resistance to the coup. In the 115 days since the coup, thousands of human rights violations have been registered that reflect the evolution of state violence and the rupture of institutionality.”

The United States should forcefully condemn these human rights violations. We ask that it announce that the U.S. will not fund observers to the Nov. 29 elections, and that it not recognize the election results, and that we will work with other members of the Inter-American community to resolve this crisis in a way that reflects democratic processes and respects human rights.

Sincerely,

Jack Spence, University of Massachusetts, Boston

Aaron Schneider, Tulane University

David Close, Memorial University of Newfoundland

Marc Zimmerman, University of Houston

Nora Hamilton, University of Southern California

Francisco J. Barbosa, University of Colorado, Boulder

Karen Kampwirth, Knox College

Ellen Moodie, University of Illinois

Gary Prevost, St. John’s University

Thomas W. Walker, Ohio University

Irene B. Hodgson, Xavier University

Julie Stewart, University of Utah, Salt Lake City

Marc Edelman, Hunter College, CUNY

Lisa Kowalchuk, University of Guelph, Ontario

Sylvia Tesh, University of Arizona

Eliza Willis, Grinnell College

Lena Mortensen, University of Toronto Scarborough

Abigail E. Adams, Central Connecticut State University

Robin Maria DeLugan, University of California-Merced

Susanne Jonas, University of California, Santa Cruz

Mary Finley-Brook, University of Richmond

Aviva Chomsky, Salem State College

Mayo C. Toruño, California State University, San Bernardino
Miguel Gonzalez, York University

Richard Grossman, Northeastern Illinois University

Carol A. Smith, University of California, Davis

William S. Stewart, California State University, Chico

Katherine Borland, The Ohio State University

Hector Perla, University of California, Santa Cruz

Jefferson Boyer, Appalachian State University

Rose Spalding, De Paul University

Bruce Calder, University of Illinois, Chicago

Sheila R. Tully, San Francisco State University

LaDawn Haglund, Arizona State University

Suyapa Portillo, Pomona College

Arturo Arias, University of Texas

Laura Enriquez, University of California, Berkeley
Chris Chiappari, St. Olaf College

Dana Frank, University of California, Santa Cruz

Katherine Hoyt, Nicaragua Network

Gilbert G. Gonzalez, University of California, Irvine

Celia Simonds, California State University Northridge
Beatriz Cortez, California State University, Northridge

Ana Patricia Rodriguez, University of Maryland, College Park

Justin Wolfe, Tulane Univesrity

Gloria Rudolf, University of Pittsburgh

Elizabeth Dore, University of Southampton, UK

Richard Stahler-Sholk, Eastern Michigan University

Leisy Abrego, University of California, Irvine

Craig Auchter, Butler University

Bill Barnes, City College of San Francisco

Linda J. Craft, North Park University, Chicago

Lois Ann Lorentzen, University of San Francisco

Juliana Martinez Franzoni, University of Costa Rica

Breny Mendoza, California State University, Northridge

Teaching for a New America

[THIS PROGRAM WAS POSTPONED BECAUSE THE SPEAKER HAD A FAMILY EMERGENCY; IT WILL BE RESCHEDULED AT A LATER DATE]

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

The context of the fight for public education is the growing militarization and corporatization of public services.  How do we understand the world we are in and the ways to achieve the goal of quality education for all?  Please join the Chicago LRNA Education Committee and the Rally Comrades editor Brooke Heaggerty when we look at how corporate developments influence

Teaching for a New America

In a number of social spheres we are seeing services long considered the right of the public turned over to private investors.  Prisons and schools are prime examples, two of the largest employers in the country.  At the same time, large industries long considered the foundation of the private sector are seeing large amounts of government investment that is sometimes called “government ownership” or even “socialism.”  These issues, that seem to express contradictory motions, have raised  questions about what appears to be a crossroads in our history.

We’ve asked the editor of Rally Comrades to discuss with us this crossroads in the light of two articles that recently appeared in the journal (links below):  What do fascism and socialism look like in the perspective of 21st century US experience?

Brooke Heagerty, Ph.D. is co-author of Moving Onward: From Racial Division to Class Unity. She is working on a new book on Celia, the slave, that will look at how the history of slavery affects us today. She writes and speaks on women, racism, the police state, global repression and the new poverty. She is a founding member of the League of Revolutionaries for a New America, and editor of it’s newspaper, Rally Comrades!

See: “The Changing Form of the State” : http://www.lrna.org/2-pt/v16ed4art5.html

“Fascist Movement Gaining Force” : http://www.lrna.org/2-pt/v19ed3art5.html

Join us in conversation

Sunday, November 15

1628 N. California (just north of North Ave.)

11 AM to 1 PM

Bagels and Cream Cheese Brunch

hosted by

Chicago Education Committee of the League of Revolutionaries for a New America

War & Peace Exhibit

The Public Square at the Illinois Humanities Council sends us this notice:

War & Peace Exhibit
Opening Receptions & Informal Conversations
Thursday, November 12th and Friday November 13th
5:00 pm – 9:00 pm (both days)
TH!NKART SALON
1530 North Paulina Street, Suite F
Chicago

The War and Peace Exhibit is free and open to the public. To RSVP, or to receive more information, email thinkartsalon@gmail.com or call 773.252.2294 x305.

Join us for the opening receptions and conversations for TH!NKArt’s latest exhibition, War & Peace. This exhibit features new paintings and works on paper by David Gista, Dave Sheehan, and Todd Narbey.

The dance between Sheehan’s brilliantly colored and textured canvasses of toy soldiers surrounding boxers juxtaposed with the ambiguous imagery of writings and icons in Gista’s papers and Narbey’s underlying vision of war and peace provide us a platform to consider whether or not we will ever give peace a chance.

In addition to the opening receptions and conversations, there will be a poetry reading by Emily Calvo and Stella Vinitchi Radulescu on Thursday.

The exhibit runs through Thursday, December 31, 2009.

More about this event:  https://dnbweb1.blackbaud.com/OPXREPHIL/Link.asp?link=408272

Presented by:

TH!NKART International Art Gallery and Policy Salon,<https://dnbweb1.blackbaud.com/OPXREPHIL/Link.asp?link=408273>

The Public Square, <https://dnbweb1.blackbaud.com/OPXREPHIL/Link.asp?link=408274>

Groupe Professionnel Francophone,  <https://dnbweb1.blackbaud.com/OPXREPHIL/Link.asp?link=408275>

French Embassy in the U.S. Chicago Cultural Services, <https://dnbweb1.blackbaud.com/OPXREPHIL/Link.asp?link=408276>

Chicago Sisters Cities International,<https://dnbweb1.blackbaud.com/OPXREPHIL/Link.asp?link=408277>

Just exactly why do we need the music industry?

Thanks to Rock and Rap Confidential for this update on a most important question:
JUST EXACTLY WHY DO WE NEED THE MUSIC INDUSTRY?… Fred Wilhelms writes: I have a good friend, Jon Newton, who for the past couple years, has graciously provided me, through his website <http://p2pnet.net/>p2pnet.net a place to stand and swing at the evils of the music business.  Jon has teamed up with Billy Bragg (who recently engaged in a discussion with Jon on the p2pnet messageboard) to form <http://a2f2a.com/>a2f2a.com (Artist2Fan2Artist) as a place for artists and their fans to discuss issues like filesharing and copyright without having the “industry” get in the way.  It’s an effort to define what we all know is the common interest in seeing that artists are compensated by the people willing to support their work, without the middlemen as far as possible.  Jon is looking for artists to join in the discussion, which has been extraordinarily civil as these things go, because, up to now, Billy has been holding down the fort by himself (admirably, I must say, even if he remains resistant to the overwhelming logic of my own opinions.)  [Fred Wilhelms is an attorney in Nashville]

POPOKI #50 now on line

http://popoki.cruisejapan.com/index_e.html

Popoki’s Peace Project can be found at the address above (if you prefer to read in Japanese, that is the usual option at Popoki’s home page).  The project is the brain child of Dr. Ronni Alexander, who teaches peace studies at the university in Kobe, Japan. Her site includes pdf’’s of the Popoki newsletter, the latest of which is #50.  The newsletter includes some remarkable activities that the project is undertaking. For example, you can read the plans for mapping images of peace in a neighborhood by going on a photo taking tour with young people of various age levels.  There is also a remarkable testament to one of Dr. Alexander’s mentors, a professor who challenged her basic assumptions, even the one that peace is the most important issue.

Hiroshima, Nagasaki and contemporary peace making

[Editor's note:  Let us not forget what country was the first to use nuclear weapons in war time; is still the only country to have used nuclear weapons in war time; and still uses fallacious arguments to justify that use.  As the events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki recede further into the past, opportunities to hear from those who witnessed and survived them become fewer.  Please take advantage of this rare opportunity November 1]

Please be the guests of

The Chicago Center for Justice and Peace (CNJP) and

The Loyola University Museum of Art

at our 2009 Special Event

Sunday 01 November at  1:00 p.m.

Loyola University Museum of Art

Simpson Lecture Hall (3rd FL)

820 N. Michigan Avenue

Chicago, IL  60611

Free and Open to the Public.

For additional information phone Nick Patricca 773.338.9416

THE CURRENT NUCLEAR ARMS CRISIS

In the Light of the First Use of Nuclear Weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Presentations by Steve Leeper, President of the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation

And Shikego Sasamori, Hiroshima Memorial Peace Museum, A-Bomb Survivor

Hiroshima Poster Art Works on Display

Campaign for Peace and Democracy

Please Forward & Post on Websites, Blogs, Etc.

Dear Friend, As you know, the President and Congress are reviewing U.S. policy on the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and we are writing you at this critical moment to invite you to sign the Campaign for Peace and Democracy emergency statement below calling for an end to military intervention in both countries. Your support can make a real difference: it will add to the impact of the statement at a time when public opposition to these disastrous wars is building. A list of the initial signers and the text of the statement are below. We aim to collect a large number of signatures very quickly, and then publish the statement and list of signers as widely as possible, both in this country and internationally. If you would like to add your name, see the emerging list of signers, or make a tax-deductible donation to publicize the statement, please go to our website

www.cpdweb.org.

You do not have to donate in order to sign, but please give if you can, as generously as possible. If you have already signed the statement but not yet contributed to our publicity efforts, please go to our website now to make a donation.

If for any reason you have difficulty at the website, just send us an email at cpd@igc.org. Please circulate the statement to your colleagues and friends. In peace and solidarity,

Joanne Landy Tom Harrison Co-Directors, Campaign for Peace and Democracy

INITIAL SIGNERS: Bashir Abu-Manneh, Michael Albert, Stanley Aronowitz, David Barsamian, Rosalyn Baxandall, John Berendt, Norman Birnbaum, Stephen Eric Bronner, Richard J. Brown, MD, Roane Carey, Tim Carpenter, Adam Chmielewski, Noam Chomsky, Hamid Dabashi, Gail Daneker, Tina Dobsevage, MD, Ariel Dorfman, Martin Duberman, Steve Early, Carolyn Eisenberg, Zillah Eisenstein, Daniel Ellsberg, Samuel Farber, Thomas Fasy, MD, John Feffer, Barry Finger, Harriet Fraad, David Friedman, Bruce Gagnon, Barbara Garson, Jack Gerson, Joseph Gerson, Jana Glivicka, Jill Godmilow, Linda Gordon, Suzanne Gordon, Greg Grandin, Arun Gupta, E. Haberkern, Mina Hamilton, Thomas Harrison, Howie Hawkins, Tom Hayden, Doug Henwood, David Himmelstein, MD, Michael Hirsch, Nancy Holmstrom, Jonathan House, MD, Doug Ireland, Marianne Jackson, PhD, Melissa Jameson, Alice Kessler-Harris, Assaf Kfoury, Leslie Kielson, Dan La Botz, Micah Landau, Joanne Landy, Nydia Leaf, Roger E Leisner, Jesse Lemisch, Sue Leonard, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Martha Livingston, Catherine Lutz, Jan Majicek, David McReynolds, Margaret Melkonian, Martin Melkonian, Roger Morris, Erika Munk, Mary E. O’Brien, MD, David Oakford, Rosemarie Pace, Ed.D., Christopher Phelps, Frances Fox Piven, Danny Postel, Len Rodberg, Elizabeth R. Rosenthal, Matthew Rothschild, Jennifer Scarlott, Jay Schaffner, Peter O. Schwartz, Stephen R. Shalom, Adam Shatz, Alice Slater, Stephen Steinberg, Cheryl Stevenson, David Swanson, William K. Tabb, Jan Tamas, Hoshang V. Tarehgol, Jonathan Tasini, Chris Toensing, Immanuel Wallerstein, Lois Weiner, Peter Weiss, Steve Weissman, Naomi Weisstein, Cheryl Wertz, Cornel West, Reginald Wilson, Sherry Wolf, Emira Woods, Kent Worcester, Leila Zand, Michael Zweig

We Call for the United States to End Its Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan! A Statement from the Campaign for Peace and Democracy October 2009 This may be a turning point for the expanding U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, a time when speaking out clearly and unambiguously against war can make a crucial difference. Today we see signs all too reminiscent of the step-by-step deepening of the U.S. commitment to the war in Vietnam in the 1960’s. In response, we declare ourselves firmly against military escalation in the region and for the withdrawal of all U.S. and NATO forces from Afghanistan and Pakistan now. We also call for an end to drone attacks in both countries. There are currently 108,000 U.S./NATO troops in Afghanistan. President Obama has authorized increasing U.S. forces by 21,000, which will mean more than 68,000 U.S. troops by the end of 2009. In view of the war’s growing unpopularity, Obama may very well abandon troop escalation. Reportedly, some in the Administration even recommended reducing U.S. forces and focusing more on strikes against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But even a scaled-back military presence constitutes an illegitimate occupation, one that wreaks havoc on the lives of innocent civilians and can only strengthen the Taliban and terrorist networks such as Al Qaeda. Americans are increasingly disillusioned with the war. According to an August CNN poll, 57 percent oppose the Afghan war, a 9 percent increase since May, and there is growing unease in Congress. The cynical spectacle of Afghanistan’s fraudulent presidential election has further eroded what little domestic and international credibility the corrupt Karzai regime retained. In both Afghanistan and Pakistan the actions of the United States and its allies serve to strengthen fundamentalist forces. Fearing unpopular NATO troop casualties, the U.S. relies heavily on air power, which inevitably results in the death of innocent civilians. Far from eliminating terrorist networks, these air strikes only deepen popular hostility to the U.S./NATO war effort, pushing growing numbers of Afghans and Pakistanis toward the Taliban. Already fully a quarter of the Afghan population thinks that attacks on U.S./NATO forces are justified. In Pakistan, the war is now being fought with the open and heavy involvement of U.S. Predator and other drones. Because of the frequent killing of civilians by the drones, on top of the resentment caused by Washington’s long support of the dictator Musharraf, Pakistani public opinion now rates the U.S. as the number one threat — ahead even of India, Pakistan’s long time enemy. U.S. actions in Afghanistan and Pakistan take place in the context of a global military system much more massive and far-flung than most Americans realize. Officially, over 190,000 troops and 115,000 civilian employees are stationed in approximately 900 military facilities in 46 countries and territories — and the actual numbers are far greater. U.S. military spending of more than $600 billion a year, in the words of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, “adds up to about what the entire rest of the world combined spends on defense.” The invasion and occupation of Afghanistan have been part of a comprehensive effort to assert U.S. strategic power and credibility, in the Central and South Asian region and globally — the power to control energy supplies, to overawe rivals, to intervene wherever Washington deems necessary, and to engage other countries in U.S. power projection. Since 2001, the United States has established 19 new bases in Afghanistan and neighboring countries, inserting a military presence into an area that Russia and China also seek to influence. Afghanistan was a devastated nation even before 2001, due to the destruction wrought by the Soviet occupation and the subsequent civil war. Since then the Afghan people have endured eight more years of war and misery. Many Afghans felt a sense of liberation when the Taliban was driven from power, but it soon became clear that one set of oppressors had been replaced by another: by the warlords and drug traffickers of the former Northern Alliance and the U.S. /NATO occupiers. The Taliban’s misogyny was vicious and extreme, but the situation of women remains horrific. Although a large number of Afghan girls did go to primary school after 2001 and a handful of women did get elected to the parliament, the vast majority of women are still confined to their homes, unable to work, too fearful to attend school and forced into marriages, often as children. Many women who would prefer not to wear their burqas are afraid to be seen without them. According to Afghan feminist leader Malalai Joya, “Victims of abuse and rape find no justice because the judiciary is dominated by fundamentalists. A growing number of women, seeing no way out of the suffering in their lives, have taken to suicide by self-immolation.” President Karzai signed a disgraceful law earlier this year, applying to Shia women, that gives a husband the right to withdraw basic maintenance from his wife, including food, if she refuses to obey his sexual demands. It grants guardianship of children exclusively to their fathers and grandfathers, requires women to get permission from their husbands to work, and effectively allows a rapist to avoid prosecution by paying “blood money” to his victim. Most Afghans lack access to safe drinking water and medical care. The country remains one of the world’s poorest. The U.S. has done virtually nothing to alleviate this terrible poverty; instead, it has added to the suffering of the Afghan people, women as well as men, the constant threat of military violence. The Taliban gains strength in response to the grossly inadequate amount of foreign aid, as well as to the brutalities of the U.S./NATO war. The Pakistani military and intelligence have long played a double game, taking military aid from Washington while simultaneously fighting and backing the Taliban. While the majority of Pakistanis oppose the Taliban today, underlying conditions enable it to grow stronger. Many of the country’s poor live in near-feudal conditions. In the Swat Valley the Taliban was able to exploit the grievances of landless rural tenants for its own reactionary purposes. Unwilling and unable to address the social and economic realities that create support for or at least acquiescence to the Taliban among many in the population, the Pakistani military and elite may well make further concessions to the fundamentalists. If the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan have any chance of defeating fundamentalism, fighting misogyny and winning genuine democracy, the U.S. can help mainly by calling off the inhumane and un-winnable “war on terror,” by whatever name, and replacing it with a radically different policy of massive foreign aid and an end to support for elites and governments that perpetuate gross inequalities. Democratic forces may be weak, but they will never grow stronger while the U.S. occupies Afghanistan, sends missiles into Pakistan and bolsters corrupt governments in both countries. Withdrawal should not mean that the U.S. abandons any effort to help the people of Afghanistan and neighboring states. Washington ought to lend political support to regional negotiations and to a broader settlement of the disputes between India and Pakistan, which continue to stoke the violence in Afghanistan. Above all, the U.S. should provide large-scale humanitarian aid to the desperately poor Afghan population — which, aid agencies note, is hindered by being intermingled with military operations. Afghanistan is badly fragmented along ethnic lines. If there is any progressive solution to these divisions it probably lies in regional negotiations among Afghanistan’s neighbors. We cannot foresee what form this solution might take, but we know it must not include any political dictation by Washington or the continuation of U.S. troops or military operations in Afghanistan or Pakistan. Ending U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan and Pakistan now is not only right in itself; it is also indispensable as a way to begin countering the bitterness and hostility in Muslim countries that breeds terrorist threats to our own security, threats that arise from networks that are not limited to any specific geographic location. In addition to ending military intervention in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the United States should withdraw its forces from Iraq, Central Asia and the Persian Gulf. It must end all support to Arab autocracies and police states and give real support to Palestinian statehood. A truly democratic U.S. foreign policy is desperately needed to address the misery and inequity in Afghanistan, Pakistan and many other countries, but we can only begin to do so by diverting our country’s vast wealth away from militarism and the drive for “full spectrum dominance” of the world. We, the undersigned, are dedicated to working for this new foreign policy. NOTE: The following references are informational, and not a formal part of the above statement. For Afghan support for attacks on U.S. forces, see ABC News/BBC/ARD Poll, Afghanistan: Where Things Stand, Feb. 9, 2009, question 25, . This poll also shows growing opposition to U.S. forces and overwhelming opposition to U.S. air attacks. For poll showing that Pakistanis view the U.S. as the number one threat, see Al Jazeera/Gallup International survey of Pakistan, Aug. 13, 2009, . Afghan feminist leader Malalai Joya describes conditions for women on Znet, May 16, 2009 and in her book Raising My Voice. For details on the new law constraining the rights of Shia women, see the Human Rights Watch Report “Afghanistan: Law Curbing Women’s Rights Takes Effect. President Karzai Makes Shia Women Second-Class Citizens for Electoral Gain,” Aug. 13, 2009, . For an account of the Taliban exploiting popular grievances in the Swat Valley, see Jane Perlez and Pir Zubair Shah, “Taliban Exploit Class Rifts in Pakistan,” The New York Times, April 17, 2009 . On aid agency warnings against intermingling military operations and humanitarian efforts, see Kevin Baron, “Mixing fighting and food in Afghanistan,” Stars and Stripes 2009 .

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