March-April 1999:
Thinking About David's Retirement
David McReynolds: Socialist Peacemaker, by Paul Buhle
Thinking About Retirement, by David McReynolds
Activist News: Student Sit-Ins, Jill Boskey
WRL News: NC Lovefest, New Locals, DWOP Lives
Activist Reviews (Grace Paley; Johnny Got His Gun)
Homepages:
War Resisters League
Nonviolent Activist
War Resisters League News
Valentine Lovefest:
WRL NC Meets in NYC
The WRL National Committee consists of elected
representatives from across the country, representatives of WRL locals and elected
members of the New York-based National Committee subset known as the Executive
Committee. The NC, staff and guests meet for two long weekends a year to plan
the future direction of WRL.
Westbeth Community Center, New York City, Valentine's weekend, Feb.12-15-As consultant Lillian Jimenez noted, the roots of WRL are socialist with anarchism "on the ascendancy."
I never heard a single reference to Presidents' Day weekend during the entire National Committee meetathon. We focused, rather, on the legacy of that renegade priest, St. Valentine, the fellow who refused to stop performing marriages and was executed for his stance by a forgotten despot eager for unmarried cannon fodder. We were, ourselves, in need of that Valentine spirit, at times as we worked our way through a long and scarcely manageable agenda, trying to help chart direction for WRL as we approach the millennium.
Beginning with a challenging presentation by Michael Simmons of the American Friends Service Committee on Friday evening-a call to WRL to become relevant to and active with communities of color-and continuing all weekend and on to Monday afternoon, we tested patience, emotional limits, collective creativity and our abilities to follow long, convoluted, multi-clausal rambles (such as this very sentence just inflicted on poor you). It was brutal. But rewarding. On the theory that you would have found your way to the meeting if you wanted an interminable recounting, let's just look at the noteworthy components:
* Lillian Jimenez, who has worked with WRL as an organizational consultant for eight months, presented a 13-page assessment of the organization. I think we got a C-. In an effort to improve our grade (and "effectivity") we formed an Ad Hoc Task Force to assist in continuing this process.
* The past half-year's WRL activities, most notably the 75th Anniversary Conference and A Day Without the Pentagon. We all should have been there (not just the NC, every WRL member!). It was an elaborate organizational challenge well met by harried staff and plucky volunteers.
* The usual NC business-a scintillating budget review, cheerful if weary staff reports, pugnacious claims by us locals, and lots of process, process, process. Here where I live, in Wisconsin, we call it Velveeta.
* Proposals: From the easy-yeses (e.g., a new bookkeeper, a small Executive Committee travel budget, YouthPeace training, a new database to replace at last the one lovingly designed by Charlie Scheiner more than a decade ago (thank you, Charlie!)), we bogged down in the tougher ones (some elements of the Disarmament Task Force proposal, the entire proposal for a new WRL Environmental Task Force). At moments we were muddy and down on one knee, but we struggled through them all more or less together, shed a few tears and rose to complete the journey, tattered but still readable proposals in hand, and with A Day Without the Pentagon assured of a future and an official new Environmental Task Force (contact is Ellen Klowden, c/o Eugene Peace Works-see p. 23) . As Pamela Owens remarked in final evaluations, "I LOVE this organization." I have to say the emotional care with which 38 very passionate and highly charged activists treated each other was exemplary. It spoke volumes to me about why we have survived for more than three-quarters of a century.
• Sachio Was There: Former WRL Treasurer Melissa Jamison brought one of
Sachio Ko-Yin's white shirts and a photocopy of his head (not including thoughts)
[Ed. note: WRL Executive Committee member Sachio and activist Daniel Sicken of
Vermont symbolically disarmed a Minuteman missile silo in Colorado last Aug. 6
as the Minuteman III Plowshares and have been in prison there ever since. See
story, p. 15] Melissa also engineered the Valentines, successfully subverting
the Presidents' Day theme. Bless her heart.
• 2001 Calendar: Phyllis
Eckhaus, women's historian and writer, volunteered to edit the 2001 WRL calendar,
which will be a series of profiles of women of peace in the 20th century. She
welcomes your ideas and research assistance. There was much more, but I've already
gone long past editor Judith's mandated length. You'll have to call her for other
gory details or friendly gossip. Or contact your nearest NC member. They are sitting
by the phone, awaiting your interested call. See you this summer in Colorado.
-Tom Howard-Hastings
Two New
Locals Join WRL
Here's exciting news: The League has acquired two
new locals, one in New Hampshire-the Southeast New Hampshire WRL, in Dover-and
one in Nashville! We extend a warm welcome to both groups!
The Nashville local
writes that it was organized last September "on the initiative of veteran WRL
activist Karl Meyer, with the participation of a couple dozen young people of
high school and college age from the Nashville area." Almost the first thing they
did as a local was send five members to the 75th Anniversary Conference and A
Day Without the Pentagon in October; a dozen members "crossed the line" at the
School of the Americas in November (NVA, Jan.Feb.). Current plans involve hiring
one member part-time to organize a teach-in campaign on the Iraq sanctions in
Nashville. The New Hampshire local is also concerned with the Iraq sanctions and
the School of the Americas, as well as with banning landmines and nuclear weapons,
counter-recruitment work and "ending economic imperialism." The local will be
publishing a monthly newsletter about its activities. Both groups will be holding
monthly meetings and welcome the participation of WRL members in their areas.
(For contact information, see the local listings on the WRL Organizing Network,
page 23 of the print edition of the Nonviolence Activist.)
WAR
RESISTERS LEAGUE