SOME LOCAL PEACE HISTORY  

When WAR BEGAN, the www.PeaceAware.com site went offline for 24 hours, then came back but ZIANET is unable to restore passwords to allow us to update files. We have this notice on http://www.horsesenseatwork.com/peace On March 26th PeaceAware moved its files to a new server.

Intro: Our Feb 15, 2003 Peace In the Park and Walk For Peace Events - PeaceAware.com

Post 1: History of Las Cruces Peace Movement by Gordon Solberg 30 Sept  2002

Post 2: Like a Peasant to the Castle by Gordon Solberg 2 Nov 2002

Post 3: Peace Vigils Out of Frustration to Government that Is Not Listening by Gordon Solberg 3 Nov 2002

Post 4: Global Vigil for Peace March 16, 2003

Post 5: New Mexico Interfaith Search for Peace Retreat - March 15, 2003

Post 6: Not in Our Name Ad - March 2003

Post 7: Feb 15 Young Park, Peace in the Park event

Post 8: Sept 16 2003 History Part 2 Peace Newsletters by Gordon Solberg

CLICK TO SEE MORE PHOTOS

Click image above for photos of PeaceAware events

PEACE VIGIL FLYER

Click to print larger size flyer

MARCH FOR PEACE, we meet at 4PM at Young Park on March 20th. We march up Lohman Ave to Telshor. We march back to Young Park for "Speak-Out for Peace." (Click to print flyer)

We request the "Interfaith Search for Peace" lay and congregational leaders be on hand to address the PeaceAware crowd.

Distribute When Dubya's War Starts, we go to Young Park flyer. 

NOTE: When WAR BEGAN, the www.PeaceAware.com site went offline for 24 hours, then came back but ZIANET is unable to restore passwords to allow us to update files. We have our temp updates on http://www.horsesenseatwork.com/peace  - More about our web sites at PeaceAware  www.PeaceAware.com is up at ZIANET, but I still cannot change or update web pages. I have repeatedly called Ken at ZIANET 505-522-1234. If you want to call, please do so. I get the same story "this has nothing to do with the war." Our PeaceAware web site and the www.TamaraJournal.com site  went off line at ZIANET the very minute the war began and was off site for 24 hours. I mentioned ACLU and managed to get them to put the site on line for one hour 9am to 10am on March 20th, but after that hour both the temp site I created at ZIANET and the old site stayed down (that was during the first 24 hours of war. Since that time, my passwords are locked out and I can not upload or change web pages. It is now 10:06 am on March 25, 2003. Our temporary meeting update site is at http://www.horsesenseatwork.com/peace/ The temp site for TamaraJournal which features a special piece by Damacio Lopez et al, Treatise on Depleted Uranium health effects can be found at  http://horsesenseatwork.com/tamara/  Thank you

 

Source - Roundup Article - Peace Vigil at Pioneer Park Oct 19 2002
Tess at Peace Vigil
Las Cruces New Mexico

CLICK for Larger Size

Photo in Sun-News P. 4A Sunday Feb 16 - Caption: "On Saturday, people gathered at Young Park, in Las Cruces, to demonstrate against war, like thousands across the country." Actually it was millions, and Sun News did not carry a story of the New Mexico event, just a photo. Next to our peaceful photo is a photo you do not want to see. And an AP story that paints peace people to be different than any we know at PeaceAware.. 

 

 

 

NOT IN OUR NAME Ad - A Successful Campaign of PeaceAware community.

Please give many thanks to: 

PeaceAware is sponsoring a full-page ad in the Sun-News against going to war “in our name” by the Bush Administration. Text of NOT IN OUR NAME Ad and signors.

Click to see the event

Click image  to See the Event, who attended, handouts

 

 

click on above image to see results of Global Vigil for Peace in Las Cruces. 50 people attended. 

 

 

Feb 15, 2003 Peace In the Park and Walk For Peace Events - PeaceAware.com

CLICK For Large Size Flyer

Feb 15th 2003 Peace In the Park and Peace March was attended by over 200 peace people: See March Video; Park Video; and Photos

Feb 15 Speakers included Professor Len Gambrell who spoke on 'Culture of Fear,' Professor Grace Ann Rosile 'Non-violence and Jainism,' Professor David Boje on 'More PeaceAware Less WarAware' Mr. Kevin Bixby of SWEC spokeon on 'Energy and Peace.'

See Medium Size Feb 15th Peace in the Park

Please print and distribute Larger Size flyer

Click here for PRESS RELEASE was Sent to Sun-New, Round-Up and Bulletin

See photos

 

History of Las Cruces Peace Movement by Gordon Solberg 10 October 2002

(written for the Las Cruces Peace Newsletter, but not uploaded because that issue was already too long)

One advantage of a newsletter written for peaceniks by peaceniks is we get to create our own mythology, without having to filter it through an “acceptable” worldview.  With that in mind, I thought I’d jot a few words about how the Las Cruces Peace Vigil got started.

 

Like a lot of Americans, I became very disillusioned by the way Election 2000 was handled, or should I say, mishandled.  When the Bush Administration hit the ground running, literally from the first day they took power, I knew that something was terribly wrong, and my disillusionment grew with every passing day.  What a sick, helpless feeling that was. 

 

We now fast forward to Sept. 14, 2002.  (Which is only two weeks and two days ago, though it feels like much longer.)  The frustration had become unbearable.  Bush’s war plans seemed unstoppable.  Wasn’t anybody going to DO anything?

 

(As it turned out, a couple weeks beforehand, our friend Vickie Aldrich had told Laura and me about how she did a weekly Peace Vigil with some Quakers in Denver during the Vietman War.  Thus the vigil seed was planted, and, thriving in the rich mulch of frustration, quickly sprouted and bore fruit.)

 

It was on Sept. 14 that I talked to Tim Reed, Vickie’s husband, and told him that Laura and I felt a strong urge to do a peace vigil.  He said that sounded good to him, and he would bring up the subject at the next day’s Quaker Meeting.  That afternoon, Vickie and I emailed back and forth and set up a meeting for Wednesday, Sept. 18.

 

On Sept. 16, Kevin Bixby emailed out his plan to hold a peace demonstration on Sept. 20.  We jumped in enthusiastically and told everyone we knew. 

 

Laura, Vickie and I held our Sept. 18 meeting as planned, sitting around Vickie’s kitchen table.  We decided to call ourselves “The Las Cruces Peace Vigil Committee” rather than “The Three of Us Sitting Around Vickie’s Kitchen Table Committee,” though this would have been just as accurate.

 

The Sept. 20 demonstration went off as planned (actually better than we had hoped).  On Sept. 23 I sent out the first issue of this newsletter, and on Sept. 25 we held our first Peace Vigil.  The next Vigil will be Oct. 2, and the Oct. 6 Peace Reflection will be the most powerful peace event ever held in Las Cruces, and this includes the Vietman War.

 

What’s important here is the pattern we see of people just jumping in and doing things, without asking, and without being told.  When something comes up in our face to do something, it seems the obvious thing to just go ahead and do it.  Aren’t grassroots dynamics wonderful to behold?

 

Gordon Solberg

Sept. 30, 2002

 

Like a Peasant to the Castle

Yesterday afternoon, 25 Peace Vigilers, with our flags and banners, accompanied by the sound of a Native American drum, strolled the 4 blocks from the Federal Building to the headquarters of the Las Cruces Sun-News.

The publisher, Michael Bush, emerged in a jocular mood.  Clearly, we were no threat.  Clearly, he was humoring us.

He summoned a Sun-New photographer to take pictures of us while we sang "Give Peace a Chance" and chanted, "There ain't no power like the power of the people cause the power of the people don't stop."

Then Bush briefly joined us, holding a placard saying, "Regime Change Begins at Home," while the Sun-News photographer photographed him surrounded by demonstrators.  We were being used as props for a private office joke.  I'm sure that picture is being passed around the Sun-News office today, accompanied by guffaws.

I felt like a peasant going to the castle, hat in hand, seeking a boon from the local princeling.  This does not resonate well with my all-American sense of dignity and self-worth.

Face it:  the corporate press has the power to decide what is news, and what is not news.  If you aren't news, then you don't exist, as far as the wider world is concerned.

What makes this situation especially frustrating to me is the fact that we were accompanied, both ways, by a constant barrage of horns honking in support.  We have incredible grassroots support in this town, yet the corporate press is stiffing us, because they have the power to.  I find this despicable.

People on our level, the "common citizen" level, have an inherent sense of decency and fair play that is not shared by the ruling class.  In fact, is is difficult for the common citizen to relate to how despicable the ruling class really is.  Thus, the ruling class receives the benefit of the doubt when they don't deserve it.

Quoting from an article by William Hughes (http://www.counterpunch.org/hughes1024.html):

     
Oswald Spengler in his mighty
tome, "Decline of the West," had
some very prophetic things to say
about the press. He wrote that the
sentimentalist may beam with
contentment about it being
"constitutionally free," but the
realist will always ask, "At whose
disposal is it?"

The wire pullers, he said, know
how to use the media "as a
weapon to be forged and used for
blows" against their enemies.
They realize that the "truth" for
the great mass of the public is
what it "continuously reads and
hears" in their controlled outlets.
Doesn't this explain how if you
ask school children who their
heroes are, they will invariably
answer by citing some air headed
Hollywood celebrity, whose name
and image appears repeatedly in
the newspapers, magazines and
on television?

"What the press wills, is true.
Three weeks of press work, and
the truth is acknowledged by
everybody," said Spengler. A
prime example of this proposition
is how President George Bush's
deeply flawed pro-Iraq War
propaganda offensive, thanks to
the complicity of the
Establishment media, has
completely overwhelmed the
Congress, with only a handful of
gutsy exceptions...

Spengler argued further, that
although much is made of free
speech, what that really means is
that the press is free to "take
notice" of what any individual or
group says, or not. "It can
condemn," he wrote, "any truth to
death," simply by not undertaking
its communication to the world -- "a
terrible censorship of silence."

In conclusion, I enjoyed the walk and the camaraderie; it was a spendid afternoon to take a stroll downtown with a great group of people.  But even if publisher Bush decides to run a photo of us, the condescension will remain.  I suppose it is always beneficial for us to get our faces rubbed in the true power dynamics of modern America; it is so easy to live within the wishful thinking media bubble.  America will make realists of us yet.

Gordon Solberg
October 31, 2002

Peace Vigils Out of Frustration to Government that Is Not Listening

I started attending the weekly Peace Vigils out of frustration -- if my government wasn't going to listen to my opinion, then I would stand on the sidewalk with my sign and share my opinion with passing motorists.

Over the past 6 weeks, it seems as if the percentage of passing motorists who honk in support has increased, and the fervor of their honking has increased -- people really lean on their horns now.

Clearly, there is strong grassroots support for peace in Las Cruces, yet the corporate print press in this town (Sun-News and Bulletin) has given the Vigil zero coverage.

Several weeks ago, a couple of vigil attenders suggested moving the vigil to a spot with more traffic, which would increase our impact.  There are many spots in Las Cruces that have 20 times more traffic than our present location:

         * North Main in front of Lowe's
         * Lohman across from Wal-Mart
         * University in front of the Pan Am Center
         * North Valley across from Mayfield High
         etc. -- any major artery leading out of town for an evening rush hour vigil

However, it would also be beneficial for people to remain at the present Federal Building location, to provide continuity at that location.  Hundreds of flyers have been distributed giving the Federal Building location; the FB location is posted on the Internet; some people won't find out about any changes and will show up at the FB anyway, etc.

It seems like a win-win situation:  people who wish to remain at the FB can provide continuity there, while people who want to show up at high-traffic locations can greatly increase Peace Vigil exposure.  Perhaps we could go to a different location each week.

It would be nice to have 20 people who want to try the high-traffic option, though 10 would probably be enough to provide sufficient visual impact.  If anybody is interested in trying this, please send me an email and I will report back with a plan if I get enough response to give it a try.

Gordon Solberg
Las Cruces Peace Vigil Committee
earth@zianet.com

Nov 3, 2002

 


For more history see Sept 16 2003 History Part 2 Peace Newsletters by Gordon Solberg

www.PeaceAware.com