El Dorado Peace and Justice Community
Send contributions to: P O box 543, Diamond Springs, CA 95619
www.edpjc.org

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(Sacramento Events continued)

Worldwide, hunger activists and small farmers are appealing to Californians to support their struggles for food security by resisting industrial agriculture and biotechnology at the Sacramento summit. www.biodev.org/sacramento for planned marches and actions.

July 2 5:30-8:30 p.m. USA Patriot Act Town Hall Meeting at “The Grand” 1215 J St. Sacramento. A diverse panel will discuss areas of concern for the community. Help save our civil rights! Sponsored by the Coalition to Stop the Patriot Act. 916 369 5510 for more information.

ACTIONS:
Immediate: Help Save California’s Indian Education Centers. Call Gov. Davis 916 445 2841, Senator Oller 916 969 8232, Representative Leslie 916 774 4430 to encourage the legislature to keep the IEC’s money just for the centers and not allow it to be parceled out to school districts, which would cause the closing of the IECs.

Friends of KPFA alternative, free speech radio 94.1 FM

KPFA’s intermittent reception for the past month is caused by interference from another station’s broadcast signal. Several people from Placerville attended a meeting of 70 people in Sacramento regarding KPFA is an important source for public affairs and cultural programming. If you care about KPFA and your access to free speech radio, please look at:
www.kpfa.org/Sacramento or call
Diana Stauffer at 530 642 1120 for a petition to the FCC commissioners.

El Dorado Peace and Justice Community
PO Box 543
Diamond Springs, CA 95619

LOOK FOR FALL FILM SERIES in Placerville.

“How Did We Get Here? A History of the Israel-Palestine Conflict”
Videotaped Eight-lectures series featuring 5 of the country’s top Middle East history scholars. This is an unprecedented collaboration among Arab, Jewish and other professors.

“If there is to be any Peace, it will come through being, not having.”
Henry Miller, 1941

“My country right or wrong; when right to be kept right; when wrong, to be put right.” Carl Schurz, 1899

Report from the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF)
Conference at Asilomar.


For the past many months, we have focused our attention on protesting the attack on Iraq and worrying about the Bush administration starting WWIII. What I brought back from the conference is that “Nicaraguan refugees are still starving, whether you have a world war. People in the third world are always in a world war.”
We must have a larger view of the work we do and realize the interconnectedness. Here are some (slightly disjointed) keynotes and highlights of the talks and reports from the workshops:
The Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg-most unsustainable place with the worst poverty ever seen. Privatization of water is occurring throughout the world, also in CA.

US military bases are toxic sites that are a threat to peace. A terrorist doesn’t need to bring anything in to commit a terrorist act. Pesticide usage in schools is high. Call your state Rep. to support AB1606 (Chu) Healthy Schools Campaign. A UC Irvine study found high incidence of breast cancer, lymphoma, and leukemia among schoolteachers. Things we can do: buy organic, do not buy unsustainable products (like Coca Cola). Ask at your grocery store if foods are GM (genetically modified).

CUBA- the 1963 trade embargo limits travel rights. Travel has been possible through “people to people educational exchanges” license. By establishing ties with ordinary people-sister cities-people meet and get to know one another as individuals. The Office of Foreign Assets Control will no longer grant licenses for this purpose. There is a reason for the recent increase in anti-Cuba propaganda.

We now own a short video “Star Wars Returns” that gives a good overview of the Militarization of Space. This is the future of modern warfare and peace activists cannot ignore it.

There is a call from the NY Metro branch of WILPF for support of the truth investigation of 9-11. Without taking sides in the issue, they state the victims’ families, the American people as a whole and the hundreds of thousands of uninformed youth now being readied to kill or be killed “to prevent future 9/11s” all deserve a full, transparent accounting of everything that transpired. The government’s swift, repressive and militarized response to 9/11 has put our very democracy and democracy around the world at risk.
Students Against Sweatshops from Fresno State was able to successfully sue Fashion Fair Mall to allow leafleting against Gap labor practices. They now have a table inside the mall. This was a great opportunity. I came back with many ideas and much more information, which I look forward to sharing. Thanks for allowing me this opportunity.