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On Friday, January 17, 2003, the Revolutionary Knitters took part in Redland's Anti-War Protest, and Women Rising for Peace and Justice, part of a National Week of Resistance for Justice and Peace in the spirit of Martin Luther King
War, poverty, and racism, the three evils named by Martin Luther King, are intimately linked to the oppression of women. Together they form strands of a rope binding people worldwide. Untangle that rope by joining in a womenıs day of action. In conjunction with a week of resistance to the U.S. war against Iraq, we weave a multicolored web of peace, to bind and transform the warmakers.
Why a womenıs action? Because women have a unique stake and a valuable perspective on issues of war and peace.
Poverty is a womenıs issue: The vast majority of people worldwide living in poverty are women and children. The war against Iraq will divert desperately needed funds from social programs, health care and education.
Racism is a womenıs issue: Women of color and women of discriminated groups bear the double burden of race and sex oppression.
War is a womenıs issue: Women die under the bombs, see their homes, families, and ability to provide for the next generation destroyed. War exalts the values of toughness, hardness and aggression that a patriarchal culture assigns to men, and denigrates compassion, nurturing, tenderness, and love.
Make January 17 a day to express our solidarity with the women of Iraq, Palestine/Israel, Colombia, and other war-torn areas of the world and call for a shift of national priorities away from war and militarism and toward a national agenda that affirms life.
Women Rising for Peace and Justice is a caucus of United for Peace, and includes Unreasonable Women, Code Pink for Peace, many contingents of Women in Black, and other womenıs groups.
News Articles - January 17, 2003
Redlands protesters reflect growing anti-war feelings
Some plan to attend major rally in San Francisco today
By TERESA ROCHESTER, Staff Writer
They came to extinguish the flames of war.
About 110 people converged Friday on the four corners of Redlands Boulevard and Orange Street in Redlands to promote peace and denounce aggression as the United States marches toward war with Iraq.
They are part of a growing anti-war sentiment that is manifesting itself in rallies around the country. Last week, an estimated 15,000 people marched through Los Angeles.
Some of the Redlands demonstrators will board buses early this morning and travel to San Francisco, where one of two large-scale anti-war marches is scheduled.
The other will take place in Washington D.C. Smaller rallies are scheduled in Phoenix, Honolulu and Portland, Ore., according to the Not in Our Name Web site. The Friday crowd in Redlands dressed mostly in black and carrying anti-war signs ranged from children in strollers to a 91-year-old World War II veteran.
"Our outfit was the first medical outfit in Normandy,' said George E. Riday, a Redlands artist who turned 91 Thursday. "I guess having been through this kind of thing makes me more concerned about peace and believing peace is the way to go.'
Riday is part of an anti-war group that has gathered every Wednesday and Friday since late September to protest the potential military conflict.
The group was started by Redlands High School resource teacher Brian Vura-Weis. Members include participants in the now-defunct Redlands Peace Group, which was formed in 1981 to denounce the proliferation of nuclear arms.
On Friday, the group's ranks were bolstered by a coalition of women's groups participating in a women's anti-war day of action as part of a National Week of Resistance for Justice and Peace in the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr., whose birthday will be celebrated on Monday.
"The focus of this women's march is to educate people to make informed decisions, whether yes or no, about war,' said Susannah Faith of the Redlands Revolutionary Knitting Circle. "We are wearing black in support of women who cannot speak for themselves.'
Most of the women who protested are students at the University of Redlands, but Molly Vischer is a 16-year-old sophomore at Grove High School, a charter school in Redlands.
Molly regularly attends the Friday demonstration, which she learned about from Vura-Weis. The two attend the same Quaker meetings in Riverside.
"I support disarmament in all countries and the United States,' the teenager said. "I don't just oppose this war for the sake of opposing George Bush's policies. I oppose violence on the part of any country.'
The older demonstrators said they were excited to see members of younger generations getting involved.
John Bancroft, 78, stood on the sidewalk with his wife, Elaine, 75, holding a sign that read, "War is Terror.'
"It was. It is,' said the World War II veteran, was a prisoner of war in Germany for three and a half months. "It's brutal. It's mutilation of bodies. That's what war does. So it's painful anytime when we are involved with war. It brings back the trauma for me.'
He added: "It's wonderful to have young people especially concerned about it.'
The air was punctuated with honking car horns, which drowned out protesters' chants and sometimes muffled the sounds of those who didn't agree with the demonstrators' message.
Mark Gruner, 19, of Yucaipa, who recently joined the Navy, had stopped to deposit his paycheck at a nearby bank. Incensed by the protest, he engaged in a heated debate with Vura-Weis.
"I love the way we live and I would give anything to protect the way we live,' Gruner said during the exchange.
"I'm joining the Navy,' he said later. "I'm going July 24, to be a Navy Seal. If I was overseas and I saw a paper showing this (protest), that hurts my feelings.'
While the Wednesday and Friday demonstrators take up their position from 4 to 5 p.m., the women's group continued with a candlelight vigil to the steps of old City Hall, where two University of Redlands seniors, Lily Gomez, 25, and Zakiya Padmore, 21, spoke against oppression of women of color.
.....from the San Bernardino Sun
Maze leads seekers to 'connectedness'
LABYRINTH: Wiccans and pagans invite the public to walk in a San Bernardino park.
08/25/2002
By KATIE E. ISMAEL
THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE
SAN BERNARDINO - Starting wide, then spiraling tighter and tighter, they wound around and around.
They journeyed through a maze of trees, drummers and costumed guides on Saturday, getting closer to the center of the "midsummer labyrinth" at a north San Bernardino park.
A crowd of both pagans and non-pagans followed paths marked by red yarn on the green grass of Littlefield-Shultis Memorial Park.
At the center they were greeted by a woman inside a cloth tent, holding a spindle of red yarn. She portrayed the archetypal figure of the Mother and symbolized connectedness, Jeff Albaugh said.
"We're really never alone," said Albaugh, a spokesman for the Touchstone Local Council of the International Covenant of the Goddess, which organized the event.
"Sometimes we'd like to be alone, but it just doesn't work that way," he said.
The Touchstone Local Council represents the Inland area Wiccan community and pagans, a term that encompasses a wide variety of nature-based practices that trace their roots to pre-Christian Europe.
The group put together the labyrinth Saturday because of the phase of the moon and the time of year. The labyrinth event, which is not religious or denominational, was also for the community, Albaugh said.
"So anyone who walks through it will find some meaning," he said.
"They're very meditative," Albaugh said of labyrinths. "They're very introspective."
Those who ventured into the labyrinth went in groups and were greeted by 11 costumed people symbolizing archetypes, among them the Crone, a woman in black who wore a mask of feathers and symbolized death.
"I just got this wonderful, warm, embracing, loving feeling," said Rowan Wakefield, 42, of Hemet as she was in the tent with the Mother figure.
Wakefield, who is with the Hemet Pagan Inland Empire Fellowship, said the effects of going through a labyrinth aren't always instant.
"Sometimes it doesn't hit you immediately," she said. "This is more a catalyst, a trigger, for an emotional response or a subconscious response."
Erin Chester, 17, of Highland, said: "It makes you think of deeper things. It's very calming to me."
Our first action was to educate the public about the G8 Summit Meeting that was held in Kananaskis, Canada, June 26th, 2002. We met on the steps of the old City Hall in Redlands, California. We knitted, passed out flyers, gave rest to weary walkers, and had lots of stimulating conversation with people who had no idea what the G8 was about...(we even had one person say the she wasn't interested in learning about the G8 because she didn't live in Redlands!!).
Our next action was on August 7th, to remember the innocent victims of the A-bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We also met on the steps of old City Hall in Redlands. We displayed a powerful pictorial insight to the devastation unleashed to the "everyday people" of those two cities, in hopes that it will never be repeated.
A-BOMB WWW Museum 
Nagasaki Journey |
