Peace Indicator: 107, 35, 10,979

Since the Peace Indicator took an unexpected two week vacation I thought I would offer 3 numbers this week.

All three of these numbers came from my friend John Shuford, who works with the Alternatives to Violence Project, both in the United States and internationally. John pulled together information for me from several AVP reports.

According to AVP-USA's 2009 Annual report they held trainings in 107 correctional facilities in 35 U.S. states. Those trainings served 10,979 inmates (990 of which were trained to be facilitators).

From John's reports I also discovered that elements of AFSC's Help Increase the Peace Project have been integrated into the AVP programs used in Australia.

AVP's work world-wide has provided the tools of nonviolence to an amazing variety of people. If you have some time, I highly recommend looking over some the the reports on their site. They provide great examples of the power and impact of their programs, and the steps they are taking to bring peace to the world.

Peace Essay #5

This week's Peace Essay comes from Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, formerly of AFSC's San Fransisco office, who recently helped found the Community of Living Traditions at Stony Point. AFSC will miss Lynn, but we wish her success with her new project.

Peace Talk

Language helps creates peace. The concept shomer lashon/guarding one's tongue against hurtful communication is central to Jewish nonviolent communication and peacemaking. Our sages consider the following questions: What can we say about each other? What is considered hurtful language? When talking through contested issues, how do we engage each other in ways that leads to cooperation and concrete action? How do we use language to bless and heal wounded relationships? We are also obligated, as peacemakers, to purify community narratives by removing the strands of racism, sexism, triumphalism and other forms of violence woven within the human story.

Educational methodology associated with Torah study values multiple points of view and the dialogic process as 'words of the living God.' Creative tension in multiplicity is divine. As a rabbi committed to nonviolence, I pray that work for a peaceful and just holy land using language that humanizes the faces of all involved while struggling to end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian life with clarity, courage and direct action. We are obligated to speak the truth about violence while working for restorative justice. It is not an easy road.

L'Shalom,
Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb
Co-founder of the Community of Living Traditions at Stony Point


All peace essays on this blog are the work and opinion of their authors, even those written by AFSC staff. The authors (including staff) are free to disagree with AFSC's positions; these essays should not be seen as statements by AFSC. We share them in the hope of sparking conversation about the true meanings of peace.

Peace Indicator: 26

With today marking the eight years in Afghanistan I thought we'd use an indicator related to that war.

This week's Peace Indicator is 26, the number of vigils calling for an end to war. People all around the country have entered events into our system. Other groups are also hosting vigils, meaning this number could be even higher.

We're calling for:

• A timeline for withdrawal of U.S./NATO forces
• No additional troops sent to Afghanistan
• Talks with all parties to the conflict
• Generous civilian-led development funds

If you know about other vigils happening in the next few days, please ask the organizer to add them to our system so as many people as possible hear about these important events.

Also, check out today's article by AFSC's General Secretary, Mary Ellen McNish on Huffington Post.

Peace Essay #4

This week's peace essay comes from my friend Elizabeth Walmsley. She runs the Middle School Friends Program of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.

Peace: Collected Musing in Journal Form:
by Elizabeth Walmsley

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.

My father once gave a message in Meeting for Worship while we were at Australia Yearly Meeting. He stood and said something along the lines of:

“Friends, peace is possible. I know this because I have experienced it. At the talent show last night I was caught up in the crowd’s whooping and cheering in a way that I am not accustomed to, and realized that there was peace, in that moment.”

When I think of my father’s message, I wonder in which moments I have experienced peace. Certainly while sleeping, and snuggles are a close second. But in large groups of people there have also been moments of peace, like watching middle school youth work together to achieve a team building task on an obstacle course, participating in a large fashion show fund raiser for women’s health, and dancing with lots of people on a dance floor, to name a few. When I think of peace, I think of:

Although she doesn’t pray the way humans do, she is clearly well acquainted with peace and does her best to remind me of it as often as possible - my beautiful, fluffy and loving cat Cally

• Having an inner, personal peace. To be calm and settled within yourself.
• The absence of greed and paranoia.
• The presence of generosity, confidence, and calm wisdom.
• Valuing every human being equally as all being worthy of love, care, and good attention.
• Fairness and honesty in business practices.
• Functional families.
• LISTENING!!

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.

I see peace as a process, and not just a state of being. It requires a lot of work to “do” peace, to maintain (ie - do maintenance on) peaceful relations. It is not merely the absence of violence, but requires forgiveness. It is almost beyond comprehension to me to think of how a Hutu and a Tutsi, ex-neighbors, could possibly get together and talk to each other in the same room, face to face, when one of them has killed the entire immediate family of the other. How can the other find it within themselves to forgive this person? And after all the wrongs have been forgiven and there is no more violence occurring, is that peace?

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.

As I sit on a morning commuter train surrounded by other middle class western world folks like myself, I find that I am challenged to write about the meaning of peace. I am wearing nice clothes, sipping fresh coffee, and next to me sits a plump wallet displaying my card for the train that shows that all of my passages have been paid for. I glance over and see people contentedly absorbed in their books, gazing out the window at the pleasant shrubbery, or having quiet conversations on their cell phones. No wonder I am feeling so challenged to write about the meaning of peace – my experience is totally disconnected from the raw and cutting edge side of peace that makes itself so obvious because it is not violence.

Colossians 3:12 As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.

My favorite prayer activity is the “Five Fingers of Prayer”. I experience strong elements of peace in the process. As you work your way through your fingers, you focus on, and pray about, the following areas:

Thumb: Thanksgiving
First finger: Confession (That no one is perfect)
Middle finger: Intercession (Holding people in the Light)
Fourth finger: Listening (to God)
Pinky: Praise (God!)

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.



All peace essays on this blog are the work and opinion of their authors, even those written by AFSC staff. The authors (including staff) are free to disagree with AFSC's positions; these essays should not be seen as statements by AFSC. We share them in the hope of sparking conversation about the true meanings of peace.

Peace Indicator: 119

This week's Peace Indicator is 119, the number of Nobel Peace Prize Laureates since the prize was first awarded in 1901.

A complete list is available on the Nobel Prize's web site. The prizes have been given to a wide variety of people and groups for a wide variety of reasons. AFSC shared the 1947 prize with the British Friends Service Council for the work of Friends over 300 years with a special focus on the work done after the two world wars to feed the starving populations of Europe. We have stories posted online that talk about our work over the years, including the work that led to our prize.

If you have suggestions for a Peace Indicator please feel free to share.

Peace Essay #3

This week's Peace Essay comes from Erin Polley, a Program Associate for AFSC's Eyes Wide Open Exhibit in our Great Lakes Region:

There was a time when I was younger that the word peace conjured up images of a hippie generation made mythic through television and film. I had only a vague notion of what peace meant, and I certainly didn’t think I would end up working for it every day of my life.

Now when I think about what peace means to me, I see people. I see the faces of people I’ve marched alongside in protest of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I think of those first few people who nurtured my anger over the wars into activism through peacemaking. I recall the 10 or so volunteers I worked with each Monday night for a year as we dreamed up the Eyes Wide Open exhibit. And of course, I see most vividly some of my closest friends and colleagues at AFSC. Peace, to me, is my community.

I never considered myself an activist until I was arrested protesting the start of the Iraq war back in 2003. I knew what was taking place was not right and that war would not settle anything, at home or abroad. I felt powerless, frustrated and sad as I watched “Shock and Awe” unfold on my TV screen. It wasn’t until I was arrested, along with about a thousand other people, did I really feel like there was power in my opposition. For hours I sat in a detention room with 30 women, many of them seasoned activists, and made friendships that endure today.

Through my work with AFSC, I’ve been given the opportunity to work for peace and to provide opportunities for others to engage in peacemaking. For years I was able to organize with a network of folks in Chicago and now I am building my peace family in Indianapolis, where I live now. Being a part of a community that strives for a better, more peaceful tomorrow has changed my life in ways I could have never imagined. Each person that I have met in this work has informed and shaped my own beliefs and practices in peace. I’ve discovered, most importantly, that we cannot have peace without those that seek to attain it.


All essays on this theme are the work and opinion of their authors, even those who are AFSC staff. The authors (including staff) are free to disagree with AFSC's positions, and therefore these essays should not be seen as statements by AFSC. We share them in the hope of sparking conversation about the true meanings of peace.

Peace Indicator: 1

Photo credit: gregoryjameswalsh's
flickr stream.

This week's peace indicator came from my friend Johanna. When I asked her if she had ideas for peace indicators she replied "One, because peace begins with me."

Since several of the essays on peace that I've received so far have focused on the personal efforts required for peace, this seemed like the perfect indicator for this week. To reach a true state of peace in the world, we all have to work to make a difference.

If you have ideas of a peace indicator you would like to share, please leave a comment. If you would like to submit an essay about the meaning of peace, send contact us at oneminute@afsc.org.

What is Peace Essay #2

This week's essay comes from Nora Khouri, Middle East Peace Program Associate in AFSC's San Fransisco office:

Peace itself is a little more than a word, and a theory that begins to take hold in the mind of the individual, until the commitment is made by one, to begin to practice peace within their own life. Peace on earth can only be manifested when inner peace is practiced on a large scale. Inner peace is realized when the harmonious union of mind, body and spirit are aligned in one’s life through a purposeful and intentional practice. Harmonious union and alignment are only manifested when there is a willingness and commitment by the individual to take an honest look within and begin the process of unraveling the many contradictions that create disharmony or disease within human beings. Their may be many paths to attaining inner peace but in Buddhist principles, the path to inner peace is to be attained through a practice of mindfulness and silent meditation.

In an attempt to further the understanding of peace, Martin Luther King Jr. who was the embodiment of a harmonious mind, body and spirit taught us, that “Peace is not merely an absence of violence, rather the presence of justice.” Like peace, justice is a mental concept created based on moral rightness. Just as the concept of peace can not be fully realized when simply defined in the mind, peace without justice is incomplete.

It is the presence of inner peace, which effects the way we treat one another and translates into peace on earth. It is this grounding in of peace within, which makes us realize we are one with all living things, nature and the earth that makes us feel connected to the world around us. It is this practice in our daily lives which reminds us and gives us the strength to take action in the face of massive injustice and human suffering. It is this practice which also reminds us and gives us a deep innate understanding that, in the words of MLK ‘no one is free, unless we are all free.’ It is precisely the practice and commitment of peace with justice, which is the ultimate expression of harmony, love and compassion for humanity that will end all wars in the traditional sense of the word “peace.”




All essays on this theme are the work and opinion of their authors, even those who are staff for AFSC. The authors (including staff) are free to disagree with AFSC's positions, and therefore these essays should not be seen as statements by AFSC. We share them in the hope of sparking conversation about the true meanings of peace.

Peace Indicator: $312,885,119

This week's Peace Indicator is $312,885,119, the current size of the total portfolio of the United Nations Peace Building Fund.

In 2006 the United Nations created the Peace Building Fund. The fund aims to address immediate needs of countries as they emerge from conflicts.

Currently they provide support to nine different counties. One of the first was Burundi, which they targeted for support just days after the fund was formed. They have worked on projects ranging from human rights to government to property and land issues.

Peace Essay #1

A few weeks ago I asked a few of my friends to write essays to answer the question: What does "peace" mean? Starting today we're going to publish one essay a week answering that question. If you would like to submit an essay, please contact us at oneminute@afsc.org for more information. Essays are the views of the author, who are free to disagree with AFSC.

This first essay was submitted by my friend Pamela (who also provided one of our first Peace Indicators):

Peace

I sat with this question of what peace means to me for a couple of days, testing whether what came to mind would hold true both for individuals and communities, for spiritual as well as temporal life. It was a good challenge, and here’s what I came up with as conditions for peace:

• Knowing that there are others who wish you well, that your life and well-being matter;
• Having some predictability in the larger environment; not being on edge about what might happen next, or at the mercy of forces that are too large to control and not at peace themselves;
• Have some reason to believe that your efforts will yield results;
• Having some confidence in your goodness—and the goodness of others;
• Not holding tightly to more than your share, or protecting yourself against those with less.

Since I’m suspicious of ideas and beliefs that aren’t rooted in practice, the next challenge was to consider how all this relates to my experience.

I thought immediately about all the attempts that people make to reach peace by eliminating or muting what seems to threaten it. So we have peace through drugs and numbness, peace by the iron fist, peace in a vacuum, ultimately peace through death. I know the attraction, but am looking for more.

I thought of the deeply conflict-averse family I was raised in, and what a struggle it has been to embrace conflict as survivable even, much less something that could bring growth. I’ve fought hard to understand the roots of anger and fear, and develop the skills and confidence to engage in and get to the bottom of conflict.

I thought about the appearance of peace—and all the rubber band wars, hand-made toy weapons, contact sports, and noise in our family over the years. I’m pleased with our focus on supporting our boys’ natural growth in goodness rather than setting up a hedge of prohibitions against anything that could be associated with the evils of violence.

I thought about the relative security that comes with being defended versus being connected. Our choice to live and raise a family in the city, rather than going for the more protected suburbs, has had its costs for sure. But it has given us access to many wonderful people whom others miss in their choice to put more resources into protection. Following that path to its ultimate end—the gated community—seems like a deeply misguided search for peace.

I thought of how deeply any true and lasting peace is intertwined with economic and political justice. I’ve looked for ways to lend my weight to those struggles, and fought for respectful peer connection with people who have less—and every step I’ve taken, every connection I’ve made, makes me feel more at home, more secure in this world.

I have to say that I also love quiet. I love the stillness of Quaker meeting. I am always striving to clear out the bustle and noise that keeps me from listening for and hearing what I’m called to. I love my early morning walks and time spent with the earth, yielding up beauty and bounty. But the peace I’m most excited about is lively and full of conflict, with all the risk, surprise, and joy that come with hard-won connection.

Peace Indicator: 77

This week's Peace Indicator is 77 warheads. That's the number of deployed nuclear warheads removed from the U.S. arsenal between February and May of this year.

The Federation of American Scientists noted back in February that it appeared that the arsenal had dropped below the 2,200 mark (which we were required to do by treaty by 2012). Then in July the State Department confirmed FAS's figures.

2,200 is still a huge number of nuclear warheads, and that doesn't count the ones kept in reserve. Still, progress should be appreciated when it happens.

Stopping for Peace

There are many things you can do at a stoplight: balance your checkbook, clean out your purse, check your teeth for food particles. Be aware though, that while engaging in these mundane acts the military is buying missiles to fuel it's wars. Our latest and final video offers a way to counterbalance the military's spending spree.



But wait, there's more. We're excited to be participating in this year's Bridge Film Festival. We'll be sharing entries related to One Minute for Peace as they are submitted (see film festival's site for more information about participating). Also, starting next week, we'll be starting a series of essays about what "peace" means. These essays will be from both members of our staff, and other AFSC supporters. We'll be taking submissions from anyone who would like to submit them; check back here for instructions next week.

Peace Indicator: 11

This week's Peace Indicator is 11: the number of men on the Lebanon Landmine survivor soccer team.



You can find a larger version of the video on Time.com

These men are both finding ways to overcome their injuries and do the things they love, but they also bring attention to the issue of land mines and cluster bombs, which impact millions of lives around the world. This past spring that won a match against a team of diplomats, earning them both admiration and gaining attention for their cause.

You can read more on Common Dreams

A thousand years of train rides

When Aaron and Ralph figured out we could get monthly train passes for a thousand years with what the U.S. military spent every minute in 2008, we were gobsmacked.

And even if you let your imagination take wing -- say, for example, what if you bought a helicopter, hired a pilot, bought helipad space in the city -- you could do all that for what the military spent in the 10 minutes it took Aaron to walk to the station: $19 million. *

Not only that, you'd have enough left over for two or three (million) lattes.

You'd be awake for at least a thousand years on that much coffee.

With $1.9 million, we could educate children in Afghanistan. Help heal the wounds of the tsunami and of decades of civil war in Aceh. Make sure students in the United States know there are honorable, peaceful alternatives to military service.

Don't miss the train on this one. Help us wage peace.


* Used commercial Bell helicopter: $3.5 million
Private pilot: $100,000 a year
City lot near work for helipad: $5 million
Fuel and maintenance per hour of flight time: $300
Large latte: $4 (with generous tip)

Peace Indicator: 195,000

This week's Peace Indicator is 195,000.

Since its formation in 1961, more than 195,000 people have served in the Peace Corps. Those volunteers have served in 139 countries and provided a wide variety of services. The Peace Corps is just one of many groups (including AFSC) that help people find ways to put their desire to do good into action.

Peace is Brewing

This weeks video features my coffee pot.



While doing some research for this video I found that a lot of Americas drink coffee, 52% to be exact. Not only that, but we spend a lot of money on coffee about $4 billion dollars worth in 2008 alone.

Well that's just a drop in the pot to The US Military who spent that amount in only 35 hours.

My coffee pot is steamed and so am I.

Peace Indicator: 5

Five is the number of Nobel Peace Prize lectures you can watch on the Nobel web site.

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2005/elbaradei-lecture.html

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2006/yunus-lecture.html

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/ipcc-lecture.html

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/gore-lecture.html

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2008/ahtisaari-lecture.html

Before 2005, the site has summaries only.

The bedbug factor

Sometimes peace is as simple as getting rid of bedbugs.

That was the case in New Hampshire recently, when African refugees living in a Manchester apartment building complained to AFSC's Maggie Fogarty about a bedbug infestation.

Bedbugs aren't our usual line of work. Creating a better world is — in this case, a world free of bedbugs.

AFSC and its partner, the Granite State Organizing Project,teamed up to bring the whole community together to help the building's residents. GSOP is a coalition of religious, community, and labor groups.

In addition, a number of government agencies, churches, and even students from a local college are involved in stamping out the infestation.

Despite the costs of pest control, replacing furniture, and staff time, this effort will all cost a fraction of the $1.9 million the U.S. military spent every minute in 2008. Yet many lives now and in the future will be better because of it.

"It's not just about bedbugs," Maggie Fogarty said. "We need to learn together how to prevent these infestations so that no one has to endure what these tenants are experiencing."

***

Listen to a report about the project on New Hampshire Public Radio.

Greyhound for Peace

This week’s video feature’s Rosie’s friend Patrick (they actually do co-exist quite happily).

After seeing the carrot that Rosie got for her video, Patrick was quite jealous and wanted to make one of his own.

Patrick’s been a long-time peace advocate, last appearing in AFSC’s Friends For Peace campaign several years ago. He’s quite sure if greyhounds ran the world there wouldn’t be any wars — although life might move at a much faster pace — and we’d all spend a lot more time snuggling with our dogs.

Patrick would like to thank Sax in the Suburbs for their musical support.

Peace Indicator: 1.6 billion

The number of people with access to safe drinking water rose by 1.6 billion since 1990 — from 4.1 billion in 1990 to 5.7 billion in 2006.

These numbers come from the World Health Organization.

For more information on how the world's health is improving, visit http://www.who.int/research/en/

For detailed information on world health, visit http://www.who.int/whosis/whostat/2009/en/index.html

Path to peace includes healthcare

This week's video features AFSC staff member M'Annette Ruddell talking about how she would spend $1.9 million per minute.



M'Annette would like to see the U.S. place a higher priority on caring for its citizens instead of bringing harm to others. With so many Americans living without health insurance, and without easy access to even basic care, it's hard to argue with such a simple redirection of priorities.

How would you like to see the U.S. use its resources?

Peace Indicator: 100

The goal of the planners of the NNOMY conference, held recently in Chicago, was to have 100 youth attend; they exceeded their goal.

NNOMY is the National Network Opposing Militarization of Youth, which AFSC helped to found and we have staff on the steering committee. NNOMY's conference this summer brought together youth from across the country, and gave them opportunities to share their experiences and insights.

AFSC helped get busloads of kids of the conference, which everyone reported as being a big success. You can see a slide show from the conference, and read more about the experience on our main web site.

Penguin for Peace

This week’s video again looks for ways to put the rate of U.S. Military spending into perspective.

The AFSC Web Team has long used penguins as our mascot of sorts. For example when we need a sample program to test new ideas for the website, we use the Penguins for Peace program. So when we started to put this series of videos together penguins were a natural fit.

I’ll admit, I’m not aware of any polling data trying to measure support for peace within the penguin community, but I am fairly confident that penguins would rather we all live in peace.

Have ideas about how better to spend $1.9 million every minute? Leave us a comment and let us know.

Aaron

Peace Indicator: $500

This week’s Peace indicator was sent it by my friend Julian, after a trip he recently took to Haiti.
$500 covers the monthly expenses of the rural community school of 70 students he had the chance to visit.

Julian was struck by the participatory nature of the school, and the work toward teaching lessons of peace and stability in a nation that has seen so much turmoil for decades. Hopefully this chance at education will give these children opportunities to help the community and their country in the years to come.

You can read more about Julian’s visit to the school, including pictures and video on his blog.

Bridge Film Festival

The American Friends Service Committee and the Bridge Film Festival are excited to announce a new "Bridge" between the One Minute for Peace Campaign and their ongoing project with Friends' schools around the world.

All PSA's submitted to this year's Bridge Film Festival that address the One Minute for Peace theme, will be considered for featuring on our Youtube channel.

We are very excited about the possibilities, and look forward to seeing the submissions.

Troubled by Handguns

This week's video features Peter Lems, AFSC's Program Director for Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran, talking about something a little closer to home: handguns.



Peter reminds us that part of making a peaceful world is taking away the things that make people feel threatened. That applies not only to safety in our homes, and on the streets of our neighborhoods, but also to the world at large. While we may feel threatened by violence close to home, in other parts of the world people feel threatened by our nation's ability to inflict violence on them from afar.

None of us are truly safe until everyone is safe.

If you have thoughts about peace, safety, or handguns, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Peace Indicator: 1.202

1.202 was the score given to New Zealand when Vision of Humanity gave that country the top score in this year's Global Peace Index.

For the last three years Vision of Humanity released their rating of how peaceful countries in the index are. This year's rankings were developed by reviewing 23 factors for 144 countries. Unfortunately,this year's ratings showed an over all trend away from peace, but it's still good to sit atop a list like this. Congratulations, New Zealand!

If you're wondering, the United States came in 83rd.

You can learn more about GPI and the 2009 results here, and here.

Have a number that you think reflects peace in the world? Please let me know.

Beans...and bean counters

Laurie's out this week. But she left the following message to introduce this week's video:

As Terry and I learned when we made this video, jelly bean wrangling is a lot like herding cats. You never know when they’re going to take off for parts unknown, and they’re independent little darlings.

Despite the fact that we had 600 jelly beans in the jar (minus the few that liberated themselves), the cost of props for this video was way under $5.

Compare that to military spending, where Congress wants more F-22s than the Defense Department does – and yet F-22s cost $44,000 an hour to fly.

Talk about burning money...

Still, $44,000 an hour must sound positively frugal to the U.S. government, which spend roughly $31,000 EVERY SECOND on the military in 2008. For next year, the government has proposed a budget which will divert almost 60% of all discretionary funds to the military.

That’s a heck of a lot of jelly beans.

Are you frustrated, too? Can you think of better ways to spend this money?
Join us at www.oneminuteforpeace.org and help us make our voices heard.

Peace Indicator: 840,000

This week's Peace Indicator was provided by my friend Elizabeth.

Elizabeth estimates there are 840,000 producers of fair trade goods in the world. She took some time to review the farmers listed by several of the major fair trade organizations, and totaled up their suppliers. This is probably a bit low, because even for all the work she did, she didn't catch every product out there.

Many Americans think of Fair Trade products as limited to coffee, tea, and chocolate, but there are many more products available. Elizabeth's list includes cotton, bananas, fruit, beauty products, rice, sugar, flowers, wine and more. AFSC is also involved in the fair trade movement. Our Atlanta office provides Fair Trade Olive Oil that supports Palestinian Olive farmers, and each fall our Austin office hosts a conference on women in fair trade.

To learn more about fair trade check out some of the organizations that are focused on those efforts: TransFair USA, Equal Exchange, London Fairtrade Campaign. There are lots of others as well.

If you have a Peace Indicator you'd like to share or have researched, leave us a comment.

Aaron

Defining peace

How would you define peace?

At my desk, I have a beautiful calligraphic mantra of “Practicing,” a poem by Cathryn Hankla. In part, it reads:

Like forgiveness
Peace is a practice

Moment to moment
It’s how we choose to be

Think about that: It’s how we choose to be -- and not just how we choose to appear for a split second on the international stage, but at every moment of our lives.

But how can we define it? Is it the absence of war? Or is it the presence of something else?

Let us know.

Laurie

Video Drones

Welcome to the video game wars.

Oh, sure, video games aren’t quite as expensive, but the idea remains the same: domination, destruction and death.

Drones with video-game names like Predator and Reaper have made an appearance in arenas from Bosnia to Iraq and Afghanistan. They carry Hellfire missiles – another video-game name – an anti-tank weapon.

The pilots of these drones sit 8,000 miles from their targets – but this is no video game.

Late in June, Northrop Grumman got $276.3 million to develop a communications network for the drones.

That’s petty cash to the military, which spent that much in just a little over two hours in 2008.

This is on top of a cost of $4.5 million per plane just for the Predators, which aren’t as weapons-laden – a mere two Hellfire missiles at a cost of $25,000 each – as their new and improved cousins the Reapers, which can carry eight.

The drones have been raining death on Afghanistan, killing numerous civilians, including women and children. According to one news article, pilots are even learning how to disguise the sounds the drone makes so it can do its work with even more stealth.

It’s a case of overgrown boys with deadly toys.

Peace Indicator: 81

This week's Peace Indicator comes from Games for Change:

81

Games for Change lists 81 games meant to encourage players to make the world a better place. You can read more on their website and on their blog.

As someone who's always loved playing computer games, I've always liked the idea of games that involved more nuance than just killing everything in sight, and Games for Change provide several of those.

If you have a Peace Indicator you'd like to share, please let me know.
Aaron

Bad joke?

So a rabbi, a priest, a mullah, a pastor, a Buddhist, and a female lawyer walk into a bar, and the bartender says …

“What is this, a joke?”

Yeah, well, it’s a little better than the jokes Carl came up with for this week’s One Minute for Peace video. Not that that’s saying much.

But Carl has a good point. In 2008, the U.S. government spent $1.9 million EVERY MINUTE on the military. It does sound like a bad joke – the very worst.

Do you toss and turn nights, worried about China’s increasing military strength? Straighten those covers. Last year, China’s military spending amounted to a mere 10 percent of U.S. military budget.* In fact, the United States accounted for almost half – half! – of the world’s military spending.

And you paid for it.

You may have scrimped and saved to pay for some necessities and maybe even a luxury or two, but the U.S. government took your tax money and treated the military to the world’s most expensive party.

$1.9 million a minute.

Isn’t it more than just a bad joke?

[The figure of $89 billion in military spending for China comes from Wikipedia. The Wikipedia figure for military spending does not include money for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. For our figures on the military budget, go to www.oneminuteforpeace.org.)

Peace Indicator: 2 million

This week’s Peace Indicator was sent to me by my friend Pamela.

1-2 million.

That is Paul Hawken’s estimate of the number of organizations working to make the world a better place for everyone (from his book Blessed Unrest). During his commencement address at the University of Portland this spring Hawken commented:

No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more. This is the largest movement the world has ever seen. Rather than control, it seeks connection. Rather than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of power. Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the scenes and gets the job done. Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement. It provides hope, support, and meaning to billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea, not in force. It is made up of teachers, children, peasants, businesspeople, rappers, organic farmers, nuns, artists, government workers, fisherfolk, engineers, students, incorrigible writers, weeping Muslims, concerned mothers, poets, doctors without borders, grieving Christians, street musicians, the President of the United States of America, and as the writer David James Duncan would say, the Creator, the One who loves us all in such a huge way.

You can read the entire address on Hawken’s website.

Got a Peace Indicator to share? Leave a comment, or send us an email at oneminute@afsc.org.

What is peace?

Today we introduce our second one-minute video.

In this one, two of our staff members in San Francisco, Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb and Noura Khouri, talk about why they work together to bring peace to Israel and Palestine and about how they would define peace.

Thank you to William Baptist III for helping produce this video.

Peace isn’t just the absence of war. It’s the presence of an adequate, secure supply of food and clean water. It’s having skills to earn a livelihood – and the freedom to do so. It’s learning to work with your former enemies and learning the skills that lead to resolving conflicts rather than escalating them.

The American Friends Service Committee works for peace every day in small ways. We show young men and women here in the United States honorable alternatives to military service. We provide food to at-risk Palestinian children and fuel to run power generators at hospitals in Gaza. In Jordan, we and our partners fit severely injured Iraqis with artificial limbs that give them hope for a better life. Five years after the devastating tsunami in Indonesia, our staff members are still there. We’re still working in Aceh, a region torn by civil war even before the tsunami struck.

Yes, we’re asking for donations so we can raise $1.9 million, the amount the U.S. government spent on the military EVERY MINUTE in 2008.

To us, it’s a big sum. We think it is to you, too. But it’s a drop in the bucket for the military.

William Penn, the Quaker founder of Pennsylvania, said, “Force may make hypocrites, but it can never make converts.”

Help us make converts. Watch our videos, send them to your friends, and please, please donate to One Minute for Peace.

Peace Indicator: $49 million

In an effort to tell positive stories we are starting a weekly Peace Indicator. Our idea is to find simple figures that show progress toward peace in the world.

This week’s Peace Indicator: $49 million

A meeting between USIP and the China peace delegation co-hosted by AFSC and CPAPD March 2009.
Photo Credit: Terry Foss

The Obama Administration’s budget request for the State Department includes $49 million for the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) in 2010. This is a huge increase over last year’s $31 million budget.

USIP is an independent, nonpartisan, national institution funded by the US government. USIP provides programs to promote peace and stability through nonviolent means. They try to get involved before, during, and after conflicts to do everything they can to help prevent and heal conflicts.

USIP also conducts research into new tools to support peacemaking throughout the world. While $49 million is still far too little for the government to spend on this type of work, the large increase is still a hopeful sign.

The idea for the Peace Indicator came from NPR’s Planet Money podcast which starts each episode by providing a simple economic indicator. Their indicators range widely from obscure financial figures to the number of car salesmen that called a listener in response to one email (5).

We’d like to have a similar wide range of indicators, but we’ll need help. If you have can think of any simple figures that show progress toward peace, please tell us about them.

Why Rosie’s our girl

Rosie, our One Minute for Peace poster guinea, shares a lot in common with many of us here at the American Friends Service Committee: she’s vegetarian, she doesn’t talk a lot, and she’s cute and cuddly.



OK, I made that last part up.

Let’s be up front about this: We’re determined to raise $1.9 million for peace. Sound like a lot? Not to the U.S. government, which spent that much every minute in 2008 on the military – and which plans to spend a whopping 57% of all discretionary spending on the military next year.

But how could we make those mind-boggling numbers seem real?

Videos!

We discussed a number of ideas for one-minute videos when we started this campaign: earnest, off-the-wall, humorous, and possibly demented.

Everyone had excellent points about what type of videos would be best, but we couldn’t come to consensus. So our web team did the next best thing: Aaron, Ralph, Terry, and Carl went out and created their own videotapes. (I stayed here to write.) Some are earnest. Some are off the wall. Some are humorous.

None are demented.

We’ll put up a new video every week for your viewing enjoyment.

But there’s a catch. (Oh, come on – you knew there’d be a catch from the get-go.) We want you to respond. Post your own videos on YouTube or other video services. Comment on this blog. Respond on our YouTube site at www.youtube.com/oneminuteforpeace.

Most of all, we hope you’ll open your hearts – and wallets – to help us raise One Minute for Peace.

Coming soon to a peace blog near you: What we could do with $1.9 million.