| November 5, 2007: This website is an archive of the former website, traprockpeace.org, which was created 10 years ago by Charles Jenks. It became one of the most populace sites in the US, and an important resource on the antiwar movement, student activism, 'depleted' uranium and other topics. Jenks authored virtually all of its web pages and multimedia content (photographs, audio, video, and pdf files. As the author and registered owner of that site, his purpose here is to preserve an important slice of the history of the grassroots peace movement in the US over the past decade. He is maintaining this historical archive as a service to the greater peace movement, and to the many friends of Traprock Peace Center. Blogs have been consolidated and the calendar has been archived for security reasons; all other links remain the same, and virtually all blog content remains intact. THIS SITE NO LONGER REFLECTS THE CURRENT AND ONGOING WORK OF TRAPROCK PEACE CENTER, which has reorganized its board and moved to Greenfield, Mass. To contact Traprock Peace Center, call 413-773-7427 or visit its site. Charles Jenks is posting new material to PeaceJournal.org, a multimedia blog and resource center.
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Return to Dec 10, 2002 Western Mass. Rallies and Actions
Why we are here today occupying the MayorÍs office
(Arise for Social Justice - contact Michaelann Bewsee - michaelannb@hotmail.com)
Today, December 10, is the 54th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Article 25 of the Declaration reads:
Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
We are here today because a crisis exists in this country, this commonwealth, and on the streets of our city. Health care, schools and human services are being devastated; unemployment and homelessness are rising even among people who were doing well; more and more people earn less than a living wage and are unable to pay their rent. The Pentagon budget continues to rise and a new allocation of money has been authorized by the president. All this in order to destroy the health care, schools and human serivices of Iraq ..to make Iraquis jobless and homeless. To what end?
A $100 billion dollar war in IraqÖ 3 times what the federal government spends each year on education for kindergarten through high schoolÖwill further weaken our country. 43 states are in a budget deficit, with Massachusetts running $800 million in the red. We will lose another $180 million in federal funds in this fiscal year. Massachusett‰s share of the cost of this impending war equals nearly $3 billion.
Here in Springfield, more and more people are becoming homeless. More and more people are leading lives of desperation, where meeting their basic human needs is impossible.
What we want
On December 5, Acting Governor Jane Swift announced that she had sold a bond to fund $20 million dollar‰s worth of gas masks and other anti-terrorism equipment for fire and police departments across Massachusetts.
This takes place at a time when $9 million has been cut from family shelter programs.
Shelters for single homeless people have already been cut by 15%. 50,000 longterm unemployed are losing even the most basic health coverage. The list goes on and on.
We want our firefighters and police officers to be safe and to have what they need to keep us safe. Their ranks have already been decimated by layoffs, station closings and the removal of fire trucks in operation.
But the greatest threat to our safety as a community is not from unrealized and unlikely bioterrorism attacks. The greatest threat comes from the already realized risk of homeless people dying on the streets of our city. Will children soon be joining those ranks of the dead?
We want the mayor of the City of Springfield to use our cityÍs share of that $20 million to make sure that every person in the city has a decent place to sleep at night. If he cannot do that, then let the city dedicate an equivalent amount of money to meeting our cityÍs human needs.
We want our mayor to organize other Western Mass. mayors and town managers to demand that the state sell another bond, one that will restore cuts in shelter budgets to the FY2000 level.
We want our mayor to organize other mayors to clearly state at the upcoming National Conference of U.S. Mayors that President BushÍs policies of bankrupting our economy for an unnecessary war are unacceptable and will not be tolerated any longer.
We expect our political leaders to care for us, to help us build a rational, reasonable community, and to weave together all those who depend upon the cities and towns in the Pioneer Valley, a common pact to protect and preserve our basic human rights.
Let us reject the control of Boston and Washington when they fail to act in our real interests. Let the mayor rise to the occasion and declare today that we will not allow men, women and children to die on our streets. - (Arise for Social Justice contact Michaelann Bewsee - michaelannb@hotmail.com)
(Pictured: Michaelann Bewsee (left) of Arise for Social Justice.)
Page created December 10, 2002 by Charlie Jenks.