I'm enclosing this campaign information because I was impressed that these children accept our message that killing is wrong. They care enough to try to make us adhere to that teaching. This is a prime example of mixed messages that eventually defeat the kids and take the spirit of involvement out of them. No wonder they don't respect us...we are full of contradictions.
If the little children can see and try to stop a bad policy, what's wrong with the adults who could help make it happen? Why are so many of us sitting back watching legislators destroy our reputation abroad, while they ignore the real problems at home? Bad things happen when good people do nothing. Kay Lee
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Join the NO! Campaign
The
No! Campaign · PO Box
240, Farmington, PA 8573 · Tel:
724-329-8573 · :
As NATO bombs
continue to fall on Yugoslavia, domestic opposition to US military
involvement seems passive at best. That’s about to change, according to
schoolchildren organizing the NO! Campaign, a
network who “want the US to stop killing kids in Yugoslavia.”
“The NATO bombing has killed hundreds of innocent people, and has
only made the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo worse,” said 8th grader
Trevor Wiser. “We wish the President would follow his own advice about how
senseless it is to kill,” Wiser added, noting Clinton’s comments on the school
shooting in Littleton, Colorado. President Clinton was reported by CNN as
saying: “We must do more to teach our children to resolve their conflict with
words, not weapons.”
The children behind the NO! Campaign are no strangers to acting on their beliefs in
the face of controversy. “The kids came up with the idea while we were
discussing the Kosovo crisis in class,” explained Heinrich Arnold, their
teacher at Woodcrest School, a private elementary school run by the Bruderhof
community. In 1997 the children organized the “Cuba Gang” and broke the
blockade to show friendship to Cuban children, and then toured Europe with a
program of songs and choreography. They’ve also organized 1997’s “Children’s
Crusade to Death Row” to abolish the death penalty, “Kids for Peace” to end the
conflict in Ireland, “We Got a Song!” concerts for political prisoners, and
“Kids for Life” protesting the sanctions on Iraq..
A group of middle school student had the idea to show solidarity with
the suffering children in Yugoslavia by beginning the NO! campaign. The NO! campaign is an emergency network to rally people who are
opposed to war, violence and injustice. The kids coordinated a 48 hour fast in
April called “Hungry for Peace,” where participants in New York, Pennsylvania
and England took part in an international fasting chain to launch the NO! Campaign. This focused on the
suffering of the people caught up in the conflict in the Balkans.
The students have been polling people they meet in the locality and
asking the question: “Are you for or against the NATO bombing?” The results of this direct question have
been tallied and show that citizens of the United States are distressed about
the war and oppose the bombing. The
children are sure that if the billions of dollars being spend on
self-destructing and murderous weapons could rather be brought to the table of
diplomacy, a peaceful solution to the conflict would result.
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For interviews with the children behind The NO! campaign or with their mentor Daniel
Hallock, author of Hell Healing
Resistance: Veterans Speak, phone (914) 658-8351.
We
will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and
actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good
people. -- Martin Luther King
Join the NO! Campaign
The No! Campaign · PO Box
240, Farmington, PA 8573 · Tel:
724-329-8573 · email: gillbart@bruderhof.com
What?
·
A
nationwide, popular movement opposing the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and
Violence in America. Stop the slaughter!
Who? An emergency network of
·
People
of faith who are concerned for peace with justice
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People
who oppose war and unjust sanctions
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People
working to end the death penalty and police brutality
·
People
who see that the billions being spent on bombs are a waste of money and lives
Activities:
·
Stand up and be counted. Wear a NO! T-shirt or button. Make your own or call us.
·
Go to the people. Stand in your local mall and ask:
“Are you for or against the NATO bombing?” Publicize the results of your poll. (Are the polls reported in the media
accurate?)
·
Each one teach one. Tell a friend about the campaign.
·
Emergency speak-out. Organize an event at your town hall,
church, school, or university.
·
Write
to your Congressperson and your local paper.
·
Join the National March on the Pentagon June 5, 1999. (http://www.iacenter.org)
Resources:
·
Make
your own NO! buttons, NO! T-shirts, NO! caps, NO! windshield static-cling signs, etc.
·
A new
book that explores the human cost of war through the personal accounts of over
100 veterans of the wars of this century: Hell,
Healing, and Resistance: Veterans Speak by Daniel Hallock. Call
1-800-521-8011
·
Books
and CDs from the schoolchildren who have organized Hungry for Peace and the
Children’s Crusade Against the Death Penalty. Call 1-800-521-8011
·
Interviews
with the “Hungry for Peace” children and teachers (Photos available) Call
914-658-8351
·
Interviews
with author of new book Hell Healing and
Resistance, Daniel Hallock. Call 914-658-8351
We
will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and
actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good
people. -- Martin Luther King