• Peace House supports this petition. 

  
   
  Sign now! Tell Sec. Mattis to make clear that U.S. troops cannot use any force against migrants
  The Trump administration has issued an order authorizing troops at the border to use deadly force against migrants. This is not only alarmingly dangerous, it violates the critical law that keeps the military completely separate from domestic law enforcement.
   
  This is one of the most horrific things the Trump administration has ever done. Active-duty troops authorized to shoot people seeking refuge at the southern border not only terrorizes migrant families, it erodes our rule of law, and makes service members political pawns. This is not just terrifying – it’s illegal and we cannot allow it to happen.
   
  MoveOn.org urges you to sign a petition to James Mattis, United States Secretary of Defense, which says:
   
  “We demand you reject the White House’s illegal order authorizing troops at the border to use lethal force and immediately end the deployment of troops at the U.S.-Mexico border. Our troops must not be authorized to hurt or kill those simply seeking safety and asylum at the border.”
   
  Will you sign the petition, too? Click here to add your name:
  https://petitions.moveon.org/p/e_9xi_ChnY
  Tell Sec. Mattis to make clear that U.S. troops cannot use any force against migrants

  For more information see:Reverend William Barber: Tear Gassing Central American Migrants Is Inhumane, Unconstitutional, Immoral: https://peacehouse.net/reverend-william-barber-tear-gassing-central-american-migrants-is-inhumane-unconstitutional-immoral/

Peace House Annual Awards Dinner – “Sustaining the Sacred 2018” 

Putting the peacemakers together

View photos and commentary by Allen Harllmark on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/allen.hallmark/media_set?set=a.10217258313867785&type=3

Action Alert:Three students were tortured and killed in Honduras between August 30 and September 1 in a shocking development following student demonstrations against the governmental status quo. Padre Melo, shown left in photo left with Berta Cáceres, activist who was assassinated last year Journalist Giorgio Trucchi shows, in a new article (see link below) that this killing continues even though it has left the headlines. According to numbers tracked by by Casa Alianza, some 60 youths are murdered every month in Honduras. In other developments, directed threats have escalated in recent weeks against journalists at Radio Progreso and the station’s director, Honduran Jesuit Ismael Moreno, known popularly as Padre Melo, a long-time human rights advocate.   Peace House watches carefully the escalating repression underway in Honduras with grave concern for those in the Human Rights community who are being targeted and terrorized. The recent execution of three students who were part of demonstrations against the government are a huge shock.  Full information at https://peacehouse.net/canadian-jesuits-international-shares-concerns-about-padre-melo-and-radio-progreso-staff/. We are grateful to Senator Merkley for keeping an awareness of these violations of human rights in the public eye of Washington, DC. Peace House is asking that our community members write to thank Senator Merkley for keeping the concerns of the Honduran people in his sights as he advocates for their human rights and freedom of speech under an increasingly repressive government. Please send your letters of concern and appreciation for Senator Merkley to info@peacehouse.net and we will send them to his office.  This is time sensitive, so please send your letters to us as soon as possible. We will present them as a series of requests to Senator Merkley’s office. Thank you, Elizabeth V. Hallett Program Manager Peace House News from Honduras Peace House is watching the escalating repression underway in Honduras carefully, with grave concern for those in their communities who are being targeted and terrorized. The recent execution of three young students has been particularly disturbing, because two of them were recorded as being arrested on video August 30th. Their tortured bodies were then found south of the capital, Tegucigalpa the next day, at a notorious body dump, that was used for extra-judicial killings in the 1980’s. These two young men were arrested on the International Day of the Disappeared. This seemed like a message. The two were initially identified as students from the Technology Institute, a high school in Tegucigalpa. It is unclear whether or  not that identification has been confirmed. The following day, the body of a student at the public university in San Pedro Sula, in the north of the country, was found shot to death and dumped along a highway. Journalist Giorgio Trucchi shows, in a new article (see link below) (1) that this killing continues even though it has left the headlines.  According to numbers tracked by by Casa Alianza, some 60 youths are murdered every month in Honduras. Berta Olivas, head of COFADEH or Committee of the Families of the Disappeared in Honduras, believes that there is a deliberate campaign to silence the youth of the country in particular. “We are immensely preoccupied. The arrest and execution of the boys happened right after the successful demonstration organized by the Convergencia against the Continuation (of the current government).  It seems to me that they are escalating a campaign to end hope and instill fear in the people, especially attacking the youth for rebelling.”  Oliva explained that “They don’t want the youth to raise their heads, or question the political or economic system; or organize, or put forward innovative proposals.” In her view: “Those who are running their strategies of horror and terror with a broad logistical reach, are Death Squads. When we are talking about Death Squads, and summary, arbitrary  executions, we are talking about structures that operate at the margins of the law, but with the complicity of the authorities of the State… We live in a State that is for sale, that has been losing its sovereignty and its identity with an institutionalized strategy that is against our young people.”(3) Meanwhile, the trial of the men charged with carrying out the murder of famed environmentalist Bertha Cáceres, on March 2, 2016, will go on trial in Tegucigalpa. The trial of eight men accused of carrying out the murder has been postponed again. Scheduled to begin this week, it has been postponed again as of today. No new date is available. Directed threats have escalated in recent weeks against journalists at Radio Progreso and the station’s director, Honduran Jesuit Ismael Moreno, known popularly as Padre Melo. Photo left: Padre Melo with Indigenous leader Berta Cáceres in 2013. Cáceres was murdered in March, 2016, at her home in La Esperanza, Honduras. Her family and community continue to call for a broader investigation to bring to justice the intellectual authors of her murder.   1) https://www.alainet.org/es/articulo/195332 2) Full information at https://peacehouse.net/canadian-jesuits-international-shares-concerns-about-padre-melo-and-radio-progreso-staff/. 3) http://www.pewhispanic.org/2017/12/07/rise-in-u-s-immigrants-from-el-salvador-guatemala-and-honduras-outpaces-growth-from-elsewhere/ Press release from: United Nations, Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner Honduras. OACNUDH is concerned about smear campaign against Father Ismael Moreno. Canadian Jesuits International shares the concern of the UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner in Honduras over the safety of our partner Radio Progreso and its staff, as expressed in the press release of 3 September 2018 at our website as indicated in the link above. The number of immigrants in the United States from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras rose by 25% from 2007 to 2015, in contrast to more modest growth of the country’s overall foreign-born population and a decline from neighboring Mexico. Please urge Senator Merkley  to call attention to the terror and murder as well as the smear campaign against Padre Moreno in Honduras and to question the de facto endorsement of these activities by the United States government.   Berta Cáceres murder trial delayed after judges accused of abusing authority. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/17/berta-caceres-trial-postponed-judges-accused?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Blessed are the Peacemakers” We mourn the loss of, Joanna Niemann, a beloved member of our peace and justice  community. She left us September 11, supported by her husband, Michael and family.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

August 10, 2018

June 30, 2018:

Photos below are of the rally held in protest of Donald Trump and his administration cruelly separating migrant children from their families and holding them in cages. The staff at these “shelters” are not allowed to touch distressed toddlers in need of comfort after enduring the trauma of being separated from their parents. This treatment is absolutely barbaric, but we won’t allow it to continue. Rallies were held in Washington, D.C., and around the country to tell Donald Trump and his administration to stop separating kids from their parents.

Take action:

5 ways to take action against family detention

https://www.afsc.org/blogs/news-and-commentary/5-ways-to-take-action-against-family-separation

[wonderplugin_slider id=”20″]

June 27, 2018:

Peace House wonders if you know all these people and what they have in common?

How to Create an Immigration Crisis: The U.S. in Central America – By Jim Phillips, PhD.

June 2, 2018:
Veterans’ Group Says “No” to Emmy for PBS Vietnam War Series

Democracy Now! Article:

Norman Finkelstein: Palestinians Have the Right to Break Free of the “Unlivable” Cage That Is Gaza

Excerpt, “This spring’s mass nonviolent protests in Gaza come as the human rights conditions in the “open-air prison” have even further deteriorated. Last year, the United Nations issued a report warning Gaza is already “unlivable.” The majority of its water is contaminated, and electricity is limited to only a few hours a day. About half the population is children. Almost all are refugees who are prevented from ever leaving the tiny Gaza Strip, one of the most densely populated places on Earth. For more, we speak with Norman Finkelstein, author and scholar whose most recent book is titled “Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom.”

Also see video: The United Nations Responds to Isreali soldiers killing 58 Palestinians and injuting thousands more. The United Nations makes their denouncement.

https://www.facebook.com/NowThisPolitics/videos/2053443944687085/

______________________________________

Guest Opinion: KKK fliers are anything but harmless by  Alma Rosa Alvarez

Peace House stands in solidarity with the Medford City Council value of diversity and against hate. We support the Rogue Action Center in calling for the Medford City Council meeting in which the recent fliers distributed there by the KKK were addresses.
These fliers wee openly recruiting membership in a pitch for divisiveness and racial bias. Such activity will only serve to cultivate a separate and racist culture, endangering people of color in our local communities at a time when we could be growing into a more open, collaborative and inclusive society.  The current recruitment by the KKK is likely to increase incidents of racial bias, hate
speech and harassment that is experienced by local residents who are people of color.  While the recruitment literature is not illegal per se, we appreciate the steps that the Medford Police Department and City Council took to address the concerns of citizens who are speaking out to encourage unity and diversity in the face of racism and dis-unity.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

Read full statement here (and talking points). Then write the editors at Daily Tidings and Mail Tribune.Trump’s March to War with Iran Must be Stopped by Congress

Photos of 7th Annual Peace House Sponsored Empty Bowls Supper fundraiser to feed the hungry, April 27, 2018

4:00 to 7:30 p.m.
First United Methodist Church – Wesley Hall
175 N. Main St., Ashland, OR

[wonderplugin_slider id=”18″]

Photos by Linda Sturgeon

[wonderplugin_slider id=”19″]  

Photos by Allen Hallmark

Sign up here to receive our biweekly email send of Peace House Calendar of Events (covers peace and justice oriented activities by diverse organizations in the Rogue Valley).

Visit our Peace House Facebook page.

[wonderplugin_slider id=”5″]

Click on the photos in slider above to read more about each topic, and be sure to click here to: Learn About The Issues / Take Action.

To increase size of page contents (larger type) press ctrl and + (at the same time on your keyboard), to decrease press ctrl and – .  Note, some images may take a moment to load depending on your internet speed.

[wonderplugin_slider id=”17″]

Photos from PEACE HOUSE 35th ANNIVERSARY AWARDS DINNER, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2017 at GRIZZLY PEAK WINERY

To ‘fast forward’ to see awardees (near the end of the slide show),just below the slideshow images  click on the arrow to the right several times.  Also, you can hover over any of the dots below the photos to see a mini image of what the photo is, then click on the dot to see the photo in the slide show.  If you were at the dinner, you are in the slideshow (images are in chronological order of when they were taken except for the first image of the honorees).

2017 Peace House Annual Awardee Biographies

To see each photo (shown below) enlarged, please go to our facebook page and click on the photo album there at https://www.facebook.com/pg/PeaceHouseAshland/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1661770290539725  – and please share the post on your personal facebook page – thank you!

Special Edition, “Let’s end war, not memorialize it.”  Read the story with historic photos of S. Brian Wilson, Vietnam Veteran, Veterans for Peace, in honor of the 30^th Anniversary of nonviolent vet and activist, S. Brian Willson’s ordeal outside of Concord Naval Weapon’s Station, September 1^st, 1987, while trying to block a weapons shipment leaving the base for Central America. 

HOW YOU CAN HELP HOUSTON!

Please sign: http://stopthaad.org/ petition to join in resistance against THAAD missile system and instead call for peace treaty which China, Russia, and S. Korea have already agreed to freeze nuclear program and weapons in S. Korea if the THAAD missile system in S. Korea is removed.

2017 Commemoration of Hiroshima-Nagasaki Closing Ceremony in Lithia Park Ashland

Click here to see videos from the closing ceremony held in the Japanese Garden in Lithia Park on August 9 at 7 p.m.

Peace House marched with our banner in this year’s Ashland 4th of July Parade. We were joined by Our Revolution, supporting Health Care for All (expanded Medicare, single payer) and other issues of justice upon which peace depends. Share from https://www.facebook.com/PeaceHouseAshland/ the post of this slideshow (as well as below slideshow) with your friends on Facebook.
[wonderplugin_slider id=”15″]

In this slideshow below, also from the Ashland 4th of July Parade, are photos of the majority of the crowd gathered (estimated 20,000 in attendance) who are in support of Health Care for All.
[wonderplugin_slider id=”16″]

Click here to read the June 2017 Clear Actions Newsletter – Editor Elizabeth V. Hallet.

The VFP 156 Profile: Elizabeth V. Hallett — by Allen Hallmark

Photos from the 6th Annual Empty Bowls Fundraiser for Food Security (Click on photo below to go to page with slide show).

Feeding the Hungry and Advocating for Economic Justice

“When I feed the hungry they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor are hungry, they call me a Communist.” – Dom Helder Camara, Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, Brazil (1964-1985)

[wonderplugin_slider id=”8″]
Learn more and take action for economic justice by viewing topics in the slider of photos above. To navigate the slide topics above: Choose a topic from the index on the right side of slider (use arrows above and below index to scroll within it, then click on thumbnail photo in index to view in slider window). Once the topic is in the slider window, click in the slider window on the large photo to go to webpage on topic.

Peace House is proud of Uncle Foods Diner, which Ashland has taken to its heart, supporting it with volunteers and funding. It’s not a soup kitchen, but an occasion when the community interacts with people in distress and affirms its readiness to welcome all our brothers and sisters no matter what their circumstances.

But there is no excuse for hunger in the wealthiest nation in history. Nor is hunger anywhere caused by scarcity. The root cause of hunger is economic injustice, and economic injustice must be addressed and challenged because it is getting worse year by year, and hunger is not its only consequence.

The two gravest threats to human existence now are climate change and nuclear war. We cannot succeed in averting either without recognizing the role of the enormously wealthy few and the corporations and financial institutions they
control. Their quest for control of global labor and natural resources drives practices and policies of exploitation and the organized violence that is required to enforce them.

Since its beginning in 1983, Peace House has been anchored in a commitment to promoting nonviolence at every level of social organization—interpersonal through international. That commitment has led us to address causes that have varied as changing historical circumstances require. For the last five years we have increasingly focused our attention and energies on the multiple forms of violence stemming from economic injustice.

These focuses include one long-standing one—U.S. intervention in the affairs of other nations to advance an agenda of economic domination, and the huge, far-flung military establishment it requires. But more recent ones are our opposition to trade agreements that promise even greater exploitation of labor and natural resources, a health care system that provides access to everyone to affordable and quality care, a living minimum wage, and campaign finance reform to loosen the stranglehold of money on policymaking at the national and state levels.

Not every organization, much less every individual, can work on all the challenges we face. We can, however, understand how interconnected they are, and find ways to support each other in our work for a better world.

Learn About the Issues
Take Action

Donald Trump has asked Congress to raise the military budget by $54 billion. That increase is more than Russia spends on its military. Currently we are spending far more than any meaningful notion of defense requires–almost as much as the rest of the world combined, and most of that spending is by nations who are our allies. And the competition between military spending and social programs could hardly be more obvious. Deep cuts are proposed in safety net programs like child nutrition and Medicaid, in environmental protection, and in education. Use the information in the graphic below to advocate with our Congressional delegation for spending our tax dollars on life, not death.

Please forbear the 30 sec ad that precedes the very moving and important video below – thank you.

Veterans Stand Ground with Pipeline Protesters at Standing Rock 5:20

CANNON BALL, N.D. — For months, Dustin Monroe has made the 11-hour drive from his home in Missoula, Montana, to this remote part of the frozen North Dakota plains to bring supplies and support to the thousands protesting the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline.

The Oceti Sakowin camp has become a second home, a place that has given him a new purpose.

As a Native American U.S. Army veteran, Monroe, 35, has for years struggled with regret. He struggled with fighting in the Iraq War for a nation that had displaced millions of his people. When he was deployed in Iraq, he says, he noticed the parallels between Iraqis and Native Americans.

Both, he said, had suffered for centuries from colonial rule, brutal military occupations and loss of their land through re-written borders. For Monroe, the fight at Standing Rock to protect the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s sacred lands and water was an opportunity to right those wrongs.  Continue reading….

 Winona LaDuke Speaks: Home Girl takes on the North Dakota Pipeline

Peace House co-sponsored event at SOU where Ms. LaDuke discussed the danger the North Dakota pipeline poses to the safety of Missouri River water if a pipeline were to be dug under it, with the potential for oil leaks that would contaminate drinking water for some eighteen million Americans downstream.

She described the Standing Rock Water Protectors and the resistance at the North Dakota site as only one of the places in which the oil pipelines are jeopardizing the environment, showing a map of pipeline systems across the country that all pose environmental threats, along with fracking extraction, as corporate oil interests pursue their agenda to extract resources for private and corporate

At the end of the talk, retired Native American Studies Professor David West, publicly presented the Peace House 2006 Peacemaker Award for Agnes Baker Pilgrim that she had been unable to accept earlier at the annual Peace Maker Awards Dinner.

See slideshow of photos from event

Please see the link below for facts about pipeline extraction. You will find much information regarding the environmental issues involved in the pipeline corporate extraction economy and effects on the environment

http://www.honorearth.org/fact_sheets

There have been 85 pipeline oils spills in 20 years. In North Dakota alone there are 55 pipelines. Many are old and need to be repaired. Often the oil companies just leave them to create new pipelines rather than repair the old ones.

For related articles on Veterans at Standing Rock, see

[wonderplugin_slider id=”11″]

PHOTO SLIDE SHOW – PEACE HOUSE AWARDS DINNER 2016, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 6

Awardees honored: Roy Bourgeois, Grandmother Agnes Baker Pilgrim, Peter Buckley, Senator Alan Bates (posthumously), Rogue Valley Peace Choir.  Also view slideshow at https://peacehouse.net/peace-house-awards-dinner-2016/

At the heart of the 2016 School of the Americas Watch Encuentro is increasing awareness of the militarization of the US-Mexico border and Latin America, as well as the criminalization of migrants, asylum seekers, refugees and people of color. Read more here.

Read article: Native American Activist Winona LaDuke at Standing Rock: It’s Time to Move On from Fossil Fuels | Daily Digest 09/12/2016

Anti-Nuclear Activist Greg Boertje Interview on Jefferson Exchange
http://ijpr.org/post/anti-nuclear-activists-commemorate-hiroshimanagasaki

JPR, “Greg Boertje-Obed describes his activism and motivation.
It’s been 71 years since an impossibly bright light flashed over Hiroshima, Japan: the first use of a nuclear weapon in war. Thousands died there and at Nagasaki three days later.
It scared the world badly enough that nuclear weapons were not used in war again. But our country and others certainly built more of them.  Peace House in Ashland spent three days commemorating the Hiroshima-Nagasaki anniversary (August 6-9) with the help of anti-nuclear activist Greg Boertje-Obed. He was one of three activists arrested for breaking into a nuclear facility in Tennessee.”

Special thank you to Allen Hallmark for his photos and commentary:

Seventy-one years ago the United States dropped an atomic bomb over Nagasaki, Japan on Aug. 9, 1945. Estimates are diffcult but at least 39,000 people were killed that day and tens of thousands more died in subsequent days, months & years from radiation poisoning and many more years later from cancers caused by exposure to the radiation of the bomb. In contrast to those ghastly figures, the closing ceremony of this year’s Hiroshima-Nagasaki Vigil in the Japanese Gardens of Lithia Park in Ashland, Oregon, was very peaceful & serene. We need to work to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

[wonderplugin_slider id=”10″]

Reducing Gun Violence

Peace House shares the sorrow of the Orlando massacre with all those who are affected by this tragedy. Our hearts are especially with the families, friends and those who responded to the aftermath with protection, healing and coordination to help everyone through the tough days ahead. The kindness that now illumines the dark after this brutal attack, is a profound message to us all. May we carry that forward.

[wonderplugin_slider id=”7″]

Orlando / Gun Violence Awareness: Vigil Photos in Ashland Plaza June 13, 2016.

We will continue to stand for nonviolence and unity, to support our local Southern Oregon PRIDE, and the LGBT community as a whole, as we look for ways to dissolve prejudice and hatred, finding new ways to care for each other as human beings.

Read article by Elizabeth Hallet, Peace House Chair, “Vision Quilt Calls for Gun Violence Awareness”

‘Vision Quilt’ project aimed at gun violence – article published by Mail Tribune

http://www.mailtribune.com/article/20160114/NEWS/160119770

You might not immediately associate quilts and gun violence, but when you sit across from Cathy DeForest, an Ashland artist who created the “Vision Quilt,” it seems obvious: “It’s about comfort, nurturing, home. People are offering gifts to each other,” she says in a sunny upstairs room at Sew Creative on East Main Street in Ashland.

The Vision Quilt is a lesson in contrast and an offer of warmth to soothe the psyche of all Americans wounded by gun violence whether directly or indirectly. It is a collection of individual panels urging an end to gun deaths and created by individuals from around the nation.

DeForest wants to change the tone of the conversation from fear and judgment to a positive expression of a willingness to solve the tragedy of more than 30,000 gun deaths in the U.S. annually (33,636 in 2013), according to the latest numbers available from the Centers for Disease Control.  Continue reading article on Peace House website….

Call to Action for Human Rights – Stop the Assassinations in Honduras

Honduran indigenous and environmental organizer Berta Cáceres has been assassinated in her home. She was one of the leading organizers for indigenous land rights in Honduras.

In 1993 she co-founded the National Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH). For years the group faced a series of threats and repression.

According to Global Witness, Honduras has become the deadliest country in the world for environmentalists. Between 2010 and 2014, 101 environmental campaigners were killed in the country.

In 2015 Berta Cáceres won the Goldman Environmental Prize, the world’s leading environmental award. In awarding the prize, the Goldman Prize committee said, “In a country with growing socioeconomic inequality and human rights violations, Berta Cáceres rallied the indigenous Lenca people of Honduras and waged a grassroots campaign that successfully pressured the world’s largest dam builder to pull out of the Agua Zarca Dam.” [from article]

Looking for Justice in Honduras – by Lucy Edward

Advocacy Actions:

Contact your Congressional Representative with regarding the murder of Honduran indigenous leader Berta Cáceres and demand:

1) Independent impartial investigation to determine the material and intellectual authors of the crime that includes a cooperation agreement with the Inter American Commission on Human Rights to allow international experts to participate in the investigation, and other pertinent Human Rights bodies.
2) Government of Honduras must allow that FAFG (Fundación de Antropología Forense de Guatemala) to review the autopsy report and issue findings regarding that report that the family can have access to.
3) Suspension of US support for Honduran security forces, including the US trained 1st Battalion.
4) Suspension of Multilateral development bank funding to Honduran private sector because the governance conditions are not adequate to insure gross human rights violations do not occur.
5) Cancellation of the concession of the Gualcarque River to DESA so that the river remains free.

———————————————————————————————————–

People around the world are reacting to the assassination of well known and beloved Berta Caceres, Honduras indigenous environmental leader.  Read more here.

——————————————————————————————————

THE FEDERAL BUDGET – Crisis and opportunity for Oregon

——————————————————————————————————n;