by Ruth Yarrow Come with me into an old south Seattle church, up the back stairs to a small office, where Vernon, a African American with a wonderful open smile, is typing, and Michael, Chinese American with bright eyes, answers my questions.  Director Michael Woo helped found Got Green, an organization working to ensure that our low income communities and communities of color will help spearhead a real green economy and develop a new generation of grassroots leaders. Since they began in 2008, they trained young weatherization workers who came to our  house and our neighbors’ homes, installing energy saving bulbs and weather stripping.  They collected thousands of signatures to demand that federal stimulus dollars help employ low-income workers of…

by Ted Nation      Several members of Western Washington FOR are working informally with Power Past Coal, a growing coalition of organizations sharing a common interest in preventing the West Coast from becoming a high volume coal export corridor. This is in response to proposals from major coal and shipping companies to strip-mine coal inMontanaandWyoming, transport it throughWashingtonandOregon, and sell it toAsia. Under current proposals, Arch Coal, Peabody Energy and the Australian-based Ambre Energy would ship as much as 130 million tons of coal per year throughWashingtonState. There are additional shipping terminals proposed inOregon.   Many climate scientists propose that the world totally phase out the use of coal if we are to have any chance of stabilizing global temperature.…

by Brenda Collier, Treasurer This is a special edition of Pacific Call given over to articles about WWFOR’s current crisis.  If we do not do anything, we could have a large deficit at the end of our fiscal year (which ends on June 30, 2012) and will have completely exhausted our entire cash reserve.  My projection is for a possible deficit of as much as $10,000 which on a budget of $70,000 is not good.  Maybe this is only to be expected with the current bad economy, but we have to deal with it while we still can. The Finance Committee is working on plans for raising funds, and we also need to look at ways to make WWFOR sustainable. I…

by Marcia Mullins “To sustain:  to keep in existence; to supply with necessities; to support the spirits, vitality, to encourage”   We can think of sustainability in financial terms –  the financial “necessities.”  (See Brenda Collier’s articles.) We can increase our financial base or we can increase the level of financial support from our current base, or we can cut our staff, shifting the focus from organizing to coordinating, or we can lay off staff completely, shifting to chapter-based activities coordinated by the Area Committee.  But finances are only ONE of the ways in which we supply WWFOR with “necessities.”  Perhaps, more importantly, is the question of who in our membership is willing and/or able to contribute time and energy to…

by Brenda Collier There are many peace and justice organizations, that address only a single issue,  but WWFOR recognizes how all environment, justice and peace issues are interconnected.  Many organizations give lip service to nonviolence, but for FOR nonviolence is the key to solving the problems facing our communities and the world.  That is why WWFOR is important to me. There are many different levels of FOR membership throughout the region – from the Olympia chapter with a myriad of activities, to places where there are just one or two people. It is important to have this link for all FOR people in the region. It is good to meet and share ideas with people from all over Western Washington…

by Glen Anderson WWFOR members believe in economic justice and a “living wage” for workers, so for a number of years WWFOR has been raising staff wages without solid plans for how to pay for them.  “Wishful thinking” beyond what our hard-working fundraising efforts could generate is partly responsible for our current financial crisis.  WWFOR’s economic problem has worsened because of the US’s widening economic gap between the rich and the rest of us and the economic crash that occurred in 2008 and will continue long into the future. But WWFOR’s problem is not just a shortage of money.  It is also a shortage of grassroots volunteers and an organizational culture that does not fulfill our lip service to grassroots…

by Ellen Finkelstein, Organizer As I procrastinate writing this column, the Air Force announces that the ICBM Minuteman III nuclear missile test scheduled for March 1 is canceled. An agreement is announced: North Korea will suspend nuclear tests and allow international inspections while the U.S. will send tons of food aid. And Act of Valor, an action film that stars real Navy SEALs “performing astonishing acts of heroism,” is number one at the box office. What do these 3 stories have to do with WWFOR & its sustainability? They are random. Yet, activists exerted pressure to cancel the missile tests. Others advocated for a diplomatic, non-military response to North Korea (and elsewhere!). A hit movie offers an opportunity to discuss…

by Kaeley Pruitt-Hamm This is a ripe revolutionary moment, and if we don’t seize it, it will be gone. This unique period in history has been a long time coming, and now is a crucial window of opportunity for WWFOR’s work. That’s why we have ramped up our efforts in training young people in nonviolent strategy, continued to draw connections between military spending and our deficit that others don’t seem to be making, and continued to stand as a distinct peace and justice community. WWFOR has been intertwined with parts of the Occupy Movement and beyond. It’s been a big year for building community and teamwork among people from all backgrounds – from our work in the state legislature with…

by Bernie Meyers The world and we are in a rapidly changing period. From an individual point of view it may not seem rapid but nature and society may well experience the changes as earthshaking.  The Fellowship of Reconciliation is fast approaching its 100th anniversary. FOR has long been a strong witness for a just and peaceful world. In the context of the industrial revolution,  FOR began at the ascending end of the curve of industrial development which created the intensive resource consuming society we have “benefited from” and which now most of humanity wants to share. However, we have reached the limits of growth and must begin the long descent toward the other end of the curve. While on…

by Ruth Yarrow WWFOR has had a vibrant history, including working on the Freeze Campaign, US-USSR reconciliation, solidarity with Central America, trying to prevent the Gulf War, medical supplies to war victims, the Campaign of Conscience, and more. More recently, WWFOR has been working on opposing the so-called never-ending war on terror and supporting multilateral efforts to gain peace.  At present, WWFOR is co-leading an effort to bring our billions of tax dollars home to provide the education, health care, libraries, public transport, environmental support and more that our state so desperately needs.  We have held Peace Activist Trainee (PAT) programs every July for eleven years.  Many of our members continue to work with other organizations on efforts from health…