by Larry Kerschner If you have the feeling that you are being watched, you probably are not paranoid.  Welcome to the NationalSecuritySurveillanceState.  A recent book The Daily You by Joseph Turow shows how ads, discounts, news and entertainment are being customized and personalized on the basis of data being collected and coordinated by powerful but not well-known media agencies.  When you fill out a survey, swipe your card at Safeway, download a Groupon coupon or Google any information on the Internet, these media agencies are developing an individualized profile of you despite their claim that this process is anonymous. The Department of Defense provides a “free” test to all school districts in this country called the ASVAB which is supposed…

by John Repp         Republicans and corporate media are always talking about taxing the rich as “redistribution of wealth” as if the capitalist economy is not itself a great redistribution engine. In its normal workings, capitalism redistributes the money and labor of poor and working people to the rich. As John Ruskin wrote in Unto the Last (1862), a book Gandhi read that changed his life, rich and poor are relative words like north and south. Most people think of wealth as an absolute and think that everyone could become wealthy with the right application of knowledge and effort. If that were true, why aren’t we all wealthy? The wealthy have an answer: the poor are ignorant and lazy. But…

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…