SPC In Action Online!

Welcome to the renewed e-newsletter, “SPC in Action,” an electronic newsletter that can keep you updated on the latest news and events happening at the Syracuse Peace Council (SPC). We too miss the old paper version but rising costs and ecological concerns have inspired us to find new ways to stay in touch and share with you the many ways in which we are working towards creating a more peaceful and just world.

We also want to acknowledge all of the people who have put their time and energy into volunteering for the Peace Council over the past couple of years. Through the many transitions we have experienced, you have remained steadfast in your commitment to promoting peace and social justice. We are truly grateful for your unwavering support.

In this newsletter, you will find information about upcoming events, actions, and campaigns, as well as highlights from recent events and actions.

We want to thank everyone who helped put this newsletter together, from the writers to the editors, and everyone in between. We could not have done it without your support and dedication.

We hope that you find this newsletter informative and inspiring. As always, we welcome your feedback and suggestions for future issues.

Thank you for your ongoing support of the Syracuse Peace Council. Together, we can make a difference.

In peace and solidarity,
Ayeh and Lee,
SPC Staff

Get Involved!

There are many ways to get involved with the Peace Council, and every contribution counts: attend an event, join a committee, volunteer at the office, or organize a rally or demonstration. 

We provide training and resources for all volunteers, and there are many opportunities to contribute from home. Help with publicity and outreach, by posting flyers, joining our social media team, or tabling at events. Use your artistic skills to create materials, or help with small tasks like running errands or making phone calls.

As we move into Spring and Summer 2023, we have a number of exciting actions and events coming up, including the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal and the Golden Rule Peace Boat arriving in July. We need your help to organize transportation, housing, meals, talks, and educational events for these occasions.

Support the Syracuse Peace Council by volunteering your time or donating any amount to help us replace inequality, hierarchy, domination, and powerlessness with mutual respect, personal empowerment, cooperation, and a sense of community. As a politically independent and grassroots organization, we rely on people-power to challenge the existing power relationships among nations, people, and the environment!

We are seeking interns for summer 2023 who are enthusiastic and passionate about working to create a world of peace, freedom, equality, and social justice and who are motivated to take action to end military aggression, imperialism, and all forms of oppression. By interning at our office, you’ll have the opportunity to learn about important issues of the day as well as the basics of grassroots organizing from outreach to publicity to fundraising. To learn more about our different summer internships, click here.

Fill out our volunteer form or contact Lee or Ayeh at spc@peacecouncil.net or 315.472.5478 to find out more about how you can get involved. Let’s work together to create a more peaceful and just world. Thank you for your support!

SPC News

SPC Finances

The Peace Council’s fiscal year runs from July through June. The half-year review for December 31, 2022 found that, overall, the Peace Council was in good shape for that point in the year. We had a strong Plowshares which met our budgeted figure, netting over $40,000. Over the past twelve months, the savings that are available to supplement operations (that is, the money not already encumbered to the various committees) increased by $1,600. This is important because our personnel costs will be higher than last year given all the aspects of the transition from former staffers Carol and Michaela to current staffers Lee and Ayeh. Bookkeeping costs were also lower last year but will return to previous levels with the recent hiring of Kaitlyn.

An area of concern is that the overall giving (contributions/pledges/appeals/ memberships) was down. Even in early January when most of the year-end contributions had come in, we were at about 37% of our projected $34,500 target through June 2023 instead of close to 50%. Please respond as generously as you can when you receive the Spring Fund Appeal scheduled for later May.

– Chris Riley 

Bookkeeper Comings and Goings

Welcome to Our New Bookkeeper: Kaitlyn Shanahan

In February 2023, SPC hired Kaitlyn Shanahan as the bookkeeper to replace Chris Riley who had been filling in since Amelia Lefevre left in August of 2021. A graduate of ESF and a former Westcott Nation resident, Kaitlyn has been a Watershed Inspector for Owasco Lake, worked for Citizens Campaign for the Environment, and participated in Occupy Syracuse. You may have even met Kaitlyn at the Regional Market where she currently manages sales  for “Food & Ferments“, a local food producer.

In recent years, Kaitlyn made a shift in her career track and now has a small bookkeeping business. Being the bookkeeper for an organization like the Peace Council aligns with her professional goals which have remained the same across the years: to work towards a better future. Welcome, Kaitlyn!

– Chris Riley

Kudos and Thanks to Our Outgoing Bookkeeper: Chris Riley

It is impossible to overstate the contribution Chris Riley has made to SPC’s financial well-being. 

In August 2021 she became SPC’s temporary bookkeeper, a position that should have ended in  six months, until someone new was hired. Hiring a new person proved difficult, and Chris, dedicated and responsible person that she is, agreed  to stay on. So now, 2.5 years later, Katilyn has been hired and Chris is officially leaving the bookkeeper position. We are lucky that she will  continue as assistant bookkeeper, a role she has filled for many years, supporting and training new SPC bookkeepers and preparing SPC taxes, among other things.

SPC is also very fortunate that Chris will remain on as an integral part of SPC’s Finance Committee which she joined around 15 years ago (also she had already been doing SPC financial work for several years before). Currently, Chris does much of the financial analysis, prepares the yearly budget, researches solutions to problems as they come up, communicates regularly with our fiscal sponsor (and helped set up the original agreement)—I could go on and on, but you get the idea. There is nothing having to do with SPC’s finances that Chris has not been a part of.

Chris is a hard-working, thorough, and careful thinker who understands SPC and wants to support it in the best way she can. In addition, she is a joy to work with—with her intelligence, follow-through, kindness, cooperative spirit and insightfulness. 

For many, finances are not the first thing they think of when they decide to become activists. But finances is what allows activism to happen. In a way finances are like the foundation of a house providing the support we need to build a better future. 

We are so grateful that Chris is a part of SPC. Thank you so much, Chris. Words are inadequate to express our appreciation of what you have done and what you continue to do.

– Carol Baum

SPC Committees

Beyond War and Militarism (BWAM): Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal

BWaM Takes it to the Next Level

Justice for Palestine

The Justice for Palestine committee was founded in the wake of the December ‘08 Israeli attack on Gaza. The committee is a community educational and organizing project. We provide grassroots education and generate political pressure needed to re-orient US policy toward ending the occupation of Palestine. 

For the past several years we have worked with national and international organizations on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement; the No Way To Treat A Child Campaign which aims to challenge and end Israel’s prolonged military occupation by exposing widespread and systematic ill-treatment of Palestinian children in the Israeli military detention system; defend Palestinian children and hold perpetrators of grave rights violations accountable. The committee has worked on The Campaign to Defund Racism, a Palestinian-led movement to end the use of ‘charitable’ funds raised in the United States to carry out the mission of Israeli settler organizations. It aims to uncover wrongful acts being funded by these organizations through the use of their charitable status, stop the exploitation of US charitable laws that fund settler extremism and violence, and as a result, the subjugation and displacement of Palestinian communities. Lastly, we have worked locally to bring attention to a bill that U.S. Congresswoman Betty McCollum (D-MN) introduced. The Promoting Human Rights for Palestinian Children Living Under Israeli Military Occupation Act also known as H.R. 2407(now called H.R.2590). The bill prohibits U.S. taxpayer funding for the military detention of children in any country, including Israel. This bill finds that Israel detains and prosecutes between 500-700 Palestinian children each year in a “military court system that lacks basic and fundamental guarantees of due process in violation of international standards.”

We continue to educate the local community on the displacement and mistreatment of Palestinians domestically within Palestine and the US and internationally due to the Israeli occupation. We will continue to hold protests, vigils, show films, documentaries and hold spaces for people who bare witness to the human rights violations faced by anyone who criticizes the way Israel is existing today. Our goal for this year is to send a community member on a delegation to Palestine in time for the fall olive harvest. We will be collecting donations to support this member on their trip through an organization called Eye Witness Palestine. Your donation will be greatly appreciated. Below are a list of events coming up, please add them to your calendar, we hope to see you soon. 

– Aziza Zahran

Nuclear Free World (NFW)

SPC’s Nuclear Free World Committee has been busy! Our mission to eliminate the threat of nuclear war has been made all the more urgent by Russia’s war against Ukraine, and the deteriorating relations between the US and China. We have focused much of our attention on the Back from the Brink Campaign, which calls for taking missiles off hair-trigger alert, commits the US to a policy of no first use, ends the trillion-dollar plan to modernize the entire US nuclear arsenal, and works towards a complete ban on nuclear weapons. 

We arranged meetings with staff from Senators Schumer and Gillibrand in November 2022 to urge their support of legislation related to Back from the Brink. More recently we met with Ryan Sweeney, Legislative Director for Rep. Brandon Williams (NY-22). We urged his support of House Resolution 77 which endorses Back from the Brink and the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). TPNW has now been ratified by close to 70 countries!

We had a a few exciting events in April:

• April 20th to 21st: Medea Benjamin, founder of Code Pink and long-time social activist, has a new book War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, co-authored with Nicholas Davies. She visited Syracuse and gave three talks, at Syracuse University, at Le Moyne College, and at Bishop Harrison Center.
• April 27th and 29th: Author Vincent Intondi visited Syracuse and spoke at Syracuse University and at Barnes and Noble about his new book: Saving the World from Nuclear Weapons: The June 12, 1982 Nuclear Disarmament Rally.

Dr. Intondi is from Syracuse and is a Professor of History and Director of the Institute for Race, Justice, and Civic Engagement at Montgomery College, Takoma Park, Maryland.

This summer the peace boat The Golden Rule is coming to Upstate New York. Veterans For Peace has recovered and restored the original peace ship, the Golden Rule, that set sail in 1958 to stop nuclear weapons tests in the Marshall Islands, and which inspired the many peace makers and peace ships that followed. The reborn Golden Rule is sailing once more, to show that nuclear abolition is possible, and that bravery and tenacity can overcome militarism. It is scheduled to visit Syracuse July 16-17. Contact Ron vanNorstrand (ron@vannorstrandlaw.com) or me (dhughes171@gmail.com) to find out how to get involved.

– Don Hughes

Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation (NOON)

Replace Columbus

In collaboration with WISH (Women of Italian and Syracuse Heritage), NOON continues efforts to remove the Columbus Statue in downtown Syracuse and move commemorations in our community from Columbus to honoring Indigenous Peoples Day. We filed an amicus (friend of the court) brief for the appeal of the case which has so far blocked the city of Syracuse from removing the statue. A ruling is expected in the coming months. Learn more, including reading the full amicus brief on our Replace Columbus page. 

Witness to Injustice Programs

In 2018, NOON partnered with KAIROS Canada to present the Witness to Injustice Blanket Exercise in our region. The participatory educational experience helps people understand the effects of the colonization of North America on Indigenous people and nations, with a focus on the Haudenosaunee. NOON has created a strong partnership with Onondaga and other Haudenosaunee educators. Over the past five years we have conducted 90 workshops with over 2000 participants throughout Upstate New York and beyond. The program has been conducted at universities, secondary schools, faith communities and community organizations. We are partnering with the Onondaga County Public Libraries to offer several public programs later this year. Read about a recent program conducted virtually with folks in the Adirondacks here. See the NOON website to learn more or fill out the form to request a program.

Catholic Church Repudiates the Doctrine of Discovery

Following decades of advocacy by Indigenous Peoples and allies, on March 30, the Catholic Church finally issued a formal repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery (DOD). The DOD was a series of papal edicts which emboldened and provided religious and legal cover for the brutal conquest of much of the world by European powers beginning in the late 1400s. The DOD was enshrined into US law beginning in 1823. The US Supreme Court cited the DOD in a 2005 decision written by Ruth Bader Ginsburg which paved the way for the dismissal of Haudenosaunee land rights cases.

While the Catholic Church’s repudiation is a valuable first step, “it falls short of the kind of full accountability required to heal the still-festering wounds,” write Phil Arnold, Sandy Bigtree and Betty Lyons in a recent article Continuing Christian Domination: A Response to the Vatican’s Repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery.

Get Involved!

NOON continues to work on a variety of other issues including supporting the traditional Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ (Cayuga) people under attack by an illegitimate government supported by the US, Onondaga Lake cleanup, return of land to the Onondaga Nation, adequate funding for the Onondaga Nation School, protecting Indigenous burial grounds and more. To get involved, contact Sue Eiholzer (rsue@twcny.rr.com, 315-492-2684).

–Andy Mager

Activists

Peter Scheibe (1951 – 2022)  ¡Presente!

Our community lost a good friend and supporter when Peter Scheibe died unexpectantly on November 25th.  Peter’s involvement with the Syracuse Peace Council dates back to the early 1980s.  He was a part of the OM (Organization and Maintenance) Committee, helped with birthday dinners, and marshalled for the Haig demonstration against US involvement in El Salvador.  In fact, Peter and his wife Margaret Gelfuso met as members of the SPC-sponsored Mid-East Study Group in 1983.

In addition to his position as a Speech Pathologist for the Pre-K Program in the Syracuse City School District, Peter was on the Board of Cooperative Federal Credit Union for over twenty years.  He also was involved in Parents for Public Schools, Westcott Community Center, and the Northside Learning Center, among other volunteer pursuits.

Over the years, as Peter’s participation in the activities of the Peace Council lessened, he and Margaret became stalwart pledgers.  The commitment to financially support the Peace Council’s work was a continuation of his activism and is very much appreciated.

His intelligence, his humor, and his compassion combined to make Peter a worthy teammate in any endeavor and a friend par excellence.  He is missed by so many. 

– Chris Riley

Rae’s Light

On March 23, Rae Kramer (1947-2023)—pillar of the Syracuse Peace Council, costumed raffle lady of SPC’s Plowshares Craftsfair, pointed speaker of truth to court judges, girls’ soccer coach—after years of cancer, succumbed at her and Lanny Freshman’s home on Scottholm Blvd. Until near the very end, Rae, our local activist extraordinaire, was always smart and plucky!

Over the years Rae and I shared adventures. Taking time away from our work on the Peace Newsletter editorial committee, in 2005, we and a handful of friends flew to Colombia. The U.S.-fostered civil war there was raging. In Bogota for several days, we met with various civil resistance movement activists. Then, along with delegation organizer Ann Tiffany, one of Rae’s closest friends, we flew on to Putumayo Department in the far south. Midway, our flight was delayed by news that the FARC guerillas had just disabled the local airport control tower. Things were tense.

Back then, the Pentagon’s School of the Americas at Ft. Benning, Georgia was training and indoctrinating the Colombian and other Latin American militaries in anti-insurgency tactics. Those were also the days when over a dozen of us from Central New York were imprisoned at various times for our ritualized nonviolent actions there. Rae, in 2002, found herself serving six months in Danbury Federal prison.

Visit “Rae Kramer: A Celebration of Life!” photo gallery

Remembering Lance Hogan (1949-2023)

I met Lance and Beth in the 70’s… For many years this was my adopted family with kids! Lance was the most radical fearless lover of life I have ever known… He infused the world around him with the simply obvious notion that love and laughter make the world beautiful. Lance was kind, loving, deep and wide.

Lance was a longtime friend and worker for the Syracuse Peace Council and the larger Syracuse Peace community, many an event, dinner, and demonstrations would see Lance making sure everyone felt safe and welcomed and that the work got done.

Lance never took a job at any company that had any tie to the defense industry, and he quit jobs once he found out they had a defense contract. He was a proud union member, and he never crossed a picket line.

In every action, decision, and interaction, Lance embodied what it meant to fight for a better peaceful just world, where love should infuse everything.

In his obituary, his family wrote:

One of the letters we received sums up Lance and his life wonderfully, “Lance was inspired by family and friends and community and justice, to fun and joy and playfulness, and to keeping on, keeping on… Every day, in every interaction, Lance tried to live his life as an example of what it meant to be peaceful, to leave this world a little better than you found it. We think everyone who met him can agree that he did leave the world and all our lives a little better.

And so we will carry on… this time, leading with love.

– Karen Kerney

Activist Appreciation: Ayesha, Chloe, and Maia

We are pleased to introduce our latest activists, Ayesha Karim, Chloe Erwin, and Maia Gostin, for their outstanding contributions in re-establishing the SPC in Action e-newsletter and volunteering with the Syracuse Peace Council. Their devotion and perseverance to improve the world are truly remarkable.

Their diligent efforts in revamping the SPC in Action e-newsletter have provided the community with crucial information on peace and justice issues and forthcoming events in Syracuse. Their meticulousness and passion for the cause have resulted in a newsletter that is informative, engaging, and thought-provoking.

Moreover, their volunteer work at the Syracuse Peace Council has been a substantial asset to the organization. Their enthusiasm, creativity, and hard work have assisted in advancing the organization’s mission of promoting peace and social justice through education, activism, and nonviolent action. They have demonstrated a willingness to exceed expectations to support the Syracuse Peace Council, and their efforts have been recognized and appreciated.

Ayesha, Chloe, and Maia have exemplified that activism is not just a catchphrase but a way of life. Their unwavering commitment to creating a better world for all is a testament to their character and their devotion to the cause of peace and justice. We are privileged to have such enthusiastic and committed activists in our community, and we express our gratitude to them for their service and motivation.

– Ayeh Hajjari

Coalitions & Organizations

Center Spotlight: Unchained

A conversation with Unchained’s Alyeska Dronsfield

Q: What would you say is Unchained’s biggest goal? 

A: “Our main goal is total prison abolition. Albeit a big task, we want to create a world where prison isn’t necessary.” 

Q: What is your favorite thing about working in the Syr. Center for Peace and Justice building? 

A: “Everyone here! Although we may share different goals, we all share the same mindset that lives outside of capitalism; there’s a lack of greed. I feel like we don’t have to do it by ourselves anymore. There’s a community here that’s focused on everyone succeeding, there’s this lack of competition.” 

Q: What is your role at Unchained?

A: “Communications Specialist. I run our social media accounts, create the graphic design, send emails, and participate in interviews like this one.”

Q: What is one word you think best represents Unchained?

A: “Visionary” 

Q: Why do you think most Americans are wary of total prison abolition? 

A: “Simply, fear is an incredibly powerful tool. Prison abolition is painted as this radical, idiotic idea in circles of fear. They think once we “win” we’ll just open up all the prison doors and let these “awful, harmful” people run free or something. Most have this predetermined idea of what abolition would look like, but in reality, it encompasses way more than that. We need to end the root cause of people becoming incarcerated. Like working to end poverty and expanding education. Let’s stop the circumstances, then we don’t allow it to manifest into something harmful.” 

Q: Where do you see Unchained five years from now? 

A: “Way bigger! In all ways, we’ve been growing exponentially, especially in staff and membership. We currently have six staff people and a membership of over 200 people. This membership comes in two forms, either they’re on the outside, or the inside. Although both of these perspectives are important, the voices of those on the inside, are fundamental to Unchained. The leadership we have on the inside is vital.

– Chloe Erwin