Christian Peace Witness Update – All Events @ National City Christian Church, 5 Thomas Circle NW

Worship and Witness in Washington, DC

April 29-30, 2009

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SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

Wednesday, April 29

National City Christian Church, 5 Thomas Circle, NW (all events)

Opening Convocation

12:30-1:30 p.m

Noah Baker Merrill — Quaker, Cofounder of Direct Aid Iraq, a humanitarian and peacebuilding effort working with Iraqi refugees

Kathy Kelly – Catholic, traveled to Iraq 24 times and lived in Baghdad throughout the “shock and awe” bombardment of March 2003

Workshops

2:00 p.m Nonviolence training

2:00 p.m Advocacy training

4:30 Legal Briefing for Nonviolent Direct Action

WORSHIP & WITNESS

7:00 p.m. National City Christian Church

100 Days Campaign | April 30th – The 100th Day

For Complete & latest information visit here!

Day 100

April 30 at 10:00am

Two hundred-fifty prisoners remain detained in Guantanamo, including many already cleared for release, Bagram prison is expanding. Indefinite detention is continuing. We invite you to join us in Washington DC for the 100th Day, April 30 for a procession in orange jump suits and a nonviolent direct action at the White House. We are asking folks to arrive early on April 29, and we will provide housing and meals for your time in DC.

End the Wars Lest You Reap the Whirwind- The Imperative of Nonviolent Peacemaking, Speaker: Kathy Kelly

A Clarification of Thought Event

Kathy Kelly, long-time peacemaker and co-founder of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, will describe her recent experiences in Gaza during the final days of the Operation Cast Lead assault, and also discuss ways to nonviolently resist the UASs- Unmanned Aerial Systems (drones), used to attack people in Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. She and 14 companions were recently arrested at the gates of Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, headquarters for U.S. usage of the drones.

Please join us on Friday, May 1, 2009 @ 7:30 p.m.

Dorothy Day Catholic Worker, 503 Rock Creek Church Rd., NW.

For more info call 202.882.9649 or 202.360.6416

Easter 2009: Will we rise to face the Triple Crisis?

And so this is Easter, and what have we done? (War is still over, if we want it!)

Our planet is faced with the triple crisis of Peak Oil, Climate Change, and Resource Wars in our present day and immediate future.  Matt Simmons, author of Twilight in the Desert, said in a recent interview that the world will have to prepare itself in using 1/3 less oil than what it uses today in five to seven years from now.  He also stated that in about 18 months Mexico will no longer be an exporter of crude oil to the United States.  Its prized Cantarell Field (which peaked in 2005), continues its terminal decline in production and joins the fate of other super-giant oil fields around the world that are either approaching decline or have begun the process.

NASA climatologist Jim Hansen keeps sounding the alarm that we must get below 350 parts per million (we’re at 385ppm now) of greenhouse gases if we intend on preserving a planet similar to that in which civilization developed.  Hansen is urging anyone willing to listen to push for a world-wide moratorium on all coal-fired power plants that do not sequester CO2.

Eight Arrested at Pentagon and One at White House in Good Friday Actions – Catholic Workers among them…

Dear Friends,

Fifty people involved with the Holy Week Faith and Resistance retreat in Washington, D.C., sponsored by Jonah House and the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker, held a nonviolent witness at the Pentagon early this Good Friday morning. Dressed in black robes and white masks to symbolize the war dead, retreatants silently processed to a solemn drumbeat around the south side of the Pentagon carrying signs reading: Put Away the Sword, Remember the Victims of War, Abolish All Nuclear Weapons, War Never Again. Other signs contained facts about the U.S. nuclear arsenal.  As the main procession entered the designated fenced off “protest zone” outside the Pentagon Metro Entrance, Pentagon Police arrested eight people as they prayed around a cross on the sidewalk near the “protest zone.” They were taken to the nearby Navy Annex for processing, charged with “Disobeying a Lawful Order of a Government Agent” and were given a June 19 court date. Those arrested were: Susan Crane, David Ryle, Sr. Margaret McKenna, Molly Brechtel, Brian Hynes, Nancy Gowen, Bill Frankel-Streit and Art Laffin.