BRANDYWINE PEACE COMMUNITY P.O. Box 81, Swarthmore, PA, 19081 (610)544-1818

Stay in the circle for peace - receive regular Brandywine Peace Community e-mail notices and announcements. If you are not on the Brandywine Peace Community e-mail and mailing list, send us your name, address, town, state, zip, and e-mail address to brandywine@juno.com

Brandywine Calendar Winter/Spring 2010

End the Wars, Abolish Nuclear Weapons

Resist Lockheed Martin

Beyond War: a New Economy is Possible

“…The revulsion against war not too long hence will be an almost insuperable obstacle for us to overcome.  For that reason, I am convinced that we must begin now to set the machinery in motion for a permanent war economy…”  Charles E. Wilson, President of General Electric, January, 1944

For more than sixty years, our country has been held in the grip of a “permanent war economy”, producing devastating social consequences here at home and enabling war and misery around the world.

Lockheed Martin: world’s largest war profiteer ($42.7 billion annually in weapons and war related contracting), manufactures F-35 Joint Strike Stealth Fighters (at $300 billion, the most expensive weapons program in human history), U.S.’s #1 international arms dealer as well as nuclear and space weapons contractor. Lockheed Martin builds unmanned remote-controlled drones directed through space from the continental U.S. by satellites also produced by Lockheed Martin.  The death toll in Afghanistan grows daily as people here and around the world pay the price of U.S. war and militarism.  90% of Lockheed Martin’s income comes from war.
Please join and support the campaign of nonviolent resistance to Lockheed Martin at upcoming peace vigils, protests, and nonviolent resistance at Lockheed Martin, Mall & Goddard Boulevards in Valley Forge, PA (behind the King of Prussia Mall), in front of the main entrance to Lockheed Martin, just off the corner of Mall & Goddard, across from the entrance to the UA movieplex.

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Sunday, March 14, 4:30p.m. - Monthly Brandywine Potluck What Now? Health Care Reform and the Future of Universal Health Care, Dr. Walter Tsou, former Health Commissioner for the City of Philadelphia, and nationally noted expert on Universal Health Care.

A Congressional up or down vote on “health care reform” is soon to take place. Months of promises compromised, lies, double-talk and double-speak from both (or more) sides of the health care “debate” has passed.  Talk about timely!  Come, this Sunday to the Brandywine Peace Community monthly potluck supper & program and hear someone speak who knows what he’s talking about, who understands and can talk about the travesty and injustice of health care in this country - who lives (and profits) and who dies - and knows what it will mean and take for there to be health care justice in the country.  Sunday, come here Dr. Walter Tsou!

Walter Tsou, MD, MPH is a nationally known consultant on public health and health care reform.  Currently, he is on the visiting faculty of the University of Pennsylvania. He was President of the American Public Health Association in 2005 and served as Health Commissioner of Philadelphia from April 2000 to February 2002.  He has extensive experience in public health and has lectured widely on public health and health disparities. He is a founding member of the national board of Physicians for a National Health Program and locally is on the boards of Philadelphia Physicians for Social Responsibility, Health Care for All Philadelphia, the Asian American Health Care Network, and the Green Tree Healthcare Foundation.  In 2007, he received the Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition’s Award.  His medical degree is from the University of Pennsylvania; his MPH is from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, and he has an honorary Doctorate in Medical Sciences from Drexel University.

The Brandywine Peace Community Monthly Supper/Program, now in its 3rd decade, is the area's longest running on-going program for peace and justice,.....2nd Sunday of the month (except August), 4:30PM, at the University Lutheran Church, 3637 Chestnut Street, Phila., PA (at the corner of 37th & Chestnut St.).   Easily accessible by public transportation (www.septa.com), see SEPTA bus #21.  Programs begin at 5:30 p.m.

********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************Saturday, March 20, 11:30a.m. - 1:30 p.m. there will be a regional rally at Knights & Woodhaven Roads featuring speakers and music followed by a dramatic memorial and protest inside the Franklin Mills Mall in front of the Army Experience Center. Rally Speakers include: Jesse Hamilton, former U.S. Army Staff Sergeant in Iraq, adviser to Iraqi Army in Fallujah, ‘05-‘06. Music, bell-tolling and reading the names of Philadelphians killed in Iraq and recruited through one of the recruiting stations merged into the Army Experience Center.    

http://www.thearmyexperience.com
Over the past year, as part of the United for Peace & Justice—Delaware Valley Network's campaign to close the Army Experience Center (AEC) located in the Franklin Mills Mall in Northeast Philadelphia, there have been regular protests and a monthly vigil (3rd Saturday of each month) at Knights & Woodhaven Roads, urging people not to shop at the mall until the AEC is closed.
- Join us in memory of all the war dead;
- Join us in demanding the Closing of the Army Experience Center.
A number of SEPTA (www.septa.com) buses leave from the Frankford Terminal for the Franklin Mills Mall.  SEPTA bus #84 stops right at the corner of Knights & Woodhaven Road, before reaching the Mall.
For more information: Brandywine Peace Community, 610-544-1818, Coalition for Peace Action Coalition, (609) 924-5022, www.peacecoalition.org   BuxMont Coalition for Peace Action, 215-380-6804, www.cfpabuxmont.org

More on the Army Experience Center, including directions to the Franklin Mills Mall: at http://www.peacecoalition.org/component/content/article/39-cfpa/133-demonstration-at-the-army-experience-center.html  as well as http://shutdowntheaec.net/  more

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April 2010 – 35^th Anniversary of the end of the U.S. war in Vietnam

“…We insist that where war is business, as here at Lockheed Martin, there cannot be business as usual.  We resist war and the making of war. We resist Lockheed Martin with acts of Jesus’ love and a continuing commitment to justice, to peace, to the cross of nonviolent resistance.” – from the Good Friday 2009 Stations of Justice & Peace at Lockheed Martin.

Friday, April 2, Noon - Good Friday Stations of Justice & Peace at Lockheed Martin, Goddard Boulevard off Mall Boulevard, Valley Forge, PA. (behind the King of Prussia Mall and across from the United Artist King of Prussia movieplex).  SEPTA (www.septa.com) bus #125 from Philadelphia, stops on Goddard Boulevard, right across the street from Lockheed Martin.  Those wishing to participate in the Good Friday civil disobedience, call the Brandywine Peace Community office by March 26.

Highlighted by large wooden crosses with the Lockheed Martin logo at the crucifixion nail points, and a sign reading “Lockheed Martin: We’re Making a Killing!”, the annual Good Friday Stations of Justice & Peace is modeled on the traditional Stations of the Cross with readings paralleling the last steps and crucifixion of Jesus with the contemporary crucifixion of humanity by war, environmental neglect, and social injustice. The large wooden crosses signify the human cost of war as well as the social and environmental casualties of militarism and Lockheed Martin.  Join the Good Friday Stations of Justice & Peace at Lockheed Martin!

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Friday, April 2, 7p.m. - First-Friday Film Showing at the Peace Center of Delaware County – Special showing of the classic film HEARTS & MINDS, more www.delcopeacecenter.org

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Sunday, April 11 – Monthly Brandywine Potluck The Legacy of Vietnam Today : speakers panel, including Dr. Sophie Quinn-Judge, aid worker during the war, Associate Director Center for Vietnamese Philosophy, Culture, and Society (http://www.temple.edu/vietnamese_center/sqj.htm), and just back from extended visit to Vietnam;
David McReynolds (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_McReynolds),  internationally renowned socialist-pacifist, , first openly gay man to run for the U.S. Presidency (1980 and 2000 on the Socialist Party USA ticket), during his 40 years on the National War Resisters League staff  helped to lead the anti-war movement during the Vietnam War, visiting Vietnam twice during the war (1967, 1971) and after the war in the 1980’s.;
Peter Lems, American Friends Service Committee Advocacy Program for Afghanistan and Iraq, and more. Plan to attend the area's longest running on-going program for peace and justice, the Brandywine Peace Community Monthly Potluck Supper/Program, now in its 3rd decade.....2nd Sunday of the month (except August), 4:30PM, at the University Lutheran Church, 3637 Chestnut Street, Phila., PA (bring main dish, salad, or dessert to share). Programs begin at 5:30 p.m.

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Saturday, April 17, 11:30a.m. – Monthly Vigil to Close the Army Experience Center at the Franklin Mills Mall, more

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April 8 – 29, Walk for Nuclear Abolition, Wash., D.C to New York City and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review at the United Nations. http://nptwalk2010.wikidot.com/mission and http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/

The walk will stop in the Phila Area from April 19 – 22 and be hosted by the Brandywine Peace Community and feature:

Thurs, April 22, Noon - Nuclear Free Earth Day Rally, Independence Mall.

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August 6 – 9, 2010 --- 65th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima & Nagasaki, including commemorative demonstrations and civil disobedience at Lockheed Martin. 

OTHER LOCAL EVENTS OF INTEREST: