Present: Peter, Ellyn, Glenda Rae, Rey, Lois
Old business
1. Approval of Minutes for October 8: The minutes were approved as corrected. The name "Deepwater Horizon" should have been capitalized in 2c. We also noted that the MLK Day committee has decided to discontinue the Veteran's Room at the 2014 celebration. See below discussion
2. Progress Reports
a. Topic of the Month: Immigration - We decided not to do anything further with this topic. The final draft can be found at michianapeacejustice.net/immigration.html.
b. Showing of Gasland II: Frackfree Michiana will show this documentary at 1pm on Saturday, November 30, at the River Park branch Library. MPJC is one of the cosponsors and we agreed to spread the word about this event. Flyers are available to print out at our website michianapeacejustice.net/ There will be a showing of Gasland I at 6pm at the Cassopolis anti-fracking office on Thursday, November 14.
c. Topic of the Month: Drones - Ellyn made some corrections to this draft. We looked it over and approved it pending some minor changes and publishing it to the listserv. We added the following to the first paragraph: "Drones are used for both civilian and military purposes. MPJC is opposed to their military use." In the next to last sentence of the third paragraph, we changed the wording to "They can be used for surveillance and used to kill people without putting our military personnel at risk in the operation." Ellyn will make these changes and send the draft to the listserv for comment.
d. Topic of the month: Fracking - Peter agreed to add a paragraph giving the MPJC position on fracking from notes in the minutes of the last meeting and send it to the listserv for comment.
e. MLK Day Events and Taste of Peace: The Taste of Peace will be held on Saturday, January 18. Glenda Rae needs facilitators for the tables. The MLK Day committee has met a few times. They decided not to staff a Veterans Resource room this year since only a dozen or so veterans made use of it last year. Also, Kent had recently set up a white tent with resources for veterans on the corner of Main and Jefferson. However, nationally 500,000 veterans need help to recover from PTSD. The administration has decided to try veterans who have been arrested for drug and alcohol related offenses in a special Veteran's Court, and not in the regular court system. The hope is that this will reduce the number of veterans in prison. We asked how to get the community involved working on the veteran problem. War is the root of the problem. Only by stopping war will we do more than provide stopgap measures. Would our economy collapse if we discontinued war? Lois thought yes; Peter thought no. Even though military contractors are in every locality, they would make more money by switching to non-military manufacturing, as AM General did with the civilian Hummer. Ellyn pointed out that they laid off one shift when they lost their military contract.
The theme for this year's MLK Day is "Rekindle the Dream." We decided at the last meeting that MPJC should have a table and authorized Glenda Rae to pay the fee. Lois thought we should have two tables (she will ask if we can have two for the price of one), with one providing space for folks to sit and write out index cards telling what they are doing (or will do) to fire up the dream. Perhaps we could have a simulated fire in the middle of the table where folks could toss their cards after filling them out. Lois saw a picture we could take out from the library of a father and child. She thought we could mount it on the wall behind the table and title it "What will his world offer him?" Lois will take it out. Ellyn will put it on hold before it is due; Glenda Rae will request it after Ellyn. Hopefully we can keep it until after Jan. 20. We will set up the penny poll again.
3. Treasurer's Report: Our bank total is still $121.04 with $5.11 in petty cash.
New Business
1. What do we (can we) do next? We incorporated this topic into other discussion
2. Topic of the Month: We decided to work on MPJC response to the Israeli-Palestinian situation. Ellyn will prepare a draft position.
3. Other Topics and Issues: December 10 is International Human Rights Day. Lois presented ideas for the Library photo display. She brought some photos of clouds and rainbows and also a collection of leaves which we could take a picture of. We decided on the leaves. Ellyn took the picture and Lois will submit it under the title "Transformation."
6. Next meeting: Thursday, December 9th at 3pm at Peter and Ellyn's.