Leverett activists seek peace at home
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Amherst Bulletin
Ben Storrow
01/28/2011
LEVERETT -- What can tiny Leverett, a town of just over 1,700 people, do for world peace? Five residents seeking to establish a peace commission in town say they have an answer to that question.
"Change is always begun at the bottom, at the grassroots," said Tim Bullock. "A small town like Leverett is the epitome of the grassroots ... This model can serve as a model to many, many communities."
Bullock, 62, is working with Pat Fiero, 69, Jim Perkins, 72, Barbara Tiner, 54, and Tom Wolff, 66, to establish a peace commission in town.
They are a diverse bunch: Bullock, the organizer and event planner at the New England Peace Pagoda in town; Perkins, a former Select Board member and former executive director of the Traprock Peace Center; Fiero, who represented Gloucester, Manchester and Rockport in the Massachusetts House of Representatives between 1984 and 2001; Tiner, who runs the Institute for Wetland and Environmental Education and Research; and Wolff, an Amherst psychologist. They call themselves the peace commission's steering committee, and they were drawn together by Perkins.
The steering committee sees the proposed commission as a way to educate residents, via lectures and forums, about how a "war society" impacts their lives. The committee also hopes such a commission might help solve disputes close to home, such as conflicts amongs neighbors.
Wolff said the idea grew from Northampton and Amherst's discussions about taking anti-war stances, which were prompted by military spending figures gathered by the National Priorities Project in Northampton. "We're doing this because it's not a good way to spend dollars," he said. "This is not the way to be in the world."
For years, Fiero, Perkins and Wolff belonged to the Spirituality and Social Change Interfaith Group that meets at the Jewish Community of Amherst. Members discuss how spirituality can affect social change and vice versa, Wolff said.
The men said they struggled to find ways to put their beliefs into action. Then Perkins came up with the idea for a peace commission.
"How can you create social change from a spiritual perspective -- and this is just such a good example of that," Wolff said.
"It's exactly the type of thing that you want to be a part of," said Fiero. "It's a very positive thing."
Approaching Town Meeting
The steering committee's immediate goal is to have the April 30 annual Town Meeting pass a warrant article establishing a nine-member peace commission. Three members would be elected to three-year terms, three to two-year terms and three to one-year terms.
A draft of the proposed warrant article reads in part: "whereas life is rare and precious, existing in this universe only on this tiny blue planet, Earth, as we know it; whereas human beings are a wonder of creation, beautiful, intelligent, powerful, capable of joy, wonder, wisdom and compassion ... We encourage ourselves and each other in our faith in humanity, and we proclaim our right, and accept our responsibility to imagine and work towards a peaceful future."
Last year, Town Meeting voted to extend an official invitation to settle in Leverett to two cleared detainees from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay. Members of the steering committee expect the peace commission to generate similar support, they say.
The first organizational meeting, earlier this month at the Leverett library, drew 16 residents. More people have since contacted the committee about becoming involved, Fiero said. "It's rare that ... people are competing to be a part of something," she said. "Usually people are running away."
"All of us have been organizers for a long time, and for me I have more fun because all of the lights have been green," Perkins added.
Programs set
The challenge is sustaining such an effort.
"We didn't want to settle for a resolution that would come to the Town Meeting, get passed and get forgotten," Perkins said. "We are instead out to create a series of conversations that will go really deep and really wide. We want to meet as many people as we can and get them thinking about how the war economy and war society affect their lives."
The group is planning several educational events before Town Meeting. Five College Professor of Peace and World Security Studies Michael Klare will speak at Leverett Town Hall on Feb. 3 at 7 p.m. The Peace Pagoda's annual Walk for a New Spring will stop in Leverett center on Feb. 13. Dean Hammer of the 1980 Plowshares Eight action will give a talk on "Overcoming the Pathology of War & Building a Culture of Peace" at the Leverett Library on March 4. On March 14, as part of the Read It: Leverett program, Wolff, Perkins and Paula Green of the Karuna Center for Peace Building will lead a discussion of Eric Schultz and Michael Tougias' book "King Philip's War," also at the Leverett Library. Mount Holyoke College Dean Penny Gill will give a lecture on "Fear or Consciousness: Dare We Change?" on April 1, and on April 15 the theater piece "Ambush on T Street," written and performed by area residents Court Dorsey, Al Miller and John Sheldon, will be presented at the Leverett Elementary School.
A Vacation Peace Project for school-age children in Leverett will offer two programs: a week-long event from Feb. 21 to 25 for 7- to 12-year-olds featuring art, music and storytelling with Sarah Pirtle at the Leverett Arts and Craft Center, and for 13- to 18-year-olds, a showing of the movie "The Most Dangerous Man in America," about peace activist and tax resister Randy Kehler, will take place Feb. 23 in the Leverett Library. Kehler will be on hand to speak after the film. Registration is required for both programs.
Close to home
The group hopes the Peace Commission can help solve more mundane matters, too.
"We talked to the Select Board and they said boy, it'd be nice to have another way to handle dog disputes," Wolff said. The group could also potentially mediate conflicts like the one that recently broke out over a painting at the Leverett Co-Op which depicted a lion wearing a papal mitre and carrying a nude Jesus, he added.
"Peace is such a powerful energy," Bullock said. "Like nonviolence, there is a force that calms oneself. To do that work in one's own community allows you to go out into the world and do that work."
