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  VIEWS MAGAZINE ARTICLES  
     
  SPRING, 2003 - VOLUME 24
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  Resisting the "War on Terror": Organizing for the Long Haul
Views profiles organizers around the region who are working to infuse anti-war activism with strategies that build the relationships and political commitment required for an enduring movement. Organizations like Seattle Young People’s Project, Jews for Global Justice, Rural Organizing Project and a number of peace coalitions are seizing the moment but planning for the long haul.
 
     
 
 
     
  What Next?
by Dan Petegorsky
Executive Director Dan Petegorksy writes about the need for organizers to successfully shift from mass protest to longer-term base building and political mobilization strategies, which, in contrast to 1991, could mark a new beginning to broader-scale resistance to an Administration whose policies are becoming ever more aggressive and extreme, both at home and abroad.
 
     
 
 
     
  Stop the War on Immigrants: Hate Free Zone Campaign of Washington
There is an unmistakable link between the war on Iraq and the domestic "war on terrorism." Immigrant detentions, deportations and racial profiling, like other civil rights abuses under the Bush administration, violate our Constitution and gravely endanger American principles and character. Read about how Hate Free Zone Campaign of Washington and the Not in Our Name Project together recruited peace and labor organizations to join in an international day of protest by making that critical link.
 
     
 
 
     
  Porto Alegre Notebook: Scenes of Resistance in the Global South
In January 2003, Field Director Tarso Luis Ramos joined the 100,000 plus people who descended on Porto Alegre, Brasil from 156 countries for the 3rd annual World Social Forum (WSF): four days of marches, workshops, debates, and speeches.
 
     
 
 
     
  Northwest Reproductive Freedom Network: Working Together to Protect and Promote Women’s Rights
In the last year, Western States Center has begun work with new initiatives designed to strengthen organizing for reproductive rights in vulnerable communities. In addition to the Reproductive Freedom Network profiled here, the Center did a set of trainings with the New Partners Initiative of the Ms. Foundation for Women. New Partners brings together groups affected by the narrowing of access to reproductive health services, particularly young women, women of color, LGBT communities, and allies in social services and education settings.
 
     
 
 
     
  Candidate Recruitment: Running Our Own for Office
War. Regressive tax policy. Disinvestment in the public sector. If you’re upset by the way elected leaders are behaving now, one response is to look at putting different decision-makers in place for 2004. While it may feel like an insurmountable challenge in these times, grassroots groups across the region—just like the little engine that could—are working on changing the face of who’s in power.
 
     
 
 
     
  A Progressive Statewide Revenue Solution: PLAN’s Two Plus Two Proposal
The Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada (PLAN) positioned itself ahead of the curve in the legislative battle to revise the state’s budget and tax structure. PLAN’s member groups were tired of going to the legislature to advocate for critical funding and legislation and hearing, "We’d love to do that but there’s no funding. Show us where the money would come from." So PLAN decided to answer that question.
 
     
 
 
     
  Nilak Butler: Celebration of A Warrior Woman
On February 15, over 250 close family, friends and relatives came together to pay tribute to and honor the life of one who was loved so dearly—Nilak Butler. After a long battle with ovarian cancer, Nilak passed into the spirit world on the morning of December 26, 2002. A member of the American Indian Movement, a founding mother of the Indigenous Women’s Network and the Indigenous Environmental Network, Nilak dedicated most of her life to the fight for native sovereignty, human rights, self-determination, religious freedom and the protection of mother earth.
 
     
 
 
     
  TOOLKIT: Strategies for Organizational Survival
How do we keep our organizations alive in these tough times? How should organizations respond when faced with diminished resources? In order to maintain organizational strength, you may need to adjust your approaches to budgeting, financial management, and program development. This article outlines some ideas.
 
     
 
 
     
  PATRIOT Act Primer
Just six weeks after the September 11 attacks, a panicked Congress passed the USA Patriot Act, an overnight revision of the nation's surveillance laws that vastly expanded the government's authority to spy on its own citizens, while simultaneously reducing checks and balances on those powers like judicial oversight, public accountability, and the ability to challenge government searches in court.
 
     
 
 
     
  Nightstand: Western States Center Book Reviews
This review features three books that you’ll want to take off of your nightstand and out into the field. In the pages that follow, three organizers from our region profile books that offer inspiration, models for action, and research data that supports their organizational work. Terenie Faison reviews A Taste of Power by Black Panther Party leader Elaine Brown, read by many members of Sisters in Action for Power. The Rural Organizing Project’s Grace Taylor describes Bill Moyer’s Doing Democracy, which is the subject of ROP study circles around Oregon. And Brigette Sarabi introduces the The Prison Index: Taking the Pulse of the Crime Control Industry, a joint publication of the Western Prison Project and the Prison Policy Initiative that provides data designed to support organizing campaigns.
 
     
 
 
     
  Kris Hayashi Heads to NYC / New WILD Class
Western States Center congratulates Kris Hayashi on Kris’s appointment as Executive Director of the Audre Lorde Project. Kris departs the Northwest in May after a year as Trainer/Organizer with Western States.
 
     
 
 
   
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