The Ukiah High School Progressive Club put the summit together, with some help from the MEC, and sponsorship by the International Season for Peace, Willits Chapter.
The summit started with a brief history of the US peace movement from John Lewellen. He also talked about his book, High Altitude Nuclear Warfare, and the sobering possibilities of such a crisis. Next Steve Silar spoke about the military draft, who must register for it, the possibility of its reinstatement, and the diminished number of ways to obtain deferments or exemptions.
Following that was an excellent performance by Capoeira Yokayo. For those don't know, capoeira is a martial artÐdance invented by Brazilian slaves in 1770, to initiate a revolution. In order to be allowed to practice it in front of the prying eyes of the slaveholders, the slaves disguised martial art as dance, thus making it so beautiful to watch.
We had a free vegetarian lunch, provided by the Vegetarian Club and the Environmental Club of Ukiah High. Lunch was followed by a review of the USA (un)PATRIOT(ic) Act, by Barry Vogel.
Next on the schedule were discussion groups, which were the most important part of the summit. The idea was to have a discussion of the all of the topics talked about by our speakers, and follow the discussions with action-planning groups that we hoped would evolve into small affinity groups in the future.
It didn't exactly turn out like that, though. Instead, we had one long discussion that created one big group: Youth for Peace. (I hope we change our name to something more interesting, but it works.) Youth for Peace talked about putting on a peace festival at Alex Thomas Plaza at the end of May. Since then, we've found out that Freedom Skate Shop is putting on another event in the same time period, so we're not sure if we will attempt to combine with their event or create our own.
Look for a link to our website from the MEC's website, mecgrassroots.org. If you would like to join Youth for Peace, or have an idea/project that we might like to do, contact Efren at the MEC, 468-1660.
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 2003
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