Stand Up for Peace - Wyoming
an article by Lesley Wischmann

Stand Up for Peace was born in Laramie, Wyoming, in the fall of 2002 when Vice President Dick Cheney came to the University of Wyoming to lay out the case for war against Iraq. We had a great turnout to protest the VP's visit and, after that, did not want to lose contact so we began meeting regularly and organizing a public, visible presence for peace in our community. We did this with a variety of activities, including weekly protests, vigils, marches, a die-in, booths at community fairs, a float in the summer parade, and tabling activities at the Farmers' Market and at the University. We have also reached out to other peace groups within the state, hoping to establish an umbrella coalition for statewide actions. A great deal of information about our group and its activities are available on our website.

In mid-November, we finally had the time to do some reflective analysis of who we are and what we want to do in the future. We determined that, as a peace group dedicated to working with others to stop this and future wars, we would concentrate on public education and peaceful protest. Our goal has always been to provide a safe space in which people can feel comfortable expressing opinions in opposition to the current administration.

In addition to hosting a monthly potluck, we decided to devote one of our monthly meetings to educating ourselves more thoroughly about the means and methods of nonviolent alternative conflict resolution. By studying that in depth, we hope that we can create a dedicated group of individuals with these skills to take out into our community, thereby offering a positive example of the kind of community we would like to foster. We are searching now for reading and training materials to study as well as speakers to bring into our community to help us be better vehicles for promoting nonviolent conflict resolution. We're interested in knowing how other groups have organized and educated themselves around these principles.

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We'd like to know how other groups have organized,
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MAKING AN EFFECTIVE PEACE MOVEMENT

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Here is a little more information about PeaceRoots Alliance. One of the most important things we realize is that actions are one of the ways to speak peace. We come from a tradition of peace and active involvement in communication and dissemination of information. We feel, for example, that getting citizens in this country registered and informed to  vote intelligently, is something that we can do. We are working in our 501c3 to get people registered, precinct by precint, and get information out about issues of importance, but we must be careful that is party neutral. We have billboards, bus stop signs, posters and bumperstickers, for example, that say: Wake Up America, VOTE! for a change.. . ...more.

This report was posted on December 1, 2003. The moderator is Tony.

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