MANAGING BOARDS (see “Orga­ni­za­tional Infor­ma­tion” for more information)

Steer­ing Com­mit­tee: The Steer­ing Com­mit­tee is the man­ag­ing board of direc­tors for Peace Action Wis­con­sin, Inc.

PEP Board: The PEP Board is the man­ag­ing board of direc­tors for Peace Edu­ca­tion Project of Peace Action Wis­con­sin, Inc.

ISSUE COMMITTEES (Shared by both Peace Action and Peace Edu­ca­tion Project)

End the Wars Com­mit­tee: This is one of Peace Action’s pri­mary issue com­mit­tees. This com­mit­tee helps develop and enact Peace Action Wisconsin’s pro­gram call­ing for an end to the US wars and inter­ven­tions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pak­istan, and Libya, and also pre­vent­ing pos­si­ble war on Iran. This body focuses on build­ing our local “Move the Money” Cam­paign. Finally, the End the Wars com­mit­tee also acts as Peace Action’s con­tin­gent in the Mil­wau­kee Coali­tion for a Just Peace, a coali­tion devel­oped in response to the 9/11 attacks to call for jus­tice not vengeance.

Cur­rently, End the Wars meets at 7PM on the fourth Tues­day of every month.

Dis­ar­ma­ment Com­mit­tee: This com­mit­tee is ded­i­cated to stop­ping mis­sile defense, the mil­i­ta­riza­tion of space, and new “usable” nuclear weapons. They also focus on cut­ting mil­i­tary spend­ing to fund human needs and halt­ing the inter­na­tional arms trade. The Dis­ar­ma­ment Com­mit­tee has also been work­ing in coali­tion with the Carbon-Free, Nuclear-Free cam­paign in Wis­con­sin to stop the devel­op­ment of new nuclear power plants in Wisconsin.

Truth In Recruit­ment: This com­mit­tee focuses on address­ing the mis­lead­ing promises of mil­i­tary recruiters, alter­na­tives to the mil­i­tary, the pos­si­bil­ity of a Draft, and how to declare one­self a Con­sci­en­tious Objec­tor to war. They are cur­rently plan­ning an edu­ca­tion drive aimed at the local high schools to counter mil­i­tary recruitment.

School of the Amer­i­cas Watch: Part of the national move­ment to close the US Army train­ing school for Latin Amer­i­can sol­diers. The local group orga­nizes each year a large group to go down to Ft. Ben­ning, Geor­gia to demon­strate in front of the mil­i­tary base that con­tains the School of the Americas.

ORGANIZATION COMMITTEES (Shared by both Peace Action and Peace Edu­ca­tion Project)

Finance: The Finance Com­mit­tee is in charge of review­ing the finan­cial state­ments each month and report­ing sum­maries and pos­si­ble areas of con­cern with regards to the bud­get to the Steer­ing Com­mit­tee. The Finance Com­mit­tee is also charged with the man­age­ment of finan­cial assets and devel­op­ing a bud­get for both Peace Action and Peace Edu­ca­tion Project.

Fundrais­ing: The Fundrais­ing Com­mit­tee focuses on orga­niz­ing fundrais­ing events, major donor dri­ves, and research­ing grant oppor­tu­ni­ties for gen­eral oper­a­tions and for spe­cific projects.

Mem­ber­ship: The Mem­ber­ship Com­mit­tee works to increase our mem­ber­ship and retain cur­rent mem­bers. The com­mit­tee also orga­nizes round­table events to engage mem­bers in the cur­rent issues. The mem­ber­ship com­mit­tee meets Mon­day evenings at the Peace Action office to retain mem­bers and recruit new ones.

Per­son­nel: The Per­son­nel Com­mit­tee is ded­i­cated to sup­port­ing the paid staff at Peace Action and being the lia­son with any dis­putes between the staff and the man­ag­ing boards. The com­mit­tee is also respon­si­ble for hir­ing new staff when nec­es­sary. This com­mit­tee oper­ates as needed.

Library Action:[Con­tact: Rick Kissell] The late Frank P. Zei­dler often remarked that his local pub­lic library was his “uni­ver­sity” as he grew up dur­ing the Depres­sion. His read­ing led him to a life of pub­lic ser­vice focused on human need instead of cor­po­rate greed, cul­mi­nat­ing in 12 years as Milwaukee’s third Social­ist mayor (1948–1960). Indeed, many of the gen­er­a­tion of Amer­i­cans who came of age in the 1930s used their local pub­lic libraries to under­stand capitalism’s col­lapse, and to search for alter­na­tives.
The cur­rent eco­nomic cri­sis could well have a sim­i­lar impact – if those search­ing for alter­na­tives are able to find mate­ri­als in their local pub­lic libraries that truly chal­lenge the assump­tions of the sta­tus quo. Many pub­lic libraries, espe­cially in smaller, rural com­mu­ni­ties, have very few mate­ri­als (like Howard Zinn’s mag­nif­i­cent People’s His­tory of the United States) that could really open eyes.
Peace Action — Wis­con­sin has decided to sys­tem­at­i­cally work to change that. While the deci­sion over what goes on the shelves of pub­lic libraries is con­trolled by librar­i­ans, res­i­dents of the pub­lic library’s dis­trict have the right to ask their libraries to pur­chase spe­cific mate­ri­als. Mate­ri­als not often found in smaller towns’ libraries include Michael Moore’s films, books by authors like Amy Good­man, Cor­nel West, Howard Zinn, Naomi Klein, and Noam Chom­sky, yearly com­pi­la­tions like those pub­lished by Project Cen­sored, or peri­od­i­cals like In These Times, Mother Jones, or The Pro­gres­sive. Image how the life of a high school stu­dent research­ing for a school assign­ment could be changed by com­ing across mate­ri­als that fun­da­men­tally chal­lenge the pre­vail­ing “wis­dom.“
Join our efforts to pro­vide pro­gres­sive mate­ri­als in pub­lic libraries.
• Join a new Peace Action Library Action Com­mit­tee to plan and imple­ment a strat­egy. Call us at 414–964-5158
• If you live in a smaller com­mu­nity, con­tact us for ideas or let us know what actions you are tak­ing. (info@peaceactionwi.orgThis e-mail address is being pro­tected from spam­bots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it)
• Give your local library a sub­scrip­tion to a mag­a­zine such as The Pro­gres­sive, In These Times, Z Mag­a­zine, or Mother Jones. It can be a hol­i­day present to your community.