Ideals of Peace and Freedom Draw a Crowd to Stapleton - Artists and Activists Gather for a Festival Celebrating Compassion and Living with Awareness
November 13, 2005
Deborah Young, Staten Island Advance Staff Writer

Nature yesterday obliged a gathering of people with the self-styled mission of protecting the Earth -- An azure sky and a crisp, autumn sunshine served as the backdrop for the second Peace and Freedom Festival in Tappen Park, Stapleton. The day-long event featured multi-textural takes on cultivating compassion and living with awareness. Children drew a peace mural; folk musicians sang about everything from corporate America to the Valerie Plame scandal; punk bands thrummed with cacophonous angst; advocacy groups handed out stickers and buttons; and activists provided Chomskyesque pamphlets questioning the politics of our time.

"We're trying to get typical Staten Islanders engaged in the political stakes of their future," said Mike May, one of the organizers of the event that brought together dozens of organizations, political speakers, artists, poets and musicians. "This is grassroots democracy at its best."
For the several hundred visitors and participants -- including groups such as Pax Christi, Peace Action Staten Island, the Island Committee against Bigotry and Democracy Now and notable speakers Norman Siegel, the civil rights attorney, and College of Staten Island Professor Dan Kramer -- the fundamental message was clear. Democrat, Republican, Conservative or Green -- at the core, more unites us than separates us, they said.

"There is a mix here of the political, the spiritual and the artistic," said St. George resident Sally Jones, chair of Peace Action New York City. In spite of the borough's reputation as a Republican stronghold, the Island also has a long-standing presence of progressives, she said. "We're like a microcosm of the whole country here; there's a little of everything," said Ms. Jones, noting the growing progressive movement in the borough in light of what many call the failings of this Republican administration. "We really are a political bellwether."

Ellen Jaedicke, a Silver Lake resident and member of the United States Government Department of Peace Campaign, handed out information on a federal bill written years before the politically polarizing aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001. The would-be law calls for the creating of a U.S. Department of Peace. The agency would not be intended to contradict or counteract the Department of Defense or any other already existing governmental structure, only to add to the chorus of voices, said Ms. Jaedicke. "It is something which would work together with what we have to give another perspective," she said. "We all want to live in peace; nobody really wants war, even people who think it's necessary."

[Duchess Note - The last paragraph mentions NYC Chapter Dept of Peace board member Ellen Jaedicke and also a NYC Kucitizen. Whom I've worked with on several projects in the past two years.]