March 20, 2003

Dear Friends of Plenty,

When Plenty was founded in 1974 we really didn't have a clue about what kinds of projects we would be doing, how or where. But after working with the poor in Guatemala, Bangladesh and Africa whose lives were often worsened or even threatened by U.S. government actions we started to realize that one of the things we wanted to do was offer some alternatives to U.S. foreign policy. We began to examine the government’s actions from the perspective of the world outside the U.S., and it was not encouraging. Without that broader, objective viewpoint, government foreign policy can be driven by narrow political and financial interests, oblivious to the real-life, often-disastrous impacts on the people at the other end.

As we were assembling the Spring Bulletin, we were struck by the photo of the Mafredi Village school kids with their cucumbers. They could easily be from a rural village in southern Iraq, a country where half of the people are less than 18 years old. Nobody in their right mind would start a war that will destroy kids like these. There are things we should do for those kids. Bombing them is not one of them.

We have been inspired to see that the most common theme driving the massive international peace movement is concern for the innocent victims of a war on Iraq, and that includes the kids in the military who really don't know any better. In an article in Time Magazine about the American troops in Kuwait a Marine Lieut. Colonel is quoted: "We're building them up to the point where they are emotionally ready to kill." The commanders expressed the worry that if you "let a 19-year-old sit around for too long, he'll start to think about what killing means." "Military leaders," the reporter continues, "want to avoid that."

Plenty is a bunch of peace loving, bleeding heart, tree huggers who have lived and worked around the globe and see ourselves as global citizens. Everyone should be able to live without fear of hunger or oppression, but war only creates more hunger and more oppression. It’s more gratifying to feed people than kill them. That’s pretty elementary. People who haven't figured that out aren't leaders. They’re lost souls.

At Plenty we often talk about "peace through development." It is our mission to promote trust between different cultures by working cooperatively to improve the lives of everyone. This is not about charity. This is about basic humanity. This is all we want to do, but when those tired, discordant war drums start to pound, they must be challenged. Last week our Board Secretary/Treasurer Carol Nelson, a midwife and grandmother, went to Washington and joined the thousands of "Code Pink" protestors and got arrested in front of the White House. She was in handcuffs for four hours. Plenty is a member and supporter of the Farm Community-based PeaceRoots Alliance (www.peaceroots.org) and its More Than Warmth project, which is sending quilts, made by schoolchildren in the U.S. to kids in Afghanistan and Iraq and Africa. PeaceRoots Alliance has been putting up billboards around the country that say, "Peace is Patriotic."

Plenty is patriotic. We love the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, but we have always felt that being an American is an accident of birth that carries responsibility to share our good fortune. We also know Americans are essentially very generous people and, when they see someone hurting, there is nothing they wouldn't do to help. We named it Plenty because we believed that we would always find the resources to do the work we needed to do. War destroys the chemistry and the balance of that good and natural system, creates terror and fuels hatred. Modern instruments of war are accurately called "weapons of mass destruction." We have reached the point where if we want to see life continue on this small planet, war is no longer an option.

Today, with spring bursting out of every thawing nook and cranny in the earth outside our office in the Tennessee woods, we give thanks for the consciousness we all share, take a deep breath, and pray for peace.

Sincerely,

Peter Schweitzer
Executive Director