The monthly AFPJ collaborative Iraq Moratorium event was another success, in spite of PPJPC dropping from the scene. But enough peace activists dedicated to keeping the antiwar message visible converged as usual. Mark will have video footage at CSaction.
Well I came to this event and participated, even though I don’t particularly like doing overpass vigils. This was the monthly Moratorium vigil initiated as a monthly action by the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission some months ago. Now here’s the kicker!
While about 10 of us participated in hanging the banners from the interstate pedestrian overpass, the paid PPJPC staffers and Board of Director bosses did not. Where were they? Why didn’t they come to an event that was of their own making, no less! MIA yet again?
The answer to this was laughingly found as we were chatting outside some of our parked cars as we loaded our banners back into our vehicles. By sheer coincidence, our of a nearby house came the PPJPC paid staffers and a group of the Board of Directors, and Pastor Jim (now PPJPC boss,) and they all looked quite uncomfortable as they noticed us present. What were they doing here? And what were we?
It seems, that in secret from the group as a whole, they were out searching to move the HQ/ offices of the group to another locale! Downsize time but in secret from the membership of the group! Like all decisions done at PPJPC, the Board and paid staff make the decisions, implement them, and only later do they get around to giving others the marching orders. There are no membership meetings with this ‘non-profit’ corporation posing itself off as a democratic-minded activist group. Here, the shit flows from top down, just like at Lockheed, Boeing, the Pentagon, are any of the other corporate groupings out there.
You should have seen their faces! Democracy??? What’s that? The paid staffers don’t believe in it, and neither do the self perpetuating Board of Directors, nor Pastor Jim. Pastor Jim thinks democracy should not rule a church, and that’s what the religious liberals want at the Bible Camp PPJPC. And they want (‘non-profit’)corporate rules of functioning to keep the staff funds flowing as the office staff unilaterally, with Pastor Jim and sidekick Boarders alongside, make all the decision for the rest of us. They want CONTROL.