Michigan Peace Team

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Michigan Peace Team

Michigan Peace Team is a Left Wing group group based in Lansing, Michigan. Their mission is to Recruit, train, and place Peace Teams both in the United States and internationally. Peace teams practice what they call nonviolent conflict intervention they also coordinate with other groups with a similar leftist mission. ^[1]

Domestic and International Peace Teams

Michigan Peace Teams (MPT) at the US/Mexico Border Team fields violence reduction peace teams in conflict situations, both domestically and internationally. Upon invitation from those directly affected, MPT members train and place peace teams to reduce and prevent violence in places where there is a high probability of violence. MPT members have been invited to help when hate groups have threatened to disrupt events, during riots following sporting events, at the U.S./Mexico border, and on an Indian reservation during a time of racist confrontations. Peace teams have been present at hate group rallies to deter inter-group violence. MPT provided a intervention in the local riots at Michigan State University's campus in 1998.

MPT members use Third Party Nonviolent Intervention (TPNI) tactics.

Michigan Peace Team also trains teams for International peace team work. In the past, MPT members have been participated in projects in Bosnia, Chiapas, Haiti, the West Bank, Iraq, Keweenaw Bay Indian Community and with the Western Shoshone people.

MPT has become increasingly active in Israel. MPT trainers have provided training for Israeli and Palestinian peace activists and international activists with the International Solidarity Movement. Over 70 trained MPT members have spent between three weeks and two and-a-half months making activism in the region. ^[2]

Known Peace Team Members

Father Peter Dougherty from Michigan, a Catholic priest and Peace team member mission to India who said in in a interview with the Deccan Herald while in India:

"When people felt oppressed, it was natural for them to retaliate violently or non-violently. We need to tell (the Maoists) that we are with them and that we appreciate their problems are unbearable. We have to treat them like people, every one of them. The problem is, we tend to demonize those who are different," ^[3]

April 30, 2009 Fundraising Rally with Michael Moore

Michael Moore, the Academy Award winning filmmaker in a fundraising speech for the Michigan Peace team said that there were the three things wrong with capitalism:

"It's anti-Jesus, it's anti-democratic and it just doesn't work."

Moore previewed the themes in the film during a speech April 30, 2009 at a Michigan Peace Team dinner and fundraiser.

Father Peter Dougherty, a Catholic priest and a founder of MPT, is a long time friend of Moore's who introduced him as a man with "a passion for justice" and reminded the audience that the Flint, Michigan native - who is a lightning rod for right wing rage - is "very real" and "what you see is what you get."

Quote from Peter Dougherty:

"I can vouch for that. I met Michael when he was poor and obscure and we've been friends for nearly 25 years. This year marks the 20th anniversary of Moore's first film, "Roger and Me." I had the privilege of helping to collect some of the video used in the film and made my silver screen debut in an excerpt from a news report where I stood in Flint describing the devastating impact General Motors' plant closings were having on the town where the giant corporation began. ^[4]