WILPF NEWS
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
East Bay and San Francisco Branches
January 2018
Get involved! Become better informed! Resist!
Work to Advance Peace, Justice and Human Rights
Join the planning team Feb 10th 10-12 at Rockridge Public Library
5366 College Ave, Oakland
from Rockridge BART walk south
Join WILPF at the Saturday, January 20th Women’s March
WILPF -East Bay meet up at 10 am Lake Merritt amphitheater (near the
permanent bathroom building on the lake trail just north of amphitheater)
SF WILPF meet up at Asian Art Museum (by the big pink fish)
Counter-Recruitment Work in High Schools:
WILPF GETS ACTIVE!
Our local branch of WILPF needs your help to get involved in an anti-recruitment
project. Many public high schools in the Bay Area are required to allow military
recruiters on to their campus. Grandmothers Against the War developed a program to
go into various East Bay public high school classrooms with military veterans from
Iraq Veterans Against the War.
We will show a DVD put together by the American Friends Service Committee
entitled “Before You Enlist” and then a veteran talks to the kids from personal
experience, talks about what war is really like, answers their questions, and gives them
information about alternatives to joining the military. Informational literature and a
card that has questions to ask the recruiter is provided.
All 18 year old boys still have to register for the draft at the Post Office. For
information about what rights a young man has regarding registering for the draft, you
can go to the National Coalition to Protect Student Privacy at www.studentprivacy.org
Also, students can now opt out of the armed services aptitude test.
If you are interested in helping with this exciting project,
respond to this email (wilpf@wilpfeastbay.org) and join us.
WILPF Joins the Poor People’s Campaign
Tune in to learn about WILPF’s involvement in the Poor People’s Campaign: This
will involve a series of about 20 days of actions organized by the Poor Peoples
Campaign. WILPF-US has formed an adhoc committee on the Poor People’s
Campaign, chaired by Mary Bricker-Jenkins of Tennessee. There will be more about
this on the Feb. 8th One WILPF Call. (See below)
To get a preview of the Poor People’s Campaign, tune in to Bernie Sanders and
Rev. William Barber in conversation at Duke University Jan. 19: see
https://today.duke.edu/2018/01/bernie-sanders- william-barber- conversation-jan-19-
duke-chapel Also, see YouTube conversation: https://youtu.be/87egB-D2fh4 from Feb.
JOIN NEXT ONE WILPF CALL TO LEARN ABOUT POOR PEOPLE’S CAMPAIGN
Can’t come to branch meetings? Join our ONE WILPF CALLS: Attend our
monthly conference calls with members participating across the US. The calls
offer an excellent way for members to connect with other WILPF members ,
share resources and solutions, and plan strategically for the future. To enroll
you can email Marybeth Gardam at mbgardam@gmail.com If you have not yet
joined our ONE WILPF calls, add them to your calendar, The second Thursday of
each month, at 4 pm PST. The next call will be Thursday, FEB 8th.
End both Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Power under the Slogan
“End the Whole Nuclear Era”
We are committed to a world without nuclear weapons.
WILPF is active in the endorsement od the United Nations Treaty on the
Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons adopted by 122 countries in July.
As a citizens or residents of the United States, We call upon the President to
sign and the Senate to consent to ratify this Treaty. Further, we call upon the
President, with the support of the Senate, to lead the way to negotiate the total
elimination of nuclear weapons.
ACTION: Add your name and get your friends to sign the WILPF petition
supporting the Nuclear Weapons Ban and send it to your friends and
contacts:
In 1972 biological weapons were banned. In 1993 chemical weapons were
banned and four years later in 1997 land mines were banned. Then, in 2008 cluster
munitions were banned. Now is the time to ban nuclear weapons!
Link to: See
http://www.wilpfus.org/news/updates/disarm-end-wars-national-issues-committee- There
are Twitter storms on Wednesdays to contact as many as possible see how to get
involved in link above. Our tech person Michael I. suspects that Twitter and Facebook
are trying to sabotage our efforts.
We Support NUCLEAR WEAPONS ABOLITION AND ECONOMIC AND ENERGY
CONVERSION ACT.
This act, HR Bill 3853, deals with both nuclear weapons and nuclear power. The
effects of nuclear weapons would be inhumane, devastating and indiscriminate. When
using a nuclear bomb, there is no possibility of differentiating between an intended
target and a civilian, and the impact of a nuclear weapons detonation on human life is
devastating and long-lasting. Nine nations control an arsenal of 15,000 weapons of
mass destruction. The possession of these weapons is unacceptable. Learn More.
The newest version of the bill, HR 3853, addresses both industries we are
focusing on in our “END THE WHOLE NUCLEAR ERA” campaign. With the risk of
nuclear war at it’s highest, HR 3853 is the ONLY legislation in Congress that calls for
complete, global abolition of nuclear weapons. It suggests how this can be
accomplished – earmarking the money currently used for nuclear weapons to re-tool
the weapons industries and retraining the workers to do something useful for society,
like developing carbon-free and nuclear-free energy, environmental restoration, health
care, education, and other human needs. Representatives Jan Schakowsky, Raul
Grijalva, John Lewis, and Lacy Clay have said they will sign on to the new legislation
this year.
We need to contact everyone in positions of power about this new bill, HR
3853!
Use the handy Roots Action letter that has been set up to make it easy to
contact your Representative.
http://www.wilpfus.org/news/updates/disarm-end-wars-national-issues-committee– There are Twitter storms on
Wednesdays to contact as many as possible see how to get involved in link above.
ADDITIONAL ACTIONS
Anti-war Leafleting: Join us on Wednesdays from 11:30 to noon at the Grove St.
entrance to SF. Main Library.
Announcements:
Barbara Lee and Elihu Harris Leadership Series in the East Bay starting
Feb. 1 (Hon. James Clyburn), March 10 (Anita Hill), April 21 (Rev. Barber).
Free.
See http://www.mlkfreedomcenter.org/civic-engagement/lecture-series/
San Francisco Bay Area Interfaith Conference on Drone Warfare on
January 27, 10 am to 4 pm at the Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley
Explore WILPF
Local branch web page: www.WILPFEastBay.org or www.WILPFSF.org
New address for WILPF East Bay
P. O. Box 13083, Oakland, CA 94661
wilpf@wilpfeastbay.org
https://www.facebook.com/WILPFEastBaySanFrancisco /
WILPF US: PO Box 13075
Des Moines, IA 50310
Tel: 617-266-0999
National WILPF web site: www.wilpfus.org,
International WILPF: www.wilpf.org
www.facebook.com/WILPF
PEACEWOMEN Women Peace and Security Program
REACHING CRITICAL WILL Disarmament Program