WILPF NEWS
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
East Bay and San Francisco Branches
December 2017
Get involved! Become better informed! Resist!
Work to Advance Peace, Justice and Human Rights
Next Planning meeting January 13. 10-12
Western Addition Library
1550 Scott St. San Francisco 94115
parking on site, or take BART and 38 bus
SUPPORT WILPF, BENEFIT FROM MEMBERSHIP, RENEW TODAY
Are you an active member of WILPF? If you are a member in good standing, you receive the quarterly Peace and Freedom Magazine, as well as regular action emails from WILPF-US. If you want to join or renew on-line, go to wilpfus.org and click “Join or Renew.”
Look for a letter from WILPF East Bay in your mailbox soon, which details information for membership and additional donations, and provides a self-addressed envelope for those wanting to mail in their renewals and donations.
Anti-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. Under the “No Child Left Behind” law, schools must allow military recruiters on campus, but those schools must also be open to counter-recruiters. 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 introduce ourselves and show a short 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.
ACTION: Our branches agreed to take on this anti-recruitment project. As we move forward, we might apply for a mini-grant to contact other branches and maybe put together a training video. If you are interested in helping with this exciting project, respond to this email and join us.
End both Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Power under the Slogan “End the Whole Nuclear Era”
The WILPF Petition reads:
I am committed to a world without nuclear weapons. I endorse the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons adopted by 122 countries on July 7, 2017.
As a citizen or resident of the United States, I call upon the President to sign and the Senate to consent to ratify this Treaty. Further, I 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: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/support-the-nuclear-weapons-ban-treaty
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!
The effects of nuclear weapons is indiscriminate 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. When we “End the Whole Nuclear Era,” money and resources will be freed to address societal, environmental and other essential needs.
Link to:
REACHING CRITICAL WILL Disarmament Program
PEACEWOMEN Women Peace and Security Program
WILPF US DISARM: END THE WHOLE NUCLEAR ERA
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, was introduced in September 2017 and This bill 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. Or use this sample letter.
“As a constituent, I urge you to co-sponsor “The Nuclear Weapons Abolition and Economic and Energy Conversion Act.” (HR 3853)
The bill has been introduced each session since 1994, long before the promises much of the world thought President Obama was making in his Prague speech in April 2009, to help lead the world step-by-step towards complete elimination of nuclear weapons. (Regrettably, in the years since Prague, the U.S. has moved to spend $1.4 trillion dollars over the next 30 years for new nuclear bomb factories, delivery systems and warheads.)
In addition the bill provides funding for environmental restoration and to transform our war industries to producing carbon-free, nuclear-free energy. This bill has been introduced in 2017 as HR 3853. I ask you now to please tell Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton that you will co-sponsor this legislation.
Thank you for reading my letter. Whatever your own response, I would be happy to discuss this with you further.”
Anti-war Leafleting: Join us on Wednesdays from 11:30 to noon at the Grove St. entrance to SF. Main Library. Call Betty to confirm, (415-931-1126)
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
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 and http.// www.facebook.com/WILPF