WILPF NEWS March 2018

WILPF NEWS

Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom

East Bay and San Francisco Branches

March 2018

Get involved! Become better informed! Resist!

Work to Advance Peace, Justice and Human Rights

Join the planning team Saturday, April 14th 10-12 at

Oakland Public Library Rockridge Branch

Unable to attend local WILPF meetings? You can join the monthly

National ONE WILPF CALL Thursday April 12 4pm

To enroll for the One WILPF calls, 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. If you would like to participate and you don’t use a computer, call Annie at 510 501-6439.

NO! TO U.S. WARS AT HOME AND ABROAD

Rally and March in Oakland

Sunday, April 15, 2018

11am-12:30pm ASSEMBLE/RALLY Lake Merritt Amphitheater (near 12th St. on Lake Merritt Blvd.)

12:30 pm MARCH to Frank Ogawa / Oscar Grant Plaza near 14th and Btoadway
1:
30 MAIN RALLY at Frank Ozawa Plaza / Oscar Grant Plaza

URGE CONGRESS TO PASS THE NUCLEAR WEAPONS ABOLITION AND ECONOMIC AND ENERGY CONVERSION ACT (HR3853)

The Nuclear Weapons Abolition and Economic and Energy Conversion Act in the U.S. House of Representatives would “provide for nuclear weapons abolition and economic conversion … while ensuring environmental restoration and clean-energy conversion.” 

Let your representative know you want them to support it. We need to contact everyone in positions of power about this new bill, HR 3853!

INTERNATIONAL WOMENS DAY

WILPF East Bay and SF celebrated International Women’s Day by participating in a ceremony honoring women affected by war at the Comfort Women’s Memorial near St Mary’s Square in San Francisco. Altars were built for: Korean Comfort Women, refugee women who are raped or perish crossing the US boarder or in detention, Palestinian women living under Israeli occupation, women near U.S. military bases, especially Okinawa, and Native American women.

 

East Bay and San Francisco WILPF join

MARCH FOR OUR LIVES

Saturday, March 24

San Francisco: Meet at Civic Center at 1pm

Oakland: Meet at Frank Ogawa/Oscar Grant Plaza at 10am

– Require background checks for all gun sales

– Outlaw all military style weapons

– Prohibit domestic abusers and violently mentally ill from having guns

– Require gun locks and safe storage of guns

 

WILPF JOINS EARTH DAY FESTIVAL

Celebrate on Saturday, April 21st from 11am-7pm

Music, speakers, food, kid zone LOOK FOR OUR TABLE

REPORT ON HOPE FOR PALESTINE ISREAL PEACE

by Ellen Rosser WILPF Middle East Committee

The current situation in both Palestine and Israel is unstable: both are in a state of flux. In Palestine, a unity government has been established and has taken over at least part of the government of Gaza. The new government controls the borders and some other functions, but the people of Gaza have not yet received any benefit. The border with Egypt is still closed most of the time and PLO President Abbas has ruled that Gaza must pay for its own electricity.

Given these conditions, the people still exist with only four hours of electricity a day and premature babies in the hospitals are dying from lack of incubators. Hamas, however, has pledged to cooperate with the unity government, which is undoubtedly preventing the small parties like Islamic Jihad from shooting rockets into southern Israel. (In 2014, when Hamas turned the government over to the unity government, Hamas did not continue to function as security and, when the small parties shot rockets into southern Israel, Netanyahu used that as the excuse to attack Gaza with greatly disproportionate force, killing over 2,000 civilians, including more than 500 children.)

Gaza’s problems are compounded by the fact that the US has just put on its Global Terrorist Watch List Ismail Haniya, a senior political leader of Hamas, so that Haniya will not be able to travel to other countries to solicit funds for Gaza or Hamas. Haniya was elected head of the Hamas Politburo in May 2017. The US designation of Haniya as a terrorist is absurd, since Haniya was the one who prevented rockets from being shot into southern Israel and thus has saved Israeli lives. Military figures in Israel confirmed that Hamas squads prevented rockets being shot, and Haniya has long been viewed as part of the pragmatic wing of Hamas. Moreover, the new Hamas Charter, which Haniya helped to create, confirms Sheik Yassin’s previous acceptance of the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

For more link to : WILPFUS.ORG http://wilpfus.org/news/updates/brutality-and-instability-

palestine-and-israel

CLOSING U.S. MILITARY BASES IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES

Nancy Price, representing WILPF US, joined the Coordinating Committee for the historic “Closing U.S. Military and NATO Bases in Foreign Countries” conference, www.noforeignbases.org, held in Baltimore on  January 12-14, 2018, launched by the new Coalition Against U.S. Foreign Military Bases. The conference was a sequel to the 2016 and 2017 World Beyond War conferences

Ellen Thomas of Disarm/End War kept watch over the WILPF table and WILPF US members joined peace advocates from across the country and Nepal, Cuba, Congo, South Korea, Ireland, Canada, Germany, the Philippines, and Okinawa in Baltimore. 

Nancy organized the “Environment and Health” plenary specifically to highlight impact on the health of military and civilian base personnel and surrounding communities not just from the better-known impacts of nuclear weapons, Agent Orange, Depleted Uranium and chemical/ biological agents, but from the “alphabet soup” of air, land, and water pollution from bases that contributes to accumulating body burden and impacts prenatal development and to disease throughout our lives.

As WILPF member Patricia Hynes, who spoke, makes clear in “The Polluter Is Not Paying”, it’s almost impossible to hold the US military and government responsible and accountable in the US or anywhere else. Marie Cruz on the Navy Base in Vieques, Puerto Rico, and Susan Schnall on Vietnam made clear how many decades it took to negotiate some clean-up and compensation. Furthermore, as extreme weather pummels US installations, contamination and buried munitions are uncovered and spread. 

We must change the story of empire based on military intervention and war to protect national security, human rights, and democracy around the world. For a start, the conference passed resolutions proposing a united day of actions April 14-15  and a Global Conference Against U.S. and NATO Military Bases sometime this fall.

Watch full conference videos and read media reports here, noforeignbases.org and short highlights here. Please read and consider signing the “Unity Statement” at noforeignbases.org and scroll down on the home page.

DON’T BANK ON THE BOMB!

329 investors made $525 Billion available to nuclear weapon producing companies between January 2014 and October 2017. They assisted with share and bond issuances, owned or mMost investors are from the US, and US$110 billion came from just 3 US financial institutions: Blackrock, Vanguard and Capital Group, all from the United States. Read more

https://www.dontbankonthebomb.com/

TRUMP’S NEW WARHEADS AND A WILLINGNESS TO USE THEM:

Key Policy Initiatives in the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review

trivalleycares.org

Posted by Kathy Crandall Robinson

On February 2, 2018, the Trump Administration released its Nuclear Posture Review. This document outlines the President’s U.S. nuclear weapons policy and strategy including:

1) The roles and purposes of nuclear weapons in U.S. security strategy;

2) The number and variety of U.S. nuclear weapons and plans for maintaining and upgrading nuclear weapons delivery systems and warhead production and infrastructure requirements, and;

3) The approach to controlling nuclear threats and stopping the spread of nuclear weapons outside of the United States – arms control and nonproliferation.

Nuclear Posture Reviews reflect the policy and political perspectives of the President and the geopolitical environment of the moment. This NPR is brought to us by the same President who and has questioned why we couldn’t use nuclear weapons and on February 12, 2018 followed up his NPR with a statement that it is indeed his Administration’s intention to expand the U.S. arsenal “far, far in excess of anybody else.” Click here for more…

CALIFORNIANS HAVE A UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY TO TAKE PRESIDENT TRUMP’S FINGER AWAY FROM THE NUCLEAR “RED BUTTON”

Posted by Marylia Kelley trivalleycares.org to Click here read the whole story.

Many of you may be familiar with Rep. Ted Lieu’s bill, HR669, and its companion measure in the Senate, S.200. These bills would restrict the President’s ability to launch a nuclear first strike on his sole, unchecked authority. Now we have a California measure, Assembly Joint Resolution 30, that if passed will throw our state’s full support behind the national bills.

ACTION: Call, write or email your CA Assemblymember to ask him/her to join California Assemblymember Aguiar-Curry (D-Winters) by supporting the Resolution she introduced, AJR 30. All of the info you need to take action is a quick “click” away.

CONTACT: The state has a great website at: http://assembly.ca.gov/
You can also go directly to: http://findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov/

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 TODAY

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

www.facebook.com/WILPF

PEACEWOMEN Women Peace and Security Program

REACHING CRITICAL WILL Disarmament Program