WILPF April Newsletter

WILPF NEWS

Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom

East Bay and San Francisco Branches

April 2018

Get involved! Become better informed! Resist!

Work to Advance Peace, Justice and Human Rights

Join the planning team Saturday, June 9, 10-12

MAY PLANNING MEETING IS CANCELLED

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

National ONE WILPF CALL Thursday May 14, 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 phone link.

Peace Eco Justice  EVENTS 

WILPF JOINS EARTH DAY FESTIVAL

Celebrate on Saturday, April 21st from 11-5 San Francisco Civic Center

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

ACTIONS ALERTS ACTIONS Poor People’s Campaign – nonviolent actions every Monday May 14-June 23 in Sacramento, in state capitals across the country and in DC. Mass Meeting this Saturday, April 21 at the Taylor Memorial United Methodist Church at 1188 12th St, Oakland, from 5-7pm. RSVP at www.bit.ly/ppc-eastbay. Nonviolent training Saturdays April 28, May 5, May 12, 10AM until 12PM, Oakland Peace Center. To prepare for the campaign sign up at www.poorpeoplescampaign.org. Get involved in this VERY IMPORTANT CAMPAIGN to challenge the racism, militarism and economic injustice in this country, and to radically change our government’s priorities from greed and empire to people and human well being. Questions to David Brazil at (510)5087104 david@workingeasbay.org

Wednesday, April 25, 7:30 PM  ROXANNE DUNBAR-ORTIZ
Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment. Hosted by Joanna Manqueros.
St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Avenue, Berkeley
Presented by KPFA Radio 94.1FM
https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/3201961

How YOU Can Help Get Rid of ALL Nuclear Weapons
Sunday, April 22, 7PM, BFUU Fellowship Hall, Cedar @ Bonita, Berkeley

FREE Workshop with NuclearBan.US co-founders Timmon Wallis, PhD and Vicki Elson,
Celebrating a huge victory for the world!
The new UN Treaty banning nuclear weapons, voted for by 122 nations!
Sponsored by NuclearBan and Ican, co-sponsored by WILPF-East Bay and BFUU

The 2017 Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to ICAN, the International Campaign for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons for ‘achieving the impossible!’ Come learn how together we will compel divestment, legislation, and enforcement, even though the US hasn’t signed on yet.

Presented by the BFUU Social Justice Committee with NuclearBan.US Join the campaign: Ban Nuclear weapons. Co-sponsored by the Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom East Bay Branch and Code Pink Golden Gate and Tri-Valley Cares.

Refreshments! Free! (donations requested) Wheelchair access

BFUU Social Justice Committee – Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists The wheelchair accessible, legendary BFUU Fellowship Hall is at:1924 Cedar at Bonita, between MLK/Shattuck http://www.bfuu.org/

WHY WE MUST BAN ALL NUCLEAR WEAPONS

The world stands closer to the reality of nuclear war than at any time since the 1960s. North Korean President Kim Jong-un is determined to build the capacity to strike the United States with a nuclear weapon, and US President Donald Trump is determined to prevent that from happening.

The worst possible outcome to this nuclear brinkmanship is a nuclear war to eliminate North Korea’s nuclear weapons – because these cannot be eliminated with conventional weapons. Such a war would create an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, not just for the 25 million people in North Korea, but for the whole world.

Radioactive fallout would affect millions of people in South Korea and Japan and would cause cancers as far away as the United States. Firestorms could potentially cause worldwide climate disruption and global famine on a scale never before seen in human history.

Every nuclear weapon, no matter whose or where it detonates, threatens to all of us, everywhere.

These weapons of mass destruction serve no useful purpose. They pose a threat to all life on earth. They must be abolished.

For excellent link go to nuclearban.us

Roy Zimmerman, song writer and singer: Rezist at BFUU, Sat. April 21: 7:30 pm Cedar and Bonita in Berkeley. Roy will also be in San Francisco Sunday, April 22, 7 pm, at the Unitarian Universalist Center of SF, 1187 Franklin St., Macondray Hall.

Divest from Wall Street, Invest in Justice Wed Apr 25, 4 – 6 PM SF:
Rally during the Bank of America shareholders’ meeting. March to demand that SF divest and create a People’s Bank.1525 Market St, San Francisco
http://www.sunflower-alliance.org/sf-divest-from-wall-street-invest-in-justice-apr-25/

SF Bay Area InterFaith Conferencee on Drone Warfare

US Rep. Barbara Lee and other expert speakers

FREE event. Lunch will be provided

Sat, April 28, 104 pm Pacific School of Religion, 1798 Scenic Ave., Berkeley

info: 415 350-9305 or w.w.w.interfaithdronenetwork.org Registration http:bit.ly/2l6iMqU

WILPF Eastbay San Francisco celebrates Martin Luther King

A Call for a Revolution of Values

Martin Luther King’s birthday was celebrated in communities across the country by reading the

I Have a Dream” speech. WILPF participated locally. King’s searing, revolutionary antiwar speech Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence” is less well know. Addressing Clergy and Laity Concerned about Vietnam, ke moved from civil rights to a critique of capitalism. His vision was of a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class and nation.” He called for a “revolution of values”, a shift from a ‘thing oriented society’ to a ‘person oriented society’.King warned that when machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

http://wilpfus.org/sites/default/files/docs/4-Earth%20Democracy%20From%20MLK%20to%202018%20Final.pdf

COUNTER RECRUITMENT IN THE SCHOOLS

Not mainstream media, nor even the organizers and participants in the March for Our Lives movement speak about the link between the culture of gun violence and the cultures of war and militarism in the US. Nik Cruz, now infamous Parkland, FL, shooter, was learned how to shoot a lethal weapon in the very school that he later targeted in the Valentine’s Day massacre. Our children are trained as shooters in their school cafeterias, as part of the U. S. military’s Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) marksmanship program. Nearly 2,000 U. S. high schools have JROTC marksmanship programs taxpayer-funded and rubber-stamped by Congress. The day that Nik Cruz opened fire on his classmates, he proudly wore a t-shirt emblazoned with the letters “JROTC”. JROTC’s motto? “Motivating Young People to Be Better Citizens.” By training them to wield a gun? Even more alarming, the NRA is funding gun clubs in schools. For more information see National Network Opposing Militarization of Youth’s excellent link /www.nnomy.org

Anti-war Leafleting: Join us on Wednesdays from 11:30–Noon at the Grove St. entrance to SF Main Library. Call Betty to confirm, (415-931-1126)

EXPLORE WILPF TODAY

Local branch web pages: 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