WILPF NEWS
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
East Bay and San Francisco Branches
Work to Advance Peace, Justice and Human Rights
JANUARY 2022
TWO WILPF SOLIDARITY ACTIONS FOR 2022
WILPF branches and at-large members voted to work on two One WILPF Solidarity Actions this year:
Voting Rights, Demanding Action on Critical Issues, and Get-Out-the-Vote
At the One WILPF call on January 13th, members volunteered to be on a committee to set priorities and decide on solidarity actions. The first planning meeting is this Monday, January 24th.
Mobilizing for the Massive Poor Peoples’ Campaign Moral March on Washington DC and to the Polls on June 18, 2022
Our new WILPF liaison in our work with PPC is Emily Keel. from the WILPF Triangle Branch. Emily has been involved with the PPC since before it became what it is today and when Rev. Barber was the keynote speaker at the national WILPF congress that was hosted by the Triangle Branch some years ago. Rev. Rowan Fairgrove from California will join Emily in spearheading the WILPF planning for June 18th. Not only has Rowan been active with the PPC, she has created great presentations about the campaign for her branch and for national WILPF, most recently a slide show presentation at the WILPF Congress.
We are hoping to have a large WILPF contingent in Washington D.C. For those who can’t get to the U.S. Capitol, we will be planning events at our State Capitol. For those who want to join us, we will be organizing carpools to Sacramento in June.
EAST BAY/SAN FRANCISCO BRANCHES PLANNING
PEACE TALK IN MARCH
MILITARY AND THE ENVIRONMENT AND ITS IMPACT ON CLIMATE CHANGE
Look for all the details in the February newsletter
MEET THE BIG 5 WAR PROFITEERS
a webinar hosted by the War Industry Resistance Network (WIRN)
Monday, Jan. 24, 4-5pm Pacific time
A new coalition of groups opposing their local war industry companies has joined together to form the War Industry Resisters Network, focused on the “Big 5” war profiteers who exercise control over US foreign policy. WIRN members include Veterans for Peace, Codepink, Massachusetts Peace Action, Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space and others. WIRN is holding monthly webinars leading up to a national week of action in April to oppose the war industry companies in communities around the country. The “Big 5” include Raytheon Technologies, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and General Dynamics.
These webinars will look at these companies, their partnership with the US government, and their influence over the US Congress and the Executive Branch, under both Democratic and Republican presidents. Why, despite public opposition, do military budgets continue to rise and arms sales to authoritarian governments continue? To answer these questions we’ll be joined by experts including:
Neta Crawford, Professor and Chair of Boston University’s Department of Political Science and a Faculty Research Fellow at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future at BU. She is co-director and co-founder of the Costs of War project at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, which has recently been expanded with the addition of the “20 Years of War” research series.
William D. Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. His work focuses on the arms industry and U.S. military budget. He was previously the director of the Arms and Security Program at the Center for International Policy and the co-director of the Center’s Sustainable Defense Task Force. He is the author of Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex (Nation Books, 2011) and the co-editor, with Miriam Pemberton, of Lessons from Iraq: Avoiding the Next War.
Christian Sorensen, an independent journalist mainly focused on the U.S. war industry. An Air Force veteran, he is the author of Understanding the War Industry, published by Clarity Press. He is also a senior fellow at the Eisenhower Media Network, an organization of independent veteran military and national security experts. His website is warindustrymuster.com, where one can view his monthly distillations of Pentagon contracts.
Registration and details:
http://masspeaceaction.org/event/meet-the-big-5-how-the-military-industrial-complex-controls-politics/
REDUCING THE THREAT OF NUCLEAR WAR
REBUILDING A BROADER MOVEMENT
Saturday, January 29 @ 11:00am-3:00pm
With Congress appropriating funds for new and upgraded nuclear weapons and delivery systems, the need to counter these misguided policies has become acute. The 2022 Conference sponsored by Massachusetts Peace Action, will emphasize coordinating efforts of advocates, and expanding outreach to organizations and constituencies outside the world of nuclear disarmament advocates.
Participants include Representative Barbara Lee, Medea Benjamin. Susan Mirsky, Elaine Scarry, Shailly Gupta Barnes, Jackie Cabasso, and Phyllis Bennis.
Register to attend. Admission is free; donations to the No First Use Campaign and Fund Healthcare Not Warfare Campaign are welcome.
EXPLORE WILPF TODAY
www.WILPFEastBay.org or www.WILPFSF.org
WILPF East Bay, P. O. Box 13083, Oakland, CA 94661
WILPF-SF, P. O. Box 590253, San Francisco, CA 94159
https://www.facebook.com/WILPFEastBaySanFrancisco/
WILPF MEMBERS, INCLUDING ANNE HENNY FROM OUR EAST BAY BRANCH, AND OTHER ACTIVISTS AT LAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATIONAL LABORATORY ON FRIDAY, JANUARY 21 TO CELEBRATE THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF THE ENTERING INTO FORCE OF THE TPNW
Photo by Mishaa DeGraw, ProBonoPhoto.org
