WILPF NEWS
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
East Bay Branch
Visit our web page www.WILPFEastBay.org
Contact us at wilpf@wilpfeastbay.org
Meetings are 2nd Saturday of the Month 10am-noon
110 41st St. (Piedmont Gardens) just off Piedmont Avenue in Oakland.
You are invited to join us Saturday, January 12th 10-12am
KEEP THE PRESSURE ON CONGRESS AND PRESIDENT OBAMA
It is still critically important to act now by calling or writing to the President and our Senators.
President Obama, We supported you! Fulfill your promise to TAX THE RICH, no cuts to social security, increased funding for health care and education. Reduce the military budget!
Write or better call today Or link and write to the PresidentPresident Barack Obama http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington DC 20500
202 456-1111
It is reported that President Obama and Republican John Boehner appear close to striking a deal that includes a change to Social Security that amounts to benefit cuts of 5 percent or more over several years. For millions of seniors living on a fixed income, that 5 percent is needed for crucial medicine, food, and daily necessities. And the deal would leave in place some of the Bush Tax Cuts for the top 2% that President Obama previously promised to oppose.
The good news is that we really do have a chance at stopping this bad deal. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/17/a-fiscal-cliff-deal-is-near-here-are-the-details/?print=1
Call Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer right now and tell them not to support a budget deal that includes cuts to Social Security benefits.
Senator Dianne Feinstein Senator Barbara Boxer
(202) 224-3841 (202) 224-355
MILITARY WEAPONS FOR CIVILIANS NEED TO GO!
In response to the country’s horror over the school killings, we need to resist thinking more guns is the answer to our security. There are 58,000 gun stores in this country. There are 30,000 gun deaths each year in the US.
WILPF has long connected the intersection of the profit motives of the military arms industry and the proliferation of military-style weapons available on our streets. Weapons are our leading export. The military budget is 69% of the federal budget.
In 1996 Australia, in response to a massacre in Tasmania that left 35 dead, passed a law banning semiautomatic and automatic rifles and shotguns. It also instituted a mandatory buy-back program for newly banned weapons. A recent study found that in the decade after the law was introduced, the firearm homicide rate fell by 59 percent, and the firearm suicide rate fell by 65 percent, without a parallel increase in non-firearm homicides and suicides.
We need to stand up for sanity and safety and ask that Gun Control Legislation be introduced that bans all assault weapons, no exemptions, and includes a buyback program that destroys all assault weapons, That includes a background check for mental health problems, including families with members at risk for suicide.
For an excellent discussion link to:
http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/87201
For Children’s Defense Fund’s comprehensive gun report link to
http://www.childrensdefense.org/child-research-data-publications/data/protect-children-not-guns-2012.html
A PROPOSAL FOR A BUDGET FOR PROSPERITY, NOT AUSTERITY
(Edited from United for Peace and Justice)
We believe the solution to the latest budget must include an end to tax cuts for the wealthy; no reductions in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid; and major cuts in military spending. This is an opportunity to redefine what is necessary and what is possible. Future generations are depending on us.
Austerity makes economic problems worse, not better. Only strong, effective stimulus measures can remedy the stubborn lack of demand in the domestic economy, create jobs, foster prosperity, and decrease the deficit. Austerity measures in Europe are exacerbating the economic crisis there. Austerity measures lengthened and deepened the Great Depression here in the USA.
Therefore, we reject any deal that cuts Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid, and demand policies to stimulate the economy, to fairly raise needed revenues, to rein in out-of-control spending on obsolete weapons, and to end the war in Afghanistan.
We call upon the President, the U.S. House, and the U.S. Senate to enact policies for “Prosperity Not Austerity.” Specifically, we call upon our Federal Government to:
1. Invest in jobs, education and infrastructure to promote prosperity by enacting legislation to create jobs for all.
2. Let the Bush tax cuts and payroll tax cuts expire, and replace them with a Financial Speculation Tax and fair income tax cuts, limited to the first $250,000 of income.
3. Prevent any cuts to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid including benefits, COLAs, or eligibility–as well as pass legislation to enact expanded and improved Medicare for All.
4. Cut weapons funding by 25%, and responsibly end the War in Afghanistan via the safe and orderly withdrawal from Afghanistan of all members of the Armed Forces and Department of Defense contractor personnel.
BLM AUCTIONS OFF PERMITS FOR OIL AND GAS LEASES ON PUBLIC LANDS IN MONTEREY AND OTHER CALIFORNIA COUNTIES Fracking is getting too close to home!
BLM auctions off permits for oil and gas leases on public lands in Monterey and other California counties. Oil and gas drilling are still protected by an exemption for liability in the Clean Water Act: chemicals used do not have to be disclosed, millions of gallons of California’s precious water is being used, and fracking may be contributing to increases in earthquakes in other fracked areas. These are all arguments that are being ignored by the BLM. This is beautiful agricultural land. To make matters worse, we are now exporting oil. Exporting is for profit, not self sufficiency.
For more information link to :
www.cleanwater.org/
To read about the Go Fossil Free-Divest From Fossil Fuels Campaign, go to:
www.350.org
To protest: President Obama at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments
THERE IS STILL HOPE FOR CEDAW: A NEW CONGRESS
We worked to get more women elected to the U.S. Senate and succeeded. Now, we need to support them in affirming the rights of all women. Tell the incoming Senate to halt the piecemeal erosion of women’s rights by ratifying CEDAW.
This petition will be delivered to every senator on January 3, the day the 113th Congress will be sworn in. Our goal is to deliver 50,000 signatures demonstrating that voters in the United States do care about women’s civil liberties and human rights. Sign the petition to ratify CEDAW Now and tell your friends! Link to: www.wilpfus on the right side bar.
MINUTES OF WILPF EAST BAY PLANNING MEETING, DECEMBER 8, 2012
We discussed the crisis of the “fiscal cliff” which we decided to rename the need for fiscal reorganization. Two reforms were discussed: no automatic filibusters when the US Senate members can say they are filibustering and then leave the floor which stops all business; the need to reconsider the California Prop 13 requirement of 2/3 vote on any new taxes, which has made it nearly impossible to raise much-needed revenues in California.
