“Victory To The Fast-Food Workers......Fight For $15 Is Just A Beginning-All Labor Must Support Our Sisters And Brothers

“Victory To The Fast-Food Workers......Fight For $15 Is Just A Beginning-All Labor Must Support Our Sisters And Brothers

Comments of a supporter of the “Fight for $15” action in Downtown Boston on September 4, 2014 as part of a national struggle for economic justice and dignity for the our hard working sisters and brothers. The words still apply as we head into 2016:

No question in this wicked old world that those at the bottom are “the forgotten ones.” Here we are talking about working people, people working and working hard for eight, nine, ten dollars an hour. Maybe working two jobs to make ends meet since a lot of times these McJobs, these Wal-Marts jobs do not come with forty hours of work attached but whatever some cost-cutting manager deems right. And lately taking advantage of cover from Obamacare keeping the hours below the threshold necessary to kick in health insurance and other benefits. Yes, the forgotten people.

But let’s do the math here figuring on forty hours and figuring on say ten dollars an hour. That‘s four hundred a week times fifty weeks (okay so I am rounding off for estimate purposes here too since most of these jobs do not have vacation time figured in).That’s twenty thousand a year. Okay so just figure any kind of descent apartment in the Boston area where I am writing this-say one thousand a month. That’s twelve thousand a year. So the other eight thousand is for everything else. No way can that be done. And if you had listened to the young and not so young fast-food workers, the working mothers, the working older brothers taking care of younger siblings, workers trying to go to school to get out of the vicious cycle of poverty you would understand the truth of that statement. And the stories went on and on along that line all during the action. 

Confession: it has been a very long time since I have had to scrimp and scrim to make ends meet, to get the rent in, to keep those damn bill-collectors away from my door, to beg the utility companies to not shut off those necessary services. But I have been there, no question. And I did not like it then and I do not like the idea of it now.  I am here to say even the “Fight for $15” is not enough, but it is a start. And I whole-heartedly support the struggle of my sisters and brothers for a little economic justice in this wicked old world. And any reader who might read this-would you work for slave wages? I think not. So show your solidarity and get out and support the fast-food and Wal-Mart workers in their just struggles. 

Organize Wal-Mart! Organize the fast food workers! Union! Union! 

Out In The Black Liberation Night- The Black Panthers And The Struggle For The Ten-Point Program- Twelve -Sacramento, 1967

Out In The Black Liberation Night- The Black Panthers And The Struggle For The Ten-Point Program- Twelve -Sacramento, 1967     

…there is a famous picture of them, of the Black Panther core, Huey and the Bobbys, all black proud and black smart, not just street smart that day, but all the way smart, kind of  “turn whitey’s rules back on him” smart, in May 1967  over in Sacramento at the State Capitol, arms in hand, shotguns, serious business shotguns if the occasion arose, arms and shotguns uplifted away from any thought of placing anyone in harm’s way like whitey’s law book said was okay, just fine out in the cool blue-pink American West night. It might not have worked in Cambridge or Peoria but out when the cowboy lands ended, real and faux cowboys, anything went, went with whatever small uplift proviso the local government attached to it.

That day though all black proud, armed, berets tilted slightly showing a sign of determination and not just show, black leather jackets, sharp, yah, uniform sharp and leaving that same uniform sharp impression any serious uniform brings up (soda jerks, McDonald ‘s burger flippers, and gas jockeys step back, step way backs serious uniforms are in town). That day too those brothers evoked, evoked proud black manhood, evoked memories of Africa slave-catcher revolts, evoked memories of maroon fights down in Caribe islands, evoked old Nat Turner come and gone plantation fires, evoked old Captain Brown and his brave band at Harpers Ferry fight, evoked the memory of those two hundred thousand blue-capped, blue-uniformed, yes, uniformed, sable warriors who made Johnny Reb cringe and wish he had never been born. Evoked too, Africa freedom struggles, and desperate fights to break the down presser man’s will, his fortitude, and his hunger to keep what was never his. And evoked no more turning the other cheek stuff, no more waiting on whitey, even leftie, and more, much more, the great white fear…negros with guns, jesus.                

And they freaked, those whites guys freaked like they always did, like they always did when even the idea, no, even the thought of an idea of armed black men touched their radar. Hence death this and death that slave codes, hence Nat Turner brutal ashes, hence no quarter given, no respect, no  black honor respect before Fort Wagner fight when black men bled red for freedom and on a hundred other battlefields, hence Robert F. Williams flights. So that day, that freaked-out day a sort of cold (soon to be hot) civil war was a-brewing. And whitey, maybe not so smart but afraid of armed black men and ready to act forthwith on that decided that maybe, just maybe, the wild west needed a little taming, just in case the brothers decided to aim those guns straight at someone.       

*****Desperately Seeking Revolutionary Intellectuals-Then, And Now

*****Desperately Seeking Revolutionary Intellectuals-Then, And Now  

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Several years ago, I guess about four years now, in the aftermath of the demise of the Occupy movement with the shutting down of its campsites across the country by the police acting in concert with other American governmental bodies I wrote a short piece centered on the need for revolutionary and radical intellectuals, or those who had pretensions to such ideas to take their rightful place on the activist left, on the people’s side, and to stop sitting on the academic sidelines. Or wherever they were hiding out, hiding out maybe as far back in some cases as the Vietnam War days which saw much of the current senior contemporary academia turn from the streets to the ivied-buildings, maybe hiding out in bought and paid for think tanks with their bright-colored “wonk” portfolios like some exiles-in-waiting ready to spring their latest wisdom, maybe posing as public intellectuals although with no serious audience ready to act on their ideas since they were not pushing their agendas beyond the lectern, maybe some in the hard-hearted post 9/11 world having doubts about those long ago youthful impulses that animated "the better angels of their natures" have turned to see the “virtues” of the warfare state and now keep their eyes averted to the social struggles they previously professed to live and die for, or maybe a la Henry David Thoreau retiring to out in some edenic gardens in Big Sur or anywhere Oregon like some 60s radicals did never to be heard from again except as relics when the tourists pass through town.

One of the reasons for that piece was that in the aftermath of the demise of the Occupy movement a certain stock-taking was in order (and which is in 2015 and beyond still in order). A stock-taking at first centered on those young radicals and revolutionaries that I ran into in the various campsites and on the flash mob marches who were disoriented and discouraged when their utopian dreams went up in smoke without a murmur of regret from the masses they professed to be fighting for (and with not a little hostility from that same work-a-day mass hostile to people hanging out and not working, or not doing much of anything, as well but mainly indifference to the fight these idealistic youth were pursuing, really their fight too since that had been pummeled by the main Occupy culprits, the banks who got bailed out, the mortgages companies who sold them a false bill of goods, the corporations more than ready to send formerly good paying jobs off-shore leaving Wal-Mart for the unemployed. Now a few years later it is apparent that they, the youth of Occupy have, mostly, moved back to the traditional political ways of operating via the main bourgeois parties who let the whole thing happen (witness the New York mayor’s race, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders et. al) or have not quite finished licking their wounds (they couldn’t believe as we elders could have told them after all the anti-Vietnam War actions, including the massive May Day 1971 arrests that the government had no problem crushing their own, their own young if they got out of line).

Although I initially addressed my remarks to the activists still busy out in the streets I also had in mind those intellectuals who had a radical streak but who then hovered on the sidelines and were not sure what to make of the whole experiment although some things seemed very positive like the initial camp comradery, the flow of ideas, some half-baked on their faces but worthy of conversation and testing, the gist for any academic. In short, those who would come by on Sundays and take a lot of photographs and write a couple of lines about what they saw but held back. (I would argue and this may be the nature of the times that the real beneficiaries of Occupy were all those film students and artists, media-types who made the site their class project, or their first professional documentary.) Now in 2015 it is clear as day that the old economic order (capitalism if you were not quite sure what to name it) that we were fitfully protesting against (especially against the banks who led the way downhill and who under the sway of imperialism's imperative made it clear finance capitalism writ large is in charge) has survived another threat to its dominance. The old political order, the way of doing political business now clearly being defended by one Barack Obama and his hangers-on, Democrat and Republican, with might and main is still intact (with a whole ready to take his place come 2016).

The needs of working people although now widely discussed in academia and on the more thoughtful talk shows have not been ameliorated (the increasing gap between the rich, really the very rich, and the poor, endlessly lamented and then forgotten, the student debt death trap, and the lingering sense that most of us will never get very far ahead in this wicked old world especially compared to previous generations). All of this calls for intellectuals with any activist spark to come forth and help analyze and plan how the masses are to survive, how a new social order can be brought forth. Nobody said, or says, that it will be easy but this is the plea. I have reposted the original piece with some editing to bring it up to date.          
******
No, this is not a Personals section ad, although it qualifies as a Help Wanted ad in a sense. On a number of occasions over past several years, in reviewing books especially those by James P. Cannon, a founding member of the American Communist Party in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and when that revolution began to seriously go off the rails followed the politics of the Trotsky-led International Left Opposition  and eventually helped found the Socialist Workers Party in America, I have mentioned elsewhere  that building off of the work of the classical Marxists, including that of Marx and Engels themselves, and later that of Lenin and Trotsky the critical problem before the international working class in the early part of the 20th century was the question of creating a revolutionary leadership to lead imminent uprisings. Armed with Lenin’s work on the theory of the imperialist nature of the epoch and the party question and Trotsky’s on the questions of permanent revolution in less developed capitalist countries and revolutionary timing the tasks for revolutionaries were more than adequately defined. A century later with some tweaking, unfortunately, those same theories and the same need for organization are still on the agenda although, as Trotsky once said, the conditions are overripe for the overthrow of capitalism as it has long ago outlived its progressive character in leading humankind forward.   

The conclusion that I originally drew from that initial  observation was that the revolutionary socialist movement was not as desperately in need of theoreticians and intellectuals as previously (although having them, and plenty of them, especially those who can write, is always a good thing). It needed leaders steeped in those theories and with a capacity to lead revolutions. We needed a few good day-to-day practical leaders, guys like Cannon, like Debs from the old Socialist Party, like Ruthenburg from the early Communist Party, to lead the fight for state power.

In that regard I have always held up, for the early part of the 20th century, the name Karl Liebknecht the martyred German Communist co-leader (along with Rosa Luxemburg) of the aborted Spartacist uprising of 1919 as such an example. He led the anti-war movement in Germany by refusing to vote for the Kaiser’s war budgets, found himself in jail as a result, but also had tremendous authority among the left-wing German workers when that mattered. In contrast the subsequent leadership of the German Communists in the 1920’s Paul Levi, Henrich Brandler and Ernest Thaelmann did not meet those qualifications. For later periods I have, as mentioned previously, held up the name James P. Cannon, founder of the American Socialist Workers Party (to name only the organization that he was most closely associated with), as a model. Not so Communist Party leaders like William Z. Foster and Earl Browder (to speak nothing of Gus Hall from our generation of '68) or Max Shachtman in his later years after he broke with Cannon and the SWP. That basically carried us to somewhere around the middle of the 20th century. Since I have spent a fair amount of time lately going back to try to draw the lessons of our movement I have also had occasion to think, or rather to rethink my original argument on the need for revolutionary intellectuals. I find that position stands in need of some amendment now.

Let’s be clear here about our needs. The traditional Marxist idea that in order to break the logjam impeding humankind’s development the international working class must rule is still on the historic agenda. The Leninist notions that, since the early part of the 20th century, we have been in the imperialist era and that a ‘hard’ cadre revolutionary party is necessary to lead the struggle to take state power are also in play. Moreover, the Trotskyist understanding that in countries of belated development the working class is the only agency objectively capable of leading those societies to the tasks traditionally associated with the bourgeois revolutions of the 19th century continues to hold true. That said, rather than some tweaking, we are seriously in need of revolutionary intellectuals who can bring these understandings into the 21st century.

It is almost a political truism that each generation of radicals and revolutionaries will find its own ways to cope with the political tasks that confront it. The international working class movement is no exception in that regard. Moreover, although the general outlines of Marxist theory mentioned above hold true such tasks as the updating of the theory of imperialism to take into account the qualitative leap in its globalization is necessary (as is, as an adjunct to that, the significance of the gigantic increases in the size and importance of the ‘third world’ proletariat). Also in need of freshening up is work on the contours of revolutionary political organization in the age of high speed communications, the increased weight that non-working class specific questions play in world politics (the national question which if anything has had a dramatic uptick since the demise of the Soviet Union), religion (the almost universal trend for the extremes of religious expression to rear their ugly heads which needs to be combated), special racial and gender oppressions, and various other tasks that earlier generations had taken for granted or had not felt they needed to consider. All this moreover has to be done in a political environment that sees Marxism, communism, even garden variety reform socialism as failed experiments. To address all the foregoing issues is where my call for a new crop of revolutionary intellectuals comes from.

Since the mid- 20th century we have had no lack of practical revolutionary leaders of one sort or another - one thinks of Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and even Mao in his less rabid moments. We have witnessed any number of national liberation struggles, a few attempts at political revolution against Stalinism, a few military victories against imperialism, notably the Vietnamese struggle. But mainly this has been an epoch of defeats for the international working class. Moreover, we have not even come close to developing theoretical leaders of the statue of Lenin or Trotsky.

As a case in point, recently I made some commentary about the theory of student power in the 1960s and its eventual refutation by the May 1968 General Strike lead by the working class in France. One of the leading lights for the idea that students were the “new” working class or a “new” vanguard was one Ernest Mandel. Mandel held himself out to be an orthodox Marxist (and Trotskyist, to boot) but that did not stop him from, periodically, perhaps daily, changing the focus of his work away from the idea of the centrality of the working class in social struggle, an idea that goes back to the days of Marx himself.

And Mandel, a brilliant well-spoken erudite scholar probably was not the worst of the lot. The problem was that “he was the problem” with his impressionistic theories based on, frankly, opportunistic impulses. Another example, from that same period, was the idea of Professor Regis Debray (in the service of Fidel at the time ) that guerrilla foci out in the hills were the way forward ( a codification of the experience of the Cuban Revolution for which many subjective revolutionary paid dearly with their lives out in bloody nomadic jungles of the American continent). Or the anti-Marxist Maoist notion codifying the experiences of the third Chinese revolution that the countryside (the “third world with its then predominant peasantry now increasingly proletarianized) would defeat the cities (mainly the West but the Soviet Union as well in some circles) that flamed the imagination of many Western radicals in the late 1960s. I could go on with more examples but they only lead to one conclusion- we are, among other things, in a theoretical trough. The late Mandel’s students from the 1960s have long gone on to academia and the professions (and not an inconsiderable few in governmental harness-how the righteous have fallen). Debray’s guerilla foci have long ago buried their dead and gone back to the cities. The “cities” of the world now including to a great extent China had broken the third world countryside though intense globalization. This, my friends, is why today I have my Help Wanted sign out. Any takers?

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	Friday, February 26, 2016 VFP Issues Statement on Torture Rhetoric In 2016 Presidential Campaign Veterans For Peace believes all torture, including waterboarding, is a human rights violation and constitutes a war crime. We will not defeat terrorism by adopting terrorist tactics. We will not achieve peace by practicing revenge. We will not preserve our precious democracy by abandoning our commitment to human rights. It is appalling that the efficacy of torture is now part of the American conversation. It dehumanizes us when we resort to such baseness. This is not what millions of U.S. military veterans fought for. We should reject such simplistic and vengeful suggestions on the campaign trail. Instead of doubling down on a shameful era, Americans should be turning the page to a new era of peace at home and peace abroad. The tortured logic of waterboarding is not the way to get there. <Full Statement> Back to Top Veterans Challenge Islamophobia Past President Elliott Adams and VFP member John Amidon displayed banner at a Trump rally in Las Vegas which read, Veterans to Mr. Trump:  End Hate Speech Against Muslims. John Amidon holding banner during Trump Rally in Nevada Click image to watch video Statement by Elliott Adams "I'm a Republican and I'm saddened by what I see in the Republican Party today. "A lot of the candidates are kind of screwballs. The party rode the tiger of the Tea Party and the evangelical right and now they're getting eaten.” He added: "I'm very concerned by the hate speech, the politics of hate and fear, the violation of the First Amendment that protects freedom of religion, this hatred of Muslims and xenophobia. America was founded as the great melting pot."  <Full Article courtesy of telegraph.co.uk> Statement by VFP members, Elliott Adams,  Will Covert and Kathleen Hernandez the day before the rally: "As veterans we call on the nation to stand-down from the hate speech, the Veterans Challenge Islamophobia and the religious discrimination. Unless we the people banish this gospel of fear and hate we will find that our Constitution and freedoms are MIA (Missing In Action). As a soldier I took an oath to defend the US Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic. Trump should defend the Constitution too by rejecting his politics of fear and hate. Trump should embrace the All American principle of freedom for all religions and our history as the great American melting pot.” VETERANS write an opinion piece or short statement as to why you think this campaign is important. Send a copy of your statement to shelly@veteransforpeace.org Veterans sign on to our statement. Non-veterans, please support our cause Back to Top Join Us Mar 5-6, 2016 for the Summit on Saudi Arabia Date:  Mar 5-6, 2016 Time: Saturday, 8:00am to 9:00pm | Sunday, 8:00am to 5:00pm Location: The UDC David A. Clarke School of Law (4340 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington, DC 20008) CODEPINK, along with VFP, The Nation Magazine, Institute for Policy Studies, Peace Action, and many other organizations are hosting a two-day summit examining the policies and practices of Saudi Arabia and U.S.-Saudi ties. This Summit will address issues such as human rights; Saudi internal and foreign policy; and the prospects for change inside the kingdom and in U.S.-Saudi relations. For more information, email Andrea at andrea@codepink.org Purchase your ticket today! $20 - $100 sliding scale, includes lunch Back to Top Zinn Fund Request For Proposals Does your chapter have a project to promote peace and justice? The Howard Zinn Fund for Peace and Justice provides support to local chapters to start or to significantly develop ongoing local programs that produce substantive changes for the VFP mission.  Two types of awards are made, depending on available funds: Several Independent Awards of up $500 to support focused local projects which further the VFP mission. One Partnership Award of up to $5,000 to support the development of an ongoing chapter program that will produce significant results for the long-term mission of VFP.  This involves a collaborative process between the chapter team and the Zinn Fund Committee over several months to develop the project and the final proposal.  The collaboration continues during the grant period as the project is implemented and project reports are prepared.  These projects are used to demonstrate VFP activities and to promote support for the VFP mission. The deadline for Zinn Fund Applications is Friday March 18 For more information, visit the webpage Howard Zinn Fund. Back to Top This Weekend - Stand With Our Muslim Friends hosted by VFP Smedley Butler Chapter When:  Saturday, Feb 27, 2016              Start time:  11am  Where:  Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center              100 Malcolm x Blvd., Roxbury, MA The chapter is planning a program/rally at the Islamic Society of Boston on Saturday, February 27. This is the largest Mosque in New England, located in Roxbury, MA. We have been working with members of the Mosque to put together a program showing our support, as veterans, for our Muslim friends, neighbors, and co-workers. VFP Board President, Barry Ladendorf is scheduled to speak. Back to Top Save the Date:  March 27-April 2, 2016 - 2nd Annual Shut Down Creech Join us March 27-April 2, 2016 at Creech Air Force Base, Indian Springs, Nevada for a 2nd national mobilization of nonviolent resistance to shut down killer drone operations in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan,Yemen, Somalia and everywhere. Last year 150 activists joined us from 20 different states, including than 50 veterans. Sponsored by: VFP, CODEPINK: Women For Peace, Nevada Desert Experience, Voices for Creative Nonviolence Register Online Visit Website For More Info View and Share Facebook Event Page Back to Top Two Drone Protesters Arrested at Volk Field Air National Guard Base This Week Brian Terrell and Kathy Kelly, appeared before Judge Curran from the Juneau County jail via the jail’s video link.  The two had been held overnight.  They were served documents charging them with trespassing at the “dwelling” of Volk Field.  Pilots train at Volk Field to operate Shadow Drones over other countries. <More> Back to Top 501(c)(3) and Political Election Activity VFP will abide by the 501(c)(3) rules set forth by the law firm Harmon, Curran, Spielberg Eisenberg, LLC regarding political election activity.  The document contains a list of "10 Mistakes Nonprofits Should Avoid in an Election Year" Back to Top John Barr - Presente! John was the second President of Veterans For Peace.  He addressed various audiences with his message of peace, including high schools and colleges.  His contribution to informing and educating citizens about the dangers of nuclear weapons was immense.  He was a good and decent man.  <Obituary> Back to Top Travel Opportunities for Activists Location Sponsored by Dates Contact Việt Nam Việt Nam's  Hoa Binh (Peace) Chapter 160 Mar 14- 30, 2016 For more information, please email Nadya Williams Cuba Code Pink May 2016 Visit the Code Pink website Palestine Interfaith Peacebuilders May 21 - Jun 1 2016 For more information email esiegel@ifpb.org Palestine Interfaith Peacebuilders Jul 16- 29 2016 For more information email esiegel@ifpb.org Palestine Interfaith Peacebuilders Oct   24-Nov     6 2016 For more information email esiegel@ifpb.org Back to Top		In This Issue: VFP Issues Statement on Torture Rhetoric In 2016 Presidential Campaign Veterans Challenge Islamophobia Join Us Mar 5-6, 2016 for the Summit on Saudi Arabia Zinn Fund Request For Proposals This Weekend - Stand With Our Muslim Friends hosted by VFP Smedley Butler Chapter Save the Date:  March 27-April 2, 2016 - 2nd Annual Shut Down Creech VFP Members Can Help Increase VFP's UN Interaction 501(c)(3)s and Political Election Activity John Barr - Presente Travel Opportunities for Activists Two Drone Protesters Arrested at Volk Field Air National Guard Base This Week Wayne Wittman - Presente Seeking VFP Chapter to Host 2017 Convention 2016 Convention Update 2016 Proposed Convention Program VFP Statement of Purpose Available in Other Languages Okinawa Update - Thousands in Japan Rally against U.S. base on Okinawa VFP Members Can Help Increase VFP's UN Interaction Calling All Book Fanatics and VFP Authors! The Drones Quilt Project Needs Your Support Seeking Women Candidates for VFP Board Member Highlights Save the Dates:  Upcoming VFP Endorsed Actions/Events A Thought Worth Remembering! Wayne Wittman - Presente The national office learned yesterday that VFP member, Wayne Wittman, lifetime member and past board member passed away this week.  His celebration of life will be held Sunday Feb 28, 4-7 pm at the St. Paul Labor Federation Hall, 545 W. 7th St, St. Paul.  Funeral Mass 10 am Monday, February 29 at Our Lady of the Presentation Chapel, 1884 Randolph Ave, St. Paul with visitation one hour prior. Mary McNellis of the Minneapolis Chapter 27 has written a beautiful tribute honoring Wayne.  <Tribute> Back to Top Seeking VFP Chapter to Host 2017 Convention The national office is seeking a volunteer chapter to host the 2017 convention.  If interested, please email  shelly@veteransforpeace.org. 2016 Convention Update Theme:  Peace At Home, Peace Abroad A Just and Sustainable Future for the World’s Children   The 2016 convention hosting chapter is VFP San Francisco Chapter 69.  The dates for the convention are Thursday, August 11 thru Monday, August 15 @ University California - Clark Kerr campus in Berkeley CA.  Please note the change from our past program.  This convention will not be Wednesday thru Sunday. Workshop applications will be available starting Mar 4th.  Workshops will be held on Friday and Sunday. Proposed Convention Program Thu, Aug 11 - Presidents Reception/Poetry Reading Fri, Aug 12 - Opening Plenary, Workshop Presentations Sat, Aug 13 - Business Meeting, Banquet Sun, Aug 14 - Workshop Presentations Mon, Aug 15 - Closing Back to Top VFP Statement of Purpose Available in Other Languages VFP's statement of purpose is available from the national office in Chinese, French, German and Spanish.  Please submit this form if you would like to receive a translated copy. Back to Top Okinawa Update - Thousands in Japan Rally against U.S. base on Okinawa Thousands of people surrounded Japan's parliament this past Sunday to protest against government plans to relocate a U.S. military base on Okinawa island.  Many residents of Okinawa say they associate U.S. bases with noise, pollution and crime. <Article courtesy of aol.com> Back to Top VFP Members Can Help Increase VFP's UN Interaction Participants are needed for the 2016 NGO Conference to be held in South Korea in late May/early June.  The planning committee is also seeking participants.  There are several VFP slots available for the conference.  Registration will open soon. Here are a few ways that members can get involved Provide input about counter-recruiting in schools. Run for the Department of Public Information Board -  Elections are held in May.  Email, Ellen Barfield @ ellene4pj@yahoo.com if you are interested in any of these opportunities. 2015 Report on VFP and the UN by Ellen Barfield Back to Top Calling All Book Fanatics and VFP Authors! Whether you're an avid reader or an author, we would like you to consider using the Powell's Books website. VFP has an agreement with Powell's to earn 7.5% on online book sales.  Avid readers, not only do you have the luxury of choosing a book from the VFP bookshelf, any book purchased on the site will satisfy our agreement as long as you use this link when you first enter the site.  If you're an author, add your book on the site! Submit this form with the title of your book, ISBN number and we post it to the site.   It is up to you to supply inventory to the site. Back to Top The Drones Quilt Project Needs Your Support The Drones Quilt Project (DQP) is looking for VFP chapters to host the DQP exhibit in their towns.  Several VFP chapters have already done this, and they have been very worthwhile events.  The DQP exhibit consists of 1-10 quilts which memorialize the victims of combat drones, and 4 posters which explain the immorality and illegality of the weaponized drones program.  Please consider bringing the DQP exhibit to your town!  Contact Leah Bolger, leahbolger@comcast.net, or 541-207-7761, to schedule the exhibit. Back to Top Seeking Women Candidates for VFP Board If you are interested in becoming a Board member, please send a short resume including a statement explaining why you are interested in serving as a VFP Board member to Board President Barry Ladendorf bdlvfp@gmail.com or call the VFP National Office 314-725-6005 to speak to the Executive Director Michael T. McPhearson to answer any questions. Back to Top New VFP Tote Bag Union made canvas tote with shoulder  strap, Measures 18 inches wide x 15 inches high x 5 inches deep. $10 Order today Back to Top Member Highlights F. Lincoln Grahlfs, WWII veteran and  member of Clarence Kailin Chapter 25 in Southern Wisconsin is proposing to designate July 16th, as  Atomic Veterans Recognition Day.  <Read his proposal> Col Ann Wright, was asked by an Aljazeeran reporter for her thoughts on the recent talk of making Aegis Ashore test facility in Hawaii an operational facility.  <Article courtesy of america.aljazeera.com> Back to Top Save the Dates:  Upcoming VFP Endorsed Actions/Events Feb 27 - Muslims Are NOT our Enemy Rally in Boston MA Mar 1-25 - Art Display:  Peace is Patriotic: A Soldier’s (mis)Remembrances in Maryville, TN Mar 5-6, 2016 - 2016 Summit on Saudi Arabia in Washington, DC Mar 27- April 2, 2016 - Shut Down Creech AFB outside of Las Vegas, NV Mar 30 - Inside Drone Warfare: Perspectives of Whistleblowers, Families of Drone Victims and Their Lawyers in Las Vegas, NV Apr 15 - GDAMS (Global Day Against Military Spending) Apr 22 - Earth Day May 14-21 - Sam's 5th Annual Ride for Peace, Raleigh, NC to Washington, DC May 23-25 - VFP 2nd Annual Lobby Days May 30 — Memorial Day (Observed) Jul 27 - Korean War Armistice Day Aug 11-15, 2016 - VFP Annual Convention at Clark Kerr campus of University of California Berkeley, CA Sep 21—International Day of Peace Oct 7-10 - First SOAW bi-national convergence at the U.S./Mexico border in Nogales, Arizona Nov 11 - Armistice Day Back to Top A Thought Worth Remembering! Man has no right to kill his brother. It is no excuse that he does so in uniform: he only adds the infamy of servitude to the crime of murder....Bysshe Shelley Back to Top
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