Friday, February 09, 2018

VFP eNews: Olympic Truce Action, Women Call for Action and More!

 
If you'd like to view this email in a Web browser, please click here.

Join Veterans Challenge Islamophobia Week of Actions

Starting January 27th, join Veterans For Peace and the Veterans Challenge Islamophobia campaign for the We Are All America week of action. Lasting through February 3rd, actions are planned to protest the one-year anniversary of the first iteration of the Muslim Ban and show solidarity with those still impacted by the current bans on people from nine Muslim-majority nations and refugees.
Veterans For Peace, Veterans Challenge Islamophobia and countless other local and national Muslim, immigrant, refugee, and civil rights organizations have joined together to keep up the public pressure and media coverage to stop the Muslim and refugee bans now. January 27th is a critical date, as people and policy makers across the country remember the actions they took that day and can be challenged to recommit to solidarity with Muslims, refugee, and all people targeted by this administration.
If you haven’t yet, sign the VCI Statement
Veterans For Peace Chapters and Members - Email challenge@veteransforpeace.org to let us know how you are participating or to get more information on organizing and events near you.

Stop Banking the Bomb


Veterans For Peace and the VFP Golden Rule Project are proud to endorse the Stop Banking The Bomb campaign against PNC Bank.
About the Campaign
The Stop Banking The Bomb campaign against PNC Bank is one part of an international strategy to get the U.S. government to listen to its people. PNC Bank has loaned $1.186 billion dollars to eight corporations who manufacture nuclear weapons. As the seventh largest bank in the U.S., we believe if PNC Bank “divests” of these immoral loans, they will send a powerful message to the U.S. government and the whole world.
Campaign organizers will be contacting local VFP chapters and providing them with an "Action Pack" so that they are resourced to carry out simple, but powerful actions at their local PNC bank branches.
Visit their Facebook page.

Take Action for Ahed Tamimi

16-year-old Palestinian Ahed Tamimi hasn’t seen a day of freedom. She's spent her youth protesting a foreign army that has jailed, shot, and killed her unarmed relatives. After defending her home from Israeli invasion, she now faces years in prison.
Michael Hanes wrote on facebook: "We stayed with the Tamimi family in Nabi Saleh Palestine. We stayed with Mr. Bassem Tamimi as representatives of Veterans for Peace. We witnessed the bullying from Israeli soldiers as they attacked children and women. I was physically assaulted and all of us were gassed and had live rounds shot in our direction. The reality of how the State of Israel and it's leaders are behaving with blatant crimes against humanity needs to be called out and stopped! My heart goes out to the Tamimi family for all you have and are currently enduring. Your voice and actions are echoes of strength for all of humanity."
If you would like to show support for Ahed Tamimi, and let Israel know the world is watching, flood her jail with mail. Send cards to:
Ahed Tamimi
HaSharon Prison
Ben Yahuda
PO Box 7
40 330 Israel
And share this video from IMEU (Institute for Middle East Understanding) on Facebook

Back to Top

Athletes for Peace: Open Letter to the U.S. Olympic Committee

As former and current atheltes, we value the Olympic spirit and tradition of bringing men and women from diverse nations together for peaceful competition and performance. The Olympic Truce represents an important opportunity to defuse tensions and begin the work of reconciliation on the Korean peninsula. We therefore call upon the US Olympic Committee to fully support both Korean governments’ current efforts to restore a peace process.
We in the United States have a special responsibility to demand diplomacy, not war, with North Korea. Let us firmly take hold of the opportunity provided by these winter Olympics to bring this long standing, dangerous and damaging conflict to a peaceful and positive resolution.
Athletes for Peace is initiated by Massaschusetts Peace Action and we invite all peace-loving organizations to cosponsor it with us and participate in a coordinating committee.
Find out more ways to take action during the Olympic Truce!

Sailing for a Nuclear-Free World - A Party with a Purpose

The Veterans For Peace Golden Rule Project will be hosting a fundraising event February 25th in Newport Beach. Guests will be invited to see the Golden Rule, which will be docked right next to the venue, and to enjoy wine, snacks, conversation with the crew, the premiere of the film “Peace Sail: The Story of the Golden Rule” and a silent auction.
This once-in-a-lifetime party will be on Sunday February 25, from 3-5 pm at the Newport Boy Scout Sea Base (1931 West Coast Highway, Newport, CA). Tickets will be $30,available at EventBrite

For more information, see our website!

VFP HATS ARE BACK


VFP HATS ARE BACK IN STOCK!
We are happy to announce that VFP hats are back in stock after a manufacturing delay throughout the holidays.
In This Issue:

Olympic Truce Action: Diplomacy NOT War

The Winter Olympics and Paralympics, to be held in Pyeongchang, South Korea, offer a unique moment to promote peace on the Korean Peninsula. On a very encouraging note, in November 2017, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution calling for an Olympic Truce, or a cessation of hostilities during the Winter Games, which gained the support of 157 Member States including both Koreas and future hosts of the Olympic Games: Japan, China, France and the United States.
The Olympic Truce represents an important opportunity to defuse tensions and begin the work of reconciliation on the Korean peninsula. The United States should fully support both Korean governments' current efforts to restore a peace process.  Veterans For Peace has issued a statement of support for these unity efforts.
Let's build on this momentum! We in the United States have a special responsibility to demand diplomacy, not war, with North Korea. An ad hoc network, the Korea Collaboration, calls for weeks of action during the Winter Olympics (February 9 - 25) and Paralympics (March 9 - 18), as well as the broader period of the Olympic Truce (February 2 to March 25). We call on groups and individuals to organize actions or other events in your communities.
p.s. Check out the Korea Peace Campaign for more ways to get involved in Veterans For Peace efforts and resources to learn more about Korea.

VFP Signs on to Letter Requesting Extension of TPS for Syria

TPS is set to expire for Syria on March 31, 2018. TPS is temporary protected status that is designated for countries that are experiencing ongoing armed conflict, environmental disasters, extraordinary country conditions among others.
There are a number of groups, who are fighting to make sure that TPS is re-designated and extended for Syrian nationals.
Over 500,000 people have been killed, 6 million are internally displaced and suffer from food insecurity in Syria. 2 million persons were displaced in 2017 alone, with 6,550 persons displaced a everyday due to violence. Currently there are approximately 6,900 Syrians with TPS status in the United States.

The Veterans For Peace "Save Our VA" Work Group Needs Your Help!

The Veterans for Peace Work Group is seeking volunteers to help Save Our VA!  There is a lot to do and a variety of ways to get involved!  We hope to help set up 100 or more Save Our VA Action Teams in 100 or so communities with VA healthcare facilities in January and February of 2018.
"IF YOU ARE WILLING TO TRY TO HELP US, PLEASE COMPLETE AND SUBMIT THIS SURVEY.  We will then contact you about helping to organize this effort.  What ever local people decide - that is what will be done.  This is NOT a top down driven effort.  We, as members of the Vets for Peace Work Group, will try our best to help your local team be successful by giving advice where we can!"
There are still some banners available for ordering for a discounted fee, contact Buzz Davis for details!
Also if you and your members have images of your "Save the VA" banners or actions, post them here! Make sure you comment with information after you upload!

Women Call For Action On Many Injustices At March

Monique Salhab of Veterans for Peace did two tours in Iraq and 10 years in the service. "I think about what the military represents to women," she said from the stage, "not only in the service but also throughout the world. The military represents violation, represents consumption."  Read the whole article
Also check out this note from Spokane!
We put together a table and parade contingent for the Women's March, Sunday January 21st. Many thanks to all those who helped set up, take down, tabling and parading!! Special acknowledgements go out to Daisy and Beverly who carried our parade banner. Also to Earl who helped throughout the entire event. Also to our reliable standby contributors, George, Arthur, Jay, Tom, Jim & Alice, and Hollis. Mikel & Kay were also spotted in the crowd. Our friends, Valery, and Dave B. joined us periodically. Thanks for extra effort from Rusty and Nancy for parading and tabling. And recognition to Michael for ordering brochures on "What Every Girl Should Know Before Joining The Military," for arranging donations, and for handing out brochures at the vendor's fair!
Feb 25 - Sailing for a Nuclear Free World-A Party with a Purpose, Newport Beach, California
March 3-8 - Greenpeace Action Camp
May 14-16 - 2018 UN High Level Conference on Nuclear Disarmament, United Nations, New York
June 24-July 1 - Action Week Against Air Base Ramstein, Germany
July 9-10 - NO to NATO Counter Summit, Brussels, Belgium
July 10-18 - International Action Camp Against Nuclear Weapons in Germany, Buchel, Germany
Aug 23-26 - 2018 VFP National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota
Sept 19-21 - 2nd Annual Conference in Havana, Cuba on "Realities and Challenges of Being a Zone of Peace in Latin America and the Caribbean"

Veterans For Peace, 1404 N. Broadway, St. Louis, MO 63102

Veterans For Peace appreciates your tax-exempt donations.
We also encourage you to join our ranks.


Footer
Posted by at No comments:

The Atlantic: The Fair Food Program “represents hope for workers in an industry where, for generations, there’s been very little…”

t  
The Atlantic: The Fair Food Program “represents hope for workers in an industry where, for generations, there’s been very little…”
Investigative reporting out of The Atlanticcharts devastating history of sexual violence in agriculture, identifies FFP as “source of hope” for the industry…
Last week, The Atlantic, one of the country’s longest-running magazines, published an in-depth piece on the prevalence of sexual violence in U.S. agriculture. After months of extensive research, both historical and of the current agricultural industry, the magazine singled out the CIW’s Fair Food Program as a rare example of success in combatting the scourge of farmworker sexual abuse, offering a ray of hope not only for agriculture, but for other low-wage industries across the country as well.

In the first section of The Atlantic’s extensive article, entitled “There’s a Sexual Harassment Epidemic on America’s Farms,” the author paints a bleak picture of farm labor conditions beyond the protections of the Fair Food Program. She examines the most recent forced labor operation brought to justice by the CIW’s Anti-Slavery Program, which took place on a small farm just 30 minutes from Immokalee in an area aptly named “Devil’s Garden”. The workers’ lawsuit took six long and painful years to resolve in civil court and resulted in a $3.5 million settlement. Through an extended interview with one of the survivors of the case, who faced both forced labor and sexual assault in the fields at the hands of her supervisor, Tapia Reyes-Ortiz, The Atlantic piece offers some of the most extensive reporting yet on the notorious forced labor operation...
Get highlights from The Atlantic's article on sexual violence in agriculture and the Fair Food Program at the CIW website!
Coalition of Immokalee Workers
Connect with us
Facebook   Twitter   Instagram   YouTube
Coalition of Immokalee Workers | 110 S 2nd St, Immokalee, FL 34142
Unsubscribe alfredjohnson34@comcast.net
Update Profile | About our service provider
Sent by workers@ciw-online.org in collaboration with
Trusted Email from Constant Contact - Try it FREE today.
Try it free today
Posted by at No comments:

Latest Space Alert newsletter now online

Global Network
To  Global Network  
space alertGN Winter-Spring 2018 Newsletter
 
You can read our latest Space Alert newsletter by clicking on this link. 
 
‘Mad Dog’ Mattis is talking about using nuclear weapons and pledging to win a war in space.  This is a dangerous moment. Hang onto your hat and get organized!
 
 
 
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 652
Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 443-9502
http://www.space4peace.org 
http://space4peace.blogspot.com  (blog)

Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth. - Henry David Thoreau
Posted by at No comments:

"SAVE OUR VA", STOP THE KOCH BROTHERS AND PRIVATE HEALTHCARE EXECUTIVES FROM PRIVATIZING AND THUS DESTrOYING OUR VA.

"SAVE OUR VA", STOP THE KOCH BROTHERS AND PRIVATE HEALTHCARE EXECUTIVES FROM PRIVATIZING AND THUS DESTrOYING OUR VA.
This is our Smedley VFP event, Please forward this to friends and other organizations you know!!!


Inline image 2




Join us to help
SAVE VA HEALTHCARE
Featuring author Suzanne Gordon “Battle for Veterans’ Healthcare” with a Panel discussion on current policy making and patient care

VFW, POST 529, 371 Summer Street,
Somerville, MA., 02144
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7th, 6:30 - 8:30 PM




The Veterans Health Administration is under attack by groups who are trying to eliminate government programs and pushing the idea that only the private sector ‘works’.  Polls show that up to 80% of veterans reject this and want to keep our VA Healthcare System.
SPONSORED BY:     Veterans For Peace,   BOSTON. CHAPTER 9, “SMEDLEY D. BUTTLER BRIGADE”



-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "SmedleyVFP" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to Smedleyvfp+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Posted by at No comments:

Accompaniment in Honduras How can we be free when our sisters and brothers are not?

 

Accompaniment in Honduras

How can we be free when our sisters and brothers are not? 
 
by Ken Jones
 
As the bus was taking our accompaniment delegation to Honduras to the airport for our return home, it stopped by the offices of Radio Progreso. Piling on to the bus came some twenty staff members of the station to bid us goodbye. Each of them greeted us with an embrace, a kiss, or a clasp of hands expressing heartfelt gratitude for our having come to be with them at this dangerous and chaotic time in their country. It was a striking gesture of affection that deeply touched us, the visiting delegates.
We came to this country at the urgent request of SHARE El Salvador, a humanitarian aid organization with a long history of solidarity work in Central America. Police and military repression in Honduras since the overtly fraudulent elections in November 2017 has been getting worse, with over thirty people killed and more than one thousand in jails. Death threats aimed at those who are raising their voices the loudest are getting more overt and intense.
In particular, the life of Jesuit priest and native Honduran Father Ismael Moreno, known as Padre Melo, is in danger. Possibly as well known as the assassinated Berta Caceres, Melo is the director of Radio Progreso, an independent station that reports on human rights violations, police and military abuses, and the work of dissidents and protectors of the land and waters. A humble and soft-spoken man, he is a spiritual and political leader who has not minced words as he has pointed to the illegal and brutal behaviors of the Honduran government and elites. He has also denounced the United States for its support of the regime, and for its hypocrisy in certifying Honduras as having an acceptable human rights record. Now his picture is featured on a flyer being circulated purporting to depict terrorists in El Progreso, in what could well be a prelude to his assassination.
The organizers of our delegation had originally hoped that a handful of faith leaders could come on very short notice to accompany and protect Padre Melo, as well as others, and to witness and report on what is happening on the ground as the cycles of demonstrations and police repression escalate. Surprisingly, fifty people – mostly clergy - got on a plane and arrived on January 24 to spend a week meeting with Radio Progreso staff and grass roots activists, listen to stories from family members of victims of the repression, attend street demonstrations, marches, and vigils as observers, take part in religious ceremonies, and generally listen and observe.
Most of us knew the history we were walking into: the 2009 coup when President Zelaya was arrested in his pajamas by the military and flown out of the country; the immediate support of the U.S. for the new coup regime; the subsequent mass repression of the people; the corruption of political leaders as they have colluded with multinational corporations to steal land and exploit mineral resources; the assassinations of dissidents such as Berta Caceres; the impunity of the police and military; the flagrant violation of domestic and international law.
Then came the elections of 2017. Salvador Nasralla of the opposition Libre party was well ahead in the count when the ballot count was halted, supposedly by a glitch in the computer system. Twenty-one days later, the Supreme Electoral Tribune announced that Juan Orlando Hernandez, the incumbent, had been re-elected.
It was a transparently fraudulent election. Not only was the process full of so-called “irregularities,” the very fact that Orlando Hernandez was running for a second term was expressly forbidden by the Honduran constitution. Ironically, the rationale used for the ousting of Zelaya in 2009 was that he was conspiring to run for a second term. And here was Hernandez, the chosen one of the elites, doing exactly that and getting away with it.
In this context, one might expect demonstrations of dissent in any democratic society. But Honduras can scarcely be called a democracy at this point. People in the streets are understandably carrying signs calling their government a dictatorship. They are denouncing Hernandez and endlessly chanting for his ouster with the cry of “Fuera JOH!” They take roads and block traffic. They stand face-to-face with integrated forces of counterinsurgency-trained police and military in their riot gear with their armored cars, shields, water cannons, and seemingly endless supply of tear gas. All financed and supplied by the U.S.A.
It is breathtaking to see the courage and tenacity of the people. They know the dangers they face because so many of their loved ones have been victimized by this regime. When we listened to the families of the victims, we heard one story after another. Jose Luis was trying to leave a protest when he was shot in the face. He lost an eye. Maria’s husband was walking home from work in an area near where a protest was happening when he was shot, near his home. He is now paralyzed and brain damaged. When his son ran out of the house to help him, he was arrested, and bathed in pepper spray. A woman in tears told us how her husband was shot and taken to a hospital. He was judged to be in good condition. But then he was visited in his room by two military men who accompanied him to the operating room, where he died on the operating table. His wife has filed denunciations with the police and says she is now persecuted and followed.
As members of our delegation attended a street demonstration one evening, they got a ride home from a former legislator, Bertolo Fuentes, who is known for speaking out against the government. Fuentes is living in dangerous circumstances – his picture is in the center of the flyer that also targets Padre Melo, calling him a terrorist. As he was driving our fellow delegates home, Fuentes got a call that four uniformed policemen were invading his house. The police had pointed guns at the heads of his wife and son and had  dragged his son from the house and kicked and beaten him. Fuentes immediately turned around and sped to his house. When the delegate group arrived, the policemen quickly left.
Some of our delegates, including a journalist, traveled to Pajuiles, where there is a small encampment of people next to a hydroelectric project being built, at the entrance to their community. Nearby are two squads of fully integrated military, police, and military police that have been at this post since before the elections. There our delegates learned that on Tuesday, January 23 around 4 am, a 35-year old agricultural worker and father of five was dragged out of his home and executed by the police. He was shot more than 40 times in the back of his head and torso, by a military/police patrol, his mother and brother watching from nearby. The police and military post is less than 300 meters from where the man was killed. There has been no investigation or even mention by the police of the incident. Thursday night, the same day of the funeral, the police threw gas bombs into the community. This was confirmed by one police officer who spoke to our group.
At the end of the week, our delegation was able to meet with staff at the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa, including Chargé d’Affaire Heide Fulton, the acting head of the embassy since President Trump has not filled the ambassador position in Honduras. We told them these stories and more.
We explained how the violence of the state is causing people to flee. How, in fact, the U.S. sponsorship of this regime is a cause for the migration that so concerns politicians in our country, to which we have responded with our militarized border, walls, and prisons. And we pointed out that revoking the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Honduran refugees would only worsen the situation in Honduras, causing more and more suffering and deaths in Honduras.
We explained how these very same conditions in Honduras were the same conditions many of us saw in El Salvador in the 1970s and 1980s. How Honduras could be looking at a much worse problem in the near future. How, in fact, the people we talked to in Honduras very much fear this will be the case after the inauguration of Hernandez, when the eyes of the world are no longer on Honduras. They fear the hammer will come down on them for their opposition.
We urged the State Department officials to hear us and to take the following immediate actions:
1.     Protect the lives of dissenters, in particular Padre Melo; 2.     Insist that the government stop using militarized policing to repress demonstrators; 3.     Release political prisoners who are being dragged off to jails for dissenting; 4.     Acknowledge that this was a fra…
We certainly had little expectation of a favorable response from these State Department officials, but we were nonetheless surprised at the tone deafness and bureaucratic defensiveness of Ms. Fulton’s reply. She instructed us that the State Department mission there is to “improve security, fight corruption, increase prosperity, and strengthen historically weak institutions.” She said that the country does not have enough police to provide security and that the U.S is remedying this. She said she would like to see factual evidence of what we were telling her we had seen and heard, and stated that “there are two sides to every story.” She said she had not heard about any illegal detentions. And she said that since the Honduran constitution does not provide for a new election option, the U.S. could not do anything other than work for reforms that improved the process next time. 
Of course, Fulton did not acknowledge the historic role the U.S. has played in Honduras, and indeed throughout Latin America and the world, in fostering the very conditions of destabilization that we witnessed, supporting repressive regimes, and undermining democratic structures and institutions. She didn’t blink when she said there was nothing the U.S. could do about the fraudulent election in Honduras, its client state. In the face of hearing the heartfelt testimony and pleas from this largely religious delegation, the trained diplomat came back with the expected dispassionate company line. As one delegate said, it showed the typical U.S. government “heart of stone.”
The next day, we got on the bus and headed to the airport. When we were thanked and so warmly sent on our way by the staff of Radio Progreso, we were reminded how remarkable the people of this country are. They continue in their courageous struggle with good humor, graciousness, and resilience, despite the grim repression they face. Many of us expressed our gratitude to them in return, for inspiring us to call on these inner strengths ourselves, even in the hardest of times, for protecting us, and for giving us a glimpse of the dictatorship our government supports.
On the plane home, still feeling the embraces of solidarity, I recalled the saying that is attributed to Lila Watson, an indigenous Australian: “If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”
How can we be free when our sisters and brothers are not? La luche sigue.
Ken Jones is a retired professor of teacher education living in Swannanoa, NC.
Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)