COMING EVENTS + ONLINE OPPORTUNITIES — Early May 2021 and beyond The attached document was created on May 7, 2021. See the attached document for many events and opportunities on a wide variety of issues. Live links can connect you with more information. CALENDAR — Early May 2021 and beyond
For nearly 20 years the U.S. has waged a horribly expensive (trillions of dollars) and horribly deadly (many, many, many thousands of deaths) war that accomplished NOTHING. US to Withdraw from Afghanistan after Two Decades of War Leaving Behind Tortured Wasteland Having Accomplished Nothing: https://www.opednews.com/articles/US-to-Withdraw-from-Afghan-by-Scott-Ritter-911-Truth_Afghanistan-Pullout_Afghanistan-War_Architects-And-Engineers-For-911-Truth-210416-123.html Now President Biden announced that he will withdraw U.S. troops. People are happy with that. But people do NOT know that THE WAR WILL CONTINUE without U.S. troops. The U.S. continues its reckless, deadly drone war, and also continues to arm factions throughout the region. The overall U.S. foreign policy in that region (and elsewhere) […]
This article says the Pentagon budget is too huge. It urges Biden to cut it: https://www.juancole.com/2020/11/pentagon-couldnt-pandemic.html If President Biden is Smart, He’ll End America’s Forever Wars and Pour the Money into Jobs at Home: https://www.juancole.com/2020/11/president-americas-forever.html Joe Biden plans to appoint a board member of a giant military weapons manufacturer to be Secretary of Defense! Biden, who has a long history as a supporter of wars and big business, is reportedly planning to appoint a member of one of the U.S.’s biggest corporations manufacturing military weapons to be Secretary of Defense. We need to “drain the swamp,” not make it swampier, as Trump […]
November 11 became a holiday because it was the day when World War I ended in 1918 with an armistice. It was called “Armistice Day,” a holiday DEDICATED TO SUPPORTING PEACE. Later it got hijacked into a day to CELEBRATE WAR in the guise of celebrating military veterans. But the subtext is really intended to glorify war. It’s OK to recognize veterans, but the emphasis on people who have worked in the military seems disproportionate, when many other kinds of workers — health care workers, teachers, artists, social service workers, etc. — do useful work and deserve appreciation too. My brother […]
Military recruiters AGGRESSIVELY target students. Most high schools ROUTINELY give military recruiters the names, addresses and phone numbers of the schools’ students. If you are a student — or know someone who is — you can “OPT OUT” of this invasion of privacy. Print out this form, fill it out, and turn it in to your school: Opt Out from Military Recruiters — 11-inch form
Since the 1960s I have devoted all of my adult life to working for peace, nonviolence, social justice, and related issues. Sometimes people ask me how I started in this. Here is a bit of information about my spiritual and ethical grounding for peace. I grew up in a mainstream Lutheran church. Although it taught the usual middle-of-the-road theology, I recognized that underneath was the very radical message of Jesus and his early followers. Jesus and his early followers were promoting a new society that would be radically nonviolent, radically inclusive, and radically egalitarian. Mainstream theology missed this larger, more […]
In January 2020 — and previously — I had reported that the U.S. government was seriously studying what to do about the military draft. Here is my blog post from January 2020: http://parallaxperspectives.org/tell-congress-to-abolish-the-agency-that-runs-the-military-draft You can see my blog’s category for posts about military service to see the previous posts. On March 25, 2020, the National Commission on the Military, National and Public Service has ended its three years of effort and produce an official report that recommends REQUIRING WOMEN TO REGISTER FOR THE MILITARY DRAFT. Draft inductions ended in 1973. Draft registration ended in 1975, but President Jimmy Carter brought […]
Olympia’s Veterans for Peace chapter (#109, the Rachel Corrie Chapter — https://veteransforpeace109.org) has a TV series on Thurston Community Television (Thurston Community Media, www.tcmedia.org) that provides interesting information for veterans and everybody else. Each episode airs THREE TIMES A WEEK: MON 5:00 pm, THURS 8:00 pm, and SAT 2:00 pm. The TV program’s episode that is starting in late February 2020 focuses on Iran and related aspects of U.S. foreign policy. Mark Fleming interviews Peter Bohmer and Glen Anderson. Mark provides background information since the early 1900s that lays out the context for what has happened from 1953 through the present time. […]
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/1/13/1911201/-Pranksters-paste-Donald-Trump-Jr-recruitment-poster-on-Armed-Forces-Career-Center?detail=emaildkre
Overwhelmingly huge percentages of the American people support various proposals for reducing gun violence (background checks, denying guns to domestic violence abusers, banning assault weapons, etc.). Several nationwide, statewide and local groups keep promoting these worthy proposals. I support them. But they are OVERLOOKING THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM! The U.S.’s VIOLENT, MILITARISTIC FOREIGN POLICY assumes that shooting people solves problems! Our federal government spends BILLIONS OF OUR TAX DOLLARS to promote that mistaken notion. The federal government SETS A BAD EXAMPLE for ordinary people who follow the government’s bad example that SHOOTING PEOPLE would solve their problems! If the […]
The U.S. law creating the military draft was passed in 1940. It has oppressed generations of young Americans. Now we have the opportunity to REPEAL THE LAW and abolish the Selective Service System, the federal agency that runs the military draft. In April 2019 I posted to my blog this information: http://parallaxperspectives.org/urgent-tell-the-u-s-govt-to-stop-draft-registration The government accepted public comments until September 30, 2019. Here is some information about that. The U.S. National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service invited comments. Many people made points such as these: 1. Stop requiring men to register for the draft. 2. Do not extend that […]
See insights, strategies, and a new book at this link: https://wagingnonviolence.org/rs/2019/10/what-if-the-government-abolished-the-military/
A society creates special places and builds statues to express what it values. The U.S. has many monuments glorifying militarism, so it’s obvious that the U.S. clearly values war. We would be a better society if we were to honor peace — and the courageous peace organizers who have sacrificed much (sometimes their lives) in order to resist war and create a nonviolent world. See this article: https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2019/12/08/where-are-the-national-anti-war-monuments/
Some people know this story, but many people do not. It is indeed possible for soldiers fighting a brutal war to STOP — AND PRACTICE PEACE — even for one day. On Christmas Day, 1914, British and German soldiers fighting brutal trench warfare during World War I stopped, laid down their weapons, got out of their trenches, and joined together face-to-face to enjoy human solidarity. If they can do it for one day, why can’t we do that EVERY day — and STOP WAR ALTOGETHER? Read this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_truce I RECOMMEND THIS SONG VERY HIGHLY!!! “Christmas in […]
Militarism is so pervasive throughout American society that it hurts many aspects of our nation, including democracy — and actually WEAKENS our nation! See this interesting and powerful article: https://www.nationofchange.org/2019/10/25/killing-me-softly-with-militarism/
Copyright © 2024 | WordPress Theme by MH Themes