Capitol
Hill Update, June 2009
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Support
Bill to Prevent War:
202.225.3131
Call and
urge your Representative
to support the Foreign Relations
Authorization Act (H.R.
2410), a bill that would
significantly strengthen
the tools of diplomacy,
development and international
cooperation in the United
States. More
info.
(When
you call, leave your name
and address!)
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The
Disease of Permanent War
By
Chris Hedges, Alternet.
| May 19, 2009
Defense
and military industries in permanent
war, he wrote, trash economies.
They are able to upend priorities.
They redirect government
expenditures toward their huge military
projects and starve domestic investment
in the name of national security.
We produce sophisticated fighter
jets, while Boeing is unable to
finish its new commercial plane
on schedule. Our automotive industry
goes bankrupt. We sink money
into research and development of
weapons systems and neglect renewable
energy technologies to fight global
warming. Universities are flooded
with defense-related cash and grants,
and struggle to find money for environmental
studies. This is the disease of
permanent war.
Massive
military spending in this country,
climbing to nearly $1 trillion
a year and consuming half of all
discretionary spending, has a
profound social cost. Bridges
and levees collapse. Schools decay.
Domestic manufacturing declines.
Trillions in debts threaten the
viability of the currency and
the economy. The poor, the mentally
ill, the sick and the unemployed
are abandoned. Human suffering,
including our own, is the price
for victory. |
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Mother's
Day for Peace Events!
More
photos on our Facebook page!
Arkansas
WAND Mother's Day for Peace
May 7, 2009 | Read
an account from Sen. Nan
Grogan Orrock (GA), WiLL
president here.
Michigan Mother’s Peace Day Breakfast On
May 8, 2009, WAND Southeast
Michigan held its annual
Mothers' Peace Day
Breakfast, honoring three
brilliant activists in the
Detroit area. The guest
speaker was Dr. Wanda Cook-Robinson,
Superintendent of Southfield
Public Schools, and recent
honoree of Wayne State University
as educator of the year.
The Theme and topic was
Building a Better Michigan:
Whatever it Takes.
Georgia
WAND celebrated 25 years
of women, power, peace!
The
Georgia WAND 25th anniversary
was a wonderful evening,
packed crowd, high spirits,
laudable awardees, and inspiring
words – Janisse Ray
commented to me as the evening
closed, “this was
all done with such loving
attention to every detail!”
and how right she was!
Like
the Dew posted a blog
about the GA event; good
reading!
"Janisse Ray expands
on cracker ecology"
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Arkansas
WAND is filming a documentary
Arkansas
WAND was given a grant to document the non-violence
curriculum at Wooddruff
School
in Little Rock; this picture is from an excursion
to Murray Park
celebrating 300 days without
a fight. This is one of the
few schools in Arkansas with a non violence
curriculum and sadly it is closing
this year. We are hoping this
short documentary will show
how important it is to start
early on teaching children to
attack the problem and not the
person. WAND
plans to distribute the film
to schools over Arkansas.
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Congress
met Oregon WAND community!
Three
members of Oregon WAND traveled
to Portland to meet in the offices
of our new Senator, Jeff Merkley.
Shown here are Jon Isaacs, Merkley's
state director, Susan Cundiff,
chapter leader and Pat Hoover,
a down-winder from Hanford Nuclear
Reservation. Kit Frisinger is
taking the photo.
Sen. Merkley
has already spoken on the Senate
floor in support of Pres. Obama’s
goal for a nuclear free world.
Oregon WAND will continue to
urge the Senator to take a leadership
role as we strive to pass the
CTBT and update START.
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| The
Test Ban Treaty
New
York Times Editorial | May
24, 2009
...One
can shrug and say that such
treaties are leftovers from
the cold war. That is wrong,
especially in a world where
nuclear appetites are growing.
A
test ban will make it technologically
much harder for other countries
to press ahead with weapons
development. And if Washington
has any hope of rallying diplomatic
pressure and economic sanctions
for constraining Iran’s
nuclear ambitions or North Korea’s
program, it has to show that
it, too, is willing to play
by the international rules.
For both of those reasons, the
Senate needs to ratify the test
ban treaty.
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Obama
Seeks Advice on Nuclear Weapons
By Sheryl Gay Stolberg | New
York Times | May 19, 2009
...he
followed up with a high-powered
meeting in the Oval Office with
four men who, he said, inspired
his policy: Republicans George
Shultz and Henry Kissinger, both
former secretaries of state; and
Democrats Sam Nunn, the former
senator, and William Perry, a
former defense secretary...
Mr.
Obama convened the session amid
rising concerns about nuclear
weapons in nations like North
Korea, Iran and Pakistan; his
administration is planning to
engage in multilateral talks with
Iran over the issue. On Monday,
Mr. Obama told Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel that
he hoped to know by the end of
this year if those talks were
making progress.
On
Tuesday, the president suggested
“some very specific steps’’
to reduce the dangers posed by
nuclear weapons, including revitalizing
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty, which does not include
nuclear powers like India and
Pakistan, and moving forward on
a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty,
which bans nuclear explosions
but has not yet been put into
effect. |
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McCain
makes speech on world free of
nuclear weapons
Good
summary from The Hill newspaper
| McCain’s
full statement | President
Obama’s response
On
June 3, 2009, Sen. John McCain
made a speech on the Senate floor
enumerating his support for a
world free of nuclear weapons.
Citing Secretaries of State Henry
Kissinger and George Shultz, former
Secretary of Defense William Perry
and Senator Sam Nunn, as well
as the late president Ronald Reagan,
McCain enthusiastically
embraced the vision of ridding
the world of nuclear weapons.
Calling
for drastic cuts in the U.S. nuclear
arsenal to "the lowest number
possible consistent with our security
requirements and global commitments,"
McCain endorsed an international
ban on the spread of fissile material,
and stated his hope for a successful
outcome of the 2010 NPT Review
Conference, "to ensure that
the International Atomic Energy
Agency has the tools to be a meaningful
agent for achieving the dream
of a nuclear weapon free world."
While
not specifically an endorsement
of the particular policy initiatives
outlined in Obama's April 5 Prague
speech, McCain's statement comes
close and is clearly positive
about the importance of keeping
the goal of a world without nuclear
weapons in mind as we address
the near-term issues of START
follow-on, CTBT, and more.
McCain
is certainly not convinced by
John Bolton's diatribes against
the utility of arms control to
U.S. security policy. It also
suggests quite strongly that McCain
is open to the possibility of
CTBT ratification, pending a review
of the technical and strategic
issues.
A
few hours later, the White House
released a statement welcoming
McCain’s views. In the short
press release, President Obama
said that he “[looks] forward
to working with Senator McCain
and the entire Congress to ensure
that we accomplish these goals
together.”
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New
Envoy Faces an Iraq of 2 Minds
About U.S.
By ALISSA RUBIN and ROD NORDLAND
| June 2, 2009 | New
York Times
Among
Iraqis there are two conflicting
views of America’s policy
now: the American military is
leaving too soon, or the American
military is not ever going to
leave.
Persuading
its friends of continued American
support while convincing its skeptics
that the Americans really will
go is the conundrum faced by the
recently installed American ambassador,
Christopher R. Hill. He takes
office at a time of profound change
in the American footprint here,
the end of an era of military
occupation and the beginning of
an era of civilian diplomacy.
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Congratulations
to Judy Chu, soon to be 48th woman
from WAND/WiLL in 111th Congress!
LA
Times
"State
Board of Equalization Vice Chairwoman
Judy Chu won the most votes Tuesday
for the open 32nd Congressional
District seat, running well ahead
of fellow Democrat state Sen.
Gil Cedillo, but she fell short
of the majority needed to avoid
a runoff."
Chu is a shoo-in as the Democrat
nominee to win the final in July. |
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Announcing
a NEW edition of WAND's Faith
Seeking Peace curriculum!
Faith Seeking Peace
is curriculum primarily
for the Christian communities.
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IDEAS,
VISIONS, RESOURCES FOR
A BETTER WORLD |
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