Keep Space for Peace Week

Published on September, 45 2013

By Carol Urner, Co-Chair DISARM/End Wars Issue Committee

In September, we are focusing on Keep Space for Peace Week preparations and supplying resources for branches and membership on drones and other action poosibilities October 5 to 12. Our 2013 campaign for abolition of nuclear weapons also continues.

 

We are sending out this week copies of the poster, the Space Alert fall 2013 newsletter and the event flier which you can use to report your own or Branch planned actions for the week. The mailing of 150 goes to Branch contacts and those few on our committee whose addresses we have. Contact carol.disarm@gmail.com with your name and full address if you want a copy of the poster and event registration flier while supplies last. The Autumn Space Alert  with background and resources for the week is also included.  More posters and fliers should be available from Global Network at the prices given on the event flier. Copies of the newsletter are free though you are asked to pay the postage.

 

Do read the Space Alert online and send it around by email. It is very impressive in color and you can lift off photos and cartoons for your own publicity. Just note the source as Space Alert, Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, Fall 2013. All of these can also be viewed on line along with reports of last year’s events and the list of those planned for this year. Explore the Global Network web pages for more background and resources.  You can also subscribe to Bruce Gagnon’s blog. 

 

By now the ambitious visions of Rumsfeld and Cheney in the Bush administrations have been fully realized. See the initial plan in Vision 2020. The booklet is now out of print but, some 15 years after its first publication by the Pentagon the plan is being carried out and our reorganized military seems well on the way to turning our mother earth  into a barren planet like the one pictured on the cover, surrounded by satellites and the weapons they guide.

 

This is a good opportunity to plan another event on drones which are a horrifying  example of the long list of horrors our new Pentagon programs hold for us. There is even speculation about possible use of drones to carry nuclear weapons. Marge Van Cleef and I will try to help you with more resources specific to your own needs and targets. For coalition work CODE Pink has been one of the strongest and most effective nationally and also participated in KS4P week last year. 

 

Some of you might like to watch two different events at the Democracy Convention in Madison, Wisconsin featuring Medea Benjamin on drones. They were videoed by our DISARM-End Wars co-chair Ellen Thomas during the August 7 to 11 sessions.

 

 

September Steps Toward Global Nuclear Weapons Abolition

 

There is still time to sign the online petition urging President Obama to participate in the first ever high level United Nations meeting on abolition of nuclear weapons. It takes place in New York City on September 26, a few days after the opening of the 67th Session of the General Assembly. RCW will be monitoring and posting analysis and documents at this link.

 

Ellen and I, as DISARM/End Wars co-chairs, now expect to hunker down into Branch by Branch and member by member DISARM Eye on Congress legislative action on HR 1650, which calls for nuclear weapons abolition by 2020. We also plan to follow up with Branches on the US Conference of Mayors 2012 and 2013  resolutions and especially with those Branches in Mayors for Peace Cities.  The three documents and background information and how they fit into our campaign for nuclear weapons abolition by 2020 are all covered in our August newsletter.

 

During August Ellen Thomas and Carol Urner took our nuclear abolition campaign to the Madison Democracy Convention; and what wonderful WILPFers we found in the Madison Branch! A video of our own workshop   produced by Ellen Thomas is here below.

 

Image courtesy of Global Network Summer/Fall 2013 Space Alert, page 2

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