California Cluster Inspires and Informs

Members from eight California WILPF branches who participated in the annual Cluster meeting on November 16, 2019. Photo: Sabreena Britt-Kasbati, Sacramento Branch, used with permission.

By Darien De Lu
Sacramento Branch
December 10, 2019

WILPF members in California enjoy a special opportunity to connect each year. Like a sort of mini-conference, the annual California Cluster meeting offers a day of presentations, discussions, and branch updates. This year featured segments on counter-(military) recruitment, International WILPF news, the feminist Green New Deal, Venezuela and Bolivia, Public Banking, the Our Children’s Trust lawsuit, WILPF’s Treaties action, and the special tour planned for March 2020, “The Pentagon: Exposing the Hidden Polluter of Water.”
    
Each year a branch takes on the responsibility of hosting the Cluster, with Santa Cruz stepping up for the November 16, 2019 meeting. The organizers reached out to WILPFers across the state and as far as Arizona and Oregon, and members from eight branches participated: Peninsula/Palo Alto, San Jose, Monterey, San Francisco, the East Bay, Sacramento, Fresno, and Santa Cruz. Branch reports are a lively part of the Cluster, giving many ideas for actions. We were especially impressed by the report of a Fresno Branch member who has bought a house for sheltering homeless people.

Sandy Thacker from the East Bay described her program to tell high school students about alternatives to enlistment.  The No Child Left Behind Act requires schools to allow military recruiters in high schools or else lose their funding; however, it also requires alternative voices to be allowed into the schools. The book Breaking Cadence, by Rosa del Duca, offers insight into military life.

I briefly presented on the similarities and differences between the political situations in Venezuela and Bolivia. In both countries, economic elites are a source of right-wing violence, and the US shows more interest in mineral resources (oil and lithium, respectively) than in human rights.

We celebrated the signing into California law of the Public Banking bill, which WILPFers worked hard to pass. The idea originated in North Dakota, where a state public bank was founded by socialists 100 years ago. Learn more from the short videos available at www.publicbankinginstitute.org.

The legal case of Our Children's Trust is coming before the San Francisco Circuit Court. This slow-moving lawsuit calls on the federal government to mitigate climate change under the public trust doctrine. Last summer, Earth Democracy and WILPF US agreed to join the Amicus Brief for the Our Children’s Trust landmark youth climate justice lawsuit.

We also had the chance to hear directly from Palo Alto Branch member Cherrill Spencer, who wrote the WILPF document on treaties for the October Solidarity Action. Another California WILPFer who has for years emphasized to us the importance of treaties is Ann Fagan Ginger. We heard about the San Francisco Branch's event in her honor.

Our organizing highlight of the day was Nancy Price’s presentation about WILPF's upcoming California tour with Pat Elder. This project focuses on the military’s responsibility for water contamination from all the chemicals used on bases for the maintenance of equipment. As a result, we are facing a nationwide drinking water crisis from a class of synthetic chemical substances known as PFAS. Since the 1940s, when these chemicals were developed, they have been used both in commercial products and in fire-fighting foam for military bases.

The tour seeks to educate the public – especially those living near military bases – about the dangers from this chemical contamination. Tour organizers will work with climate groups to make the connection that the military has the largest carbon footprint. Climate-crisis-related catastrophic flooding and rising sea levels can flood military bases, washing toxic contamination into surrounding communities and water sources.

All eight branches are committed to activities for the tour in their communities. The tour will culminate with two forums, the first on March 21 in Berkeley and the second on March 22, World Water Day (with the theme water and climate), in San Francisco.