Disarm/End Wars Co-Chairs Secure First Signature on Congressional Pledge

Joanne Steele, Rick Wayman, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Robin Lloyd, and Ellen Thomas, at Norton's office on May 21, 2018.

By Ellen Thomas
Co-Chair, Disarm/End Wars Committee

Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton met with Robin Lloyd and Ellen Thomas, the co-chairs of the WILPF-US Disarm/End Wars Committee, on May 21, 2018, during Alliance for Nuclear Accountatility DC Days. At this meeting,  Ms. Norton became the first US legislator to sign the “Congressional Pledge,” a US version of the ICAN Parliamentary Pledge, which supports joining the United Nations Treaty to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons.
 
The purpose for meeting with Ms. Norton was to discuss critical revisions to the nuclear weapons abolition bill which she has introduced into the House of Representatives since 1994, incorporating new language about the UN nuclear weapons ban treaty, and fine-tuning other language to make the bill more enticing to other legislators.

This session's bill, HR-3853, aims at redirecting the funds from nuclear weapons production, modernization, etc. to transforming the war economy to provide carbon-free, nuclear free energy, health care, education, environmental restoration, and other human needs to the American people. 

We urge you to send a letter to your Representative now in support of the "Nuclear Weapons Abolition and Economic and Energy Conversion Act" (Support the Nuclear Wapons Ban Treaty). We will send out an eAlert as soon as the bill is reintroduced next session, so everybody can jump into action. 

Contact Ellen Thomas at et@prop1.org for more information

Disarm-End Wars Unites with the Poor People’s Campaign to End the War Economy

The Disarm-End Wars Committee was linked to Week 3 of the Poor People's Campaign, which focused on Militarism and the Proliferation of Gun Violence, during its 40 Days of Moral Action the last week of May (read the PPC’s A Moral Agenda Based on Fundamental Rights).

U.S. Military spending in 2017 was $610 billion dollars (see U.S. Defense Spending Compared to Other Countries), with this figure accounting for 54% of the discretionary budget. The military budget approved for 2018 is $700 billion, and proposed budget for 2019 is $716 billion!  (Bigger is the New Better: The $700 Billion World-Beating 2018 Pentagon Budget).

In 2016, the average income of the CEOs of the top five military contractors was over 18 million dollars (CNBC piece on salaries of defense company CEOs) while  the average earnings of an Army private in combat was $24,000 (Chron article on The Average Salary of a US Soldier).
 
There were 23,000 active duty military families who were on food stamps in 2013, according to the U.S. Census Bureau (When Active-Duty Service Members Struggle to Feed Their Families, an NPR story). Meanwhile, according to Forbes, the Department of Defense cannot account for $21 trillion dollars (Has Our Government Spent 21 Trillion of Our Money Without Telling Us?), an amount that would fund food stamps throughout the United States for 235 years!
 
Addressing this distorted morality by the US government, WILPF-US DISARM-End Wars Committee stands with the Poor People’s Campaign in:

• demanding an end to military aggression and war-mongering
• demanding a stop to the privatization of the military budget and any increase in military spending.