NEWS

This year’s US Social Forum will draw participants from around the US to Philadelphia and San Jose for several days of movement building. Advance registration closes June 19.

Many of the topics for the June 25-28 Philadelphia forum and for the June 24-28 San Jose forum relate to WILPF-US campaigns.  Workshops and People’s Movement Assemblies (longer sessions designed to draw on the contributions of all participants and conclude with agreed-upon next steps) will run simultaneously.

Advance registration is available online through June 19. Watch for Marge Van Cleef’s workshop on drones and Fran Foulkrod in a panel convened by World Beyond War in Philadelphia. Nancy Price has a workshop on the Human Right to Health and Safe Food and helped organize a PMA on Food Sovereignty: Reclaim the Commons – Save Our Land, Our Water, Our Seed

In San Jose, the local branch along with Santa Cruz members will table at sessions on food sovereignty, farmworkers, and health care.  San Diego members are presenting a workshop on Peace and Anti-Militarization Tactics: Past, Present, and Future. Raging Grannies are practicing in hopes of singing for the plenary.

The Summer of Our Power Southern People’s Movement  Assembly for a Just Transition in Jackson, MI,  June 26-28,  will focus on how to broaden and expand the southern movement for climate justice and a just transition to a new economy. A Forum in Houston, TX is being planned, and finally, activists from the United States and Mexico will convene in Tijuana on June 25. Themes for the Mexico events include migration, environment, land and water, work and salary, and mega projects.

In late May six WILPFers visited numerous Congressional offices and the State Department with Alliance for Nuclear Accountability's expert nuclear "watch dogs,"  In addition to advising legislators about DC Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton's "Nuclear Weapons Abolition and Economic and Energy Conversion Act," they told about recent experiences at the United Nations during the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review, and the growing determination of non-nuclear nations to completely ban nuclear weapons, which threaten the peace and security of us all, and could lead to extinction of our species and other life on earth. 

Representatives Lewis of Georgia and Grijalva of Arizona had signed on to Norton's bill in past sessions, and were quick to instruct their aides to tell Ms. Norton that they wish to co-sponsor the bill again this session. Read the bill, Ms. Norton's Dear Colleague letter, and a history of the legislation.

Mr. Grijalva is Co-Chair of the Progressive Caucus.  He has been working with WILPF members Charmaine White Face, Helen Jaccard, and Pat Birnie, on a Uranium Mining Moratorium and Clean-Up bill, which he indicated he was nearly ready to introduce.

Ms. Norton was pleased to learn about our success in finding co-sponsors so soon after the bill was introduced on April 21, and suggested that we initially focus our attention on attracting other members of the Progressive Caucus.

Carol Urner, co-chair of Disarm/End Wars Committee, and Katya Murillo, an intern from Whittier College in California, have developed a list of WILPF branches whose legislators are members of the Progressive Caucus -- Boston MA, Burlington VT, Cleveland OH, Detroit MI, Eugene OR, Los Angeles CA, Milwaukee WI, Minneapolis MN, Monterey CA, New York Metro, Oakland CA, Philadelphia PA, Portland OR, Santa Cruz CA, Tucson AZ. 

Senator Bernie Sanders of Burlington, VT, is also a member of the Progressive Caucus.  It would be great if he would introduce HR-1976 into the Senate. 

The other Progressive Caucus members may have at-large WILPF members as constituents in their districts -- Phoenix AZ, Claremont CA, Richmond CA, Riverside CA, Santa Clara CA,  New Haven CT, Boca Raton FL, Orlando FL, Chicago IL, Indianapolis IN, Medford MA, Baltimore MD, Charlotte NC, Ewing NJ, Brooklyn NY, Scranton PA, Pawtucket RI, Memphis TN, Houston TX, Alexandria VA.

Steve Cohen of Memphis, TN, and Sheila Jackson-Lee of Houston, TX are former co-sponsors of Norton's bill.

For more information contact Ellen Thomas .

Photo: Representative John Lewis and aide, with Glenn Carroll and Ellen Thomas at right, and Georgia WAND and Shell Bluff, Georgia, constituents who live near the Savannah River nuclear weapons facility. Courtesy of Rep. John Lewis’ office.

By Lib Hutchby, Earth Democracy Committee

Magnolias bloom in May in North Carolina so you can imagine time-lapse photographs and on recent sunny days, one can sit for an hour and watch the buds begin to open.  It's an amazing sight for sore eyes.

Between weeping, chanting, fighting, listening, and learning, we enjoy aroma therapy, right?  NC still has more hogs than people, more coal ash “ponds” than any other state,  more stored nuclear fuel rods, and Duke Energy Progress still has a monopoly's grip on rate-payers' source of electricity. In fact, Duke Energy just began removing coal ash from NC and sending it to a “lined pit” in Georgia, .out of our site, but not out of our minds; meanwhile, shareholders and their proxies, like John Wagner of the Triangle Branch, pled with Lynn Goode, the current (female) CEO of Duke Energy, to attend to the precautionary principle to protect life rather than to defend her purse.

For this news, let's focus on all three of the following that happened on the same day, May 27.  There's a rush to spend money needlessly for fracking exploration because the fiscal year ends in June.  For example, needing to spend already designated funds for “exploration,” May 27 marked the beginning of the core sample drilling in the Cumberland-Marlboro Basin, east of Raleigh, where two samples will be made on state-owned property and the other at the NC Wildlife Fish Hatchery near Fayetteville.

Though the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) may find granite instead of natural gas, they proceed.  Even though, in fact, there is not enough money for testing the contents of the core samples, they proceed. 

Lest you think little has changed, you'll understand comparisons to time-lapse photography as we report that alliances and coalitions have developed in our fight for clean air, clean water, healthy and just life-experiences.  The movement seems to be beginning to blossom as a judge ruled for a stay on fracking regulations, because the legislature never had authority to appoint a mining and energy commission in the first place.  Lawsuits against Gov. McCroy and DENR are multiplying.

Triangle WILPF continues to support anti-fracking efforts, keeping coal ash in solid containment above ground on Duke Energy’s property, and the Environmental Justice Network that focuses on statewide efforts to attend to the civil rights of individuals living close to poisoned or threatened lands.  As partners with HkonJ/NC NAACP, we speak out in efforts to connect all issues of climate change, education, health care, voting rights, and Medicaid expansion.

We continue to rally with Moral Mondays, which became Moral Wednesdays, when the NC Legislature decided to lock the doors of its office building at 5:00 pm on Mondays and arrested some who refused to leave.  Moral Monday is moving around the state to locales in trouble; for example, on May 27, Moral Wednesday morning was held in Walnut Cove, a rural community that is home to the largest coal ash site in NC and is also scheduled to have a core sample taken soon to test for natural gas/fracking. Kim Porter of NC WARN, a 26-year-old Durham-based nonprofit keeping an eye on Duke Energy’s practices, called the coal ash spill “a toxic mix of politics and corporate greed.”

She said Duke is the largest utility in the world and the largest political action committee in North Carolina. “It’s never paid its fair share of state income tax. There’s something going on here. Duke dodged the federal income tax over the last five years, and actually received a $300 million tax rebate from our federal government.”

On the evening of May 27, Moral Wednesday met in Raleigh, rallied on the issues of healthcare, the need to accept Medicaid expansion, environmental justice,  the need to stop more coal ash spills and start clean up, and fracking.

We chanted as we walked inside the legislative office-building for speaking truth to power outside the legislative chamber doors.

Triangle WILPF is also a partner in the alliance of FrackfreeNC, which doggedly tracks the schedules of the governor, the head of DENR, participates in rallies, citizen air-monitor trainings, and wakes up the next morning to continue, just as WILPFers have done for the last 100years.  FORWARD TOGETHER!  NOT ONE STEP BACK!

Photo: Magnolias bloom in May in North Carolina. 

By Jan Corderman, WILPF Des Moines. Iowa

Our Citizen Diplomacy Group led by Sharon Tennison, creator of the Center for Citizen Initiatives is in Russia to meet with citizens in four cities to learn and to build relationships to work for reconciliation. 

The Center for Citizen Initiatives is a highly respected, non-profit organization that keeps its ear to the ground in Russia and develops trend-setting programs to meet emerging needs.

During our 15 days in Moscow, Volgograd, Ekaterinburg and St. Petersburg we’ll immerse ourselves in conversations, planned and spontaneous, with Russian citizens to hear their side of the story, share our thoughts and create Citizen2Citizen plans to stay connected—and work for reconciliation on both sides. 

We’ll discuss their feelings about, and the impact of, the sanctions our country has imposed and our government’s efforts to isolate Russia on the world stage.  Our delegation of American citizens may be going into the country as it is having second thoughts about their glorification of all things American.

CCI’s origins date from the height of the Cold War in 1983 when Ms. Tennison led a handful of ordinary American citizens upon an extraordinary mission – challenging the dangerous barriers of fear and mistrust between the two superpowers.

The Cold War was at a peak - the KAL 007 airliner had just been downed by Soviet Interceptor Jets killing all passengers aboard, and the US and the USSR had 50,000 nuclear weapons aimed at each other. Scientists predicted if 10% of the weapons were detonated, nuclear fallout would shortly leave planet Earth lifeless.

The group’s preposterous mission was to create an alternative to the arms race and open communications between the US and the USSR. They called themselves “citizen diplomats.”  Sharon notes that after Gorbachev came to power and the feared 50,000 nuclear weapon standoff began shifting, it felt like the animosity and fears between the US and the USSR were evaporating.

For the past 25 years, the Center for Citizen Initiatives has dedicated itself to supporting political and economic reforms in Russia.

I’m honored to be the WILPF representative in this delegation.  I would love to share my observations with branches that are interested with an in-person presentation about what I learned and a discussion about building upon the accomplishments of CCI. 

I hope to hear from you!

Jan Corderman
jancorderman@msn.com  
Des Moines Branch, 515-205-4504

Photo by Jan Corderman