President Biden’s proposed budget for FY2022 has an increase in military spending over 2021. Pie chart courtesy of the National Priorities Project.
By Cherrill Spencer
Co-chair of the DISARM/END WARS Issue Committee
July 2021
The President’s proposed discretionary budget for the next fiscal year, which is being debated by Congress, disappointingly asks for even more money for the military – $756 billion – than is being spent this year. And a recent report by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons on a year’s cycle of spending reveals the flow of money from governments to companies making nuclear weapons to lobbyists and think tanks. So we must continue our WILPF campaigns to defund the Pentagon. Please read on to find out how YOU can help.
Please volunteer to be a lead activist in your state to advocate for H.R. 2850
In our June eNEWS article "Congressional Pressure Necessary to #defund the ICBM Modernization Program and #movethemoney to Peace Programs!" we described our Disarm Legislative Action Campaign to move forward two significant pieces of weapons-cutting legislation that are stuck in committees of the 117th Congress. We’ve decided to ask you and members of several other peace organizations working with us to continue phoning our targeted Congressional Representatives to ask them to co-sponsor HR-2850 and HR-2227, past our original endpoint of June 30. You will use the list of reps, background information, and call script linked to in the June eNews article.
We are working with Nuclear Ban US (www.nuclearban.us) to encourage more activists to make these important phone calls and we are looking for volunteers to be a lead activist in each state. Lead activists will find other activists to increase the number of phone calls about HR-2850. Write to disarmchair@wilpfus.org if you want to become a lead activist in your state (more populous states like California can have more than one lead activist).
Write emails to support HR-2227: Sample letter and nuclear weapons spending info available
We know that congresspeople prefer to hear from their own constituents about topics of importance to the constituent, so we have a sample letter on page 7 of this Call for Peace resource guide #12 for you to copy, revise and send to your rep asking them to co-sponsor HR-2227.
If you would like to add further information on nuclear weapons spending to use in your letters, ICAN's new report “Complicit: 2020 Global Nuclear Weapons Spending” unveils one year of the cycle of spending on nuclear weapons from countries to defense contractors to lobbyists and think tanks and back again.
In 2020, the report estimates that nine countries spent $72.6 billion on nuclear weapons, $27.7 billion of which went to a dozen defense contractors to build nuclear weapons. Those contractors then spent $117 million lobbying policy makers and up to $10 million funding think tanks writing about nuclear weapons to ensure they can continue to line their pockets with nuclear weapon contracts for years to come. The exchange of money and influence, from countries to companies to lobbyists and think tanks, sustains and maintains a global arsenal of catastrophically destructive weapons.
Please read this detailed report (or at least its executive summary) at: www.icanw.org/2020_global_nuclear_weapons_spending_complicit to find your favorite piece of data to include in your letter to your representative.
Breaking the Nuclear Weapons Complicity Cycle
We must break this nuclear weapons complicity cycle by pressuring the nuclear weapons manufacturers to switch to other products
Our collaborating organization Nuclear Ban US has assembled a host of useful materials for activists to use to pressure the 30 companies who make nuclear weapons for the US government – with our tax money – to desist. Visit their website and look around it to find sample op-eds, letters to corporations, links to wealth advisors who will help you divest your nest-egg from nuclear weapons companies, and so on. You can find these helpful resources at: treatyawareness.us/pressuring-the-nuclear-weapons-profiteers/ and treatyawareness.us/pressuring-the-profiteers-links-for-the-chat/
Caption: Summary of the nuclear weapons complicity cycle. Courtesy of ICANW.org
Commemorate the 76th anniversary of the Hiroshima & Nagasaki bombings
Last August many WILPF branches held events and engaged in activities to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the A-bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. We hope many WILPFers will continue this sad tradition on the 6th and 9th of August this year, as a way of reminding ourselves why we work so hard to abolish nuclear weapons. See last year's solidarity event information. And here are resource materials from last year that can help you plan for activities this year. And if you still have your peace cranes all branches received last year (here’s a video on how to fold a crane) you could consider joining a global effort called #CranesForOurFuture: The Hiroshima Organization for Global Peace and Nuclear Threat Initiative invites you to join with leaders, cultural influencers, and families around the world in crafting origami peace cranes. The CranesForOurFuture Campaign will be announced mid-July and will culminate with partners sharing pictures of their cranes on social media, along with your wishes for a brighter future, on August 6-9, the Peace Weekend between the Hiroshima and Nagasaki anniversaries. Sign up for this campaign here.
Get informed and prepared to be an effective advocate right in your own community. Sign up for a PUBLIC BANKING DEEPER DIVE series of webinar workshops starting on Friday, August 27 at 8 pm ET / 5 pm PT. 
What does it mean to launch a Third Reconstruction? It means understanding what Reconstruction was about after the Civil War and how, as the first fusion movement of whites and Blacks, it was resisted by the Klan and led to a Jim Crow “Redemption” movement that was aimed at deconstructing the gains made and restoring white supremacy to our land. It means understanding that the Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, and War on Poverty were also achieved through the moral fusion organizing of a civil rights movement. It means understanding that a Third Reconstruction aims to address the fundamental injustice at the heart of America’s story about how we stole this land from Native Americans and built a nation with the stolen labor of enslaved Africans.
Drawing inspiration from the Cape Cod branch's clothesline actions, WILPF St. Louis held a Mother’s Day for Peace Micro-Action using paper peace cranes and a flyer with a QR code to raise awareness of the anti-war origins of Mother's Day.
Danielle Atkinson has extensive experience as a church-based, electoral, and community organizer. She has worked with organizations such as America Votes, State Voices, Population Connection, and ACORN. In 2012, Atkinson founded 
Truth Freemyn was the Principal Consultant of PBF Leadership Consultants for more than 20 years and Associate Consultant of Venture Concept Consultants. She has been involved in leadership development for more than two decades, with proven professional expertise in fundraising, management, human resources, and the personal growth and development fields, working with staff, volunteers, managers, boards, and funders. Freemyn formerly served as National Workplace Anti-Discrimination Project Director for 9to5, NAWW for five years where she oversaw the national welfare work and directed the Wisconsin-based 9to5 Poverty Network Initiative. She has served on a number of national coalitions including: The Rockefeller Foundation Grassroots Leadership for Women Coalition, the American Friends Service Committee National Coalition on Ending Poverty, and the Children’s Defense Fund National Welfare Advocacy and Monitoring Partnership.
