NEWS

It’s All Here for You! Where to Find WILPF Webinars, eNews, and eAlerts
Post date: Mon, 03/01/2021 - 05:21

By Darien De Lu
WILPF US President

March 2021

As you struggle with some unfamiliar computer program or app on your phone, breathe for a moment and remember: There is a good side to these electronics! Here at WILPF US we not only are creating more and more informative content, but we’re also making it easier and easier for you to find it. With this article, I’ll let you how to track down three important WILPF education and information sources: webinars, eNews articles, and eAlerts.

Webinars

In the last year, the pandemic has introduced far more of us to webinars. In record time, the all-volunteer members of our national issue committees have really stepped up to produce an impressive array of presentations, from the groundbreaking Disarm/End Wars Committee series of webinars on the many significant 75th anniversaries in 2020, to the on-the-ground Lebanon discussion from the Middle East Peace and Justice Action Committee, to the explorations of alternative economics presented by the Women, Money & Democracy Committee, with their collaboration partner, An Economy of Our Own.

You’ll find all of those and more in the ever-expanding online WILPF US video collection. We hope you’ll subscribe!

Other WILPF presentations are also there, as individual videos or grouped into "playlists." You can brush up on your Zoom skills or learn about Tik Tok in our social media trainings! Or check out some of the wide-ranging presentations produced by our many branches. And we have various other kinds of webinars; please do take a look!

If you’re especially interested in the Disarm webinars, you’ll find a list of and additional information about the 75th anniversary webinars through December 2020 on the DISARM/End Wars webpage.

eNews Articles

Seeing a webinar recording is good, but it’s usually even better if you can see the webinar live. Most webinars are announced in our monthly eNews, so if you keep up with the eNews, you’ll know about webinars in advance.

Are you already subscribed to the eNews? If you’re a WILPF US member, you’re automatically subscribed if you’ve given us your email address. If you did not do so initially, you can easily change that! Simply send your email address (with a request to get the eNews) to Info@wilpfus.org. If you’re not a WIPF member, you can still subscribe here.

If you’ve subscribed but you’re not getting the eNews in your email inbox: Because of the nature of the eNews content (containing images and links), the eNews is frequently labeled as spam (or "promotions" or similar areas) by various email "clients" (programs) and providers. Worse yet, such treatment of the eNews will vary from month to month. If your provider/client tells you how to put the sender’s address (Info@wilpfus.org ) on a "good" or "trusted" sender list, that might solve the problem. Otherwise, check through the several "spam-type" mail areas: spam, junk, promotions, solicitations, and others. If you should be receiving the eNews but just can’t find it, call our national office for assistance: 617-266-0999

But there’s also another way to see the eNews! When it comes out each month (except January), usually between the third and the seventh of the month, you can go to the WILPF US home page at https://wilpfus.org/ . There you’ll see five featured eNews stories, and you can also click on "See All News" (at the bottom of the News titles in the large green area of our homepage).

Additionally, you can also see past as well as current eNews editions in the eNews Archives. That link can be found in two places: In the dropdown menu under Resources from the top navigation bar, and further down on the homepage, under Resources in the brown area. If you’re looking for specific articles, check by month in the eNews Archives.

eAlerts

When you provide your email address or subscribe to the eNews, you also get the eAlerts.  Our WILPF eAlerts relay important short-notice items, such as webinar announcements and Congressional lobbying opportunities; however, they sometimes suffer the same fate of "spam" labeling as our eNews.

But you needn’t give up! Like the eNews Archives, the eAlerts have an archive.  Look for the eAlert and eAction Archives in that same Resources section, which can be found both in the top navigation bar and in the brown area of the homepage, right below the eNews Archive. The eAlerts go out on an as-needed basis, and it often takes a few days for them to make it onto the archive. Also, for various good reasons, some are not posted on the archive. Still, if you prefer not to provide WILPF with your email address, you can benefit from most of the announcements in eAlerts by periodically checking on this archives page.

Getting the Most from WILPF

WILPF US is a low-budget operation for a national organization, but we offer you access to a rich stream of information and activist opportunities. It is the dedicated work of volunteer members that produces webinars, eNews articles, and eAlerts. (If you want to offer some help, read about the issue committees at https://wilpfus.org/our-work or ask about other national committees by emailing Info@wilpfus.org.)

With the help of our part-time consultant workers, the eNews and eAlerts are professionally produced, emailed out to you, and posted to our website. I hope you’ll invite us to send you those useful items And now you know how to find them on our website or – for many webinars – on our WILPF US video page. If you still have questions, please inquire at Info@wilpfus.org.

 

 

 

 

 

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Read the new Peace & Freedom magazine
Post date: Mon, 02/15/2021 - 04:56

Peace & Freedom coverThis digital-only issue is packed with articles on themes important to the WILPF community including a report from Vicky Elson from the Disarm/End Wars Committee, a new feminist foreign policy by Val Maghadam, an in-depth look at the struggle in Colombia by Leni Villagomez Reeves, the misery brought about by the separation wall in Israel/Palestine by Odile Hugonot Haber, and many other articles that provide important insights about progressive movements.

Click here to read »»

 

 

Printing and/or downloading Peace & Freedom

Depending on what internet browser you are using, you may or may not be able to print directly from the online version of Peace & Freedom. If you are using the Chrome or Safari browser, you can print. If you are using Firefox, you will not be able to.

If your internet browser (including Safari and Chrome browsers) works for direct printing, you will be able to use the print icon in the upper right of your browser window. If you can print this way, you can print the current page or the entire issue.

If your browser does not allow you to print from the Yumpu site, you can download the PDF to your computer or other device. To do the download, look in the upper right of your browser. There you will see an cloud icon with an arrow in it.  Click on that icon to download Peace & Freedom to your device. You can specify where you want the PDF of the magazine to download, opening it in your PDF viewer and/or choosing where to save it.

You will then be able to view or print the magazine as you normally would any PDF document.  For viewing, you can control the width and the magnification and other view options. 

Scroll through the PDF to see subsequent pages. You can easily print individual pages, either on the Yumpu site or from your download.

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Public Banking Toolkit
Post date: Mon, 02/15/2021 - 04:34

“By making banking a public utility, with expandable credit issued by banks owned by the people, the financial system can be made to serve the people, rather than people serving the banks. Credit flow can be released so that industry and free enterprise can thrive, and the economy can reach its full potential.”  
        —Ellen Brown, of Public Banking Institute. 

"We can either learn about money and discover and work for alternative ideas, or continue to be invisibly screwed by a system that disadvantages (us) and refuses accountability”.   
        —Rickey Gard Diamond, AnEconomyofOurOwn.org

Public Banking Toolket

Organize for a more just economic future with the
WILPF US PUBLIC BANKING TOOLKIT

Download this 45-page document here.    

This toolkit is an anthology of books and articles, resources for further reading, and materials you can use to get started organizing a new public bank in your city or state.   

  • You’ll find out what public banks are and what makes them different from the big privately owned transnational banks and investment firms.  
  • You’ll learn how public banking can offer advantages for moving the money to human needs and away from: 
    • War and war-profiteering, 
    • Climate-threatening extractive fossil fuel industry investment, 
    • Far flung investment that steals reserves from local small businesses, local home financing and affordable student loans.
  • You will: 
    • Fiind fact sheets and handouts, talking points and articles to share.  
    • Learn where public banking initiatives are started, and how you can help begin the dialogue locally or support initiatives which are already underway.  
    • Start with your own small group who’ll use this toolkit to learn more yourselves, then start working on a plan to move this initiative forward locally.  

Our Committee is always looking for excellent resources for more learning on our LEARN MORE pages. You can suggest additional materials to add to our toolkit.   

This collection of information is the work product of the Women, Money & Democracy Committee of WILPF US, and it’s a FREE download, because we want the Public Banking Toolkit to be used widely, without limitations or fees.  

You can support our work with a donation

Your donation to support the work of the WILPF US Women, Money & Democracy Committee and updates to this toolkit would be deeply appreciated. 
As little as a $10 donation would be great, or whatever you can afford.   
Donate online here.  

Or send a check. 
to Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom – US Section
PO Box 13075, Des Moines IA  50310.  
Please mark “Donation -W$D” in the check memo line.    
These donations are not tax deductible because WILPF US is a citizen advocacy organization and a portion of our W$D work is for organizing towards system change.  

 

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Committee Updates: Calling All Members to Anti-Racism Awareness; Webinar on International COVID Collaboration; Help WILPF Advance Human Rights
Post date: Mon, 02/01/2021 - 10:07

WILPF member, Cherrill Spencer, with others at BLM rally, June 6, Palo Alto. Photo by Ruth Robertson, used with permission.

February 2021

WILPF Calls All Members to Anti-Racism Awareness Work
 
Now is the time for all at-large and branch members to seek out deeper understandings and analysis of structural and institutional racism in the United States!

As became obvious with the massive demonstrations following multiple racist killings and assaults, the United States is in a new era of attention to the institutionalized effects of racism. Many WILPFers across the country are already active with Black Lives Matter, SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice), the Poor People’s Campaign, and other groups. But, beyond the sensitivity and efforts of individual members, WILPF must take up this cross-cutting issue on a national and organizational level, so that all our work and processes are better informed.

National WILPF leadership is urging all WILPF members – through individual reading and study, with branch discussions and programs, and by thoughtful interactions – to increase your knowledge of structural and institutional racism, as well as your individual anti-racism awareness. WILPF US has launched many racism education, racial justice, and anti-racism initiatives over the decades, with the most recent ones being, at the turn of the century, UFORJ (United for Racial Justice), followed a few years later by Building the Beloved Community. Now WILPF leadership calls on all of us to expand and refresh our understandings.

To assist members and branches, a national committee is compiling a list of resources. But don’t wait to get started!  For self-education we already published the beginning of such a list in this eNews article.

International Collaboration Needed to Fight COVID-19: Learn More at February 3 Webinar

By Cindy Domingo
Chair, Cuba and the Bolivarian Alliance Issues Committee

Cuba & CovidCuba’s role in the battle against COVID-19 is undeniable. Over 45 healthcare teams, operating under the name of the Henry Reeves Brigade, are working in over 40 countries providing healthcare to people being impacted by COVID-19. Within their own country, Cuba has 129 cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 while the US has a 50+ times higher rate at 6,649 cases per 100,000.

Why is this? Find out by attending the webinar, “The Importance of U.S., Canada and Cuban Medical and Scientific Collaboration to Treat and Prevent COVID-19,” on February 3 at 3:00 pm EST, sponsored by US-Cuba-Canada Normalization Group of which WILPF is a member. Webinar information and registration here. 

Can You Help WILPF Advance Human Rights?

By Joan Goddard
2020 WILPF US Program Chair

After a hiatus of several months, the longtime Advancing Human Rights (AHR) Issue Committee is now in preparation for renewal. Are you interested in one or more human rights issues? Help to reestablish the AHR Committee, with subcommittees, at the March 4 AHR Committee meeting.

In past years there have been a variety of AHR subcommittees, including human trafficking, the Beloved Community, and CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women). We’d like to revive some of them now, along with possible new subcommittees.

A single subcommittee could focus on CEDAW, UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (regarding women being equally represented in negotiations to end armed conflicts) and other similarly female-focused national and international agreements. Another subcommittee could gather WILPFers with experience and/or concerns around immigration and border militarization issues.

Please speak up if you are interested in working with other WILPF members on one of these or on other human rights issues. You can be an AHR member, chair the committee or a subcommittee, or help in other ways. Please send suggestions and/or nominations (yourself or others) for committee leaders or members, and contact AHRChair@wilpfus.org to get the registration details and further information on the March meeting!

 

 

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WILPFers All Over the US Celebrate Nuclear Treaty’s Entry into Force
Post date: Mon, 02/01/2021 - 09:03

The Golden Rule showing a banner announcing the EIF of the TPNW sails past Oahu, Hawai’I between Kaneohe Bay and Honolulu, on January 22, 2021. WILPFer Helen Jaccard on left, Connie Durant on right. Photo by Captain Kiko, used with his permission.

By Cherrill Spencer
Coordinator of Resource Preparation Team for the Call for Peace Campaign

February 2021

Our enthusiastic members braved the snow and rain to celebrate the entry into force (EIF) of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and to inform their communities about it as part of the ongoing WILPF US Call for Peace Campaign.

WILPF US recently started a Call for Peace Campaign which you can read about in this October 1st 2020 President’s Corner. This campaign has two demands: to the United Nations Security Council to extend the current Global Ceasefire and to the United States Congress to cut all military spending by 50% and move the money to fund human needs. Three related action-oriented themes have been chosen for WILPFers to work on, the first being to celebrate the Entry into Force (EIF) of the new Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) with outdoor demonstrations to bring the TPNW to the attention of our legislators and the general public,

Three Action-oriented Themes of the Call for Peace Campaign

We have a team of volunteers researching and writing resource guides to inform and encourage WILPF members to take action on these three themes: (i) the new TPNW treaty; (ii) Move the Money from the military budget to programs that help US residents and (iii) advocate for the continuation of the UN Secretary General’s call for a global ceasefire.
 
Our first four resource guides focused on the Entry Into Force on January 22, 2021 of the TPNW. The guides are linked to an eAlert sent on January 18. This treaty is a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading to their total elimination. It is a legal contract between the states party (=countries) that have ratified it. This treaty has 20 articles and the first article is the most important one, it lists everything a country must not do with nuclear weapons. One article declares that 90 days after 50 countries have ratified the treaty it comes into effect, making nuclear weapons illegal in those countries; that date was January 22, 2021. No surprise: the USA has not even signed this treaty and has tried to persuade ratifying states to revoke their ratifications (none has bowed to this pressure).

Why Celebrate the Entry into Effect of the TPNW?

This TPNW is a win for civil society and forward-thinking governments over the traditional power structure. Eighty-sixty countries have signed the TPNW and many of those, beyond the first 50, are going through their treaty ratification process, so an increasing fraction of the world’s population will be living in totally nuclear-weapon-free regions.

Furthermore, one of the 20 articles prohibits assisting anyone to engage in any of the prohibited activities. So it could be that nuclear weapons manufacturing companies, such as Raytheon, which have offices and factories in ratifying countries (even though those factories do not make parts for nuclear weapons) could be affected by the TPNW, and their directors could be arrested if they visit that country. “Assisting” could also be applied to investing capital in a nuclear weapons company and so banks such as Chase could be found guilty of assisting companies to make nuclear weapons and the missiles that deliver them. Two of the five largest pension funds in the world have already divested from the nuclear weapons industry.

All these wins are worth celebrating and so we asked WILPF branches and members-at-large to get out on the streets on Friday, January 22 and let their local communities know about the TPNW and its coming into force. We provided them with banner and lawn sign designs, sample letters to the editor and to our newly-inaugurated  President, op-eds and warning letters to the CEOs of nuclear weapon companies, to hand in after gathering outside their local offices.

WILPFers Celebrate the TPNW’s Entry into Force in 20 Places

I am pleased to report that our members turned out (masked and properly distanced) at 20 different places from sunny Hawaii to frigid Vermont, a noticeable fraction of the 150 Treaty EIF events that took place all over the world on January 22, 2021.


Photo by Pam Richards, used with her permission

For example our Milwaukee, Wisconsin branch gathered outside the Chase Center in downtown Milwaukee, with lots of banners, signs, and flags to celebrate the TPNW’s entry into force.

And our Boston branch descended on the Raytheon BBN Technologies offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts where they left letters of alert about the TPNW for Raytheon’s CEO, Gregory J. Hayes, and its Senior Scientist, Dr. Talib Hussain. Eileen Kurkoski of WILPF and Susan Mirsky of MA Peace Action formed a Treaty Compliance Unit; they dressed in mock HAZMAT outfits and delivered the alert letters.

Raytheon-Boston
Photo by Eileen Kurkoski, used with her permission.

We have made a slideshow of 14 more photos from different locales where WILPFers demonstrated on January 22, 2021, shown in reverse alphabetical order by state.

Three of our branches—Des Moines, IA, Pittsburgh, PA, and Peninsula/Palo Alto, CA—have written their own reports on their EIF actions which appear elsewhere in this newsletter.

Many thanks to our enthusiastic members who braved the snow and rain to celebrate the entry into force of the TPNW and to inform their communities about it!

This is just a step along the way to nuclear disarmament. Now we need to be contacting our Congressional reps about all the arms control treaties the USA should be following and the new legislative acts regarding nuclear weapons being introduced into the 117th Congress, such as the one described in Ellen Thomas’s article.

All our “outstanding” members sent several photos of their events and you can see them in our WILPF SMART website.
 

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Plan of Action in the House for the TPNW and the Green New Deal: “Proposition One”!
Post date: Mon, 02/01/2021 - 08:43

Members of Georgia Women’s Action for New Directions (WAND), Nuclear Watch South (Glenn Carroll, far right), and WILPF US (Ellen Thomas, flashing a peace sign), met with then-Representative John Lewis (center) during Alliance for Nuclear Accountability DC Days in 2015, at which time Mr. Lewis agreed to co-sponsor Eleanor Holmes Norton’s “Nuclear Weapons Abolition and Economic and Energy Conversion Act” … for the fifth time!  (Photo taken by Rep. Lewis’s staff member).

By Ellen Thomas
Co-chair, DISARM/End Wars Issue Committee

February 2021

Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton will soon be reintroducing her “Nuclear Weapons Abolition and Economic and Energy Conversion Act,” which was HR-2419 in the 115th Congress. It will have a new number this session. 

Ms. Norton said that she will welcome co-sponsors of the bill BEFORE it is introduced this session. In past sessions we have sought co-sponsors after a number was assigned. She agrees that the legislation will have more weight if more representatives join up front. The online letter you can send to your representative has a new access link.

In addition to contacting our own Representatives in the 116th Congress, we need to call and write to previous co-sponsors, asking them to contact Trent Holbrook at Ms. Norton’s office, (202) 225-8050, to say they want to be listed when the bill is re-introduced this session. 

Here is a list of the HR-2419 co-sponsors in 2019-2020 by state, several of whom have co-sponsored multiple times: 

Two other Representatives still in Congress have co-sponsored Norton's bill in the past and need to be contacted. Please advise them that the text now refers to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons:

Twelve other Representatives who are no longer in Congress signed on in the past:  John Lewis and Cynthia McKinney (Georgia), Lynn Woolsey, Bob Filner, and Pete Stark (California), Lacy Clay (Missouri), Earl Hilliard (Alabama), Al Wynn (Maryland), David Minge and James Oberstar (Minnesota), Charles Rangel (New York), and Dennis Kucinich (Ohio).

Ms. Norton has suggested that we reach out to the members of the Progressive Caucus. It seems logical that we should also reach out to the Congressional Black Caucus.

Plan of Action for the Senate

We need to let our senators know they need to support the TPNW! Please ask your US Senators to introduce the “Nuclear Weapons Abolition and Economic and Energy Conversion Act” into the United States Senate, stressing that this gives them a way to show support for the TPNW by requiring that negotiations begin with all the other nuclear weapons countries, and that the bill provides funding for the weapons industries’ transformation to producing carbon-free, nuclear-free energy and other vital needs.

 

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Lebanon WILPF Speaks: Join the February 9 Webinar!
Post date: Mon, 02/01/2021 - 08:35

Women inside an abandoned construction site occupied by Syrian refugees in Saida, Lebanon in October 2015. Photo credit: Richard Juilliart / Shutterstock.com.

By Nada Farhat, Tura Campanella Cook, Theresa El-Amin, and George Friday 
Middle East Peace & Justice Action Committee 

February 2021

“Lebanon WILPF Speaks: Challenges and Hope,” a webinar featuring Diala Chehade, Hala Kilani, Shirine Jurdi, and Ferial Abu Hamdan, will be held on Tuesday February 9, 2021 at 9 am Pacific / 12 noon Eastern / 7 pm Lebanon. [Note the unique time!]

Register here

In this webinar, you will be able to hear directly from our distinguished sisters in WILPF Lebanon. The Lebanon section, established in 1962, has played a pivotal role in formulating WILPF policy statements on the Middle East for nearly 60 years. Lebanon today is challenged by local impacts of war, political instability, and government corruption. Some of the topics that will be discussed include: 

  • How does WILPF Lebanon bring the voices of women into decision-making at national and international levels? 
  • What is the role of US foreign policy in the crises facing Lebanon?  
  • How can we build solidarity?

Send questions in advance for the speakers to LebanonWebinar@gmail.com

Speaker Bios
Our four speakers come with vast experience in human rights, gender equity and equality, climate action, and peace and disarmament advocacy.

Lebanon panel speakes
L to R: Diala Chehade, Hala Kilani, Shirine Jurdi, Ferial Abu Hamdan. All photos used by permission of speaker.

  • Diala Chehade - Attorney in Beirut advocating for human rights protection
  • Hala Kilani - Senior Communication officer at the Climate Action Network  
  • Shirine Jurdi - WILPF MENA International Board Representative, Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict MENA Liaison, Campaign to Stop Killer Robots team leader 
  • Ferial Abu Hamdan - a past member of The Lebanese Council of Women who has served as Vice President of WILPF Lebanon and as a representative to WILPF's International Board

Lebanon Hosts Huge Number of Refugees

Lebanon, with a population of 5.5 million, hosts the largest number of displaced persons per capita in the world: one in every four people is a refugee. The Syrian war has spilled over to Lebanon for years and the tension between Israel and Iran is a dance of horror tormenting every Lebanese, regardless of religion or political affiliation. People in Lebanon are longing for peace and prosperity in their homeland. 
    
In June 2020, the United Nations Refugee Agency reported on the dire living conditions for Syrian refugees and how they had worsened with the COVID-19 pandemic: See "Economic Misery Engulfs Syrian Refugees and Their Hosts" by Walid Saleh and Warda Al-Jawahiry.

According to a United Nations Population Fund report on the Lebanon Humanitarian Emergency, struggles between refugees and their host communities are causing deteriorating living conditions and compounding the economic crisis in Lebanon.

Register here for the Zoom webinar to learn more and discover how you can join in solidarity with our WILPF sisters in Lebanon.
 

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Webinar Thursday, February 18: Jane Addams, Two Chicagos, and the U.S. Rich-Poor Divide Today
Post date: Mon, 02/01/2021 - 08:22

Jane Addams with children at Hull-House. Photo courtesy of the Swarthmore Peace Collection.

By Darien De Lu 
WILPF US President, with Gloria McMillan

February 2021

Many of us are aware of the "global" Jane Addams, but what do we know of the "local" Addams, who lived in the two worlds of Chicago at the turn of the 19th-20th century?  And why do Addams’s two Chicagos matter to us today? Join in our WILPF webinar on Thursday, February 18 at 5:30 PST / 8:30 EST to discover wide-ranging and still relevant answers. (Registration is required for this 2/18 Zoom webinar.) The webinar features author and researcher Gloria McMillan, who wrote the Addams piece in our brand new virtual Winter/Spring 2021 issue of Peace and Freedom and Mattius Rischard of the social, cultural, and critical theory program at the University of Arizona

The global Addams joined with other feminists in 1914 to organize a peace meeting that established the 40,000-strong Woman’s Peace Party in the U.S. This national and international Addams is the one who, with other brave women, risked German submarine attacks to travel to Europe for the founding Congress of the organization that would become WILPF. She later won the Nobel Peace Prize.

The local Addams remains crucial to today’s divided cities and rural areas, and McMillan will highlight her. Addams took radical action in 1890s Chicago, where poor immigrants and, later, people of color were redlined by the housing industry. These poor Chicagoans were mostly hidden from the public eye – except when they were reviled by the press and the affluent citizenry in ways that will sound familiar to us today. Myths and fear of "the others" were everywhere in 1890s Chicago.

How did this lesser-known Addams see through the smoke and mirrors to discover the humanity of the other Chicago, that world almost fully separate from the affluent Chicago where she grew up and lived? Jane Addams openly discussed and mapped how Chicago operated on drastic urban inequality. Almost alone among 1880s U.S. reformers, she and Ellen Gates Star crossed invisible urban borders to learn by experience "how the other half lives" (to use the expression coined by Jacob Riis). These experiences directly molded Addams into the global peacemaker we generally know.

We may have heard about Addams’s opening of Hull-House, but do we understand the revolutionary nature of the ideas and organizing that provided its foundation? Addams crossed Chicago’s social-geographical-spatial divide. Her work at Hull-House underpinned her pioneering and interconnection of many crucial ideas: women's suffrage and trade unions; humanitarian concerns of food safety, sanitation, wellness, jobs, education, the value of the arts, and caring for immigrants and all poverty stricken people; and the basics that formed modern-day sociology.

In today’s world, as in turn-of-the-century Chicago, we continue to struggle with "spatial maps" of urban spaces, with real effects upon people’s lives. Places can be rendered nearly invisible, the way the poor Chicago was off the map for the other Chicago, or – today – the way a ruined Gary, Indiana, is invisible to modern Chicago and, perhaps even more so, to the rest of the country.

In our cities, above the physical urban street grid, floats a cloud of attitudes – rankings of places; attractions and repulsions. Think of your city: The street grid itself may be rational and rectilinear, but your mental map of the city is highly subjective. In Sacramento, I’m in “midtown,” only blocks away from the area further down, “south of Broadway”; but, economically and emotionally, I’m light years distant.  

The webinar on Thursday, February 18 (5:30 PST/8:30 EST) offers breadth and depth – Register now! After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing the information needed to sign in. Besides illuminating historic and political aspects of the life and work of Jane Addams, Gloria McMillan and Mattius Rischard will help us appreciate the past and current expressions and effects of spatial, psychological, and class divides. Addams's global and grand ideas came from her gritty, everyday work in and awareness of South Chicago. 

At the University of Arizona, Rischard specializes in the analysis of representations of urban space, both globally and in an American studies context. That is where his and McMillan's paths have crossed, in discussions of methods of analysis in literature and cultural studies. Together, they’ll help us see how these perspectives and issues influence today’s political and activist-artist representations of the de-industrializing Midwest, part of what are sometimes called the “flyover states” – the economic problems of which, like some other areas in the U.S., are too often ignored in national media. I’ll facilitate taking your questions after the presentations.  

We hope you’ll join us!

 

 

 

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Time to Organize for World Water Day!
Post date: Mon, 02/01/2021 - 08:01
World Water Day

By Nancy Price
Co-chair, Earth Democracy Committee

February 2021

Time to organize for World Water Day March 22 on the theme “valuing water,” focused on pricing and also on the social, environmental, and cultural “value” of water. Join the global conversation about what water means to you.

Join the Conversation

  • We want to hear from you!
  • Tell us what water means to you.
  • Share your views on social media.
  • Tag your post with #Water2me.
  • Your voice will help shape the World Water Day 2021 campaign and will inform a report about the importance of water.

Check out ongoing discussions

Earth Democracy invites you – our members and branches – to join in this global World Water Day conversation about what water means to you.

The organizers of World Water Day want to:

  • Learn and share WHAT IS BEING DONE by people all over the world, and by you and your community, to protect water. They want to hear your stories, thoughts and feelings about water and will create a collective record of  Audio Recordings from the Field. These are stories presented by radio journalists, both professional and amateur, of community members who are interviewed and their voices aired through community radio with listeners responding through text messages and calls into the station if possible. 
  • Go to https://www.worldwaterday.org click on the “Learn,” “Share,” “Act” sections for information, and scroll down for information, a ToolKit (soon to be posted), and Social Media materials. 

What WILPF Members and Branches Can Do

Here’s one WILPF example of what’s being done: Californians will remember that nearly all of our CA Tour March 7-22, 2020 – “Exposing the Pentagon: Hidden Polluter of Water” events were cancelled because of COVID-19, including our Forum for Sunday which was going to be held March 22, 2020, World Water Day, in San Francisco. We’re now going back to the radio stations that interviewed Pat Elder last spring so he can give an update, and February 24, he’ll be on Jean Hays’ WILPF “Stir It Up” community radio program in Fresno.

You – our members and branches might:  

  • Organize a Zoom or group phone call to share together - How is water important to your home and family life, your livelihood, your religious and cultural practices and spaces, your personal and community wellbeing, and your local environment?  
  • Talk about how water is under threat from a growing population, increasing demand of agriculture and industry, the worsening impacts of climate change and ever-increasing contamination.

Earth Democracy’s Human Right to Water Project will post questions to discuss and materials for World Water Day. For example, here are some questions that we would ask when “valuing water”:  

  1. How do we calculate the value of water? Is it is a public good, a public commons to be share equitably and protected for present and future generations, or is water just a commodity to invest in for profit? 
    On December 18, 2020, Maude Barlow and Vandana Shiva wrote decrying the move by CME Group, the largest financial derivatives exchange company, that on December 7, 2020 launched the world’s first futures market in water so financiers and investors can profit from the planet’s water crisis. They wrote: “We deplore this development and urge people and governments everywhere to reject it…If water is put on the open market like oil and gas, it will lead inevitably to rising water prices in a world desperately in need of water for life.”
     
  2. What is happening in your community to enforce that Water is a Human Right? Today, with COVID-19 still spreading rampantly, water is even more precious because good attention to handwashing helps to control infection as described in this article: 'The Most Basic Form of PPE': 1.6 Million Households Face Water Shutoffs. In California alone, 1.6 million poor and fixed income households cannot pay their water bills now because of job loss, taking in additional family members, or deaths of the main income provider, and so these households are in danger of losing their fundamental human right – access to water for personal and household use. Furthermore, local municipal water systems that are losing revenue from unpaid water bills risk going under and being bought up by private, for-profit water corporations. Already a a large coalition is calling on Biden to impose a national moratorium on water shutoffs. What is the situation in your town, city, or state? 

If you have questions that you’d like to share with our Earth Democracy community, please email co-chairs Nancy Price and Randa Solick at earthdemocracy(@)wilpfus.org and we’ll incorporate them into our early March World Water Day Action Alert.

 

 

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East Bay Branch’s Counter-Recruiting Project Featured on February 11 ONE WILPF Call
Post date: Mon, 02/01/2021 - 07:51

Effie Dilworth, left, and Sandy Thacker, right, tabling at a local high school with a poster titled “Ten Points to Consider Before You Sign a Military Enlistment Agreement.” On the table is a wheel for the kids to spin with possible non-military careers to consider.

By the ONE WILPF Call Team

February 2021

The East Bay (California) WILPF Branch has been working on a successful high school counter-recruiting project that might inspire actions across the country. Sandy Thacker of East Bay will facilitate a presentation about the “Before Enlisting” Project that informs students in high schools and colleges about why they should think twice about enlisting, and what alternatives they might consider for national service.

Learn more at www.BeforeEnlisting.org, then join the ONE WILPF Call on Thursday, February 11th at 4 pm PST / 7 pm EST to hear all the details and to learn how your branch (or your community, if you are an at-large member) might use the group’s very effective videos and handouts in your own community.

Be sure to register for the call if you have not before been on a ONE WILPF Call. You will join the call with your phone AND your computer. It’s not a Zoom call.

Once you have registered, you will receive a confirming email the day before the ONE WILPF Call and another email 2 hours before the call. That email will include a call-in number and a link to the “Visual Interface” so you can see who is on the call. Voices will be muted but there will be opportunities for discussion and a Q&A.

During 2021, the monthly ONE WILPF Call will be featuring more projects and work from branches that may be replicable across the country. If your branch is working on a project that meets those criteria, please contact mbgardam@gmail.com to get on the list of projects we want to feature. WILPF’s mission is carried out in communities across the United States by our members, and we want to celebrate and inspire our members by sharing your important work.

 

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