NEWS

July 2023

SAVE THE DATES: WILPF Gathering – Wednesday, August 16 and Thursday, August 17 

by Dianne Blais
WILPF US Secretary

Virtual meetings, where all members may attend from the comfort of their home, can be a boon and great tool for a national organization like WILPF US. You can participate and learn more about WILPF and your areas of interest. 

The last totally virtual WILPF US Congress (out of necessity, due to the pandemic) was a great success! In 2024, our Congress is expected to be in-person — possibly with virtual options. Then, the next year, the 2025 WILPF international Congress will take place. 

That leaves this summer as the perfect time for our first virtual Gathering: Wednesday and Thursday evenings, August 16 and 17, starting at 5 pm PT/ 6 pm MT/ 7 pm CT/ 8 pm ET and ending two hours later.

Our WILPF US "Gathering" is for all WILPF US members. 

At the Gathering, you will have a chance to hear from the WILPF US Board, our national staff members, the issue committee chairs, and some branch leaders — and you’ll be able to ask them questions. 

On both Wednesday and Thursday there will be breakout rooms before and after each session. On Wednesday and before the Thursday meeting one can join a small group for face-to-face interactions. The breakout rooms after the meeting on Thursday will be with the Issue Committee chairs and can go on as long as the group desires.

Mark your calendars now! And watch for an eAlert in mid-August for the agenda and event time details. 
 

Two Options for ‘Official’ Branch Logos

by Dianne Blais
WILPF US Secretary

WILPF can improve recognition for our organizational and further promote WILPF by using consistent logos. And now the national board has approved two logo options for branches to use, if they wish – designated, here, as #1 and #4.

Contact me at Secretary@wilpfus.org with the branch name and logo selection (by number) and we will arrange for you to get your branch logo.

by Tura Campanella Cook and Regina Birchem
WILPF-US Middle East Peace & Justice Action Committee

July 2023

What would society in Israel and Palestine be like if it were Apartheid-Free? What if all communities were without elements of exclusionary institutions, laws and practices, and had economies that work for all with no one stateless?

The situation of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, specifically Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem, continues to deteriorate. It is clear that the Israeli occupation since 1948 and furthered in 1967 has gone from an illegal military occupation to an apartheid regime, a crime against humanity. Last November discussions began within a North American coalition of faith groups under leadership of the American Friends Service Committee to urge collective action by organizations of conscience to end apartheid, settler colonialism, and military occupation of the Palestinian territories.

The Pledge for Apartheid-Free Communities

WILPF-US has endorsed the pledge for Apartheid-Free Communities, as Barbara Taft reported in her May 2023 eNews article. More action ideas and supporting materials became available after the public launch in June. The social justice committee of your faith organization, your local anti-war or civil rights group, tenants council, food co-op, book club, WILPF branch, or any “community” can fill out this form to take the Pledge:

• We affirm our commitment to freedom, justice and equality for the Palestinian people and all people: and
• We oppose all forms of racism, bigotry, discrimination and oppression; and
• We declare ourselves an apartheid-free community and to that end,
• We pledge to join others in working to end all support to Israel’s apartheid regime, settler colonialism and military occupation.

Your community can discuss Apartheid-Free Communities in the context of where you live and how apartheid plays out in the Palestinian Occupied Territories. Who enables and supports the oppression financially, shares military weaponry, and uses the research on surveillance and control?

To help you and others in your communities deepen your understanding of the issues, there are many excellent resources at the Apartheid-Free website.

Apartheid in Context

Apartheid (the Afrikaans word used to describe institutionalized segregation in South Africa) is defined in international law as a crime against humanity that involves “inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.” These inhuman acts include murder, torture, arbitrary arrest, legislative discriminatory measures, the persecution of people resisting apartheid, and more.¹

We can recognize this: institutionalized segregation was well established in the United States by the Black Codes following the Civil War and the Supreme Court ruling Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896. It was the US status quo in 1948 when institutionalized segregation was established in white-ruled majority-Black South Africa. That same year, the Jewish state of Israel was created within majority non-Jewish historic Palestine where Muslims, Christians, and Jews had lived together under British colonial rule, during the Ottoman Empire, and earlier. What began in Israel as illegal occupation became apartheid.

Actions to Live Into Your Pledge

Each community has a different context and is on a different journey toward addressing the evils of apartheid and all forms of racism, bigotry, discrimination, and oppression. As of mid-June, 114 community organizations have signed the Pledge.

Check out the action guide for ideas about how to live into your pledge.

Footnotes

[1] For a detailed discussion of the definition of apartheid and how it applies to the situation in Palestine/Israel see also resources by the Institute for Middle East Understanding, Amnesty International, and Kairos.

by Darien De Lu
WILPF US President

July 2023

WILPF has activities, programs, actions, and campaigns – all at the local, national, and international levels. Through our structures at all these levels, we connect and coordinate, support and strategize, plan and produce. And you – WILPF members and activists, participating as you can in the areas you choose – are what makes it all happen!

This article gives you a quick overview of where and how you can link in, identifying your “political home” in WILPF. Of course, not all WILPF members can engage to the same extent, yet through our multi-level connections and structures, each of us can contribute some of the energy and imagination we bring to life. Through a dynamic network, part of a whole. we accomplish more than we could individually.

We all have multiple overlapping and intersecting areas of personal life demanding our attention. Yet, as informed and active people, we see what’s happening in the world. This year, this time, feels critical! With the Dobbs anniversary, the latest Alabama voting rights decision, the nuclear and climate threats, the petro pipelines and loans, the wars and violence…. Maybe you’re ready to take a look around to see how and where you can take organized action?

There’s a place for you in WILPF! Where do you want to be in WILPF’s structure? Each of us can choose: Do you prefer to focus more at the neighborhood and city level? Working in a local branch lets you build relationships with other WILPF members and gives you a place for thoughtful discussion and ongoing activism.

If you’re not near a branch, I encourage you to bring a WILPF perspective – on the interconnections of issues – to your local work. You can also join our virtual branch: the Jane Addams Branch welcomes members from across the country. Enjoy a valuable part of WILPF in the activist ties and interconnections that offers!

Perhaps – in addition to or instead of a local focus – you may want to participate in a national issue committee, where you can see wider perspectives and be part of broad campaigns. Or are you drawn to the nuts and bolts of our organization? Help develop WILPF leaders through the Nominating Committee – or contribute on matters covered in the Personnel Committee or Finance Committee, or in areas of another of WILPF’s national standing committees. See the illustration above of our structures, showing the seven issue committees, many of the popular standing committees, and the national board, plus, of course, the members in branches or at large.

The illustration says nothing of our many ad hoc committees, which come into existence to focus on particular topics or programs. You might enjoy that ad hoc committee combination of national perspective with specificity. In any case, you’re wanted – as a dedicated ad hoc or standing committee member, a participating issue committee member, an attending branch member, and/or a contributing WILPF member!

If you’re involved exclusively at the at-large or branch level, you may wonder what national WILPF has to do with you. Of course, here you are, reading this eNews! So you already know quite a bit about the initiatives of branches and issue committees across the country – and how those actions can inform and inspire you.

While most members don’t participate at all the different levels, you can try out different areas and levels of activism – perhaps to discover something that is unexpectedly gratifying. WILPF US is a member-driven organization; it is dependent on volunteer participation.

Be introduced to WILPF’s structures and leadership by spending just a few hours at the Gathering on Wednesday and Thursday, August 16 and 17. You’ll meet issue committee leaders, staff, and our board. (Also, you’ll have the chance to get to know other WILPF members, by coming early to the main sessions – or lingering afterwards. I’ll be welcoming everyone to dyads and triads in the breakout rooms that we’ll host as part of the Gathering.)

Beyond the eNews and eAlerts, you can find out more by attending a WILPF National Board meeting. Those meetings address a range of WILPF concerns in a virtual format every other month, and they’re open to all WILPF US members. You’re likely to hear reports from standing board committees or about such board committee business; frequently the meetings issue calls for volunteers for ad hoc committees. Besides committee members, WILPF needs National Board members – and when you attend board meetings, you might realize that someone you know – or you – could be a good board member.

You’re invited to our next board meeting, on Saturday, July 22! Or join us in September or November. Find the meeting time and dates, information about the board members, and how to get the meeting attendance link, all on this National Board webpage.

I hope I can welcome you to a board meeting sometime! If you have questions about our WILPF structures – including the Jane Addams Branch, drop me a friendly email: President@wilpfUS.org.

by Mary Sanderson
Madison Branch and Women, Money & Democracy Committee

July 2023

Over four Thursday mornings in May, WILPF’s Women, Money & Democracy Committee (W$D) co-hosted with Alliance For Just Money (AFJM) a lively study group diving deeper into the Future in Our Pockets webinar (FiOP) we presented last February. We were six WILPFers and six others.

Mary Jensen told how Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future made her attend the FiOP webinar. When she joined the study group, Mary said she had been completely in the dark about the nature and importance of the monetary system before KSR’s novel, and that she is grateful to be beginning to understand some of the finance and economic talk on the news.

Dianne Blais used our work, together with her economics background, to present “A Better Economy” at a Women’s Finance event hosted by the Virginia American Association of University Women (AAUW) and League of Women Voters (LWV). Dianne said, “I opened my talk by asking, ‘who creates 97% of the money in the US?’ I spoke about our debt/war economy and…our founders’ goal of Congress creating the money (not commercial banks).” 

Weeks two and three outlined the specific ways in which this bank-credit system of money creation generates housing shortages, student debt, and permanent war.

Our last session focused on the three legs of an important solution, The American Monetary Reform Act (AMRA). These three measures, historically proven, are hard for us even to imagine after 300 years of trusting bank-credit for money.

1. Nationalize the private Federal Reserve into the Treasury as a federal agency to keep economic statistics
2. Take back from private banks the right and responsibility to create money by lending. That power to create money can be thought of as the goose that lays the golden eggs.
3. Return that goose to Congress who was tasked by the US Constitution with creating and controlling the money supply.

For a possible road to true self-governance, our money supply must be entrusted to an accountable body to be used for public purpose. We are off-target expecting government to do right while private banks hold the power of the purse.

W$D and AFJM will host a second study group to be held evenings in the fall, as requested by ten more Future in Our Pockets participants.

WILPF and An Economy of Our Own (AEOO) members and friends are invited to join the fall sessions. Watching the webinar and completing a short scheduling poll are the only prerequisites.