NEWS

By Marybeth Gardam

November 2021

While recruiting new members, forging new collaborations and doing remarkable outreach, W$D Committee will be doing strategic planning for the next 2-5 years at a half day planning retreat on Sunday, Nov. 14^th (9am-noon pacific/noon-3pm eastern/11am-2pm central).  All Committee members are invited to participate.  It’s just the latest effort at reshaping the Committee’s plans to take advantage of both an activist drive and an analytic imperative.   

“Our racist-capitalist owner-based economy is built on the principle that the majority of people must be poor in order for the top 1% to be rich”, notes Committee Chair Marybeth Gardam.

“Our Committee wants to re-envision a caring economy and how we get there. How we effectively prioritize our real values in budgets that are moral documents… and work to transform the existing economy.”  She concedes that interim steps are necessary to get to a re-envisioned economic, banking and currency system and the Committee supports the Biden Buy Back Better deal as an imperfect but necessary first step.

The W$D Committee of WILPF US has been engaging in outreach, education, organizer training for action.  Their work with partner An Economy of Our Own (AEOO) has increased WILPF’s visibility with an entirely different set of women, who value our feminist perspective on peace especially as it intersects with women’s economic solutions.

Here are ways that the Committee is doing targeted outreach and training.

• The next AEOO ‘Zoom Of Our Own” webinar will be Monday, November 22^nd (at 8pm eastern) and will focus on ANCIENT MONEY WISDOM, banking and debt. Featured will be the ‘under the radar’ methods of loans, banking and bartering being used successfully in immigrant communities, mutual aid circles and religious traditions.  Register here.
• The first Women’s Learning Circle offered a series of webinars over four months´ time to provide hands-on training for women who wanted to know more about the benefits of Public Banking, how to talk about it persuasively, and how to advocate for it in their communities.  The webinars featured expert public banking organizers and inspired participants to work locally on this effort.  They were so well received by about a dozen participants, the Public Banking Women’s Learning Circle will be offered again next year and with invitations for more women to participate.
• In 2021 AEOO and W$D presented at two national conferences: the National Organization of Women conference in July and the WILPF National Congress in August  “Working Our Way Out of the She-Cession. W$D also presented at our WILPF Congress on Changing the Intent and Purpose of Money
• W$D co-sponsored a showing of the new film THE NEW CORPORATION in July, with a follow-up webinar interviewing film producer Joel Bakan and the original Corporations v Democracy team that wrote and distributed our Corporate Study Course across WILPF US.   
• W$D produced the June ONE WILPF Call with passionate speakers promoting Caring Wages.  In September they collaborated with the National Welfare Rights Organization to present the webinar A Caring Wage: Our Time is Now, with inspiring speakers that set today’s caring wage movement in historical context and called for more reforms.

W$D work still includes analysis and welcomes that deeper perspective.

We continue to study the money creation system´s bias toward inequality, reckless growth and war; corporate corruption of our elections, and best ways to support a caring economy. The Committee continues to build collaborations and partnerships with other allied organizations.

The W$D Committee also promotes practical ACTIONS.

Like all the Issue Committees, W$D will be creating practical ACTIONS to be listed on the new website for WILPF members and the public, to advance the work of W$D and WILPF’s mission as it relates to economic justice.  Our committee members will propose action strategies at our November retreat.

W$D webpage describes its work, with lots of ways people can connect and get involved.  We work closely with the Earth Democracy Committee and the DISARM Committee. We are excited to work more closely with the relaunched Advancing Human Rights Committee of WILPF from a feminist, anti-corporate power and equity perspective.     

Women, Money & Democracy meets every third Tuesday evening at 8pm eastern.  (Formerly 8:30pm). A democratically run committee, we offer continual opportunities for education, skill building and leadership on projects and for leading the Committee itself. Contact the Chair to register for the next meeting, to visit our committee, or to join our work.  If you have a passion for economic justice, this is where you belong in WILPF US.

Contact the current Chair Marybeth Gardam: mbgardamATgmail.com.

By Elenita Muniz

November 2021

The Cape Cod branch took part in the fifth annual Unity Day on the town Green in Hyannis, MA on August 6th.  Because this was also the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, we combined the two events.

Dressed in white, we hung our banners from a beautiful old tree, planted our many yard signs, and set up two tables. There visitors were invited to take our Penny Poll, sign a petition, and learn about Hiroshima and WILPF.  Visitors received an origami peace crane and teachers were all offered a free “Great Day” poster for their classrooms.

The Penny Poll features a dozen jars labeled with various Federal departments or social issues: Education, Healthcare, Food, Housing, Defense, Environment, State Department, etc.  Visitors are provided with ten pennies— their “taxes” — which they can distribute among the jars in any way they choose.  We have used the Penny Poll many times in various actions and events as a way to engage the public.  At this event, Education and Housing were the big winners for government spending.

Inset Photo: (L to R) Elenita Muñiz, Pat O’Brien, Donna Pihl. Missing: Jan Hively, Chris Morin.

The petition urged ratification of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

Unity Day was begun by Andre and Jesse Barboza, brothers from a local Cape Verdean family, as a way to build relationships between the community and police. Each year, local police, fire, and first responders as well as town and County officials gather with the broader community for four hours of games, dancing, give-aways, free food and fun. Community organizations are invited to set up tables as well, and hundreds of families come together on the Green to mix and mingle.  

By Orly Benaroch Light
WILPF San Diego

November 2021

Women have consistently been leaders in the process to bring peace to the Middle East. The exclusion of women from the political arena, heavily populated by military men, has empowered women and contributed to a different outlook on the central problems of Israel. Shaqued Morag is the executive director of Peace Now, an Israeli organization that says a two-state solution is the only way to secure Israel's identity as a Jewish state and a democracy—the very vision on which the state was founded.
 
At a time when inspiring acts of leadership and strategic judgment to secure the future Israeli-Palestinian people are needed, Shaqued Morag, leads women for peace with style, character and principles that are critical for building a world where Israelis and Palestinians aren’t enemies but neighbors and friends.
 
Before joining Peace Now as the executive director, Shaqued served in senior positions in the Meretz party, including as the party’s interim Secretary-General and as an adviser to Member of the Knesset Michal Rozin. Previously, she was a community coordinator in Jerusalem for Mahapach-Taghir, a grassroots Israeli Jewish-Palestinian organization for social change, of which she is now on the executive committee.
 
Watch my interview with Shaqued and find out what is the biggest challenge she is facing as a woman doing the work that she does, how her organization plans to overcome the obstacles in the Middle East to help strengthen and build peace, and how criticism of Israel and its policies is not hostility and prejudice directed against Jewish people.
 

By Leni Villagomez Reeves

November 2021

Who is Alex Saab?
Alex Saab is a Venezuelan diplomat who was en route from Caracas to Tehran on June 12, 2020, when his plane was diverted to Cabo Verde, a small island nation off the coast of West Africa, for refueling. He was removed by force by the Cabo Verde police at the insistence of the United States government, although no crime had been committed and no arrest warrant existed. He was held for 16 months while the US processed his extradition, then, even before the extradition hearings in Cabo Verde were completed, taken to the US on October 18 2021 for trial.

What did he do?
Saab was en route to Iran to negotiate shipments of fuel and supplies for Venezuela;  he was born in Colombia, but is an accredited diplomat for Venezuela.  He is accused of trying to procure humanitarian supplies of food, fuel, and medicine from Iran, in legal trade but in violation of illegal US sanctions.  

Indicted for using Venezuela’s money to buy food for the people of Venezuela
Alex Saab was indicted on 8 counts of “money laundering” before US Magistrate Judge John J. O'Sullivan of the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida.  He will be arraigned and allowed to enter a plea on November 1. The charges are that he procured food for a government program that distributes food to the people of Venezuela, providing subsidized food ration boxes to poor Venezuelans.  That is what the  “money laundering” charges mean. The reasoning of the US, expressed by the Department of Justice, is that  "By offering food through this program, the former regime is able to maintain its influence because many Venezuelan citizens do not have enough money to buy food and therefore depend on the rations CLAP provides to survive."  Of course, the fact that it is US sanctions, first imposed in December 2014, that have intentionally wrecked the economy of Venezuela and impoverished its citizens is not mentioned either by the US government or the US media, which parrots government statements uncritically.  And what they mean by “the former regime” is the current elected fully functioning government of Venezuela.  And there seems to be a  very casual  lack of concern about the survival of those people who depend on the food supplied by the program the US is determined to block.

Sanctions as a weapon of war
His case raises dangerous precedents in terms of extraterritorial judicial abuse by the US in enforcing unilateral coercive economic measures on other countries.  In recent decades, the US has increasingly used sanctions as an instrument of foreign policy.

Some of the 39 nations and territories are under direct or indirect sanctions. Most of these sanctions are not authorized by the United Nations Security Council and many of them are enacted by the US alone. They are called “unilateral coercive measures” at the United Nations. These US decrees and legislation are “extraterritorial” when they assume the right to impose regulations, restrictions and penalties on non- US countries, companies and individuals. Sanctions primarily hurt civilians. Humanitarian “exceptions” have not worked.

Violation of international law
Saab’s attorney, Jose Manual Pinto Monteiro, said, “Alex Saab, special envoy and ambassador of Venezuela, was kidnapped by the United States and taken to the U.S.  This procedure violates all the rules of international law”.

Bad as the effect of unilateral coercive economic measures, sanctions, and blockades are, kidnaping a foreign diplomat in a third country is carrying US international terrorism to a new higher level.

Why?
There appear to be two primary reasons.  The first is the obvious attempt to make people  everywhere afraid to do any kind of  business with Venezuela.  If a person engaging in trade with Venezuela can be seized anywhere and imprisoned even though they have nothing to do with the U.S. and have not been to U.S, territory, clearly the message is that the U.S. rules everywhere and no one is safe anywhere if they defy U.S. orders.  The other reason is that the U.S. government appears to believe that Saab has knowledge of others who are part of Venezuela’s legitimate attempt to circumvent cruel U.S. sanctions, so that, if he can be abused and terrorized, he may “name names” and reveal others.

Diplomatic immunity
Under the Geneva Conventions, a credentialed diplomat such as Saab has absolute immunity from arrest, even in the time of war. The US says it does not recognize Saab’s diplomatic status.  It is almost inconceivable that the US believes it  has the authority to determine who other countries may choose and receive as ambassadors.

Nobody is safe
The case sets dangerous precedents - it raises to a new height the practice of extraterritorial judicial abuse by the US in enforcing its unilateral economic coercive measures on Venezuela and 38 other countries, comprising a third of the world’s population. If the U.S. government can extradite Alex Saab, it amounts to allowing the U.S to  seize, charge and extradite anybody anywhere for entirely political reasons having nothing to do with any criminal actions  - simply for refusing to recognize U.S. sanctions and blockades.  

Learn more and raise your voice
If you wish to find out more information, and if you want to sign a petition urging the release of Alex Saab, please go to https://afgj.org/free-alex-saab

Contact: Leni Villagomez Reeves - lenivreeves@gmail.com
Cindy Domingo - cindydomingo@gmail.com