NEWS

Women’s suffrage envoys from many states brought petitions to Congress on May 9, 1914. Five thousand women massed on and about the east steps of the Capitol singing Ethel Smyth’s “Hymn of the Women.”

By Susan Smith
Pittsburgh WILPF

City of Pittsburgh Mayor William Peduto held an event to celebrate the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in Pennsylvania. Mayor Peduto read a proclamation to commemorate June 24 as the day in 1919 that the 19th Amendment was ratified in Pennsylvania, the seventh state to do so.

WILPF Pittsburgh members Edith Bell and Susan Smith were present as were many other organizations such as the League of Women Voters. Ann Mason, biographer, spoke about Daisy Lampkin, a local activist who worked for women’s suffrage and with the NAACP for many years.

The mayor mentioned that Pittsburgh is a CEDAW city, an initiative started by WILPF Pittsburgh before it grew and took on a life of its own.

View a video of the event here.

You can find out when your state ratified the 19th Amendment here.

Map of the world with different kinds of nuclear proliferation and nuclear-weapon-free zones as defined by United Nations Resolution 3472 from 1975.

Nuclear-weapon-free zones by international treaty, including territories that belong to a Nuclear Weapons State that has agreed the territory is subject to a zone

Nuclear Weapons State and territories belonging to them that are not in any NWFZ

Nuclear sharing (US nuclear arsenal stationed there for host country use in wartime)  

None of the above (but party to the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT)) Source: Wikimedia Commons.

By Odile Hugonot Haber
For the Middle East and Disarm/End Wars Committees

The US has been taking actions that could result in war with Iran, either intentionally or by accident. Please call President Trump and ask him to create a Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone in the Middle East instead of war! This would be a much better deal for all of us, in the United States and throughout the world. Comments: 202-456-1111 Switchboard: 202-456-1414

New noises of war with Iran reach us daily. Military hardware, including a US carrier group and bombers, and a Patriot missile battery, have recently entered the Persian Gulf. US officials have claimed this is in response to threats on US personnel in Iraq, without divulging their sources. In addition, the US has declared the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to be a "terrorist organization"1 and has called for a partial evacuation of the US Embassy in Baghdad. Renewed sanctions have dampened the economy of Iran, a nation of 82.7 million people, by reducing Iran’s oil sales by half. This is benefiting the Saudis (who compete in the same market) while it is causing rampant inflation within Iran. People are suffering.

The US government unilaterally withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran (JCPOA) a year ago, on May 8, 2018.  The JCPOA, known commonly as the Iran nuclear deal or Iran deal, is an agreement on the Iranian nuclear program that was reached in Vienna on July 14, 2015, between Iran and the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council—China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States—plus Germany).

Pulling out of the landmark nuclear deal angered Europe, Russia, and China, all of whom have stood by the agreement.

In a May 16, 2019, Associated Press article, Iran’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mohammad Zarif, said that the escalation and the renewed sanctions from the United States are unacceptable and uncalled for. He added that his country is committed to an International Nuclear Deal that has slowly unraveled amid rising tensions.

Other Nations Skeptical of US Backing Out of Agreements

Reaching Critical Will, a project of WILPF International, tells us in their report on the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that since about this time last year, the US government has been peddling various versions of its concept known as “Creating the conditions for nuclear disarmament.” This working paper was submitted to the United Nations by the United States and states that the real underlying security concerns that lead to the production of such weapons have not been resolved.  

It reads:

To get the international community past the sterility of such discourse, the United States seeks a more meaningful and realistic dialogue, one that has a genuine prospect of moving us toward the nuclear weapons-free world we collectively seek. Such a dialogue would address those underlying security concerns that have made the retention of nuclear weapons necessary to forestall conflict between the major powers and maintain strategic stability. This engagement is very important, because continuing to focus on numbers of weapons apart from their underlying rationale leads to the risk of States talking past each other even as nuclear arsenals remain or, in some cases, expand. Our goal is progress, not rhetoric or simply virtue-signalling; for us, the choice of a constructive dialogue is clear.

Reaching Critical Will provided an astute analysis of this paper, explaining:

This approach pulls away from past treaties and the NPT and other nuclear weapon governance agreements. It demands that the international community should focus on "the underlying security concerns that led to their [nuclear weapons'] production in the first place"—as if nuclear weapons were created by some higher being and bestowed upon certain chosen governments, rather than having been created by the United States first and foremost to incinerate civilians during World War II. [www.reachingcriticalwill.org on the third NPT preparatory committee meeting]

President Trump did mention a few times that he would like to talk on the phone with the Iranian leadership, and has also stated that he is not preparing war with Iran. Mitt Romney has suggested that it is “close to inconceivable” that this administration would consider war with Iran given that Trump stated during his campaign that the war with Iraq was one of the worst foreign policy mistakes in American History.2

Meanwhile, a statement from Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu was distributed that said, “We have to keep on strengthening the state of Israel and keep on strengthening the indispensable alliance with America."3 But as Juan Cole’s latest Informed Comment article 9 Easy Propaganda Steps to War with Iran states: “Attention is taken off the expansionist aggression of the US and its allies. Israel’s world-historical land grab in the West Bank and erasure of the Palestinian nation is never mentioned during the 24-hour cable news cycle in the US. Saudi Arabia’s brutal air war on little Yemen is almost never covered. Iran is castigated for dictatorship while Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy, skates.”
 
Pompeo recently visited Britain, France, Germany. There the European Union expressed skepticism about the claims of sabotage targeting oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates. The European nations also expressed reservations about a war with Iran.3

Aggressive posturing, such as is occurring now, can generate regrettable happenings, including those that occur by accident. The recent actions and rhetoric considerably increase the risk of conflicts. Why put the US in such a situation, even if the hope is to gain geopolitical advantages. This is a very risky plan.

As women working for peace, we care about the civilians in the region who are always the first and most numerous victims of war. It is time to try to talk and to use diplomacy, reducing measures that could lead to war. The whole region is still suffering the wounds of wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Gaza, and Yemen. This is a serious time to stop fighting and to rebuild.

Let us use the available scientific methodology to deal in a nonviolent way with conflicts. Let's advance to the next chapter of history, building a Peace culture for the children of the world.

We should be advancing the concept and encouraging practices that will lead to a Middle East Nuclear Weapon Free Zone.

NOTES:
1 Read Juan Cole’s article, “Why Designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Terrorists Would Paint a Big Red Target on US Troops in Iraq,” Informed Comment, April 7, 2019.
2 Read Thomas Burr's Salt Lake Tribune article on this, published May 15, 2019.
3 See Israel's Netanyahu Stands by Trump against Iran Aggression, The New Arab, May 19, 2019.

A pink cake was given to Paki Wieland in gratitude for her wonderful hospitality at the Code Pink House where we stayed during this year’s ANA DC Days. From left: Alex Rose, Ariel Gold, Kina Thorpe, Paki Wieland, Robin Lloyd and Janice Sevre-Duscynska. Photo (selfie) by Alex Rose.

By Robin Lloyd
Co-Chair, Disarm/End Wars Issue Committee

Last weekend I travelled with two young women, Alex Rose and Kina Thorpe, staff members from the Peace and Justice Center in Burlington VT, to attend the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA) DC Days, held May 19-22, 2019. We stayed at the Code Pink House in NE Washington, DC, which is not only pink, but orange and red and purple. Activist Paki Wieland is the concierge and host, and she drives people everywhere and gives them whatever medication they need when their feet or heads hurt.

At the Code Pink House everyone was going to the Venezuelan protest. The next evening it was a drive out to John Bolton’s house to protest his warmongering. Very enticing, but we were there with a mission, to attend an issues training on nuclear weapons and cleanup and waste on Sunday, and to do lobbying on Monday and Tuesday. At times there seemed to be a conflict between two worldviews of how to be an activist: in the streets or in the halls of Congress.

Left: Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA) activists from Vermont meet with Tim Reiser, Senator Leahy's staffer on the Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations. From left: Tim Rieser, Alex Rose, Robin Lloyd, Kina Thorpe. Photo by Paul Martin.

But there we were on Monday walking the halls of Congress. It was very quiet considering that we were at the center of where the news is made 24 hours a day on MSNBC. Somewhere, a hearing was considering subpoenas against another confidante of Trump. Elsewhere, house committees were weighing Trump’s modernization of the nation’s nuclear arsenal. Since the purpose of the House is to allocate the people’s taxes, and since 53% of those taxes go to the military, does that mean 53% of office space, interns, committee meetings, etc., are devoted to sending money to the military? It’s appalling to think about it that way.

The genius of ANA is that it is made up of people who live in the shadow of the nuclear octopus: near Savannah River (GA) where Trump is trying to expand the production of plutonium ‘pits’; or Rocky Flats (CO) or Hanford (WA), now closed but facing unresolved issues around nuclear cleanup; or Livermore (CA) and Los Alamos (NM) where the bombs are built. These people have lived with the damage and the tragedy of the nuclear fuel cycle for decades. And they know Congress: they know which staffer of which Congressional representative on the subcommittee dealing with, say, the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, who needs to be told all the facts making Yucca Mountain an impossible site for storage.
I was deeply impressed with the careful planning and organization this poorly-funded nonprofit pulled off this weekend.

We went to a hearing of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, and there we found Barbara Lee proposing “Repeal of the Authorization for Use of Military Force” (H.R. 1274), and it passed 30 to 21. All Democrats voted for it, and all Republicans voted against it. AUMF was passed after 9/11 and is used as an excuse to go into Somalia and Yemen and other countries.

It was interesting to have this experience. We were able to see the frail but courageous pushback against the military-industrial-congressional complex. It gives one hope that the new spirit in Congress will shift the battleship of our economy around, slowly, to justice and peace.

From left: Judith Sheldon, Peace Camp; Margaret Williamson, Detroit Rotary; Laura Dewey, President, Detroit Branch of WILPF; Margaret Bruni, Director of Public Services, Detroit Public Library; Pastor Charon Barconey, Presbytery of Detroit; and Linda Jackson, Peace Camp.

By Laura Dewey
Coordinator, Detroit Branch

Children visiting the Detroit Public Library will find new books—with titles like Separate Is Never Equal and Steamboat School—all winners of the Jane Addams Children's Book Award. The Detroit WILPF Branch, Detroit Rotary, and the Presbytery of Detroit donated twenty-two sets of Jane Addams Association award-winning books to the Detroit Public Library.

In previous years, these groups helped fund the Fort Street Presbyterian Church Children’s Peace Camp, but remaining funds were redirected to the library system when the camp stopped operating. This continues the tradition established by Helga Herz, a longtime WILPF member and Detroit librarian who annually donated the Jane Addams books to the library’s main branch.

On December 20, 2018, sponsors and directors of the former Peace Camp in Detroit met with the Children’s Program Librarians of the Detroit Public Library. Twenty-two neighborhood libraries each received eight books, which reflect the values of peace and justice and include characters of diverse ages, genders, locations, and identities. Margaret Bruni, Director for Public Services at Detroit Public Library, welcomed the group, and Judith Sheldon and Laura Dewey spoke briefly about the importance of peace education for children and about WILPF’s mission.

Consider doing something similar in your own branches. For more information, contact: wilpfdetroit@att.net.

2019 Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Winners

The 2019 JACBA Winners can be found here and the awardees include: Jacqueline Woodson, Rafael López, Jewell Parker Rhodes, Nicola Davies, Rebecca Cobb, Jessica Love, Veera Hiranandani, Wade Hudson, and Cheryl Willis Hudson.

Among the topics covered in these books are refugee children fleeing war, the importance of honoring diversity and gender expression, how stories can break down barriers and build community, the impact of India’s partition, and the power of ancestors (including Emmett Till) to guide African American boys through the fear-based culture of violence against them.

These are great summer reading choices for the young people in our lives, and for us all!