Raise the consciousness of your local public by street corner vigils such as this recent one held by the Peninsula/Palo Alto WILPF branch; Credit: Cherrill Spencer, used with permission.
By Cherrill Spencer
Co-chair of DISARM/End Wars Issue Committee
May 2024
The number of ongoing conflicts can feel overwhelming, and we hope WILPF members will not respond by doing nothing! The general public needs to be reminded that wars can be ended swiftly by diplomatic compromises, and one can do that with appropriate signs at busy street corners, by sending letters to the editor or by asking your local council to pass a resolution, for example, demanding that there be a ceasefire in the Gaza-Israel war.
Show Your Public How Much of their Tax Dollars Go to the Military
Each year at tax time, the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies produces a tax receipt that shows where your 2023 income taxes went. You can click on the words “tax receipt” in the previous sentence or just read some highlights here:
- The average taxpayer gave $4,308 to Medicare and Medicaid. Compare that with $5,109 for militarism and its support systems.
- Looking at Pentagon expenditures in 2023 (included in the “militarism” category), the average taxpayer subsidized corporate contractors, including:
- $1,748 toward Pentagon contractors. That’s more than the average monthly rent in the US ($1,372).
- $249 for contracts for Lockheed Martin, the largest Pentagon contractor. That’s more than a week’s food expenses for the average American household ($195).
- $87 for the Pentagon’s contracts with Boeing, the company responsible for the 737 Max’s safety failures. That’s about equivalent to filling your car’s gas tank twice.
- $12 for the Pentagon and NASA’s contracts with SpaceX, Elon Musk’s company. That’s more than the cost of three gallons of milk.
Use these well-documented statistics in your letters to the editor and when discussing the need to stop the ongoing wars with friends and family.
Honoring Daniel Ellsberg by Organizing Events from June 10-16
WILPF US is part of the Defuse Nuclear War coalition, and we are encouraged to organize a local event about abolishing nuclear weapons which Ellsberg spent his last five decades working on. See here for ideas.
Ellsberg identified our Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) as the worst kind of nuclear weapon and all California members are invited to attend a daytime protest at the Vandenberg Space Force base on Wednesday June 5th in southern California (near Lompoc) from which test launches of an ICBM happen about four times a year. We are arranging carpools from the San Francisco Bay Area for this protest, please write to disarmchair@wilpfus.org if you are interested.
Reminder for Peace Walk 2024, starting in Maine May 7th
The Peace Walk's website has lots of information about this long walk that passes near several WILPF branches and members-at-large hometowns. Look at the route and try to get involved — besides walking any part of this route, people are needed to find places for the walkers to sleep and help organize events along the route. Please support and advertise Peace Walk 2024 in any way that you can.
In addition, consider attending the NO to NATO, Yes to Peace events in Washington DC July 6-7, which were described in our April eNEWS article.
Our DISARM/End Wars Issue committee welcomes new members; we have many ongoing campaigns that need people to work on them. Write to disarmchair@wilpfus.org to request information and to join the DISARM/End Wars Committee, which meets the second and last Sundays of the month.
The Spring/Summer issue of Peace & Freedom is now available online. And only online. Our strategy is to alternate between digital-only (like this issue) and a print/digital issue (like the Fall/Winter 2023 issue). This allows us to continue to publish our magazine biannually but to save on costly printing and distribution expenses.
Darien De Lu, WILPF US President and Congress Tech Team Core Member is a peace, justice, and Latin America solidarity activist in the Sacramento branch. She writes her California ballot guide (for over 20 years) plus political and labor songs – and sings frequently! Prior to retiring, she bicycle-commuted for twelve years to her California state jobs, addressing substance use and co-occurring disorders. She and her husband bike, especially to the local food co-op. Darien speaks several languages and has traveled extensively. An activist for over fifty years, Darien has been a consensus process and nonviolence trainer. Her civil disobedience, direct actions, and subsequent jail time inform her activism. 
Mary Hanson Harrison served as WILPF US president (2015-2019), WILPF US Des Moines Branch president, Congress Coordinator, 2008 Simpson College (IA)\ and Virtual Congress Coordinator 2021. She sits on the board of Jane Addams Paper Project, Ramapo College (NJ). Mary brings not only an academic career but also a policy researcher and hands-on activism with and for nonprofit peace/feminist oriented organizations. She convened and participated in several presentations on Ecofeminism and the necessity of a revolution in global agriculture and food systems: in The Hague, at the UN Commission on the Status of Women, and the WILPF International Congress – Ghana, and past WILPF US congresses. She is a published essayist and translator. She has a degree in History and a Masters in Literary Criticism and Theory.
Tara Vassefi is honored and humbled to serve as the local WILPF branch contact in dc,maryland,virginia aka Occupied Piscataway and Nacotchtank Territories aka Chocolate City. She likes to introduce her 3rd dimensional self as someone with the brain of an archivist whose favorite language of love is infinitely-long, heavily-cited legal memos. Though she's a human rights attorney by trade and continues to practice pro bono through her firm Solidarity Law Cooperative, her full-time job is at a rEvolutionary ChildCare Center called CentroNía. Should you have the bandwidth for what she calls proFound Orthogony (~exploration without destination), she would love to journey with You toward Water and Food Sovereignty, Tech-no-Logy as a Public Good, and Spiral Economics. 
Mr. Pedro Arrojo-Agudo is the Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation. He was appointed by the Human Rights Council in September 2020 and started his mandate on 1 November 2020. From 2016 to 2019, Mr. Arrojo-Agudo served as an elected member of the Spanish Parliament. He was Professor in the Area of Fundamentals of Economic Analysis at the University of Zaragoza from 1989 to 2011, and has been professor emeritus since 2011. During the last three decades, he has focused his research on economics and water management, publishing his work in more than 100 scientific articles and in 70 books.
“Thomsen’s soulful voice, poetic lyrics and unforgettable melodies cut through to the heart and the soul of human experience,” proclaims the Minnesota Women’s Press. Dubbed in her local press as “one of Northern Minnesota’s best kept secrets,” singer-songwriter Sara Thomsen’s home base is in the Lake Superior region of Duluth/Superior. “The Twin Ports folk singer picks up the torch carried by the balladeers of decades past: Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Holly Near, Ronnie Gilbert, and Peter, Paul, and Mary” writes the Duluth Reader Weekly. “She could make Conan the Barbarian drop his sword and collapse blubbering.”
Cherrill Spencer is a retired experimental physicist who was born and educated in England and has lived in Palo Alto, California since 1974. She joined WILPF in 2012 to work against war and for disarmament. She is a member of the Peninsula/Palo Alto, California, branch of WILPF through which she works on CEDAW, nuclear disarmament and the Poor People’s Campaign. Spencer’s major projects for WILPF have been: an extensive exhibit celebrating WILPF’s centenary; a detailed report on treaties; coordinating the 2020 Solidarity Season; co-creating the 
Barb Taft is former co-chair of our WILPF Middle East Committee (now called MEPJAC). She visited the Middle East 10 times from 1967 to 2009, and co-authored our Hamas booklet. More recently, she wrote an article for 
Mazin Qumsiyeh was born in 1957 in Beit Sahour (known in English as Shepherds Field). He is a Palestinian scientist and author. Currently, he serves as founder and director of the Palestine Museum of Natural History (PMNH) and the Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability (PIBS) at Bethlehem University, where he also teaches. He served on the faculties of the University of Tennessee (1989–1993), Duke University (1993–1999), and Yale University (1999–2005). Dr. Qumsiyeh now researches and teaches at Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities since returning to Palestine in 2008. He joined other professors to introduce the first Biotechnology Masters program in the region. Over the course of his career he has published well over 150 scientific papers on topics ranging from cultural heritage to biodiversity, as well as several books. He also serves on the board of a number of Palestinian youth and service organizations.
Rabbi Arik Ascherman is an American-born Israeli Reform Rabbi, and Executive Director of the Israeli human rights organization Torat Tzedek—Torah of Justice. For 21 years, starting in 1995, he served as Co-Director (1995-1998), Executive Director (1998-2010), Director of Special Projects (2010-2012) and President and Senior Rabbi (2012-2017) for Rabbis for Human Rights, an Israeli organization. He is also affiliated with the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and has been attacked by both the Israeli military police and by settlers, as well as arrested for his nonviolent activism. He is currently working to protect sheep-herders from being forced out of their grazing areas and their occupations.
Rachel Betesh is a registered nurse and poet - as well as a member of Jewish Voice for Peace and Jewish Mothers Against War Crimes. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The New Yorker, Poetry Northwest, Wildness, and Bennington Review.
Marguerite Adelman, a Vermont resident, is a retired non-profit administrator (education, social services, and government). Marguerite served on the WILPF US Development Committee and attended the 100th Anniversary Conference of WILPF at the Hague in 2015 and the UN Commission on the Status of Women Conference in NYC in March 2018. As an experienced grant writer and past Communications Director for the Cook Department of Public Health (Illinois), she became interested in per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in 2019. For the past 5 years, she has served as the Coordinator for the Vermont PFAS/Military Poisons Coalition. Marguerite has given presentations on PFAS to citizen groups, WILPF branches across the U.S., and WILPF International's Earth Democracy Committee. The VT Coalition includes diverse groups (peace, social justice, economic justice, religious, and environmental) that collaborate to provide education on "forever chemicals" and advocate for legislation to ban PFAS forever.
Moses West is a retired Army officer. He is currently the CEO and Founder of AWG Contracting, and his Non-profit 501c3 The Moses West Foundation. He works closely with the U.S. Military, universities, and municipalities to mitigate the prolonged effects of drought, water contamination issues and food shortages by advancing the technology of Atmospheric Water Generators. He has worked endlessly over the past 10 years to manufacture the most energy efficient high-volume water producing Atmospheric Water Generator units available for Military use, disaster recovery, and normal everyday usage for a myriad of other solutions where water has become difficult to obtain. He has proven that the Atmosphere is an endless, inexhaustible source of pure water that is limitless in its ability to provide for a growing global population. This is necessary source of water for many critical areas of society today and well into the future. He has developed mass production water facilities as well as small units for emergency use. He has made it his mission to prove that the atmosphere is a limitless source of water that will help provide for society well into the future. He has been the first to successfully the largest AWG unit for the first in a any major water crisis event. Moses deployed the technology in Puerto Rico on the Island of Vieques to supply all the island with potable water, He has deployed one AWG unit to Flint Michigan and Jackson Mississippi. These missions are recorded as the first time that any large Atmospheric Water Generator has been deployed in recovery efforts from a natural disaster or water contamination issues within the United States.
Tamara Lorincz is a PhD candidate in Global Governance at the Balsillie School for International Affairs at Wilfrid Laurier University. She has a Masters in International Politics & Security Studies from the University of Bradford and a Law degree and MBA specializing in environmental law and management from Dalhousie University. Her research is on the climate and environmental impacts of the military. She’s a member of the Canadian Voice of Women for Peace and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom-Canada. Tamara is also on the advisory committee of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, and the No to War, No to NATO Network. She’s a long-time environmentalist, feminist and peace activist and a mother with two teenage boys.
Helen Jaccard is a non-veteran member of Veterans For Peace and a member of the WILPF Disarm/End Wars Issues Committee. She co-founded the Veterans For Peace Nuclear Abolition Working Group and manages the Golden Rule Project. She is an author and public speaker and travels internationally, most recently a second trip to Guatemala to investigate the cultural and environmental harm caused by US and Canadian mining.
George Friday grew up in a rural low-income community in North Carolina in the 60s. She holds degrees in Political Science, Economics, and African American Studies from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, from which she graduated in 1982.
Timmon Wallis, PhD is the National Coordinator of the Warheads to Windmills Coalition. He has spent his life teaching, writing, directing organizations, and campaigning on peace and environmental issues in colleges, war zones, and with governments around the world. With his colleagues at the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, he shares the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize. His newest book is Warheads to Windmills: Preventing Climate Catastrophe and Nuclear War.
Vicki Elson, MA is the Creative Director of NuclearBan.US, which facilitates the Warheads to Windmills Coalition. After a long career in childbirth education and labor support, she has shifted her focus to supporting human well-being with total nuclear abolition and converting the resources wasted on WMD's to science-based climate solutions. 
Founder and executive director of the 
Rickey Gard Diamond, author of Screwnomics and a column at Ms. Magazine, Women Unscrewing Screwnomics, got her early education in economics at a welfare office in the 70s. A newly divorced mother of three, she just couldn't make her budget work despite a fulltime job, and believed it was her fault. Since then she's made a study of how our economy works—and doesn't work—for women and people of color. Most recently, she started an alliance of feminist activists and organizations to spotlight women already working on transforming a patriarchal system never designed with women in mind, except as property. An Economy of Our Own (AEOO),is finding solutions to growing inequality from the bottom up. AEOO is grateful that WILPF-US and its Women, Money and Democracy committee is one of its strongest partners in this work. 
Mary Sanderson is a veteran Raging Granny, postal worker, farmer, interpreter, peace activist, mostly veteran at this point. Growing up among dying family farms, then spinning wheels as a WILPF activist for 3 decades, brought me eventually to study monetary reform. We'll sketch out the argument that Just Money (public-purposed and debt-free) is a pre-req for rescuing water and food, for peace, for respecting our living Earth and rebuilding trust.
Fernanda Lugo is an activist and artist, and works as the Social Media and Outreach Director for Alliance For Just Money, and as an educator for sustainable solutions in her local desert region, El Paso Texas. She graduated with a Master's in biobehavioral health, a field at the intersection of health psychology, promotion, and policy. Her research at the intersection of sustainability and health led her to find that one of the missing links is simply the power to organize people with resources. She believes that the power of money can help us meet the goals of a just society, and advocates for monetary reform to reprioritize the wellbeing of the earth and human health. 
