September 2012 eNews

Published on September, 31 2012

Table of Contents
Members' Voting on Bylaws Amendment Allows Reshaping of WILPF US at National Level
Follow WILPF at the Human Rights Council
No War on Iran—Promote a Middle East Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone
Intelligent Compassion: Feminist Critical Methodology in the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom by Catia Cecilia Confortini
Reminder: Global Frackdown Day of Action, September 22
DISARM/End Wars Update
A Victory for the Earth and for Future Generations
Human Right to Water Act in California Needs Governor Brown's Signature to be Law (DEADLINE SENSITIVE!)
CvD Issue Committee Extends Time for Monsanto Survey: Branches Asked to Weigh In
16 Days Campaign
WILPF Launches New Website

Members' Voting on Bylaws Amendment Allows Reshaping of WILPF US at National Level
By WILPF US ad hoc Bylaws Committee
Sometime this month all WILPF US members should receive a letter, a packet of information. containing a ballot and background information for an all-member vote on three important proposed Bylaws amendments: Direct Member-election of President, Creation of a Board Membership Development Committee and Committee Chair, and Creation of Staggered Elections for Board Members. These three changes are substantial in defining the nature and potential responsiveness of our national board; they are a response to long-standing member advocacy for changes in our structure. Please inform other WILPF members you know—whether at large or branch members—about this important vote and encourage them to participate and to tell us, by their votes where they stand.
The US Board has consensed in support of these three proposals and the national ad hoc Bylwas Committee hopes that you will respond in favor of all three amendments.
More information will become available via the (updated) WILPF US website (most likely on the Bylaws page). We expect, also, to have a "discussion board" on the website for members to share considerations and opinions about the proposed changes. Read more...

Follow WILPF at the Human Rights Council
By the International Secretariat
The 21st session of the Human Rights Council (HRC) will begin on Monday, September 10th and WILPF will be present and active as the Council reviews the Universal Periodic Reviews of thirteen nations (including India and Finland, where there are strong WILPF sections), the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the Use of Children in Armed Conflict. The staff of WILPF’s International Secretariat in Geneva has been preparing and strategizing for the three weeks of the council, in concert with WILPF members from relevant national sections.
 
WILPF has put together a team to cover the council and they will be attending most sessions and side events on behalf of WILPF. To keep you informed about what is going on, there will be posts to Facebook and Twitter daily. If you need to reach WILPF at the HRC between September 10 and September 28, while the council is in session, please write to rights@wilpf.ch.

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No War on Iran—Promote a Middle East Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone
By the Middle East Issue Committee, Odile Hugonot Haber and Barbara Taft, Co-Chairs

Jaako Laajava, facilitator of the upcoming Helsinki conference on a Middle East Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone.

Share the following letter with your contacts and use in writing your own letters to the President, Congress, and the press. Call the White House today 202-456-1111, TTY/TTD 202-456-6213 to urge restraint and diplomacy instead of threatening to bomb Iran.
Middle East Committee co-chair Odile Hugonot Haber traveled to Vienna to distribute and speak about the WILPF US statement supporting a Middle East Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone with participating Middle East ambassadors and NGOs at the Non-Proliferation Treaty Prep-Conference. Here is our letter to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton advancing the MEWMDFZ. Read more...

Order Now: Intelligent Compassion: Feminist Critical Methodology in the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom by Catia Cecilia Confortini
The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) has a unique role in post-war peace activism. It is the longest-surviving international women's peace organization and one of the oldest peace organizations in the West. Founded in 1915, when a group of women from neutral and belligerent nations in World War I met at The Hague to formulate proposals for ending the war, WILPF sent delegations of women to several countries to plead for peace, and their final resolutions are often credited with influencing Woodrow Wilson's 14 Points. Today, the organization counts several thousand members in 36 countries, on five continents. Since 1948, it has enjoyed consultative status with the UN, and it was instrumental in bringing about recent United Nations Security Council Resolutions on Women, Peace and Security. Download a coupon good for 20% off your book order here. Read more...

Reminder: Global Frackdown Day of Action
By Nancy Price, Earth Democracy Issue Committee
On September 22, WILPF and Earth Democracy join the growing coalition in the Global Frackdown Day of Action calling for a global ban on fracking. Join this growing and powerful people’s movement to ban fracking not just in the U.S., but world-wide. This is one big step toward environmental and climate justice that will help secure national and international peace and freedom now and for future generations.
Planning a local Event? Print out Earth Democracy's new "Don't Frack with US: Our Bodies, the World's Water 'Peace Begins at Home'" fact sheet in color and black and white here (available in grayscale or color). Read more...

DISARM/End Wars Update
Looking back on August's Nuclear Free Future Month and Looking forward to September Steps Toward Peace
By Carol Urner, DISARM/End Wars Issue Committee

Image from Keep Space for Peace poster, October 6 to 13, Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, Co-Sponsored by WILPF, Reaching Critical Will

We look back on an active August Nuclear Free Future month. Listen to Ellen Thomas’ song, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Fukishima sung by Courtney Dowe. Hiroshima-Nagasaki reports from Branches are being posted on the UFPJ Nuclear Free Future website. Read the enthusiastic report by Hattie Nestel and Cecile Pineda on their August tour to 11 communities threatened by controversial nuclear reactors in New York, Vermont, Massachusetts and Maine. They will be happy to help you arrange meetings in your own communities where Cecile Pineda can share from her book Devils Tango: How I Learned the Fukishima Step by Step.

In September we continue to move forward in our quest for a Nuclear Free Future, an end to wars and occupations, and dismantling the war economy. On Thursday September 6 Jean Verthein will represent WILPF at an open UN General Assembly conference on ending all nuclear testing and proceeding to abolition. Remember the D.C. Branch campaign to ban depleted uranium. Read and sign their petition to Hilary Clinton. We will also be planning for Keep Space for Peace week and space demilitarization October 6 to 13. Branch contacts should have already received posters, Space Alert newsletters and action suggestions. Some Branches are already planning to focus on satellite controlled drones. Carol Urner will visit D.C. Branch and deliver KS4P week posters, newsletters and a WILPF letter to Congress and to NGO leaders September 9 to 14. Read more for important additional September events, details and action resources. Read more...

A Victory for the Earth and for Future Generations
By Jean Hays, Earth Democracy Leadership Team, Fresno, California

Fresno Raging Grannies from left to right: Betsy Temple, Ellie Bluestein, Nancy Kelly, Nancy Waidtlow, Pat Wolk

For a decade, Jesse Morrow Mountain, a predominant foothill at the gateway to the Sierra Mountains and to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks just northwest of Fresno, California, has been the target of the Cemex Corporation, one of the world’s largest purveyors of construction material. Cemex wanted to turn the mountain into a gravel quarry, for all purposes, slashing a giant hole in its side. The crowning insult to the Earth was the fact that the mountain, called Wa-ha-lish by the Choinumni Tribe who has made their home there for close to a thousand years, is sacred ground.

WILPF Fresno’s Earth Democracy Issues Group decided it wanted to help the Friends of Jesse Morrow Mountain of nearby Reedley, and WILPF’s gaggle of Raging Grannies also took on the task. Read more...

Human Right to Water Act in California Needs Governor Brown's Signature to be Law
By Nancy Price, Earth Democracy Leadership Team Member

Human-right-to-water activists in Sacramento in April 2011.
Photo courtesy of Anne Hoffman.

The Human Right to Water Act, AB 684, just passed both houses of the California Legislature. It is now on Governor Brown’s desk to sign into state law and policy.  

To ensure Governor Brown signs AB 685 this month, we invite one last action by California WILPFers. Please print out this petition to have your family and friends sign so all Californians can have access to safe, affordable water for drinking, cooking and sanitation. One petition page from many CA WILPFers will let the Governor know the extent of grassroots support. THIS IS DEADLINE SENSITIVE, PLEASE RESPOND NO LATER THAN SEPTEMBER 12!
It’s been four long years to get to this point!
Mail to the Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry Action Network, CA, 717 K St. #514, Sacramento, CA 95814 to be delivered before September 13 or FAX to: 916 441-0015.  On September 13 or shortly thereafter, a delegation of the Save Water Alliance (California) of which WILPF U.S. is a member will meet with the Governor’s office to deliver letters and petitions. Read more...

CvD Issue Committee Extends Time for Monsanto Survey: Branches Asked to Weigh In
By Marybeth Gardam, Chair, Corporations vs Democracy Issue Committee in Collaboration with the Food Democracy/Local Economy Subcommittee of the Earth Democracy Issue Committee
Because so many individual WILPF members responded to say they could not speak for their branches in considering what, if anything, they would be willing to do to address the issue of Monsanto, we are expanding the survey through September.  We ask that members ask their BRANCHES to consider this question at their September meetings and to have the branch representative complete the survey.
This survey is still available at the WILPF website.

16 Days Campaign
Message from PeaceWomen

Roving Flash Mob from Cape Cod Branch's "Blow the Whistle" Action

The 2012 16 Days Campaign will continue with the global theme: From Peace in the Home to Peace in the World: Let’s Challenge Militarism and End Violence Against Women! 
Last year, we had historic participation by WILPF sections.
More information will be available soon, but the 2012 Take Action Kit and other relevant materials are available now.
Visit the links below for more information:

WILPF Launches New Website
The long awaited redesign of WILPF’s website is finally here! You’ll now find us at a different URL: www.wilpfus.org. The change of address is part of an international overhaul of WILPF’s web presence; when completed www.wilpf.org will be the gate way to WILPF around the world.
For now, please update your homepage and browser to our new address, check out the navigation which we think will promote our goals of transparency and inclusiveness, and participate in one of the on line discussion boards. Let us know what you think about the new design by writing to the national board at dialogue@wilpfus.org.
Other important news, shared by Laura Roskos, President of WILPF's U.S. Section can be found here.