Palo Alto Pickets Their Congresswoman Over Reducing Risk of Nuclear War

Rep. Eshoo’s constituents stand outside her office. Her field representative Nicholas Hargis and WILPFer Cherrill Spencer exchange letters about nuclear weapons. Photo taken with Spencer’s camera.

by Judy Adams and Cherrill Spencer
Members of the Peninsula/Palo Alto Branch

November 2022

“This weekend will mark the 60th anniversary of the start of the Cuban Missile Crisis – widely regarded as the closest the world has ever come to nuclear war, until this year.
    
The possible risk of nuclear war has risen sharply in recent months, and we are members of a coalition of nearly 100 organizations who have come together to educate the public and call on elected officials to de-escalate tensions between the nuclear superpowers.”

Thus starts the letter the Peninsula/Palo Alto branch handed to Congresswoman Anna Eshoo’s office as we picketed there on October 14, 2022.

The purpose of these nationwide pickets was to get our congressional reps to do something about the enormous amounts of money being spent on nuclear weapons and to reduce our reliance on them. To that end in our letter to Rep Eshoo we asked her to do three things:

• co-sponsor H.Res.1185 to show her support of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and pressure our State and Defense Departments to honor our obligation to disarm under article 6 of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which we ratified in 1969
• co-sponsor the People Over Pentagon Act H.R. 8040, to reduce the amount authorized to be appropriated for the Department of Defense for fiscal year 2023 (& future FY)
• co-sponsor H.R. 2850, the Nuclear Weapons Abolition and Economic and Energy Conversion Act 

Photo: Peninsula/Palo Alto WILPFer Judy Adams stands with our vigil’s signs, used by picketers later. Photo credit: Becky Fischbach, used with permission. 

We will be checking up on our Rep to offer further information on nuclear weapons and why they need to be abolished.

Part 2 of our DNW “picket line” began at noon, as those gathered outside Rep. Eshoo’s office at 11 am arrived for a second picket at our usual noon silent vigil location at a busy Palo Alto corner a short drive from Eshoo’s office. We added a few more activists from extensive publicity. Our group remained small, but it was spirited.  

While we were at Rep. Eshoo’s office, member Judy Adams, who coordinated the publicity for our WILPF/DNW event, set up the second location for our picket at our usual silent vigil location at a busy street corner across from a shopping center, public high school, and an entrance to the Stanford campus. She has organized weekly, small silent vigils at that location since 2018, when we partnered with the Poor People’s Campaign.

Judy arrayed various banners on nearby walls and fences so passing pedestrians and cars would see them. In addition she set up a table full of information about WILPF, our branch (including our vigils), copies of Peace and Freedom, the WILPF petition for the TPNW, and DNW action-demands flyers. She was a one-woman vigil as she waited for our picketers to arrive.

To add color to our action Judy had arranged for Sharat Lin, a local peace activist who often does peace-issue programming at the San Jose Peace Center, and gives well-attended lectures in the community. He is also known (and beloved) as the Peace Dancer, performing in  his full Monarch Butterfly costume ,accompanied by music – symbolizing the migration of people seeking asylum, and the “pollination” – spreading in the world – ideas of peace and justice. He came to perform his dance to inspire us, but also to take photos and videos, such as this short video clip of his Peace Dance (38 sec).

Above photo: Palo Alto picketers at the corner of El Camino and Embarcadero in Palo Alto    Photo credit: G. Sharat Lin used with his permission

Near the end of our event, the long-awaited DNW banner arrived with our bicycle courier, WILPFer Becky Fischbach (who helps make signs and come up with slogans for our vigils). We all stood together with the Defuse Nuclear War banner, with Sharat at our side.

The banner will join our “library” for future events as we continue stand to end the nuclear era and say a resounding No to Nuclear War! in solidarity with Defuse Nuclear war and our sister WILPF branches.