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November 8, 2017

A preface

 

Another Bloody Sunday, only this time it was in Sutherland Springs, Texas, an out-of-the-way small town, with the small-town assurance of safety and security. No longer. And why is that?    

 

"Overall, our results show that the U.S., which has the most firearms per capita in the world, suffers disproportionately from firearms compared with other high-income countries," said study author Erin Grinshteyn, an assistant professor at the School of Community Health Science at the University of Nevada-Reno. "These results are consistent with the hypothesis that our  firearms are killing us rather than protecting us," she said in a journal news release (The New England Journal of Medicine, 2016).

 

This is not news to most of us, but tragically confirms what Jane Addams alluded to in the section "Passing of the War Virtues," in her New Ideals of Peace (1907); to paraphrase, that the pride and courage connected to war and militant (guns, bombs, drones) solutions as virtuous must be replaced by a more humane and constructive way that our culture rewards courage and strength. A century has passed!

 

I wanted to bring some more immediate items and issues to your attention. I will have more on the two conferences I attended later, World Beyond War/Environment and Remembering Muted Voices: Conscience, Dissent, Resistance, and Civil Liberties in World War I through Today... upcoming, a tale of two conferences!

CONGRATULATIONS to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) and to the WILPF women who helped make it possible! WILPF is on the international steering group of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) and is represented by Reaching Critical Will and Ray Acheson and Allison Pytlak. Susi Snyder, who served as the Secretary General of WILPF, is with PAX, which is also on the international steering group. Felicity Ruby, a former Director of WILPF's UN office, helped found ICAN. Thank you for all your hard work and inspiration!

BALLOTS: To be sure our work continues, I send this reminder that YOUR BALLOTS MUST BE POSTMARKED ON OR BEFORE SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2017.

BE INFORMED and VOTE! Did you miss the CANDIDATE CALL and are having regrets? Here's your chance to catch up with the rest of us by clicking on this link and reading their succinct answers to three important questions.

ONE WILPF CALL: Thursday, November 9, 2017 4pm PT / 7pm ET

A NEW NAFTA, worse than TPP? Worse for the environment, for local economies, for the democratic process, for nation state sovereignty of laws, for drug prices, and for family farms? Well, YES! Come on down and listen and talk with Lisa Griffith, the Outreach Director for the National Family Farm Coalition and Betsy Garrold, representative to the Executive Board of National Family Farm Coalition and Board President for Food for Maine's Future. NOTE: CSW 2018 theme " Challenges and opportunities in achieving gender equality and the empowerment of rural women and girls"

 

 

For those who are interested in WILPF US Local to Global or the Practicum programs or know someone who would be, please click here.
Deadline: 11:59 pm Pacific Time, Sunday, November 19, 2017 

[email protected] 

 

Related Environmental Issues  

 

See UN Climage Change Conference

•  COP23  

Messages from UN Special Rapporteur Hilal Elver 

States Must Act Now to Fulfill Famine Victims' Right to Food - UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food

NEW YORK (23 October 2017) - The tragic reality of famine around the world has revealed that many States are failing to uphold their legal responsibilities, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Hilal Elver, told  the UN General Assembly in New York today.

 

She also called for an urgent shift in thinking away from crisis reactions and toward famine prevention.

 

"Contrary to popular belief, casualties resulting directly from combat usually make up only a small proportion of deaths in conflict zones, with most individuals in fact perishing from hunger and disease. Human rights violations, war crimes, repression and gross forms of inequality are conditions that frequently give rise to famine," she said. "The attention and commitment of the international community must, as a matter of the highest priority, be directed toward eliminating the root causes of famine, and not limited to ad hoc responses to the agonizing symptoms of the latest food emergency."

 

 

Although it seems difficult to be happy in these times, I hope that you, your family and friends, all gather together, if not in person then in spirit, and RISEUP! with joy and fortitude and be thankful for each other.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING Dear Sisters!