Please see the call for Spring Days of Action to End Drone Killing, Surveillance and Global Militarization. As you can see, the call is initiated by leading anti-war activists and groups including UNAC. Please start your plans today for actions during the months of April and May. Add your name and your organization to the growing list of supporters by clicking on the link below. There will be a page set up to let people know of activity in their area. For now, please send any information on planned actions to UNACpeace@gmail.com and they will appear on the national list. We want to make this campaign international. For any groups outside of the US who are interested in endorsing this campaign and/or building actions in your own country, please let us know.
CALL
FOR SPRING DAYS OF ACTION – 2014
Today we issue an international call for Spring Days of Action – 2014, a coordinated campaign in April and May to:
End
Drone Killing, Drone Surveillance and Global Militarization
The campaign will
focus on drone bases, drone research facilities and test sites and drone
manufacturers.
The campaign will
provide information on:
1. The
suffering of tens of thousands of people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen,
Somalia and Gaza who are under drone attack, documenting the killing, the
wounding and the devastating impact of constant drone surveillance on community
life.
2. How attack and
surveillance drones have become a key element in a massive wave of surveillance,
clandestine military attacks and militarization generated by the United States
to protect a global system of manufacture and oil and mineral exploitation that
is creating unemployment and poverty, accelerating the waste of nonrenewable
resources and contributing to environmental destruction and global warming.
In addition to
cases in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia, we will examine President
Obama's "pivot" into the Asia-Pacific, where the United States has already sold
and deployed drones in the vanguard of a shift of 60% of its military forces to
try to control China and to enforce the planned Trans-Pacific Partnership. We
will show, among other things, how this surge of "pivot" forces, greatly enabled
by drones, and supported by the US military-industrial complex, will hit every
American community with even deeper cuts in the already fragile social programs
on which people rely for survival. In short, we will connect drones and
militarization with "austerity" in America.
3. How drone
attacks have effectively destroyed international and domestic legal protection
of the rights to life, privacy, freedom of assembly and free speech and have
opened the way for new levels of surveillance and repression around the world,
and how, in the United States, increasing drone surveillance, added to
surveillance by the National Security Agency and police, provides a new weapon
to repress black, Hispanic, immigrant and low-income communities and to
intimidate Americans who are increasingly unsettled by lack of jobs, economic
inequality, corporate control of politics and the prospect of endless war.
We will discuss
how the United States government and corporations conspire secretly to monitor
US citizens and particularly how the Administration is accelerating drone
surveillance operations and surveillance inside the United States with the same
disregard for transparency and law that it applies to other countries, all with
the cooperation of the Congress.
The campaign will
encourage activists around the world to win passage of local laws that prohibit
weaponized drones and drone surveillance from being used in their communities as
well as seeking national laws to bar the use of weaponized drones and drone
surveillance.
The campaign will
draw attention to the call for a ban on weaponized drones by RootsAction.org
that has generated a petition with over 80,000 signers
and to efforts by
the Granny Peace Brigade (New York City), KnowDrones.org and others to achieve
an international ban on both weaponized drones and drone surveillance.
The campaign will
also urge participation in the World Beyond War movement.
The following
individuals and organizations endorse this Call:
Lyn Adamson –
Co-chair, Canadian Voice of Women for Peace
Dennis Apel –
Guadalupe Catholic Worker, California
Judy Bello –
Upstate NY Coalition to Ground the Drones & End the Wars
Medea Benjamin –
Code Pink
Leah Bolger –
Former National President, Veterans for Peace
Canadian Voice of
Women for Peace
Sung-Hee Choi –
Gangjeong Village International Team, Jeju, Korea
Chelsea C. Faria –
Graduate student, Yale Divinity School; Promoting Enduring Peace
Sandy Fessler –
Rochester (NY) Against War
Joy First
Bruce K. Gagnon -
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
Holly Gwinn Graham
– Singer/songwriter, Olympia, WA.
Regina Hagen -
Darmstaedter Friedensforum, Germany
Kathy Kelly –
Voices for Creative Nonviolence
Malachy
Kilbride
Marilyn Levin and
Joe Lombardo – Co-Coordinators, United National Antiwar Coalition
Tamara Lorincz –
Halifax Peace Coalition, Canada
Nick Mottern –
KnowDrones.org
Agneta Norberg –
Swedish Peace Council
Pepperwolf –
Director, Women Against Military Madness
Lindis Percy,
Coordinator, Campaign for the Accountability of American
Bases CAAB
UK
Mathias
Quackenbush – San Francisco, CA
Lisa Savage – Code
Pink, State of Maine
Janice
Sevre-Duszynska
Wolfgang
Schlupp-Hauck- Friedenswerkstatt Mutlangen, Germany
Cindy Sheehan
Lucia Wilkes Smith
– Convener, Women Against Military Madness (WAMM) – Ground
Military Drones
Committee
David Soumis –
Veterans for Peace; No Drones Wisconsin
Debra Sweet –
World Can’t Wait
David Swanson -
WarisACrime.org
Brian Terrell –
Voices for Creative Nonviolence
United National
Antiwar Coalition
Veterans for
Peace
Dave Webb – Chair,
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (UK)
Curt Wechsler –
Fire John Yoo! (a project of World Can’t Wait) – San Francisco, CA
Paki Wieland,
Northampton (MA) Committee to Stop War(s)
Loring Wirbel –
Citizens for Peace in Space (Colorado Springs, CO)
Women Against
Military Madness
Ann Wright –
Retired US Army colonel and former diplomat
Leila Zand -
Fellowship of Reconciliation
To add yourself to the UNAC listserv, please send an email to: UNAC-subscribe@lists.riseup.net |
This blog came into existence based on a post originally addressed to a fellow younger worker who was clueless about the "beats" of the 1950s and their stepchildren, the "hippies" of the 1960s, two movements that influenced me considerably in those days. Any and all essays, thoughts, or half-thoughts about this period in order to "enlighten" our younger co-workers and to preserve our common cultural history are welcome, very welcome.
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
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