• A Peace Agreement to end the Korean War;
• Life-saving humanitarian assistance; and
• Other humanitarian issues such as lifting the travel ban, reuniting separated families, and repatriating the remains of U.S. service members.

What to expect:

 Prior to the advocacy week, you will

• Be trained on how to lobby Members of Congress; and
• Be invited to educational webinars.
• Trainings and webinars will take place in the evenings (8pm ET) prior to the virtual advocacy week.

During the advocacy week, you will

• Have 1 to 3 meetings with Members of Congress and/or their staff.
• Meetings with Members of Congress will take place during the week, typically between 9am and 6pm ET.
• Meetings usually last about 30 minutes, and coordinators will do their best to work with your schedule.

After the advocacy week, you will:

• Have the option to attend a casual virtual happy hour and debrief.

Register here by June 21.

Organized by: Korea Peace Network, Korea Peace Now Grassroots Network, Peace Treaty Now

The post Please join the Sixth Annual Virtual Korea Peace Advocacy Week July 12-16, 2021 appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.

 REGISTRATION: http://bit.ly/APElites

State foreign and military policies don’t necessarily represent the interests of a nation’s people. In the push-pull between ties with China and the United States, the foreign and military policies of countries in the region often are powerfully influenced by the financial and trade ambitions of their elites. The results often are to the detriment of their people, and increase military tensions and the dangers of war. The recently launched Asia‐Pacific Working Group will host a webinar providing background and analysis of the influence that Asia‐Pacific elites have had on money and trade, and foreign and military policies in the region.

Featured speakers will be:

Youkyoung Ko is a consultant for Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) and women‐led Korea Peace Now! Campaign, and a standing executive committee member of the Korea Peace Appeal Campaign. She is an expert on impacts of the US‐ROK alliance and US military presence in South Korea.

Brian Hioe is a founding editor of New Bloom and a freelance writer on social movements and politics. A New York native and Taiwanese‐American, he has an MA in East Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University and graduated from New York University with majors in History, East Asian Studies, and English Literature and a former Democracy and Human Rights Service Fellow at the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy.

Andrew Lichterman is a policy analyst and lawyer with the Oakland, California based Western States Legal Foundation and a member of the Coordinating Committee of United for Peace and Justice. As a lawyer, Mr. Lichterman has represented peace and environmental activists in a variety of settings and writes about the politics of disarmament efforts and the relationship between disarmament work and other social movements.

The post WEBINAR: Asia‐Pacific Elites: Money & Trade, and Foreign and Military Policies. appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.

Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy (LCNP) twice brought together leading lawyers, law professors, and analysts to reflect on these developments, in December 2018 and in May 2019. In January, LCNP released Human Rights Versus Nuclear Weapons: New Dimensions, which collects papers based on the speakers’ remarks.

• Roger Clark of Rutgers Law, LCNP Executive Director Ariana Smith, LCNP President Emeritus Peter Weiss, and Dr. Daniel Rietiker of the University of Lausanne examine and reflect upon the significance and implications of the finding of the UN Human Rights Committee.
• Bonnie Docherty of the Harvard Law International Human Rights Clinic addresses human rights aspects of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
• Andrew Lichterman of Western States Legal Foundation explores how human rights discourse could be a terrain for making connections between disarmament movements and other movements for a more fair, democratic, and ecologically sustainable society.

This publication is highly recommended reading for anyone seeking to understand how a human rights approach can contribute to the abolition of nuclear weapons.

Also in January, Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy and Western States Legal Foundation made a submission to the UN Human Rights Committee concerning the nuclear weapons program of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). The committee’s periodic review of the DPRK is now underway.

The submission begins:

“Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights defines the right to life in its paragraph 1 in the following terms: “Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.” In 2018, in a general comment, the United Nations Human Rights Committee addressed nuclear weapons, finding among other things that the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons “is incompatible with respect for the right to life.” In this submission, Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy (LCNP) and Western States Legal Foundation (WSLF), drawing on the general comment, hold that the policy and practice of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) in relation to nuclear weapons contravenes the right to life under the ICCPR in multiple ways. At the end, we suggest questions to be included in the list of issues.

LCNP and WSLF have previously submitted a comment to the Committee concerning the Russian Federation’s nuclear weapons policy and have also made a submission to the Human Rights Council concerning the nuclear weapons policy of the United States of America. We are fully aware that the geopolitical situation of the DPRK is far different than that of major powers whose projection of power worldwide relies in part on nuclear arms. In particular, the DPRK for decades, even before it acquired nuclear weapons, has faced possible US use of nuclear weapons in certain circumstances. In 2017, the United States and the DPRK each made unmistakable and belligerent threats of use of nuclear arms, with President Trump making reference to “fire and fury” and the DPRK referring to its “rockets’ visit to the entire U.S. mainland.” Nonetheless, international human rights law and other relevant international law apply universally, regardless of a country’s particular circumstances, and each country must comply with the law.”

The submission goes on to address threat and use of nuclear weapons; the obligations to negotiate nuclear disarmament,  to refrain from nuclear testing, and to dismantle the nuclear stockpile; the obligations to afford adequate reparation to victims of nuclear testing and use and to remediate the environment; and the need to end the expenditure of resources on nuclear arms. It closes with suggested questions for the review.

The post Human Rights Versus Nuclear Weapons appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.

1) National Action to End the Korean War: June 1 – 5, 2020/National Advocacy Week

In the 70th anniversary year of the unended Korean War, join hundreds of people across the country in nationally coordinated virtual advocacy meetings to urge your Member of Congress to support a peace agreement to end the Korean War and the lifting of sanctions for life-saving humanitarian assistance. Register here by May 15. 

Organized by Korea Peace Network, Korea Peace Now! Grassroots Network, Peace Treaty Now, and Women Cross DMZ 

2) Webinar: Shifting from “Security” to “Peace” in Korea

Thursday, May 21, 2020: 8 pm ET/5 pm PT. Click here to register

Why have the U.S. and North Korea been at war for 70 years? How do we get to peace? What makes us truly secure?

Join this webinar with Dr. Han S. Park on the need for a radical shift toward a peace paradigm in Korea. English to Korean interpretation will be provided.

Han S. Park is University Professor Emeritus of International Affairs and Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Global Issues (GLOBIS) at the University of Georgia. Dr. Park has visited North Korea more than 50 times since 1981 to further efforts for diplomacy and peacemaking. He was instrumental in President Jimmy Carter’s visit to North Korea in 1994 to avert military confrontation and President Bill Clinton’s visit to Pyongyang to free detained American journalists in 2009.

Hosted by Korea Peace Network, Korea Peace Now Grassroots Network, Peace Treaty Now, Re’Generation Movement, Women Cross DMZ

3) Join CODEPINK and World Beyond War for the last two installments of their 5-part Divest from the War Machine webinar series. 

Tuesday, May 12: Divesting Universities; 5 – 6 pm PT/8 – 9 pm ET. Register here. 

Tuesday May 19: Coalition Building Across Movements; 3 – 4 pm PT/6 – 7 pm ET

Register here.

4) Did you know the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, invests billions of dollars in weapons manufacturers? Thursday, May 21, at 7:30 am ET, join CODEPINK and allies for the People’s Blackrock Stakeholders’ Protest.  Take action online as the BlackRock shareholders meeting will be taking place virtually because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The post Take Action to End the Korean War and Divest From the War Machine! appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.

March 15-17, 2020; Washington DC

Deadline for registration: March 1, 2020

70 Years Too Long!

The Korean War (1950-53) never ended. It was merely suspended by an armistice agreement between North Korea and the United States. While the Korean War no longer consists of active fighting, hostilities between the two parties have remained high, resulting in the extreme militarization of the Korean Peninsula.

Without a peace agreement, war could break out at any time. And if war erupted on the Korean Peninsula today, it’s estimated that as many as 300,000 people would die in the first few days of conventional fighting. Because of regional treaties and agreements, such a conflict also has the potential to escalate into a much larger regional war with China.

Negotiating a peace agreement would not only end the Korean War, it would be a crucial step toward denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula. It would also improve the humanitarian conditions for millions of North Koreans, who rely on humanitarian aid to survive. And it would be a step toward shifting resources away from endless wars and to more basic human needs.

Come to DC for the National Action to End the Korean War

 Schedule of Events:

Sun, March 15: March and rally at the White House

Mon, March 16: Annual Korea Peace Network Conference

Tue, March 17: Korea peace advocacy on the Hill

Register here. Note: deadline for registration is March 1, 2020.

United for Peace and Justice is a member of the Korea Peace Network, coordinated by Peace Action, a network comprised of peace, social justice, human rights, faith, veterans and Korean-American groups and individuals advocating peace on the Korean peninsula.

The post Subject: End All Endless Wars, Korea Peace Now! appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.

Here are the critical steps that are needed.

We are asking people everywhere on Earth to sign this petition to U.S. President Donald Trump:

We urge you to conclude a binding peace agreement constituting a formal and final end to the state of war between North Korea, South Korea, and the United States. We also ask that you direct the U.S. State Department to consult with officials of South Korea and with representatives of Korean Americans on potential opportunities to reunite Korean American families with family members in North Korea. In addition, we ask that you implement UN resolution 3390 of November 18, 1975, instructing the United States to dissolve the so-called United Nations Command in South Korea.

In addition, U.S. residents should click here to send an email that will go to your Representative and Senators, asking them to cosponsor and promote H.Res.152 (and parallel legislation in the Senate) calling for a formal end of the Korean war, and H.R.1771 (and the same in the Senate) directing that efforts be undertaken to reunite Korean Americans with their family members in North Korea, as well as asking them to dissolve the United Nations Command in South Korea.

Please forward this email to everyone who cares about peace.

Please read and share this PDF flyer with “talking points” from Korea Peace Now.

Toward Peace,

World Beyond War, a UFPJ member group, and the UFPJ Coordinating Committee

The post A Path to Peace in Korea appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.

23, “Donald Trump flips on North Korea, declaring country still an ‘extraordinary threat.’”

Two weeks earlier, at their meeting in Singapore, President Trump and President Kim turned a page and made a start on establishing a new kind of US-DPRK relations. Their statement committed the two countries to join their efforts to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula. The DPRK committed to work toward the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. The U.S. and the DPRK committed to recovering POW/MIA remains, including the repatriation of those already identified. President Trump committed to provide security guarantees to the DPRK.

Hyun Lee, a leading Korean-American peace activist, perhaps best summed up the historic meaning of the summit. It was “a historic breakthrough in U.S.-North Korea relations. It signaled a final end to seven decades of hostility and tension and a commitment to establishing normal relations between the two countries. In tandem with steps toward denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, the two countries should move toward complete and irreversible normalization.”

In the days after June 12 what was most dismaying was the response to the Summit declaration among much of the US media (MSNBC, CNN, NY Times, Washington Post and others) and many top elected officials. So eager to deny “credit” to the U.S. Administration for a diplomatic breakthrough, partisan critics voiced skepticism and even opposition. All too often, leading Democrats attacked the Summit agreement from the right. Two senators introduced an amendment to the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act to prevent President Trump from withdrawing U.S. troops from South Korea. The U.S. still has 83 bases in South Korea and some 30,000 troops stationed there.

Some critics asserted Trump “made too many concessions.” Some claimed the agreement “lacked substance.” Some said Trump was “outfoxed” by Kim. According to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, an MSNBC host was aghast that the U.S. said it would halt the annual war exercises it conducts with South Korea on North Korea’s doorstep, because doing so is “an absolute jackpot for the North Korean dictator,” “one of the things he wants most on earth,” and now Washington “has just given them that for free, for nothing.”

Reflect for a moment on the insanity of such a position: Two nuclear-armed states, having moved toward possible war for many months, reverse course and take an important step away from the brink, a step that could lead to a completely new path after 65 years of armed confrontation. It ought to be a cause for celebration.

Unfortunately, the hyper-partisans in the U.S. corporate media showed precious little understanding. In our view, all commentary should center on that spectacular achievement and how to build on it.  

Fortunately, the rest of the world grasped that the Summit was a “win” for both the U.S. and North Korean sides, to say nothing of a win for humanity as a whole.

If anybody deserves “credit” for the progress so far, it is the Korean people themselves who overwhelmingly supported novel diplomacy between the two Korean states – from an inclusive Winter Olympics, to the April 27 Panmunjom Declaration, to the June 12 summit in Singapore. The international community played a positive role. So did U.S. peace organizations, coordinating through the Korea Peace Network. For example, Women Cross the DMZ made repeated visits to Korea, both the north and the south, building peace together with Korean women. Veterans For Peace helped to write and distribute the People’s Peace Treaty with North Korea, which has been signed by tens of thousands of people in the U.S.

An Open Letter to the Leaders of USA, South Korea and North Korea signed by UFPJ and more than 100 U.S. peace, faith-based, professional, and Korean-American organizations across the country, was released at a UN press conference on March 29, 2018. The letter expressed support for the upcoming inter-Korean and US-DPRK summits, noting that “Dialogue and diplomacy is essential if we are to prevent a war that would likely result in an unthinkable disaster for the Korean Peninsula, the United States and the world….. the planned summits offer the potential for starting a serious process that could move us decisively away from the current crisis.”

Many others mobilized, not least of all the Korean-American community.

As The Guardian story cited above suggests, no Administration with a leader as unpredictable as Donald Trump advised by the likes of John Bolton and Michael Pompeo can be relied upon to build on the hopeful positive step taken at the Summit.

It is essential to emphasize the key role of the people of South Korea. A very large and determined democracy movement brought the current government there to power, rejecting the legacy of authoritarian governments closely tied to the United States. The broad support Moon Jae-in’s government enjoys for its peace initiatives are the strongest force keeping peace negotiations on track, despite the often-erratic conduct of their U.S. negotiating partners. Their actions show that a mobilized population can affect policy at the highest levels.

It is up to all who are concerned with lasting peace and avoiding nuclear conflict to push this peace process forward.

The post Korea Summit: a Breakthrough and a Beginning appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.

Memorial Day, formerly Decoration Day, is a day to remember those who died while serving in the armed forces.  Decoration Day began as a way to remember the Civil War dead, more than 700,000, by placing flowers and flags on their headstones.

Today, in our time of endless and expanding wars and nuclear brinksmanship, it is not enough to recall those who perish as soldiers. From 2001 until 2016, more than 200,000 civilians were killed directly in the violence of the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan. And an additional 800,000 civilians likely died as an indirect result of these wars. Today the U.S. is bombing in seven countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya and Somalia.

The truly monstrous reality of contemporary war, since the invention of warplanes, means that millions of civilians have died as a result of bombing. When populations experience heavy bombing, it leads to social breakdown. Such bombing is a recognized cause of outbreaks of violence setting people against each other who had lived peaceably, side-by-side for generations, as in Cambodia in the 1970s and more recently in Iraq. 

If civilian suffering and death due to wars were recognized with monuments, obelisks, and flowers placed in graveyards at least once a year, the complicated interplay by which populations accept and support war (propaganda and instilled hatred) might be less effective, and a more realistic understanding of the human costs of wars would be ever-present in our lives. 

Memorial Day and Veterans Day are used to uphold the status quo of our war culture. To object and point to the reality of all the victims of wars puts one at risk of being accused of not “supporting our troops” or being “unpatriotic.” The price people pay for serving in the armed forces is steep and should be remembered, however, it should not be remembered in a way that justifies current wars. Instead, we should examine the causes of conflicts and consider all that might be done to resolve them without mobilizing for war. 

Already massive, U.S. military spending is dramatically on the rise. In 2017 the United States spent $610 billion on its military, more than two and a half times as much as China and Russia combined, amounting to 35% of world military spending. Congress has approved a budget deal providing for military spending of $700 billion in 2018 and $716 billion in 2019 – while crucial programs for people are on the chopping block.

This Memorial Day we need to focus on the crisis of militarism and war that plagues humanity on planet Earth.  As Martin Luther King, Jr. so eloquently said decades ago, “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” Week 3 of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, which will focus on the War Economy, Militarism and the Proliferation of Gun Violence, provides an opportunity for peace and justice activists to unite in meaningful action.

Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival

 Week 3: The War Economy, Militarism and the Proliferation of Gun Violence

As Dr. King pointed out years ago in his epic 1967 speech Beyond Vietnam, “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” Building on the ideas and ideals that Dr. King set forth in the Beyond Vietnam speech and reviving the Poor People’s Campaign he had begun when he was tragically assassinated in 1968, the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, has been organized to address vast social inequalities, intractable racism, never-ending wars and ecological devastation. 

During the week of May 28, the Poor People’s Campaign will focus on the War Economy, Militarism and the Proliferation of Gun Violence. On Tuesday, May 29, at State Capitals around the nation, protests will be held focusing on these concerns. Rallies will be followed by nonviolent civil disobedience. Click here to find a Poor People’s Campaign action near you. Hint: Click here to find your State Capital’s zip code.

Memorial Day Weekend: Nuclear Weapons Protests

 As reflected in the budget, the Trump Administration’s new Nuclear Posture Review manifests a commitment to an increasing and long-term reliance on nuclear arms, lowers the threshold for use of nuclear weapons, and proposes new nuclear warheads and missiles. Instead of fulfilling their obligation under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to negotiate nuclear disarmament in good faith, all the nuclear-armed nations are “modernizing” their arsenals. 

Tensions between the United States and Russia have risen to levels not seen since the Cold War. And this is only one of many nuclear flashpoints—from the Korean Peninsula, to the South China Sea, to the Middle East and South Asia—where all of the nuclear-armed states are engaged in unpredictable conflicts that could catastrophically escalate out of control. War threats are made daily and organized war games are used to provoke and intimidate other countries in acts of brinksmanship that are unnecessary and foolhardy. 

On July 7, 2017, by a vote of 122 – 1, the majority of the world’s countries adopted a historic treaty to prohibit the possession, development, testing, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons. None of the nuclear-armed nations participated in the negotiations or will sign the treaty. This must change, but change will require great popular uproar in these nations (the U.S., Russia, France, China, the U.K., Pakistan, India, Israel, and North Korea). The civilians of the world are held hostage by these nations whose answer to the climate crisis is nuclear winter. It is unacceptable. 

As part of the Memorial Day weekend commemoration, two protests (and perhaps more) will be held at sites where the new nuclear arms race is underway.

Sunday, May 27: Shout Heard Around the World. Gather in Lexington, Massachusetts, walk 3 miles to Hanscom Air Force Base, the site of a new Nuclear Command, Control and Communications System, for a rally and nonviolent direct action. Click here for more information.

Monday, May 28: March, rally, die-in and civil resistance at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons parts plant in Kansas City, Missouri. Click here for more information.

The post Where is the Memorial Day for Civilians Killed in Wars? appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.

 The Divest from the War Machine Campaign

The Divest from the War Machine Campaign encourages individual investors and our nation’s financial institutions to take action to reduce violent global conflicts and the militarization of our world by removing invested financial assets from companies that profit from U.S. military interventions, the global arms trade, and the militarization of our streets. It is demanding that universities, religious organizations, individual investors, retirement funds, mutual funds, and other financial institutions in the United States stop making a killing on killing.

In February, a week of action helped campaigns launch on campuses and in cities across the nation. Twelve Congressional representatives have agreed to refuse campaign contributions from weapons manufacturers or the NRA.  You can join efforts to grow the numbers of elected officials pledging to refuse funds from the war machine. Be sure to check out the resources for launching local campaigns to get your city or town to say no to investments that support weapons, military systems and nuclear power.

U.S. preoccupation with expanding and protecting its military and economic interests has created a deeply unjust system that prioritizes “defense” over human rights, military spending over diplomacy and aid, preparing for combat over preventing wars, and profit over human life and the health of the planet. The Campaign calls for a radical reimagining of American priorities. Revoking the power of those who profit most from making war is the first step in transforming our nation and ending the spread of violence, oppression, and death at home and abroad. Divestment returns power to the public. It is a means to demand that our nation upholds the rights of every human being to live in freedom and dignity, safe and free from poverty, danger, and despair, both at home and abroad.

The Korea Collaboration (Korea Peace Network)

In November 2017, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution calling for an “Olympic Truce,” a cessation of hostilities during the Winter Games. The Korea Collaboration, an ad hoc network, called for weeks of action during the Winter Olympics and Paralympics, February 2 to March 25. Local actions included teach-ins, vigils, support for the People’s Peace Treaty, Congressional lobbying, and Olympic watch parties.

In a significant development, South Korean President Moon Jae-in persuaded a reluctant Donald Trump to postpone U.S.-South Korea war drills that would have overlapped with the Olympics. As a result of President Moon’s adroit diplomatic leadership, Chairman Kim Jung-un sent his sister to the Olympic Opening Ceremony, where North and South Korean athletes marched together under a unified Korean flag.

Following the visit of a special South Korean envoy to the North, on March 6, South Korea issued a major announcement that the North and South will hold a summit at Panmunjeom at the end of April. It went on to state:

• The North made known its will to denuclearize the Korean peninsula, stat and clearly stated that if military threats against the North are resolved and the security of its system is guaranteed, it has no reason to possess nuclear weapons;
• The North expressed readiness to have candid talks with the United States to discuss the issue of denuclearization and the normalization of US-DPRK relations;
• The North made clear that, as long as talks continue, it would not resume strategic provocations, such as additional nuclear or ballistic missile tests.

Remarkably, President Trump accepted Chairman Kim’s invitation to meet, as early as May. This spurred the Korea Collaboration to draft an Open Letter from US organizations to President Trump, President Moon and Chairman Kim, welcoming the extraordinary new diplomatic opening, and urging them to “patiently and diligently seek common ground”, noting that “the planned summits offer the potential for starting a serious process that could move us decisively away from the current crisis” and a formal resolution of the Korean War.

An Open Letter, signed by 110 peace, faith-based, professional, and Korean-American organizations across the country, including the American Federation of Teachers, praising these diplomatic breakthroughs, was released on March 26 at a press conference at the United Nations by UFPJ National Co-convener Jackie Cabasso.

The Korea Collaboration has merged with and become the Korea Peace Network. Planning is currently underway for National Call-in Days, starting April 24, in support of the North-South Summit on April 27, and National Advocacy Days in Washington, DC, June 11-12. Register here. You can find additional resources and useful articles here.

The No Foreign Bases Campaign

The Coalition Against U.S. Foreign Military Bases held a large and successful conference January 24 – 26 in Baltimore. Video of all the conference sessions is now available.  Conference participants adopted four resolutions:

• Supporting national action against Guantanamo on February 23^rd
• Supporting Hiroji Yamashiro and other Okinawa anti-bases activists who have been arrested in Japan
• Calling for a Global Conference Against U.S. and NATO Military Base
• Promoting Spring 2018 anti-war actions across the U.S.

The Coalition’s call for united days of action on the weekend of April 14 – 15, stated: “That weekend is right before Tax Day, Earth Day, and May Day, which gives us the ability to draw attention to the increase in military spending and the unpopular new tax bill, to point out that the U.S. military is the largest polluter in the world and address the growing deportation and vilification of immigrants, as well as violation of labor rights.”

“End the Wars at Home and Abroad!” demonstrations were in cities and towns across the U.S. Tragically, they were particularly timely given the current, escalating crises in Syria and Gaza.

The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival

On April 10^th, the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, was launched at a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, with the release of “The Souls of Poor Folk: Auditing American 50 Years After the Poor People’s Campaign Challenged System Racism, the War Economy/Militarism, and Our National Morality.” This audit addresses the campaign’s four core issues:

• Racism
• Poverty
• The war economy and militarism
• Ecological devastation

40 days of planned campaign action will begin on Mother’s Day, May 13^th. There will be a call for civil disobedience in state capitals with the hope that 1000 people per week will risk arrest each Monday during the 40 days. Each week will have a different theme:

• Week One (May 13-19): Child Poverty, Women and the Disabled
• Week Two (May 20-26): Systemic Racism, Voter Suppression and Immigration
• Week Three (May 27-June 2): The War Economy, Veterans and Education
• Week Four (June 3-9): Ecological Devastation and Health
• Week Five (June 10-16): Systemic Poverty, Jobs, Income and Housing
• Week Six (June 17-22): Challenging the Nation’s Distorted Moral Narrative

The Campaign will conclude with a mass rally and 24-hour vigil in Washington, D.C. and a Global Day of Solidarity on June 23^rd. You can join the Poor People’s Campaign and learn more about its history, principles and demands here.

There are currently campaign Organizing Committees in 40 states and the District of Columbia.  It was good to hear on a recent call about the structure of the organizing bodies.  Each Organizing Committee must have at least one person of faith, one low-income advocate, one low-income person directly affected by current policies, and one person of color; no public officials can serve as Organizing Committee members.  

UFPJ is proud to be a partner in the Poor People’s Campaign, and we plan to be very involved. Please let us know if you are not connected with your state campaign. We have contact information for state Organizing Committees and can help get you plugged in.

The post A Critical Time for the Peace Movement appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.

On a very encouraging note, in November 2017, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution calling for an “Olympic Truce,” a cessation of hostilities during the Winter Games, which gained the support of 157 Member States including both Koreas and future hosts of the Olympic Games: Japan, China, France and the United States.

We in the United States have a special responsibility to demand diplomacy, not war, with North Korea. The Korea Collaboration, an ad hoc network, is calling for weeks of action during the Winter Olympics (February 9 – 25), the Paralympics (March 9 – 18), and the broader period of the Olympic Truce (February 2 to March 25). UFPJ is asking all our member groups and individuals to organize actions in your communities.

• Read the full Olympic Truce Call to Action and Endorsers List.
• Add your organization’s endorsement.
• Organizing Tips Around the Olympic Truce.
• List your local Olympic Truce event.
• Sign the People’s Peace Treaty with North Korea.

The Olympic Truce represents an important opportunity to defuse tensions and begin the work of reconciliation on the Korean peninsula. The United States should fully support both Korean governments’ efforts to restore a peace process. In a very significant development, South Korean President Moon Jae-in has successfully persuaded a reluctant Donald Trump to postpone U.S.-South Korea war drills that would have coincided with the Olympics.

The post Call for Olympic Truce Actions – Diplomacy NOT War! appeared first on United For Peace and Justice.