25 Jan 2018
Action Alerts, Families of Veterans, For Veterans, Heathcare, Los Angeles Veterans, Veterans Issues Permalink

We Oppose VA Healthcare Privatization Petition

January 25, 2018

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/we-oppose-va-healthcare-privatization

VA PRIVATIZATION IS HERE WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT!

I assume you all know the VA healthcare system is being massively privatized.  Today 40% or more of all vets going to the VA for outpatient care are now funneled into the Choice and Community Options programs (per VA records).  We do not know how well those vets like private care.  We do know that the VA
was to report to the Congress and public last summer after they surveyed vets on that issue.  They knew this had to be done for 3 years.  VA management refused to
conduct the survey and now they tell us it will be done in mid or late 2018 before the survey is completed and reported out.

By that time, possibly, 45% of all outpatient vets may have been pushed into the private sector.

This is the same trick Mr. Bush and the boys used on Medicare in 2004.  If you are an old guy like me, you know about the Medicare Advantage (MA) program.  This is
privatization of traditional single payer Medicare.  They plopped the insurance companies between you and your healthcare.  MA costs the feds about 20% MORE than traditional Medicare.  Because of this additional 20% cost which is tens of billions per year, the Medicare Trust Fund will run short of money faster and then the Republicans will call for canning the whole Medicare system.

With the Choice program which costs about 30% more than VA provided care in VA facilities, they want to run the VA out of money and then close down the VA completely and contract out all VA now done by civil service staff plus bust the
unions.

Vets who use VA hospitals and clinics for their care are satisfied with their care, want to continue to go to the VA and want the VA fixed and funded.

YOU NEED TO TAKE ACTION!
PETITION: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/we-oppose-va-healthcare-privatization

The VFP Working Group Stop VA Privatization, Fix, Fund & Fully Staff the VA was formed about 8 months ago to STOP THE PRIVATIZATION. http://www.veteransforpeace.org/take-action/stop-privatization-veterans-health-administration/

There are 13 or so Save Our VA Action Teams forming across the US.  YOU need to form one in your community.  YOU can start this by clicking on this survey link to read about Action Teams and sign up. http://www.surveymonkey.com/r/MTF76TP

08 Jan 2018
News Permalink

The United Nations has asked its member states to observe an Olympic truce

January 8, 2018

http://worldbeyondwar.org/north-korea-south-korea-threatening-seek-peace/

The United Nations has asked its member states to observe an Olympic truce during the upcoming February 9-25 Winter Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, and for one week on either side. That would be February 2 to March 4.

South Korea has asked the United States to delay its war rehearsal flights over South Korea until after the truce.

Please sign a petition that can be printed out and delivered to every nation on earth, urging their abstention
from war and from provocative war “exercises” during this period, and urging them to continue the truce
indefinitely thereafter.

SIGN http://worldbeyondwar.org/peace-treaty-north-korea-can-sign/

More information: http://worldbeyondwar.org/north-korea-south-korea-threatening-seek-peace/

08 Jan 2018
Costs of War Permalink

Military Causing Noise Pollution from Okinawa to Vermont

January 8, 2018

VFP Board of Directors member Adrienne Kinne speaking outside Kadena Air Base in Okinawa. The local community has been demanding the closure of Kadena Air Base, an airfield that constantly disrupts daily life on the island. Military aircraft are conducting missions all throughout the day and night. Also, the U.S. Air Force wants to base the F-35 fighter jets our of Vermont and a huge movement is building in opposition of that decision. Learn more about the Vermont Issue here: http://www.stopthef35.com/

08 Jan 2018
For Veterans, Healing the Warrior, Militarization of Youth, Veterans Issues Permalink

It’s Your Duty to Disobey Unlawful Orders

January 8, 2018

National VFP board member Monisha Rios is speaking to U.S. Marines at Futenma Air Station.
Filmed in December 2017 during a Veterans For Peace delegation to Okinawa.

Learn more: http://thepeacereport.com/vfpinokinawa/

Support The Peace Report on Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/thepeacereport

Donate through Paypal: http://www.paypal.me/thepeacereport
@peacereportnow
Website: http://thepeacereport.com
http://www.twitter.com/peacereportnow
http://www.facebook.com/peacereportnow

08 Jan 2018
Costs of War, News, Veterans For Peace, Veterans Issues Permalink

For Decades Okinawa Suffers From Helicopter Crashes

January 8, 2018

Filmed in December 2017 during a Veterans For Peace delegation to Okinawa. VFP member Ken Mayers is speaking at Futenma Air Station, aka the world’s most dangerous air field.

Learn more: http://thepeacereport.com/vfpinokinawa/
Support The Peace Report on Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/thepeacereport
Donate through Paypal: http://www.paypal.me/thepeacereport
@peacereportnow
Website: http://thepeacereport.com
http://www.twitter.com/peacereportnow
http://www.facebook.com/peacereportnow

19 Dec 2017
Families of Veterans, For Veterans, Health Permalink

Will YOU Volunteer to Help Stop VA Privatization?

December 19, 2017

As you know the Congress, VA, VA contractors and the White House are pushing as many veterans into private sector healthcare via the Community Care and Choice programs.  Both administratively and legislatively these privatizers have been very successful.  They are very smart, the effort is well funded and the privatizers get help from many quarters including the corporate owned media.
 
Presently a high percentage of veterans asking for outpatient doctor appointments are being sent to the private sector for care.  The email you received from me yesterday including Suzanne Gordon’s article provide more information.
 
If you are interested in learning more about VA privatization, please study the documents at this
website:  http://ffvhc.org/
 
This is the Fighting for Veterans Healthcare non-profit group that has been organized by a group of individuals who are very concerned with the effort by the Koch brothers and many others to eliminate VA healthcare and move all care into the private healthcare sector.  This is the only organization that is keeping up with, writing about and trying to stop the VA privatization.  This is the website to go to to keep up to date.  Privatization bills are flying around Congress like waste paper from a high speed garbage truck.
 
Veteran service organizations like the VFW, DAV, Am. Legion, etc. are becoming stronger and stronger advocates for fightingback against VA privatization but being non-profits chartered by the Congress they have to be very careful in how they fight.
 
Unions, except for the Am. Fed. of Government Employees (AFGE), have not really started to fightback at their state and local union levels. AFGE which represents 700,000 federal workers and about 220,000 of those who are Veterans Affairs Department workers, is the only federal union that has an organized fightback effort at the local level.  Rather I should say they are in the middle of implementing a local fightback effort.  And they lobby hard in Congress to stop those garbage VA privatization bills flying around the halls of Congress.
 

REQUEST: 
Below is a laundry list of actions that need to be taken to help us stop VA privatization and instead improve
the VA’s ability to meet present and future veterans’ medical needs.

1. 
Letters to the editors of newspaper, op eds to newspapers
 
2. 
Press conferences by VFP members and members of any
other veterans groups, unions or peace groups, issuing press
alerts before the press conference and press releases with
pictures after the press conference, publicity/invitations
to attend/rally before the press conference, etc. 
 
3. 
Group meetings with local US House members or
staffers and meeting with US Senate members or staffers, how
to organize a little rally before the meeting in front of
the congress members office, with Save Our VA banner and
flyers, etc. (we have a letter and over 1,400 person signed
petition on Stopping VA Pvt. that you can give to your
Congressional members or staffers and have a group picture
taken turning in the petition, etc.)
 
4. 
Group meetings with local newspaper, TV and radio
editorial boards, editors, news managers or
reporters
 
5.  Appearances or
interviews on local radio talk shows or TV talk
shows
 
6.  Rallies or
events on Stop VA Privatization or speak at other groups
rallies or events with Save Our VA banners and flyers to
distribute, etc.
 
7.  Coordinate
efforts with local VA hospital Am. Fed. of Government
Employees (AFGE) local union (you can call your local VA
switchboard and ask for the AFGE office and ask to talk to
the president, ask what actions they are taking, urge
president to ask union to co-sponsor a press conference or
rally, etc.)
 
8.  Distribute
Stop VA Privatization flyers in local communities at events,
on busy streets
(we have examples of flyers you can take, run
off and then distribute or take and modify into your own
flyers, a background flyer on privatization by FFVHC is
attached and we have others that are ¼ or ½
half page flyers ready to use) 
Fly the Save Our VA banner at such events/actions
 
9.  Display the Save Our VA banner on busy street corners, at events and at
above events.  Below is a group of Nashville VFP members at a Nov. 11th parade
carrying the banner.
 
TO GET A BANNER MAILED TO YOUR HOME: 
Send an email to Buzz Davis at dbuzzdavis@aol.com
with your contact info. including Chapter, community and state and how you think you can use the banner.  FFVHC put up the money for about 27
banners and we have about 10 or more left to distribute.  The banners are free.
 
10.  Tell your story on how you use VA healthcare and how you are against Privatizing the VA on a VFP weekly radio show in Nashville, TN organized and led by Harvey Bennett bennethe2@gmail.com  and Jim Wohlgemuth,  jrwohlgemuth@juno.com
of the local VFP Chap. (a few of us have already been guests on this show and they are looking for other guests)
 
11.  Join the VFP
Work Gr. To Stop VA Privatization to help plan and manage all the above type of activities. 
Contact Buzz Davis to join dbuzzdavis@aol.com
 
12.  And most importantly recruit a few people in your chapter to work on
local activities they choose to do.  You cannot be successful alone.
 
13.  Get your chapter to consider and pass a resolution on VA
privatization and healthcare.  (we have an example resolution for you to start
with)
 
For all the above activities we have drafts or examples of what you can do including letters to the
editors and op eds, resolutions, etc.
 
YOU SHOULD NOT TRY TO REINVENT THE WHEEL. 
We ask YOU to volunteer to work and then others will help YOU pull off what you decide YOU want to
do!
 
TIMING: 
We need to take actions, as many as we can,
starting immediately and during the next year before the
Nov. 2018 House and Senate elections. 
In this effort no one approves what you want to do,
just decide to do and away you go, and ask us for
help
 
THE “VA” IS A DIFFICULT & COMPLEX ISSUE. 
The VA did not develop is successes and
problems in a day and none of us are going to
“fix” the VA in a week or so of work.
 
To help win this battle YOU have to turn yourself into a community organizer. 
If you are already such an organizer, then please
round up some other volunteers and mentor them on raising
hell in the community.
 
In this game, in these political times, nice
guys end up being run over by the Koch Brothers’
Bulldozers. 
 
We much fightback hard and smart!  We do not have the big bucks.  We have the people power if we can
organize it.  The people we are
fighting do not and will not respond to rational
arguments.  They have received
their marching orders and they will not be deterred by
veterans or community members. 
It is their way or the highway!
 
Dialoguing with elected officials who are
privatization advocates (and who are probably receiving
political contributions as pay offs from the Koch brothers
and their front organizations) are not worth the energy to
sincerely help them change their minds. 
It is very unlikely that you will receive any time to
“talk” with them unless they are setting
you up to be a knock down target.
 
SO YOUR FIRST STEP IS CONTACT US AND TELL US WHAT ACTIONS YOU WANT TO WORK ON.  WE CAN GO FORWARD TOGETHER FROM
THAT.
 
Thank you for reading this and
Peace!
 
Buzz Davis, member Stop VA Privatization Work
Group.

FFVHC-Trifold-2

19 Dec 2017
Drones, News Permalink

Please Support Spreading the truth about drones

December 19, 2017

We hope that you’ll keep supporting Cian Westmoreland’s important work as a drone whistleblower.                                         

Cian is the first recipient of the Drone Whistleblower Fellowship. In the past he was a U.S. Air Force technician who worked on the drone program. Now he takes to heart a statement by Martin Luther King Jr. that remains crucial in 2017: “Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war.”

Please support the work of Cian Westmoreland by making a tax-deductible contribution to the Drone Fellowship Program of the RootsAction Education Fund.

Speaking clearly about compelling moral issues, Cian offers a blunt perspective on the U.S. drone war: “In this war on terror, we have become terror. Drones are heartless by design, and the act of killing through them can become routine and bureaucratic.”

Cian reports: “I have been connecting, speaking, writing and helping where I can all over Europe.” He has put in a lot of time in Germany, which hosts U.S. military bases directly involved in the drone war.

When Cian speaks out, he is educating activists, journalists, elected officials and the general public. In early winter, for instance, he spoke to 3,000 “hackers and hacktivists” from around the world at the huge Chaos Communications Congress in Hamburg. There he addressed “the Global Assassination Grid.”

At the Hamburg conference, “I spoke of the various layers of dehumanizing elements in the drone program to include the structural, political, and psychological. It was not only understood but well received. A professor of mathematics at Cambridge University approached me afterward and said that he’s noticed the problem of students not connecting their work to real life, and that my talk inspired him to go back and show my speech to them.”

It’s far from easy, living out of a suitcase, far from home, doing this kind of work. The pressures are severe, and the resources are thin. Please help Cian Westmoreland keep going with a tax-deductible donation to the Drone Fellowship program.

As one of the very few drone whistleblowers in the world, Cian Westmoreland needs and deserves our support.

More Information: http://act.rootsaction.org/o/6503/t/0/blastContent.jsp?email_blast_KEY=202222

DONATE: http://salsa.wiredforchange.com

19 Dec 2017
Education, Families of Veterans, News, Recruitment Permalink

Truth in Recruitment

December 19, 2017

Truth in Recruitment, a  project of the Santa Barbara Friends (Quaker) Meeting,
needs your support. We invite you to come to our meetings, volunteer,
spread the word and contribute any dollar amount!

Truth in Recruitment is pleased to have been selected for SB Gives!, a year-end
fundraising program sponsored by The Fund for Santa Barbara and The Santa
Barbara Independent to create a network of donors for nonprofits serving Santa
Barbara County. You can use this link to donate to our campaign: Truth in Recruitment.

Why Our Work Is Needed: In September, while presenting to Santa Maria High School (SMHS) Chicano Studies and World History classes, the teacher showed us an on-campus office manned by a National Guard recruiter. The recruiter runs an anti-bullying program with the acronym W.A.R., We All Rise.

SMHS  parents, students and teachers were caught by surprise when he was given an office next to the school’s career center. We have since spoken with the Santa Maria parents and are working with them to address this military presence on campus.

In October, Truth in Recruitment parents, staff, and volunteers met with Santa Barbara Unified School District’s new school board members and the assistant superintendent to address recent violations of the district’s recruiter policy. We told them how recruiters have been following students on social media, collecting student contact information directly from students and recruiting in classes as ‘guest speakers.’  The school board members thanked us for helping them understand the policy and agreed to follow up with us on better implementation.

Your urgently-needed donation can help us continue our work in schools. Please use this link to donate to our
campaign: Truth in Recruitment.
NOTE: Your contribution right now will help us secure additional funds through SB Gives! matching grants. 

We thank the many of you who already
support this program. This year, grants from the
McCune Foundation and the Fund
for Santa Barbara have funded two interns and a part time
coordinator, as well
as costs for tabling literature and
travel.

Our work depends on getting the word out – please share this email with your friends and on your
social media pages!

In gratitude,
Kate Connell Coordinator, Truth in Recruitment

truthinrecruitment.org
http://www.facebook.com/TruthinRecruitment/
(805)708-8058

19 Dec 2017
Peace Permalink

Who Should Decide Who Gets the Nobel Peace Prize?   

December 19, 2017

Only Supporters of Peace Should Be Appointed to Nobel Peace Prize Committee

A petition to the norwegian parliament
 
This month Norwegian parliamentarians will vote on new members for the Nobel peace prize committee. It’s important that members of the committee be dedicated to Alfred Nobel’s vision of peace by peaceful means. They are the only means.

Join these initial signers:
Fredrik S. Heffermehl, Nobel Peace Prize Watch, Norway
Tomas Magnusson, Nobel Peace Prize Watch , Sweden
Richard Falk, professor of law, USA
David Swanson, author, USA
Ann Wright, USA
Kevin Zeese, co-director of Popular Resistance, USA
Margaret Flowers, co-director of Popular Resistance, USA
Medea Benjamin, Code Pink, USA
Jeff Cohen, journalism professor, USA
Mairead Maguire, Nobel peace prize laureate, Ireland
Gar Smith, Environmentalists Against War, USA
Patrick T. Hiller, War Prevention Initiative, USA 
Johan Galtung, Norway
Norman Solomon, RootsAction.org, USA
David Hartsough, USA
Maria Santelli, Center on Conscience & War, USA
Leah Bolger, World Beyond War, USA

CLICK  HERE TO ADD YOUR NAME.

Petition text:
To: Norwegian Parliament 
From: David Swanson
We ask that you facilitate compliance with Alfred Nobel’s legally binding will by selecting a committee dedicated to Nobel´s antimilitarist ideas of peace by co-operation, law, and disarmament. Parliament must abandon its selection routine which has favored Norwegian politicians rather than Nobel´s visionary idea.

We insist that you not include people on the Nobel peace prize committee who will be willing to glorify war criminals like Henry Kissinger who was honored by the current committee last December.
The awarding of the 2017 peace prize to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons was a great improvement over the awards of recent years in terms of compliance with Nobel’s will.

It is now incumbent upon you, in the December renewal of the committee, to select members who will continue, as in 2017, to fulfill the purpose for which the prize was created.
The peace prize belongs to the citizens of this world, and you must make sure that people dedicated to Nobel´s peace ideas be in charge of the world´s most important prize. The world´s prosperity and security depend on it.

19 Dec 2017
For Veterans, News Permalink

The US Southern Command in the Amazon

December 19, 2017

The US Southern Command’s Silent Occupation of the Amazon
By Santiago Navarro F. and Renata Bessi, 
Truthout | Report
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/42542-the-us-southern-command-s-silent-occupation-of-the-amazon
 
Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, thanks a
Brazilian soldier for assisting with his tour of the jungle
training center in Manaus, Brazil, on March 28, 2012.
Dempsey was there to visit the jungle training center which
borders several different countries in the Amazon Basin.
(DOD photo by US Army Staff Sgt. Sun L. Vega, Joint
Staff)

This Truthout original
was only possible because of our readers’ ongoing
support. Can you make a monthly donation to ensure we can
publish more like it? Click here to give.

Brazil, Colombia
and Peru share a triple borderland separating north from
south on the South American continent. Located deep in the
Amazon forest, this is the theater of operations in which
more than 30 military companies test their services and
merchandise. The multinational military exercise known
as AmazonLog2017, is organized by the
Armed Forces of Brazil. More than 1,500 members of the
Brazilian military and military members from invited
countries participated with high-caliber weapons and
munitions, boats, aircraft, helicopters, information
technologies, nautical and energy intelligent equipment,
radars and sensors. The Southern Command of the United
States — the Unified Combatant Command of the United States
Department of Defense with influence in the Caribbean,
Central and South America — is also an AmazonLog2017
participant.

Activists and
researchers are alarmed about this military exercise.
According to Mexican economist and geopolitical specialist
Ana Esther Ceceña, AmazonLog2017 allows “the
placement of troops that facilitate specific territorial
incursions and rapid response operations, both of which
imply the use of special forces, whether those be US forces,
local or private on the triple borderland.”

READ COMPLETE ARTICLE

19 Dec 2017
Families of Veterans, For Veterans, Military Sexual Abuse, Military Women's Issues Permalink

The military does not really consider domestic violence a crime.

December 19, 2017

Kelley’s White Privilege; the military, domestic violence & rape
http://theintercept.com/2017/11/08/texas-shooting-devin-kelley-white-privilege/

The military does not really consider domestic violence a crime.  They don’t consider rape a crime either.
http://www.newsweek.com/department-defense-reported-only-one-domestic-violence-case-703806

Congress tried to tackle rape by taking reports out of the chain of command but they failed. A weaker bill passed:
http://www.vox.com/2016/6/8/11874908/mjia-military-sexual-assault-gillibrand-mccaskill

19 Dec 2017
Costs of War, Families of Veterans, For Veterans, Health Permalink

VA delays key Agent Orange decisions

December 19, 2017

We had hoped to hear something this week but didn’t.
 It’s been about eight months since Veterans Affairs
Secretary Dr. David Shulkin said in a digital town hall,
“We’re getting very close to being able to give
you a final answer” on if the VA would expand the list
of diseases that are presumed to be linked to Agent Orange.
That hasn’t happened. The VA did issue a statement
late Wednesday saying it would “further explore”
the issue and pushing its decisions to some undisclosed
point in the future.

Here’s our latest story on the delay: http://propub.li/2A7vtqs

The VA said it would now work with the Trump administration
to conduct a legal and regulatory review of conditions for
awarding disability compensation to eligible veterans.

But wasn’t that the review that has been ongoing since
March 2016, when the National Academy of Medicine said there
is evidence to suggest that AO exposure may be linked to bladder cancer and
hypothyroidism?

We spoke to veterans and their families after we got the
news from the VA that they were delaying their announcement.
Here’s what Dick Pirozzolo, 73, said:
“It’s frustrating. The politicians all talk a
good game about the VA, but then when it comes down to
making a decision, they drag their heels.”

Pirozzolo served as an information officer in the Air Force
in Vietnam and has had bladder cancer and a thyroid
condition called Graves’ disease.

Now what? Well, the VA did not provide a new date by which
it expects to act. We even asked why it didn’t meet
its self-imposed deadline for action of Nov. 1. They
responded Thursday and said: “Your premise is
incorrect … Yesterday’s press release announced
his decision — he is considering possible new
presumptive conditions that may qualify for disability
compensation related to Agent Orange exposure.”

If and when we get any more information, we’ll let you
know. Thank you and hang in there.

Best,
Terry and Charlie
ProPublica