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
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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
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.
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.
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.”
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
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
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
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.
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.”
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
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
http://www.vfpgoldenruleproject.org/
Who would have thought, seven years ago when we dragged a wrecked sailboat from the bottom of Humboldt Bay on the northern California coast, that we would be reviving a profound and dynamic part of our history? Who would have thought,when the Golden Rule “splashed down” five years later, that we would be launching a powerful new “weapon of mass education?”
The Golden Rule has now been sailing for three years to ports throughout California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. Thanks to your generous donations, the Golden Rule has breathed new wind into the sails of the nuclear disarmament movement.
We hope you will continue to support the Golden Rule’s mission of sailing for a nuclear-free world and a peaceful,
sustainable future. The Golden Rule’s re-emergence was right on time. In July of this year, 122 nations voted
to pass the historic UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, making it illegal to possess, use, or threaten to
use nuclear weapons. Although the U.S. and the other nuclear powers have not signed the treaty, many disarmament
experts believe this could be the beginning of the end for nuclear weapons and war.
In October, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
(ICAN), and thus to the all those who are working for nuclear disarmament. Yes, the Golden Rule
proudly shares in that prize, and we will work even harder to earn it!
So many people have
contributed to the Golden Rule’s success,
too many to name here. We thank the skilled and dedicated
volunteers who spent thousands of hours restoring the
Golden Rule
to her original functionality and beauty. We thank
Veterans For Peace, in Humboldt Bay, San Diego, Tucson and
nationally, for their very generous and continuing
support. We thank our Quaker friends and the many
organizers up and down the coast who have hosted the
Golden Rule
and organized public meetings in their communities. We thank
our wonderful captains and crew, some 70 in all! And we thank all of you who
have provided the much needed funds to make the Golden Rule
miracle possible.
Thanks to you, the Golden Rule has reached tens of thousands
of people during three years of sailing for a nuclear-free world! And we have just begun. We are
planning to reach hundreds of thousands –
possibly millions of people –
in the next couple of years. And we cannot do it
without your support! The Golden Rule
is supported by people who believe in our mission. We
have no big foundations or philanthropists supporting us
(yet)! But hundreds of people have given tens to
thousands of dollars to support the Golden Rule’s mission.
We need your help now if we are to continue to sail for peace.
Help the Golden Rule Sail
Across the Pacific!Concerned about the threat of
a nuclear war between the U.S. and North Korea,
the Veterans For Peace Golden Rule Project has joined those
who are calling for Negotiations Not War! But we are
doing more than that. We are now planning for a
possible voyage across the Pacific! First to Hawaii,
where the original Golden Rule crew was stopped and arrested
in 1958, and where people are now afraid they could be among
the first victims of a nuclear war. Then to the Marshall
Islands, where the original crew hoped to interfere with
U.S. nuclear bomb testing, and where formerly habitable
islands, widespread cancer and birth defects are a constant
reminder of the devastation caused by nuclear
weapons. Then on to Japan, which in 2020 will solemnly
commemorate the 75th
anniversary of the U.S. nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. Perhaps we would even sail to Korea!
Given the real possibility of nuclear war, now is the time! To make such a voyage, the Golden Rule
will need additional equipment, rigging, fuel, food, and much logistical and organizational support. Please help
the Golden Rule raise awareness around the world, before it is too late.The Veterans For Peace Golden Rule Project is
drawing up plans right now for this bold voyage across the Pacific, beginning as early as Spring of 2018. If we can
pull it off, we will make a big splash on the international stage. We will tell the world that peace-loving people
in the U.S. are willing to take risks –
to do whatever we can –
to head off the threat of a devastating nuclear war.
Do you want to be part of the next voyage of the Golden Rule?
Are you on board to help make it happen? Please consider making an extra special end-of-the-year donation.
Together, we will be making history. We will literally be helping to save the
planet. Thank you!
Sailing for Nuclear-Free World!
Gerry Condon President, VFP Golden Rule
Committee
p.s. The Golden Rule is spending the winter months in San Diego. We take people out sailing on a
regular basis. We are also training new crew members. If you are planning to visit us in San Diego,
please give us a call at 206-499-1220. We will be happy to give you a tour, to take you out sailing, or even to
train you to crew the historic Golden Rule peace boat.
“Nearly one in four troops polled say they have seen examples of white nationalism among their fellow service members, and troops rate it as a larger national security threat than Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a new Military Times poll.” — http://www.militarytimes.com
