Vigil for Peace Wisconsin Capitol Square Sun Oct 1 at 7pm

October1_Vigil_invite  <— link to PDF flyer

 

The Interfaith Peace Working Group*
invites you to a
Vigil for Peace in Ukraine and the World
October 1 at 7:00 – 8:00 pm
Capitol Square – State Street Steps

In the spirit of building a worldwide peace community,
we invite you to bring a short poem, prayer, or blessing for peace –
but from a religious or secular tradition that is not your own.

In addition, there will be music, singing, and silence in this
ritual of commemoration, grief, and hope.

 

*In partnership with Code Pink, World Beyond War, Veterans for Peace and the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice

 

The Golden Rule Story by Gil Halsted on WORT Radio

Gil Halsted Golden Rule story from WORT 89.9 Community Radio

 

“The Golden Rule is a project of Veterans For Peace. We aim to advance Veterans For Peace opposition to nuclear weapons and war, and to do so in a dramatic fashion.

We have recovered and restored the original peace ship, the Golden Rule, that set sail in 1958 to stop nuclear weapons tests in the Marshall Islands, and which inspired the many peace makers and peace ships that followed.

The reborn Golden Rule is sailing once more, to show that nuclear abolition is possible, and that bravery and tenacity can overcome militarism….”

Veteran’s for Peace – Golden Rule Project (vfpgoldenruleproject.org)


VFP Golden Rule Project, P.O. Box 87, Samoa, CA 95564

(206) 992-6364

vfpgoldenruleproject@gmail.com

 

VFP Golden Rule Project Manager, Helen Jaccard
206-992-6364


Abolish Nuclear Weapons | Veterans For Peace

Nuclear Abolition Working Group | Veterans For Peace

Veterans for Peace Boat “Golden Rule” sails on the Great Lakes – WORT-FM 89.9 (wortfm.org)

Letters for Peace August

Please join us in writing and communicating with the public and our elected officials. Respond to the nonsense whether written in the mainstream media, in your local newspapers or magazines.

 

NATO should be trying to end war in Ukraine — Gil Halsted

Military thrives as needs go unmet – Susan Friess

Better use of Pentagon dollars – Stefania Sani

It’s time to reallocate U.S. military spending — Glenn Hoffarth

Negotiation could end war – Gil Halsted

 


NATO should be trying to end war in Ukraine — Gil Halsted 

“A NATO spokesperson was recently forced to apologize for suggesting a possible diplomatic solution to the war in Ukraine.

Stian Jenssen, the chief of staff to the NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, speaking at a panel discussion in Norway, said one way to end the war in Ukraine would be for Ukraine to give up some territory in return for being granted NATO membership. But his boss immediately forced him to walk back that suggestion and stick with the current NATO strategy, which is to support Ukraine unconditionally with more weapons that can only prolong the war.

NATO should be working to promote peace, not prolong wars. The word “treaty” is in the organization’s name (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). Treaties are what happens when wars are ended and peace is established. Jenssen’s proposal may not be the best way to end the war, but it deserves discussion instead of an immediate veto.”

Gil Halsted, Madison


Military thrives as needs go unmet – Susan Friess

 

Dear Editor: I was indoors the other day. I paused and replayed a portion of a podcast and interrupted Zoom as I interviewed new teachers in the afternoon.

Why? The F-35s overhead. Where do I live? Near Schenk’s Corners in Madison. When I’m outside I cringe as they fly over the gardens. In the company of dear friends, tears come to my eyes. I wish to acknowledge my sense of despair and paralysis. I wish to push back.

The fires rage as this summer of undeniable climate change draws to a close. Housing and income insecurity in our town increase. Devastating migration is necessary for so many worldwide. Ongoing war flares around the globe, heightening the threat of nuclear detonation.

I start by acknowledging these nuclear-ready jets in our midst are part of our nation’s military complex — the biggest institutional contributor of greenhouse gases in the world and the recipient of over half the country’s budget — all while energy shifts lag, social supports are further frayed and ongoing insecurity and suffering intensify around the world.

I push back with what I have, my heart and mind. I dare to imagine a world in which the military industrial complex’s presence is not woven throughout this nation and beyond. A world where resources address the pressing needs of humans and the earth of which we are a part.

It is not impossible nor wrong to imagine a world beyond war. In fact, it is healthy and the first step to sanity.

Susan Freiss

Madison

 

 

 


Dear Editor: In a recent story on Wisconsin Public Radio, Sen. Tammy Baldwin is credited with having secured $69 million in federal funding to replace some Fort McCoy facilities. She is quoted as saying: “They just weren’t keeping up with the times.” She said there were all sorts of failures.

But is she keeping up with the times on this issue? Federal assistance is needed in many other areas that are showing “failures.”

What else could that $69 million have done for the general population of this state? Just for example:

• Feeding Wisconsin reports that one in seven people experience hunger.

• Those facing hunger report needing an average of $22.12 more per week to meet their food needs (Second Harvest Heartland).

• The rate of poor and low-income people in Wisconsin is calculated at 31% by the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University.

The funding of the military is directly contributing to all the real perils we face. Perils that need immediate attention and all the funding they can get. Those perils are many, from the overall inequity to global warming to underfunded social services.

Even a micro-funding for military barracks contributes to the system that keeps us perpetually ready for war and that also impoverishes our society.

Wisconsin taxpayers contribute more than $11 billion to the Pentagon and military yearly. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness there are 4,907 homeless individuals in Wisconsin. Half of them are families and 36% are veterans.

Stefania Sani

Madison


In 2022 Congress approved over $113 billion in assistance to support the war in the Ukraine. All the while, our country suffers from climate-related emergencies such as the recent fire in Maui and a variety of social ills related to massive poverty and inequality.

In his famous “Iron Cross Speech,” former President Dwight Eisenhower stated that, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” His goal in the speech was to highlight how money spent on militarism is money not spent on meeting the many needs of citizens.

A recent report noted that homelessness across the country has increased by 11% this year from 2022. Local food banks have seen a dramatic increase in demand for their services. Military spending is nearly half of the federal discretionary budget. This is unsustainable and unethical. The plague of militarism must end. American citizens must demand a shift in our values away from the destruction of war and instead to the construction of a healthy society.”

Glenn Hoffarth, Madison


Negotiation could end war – Gil Halsted

Dear Editor: In a recent letter to constituents U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan said the war in Ukraine ”will only ultimately end with a negotiated settlement.”

He said “it is critical that the U.S. prioritize maintaining communication” between both Moscow and Kiev. I applaud Pocan for insisting that negotiations should be at the top of the priority list for ending the slaughter in Ukraine. But instead the Biden administration, with congressional approval, has armed Ukrainians with cluster bombs that have been banned by most other countries and whatever else the U.S. arms industry can provide to keep the war hot on the battlefield. Negotiations remain somewhere further down the list of strategies.

This approach will lead to more civilian casualties and ongoing profits for the arms industry, and, in my view, will not lead to a lasting peace. The only winners will be the weapons makers. Continuing to spend American taxpayer dollars on weapons for Ukraine instead of putting intense economic and diplomatic pressure on both Kiev and Moscow to settle at the table will insure more death and destruction.

My fervent hope is that others in Congress will join Pocan in calling for making communication between the warring parties a priority instead of sending more weapons. The best and eventually the only way to win the war is to stop fighting it and start serious negotiations.

Gil Halsted

Madison

Ukraine and the Expansion of NATO – Jeffrey Sachs – VFPConvention2023

The crimes related to this current violence in Ukraine began long before Russia invaded Ukraine.

Thank you to Jeffrey Sachs for sharing some of his knowledge.
Saturday August 26, 2023

HOME | VFP Convention

 

“Jeffrey D. Sachs is University Professor and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, where he directed the Earth Institute from 2002 until 2016. He is President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, Co-Chair of the Council of Engineers for the Energy Transition, Commissioner of the UN Broadband Commission for Development, academician of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences at the Vatican, and Tan Sri Jeffrey Cheah Honorary Distinguished Professor at Sunway University. “

Speakers (vfpconvention.org) Veterans for Peace 2023 Convention Speakers


The transcript is from an earlier talk in June, but similar topics.

“This conflict is actually decades in the making. It didn’t just come out of a Russian invasion in 2022, as is often said in the Western mainstream media. The war is often defined as an unprovoked attack in 2022. Actually, the roots of this war go back to the end of the Soviet Union and to the geopolitics around that.

In 1990, the US and Germany promised the Soviet government at the time, Mikhail Gorbachev, the President, that NATO would not move one inch eastward if Gorbachev went ahead and disbanded the Soviet Military Alliance. In other words, there would be a deal that on the Soviet side, the military alliance, the so-called Warsaw Pact, would be ended, and on the Western side, NATO would not take advantage and Germany would be reunified, but NATO would not move one inch eastward. The US cheated on that because as soon as the Soviet Union ended in 1991, the policymakers in Washington, especially in the Pentagon and in the permanent state in the United States, immediately planned for the Eastern expansion of NATO.

*

So this war started, in my opinion, because the United States could not accept a peace in which the military alliances of both sides of the Cold War would stand down. Well, many things happened over the 30 years between the early 1990s and today, but probably the highlights to mention are that in 2008, George W. Bush forced NATO, pushed NATO, but really pressed that NATO would announce that Ukraine would become a member. And that happened at the Bucharest NATO Summit in 2008. The Russian leadership was furious. They had warned again and again: Don’t do that. We don’t want your military right up against our 2000-kilometer border with Ukraine. Then a Ukrainian President won the election in 2010 on the program of neutrality for Ukraine. Viktor Yanukovych won the election based on the idea that Ukraine doesn’t want to become the battlefield between two superpowers and called for neutrality, which had been enshrined in the original Ukrainian Declaration of Independence, but then was abandoned by some of the NATO-oriented politicians of Ukraine.

So in 2010, Jankovich called for neutrality, but he was overthrown violently in early 2014 with US participation. So this was really a terrible escalation because the relatively pro-Russian president, but one who called for neutrality, which I think was the only safe course for Ukraine, was overthrown. And the United States played a significant role in that. People know about the famous tape of Victoria Nuland, who is now our Under Secretary of State. At the time, she was the Assistant Secretary of State and she described who the US would see as the next government three weeks before a violent overthrow.

*

The US signed several statements in 2021 confirming that NATO would enlarge. I think this was all absolutely irresponsible. Russia massed troops on its border and put on the table a draft US-Russia security agreement on December 17th, 2021 based on no NATO enlargement. The Biden administration formally replied that it was not willing to negotiate over that issue in a response in January. Then Russia invaded on February 24th, 2022, making clear that it was the failure to reach an understanding on the NATO question that was central to Russia’s action.

Four weeks later, Zelenskyy declared that Ukraine was accepting of neutrality. In other words, the initial Russian invasion brought Ukraine to the negotiating table, and during the second half of March, with the Turkish government being the mediators, Russia and Ukraine hammered out a peace agreement.

Incredibly, the United States blocked it because the United States told the Ukrainian government you fight on because American policymakers had two ideas. One was that Ukraine should not be neutral. It should be a NATO country. And second, that the war would be won by some combination of Western armaments and financial sanctions.”

JUne 2023 


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