Historic Unity Meeting of Peace-Groups Takes Place

by Ward Reilly 
11-30-07

                Today, for the first time since the invasions in Afghanistan and Iraq, almost ALL of the major peace organizations in the country came together, in a show of unity against the illegal occupations in the Middle East, in a conference call organized by the Camp Casey Peace Institute.
                Among the groups in on this historic call were the Act Now to Stop War & End Racism(ANSWER) coalition, the United For Peace & Justice coalition(UFPJ), Veterans For Peace(VFP), Iraq Veterans Against the War(IVAW), Vietnam Veterans Against the War(VVAW), U.S. Labor Against War(USLAW), Gold Star Families For Peace(GSFP), After Downing Street, World Can't Wait, the National Lawyers Guild, and No War-No Warming, to name just some of the organizations involved.
                Many more groups were in on the call, and all were encouraged with this first step towards solidarity, and because of the short notice, we are hopeful that many more organizations that didn't know about this attempt to come together, will be a part of this exciting and potentially world-changing show of unity.
                The purpose and goal of the conference call today was to unify ALL of the peace and justice movement organizations, and to solidify the voice of those (majority) of citizens that are against the horrible general direction our nation is going in, and to prepare for a week of unified action during March of 2008, which will begin with the "Winter Soldier Investigation" testimonies to be made by Iraq Veterans Against the war from March 13 -15, and followed with what all involved hope will be a dramatic shift in the movement, a mass mobilization, and the recapturing of the (failed ) national media.
                Dates for the planned actions will be released within the next 2 weeks.
                The other goal of the call was to organize the "Dave Cline Memorial Peace Summit", to be held in San Francisco during the MLK weekend in January 2008, to be attended by reps of as many national peace and justice organizations as possible, in order to devise a long-term strategy for saving the Constitution, the nation, and perhaps the world, through this action.
                This is the most encouraging news that the movement could hope for, and it could dramatically change the direction and tone of the movement from here on out.

COME TOGETHER, RIGHT NOW!

http://www.thecampcaseypeaceinstitute.org

Cindy Sheehan

                It is absolutely flabbergasting to me that our world will soon be commemorating the 5th year since George Bush announced that the US had commenced “Sock and Awe” against Iraq.
                Millions of people marched against the impending invasion all over the world on February 15th, 2003 in one of the most touching and amazing show of solidarity against global aggression ever seen.  Since then, the pro-peace/anti-war demonstrations have been mostly disjointed with not so much solidarity.
                I left the peace movement in May of this year partially out of frustration over this lack of unity. At the time I was in despair over the fact that our movement had been unable to stop anything because of the egos and the infighting. Since then, the usurpation of our liberties and the killing of our children and the Iraqi people has just grown worse. The movement was unable to stop a funding bill or be united in demanding accountability for the war criminals that have been instrumental in destroying three countries, ours included.
                Now after nearly 5 years of the illegal occupation of Iraq and over 5 years of the immoral occupation of Afghanistan, we all know, even those who watch the propaganda news networks and are in denial, that this is not only gone horribly
wrong from day one, but  is a sham based on deceit.
                Not only has our foreign policy suffered profoundly under BushCo and Congress Inc, but the foreign war expenditures without a commensurate raise in revenue has driven our country deeply into a quagmire of debt. Out trade deficit is the largest that it has ever been and 54,000 homes went into foreclosure in October. Gas is hovering a gallon mark in the vicinity of San Francisco and is only going to go up. The degradation of our environment is becoming catastrophic while closeted, deviate Republican lawmakers are worried about people of the same sex having intimate relations and Democrats are too busy trying to act like Republicans while pretending to be Democrats. It is up to us---We the People.
                Our country is rapidly slipping into a corporate-militaristic fascism and the peace/anti-war movement is worried about personalities and who gets a bigger piece of the pie---and I am not sure what kind of pie it is. The only thing I know about this work is that it is very difficult and requires a lot of sacrifice and commitment without resulting in much monetary reward. The rewards of true and lasting peace with an overthrow of the pigs of war who think they are globally in charge is our reward and seeing a better world for all the worlds’ children and grandchildren is what we should be striving for.
                This is why I am calling for The Dave Cline/MLK,Jr. Memorial Peace Summit in January (18-20) to bring all of the various groups together so we can strategize and brainstorm more effective ways of challenging war and injustices.
                We not only need to come together in a Year Five Committee to come up with effective strategies to mourn the coming Sixth Year of a mistake that should have never happened with the loss of life counted past one-million, but we need to check egos at the door and bring a healthy longing for the unity that can finally bring the peace that will bring health and prosperity to our country and the world.
                Please contact The Camp Casey Peace Institute  for more info about the Summit.

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