In the Spotlight

January 25 marked one year since the beginning of the Egyptian revolution. One year after the fall of the Mubarak regime, the Egyptian people are still in the streets, calling for an end to the rule of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) who took power after they nonviolently toppled their dictator. What can people in the U.S. do? Tear gas made in the U.S. by Combined Systems Inc. based in Jamestown, PA, has been shipped to Egypt (among other countries) and used against Egyptian protesters, resulting in many protester deaths and injuries.

War Resisters League in coordination with the Global Justice Working Group of Occupy Wall Street, Adalah-NY, and others has been working to build partnerships with groups who are organizing against U.S. support for the manufacture, sale, and purchase of tear gas, as well as U.S.-based groups focused on the militarization of the police here at home.

Check out this comic written by Ethan Heitner and Greg Horwitch about the business of tear gas.

For more information about U.S. support for the use and manufacture of tear gas, check out this report by written by members of Adalah-NY and reposted to the WRL blog.

On Wednesday, November 30th, War Resisters League joined with Occupy Wall Street activists and United for Peace and Justice for a protest at the Aerospace and Defense Finance Conference, a meeting in which Department of Defense officials met with the CEOs of 30 military contractors, including reps from three of the top five defense contractors: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Raytheon. As the U.S. government spends roughly $400 billion of U.S. taxpayer dollars each year on weapons systems and military contracts, all of that money goes to the military industry, which pays for two lobbyists for every member of Congress.

So what are DOD officicals doing at an investment conference? They were letting the military industrial complex know that during tough economic times in the U.S., they had nothing to worry about--the 1% will keep making profits. Seventeen WRL and Occupy Wall Street protesters were arrested for taking part in a civil disobedience action to attempt to block the front doors of the conference center. Check out the coverage on New York 1 and NBC and this video footage of the action taken by an OWS activist.

On 10/14, WRL and the South Asia Solidarity Initiative organized an action at Occupy Wall Street about the costs of U.S. military intervention all over the world and those who profit from it.

Download the toolkit for a National Day of Action on November 17th, when we will be asking our members and supporters to RESIST Empire, REBUILD Our World, and RECREATE Solidarity.

Check out the photos and strategic flyer from Friday's action along with some of the press coverage that we've received! You can also watch the video in Spanish and English of our action created by Tamar Sharabi.

#Occupy together? Write to us and tell us what you're doing in your local community! Email us at wrl@warresisters.org.

Enter and win a holiday gift for a loved one!!

Your raffle contribution goes directly to support the campaigns and programs of the War Resisters League in our efforts to end war and eliminate its causes.  We try to choose prizes with some special meaning, unique, handcrafted items and/or those from people or companies who are members and friends in the struggle for peace and justice.

It's easy to enter! Order online or download and print out the raffle form, fill out each ticket and send in a donation ($3 per ticket, $25 per sheet of 12)

As a Yemeni-American, I watch from abroad as my parent's homeland inches closer to a vision of a new government, more responsive to the needs of the people and not corruption. I am inspired by the energy of the youth activists and feel an obligation to support their movement as I can, despite being thousands of miles away.

Around the world, people are crying out for food justice, in efforts that range from resisting the expropriation of indigenous lands to constructing new, more sustainable and/or equitable models—or returning to ancient ones—for food production. 

There is a “multidimensional continuum” of resistance to fighting in war. From young people opposing military recruitment in their high schools to veterans counseling GIs around military bases to conscientious objectors serving time in military prisons for refusing to deploy, those who work for a just and peaceful world have the opportunity at multiple stages, and in various environments, to challenge militarism.

Now Available!
Order Online Now!

Organize This!
A 1955-2011 Retrospective

 
War Resisters League
2012 Peace Calendar

Edited by Liz Roberts
Foreword by Noam Chomsky
Afterword by Wendy Schwartz

A truly radical Left makes space for all of us to engage with our whole selves—our feminist, survivor, queer, transgender, and polyamorous selves—in struggles for liberation and revolution that incorporate issues of class, race, and gender.

There is more to the labor struggle than just the unions. There is a workers’ movement on the rise,  a network of grassroots organizations and collectives creating the circumstances for worker justice around the world. Our short list of “Experiments with Truth” illustrates the power of the people, from schoolchildren to college students, from miners to government employees.