News and Media

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Another Death in the Family: Simon Harak, 1948-2019

Simon Harak. Photo by Ed Hedemann

Fr. G. Simon Harak SJ, the exuberantly pacifist Jesuit priest and onetime WRL Disarmament Coordinator, died November 3 in Campion Health Center, Weston, Mass. He was 71 and had dealt for some six years with frontotemporal degeneration (also called frontotemporal dementia).

Simon was the kind of pacifist who sees peace and justice as inextricably bound together; he once defined nonviolence as “a commitment to work for justice so that violence is no longer necessary.” He was a co-founder of Voices in the Wilderness (now Voices for Creative Nonviolence), the U.S. campaign that defied the sanctions against Iraq; Simon led delegations to that country, delivering medicines and other necessities. He was the founding Director of Marquette University's Center for Peacemaking, dedicated to “exploring the power of nonviolence.”

WRL Activist Update: Linnea Capps, MD

Linnea Capps

Linnea Capps, pacifist activist, physician engaged in liberation medicine (the conscious, conscientious use of health to promote human dignity and social justice), and philanthropist for more than 40 years, recently left her longtime home in Brooklyn, NY, to live in a care facility in Kansas. She, along with her cats Rosie and Flora, is now living close to her hometown and to her sister, brother, and sister-in-law.

Linnea was the chair of WRL’s executive committee between 1983 and 1985, a member of the committee for several decades, and an energetic participant in countless conferences, meetings, and demonstrations to promote nonviolence, an end to war, and social justice. In addition, she served on the board of directors of the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute for several years.

It's our 96th!

Chocolate cake with the words "Imagine and End to War" piped in blue frosting.

Today on our 96th birthday, War Resisters League is as energized and hopeful as ever in working to dismantle the military industrial complex. When people ask us why, we say: it’s because the life and dignity of everyday people are worth fighting for, across the United States and around the world. 

We are deeply moved by the joys that a dignified life can bring: the ability to pursue knowledge, the ability to spend time with friends and family, and the ability to provide for those you love.

Peter Kiger, 1938 – 2019

Image - Peter Kiger Before Sentencing, WRL News May-June 1969

Former WRL staff member Peter Kiger died on August 19 in New Castle, Indiana. He was 80 and had Parkinson’s disease.

Born and raised in Spiceland, Indiana, Peter became a Quaker whose life mission was peacemaking. But during his freshman year at DePauw University (1956) — before becoming a pacifist — he won a Chicago Tribune medal as an outstanding Air Force ROTC student. Then in his junior year he went to Germany for pre-med studies, living with a German family who had suffered great losses during World War II. This, along with seeing the war’s devastation first hand, was life-changing. He came home an avowed pacifist. After graduating with honors from DePauw in 1960, Peter spent a year in medical school at Northwestern, followed by a year in Springfield (IL) Federal Penitentiary in 1961 as a conscientious objector for having refused alternative service to the military.

How We Win - Summer Update

With protests in Puerto Rico, growing calls to dismantle the Department of Homeland Security, and organizing around the country to #ClosetheCamps, resistance is alive. As we celebrate the recent win of our friends at Decolonize This Place, we're reminded that organizing takes time. Over 6 years ago WRL launched our Facing Teargas campaign targeting Safariland; today that work helped to ground the victory won by Decolonize This Place and others. That's why we continue to create spaces that bring activists together across movements, oppose war profiteers from New York to Phoenix, and set our sights on liberation.

Stop Urban Shield Coalition Victory: WRL Statement

Congratulations to the Stop Urban Shield Coalition on the recent victory of demilitarizing emergency preparedness in California’s Bay Area! In other words: ending Urban Shield. Since 2013, this cross-community coalition has organized tirelessly against Urban Shield — a SWAT team training and weapons expo, that brought together local, regional, and international police to collaborate on, and practice, new forms of military-grade weaponry and tactics of state repression. Urban Shield was often described as “the largest SWAT training in the world.” As proud members of the Stop Urban Shield Coalition, War Resisters League sends our love and respect to Bay Area organizations that strategized, organized and built the community power leading to this huge win.

Demilitarist School: Report Back from Chicago

This past April, WRL piloted our first Demilitarist School in Chicago! Over three days, 13 young people and a group of Demil School facilitators, including WRL staff and National Committee members, gathered to grapple with the scale of US militarism. Participants delved into discussions about strategies for dismantling militarism and the ways antimilitarist work feeds into struggles for Black liberation, immigrant rights, prison abolition, workers rights, queer liberation, and climate justice. Special thanks to Assata’s Daughters who generously provided space for the Demil School!

Update: Resisting Airwars Curriculum

Today the U.S., Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, France, Israel, India, Pakistan, Morocco, and Indonesia are actively engaged in aerial attacks in upwards of 15 regions primarily in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Since Donald Trump took office, “civilian” casualties from U.S. airwars have doubled with an average of 120 bombs dropped a day. Learning about airwars throughout the world clarifies that the environmental, structural, and psychological impacts keep killing and destroying communities after the initial aerial attack— in some instances for generations.

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