Category: News / Information

Peace & Justice History 12/15

December 15, 1791
The Bill of Rights became law when Virginia ratified the first 10 amendments to the United States Constitution.
Read The Bill of Rights 
The Bill of Rights Defense Committee  (emphasis mine -A. It’s an important site these days!)

December 15, 1930

Albert Einstein, 1930
Albert Einstein urged militant pacifism and the creation of an international war resistance fund. Einstein stated in New York that if two percent of those called for military service were to refuse to fight, and were to urge peaceful means of settling international conflicts, then governments would become powerless since they could not imprison that many people.
He struggled against compulsory military service and urged international protection of conscientious objectors. He concluded that peace, freedom for individuals, and security for societies depended on disarmament; otherwise, “slavery of the individual and the annihilation of civilization threaten us.”
Einstein on Peace and World Government 
December 15, 1946
Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh sent a note to French Premier Leon Blum congratulating him for his selection as French Premier and asking for peace talks. France had exercised colonial power over the Vietnamese as part of French Indochina, formed in October 1887 from the provinces of Annam, Tonkin, Cochin China, and the Kingdom of Cambodia; Laos was added in 1893. Vietnamese nationalists, however, had demanded independence for the three provinces at the end of World War II.
December 15, 1973

The American Psychiatric Association reversed its long-standing position and declared that homosexuality is not a mental illness and
“…deplores all public and private discrimination in such areas as employment, housing, public accommodation…”
Read the APA policy on discrimination against [gays]
December 15, 2000
The Chernobyl nuclear power plant was shut down 14 years after becoming the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident ever. Nearly nine tons of radioactive material – dozens of times as much as the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs – were released in the explosion.
The radioactive fallout affected 23% of Belarus, with 4.8% of Ukrainian territory and 0.5% of Russia. The Belarussian government spends 30% of its annual budget dealing with the aftermath of Chernobyl.

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorydecember.htm#december15

Covers Everything Well

This Week in the Name of “God” …

Interview of US Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez re the upcoming session, and the Dem Women’s Caucus

‘Guerilla Storytelling’ and Joyful Resistance: Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández and the DWC’s Plan to Combat Project 2025

Peace & Justice History for 12/14

December 14, 1917
U.S. peace activist and suffragist Kate Richards O’Hare was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for a speech denouncing World War I.
Occupying a neighboring jail cell was Emma Goldman, the well-known anarchist organizer, feminist, writer and anti-war critic was imprisoned for obstructing the draft. O’Hare was one of a number of prisoners Socialist Party leader Eugene Debs cited in his “Canton Speech” for which he in turn was imprisoned.
More about activist Kate Richards O’Hare 
Read the speech 
December 14, 1961
In a public exchange of letters with South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, U.S. President John F. Kennedy formally announced the United States would increase aid to South Vietnam, including the expansion of the U.S. troop commitment. Kennedy, concerned with recent advances made by the communist insurgency movement in South Vietnam, wrote: “We shall promptly increase our assistance to your defense effort.”

President Ngo Dinh Diem

President Kennedy and Secretary of Defense McNamara
Kennedy – Diem letter exchange 
December 14, 1980

At Yoko Ono’s request, John Lennon fans around the world mourned him with 10 minutes of silent prayer. In New York over 100,000 people converged on Central Park in tribute, and in Liverpool, England, his hometown, a crowd of 30,000 gathered outside of St. George’s Hall on Lime Street.
johnlennon.com  “You may say I’m a dreamer. But I’m not the only one.”
Time capsules to mark John Lennon’s legacy 
December 14, 1985
Wilma Mankiller became the first woman to lead a major American Indian tribe when she took office as principal chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma.

Wilma Mankiller on the day in 1985 when her election as chief of the Cherokee Nation was announced
December 14, 1994
After eight years of negotiations, the United States finally agreed to honor New Zealand’s ban on nuclear weapons in its territory.
U.S. Navy ships armed with nuclear weapons no longer visited New Zealand’s ports.
December 14, 1995
Leaders of the states that were parts of the former Yugoslavia signed the Bosnia peace treaty, formally ending four years of bloody and vicious ethnic/religious conflict. The Dayton Accords, as they are known, committed the Balkan states of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina to accept a division of territory, a process to deal with the more than 2 million refugees, and the introduction of 60,000 NATO peacekeeping forces.
The negotiations were led by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke, and held principally at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio.
The Dayton Accords 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorydecember.htm#december14

“Shore Lark”

American Pipit

Click through to hear its song while it eats snow!

Let’s talk about Trump, grocery prices, and a question….

ERA Now!

The Case for the Equal Rights Amendment: Understanding Ratification

Right-Wingers Are Spending Obscene Amounts Of Money On Democratic Party Primaries

Israel Executing Land Grabs In Syria

Peace & Justice History for 12/12

December 12, 1870

Joseph H. Rainey (R-South Carolina) took his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, becoming the first African-American Member of Congress.
More about Rainey 
December 12, 1916
Dr. Ben Reitman was arrested in Cleveland for organizing volunteers to distribute birth control information at an Emma Goldman lecture on birth control. He was sentenced to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine plus court costs.

Dr. Ben Reitman
December 12, 1947
The United Mine Workers union withdrew from the American Federation of Labor over the AFL’s failure to organize workers in mass production industries such as textiles, automobiles, steel and rubber.
December 12, 1969
The Philippine Civic Action Group, a 1350-man contingent from the Army of the Philippines, left South Vietnam. The contingent had been part of the Free World Military Forces, an effort by President Lyndon Johnson to enlist allies for the United States and South Vietnam, similar to President George Bush’s “Coalition of the Willing,” the multi-national force in Iraq.
December 12, 1983
Seventy people were arrested in Boston outside a hotel where a “New Trends in Missiles” trade conference was being held.

Inside the hotel, over 1,000 cockroaches were released to symbolize the likely survivors of nuclear war. 
 
December 12, 1986

From a pershing plowshares action 1984
Plowshares activists disarmed a Pershing missile launcher in West Germany. In a statement of intent the four said, “With awareness of our responsibility we understand that we are the ones who make the arms race possible by not trying to stop it.” 
Details of their action in Pershing to Plowshares 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorydecember.htm#december12