Tag: Nonviolence

Peace & Justice History for 12/31

December 31, 1915
The U.S. branch of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) was founded.
FOR’s Mission StatementThe Fellowship of Reconciliation seeks to replace violence, war, racism and economic injustice with nonviolence, peace and justice. We are an interfaith organization committed to active nonviolence as a transforming way of life and as a means of radical change. We educate, train, build coalitions, and engage in nonviolent and compassionate actions locally, nationally, and globally.
FOR’s website 
December 31, 1970
The U.S. Congress repealed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which in 1964 authorized an increase in U.S. military involvement in Vietnam as a response to a reported attack on U.S. naval forces patrolling close to the North Vietnamese border. The reports of the attacks were later revealed to be fictitious. The resolution was used as the basis for the entire war which lasted until 1974 and took the lives of millions of Vietnamese and over 58,000 Americans.
What really happened in the Gulf of Tonkin 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorydecember.htm#december31

Peace & Justice History for 12/20

Vermont Freedom To Marry Passes, and more on this date:

December 20, 1946
The morning after Viet Minh forces under Ho Chi Minh launched a nighttime revolt in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi, French colonial troops cracked down on the communist rebels. Ho and his soldiers immediately fled the city to regroup in the countryside.
That evening, the communist leader issued a proclamation that read:
Ho Chi Minh, Paris 1946

“All the Vietnamese must stand up to fight the French colonials to save the fatherland. Those who have rifles will use their rifles; those who have swords will use their swords; those who have no swords will use spades, hoes, or sticks. Everyone must endeavor to oppose the colonialists and save this country. Even if we have to endure hardship in the resistance war, with the determination to make sacrifices, victory will surely be ours.” The first Indochina War thus began.
December 20, 1960
North Vietnam announced the formation of the National Front for the Liberation of the South (usually known as the National Liberation Front or NLF), designed to replicate the success of the Viet Minh, the umbrella nationalist organization that successfully liberated Vietnam from French colonial rule.

National Liberation Front flag 
Ho Chi Minh biography (two separate links.)
December 20, 1990

Kansas reservist Dr. Yolanda Huet-Vaughn refused orders to serve in the first Gulf War (Desert Storm) and was later sentenced to prison. The Kansas medical board withdrew her hospital privileges.
“The issue was not whether I belonged in the military but whether the military belonged in the Middle East waging war. I did not want to focus on the personal decision. I was trying to focus on the decision for which each and every American would have to be responsible.” — Yolanda Huet-Vaughn
What if they gave a war and nobody came? 
December 20, 1994
100,000 Chechnyan civilians linked hands in a 65 km-long human chain (40 miles) to protest the Russian invasion of their country and attack on their capital, Grozny.
Read more  OR TRY HERE if you don’t have an account with the NYWT.
December 20, 1999
The Vermont Supreme Court rulled in Baker v. State of Vermont that homosexual couples were entitled to the same benefits and protections as wedded couples of the opposite sex.
History of the Freedom to Marry 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorydecember.htm#december20

Peace & Justice History for 9/1

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryseptember.htm#september1

September 1, 1939
Nazi Germany invaded Poland, overwhelming the Polish Army with 58 German divisions and air cover from the German air force, the Luftwaffe. This action started the second world war, prompting England and France to declare war on Germany two days later.
September 1, 1945

The Emperor of Japan surrendered unconditionally to the U.S. and its allies in a ceremony on the deck of the battleship U.S.S. Missouri, ending the second world war.
September 1, 1986
Angelo (Charlie) Liteky & George Mizo, both Vietnam veterans, began an open-ended Fast For Life on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. They were calling attention to their opposition to U.S. support of the Nicaraguan contras and repressive regimes in El Salvador and Guatemala.

“our expression of a deeply felt desire to do everything and anything we can . . . to stop the war with Nicaragua.”
Charles Liteky, George Mizo
Liteky was a Catholic chaplain in the Vietnam War and had received the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Charles Liteky and his subsequent peace efforts 
September 1, 1987
During a nonviolent protest at the Concord (California) Naval Weapons Station, a Navy munitions train ran over Brian Willson.
An Air Force and Vietnam veteran, Willson and the other protesters were attempting to stop shipment of weapons to Nicaragua and El Salvador.
Brian Willson bird-watching California, 1997.

They considered U.S. policy in Central America a violation of the Nuremberg Principles. (Here is a link to those principles)
Willson lost both legs and suffered other injuries but has remained an active and articulate leader in the anti-military movement.

Ron Kovic (author ‘Born on the Fourth of July’)
and Brian Willson (also born on the Fourth of July)
Willson’s testimony before the U.S. House Armed Services Subcommittee on Investigations
September 1, 1989
White House staffers decided to purchase some crack cocaine so President George H.W. Bush could hold the illegal drug in his hands during a national address. On the first attempt, the drug dealer didn’t show up. On the second try, an undercover drug agent’s body microphone didn’t work. Trying for the third time, Bush’s team managed to purchase the crack, but the camera operator videotaping the deal missed the action as a homeless person assaulted him.
September 1, 1997
Kurdish and British activists blockaded an arms trade exhibition outside London. 89 members of Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT)were arrested for protesting the presence of Turkish, Chinese and Indonesian government representatives in Britain to purchase weapons. The Labour government had pledged “[We will] not permit the sale of arms to regimes that could use them for internal repression or external aggression . . . .” Great Britain is the world’s second largest arms manufacturer (by dollar volume) after the U.S.
Campaign Against the Arms Trade home 
September 1
– International Day of War Tax Resistance.
“Refusing to pay taxes for war is probably as old as the first taxes levied for warfare…”
War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee